Persuasion
Mind control with no maintenance: no upkeep payment, no end-step return, no condition that hands the creature back. That permanence is what the price buys. The reference point is Control Magic, the version that does the same unconditional theft for a mana less; this is the deliberately costlier sibling, the rate the designers settled on when they decided a clean, maintenance-free steal should cost one extra generic mana. Other theft of the era hedged the swing instead of paying for it outright: Threaten and its kin rent the creature until cleanup, and older templates leaned on "pay an upkeep or lose it" maintenance to keep the loan fair. This one settles up front and asks nothing afterward. The catch lives in the Aura type itself. Because the creature you stole now carries your enchantment, any removal the opponent points at it answers yours in a single motion, and bounce or blink on the body strands the Aura with no creature to hold. That fragility is the structural tax any Aura-based mind-control shares. The design sits at the conservative end of blue theft: maximum permanence on the steal, maximum vulnerability on the wrapper that delivers it.


