Blood Pact
Black's willingness to pay life for cards is one of the color's oldest bargains, and this instant is a familiar entry in that line. Almost every time it resolves, the target is its own controller, making it a Sign in Blood you can hold up rather than commit on your main phase: refill after a board wipe resolves, or dig for an answer with mana left open. Paying 2 life is the tax black attaches to its card advantage, spending the resource you can least spare in exactly the games where you most want to keep drawing, which stops the reload from ever being truly free.
The word "target," though, is the seam worth pulling. Handing an opponent two cards is normally charity, but the instant timing changes what that charity can do. Point it at a player already thin on cards during their upkeep and you can force them to draw from an empty library on their own turn, closing out a deck-out plan a beat earlier than a sorcery could. Push a low opponent two life closer to a drain finish, and the "gift" becomes a threat. Neither mode is why the card usually makes a deck, but they are why the text says "target player" instead of simply "you."
