The Chancellor
The Chancellor is Kongedraeber's searcher and record-keeper — an Ace played from hand can dig through your own Royal Archives for exactly the card you need, or crown a waiting Sovereign outright.
RULES
Ace Search: play a single Ace to search your Royal Archives for any card except a Joker, and add it to your hand — the rest of the Archives is shuffled back together afterward.
The Chancellor on the Sovereign: playing an Ace onto a plain Sovereign occupying your Throne forms an Ace-King (see that entry for the full effect) rather than triggering Ace Search — you choose which use fits the moment when you play it.
Ace Search is permanently disabled for the rest of the match if Ace is your personal Forbidden Rank, set by your Cursed Seal at the end of Setup. Your only remaining action for an Ace at that point is Hand Refresh (if Ace happens to be the specific card drawn as your Cursed Seal).
Outside of these two uses, an Ace behaves as a normal card for poker-hand purposes in a Siege — including as the high or low end of a Straight (A-2-3-4-5 or 10-J-Q-K-A).
LORE OF THE COURT
Every court needs someone who remembers where everything is kept, and the Chancellor remembers all of it — every card that ever passed through the Archives, filed away for exactly the moment someone needs it back.
It is said the Chancellor never raises a blade personally. It has never needed to. Wars in this Court are as often won by knowing precisely what to retrieve, and when, as by anything drawn in anger.
An Ace does not kneel to many. For a Sovereign, it makes an exception — and asks something in return. The Chancellor alone decides whether that exception is worth granting, or whether the Archives still have more to offer first.
STRATEGY
When to play it
Use Ace Search when you have a specific missing piece in mind — a rank to complete a Straight, a suit to complete a Flush, or a face card to rebuild your Court. Save an Ace for The Chancellor on the Sovereign instead when you already have a plain Sovereign parked on the Throne and want the Ace-King's Siege boost and Family Reunion more than the search.
Counters
There's no direct counter to Ace Search itself, but a Cursed Seal that happens to land on Ace neutralizes it for that player entirely, aside from a single Hand Refresh. Racing to pressure a Throne Sovereign before an Ace arrives denies the Ace-King option outright.
Synergies
The Scout (4) fills the same searching role for number cards specifically — use them together to assemble either a Siege hand or a Court, depending which resource you're short on. The Sovereign is the Chancellor's partner for the Ace-King combination.