Orcish Settlers

Land destruction priced as an investment rather than a tempo play, which is what makes it one of the most punishing versions of the effect ever printed. The X gets paid twice, so blowing up two lands costs five mana and the creature; three lands costs seven. That scaling reads as a brake, and in a vacuum it is, but the symmetry is deceptive: an opponent stuck on a fragile manabase pays no setup cost to be wrecked, while you spend a whole turn and a body to do it. The sacrifice requirement is the structural pin here. This is not a repeatable engine you build around but a one-shot detonation, which means it lives or dies on landing the activation before the table can answer it. Crack it with the right mana open and you can strand someone two or three lands behind indefinitely, an effect closer to color-screwing your opponent than to trading one-for-one. Land destruction has always been the most resented thing red does, and the genre split long ago into the cheap single-target spells (Stone Rain, Molten Rain) and the back-breaking mass versions (Armageddon, Catastrophe). This sits in a stranger third lane: scalable, mana-hungry, and bolted to a body that has to die to fire. It rewards patience the way a siege weapon does, and the people on the receiving end have never forgiven the effect for existing.