Also lots of the why Jace won't be a problem in Modern arguments remind me of the Jace won't be a problem in standard Arguments.
But wouldn't those arguments regarding him not being a Standard be correct? Such arguments would obviously have to take place prior to him officially entering the format (or at least shortly thereafter), and Jace wasn't a problem for a while. Sure, he was good, but he didn't become a true monster until after rotation when a lot of cards that were effective against him rotated out, which obviously would not occur in Modern.
I've still got work to finish but this jace stuff is...interesting. I've played more games in the last few days than I had in months probably, and the degeneracy that is possible is hilarious in Modern. I'm back on my old UR prowess deck right now because when you go off, what does Jace matter, they are dead Turn 3.
The strongest decks I've seen the last 2 days, that left me utterly crushed, were a very tightly played Traverse DS (w/Stubborn) and a RUG Goyf/Tireless/BBE/Jace build that had me completely overwhelmed and simply rolled me hard. I was still 'alive' but I wasnt winning anything after like Turn 8 as I scrambled to think of an answer in my UWR builds.
Both were almost immediately banned at the inception of the format
Green Sun will likely not homogenize all green decks around it. Chord of Calling, a card which can easily be compared to it, has certain advantages over Green Sun - instant speed, can grab a creature of any color, hits the graveyard (important for recursion with Eternal Witness). Eldritch Evolution, too, still has certain advantages to Green Sun.
Stoneforge Mystic should not homogenize all white decks, even though it does have a good chance to see play in Death and Taxes, Humans, Abzan, and Jeskai builds. More importantly, it should increase the playability of equipment in the format as a whole
I know everyone jumped on you for saying so, but I certainly hope so.
I feel that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is stronger than both Green Sun's Zenith and Preordain for sure. It probably is stronger than Stoneforge Mystic right now, but I feel these have been super close since the beginning of Modern and sort of have an ebb and flow on which is better at what specific time.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
yeah i dont think DS decks are going to disappear like many people predict. they are akin to delver decks and just bury you in mana efficiency
also i think its taking a little time for people to realize that JtMS works perfectly well in midrange shells. i expect to see more bant, sultai, and rug decks in the near future
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Daze and Counterspell are not too good for modern as much as they are usually too good in standard. Counterspell was one of the most printed cards of the original game next to lightning bolt, and it wasn't until later when they decided to depower spells that it fell out of favor for it's strictly worse replacement. Heck, a lot of cards they printed in prior modern legal sets are being considered too powerful to reprint through standard, which I'm finding rather hard to swallow.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I haven’t seen a Jace deck do well yet on stream because of Jace. Bbe has looked by far more impressive today imo.
Hoogland had a miracles deck that made Jace look great in a couple matches. Didn't look all that busted in the end though.
Yeah he still ended 2-3 didn’t he?
I think so and Jace performed about what you would expect. When you could land him on an empty board against a deck like GW value or Death's Shadow he was great. But if your opponent just stormed off or BBE'd or had a board he wasn't great.
Also lots of the why Jace won't be a problem in Modern arguments remind me of the Jace won't be a problem in standard Arguments.
But wouldn't those arguments regarding him not being a Standard be correct? Such arguments would obviously have to take place prior to him officially entering the format (or at least shortly thereafter), and Jace wasn't a problem for a while. Sure, he was good, but he didn't become a true monster until after rotation when a lot of cards that were effective against him rotated out, which obviously would not occur in Modern.
Actually Jace was seeing affinity levels of top 8's even before Jund rotated out and at that time people where making the same arguments they where making now. Even after jund rotated they printed many hate cards that targeted planes walkers but his share of the meta just grew. Also worth pointing out that Jace was considered too slow for Legacy for a quite a while as well.
A 40 dollar mythic rare would constitute a must have 4 of that goes in many decks.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled. I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
Jace actually reminds me of inverse LoTV. No one really knew what the heck to do with Liliana when she first came out and it took a while for her to really get legs. Jace everyone is expecting the world from and it's taking time to figure out where and how to best play him in modern.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
yeah the power of jace is irrefutable. its easily the best thing going on in blue after snapcaster, and i expect it to see a ton of play
however i look at the cards available in modern that you would potentially play in a jace deck. then look at other powerful decks in the format. nothing indicates to me that a cawblade, or to a lesser extent legacy miracles, type situation could feasibly happen.
im not a pro or expert, so i could be wrong. but based on the information i do have thats my assessment
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
Going forward I think Amulet decks and Ponza will see a resurgence as a way to fight all these fair decks and still beat things like Tron, Eldrazi and Valakut.
