When there was a return to Zendikar announced, I was thrilled, as I would imagine most lands-players.
Now that spoilers are completed, I have to say.... I'm dissapointed. It was probably due to my high expectations, I was expecting at least one withTatyova, Benthic Druid power level. Instead we got... Well, here's the list of cards that I found interesting enough to mention, and why I won't be running them:
1. Ancient Greenwarden 6 Mana for a Crucible effect is just too much, it's that simple, even if you also have a landharmonicon at the same time. We don't play nearly enough cards that could trigger the seccond part, and the first is pretty lackluster. I run Ad Nauseum and also, we are actively trying to play the least amount of non-land permanents as possible. This doesn't fit the bill. Might work for some decks, but it's a no for me.
3. Malakir Rebirth Some of us were doing this kind of thing already, with Gift of Immortality. This is ofcourse a one time deal, but has the added benefit of being a land as well, which seems useful. Overall, I'm not even running Journey to Eternity, so I don't see how this should get a pass.
4. Jwari Disruption This is really neat! If it were a hard counter (albeit costing a little more), I might've considered it, floating mana is very much a thing in our format.
5. Phylath, World Sculptor This is just a worse Avenger of Zendikar, which I janked out of my deck a long time ago. I guess if you are already running Avenger, this might not be the worst thing ever.
6. Moraug, fury of Akoum If only it had haste and wasn't a big beefy 6/6, hurting us both on our Child plan and our Ad Naus plan. Would probably fit great in the decks that run the two Avengers.
7. Valakut Exploration This card is so misleading, it has no links to either Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, nor has it anything to do with Exploration! All joking aside, we really don't want to play from the top of our deck, we want the cards in our hands. It' especially bad if there are multiple lands on top, and you have no Exploration effect in play. Doesn't work with Manabond, also don't like to exile my cards, since we run quite a few graveyard interaction cards.
8. Valakut Awakening We don't very often go into the lategame with no gas in hand, in the early game we try to drop our hand on the table as fast as possible. I don't see this being very good in our deck.
9. Nissa of Shadowed Boughs YES! A planeswalker with Landfall!... Oh. Yeah, I don't think she fits our deck good. The fact that those 3/3 dissapear EOT makes it a big turn off, since she has no way of protecting herself. Sure, you could play this on t5, play a fetch, crack and ult her. Our gameplan is not to cheat big dumb things into play, so I'm going to pass on her.
10. Pathway Cycle Cragcrown Pathway Cool cycle, love the design, is going to see plenty of play in EDH, I'm sure. Unless you're playing a budget version, I don't see any reason running these over shocks+Fetches+a couple of OG duals.
Now, after all the whining, the top 3 cards that I'm considering trying out:
3. Bala Ged Recovery Call me crazy, but I'm considering cutting Eternal Witness for this one. Yes, Witness is more easily tutorable, this can up your landcount, while retaining that effect. Taplands are disguting though. We'll see I guess.
2. Omnath, Locus of Creation A decent card that replaces himself, heals you a bit, ramps you when you need it, and can also dome people to the face.
1. Scute Swarm This feels similar to Field of the Dead, the only key, important difference is that it's a non-land permanent, and so easily disruptable. However, if you can land this, and then make a couple land drops, they grow exponentially. Let's say you have 6 lands, you have an Azusa, 3 lands in hand, one of which is a fetchland. You end up with 16 tokens. That's a ton.
After a long time I finally bought this fine-ass, close-to-NM, looking The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale Superstoked to finally put it in the deck and crush my opponents with it. Sorry for the humble brag, I'm just freaking happy ^^
What's the opinion on the new rules change? Here's how I look at it:
I can think of 3 VERY minor downsides:
1. Child's die effect isn't a "may" effect, meaning that if an opponent chooses to waste a kill spell on her to blow up the board, we can't send her to the command zone to negate that effect. Why this is only a small downside is because we generally only play her when we are already planning to blow up the board and we have a sac-outlet. I've never had this scenario occur in any games I played, but maybe you have?
