Abrade

The two-mode split here is the whole point: red has always had cheap creature removal and red has always had artifact destruction, but bundling both onto one instant means the card is never a dead draw in the matchups where the other half is live. The damage mode reads as a slightly costlier Lightning Bolt: three damage is the same number, but the extra mana and the inability to target players are the price red pays for the artifact rider, and three damage still clears most of the early-game creatures a removal spell is asked to answer. The structural ancestor is the long line of red artifact hate (Smash to Smithereens and its kin) that sat dead in your hand against creature decks; the modal frame solves that problem by making one card do the job two narrow cards used to. Instant speed is the quiet load-bearing detail: the artifact mode can ambush an Equipment mid-combat or destroy a value engine in response to its activation, and the creature mode holds up as a counter to a removal-dodging blink. It asks nothing of the rest of the deck (no setup, no synergy, no payoff to build toward) and that self-sufficiency is exactly why it slots in so widely: a clean answer that flexes to whatever the board demands, never stranded waiting on a matchup that does not come.