Jace, Telepath Unbound: Official Thread

Malcrof

Cost to Max Level: 79,920 runes

Jace
1: Confusion - cost: 6
1 - -2/0 to creature until next turn
2 - -3/0 to creature until next turn
3 - -4/0 to creature until next turn
4 - -5/0 to creature until next turn

2: Ingenuity - cost: 12
1 - last spell cast or Destroyed moves to hand, -1 cost
2 - last spell cast or Destroyed moves to hand, -2 cost
3 - last spell cast or Destroyed moves to hand, -3 cost
4 - last spell cast or Destroyed moves to hand, -4 cost

3: Mind Sculpt*** - cost: 15
1 - trap 5: drain 3 mana from opponent
2 - trap 7: drain 3 mana from opponent
3 - trap 7: drain 6 mana from opponent
4 - trap 9: drain 6 mana from opponent
*** "trap X" means it spits X number of special tiles on the board and when your opponent matches one it activates

Level 60 mana bonuses: +1 | | | +1 | +3
Level 60 HP: 88
Level 60 max Creatures: 10 Spells: 6 Supports: 3

Post your decks and tips for Jace below!

span_argoman

I find that Jace is strongest when you lock the AI's hand by draining mana and increasing the cost of the cards in hand such that even a cascade isn't going to summon out the first card. In particular this works well with the third ability which can keep your opponent's hand drained of mana and ensure they just about never get to play any card.

You will get to this point where the AI is feebly trying to charge up its first card which is already designated its best card to play but it can't outstrip your mana drain and the cost increases.

It's going to be slow so it won't be suited for QB but it can work rather well for Story / Events.

If I had all the cards my ideal deck of this design would be:
Drowner of Hope
Thopter Spy Network
Shrine of the Forgotten Gods
Sunken Hollow
Prairie Stream
Sphinx's Tutelage
Prism Array
Talent of the Telepath
Scatter to the Wind / Horribly Awry
Disperse / Clutch of Currents / Harbinger of Tides

Creatures
The first two cards are there because their combo effect disables your opponent's creatures for the rest of the game. If you don't have both, Thopter Spy Network alone still works with the rest of the deck as the support gives you a draw whenever your token creatures attack the enemy planeswalker, working with Sphinx's Tutelage.

Otherwise, Disciple of the Ring is another Mythic that fits the theme. Down in rarity, you have Deepfathom Skulker (though it is cost prohibitive for a 4/4), Jori En and Fathom Feeder. There's also Mizzium Meddler which should be considered purely for its mana efficiency rather than it's negligible effect. Further down the rarity line you get the usual suspects such as Sigiled Starfish or Jhessian Thief.

Supports
The next three cards are there for mana gain. Jace's mana gain isn't as strong as the other blue planeswalkers so you need some way to compensate. I have to say Shrine of the Forgotten Gods is (sadly) rather crucial to making any of the original planeswalkers (except Nissa) competitive at high levels.

Sphinx's Tutelage is key to increasing the costs of cards in the opponent's hands. The deck has rather varied means of drawing (Prism Array, TotT) so you should not have to wait long to draw this into hand.

Prism Array for the draw, and to disable anything that gets through. Getting a landfall will increase the opponent's first card cost by up to 6 mana. In the case of the opponent triggering a landfall, the draw triggers before the mana gain which means the cost increase from Tutelage will also trigger before the mana gain.

Talent of the Telepath is important to fetch the right cards: Sphinx's Tutelage, your ramp supports, an emergency Disperse or Scatter to the Winds. Pretty much your entire deck except your creatures and Thopter Spy Network will be autocast by this spell and that is really good for setup.

You want to be discarding any unnecessary cards in hand so that you can keep drawing. You can potentially be increasing the mana cost by 10 if you landfall with Prism Array out and have a bonus draw from one of your creatures or Thopter Spy Network.

Spells
Scatter to the Wind is necessary to clear the mana built up on your opponent's first card as otherwise one good cascade will undo all your good work. The other option is Jace's third ability. 15 loyalty for Trap 9 is a fair cost for pretty great odds to drain your opponent of a lot of mana. Horribly Awry also works well enough if you are missing Scatter to the Wind because it is really the creatures which you want to prevent from being played. You can use Disperse to bounce-destroy any tokens that get summoned by spells or supports.

Disperse is there to bounce back anything that makes it through the gaps. Clutch of Currents is a costlier alternative that still maintains the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. Harbinger of Tides is an alternative which is more in line with the deck theme but loses the benefit of fetching from Jace's second ability and the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. It worked well for me in the past but Disperse has been my go-to at least for QB because for QB you only really need that temporary tempo disruption. You can try and see which works better for you.

If there's any card you don't have or prefer not to have in the deck, there's still Jace's Sanctum as an alternative. Jace's Sanctum + Sphinx's Tutelage alone is 5 mana a turn which isn't small. This used to be a terror back before planeswalker caps were raised to 60 (mana gains were capped at +2/+1/+1/+0/+0 or +3/+1/+1/+0/+0 at 50) and before all the new planeswalkers with increased mana gains.

