Ajani, Valiant Protector

The +2 here is the engine, and it's where this Ajani breaks from the planeswalker convention of protecting itself. Most six-drop walkers spend their plus on board presence or card flow; this one pours two counters onto a single creature every turn, starting at four loyalty and climbing fast. That makes it a closing piece more than a value generator: the plus doesn't defend the walker so much as build a single threat large enough to end the game before the loyalty math matters. The middle ability digs for the creature to receive those counters, keeping the engine fed even on an empty board. And the ultimate is the rare planeswalker finisher that scales with life total rather than a fixed number, turning a stable board into a one-shot kill the moment it resolves, trample stapled on so the math actually closes. The tension in the design is that everything points one direction: counters out, creature up, trample through. It rewards a deck already committed to a board and offers little to one that isn't. Ajani's history across green-white has run through lifegain, through tokens, through the cat tribe; this version narrows the brief to a single line of play and commits to it, a counters-matters payoff dressed as a planeswalker rather than the other way around.