I bought mine at $200 a playset but I haven't played with Jace in over a month. He just isn't that good right now. He's good but not as much so as before. This subject is tired. Jace isn't what makes Caw Blade good, although it is pretty Vital in making RUG work. While I wouldn't play Caw Blade without them, you could easily play a slightly worse deck without them and win with the deck. We've seen a couple lists do that. Caw Blade without Jace 2.0 would still be dominating.
The biggest problem with the format is how oppressive Primeval Titan/Valakut has been. Luckily that has been pushed back a bit by Caw Blade. There are so many decks that can do well right now(as long as they don't hit Valakut) that there are lots of options. At the top tables having a really poor matchup against like 15-20% is unacceptable so these decks aren't getting endorsed by pros as much but they are out there.
This subject is tired and old. And this thread should be closed.
What he said. The Jace decks do well as they have one of the best ways to deal with valakut counters, as answering their titan after it hit the board is often to late even on the opponents own turn.
If we ban Jace, the Mind Sculptor, we're going down a potentially slippery slope. One very popular argument is that Valakut would become overpowering in the absence of Jace. Would we have to ban Primeval Titan or Valakut then? Where do we stop?
Lets read that... Umm Valakut, Boros, Kibler's U/B infect, G/w Quest, R/b Vampire do not run JTMS and all have won or at least top 8 finishes THIS MONTH in major tournements.
And they all have JTMS in their crosshairs? So they fall in the third category?
Kibler explicitly states he runs Beleren just to combat JTMS?
Rotation in 5 months makes this a more or less moot point. If we were having this discussion, say, 12 months ago I would still say no. Banning is an extreme way of fixing extreme problems with a format. Jace isn't really an extreme problem. He is a very powerful card in a powerful colour, and the correct 'solution' to his prevalence would be to simply print more answers to PWs in general.
That said, I do wonder what R&D was smoking when they gave him the final ok.
And they all have JTMS in their crosshairs? So they fall in the third category?
Hah.. sure in any of the ways any deck has opposing decks in consideration.. I'm sure Valakut doesn't sit there and go.. hmm how do we beat Jace. It's more of how do we make sure we don't lose to the other things they pack. Every deck has to be aware of the strong cards and decks in the format. It is part of metagaming.
It's getting sad. These polls used to be close. This one will be lucky to keep a 1:2 ratio.
Um... Skullclamp is banned in every format except Vintage... It was banned in standard, and extended AND still banned in BLOCK. Let me repeat this... It was banned in BLOCK. BLOCK lol... JTMS is nothing like skullclamp was. Skullclamp is also banned in Legacy. If it is banned in Legacy,especially block you know it is retarded. JTMS is only that good in Standard. 4 copies is too much in a deck in Legacy/Vintage and only in a handful of decks. Skullclamp would make any deck with 1/1s in it a Good deck in every format. Jace TMS only makes Blue very good in 1 format.
Therefore, If they were to ban him it should have been a long time ago. And I don't know about you guys... but New Phyrexia will have retarded black cards and Artifacts, JTMS will be balanced... I mean look at two of the black cards spoiled already: Surgical Extraction and Phyrexian Canceler... look at that power creep... Turn 1 Duress + Extraction on JTMS solves him till game 2 :D.
Jace is an entirely different scenario from Skullclamp because it didn't force you to play any color. Jace forces you to play blue. Which makes it 10x worse that he even shows up in numbers remotely approaching Skullclamp.
It also seems like the higher the level of competition the more Jaces show up.
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That was pretty interesting. But dropping a warship on me is cheating. Take it back!
Unfortunately Jace is just one of several big offenders in standard right now. There just is not balance between cards. While he IS the biggest offender, banning him would not fix standard because the next most broken cards would step up.
The reason Jace is so prevalent is because he is utility times 1000. Some of the other near broken cards are more specialized, like creatures, creature control, etc.. There are dozens of utility cards in standard that help set your game up or give you card advantage, but Jace does everything they could dream to do, and more. He embodies one of the ultimate goals in MTG in one 4 mana package, and if he wasn't blue he'd be played in every single deck. He just dumbs down magic because he does everything you'd need to do, and makes the existence of dozens, if not 100s of other cards pointless.
What other permanents in the history of magic draw you a card the turn it comes into play, and can continue to each turn afterwards? This is ignoring that he BRAINSTORMS, and of course has 2 other very good utility abilities.
People don't play blue for preordain. People play blue, because they have to play Jace to win.
If you think people splash blue solely for Jace then you are........ lets leave it at that.
"Hey guys, I just splashed blue in my B/R Vamps deck for Jace! Nothing can stop me now!!"