2. It puts Child more on the map, which makes our deck slightly less of a cool off-the-wall-brew. I mean, it still is, we're playing 50+ lands, I'm just guessing this MIGHT change public perception of her, and when you pull her out people might go "oh, Child, how original" or something. I don't think she'll be top tier like Atraxa or Muldrotha, just slightly more known. Again, very minor downside.
3. Because of the fact that it's slightly more known, people might target you more, especially in an unknown pod. Again, minor downside, and I'm just speculating.
These three point are largely based off my own imagination and speculation, so take them with a grain of salt.
Here's the one, way more imporatant, positive:
1. We don't need to use Volrath's Stronghold or other shenanigans to reccur Child. Sometimes it's going to be more benificial to just let her go to the command zone, sometimes it's better to let her go to the graveyard.
For example, when we are hellbent, have plenty of lands, and a way to loop Child from the graveyard, we probably want to draw fresh cards instead of wasting our draw on recurring Child.
I would say it's a nice upgrade to the deck, nothing that's going to break it powerlevel wise. I give this rules change, in regards to Child, a solid 7/10.
Hey man, welcome to the forum. Omen is definitely something to consider, the reason I cut it is think Dryad of the Yllisian Grove is superior. You could ask "why not both", and that's a fair question. I think every card should be either really good/efficient at one specific thing or super versatile, Omen is neither, or isn't anymore I should say. Generally the Valakut combo is not something I go for very often, and I want things to serve a purpose outside of a big combo turn.
I had it in for a pretty long time, while Jace is pretty good in creature light meta's and also is good with all the fetching/tutoring/shuffling you're doing. I suggest you playtest this deck alot, since there are a ton of tutors in my list and you're doing a lot of shuffling in general, so it's a good idea to streamline the tutoring.
Do you have all the cards in paper? If your playgroup allows proxying I would slam dunk The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale. Mine does, I just don't like the feeling playing with them, so I'm saving up to buy one.
What do we think about this one? Seems janky to me, but as an upside is VERY versatile. To me it feels like one of those cards you've got to play with, to understand wether it's good or not.
EDIT: After some more pondering about it, I think this card is almost a must include. It's so sweet, can all of our own lands (obviously) on top of all of our opponents lands. It's a mana rock with huge upside, the good thing is, unlike a regular mana-rock, when you decide to blow everything up with Child, you can still sacrifice this one in response. For example, Strip Mine somebody, Fetch or sac using Nurturing Peatlands abillity.
I'm not playing the 10 Shocks+ABU+Fetch package, my manabase is more centered around green, so all the green shocks and ABU duals (I made an exception for the fetches, where I'm running all the green ones + Marsh Flats and Polluted Delta) It's a very solid manabase, and usually I have no issues getting my colors when I need them.
Currently am testing out
- Jace, the mind sculptor so far a little unimpressed, pretty strong, but not as busted as I'd hoped.
- Field of the dead Extremely impressed, if you ask me this should be considered a staple for our archetype
- Wayward Swordtooth The redundancy is nice, don't know if I need though, since I'm running 12+ Tutor spells.
- Restore It's always been okay, never exceptional.
- Hall of Heliod's Generosity Very solid land, feels good to have the cycle of Volrath's Stronghold (Usually used to abuse our general, but does way more then that). Academy Ruins If for some reason you're unable to loop Child, you can still loop Oblivion Stone with this (among other artifacts you blew up earlier with Child). Hall is always getting back some key engine pieces, in the future he will also be returning the new Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.
- Horizon Canopy and Nurturing Peatland. I LOVE Life from the Loam, I'm running the OG Cycle lands, the BUG ones + a Scattered Groves. Maybe going to cut one of the Canopy lands, but this requires more testing.
