Now that have (finally) gotten the background information down, let's analyze Jace and see why WotC should have been more careful with this card:

Card drawing: Check (+2: Draw 3 and place 2 on top of your library)

Free spells: Check (0: Look at the top card of target player's library. You may place it on the bottom of the library)

Vanishing: Check (-1: Return Target Creature to its owner's hand)

Charms: Check. Instead of three (3) abilities other Planewalkers have, Jace has four (4).abilities, giving Jace ever more versatility.

Just from this alone, we know Jace is going to be a strong card. And in WotC's defense, they did know this. The major loyalty-cost ability is 12, starting out at 3, and the soonest it could be activated would be the sixth (6th) turn after Jace was summoned, which is a cost of 2UU, so that gives us turn 10. Many games of Magic are over by turn 10. We know this by playing Magic and WotC has those statistics on MTGO. (Side note, wouldn't it be interesting to see some of those statistics?)

WotC has stated in its defense that there are over 10,000 cards which have been printed and they can not check for all interactions.

That's a fair statement however Jace was not banned in Classic, it was banned in Standard. The format that has at most eight (8) expansions in it? Let's also not forget that many cards that are printed are not played in serious formats. How many commons have been banned in Magic? With the exception of the Artifact-lands of Mirrodin, I can't think of any. Simply put, there are not that many available situations to look through and there are quite a few members of WotC who have Pro Tour histories and can spot such things well in advance. I would like to know how this was missed.


WotC has stated that it is their intention to print strong cards. I have no problem with that. Between any two (2) cards, one will be stronger. However, one must take care that this card does not dominate the game or Magic turns into Solitaire. WotC says they play-tested Jace a lot. Apparently not well enough. Did they try setting its initial loyalty to 2, so that it could be lightning bolted? Did they try raising the casting cost to 3UU or 2UUU to see how that affects the game? Did WotC consider a Terror-like card that affects only Planewalkers?

These are questions that we'll probably never know the answer to, and hopefully, WotC has learned from this experience.

This concludes this series on the bannings of Magic. Next time I'll talk about something a little more practical, when to cash out.

Banned: Jace, the Mind Sculptor (Part 1)

Today, we are going to discuss Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and why WotC should have known it was going to be troublesome. This will be yet another series, albeit not as large as the others.. But let me begin with a short story:

I was speaking with a Pro-Tour player who asked me a question: “What are the best words on a Magic card?”

I responded “Counter Target Spell”.

“No.” He said. “Draw a Card.”

Immediately I realized that not only is he correct, but why he is correct. Magic at its core, is a game of resource management, and the balance one has between the three; Life, Cards, Mana. Every game starts out with each player having 20 life, 7 cards and 0 mana. How quickly one can get the opponent to 0 life (usually) determines the game's winner and one can use any resources to achieve that ends.

Blue attempts to gain an advantage by being able to draw additional cards. Black is willing to sacrifice life in order to gain cards or mana to achieve its ends. Green's mana acceleration is legendary. Red is willing to roll the dice to try and gain an advantage as it has no inherent resource acceleration. White, being a defensive color, doesn't have that ability in its color wheel but has other cards available to it that can negate some of this advantage should an opponent utilize it.

Having those three (3) little words on a card mean so much. It is why marginal cards like Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens go from mid-pick in a draft to tournament staples. It is because that WotC has realized that maybe cantrips should not be printed so much.

But this goes beyond a marginal effect plus drawing a card. While drawing a card is nice bonus, if the effect is also nice, then one has a stronger card. A 0/4 defender does not help one win a game. In losing scenarios, it just buys a turn. But a 0/4 defender that also draws a card not only buys a turn, but replaces itself, giving a slight card advantage in the process, but gets the player that much closer to drawing what is needed to win. In short, it makes the deck more consistent.

Consistency is what makes tournament decks the way they are. It is why very strong but very inconsistent decks do not advance to day 2. They can not make it through the Grinders.

Basically, card drawing is a good ability to have. But as the banned list shows, it needs to be scrutinized so that this ability can not be abused.

We will continue this next time.

Resource Abused	White	Red	Blue	Black	Green	Artifacts & Lands	Totals
Tutor/Fetch	2	1	4	3	4	1	15
Recycle	1		1	1			3
Creatures		5		1		1	7
Reset		1	1	1		1	4
Mana +/-			3		1	20	24
Life Loss				2		2	4
Card Draw			9	1		1	11
Totals	3	7	18	9	5	26	68