Death's Shadow is much more Tempo than anything else.
To go back to what we were talking about before, Todd Steven's new article i think puts up a good point:
Blue was already arguably the best color in Modern, with four of the nine decks at #PTRIX that had 5% or more of the metagame share being blue with Grixis Death's Shadow, Jeskai Control, U/R Gifts Storm, and U/W Control. That's of course not even counting Five-Color Humans with their sixteen maindeck blue cards. Snapcaster Mage has been the most played creature in Modern for quite some time now without help from the most powerful planeswalker ever printed.
Take anything Todd says about a blue deck with a HUGE grain of salt. He thinks Twin was the biggest cancer in Modern's history, he thought Death's Shadow needed to be banned because it was going to oppress the format, and he's said many times in the past that he thought Jace would literally destroy Modern if it were ever unbanned. I like Todd as a streamer, he makes fun decks, but he is incapable of being objective about cards and strategies that he personally doesn't like.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Going forward I think Amulet decks and Ponza will see a resurgence as a way to fight all these fair decks and still beat things like Tron, Eldrazi and Valakut.
yeah i think if the format starts to move into 3 color 'good stuff' to see who can durdle the hardest then land disruption will be on the rise
if ponza really starts to gain traction i expect a lot of salt in the near future. LD decks are always controversial, and of course at some point the debate about super hate cards like blood moon and choke, and whether they belong in the format
i must say that i'm pleasantly surprised on how Field of Ruin just sorta slipped into the format unremarked. its a super fair effect that does a lot for decks that can find room for a colorless land.
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Modern: UWGSnow-Bant Control BURGrixis Death's Shadow GWBCoCo Elves WCDeath and Taxes (sold)
The best JTMS list I have been able to brew is just 3 JTMS, 3 chandra TOD, 4 bloodmoon, 4 young promoncer and the rest of the deck is just cheap R/U interaction and draw filtering. This deck seems to be ok but it's clearly not optimized at all. I am finding lists online but none of them make me step back and say "Wow that might be the list." What are the best lists you guys are using or finding?
The best JTMS list I have been able to brew is just 3 JTMS, 3 chandra TOD, 4 bloodmoon, 4 young promoncer and the rest of the deck is just cheap R/U interaction and draw filtering. This deck seems to be ok but it's clearly not optimized at all. I am finding lists online but none of them make me step back and say "Wow that might be the list." What are the best lists you guys are using or finding?
I've been mulling on this myself a little bit; something of the sort which mirrors Foretold Stompy, which saw brief success in legacy:
(Not my list; but one that was being tested by others)
Most of the key cards are modern legal; and while you dont get the sol lands, modern is also a tiny bit slower anyways.
I dont think the shell translates perfectly, but UR Chandra/Jace + Bridge + Lock pieces _feels_ like it would have the potential to be a strong shell.
The best JTMS list I have been able to brew is just 3 JTMS, 3 chandra TOD, 4 bloodmoon, 4 young promoncer and the rest of the deck is just cheap R/U interaction and draw filtering. This deck seems to be ok but it's clearly not optimized at all. I am finding lists online but none of them make me step back and say "Wow that might be the list." What are the best lists you guys are using or finding?
I've been mulling on this myself a little bit; something of the sort which mirrors Foretold Stompy, which saw brief success in legacy:
(Not my list; but one that was being tested by others)
Most of the key cards are modern legal; and while you dont get the sol lands, modern is also a tiny bit slower anyways.
I dont think the shell translates perfectly, but UR Chandra/Jace + Bridge + Lock pieces _feels_ like it would have the potential to be a strong shell.
The problem with lists such as this in comparison to modern... they are powerful in legacy/vintage due to fast mana. Being able to turn 1 a blood moon or turn 2 a Chandra consistently is why decks like that see play. Take that away and they are simply gimmicky.
A few random notes related to JTMS. I'm not going to weigh in on BBE because that ban is way less controversial and most people seem to be on board with it.
