Combustion Technique

Removal that scales with your own graveyard is not new, but pegging the scaling to Lesson cards folds it into a mechanic that already lives half in the sideboard and half in the deck. The base is modest damage that grows with each Lesson sitting in your graveyard, so it rewards spending learned cards through the game rather than hoarding them: every Lesson you have already spent becomes a small increment to the next burn. The exile rider is the load-bearing half. Two damage that also exiles is a different tool than two damage that lets a creature die normally, because it slips past death triggers, recursion loops, and any "when this dies" payoff that would otherwise reward its controller. What sharpens it is the wording of the clause: "if that creature would die this turn," not "as a result of this spell." That means combat, a second burn spell, or any other lethal source that finishes the creature later in the turn also gets upgraded to exile. You can put the two damage on a fresh creature, then let something else deliver the killing blow, and the exile still catches it. That timing window is the reason to reach for this over cleaner point removal: you are not just killing the creature, you are deciding it stays gone, and you can make that decision after the damage is already on the board.