I vote NO. I dont even make decks using JTMS and I dont mind his high power level. It's a great card that definitely helps people win but he isn't the deck by himself. Also, the price tag of JTMS is moot. If you are playing competitively in anything it will get expensive. Heck, when I was playing table tennis my paddle was over $200. Should my paddle have been banned because some people couldnt afford to use it that played in big tournaments?
IMO, when people (like Kibler) are playing multiple copies of Jace Beleren maindeck purely to kill opposing Jaces, the metagame is being severely twisted. I'm not sure it's QUITE serious enough to warrant banning JTMS, but it's getting awfully close.
And yes, it's not as bad as the situation with Skullclamp, but Skullclamp was completely over-the-top broken. It could have been banned for a lot less.
There are two problems with the format, and neither of them are Jace-
1) Lack of multicolor support (enemy duals / gold spells) - Ask anyone when they think standard was at it's healthiest and unless they just started playing within the last few years, their answer is going to be either Kamigawa/Ravnica or Ravnica/Timespiral. Ravnica's multicolor support allowed for their to be so many different viable archtypes. Imagine what the format would look like today if Boros had a stable manabase and a card like Lightning Helix, or if BW had the manabase to support cards like Vampire Hexmage and Stoneforge Mystic together in the same deck. How about a BG deck that can pick abart your hand with Inquisitions and then drop Vengevines and Thruns. Bring back Enemy Duals.
2) A little too much support for Ramp- Like seriously, how is Primeival Titan any good for the format? When you had viable combo instead of this ramp crap, you had something of an ideal rock/paper/scissors between combo, aggro, and control. Now you have ramp decks that not only crush aggro but are pretty much 50/50 vs control, and require absolutely zero playskill whatsoever. Where is the viable aggro? Where are cards like Watchwolf and Boggart Ramgang? Where are the decks that ignore cards like Jace because they'll have comboed off long before they are buried in Jace's card advantage? Get rid of this ramp crap, make people actually have to know how to play magic in order to play magic successfully, and print some decent aggro and combo cards. If all of you complaining about wanting Jace banned actually got your way, in about 2 days you'd all be complaining again because youre pet decks are 0-6 against the local 10 year old playing cultivates and craw wurms without any sort of drawback.
The issue with Jace is he is everywhere. He defines the format. Every deck either runs jace, or has to do something so insanely powerful that it can ignore jace altogether and even then those decks all have problems.
Sure cards like lightning bolt, mana leak, ect. are played in every deck that can run them. the difference is decks play blue FOR JACE. not jace because they are in blue. as an example, Caw-blade, would likely be run more in boros colors or W/g decks than U/w.
that being said even stoneforge mystic is starting to look more format defining than jace.
if either of them were banned would valakut take off? sure, but when valakut dominated standard (for like a month) it still wasnt nearly as dominating. you still had other decks in top 8's that didnt have to expressly plan to kill valakut.
its just now every deck has to run Blue for jace, or be built in such a way as to ignore jace entirely.
Sure and those 5 deck also all play preordain and Mana Leak too.
Now that's pretty bad, right there. That's simply dodging the question by trying to ridicule Jace as being overpowered. That's like saying "ban islands, all those deck play at least four!!." It's not the same frickin' thing. Yes, those fallacies make me really mad.
"Hey guys, Necropotence was not the problem in summer 96, neither was Hymn to Tourach. It would all have been solved if we just banned swamps lolololololol."
2) More importantly, long-term, Wizards seriously needs a Masques-esque reboot (minus Prophecy's general worthlessness) on the power creep here. JTMS is one of many cards that, after taking a long break from MTG and returning, strike me as just flat absurd. Wizards is more likely to counter overpowered cards by printing overpowered answers or alternatives, thus continuing the power creep.
Sure and those 5 deck also all play preordain and Mana Leak too.
Hell lets stretch it further and make it really silly. All the white decks had mystics and hawks, and all the red decks had Lightning bolts.
People played the strongest cards from their colours, colour me shocked.
You only have too look at the 3 RUG decks that won the grinders to realise that there is PLENTY of variety out there IF you choose to look for it.
Skullclamp was played in a variety of decks as well. It wasn't one deck responsible for causing Skullclamp to get banned. Ravager, Goblins, and Elf & Nail all run Skullclamps.
There are two problems with the format, and neither of them are Jace-
1) Lack of multicolor support (enemy duals / gold spells) - Ask anyone when they think standard was at it's healthiest and unless they just started playing within the last few years, their answer is going to be either Kamigawa/Ravnica or Ravnica/Timespiral.
Even before Ravnica, the metagame was pretty much the way it is now. During Mirrodin it was Affinity. During Odyssey it was Psychatog. So on so forth. The metagame while Ravnica was legal was an exception to the rule, as the vast majority of the metagames before and after it were just as small. Get used to it, this is how it's going to be 90% of the time.
