My first impression of Jace is that you would need to rework the strategy entirely to make Jace work. I'm pretty sure you would need 4-8 discards spells and Cliques on top of it to be able to land Jace on t4 safely even half of the time.
My first impression of Jace is that you would need to rework the strategy entirely to make Jace work. I'm pretty sure you would need 4-8 discards spells and Cliques on top of it to be able to land Jace on t4 safely even half of the time.
I imagine there's going to be two ways to get Jace to work. There's this method you mentioned where landing him asap is crucial to just running away with the game on the spot. In that kind of list I could definitely see 4 Jace working actually as it's the payoff spell for all your hand disruption.
The other option is slotting him into "regular" control lists that aren't looking to play him on turn 4 (unless the opportunity is there) but rather as a win con that you play turn 7, 8 or later. In that kind of list running less Jaces and more removal/counters makes more sense. Time will tell which list is correct but both have merit. I think if you're already including discard that having threats to capitalize on that as well such as young pyro also makes sense.
I played some more matches with Jace and I'm feeling a little more optimistic about him. He's fighting for the same slots with other game winning cards like AV and Cryptic. Jace is a pretty polarizing card, but some creature decks are not equipped to answer him. I'm currently thinking about 3 AV, 2 Cryptic, 1 Jace, or possibly 2 AV, 2 Cryptic, 2 Jace. Given that this deck doesn't run too many threats, Jace is a nice supplement.
It needs to be said that my Tasigurs have still been all-stars in my most recent league matches. It's hard for me to imagine going below 2. Some columnists bring up that delve threats are weak to Jace's -1, but all we need is a Tar Pit, Kommand or Bolt to find ourselves ahead in that kind of exchange.
Playtested a bit with Jace last night with some friends. The match ups were D&T and Ponza, so it was not the most robust field, but it did let me get a feel for how Jace integrates into the deck. D&T is already a good matchup, and Ponza is more about avoiding Blood Moon lock. Both decks require some brain power on land sequencing and surviving land hate. I was playing two Jace in the deck and felt that number was sufficient.
My takeaways were that Serum Visions really has diminished in value now, to the point where I want to spend my first few turns controlling the board or landing a Tasigur preemptively to protect Jace, rather than cantriping to set up a perfect hand. Landing Jace substantially increased my odds of winning (or decreased my odds of losing) by allowing me to fix bad hands, control the board, or gain temporary life while locking out my opponents' top decks. In Brainstorm decisions, I frequently was shuffling Serum Visions away after keeping it in my opening hand. I likely will swap my last 2 Serum Vision out for one more land card and one more action card.
Under late pressure, Jace was a little clunky. I was fine having one in my hand while I dealt with the board, but feared drawing more instead of action. With Azcanta on scry mode and eventually search mode, I was able to find Jace when I needed to and find other cards when they were a priority. I still am leaning on preferring Azcanta over Ancestral. Ancestral is probably better when things are already going well, and I can land a Jace to BS away excess Ancestral topdecks. However, I prefer the card selection offered by Azcanta over multiple turns, and prefer a play pattern of T1: deal with opponents' T1/T2 threat then drop Azcanta, over suspending Ancestral and letting my opponent build board unimpeded. This play pattern allows me to play the traditional Grixis Control strategy and then use Jace more offensively when I do draw him, rather than leaning heavily on a defensive Jace. Maybe the answer is different in a build with more sweepers.
Jace also was nice against some targeted discard, protecting Snapcaster Mage as a target. I also enjoyed being able to Jace minus my own Snapcasters for value, and being able to turn on Fatal Pushes in the process. In addition, Cryptic is still amazing and I would not drop down below 3.
I am currently considering replacing my main deck Countersquall for another Logic Knot, just to insulate myself from more from threats and increase ability to protect Jace when he lands.
I can see Search making Serum Visions less important for your, but isn't it contradictory to say that you can't find the mana to suspend Ancestral when Search costs two?
Re: "Isn't it contradictory to say that you can't find the mana to suspend Ancestral when Search costs two?"
The answer is yes and no. It's more a question of using the mana efficiently and optimally. Breaking down the curve of the deck as it currently stands, there are a lot of 1 drops, few two drops (Terminate, Logic Knot, and Azcanta), and then lots of three and four drops (including Snap-one drop; Snap-two drop). (There is also the consideration of dropping T2 Tasigur, which suspend AV makes more difficult, but not impossible.) The tl;dr is that the deck has a lot of options for Turn 1 play, that gets pushed to Turn 2 if you suspend Visions.