- Wrenn and Six Currently don't own one, but would love to try him/her/it out. Waiting for the price to drop a little bit further.
Currently running 55 lands, but would like to go back up to 56.
Combos/Cards I don't run:
- Inkmoth Nexus/Kessig Wolf Run. To be fair, I kinda liked this combo, killed many people with it, it's just that you have a limited amount of non-color producing lands in your deck, and these two had to go.
- Basics. I started building this deck with 7 basics in, went to 5, 3, 1 and ultimately 0. Yes, sometimes you get Path to Exiled, and you fail to find, which hurts. Yes Blood moon is a cruel card. Yes people who play Ruination should be hanged. My opinion is that we'd lose those games anyways. Also feels kinda good/hipster to tell people you're running 55 lands, none of which are basics.
- Elvish Reclaimer Would like to test him out. A reusable Crop Rotation sounds good. I think the reason that I haven't is because he's pretty slow (summoning sick + Land enters tapped) and gets blown up by Child. Definitely going to try, if I find the room.
- Knight of the Reliquary I think I would run Elvish Reclaimer over him, not convinced this is the way to go, since I prefer my tutors to be non-permanent, but for sure a powerful option.
- Tempt with Discovery It was fine for a while, but quickly it was just a really expensive Rampant Growth, I'm playing Pir's Whim, which is a fine upgrade, gives you some kind of semi-spot removal and tutors at the same time. Could see me cutting this card in the future though.
Have been getting sooo many games in. Love this deck. Love this Archetype. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think about it.
This got spoiled, I'm pretty excited for it. Seems great, especially with a Manabond out. Acts as narrow board-wipe in some instances. I play Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying, this looks like it's more flexible, although a bit more costly, and less easily reccurable.
Definitely gonna try it out. Has anything caught your eye yet? No new decent lands in this set, so maybe the next
I really recommend getting Stronghold, it's really the engine that makes this deck busted.
Your list looks pretty solid, obviously you're missing some expensive cards, but overall, pretty good.
Let me know how Field of the Dead works out for you, I've been hesitant to put it in, but it seems not bad.
I completely agree with you on Golos. The reason why COA Lands.dec is so good, lies with the fact that people can't (or seldomly) interact with lands, but we can, so we can keep on blowing up the board almost no downside, while demolishing opponents' resources, turn after turn.
Not a big fan of Field of the Dead, best case scenario you get like, I don't know, 15 2/2's? Which sounds underwhelming to me, and doesn't seem worth it.
But let me know how it runs, if you choose to try it out
While I agree that Avenger is a very good card, a very good finisher, and I run him in a lot of my green decks. I don't like playing popular game-finishers. Everyone has lost to Avenger at one point or another. I find it much more satisfying to win with Maze's end, Inkmoth Nexus, Valakut or Marit Lage.
To each their own ofcourse, everyone enjoys different things, I've just seen one too many Avengers in my day ^^
The thing is it is debatable wether Brainstorm is better then getting a land back, espcially accounting for the difference in mana. I'm not saying Wrenn is definitely better, I'm unsure, I just think Jace is not good enough, not for me to play at least.
Even 2UU for 2 Brainstorms is not good enough I believe, however, you play what you play, I can see that in a slower meta, Jace could be better, not in mine though. I'm going to try Wrenn out if I get one, unsure about the power lvl.
LIke I said, we must play at a different power level, because whenever I play, there will 100% be creatures on the board within the firt 3 turns.
I do agree that it is miles better then Bringer of the Black Down.
I would define a pet card as a card that you know isn't good enough to be in that specific deck, has little synergy with the rest of the deck, but you play annyway. I think most people would agree with me when saying Jace isn't good enough to be played in MOST commander decks, and certainly not in this one.
Actually Jace is not played in Cedh, non of the top-decks are running him.
