Word of Seizing

Threaten gave red a temporary steal at sorcery speed, restricted to creatures and answerable at every turn; this version pays the extra mana and the extra red pip for three upgrades that earlier design could never offer: instant speed, any permanent as a target, and the one word that makes it unanswerable. Split second is the load-bearing mechanic, and it inverts the usual counterplay against a steal effect. Normally your opponent responds: they sacrifice the creature in reply, they bounce it, they flash in a fog, they crack a fetch to find an answer. With split second on the stack, none of that exists. Mana abilities aside, the table is frozen the instant you announce it, so the permanent comes over with no chance to deny you its body, its abilities, or the sacrifice value you intend to wring out of it before end of turn. That uninterruptibility reframes the card from tempo trick to combo enabler: it reliably grabs the linchpin of an opposing engine, an artifact, a planeswalker, a land you want to crack for value, not just a creature, and the opponent watches it happen. The catch is that the rental expires at end of turn and never recurs; five mana at instant speed buys a single turn of access. What you are paying for is certainty, not value: a steal that resolves regardless of what the opponent is holding.