For example, lets say you're on the play, drop land, AV. Then on turn 2, you usually are using only 1 of your two mana, maybe casting Terminate, or just holding up mana for a 2 mana Counterspell. In this scenario, there is a substantial risk of efficiency loss. In contrast, if you react on turn 1 with either a thoughtscour or removal spell, and then hit azcanta on turn 2, then you are using all your mana efficiently. Over the next three turns, you have Azcanta action 3 times, increasing your chance of drawing relevant action. You also have the ability to ramp up mana once you hit 7 in the GY, which can help you use more spells to protect Jace. With AV, you draw additional 3 cards on turn 5, that can vary from very good to lands/fluff. On the draw, both AV and Azcanta can be clunky, but Azcanta at least offers value sooner when you eventually cast it. If you are facing off against an aggro deck for example on the draw, you can T1 hold up Spell Snare or use removal and then drop Azcanta when you have time rather than feeling pot-committed to dropping AV.
This analysis obviously changes based on the meta and how your construct your deck. Imagine a world where BBE is king and the field is just Jund. In that world, at least you can drop AV on the play under your opponents discard. With Azcanta, you just need to pray that your opponent finds Snapcaster or Jace more appealing to take. Or imagine we are in a world of blue decks, AV is nice because on turn 5, you get to ask your opponent, "hey, are you going to counter my Draw 3, or this Jace I will likely play otherwise?" You can also avoid a lot of the choices I mention above by just building different. You could take out Spell Snare to avoid the conflict with AV. You can put in more sweepers to compensate for a slower response and the likely uptick in Lingering Souls. If there is a clear answer (which there probably isn't), its not between choosing bad or good, but more like great or marginally greater (black v. slightly darker black).
By the way, when you talked about playing no Scours, it made me remember when I argue in favor of no Scours myself +2 years ago. It's pretty fun for me to go back to read these messages:
Scour is a ritual only when you have a delce card in hand, which you want to cast the same turn, when your GY doesn't already have 3+ cards in it. When these conditions are not met, on the contrary you're paying 1 more mana for your next spell. That one mana could have been spent on something else.
Scour is hardly adding consistency to your deck. It doesn't add card selection, outside of giving more targets to Jace and Snapcaster (which is certainly appealing). However you might also end up milling targets for fetches which decreases the consistency of your deck. Scour will also ruin any scry manipulation from Serum Visions.
What's in the heart of the matter is when are you happy to cast scour? Any Jace-list already plays 12 1-mana spells to begin with, which means you pretty much always have something better to do on your turn 1. T2 you're hoping to cast Jace or keep mana open for a counterspells. Scour has to spend way too much time on my hand. Flipping Jace on t3 and casting tasigur from t3 onwards is already so trivial with the plethora of cheap interaction and fetches it leaves Scour without any function for this deck.
outside of giving more targets to Jace and Snapcaster (which is certainly appealing).
This.
With 8 flashback guys, if you have flipped jace/snap in hand and you are digging for answer, thought scour is basically ancestral recall. And yes, thought scour is increasing your deck's consistency since it replaces itself and thins your deck, which always adds consistency.
Oh, and thought scour is enabling your Jace far more regularly.
PS: I've just realised that you don't run Lavamancer in your 75. I think I'd fit at least one (probably moving Mulldrifter to the sideboard and cutting 1 flashfreeze/magma spray)
Kind Regards,
TFSS
Calling Thought Scour a Dark Ritual that cantrips is one thing, but calling it an Ancestral Recall is taking it too far. I don't want to cut anything from this deck, I don't have any effects in excess. I already have 4 Jaces, 4 Snapcasters and 4 Serum Visions and more spells that say "draw a card". There's enough redundancy in this deck as it is, and as I said you are always getting a Jace flip whether you played Scour or not.
It's very aggravating to me how you're acting as though there's no opportunity cost coined to playing with Thought Scour. It's extremely unsatisfactory to cast efficient spells like Lightning Bolt, Terminate and Tasigur, the Golden Fang just so I can make up for the tempo loss from casting Thought Scours from my hand.
I have played with Lavamancer but it felt like an easy cut since it's not helping me in the toughest MUs. Snapcaster + Bolt / Terminate gives a lot of cushion against creature decks so I'd rather spend my flex slots on something that gives me game against Combo or the most grindy decks like Junk and Jund.
I've actually been tinkering with various jace decks for a long time now just as an entertaining deck building exercise. Never did I think that it would actually be relevant. I had the most "success" with blue moon variants with jace in the past, but I've actually been heavily sold on grixis control since the news. Here's where I'm at so far, mind you there some odd choices that are purely a speculative meta call.
