Magus of the Balance

Balance was banned in the earliest days of competitive Magic for a reason: it flattens every resource axis at once, dragging lands, hands, and battlefields down to whatever the poorest player is sitting on. This creature reprints that effect and reframes the whole proposition through its cost. The original was a two-mana sorcery you cast the instant the math favored you. Here the payload is stapled to a 2/2 body, gated behind a five-mana activation, and paid for by sacrificing the card itself, which makes it a strict one-shot: the wizard equalizes exactly once and then it is gone. That conversion is the design logic. A creature can sit on the table as a known threat, telegraphing the reset for a full turn cycle, which lets opponents empty their hand, overcommit, or simply find an answer to the Magus before it fires. Where the sorcery was a surgical strike delivered on resolution, this is a slow-motion guillotine everyone can see falling and everyone gets a chance to dodge. The trade is patience and mana in exchange for choosing your own moment rather than accepting the moment the spell resolves. Like the original, it punishes the leader indiscriminately, including its own controller: activate it while sitting on a full grip and a stacked board and you will discard and sacrifice down to the poorest player's level too. It is a weapon for whoever has already lost the resource race and wants to reset the game for the whole table.