Pointed Discussion

I love how wordy this is in the original print.

Love the "until enchantment is discarded or game ends." Apparently they were afraid if the game ended with this in play, you would simply steal your opponent's creature forever.

"Love the "until enchantment is discarded or game ends." Apparently they were afraid if the game ended with this in play, you would simply steal your opponent's creature forever."

With ante cards, it's not far-fetched that someone would make this mistake (or worse, knowingly rip naive kids off).

@AvatarOfHOE:
"The best removal spell in the game."

No. Not by a long shot. Swords to Plowshares costs a quarter the mana and isn't countered by Unsummon. That is one example. There are many others.

While I agree that StP is better "removal", swords to plowshares IS countered by unsummon.
Calling this removal is a joke. A card that has an undesirable static effect on all players, marble titan for instance, won't stop doing his thing just because he switches sides. Stealing a squallmonger won't save your fliers either.

The best removal spell in the game.

Edit: Thanks, kiseki, for both pointing out that certain static effects of creatures will still be around and for disproving Lyconet's idiotic assessment.

I still think you could classify this card as removal (though not strictly speaking, of course). Think about it: you're staring down the barrel of a blightsteel colossus and you're playing blue. Aside from bouncing the big creature, what can you do? This is one of the few ways you can insure that it won't hurt you right away.

Gotta love Oracle text simplification.

I have a question: The card text says "You control target creature until enchantment is discarded or game ends." All well and dandy, but going by that text, Aura Finesse can move it to another creature, and then you'd have control of both. The enchantment wasn't discarded- nothing in the text implies you lose control of the original creature. Oracle says otherwise, but Oracle isn't always right. Anyone know the proper ruling on that?

"If destroyed, target creature is put in its owner's graveyard."

I'm playing dumb here but am I to understand that if Control Magic is destroyed then the creature it was enchanting goes into its owner's graveyard and NOT back into play under its owner's control, right?

@Kipsar - The "if destroyed" thing relates to the creature, not to Control Magic. The text is there to avoid the scenario where you steal your opponent's creature, he kills it, and you stick it in your graveyard, thereby keeping it after it's no longer enchanted by Control Magic. If the enchanted creature gets killed, it goes in it's owner's graveyard.

@Doaj - You control the ENCHANTED creature. "Enchant Creature" Aura spells do target a creature when they come into play, but Aura permanents "enchant" rather than "target" (rule 702.5a &rule 303.4a-h). Specifically (303.4b), the ENCHANTED creature is the one to which the Aura is attached at the time. If the Aura moves from one creature to another, it stops enchanting the first creature and starts enchanting the second, assuming both are legal - for example, a Crown of Thorns can't be moved onto a Carrion Feeder, because Carrion Feeder is black.

Listen, listen, everyone arguing. I don't mean to take sides here. I don't think Control is Removal. However, I think that what Lyoncet was trying to say was that Unsummon counters this card even when one doesn't have it in their hand immediately when this card is first played. If one draws Unsummon at any time after this card is played, they can remove it. If one doesn't have Unsummon in their hand when Swords to Plowshares is played, they are SOL. But hey, at least they get some life, right? Hahaha...WRONG.

But aside, this is an excellent card. Quintessential Blue, well balanced, and very good. Green better have a Naturalize or a Beast Within if this is played against him.
4.5/5

Cheaper than Mind Control. I'd say that's a win, right?
I mean, it's the same thing. Like, exactly. Reverse power creep?

@atemu1234

Yeah, to conform to internet lingo, this is strictly better than Mind Control.

But in essence, it's not exactly reverse power creep in that power creep resulted in MUCH stronger and more efficient creatures so stealing one in the environment now is thought to be worth 3UU. Technically you could say that Mind Control's CMC is higher as a result of power creep, just not the strength of the actual card itself.

At least, that's my reasoning with it.

i have this and i stole my sisters card and it let me take another creater DUBBLE BOGGE !!!!!!!!!

Whenever I see an old card with lots of rules text, I immediately see if the Oracle Text is shorter. If it isn't, I spend the next 10 minutes figuring out what the card actually does. See Necromancy and Animate Dead which to my understanding, do practically the same thing but with Animate Dead, the creature gets -1/0.

Even if you count this as "removal", wouldn't Treachery or even Gilded Drake be better most of the time?

So cheap. (Mana cost, not secondary market.)

@cheopsrule Control Magic works on creatures in play, while Necromancy and Animate Dead work on creatures in the graveyard.

I can tell by some of these comments that there are some players here not too familiar with the history of magic. Regarding clarification about the creature going to its owner's graveyard instead of to the graveyard of the guy that took control of it, you have to remember that when Magic began it was often played for ante, and there were cards that would allow you to exchange ownership with one of your opponent's cards - so unlike the way the game is played today, the cards you owned when you started the game were not necessarily what you owned when the game ended.

As for it costing less than Mind Control, that seems to happen a lot, but Control Magic isn't undercutting Mind Control (it came first) - you see the same sort of thing happen with Time Walk and Time Warp, or Black Lotus versus Lotus Petal - reprinting the same general mechanic, but slightly dumbed down, possibly because the original was too overpowered to reprint (and no, I don't think Control Magic is overpowered).

Getting a modern-frame reprint (!) in Commander 2013.