Hostile Takeover

Most sweepers ask you a single question: how much damage clears the board? This one hands you two dials before the wrath lands. Shrink a threat to 1/1 so three damage finishes it regardless of how big it was; pump one of your own to 4/4 so it survives the same three. The sequencing is the whole trick: the power-and-toughness rewrites resolve first, and only then does the three-damage sweep read the new numbers. That turns a symmetrical board wipe into a targeted, asymmetric one. You point the shrink at the opposing bomb that would otherwise laugh off three damage, point the pump at your own board presence, and walk away from the exchange up material. It is a Wrath of God with a scalpel taped to it, priced in three colors because bending a sweeper that hard needs the friction of a Grixis manabase to pay for it. The corner case cuts the other way too: with nothing worth targeting, it is a strictly worse Anger of the Gods that costs five and demands blue and black. The card only sings when the battlefield gives it both an enemy to cut down and a friend to armor up, which is exactly the state a control or midrange deck engineers a sweep to happen in. It is one of the rare board wipes you cast to protect a creature rather than despite one.