Hurloon Battle Hymn

Four damage to a creature or planeswalker at instant speed for three mana is a rate a mono-red deck will run without asking anything more of it, and that indifference to the second color is the whole point. The white kicker never touches the base spell's ceiling: the burn stays four damage whether or not you have the mana. What paying the extra pip buys is not a bigger effect but a second axis. The same removal spell doubles as a stabilization tool, four life alongside the four damage, so a build that can support white gets to trade tempo for burn and burn for lifegain out of one card slot. The floor is engineered never to depend on the splash, which means no dead text when the white is unavailable and no penalty for running it in a shell that cannot reliably reach for the kick. That is exactly the tension kicker was built to resolve: give a strictly red card a reason to lean toward white without ever demanding it. This is a clean, unshowy version of the pattern, no rider that only earns its keep when kicked, just a removal spell that also happens to be a Healing Salve when the mana cooperates.