The most important question though is why Jace instead of Kiora?
Imo Jace edges Kiora out on this build cause of his second and third ability. Sure Kiora has 6 loyalty to drain 6 mana but Jace has 15 loyalty to drain up to 54 mana. That actually matters when the mana cost of the opponent's first card is greatly increased by Sphinx's Tutelage.

The second ability is more when you urgently need Scatter to the Winds cause you cannot wait another turn to use Mind Sculpt. You have a 1/3 chance of getting the spell and another 1/3 chance of getting Talent and fetching a Scatter in your next three cards. You do lose this benefit if you use Harbinger of Tides instead of Disperse though.

Another minor reason is when you have enough planeswalkers, you can keep this deck configuration in Jace and keep Kiora (if you have her) in Quick Battle configuration rather than having to change her decklist when switching between events and QB.

What achievements is this deck good at getting?
It is most definitely slow, but it's suited for hitting story achievements like finish the match in 25 rounds or more, or event achievements for casting a certain number of supports (if you don't have Tezzeret yet). Arguably it might be a decent candidate for the kill 2 or less enemy creatures achievements but I don't have Shrine and without it my setup is too slow to lock down the opponent early enough. But Thopter Spy Network + Drowner of Hope will disable enemy creatures once out to ensure that you need not kill again till the end of the match.


*edit*
I added in the alternatives of Clutch of Currents and Harbinger of Tides for Disperse.
Also added in the explanation for Horribly Awry which I forgot earlier.

PapiLouis4

span_argoman wrote:

I find that Jace is strongest when you lock the AI's hand by draining mana and increasing the cost of the cards in hand such that even a cascade isn't going to summon out the first card. In particular this works well with the third ability which can keep your opponent's hand drained of mana and ensure they just about never get to play any card.

You will get to this point where the AI is feebly trying to charge up its first card which is already designated its best card to play but it can't outstrip your mana drain and the cost increases.

It's going to be slow so it won't be suited for QB but it can work rather well for Story / Events.

If I had all the cards my ideal deck of this design would be:
Drowner of Hope
Thopter Spy Network
Shrine of the Forgotten Gods
Sunken Hollow
Prairie Stream
Sphinx's Tutelage
Prism Array
Talent of the Telepath
Scatter to the Wind / Horribly Awry
Disperse / Clutch of Currents / Harbinger of Tides

Creatures
The first two cards are there because their combo effect disables your opponent's creatures for the rest of the game. If you don't have both, Thopter Spy Network alone still works with the rest of the deck as the support gives you a draw whenever your token creatures attack the enemy planeswalker, working with Sphinx's Tutelage.

Otherwise, Disciple of the Ring is another Mythic that fits the theme. Down in rarity, you have Deepfathom Skulker (though it is cost prohibitive for a 4/4), Jori En and Fathom Feeder. There's also Mizzium Meddler which should be considered purely for its mana efficiency rather than it's negligible effect. Further down the rarity line you get the usual suspects such as Sigiled Starfish or Jhessian Thief.

Supports
The next three cards are there for mana gain. Jace's mana gain isn't as strong as the other blue planeswalkers so you need some way to compensate. I have to say Shrine of the Forgotten Gods is (sadly) rather crucial to making any of the original planeswalkers (except Nissa) competitive at high levels.

Sphinx's Tutelage is key to increasing the costs of cards in the opponent's hands. The deck has rather varied means of drawing (Prism Array, TotT) so you should not have to wait long to draw this into hand.

Prism Array for the draw, and to disable anything that gets through. Getting a landfall will increase the opponent's first card cost by up to 6 mana. In the case of the opponent triggering a landfall, the draw triggers before the mana gain which means the cost increase from Tutelage will also trigger before the mana gain.

Talent of the Telepath is important to fetch the right cards: Sphinx's Tutelage, your ramp supports, an emergency Disperse or Scatter to the Winds. Pretty much your entire deck except your creatures and Thopter Spy Network will be autocast by this spell and that is really good for setup.

You want to be discarding any unnecessary cards in hand so that you can keep drawing. You can potentially be increasing the mana cost by 10 if you landfall with Prism Array out and have a bonus draw from one of your creatures or Thopter Spy Network.

Spells
Scatter to the Wind is necessary to clear the mana built up on your opponent's first card as otherwise one good cascade will undo all your good work. The other option is Jace's third ability. 15 loyalty for Trap 9 is a fair cost for pretty great odds to drain your opponent of a lot of mana. Horribly Awry also works well enough if you are missing Scatter to the Wind because it is really the creatures which you want to prevent from being played. You can use Disperse to bounce-destroy any tokens that get summoned by spells or supports.

Disperse is there to bounce back anything that makes it through the gaps. Clutch of Currents is a costlier alternative that still maintains the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. Harbinger of Tides is an alternative which is more in line with the deck theme but loses the benefit of fetching from Jace's second ability and the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. It worked well for me in the past but Disperse has been my go-to at least for QB because for QB you only really need that temporary tempo disruption. You can try and see which works better for you.

