Pointed Discussion

Ah those were the days!

Really good card, very flavourful.

Dirty deeds, done dirt cheap.

Ritual of the Machine + Grave Pact = psychological trauma and profound demoralisation of your opponent!

Although it may initially seem less appealing than cards with a similar function, such as Enslave or Treacherous Urge due to its drawback, this card actually works amazingly well in a sacrifice deck. Run it with Grave Pact and sacrifice an Ichorid or Bloodghast and suddenly its drawback becomes another strength.

It can be a decisive endgame play, great for breaking down defences if you are trying to land a blow to use Hatred of Howl from Beyond to finish off your opponent.

Great flavour card too!

@Tenacious_Trickster : Not sure about Grave Pact and this. Since you sacrifice the creature as part of the cost, and after you target the creature you want, your opponent will just sacrifice the targetted creature and the spell will be countered, no ?

Highly underrated. In a dedicated sacrifice deck this is better than standard removal. If you put it in the right deck, it's almost as good as Treachery. As it stands I just consider it to be a better version of Control Magic, because there's no mucking about with auras.

Yeah, Grave Pact would work with this, because sacing a creature is an additional cost, he would sac a creature, because of Grave Pact before it resolves, and then you target whatever you were after.

Hooray, updated oracle text?

@Squirepath
You target on cast, not resolution. You also sac on cast, so you gain control of the creature after grave pact's trigger resolves.

Great stuff. Black doesn't have a whole lot of ways to hijack creatures on the board outright, like blue would.

Weird card, but I think sacrificing my black cat to get control of your strongest creature is a good play.