Ofcourse he's better when you have creatures laying around to block, but we're arguing over playing him in Lands.dec, in which he doesn't belong, because we're not a typical control deck that runs 6-10 Creature-wrath's, or a Stax deck that locks everything down, or an extra turns deck, or a superfriends deck,... For sure he will be better in any of those decks, can we at least agree on that?
To me it seems to boil down to our differences in playgroups. Jace would'nt make it around 1 Cycle where I play, except for after a COA wrath. Can we agree that 2UU for 1 Brainstorm (sometimes 2) is just bad? Because if so, Jace would be bad in my meta.
I think we're playing wildly different gamess. Everyone will usually attack/kill pw'ers before going face again (unless there's some kind of race situation going on).
In a 4-player game, Wrenn will not push people to overcommit. Same as Jace (if we're talking 1v1, there's a different argument to be had, but I feel like this deck functions better in multiplayer anyways).
Jace is a great card. Played him in Legacy, a long time ago. Brainstorm (JTMS) is really powerful in a deck where you're constantly shuffling your deck. It has the same problem Wrenn has though, in that you cannot protect it, it costs 4 mana for a (which, if you put it like that is really, really weak), it won't live 1 turn-cycle and you'll never get to ult him. Wrenn has the advantage of costing only 2, and even though our deck runs more then 55 lands, we're still very mana hungry, so this actually matters.
I wouldn't run Jace over Wrenn if I had the choice no, I'd like to give Wrenn his fair chance, even knowing I'll only use his abbility twice (maximum), gaining me some incremental life in the process.
The general consensus on Jace in the EDH community is that it is underwhelming in a multiplayer format, I share that opinion. In 1v1 it can protect itself, control your opponents draws, drown you in card advantage and ultimately win you the game. In a 4-player pod? Brainstorm once? Maybe 2 times if you're really lucky? Unsummon + Brainstorm if you're lucky?
I also believe playing pet-cards is totally fine man, I do think Jace is one as well (Yeah, it's really good with Oracle, I know ;)).
It will never live, it won't force people to overcommit, and even if it does live 1 turn cycle you just paid 4 mana for 2 brainstorms (which is not the worst, but also, nothing to write home about)
Now that spoilers are completed, I have to say.... I'm dissapointed. It was probably due to my high expectations, I was expecting at least one withTatyova, Benthic Druid power level. Instead we got... Well, here's the list of cards that I found interesting enough to mention, and why I won't be running them:
1. Ancient Greenwarden 6 Mana for a Crucible effect is just too much, it's that simple, even if you also have a landharmonicon at the same time. We don't play nearly enough cards that could trigger the seccond part, and the first is pretty lackluster. I run Ad Nauseum and also, we are actively trying to play the least amount of non-land permanents as possible. This doesn't fit the bill. Might work for some decks, but it's a no for me.
2. Nahiri's Lithoforming If it weren't for that last clause (lands etb tapped) this could've been possibly playable.
I think we have enough of this kind of effect already in Scapeshift, Manabond+Ad Nauseum,World shaper and Splendid Reclamation.
3. Malakir Rebirth Some of us were doing this kind of thing already, with Gift of Immortality. This is ofcourse a one time deal, but has the added benefit of being a land as well, which seems useful. Overall, I'm not even running Journey to Eternity, so I don't see how this should get a pass.
4. Jwari Disruption This is really neat! If it were a hard counter (albeit costing a little more), I might've considered it, floating mana is very much a thing in our format.
5. Phylath, World Sculptor This is just a worse Avenger of Zendikar, which I janked out of my deck a long time ago. I guess if you are already running Avenger, this might not be the worst thing ever.
6. Moraug, fury of Akoum If only it had haste and wasn't a big beefy 6/6, hurting us both on our Child plan and our Ad Naus plan. Would probably fit great in the decks that run the two Avengers.
