Kor Skyfisher proved to us that bouncing your
own permanents can be useful. Bounce a creature
with an enter-the-battlefield ability, bounce a
Journey to Nowhere when you see a better target
come down, etc. AEther Tradewinds lets you
bounce an opponent's permanent and one of yours,
allowing you to maximize your tempo advantage.
This would be a pretty straightforward card,
if not for all the comes-into-play abilities on
creatures that exist now. As it is, Aether
Tradewinds is a bona fide combo piece, doing
some downright crazy stuff with everything from
Man-o'-War to Wood Elves to Reveillark. Oh, and
Eternal Witness - is there anything she can't
do?
Today's card of the day is Aether Tradewinds
which would not seem very impressive if not for
the other cards released in the same block
including the Ally and Landfall effects.
Using Tradewinds to send one of your lands or an
Ally back to hand turns what looks like a
drawback into a fairly nice advantage. Any
permanent with a comes into play ability works
just as well.
For Limited this card works quite well as the
format includes many cards or effects that make
coming into play important. For a Blue
player this is the up there with direct
countering in importance and should be drafted
early and often. For Sealed if you are
running some Blue this is pretty much an
automatic inclusion as there would be few
situations where this won't be useful in your
opening hand or as a topdeck.