The removal spread is 100% speculation, but I'm definitely starting with two dreadbores in the dark and will reevaluate once more results come in and we see how popular jace/liliana really are. Two cliques and two brutality are amazing at interacting with unfair decks on their axis which still do stuff against fair decks, but importantly gets you a peek at the hand to see what's up with jace. One search because I still want a non-jace draw engine and I have spreading seas as my cantrip of choice to give a solid shot at beating tron game one. I have 3x Knot and zero MD snare or negate because I want all of my permission to stop jace, blood moon, and scary creatures. Even with zero scours I haven't had any problems fueling the knots in the early game and late game it's a non-issue all together. The mana base is surprisingly stable even with only 21 colored sources in the deck not counting azcanta as it's mostly a UR deck with a splash of black. I like the extra basic with the field package and the only time I have damaging mana troubles if I'm stuck on 3 lands and two of them are fields.
Post board I'm looking to stop blood moon, walkers, and lava spike which leads to me favoring negate in my permission suite. The large number of counters along with the MD land hate makes tron significantly more manageable than the traditional grixis configurations. I'm heavy on sweepers and would like to work in a staticaster, but I'm not sure how much of the meta will be lingering souls decks and "Ux jace and dorks midrange" in addition to the usual suspects you want a proper wrath against. A pair of surgicals for reasons we've been over and brutality 3-4 because I do expect burn and various spell combo decks to be popular and I HATE losing to burn. Bias aside, I do think 4 brutality in the 75 is a good place to be day one.
Lastly there is a single grave titan as a game ending play for fair matches that fills the same role that Elspeth 6 plays for jeskai except you can avoid negate and stub while still being good against jace if you stick it. I may have gone a little too meta with the list, but it's fairly close to what I've been on pre-jace and have been incredibly happy with both it's positioning and performance.
EDIT
Re: Jace, Search, and Cryptic counts
Currently I'm happy with 4 jace and 1 search after trying 2 search and 3 jace for a while simply because one kills the opponent and the other doesn't. I'm still solid on 4 cryptics because for card advantage to be worthwhile you need to have powerful spells to draw into and cryptic is the best card to find when you're trying to kill you opponent with jace or mediocre beats. It also allows for a counter bounce into jace bounce sequence for when you're light on removal to drop jace on a clear board which is a very swingy play. I can see it being correct to cut cryptic in favor of a spell snare, negate, or other form of early permission but currently I'm sticking with what I know to be good enough.
Re: "Isn't it contradictory to say that you can't find the mana to suspend Ancestral when Search costs two?"
The answer is yes and no. It's more a question of using the mana efficiently and optimally. Breaking down the curve of the deck as it currently stands, there are a lot of 1 drops, few two drops (Terminate, Logic Knot, and Azcanta), and then lots of three and four drops (including Snap-one drop; Snap-two drop). (There is also the consideration of dropping T2 Tasigur, which suspend AV makes more difficult, but not impossible.) The tl;dr is that the deck has a lot of options for Turn 1 play, that gets pushed to Turn 2 if you suspend Visions.
For example, lets say you're on the play, drop land, AV. Then on turn 2, you usually are using only 1 of your two mana, maybe casting Terminate, or just holding up mana for a 2 mana Counterspell. In this scenario, there is a substantial risk of efficiency loss. In contrast, if you react on turn 1 with either a thoughtscour or removal spell, and then hit azcanta on turn 2, then you are using all your mana efficiently. Over the next three turns, you have Azcanta action 3 times, increasing your chance of drawing relevant action. You also have the ability to ramp up mana once you hit 7 in the GY, which can help you use more spells to protect Jace. With AV, you draw additional 3 cards on turn 5, that can vary from very good to lands/fluff. On the draw, both AV and Azcanta can be clunky, but Azcanta at least offers value sooner when you eventually cast it. If you are facing off against an aggro deck for example on the draw, you can T1 hold up Spell Snare or use removal and then drop Azcanta when you have time rather than feeling pot-committed to dropping AV.
This analysis obviously changes based on the meta and how your construct your deck. Imagine a world where BBE is king and the field is just Jund. In that world, at least you can drop AV on the play under your opponents discard. With Azcanta, you just need to pray that your opponent finds Snapcaster or Jace more appealing to take. Or imagine we are in a world of blue decks, AV is nice because on turn 5, you get to ask your opponent, "hey, are you going to counter my Draw 3, or this Jace I will likely play otherwise?" You can also avoid a lot of the choices I mention above by just building different. You could take out Spell Snare to avoid the conflict with AV. You can put in more sweepers to compensate for a slower response and the likely uptick in Lingering Souls. If there is a clear answer (which there probably isn't), its not between choosing bad or good, but more like great or marginally greater (black v. slightly darker black).
