Rain of Embers

The one damage to each player is the whole tell here: it is what marks this as a deliberately modest tool rather than a premium sweeper. Red has always paid for board-clearing in self-damage, but the established line keeps the burn to the creatures (Pyroclasm asks two from each creature, Anger of the Gods three with exile attached). Sending the same point at both players' faces is a cosmetic-feeling drawback (a single life is rarely the cost that stops you) but it does real work in placing the card: a sweeper this symmetric and this cheap reads as a low-rarity answer for the smallest aggressors, not a control deck's premium reset. The damage to creatures and players resolves simultaneously, so there is no sequencing to exploit and no way to spare yourself; you commit to the math when you cast it. As removal it is narrow by design, lethal only to one-toughness boards, and the one-damage ceiling is exactly why it never threatened to be a staple. What the player clause buys back is reach: the rare board wipe that can also be the last point of damage to close a game when both sides are low, a sweeper that doubles as a finisher.