Jace, the Living Guildpact!
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation forum
Posted on June 27, 2014, 12:04 a.m. by BoromirOfGondor
Finally, new Jace has been revealed! Check him out below:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/top-decks/ode-jace-2014-06-27
Servo_Token says... #2
As long as this is the only mono blue planeswalker in standard, I will play with it. That's pretty much the case on all bad walkers. Someone will play them regardless of whether or not "they should be played".
June 27, 2014 10:21 a.m.
GoldGhost012 says... #3
He's a 4-drop that starts with, in essence, 6 loyalty counters. That's very good protection, especially when you can almost Boomerang something that threatens you immediately as well. With a Timetwister ultimate that gives you a brand-New hand while sending your opponent into topdeck mode and a +1 that basically scries, he's by no means bad. Simply a little more niche than previous Jaces, and I think that's what people are getting hung up on.
June 27, 2014 10:23 a.m.
I was really hoping this jace would help my red blue deck post rotation but this jace doesn't seem very good for it
June 27, 2014 10:33 a.m.
@sylvannos: This Jace's ult is definitely weaker than JTMS', Looking at how it affects your opponent, Guildpact leaves your opponent with no hand, no graveyard and a 50 card library. JTMS leaves your opponent with no hand, a full graveyard and a <7 (probably) card library. I think most people would rather have no graveyard and 50 card library than full graveyard and <7 card library. How does it affect you? Guildpact puts your hand back to 7, which for most control players shouldn't be a benefit because they'll have close to 7 cards in their hand anyway. The useful part is restocking your library if the game goes really long.
About Jace, the Living Guildpact in a vacuum: I think he's decent, and like everyone has said before, AoT was supposedly crap when he first came out. I can see him working best in a heavy control deck, with him coming out on turn 5 or 6 protected by countermagic rather than coming out on turn 4.
June 27, 2014 10:50 a.m.
BoromirOfGondor says... #6
Bant Midrange is certainly a viable shell for him. I didn't think about that before.
June 27, 2014 11:41 a.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #7
I'm somewhat split. I see that +1 as a huge advantage since I play control. There's nothing worse than getting flooded with a lot of land, when I want a counter spell. Also, think about him in tandem with Keranos, God of Storms there's actually some nice synergy there.
June 27, 2014 12:29 p.m.
The Doctor says... #9
sylvannos You don't mill it. You EXILE it. Mind Sculptor says "Hey whatever is in your hand is now your library", whereas the new Jace says "everything goes into the library but now you've got no hand".
June 27, 2014 3:29 p.m.
@DaShPrime: I'd rather have Jace, the Mind Sculptor 's +0 over Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver 's +2. Drawing cards is always more powerful than exiling or milling your opponent's library. This is especially true when you're drawing seven fresh, new cards vs. drawing none. I'd rather exile my library and have my hand become what's left over shuffling my whole hand back and my opponent drawing seven.
Plus, nuking your opponent's graveyard is relevant in a lot of cases. Legacy Dredge, a common deck Jace, the Mind Sculptor finds himself playing against, could care less about cards left in hand and library. Everything they have to win is in their graveyard by the time you could ultimate. Not that this new Jace is Legacy playable, but the ultimate is more relevant.
@The Doctor: I can read, thank you. I'm saying that drawing cards > attacking your opponent's library. Again, compare Jace, the Mind Sculptor 's 0 vs. Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver 's +2.
June 27, 2014 7:03 p.m.
byepolarbear says... #11
I don't understand... Why is ANYONE comparing Jace, the Mind Sculptor to ANY STANDARD PLANESWALKER?
June 27, 2014 10:13 p.m.
I hope people understand that ALL of Jace, the Mind Sculptor 's abilities were busted. Not a single one of them wasn't... The new Jace's abilities are balanced. Just because they aren't busted in half doesn't mean he is bad.
June 27, 2014 11:27 p.m.
I completely agree, with the vast majority on this one. His name may be Jace on the Card, but this is not Jace. To be honest I was kind of hoping for a reprint of Memory Adept, Which in Standard is one of the best ways to get cards back into your hand. Draw power is one of the things that either makes or breaks Blue Decks in general, and to be honest I can see something like this in a BUG Reanimator, or something, but not what I've been playing in current standard, actually when this card was revealed on Mythic Spoiler I almost had my day ruined at work, it also pretty much ruined my FNM experience tonight too, because it was really the only thing I could think about (it's sad how much power a trading card can have over you), but I digress. Me and the owners of my local shop were saying the top Planeswalkers of 15 are going to be Ajani and Nissa. When you play Nissa you are basically only paying ONE GREEN MANA for here. That's ridiculous, considering you are running either a Mono Green Deck or G/X not G/X/X
June 28, 2014 2:38 a.m.
slovakattack says... #14
I feel like the problem with any new Jace they put out is that it's going to inevitably be compared to JACE THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED.