Re: JTMS homogenizing decks
This is a legitimate worry if and only if we can see a single JTMS "best deck" emerge, but I'm not convinced this is the case. Shadow decks couldn't do this in 2017, bouncing from Jund and 5C to GDS and back to 4/5C by the end of the year. At no point were they too dominant and at every point there were decks able to beat them. Many pros avoided Shadow decks for much of the year because they actually thought they weren't doing enough, despite an initial run in early 2017 where they were rampant and popular. This is a likelier fate for JTMS. If JTMS incentivizes a range of blue-based decks to try him out and we see 3-4 JTMS in Sultai, Temur, Grixis, UW Miracles, UW Control, Jeskai, etc., that's a huge win for the unban and a big win for Modern diversity. I know the pro-Twin camp will complain that JTMS thus has a similar effect to Twin, but that's not even true on a sniff test. JTMS wins differently than Twin, and as we know from the JTMS update, Wizards wanted that slower, grindier gameplay to be more feasible in Modern.
Re: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument against JTMS unban
A bunch of people say that Modern was "perfect" and therefore this was a bad time to unban JTMS. This argument just doesn't make sense. When is Wizards supposed to unban cards then? Do they do it in uncertain and broken metagames where we have no idea what the format looks like post-ban/unban? That's got to be the worst time to unban something because we don't know what the stable metagame will look like once a broken strategy is removed. A stable, known metagame is a much more controlled environment in which to unleash unbans. Moreover, JTMS is specifically trying to solve a very specific play style that blue mages want: a slower, grindier, viable win condition. As many posters here and online have observed, many control decks have to resort to very proactive wins like delve threats, Shadow, Queller/Geist, etc. to be viable. Critics are also keen to note that grindier blue decks had bad conversions at major events. JTMS is explicitly (read the announcement) trying to address elements of this problem. Coupled with the format's stability, there really was no better time to unban the card.
Re: JTMS gameplay
Between my own MTGO experience and that of others I have seen in the last few days, I am stunned that some of the people who constantly complain about Modern interactivity are the same players who now rail against JTMS. He encourages a lot of super interactive games and lines. Sure, you do run into random linear stuff that tries to race JTMS, but let's be honest: we were running into that before JTMS anyway. Bogles, Hollow One, Grishoalbrand, Burn, Affinity, Storm, Tron, etc.: these aren't new decks that are suddenly going to be more successful. They were already successful pre-unban! Just look at the recent PT and GP finishes and standings. The complaints about this alternate reality of JTMS secretly making the format MORE linear are a great illustration of how Wizards can't please everyone. The format was too linear for some players (despite many measures suggesting it was healthy), Wizards unbanned a card explicitly to help certain decks, and now the same complainers are mad all over again because that unban (in their minds) secretly makes linear decks better. Wizards has no obligation to please everyone and this shows it is probably impossible anyway.
Now that we can talk about it, I'm confident saying this dissatisfaction is because a subset of players will never be happy with anything short of a Twin unban and/or a ban of all things linear (SSG/Opal/Gory's/Tron/Looting/etc.). Thankfully, Wizards has unequivocally stated that the Modern period from mid-2017 through last week is healthy. That Modern period included all those strategies in lots of high profile finishes, and yet generated no bans. THAT IS THE LEVEL OF LINEARITY THAT IS OKAY IN HEALTHY MODERN. If you do not like it, this is not the format for you. JTMS gives better options if you don't want to play those kinds of decks.
I am not worried about Jace in the least. We have so many ridiculous things to do in this format already, Jace is a good option, and I expect it to be very good after a few months of figuring out how to use it, but it's not broken. The card pool in Modern is so immense, we can figure out a way to beat anything. There was a really interesting post that I cannot seem to find, about the impact of some of these oddball top monster decks and cards, how we collectively had to get better to beat them, and stayed better when the picture changed.
I plan to pick up a playset of Jace after M25, but I am not even most excited to play with him. Figuring out the best way to abuse a card is not the thing I most enjoy. I am waiting for people to settle on what deck is best for him so I can set my sights on tearing it apart. We can adapt to almost anything. I would not be shocked of in a few years, Eye of Ugin could come back without fire tornadoes and the sky falling around us. We panic as a community at thesmallest upset, but then we are really good at adapting.
