Ob Nixilis, Unshackled

Most punisher cards ask an opponent to choose between two bad outcomes; this one denies the choice entirely. Tutoring is the connective tissue of nearly every nonlinear deck: fetchlands to fix mana, dedicated search effects to assemble a combo, transmute and demonic lessons to find the exact answer. Searching a library is so routine that players forget it is happening. The middle ability turns that reflex into a felony: a sacrificed creature and ten life, every time, with no opportunity cost waived and no "you may." It is a tax on the act of looking, not on the cards found. That punishes the fetchland-heavy manabases of greedy decks as readily as it does an actual tutor chain, which makes it a strange, blunt instrument: a hatebear stapled to a 4/4 flier that grows whenever any other creature dies. The body is the part most players underrate. Flying and trample on a counter-accumulating frame means the demon stops being a deterrent and starts being a clock the moment combat gets bloody. The name is the tell, too: this is the unshackled version of the planeswalker, the demon mid-fall from grace, and the design leans into that menace rather than the careful symmetry punisher cards usually wear. Where most prison pieces sit back and tax, this one taxes and then beats down.