Jinxed Choker

A hot potato rendered as cardboard. The machine runs on the end-step handoff: control bounces to your opponent every turn, and whoever holds the artifact on their upkeep takes damage equal to its charge counters. That damage is a steady, escalating bleed, not a delayed burst. The first handoff deals one, the next two, and the total climbs every cycle as both players stack counters, so each upkeep hurts a little more than the last. The activated ability is the lever that decides who loses the race, since either player can pay three mana to add counters before passing the bomb along, or strip one off to slow their own bleeding when they get stuck holding it. The catch is the cost: at three mana per counter, accelerating the death timer is slow, and the artifact is fragile, so the card invites every form of interference. Bounce it, blow it up, or simply out-tempo the activation race and the whole plan collapses. It runs in the same lineage as the artifacts and donate-style giveaways that turn an opponent's own permanent into a liability, alongside the likes of Bronze Bombshell. This is the slow-burn version of that trick: a shared clock both players are feeding at once, where the math compounds before either side wants it to. The card has always read more as a puzzle box than a finisher, since the person it kills is the one who misjudges the tempo of a race they are both running.