Westgate Regent

The doubling is what makes the clock so ugly. Most evasive threats that grow do it linearly, one counter per hit, so a chump block or two buys real time. Not this one: a 4/4 flier that connects becomes an 8/8, then a 16/16, because the counter payoff scales with damage dealt, which the previous hit already inflated. Miss the block once and the clock doubles; miss it twice and you are nearly dead. The Ward cost is where the design earns its keep. Charging a card rather than mana taxes the answer out of a resource the opponent may not have to spare, and against a deck already spending its hand to stay aggressive, that ask lands especially awkwardly: it demands they part with a card to keep a threat off the board. All of this is paid for by how fragile the 4/4 starts. It dies to most instant-speed removal any deck runs, and the counters only accrue after combat damage, so nothing happens until it survives to the swing and gets through unblocked. Evasion, protection, and the exponential payoff are all bent toward a single purpose: making the first connection matter enough that the second one nearly ends it.