Bump in the Night

Three life off the top for one black mana, no creature involved, no card drawn, no board state changed. That puts it in the lineage of Lava Spike and the Lightning-Bolt-to-the-face plan: a card that does nothing but lower a life total and asks nothing in return. What sets it apart from a one-shot burn spell is the flashback cost, and the color it asks for is the tell. Spending to cast it a second time is a steep, off-color ask in a mono-black shell, so the card is built for decks already splashing red anyway, where the graveyard half is a free three points stapled onto a spell you were happy to fire on the first turn. The targeting is worth noting precisely because it is narrow: it can only point at a player, never a creature or planeswalker, which is exactly why it slots into a strategy that has given up on the board and is simply racing a number to zero. The whole design is honest about what aggressive burn actually wants: not flexibility, but reach, and a second copy of that reach waiting in the yard when the hand runs dry.