I was around when Ravnica was legal, and I loved it. But Ravnica was an exceptionally well designed set, and I'm not gonna cry about it everytime a new set isn't just as good. Most of the time, there WILL be a top deck, and it WILL take up 50% of the meta. If some of you don't like playing the current top decks in the format, then you're all just gonna have to wait till the next set rolls out and take your chances then.
This metagame is NOT stale. There's an aggro deck, there's a combo deck, and there's a control deck. As long as all three have a realistic shot at winning a PT or GP, You can consider the metagame fine
This metagame is NOT stale. There's an aggro deck, there's a combo deck, and there's a control deck. As long as all three have a realistic shot at winning a PT or GP, You can consider the metagame fine
I don't think that is the case any longer. Although I guess if you define 'realistic' as 'possible', instead of what it is, very low.
I was around when Ravnica was legal, and I loved it. But Ravnica was an exceptionally well designed set, and I'm not gonna cry about it everytime a new set isn't just as good. Most of the time, there WILL be a top deck, and it WILL take up 50% of the meta. If some of you don't like playing the current top decks in the format, then you're all just gonna have to wait till the next set rolls out and take your chances then.
Wasnt Richard Garfield part of the team for Ravnica if so it bodes well for Innistad
Boros is a tier 1 deck, but it missed on top 8. Happens. If a couple matches had gone differently, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Cawblade and it's variants, UB control, RUG, are all three very different tier 1 decks that use jace.
Valakut is still playable and competitive.
To me, the important thing is that standard right now is that it is fun. Skullclamp dominated a format of turn 4 kills. Jace dominates a format of control vs control non-mirrors. Best standard format in a long time.
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I'll be sad if people don't start calling The Chain Veil "Fleetwood Mac."
if they banned jace, everyone one would play valakut.. sooooooooo primeval titans would see more play and maybe even go up. and everyone would cry more.
What he said. The Jace decks do well as they have one of the best ways to deal with valakut counters, as answering their titan after it hit the board is often to late even on the opponents own turn.
And they all have JTMS in their crosshairs? So they fall in the third category?
Kibler explicitly states he runs Beleren just to combat JTMS?
That said, I do wonder what R&D was smoking when they gave him the final ok.
Hah.. sure in any of the ways any deck has opposing decks in consideration.. I'm sure Valakut doesn't sit there and go.. hmm how do we beat Jace. It's more of how do we make sure we don't lose to the other things they pack. Every deck has to be aware of the strong cards and decks in the format. It is part of metagaming.
It's getting sad. These polls used to be close. This one will be lucky to keep a 1:2 ratio.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Therefore, If they were to ban him it should have been a long time ago. And I don't know about you guys... but New Phyrexia will have retarded black cards and Artifacts, JTMS will be balanced... I mean look at two of the black cards spoiled already: Surgical Extraction and Phyrexian Canceler... look at that power creep... Turn 1 Duress + Extraction on JTMS solves him till game 2 :D.
So no, they won't ban him in short.
Thank you mchief111, great sig
Lvl 37 Planeswalker
Current:
Legacy:
:symu::symb::symr::symw::symg: TES | Spiral Tide | MUD | :symu::symb::symg: Lands | Burn | :symr::symbg: Goblins | Elf Combo
Vintage:
:symb::symu: Titan Dredge | :symb::symu::symw: Bomberman
Modern:
:symu::symr: Kiki-Twin | :symr::symg: Tron
Standard:
Wip
EDH:
:symb::symu::symw: Zur
It also seems like the higher the level of competition the more Jaces show up.
The reason Jace is so prevalent is because he is utility times 1000. Some of the other near broken cards are more specialized, like creatures, creature control, etc.. There are dozens of utility cards in standard that help set your game up or give you card advantage, but Jace does everything they could dream to do, and more. He embodies one of the ultimate goals in MTG in one 4 mana package, and if he wasn't blue he'd be played in every single deck. He just dumbs down magic because he does everything you'd need to do, and makes the existence of dozens, if not 100s of other cards pointless.
What other permanents in the history of magic draw you a card the turn it comes into play, and can continue to each turn afterwards? This is ignoring that he BRAINSTORMS, and of course has 2 other very good utility abilities.
Don't five of those decks play Jace?
Calvin and Hobbes
Cube Tutor
If you think people splash blue solely for Jace then you are........ lets leave it at that.
"Hey guys, I just splashed blue in my B/R Vamps deck for Jace! Nothing can stop me now!!"
I vote NO. I dont even make decks using JTMS and I dont mind his high power level. It's a great card that definitely helps people win but he isn't the deck by himself. Also, the price tag of JTMS is moot. If you are playing competitively in anything it will get expensive. Heck, when I was playing table tennis my paddle was over $200. Should my paddle have been banned because some people couldnt afford to use it that played in big tournaments?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/trading-post/details/2820-tradesies
And yes, it's not as bad as the situation with Skullclamp, but Skullclamp was completely over-the-top broken. It could have been banned for a lot less.
