Jared Carthalion, True Heir

Handing the crown to an opponent is the first thing this 3/3 does, and it is the whole strategic conceit: rather than chasing the monarchy for its end-step card, it forces the title onto someone across the table and locks you out of claiming it that same turn. The payoff waits until the crown finds its way back. Once you are the monarch, damage that would land on Jared is prevented and reinvested as +1/+1 counters, which inverts the mechanic's core tension. The monarchy normally punishes passivity: whoever wears the crown becomes the standard combat target, because dealing damage to the monarch steals the title, so every attack pointed at the throne is meant to knock it loose. Here those same attacks feed a creature the table would otherwise trade with freely. The sequencing keeps the reward earned. You never start as monarch, so the growth only comes online after the crown has traveled the table and returned; until then you are a modest body that has already gifted an enemy card advantage, a debt settled before the first counter ever lands. Named for a figure out of the game's early novel-era lore, it reads the monarch's combat-steal clause backward: give away the crown, survive the fight to reclaim it, and turn every hit that lands on Jared into fuel.