Expel the Unworthy

Unconditional exile has always paid a color-and-mana premium in white, so the trick here is charging that premium as a ceiling rather than a floor. Two mana buys clean, permanent removal of anything with mana value 3 or less: no death trigger, no graveyard return, no recursion window to exploit. Pay the kicker and the size wall vanishes entirely, letting the same spell answer a titan or a resolved bomb wearing a big body, at a total of five mana. The lifegain is not a bonus so much as a governor. Handing the opponent life equal to the exiled creature's mana value means the uncapped mode refunds real tempo to the other side, and it refunds the most against exactly the fat threats you are most desperate to erase. That kickback is what keeps the flexible top end honest: you never exile a six-drop for free. This is the classic scaling-answer template (a cheap floor for the common case, an expensive uncapped mode for the emergency) folded into one card, so you never draw the wrong half. What makes the design worth studying is how conservatively the payoff is priced. Exile is the strongest verb white has against creatures, and this gates it twice: behind a mana-value wall you can only break by spending, and behind a life refund that scales with the very threat you want gone. The sorcery speed is the quiet third tax, keeping the answer off the opponent's turn where reactive white removal has always been most dangerous.