Perish

The color-hoser distilled to its harshest possible form: one mode, one target color, no collateral and no mercy. Against four of the five colors it is a blank; against the fifth it is a clean, unconditional sweep. What makes it total rather than merely good is the line denying regeneration, which slams shut the one door green could reliably use to survive a board wipe in the era this was printed, when regeneration was green's signature defensive trick. The card is a genuine artifact of design philosophy precisely because of how unapologetically lopsided it is. Black gets a sweeper at three mana value that is dead weight most games and backbreaking the rest, a deliberate trade of consistency for ceiling that the later hoser cycles (with their split modes and at least partial relevance against any opponent) were specifically built to move away from. This is the older school: a card that is either devastating or wholly inert, with no middle ground built into it. It sits beside the other single-color sweepers of its generation as a snapshot of a moment when Wizards was comfortable printing answers this absolute, trusting deck construction to police the asymmetry.