Scorching Shot

Five damage to a single creature is a strange amount: enough to kill nearly any creature that will ever attack you, and far too much to spend on the small threats that fill out most aggressive curves. That gap is the whole design. The cost is two red mana, but the real price is opportunity: every point past what you actually needed is overkill you paid for. Red burn has always negotiated this tradeoff, from Char to Flame Slash to Roast, each finding a different line between damage output, mana efficiency, and whether it can also hit players. Scorching Shot lands on the extreme end: maximal single-target reach, sorcery timing, and no reach at the opponent's face at all. It answers the fatties that cheaper removal like Lightning Bolt or Abrade cannot touch, the resilient midrange threats and reanimation targets that shrug off three damage. What it gives up is flexibility on both ends, unable to trade down efficiently against a swarm and unable to close a game by pointing at a life total. The result is a specialist's card in a category that usually rewards generalists, built for the deck that expects to be staring across the table at something large enough to justify five.