Implements of Sacrifice

Cast for two, crack for one more, and you get back two mana of a single color: a one-time ritual that nets a mana the turn you pull the trigger, with the upside that the two pips come out in whatever color you name. The sequencing is the whole pitch. You bank the artifact early, then on a later turn convert any source you have into a double-pip burst, letting a four-drop land a turn ahead of schedule or paying a heavy single-color cost your manabase could not otherwise reach. The friction is deliberate: the sacrifice clause caps it at a single use, and the activation tax stops it short of a free splash enabler, so the flexibility is real but strictly rationed. It belongs to a generation of fixing built before Wizards trusted dual lands and signets to do the work cleanly, when color screw was a genuine failure state and an artifact that could store mana and re-color it on demand earned its slot despite the modest payoff. The design lesson it embodies is one Magic kept relearning: flexibility this open (any color, on your timing) has to be paid for somewhere, so early answers like this paid in a small mana investment up front and a hard ceiling of exactly one activation before the artifact is gone.