Pointed Discussion

Nice addition for milling.

omg this card rapes. every turn you mill for at least one, and in any blue deck that understands blue mechanics even slightly well, it'll rise pretty quickly. 5/5

Blue Black mill decks are my specialty, though I'm not sure I want this in my deck due to a shortage of drawing. Any suggestions?

@ caesar1994
why is that sad? they're both Jace either way

I think this card helps beleren more because it actively pushes towards his ultimate. Beleren is a mill card through and through while The Mind Sculptor is a control card. A vomit-inducingly expensive control card.

To be honest, I hate mill decks, but this is one of few cards that actually makes me want to build one myself.

Once i get myself a playset, I'm going to pair it with memory erosion and put it in a control-based enchantress deck >.<

This card is amazing. Well, okay, not AMAZING amazing. But it's really fun and well-designed and flavorful and elegant and I love it. <3

I suppose I can understand tome scour being common since it's simple‚ basic‚ standard-issue fodder stuff but this is going to be the piece of crap in a lot of people's boosters.

Niche + common = fail. Mill is niche. More so with the steady stream of antimill. Should be upped to uncommon or rare and spiced up‚ we won't need this many printed.

I cannot stress it enough: This WILL outsupply demand. Not the way other penny-cards do‚ when they're simply inefficient but still functional. Mill only fits in mill.

Card itself is fine‚ I just disagree with the rarity. Concept is good (archmage ascension should've been "when draw" and say‚ 10)‚ flavor is good‚ art is good (looks like it came from the one-size-fits-all pile but still works)

@caesar1994

They're still both in standard together. Besides, using this with Beleren lets you use his +2 a little more liberally, so that you can explode him to mill for 20.

@ceasar: Yes, the 0 ability on the Mind Sculptor Jace works better with this card, but I feel this card works better with the original Jace - specifically, using the Sculptor's 0 ability isn't going to get him any closer to triggering his ultimate without using a third card in the combo such as Gilder Bairn, whereas the +2 of original Jace will trigger his enchantment and allow his counters to build up enough to use the ultimate ability. Just saying, either one works well depending on whether you want your enchantment to be enhancing your Planeswalker or your planeswalker enhancing your Enchantment. I prefer the former.

This card is great. Once you play it, you will automatically be milling your opponents with just a single draw. That's only with one of them. Should you get multiple ones, that's even worse. Should you know anything about blue's obsession of obtaining knowledge, you know that they love to draw cards. Take Arcanis the Omnipotent for example. Just a single tap will mill your opponent for 3 and give you 3 cards. That's why this card is just great.

Blue an Black Laylines x2
Jace's Erasure x4
Prosperity x4
Howling Mine x4
Hypnotic Specter x4
Other fun stuff xX
Mana producers

ha ha ha !!!

i played a type-two constructed even last night.
i had the following:

jace, the mind scultpor x2
jace beleren x3
jace's eraruse x4
archieve trap x4
time warp x4
silence x4
path to exile x4
condemn x4
day of judgment x4
howling mine x4
ravenous trap x3
islands x12
plains x4
glacial fortress x4

i was second place winnning ten packs :). i lost to red/white
he had the following:

ajani goldmane x3
path to exile x4
elite vanguards x4
lightning bolts x4
staggershock x4
goblin guide x4
goblin bushwacker x4
ranger of eos x3
eldrazi monument x2
siege-gang commander x4
dragon fodder x4
arid mesa x4
mountain x10
plains x6

i didnt had anything for eldrazi monument but my deck was really fun to play with. i beat red/white/blue control, mytic con***ion, and jund. i didnt think i was going to get that far but i did :). several people liked my deck and i was happy to 2nd and getting 10 packs.

This works better with Jace, the Mind Sculptor(using Brainstorm each turn) then Jace Beleren , am I the only one that finds that sad?

Edit:
@ Kittyspit. Because this card was printed along side Jace Beleren , not Jace, the Mind Sculptor


@ sarroth Yes but Jace Beleren also gives you opponent cards in order to deal with Jace B, unlike Jace MS. I'm just saying if I wanted to use this card to it's full ability I would use it with Jace MS. I guess it really just depends on your mill style.

Font of Mythos, and this. Punishment.

@Sorian: Or even Howling Mine (which is standard). OUCH.

mindmoil ftw

I guess Wizards thought Howling Mine needed another blue friend.

I am sorry guys, but I don't like the card because milling is red in my opinion.

Blue should be more specific and more subtle. Extract is much more a blue card than stupid fire-&-forget mass-milling. Therefore, I would have enjoyed a red enchantment that reduces the impact or Jace by milling the reordered library. A red creature that mills your own library as a drawback would have been great and would enable flashback, unearth, dredge and threshold. Much better for red.

I put this in my sideboard since I don't run card draw, if my opponent likes howling mines and other stuff like it, i sub it in like no other.

My favorite card from M11--this just begs to be abused in so many ways

You want broken?!?!?!? Put this in the Standard Dredge full of unearth and you can choose mill yourself OR your opponent.

