Summon: Anima
Wrapping the Saga chapter clock around a 4/4 body is the whole trick here, but not because the creature sticks around: the card is the Saga, so when chapter IV resolves and the sacrifice clause fires, the menace-carrying body goes with it. What you are buying for six mana is a four-turn subscription with a scheduled cancellation. Three chapters of Pain each draw a card for a life, turning the lore-counter cadence into a slow, self-limiting card engine, and the body attacks in the meantime as a hard-to-block 4/4. Then Oblivion arrives as the closer: each opponent sacrifices a creature of their choice and loses 3 life. That "of their choice" is the design lever worth watching. It is not spot removal but a guaranteed edict, most punishing precisely when the opponent has committed to a single threat, and it comes stapled to three points of reach. The lore-counter cadence is what keeps it fair. The chapters do not accelerate, the payoff is fixed rather than escalating, and the sacrifice-after-IV clause means the whole package expires on its own timer, engine and beater alike. It reads as a value machine dressed as a finisher, drawing three and swinging while the clock runs, then cashing everything out in a single edict-and-drain before removing itself from the board.

