Steal Strength

The dual-target structure is the design's whole point: it does not simply weaken a blocker or finish a creature, it moves stat from one body to another, opening a two-point power swing between your attacker and their would-be trade. A flat pump pushes in one direction; a flat shrink pulls in the other. This does both at once, and the redistribution is what gives it teeth in a board stall where neither half alone would matter. As an instant, it lives in the combat math: cast after blocks are declared, it can turn a clean trade into a dead blocker plus a surviving attacker, or save a creature mid-combat while dropping an enemy into lethal range of someone else's reach. The cost of that flexibility is the requirement for two separate legal targets, both pointing the right way at the right moment; against a board with one creature on each side it does honest work, but it asks for a developed enough battlefield to land both halves where they matter. The grow-one, shrink-another effect is a recurring idea in black's vocabulary, but most of its relatives are repeatable engines that grind out the exchange over turns. This version compresses the whole transaction onto a single instant, trading durability for timing: no recurring value, but the freedom to wait until the precise combat step where two points of stat decide who lives and who dies.