Alchemist's Gambit

The extra-turn spell with a suicide clause built into the base printing, and a rescue hatch bolted on top of it. Cast for its base cost, this is a red Final Fortune with an escape route: an extra turn where damage can't be prevented, followed by immediate defeat at that turn's end step. The design conceit is that the loss clause is not a payment but a piece of text you can pay to delete. Cleave lets you cast the same card for a much steeper multicolor cost and remove the bracketed words entirely, turning a desperate all-in swing into a clean extra turn with no strings attached. That is the whole tension the card is built around: the cheap version wins this turn or you lose the game, the expensive version simply takes the turn and asks nothing back. The damage-can't-be-prevented rider is the tell about which mode the design expects most players to reach for; it exists to make sure the base cast actually closes out a game where fog effects or damage prevention might otherwise strand you a point short. Cleave as a mechanic usually trims a small downside from a spell (a mill clause, a self-damage line); here it removes the single most consequential downside a spell can carry, and prices that removal accordingly. Few cards make the gap between their two costs mean this much.