7. Valakut Exploration This card is so misleading, it has no links to either Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, nor has it anything to do with Exploration! All joking aside, we really don't want to play from the top of our deck, we want the cards in our hands. It' especially bad if there are multiple lands on top, and you have no Exploration effect in play. Doesn't work with Manabond, also don't like to exile my cards, since we run quite a few graveyard interaction cards.
8. Valakut Awakening We don't very often go into the lategame with no gas in hand, in the early game we try to drop our hand on the table as fast as possible. I don't see this being very good in our deck.
9. Nissa of Shadowed Boughs YES! A planeswalker with Landfall!... Oh. Yeah, I don't think she fits our deck good. The fact that those 3/3 dissapear EOT makes it a big turn off, since she has no way of protecting herself. Sure, you could play this on t5, play a fetch, crack and ult her. Our gameplan is not to cheat big dumb things into play, so I'm going to pass on her.
10. Pathway Cycle Cragcrown Pathway Cool cycle, love the design, is going to see plenty of play in EDH, I'm sure. Unless you're playing a budget version, I don't see any reason running these over shocks+Fetches+a couple of OG duals.
Now, after all the whining, the top 3 cards that I'm considering trying out:
3. Bala Ged Recovery Call me crazy, but I'm considering cutting Eternal Witness for this one. Yes, Witness is more easily tutorable, this can up your landcount, while retaining that effect. Taplands are disguting though. We'll see I guess.
2. Omnath, Locus of Creation A decent card that replaces himself, heals you a bit, ramps you when you need it, and can also dome people to the face.
1. Scute Swarm This feels similar to Field of the Dead, the only key, important difference is that it's a non-land permanent, and so easily disruptable. However, if you can land this, and then make a couple land drops, they grow exponentially. Let's say you have 6 lands, you have an Azusa, 3 lands in hand, one of which is a fetchland. You end up with 16 tokens. That's a ton.
I can think of 3 VERY minor downsides:
1. Child's die effect isn't a "may" effect, meaning that if an opponent chooses to waste a kill spell on her to blow up the board, we can't send her to the command zone to negate that effect. Why this is only a small downside is because we generally only play her when we are already planning to blow up the board and we have a sac-outlet. I've never had this scenario occur in any games I played, but maybe you have?
2. It puts Child more on the map, which makes our deck slightly less of a cool off-the-wall-brew. I mean, it still is, we're playing 50+ lands, I'm just guessing this MIGHT change public perception of her, and when you pull her out people might go "oh, Child, how original" or something. I don't think she'll be top tier like Atraxa or Muldrotha, just slightly more known. Again, very minor downside.
3. Because of the fact that it's slightly more known, people might target you more, especially in an unknown pod. Again, minor downside, and I'm just speculating.
These three point are largely based off my own imagination and speculation, so take them with a grain of salt.
Here's the one, way more imporatant, positive:
1. We don't need to use Volrath's Stronghold or other shenanigans to reccur Child. Sometimes it's going to be more benificial to just let her go to the command zone, sometimes it's better to let her go to the graveyard.
For example, when we are hellbent, have plenty of lands, and a way to loop Child from the graveyard, we probably want to draw fresh cards instead of wasting our draw on recurring Child.
I would say it's a nice upgrade to the deck, nothing that's going to break it powerlevel wise. I give this rules change, in regards to Child, a solid 7/10.
I had it in for a pretty long time, while Jace is pretty good in creature light meta's and also is good with all the fetching/tutoring/shuffling you're doing. I suggest you playtest this deck alot, since there are a ton of tutors in my list and you're doing a lot of shuffling in general, so it's a good idea to streamline the tutoring.
Do you have all the cards in paper? If your playgroup allows proxying I would slam dunk The Tabernacle At Pendrell Vale. Mine does, I just don't like the feeling playing with them, so I'm saving up to buy one.
What do we think about this one? Seems janky to me, but as an upside is VERY versatile. To me it feels like one of those cards you've got to play with, to understand wether it's good or not.
