Flame Sweep

Red does not get symmetric board wipes cheaply without paying somewhere, and here the price is a self-imposed condition: the damage only skips your own fliers, so the clause pays off exactly when you have built toward it. On a bare battlefield it functions as an instant-speed Pyroclasm at a slightly higher cost; stacked behind a deck of evasive threats, it becomes a one-sided reset that clears the ground while your air force sails over the wreckage. The exception is yours alone: an opponent's fliers burn too, so this is not the wash it would be against a mirrored strategy. The two-damage ceiling is the honest limit. It mops up tokens, mana dorks, and low-curve aggression, but anything with three toughness walks away, which makes it a tempo swing rather than a hard answer to a developed board. The flying carve-out matters because of the timing: holding it at instant speed lets you bait a crowded attack or a wide overextension, then sweep at end step or mid-combat while your own evasive creatures, held back or already connecting, are untouched. The self-side clause is the sharpest use, but it is not the only one: a creatureless control shell or a spellslinger deck runs a three-mana instant that clears an early curve at will, no fliers required. Even when the exception reads as pure decoration, that flexible answer to go-wide aggression is the reason to sleeve it.