Skemfar Shadowsage

The scaling clause is doing something quietly clever: it does not count your creatures, it counts your tribal density. X is the largest cluster of creatures that share any one type, which turns a mono-tribal board into a big number and punishes a widely varied one. That makes this a payoff that reads its own board for cohesion rather than sheer count, rewarding a deck built around a single creature type more than one that simply goes wide. The 2/5 does the rest of the work: it walls off the midgame while the tribal count grows, and the modal choice flips between reach and stabilization depending on whether you are racing or getting raced. Drop each opponent for the tribe count when you are the aggressor; gain that same number back when you are under pressure. The elegance is that both modes read the identical value off the board, so the card asks one question (how committed is your creature base to a single type?) and pays out on the axis you need. Tribal payoff effects usually charge for their power with a narrow build requirement; this one folds that requirement into the reward math itself, so the more single-minded your creatures, the harder both modes hit.