Gimli, Counter of Kills

The book kept a running tally, and so does the card: every enemy creature that dies pings its controller for one, whether Gimli struck the blow or not. That distinction matters more than it reads. This is not a lifelink-style rider tied to Gimli's own combat, and it is not a Blood Artist trigger keyed to any creature dying; it fires only when an opponent's creatures die, from any source, and it aims the damage squarely at the player, not their board. A sweeper you cast, a chump-block trade, a sacrifice effect on your opponent's side: all of it stacks incremental reach onto a body that already wants to attack. The trample is the honest part of the package, keeping four power relevant through blockers on a frame that dies to most removal. But the death-tax clock is the real design idea, and it scales with the pace of the game rather than with Gimli alone. In a grind where creatures die by the fistful, the counter climbs on its own; in a race, the trample carries. It rewards a red deck built to force trades and then punish the player for making them, turning attrition (usually the enemy of aggression) into a second win condition that ticks up while the board churns.