Phyrexian Purge

The mass removal that prices itself by the corpse. Where most board wipes ask a fixed cost and answer everything, this one bills you in life per target: even a single creature carries a three-life surcharge on top of the mana, clearing three lifts that to nine, and sweeping a full board can reach ruinous numbers. That sliding scale is the entire design. It hands you a scalpel that doubles as a sledgehammer, and the sledgehammer mode is paid for with a resource the opponent is usually already attacking. The flexibility is genuine and the discipline is brutal: you choose exactly how many threats die, and the card makes you feel every one. Note that it simply destroys, with no clause for regeneration or indestructibility written into the text, so the life payment is the only balancing lever, and a steep one. This is Phyrexian compleation rendered as a payment plan: power is available, but the body keeps the ledger. The instinct here, life standing in for resource, is the same one that would later harden into the Phyrexian mana keyword, expressed years ahead of time without any keyword at all, just a sorcery that asks how badly you want the board gone and how much of yourself you will spend to get it.