Dom Harvey
Contributor
FSR didn't start a thread yet, so here goes.
There are lots of deep and fun cards in the set, and some good candidates for a thread like this. The answer for me is:
When the set was spoiled, I saw Jace as a glorified Merfolk Looter. I've played Merfolk Looter before and been perfectly happy with it, so I don't know why that was a mark against it for me, but I expect it's Frontline Medic syndrome - irrationally discounting a perfectly fine card because of a seemingly weak additional ability. It turns out that the grown-up side of Jace is actually very good, but more on that in a bit.
Merfolk Looter has an obvious appeal if you push madness, reanimation, whatever; its value in a 'normal' deck is less well-defined. You're spending a turn and a card on a fragile body in the hope of turning bad cards into random cards over time, which is a risky proposition. Jace greatly enhances the payoff by not only digging for your good cards but allowing you to double up when you hit them. Many of the best cards against certain decks are dispropotionately better in multiples: one Thoughtseize is annoying, two Thoughtseizes is devastating; the first Damnation buys time, the second is the nail in the coffin. Jace is fantastic in a graveyard strategy, as a cheap discard outlet that you actually want to reanimate, but any combo-esque deck that revolves around one spell - Living Death, Wildfire, Replenish/Scrap Mastery - has a lot to gain from Jace.
The obvious and unflattering comparison with Snapcaster Mage turns a lot of people off Jace, but there's another side to it. Snapcaster demands an additional 2 mana on the turn you want to recast your spell, which greatly limits what you can do; with Jace you can spend that 2 mana as a down-payment on the second turn, loot for a while, and then start going off. Instead of staggering your plays based on your mana development, you can fire a shot and then fire another one the very next turn: think T5 Time Warp into T6 Time Warp, or T5 Primal Command into T6 Primal Command. Snapcaster is just a clunky Regrowth for sweepers, but Jace gets out of danger before you cast one and puts them in an impossible bind afterwards: either they rebuild again and you sweep the board again, or they hold back and the +1 stops any progress. The wording on Jace is subtly different, too - Snapcaster gives a spell flashback whereas Jace has you cast it, which means you can go wild replaying Gush for free or suspending Ancestral Vision from your graveyard. How about Corpse Dancing your Jace EOT, looting, untapping and looting again, transforming, then replaying Corpse Dance with buyback to get it back in your hand?
Don't discount the back half's stats: it's very reasonable to flip Jace on T3, and the immediate jump to 6 loyalty while shrinking a creature all but guarantees it will survive the turn. Even if you aren't building towards the ultimate - which can kill quickly in Limited, and if it were much better if would be too good - you can easily get 2 Regrowths out of Jace. You don't need to have an instant or sorcery to rebuy right away; you can hassle them with the +1 for a while until you move to the midgame. 'Turbo-Jace' is a perfectly viable gameplan. Then again, sometimes you want to keep the front half, and that's a big part of why Jace is interesting as well as powerful. You have to sequence your spells carefully, even forgoing a turn of looting if need be, to make sure it flips at the right time.
The genius of the flip-walker cycle is that the creature card type is both liberating and limiting. I have so many more options with this Jace than with Jace Beleren - I can Collected Company for it, I can Unearth it, I can return it with Reveillark - but my opponent can stop any shenanigans with a Searing Spear. You don't face the balance issue of slamming Jace Beleren on T3 and wondering if the black deck across the table has the one Hero's Downfall in the entire Cube.
Jace is a unique and powerful card that pushes new boundaries without being oppressive, and I expect it to be a staple of my Cube(s) for a long time.
There are lots of deep and fun cards in the set, and some good candidates for a thread like this. The answer for me is:
When the set was spoiled, I saw Jace as a glorified Merfolk Looter. I've played Merfolk Looter before and been perfectly happy with it, so I don't know why that was a mark against it for me, but I expect it's Frontline Medic syndrome - irrationally discounting a perfectly fine card because of a seemingly weak additional ability. It turns out that the grown-up side of Jace is actually very good, but more on that in a bit.
Merfolk Looter has an obvious appeal if you push madness, reanimation, whatever; its value in a 'normal' deck is less well-defined. You're spending a turn and a card on a fragile body in the hope of turning bad cards into random cards over time, which is a risky proposition. Jace greatly enhances the payoff by not only digging for your good cards but allowing you to double up when you hit them. Many of the best cards against certain decks are dispropotionately better in multiples: one Thoughtseize is annoying, two Thoughtseizes is devastating; the first Damnation buys time, the second is the nail in the coffin. Jace is fantastic in a graveyard strategy, as a cheap discard outlet that you actually want to reanimate, but any combo-esque deck that revolves around one spell - Living Death, Wildfire, Replenish/Scrap Mastery - has a lot to gain from Jace.
The obvious and unflattering comparison with Snapcaster Mage turns a lot of people off Jace, but there's another side to it. Snapcaster demands an additional 2 mana on the turn you want to recast your spell, which greatly limits what you can do; with Jace you can spend that 2 mana as a down-payment on the second turn, loot for a while, and then start going off. Instead of staggering your plays based on your mana development, you can fire a shot and then fire another one the very next turn: think T5 Time Warp into T6 Time Warp, or T5 Primal Command into T6 Primal Command. Snapcaster is just a clunky Regrowth for sweepers, but Jace gets out of danger before you cast one and puts them in an impossible bind afterwards: either they rebuild again and you sweep the board again, or they hold back and the +1 stops any progress. The wording on Jace is subtly different, too - Snapcaster gives a spell flashback whereas Jace has you cast it, which means you can go wild replaying Gush for free or suspending Ancestral Vision from your graveyard. How about Corpse Dancing your Jace EOT, looting, untapping and looting again, transforming, then replaying Corpse Dance with buyback to get it back in your hand?
Don't discount the back half's stats: it's very reasonable to flip Jace on T3, and the immediate jump to 6 loyalty while shrinking a creature all but guarantees it will survive the turn. Even if you aren't building towards the ultimate - which can kill quickly in Limited, and if it were much better if would be too good - you can easily get 2 Regrowths out of Jace. You don't need to have an instant or sorcery to rebuy right away; you can hassle them with the +1 for a while until you move to the midgame. 'Turbo-Jace' is a perfectly viable gameplan. Then again, sometimes you want to keep the front half, and that's a big part of why Jace is interesting as well as powerful. You have to sequence your spells carefully, even forgoing a turn of looting if need be, to make sure it flips at the right time.
The genius of the flip-walker cycle is that the creature card type is both liberating and limiting. I have so many more options with this Jace than with Jace Beleren - I can Collected Company for it, I can Unearth it, I can return it with Reveillark - but my opponent can stop any shenanigans with a Searing Spear. You don't face the balance issue of slamming Jace Beleren on T3 and wondering if the black deck across the table has the one Hero's Downfall in the entire Cube.
Jace is a unique and powerful card that pushes new boundaries without being oppressive, and I expect it to be a staple of my Cube(s) for a long time.
