Terminate

Two mana, two colors, and no conditions worth speaking of: this is the rate against which every premium creature-kill spell in two colors gets measured. Where mono-color removal pays a tax for unconditionality (Doom Blade dodging black, Murder asking for three mana, white's exile clauses tucked behind sorcery speed), Rakdos buys the whole package at the lowest possible cost. Destroy anything, no toughness ceiling, no creature-type restriction, no "nonblack" carve-out, and the regeneration shield stripped off so the old tricks don't save the target. The price is the color pair itself: you have to be playing both black and red, and the spell does nothing to a planeswalker, a permanent that isn't a creature, or a player's life total. That narrowness is exactly what keeps it honest. It is purely a creature answer, and it answers them all equally, which has made it the clean, mana-efficient pivot between trading and removing that anchored Rakdos and Jund midrange for two decades. Lightning Bolt kills faster and reaches the dome; Doom Blade is a single pip cheaper to splash. Neither does the one thing this spell does, which is destroy almost any creature you can target, regeneration and all, the turn it matters, for two.