Clawing Torment

The dual target line is what separates this from a cleaner one-mana kill spell. On a creature, the -1/-1 with a can't-block rider is soft removal that doubles as a slow drain: pseudo-Pacifism stapled to a life-loss clock, aggressive rather than defensive because it stops blocking, not attacking. On a noncreature artifact, the stat penalty does nothing (it isn't a creature), so all you buy is the upkeep drain: a nagging one-life-per-turn tax on a permanent your removal can't otherwise pressure. That is the honest limit of the artifact line. It does not disable, tap down, or answer the artifact; it just makes keeping it cost life, turning a value engine or utility rock into a slow bleed rather than a solved problem. The -1/-1 only shrinks, so anything bigger than a two-toughness body keeps swinging while its controller drips away, which is precisely why a one-mana aura this flexible isn't oppressive: it taxes or it nudges toward the graveyard, and it does each weakly enough to stay fair. It sits in black's tradition of curse-style auras that punish through incremental life loss instead of clean removal, extended here with an enchant clause that lets a single card reach either half of the battlefield, at the price of committing to neither.