Demonic Pact

The clock is the whole point. Three of the four modes are pure profit: four damage to any target plus four life, two cards from an opponent's hand, two cards into yours. The fourth is a loss trigger. Because every upkeep forces a mode that hasn't been chosen, banking all three good ones means the only remaining pick is the one that ends you. That turns a four-mana enchantment into a self-imposed deadline: you front-load the value and race to defuse the payment before that fourth upkeep resolves. The intended out is to bounce, sacrifice, or steal the Pact away before the final trigger, keeping the value while ducking the penalty, which reframes the card from a removal-and-card-advantage piece into a timing puzzle you have to build a release valve around. It sits in black's bargain lineage, the Phyrexian-style "great power, terrible cost" tradition, but most of those charge life or cards up front and let you move on. This one charges in time, and it hands you the schedule to solve yourself. The four damage hitting any target and the targeted discard give it real reach across board states, offense or defense, but the identity is the tension it manufactures: each turn spent cashing a mode narrows the window on the turn you can't afford to reach.