If there's any card you don't have or prefer not to have in the deck, there's still Jace's Sanctum as an alternative. Jace's Sanctum + Sphinx's Tutelage alone is 5 mana a turn which isn't small. This used to be a terror back before planeswalker caps were raised to 60 (mana gains were capped at +2/+1/+1/+0/+0 or +3/+1/+1/+0/+0 at 50) and before all the new planeswalkers with increased mana gains.

The most important question though is why Jace instead of Kiora?
Imo Jace edges Kiora out on this build cause of his second and third ability. Sure Kiora has 6 loyalty to drain 6 mana but Jace has 15 loyalty to drain up to 54 mana. That actually matters when the mana cost of the opponent's first card is greatly increased by Sphinx's Tutelage.

The second ability is more when you urgently need Scatter to the Winds cause you cannot wait another turn to use Mind Sculpt. You have a 1/3 chance of getting the spell and another 1/3 chance of getting Talent and fetching a Scatter in your next three cards. You do lose this benefit if you use Harbinger of Tides instead of Disperse though.

Another minor reason is when you have enough planeswalkers, you can keep this deck configuration in Jace and keep Kiora (if you have her) in Quick Battle configuration rather than having to change her decklist when switching between events and QB.

What achievements is this deck good at getting?
It is most definitely slow, but it's suited for hitting story achievements like finish the match in 25 rounds or more, or event achievements for casting a certain number of supports (if you don't have Tezzeret yet). Arguably it might be a decent candidate for the kill 2 or less enemy creatures achievements but I don't have Shrine and without it my setup is too slow to lock down the opponent early enough. But Thopter Spy Network + Drowner of Hope will disable enemy creatures once out to ensure that you need not kill again till the end of the match.

*edit*
I added in the alternatives of Clutch of Currents and Harbinger of Tides for Disperse.
Also added in the explanation for Horribly Awry which I forgot earlier.

i run my jace pretty similar to this deck, ive used him to beat the weekend pve event big bosses as well(even kozilek with his 15 mana gain ability)

void winnower
disciple of the ring

crush of tentacles
turn to frog
talent of the telepath
scatter to the winds
anchor to the aether

thopter spy network
sphinxs tutelage
prism array

its so much fun casting scatter to the winds after it took the opponent 3 turns to just fill it up halfways xD also use to have prairie stream in there, well see how it goes without it

madwren

Been playing a control deck (thus, slow) that's been surprisingly effective.

It plays a number of ways, but has two basic win conditions: Extreme bounce and tempo,or riding Big Octopus to victory. Mirrorpooling a Scatter into a Crush is pretty satisfying.


Mist Intruder - ingest as mana denial, plus powers Strider's cheap bounce
Murk Strider
Mizzium Meddler - body plus denial. 1-2 mana a turn may not seem like much, but it helps, and he's able to take down most creatures commonly used as defenders.
Harbinger of the Tides

Scour from Existence
Horribly Awry
Scatter to the Winds - If you can start your game with 2 blue matches on consecutive turns, you've emptied their mana and generated a 6/6 critter.
Crush of Tentacles
Clutch of Currents

Mirrorpool

I usually wind up recurring a Scour with his second ability, or dropping the ultimate and not letting them get anything going. Reflector Mage can be subbed in for Harbinger or Meddler, and you can use your bounce spell of choice. I like Clutch because it's just one blue match to cast.

This is the type of deck I feel ingest works best in. By itself, it has mixed effectiveness, but as a component of a control deck, it's great.

Morphling

madwren wrote:

Been playing a control deck (thus, slow) that's been surprisingly effective.

It plays a number of ways, but has two basic win conditions: Extreme bounce and tempo,or riding Big Octopus to victory. Mirrorpooling a Scatter into a Crush is pretty satisfying.


Mist Intruder - ingest as mana denial, plus powers Strider's cheap bounce
Murk Strider
Mizzium Meddler - body plus denial. 1-2 mana a turn may not seem like much, but it helps, and he's able to take down most creatures commonly used as defenders.
Harbinger of the Tides

Scour from Existence
Horribly Awry
Scatter to the Winds - If you can start your game with 2 blue matches on consecutive turns, you've emptied their mana and generated a 6/6 critter.
Crush of Tentacles
Clutch of Currents

Mirrorpool

I usually wind up recurring a Scour with his second ability, or dropping the ultimate and not letting them get anything going. Reflector Mage can be subbed in for Harbinger or Meddler, and you can use your bounce spell of choice. I like Clutch because it's just one blue match to cast.

