Been on a Jace bent lately. Typically, I'm not the biggest fan of Jace as a character, but his planeswalker cards tend to be useful and/or powerful. Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage looks to be a bit of both. At 6 mana, he's almost unplayable, and his first +1, draw a card ability has been done before in the past on Jace cards with cheaper CMC's. But, his second +1 ability is what intrigues me. In a deck that uses mana dorks and/or the Improvise mechanic, decks may be able to accelerate into casting two, possibly even three big threats a turn. His ultimate is impressive, but takes five turns to get off. But in a deck built around him, there are ways to mitigate this. Below is a deck build that I think could make this Jace not only standard playable, but also competitive:
This deck is actually a variation of a deck I was playing a couple of months ago this season: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/standard-archives/772093-marionette-master-combo#c8 With this new build set around Jace, the deck works more like a UB Ramp Deck, using early plays for ramp and removal, setting up dropping larger threats around turns 4-5. Instead of creating an army of Servos to be sacked to Marionette Master and/or used to get Herald of Anguish onto the battlefield early via the Improvise mechanic, we use cheap 0-2 artifact spells, treasure tokens, and etherium cell tokens to do this instead. What do you guys think? Does this build do well to supplement and utilize Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage?
4 Spire of Industry
1 Inventors' Fair
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 Fetid Pools
3 Island
4 Swamp
CREATURES 8
4 Ornithopter
2 Herald of Anguish
2 Marionette Master
2 Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage
3 Tezzeret the Schemer
INSTANTS AND SORCERIES 10
3 Hieroglyphic Illumination
1 Tezzeret's Ambition
4 Fatal Push
2 Never // Return
ENCHANTMENTS 4
4 Tezzeret's Touch
ARTIFACTS 9
2 Animation Module
3 Renegade Map
4 Treasure Map
1 Dispel
2 Jace's Defeat
2 Negate
2 Hostage Taker
2 Liliana's Defeat
2 Battle at the Bridge
2 Dispossess
2 Hour of Glory
This deck is actually a variation of a deck I was playing a couple of months ago this season: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/standard-archives/772093-marionette-master-combo#c8 With this new build set around Jace, the deck works more like a UB Ramp Deck, using early plays for ramp and removal, setting up dropping larger threats around turns 4-5. Instead of creating an army of Servos to be sacked to Marionette Master and/or used to get Herald of Anguish onto the battlefield early via the Improvise mechanic, we use cheap 0-2 artifact spells, treasure tokens, and etherium cell tokens to do this instead. What do you guys think? Does this build do well to supplement and utilize Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage?