Canopy Surge

Green's recurring weakness against evasion gets a narrow patch here: a sweeper that only touches the air, aimed at the creature class green's ground-bound bodies historically cannot block. Unkicked, it clears weenie fliers and clips a little off each life total; pay the kicker tax and it scales into a 4-damage scythe that kills most evasive midrange while a green deck is still developing its mana. The symmetrical hit to players reads scarier than it plays, since the damage is fixed and small against a full life total, and the deck casting this is usually winning on the ground rather than racing in the air. The dual-mode structure is what makes the card work without a separate late-game slot: the cheap version is a real spell, the kicked version answers a different board entirely, and both live on the same card. What the design refuses to do is the interesting part. Green is supposed to struggle with flying, so rather than hand it a clean removal spell, the card fences its reach to fliers only and charges extra for the version that actually kills anything substantial. It is a permission slip with a tax stapled to it, not a blank check: green gets to point damage upward, but only at the things it was already meant to fear, and only at full price when it wants real reach.