Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to a special, one shot article by your’s truly. As the title suggests, my name is Luthervamplord; you may know me from my article thread ‘If I Worked at R&D…’ or “Vanguard: Across The Formats”. But enough about me; lets get back to the matter at hand!

Two very potent tools in Magic: The Gathering are popularly referred to as ‘Blink’ and ‘Bounce’; both are now long standing tactics employed by many players worldwide. Bounce is most famously epitomized by the card Boomerang, while Blink has a few poster child’s but none greater in my mind than Ghostway. The question I put to you is; are you using these cards at the right time? Put another way; are you getting the best possible result from your Boomerang’s and Blinking Spirits?

The aim of this article to shed light on some uses for both Blink and Bounce which may help you create decks that weren’t apparent to you before, to help you fully appreciate the power of these tools and for those inclined; a way to predict and avoid the major setbacks this can wreak on your well planned game plan.

‘Knocking at a house of cards’

We’ve all seen them; those amazing combos that can swing a game for near defeat to an immediate win. We’ve all seen or heard of the brutality that is a Tog deck; but what some of us don’t know is how Blink and Bounce could be used to destroy these combos in their infancy.

I’ll set the scene; you are sitting there looking pretty smug as your opponent has only three life left to your 18. You’re sitting on a big 5/4 trampling beast that’s ready and waiting to run across the field, right over your opponents Fyndhorn Elder and Orochi Leafcaller. He has three lands in play, while you have six; two untapped. You hand over to your opponent who draws a card; smiles and taps his three lands to drop a Freed from the Real on his Elder. Suddenly the tables are turned; with the infinite mana engine his just created he drops a 40/40 Maga, Traitor to Mortals! You have no counterspells in hand and no way to gain the twenty three life minimum you need just to survive Maga’s arrival.

Now imagine that sitting in your hand was a Boomerang and an Otherworldly journey; how and when would you use this cards to get the greatest effect? The answer is simply when your opponent declares the elder as the target for the Freed from the Real; remember the golden rule of the stack ‘First in, last out!’ This means the creature would be the proclaimed target for a spell, but due to the blink or bounce the target is no longer legal. The spell fizzles and your opponent is sat there with no open lands and very little way of pulling back this game; especially with only two green mana to answer your attack next turn.

The key to knowing when to use Blink or Bounce in answer to a combo is to understand how the order of the stack goes and to a certain extent; the combo itself. As long as you keep reminding yourself that it’s ‘First in, last out’ you are probably going to make a sound judgment call concerning combos. Of course, if you want to keep up to date on the latest combos, check out the combo section of Magic Deck Vortex found here.

But that’s only one side of the coin; Blink and Bounce can also be used to achieve some interesting combo’s and synergy effects as well.

I want to take you back to a time when Kamigawa and Mirrodin were still legal in standard; in the age of imprint and arcane. During this time, there was a popular deck running around by the name of ‘Bouncing God’, which recycled Wrath of Gods for the ultimate in creature-board control. What’s more, it allowed you to keep two of your own creatures completely safe from your own Wrath’s, by ‘Blinking’ them out of play. The three main cards of point in that deck where Otherworldly Journey, Eternal Witness and of course; Wrath of God.

The idea’s genius lied in its simplicity; you could swing with the Eternal Witness each turn with little fear, even if the opponent was holding on to some hard hitting blocker because you would ‘Blink’ the witness out before damage resolved (more on this later), then during your second main phase wrath the field. When your end phase came around the witness hit play, allowing you to drag the wrath back from your graveyard to your hand. Short of your opponent removing all the Wrath of Gods in your deck from the game, you were always going to be able to get at it. But the fact is; this kind of effect can be achieved to a lesser extent with a Bounce spell, the only difference is that you would need to recast the spell yourself.

‘For your personal safety; blink.’

Damage to a key component creature of your deck can be frustrating and some times pump just isn’t enough to deal with the problem; but Blinking or Bouncing at the right time can yield some very nice results!

Here’s the field of play; it's your opponents combat phase, he's got an Ohran Viper just waiting to pounce across the field, while the only creature you have to block with is Azami, Lady of the Scrolls; the last one in your deck with no way to get her back once she hits the graveyard. How do we get out of this situation with Azami intact?

Again, we come back to our knowledge of the stack; damage is stackable. This means you have a small, instant speed window between targeting of combat damage and resolution of said damage. We can jump into that window and save our creature, as long as we take care to explain that we are placing the damage on the stack before we play our Blink or Bounce spell.

So going back to our example, we block the viper with Azami, place the damage on the stack then cast Unsummon on her. In this case, the viper gets away with its life but in the case that Azami had the power to kill the viper, the damage from her blow would resolve and the viper would hit the graveyard.

‘Bounce that Elephant!’

Sometimes we don’t have the luxury of having a creature to block with at all when it comes to big creatures; but I have found in most cases that people use Bounce far too quickly to make any real advantage of the return to hand effect.

I’m playing a WU ‘Return to Sender’ deck against a Mono-blue ‘Tinker’ deck, and he’s just pulled out his Colossus. Now most people’s immediate reaction would be ‘Ah, a colossus! He can’t have that in play, boomerang!’ but this is actually far too early to be bouncing the colossus. Wait till he declares the colossus as an attacker in his next turn, then bounce him before damage is distributed; again it helps to know your stack rules.

By doing this, you have ensured that he has wasted a full turn, rather than a partial action on a wasted attempted for damage. Also note that Blinking ‘could’ be used in the same way, but the downside is that the colossus will be returned untapped, as all things that come into play are; subject to outside rulings and effects of course.

