Pyroclastic Elemental

The body swings hard and the ability points nowhere near it: a 5/4 that wants to be attacking, wired to an activation that only reaches players, and only ever for a single point per pump of mana. That deliberate mismatch is the whole design. This is a reach engine, not a removal engine or an attrition tool: a way to convert a stalled board and leftover mana into the last few points of damage a red deck could not otherwise force through. The unfriendly rate is what keeps it from grinding a game to nothing the way a repeatable Cursed Scroll can; instead it functions as a finisher that only starts paying off once combat has broken down. Against an empty board or a wall of blockers, the elemental stops being a creature you have to connect with and becomes a mana sink that closes out the game from behind a stalemate. The two halves pull against each other: the beater wants to race, the drip wants you to sit back and pay. Whichever plan a given game rewards, the card is built for one narrow job, squeezing damage out of open mana when the red curve has run out of other ways to win.