This is the type of deck I feel ingest works best in. By itself, it has mixed effectiveness, but as a component of a control deck, it's great.

dont use any other bounce spell other than clutch, cuz it stacks ele's with scatters ele's. nice deck btw

RhythmicDemise

I need help with a deck blue is something I'm just now having to play I have a few rares and mythics including

Creatures:
Father Feeder
Noyan Dar
Souldblade Djinn
Will breaker
Forgotten Creation
Jori End
Prized Amalgam
Mizzium Meddler
Thing in Ice

Spells:

Turn to Frog
Days Undoing
Welcome to the Fold
Invocation of Saint Traft
Altered Ego
Ugins Insight

Supports:

Thopter Spy Network
Oath of Jace
Fevered Visions


Any help would be appreciated

span_argoman

RhythmicDemise wrote:

I need help with a deck blue is something I'm just now having to play I have a few rares and mythics including

Creatures:
Father Feeder
Noyan Dar
Souldblade Djinn
Will breaker
Forgotten Creation
Jori End
Prized Amalgam
Mizzium Meddler
Thing in Ice

Spells:

Turn to Frog
Days Undoing
Welcome to the Fold
Invocation of Saint Traft
Altered Ego
Ugins Insight

Supports:

Thopter Spy Network
Oath of Jace
Fevered Visions


Any help would be appreciated

You have several options. You can go for a Horrors deck with Thing in the Ice. Main issue with that is that it's slow to summon out Thing in the Ice and the only other Horror you have there is Forgotten Creation. The plus point is it's cheap so Jace can summon it out easily. Just remember not to reinforce it by accident. Another option is Noyan Dar and Soulblade Djinn forming the core of a spell-heavy deck. But Noyan Dar is very expensive so it might be a bit risky if you don't have enough ramp (mana gain).

Jori En is a decent card for draw, Mizzium Meddler has good stats for its cost. Willbreaker is overpriced junk. Fathom Feeder is probably just too expensive for Jace. Prized Amalgam is dependent on how many other zombie cards you have which you feel are good enough to use. But I think a Blue zombie deck will only be of medium power at best with the current card selection.

Thopter Spy Network is an amazing card which you should try to fit in until you have cards with better synergy with your main deck idea. Good supports to have in the deck with it (to meet the one other support requirement) are Corrupted Grafstone, Drownyard Temple, Shrine of the Forgotten Gods, Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow, Prism Array or Sphinx's Tutelage. Fevered Visions is a good cheap support for draw and that little bit more of bonus damage. But be wary against using it on planeswalkers typically in need of draw such as Kiora, Nissa or Koth as you give them a free draw. Oath of Jace just isn't a very good card.

Day's Undoing is a very good spell for cycling and finding the cards you need. Welcome to the Fold is Exert Influence Junior and it's especially useful when combined with Jace's first ability allowing you to steal any creature with 11 power or less. Altered Ego is a great spell for reinforcing your creatures. All the better if you managed to steal a big creature to reinforce. Otherwise, the creatures you're running are all pretty big and should benefit quite nicely from it (Noyan Dar gets a +3/+3 when you cast it too).

Turn to Frog is iffy. You can slot it in as creature removal if you've space. But typically Disperse is enough to buy you time to finish the game before the opponent builds up too threatening a board. Plus with sufficient draw you should be able to spam bounces and removal with mana as your limitation. Invocation of Saint Traft is not bad but it's best for berserkers which Blue doesn't really have, nor do you want to run Berserker's Plate. Ugin's Insight is overpriced junk.

You also want to bear in mind to have something to deal with Runaway Carriage. So something that does mass disable (Guardians of Tazeem, Aligned Hedron Network + removal/bounce) or mass bounce (Displacement Wave, Crush of Tentacles, Engulf the Shore). Or True-Faith Censer or Haunted Cloak to give one of your creatures Vigilance to block and get rid of that annoyance.

What good colourless Rares and Mythics do you have? You can see how they might be able to help supplement your deck.

RhythmicDemise

[img][/img][img][/img]

span_argoman wrote:

RhythmicDemise wrote:

I need help with a deck blue is something I'm just now having to play I have a few rares and mythics including

Creatures:
Father Feeder
Noyan Dar
Souldblade Djinn
Will breaker
Forgotten Creation
Jori End
Prized Amalgam
Mizzium Meddler
Thing in Ice

Spells:

Turn to Frog
Days Undoing
Welcome to the Fold
Invocation of Saint Traft
Altered Ego
Ugins Insight

Supports:

Thopter Spy Network
Oath of Jace
Fevered Visions


Any help would be appreciated

You have several options. You can go for a Horrors deck with Thing in the Ice. Main issue with that is that it's slow to summon out Thing in the Ice and the only other Horror you have there is Forgotten Creation. The plus point is it's cheap so Jace can summon it out easily. Just remember not to reinforce it by accident. Another option is Noyan Dar and Soulblade Djinn forming the core of a spell-heavy deck. But Noyan Dar is very expensive so it might be a bit risky if you don't have enough ramp (mana gain).

Jori En is a decent card for draw, Mizzium Meddler has good stats for its cost. Willbreaker is overpriced junk. Fathom Feeder is probably just too expensive for Jace. Prized Amalgam is dependent on how many other zombie cards you have which you feel are good enough to use. But I think a Blue zombie deck will only be of medium power at best with the current card selection.

Thopter Spy Network is an amazing card which you should try to fit in until you have cards with better synergy with your main deck idea. Good supports to have in the deck with it (to meet the one other support requirement) are Corrupted Grafstone, Drownyard Temple, Shrine of the Forgotten Gods, Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow, Prism Array or Sphinx's Tutelage. Fevered Visions is a good cheap support for draw and that little bit more of bonus damage. But be wary against using it on planeswalkers typically in need of draw such as Kiora, Nissa or Koth as you give them a free draw. Oath of Jace just isn't a very good card.

