Lost Hours

The trick that makes this work is the arithmetic of the third slot: the chosen card does not vanish, it gets buried just deep enough that the opponent burns two full draw steps reaching it again, and in those two turns whatever they were holding for is simply not available. The Duress and Thoughtseize school strips a card outright, trading yours for theirs one-for-one; this instead converts a card into tempo, delaying the threat rather than answering it. What undercuts the effect is that the delay is finite and known. The opponent sees exactly what is coming and exactly when, so against a long game it erodes into a Scry that helped the wrong player, and against a flooded board it does nothing about what is already down. Where it bites is the narrow window where one specific nonland card on this turn or next would swing the game: a combo piece, the removal spell for your attacker, the sweeper that resets your board. Buy two turns there and the math changes. It is a sorcery, so the burial happens on your clock and not in response to a draw, which means the targeting is a guess about the next two cards as much as it is a read on the hand: you are choosing what to bury without knowing what sits above it. That guesswork is what separates this from the discard spells priced alongside it, which spend their mana on permanent, unconditional removal from the game (Distress, Agonizing Remorse) rather than a delay the opponent can wait out.