Henrika Domnathi // Henrika, Infernal Seer

A menu of grief delivered on your own combat step: edict, card, or transformation, each usable exactly once. That "hasn't been chosen" clause is the load-bearing part. It turns a single permanent into a three-turn commitment where every choice narrows the future ones, so the sequencing decision (do you strip a blocker now, refuel, or flip early) has real weight and no do-overs. The edict mode is the sharpest, forcing a sacrifice from every player at the exact moment you want the board clear, though once chosen it can never come back. Choosing to transform is the only mode that gives up the remaining menu, and it is a genuine cost: you trade the rest of the choices to gain the back face.

Henrika, Infernal Seer trades the modal engine for a lord that keys off the three keywords she now wears (flying, deathtouch, lifelink) and pumps every creature sharing any of them. It reads as narrow until you notice how many black and white creatures carry one of those three, which makes the pump wider than a typical tribal buff while still asking you to build toward it. The two faces answer different problems: the front is attrition and card advantage from a body that would rather not attack, the back is a mana sink that turns a stalled board into reach. The finality of each menu choice stops the design from being simply better than the sum of its modes.