Bargain

Seven life for three mana would be a real rate; the catch is that the gift comes with a free card for your opponent. This is the Portal-era design philosophy in miniature: the introductory sets often took a familiar effect and bolted on a downside steep enough that the card stayed firmly in beginner territory while still teaching a lesson about symmetry. Handing the other player a card is not a small tax. It is a clause that turns a lifegain spell into a Howling Mine you only fire once, and it tilts every game-state calculation against you in the long run. The structural joke is that the seven is precise rather than round: enough to feel substantial, not so much that the trade ever reads as worth it against a real opponent's free card. Lifegain in white has always been the easiest effect to overprint and the hardest to make matter, and Bargain sits at the bottom of that pile by design, a spell whose entire identity is the asymmetry baked into its second line. It is the rare card whose name is also its honest verdict: you are striking one, and you are getting the worse end.