I feel like this new Jace wouldn't be -that- awful, in a world where that -other- jace doesn't exist to compare him to.
Still, he's not my deal. If he was 3CMC, maybe...
July 2, 2014 9:59 p.m.
Even Jace Beleren is better than this guy.. I don't like to compare other Jaces to Jace, the Mind Sculptor considering the history with that particular incarnation. The best two Jaces to compare other Jaces with would be, like I mention before Beleren, or Jace, Memory Adept both of those Jaces show exactly what Jace can do as a Planeswalker without being completely broken.
July 3, 2014 1:07 a.m.
xXSimicChemistXx says... #16
Guys, technically he is on par with the mind sculptor. He costs the same, has one more loyalty counter, scrys 2, bounces, and has almost the same ultimate. Oh, yeah. He also costs $100 less. Get him while he is low. Even though Jace, the Living Guildpact has no real use right now, so do some other good cards. The Mind Sculptor was designed for standalone gank. JtLG needs support, but if played right could be a win condition. Let's see what the future holds before making judgements, okay? Especially because most of you haters have never played him. I got 2 of him last night, and I haven't regretted it.
P.S.- He is the only Jace to feature that new kickass border. He also debatedly has the best Jace art.
(Particle physics can be FUN!!)
July 20, 2014 3:26 a.m.
xXSimicChemistXx says... #17
slovakattack has a good point. See him for himself. Don't expect him to be broken; you will always get your hopes down. WotC learned their lesson on that one. He is an EXCELLENT edition to the Jace family. If the Jace's want to accept him, why don't you?
(Particle physics can be FUN)
July 20, 2014 3:32 a.m.
slovakattack says... #18
xXSimicChemistXx: Not to be a 'hater', but it isn't so much that Jace, the Living Guildpact is bad, but that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is incredibly broken. His 0 ability alone puts him several worlds away from the new Jace. There really is no comparison.
Time will tell whether Jace, the Living Guildpact is good or not himself, but there's no argument that he's even fit to kiss the heel of TMS's boots.
July 20, 2014 3:34 a.m.
slovakattack says... #19
And, we agree. Awks. :P
Alas, I didn't pull him. I pulled the new Nissa in the prerelease though, so that was nice.
July 20, 2014 3:35 a.m.
xXSimicChemistXx says... #20
I know TMS is terribly broken. I'm just saying The Living Guildpact is not too shabby given the circumstances. However, TMS and The Living Guildpact DO have some common ground...
P.S.- Yeah, I really love him.
P.P.S.- The card... not the dude.
(Particle physics can be FUN!!)
July 20, 2014 4:13 a.m.
xXSimicChemistXx says... #22
July 26, 2014 1:09 a.m.
sonicizslow says... #23
I don't know why you physics folk are saying physics is fun, Friction is F=un
The new Jace is basically a less broken version of The Jace That Shall Not Be Named
July 26, 2014 10 a.m.
slovakattack says... #24
xXSimicChemistXx: I frikin love pie.
Honestly, I'm not sure what to rate the new Jace at the moment. His main issue in my eyes is that he doesn't really seem to fit with any specific strategy enough to warrant his inclusion in most non-standard decks. (I play Modern, so that's where my perspective comes from.)
His discard is kinda nice, but then you have Liliana of the Veil . His draw is nice, but there are Jace's that do better. If someone finds a way to break him, I'll honestly be surprised, but it is always possible that he could be very effective in an extremely specific setup.
So, in closing: ?/10
July 27, 2014 12:03 a.m.
sonicizslow says... #27
My physics teacher always said Friction is F=UN in a very... interesting way haha. Also he preferred to use twerk over torque which made the class go by quickly (yay! off topic!)
July 30, 2014 8:41 a.m.
I've seen people trying to play with him at my LGS both last friday and yesterday (we have two weekly standard tournaments). They were in RUG superfriends, BUG control, Esper control, and some awkward BUG dredge/reanimator.
