Serpentine Spike

Seven mana for split damage across three creatures reads as a control finisher against go-wide until you reach the rider, and it is the rider that justifies the price: any creature this damages that would die this turn gets exiled instead of hitting the graveyard. That clause is the whole reason the card is built this way. Ordinary board-clearers that deal damage hand recursion decks their yard back; this one denies the death event entirely, so anything it finishes off is gone whether it dies to the damage itself or is sacrificed later that same turn. Nothing hit by the Spike can trigger a "dies" payoff, feed a reanimation loop, or come back through a value engine, because it never lands in the yard to be recurred. The 2-3-4 split is more deliberate than a flat number would be: it answers a precise board (a two-toughness token, a midsize body, a four-toughness anchor) in a single sorcery rather than overkilling the small threat and bouncing off the large one. The devoid framing is purely a typing decision: the card has no color, yet the cost still demands two red mana on top of five generic, so it is red removal that happens not to be a red card, a distinction that matters to colorless-matters payoffs more than to casting it. It will always sit at the high end for what it does, but against a deck built on recurring its dead, removal that merely trades damage for life is not the same card.