Pattern Recognition #316 - Suspend
Features Opinion Pattern Recognition
berryjon
14 March 2024
160 views
14 March 2024
160 views
Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!
And welcome back! Today, I will be going back to my favorite block of all time, and discuss one of my favorite mechanics from that block. So, put on your hats, we're going back to the old days of TIME SPIRAL!
Suspend was the signature mechanic of the Time Spiral Block, appearing in all three sets on fifty-three cards across the block, with more cards interacting with it in some manner or another. As a mechanic, I found it simple, and yet, apparently it also caused too much confusion in players so it was relegated to not really ever returning to Standard ever again.
Suspend is a multi-part ability, which I suppose is part of the problem. First, it is an activated ability of a card in your hand. You don't cast a spell into a Suspended state, rather you pay the Suspend cost, and exile it from your hand as part of the ability. This means you can't counterspell, and the full rules - 702.62a - make it clear that this ability does not use the stack. Which confuses the heck out of me, as I read it as an activated ability. But no, the full text of Suspend's first ability reads:“Suspend N—[cost]” means “If you could begin to cast this card by putting it onto the stack from your hand, you may pay [cost] and exile it with N time counters on it. This action doesn’t use the stack,”. Huh, yeah, guess I was playing it wrong. Once the action resolves, it enters Exile straight from your hand with N Time counters on it, where N is listed on the ability, as per the above rule.
The second part of Suspend is a triggered ability where, during your upkeep, you remove a Time counter from it. This leads into the third ability - When you remove the last Time counter from a suspended card, you (may) cast that card. It gains Haste. That (may) was a recent change in the mechanical nature of the ability in Murders at Karlov Manor as a result of the forced cast causing play problems for some people. I don't know. But if you don't cast it when you do so, the card stays in Exile. But this is actually the time when the spell is cast. It goes onto the stack (as normal) from Exile (less normal) and from there can be interacted with like any other spell, including the choice of targets at that time. Yes, you are casting a spell in your upkeep, even if that would normally be illegal.
I've asked a question in a rules channel about what happens if you put more Time counters on a Suspended card that doesn't have any and is still in Exile, such as with Timecrafting or Timebender.
edit: Got an answer. Once the last Time counter is removed from a card with Suspend, then the card loses the quality of being Suspended, meaning the card just plain stays in Exile, and you can't 'restart the clock' on the card by adding more Time counters at a later date.
Anyway, once you've cast the spell, if its a creature, it permanently gains Haste. Not until the end of the turn. Permanently. I've had to remind people about this in the past. It's such a minor part of the ability, but it is your reward for sticking it out over the turns with the Suspended card.
OK, so maybe it was complicated. For some people. Not me!
Stylistically, Suspend was an outgrowth of the themes of Time Spiral, namely that time is a resource. In this case, well, let me try to break this down. Shade of Trokair has a casting cost of . It also has Suspend 3 - . In this example, as with many but not all, the difference between a card's casting cost and its suspend cost is converted into turns. With the Shade, you can pay the full casting cost and get it now, or you can save mana by waiting three turns instead.
Shivan Meteor (a favourite of mine) reduces the cost by if you're willing to wait 2 turns. Can you see how this relates, one to the other? Now, obviously, this isn't the case in all cases, but I can come back to that later.
But speaking of cards with Suspend, let's have a look at some of the more famous or infamous ones in Time Spiral. First is a cycle of Rare cards that don't have a casting cost, and therefore cannot be played from your hand normally. Instead, they only have a Suspend cost, meaning that you can only cast them through that ability. They are also references to very powerful cards form Magic's history, giving them a new tweak on their life. Ancestral Vision, Hypergenesis, Living End, Lotus Bloom, Restore Balance and Wheel of Fate.
These cards in particular can be quite infamous - Hypergenesis and a later card - because of their lack of a casting cost. In trying to enforce the necessity of casting a card via the alternate cost, things that checked for the mana value of a card would only see a zero. Which means that Cascade (and Discover) can see a spell that is cast for far less than it should be.
Hypergenesis and Crashing Footfalls have been constant thorns in the side of the Modern format with three-cost Cascade cards enabling them far too well. In fact, earlier this week (at the time of this printing), Violent Outburst took a ban in Modern because of how it all interacts.
