Breath of Darigaaz

Two honest modes from one spell, and the cleanest demonstration of kicker's whole pitch. Unkicked, it clears the cheapest tokens and chips one life off everyone, yourself included; pay the extra and the same card wipes a board of midrange ground creatures while burning four into every face. The load-bearing word is "flying": this is a deliberately one-sided sweeper, scorching the opponent's mana dorks, weenies, and chump blockers while an evasive clock sits untouched above the carnage. The symmetric damage to players is the price of entry, the self-inflicted tax that stops a board wipe from doubling as a free burn spell, and it ties the card's tempo to a life total you have to be ahead on or willing to spend. The teaching value is in the rate at each setting: two mana for a real-but-narrow effect, four for a backbreaking one, with the scaling chosen by the caster rather than fixed in the manabase. The Darigaaz naming roots it in the dragon legends of an early multicolor era, but the design lesson outlives the flavor: one card, two settings, and a flying clause doing the quiet work of asymmetry.