Matt Murdock, Justice Seeker

Two abilities that lock into a loop. The combat-step counter drip is the input; the static ward-granting clause is the payoff, and each one exists to prime the other. Every counter this puts down (or that any other source puts down) doesn't just grow the body: it wraps that creature in a tax on opposing interaction. The result is a protection engine that scales with a counters board rather than a single anthem, which changes what removal costs an opponent turn over turn. What keeps it from spiraling is the pay-per-use structure: the counter is not free, it triggers only on your combat, and it hits one target at a time, so the ward wall builds a creature at a time rather than all at once. The ward is only , so it never hard-locks anything; it functions as friction, forcing opponents to overcommit mana or wait for sweepers that ignore targeting entirely. The design lineage runs through the +1/+1 counters space white and green have shared for years, but the twist is defensive: most counter payoffs reward going wide or tall on offense, while this one converts the same counters into a stack tax. It rewards a board that has already invested in counters, and asks little of a board that has not, which makes it a quiet centerpiece rather than a loud one.