Day's Undoing is a very good spell for cycling and finding the cards you need. Welcome to the Fold is Exert Influence Junior and it's especially useful when combined with Jace's first ability allowing you to steal any creature with 11 power or less. Altered Ego is a great spell for reinforcing your creatures. All the better if you managed to steal a big creature to reinforce. Otherwise, the creatures you're running are all pretty big and should benefit quite nicely from it (Noyan Dar gets a +3/+3 when you cast it too).

Turn to Frog is iffy. You can slot it in as creature removal if you've space. But typically Disperse is enough to buy you time to finish the game before the opponent builds up too threatening a board. Plus with sufficient draw you should be able to spam bounces and removal with mana as your limitation. Invocation of Saint Traft is not bad but it's best for berserkers which Blue doesn't really have, nor do you want to run Berserker's Plate. Ugin's Insight is overpriced junk.

You also want to bear in mind to have something to deal with Runaway Carriage. So something that does mass disable (Guardians of Tazeem, Aligned Hedron Network + removal/bounce) or mass bounce (Displacement Wave, Crush of Tentacles, Engulf the Shore). Or True-Faith Censer or Haunted Cloak to give one of your creatures Vigilance to block and get rid of that annoyance.

What good colourless Rares and Mythics do you have? You can see how they might be able to help supplement your deck.

I'm lacking in colorless rares and mythics

I have

Bane of Bala Ged
Matter Reshaper
Brain in a Jar
Canopy Vista
Cinder Glade
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
Smoldering Marsh
Sunken Hollow
Titan's Presence
Haunted Cloak

I'm in gold tier BTW and blue is lacking for me I also have Tezzeret but my other decks lose maybe one out of every 20-30 matches

span_argoman

RhythmicDemise wrote:

[img][/img][img][/img]

span_argoman wrote:

RhythmicDemise wrote:

I need help with a deck blue is something I'm just now having to play I have a few rares and mythics including

Creatures:
Father Feeder
Noyan Dar
Souldblade Djinn
Will breaker
Forgotten Creation
Jori End
Prized Amalgam
Mizzium Meddler
Thing in Ice

Spells:

Turn to Frog
Days Undoing
Welcome to the Fold
Invocation of Saint Traft
Altered Ego
Ugins Insight

Supports:

Thopter Spy Network
Oath of Jace
Fevered Visions


Any help would be appreciated

You have several options. You can go for a Horrors deck with Thing in the Ice. Main issue with that is that it's slow to summon out Thing in the Ice and the only other Horror you have there is Forgotten Creation. The plus point is it's cheap so Jace can summon it out easily. Just remember not to reinforce it by accident. Another option is Noyan Dar and Soulblade Djinn forming the core of a spell-heavy deck. But Noyan Dar is very expensive so it might be a bit risky if you don't have enough ramp (mana gain).

Jori En is a decent card for draw, Mizzium Meddler has good stats for its cost. Willbreaker is overpriced junk. Fathom Feeder is probably just too expensive for Jace. Prized Amalgam is dependent on how many other zombie cards you have which you feel are good enough to use. But I think a Blue zombie deck will only be of medium power at best with the current card selection.

Thopter Spy Network is an amazing card which you should try to fit in until you have cards with better synergy with your main deck idea. Good supports to have in the deck with it (to meet the one other support requirement) are Corrupted Grafstone, Drownyard Temple, Shrine of the Forgotten Gods, Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow, Prism Array or Sphinx's Tutelage. Fevered Visions is a good cheap support for draw and that little bit more of bonus damage. But be wary against using it on planeswalkers typically in need of draw such as Kiora, Nissa or Koth as you give them a free draw. Oath of Jace just isn't a very good card.

Day's Undoing is a very good spell for cycling and finding the cards you need. Welcome to the Fold is Exert Influence Junior and it's especially useful when combined with Jace's first ability allowing you to steal any creature with 11 power or less. Altered Ego is a great spell for reinforcing your creatures. All the better if you managed to steal a big creature to reinforce. Otherwise, the creatures you're running are all pretty big and should benefit quite nicely from it (Noyan Dar gets a +3/+3 when you cast it too).

Turn to Frog is iffy. You can slot it in as creature removal if you've space. But typically Disperse is enough to buy you time to finish the game before the opponent builds up too threatening a board. Plus with sufficient draw you should be able to spam bounces and removal with mana as your limitation. Invocation of Saint Traft is not bad but it's best for berserkers which Blue doesn't really have, nor do you want to run Berserker's Plate. Ugin's Insight is overpriced junk.

You also want to bear in mind to have something to deal with Runaway Carriage. So something that does mass disable (Guardians of Tazeem, Aligned Hedron Network + removal/bounce) or mass bounce (Displacement Wave, Crush of Tentacles, Engulf the Shore). Or True-Faith Censer or Haunted Cloak to give one of your creatures Vigilance to block and get rid of that annoyance.