Of course there are some creatures that you will want to remove before they are declared as attackers, but to maximize your time and bonus for doing so; Bounce/Blink the creature at the shift between main phase one and the combat phase.

On the flip side of this; my opponent may already have realized that I will do this and may be holding onto an answer to my Boomerang. The main weapon against a ‘Bouncing Block’ is to predict it and fish them out of your opponents hand when you’re ready and able to deal with it. My opponent may decide to hold back the colossus for one extra turn while he drops a copper gnome; now I’m in a bit of a situation as even if I bounce the colossus out, he can just drop it back in for little output. Watch your opponent’s lands and actions to deduce their true intentions; if he has tapped out all his creatures, chances are his holding a solution to an attacking creature so think carefully about what you’re going to attack with.

‘I’ll be back; and I’ll bring more firepower next time too!’

Many creatures in today’s Magic have some wonderful ‘Come into play’ effects; we touched on this earlier with Eternal Witness; but with the help of Bouncing and Blink we can get a certain amount of reuse out of these abilities, and maybe some added ones besides!

Firemaw Kavu from the Time Spiral expansion has some very interesting abilities; both on the way into play and out of it. But remember that Blink both makes a creature leave play and come back again; and it due to this wording that we can take serious advantage of the Firemaw Kavu.

Consider the following scenario; your opponent is sitting on two 4/2 insect token creatures and a 4/4 spider. You have eight mana to play with but no creatures in play; it’s your first main phase. So you play out your Firemaw Kavu and kill one of the insects; your opponent considers it a minor expense. But then, you hit the Kavu with a Blink effect and suddenly the color drains from your opponents face; the leave play ability triggers allowing you to knock off the spider. You then wait until your end phase at which point the Kavu comes back again for a second round, killing the last of your opponents creatures. Now your opponent is looking down the barrel of a 4/2 creature next turn and short of a hasted creature, no way to attack in his turn.

But why would we ever choose Bounce over Blink you ask; for the simple reason that cards in your hand are much harder to accurately target than creatures in play. There are limited cards that force a player to discard one, specific card so you can keep that Eternal Witness out of harms way until you find you need a card in your graveyard badly.

‘You’re late; we started the party without you!’

This is a little known trick that can be used with Blink only which allows you to get more time for your blink but, as with all use of Blink; timing is crucial.

Please consider the wording of Ghostway, specifically the end of the phrase:

“…under their owner’s control at the end of turn.”

There is a wonderful loophole in the wording of this ability which can be exploited so the creatures will be gone until the start of the next end phase. Simply cast your Blink spell; such as Ghostway at the end of the end phase. It is crucial that you specify this else the ability will not work properly and you will simply bounce the creature in and out without a break in-between.

This trick works because, in theory there is a little gray and empty spot between the end of your turn and the upkeep phase of your opponent; remember that the switch between phases can be responded to, forcing the inclusion of a ‘gray zone’ to occur. This trick is especially good if your opponent has creatures that give him added bonuses during his upkeep phase, untap phase or draw phase.

‘There’s more than one way to untap an Angel!’

Remember earlier we discussed that all things that come into play or are returned to play, are returned untapped? Well, there are certain and obvious benefits to this fact which allows you to get twice the use out of a given creature.

A prime example is the old Beloved Champion; because he has protection from creatures he is the perfect attacker and blocker, but short of running Masako, the Humorless in your deck he can’t do both; or can he? Simply attack with him, knowing full well that he will never be blocked thanks to protection from creatures, then during your second main phase, hit him with a Blink or Bounce; then either replay him again or wait until your end phase for him to return. He is now untapped, ready to block any creatures that may attack during your opponent’s phase. A card that would match this tactic quite well would be that amazing aura card Flickerform from Ravnica; as it allows you to place some nice combat based aura’s on the Champion while keeping is fighting prowess between Blinks. Normally, if an enchanted creature is Blinked or Bounced, the auras hit the graveyard but due to the ability on Flickerform; you can keep those holy strengths on him.

‘I swear that tree just jumped!’

There is one final use; primarily for Bounce which will annoy your opponent to no end: Bounce their lands. Lands are the single most important card type in the game; without them it would simply be impossible to play a deck; and I challenge anyone to build a competitive deck that uses no lands at all!  [Editor's Note: I found one. *grin* Although, it's not very legal or competitive.~Streetz~]

Sure, Land destruction is a far better choice than Bounce when dealing with lands but we aren’t all running red or black in our decks. The main point to realize with bouncing lands though is that either way the opponent will get the mana for the land this turn, the true power of this tactic is that your opponent will have to waste another turn laying the same land.

It helps to consider the land you’re bouncing; it would be silly to bounce a Hickory Woodlot that has had one counter used as they will get the second counter back when they drop the land next turn. But it is a smart move to bounce a double-tap land such as Gruul Turf as it itself has returned a land to its controllers hand; meaning they are not one but two turns behind on land drops.

Blink only really comes into play here when you have a land that is a creature as well, either through an inbuilt ability such as Treetop Villages; or through the use of spells and enchantments such as Rude Awakening or Living Terrain.

Well, that’s it for this article folks. Remember, watch those early bounces, learn your basic stack rules and make each Blink and Bounce worth the cost by using it to its maximum potential.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it as it may not be the last of these style or articles that I will write.

This is Luthervamplord, Signing off.

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Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.