MJ, Rising Star
Lifegain payoffs usually pay you in tokens or triggers you have to reassemble each turn; this one banks the reward directly on the body. Every life event, no matter how small, hardens a permanent into a bigger threat, and the vigilance means those accumulated counters attack and defend in the same turn rather than forcing you to choose. That combination is what gives the card its trajectory: a 2/3 that grows every time an incidental lifelink hit or a soul-warden trigger fires, and never has to tap out of a blocking role to press the advantage. The design is deliberately agnostic about how the life shows up. It does not ask for a lifelink source specifically or a payment or a threshold; it counts the gain itself, which lets it slot into any shell that touches life totals as a byproduct rather than a plan. The restraint is in the rate. Three mana for a fragile starting body means the counters have to do the lifting, so the card rewards a board that is already gaining life and offers little on an empty one. That is the honest tension: it is a multiplier, not an engine, and it wants a deck that was going to gain life anyway and simply had no permanent to point the surplus at.
