Chaos Dragon
A four-power flier with haste for three mana is a rate red almost never gets to print at face value, so this design charges a tax that lands where it hurts most: control. The forced-attack clause strips the pilot's timing agency, and the combat-step d20 rolloff can lock the Dragon away from the very opponent it most wants to hit, turning your alpha strike into a coin flip resolved before you declare attackers. It is dice-based friction as a costing mechanism, and it sits in the specific design tradition of drawbacks-as-price rather than restrictions-as-color-pie: think of the old red beaters that had to attack every turn, or the creatures whose swings were gated by an opponent's choice, updated for a mechanic that trades control for variance rather than for a rules cost. The wrinkle is that the penalty applies whenever an opponent matches or beats you on the roll; a table where you roll strictly highest leaves the Dragon fully unshackled, and against a lone opponent you need to beat their roll outright for this combat's threat to be real. That randomness is exactly what makes it a poor fit for the games red most wants to steal (the close ones, decided by whether the last swing connects) and a fine fit for the ones where you are already ahead on tempo and can afford to gamble the occasional turn.


