Torch the Tower

Cheap red removal has always been priced against Lightning Bolt's flat three damage, and this design does something different: it starts underneath that rate and lets you pay up to it with resources you were already generating. The two-damage floor is deliberately modest, the kind of number that trades with the small creatures red decks can already burn down for free. But Bargain turns the spell into a sink for the detritus of a wide board: a spare Food, a played-out token, an enchantment that has finished its job becomes the third point of damage and a scry to smooth the next draw. The reward is calibrated so that decks generating disposable permanents get the upgrade for close to nothing, while decks that aren't get an honest one-mana two-damage instant. The clause that gives the card teeth beyond its damage is the exile rider: anything this kills is gone rather than dying, which quietly answers the recursion, undying, and death-trigger permanents that a two-damage spell would otherwise struggle to permanently remove. That last line does the work of a much more expensive answer while asking nothing extra of the caster. It is a modular removal spell that scales with the board state around it, generous when your deck is built to feed it and unembarrassing when it isn't.