You're misunderstanding, I'm not talking about milling in and of itself. Allow me to clarify.
By causing yourself to send your Dissolve to the graveyard through this Jace's +1, you are essentially creating resource imbalance, a form of "Card Advantage" generally tasked unto the opponent but not in this case. In simplest terms: The "Card Advantage" was having the Dissolve available next draw (i.e. more cards) , and the disadvantage was sending it into the graveyard to be not played (i.e. less cards). Think of this as discarding a card rather than milling. Imagine scrying a card to the top to have it get Codex Shreddered by surprise next turn. You've lost something more important consciously and the other player knows that, as if he had made you discard a card.
This concept is generally called indexing, and it is not a form of CDA of VCDA. Indexing is an advantage and the only time that the card being put into the GY matters, is going to be pretty case specific and in situations where you need more than 1 out and you just saw both of them and have to dump 1 of them. Pretty rare occurrence.
What makes this Jace bad is not that he removes a card from your library with a +1.
It is that he does not actually do anything until you ultimate. His -3 is good, and reusable - but The reason it was so good with Jace TMS was that you could +2 for 2 more -1 activation in a format that was much more dominated by midrange strategies than the Standard that we are in right now. You were much more likely to run into a board state where you could -1 and then +2 and then -1 again if you needed to and in such a situation you were STILL working to an ultimate and that was the worst case scenario because you were able to untap with Path to Exile next turn to protect him.
This jace however needs 3 useless -1 activations to charge back up to where it was when he was played, which makes building back up to ultimate while protecting himself impossible.
People might as well look at this as a Jace that has -3 and -8 because his +1 is currently unusable and saying he is good because they may print limited support for GY recursion means nothing, especially when that support needs to be in a color set up that allows U to actually play a role in it rather than having it be straight BG or GWB.
I've never heard that term before but it does sound much more correct, so thank you for the knowledge.
The occurence with Jace still has that potential to happen so rare or not it's worth mentioning (At least I thought). I agree that it's not this Jace's biggest flaw as you mentioned is indeed the biggest, however it's one of many. I love this Jace's art and flavor, I just wish it was something way more well, useful.
Say you +1 him the turn after he somehow lived after the -3 bounce. The top two cards are Elspeth and a Dissolve to keep her alive. You dropped the dissolve, and play Elspeth only to have her countered with 3 mana open. The card disadvantage gained caused your win condition to not be playable as it would previously had been. You don't even get to draw the card which you had opted not to mill, therefore possibly playing her on that turn your opponent might have tapped out on to put the threat back out. This card is highly unplayable in most regards, even in sealed. Similarly to Tibalt, planeswakers should be able to function alone, not have to be built around.
That's not how card advantage works. At all.
If I mill my opponent, I'm not "up" any cards at all; if you mill your disolve, you're not down any cards or up any cards. Some cards are different zones, but there is no card advantage for either player.
You're misunderstanding, I'm not talking about milling in and of itself. Allow me to clarify.
By causing yourself to send your Dissolve to the graveyard through this Jace's +1, you are essentially creating resource imbalance, a form of "Card Advantage" generally tasked unto the opponent but not in this case. In simplest terms: The "Card Advantage" was having the Dissolve available next draw (i.e. more cards) , and the disadvantage was sending it into the graveyard to be not played (i.e. less cards). Think of this as discarding a card rather than milling. Imagine scrying a card to the top to have it get Codex Shreddered by surprise next turn. You've lost something more important consciously and the other player knows that, as if he had made you discard a card.
I love it. People are so ready to state absolutes, like they "know" he won't see play.
The reality of it is more flexible. He might see play. He has the hallmarks of a decent 'walker. He's not even that bad, when considered in a vacuum.
But the important thing to consider is whether he'll fit in a deck. Worse planeswalkers have been played even in pro tours and world championships because there was a niche for them. Even big ol' mind sculptor would have seen zero play if there simply wasn't a deck for him to fit into.
Also, i see people contradicting themselves here a lot. In the same sentence you say it won't see modern play because cryptic command exists, and then without a pause you say 4 Mana bounce is bad... I mean jeez do you think before you write? The power of planeswalkers doesn't come from their initial impact (although it helps, obviously) it comes from their cumulative effect on the game. Mind sculptor was OFTEN just a 4 Mana bounce spell. Cryptic is also often a 4 Mana bounce spell. The reason they are good is because they either stick around afterwards or do something else. New jace does this.
