Hollowmurk Siege
The clan-siege cycle asks you to lock in a mode as the enchantment resolves, and the Golgari entry hands you two counter-payoffs that draw on the same materials but point at opposite games. The Sultai mode reads off an event, not a state: whenever a counter lands on one of your creatures, the first time each turn, you draw. That distinction matters. A board buried in +1/+1 counters produces nothing on its own; the card wants an engine that keeps placing new counters (proliferate, bolster, wither, combat pumps, anything that stacks a fresh counter onto a creature turns into a cantrip). It rewards ongoing counter-generation, once per turn, capped so it cantrips rather than storms off. The Abzan mode inverts the dependency: rather than reacting to counters you supply, it manufactures one itself every time you attack and staples menace onto the growing threat, so a lone creature becomes an evasive clock with no other support. The split coheres because both halves want a counters-matter shell: the +1/+1 interactions that feed Sultai's draw also give Abzan targets worth pumping. The real decision on entry is whether you want the enchantment to fuel a machine you are already running (Sultai) or to be the machine that grows a threat itself (Abzan). With no body of its own and a choice that locks permanently on entry, this is a low-commitment engine whose mode is a forecast of the game you expect to play, not a lever you get to pull again.



