MTG Salvation

Quote from immortality20

She's not getting reprinted outside of her Duel Deck. She is getting a new version a-la Sarkhan/Ajani/Jace. Rumors are she might be Green White so we might lose that pretty bad. In any case, picking up another Elspeth with 5 weeks or so of Standard left is not a good idea.

As for Gideon, I pray he gets better after the meta loses Terminate, Path and other cheap answers when I attack with him. I'm seriously considering cutting him from the deck.

Is any of that really for certain? I mean, running in a duel deck doesn't mean she won't be reprinted and that whole green/white issue is just speculation regarding the lighting of the art.

All around, in the current standard or draft formats it's not a worthwhile card. Haven't seen a single competitive deck use it.

I'm really on the fence about the tradeoffs with different planeswalkers. With my resources, I was able to get 2 JTMS, 2 Gideons and 3 (but I only use 2) Beleren. So, I wonder if Gideon can be reduced to a 1 of by selling one copy and then getting 1 of Elspeth for my deck - resulting in 2 JTMS, 2 Beleren, 1 Elspeth and 1 Gideon. I am noticing that most highly competitive decks run Elspeth and not necessarily Gideon. With the strong rumors that Elspeth is being reprinted, it seems like the card has some longevity, so I wonder what the final verdict would be in a trade-off between these two (1-1 of each) or simply going straight Gideon or straight Elspeth (2-0 or 0-2).

Yea, you can sideboard essence scatters, path to exiles, condemns, more counters or protection from creatures. Lightmine field is 4 mana and perimeter captain is kind of bad.

I think losing to agro is going to happen sometimes with bad luck or a bad draw, but losing to 'good decks' like the mirror, Vengevines etc. because you are running extra walls for no reason seems shameful to me. I deal with fast agro with WoO, a few seagate oracles, a few Paths and O-rings if absolutely necessary. Also, the obvious call are turn 2-3 counters like mana-leak. You shouldn't have to maindeck, in my opinion, worthless cards to be effective.

Also, losing life isn't really that big of a deal. I don't really worry about it too much unless I am at below 5-6 life and I am playing against RDW or something. Losing life happens. Winning at 10 life is winning, no matter how you look at it.

A recently popular deck online is Drudgevine (seen at recent tournaments) with Hedron Crabs and such and I find that removing those early draw/discard batteries is critical. Even within turn 3 it's worth it to deprive them and the benefits greatly outweigh the costs of returning a land to your hand. In this case, a mainboard deprive isn't a problem early on (but is also not necessarily better than a mana leak or essence scatter). Maybe if decks like this become popular in tournament play, Deprive will be further strengthened, having both early and late game use. Just my uninformed opinion.

Quote from Thursdayisgod

wow seriously guys? i started this thread with a legitimate question:

would you buy jace if you would only play it at fnms?

and instead everyone responds with "jace is the brokeness card ever printed"

i think that is a hyperbole and is already apparent to anyone who plays enough magic to visit a forum, stop spamming stupid ☺☺☺☺ that is increadibly obvious

First, your original question in your post differs from your thread title. In one case you ask "how good is JTMS" and in your original post you ask the question "would you use Jace if only for FNM." To be honest, the second question you asked by itself is not very interesting as the response is either, yes, no, or maybe (sometimes). Why people would or wouldn't use the card for specific purposes (only) or all purposes (generally) is entirely relevant and the underlying reason for people's answer to your question. Why should a card discussion thread be isolated to one specific question and no additional commentary? Should there be 5 Jace threads or just one?

Anyway, I digress.

-1 Jace's Ingenuity
-1 Crystal Ball
-1 Cancel
-2 path to exile
-1 condemn
-1 (either condemn, path or journey)

+3 threats

Some combination of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, Baneslayer Angel, Gideon Jura etc.

+4 spreading seas

I am finding this deck to be fun to play, but I am curious how some people are so successful (no losses or close to no losses in competitive play), especially when they don't have sideboards that are low-cost removal or counters. There are a number of decks that run decently well or extremely well against this deck, especially when you run a lot of planeswalkers of 4 or more cost. If you don't pull a DoJ, some variants of mono-white agro, mono-red agro or red/green(maybe white) cascade oriented decks should have a decent chance of beating the deck before turn 6-7. Are people just not encountering these at their FNM? I have limited experience with competitive play so I am just wondering. I have a high success rate, often requiring a sideboard to win, but when I lose, it's either to a mirror that gets very good draws or a deck with small beaters or cascaded beaters that get good draws.

After playing with a deck similar to Sam's a number of times, I am finding that this deck is most vulnerable against white creature oriented decks, despite DOJ and removal. Over half my losses are against mono-white knights or lifegain etc. I'm 27-15 with the deck (some matches were just single matches rather than utilizing sideboard) and the losses include 7 against mono-white, 1 multi-color allied deck with white in it, 3 mirror matches, 2 against mono-black discard variations and then a mish-mash of decks where I got unlucky draws or manascrewed (i.e. valakut oriented decks that I can easily beat with sideboard).

Spreading Seas seems really, immensely useful. Kor Skyfisher definitely deserves a look and Sphinx or Baneslayers are amazing and shouldn't be overlooked.

The deck is performing better with the changes you proposed. I will add them here and edit out my old comment. I still don't have the money to purchase all the needed cards but it's an improvement. What is ramped is certainly the central focus of the deck and amounts to between 4-5 draws. Each of the possible ramp objects have their situational use. A Gelatinous Genesis is sometimes as best 3, 3/3 oozes. In the same setting, an Apoc Hydra is more than 10/10, or a Pelakka can be brought out. There are a host of options. If you want to just ramp to a banefire, that may also be a good idea. At the same point you have an unavoidable 5+ damage. I'm not sure what is best, but I like the speed that green offers the defender setting.

Interesting thread everyone. I have been playing the game again for about 1-2 months and I have been doing so exclusively with defender style decks. A few weeks ago I began to develop variants of the RGW defender deck with some significant modifications and different card choices.



I've had some great success but the sideboard is a work in progress. New cards for standard play will call for some big changes and I don't even know where to start. I think the green titan might be fun, though.