When Magic Origins came out I wasn't really interested in any of the cards from the set and Jace, Vryn's Prodigy was one of those cards I ignored. I had my Snapcaster Mages for Eternal Formats and I played Abzan in Standard. But when I put together some Jeskai list and played with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy I had to change my opinion. I was amazed what the card can do. When I switched to Jeskai Black list Jace was the card that was doing all the job killing my opponents. I couldn't believe the card to be THAT insane. I couldn't believe all those people trying to convince me that Jace is bad in Jeskai. Because I have a completely opposite view on that matter. Jace is nuts. In all the decks I wanted to brew from Reanimator to Aristocrats Jace shined. Yes, I am a player who played Jace, the Mind Sculptor in Standard Jund and was often called names because of that. t3-4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor followed by Bloodbraid Elf into a card I put on top of the library myself was better than my blind cascades. But Jace he was simply that good. So putting Jace into a Junk list or a 5c Reanimator seemed a logical choice. Why not try it, it worked in Jund why not Junk? I was ready to cut the card if it wouldn't show to be good and I wasn't sure the card would be good (I was when I put JTMS in my Jund list) but Jace really shined and I realized that the feeling I had about this card is not just a feeling. It is the real deal. Could that card be even better in other formats? The answer is simple. YES.
I wasn't aware that the card would be so awesome so I missed buying my Japanese playset...the price already got ridiculous and probably won't just stop there.
My very first experience with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy was during a powered cube draft. My first pick was Ancestral Recall followed by a ton of bad blue cards and few good ones. Sphinx's Tutelage was one of the cards I hoped that would defeat my opponents. But this card alone wouldn't be able to do it without Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. This baby Jace usually looted as much as 'he'could and replayed Ancestral Recall which was enough for me to win (otherwise my deck struggled among other decks that were actually good). This was the first time I felt the power of Jace. I had to face the truth - without that card my deck was completely useless...^_^
My stubbornness continued though. It was only after I played with this card in Vintage environment that it finally dawned on me - the card is better than Jace, the Mind Sculptor. The primary reason being the fact that the card costs 2 mana but still does soooo much.
Some time ago I put together a UR Delver list for Vintage. Because the deck was the closest to my Legacy deck. But I wasn't sure about one thing - Delver of Secrets. I also put two Snapcaster Mages in the deck because I play them in Legacy as well even though it can cost too much mana (but is worth it). After I played with that for a while I realized that Delver of Secrets is/was on a completely different power level than in Legacy, Modern or Standard featuring Delver... Vintage does not have that much removal and that has to be saved for something strong. This deck can counterspell as any other blue deck but can have a 3/2 by turn 2 on the table. This might not seem as the best thing to have in Vintage but it works. Snapcaster Mage though is a card that sometimes is not enough. It can recast in most cases only cards costing 1 mana and ocassionally kill my opponent via combat damage. Since both cards usually stay in play for quite some time unless countered. So what would happen if I added Jace, Vryn's Prodigy to the mix? To see what would change I put Jace in the deck (replacing Snapcaster Mage). After the very first game with it in which Jace did exactly two things before he died (looted once, played Ancestral Recall again) I would never go back to putting Snapcaster Mages in the deck. I put more Jaces in the deck instead.
So what does Jace do? Jace loots which is very important in moxen and other rocks heavy decks. That one additional card that we can see can be a great difference. It can be Ancestral Recall or Brainstorm. Jace, the Mind Sculptor's brainstorm might be better but the card costs 4 mana and my aggressive Delver deck can't even play that card. Control decks can play JTMS and I'm still not convinced that I want to play only Jace, Vryn's Prodigy in such decks. Anyway the discarded card if instant or sorcery can be replayed by the very same Jace later. The Telepath side of Jace then creates the real card advantage. It feels very similar to playing Gush (at least this is how I felt when I first played Gush...well that was ages ago). That is a card I always loved to play because it is ridiculously strong (not taking into an account restricted cards). Also Jace, Telepath Unbound allows us to play cards from graveyard unlike Snapcaster Mage that gives them flashback. That means that we can use the alternate costs to play the cards! It does not come handy with Force of Will but Gush played for returning two islands is awesome. The +1 ability does not seem to do much, but staring at -1/1 Monk token that will have hard time killing Jace is actually fine. The ultimate ability is one that I don't expect to use at all but sometimes it comes down to it as well. The decks I have (UR Delver and Mentor Deck) don't really need that ability. When Jace goes ultimate though it can mill the opponent quite fast as there are many cantrips in the deck and cards usually casting 0 to 1 mana. (I was killed by Jace's ultimate ability more times than I managed myself but that's because many of those Time Vault combos flip Jace and then get infinite turns, unlike me.. I win by damage dealt by creatures)
When I was recording All About that Jace parody I was thinking about showing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy at the end of the song, but I did not manage to do that. Now I regret that a bit (even though the video started a wave of hate against me/my videos) because JTMS will see even less play, we will see way more of this teenage version instead. So if you still haven't tried playing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy somewhere you should. Because after you try this card out you'll want to have your playset right away.
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