Tragic Slip

A single mana for -1/-1 reads like the smallest possible removal spell, killing a token and not much else, and that modest face is exactly the disguise the design wants. The morbid clause turns the same card into something closer to unconditional removal: once any creature has died this turn, the modifier leaps from -1/-1 to a fixed -13/-13, enough to bury all but the most absurd toughness for a single black. The keyword is what keeps the rate honest. You are not paying premium price for premium removal; you are paying a setup cost, a death that has already happened this turn, which gates the spell behind a board where combat has resolved, a sacrifice outlet has fired, or one of your own creatures has traded away. The fixed -13/-13 is the elegant choice: it is not "destroy" and it is not scaling +X/-X, so it walks past indestructible and regeneration that ordinary destruction cannot answer, while still cleanly sizing down almost any threat. What it does not do is dodge death itself; reducing toughness to zero still sends the creature to the graveyard, so its controller's death triggers and any death-replacement effects fire normally. The cost is timing: with no creature in the yard this turn, you are holding a -1/-1 trick and waiting. It is removal that asks you to earn the discount, and the turns you have earned it are usually the turns you most needed the kill.