Posts Tagged ‘JaceCast’

The Catalan Vintage League (LCV) will stop tomorrow by Berga (100km +or- north from Barcelona). Gerard Siles has prepared a wonderful Vintage party with the following prizes:

LCV6 – April 24th 2010

Where: Alberg de Berga, C/ Vila de Casserres, nº5. Berga, 08600 (Barcelona)
Sign in from 9 to 10 am
Tournament fee: 15€

Prizes:

• Winner – Mox Emerald + Mox Ruby
• Finalist – Mox Pearl
• 3rd – Depending on the turn out (Mana Drain o dual lands)
• 4th -  Depending on the turn out (Mana Drain o dual lands)
• 5th to 8th – 1 Dual or boosters, depending on the turn out.

Prizes are firm, regardless of assitance.

SIDE EVENT Rise of Eldrazi Launch party:

From 4pm there will be RoE booster drafts going on.

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Lately I’ve been testing hard and it seems like I’ve finally found a deck I like to play. JaceCast has performed excellent during my testing and proved to be a solid contender in the actual metagame. This is how the deck looks like:

The only changes I’ve made are on the sideboard: -1 Darkblast, -1 Diabolic Edict, +1 Claws of Gix, +1 Sundering Titan

So, last Wednesday I got to play 12 games against Iona Oath with a more than acceptable 6-6 result on games, (3-3 on rounds). We played 6 full rounds, as it would be in tournament. Claws of Gix rocked! Most of the games I lost weren’t due to his Oath, it was actually against Vault/Key…

Then I got to play against Remora Tendrils. Same list that has performed excellent in the last LCV tournaments with Top8′s from Alex Delgado and Rubén González (decklists here and here). Surprisingly, I managed to win 6-1 with absolutely no real opposition. JaceCast was so superior to Remora Tendrils that he couldn’t do much to stop me.

But I also tested the deck against the new MUD deck featuring Lodestone Golem and, even more surprisingly, it performed lot better than expected. Played 3 full rounds against Roger Riera and the results were: 2-0, 1-2, 2-0 for a total game score of 5-2. Null Rod wasn’t really an issue if you manage to play one or two Master of Etherium. Masters are lot bigger than Golems, so they end up blocking. On top of that if we add that we play 4 Spell Pierce + 4 Force of Will we can actually stop their early game quite well. If we manage to get the 4th producer, then the game is over.

And finally I tested JaceCast against Dark Tezzeret and “The Deck”, with even or slightly positive results against them.

So, I feel pretty confidant about the deck, the card choices and my possibilities. I didn’t get to try the deck against Noble Fish, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a very good match up. I guess I’ll have to protect my masters from his Swords and try Tinker for Leviathan asap. Adding Sower of Temptation and Pithing Needle from the sideboard will make games 2 and 3 lot easier.  Dispel has proved to be a real MVP against fish from other player’s experiences, as it protects all your bombs and can counter their bouncer/swords.

I’ll be probably recording the Top8 games on video, and if I get the time to edit them, I’ll upload them!

Wish me luck

Lately I’ve been tinkering ideas around Jace, the Mind Sculptor in order to abuse the amazing raw power of this card.

My first idea was to build a control deck capable of defeating MUD and Fish efficiently. To achieve that goal I had to understand that the key turns at those matchups are 0, 1 and 2. Blue has plenty of good cards but not all of them are made to win games at the early game. Cards like Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction or even Tinker are pretty bad on your opening hand. The idea I had in mind was to minimize the dead draws in order to maximize the efficiency of your cards.

The first approach looked like this:

This list has a very strong mana base and the amount of plays you can do on your first turns is insane. Except from Force of Will, Inkwell Leviathan, Yawgmoth’s Will, Tinker and Jace, the Mind Sculptor, the rest of the deck has a CMC of 2 or less. This list reflects exactly what I had in mind: it’s awesome at the early game, it performs well at the mid game, but loses gas at the late game due to the lack of big bombs.

Then I thought: How could I improve the deck? If Dark Jace’s strengths were the early and mid games, then I should focus on those stages, and a card came to my mind: Mystic Remora. Remora plays as an excellent complement to this strategy and makes your opponent’s choices lot harder. I cut the Tinker/Robot plan and opted for the 4th Spell Snare since it’s incredibly good when playing controlish. Spell Pierce it’s incredibly good if you play aggressively but Dark Jace isn’t really like that.

So, the second list I put together looked like this:

I added a Mind Twist and Imperial Seal, and swapped Darkblast for Diabolic Edict. Mind Twist proved to be a very strong card at the mid/late game. I had the feeling that I needed a 2nd Jace in that deck, since every time it resolved equaled to win the game. It’s just plain awesome combined with Dark Confidant or Mystic Remora. With this deck I really felt having the control of the games, similar to playing Landstill in Legacy. The only change I would make now to that list main deck is -1 Imperial Seal + 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor.

The last deck I’ve tested, and I have to admit with surprisingly awesome results, is a total different deck. Well, its core it’s the same, but instead of playing control, you have to play aggro. The idea behind this new deck is to abuse, literally, the power of Mystic Remora while dropping bombs one after another.

Let me show you the list:

As you can see, JaceCast’s main deck is extremely aggressive. No bouncers, no Mana Drains and bombs, lots of bombs. Master of Etherium proved to be incredibly effective against Fish and Golems. It’s easily an early 5/5 when it comes alone and once you drop the 2nd Master you’re just giving your opponent one turn to kill you. You hit for 7 the turn you cast the 2nd Master, and then hit for 14 the next turn. If you combine them with the disruption/pressuring elements of the deck, such as Spell Pierce or Mystic Remora, it gives the feeling that you are playing a very solid deck.

The real problem of this deck is Null Rod, even though Master of Etherium solves somehow that issue. At the testing sessions, I had problems against Oath with Null Rod, because I couldn’t land my Master of Etherium.

All in all, JaceCast is a deck extremely fun to play with, that can easily surprise your opponents.

By the way, tomorrow I’m going to Zaragoza to meet Dan Frazier! Can’t wait to get my cards signed/altered!