Necrogen Scudder

Three power and evasion for three mana is a clean rate; the three life it costs on the way in is the part doing the balancing. This is a creature with the same arithmetic problem the painlands solved years earlier: efficiency in black has always come priced in life, and the question a card like this asks is whether you can afford to pay. In an aggressive shell racing the opponent, three life off your own total is a genuine cost, not a footnote, and it sharpens the calculation already running on the painlands and fetch-style mana those decks lean on. The flavor closes the loop neatly: a Phyrexian Horror that drains its summoner reads as compleation taking its toll the moment it arrives. The trade is the whole pitch, evasion above its cost in exchange for a self-inflicted wound: no card disadvantage, no graveyard cost, just life. Where black tends to ask for tempo or cards in return for power, this one bills the player directly, and how steep three life feels depends entirely on how fast the game beneath it is moving.