Thundering Raiju
The engine that turned modified-creatures counting into a red finisher rather than a green midrange keyword. Most cards that reward modification (counters, Equipment, Auras) do so passively: bigger bodies, incidental value. This one converts the count into burn, scaling reach off the width of your board every time it swings, and it feeds itself by placing a counter on a creature you control before the damage resolves. That feedback loop is the whole tension: each attack widens the modified count, which widens the damage, and because the counter can land on a fresh body it turns an unmodified creature into a source of reach the following turn. Haste carries unusual weight here, because the card wants to swing immediately, before an opponent stabilizes the count, and every attack it survives compounds. The self-exclusion in the counting ("other than this creature") is the restriction that demands a supporting board: it cannot count itself, so a solitaire draw fizzles and a developed one detonates. What it represents is a red take on going wide with counters, a color that historically leaned on Equipment and tokens rather than the +1/+1 accumulation green and white own. The damage hits each opponent, which quietly reshapes the math depending on how many sit across the table, but the core identity holds either way: a payoff that punishes a built-out board by aiming it at faces.