1) Lack of multicolor support (enemy duals / gold spells) - Ask anyone when they think standard was at it's healthiest and unless they just started playing within the last few years, their answer is going to be either Kamigawa/Ravnica or Ravnica/Timespiral. Ravnica's multicolor support allowed for their to be so many different viable archtypes. Imagine what the format would look like today if Boros had a stable manabase and a card like Lightning Helix, or if BW had the manabase to support cards like Vampire Hexmage and Stoneforge Mystic together in the same deck. How about a BG deck that can pick abart your hand with Inquisitions and then drop Vengevines and Thruns. Bring back Enemy Duals.
2) A little too much support for Ramp- Like seriously, how is Primeival Titan any good for the format? When you had viable combo instead of this ramp crap, you had something of an ideal rock/paper/scissors between combo, aggro, and control. Now you have ramp decks that not only crush aggro but are pretty much 50/50 vs control, and require absolutely zero playskill whatsoever. Where is the viable aggro? Where are cards like Watchwolf and Boggart Ramgang? Where are the decks that ignore cards like Jace because they'll have comboed off long before they are buried in Jace's card advantage? Get rid of this ramp crap, make people actually have to know how to play magic in order to play magic successfully, and print some decent aggro and combo cards. If all of you complaining about wanting Jace banned actually got your way, in about 2 days you'd all be complaining again because youre pet decks are 0-6 against the local 10 year old playing cultivates and craw wurms without any sort of drawback.
Sure cards like lightning bolt, mana leak, ect. are played in every deck that can run them. the difference is decks play blue FOR JACE. not jace because they are in blue. as an example, Caw-blade, would likely be run more in boros colors or W/g decks than U/w.
that being said even stoneforge mystic is starting to look more format defining than jace.
if either of them were banned would valakut take off? sure, but when valakut dominated standard (for like a month) it still wasnt nearly as dominating. you still had other decks in top 8's that didnt have to expressly plan to kill valakut.
its just now every deck has to run Blue for jace, or be built in such a way as to ignore jace entirely.
Gfast animals slow shildrenG
51-18-4 (retired as of 6-4-11)
Now that's pretty bad, right there. That's simply dodging the question by trying to ridicule Jace as being overpowered. That's like saying "ban islands, all those deck play at least four!!." It's not the same frickin' thing. Yes, those fallacies make me really mad.
"Hey guys, Necropotence was not the problem in summer 96, neither was Hymn to Tourach. It would all have been solved if we just banned swamps lolololololol."
This thread does not deliver.
This is neither new nor exciting.
2) More importantly, long-term, Wizards seriously needs a Masques-esque reboot (minus Prophecy's general worthlessness) on the power creep here. JTMS is one of many cards that, after taking a long break from MTG and returning, strike me as just flat absurd. Wizards is more likely to counter overpowered cards by printing overpowered answers or alternatives, thus continuing the power creep.
Shame, really.
I was going to ask this exact same question.
Skullclamp was played in a variety of decks as well. It wasn't one deck responsible for causing Skullclamp to get banned. Ravager, Goblins, and Elf & Nail all run Skullclamps.
Even before Ravnica, the metagame was pretty much the way it is now. During Mirrodin it was Affinity. During Odyssey it was Psychatog. So on so forth. The metagame while Ravnica was legal was an exception to the rule, as the vast majority of the metagames before and after it were just as small. Get used to it, this is how it's going to be 90% of the time.
I was around when Ravnica was legal, and I loved it. But Ravnica was an exceptionally well designed set, and I'm not gonna cry about it everytime a new set isn't just as good. Most of the time, there WILL be a top deck, and it WILL take up 50% of the meta. If some of you don't like playing the current top decks in the format, then you're all just gonna have to wait till the next set rolls out and take your chances then.
This metagame is NOT stale. There's an aggro deck, there's a combo deck, and there's a control deck. As long as all three have a realistic shot at winning a PT or GP, You can consider the metagame fine
I don't think that is the case any longer. Although I guess if you define 'realistic' as 'possible', instead of what it is, very low.
Wasnt Richard Garfield part of the team for Ravnica if so it bodes well for Innistad
T2
:symu::symb:Tezzeret Control:symb::symu:
:symr::symu::symg:Boar Control:symg::symu::symr:
Boros is a tier 1 deck, but it missed on top 8. Happens. If a couple matches had gone differently, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Cawblade and it's variants, UB control, RUG, are all three very different tier 1 decks that use jace.
Valakut is still playable and competitive.
To me, the important thing is that standard right now is that it is fun. Skullclamp dominated a format of turn 4 kills. Jace dominates a format of control vs control non-mirrors. Best standard format in a long time.
UW