Stonesplitter Bolt

The X-spell has always been priced against its own scalability: at X plus one red, every additional point of damage costs another point of mana, a linear rate that keeps variable burn from ever being cheap enough to outrace the game's clock. Bargain rewrites that math for a specific board state. Sacrifice a token you weren't using, a spent Treasure, an aura that has done its work, and every point of X you paid for now lands twice. The trick is that the doubling is on the damage, not the mana, so the permanent you throw away is effectively a discount that compounds with your investment: a large bargained X pays for removal that would otherwise sit far outside red's normal killing range. That structure suits decks already spitting out disposable permanents, where the sacrifice is close to free and the ceiling climbs with every land you can leave open. Deprive it of anything to feed the bargain and the spell reverts to honest, overcosted X-burn, which is the balancing line: the ceiling is enormous, but only for a deck built to keep spare permanents on hand. Note the target restriction that shapes its whole role: creatures and planeswalkers only, never faces, so it is a doubling answer to a threat rather than a finisher aimed at a life total. That tension between flexibility and commitment is the design's core, pointing doubled damage at whichever permanent matters, at instant speed, on the turn it counts.