Easy Prey

Cheap removal that only ever reaches downward: the mana-value-2-or-less clause draws a hard line under mana dorks, one-drop hatebears, aggressive two-drops, and the small utility creatures early boards are built from. Point it at anything bigger and it does nothing, which is why the cycling clause is the real load-bearing piece. A conditional removal spell lives or dies on how often the condition fails; stapling a discard-to-draw ability onto it means a whiff still churns through the deck instead of clogging your hand. When the board is nothing but a lone five-drop, you spend two, pitch the corpse, and dig deeper. That pairing (a narrow answer with a built-in escape hatch) is a pattern black has leaned on for a long time to keep low-end removal maindeckable without punishing the games where the target never appears. The instant speed does real work too: you hold up the choice, kill the mana dork on the opponent's upkeep or the surprise blocker mid-combat, and cash it in for a card if nothing small ever lands. It asks nothing of the graveyard and rewards nothing clever; it answers the bottom of the curve at a fair rate and refuses to become a liability against the top.