Crossbones, Malicious Mercenary

The reward structure here is unusually strict for a build-around: the counter and the two-point ping fire once per turn regardless of how many Villains you flood onto the battlefield, which caps the payoff instead of letting it snowball into a blowout. That single-trigger clamp is the mechanic doing the load-bearing work, and it changes the deckbuilding math entirely. A payoff that scaled per-Villain would want you to dump your hand in one explosive turn; this one wants a steady drip, one meaningful Villain per turn across several turns, so the incremental drain adds up while the counters slowly turn a 3/3 into a real threat. Deathtouch keeps the body relevant while it grows, letting it trade up or hold a flank against anything regardless of the counter count. The result is a tribal anchor built around a creature type (Villain) that lives across colors and card types, positioning this as the black-aligned drain engine for a spread of noncreature-and-creature Villains rather than a go-wide finisher. The design ask is patience: you are rewarded for keeping the trigger live turn after turn, not for cheating the ceiling in one burst. It rewards a grind, and the once-each-turn line is precisely what keeps that grind from tipping into a combo the moment the Villain count gets high.