Trial of Agony

You point at two creatures a single opponent controls, and then you step back and let them make the choice that hurts them least. It is a punisher effect built as a compressed prisoner's dilemma: whichever creature they feed to the five damage, the other is barred from blocking this turn. The damage may not always finish the job, but it forces a decision. Save the bigger threat by taking the hit on the smaller one, and you still wave your attack past the survivor that can't block. Let the burn strike the larger creature, and you hit the more valuable target while the leftover still can't stand in your way. Both outcomes bend the combat math for one red mana, one damaged and one neutralized, which is the rate a punisher earns by handing the decision to the opponent. The catch is the targeting: you need two legal targets under one player's control, so a lone creature makes the spell inert. That requirement, not the mana, is the real cost, and it dictates when the card is at its sharpest. Aim it at a board someone has overcommitted to, two genuine threats or a threat and the blocker between you and lethal, and every choice they make costs them something you wanted. It reads like removal and prices like removal, but it behaves like an evasion enabler and a burn spell wearing the same coat.