Scorching Missile

Four mana for four damage to the dome, with no creature in range, is a rate the burn world had already passed by when this kind of spell first appeared. What distinguishes it from the cheaper face-damage options is the bargain it dangles: a deliberately weak front-end price in exchange for a card that promises a second life from the graveyard. The flashback cost is the real text here, and it is enormous: , ten mana, more than double the hardcast, payable only in a late game where ten mana usually means the contest is already decided. That gap between the casting cost and the recast cost is the design tension, and it resolves toward filler. Flashback in this era was the keyword that turned a marginal card into a value card by promising one extra use, but that single recast has to be worth waiting for, and a second Scorching Missile at ten mana is a worse Lava Axe than the one you already cast. The graveyard-matters subtheme of its home block wanted players treating spent cards as a resource; this is what that looks like when the math refuses to cooperate, a reach effect that closes games slowly, sold with a flashback rider you will rarely pay. Useful chiefly as a reminder that the keyword never justified a card on its own: the numbers behind it had to, and here they do not.