One last thought. Jace was banned for what it did to.Standard. It will clearly do SOMETHING in Modern, but I have hated that it never got the chance, as long as the format has been around. There are some cards from the initial ban list that yeah, they can never, ever come back, someone should have been smacked for designing them. Jace was not one of those. Imagine that Wizards were just now creating Modern, with the same start point. Do you know what would probably be on the ban list from the start? Every card currently banned in Standard, every card banned in Standard for the last two years. Copter, Marvel, the crappy new Emrakul. Cards that mostly aren't good enough for even fringe play. I am not saying Jace is one of these, I will buy a copy and eat it if it doesn't find a home, I'm just saying that it's something to think about.
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
Well said ktk...and at least for me, you are right on a lot of points.
It's not a card that will homogenize decks, because its more like Snaps, than...Twin. A good card that can fit into perhaps a range of decks doing slightly different things.
As to the 'not broke' argument, we mentioned this pages ago, but if you cannot unban when things are bad, and you cannot unban when things are good....when? Now was the time, and I think its fine.
As to the last point...I DO want Twin back. I jammed so many games over the last few days, with Jace, without Jace, against Jace, and against stuff that wants to go over or under Jace...and just let me say that there is STILL no deck, that does it for me like Twin did.
After getting a lot of games in, I'm not solid in the 'I dont even want to play him' camp. I'm sure people will find powerful and great decks to play him in, and I'm positive he will add interaction and depth, but its not what I want, and that really makes me sad honestly, because not even the legendary JACE is enough to replace the void of Splinter Twin in my heart...
Either way, there seems to be a ton of renewed interest online, as people grind out games and brew, so its a fun time to be playing Modern.
I'm not sure thats true though. Jace is just an engine in several of those decks. He's not the actual win condition. UWR would still be Burn + Land Beats (no, not the 4/4 Flying Vigallence BG creature, the other 4/4 Flying Vigilance creature...) Sultai is Midrange grinding out on the backs of Trackers, Flayers, and Goyf, same with Temur (minus Flayers + BBE) and Grixis is still delving and burning.
The only deck's in your list that really scream 'jace win con' is Miracles (doesnt happen without Jace at a high level) and UW Control, that is Gideon right now instead.
I mean I could be way wrong, but Jace as a Midrange card in Modern, seems better than as a Control Win Con, at least from the games I've played.
I will say this, the new way they are presenting 5-0 decks on MTGO is interesting.
It makes it harder to tell the overall state of the meta (since it only shows unique decks) but it does show variance. (new list published today).
My personal take on Jace: I hope it does what the twin-ban was never able to accomplish: increase the variation in blue decks.
If Jace can make non UWx decks viable without skewing the meta around those decks: I would consider it a win.
If Jace can propell RUG (scapeshift and control), BUG, Mono-Blue TimeWalk, Grixis Control, etc. from "fringe" into main-stream without skewing the meta dramatically I would consider that a win.
Sfm is sure as hell banned for the next few years unless jace utterly underperformz
The strongest decks I've seen the last 2 days, that left me utterly crushed, were a very tightly played Traverse DS (w/Stubborn) and a RUG Goyf/Tireless/BBE/Jace build that had me completely overwhelmed and simply rolled me hard. I was still 'alive' but I wasnt winning anything after like Turn 8 as I scrambled to think of an answer in my UWR builds.
Modern is crazy.
Spirits
I know everyone jumped on you for saying so, but I certainly hope so.
I feel that Jace, the Mind Sculptor is stronger than both Green Sun's Zenith and Preordain for sure. It probably is stronger than Stoneforge Mystic right now, but I feel these have been super close since the beginning of Modern and sort of have an ebb and flow on which is better at what specific time.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)also i think its taking a little time for people to realize that JtMS works perfectly well in midrange shells. i expect to see more bant, sultai, and rug decks in the near future
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)Hoogland had a miracles deck that made Jace look great in a couple matches. Didn't look all that busted in the end though.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Yeah he still ended 2-3 didn’t he?
its still early days and nothing is for certain, but jace might end up being just a good card and not some format eating monstrosity.
wait what? jamming a bunch of 4 mana sorcery speed cards that have minimal impact on the board in a creature heavy format isn't good enough? /sarcasm
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I think so and Jace performed about what you would expect. When you could land him on an empty board against a deck like GW value or Death's Shadow he was great. But if your opponent just stormed off or BBE'd or had a board he wasn't great.
