Burden of Greed

A punishment spell whose ceiling is set entirely by the opponent's own investment: it counts a board state that artifact decks almost never want to be caught in, a wide spread of permanents already tapped for mana, costs, or activations. The whole thing plays as a deliberate jab at artifact-saturated environments, where leaning on permanents you need to tap was the engine itself. The more an opponent has committed, the steeper the bill. Because the count happens at resolution and only on tapped permanents, the spell rewards patience: held until they have tapped their mana rocks and fired off their artifact creatures' abilities, it can take a surprising chunk of life. The timing window is the whole tension. Cast a beat too early, against a fresh untapped board, and it still resolves (the target is the player, who is always a legal target) but costs them zero: a four-mana instant that did nothing. That makes it a hate card whose payoff is dictated by the opponent's choices rather than your own setup. It counts what they have already spent, not what they could spend, so the player holding it is essentially betting on when their opponent will be most exposed. Sharp against artifact-dense boards, dead weight everywhere the board stays untapped.