Brimstone Volley

Three damage at instant speed is honest red removal: enough to clear most early threats or push the last points in a burn race. The morbid upgrade is what turns the spell from a role-player into a finisher, and the design is elegant because the condition costs you nothing you weren't already going to do. Five damage in a single instant is a tier of power red almost never sells without a steep tax, but here the tax is paid by the natural rhythm of any game with attacks and blocks: a chump trades, a token dies, an opposing blocker falls, and the spell you held now reads as five to the dome. Crucially the condition is "a creature died this turn," so it's the present board state you're waiting on, not a death you caused a turn ago; the corpse has to be fresh in the same turn you cast. That makes the card a patience test more than a deckbuilding one. Cast it into an empty turn and it's a worse Lightning Strike; cast it after the first creature hits the bin and it leaps a full bracket in efficiency and starts threatening players, not just blockers. The only decision the card forces is sequencing: spend it now at the small rate, or trust the board to feed it the big one before the window closes.