Merry, Warden of Isengard
The other half of a two-card entrance, and the half that turns artifacts into an army. Where Pippin, Warden of Isengard rewards spell-casting with hasty tokens, this side answers a different question: how does a green-white deck without a heavy artifact commitment still get paid for the ones it does run? The trigger is deliberately clamped to once each turn, so it does not care whether you drop one Treasure or five artifacts in a chain; it wants a steady drip of artifact enters-the-battlefield events rather than a single explosive turn. That once-per-turn ceiling is what keeps the 1/4 body honest: this is an incremental value engine that builds a lifelink board over several turns, not a combo piece that ends a game the moment the artifacts stack up. The partner-with clause tutoring Pippin means the pair almost always arrives together, and the two abilities pull in slightly different directions, one toward instants and sorceries, one toward artifacts, which asks the pilot to pick a lane rather than serve both at once. The lifelink on the Soldiers is the quiet part doing the durable work: a defensive body that also gains life whenever those tokens connect is a Selesnya grind plan wearing a Halfling's face.
