by Elton Gahr

Created on: October 22, 2009

Ball lightning has long been one of reds staple cards, a 6/1 trampling creature that died at the end of the turn it often killed a creature and still did damage but almost as often it went unblocked putting your opponent into the range of your direct damage spells. It was also the heart of the combo of the only first turn kill I have ever seen in tournament play, the rest of that combo included bloodlust, and berserk, along with the appropriate moxes and lotus.

Since it is so popular wizard of the coast often puts out other cards that are in some way similar. Creatures with haste that die at the end of the turn are not unheard of, but there are other cards as well.

Thunderblust is a rare elemental creature from the eventide expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs three red mana and two colorless to put into play and is a 7/2 creature with haste. What makes this worth the extra two mana though, is that it has persist, meaning that if it is put into the graveyard it returns with a -1/-1 counter on it. And because everyone likes a ball lightning if it has a -1/-1 counter on it it gets trample.

As with all persist creatures this has the main advantage of trading with two of your opponent's creatures. You can attack knowing that the creature will die and when it comes back you have a card advantage, but thunderblust has two other advantages. The first of these is haste. This is important because there is a good chance that you will be able to play this and attack your opponent when he isn't expecting it forcing him to either block with creatures that he wouldn't normally want to block with, giving you a bonus on the trading or taking a third of his life.

The second advantage is that it gets trample when it is a 6/1 creature. This means that your opponent is unable to simply block it with a 1/1 creature and take no damage. Increasing the odds even more that they will be forced to use one of their bigger creatures. If they choose not to do this though this card does not go away like ball lightning.

Due to the attack power of this card there is almost no way that you are not going to have some card advantage with this. If your opponent uses direct damage to kill it he will have to do so twice, and the same is true of blocking it. All in all a card that any red mage should consider.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.