Ajani, Wise Counselor

Most planeswalkers price their power in card advantage; this Ajani prices his in life total, and that single substitution shapes every line he offers. The +2 turns a developed board into a lifegain engine, scaling with bodies rather than drawing cards, which makes him a board-state amplifier instead of an attrition piece. The minus three is a one-shot Overrun-style anthem, fine for closing a stalled race but not a repeatable threat. Where the design actually commits is the ultimate: turning your accumulated life into +1/+1 counters on a single creature, a payoff that only matters if you have spent the earlier turns hoarding life with the plus ability. The loop is self-referential by intent: gain life off your creatures, then convert that life into an oversized haymaker. That circularity is also the honest weakness. He does nothing to stabilize against a fast clock, does nothing to refill an empty board, and his life-into-counters finish does not protect the recipient from removal in response. He is a go-wide payoff masquerading as a midrange planeswalker, rewarding a board you have already built rather than helping you build one. The shape is closer to an anthem-and-finisher attached to a five-loyalty body than to the card-advantage walkers that defined the type, which makes him a niche piece: powerful when the table is already tilted your way, inert when it is not.