by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 08, 2009

I remember being disappointed when they removed interrupt spells from the game of magic, for about five minutes until I realized that it would have very little effect on the actual game play but simply make things far easier. You could still have counter spells you just didn't need to give them their own special type. But that led to a small problem, if you want to bring the idea of interrupts back into the game for a set like time spiral block how do you do it?

Take possession is a rare enchantment aura from the future sight expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs two blue and five colorless to put into play and has the new version of interrupt, split second.

Split second is a far simpler mechanic than interrupt and a bit more frustrating. It simply reads "As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't cast spells or activate abilities that aren't mana abilities."

What this means in simple terms is you can't react to a split second spell. Once your opponent has cast it it will happen and you are simply going to have to deal with it.

But what blue ability would be worth seven converted mana? The card take possession can enchant any permanent and you control that permanent. This is a powerful ability though it is quite expensive.

The open endedness of this ability is its true strength. Creatures are the natural target of course. Gain control of a large creature your opponent has just played but it may or may not be the best choice.

Another less obvious choice is a planeswalker. The advantage of this is that you could easily get a planeswalker which has more counters on it than it would begin with putting you far closer to being able to use the biggest ability of that planeswalker.

In addition to gaining control taking things is also one of blues only real ways to deal with cards once they have hit the board. This allows you the one last chance to save yourself from something.

There will never be a time when you cast this that there is not something worth gaining control of. Even if all your opponent has is land you can deny him the use of that land while strengthening your own position but in general the seven casting cost is high and there will be many times you simply don't have enough mana to use this, especially in blue that needs to save its mana for counter spells.

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