Why Jace, Memory Adept Sucks

 

 

At various points last week, I had conversations with Nick about which cards are currently well-positioned in the Standard metagame. Obviously, there are a few cards in the format which are simply dominant, and help to shape the current metagame, most notably, Thragtusk. However, there are also a few cards that Nick and I agree are below the radar. One of those cards is Jace, Memory Adept.  
 
Jace seems well positioned because of the enormous amount of life gain in the format. Thragtusk, Centaur Healer (plus Restoration Angel), and Sphinx's Revelation mean that most damage-based decks are forced to deal roughly 25-30 points of damage before they can reliably win a game of Magic. In an environment saturated with so much life gain, it’s no surprise that players began to explore ways to win games without dealing damage--such as milling. Travis Woo’s Omnidoor Thragfire deck was another such attempt: Travis ran Omniscience, Temporal Mastery, and Door to Nothingness (and Worldfire!) in an attempt to simply ignore life totals and win the game in an unforeseen fashion. Similarly, Dark Bant emerged as a tier-one deck, fueled primarily by Nephalia Drownyard as a win condition.

I decided to try Dark Bant myself on Tuesday at Ancient Wonders, but I wanted to take the milling plan to the next level by adding Jace, Memory Adept. I constructed the following deck:

Creatures (4):
4 Thragtusk

Spells (31):
4 Farseek
4 Supreme Verdict
4 Azorius Charm
3 Detention Sphere
3 Sphinx's Revelation
3 Jace, Memory Adept
2 Terminus
3 Syncopate
2 Dissipate
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Garruk, Primal Hunter
1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Lands (25):
4 Sunpetal Grove
4 Temple Garden
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Glacial Fortress
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Alchemist Refuge
1 Nephalia Drownyard

I ended up scoring 1-2, and after three games with the deck I've reached the following conclusion: Jace, Memory Adept sucks. Here's why:

First, Jace really needs to come down on an open board, and in the present metagame, an open board doesn't happen that often. He costs 5 and can't protect himself, which means that if your opponent has any creatures on the board when Jace arrives, Jace will probably just die. He doesn't protect himself like Tamiyo, the Moon Sage or Jace, Architect of Thought, or any number of other planeswalkers. You will end up spending a card to force the opponent to mill 10 and save yourself 5 damage, and this sort of effect is just not worth the cost. In my first matchup against Jund, I found that I simply could not utilize Jace effectively because early in the game he would cast Huntmaster of the Fells, and late in the game because of Rakdos Keyrune + Kessig Wolf Run, Thragtusk, or whatever. I had a couple turns where I played Jace into an open board, only to have it attacked by a Thundermaw Hellkite on the following turn.

Second, Jace's utimate is just terrible. How the hell can you use that to an advantage? If you've drawn a bunch of cards off Jace's +1 ability, you don't really need to draw 20 more to win the game, and if you're trying to mill the opponent, well, you'll get there a hell of a lot faster by using his 0 ability for four turns, rather than milling 1 enough times to save up for his -7. The ultimate ability is just useless.

Third, there are a lot of reanimator strategies in the current meta, and they dont mind TOO much that you are putting cards in their graveyard. Sure, they don't want to leave Jace out for 4+ turns, but a couple turns of letting you mill can actually help their game plan.

At this point, some of you are probably thinking, "Of course Jace, Memory Adept sucks, Ryan. How could you not know that already?" But like I said, we were trying to explore alternative avenues. I won the next round against Abi's 4-color midrange deck, and lost the final round to Ryan running Yuji's reanimator list from GP Nagoya.

Im currently trying to brew a Standard turbofog list where I think Jace's abilities might be better utilized. Any ideas?