I would like to use this card soon^^

But, i don't think that you guys are understanding the real purpos for this. this card really really really likes being blue, because it makes Ponder and Brainstorm cards much more effective.

See it like this, if this is on the field and you use Ponder and find two cards that you want the just stack those as number 1 and 3 and when draw the first you can then mill the second and wait for drawing the 3rd.

That is much more brainy than random mill, and it is the reason why this is blue and not Red (lol).

You can also use it if you know the top of the opponents library (for whatever reason, nocturnus), then becomes denial.

Besides that it has good use in mill decks or decks that want to see their cards in the grave. but in both places you can find better cards, this just stands out for being cheap and fairly precise in it use.

For something truly obnoxious in a casual game, try playing this with lantern of insight to control your opponent's draws. If their top card isn't a threat when you draw then target yourself with the erasure, allowing you to see your next card and decide whether to leave it at the top or mill it if its something you don't need.

Put 2 divining tops in play with a cloud key or etherium sculptor and you can mill your opponent out on turn 3 if your lucky.

there's a good reason that you don't see any tier 1 mill decks. or any good or even ok mill decks at something like FNM, and in those decks this is only there half the time.

why?

a 60-30 turn clock isn't difficult to beat... i wonder why...

this plus Magus of the Jar NICE

People sometimes forget that having no cards on the library is another way to loose the game. Try playin 3 of them in a blue deck.

Works nicely with Mindmoil

@Cheza: Actually, regular milling is blue while specific milling like Sadistic Sacrament is black. By modern standards, anyway.

i have been building a standard mill deck with this card, it's very effective. i just use a mono blue control deck with a playset of these, 2 jace, and 4 archive traps. once it's in play you just need to hold the enemy off long enough to win. also, i use jace's ingenuity because it's instant speed draw' if there are no spells to counter their turn i just draw extra and mill.

I have a question... If i have Jace's erasure out, and i use temple bell, and my opponent has Oracle of muldaya out, And i try to mill a Land, What happens? Does the land come out, or does it go to the graveyard. Because Oracle's ability says you may.... It's hazy for me, Please clarify if you can! btdubs I think this card is sweet!

Increases the potency of Haunting Echoes.

Goes great with a Consecrated Sphinx...

I play Magic with a teacher and a couple other guys at my school. one of them always quits playing if I get more than two out at once. he thinks there should be a limit of one


He is a silly man.

i play magic at my school to and i need to get 3 more of these with my jace the mind sculpter my deck sould kick a** but my teacher has a deck that got a 390/390 out on the 10th turn at 400 and some life

It always weirds me out how some players just don't get that if:

1. your deck has no realistic chance of milling your opponent to death
2. you can't make seriously good use of graveyards
3. their deck doesn't revolve around scry (and this is a pretty marginal benefit of mill)

then they still get what is effectively a random card from their deck - you haven't gained any more than you would by insisting on shuffling your opponents cards a bit more pre-game. you genuinely don't benefit at all. (you're worse off if they can take advantage of graveyards)

now assuming you're using mill correctly... really? sword of body and mind, hedron crab, screeching silcaw, and half a dozen other standard legal mill cards own this one. no body, slow mill effect, a dead draw on turn 7 or 8...

if i'm wrong on this one, please someone talk me through it... but 2/5.

@lyconcet

Yeah i dont get why people dedicate a whole deck to mill. In todays standard, theres so many answers for that. Right when i saw the eldrazi lords i knew it was good game for mill.

Its beter to use mill with cards like Haunting Echoes, and Sadistic Sacrament.

The best decks with mill ive seen, mill was not there only win condition.

@cheza

may be milling happens when the blue mage gets angry and decides that reasoning is just not enough.

The mind of the opponent must be erased! D:<

^I'd love to have that ability in real life to deal with ppl that are deaf to reason :)

Goes beautifully with Howling Mine.

I know it's kind of jerky, but Memory Jar? Even with just one Jace's Erasure out it mills/ "mills" for 7-14 with each use on your turn. Stacking makes it silly.

"I play Magic with a teacher and a couple other guys at my school. one of them always quits playing if I get more than two out at once. he thinks there should be a limit of one"

Uhg, that's kinda painful. I understand why people don't like playing against mill, since you always look at the cards you're losing and not taking into account that you're just as likely to get the one card you need because your deck was thinned as you are to lose the card altogether. But really, topdeck milling is pretty much no different from taking damage in that if you average it out over enough games, if you don't get milled to death, you'll have won as many games from getting the right cards out as you lost for getting them milled.


Perhaps the best thing about this card isn't the effect (mill cards that aren't Grindstone are a dime a dozen these days), but the simplicity of the execution. With most mill decks, you'll need to commit a considerable amount of your deck to cards that have no purpose other than putting an opponent's cards into their graveyard or enabling other cards to do so. Or, you can just put in 2-4 Erasures and turn drawing, on of blue's greatest strengths and the most important part of the game, into both your win enabler and your win condition. Plus, since 1U is hilariously easy to pay compared to things like Traumatize and Archive Trap, mana becomes much less of a problem.

