Repeated activations of this card can be an
effective milling tool as long as somebody keeps
their hand size up-- the problem is, you're
milling yourself too. Since the Archivist gives
everybody a hand size equal to whoever had the
most cards in hand, it can be an effective draw
tool against a player with a bigger hand size
than you-- the problem is, you're the Blue mage,
and should therefore have the most cards in
hand. Making your opponents cycle their hand
every turn should also make it harder for them
to plan their moves more than a turn in advance,
allowing you to disrupt their long-term plans--
the problem is, you're in the same boat as them,
and again, Blue is the color most likely to be
making long-term plans.
But really, the biggest problem with Jace's
Archvist is that mill is dead. The Eldrazi
Titans make mill a completely non-viable
strategy just by your opponent having even one
anywhere in his deck, and anyone can keep one in
their sideboard. Jace's Archivist might make a
comeback once the Titans rotate out of Standard,
but in older formats and casual decks he'll
never get to shine. Commander treats him the
worst-- Emrakul may be banned, but Kozilek and
Ulamog are all the more popular due to the
format allowing folks to hope to cast them legit
someday. Factor in Elixir of Immortality, which
is also colorless and is cheap and beneficial
enough for people to actually run a playset of
in order to cast, and I don't expect to see any
successful mill decks anytime soon.
What that means is, Jace's Archivist is
relegated to a combo piece. He could be
hilarious in a deck with Underworld Dreams or
Megrim, or he could team up with a card like
Cerebral Vortex, but without some sort of help
like that, his only real purpose is adding value
to Jace Beleren's story.
When they put a powerful spell effect on a
creature, it usually ends up making it stronger,
not weaker. Dark Confidant is usually more
powerful than Phyrexian Arena. Pestermite is
usually more powerful than Twiddle. Aether Adept
is usually more powerful than Unsummon. Jace's
Archivist . . . well, it may not always be more
powerful than Windfall, since it doesn't win the
same turn you cast it, barring some kind of
shenanigans involving Swiftfoot Boots.
Sometimes, though, it'll survive long enough to
activate, and you'll draw a bunch of stuff you
can play to get even further ahead. And a few
times, you'll do that again. And if you're
lucky, you'll do it a third time. And if you
manage to do those, it'll be hard to lose.
Welcome back readers today’s card of the day is
the interesting wizard version of Windfall
Jace’s Archivist. Powerful effects attached to
creature bodies such as Fauna Shaman in the last
core set continues with our little wizard
friend., While a powerful effect I don’t
see many decks in constructed that want to be
built around this effect or are currently
searching for the effect, discard decks? Mill
decks? Not powerful archetypes. In standard,
extended and eternal I don’t foresee this card
seeing much play yet, it has a fragile body but
a powerful effect time will tell for now I am
tentative. In casual and multiplayer this card
is insane having a repeatable Windfall on
a wizard its going to be amazing, the amount of
combos available to this card and how it
supports various popular casual strategies such
as mill, discard, reanimator and more
making this a popular card at the
kitchen table. In limited I am not sold on
this, it’s not necessarily an effect you
want put it could make picking up extra
Tome Scours worth it for a genuinely powerful
milling strategy. Overall I am psyched to see
more creatures based on power classic cards and
this one is sure to see play in casual although
I am not sure where else.
Today's card of the day is Jace's Archivist
which is a three mana 2/2 Blue creature that for
one Blue can tap to have each player discard
their hand and draw cards equal to the greatest
number of cards a player discarded. This
works well with Jace and support an actual mill
deck in current formats, disrupt an opponent's
hand, fuel a draw draw condition trigger, or
just allow you to draw some new cards as needed.
Any of those options make this playable and it
will definitely be seen play in some capacity.
Overall this is a solid card with a variety of
potential uses and should not be overlooked when
building a Blue or possibly Blue/Black deck.
In Limited this is unlikely to be as effective
as in Constructed formats as the support isn't
readily available, but it can still be a useful
card in a lesser capacity. Mill,
disruption, and in particular draw are possible
uses for this fairly affordable card leaving the
primary drawback as the heavy reliance on Blue
mana. Unless the deck is mostly Blue the
odds of this entering play on the third turn, or
earlier, is slim which reduces the power
drastically. With the color dependency and
possibility of helping your opponent as much as
yourself it may or may not be worth playing in
Sealed which leaves the decision on if other
support exists in the rest of the pool. In
Booster you can draft a heavily Blue deck and
cards to work with the Archivist, which may be
enough to be effective, but even then other
rares typically have the edge in this format.
Welcome to another card of
the day review here at Pojo.com. Today we are
looking at Jace’s Archivist from M12. Jace’s
Archivist is a blue creature Vedalken Wizard
that costs two blue and one generic and is a
2/2. Jace’s Archivist’s ability is pay one blue
mana, tap, each player discards their hand and
draws cards equal to the highest amount
discarded.
Of all the rare spells based around a Planeswalker in
M12, none have the synergy of Jace’s Archivist.
If you have out even one Jace’s Erasure, using
this ability is a milling machine. And then just
imagine if you are able to use Jace’s final
ability, you could mill someone instantly.
But I think that the best way of exploiting Jace’s
Archivist is to use it with Liliana’s Caress or
Megrim. Of course playing standard requires
using the Caress. The ability of forcing discard
with that out could make the opponent or
opponents in multiplayer lose a lot of life.
I definitely see this card making waves, both in casual
and tournament play.
