Deadly Plot
Modal removal usually pairs a premium effect with a cheaper consolation, so the two halves cover different price points. This one inverts the split. The first mode is unconditional creature-or-planeswalker destruction at instant speed: expensive at four mana, but the kind of clean catch-all a controlling black deck runs when it wants to answer whatever lands across from it. The second mode is dead in most lists and transformative in exactly one: reanimation bolted to a kill spell, but locked to Zombie creatures resting in your yard. That restriction is what keeps the flexibility from breaking. A blanket reanimate-anything clause welded to a removal spell would be too much for a single card; tying it to a tribe means the ceiling only opens for a shell already stocking the graveyard with the right corpses, while everyone else treats the card as spot removal and never reads past the first bullet. It is a tidy way to price a modal spell: one line establishes a universal floor, the other a ceiling a dedicated Zombie build has to earn. And the returned Zombie arrives tapped, so it is a value swing rather than a surprise blocker or an instant-speed attacker, which stops the reanimation half from overreaching even in the tribe it was meant for.
