Hellshriek

[ghostchild]

Hellshriek
1RB
Instant
As long as Hellshriek is on the stack, spells and abilities that target it cost an additional "Pay 2 life" to play.
Remove target nonland permanent from the game. If you remove an enchantment this way, you lose 8 life. Otherwise, you lose 4 life.

This card is basically intended to allow black/red to have flexible removal that can also get rid of enchantments, albeit at an extremely high cost. Basically I think neither mono-black nor mono-red could have this ability, but when they come together, they can shore up their common weakness, with their typically suicidal ways. The "Kaervek's Torch" stack ability is there since flavorwise something as vile as a Hellshriek should cause you some pain to stop from occurring.

[Matt]

allow black/red to ... get rid of enchantments

That is where I stopped reading. These colors simply do not get enchantment removal, the same way blue does not get creature removal at any price. They can make you really not want to play with enchantments (Aura Barbs), but actually removing them is beyond their slice of the color pie.

[dandan]

Hellshriek
1RB
Instant
As long as Hellshriek is on the stack, spells and abilities that target it cost an additional "Pay 2 life" to play.
Target player chooses target permanent he/she controls. You may pay 2 life to have that opponent choose a new target that he or she has not already chosen. Remove the last target permanent and pay life equal to its CMC.
Everything has a price. Everything.
That is more Red/Black. Often it is just a simple LD spell, fine foe 3 mana and as it is Gold it is OK to be Instant. However it can be Enchantment removal (good against Land Tax I guess). Good luck getting rid of Yawg. Bargain this way!!!

[Anusien]

Dandan I really really like that version.  Semi-targeted Crack the Earth.  I don't know if you need the second life payment, since they're going to protect their high-costing stuff anyway.

[Matt]

I don't think it needs the Kaervek's Torch ability, which should be used only on cards that are too boring without it (such as, well, Kaervek's Torch), but yes I like that version a lot.

[dandan]

I'm not that attached to the Kaervek's Torch ability anyway. Somehow it is more Black if only the caster pays life.

Anusien - I think it is necessary to keep both the choice payment and the RFG payment. Land will often be chosen and that has CMC of 0 (usually). Taking Land Tax and COP Red as our examples we get life payment of 2+2+1 and 2+2+2 (assuming 2 land and no other permanents). That is steep but any possible RB spell that can take out Enchantments MUST have a steep cost. I did initially imagine a cost of 1 life to change the target but it seemed cheap. I guess it could be 1+ R/B instead of 2 life. Indeed I guess the cost can be as is with payment in life or mana. That is a huge amount of mana (as later in the game when you have mana, the opponent will almost certainly have lots of possible targets. In practice it would merely allow you to pay a bit less life by paying more mana. Another alternative is to make it 2 life per target (so it is more expensive unless you hit something with a high CMC), again 1 life looks too cheap to me.