In UFO, we were introduced to a number of powerful neutral aura type pages with the most notable being the Neutrality Totality special aura page. Aside from being a stunning page, as it’s only available in holographic at this time, what’s especially notable is the fact that it is the first aura page to fatigue for two aura instead of the usual one.
Even though that two aura may seem tempting, it currently still falls into second place in the special aura category behind Prism Aura when it comes to strength comparison. This is because it can only fatigue for neutral aura whereas Prism Aura can fatigue for any aura type. And unfortunately even though we do have quite a few popular neutral pages in the player base, most are below two aura and therefore don’t particularly need this page to function. On the other hand, Prism Aura can slot into basically any deck playing multiple types no matter what their aura cost is. However it may be only a matter of time before some of the pricier neutral type pages start to pop up somewhat regularly, especially the page we will be highlighting today: Mysterious Disappearance.
Ironic given its name, this is one of the neutral pages I would not be surprised to see making a more regular appearance in players’ decks because of the sheer versatility this page offers – and not just because it can be contracted with any aura type. For starters, it’s a spell page that can be contracted at any time without requiring any prior conditions. Even though we’re starting to have a solid number of powerful “any time” spells in MetaZoo, a good portion of them still require an action to take place beforehand such as Dampen requiring a spell being contracted or Smokey Spirits requiring your opponent to declare an attack. This page doesn’t ask for any of that which makes the meat of the spell especially tender compared to the aforementioned pages.
The next portion of the spell says that the targeted beastie is placed into its owners chapter and until the end of the next turn, the caster who owned that beastie may then place a beastie with the same name, aura cost and traits from their chapter into the arena fatigued for free. Now on the surface, obviously what’s great about this page is that it doesn’t limit you to targeting only your beasties or only your opponents. You can use it to send one of your opponents beasties packing if it’s something you’re not able to handle or you can use it to bounce one of your own which offers a number of potential use cases.
If you have a beastie with a powerful contract effect, you can use Mysterious Disappearance to return it to your chapter and then reactivate the effect all over again. If you have a beastie that’s suffering from a status effect indicator like poison or sleep, you can bounce it to your hand which will allow you to replay it again for free completely healed. The exact same thing can be said for any beasties you have that may be close to their last few life points, just bounce it to your hand and return it to the battlefield at full health. Mysterious Disappearance is almost like a full heal potion from Pokémon that takes care of anything that might be ailing your beastie. Aside from everything I just mentioned, you can also use this page to save a beastie in battle that has been targeted with an attack or spell that would destroy it. All you have to do is hit it with Mysterious Disappearance, which will cause the targeted attack or spell to fizzle out, and therefore save your beastie.
One last final note I want to reiterate from this page is that if used on your own beastie, it also allows you to re-contract the beastie you returned to your hand until the end of the next turn. This is important as if you time this correctly, you can somewhat get around the line saying that your beastie enters the arena fatigued. The idea is to wait until your opponent has finished attacking or exhausted all of their aura at the end of their turn, and then safely re-summon your beastie to the field right before your turn starts. This is so that once your turn begins, your beastie will be awake and ready to be able to attack or use its power. It’s a shame you can only have one of these pages in your spell book and that you can only target one beastie, but I guess they had to control the strength level of this potential game changer somehow!
