Choking Restraints

Pacifism with a parachute. The aura half is the familiar deal: lock a creature out of combat for three mana and live with the fact that it still does everything else (taps for mana, blinks, sacrifices, chumps through abilities rather than blocks). What separates this from the plain version is the back end, an escape hatch baked into the same card. The sacrifice ability turns a soft answer into a hard one on demand: when the opponent suits up the restrained creature into a real threat, or when the aura is the only thing standing between you and a board you can't profitably let stick, you pay the premium and exile it outright. That two-stage structure is the design idea worth dwelling on. Most pacification effects ask you to choose at deckbuilding time between cheap-but-leaky and expensive-but-permanent; this one defers the choice to the table, charging the cheap rate up front and the heavy rate only when the situation demands it. The cost on the exile clause is deliberately steep, double-white plus three generic, so the upgrade reads as a late-game decision rather than a default line. It also blunts the usual aura blowout: bounce or blink the enchanted creature and the lock is gone, but the lingering threat of exile means a committed opponent can't simply leave a neutered attacker on the board and play around it indefinitely.