Inscription of Ruin

The kicker here isn't a discount inverted into a bonus; it's a mode-gate. Cast for its base cost, this is a black modal spell that does one of three fair things: a Mind Rot on an opponent, a small reanimation, or targeted creature removal capped at mana value three. Each mode is playable on its own, none is exciting on its own, and that restraint is the point. Pay the full kicker and the modal clause rewrites itself: "choose one" becomes "choose any number," and the same card collapses two turns of value into one, stripping a hand, returning a creature, and killing a blocker in a single cast. The design lives in the gap between those two states. Unkicked, it's a flexible answer you never regret drawing; kicked, it's a late-game payoff you build toward, and holding it means keeping both futures live at once. The reanimation clause stays honest because its ceiling is so low: you're returning utility bodies and small value creatures, not a bomb, so the recursion mode reads as a grinder's tool rather than a cheat. This is modal design working exactly as intended, where three lines of text play as attrition insurance early and a haymaker later, and where the correct cast flips depending on which half of the game you're in.