Crackle with Power
The multiplier is where the math turns lethal fast. Most X burn scales one to one: pay X, deal X. This one asks for X three times over in the cost and hands back five damage per point, so the curve bends steeply in your favor the moment you clear the triple-X hurdle. At X of one you have a five-mana spell dealing five, which is a joke; at X of four you have a fourteen-mana spell dealing twenty to each of up to four targets, which is a game. The design lives entirely at the top of that arc, which is why the card reads as a big-mana or ritual-fueled payoff rather than a removal spell. The up-to-X targeting is the flexible half of the equation: it lets a single cast function as a sweeper, a face-burn finisher, or a mix of both, but each target eats the full five-times-X independently, so there is no dividing the damage down to spread it thin. You commit to a size, then choose how many things absorb it at that size. This is a finisher built to reward untapping absurd amounts of mana in one turn, the kind of payoff that makes a mana doubler or a big ritual chain worth assembling. The five-times multiplier is the number that makes all that ramp cash out, and the only reason the triple-X price tag is a deal worth paying.