Actually Jace was seeing affinity levels of top 8's even before Jund rotated out and at that time people where making the same arguments they where making now. Even after jund rotated they printed many hate cards that targeted planes walkers but his share of the meta just grew. Also worth pointing out that Jace was considered too slow for Legacy for a quite a while as well.
Stats About Mythics
-Mythics are on average 40% rarer than pre-mythic rares
(old blocks about 200 rares, Mythic blocks 35+ mythics)
-They are printing more new cards a year not less
(about 665 now vs. 630 in most pre-mythic block)
-To drop the value of a rare by $1 a mythic must go up $2
-In a 3 year time span deck prices doubled.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
however i look at the cards available in modern that you would potentially play in a jace deck. then look at other powerful decks in the format. nothing indicates to me that a cawblade, or to a lesser extent legacy miracles, type situation could feasibly happen.
im not a pro or expert, so i could be wrong. but based on the information i do have thats my assessment
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)RG BBE Ponza
UX Eldrazi Tron
UR Jace Breach
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
yeah i think if the format starts to move into 3 color 'good stuff' to see who can durdle the hardest then land disruption will be on the rise
if ponza really starts to gain traction i expect a lot of salt in the near future. LD decks are always controversial, and of course at some point the debate about super hate cards like blood moon and choke, and whether they belong in the format
i must say that i'm pleasantly surprised on how Field of Ruin just sorta slipped into the format unremarked. its a super fair effect that does a lot for decks that can find room for a colorless land.
UWGSnow-Bant Control
BURGrixis Death's Shadow
GWBCoCo Elves
WCDeath and Taxes(sold)I've been mulling on this myself a little bit; something of the sort which mirrors Foretold Stompy, which saw brief success in legacy:
(Not my list; but one that was being tested by others)
Most of the key cards are modern legal; and while you dont get the sol lands, modern is also a tiny bit slower anyways.
I dont think the shell translates perfectly, but UR Chandra/Jace + Bridge + Lock pieces _feels_ like it would have the potential to be a strong shell.
The problem with lists such as this in comparison to modern... they are powerful in legacy/vintage due to fast mana. Being able to turn 1 a blood moon or turn 2 a Chandra consistently is why decks like that see play. Take that away and they are simply gimmicky.
Twitter: twitter.com/axmanonline
Stream: twitch.tv/axman
Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA
Re: JTMS homogenizing decks
This is a legitimate worry if and only if we can see a single JTMS "best deck" emerge, but I'm not convinced this is the case. Shadow decks couldn't do this in 2017, bouncing from Jund and 5C to GDS and back to 4/5C by the end of the year. At no point were they too dominant and at every point there were decks able to beat them. Many pros avoided Shadow decks for much of the year because they actually thought they weren't doing enough, despite an initial run in early 2017 where they were rampant and popular. This is a likelier fate for JTMS. If JTMS incentivizes a range of blue-based decks to try him out and we see 3-4 JTMS in Sultai, Temur, Grixis, UW Miracles, UW Control, Jeskai, etc., that's a huge win for the unban and a big win for Modern diversity. I know the pro-Twin camp will complain that JTMS thus has a similar effect to Twin, but that's not even true on a sniff test. JTMS wins differently than Twin, and as we know from the JTMS update, Wizards wanted that slower, grindier gameplay to be more feasible in Modern.
Re: "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument against JTMS unban
A bunch of people say that Modern was "perfect" and therefore this was a bad time to unban JTMS. This argument just doesn't make sense. When is Wizards supposed to unban cards then? Do they do it in uncertain and broken metagames where we have no idea what the format looks like post-ban/unban? That's got to be the worst time to unban something because we don't know what the stable metagame will look like once a broken strategy is removed. A stable, known metagame is a much more controlled environment in which to unleash unbans. Moreover, JTMS is specifically trying to solve a very specific play style that blue mages want: a slower, grindier, viable win condition. As many posters here and online have observed, many control decks have to resort to very proactive wins like delve threats, Shadow, Queller/Geist, etc. to be viable. Critics are also keen to note that grindier blue decks had bad conversions at major events. JTMS is explicitly (read the announcement) trying to address elements of this problem. Coupled with the format's stability, there really was no better time to unban the card.
