One of the abilities that blue has become increasingly reliant on in the last years as the counter spells in magic the gathering weakened considerably is the ability of blue to return cards to the opponents hand. Players have also learned the value of this as they recognized that returning a single land early in the game because it puts the opponent a turn behind but even better than that is being able to do this more often.

Surgespanner is a rare merfolk wizard from the lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs two blue and two colorless mana to put into play and is a 2/2 creature with an ability that reads "Whenever Surgespanner becomes tapped, you may pay one blue and one colorless. If you do, return target permanent to its owner's hand.

The most common use of this card is going to be to bounce the creature that is set to block the Surgespanner when it attacks. This will allow you to force opponents to block with multiple creatures if they want to actually stop the Surgespanner, and even if they do forcing your opponent to recast a creature not only slows them down but it makes it difficult for them to ever attack since the creature is going to have summoning sickness.

If your opponent is unable to block or decides to not then this becomes even more powerful. If you are able to begin to bonce a land every turn then this four casting cost creature is going to be very powerful effect on the game.

One of the other values is the ability to tap this creature without attacking, if you can find a way to tap this without attacking it becomes much more safe and dangerous. There are a few different way to do this including being tapped in order to help other creatures or spells.

In limited this card has the value of giving you access to a very useful spell nearly every turn. In addition to this you are more likely to be in large creature battles and this can help to make it far easier to slip other creatures though as you make the largest of the creatures go away.

As close to blue removal as you are likely to find bounce is a very powerful effect as it can remove any permanent in the game and being able to do this every turn is quite useful.

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

---

Add your voice

Know something about Magic the Gathering card analysis: Surgespanner?
We want to hear your view. Write now!