Grotesque Demise

Exile is the premium; the power restriction is the tax. Black's removal traditionally kills, which leaves graveyard recursion, indestructibility, and death triggers as the counterplay a savvy opponent leans on, so an instant-speed exile clause in the color matters more than the mana suggests: it answers the recurring threats, the token that leaves a trigger behind, the creature you would rather see gone for good than sent to a graveyard it can crawl back out of. The catch is the ceiling. Capping targets at power 3 or less means this cleanly handles utility creatures, mana dorks, aggressive one- and two-drops, and the small-bodied value engines, but it does nothing to the fatties that black's kill spells usually exist to answer. The design runs against the grain of the color: most black removal scales up and stumbles on the disposable early threats, while this covers the bottom of the curve with the exile black normally has to overpay for, and simply declines to look at anything bigger. It reads as a specialist rather than a catch-all, and that narrowness is what buys down the rate: an unconditional instant-speed exile spell in black would cost more or come stapled to harsher strings, and here the power cap earns the clause doing the heavy lifting.