The mana efficiency issue you pointed out isn't nearly so simple. In your specific examples sure it works better along the curve but for every one of those there are tons of others supporting ancestral over search. One mana will always cost less than 2, it allows you to start casting multiple spells in a turn earlier and especially late game with a flipped search. This comes up a lot in control mirrors where you or your opponent tap 4 to search and the opponent responds by trying to resolve a high impact spell (I've run into several from secure the wastes/rev to breach in ur combo/control or against jeskai they try to burn you out in that window). Having to bottom snapcasters with search also feels really bad.
Don't get me wrong search is a great card I'm a big fan of it but it's certainly better in matchups where you value the immediate impact of the "scry" over long term games against other midrange/control decks that have more discard, counters or land and enchantment hate. I think it's a meta dependent call and if the meta does slow down I see ancestral being better.
Also Tiemuuu crazy how quickly things change. A very short while ago I would have been very strongly against cutting any number of scours cause it just synergizes so well with the deck. With less delve creatures and a high impact card like Jace you don't wanna mill over I think it does lose value though. Still a good card but not sure if it's necessary if we're building in that direction.
Just to make sure you understand, those messages were +2 years old and the Jace in question was Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. It was the current trend back then. I ended up cutting them quite soon and adopted Scours along the line.
EDIT: I've played a few friendly and comp. leagues in MODO and decided to cut the Jaces. They were OK, but I value AV and Cryptic higher.
I've been on Magic hiatus for about a year (saving up enthusiasm for Dominaria, but Jace brought me back early!). And I have a tangential question.
When did we all start running Logic Knot? I'm a longtime evangelist of that card, and I just noticed suddenly everyone's playing it (and it's like $2.50 instead of $0.40). What happened?
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
This is my deck that i'm planning on taking in a week to local tuesday night modern event.
The clique, JVP and LtlH are mainly "because i like them" additions
Final list is both a call to burkhart, and also stealing a bit from this list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/948028#paper
I'm liking JVP and clique as additional creatures/threats, i also can't see how the deck can support 4 CC and 4 JTMS
That's almost exactly the list I'm planning on running Friday, except I'm running Logic Knot in place of your Remands and Jace in place of the AVs. Not sure if that's correct, but it'll be good to see how Jace performs, and I'll be damned if I don't sleeve him up at least once on his unbanning week.
I've been liking the Pyromancers quite a bit. I'm planning on 2-3 Tasigur-Pyro, but can't find the last cut for it.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
Congrats on the list posted man. Was pretty cool to see a non-Jace actual blue deck do well in the new meta. I just have a couple of questions for you about your list.
1. What exactly is your reasoning for having YP's in this sort of deck, was your goal to make this a grixis variant of the UR Pyro deck?
2. What changes would you make going forward?
3. Does this deck need/want Jace?
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Modern URBSome variant of Death's Shadow URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version) JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / Infect
you don't know how happy I am to see a young pyromancer build 5-0ing a league will try jaces instead of AV, mainly because I don't have AVs but I do have jaces lol
Congrats on the list posted man. Was pretty cool to see a non-Jace actual blue deck do well in the new meta. I just have a couple of questions for you about your list.
1. What exactly is your reasoning for having YP's in this sort of deck, was your goal to make this a grixis variant of the UR Pyro deck?
2. What changes would you make going forward?
3. Does this deck need/want Jace?
Thanks. From what I have gathered from chatting on Twitch, Jace is a pretty middling card for most people. We are currently in a transitional period where people are trying Jace out in decks where it doesn't belong. I'm expecting the amount of play Jace sees to drop down in the next few weeks.
I have played with Young Pyromancer in the past too: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/541909#online
Back then the biggest reason was (IIRC) that I wanted a card that blocks the threats UR Kiln Fiend decks played, and also operated well under Blood Moon. I'm pretty sure that decklist wanted some Pushes in it, though.
I've always loved Young Pyromancer, but there need to be enough compelling reasons for me justify playing him, since one of the biggest strengths of this deck is that we are, for the most part, immune to cards like Bolt and Push. Since I went down to two Tasigurs I felt that I wanted another threat in the maindeck. Initially I cut one Mana Leak and added a Clique, as they both serve role as disruptive cards. I wasn't really feeling Clique, though, and missed my second Mana Leak a lot. So I went back to Young Peezy. I recently played against Thrun out of the sideboard of Abzan, UW control playing Gideon of Trials, and had to face a lot of Taking Turns -decks on MODO. The unbanning of Jace also made me want to have a threat that's good at attacking PWs. These small catalysts made me try him out again. I'm currently playing just one Peezy and went back to three Cryptics.
