Consuming Sinkhole

The first mode is the tell about when this was built: an instant that exiles a land creature is a clean answer to manlands, the threats red has always struggled to remove because they sidestep sorcery-speed burn the moment they go inert. Exile rather than destroy is the point of that mode, voiding regeneration and recursion and putting the creature-land away permanently rather than just resetting it to a land. The second mode is the safety valve when no such target exists: four damage straight to a player or planeswalker, a reach line that closes a game without touching the board. The colorless frame from devoid is a real wrinkle, but a narrow one. The card is colorless, so it slips past protection-from-red and effects that count colored spells; its color identity stays Red on account of the in its cost, which is what governs deckbuilding legality rather than what governs combat protection. The price is where the design earns its restraint. Four mana for an instant whose first mode is conditional and whose second is a flat burn payment is a steep rate by red's standards, and that steepness is the leash: you buy the flexibility of two modes, but you pay full freight whether the game asks for the niche exile or the generic burn. A cheaper version of either half would have been a staple; this one asks you to want both possibilities badly enough to overpay for the option.