Bouncing - How effective is it?
Modern forum
Posted on Dec. 12, 2014, 6:58 a.m. by sergiodelrio
I'm looking especially at Boomerang and Eye of Nowhere.
Does it make sense to build a strategy around bouncing lands? Land destruction is hard to pull off in Modern, but what if we just bounced them? I totally get that these cards have been around for a long time and aren't exactly popular probably for a reason, but how come?
I need answers :D
Hjaltrohir says... #3
Here @sergiodelrio
:LD (new emoji!!!) Playtest
Modern
SCORE: 0 | 0 COMMENTS | 2 VIEWSI made this deck around it...
December 12, 2014 7:20 a.m.
One of the guys at my shop plays Boomerangs in his Splinter Twin deck. Bouncing a land on turn two, tapping it down again on turn three with Pestermite, then untap -> Splinter Twin -> kill you .
I wouldn't just blinding throw bounce spells into any blue deck. The meta needs to be taken into consideration. Bounce spells are pretty bad against Affinity and Pod, but superb against Tron, B/G/x (in response to Liliana of the Veil's +1, I'll bounce your Tarmogoyf back to your hand lolloloololol), combo, and control decks.
December 12, 2014 7:24 a.m.
I had a deck running a lot of bounce spells and 4x Isochron Scepter. Boomerang on scepter is really fun :).
Maybe something could be built around:
4x Boomerang
4x Vapor Snag
4x Echoing Truth
4x Isochron Scepter
4x Remand
4x Mana Leak
3x Venser, Shaper Savant
2x Venser, the Sojourner
4x Path to Exile
3x Supreme Verdict
Venser bouncing venser each turn is also pretty fun :).
December 12, 2014 7:24 a.m.
sergiodelrio says... #6
So the general opinion is, that this effect is rather good, Boomerang and Eye of Nowhere are cost-effective, and this is also true for a competitive environment?
Are they showing up in major events? I really feel like most people (especially "spikes") are not playing them and there has to be a reason for it... I might be wrong though.
Also thank you very much for your input!
December 12, 2014 7:34 a.m.
The strategy is not very competitive because it is very easy for your opponent to play a 1-drop or 2-drop that pressures your life total, while you sit there bouncing the same land, slowly running out of cards until you die. People have made this strategy work (look up "owling mine" decks) using Howling Mine and Ebony Owl Netsuke type of effects. This type of deck requires you to draw all of the corrrect pieces at the correct times or else you lose. You also essentially auto-lose to any burn deck. Still, it is a fun archetype and I encourage people to try it if they are curious. Just don't expect to win except against very slow decks.
December 12, 2014 8:20 a.m.
ducttapedeckbox says... #8
A Silence and Isochron Scepter soft lock and/or Eidolon of Rhetoric can help out against faster decks if you're using the Owl.
December 12, 2014 8:28 a.m.
Bouncing stuff is an awful idea if you're not going to quickly end the game. Using a card to bounce something back to their hand is a 0-for-1. You haven't actually permanently removed any of their resources but you have used one of your own. If you then combo off and win on the spot then it's fine, but if not you're slowly creating card disadvantage by wasting your own stuff to omy temporarily screw with the opponent.
The other problem is the fact that modern decks play a lot of 1 and 2 mana cards. Bouncing something back to hand usually doesn't matter at all. If someone bounces my tarmogoyf back to hand when I activate lilianas +1 ability I'm still going to discard that land I was holding onto anyway. It's just really...... ineffective. It's a convoluted way of removing resources when you could just use counterspells to remove them permanently.
December 12, 2014 9:59 a.m.
CrazyLittleGuy says... #10
Bounce spells create what's called tempo, which is essentially sacrificing resource advantage for time advantage. To make a successful tempo deck, you need to pressure your opponent right out of the gates, threatening to win the game as quickly as possible. Then, you keep this pressure up by playing time-effective spells, like using a Vapor Snag to bounce a 3 mana creature. They have to spend more time using their spells, so forcing them to do it again gives you extra time to try to kill them.
However, the flip side of this is that you sacrifice your own resources for this purpose. If you miss a beat in a tempo deck, you basically lose; bounce spells don't trade with anything, they just help tempo. If you fail to kill them in that small window of time you gain, they will eventually win just by having better spells in their deck.
One of the best tempo spells is Remand. It doesn't create resource advantage, just time advantage, but it doesn't sacrifice cards to do it. This is the mark of a great tempo card.
December 12, 2014 11:18 a.m.
Nigeltastic says... #11
Delver lists can often be seen as tempo options, in that they stick a threat on turn 1 and then play cheap tempo spells to lock their opponent out of doing anything powerful.
December 12, 2014 1:14 p.m.
APPLE01DOJ says... #12
All the spells listed... I really like Repeal as a bounce spell. ...even if it can't hit lands
Hjaltrohir says... #2
I think it would be quite a good idea as in the worst case you could bounce their creatures and in the best case, you could clog up their hand and even make them discard.
December 12, 2014 7:02 a.m.