Having even just a single Young Pyromancer in the deck can solve some very real problems. If you can dodge or deal with their new Lilis, Peezy absolutely shreds DS decks to pieces, which I do still find very challenging MUs. In many MUs you might be able to stabilize at a low life total, but still have trouble turning the corner. Sometimes you can't afford to attack with your Tasigur, and Snapcaster might be too small. Young Pyromancer's ability to go wide allows you to start racing the opponent more actively. Pyromancer is also obviously strong with the Cryptic - Snap - Cryptic lock.
As for the overall composition of the deck, I'm probably not going to change anything in the near future. My list hasn't changed much at all in the last ~6 months. Going down to two Tasigurs was the biggest change in a long time, which is a result of the format's threats growing ever larger (pyromancer is definitely a nice complement to Tasigur in this sense). Three Cryptics, two Mana Leaks and two Remands is a counterspell core I've been very happy with. I'm also pretty settled on AV>Search, but I could make an essay on this topic alone so I'll leave it at that.
As for now I don't think the deck needs Jace. There might be some other decks or deck compositions where Jace does belong.
Thanks. From what I have gathered from chatting on Twitch, Jace is a pretty middling card for most people. We are currently in a transitional period where people are trying Jace out in decks where it doesn't belong. I'm expecting the amount of play Jace sees to drop down in the next few weeks.
I have played with Young Pyromancer in the past too: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/541909#online
Back then the biggest reason was (IIRC) that I wanted a card that blocks the threats UR Kiln Fiend decks played, and also operated well under Blood Moon. I'm pretty sure that decklist wanted some Pushes in it, though.
I've always loved Young Pyromancer, but there need to be enough compelling reasons for me justify playing him, since one of the biggest strengths of this deck is that we are, for the most part, immune to cards like Bolt and Push. Since I went down to two Tasigurs I felt that I wanted another threat in the maindeck. Initially I cut one Mana Leak and added a Clique, as they both serve role as disruptive cards. I wasn't really feeling Clique, though, and missed my second Mana Leak a lot. So I went back to Young Peezy. I recently played against Thrun out of the sideboard of Abzan, UW control playing Gideon of Trials, and had to face a lot of Taking Turns -decks on MODO. The unbanning of Jace also made me want to have a threat that's good at attacking PWs. These small catalysts made me try him out again. I'm currently playing just one Peezy and went back to three Cryptics.
Having even just a single Young Pyromancer in the deck can solve some very real problems. If you can dodge or deal with their new Lilis, Peezy absolutely shreds DS decks to pieces, which I do still find very challenging MUs. In many MUs you might be able to stabilize at a low life total, but still have trouble turning the corner. Sometimes you can't afford to attack with your Tasigur, and Snapcaster might be too small. Young Pyromancer's ability to go wide allows you to start racing the opponent more actively. Pyromancer is also obviously strong with the Cryptic - Snap - Cryptic lock.
As for the overall composition of the deck, I'm probably not going to change anything in the near future. My list hasn't changed much at all in the last ~6 months. Going down to two Tasigurs was the biggest change in a long time, which is a result of the format's threats growing ever larger (pyromancer is definitely a nice complement to Tasigur in this sense). Three Cryptics, two Mana Leaks and two Remands is a counterspell core I've been very happy with. I'm also pretty settled on AV>Search, but I could make an essay on this topic alone so I'll leave it at that.
As for now I don't think the deck needs Jace. There might be some other decks or deck compositions where Jace does belong.
I think that in your version AV is better than search because the deck plays more a tempo/midrange gameplan than a control deck, after trying it seems more similar to a grixis delver list than a hard control deck like yasooka or corey lists.
One question: why the split between spirebluff canal and sulfur falls?
I made a list based on yours taking out the AV and adding 2 JTMS and 1 Bolt, I like the proactivity of the deck and having 6 difficult to deal threats sold me the deck. Next Saturday I will test it IRL, then I can share the list and how it went.
But in the end I will probably still won't be sure if I prefer the Search+Jace super synergetic version (+scour+field of ruin+tasi/snap) or this pressure version of the deck.
Youtube Channel
I imagine there's going to be two ways to get Jace to work. There's this method you mentioned where landing him asap is crucial to just running away with the game on the spot. In that kind of list I could definitely see 4 Jace working actually as it's the payoff spell for all your hand disruption.
The other option is slotting him into "regular" control lists that aren't looking to play him on turn 4 (unless the opportunity is there) but rather as a win con that you play turn 7, 8 or later. In that kind of list running less Jaces and more removal/counters makes more sense. Time will tell which list is correct but both have merit. I think if you're already including discard that having threats to capitalize on that as well such as young pyro also makes sense.
