Kazandu Blademaster

The Ally mechanic ran on a single trigger: every Ally you brought in fired off something, and the payoff scaled with how densely you packed the type. This one turns that trigger into a body that grows, and it primes the pump itself: its own entry is an Ally trigger, so it puts a counter on right away and arrives as a 2/2 before anything else hits the board. Every Ally after that pushes it higher, leaving a first-striking, vigilant attacker that holds the ground it takes. First strike and vigilance are the two keywords that compound best with raw size: every counter widens the gap at which first strike kills before it can be killed, and vigilance means none of that defensive presence costs you a swing. The counters are permanent and live on the creature, so the threat persists through a board wipe of the soldiers that built it. The design discipline is the trigger's own ceiling: it only rewards a deck committed to the type, and outside that commitment the counters dry up after the first. That is the tension the Ally archetype was built around, the choice to go all-in on a creature subtype in exchange for a curve that snowballs. Kazandu Blademaster is the clearest single expression of that bargain: a self-sufficient threat if the rest of the deck cooperates, and a sturdy, ground-bound two-drop that simply stops growing if it does not.