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By: jay85, Jay Nelson
Sep 17 2015 12:00pm
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 I've been hoping Jace, Vryn's Prodigy finds a home in Legacy for several weeks now. I began with Kenxken's Reanimator list and even though I think Jace is good in it, I just really don't like the reanimator archetype. Then I saw him in Charlie Holland's 4-Color Delver list from the Eternal Championship. I liked Jace, Jr. in that, as well. But frankly, I thought the deck was fine, just not great. I knew I was getting close, though. So close I could taste it.

 Then one evening I logged onto Magic Online and stared at my BUG Delver deck. I finally thought, Why can't I just shake things up a bit with this deck? What could it hurt, right?

 So the first thing I did was decide what two cards I should cut for Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Now, from reading other articles, people have grouped this Jace up with cards like Snapcaster Mage since both can flashback a spell from your graveyard. While I do agree Jace is kinda like Snapcaster, the problem was I don't run any in BUG Delver. What I do have, however, is two Dark Confidants.

 Is Jace, Vryn's Prodigy a suitable replacement for Dark Confidant? I think so. Over the course of a game Dark Confidant will surely grant us more cards than Jace, but it's the Prodigy's versatility that makes him slightly better. Not only that, if I take out the Confidants then I can add the fourth Force of Will into the main and play another high cmc spell that is darn good in Legacy. Of course, I'm talking about Dig Through Time here.

 So yeah, I replaced the two Dark Confidants for a couple Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. Then I went ahead and switched the places of the main board Disfigure for the Force of Will sitting in the sideboard. I also got rid of Liliana of the Veil for one Dig Through Time. Now this could be wrong. There is an argument that Liliana should stay in. She can deal with creatures that are otherwise devastating for us. I'm thinking mainly True-Name Nemesis and something like Platinum Emperion or Griselbrand. Some thorough testing still needs to be done to know if this change is actually correct, but c'mon! I am replacing her with Dig Through Time. It may be wrong, but it feels so right.

 This is what my deck looks like now. 

   

 I haven't played a ton with this new build, only a couple daily events so far, but I feel confident enough in telling you I'm liking it a lot more. Yeah, Dark Confidant gained us more cards and he was a threat on the board, playing extremely well into our plan of beating opponents through tempo, but in case you're not entirely sold on it, here are some things Jace, Vryn's Prodigy can do that Bob cannot.

  1. Discarding a card with Jace helps beef up Tarmogoyf
  2. Discarding a card also allows us to cast Dig Through Time sooner
  3. Jace can block then flip, thus blanking an attacker w/o trample
  4. +1 ability slows down opposing creatures
  5. -3 ability flashes back Thoughtseize, Hymn to Tourach, Abrupt Decay, and cantrips like Ponder

 As I said earlier in the article, Jace's synergy with this deck far out matches Dark Confidant, and without fearing life loss off expensive spells like FoW and Dig we can now add those into the deck.

 Let's check this new list out in a daily and see where it can take us!

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 Not a good start for a daily, unless you were my opponent. Merfolk is a tough deck to fight, especially when their creatures all have islandwalk and you can't counter any of them because of Cavern of Souls. I did bring in Disfigure and, along with Abrupt Decay, I thought maybe if I could keep him from swarming me then I would have a chance of pulling through, but unfortunately that wasn't the case. I still felt like it was a close game and I wonder how game three would have ended if I could've beat him in game two. I hope I get paired against Merfolk again soon because I would really like a rematch.

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 It seems pretty obvious to me now that I should have forced my opponent to discard Dark Petition instead of Lion's Eye Diamond. At the time I figured if my Deathrites could keep his spell mastery off then I wouldn't have to worry about it, but it didn't dawn on me that he would be able to use spell mastery with just the spells in his hand. Even though I won, two things did hurt me in this match. First, my ignorance of the Doomsday archetype (which I kept referring to in the video as ANT...). I was battling in unfamiliar territory. The second thing was playing with a closed mind. I didn't figure into the equation that Dark Ritual and Duress would fuel his Dark Petition's spell mastery. Lessons to be learned, for sure. I'm just glad I was able to pull it off despite my inexperience. 

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 I enjoyed this match. Romariovidal is a good guy (check out his twitch.tv page here) and if it wasn't for him I probably never would've heard about Sylvan Plug. I don't believe I made any major mistakes this match. I feel like I played it pretty well and I was able to crank the pressure on early in the game, forcing him to race. MUD is fully capable of racing, what with Wurmcoil Engine and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but the only problem is MUD doesn't have any real ways of drawing extra cards or manipulating its library so it can hiccup pretty easily. Sometimes you'll just be sitting there with a couple Grim Monoliths and Trinispheres while your opponent is beating your face in.

 I like seeing different cards in other people's decks, such as Uba Mask. Now, I could be missing something here, but I don't think I'll be trying out Uba Mask in my MUD deck. The same goes for Staff of Domination. The staff is great in paper, but online it is a real pain, and I'm not even sure what purpose the Mask has in the deck. I only forced it because I get scared of the unknown.

 

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 photo Hotline Miami_zpslgeenz6y.png 

 I've been playing a game called Hotline Miami in between daily rounds. It is set in 1989 and the plot is basically you getting these seemingly innocent messages on your answering machine. Each message is a mission and each mission involves you killing everyone in a building. It's bloody and ultra-violent so it might not be up your alley. The gameplay is very simple, but man, is it freaking hard! The graphics are 8-bit but it looks fantastic, and the soundtrack...Oh. My. Lordie!

 If you're a glutton for punishment, you can purchase Hotline Miami and its sequel/prequel Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number on Steam!

2 Comments

I won the Vintage Daily last by Joe Fiorini at Mon, 09/21/2015 - 17:35
Joe Fiorini's picture
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I won the Vintage Daily last night. Round three I used a Force of Will on Rich Shay's Baby Jace, that should show everyone watching on stream that I respect the card!

Baby Jace is the real deal. It's the two-mana cost that really seals it. If you had to invest more, it might be questionable, but at two, you don't care as much if it dies to removal. If they don't kill it, the card advantage takes over. Especially in Vintage, I mean you're breaking the restricted list with it!

Nice work, keep it up man!

Jace also pitches to Force of by Joe Fiorini at Tue, 09/22/2015 - 15:47
Joe Fiorini's picture
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Jace also pitches to Force of Will. Total bonus :) The thing is, two mana isn't a big investment, so it isn't as if you sunk four into a Jace TMS or whatever. I really think that this jace will have a place in Magic for a long time. There are times and places you'd want JTMS instead, but it's nice to have this option. I only wish they could both be on the battlefield at the same time!