Double-faced cards are a staple of Magic's Innistrad sets, and each new Innistrad block brings with it a new mechanic that takes advantage of the extra space for text. In Midnight Hunt, Wizards gave us two such mechanics: Daybound/Nightbound and Disturb. While Daybound/Nightbound has not been remembered fondly, Disturb came and went with little fanfare or lasting impact, a shame considering how interesting and flavorful the mechanic can be.

As mentioned before, Disturb works like Flashback, but for creatures instead of instants and sorceries. If a card with Disturb is in your graveyard, you can pay its Disturb cost at sorcery speed to return it to the battlefield transformed under your control. While exiling the Disturbed half if it would be put into the graveyard isn't written into the mechanic like it is with Flashback, every card with Disturb has a line of text on the disturbed half that does this to balance out the mechanic.

There are two types of Disturb cards, each unique to one of the sets in the latest Innistrad block. In Midnight Hunt, these cards were creatures on the front and were brought back also as creatures, with the text on the two sides of the card usually mirroring each other. For example, Lunarch Veteran is a 1/1 human for one White mana that gains you one life whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, and its Disturb side is a 1/1 spirit that gains you one life whenever a creature you control leaves the battlefield. Flavorfully, the way Disturb is used here is perfect for a plane like Innistrad where death isn't the end, and the spirits of living creatures tend to linger long after they've died.

In Crimson Vow, the Disturb cards looked a little different. While the mechanic itself stayed the same, the creatures on the front were now spirits that came back as auras that give your other creatures the same abilities the front side had. For example, Lantern Bearer is a 1/1 spirit with flying for one Blue mana, but if you Disturb it for two generic and a Blue mana, it becomes an aura that gives the enchanted creature +1/+1 and flying. This slight change completely changes the flavor of the mechanic, showing how even after death, the spirits of the plane linger, blessing their former friends and haunting their former enemies.

Although there are only 25 cards in Magic that use the mechanic, there are a few cards with Disturb that found their way into competitive constructed decks. Lunarch Veteran saw some Standard play in lifegain decks for its soul sister effect and Chaplain of Alms saw fringe play early on in its lifetime as a part of White weenie and aggro decks. Malevolent Hermit saw quite a bit of play throughout its three years in Standard as a way for tempo and midrange decks to fight against control, with its front half sacrificing itself to counter non-creature spells and its back half making your non-creature spells uncounterable. Dennick, Pious Apprentice was perhaps the most played Disturb card in Standard, showing up in midrange decks like Esper Raffine for its cheap mana cost, solid abilities, and its potential to come back as a flying threat later in the game. As for Commander and other eternal formats, there hasn't been a breakout star with Disturb. Lunarch Veteran saw a little bit of play in Amalia combo decks in Pioneer, but the deck hasn't been a thing since the key combo card, Amalia, got banned last year. In Commander, Mirrorhall Mimic sees play as an efficient clone that can repeatedly make copies of creatures with the disturbed side and Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr is a popular finisher for enchantress decks as an alternative to Ethereal Armor with flying and lifelink included.

While there were a few Disturb cards that saw competitive Standard play and the mechanic was generally considered a good addition to draft formats, that is where the legacy of Disturb ends. As of today, three and a half years after the mechanic's introduction, there have been no new Disturb cards, and of the 25 original Disturb cards only four saw reprints in Innistrad Remastered. As the mechanic is tied inextricably from double-faced cards, it is hard to print new Disturb cards as one-off references in sets, especially in Commander precons where double-sided cards aren't printed at all. Luckily, the mechanic is not tied to the plane of Innistrad, so any plane with spirits could use the mechanic again. However, as far as I can tell, Mark Rosewater has never commented about Disturb's rating on his Storm Scale, so there's no way to know for sure how likely it is to return. We'll just have to wait and see...