Davriel's Withering

The word "perpetually" is the whole mechanism, and it only exists because this card was born digital. A one-mana -1/-2 that wears off at end of turn would be a forgettable combat trick; the same numbers stamped onto the creature permanently are a different animal. Physical Magic never had a clean way to track a stat reduction that follows a creature through bounce, blink, or a graveyard return, so the effect stayed penned in temporary-shrink territory, where Disfigure and its kin fade after a turn. Digital tracking dissolves that bookkeeping wall, and this instant spends what the removal of that constraint buys. The toughness reduction gives it real reach against the small end of the curve, but the power reduction is the sharper axis: shave a creature's clock down for good, and every future attack lands one lighter, every future block trades worse, and the deficit accrues across a long game the way a one-turn trick never can. It is subtraction that collects interest. Working against it: -1/-2 is a slim return to spend a card on if the creature just dies in combat anyway, so the spell wants targets it will not finish, where the lingering deficit is the point rather than incidental collateral. That is a narrow lane, but it is one no paper instant could occupy.