It needs to be said that my Tasigurs have still been all-stars in my most recent league matches. It's hard for me to imagine going below 2. Some columnists bring up that delve threats are weak to Jace's -1, but all we need is a Tar Pit, Kommand or Bolt to find ourselves ahead in that kind of exchange.
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My takeaways were that Serum Visions really has diminished in value now, to the point where I want to spend my first few turns controlling the board or landing a Tasigur preemptively to protect Jace, rather than cantriping to set up a perfect hand. Landing Jace substantially increased my odds of winning (or decreased my odds of losing) by allowing me to fix bad hands, control the board, or gain temporary life while locking out my opponents' top decks. In Brainstorm decisions, I frequently was shuffling Serum Visions away after keeping it in my opening hand. I likely will swap my last 2 Serum Vision out for one more land card and one more action card.
Under late pressure, Jace was a little clunky. I was fine having one in my hand while I dealt with the board, but feared drawing more instead of action. With Azcanta on scry mode and eventually search mode, I was able to find Jace when I needed to and find other cards when they were a priority. I still am leaning on preferring Azcanta over Ancestral. Ancestral is probably better when things are already going well, and I can land a Jace to BS away excess Ancestral topdecks. However, I prefer the card selection offered by Azcanta over multiple turns, and prefer a play pattern of T1: deal with opponents' T1/T2 threat then drop Azcanta, over suspending Ancestral and letting my opponent build board unimpeded. This play pattern allows me to play the traditional Grixis Control strategy and then use Jace more offensively when I do draw him, rather than leaning heavily on a defensive Jace. Maybe the answer is different in a build with more sweepers.
Jace also was nice against some targeted discard, protecting Snapcaster Mage as a target. I also enjoyed being able to Jace minus my own Snapcasters for value, and being able to turn on Fatal Pushes in the process. In addition, Cryptic is still amazing and I would not drop down below 3.
I am currently considering replacing my main deck Countersquall for another Logic Knot, just to insulate myself from more from threats and increase ability to protect Jace when he lands.
* Grixis Control A!
* Grixis Control B!
Youtube Channel
The answer is yes and no. It's more a question of using the mana efficiently and optimally. Breaking down the curve of the deck as it currently stands, there are a lot of 1 drops, few two drops (Terminate, Logic Knot, and Azcanta), and then lots of three and four drops (including Snap-one drop; Snap-two drop). (There is also the consideration of dropping T2 Tasigur, which suspend AV makes more difficult, but not impossible.) The tl;dr is that the deck has a lot of options for Turn 1 play, that gets pushed to Turn 2 if you suspend Visions.
For example, lets say you're on the play, drop land, AV. Then on turn 2, you usually are using only 1 of your two mana, maybe casting Terminate, or just holding up mana for a 2 mana Counterspell. In this scenario, there is a substantial risk of efficiency loss. In contrast, if you react on turn 1 with either a thoughtscour or removal spell, and then hit azcanta on turn 2, then you are using all your mana efficiently. Over the next three turns, you have Azcanta action 3 times, increasing your chance of drawing relevant action. You also have the ability to ramp up mana once you hit 7 in the GY, which can help you use more spells to protect Jace. With AV, you draw additional 3 cards on turn 5, that can vary from very good to lands/fluff. On the draw, both AV and Azcanta can be clunky, but Azcanta at least offers value sooner when you eventually cast it. If you are facing off against an aggro deck for example on the draw, you can T1 hold up Spell Snare or use removal and then drop Azcanta when you have time rather than feeling pot-committed to dropping AV.
This analysis obviously changes based on the meta and how your construct your deck. Imagine a world where BBE is king and the field is just Jund. In that world, at least you can drop AV on the play under your opponents discard. With Azcanta, you just need to pray that your opponent finds Snapcaster or Jace more appealing to take. Or imagine we are in a world of blue decks, AV is nice because on turn 5, you get to ask your opponent, "hey, are you going to counter my Draw 3, or this Jace I will likely play otherwise?" You can also avoid a lot of the choices I mention above by just building different. You could take out Spell Snare to avoid the conflict with AV. You can put in more sweepers to compensate for a slower response and the likely uptick in Lingering Souls. If there is a clear answer (which there probably isn't), its not between choosing bad or good, but more like great or marginally greater (black v. slightly darker black).
* Grixis Control A!
* Grixis Control B!