What good colourless Rares and Mythics do you have? You can see how they might be able to help supplement your deck.

I'm lacking in colorless rares and mythics

I have

Bane of Bala Ged
Matter Reshaper
Brain in a Jar
Canopy Vista
Cinder Glade
Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
Smoldering Marsh
Sunken Hollow
Titan's Presence
Haunted Cloak

I'm in gold tier BTW and blue is lacking for me I also have Tezzeret but my other decks lose maybe one out of every 20-30 matches

Brain in a Jar is a good support card for a spell-heavy deck. It'll help you boost up Noyan Dar by helping you to charge up your spells more quickly. Shrine of the Forsaken Gods is great ramp for Jace. More so than Sunken Hollow as his gains are only +3/+1/+1/+0/+0.

Haunted Cloak is pretty important as a counter against Runaway Carriage. The Haste is also very nice for extra immediate damage. Plus if you put it in the spell-heavy deck it's a cheap trigger for Noyan Dar and Soulblade Djinn.

Titan's Presence is an awesome card but probably serves your other decks better as you don't have many 8+/X creature's to draw into for Blue to activate it.

Sample spell-heavy deck list could be:
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
Soulblade Djinn
Jori En, Ruin Diver
Thopter Spy Network
Shrine of the Forgotten Gods
Brain in a Jar
Day's Undoing
Welcome to the Fold
Artificer's Epiphany
Haunted Cloak

Shadow-Mage

Hello,

Personally since Jace 2.0 came out I have used this deck a lot less but I built it for the Terror in the Shadows events. It is built for the horrors and unfortunately is not very creative because there are only a few zombie horrors available to blue decks. Please let me know what changes you would make:

Creatures
Geralf's Masterpiece: Gains power when you discard, landfall will bring it back into play if it died.
Forgotten Creation: discards your whole hand boosting Geralf's masterpiece and redraws your hand.
Stitchwing Skaab: Low cost and high power zombie horror that comes back from the dead upon landfall.

Spells
Turn to frog: Creature removal for the big baddy on the other side of the field
Talent of the telepath: quick play of many of the cards in the deck and lowers the cost of the others

Supports
Brain in a Jar: helps cast the 2 spells quickly before dumping your hand
Corrupted Grafstone: Mana gain and potential creator for landfall to pull in your discarded creatures
Fevered Visions: More draw power and more pain for your opponent
Sphinx's Tutelage: With the amount of draw in the deck it will become a nuisance for your opponent to cast anything
Mirrorpool: make your creatures bigger or free cast your spells, either is good.

This deck has synergy but I find it a bit boring. I run it for the event and that is about it. I used to run Welcome to the Fold with his first ability but in this build you pretty much need the 3 creatures you have so I cut it out.

Let me know how you would spice up this deck. All assistance is appreciated.

Thanks

SeditiousCanary

I'm playing this:

Thopter Spy Network
Sword of the Animist
Talent of the Telepath
Mizzium Meddler
Prism Array
Disperse
Sphinx's Tutelage
Gone Missing
Gruesone Slaughter
Thing in the Ice

This is pretty good as is, but I feel like there is some improvement I can do here. I'd hate to play against this list.

Trollman

What is the ideal level of Jace?

Let's assume for the moment that our intention is to use Jace as an Event clearer and that we notice that increasing a Planeswalker's level gets you matched with higher level planeswalkers and thus that it is better for your Planeswalker to be the lowest level that can effectively pull off your plan. Obviously if we were concerned about PVE events like Avacyn's Madness or Story Mode matches that have static enemies regardless of your Planeswalker's level, the answer to which level would be best for each Planeswalker would always be "sixty," but let's assume we're concerning ourselves with something like Nodes of Power. What level is it best to stop advancing Jace on to maximize win ratios and minimize win times?

The most glaring piece of data to me is that Blue, Black, and White gems give the same mana at level 28 as they do at level 60. So while maxxing out Jace's level certainly gives him a more powerful Mind Sculpt, your ability to play cards out of your deck in the first five to ten turns is pretty much exactly the same as if you'd stopped leveling thirtytwo levels ago. And when you register for Nodes of Power with a 28th level Jace you face much weaker opposition than if you'd registered a 60th level Jace. These lower level opponents have less hit points and can be knocked out faster and their own powers and mana gains are less impactful.

I'm honestly not sure where and when this sort of argument stops being compelling. If you registered a 15th level Jace, you'd face weaker opposition still, and you'd still be getting 5 mana off a Blue match and 4 off a White or Black match. It definitely seems like you could pack a 15th level Jace deck with cheap rares and roflstomp the kind of opposition you're likely to face.

Is there a level where opposition simply stops getting any less powerful?

majincob

Trollman wrote:

What is the ideal level of Jace?

