Pattern Recognition #368 - Red Self-Bounce

Features Opinion Pattern Recognition

berryjon

22 May 2025

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Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!

So today's article is going to be very narrow, but given that the subject matter came up during the discussion of the Mardu Bounce deck that I was shown and played a month or so ago, I felt that it was proper to try and look at it and see what really is going on with it.

During that video, I mentioned that three was a certain card that was synergizing well with Cori-Steel Cutter in my RDW deck, and that it wasn't the first time I had played such a card for its value. That initial card being Fleeting Effigy, and then commentators pointing out that the card whose name slipped my mind was Reinforced Ronin.

What these two cards share is that they are both creatures that have Haste, and at the beginning of my End step, I return them to my hand. They are both also 2/2s for that value. And what value it is!

But these are not the first creatures that could do such a thing, no not at all. Creatures that do this date all the way back to Visions! But they've been extremely rare, and the sudden uptick in them over the past few years is something I don't mind at all. But still, they are relatively few in number, so allow me to ennumerate them all.

Archwing Dragon, Fleeting Effigy, Glitterfang, Reinforced Ronin, Viashino Cutthroat, Viashino Sandscout, Viashino Sandsprinter and finally Viashino Sandstalker. These are the creatures without conditions to them bouncing back. If you expand the definition a little or you add some sort of condition to it, you also get Shatterskull Charger, Riders of the Mark, Magmatic Sprinter and Dust Stalker. Not a lot to go on here, but I think there is something worth looking at.

I've talked in the past about creatures with Haste and Trample in and adjacent colours, but this is something a little different. So to reiterate a little, is the colour of action and movement. And one of the ways that it represents this in the game is by having creatures that have or grant Haste, the ability to attack or otherwise act on the turn they come into play. And what I said in previous articles about the nature of Haste and why it is important to the nature of aggression and tempo in the game.

But the existence of returning a creature you control to your hand? Where does that come in? How and why? Self-Bounce is in the realm of as I pointed out a month ago, where This colour is delving into the design space of being able to return another permanent you control to your hand. It's nothing new there as the combo potential of Whitemane Lion has been studied and dissected for ages, so having two permanents look each other is old hat.

And of course, is far more aggressive with this, from Unsummon to Boomerang to Capsize, they will cheerfully take the opportunity to bounce or delay the boardstate of their opponent, rather than taking the more defensive approach of their friend .

But how does come into this? Well, let's step away from these creatures for a moment and look at 's only Bounce Spell.

Dead / Gone

This card was an open break in Planar Chaos, as while the Shock on the first end was quite normal, the inefficient Bounce on the other side is what I can use to crack this open a little. Just a little though. Red's removal here is purely combative in nature. You can't bounce a land or an artifact (unless it's a creature) and it is a little more expensive than just removing the creature in a lot of cases that you would cast it.

I think that we need to approach this from a slightly different angle, and that angle is Horsemanship. No, I'm not going to invoke the meme about how every mechanic in Magic is either a variation on Horsemanship or Kicker. Rather, I think I need to touch on the Vorthos of it. For those of you just new to the game, Vorthos is a Wizards/Community term for the in-universe flavor of the card. Card names, Art and flavor text can help explain or justify certain actions taken. In this case, Honresmanship is often portrayed as a case of being so fast on the field that you're not where the defenders are - unless they have horses too. And if a Creature is Gone, too, then are they really gone, or did you simply out-maneuver them to the point where the opposing player will have to resummon them to make them useful?

Creatures that combine Haste and End-of-Turn Self Bounce show up, do their thing and run away. They are the epitome of Hit and Run Tactics. That they, like Horsemanship, show up without warning to attack and then return back to the safety of the opponents hands. They are perfectly in the Vorthos of this when you look at it this way. Hitting and then Running away. (But not Hit / Run, which doesn't show this at all.)

But sure, this is all well and fine for the creatures to be this way, but what does it actually mean for the players?

Well, for starters, because of their ephemeral and transitory nature of being on the battlefield, they tend to be under-costed for their power and toughness. The two most recent examples, from Dragonstorm and Neon Dynasty are both for a 2/2 body at common. Without the self-bounce you would get a card more inline with Raging Goblin than Glitterfang. This isn't by much though, as Archwing Dragon would lose the self-bounce for a mere more if I have a read on the mana costs of cards right.

This mana effectiveness means that you can play them ahead of the nominal curve where power and toughness should be, giving you a tempo and damage advantage in the early game. And for Red Deck Wins decks, there is no other type of game. And fortuately, newer versions of this archetype have additional abilities to help ensure they're not complete dead weight in the mid or late game against other decks as the Reinforced Ronin and the Viashino Sandsprinter can be discarded to draw you cards, while the Effigy has an inefficient Firebreathing to sink mana into in order to pull its weight.

But they also do things for their players a bit more passively. By auto-returning to your hand at the end of the turn, these creatures tend to avoid the majority of boardwipes as they occur as Sorcery Speed. Yes, there are Instants like Cyclonic RiftGC or Settle the Wreckage, but for a lot of the time these sorts of things happen on someone else's turn, meaning that you will have a small resource of creatures in your hand to take advantage of the momentary lull in the creatures on the battlefield.

And also because they're in your hand on other people's turns, they provide some small degree of hand protection. Yes, a lot of cards exist like Duress that will allow the opponent to look at your hand, but for things like Bandit's Talent, the option to have an extra disposable card in your hand when it hits you is still an option that cannot be denied. Of course, this can and probably will backfire horribly when they're the last card in your hand, and the opponent knows what they are just to get rid of them.

But the real advantage to them, I think, is in their repeatable nature. With Flurry from Dragonstorm as well as Storm itself, to any of the cards in the game that care when a creature enters the battlefield under your control, there is plenty of space for a creature that can safely and automatically return itself to your hand to allow you to recast it each turn. After all, outside of Goad and Goad-adjacent effects, you don't have to attack with them. You can just cast them on the second main phase and get the secondary benefits and them passively move to the endstep to reclaim them for future use.

I think that this sort of design space should stay tertiary in 's section of the color pie. While they are the colour of fast action, they do need to have a board presence to maintain that pressure. In a way, this sort of creature begins to look less and less like a cheap, outsized creature that can do things beyond its remit, and more like a very-backdoor way to pay an upkeep cost. Fleeting Effigy with Upkeep: . Sure, unlike with actual Upkeep costs, you don't sacrifice it when it isn't paid, and you can just keep it in your hand for a while instead. But yet, if you keep playing it turn after turn after turn, you're just setting yourself back that mana. Which could be a problem.

I like these guys. They're elegant and they have their uses. But something that this colour should have full time? I think not.

Have you guys thought of these as more than Draft Chaff? If so, let me know in the comments below!

Thank you all for watching and reading, and I'll see you all next week!

Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!