Magic Deck Vortex: Blink and Bounce: The Second Coming.

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen to the follow-up article by yours 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 of the self-publicizing; you came here to read an article!

If you have read the first part of this article (found here) then you already know what I’m here to talk about; I’m here to instill some further knowledge and use of blink and bounce effects and cards into your gaming experience. Are you a premature-bouncer? Does your blink fizzle faster then you can question the action? Then this article is for you.

The aim of this article is to shed further 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 so inclined, a way to predict and avoid the major setbacks this can wreak on your game. I’ll be honest, this is mainly a control player’s domain but others should read on as well; knowledge of your opponents’ weapon is the best defence!

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone is aware of which cards constitute a blink or bounce card; so how are you to use these tactics if you aren’t aware of the cards of which I speak? Luckily, help is at hand: what follows is as complete a list as is possible with my knowledge (and with a little help) of blink and bounce cards.

Note that Galepowder Mage is the most recent addition to the Blink strategy arsenal. Now onto the Bounce!

Bounce Because there are so many, I'll be listing these in text format. ~Streetz~
*Creatures:**	Artifacts / Enchantments:	Instants / Sorceries:
Ætherplasm Crystal Seer Escape Artist Amugaba Darting Merfolk Fleetfoot Panther Arcanis the Omnipotent Denizen of the Deep Fleeting Aven Arctic Merfolk Dermoplasm Fleeting Image Aven Fogbringer Doomsday Specter Foul Familiar Balshan Griffin Double Header Glitterfang Barrin, Master Wizard Drake Familiar Glowing Anemone Blinking Spirit Dream Stalker Cavern Harpy Echo Tracer Haru-Onna Coastal Drake Eiganjo Free-Riders Heidar, Rimewind Master Complex Automaton Endless Cockroaches Hibernation Sliver Crovax, Ascendant Hero Ephemeron Horned Kavu Imaginary Pet Metathran Aerostat Quicksilver Wall Jackalope Herd Mirozel Quillmane Baku Kami of Twisted Reflection Mistblade Shinobi Raven Guild Initiate Keeper of the Nine Gales Neurok Prodigy Razing Snidd Kemuri-Onna Nightscape Master Riftwing Cloudskate Kiri-Onna Nikko-Onna Saprazzan Raider Lava Zombie Ogre Savant Sawtooth Loon Leashling Oni of Wild Places Scoria Wurm Linessa, Zephyr Mage Palinchron Selenia, Dark Angel Man-o'-War Pangosaur Shivan Phoenix Marsh Crocodile Petrahydrox Shivan Wurm Phelddagrif Shrieking Drake Silver Drake Stonecloaker Trusted Advisor Waterspout Djinn Skull Collector Stormwatch Eagle Urborg Emissary Weatherseed Treefolk Skywing Aven Sun Ce, Young Conquerer Vedalken Æthermage Whitemane Lion Sliptide Serpent Suncrusher Vedalken Mastermind Wild Wurm Soratami Mirror-Mage Sunscape Master Venser, Shaper Savant Windreaver Sparkcaster Temporal Adept Viashino Cutthroat Witch Hunter Stalking Yeti Thalakos Scout Viashino Sandscout Yomiji, Who Bars the Way Stampeding Serow Tidespout Tyrant Viashino Sandstalker Yuki-Onna Stampeding Wildebeests Time Elemental Viashino Sandswimmer Zephyr Spirit Steel Leaf Paladin Timid Drake Voidmage Husher Stern Proctor Tolarian Sentinel Walker of Secret Ways Stingscourger Tradewind Rider Waterfront Bouncer	Æther Spellbomb Cloudstone Curio Complex Automaton Cyclopean Snare Leashling Storm Cauldron Suncrusher Angelic Shield Cage of Hands Cloud Cover Conviction Cowardice Crown of Flames Dispersing Orb Equilibrium Escape Routes Field of Reality Flickering Ward Flooded Shoreline Freyalise's Charm Ghitu Firebreathing Ghostly Wings Hallowed Ground Hypervolt Grasp Leshrac's Sigil Mana Breach Mark of Fury Mourning Natural Emergence Overburden Phantom Wings Seal of Removal Shackles Shimmering Wings Sigil of Sleep Sun Clasp Sunken Hope Trade Routes Viscerid Armor Volrath's Curse Whip Silk	Active Volcano Æthermage's Touch Boomerang Capsize Chain of Vapor Champion's Victory Clutch of the Undercity Consuming Vortex Curfew Cut the Earthly Bond Dead // Gone Familiar's Ruse Flash Flood Hoodwink Into Thin Air Jilt Number Crunch Reality Strobe Recoil Regress Remove Repeal Repulse Rescind Rescue Rushing River Snap Snapback Stand // Deliver Surging Æther Unsummon Veil of Secrecy Venser's Diffusion Whirlpool Whelm Wipe Away Withdraw Æther Mutation Barrin's Spite Dematerialize Eye of Nowhere Psychic Theft Reality Strobe Symbol of Unsummoning Temporal Fissure Vacuumelt
*You will note that within the bounce list I have included spells that are able to directly return themselves (and sometimes another permanent) to their owner’s hands but not those that can move from the graveyard back to the controllers hand – this is because returning from the graveyard to hand is recursion or buyback in style and must be considered separate from bounce: bounce refers directly to a move from the field of play back to the controller’s hand, nothing else.

Take some time to get to know these cards before making proper use of them. People will tell you that Boomerang is THE bounce card and nothing but Liberate will do for your blinking needs: DO NOT LISTEN TO THESE PEOPLE. When you assume the status quo you assume the greatest weakness a magic deck can ever suffer from: predictability.

