Decimate
Four destroy clauses in one spell, and the casting restriction is the whole drama: you cannot put it on the stack unless legal targets exist for an artifact, a creature, an enchantment, and a land all at once. That clause is what turns a four-for-one into a puzzle, but the puzzle cuts both ways. Crucially, the targeting language is generic ("target [type]"), not "target permanent an opponent controls," so when the board is missing a type you simply point one of the slots at something of your own: your own basic land, your own mana rock, a creature you no longer need. The card asks for a legal choice in every slot before it leaves your hand; it does not ask that every choice be a good one. That inversion of the usual "destroy up to" template is what gives the spell its feast-or-famine shape. Against a thin early board it sits dead in hand, sometimes uncastable; in a grindy midgame where both players have committed lands, a rock, an enchantment, and a body, it lands as the most lopsided trade in the color pair. Even at its best it is rarely a clean four-for-one, since one of the four destructions often has to feed on your own side to satisfy the rules. The flavor of total annihilation is honest: you are not permitted to half-decimate.