Let's assume for the moment that our intention is to use Jace as an Event clearer and that we notice that increasing a Planeswalker's level gets you matched with higher level planeswalkers and thus that it is better for your Planeswalker to be the lowest level that can effectively pull off your plan. Obviously if we were concerned about PVE events like Avacyn's Madness or Story Mode matches that have static enemies regardless of your Planeswalker's level, the answer to which level would be best for each Planeswalker would always be "sixty," but let's assume we're concerning ourselves with something like Nodes of Power. What level is it best to stop advancing Jace on to maximize win ratios and minimize win times?

The most glaring piece of data to me is that Blue, Black, and White gems give the same mana at level 28 as they do at level 60. So while maxxing out Jace's level certainly gives him a more powerful Mind Sculpt, your ability to play cards out of your deck in the first five to ten turns is pretty much exactly the same as if you'd stopped leveling thirtytwo levels ago. And when you register for Nodes of Power with a 28th level Jace you face much weaker opposition than if you'd registered a 60th level Jace. These lower level opponents have less hit points and can be knocked out faster and their own powers and mana gains are less impactful.

I'm honestly not sure where and when this sort of argument stops being compelling. If you registered a 15th level Jace, you'd face weaker opposition still, and you'd still be getting 5 mana off a Blue match and 4 off a White or Black match. It definitely seems like you could pack a 15th level Jace deck with cheap rares and roflstomp the kind of opposition you're likely to face.

Is there a level where opposition simply stops getting any less powerful?

I've never used a non-60 PW in an event, but I thought I heard that you generally got paired with an opponent 10+ levels higher. Is that no longer the case?

Also the other consideration I would take is the mastery level. If you can get a lvl 60 in Bronze and a solid deck without going into silver it seems like you could roflstomp other level 60's of people with poor collections.

Trollman

In the current Emrakul's Corruption, I have registered (at Gold):

• Chandra Level 60 - next match is a Level 60 Saheeli
• Jace Level 35 - next match is a Level 40 Kiora
• Naheeri Level 33 - next match is a Level 38 Koth

I could obviously raise the level of Jace or Naheeri, but they put up numbers so good at the levels they are that I am worried about spoiling a good thing. Naheeri in particular is my lowest level event contestant and she also has the highest win percentage and the quickest games. So quick in fact that I ran through the Koth match while writing this post - and the next match would be a Level 38 Kiora. Obviously, I've been paired with enemies that are the same level as me or even lower.

So it looks to me that when you are less than level 60, you face enemies that are 5 levels higher than you or less. Which means that any Planeswalker who puts up better win rates or faster wins at level X against opponents level X + 5 than they do at level 60 against level 60 enemies should be left to stay at level X. I think Jace, Telepath Unbound is a very good example of a Planeswalker who probably does better (in terms of wins per hour of your life) at level 28 against Level 33 opponents than he does at level 60 against Level 60 opponents.

Grenade110

span_argoman wrote:

I find that Jace is strongest when you lock the AI's hand by draining mana and increasing the cost of the cards in hand such that even a cascade isn't going to summon out the first card. In particular this works well with the third ability which can keep your opponent's hand drained of mana and ensure they just about never get to play any card.

You will get to this point where the AI is feebly trying to charge up its first card which is already designated its best card to play but it can't outstrip your mana drain and the cost increases.

It's going to be slow so it won't be suited for QB but it can work rather well for Story / Events.

If I had all the cards my ideal deck of this design would be:
Drowner of Hope
Thopter Spy Network
Shrine of the Forgotten Gods
Sunken Hollow
Prairie Stream
Sphinx's Tutelage
Prism Array
Talent of the Telepath
Scatter to the Wind / Horribly Awry
Disperse / Clutch of Currents / Harbinger of Tides

Creatures
The first two cards are there because their combo effect disables your opponent's creatures for the rest of the game. If you don't have both, Thopter Spy Network alone still works with the rest of the deck as the support gives you a draw whenever your token creatures attack the enemy planeswalker, working with Sphinx's Tutelage.

Otherwise, Disciple of the Ring is another Mythic that fits the theme. Down in rarity, you have Deepfathom Skulker (though it is cost prohibitive for a 4/4), Jori En and Fathom Feeder. There's also Mizzium Meddler which should be considered purely for its mana efficiency rather than it's negligible effect. Further down the rarity line you get the usual suspects such as Sigiled Starfish or Jhessian Thief.

Supports
The next three cards are there for mana gain. Jace's mana gain isn't as strong as the other blue planeswalkers so you need some way to compensate. I have to say Shrine of the Forgotten Gods is (sadly) rather crucial to making any of the original planeswalkers (except Nissa) competitive at high levels.

Sphinx's Tutelage is key to increasing the costs of cards in the opponent's hands. The deck has rather varied means of drawing (Prism Array, TotT) so you should not have to wait long to draw this into hand.

Prism Array for the draw, and to disable anything that gets through. Getting a landfall will increase the opponent's first card cost by up to 6 mana. In the case of the opponent triggering a landfall, the draw triggers before the mana gain which means the cost increase from Tutelage will also trigger before the mana gain.

Talent of the Telepath is important to fetch the right cards: Sphinx's Tutelage, your ramp supports, an emergency Disperse or Scatter to the Winds. Pretty much your entire deck except your creatures and Thopter Spy Network will be autocast by this spell and that is really good for setup.

