Ayara's Oathsworn

Combat damage is the meter here, and the payoff is backloaded to reward you for keeping a small evasive threat alive across four full turns of connecting. The first three hits are pure accumulation: a counter apiece, growing a 2/2 into a 5/5 that has to be answered before it ever cashes out. The fourth hit is the point of the whole design: an unconditional tutor to hand, no restriction on what you fetch, triggered off the same combat step that put the last counter on. That structure is what makes menace load-bearing rather than decorative; a two-drop that has to swing four times is only a payoff engine if it can reliably get through, and forcing a double-block on a body the opponent would rather chump is exactly the evasion this needs. The self-correcting counter clause ("if it has fewer than four") means outside help matters too: proliferate, a doubling effect, or any way to pre-load counters shortcuts the four-hit clock and can turn on the tutor a turn or two early. The tension the card resolves is the old aggro problem of what a beatdown deck does with its combat step once the opponent has stabilized the board. Most creatures just deal damage; this one converts a connection into card selection, so every unanswered attack is quietly assembling whatever line you most need.