Re: JTMS gameplay
Between my own MTGO experience and that of others I have seen in the last few days, I am stunned that some of the people who constantly complain about Modern interactivity are the same players who now rail against JTMS. He encourages a lot of super interactive games and lines. Sure, you do run into random linear stuff that tries to race JTMS, but let's be honest: we were running into that before JTMS anyway. Bogles, Hollow One, Grishoalbrand, Burn, Affinity, Storm, Tron, etc.: these aren't new decks that are suddenly going to be more successful. They were already successful pre-unban! Just look at the recent PT and GP finishes and standings. The complaints about this alternate reality of JTMS secretly making the format MORE linear are a great illustration of how Wizards can't please everyone. The format was too linear for some players (despite many measures suggesting it was healthy), Wizards unbanned a card explicitly to help certain decks, and now the same complainers are mad all over again because that unban (in their minds) secretly makes linear decks better. Wizards has no obligation to please everyone and this shows it is probably impossible anyway.
Now that we can talk about it, I'm confident saying this dissatisfaction is because a subset of players will never be happy with anything short of a Twin unban and/or a ban of all things linear (SSG/Opal/Gory's/Tron/Looting/etc.). Thankfully, Wizards has unequivocally stated that the Modern period from mid-2017 through last week is healthy. That Modern period included all those strategies in lots of high profile finishes, and yet generated no bans. THAT IS THE LEVEL OF LINEARITY THAT IS OKAY IN HEALTHY MODERN. If you do not like it, this is not the format for you. JTMS gives better options if you don't want to play those kinds of decks.
I plan to pick up a playset of Jace after M25, but I am not even most excited to play with him. Figuring out the best way to abuse a card is not the thing I most enjoy. I am waiting for people to settle on what deck is best for him so I can set my sights on tearing it apart. We can adapt to almost anything. I would not be shocked of in a few years, Eye of Ugin could come back without fire tornadoes and the sky falling around us. We panic as a community at thesmallest upset, but then we are really good at adapting.
One last thought. Jace was banned for what it did to.Standard. It will clearly do SOMETHING in Modern, but I have hated that it never got the chance, as long as the format has been around. There are some cards from the initial ban list that yeah, they can never, ever come back, someone should have been smacked for designing them. Jace was not one of those. Imagine that Wizards were just now creating Modern, with the same start point. Do you know what would probably be on the ban list from the start? Every card currently banned in Standard, every card banned in Standard for the last two years. Copter, Marvel, the crappy new Emrakul. Cards that mostly aren't good enough for even fringe play. I am not saying Jace is one of these, I will buy a copy and eat it if it doesn't find a home, I'm just saying that it's something to think about.
It's not a card that will homogenize decks, because its more like Snaps, than...Twin. A good card that can fit into perhaps a range of decks doing slightly different things.
As to the 'not broke' argument, we mentioned this pages ago, but if you cannot unban when things are bad, and you cannot unban when things are good....when? Now was the time, and I think its fine.
As to the last point...I DO want Twin back. I jammed so many games over the last few days, with Jace, without Jace, against Jace, and against stuff that wants to go over or under Jace...and just let me say that there is STILL no deck, that does it for me like Twin did.
After getting a lot of games in, I'm not solid in the 'I dont even want to play him' camp. I'm sure people will find powerful and great decks to play him in, and I'm positive he will add interaction and depth, but its not what I want, and that really makes me sad honestly, because not even the legendary JACE is enough to replace the void of Splinter Twin in my heart...
Either way, there seems to be a ton of renewed interest online, as people grind out games and brew, so its a fun time to be playing Modern.
Spirits
The only deck's in your list that really scream 'jace win con' is Miracles (doesnt happen without Jace at a high level) and UW Control, that is Gideon right now instead.
I mean I could be way wrong, but Jace as a Midrange card in Modern, seems better than as a Control Win Con, at least from the games I've played.
Spirits
It makes it harder to tell the overall state of the meta (since it only shows unique decks) but it does show variance. (new list published today).
My personal take on Jace: I hope it does what the twin-ban was never able to accomplish: increase the variation in blue decks.
If Jace can make non UWx decks viable without skewing the meta around those decks: I would consider it a win.
If Jace can propell RUG (scapeshift and control), BUG, Mono-Blue TimeWalk, Grixis Control, etc. from "fringe" into main-stream without skewing the meta dramatically I would consider that a win.
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Current Decks
Modern: Affinity
Standard: BW Control
Legacy: Death and Taxes :symw::symr:
Vintage: NA