Join the Dead

Black's answer to indestructibility has always been the minus-toughness sweep: shrink a creature to zero and it dies, no counter or regeneration shield to lean on, and only genuine untargetability slips past. A flat -5/-5 at three mana is already a clean fair rate, big enough to eat most midrange threats and pull double duty against the toughness-boosted creatures that shrug off damage-based removal. Descend grafts a scaling reward onto that baseline without touching timing or cost: fill your yard to the descend threshold and the same spell drops a creature by -10/-10, an overkill number that exists specifically to catch the fatties and the +X/+X'd tokens a five-point clip leaves standing. The design is honest about the trade. The larger mode is conditional on graveyard state, so you are paying in upfront setup (spent lands, dead creatures, cracked artifacts already sitting in the yard) for the bigger swing; until that floor is met you are holding a solid removal instant rather than a great one. It favors decks already leaning on self-mill or attrition, where the descend count is a resting state rather than a stretch. Instant speed is what makes the bigger mode dangerous: the -10/-10 can wait for the pump spell to resolve or for a monster to step into a combat that pushes it past your reach. The mechanic scales the effect; it never scales the cost.