Barrel Down Sokenzan

Sweep is one of the stranger resource conversions of its era: a mechanic that, on resolution, asks you to pull lands back into your hand and pays you for each one you give up. This is that idea wearing red's clothing, and the math is plainly linear. Each Mountain you return adds two damage, so six damage means handing three lands back to your own hand and rebuilding from them over the following turns. The burst comes at the cost of your own development, and the Mountains return uncast rather than staying in play, which is why the spell rarely beats a clean burn instant in a deck that simply wants creatures dead. Where it stops being a wash is the late game, when you have flooded out and have spare Mountains doing nothing in play; there, an inert resource becomes a scaling removal spell at a rate of two damage per land. That is the question Sweep poses across its green, white, and blue siblings as well: are your permanents worth more on the battlefield or back in your hand, and what will you pay to find out. Few cards in the cycle frame the trade as nakedly as this one, where the answer is measured directly in points of damage to a single creature.