Quest for Pure Flame

The payoff sets the ceiling on how this thing can ever pay off: spend four counters and the enchantment is gone, but for the rest of that turn every source you control deals double damage. Not double to a chosen target: double across the board, combat and burn and any sweeper alike, to every permanent or player your sources hit that turn. That is a one-shot detonator, not an engine, and the four-counter cost is the throttle. Each counter demands that a source you control already connected with an opponent, so the quest only fills when you are already winning the damage race. The result is a payoff that arrives precisely when you least need help closing and refuses to show up when you are behind. Where it earns its keep is the combo seam: a single fat burn spell or a wide swing landed on the same turn the doubler fires can end a game in one motion, since the doubling does not care whether the damage came from the stack or the red zone. The design tension is honest about itself. A free one-mana enchantment that doubles all your damage would be absurd, so the counters meter it out and the sacrifice clause guarantees it never repeats. What that single red mana buys is patience: lay it early, chip in over several turns, and cash it for a burst the opponent cannot easily play around because it lands at the moment of your choosing.