Shelinda, Yevon Acolyte
The counter-placement rule here is a self-balancing engine, and reading it closely reveals a designer's answer to a specific problem: how do you build a go-wide anthem that doesn't leave its weakest bodies behind? Most token payoffs reward the board indiscriminately, or reward the lead creature alone. This one gives the counter to the newcomer only if its power is less than Shelinda's, and otherwise to her: if the newcomer is a fragile one-power token or mana dork, it gets the counter and starts pulling its own weight; if it already outgrows Shelinda, the counter goes to her instead. The effect is a board that converges. Small creatures grow toward Shelinda's power, she grows past a board of large creatures, and the gap in either direction closes with every trigger. That two-power body is the pivot the whole ability hinges on: grow her larger and more of your fodder qualifies for its own counter, but keep her small and the counters flow back to her whenever something bigger enters, building a lifelink threat. Pairing lifelink with a mechanic that reliably grows either the team or a lone attacker is a quiet stabilization plan too: every counter that lands on Shelinda widens the life swing on each of her attacks, and she is a ground creature, so that life buffer is often what keeps her attacking into a crowded board. It rewards a flood of cheap creatures without demanding they all be the same size, which is a subtler ask than the usual token deck makes.