I mean jeez what's with the shockingly bad card evaluation in this thread? You guys play this game, right? You didn't just learn the rules and then just sit at your keyboard theorycrafting on an online forum without ever playing a game... Right?
Trust me, I want the new Jace to be playable too. I'm going to throw him in every single brew deck I will make and they will all fail miserably, but I will have known how he did. The contradictory lies within your own statement,
Mind sculptor was OFTEN just a 4 Mana bounce spell. Cryptic is also often a 4 Mana bounce spell. The reason they are good is because they either stick around afterwards or do something else. New jace does this.
The fact of the matter is, Jace simply does not do this. After you dropped Jace to bounce your opponent's already swung Stormbreath or +1'd Elspeth (Implying you get the chance to against that Elspeth) can he: Provide card advantage? The answer is not at all. He has potential to provide card disadvantage actually.
Say you +1 him the turn after he somehow lived after the -3 bounce. The top two cards are Elspeth and a Dissolve to keep her alive. You dropped the dissolve, and play Elspeth only to have her countered with 3 mana open. The card disadvantage gained caused your win condition to not be playable as it would previously had been. You don't even get to draw the card which you had opted not to mill, therefore possibly playing her on that turn your opponent might have tapped out on to put the threat back out. This card is highly unplayable in most regards, even in sealed. Similarly to Tibalt, planeswakers should be able to function alone, not have to be built around.
So since this card is so bad I'm going to attempt to discover it's uses.
In standard, he interacts with the Souls of cards and also very poorly with "dredge". Control based decks could run him sb for control matchups, this card is dead against an empty handed turn 4 aggro matchup so keep it in the sb. Function in mono-blue is pretty much non-existant, Thassa's static is strong enough to not need to run this card if you know that one of the cards you are getting is good enough. Probably might end up being the first planeswalker people will actually not end up using any ability if it sees midrange play.
In modern, putting Think Twice or Lingering souls into the graveyard seems neat at first, but I would prefer to play Cryptic Command any day over this in any blue related shell. Other decks beside control would find this card far far too slow, coming out to bounce a single Tarmogoyf for 4 with no other effect is card disadvantage. Speaking of the devil, the +1 would have interesting utility with Tarmy, however once again it fails to be more useful than a Dakmor Salvage in your graveyard. In some sort of black you could be putting a Bloodghast into the graveyard, however the fact that you don't draw a card means this barely passes as card advantage.
In EDH, I can see the uses of him. Soothsaying and Sensei's Divining Top could be used interestingly, and with Blue Black reanimator control he could possibly shine. The -8 would be super high tier in commander, if it affected board state! Why wasn't it a onesided Sway of the Stars -esque? It would have been JtMS's best friend in EDH. I would've definitely try my hardest to play it.
I have a bunch of gripes with this card. JtLG was not as good as he could've been.
1. The card is a 4 drop planeswalker that comes in with 5 loyalty. It's expecting itself not to be good, so it tries to make up for it with high loyalty.
2. The +1 didn't have to be so terrible. The ability could've just been Scry 2 draw a card at best, at worst it should've been to look at the top two cards of your library, put one at the bottom the other into your hand.
3. If the -3 is gonna be bounce a nonland permanent, it could've at least had what I said above attached to it. Bouncing for -3 on this specific card is atrocious, the cost should've been a -2 to make up for it's lack of actual card filtering. Otherwise, -3 to bounce any target permanent (including itself) if that's what we're gonna be stuck with.
4. The -8 isn't that bad however. Reading it carefully, it says each player shuffles their hand, and only you draw. Giving the opponent no hand is always useful, especially in a blue shell. This card will attempted to be played for the -8, however if it has a -3 it's never going to be able to protect itself long enough to get there, and since its +1 is essentially useless, it's too counterproductive to get to that -8.
Overall: I would play Tibalt before I played this card. As badly as I want that -8, the +1 is a potential drawback, and the -3 is underwhelming at best. It was indeed a swing and a miss.
Also what about Chord of Calling? I have a playset I want to do something with.
I've never heard that term before but it does sound much more correct, so thank you for the knowledge.
