Court of Ire
Monarchy is usually a soft incentive: it hands you a card at the end of every turn as long as the crown stays on your head, and dangles that draw as a reason for the table to swing into open boards. This turns the crown into a countdown on a loaded gun. Becoming monarch on entry does two things at once here: it keeps the end-step card coming, and it arms the upkeep trigger to escalate from a two-damage poke to a seven-damage shot the moment you hold the throne. That inverts the usual monarch tension. Normally the crown is a passive prize others chase; here it is a threat the table has to dismantle, because every one of your upkeeps opens with seven damage aimed anywhere while you keep it. Opponents face an ugly fork: attack you to seize the crown and shut off the big number, or hold back and eat the full blast plus the card you draw for the privilege. Ignoring it is never free either, since it still deals two without the crown. Among the upkeep-triggered court enchantments built on crown-conditional escalation, this is the burn one: no defensive wall, no token stream, just a recurring bolt bolted to a status you have to keep defending. The rate rewards a board presence that discourages attackers, which is the quiet cost of the whole thing.