EDIT: After some more pondering about it, I think this card is almost a must include. It's so sweet, can all of our own lands (obviously) on top of all of our opponents lands. It's a mana rock with huge upside, the good thing is, unlike a regular mana-rock, when you decide to blow everything up with Child, you can still sacrifice this one in response. For example, Strip Mine somebody, Fetch or sac using Nurturing Peatlands abillity.
Further more, if one of your opponents has the Cabal Coffers+Urborg, tomb of Yawgmoth combo out, it helps you as well.
Here's a list of cards I don't play in my list, but which are very common in EDH, from which we might get the benefit:
- Kessig Wolf Run
- Rogue's Passage
- Alchemist's Refuge
- Desolate Lighthouse
- Scavenger Grounds
- Any "Man"-Land-
- Opposing Sac-outlet-lands (Such as Phyrexian Tower or High Market
- ...
It would be very good if it counted only your own lands, making it tap for your opponents lands as well makes it a muct-play in my opinion.
Note: I'm constantly tinkering around with this deck, cards come in and out all the time.
I'm not playing the 10 Shocks+ABU+Fetch package, my manabase is more centered around green, so all the green shocks and ABU duals (I made an exception for the fetches, where I'm running all the green ones + Marsh Flats and Polluted Delta) It's a very solid manabase, and usually I have no issues getting my colors when I need them.
Currently am testing out
- Jace, the mind sculptor so far a little unimpressed, pretty strong, but not as busted as I'd hoped.
- Field of the dead Extremely impressed, if you ask me this should be considered a staple for our archetype
- Wayward Swordtooth The redundancy is nice, don't know if I need though, since I'm running 12+ Tutor spells.
- Restore It's always been okay, never exceptional.
- Hall of Heliod's Generosity Very solid land, feels good to have the cycle of Volrath's Stronghold (Usually used to abuse our general, but does way more then that). Academy Ruins If for some reason you're unable to loop Child, you can still loop Oblivion Stone with this (among other artifacts you blew up earlier with Child). Hall is always getting back some key engine pieces, in the future he will also be returning the new Dryad of the Ilysian Grove.
- Horizon Canopy and Nurturing Peatland. I LOVE Life from the Loam, I'm running the OG Cycle lands, the BUG ones + a Scattered Groves. Maybe going to cut one of the Canopy lands, but this requires more testing.
- Wrenn and Six Currently don't own one, but would love to try him/her/it out. Waiting for the price to drop a little bit further.
Currently running 55 lands, but would like to go back up to 56.
Combos/Cards I don't run:
- Inkmoth Nexus/Kessig Wolf Run. To be fair, I kinda liked this combo, killed many people with it, it's just that you have a limited amount of non-color producing lands in your deck, and these two had to go.
- Basics. I started building this deck with 7 basics in, went to 5, 3, 1 and ultimately 0. Yes, sometimes you get Path to Exiled, and you fail to find, which hurts. Yes Blood moon is a cruel card. Yes people who play Ruination should be hanged. My opinion is that we'd lose those games anyways. Also feels kinda good/hipster to tell people you're running 55 lands, none of which are basics.
- Elvish Reclaimer Would like to test him out. A reusable Crop Rotation sounds good. I think the reason that I haven't is because he's pretty slow (summoning sick + Land enters tapped) and gets blown up by Child. Definitely going to try, if I find the room.
- Knight of the Reliquary I think I would run Elvish Reclaimer over him, not convinced this is the way to go, since I prefer my tutors to be non-permanent, but for sure a powerful option.
- Tempt with Discovery It was fine for a while, but quickly it was just a really expensive Rampant Growth, I'm playing Pir's Whim, which is a fine upgrade, gives you some kind of semi-spot removal and tutors at the same time. Could see me cutting this card in the future though.
Have been getting sooo many games in. Love this deck. Love this Archetype. There's not a day that goes by where I don't think about it.
