General [FRA] Reality Fracture

Erik Twice

Erik Twice

"Empower Jace 2" must be the single ugliest text I've ever seen in a trading card game. And all for what? Drawing cards? Do you need to create a token with counters just to draw a couple cards?

I'm sure it plays well, it's just disgustingly ugly. I have no interest in licking a bad fanfiction OC as if it were a god or something.

Don't like any cards so far, but we'll see.
 
Humpty_Dumpty

Humpty_Dumpty

I don’t know what OC means in this context but agree with your overall sentiment.

Maybe if WotC design ugly cards for the in-universe poster boy we’ll be more receptive to well designed universes beyond cards.
 
ravnic

ravnic

I think Empower Jace is a neat mechanic. It makes much better use of the amass design, I mean only creating a jace when you don't control one. Flavorwise it's a natural fit and a very clever way to have the key antagonist be present in every limited game. It also let's you loyalty up your real jace if you have one, which might make it interesting for constructed.

I won't be cubing it though, as I have only a few planeswalkers in my occasionals and none of them jace. But I like the design nonetheless.
 
PyreDream

PyreDream

ravnic said:
It also let's you loyalty up your real jace if you have one, which might make it interesting for constructed.
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Doesn't work the way you think with all Jaces, since it only adds counters to Jace tokens. But I do think it's funny that they basically mashed up the amass mechanic and downtick planeswalkers from War of the Spark, so I'm curious if this set will be an upgrade to that limited environment. I like that it also opens the door for more playable ___'s Card updates, since the old type of design a la Jace's Ruse was a bit narrow. is And lastly, although they seem well aware of Jace being a tad played out as the poster boy of Magic, revisiting him as a Big Brother kind of villain gives people a reason to properly hate him (and wouldn't it be ironic if his heel turn made him more popular?). Will be interesting to see if it sticks longer than phyresis :D
 
TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

ravnic said:
It also let's you loyalty up your real jace if you have one,
Click to expand...
Actually you can't, the keyword specifies the counters have to go on a Jace Token.

As an example:

Sidenote, this card seems really good on rate. We've gotten a couple of 3/2s for 1W before, but they all have a severe swag deficit a là Sungold Sentinel. By contrast, Repurposed Enforcer is a cool callback to Jace's origin story and creates an impactful game piece that can introduce a new dynamic to the game. I'm not sure Empower Jace will stick for a lot of people, but if it does, I think this will be one of the cards people play!
 
shamizy

shamizy

Empower Jace is a neat mechanic for the limited format and makes sense given the story they're trying to tell, but absolutely not something I'll be playing in my cube ever. It's a hard sell for a one-off mechanic like this that will never be used again.
 
KeithCubes

KeithCubes

Empower Jace, compared to Amass, definitely gets better the more you have of it.
That may sound painfully obvious, but what I mean is while I'm perfectly happy with Bothersome Noisemaker being my only Amass enabler since there's actually advantages to the token staying small, Empower Jace has to meet a threshold of 3 before you get real value.

In limited I think this will play out great, and as you can combine your various Empower effects to reach 3 loyalty, draw a card (killing Jace) then Empower Jace again to get a new token and surveil or maybe draw a second card that turn.

There's also the big haymaker loyalty abilities granted by cards like Avatar of Burgeoning Echoes that while perfectly functional on their own, are a little 'on rails' so to speak without another way to speed up the clock.

Maybe with enough pushed cards like that (and the Enforcer Train mentioned) there's enough value running them just for a little bonus Surveil / draw here and there, but I'm afraid the mechanic isn't worth the hit to your complexity budget to warrant inclusion in a larger cube where it will be basically impossible to include at any critical mass.

Lastly regarding complexity, I don't think the mechanic is even that hard for new players to pick up / track. The bigger problem is that people will be naturally inclined to want to attack your Jace token (or hold back to creatures protect it), which I suspect that will almost always be a trap. Battles had a tendency to play out the same way, and as a cube designer I don't want to do anything that encourages people to direct damage anywhere but face. My games are going on for long enough already!
 
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Nanonox

Nanonox

Fair, but both ask you to go big. If your 5/4 doesn’t cut it anymore, clear the board and rebuild faster. Definitely not the main reason to include it, but not embarrassing either I think.
 
ravnic

ravnic



This is a goblin with prowess that's a cheap discard outlet. It almost fits my cube too well. Like a custom card. I just would've tried to avoid prepare still. And not make him look like he's wearing a bowtie.

If Jace was really aiming for a perfect multiverse, he should have given his version of Strixhaven a better art direction.
 
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