Chevill, Bane of Monsters
Chevill, Bane of Monsters
Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, if your opponents control no permanents with bounty counters on them, put a bounty counter on target creature or planeswalker an opponent controls.
Whenever a permanent an opponent controls with a bounty counter on it dies, you gain 3 life and draw a card.
illus. Yongjae Choi # 181/274
Oracle Text
Deathtouch
At the beginning of your upkeep, if your opponents control no permanents with bounty counters on them, put a bounty counter on target creature or planeswalker an opponent controls.
Whenever a permanent an opponent controls with a bounty counter on it dies, you gain 3 life and draw a card.
Then I was enlightened. Rather than seeing this as a diplomatic card like Mathas, I should have seen this as another "creature-kill" legend in the vein of Toshiro Umezawa. The ability to transform the first Putrefy or Assassin's Trophy you cast each turn into a cantrip that gains you life is an excellent boon that counters the normal card disadvantage carried by single-target kill spells in multiplayer settings. Tack that onto a cheap commander with deathtouch and you have a decent dude.
With that said, it does stink that the ability isn't optional. If you run out of kill spells for a round and your opponent shoves lightning greaves onto their bounty on their next turn... that is just painful.