Youtube Channel
1 Search for Azcanta
3 Spreading Seas
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Permission
4 Cryptic Command
3 Logic Knot
Removal
1 Fatal Push
3 Kolaghan's Command
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Terminate
2 Collective Brutality
2 Dreadbore
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
Lands
1 Blood Crypt
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Field of Ruin
4 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Collective Brutality
2 Damnation
2 Disdainful Stroke
1 Dispel
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grave Titan
3 Negate
2 Surgical Extraction
The removal spread is 100% speculation, but I'm definitely starting with two dreadbores in the dark and will reevaluate once more results come in and we see how popular jace/liliana really are. Two cliques and two brutality are amazing at interacting with unfair decks on their axis which still do stuff against fair decks, but importantly gets you a peek at the hand to see what's up with jace. One search because I still want a non-jace draw engine and I have spreading seas as my cantrip of choice to give a solid shot at beating tron game one. I have 3x Knot and zero MD snare or negate because I want all of my permission to stop jace, blood moon, and scary creatures. Even with zero scours I haven't had any problems fueling the knots in the early game and late game it's a non-issue all together. The mana base is surprisingly stable even with only 21 colored sources in the deck not counting azcanta as it's mostly a UR deck with a splash of black. I like the extra basic with the field package and the only time I have damaging mana troubles if I'm stuck on 3 lands and two of them are fields.
Post board I'm looking to stop blood moon, walkers, and lava spike which leads to me favoring negate in my permission suite. The large number of counters along with the MD land hate makes tron significantly more manageable than the traditional grixis configurations. I'm heavy on sweepers and would like to work in a staticaster, but I'm not sure how much of the meta will be lingering souls decks and "Ux jace and dorks midrange" in addition to the usual suspects you want a proper wrath against. A pair of surgicals for reasons we've been over and brutality 3-4 because I do expect burn and various spell combo decks to be popular and I HATE losing to burn. Bias aside, I do think 4 brutality in the 75 is a good place to be day one.
Lastly there is a single grave titan as a game ending play for fair matches that fills the same role that Elspeth 6 plays for jeskai except you can avoid negate and stub while still being good against jace if you stick it. I may have gone a little too meta with the list, but it's fairly close to what I've been on pre-jace and have been incredibly happy with both it's positioning and performance.
EDIT
Re: Jace, Search, and Cryptic counts
Currently I'm happy with 4 jace and 1 search after trying 2 search and 3 jace for a while simply because one kills the opponent and the other doesn't. I'm still solid on 4 cryptics because for card advantage to be worthwhile you need to have powerful spells to draw into and cryptic is the best card to find when you're trying to kill you opponent with jace or mediocre beats. It also allows for a counter bounce into jace bounce sequence for when you're light on removal to drop jace on a clear board which is a very swingy play. I can see it being correct to cut cryptic in favor of a spell snare, negate, or other form of early permission but currently I'm sticking with what I know to be good enough.
The mana efficiency issue you pointed out isn't nearly so simple. In your specific examples sure it works better along the curve but for every one of those there are tons of others supporting ancestral over search. One mana will always cost less than 2, it allows you to start casting multiple spells in a turn earlier and especially late game with a flipped search. This comes up a lot in control mirrors where you or your opponent tap 4 to search and the opponent responds by trying to resolve a high impact spell (I've run into several from secure the wastes/rev to breach in ur combo/control or against jeskai they try to burn you out in that window). Having to bottom snapcasters with search also feels really bad.
Don't get me wrong search is a great card I'm a big fan of it but it's certainly better in matchups where you value the immediate impact of the "scry" over long term games against other midrange/control decks that have more discard, counters or land and enchantment hate. I think it's a meta dependent call and if the meta does slow down I see ancestral being better.
Also Tiemuuu crazy how quickly things change. A very short while ago I would have been very strongly against cutting any number of scours cause it just synergizes so well with the deck. With less delve creatures and a high impact card like Jace you don't wanna mill over I think it does lose value though. Still a good card but not sure if it's necessary if we're building in that direction.
EDIT: I've played a few friendly and comp. leagues in MODO and decided to cut the Jaces. They were OK, but I value AV and Cryptic higher.
Youtube Channel
When did we all start running Logic Knot? I'm a longtime evangelist of that card, and I just noticed suddenly everyone's playing it (and it's like $2.50 instead of $0.40). What happened?
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
EDIT: I just managed to 5-0 a comp. league (decklist is the same as in my sig.), hopefully it gets published!
