Marcus, Mutant Mayor
A counter engine that resolves its own bootstrapping problem. Most +1/+1 counter payoffs need a separate enabler to seed the first counter, then a payoff to cash it in; here both halves live on one trigger, gated by a single check. A creature without a counter gets one when it connects, and the same creature next turn draws you a card instead. That two-stage structure means every attacker is either growing or drawing, and the reward compounds: the counters you place under the first clause become the fuel for the second, so a wide board of unenhanced creatures converts itself into card advantage over a couple of combat steps without any external help. The design lever holding it back is that both effects hinge on combat damage to a player, not to a creature or a planeswalker, so the whole engine is contingent on connecting, and a chump blocker shuts off both the growth and the draw for that creature. Vigilance and trample on the 4/4 body are the concessions to that contingency: trample pushes damage through small blockers to keep the trigger live, and vigilance lets the commander itself attack into the engine without surrendering the defensive posture a green-blue counters deck usually wants. It reads as a straightforward beater but functions as a self-priming value loop, one that asks only that you keep bodies swinging and connecting.



