Baleful Force

The card-advantage engine in its most unapologetic form: an extra card every upkeep, not just yours but each player's, indefinitely. That "each upkeep" wording is what escalates a steady drip into a flood; with several opponents taking turns before play comes back around to you, the trigger fires multiple times per rotation. The life payment scales lockstep with the draws, which is the only governor on the engine, and it is a soft one: black has converted life into resources since Alpha, and a handful of life across a full table is a rounding error against any recursion or reanimation mono-black can muster. What separates this from the Phyrexian Arena lineage of slow, incremental card engines is the body it staples the draw to: a 7/7 closes games on a clock that does not depend on the cards doing anything synergistic. The tension the design resolves is between wanting an engine and wanting a threat, and it refuses to choose. The cost is the honest part: eight mana, triple black, no protection of any kind. Pay it, and the card you spent the turn casting starts paying you back the following upkeep and does not stop until somebody removes it or the life finally runs out.