Blinding Beam

Entwine was an early experiment in paying for greed: a modal spell where, instead of committing to one mode, you can buy both for a surcharge, and few cards illustrate why the mechanic works as cleanly as this one. The two modes are deliberately mismatched in tempo. Tapping two creatures is a reactive trick, an answer to a swing or a way to clear blockers; the second mode is a delayed Falter that strips a player's whole board of its next untap. Apart, each is a modest piece of tempo. Together, for the entwine surcharge, they read as a one-sided fog that also opens the way for an alpha strike: tap down whatever was held back, then ensure their creatures stay tapped next turn. What keeps the design honest is not the cost (the surcharge is trivial, and entwining is the default line whenever the mana is there) but the timing. Each mode only matters in a narrow window: the tap mode answers a specific attack or unblocks a specific swing, and the lockdown mode wants the turn before your own offensive. Cast off-window, both halves are dead weight. The card sits at the seam between flexible interaction and a board-clearing tempo swing, and entwine is what lets a single instant cover both jobs without forcing the player to commit to one at deckbuilding.