Academy Journeymage
Man-o'-War's lineage, rebuilt for a tribe. The template is old: a creature that bounces an enemy body when it enters the battlefield, buying a card's worth of tempo the moment it lands. What this version adds is the Wizard discount, and that conditional is where the card's whole identity sits. Cast it off a board with no Wizards and you are paying full price for a fragile 3/2 with a one-shot bounce, a rate that has never been the point. Cast it after a Wizard is already down and it slots in a mana cheaper, so the bounce feels like the natural follow-up rather than a tax. The design intent is plain: this is glue for a Wizards deck, a body that rewards committing to the tribe before it arrives rather than splashing it as generic interaction. The bounce is strictly a tempo play, never removal: the returned creature comes back, and because it can only target something an opponent controls, sending back a creature with an enter-the-battlefield trigger simply hands them a second copy of that trigger. So the effect is best pointed at a plain threat, where a turn of breathing room and a 3/2 attacker compound, not aimed at value engines and not confused for an answer. It wants an aggressive or tempo-leaning curve, where the tempo swing snowballs, not a control shell looking for clean solutions.



