Bond of Agony

The price is paid before the spell resolves, and that ordering is the whole gambit: you fund the X out of your own life total, then watch each other player lose the same amount. It is symmetric drain that pretends to be asymmetric, a wash one-on-one that scales the more enemies sit across from you. Against a single opponent you trade life-for-life, which is rarely where you want to be. Against three, you pay X once and they each lose X in return, turning a stockpiled life total into multiplied life loss across the table. That math rewards a deck that hoards life as a resource rather than a buffer: one that gains it freely and has nothing better to spend it on. The design leans on a quietly important distinction in how black has long monetized life. Most life-as-mana effects buy you something on your own side; this one converts a life total directly into multitarget drain, and because it deals no damage, there is nothing to prevent or fog: life loss is final. There is also no creature, no permanent, no body for opponents to remove after the fact. It is a sorcery, so the life you pay is exposed: no instant-speed wrinkle to dodge a counter or punish a tapped-out turn. What it asks is simple and unforgiving. Have more life than everyone else, and be willing to spend it all at once.