Of course, this wasn't the end of Suspend. People liked it, but not in great quantities. Several cards were reprinted in Double Masters 2, as well as various supplemental sets. Modern Horizons 1 gave us a couple cards to test the waters - Knight of Old Benalia, Crashing Footfalls and Mox Tantalite. We also got new cards in Modern Horizons Mwo. Here, we gained a rare cycle that mimicked the rare cycle from Time Spiral - variations on old and new cards that would be Suspended, rather than cast. Sol Talisman was a Sol Ring for example. Bribery became Inevitable Betrayal. There were a couple non-rares, but they're references to Time Spiral itself.
But Suspend as a mechanic moved out of Modern as a source of new card, and has instead moved into Commander. Commander 2021 - Strixhaven - brought out a cycle of Suspend cards that when they are cast, they automatically re-suspend themselves. Rousing Refrain for example. New Capenna has Sinister Concierge, while Murders brings a couple cards like Watcher of Hours.
And then, Doctor Who. Faced by The Tenth Doctor and Rose Taylor, one of the Preconstructed decks was built around the Suspend mechanic, and to help make it more interesting, the Time Travel activated ability. This ability, when it resolves, allows you to (as a may) add or remove a Time Counter from any Suspended or Permanent card that already has one. Talking about that deck in detail would be its own thing, so I'll have to shelve that for later.
What this tells me is that Suspend is a mechanic that Wizards is comfortable is putting out into larger, more time intensive formats. Usually.
You see, the tradeoff with Suspend is in the time it takes for cards to finally be case, and as formats get faster and faster, the odds of a Suspend card actually resolving go down and down. Commander and Draft/Sealed are probably the only two formats where any Suspend number larger than three has a chance to do its thing. Standard? It's iffy with things like Red Deck Wins or various flavors of Black and Friends Control out there. Modern? 4 turns or bust. Legacy? Two turns! But those two formats? They are slow enough that you can afford to play a suspend card and let it come at its own pace. Which is why we're still seeing them in Commander Products. Sure, Modern Horizons gives them, but they're not centerpieces to the set, they're there for us Old Fogey's.
Curiously though, there are a couple cards that interacted with Suspend in a way that was intended, but never spelled out. Well, Venser's Diffusion did spell it out, bouncing a Suspended card back to hand.
This little Uncommon should cause you all to look at it again and read it. When it was printed, it was intended a a way to take out a Supsended card, but as the game has expanded, so too has the usefulness of Exile as a place to store cards when not in use, or awaiting use. This little guy just reaches into a zone that you normally can't interact with, and tosses something into the Graveyard. A lot better in 60 card constructed, or 40 card limited, but in formats were Suspend cards are still seen - or just in general thanks to Exile, this card still preys on them.
Interesting, there are some Suspend cards that do things when they are Suspended, a case of a card in Exile having an affect outside of Exile. Aeon Chronicler draws you cards while Suspended, and then has power and toughness equal to the number of cards in your hand. It fills you up while you wait for it to come down. Benalish Commander give you a board state of Soldier Tokens, and Detritivore is my personal favorite - destroying non-basic lands each turn while Suspended (or when counters are removed, such as with Fury Charm) then scaling its power and toughness to the number of lands in the Graveyard.
Suspend as a mechanic has its uses. It allows you to set up future actions and turns for far cheaper than trying to do everything on the same turn, but at the same time, gives your opponents plenty of warning and prep time to deal with it. I've mentioned how I've used Disenchant on a Lotus Bloom before? Well, that's certainly a tale.
With this, you can set up a massive Storm turn, hold up counter-plays, or take advantage of what you've done. Suspend rewards forethought, planning and sheer gumption in announcing to your opponent(s) what you're going to be doing it and when - and then daring them to do something about it.
I like it, and I know we'll see some more in the future. Not many, certainly not as a major aspect to a set, Doctor Who not withstanding. It's a thinking mechanic, which appeals to me.
Thanks for reading! Join me next week when I finish off my Slow Grow tournament review! It'll be a thing.
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