This got spoiled, I'm pretty excited for it. Seems great, especially with a Manabond out. Acts as narrow board-wipe in some instances. I play Expedition Map and Sylvan Scrying, this looks like it's more flexible, although a bit more costly, and less easily reccurable.
Definitely gonna try it out. Has anything caught your eye yet? No new decent lands in this set, so maybe the next
EDIT: http://mythicspoiler.com/tbd/cards/dryadofilysiangrove.html THIS IS AWESOME
I really recommend getting Stronghold, it's really the engine that makes this deck busted.
Your list looks pretty solid, obviously you're missing some expensive cards, but overall, pretty good.
Let me know how Field of the Dead works out for you, I've been hesitant to put it in, but it seems not bad.
Not a big fan of Field of the Dead, best case scenario you get like, I don't know, 15 2/2's? Which sounds underwhelming to me, and doesn't seem worth it.
But let me know how it runs, if you choose to try it out
While I agree that Avenger is a very good card, a very good finisher, and I run him in a lot of my green decks. I don't like playing popular game-finishers. Everyone has lost to Avenger at one point or another. I find it much more satisfying to win with Maze's end, Inkmoth Nexus, Valakut or Marit Lage.
To each their own ofcourse, everyone enjoys different things, I've just seen one too many Avengers in my day ^^
Even 2UU for 2 Brainstorms is not good enough I believe, however, you play what you play, I can see that in a slower meta, Jace could be better, not in mine though. I'm going to try Wrenn out if I get one, unsure about the power lvl.
I do agree that it is miles better then Bringer of the Black Down.
I would define a pet card as a card that you know isn't good enough to be in that specific deck, has little synergy with the rest of the deck, but you play annyway. I think most people would agree with me when saying Jace isn't good enough to be played in MOST commander decks, and certainly not in this one.
Actually Jace is not played in Cedh, non of the top-decks are running him.
Ofcourse he's better when you have creatures laying around to block, but we're arguing over playing him in Lands.dec, in which he doesn't belong, because we're not a typical control deck that runs 6-10 Creature-wrath's, or a Stax deck that locks everything down, or an extra turns deck, or a superfriends deck,... For sure he will be better in any of those decks, can we at least agree on that?
To me it seems to boil down to our differences in playgroups. Jace would'nt make it around 1 Cycle where I play, except for after a COA wrath. Can we agree that 2UU for 1 Brainstorm (sometimes 2) is just bad? Because if so, Jace would be bad in my meta.
In a 4-player game, Wrenn will not push people to overcommit. Same as Jace (if we're talking 1v1, there's a different argument to be had, but I feel like this deck functions better in multiplayer anyways).
Jace is a great card. Played him in Legacy, a long time ago. Brainstorm (JTMS) is really powerful in a deck where you're constantly shuffling your deck. It has the same problem Wrenn has though, in that you cannot protect it, it costs 4 mana for a (which, if you put it like that is really, really weak), it won't live 1 turn-cycle and you'll never get to ult him. Wrenn has the advantage of costing only 2, and even though our deck runs more then 55 lands, we're still very mana hungry, so this actually matters.
I wouldn't run Jace over Wrenn if I had the choice no, I'd like to give Wrenn his fair chance, even knowing I'll only use his abbility twice (maximum), gaining me some incremental life in the process.
The general consensus on Jace in the EDH community is that it is underwhelming in a multiplayer format, I share that opinion. In 1v1 it can protect itself, control your opponents draws, drown you in card advantage and ultimately win you the game. In a 4-player pod? Brainstorm once? Maybe 2 times if you're really lucky? Unsummon + Brainstorm if you're lucky?
I also believe playing pet-cards is totally fine man, I do think Jace is one as well (Yeah, it's really good with Oracle, I know ;)).
It will never live, it won't force people to overcommit, and even if it does live 1 turn cycle you just paid 4 mana for 2 brainstorms (which is not the worst, but also, nothing to write home about)