He didn't work in a single one of those decks. If you use his bounce, it drops him to 2 which means in almost every situation he's going to die immediately afterwords. 4 mana for a bounce is not worth it at all. +1 him and you dump a card in your grave and help set your next draw up. Very very double-edged. The esper deck had to dump a sphinx's rev because the other card was his only remaining elspeth (I killed the first one). Worst part is it doesn't put the card in your hand, just back on top of your deck. At that point he's at 5, which is nice, but isn't hard to deal with. Downfall and polukranos and D-Demon and even Indulgent Tormentor and Master of the Feast and often Mistcutter Hydra . Worst part is that people can completely ignore his +1 and just swing at you, since it doesn't actually give you any card advantage. The only threat is his ult, and it's not terribly hard to put enough pressure on your opponent to keep him well below being able to ult or forcing them to use his -3 to save themselves from your threat for a turn or two.
If his +1 was "look at the top two cards of your library, put one in your graveyard and one into your hand" or even the +1 was as-is but his bounce was a -1, I would absolutely say he was playable in control. As is though, it just doesn't work. Maybe the BUG clan will have enough grave/hand manipulation to make him viable (and I personally hope they do. Jace is my favorite walker and I want to be able to play him), but for the time being, you're just gimping yourself by playing him.
July 30, 2014 9:06 a.m.
Cancel some of that, got ahead of myself in my ranting. He goes to 6 if you +1 him, but that still means one hit from any of the above creatures (aside from demon which still kills him, and ofc downfall) put him to 1 on their own, which forces you to +1 him for two turns, making him not a threat to your opponent until then, allowing them to ignore him after that or just kill him with a little more. My point is still the same, he can't put a card in your hand, and his toughness relative to same-costed walkers is just not enough to play him right now.
Aggro decks can just ignore him, midrange can either ignore him or deal with him right away, and control just laughs at him. He needs to have some serious support, and we just don't have it right now. The deck that utilized him best that I saw was the BUG dredge/reanimator, since it could chump for him with Satyr Wayfinder caryatid and courser, as well as use it's minimal kill and counter spells to protect him to try to ult while dumping things they wanted in their grave or just didn't need. Even then, though, he just didn't do enough work for four mana, given that BG dredge can dump things into it's yard so fast without him, and they have so much access to kill spells that his bounce isn't relevant at all in the deck.
July 30, 2014 9:15 a.m.
Ah, these are the comments I absolutely love. Does anyone remember the same thing being said about AoT about 1 year ago? He was a 5 dollar card at some point! Then, as soon as Theros rolled in, boom! Jace AoT is the cream of the crop, best there was. The same will happen with this one, maybe with Tarkir, maybe with the next set to come in.
tl;dr Buy while cheap and buy a lot.
July 30, 2014 10:42 a.m.
Boza aot was not the cream of the crop he was the shiniest of two turds people played him because he was what they had to use
July 30, 2014 11:43 a.m.
EmblemMan is correct. AoT was used because there was nothing else to use, not because he was good. He's not bad, but the biggest reason he was actually used was the lack of any good card draw for blue control. I mean, their biggest other options were Divination and Opportunity . Those are both pretty bad. I'm happy that Jace's Ingenuity is back, as I like it a lot better than Opportunity even though it is technically less efficient, it keeps the curve a little lower. And divination is just not good. Period.
But in regards to AoT and Guildpact...Aot, even though he wasn't that great, he was used because he gave card advantage in a meta that really needed it. Guildpact gives no card advantage and is terrible against aggro or weenie decks (and trust me, they will be a thing...Such soldier in M15, not to mention the duel deck based around the RWB clan is called Speed).
Like I said previously, it is possible he will be good in KtK, mostly if the BUG or maybe even RUG clans support him really well, and have good card advantage in other forms. If not... well nothing in Theros or M15 really supports him being played at all competitively.
July 30, 2014 4:42 p.m.
Yeah, unless there is a big incentive to populate your graveyard in the next set, the Jace, the Living Guildpact looks pretty bad. The ultimate is obviously a big blow out, but how often do you really get to ultimate a planeswalker?
Jace, Architect of Thought may have been underappreciated when he was introduced (not speaking from experience as I came in during the Theros block), but that doesn't mean that this Jace will suddenly look better after rotation as well.
July 30, 2014 6:50 p.m.
xXSimicChemistXx says... #34
Boza is the smartest person on this chat besides me... he must be an investor! And I would know! My IQ is 160. No joke. I am 13 BTW.
xD
(Physics can be FUN!!)
(Espeially at 13!)
TheGamer says... #1
I'm so excited to add cards to Bant... m15 made it so powerful!
June 27, 2014 10:20 a.m.