Cenn's Tactician

A counter-engine built for a tribe that already wanted to go wide. The activated ability is slow by design: one mana and a tap per counter, restricted to Soldier creatures, which keeps the grind honest. But the timing is more flexible than the rate suggests. Because it is an activated ability, the counters can land at instant speed (on an opponent's end step, or in the middle of combat to upgrade a blocker after attackers are declared), which is the play pattern that gives the second clause its teeth. That second clause is the genuinely unusual piece. Multi-block has always been a defensive lever Magic rations carefully, because a single creature holding off two attackers warps the math of going wide back against the aggressor. Here the Tactician hands that lever to every counter it places: a board of pumped-up Soldiers becomes a board where each one can eat two attackers, turning a swarm meant to overwhelm into a wall that absorbs twice its share. The synergy is closed-loop. The counters it generates are precisely the thing that unlocks the blocking text, so a token-soldier shell running this builds toward a defensive stance it can also win from. The body is fragile and the clock is long, which is the honest cost of an effect that quietly doubles a small army's defensive ceiling, and the instant-speed window is what lets a player choose that ceiling on the opponent's turn rather than telegraphing it on their own.