Bounce

A bounce effect or spell is one that returns a card that is on the battlefield to its owner's hand. It is unknown where the slang term originated. The term predates the card Waterfront Bouncer by years.

Bounce effects can remove an opponent's blockers or save one's own permanents from destruction, among other uses. The primary color blue can bounce any type of permanent. It also will often bounce a creature via an Enters the battlefield effect. (R&D refers to these as Man-o'-Wars based on the first card that did it.) The secondary color white can only bounce its own permanents to protect them or combine effects. Green (also secondary) bounces creatures as a cost for playing bigger creatures, often as an upkeep cost. In 2017, R&D had considering giving red the ability to bounce creatures controlled by the opponent, but little has come of it.

Famous bounce spells

See also: Bounce land.

• Boomerang
• Capsize
• Cyclonic Rift
• Disperse
• Evacuation
• Into the Roil
• Jilt
• Repulse
• Snap
• Unsummon
• Wash Out
• Wipe Away

Bounce to the library

"Bounce" to the library (Put a creature/permanent on top of its owner's library or some number of cards down.) is also primary in blue, and secondary in white. Blue does this as a unsummoning that goes beyond time, while white tends to do it flavored as a spatial banishment (and the creature physically returns later on). The ability is an evolution of bouncing that maintains card parity, but with better defensive capacity - locking out a draw from the opponent is generally superior to a blind draw from one's own library when behind. Despite being an effect present since Mirage (Ether Well), the ability has not picked up a proper nickname.