Nahiri's Warcrafting

Overkill is usually wasted mana; here it is the point. Five damage to a target that only needs three leaves two damage of surplus, and that excess becomes the size of your dig: look at the top two, exile one, and get the option to play it this turn (still paying its cost). The card turns the classic problem with big burn spells (that a five-damage bolt is embarrassing against a two-toughness creature) into the reward structure. The smaller the thing you point it at, the deeper you see and the more you can pull off the top. That inverts the normal incentive to save removal for the biggest threat; a warcrafting fired at a mana dork or a small hatebear digs three or four deep and lets you cash the removal in for a card you get to cast right away. The battle clause is the tell for its lineage: this is removal built for a moment when planeswalkers, creatures, and the then-new battle type all shared one "attack the permanent" slot, so the target flexibility is baked in rather than bolted on. What checks it is that the excess damage has to actually exist. Against fatties there is no dig and it reads as an expensive, capped burn spell; the card wants a board full of small things to shine, which is precisely when a five-damage removal spell is least needed. That gap between what the effect rewards and when you want the removal is the whole design.