Jace the mindsculptor
General forum
Posted on Feb. 20, 2013, 6:15 p.m. by nfcnorth
How strong do you think he would be in standard right now? One of the reasons he was good in standard was the fetchlands were still legal, which make his brainstorm ability a lot better. Sure Brainstorm is still useable but it is a lot less appealing when you can't shuffle them away if you need to. His fateseal ability is nice but is not going to do a lot when you are behind. His unsummon is powerful but there are several creatures in the format right now that are not very good to unsummon i.e Thragtusk , Zealous Conscripts , Restoration Angel any haste creature, ect. It should be also noted that there are cards like Dreadbore in the format that are not single minded hate card but do a pretty good job of dealing with him.
Note this is not a thread I created to bash Jace, the Mind Sculptor . I am just trying to figure out how much of his dominance of standard was due to the format itself. He is still a very powerful card don't get me wrong, I am not saying that he sucks or anything like that. I am just trying to see how he would stack up in a different standard environment than the one he dominated to see how much of an effect the cards around him played a role in his reign of terror.
cartwheelnurd says... #3
you forgot to mention the +2, which is incredibly ptent. ALso, see how Jace v4 made an impact on standard, with his -2 being about half as good as Jtms's 0. He can also lock an opponent out of a certain drop, starting turns 3 or 4. He would swtill be good, and his ability would be able to deal with creatures that just need to be out of the way. He would probably not be as good as he was in caw blade, but he'd still be a format-definer.
February 20, 2013 6:25 p.m.
Disregard my previous comment, I misunderstood the point of the thread.
February 20, 2013 6:27 p.m.
10vernothin says... #5
seeing all the aggro going on right now, he won't be as good as he was.
February 20, 2013 6:36 p.m.
Given how strong super friends is right now without him, I think he would just make it the most dominant deck in the format. With Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and what not we'd see a very nasty control deck.
February 20, 2013 6:47 p.m.
Mind sculptor's 0 ability wasn't overly powerful mostly due to fetch lands, you'd see at most maybe 3 in a cawblade deck, it was due to the offensive elements of caw blade Stoneforge Mystic and Squadron Hawk , 8 cards that said "shuffle your library". Now based on the Brainstorm ability alone lets put mindsculptor into lets say a delver deck, or an american midrange deck, you can use Thought Scour to shave off those two you didn't want, you can also use the brainstorm to set up a delver. Finally it can allow for some insane miracle control decks, the power level of that alone makes me wonder why I typed anything beyond this, imagine a format where every time you see jace's 0 being used you have to hope your aggro army isn't going to get blown out by Terminus or that you'll be swinging into an army of angels, at best you'll just have to hope they only get an extra turn.
Now based on the +2 even if you're behind it can help in making Jace harder to kill and you can target yourself if need be, also the simple fact that if jace isn't threatened that turn the +2 ability increases the chances that he won't be threatened the next turn either.
February 20, 2013 7:40 p.m.
I did kind of forget about miracles lol, which would be a big advantage in his favor. As it can setup miracles and even let you miracle stuff in your hand. Thinking about it more I could see an esper control deck with him, tamiyo and liliana (either version) accompanied by some miracles being a real strong deck. While true that a lot of Jace decks did not run a lot of fetch lands the interaction was still there. I do think the disadvantage of not having the fetch lands is a blow to his potential in a format but is certainly not a unworkable one.
I think the question I am more interested in is this: would the format have enough ways to deal with him? Cards I can think of that deal with him but serve other use in the format right now: Appetite for Brains , Slaughter Games , Detention Sphere , Duress , Oblivion Ring , Dreadbore , Nevermore , card:Rakdos's Return(if he is in hand or burn him enough to kill him), Vraska the Unseen . There are probably more than that but that's just what came to mind.
February 21, 2013 2:11 a.m.
@[user:nfcnorth]: he's already a ban-worthy card in modern, which has far more answers. While stuff like Slaughter Games would take care of him in standard, modern has Phyrexian Revoker and Lightning Bolt . Even those aren't enough to deal with him. I don't think standard would fare any better.
acbooster says... #2
Um? Mind Sculptor isn't in Standard.
February 20, 2013 6:25 p.m.