The occurence with Jace still has that potential to happen so rare or not it's worth mentioning (At least I thought). I agree that it's not this Jace's biggest flaw as you mentioned is indeed the biggest, however it's one of many. I love this Jace's art and flavor, I just wish it was something way more well, useful.
You're misunderstanding, I'm not talking about milling in and of itself. Allow me to clarify.
By causing yourself to send your Dissolve to the graveyard through this Jace's +1, you are essentially creating resource imbalance, a form of "Card Advantage" generally tasked unto the opponent but not in this case. In simplest terms: The "Card Advantage" was having the Dissolve available next draw (i.e. more cards) , and the disadvantage was sending it into the graveyard to be not played (i.e. less cards). Think of this as discarding a card rather than milling. Imagine scrying a card to the top to have it get Codex Shreddered by surprise next turn. You've lost something more important consciously and the other player knows that, as if he had made you discard a card.
Trust me, I want the new Jace to be playable too. I'm going to throw him in every single brew deck I will make and they will all fail miserably, but I will have known how he did. The contradictory lies within your own statement,
The fact of the matter is, Jace simply does not do this. After you dropped Jace to bounce your opponent's already swung Stormbreath or +1'd Elspeth (Implying you get the chance to against that Elspeth) can he: Provide card advantage? The answer is not at all. He has potential to provide card disadvantage actually.
Say you +1 him the turn after he somehow lived after the -3 bounce. The top two cards are Elspeth and a Dissolve to keep her alive. You dropped the dissolve, and play Elspeth only to have her countered with 3 mana open. The card disadvantage gained caused your win condition to not be playable as it would previously had been. You don't even get to draw the card which you had opted not to mill, therefore possibly playing her on that turn your opponent might have tapped out on to put the threat back out. This card is highly unplayable in most regards, even in sealed. Similarly to Tibalt, planeswakers should be able to function alone, not have to be built around.
In standard, he interacts with the Souls of cards and also very poorly with "dredge". Control based decks could run him sb for control matchups, this card is dead against an empty handed turn 4 aggro matchup so keep it in the sb. Function in mono-blue is pretty much non-existant, Thassa's static is strong enough to not need to run this card if you know that one of the cards you are getting is good enough. Probably might end up being the first planeswalker people will actually not end up using any ability if it sees midrange play.
In modern, putting Think Twice or Lingering souls into the graveyard seems neat at first, but I would prefer to play Cryptic Command any day over this in any blue related shell. Other decks beside control would find this card far far too slow, coming out to bounce a single Tarmogoyf for 4 with no other effect is card disadvantage. Speaking of the devil, the +1 would have interesting utility with Tarmy, however once again it fails to be more useful than a Dakmor Salvage in your graveyard. In some sort of black you could be putting a Bloodghast into the graveyard, however the fact that you don't draw a card means this barely passes as card advantage.
In EDH, I can see the uses of him. Soothsaying and Sensei's Divining Top could be used interestingly, and with Blue Black reanimator control he could possibly shine. The -8 would be super high tier in commander, if it affected board state! Why wasn't it a onesided Sway of the Stars -esque? It would have been JtMS's best friend in EDH. I would've definitely try my hardest to play it.
1. The card is a 4 drop planeswalker that comes in with 5 loyalty. It's expecting itself not to be good, so it tries to make up for it with high loyalty.
2. The +1 didn't have to be so terrible. The ability could've just been Scry 2 draw a card at best, at worst it should've been to look at the top two cards of your library, put one at the bottom the other into your hand.
3. If the -3 is gonna be bounce a nonland permanent, it could've at least had what I said above attached to it. Bouncing for -3 on this specific card is atrocious, the cost should've been a -2 to make up for it's lack of actual card filtering. Otherwise, -3 to bounce any target permanent (including itself) if that's what we're gonna be stuck with.
4. The -8 isn't that bad however. Reading it carefully, it says each player shuffles their hand, and only you draw. Giving the opponent no hand is always useful, especially in a blue shell. This card will attempted to be played for the -8, however if it has a -3 it's never going to be able to protect itself long enough to get there, and since its +1 is essentially useless, it's too counterproductive to get to that -8.
Overall: I would play Tibalt before I played this card. As badly as I want that -8, the +1 is a potential drawback, and the -3 is underwhelming at best. It was indeed a swing and a miss.