Tithing Blade // Consuming Sepulcher

Two mana of colorless edict is already a fair rate: it slots into any deck, and forcing a sacrifice on entry sidesteps the hexproof-and-indestructible problem that dogs targeted removal. What earns study is what the artifact does instead of dying. Rather than heading to the graveyard as a spent removal spell, it lingers on the battlefield as a craft target, and the activation eats a creature (either one you control or a creature card sitting in your yard) to flip the card into a permanent life-drain engine. The flexibility of that fuel is the smart part: a deck already stocking its graveyard can feed the transformation without ever surrendering a body on board, so the "upgrade" costs no tempo beyond the mana and the sorcery-speed window. The result is a piece of removal that is not really removal at all: it is the opening move of a slow craft-driven conversion, where the cheap side buys immediate value and the finished side buys inevitability. Most double-faced artifacts front-load their payoff and ask you to sit on the card until conditions align; this one lets the two-mana half do honest work the turn it lands, then pays off the deck willing to fuel the craft later. The completed sepulcher wins nothing quickly, but it does not have to: one life lost by each opponent and a single life returned to you each of your upkeeps is the sort of engine that only needs to survive to matter.