Iron Maiden
Punishment for a full grip, dressed up as inevitability. The clock only starts ticking once an opponent holds more than four cards, which inverts the usual symmetry of resource accumulation: the player who is drawing well, sandbagging answers, or sitting on a control hand gets taxed for the privilege. Drop to four or fewer and the damage stops entirely, so the artifact does not so much deal damage as it sets a hand-size ceiling and dares the table to exceed it. That makes it a strange kind of pressure: not a burn spell, not a Wheel of Fortune effect, but a standing threat that turns card advantage into a liability and forces opponents to spend cards faster than they would like. The numbers stay modest against disciplined play, which is what keeps the design honest; it rewards no one for simply existing and punishes only the greedy. It pairs naturally with effects that refill or inflate an opponent's hand, since the artifact then converts that generosity into a payment plan, but on its own it is a slow squeeze rather than a finisher. The flavor lands cleanly too: a device that hurts you more the more you are holding onto, tightening with every card you refuse to let go.