(EDIT: MUs were Mardu Pyromancer, UW Control, Grixis Jace/Pyromancer, Mono G Tron, Jund BBE DS)
Youtube Channel
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
The clique, JVP and LtlH are mainly "because i like them" additions
Final list is both a call to burkhart, and also stealing a bit from this list: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/948028#paper
I'm liking JVP and clique as additional creatures/threats, i also can't see how the deck can support 4 CC and 4 JTMS
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
Planeswalkers
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
Spells
4 Thought Scour
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Cryptic Command
2 Fatal Push
2 Spell Snare
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Terminate
2 Logic Knot
2 Search for Azcanta
Lands
1 Blood Crypt
2 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Field of Ruin
3 Island
1 Mountain
4 Polluted Delta
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Flooded Strand
2 Steam Vents
1 Sulfur Falls
1 Swamp
2 Watery Grave
1 Izzet Staticaster
1 Damnation
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Kozilek's Return
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Disdainful Stroke
2 Ceremonious Rejection
1 Countersquall
2 Collective Brutality
1 Dispel
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
Youtube Channel
Very cool congrats!
That's almost exactly the list I'm planning on running Friday, except I'm running Logic Knot in place of your Remands and Jace in place of the AVs. Not sure if that's correct, but it'll be good to see how Jace performs, and I'll be damned if I don't sleeve him up at least once on his unbanning week.
I've been liking the Pyromancers quite a bit. I'm planning on 2-3 Tasigur-Pyro, but can't find the last cut for it.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
1. What exactly is your reasoning for having YP's in this sort of deck, was your goal to make this a grixis variant of the UR Pyro deck?
2. What changes would you make going forward?
3. Does this deck need/want Jace?
URB Some variant of Death's Shadow
URB Grixis Control (Chapin Version)
JFM Storm / Treasure Cruise Delver / Splinter Twin / InfectCommander/EDH
This pile of cards when I feel like it
Death's Shadow discord link
Thanks. From what I have gathered from chatting on Twitch, Jace is a pretty middling card for most people. We are currently in a transitional period where people are trying Jace out in decks where it doesn't belong. I'm expecting the amount of play Jace sees to drop down in the next few weeks.
I have played with Young Pyromancer in the past too: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/541909#online
Back then the biggest reason was (IIRC) that I wanted a card that blocks the threats UR Kiln Fiend decks played, and also operated well under Blood Moon. I'm pretty sure that decklist wanted some Pushes in it, though.
I've always loved Young Pyromancer, but there need to be enough compelling reasons for me justify playing him, since one of the biggest strengths of this deck is that we are, for the most part, immune to cards like Bolt and Push. Since I went down to two Tasigurs I felt that I wanted another threat in the maindeck. Initially I cut one Mana Leak and added a Clique, as they both serve role as disruptive cards. I wasn't really feeling Clique, though, and missed my second Mana Leak a lot. So I went back to Young Peezy. I recently played against Thrun out of the sideboard of Abzan, UW control playing Gideon of Trials, and had to face a lot of Taking Turns -decks on MODO. The unbanning of Jace also made me want to have a threat that's good at attacking PWs. These small catalysts made me try him out again. I'm currently playing just one Peezy and went back to three Cryptics.
Having even just a single Young Pyromancer in the deck can solve some very real problems. If you can dodge or deal with their new Lilis, Peezy absolutely shreds DS decks to pieces, which I do still find very challenging MUs. In many MUs you might be able to stabilize at a low life total, but still have trouble turning the corner. Sometimes you can't afford to attack with your Tasigur, and Snapcaster might be too small. Young Pyromancer's ability to go wide allows you to start racing the opponent more actively. Pyromancer is also obviously strong with the Cryptic - Snap - Cryptic lock.
As for the overall composition of the deck, I'm probably not going to change anything in the near future. My list hasn't changed much at all in the last ~6 months. Going down to two Tasigurs was the biggest change in a long time, which is a result of the format's threats growing ever larger (pyromancer is definitely a nice complement to Tasigur in this sense). Three Cryptics, two Mana Leaks and two Remands is a counterspell core I've been very happy with. I'm also pretty settled on AV>Search, but I could make an essay on this topic alone so I'll leave it at that.
As for now I don't think the deck needs Jace. There might be some other decks or deck compositions where Jace does belong.
Youtube Channel
I think that in your version AV is better than search because the deck plays more a tempo/midrange gameplan than a control deck, after trying it seems more similar to a grixis delver list than a hard control deck like yasooka or corey lists.
One question: why the split between spirebluff canal and sulfur falls?
I made a list based on yours taking out the AV and adding 2 JTMS and 1 Bolt, I like the proactivity of the deck and having 6 difficult to deal threats sold me the deck. Next Saturday I will test it IRL, then I can share the list and how it went.
But in the end I will probably still won't be sure if I prefer the Search+Jace super synergetic version (+scour+field of ruin+tasi/snap) or this pressure version of the deck.