Kaya, Ghost Assassin
The unusual thing here is the planeswalker who can blink herself. The zero-loyalty ability that exiles Kaya and returns her on your upkeep does something no other walker template attempts: it resets her loyalty to the printed five and walks her out of harm's reach, since she simply is not on the board when an opponent reaches their turn to attack or remove her. Pointed at a creature instead, the same flicker resets a clone, hides a permanent from a future board wipe, or re-triggers an enters-the-battlefield ability. The timing is the catch on all of it: loyalty abilities are sorcery-speed, so this is preemptive insurance, not a reaction. You spend the ability on your own turn, the creature vanishes, and it returns during your upkeep summoning sick, so it cannot block in between and cannot attack the turn it comes back. The two life lost on each activation is the leash on the self-protection loop. The minus abilities run the other direction on your life total: the -1 drains two while gaining you two, and the -2 swaps a card from each opponent's hand for one of yours. The design problem she solves is how to build a defensive Orzhov walker that grinds rather than ending the game in one swing; the answer is an attrition engine that pays life to outlast rather than to close, which is exactly the bargain this color pair has always made.




