Failure // Comply

Two halves with almost nothing in common, stapled together by aftermath: cash the front for tempo now, dig the back out of the graveyard later. Failure is clean, unconditional bounce that targets any spell on the stack and returns it to its owner's hand, with no caveat about creature or noncreature. That makes it an instant-speed answer to anything someone tries to resolve, but bouncing a spell only sets the clock back; the same threat comes again next turn. Comply is the second beat, and it solves a different problem entirely: a sorcery-speed naming effect that locks your opponents out of casting any card with the chosen name until your next turn. The pairing rewards a specific sequence of reads. You spend Failure to delay a spell and learn its name, then later cast Comply from the graveyard to deny the recast, turning a one-shot tempo play into a two-stage denial. The exile clause on aftermath is what keeps the back half honest: it is a single naming lock, not a recurring one, so the card cannot grind out an opponent's whole hand. Most split cards of this generation cohere around a theme, a color pair's identity, or a single escalating effect. This one is deliberately the opposite: two distinct control tools that each do a fine job alone and a better one when you cast them in order.