You want to be discarding any unnecessary cards in hand so that you can keep drawing. You can potentially be increasing the mana cost by 10 if you landfall with Prism Array out and have a bonus draw from one of your creatures or Thopter Spy Network.

Spells
Scatter to the Wind is necessary to clear the mana built up on your opponent's first card as otherwise one good cascade will undo all your good work. The other option is Jace's third ability. 15 loyalty for Trap 9 is a fair cost for pretty great odds to drain your opponent of a lot of mana. Horribly Awry also works well enough if you are missing Scatter to the Wind because it is really the creatures which you want to prevent from being played. You can use Disperse to bounce-destroy any tokens that get summoned by spells or supports.

Disperse is there to bounce back anything that makes it through the gaps. Clutch of Currents is a costlier alternative that still maintains the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. Harbinger of Tides is an alternative which is more in line with the deck theme but loses the benefit of fetching from Jace's second ability and the autocast-ability from Talent of the Telepath. It worked well for me in the past but Disperse has been my go-to at least for QB because for QB you only really need that temporary tempo disruption. You can try and see which works better for you.

If there's any card you don't have or prefer not to have in the deck, there's still Jace's Sanctum as an alternative. Jace's Sanctum + Sphinx's Tutelage alone is 5 mana a turn which isn't small. This used to be a terror back before planeswalker caps were raised to 60 (mana gains were capped at +2/+1/+1/+0/+0 or +3/+1/+1/+0/+0 at 50) and before all the new planeswalkers with increased mana gains.

The most important question though is why Jace instead of Kiora?
Imo Jace edges Kiora out on this build cause of his second and third ability. Sure Kiora has 6 loyalty to drain 6 mana but Jace has 15 loyalty to drain up to 54 mana. That actually matters when the mana cost of the opponent's first card is greatly increased by Sphinx's Tutelage.

The second ability is more when you urgently need Scatter to the Winds cause you cannot wait another turn to use Mind Sculpt. You have a 1/3 chance of getting the spell and another 1/3 chance of getting Talent and fetching a Scatter in your next three cards. You do lose this benefit if you use Harbinger of Tides instead of Disperse though.

Another minor reason is when you have enough planeswalkers, you can keep this deck configuration in Jace and keep Kiora (if you have her) in Quick Battle configuration rather than having to change her decklist when switching between events and QB.

What achievements is this deck good at getting?
It is most definitely slow, but it's suited for hitting story achievements like finish the match in 25 rounds or more, or event achievements for casting a certain number of supports (if you don't have Tezzeret yet). Arguably it might be a decent candidate for the kill 2 or less enemy creatures achievements but I don't have Shrine and without it my setup is too slow to lock down the opponent early enough. But Thopter Spy Network + Drowner of Hope will disable enemy creatures once out to ensure that you need not kill again till the end of the match.


*edit*
I added in the alternatives of Clutch of Currents and Harbinger of Tides for Disperse.
Also added in the explanation for Horribly Awry which I forgot earlier.

I really love using Drowner of Hope and I either have or plan on using him in every blue aligned Planeswalker's deck. I currently have Jace1 and Jace2 but none of the others (trying to get 2 of each color before getting the multicolored walkers and I've been playing MTGPQ about 3 months and have 8 Planeswalkers [Nissa, Garruk, Ob Nixilis, Liliana1, Jace1, Jace2, Chandra and Gideon1])

The deck for Jace2 is my best deck in my opinion and was struggling to get a strong deck for Jace1. I tried a build that combined Drowner of Hope and Metallurgic Summons with cheap spells and it had some success but it was lacking in areas. I saw your list and I wanted to try a variation with the cards I own. This is what I came up with.

Drainer of Hope
Jace, Telepath Unbound, Level 60

Creatures (1):
Drowner of Hope

Spells (3):
Turn to Frog
Tezzeret's Ambition
Clash of Wills

Supports (6):
Thopter Spy Network
Oath of Jace
Sphinx's Tutelage
Skyline Cascade
Choked Estuary
Port Town

As with your build it can drain mana fast and increase the mana cost a lot.

The cards I chose that you didn't were for different reasons...

Turn to Frog - I found that it is superior in creature control than "bounce". I just love the idea of reducing Olivia or Decimator of Providences or Emrakul or any other massive Mythic creature to a lowly frog.

Tezzeret's Ambition - Because I don't have Talent of the Telepath but it has been a bit of an all-star with Sphinx's Tutelage out.

Clash of Wills - I don't have Scatter to the Winds but Clash has been a great substitute.

Oath of Jace - I knew how devastating this support can be from running it in my Jace2 deck and since I don't have Prism Array I chose it and the draw 2 followed by a minor drain from each other spell/support has been great.

Skyline Cascade, Choked Estuary, and Port Town - I don't have any of the ramp supports you ran but these three are solid. Estuary and Town are in place of Prairie Stream and Sunken Hollow. Skyline Cascade has been a nice addition as well.

Corn_Noodles

Such a popular guy right now...