Eviscerate

No color clause, no nonblack exemption, no life payment, no exile, no downside rider of any kind: this is black's destroy spell with every string cut, and the price of that purity is paid entirely in mana. The lineage runs through Murder, Doom Blade, and a long line of "destroy target creature" cards priced anywhere from two to five depending on the conditions attached. Strip out every condition and you land here, two full mana above the format's tightest spot-removal, at sorcery speed that keeps it off the stack during combat or in response to an attack. That tradeoff defines the card's job. It is not the answer you want against a tempo deck racing your life total; it is the answer you want when the threat could be anything and you need certainty that the spell resolves into a clean kill. The fixed-rate, no-strings destroy spell at common rarity is the connective tissue of black's removal suite, the card that exists so the color always has access to interaction even when the cheaper, more conditional options are absent. It teaches the same lesson every era of black removal teaches: you pay for certainty in mana, you pay for speed in conditions, and a card that refuses to charge you in conditions charges you in mana instead.