If everyone who runs a mono-Blue deck runs Boomerangs, then the Red player will start using instant/sorcery – only decks, White will go heavily towards weenie decks so they can simply replay the spell for cheap whilst Black & Green will love to hit you with shroud creatures. Go for flavor. Go for the unexpected. Break the mana curve of the usual 'Return to Sender' deck and confuse the enemy. Their best defence is your best defence: prior knowledge of the usual tactics.

Besides, your deck might be a UB discard deck so why wouldn’t you run Recoil over Boomerang? Sure, Rancor is a great little pump card but surely there’s room for a Ghitu Firebreathing or two in your RG aggro deck. Do not take the given card simply because it’s there; take the card that works for your deck’s strategy and strengths.

Before I start on this section I want to give a shout out to a forum user by the name of ‘mpotter’; thanks for the save my friend, some times the old grey matter needs a kick-start.

This tactic goes back to a time when the mechanic morph was in high demand and to a lesser extent when the Time Spiral block had been released. In order to further explain this technique you need to understand a few things:

The above is a direct copy of the main ruling point for morph; the important thing to note is that morph is paying for a unique effect on a card which turns it face-down and it is only by paying this cost when you play the creature that this effect occurs. Following this line of thought; what happens if you blink a creature out of play? As we already discussed in the last article, a permanent returns untapped but it is also important to note that the card has ALL outside effects removed from it unless an overriding rule says so, such as the Orb of Dreams and so forth. What this means is that you have to return the creature face-up to the field of play; but you are never considered to have actually turned the card over.

There is something of a drawback to this technique that you should note based upon the wording of most Morph equipped creatures abilities. The following is lifted from Aven Liberator:

The problem is with blinking out a creature is that you are not actually turning the creature face up, but rather removing any outside effects. What this means is that you will not trigger the morph effect with this technique. So why do it you ask; in order to answer that question I bring to your attention the cards Liberate and Akroma, Angel of Fury. You could play her face-down for 3 colorless mana and then flip her for 1W instead of her rather more expensive inbuilt cost of 3RRR.

Last time we talked about the fact that damage is stackable and we talked about using bounce or blink to ruin combos by making the spell ‘fizzle’ since it no longer has a legal target Now I want to expand upon this.

Here’s the scene: I’m playing a WU Angel beatdown deck and I’m smashing around my BW Assassination opponent like there’s no tomorrow thanks to my Radiant, Archangel. It’s his turn, he’s got to kill her this turn or it’s all over for him in my turn. He draws, smiles and plays the Vindicate he just top-decked. I’ve got to do something about this, as I know I’m dead once he starts to stall me.

The answer to my little problem; it’s simple. I play some kind of instant speed blink spell on Radiant; bearing in mind our golden rule of the stack “First one in; last one out!” In this real-life example I played an Otherworldly Journey on her, which meant that she left play and my opponents Vindicate no longer had a legal target and so fizzled.

It is also worth noting that such abilities as Momentary Blink will work with this tactic as well. This is becasue according to the terms of the game; even though the card is exactly the same; it is considered a new permanent with absolutely no connection to the previous copy.

Bounce can also be used to this end; the obvious disadvantage of this of course would be that you would need to hard-cast the spell again and so it would then suffer from summoning sickness. On the other hand, most bounce spells don’t mind what size, shape or type their target is; allowing you to save those lands from Stone Rains and enchantments and artifacts from Disenchant.

Tendo’s ice Bridge, Hickory Woodlot, Peat Bog, Remote Farm, Sandstone Needle, Saprazzan Skerry, Aven Riftwatcher, Calciderm, Chronozoa, Deadly Grub, Deadwood Treefolk, Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch, Keldon Marauders, Lavacore Elemental, Lost Auramancers, Maelstrom Djinn, Ravaging Riftwurm, Soultether Golem, Tidewalker, Waning Wurm, Arcbound Bruiser, Arcbound Crusher, Arcbound Fiend, Arcbound Hybrid, Arcbound Lancer, Arcbound Overseer, Arcbound Ravager, Arcbound Reclaimer, Arcbound Slith, Arcbound Stinger, Arcbound Wanderer, Arcbound Worker, Aboroth, Adarkar Unicorn, Arctic Nishoba, Arctic Wolves, Balduvian Fallen, Balduvian Shaman, Earthen Goo, Firestorm Hellkite, Flow of Maggots, Gallowbraid, Herald of Leshrac, Illusionary Forces, Illusionary Presence, Illusionary Wall, Jotun Grunt, Jotun Owl Keeper, Karplusan Minotaur, Kjeldoran Javelineer, Morinfen, Musician, Mwonvuli Ooze, Phobian Phantasm, Phyrexian Soulgorger, Polar Kraken, Revered Unicorn, Ronom Hulk, Sheltering Ancient, Soldevi Simulacrum, Survivor of the Unseen, Sustaining Spirit, Toy Boat, Uktabi Efreet, Varchild's War-Riders, Vexing Sphinx, Volunteer Reserves, Wall of Shards & Yavimaya Ants.

Now you’re all probably wondering if the vampire has finally flipped his lid but there is a reason for the list above; these guys are the subject of your new technique. You may also want to get a list of bloodthirst, graft and amplify spells for this.

The basis of this tactic is rather simple. It relies upon a general rule about cards and spells that come into play: they return in their natural, beginning state subject to outside effects and rules text.

So with depletion lands, they come into play with a full number of counters on them as do vanishing creatures and graft creatures. Cumulative upkeep getting too much for you? Bounce or blink it and your troubles are gone. Got more Dragon cards in hand and want to make that Kilnmouth Dragon bigger? Blink it out and reveal them.

Well, that’s all there is for this article folks. Remember: check out those lists, make sure you know your stack, choose the cards that work for your deck, and of course be aware that morph creatures don’t have to be that expensive.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it and feel free to give me feedback; good or bad it’s always welcome.

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