"Thousand Winds:Good bye Strike force"

"Thousand Winds:Good bye Strike force"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

One of the first things that players will learn from morph is this...sneaky players will always be up to sneaky things. Case in point is the recently spoiled card from the upcoming set Khans of Tarkir. Now the Thousand Winds is a 5/6 elemental for a normal cost of 6 mana. It screams of Blue Defense. Blue has the very distinct mass removal effect of bouncing things back to a players hands. The card Aetherize and Upheaval from the now released FTV: Annihilation are prime examples.

Thousand Winds is another example of a defensive sorcery card that has been turned into a creature and with Morph too. What this means is that you could put it down in the early turns of a game and just sort of let it simmer there. Let all the things happen in a normal game and make use of it when the right time comes. As with Aetherize the best time to use is when your opponents believe that they could already kill you with one decisive strike. For a morph cost of 7 mana you could actually return all tapped creatures to their owners hands. 

What you want to do it let your opponent commit to attacking you with everything they have , you do not respond at first but before the damage dealing step you spring this guy on them and voila. You have an empty battlefield ,except for the 5/6 Flying elemental that would be dishing out vengeance on your next turn. How is that for turning the tides? I mean it does seem really slow and deliberate but that is just how blue rolls traditionally. Slow and Deliberate. 

As an additional observation , in any games may it be standard or EDH games where an opponent is creature dependent on mana acceleration those creatures could also be affected by the Thousand Winds given that they were tapped when you activate it. They need not be attacking at all. 

Again the mana cost for the card is a bit prohibitive but there is a reason why this is in the rare spot. The threat of bluffing with a morphed creature with this strong  ability would surely affect the battlefield decisions of your opponents. As is with Legions before people would make guesses if you have a morphed creature that could be devastating to them or something that you are using as a bluff. Thousand Winds is one of those cards that opponents wished they have taken out in the early turns. Expect a lot of forehead slapping when opponents realize that that one 2/2 colorless creature they ignored for the whole game is actually something that would wipe out their whole strike force.

I guess now would be a great time to practice a poker face now that morph is coming back. Time to bluff and sneak again.