Azula Always Lies

Two mirror-image effects on one instant, one degrading a creature and one growing it, with the "one or both" clause turning a minor combat trick into a two-sided weapon. Cast on your own attacker, it is a pump spell. Cast on their blocker, it shrinks a body enough to push damage through or kill a small one outright. Choose both and the targets can differ: strengthen yours, weaken theirs, in a single instant-speed response as blocks are declared. The two halves are not symmetrical, and that is where the design gets interesting. The -1/-1 wears off at end of turn, but the +1/+1 counter stays, so the two effects resolve on different clocks: one leaves a permanent mark on the board, the other buys a temporary swing you spend to win one exchange. The Lesson subtype reframes how you access it. Rather than a fixed slot committed to the deck ahead of time, it is a card you fetch conditionally, a toolbox answer you reach for when the board calls for exactly this shape of two-way intervention and leave in reserve when it does not. That tutorable flexibility is the point: the same two mana can grow a threat, pick off a blocker, or do both at once, and you decide which at the moment it matters. The floor is a modest trick; the ceiling is a two-creature blowout timed to the combat step.