Sheer Drop

The tapped-creature clause is the whole balancing act here: conditional removal that only fires against a target that is already tapped, whether from attacking on a prior turn or paying into an activated ability. That restriction is old white-removal language, the same conditional that let cards like Pacifism-era answers stay honest by asking you to catch a creature with its guard down rather than kill it on sight. What Awaken adds is a spend-your-late-game valve on top of that: pay the higher cost and the removal comes stapled to a hasty 3/3 land that keeps its mana ability, so when you do have a tapped creature to answer, the same card also leaves behind a threat. That is the tension the mechanic was built to resolve. Cheap reactive spells go stale in the late game when the board is stalled and the opponent stops leaving creatures tapped for you to answer; Awaken hands those spells a second mode so that when they do connect, they leave more behind. Sheer Drop is a clean, unflashy execution of that idea: a modest early answer that scales into a body without needing a second card. The awakened land carries the usual risk of any manland (a board wipe now takes a land with it), but it also means the removal half never becomes a topdeck you resent drawing on turn twelve.