Ashen Monstrosity

Seven damage on a swing, available the turn it lands, for a single big red payment: the math is loud, but the body it sits on tells the real story. Four toughness on a seven-power haste threat means this Spirit dies to almost anything that trades up, and the compulsory-attack clause removes the one thing a fragile glass cannon usually keeps in reserve. It cannot sit back and block, cannot wait for a clean window, cannot decline a fight against a bigger board. Once it resolves, it commits, every combat, into whatever the opponent has set up. That is the era's red-creature bargain stated bluntly: enormous front-loaded reach in exchange for surrendering control of when and whether the damage connects. The design treats the haste as a closing tool rather than a versatile threat, a creature meant to be cast when seven now matters more than seven later. As a fair top-end this is a poor trade, since the same investment elsewhere buys a body that survives its own attack step. As a finisher in a deck already racing, where the opponent is at fourteen or less and blocking favorably is a luxury they no longer have, the drawback evaporates and the rate carries. The card asks one question before it ever attacks: is the race already close enough that a self-destructive haymaker ends it?