The main drawback of Jace's Erasure isn't actually the card itself. At the end of the day, milling, and by extension this card, is only as good as its format and metagame allow it to be. In an era where anyone can throw in a big, fat Eldrazi or two to nullify your entire win condition, you need to either run with graveyard hate (like Nihil Spellbomb or Relic of Progenitus) or risk playing an unwinnable game. Additionally, you may run into Enchantment hate, which MUC (the only deck that should be playing this card anyways) shouldn't have too much trouble with, but which could put you into a similarly bleak position. Finally, if you don't run enough Erasures or they're too far down your library, you may risk not being able to mill your opponent quickly enough if you've played your draw cards trying to find those last few evasive Erasures.

These last problems can be solved with an Elixir of Immortality or two. But if your opponent is running Naturalize or its ilk, you'll have to take care to protect your elixirs as well (not hard with a total of 3 cost to play and activate it). Still, this does illustrate the precarious nature of Erasure; despite its ease of use and potential power, it can pretty much leave you dead in the water if you're not careful.

Also note that with Besieged's Consecrated Sphinx and Blue Sun's Zenith, you can get some really, really powerful mill combos going for rather little mana. Consecrated Sphinx and Jace Beleren's +2 ability also work well together with the card.

Hey Jace, I've got an idea, let's Brainstorm.

Jace's Erasure + Memory Lapse on their turn = 80% Counterspell. 80% is just a rough estimate... unless the opponent is able to draw again.

If you're doing a standard mill deck, this is essential. Combo it with cards like Preordain and Sphinx of Magosi for a lot of draw speed. I run four and it actually helps.

However, if you don't care about standard and are going vintage, there are much better cards and you can skip this one.

I agree with blueRock, I play a reanimate deck, and a lot of times people with a few milly cards decide to throw them at me, I wonder why because it really just gives me access to more of my deck.

people have hit me with tomb scour on turn one, and not milled me at all for the rest of the game! other times they play cards with mill tacked on, and I always tell them "you know your supposed to target yourself with that right?" they just look at me funny like "why the hell would I do that?"

@Jedijoe:

Everything goes well with Consecrated Sphinx.

Milling is as blue as it gets. Red does not have the foresight to attack what it doesn't know about. Red thinks only of the present, attacking and destroying the threats that it can see. Blue is methodical. It realizes that not all threats are obvious, and fights a war of attrition, preventing the threats from ever coming into existence. Really, milling is just a super-counter. Rather than waiting to know what's coming, blue counters what its opponent is doing before its opponent KNOWS what its doing.

I played this with Teferi's Puzzle Box and psychic possession. It was pretty much ridiculous.

Edit: Remembered exsistance of Psychic Vortex. Deck should scream.

i always memoracide the eldrazi titans, then use a brainstorm with an echomage... oops. hay mister, you droped your deck!

>>BlueRock

Your coment is very well composed and you make an excellent point. This card only serves any purpose if you have a deck very specifically designed to mill as fast as possible, but I've actually found it to be pretty effective. I run a mono blue mill/control deck where this combos VERY nicely with Consecrated Sphinx and Temple Bell, and it's nice to have this out next to my Hedron Crab(s) while I counter and unsummon until turn six when I can drop the Sphinx. After he's out, Jace's Erasure is my win condition.

@ BlueRock

You are right, there are tons of better mill cards out there, but this card lets you mill your opponent simply by drawing cards yourself. If you manage to get four of these out,

Brainstorm
Font of Mythos
Pursuit of Knowledge
Mind Spring
Consecrated Sphinx

turns into, even more, devilish cards. This might be the best card to enable milling as an aternate win condition. If this card would mill for just one more card, it would be insane.

4/5

I remember playing at an FNM, and my opponent was someone I had never seen before. He had a four-color deck, and when he used this card, without any other form of milling in his deck, I realized that he had managed to build a deck completely isolated from any of the conventional wisdom most players take for granted. He probably had just opened a few boosters, made a deck out of the cards, and had just started playing within the last week or so.

It was a refreshing experience, since his deck was a wild mess of cards that did things no other deck could do, but beating him was rather easy.

I had the urge to give him some advice, like how Jace's Erasure is probably nowhere near as powerful as he thinks it is (because milling a few cards has very little real effect on the game, and even then it's rather slow compared to other mill cards), but I realized that it was such a pure and innocent deck, untainted by decklists and analysis, that he should build his deck according to his own beliefs and principles.

Of course, there's a chance he threw it into his deck because everyone was talking about how absolutely broken Jace was, and he didn't realize which one we were talking about. But I really hope not.

Combos with the new Jace (Jace, Memory Adept)

They are pushing this card SOOOOO hard in the new set! MIll might actually be a force, if you haven't already, check out the spoilers for jace, memory adept, jace's archivist, and visions of beyond. It seems like wizards is trying to force mill to be legit, and I think they may be in dangerous territory with all these powerful cards coming out.

This is absolutely insane with Jace, Memory Adept, the new planeswalker!

You can mill your own library with this, which is fun in an enchantment-heavy Replenish deck. It would be fun as anti-topdeck-tutoring, except they just cast the tutor after your draw step.

This works great in "draw lots of cards" decks, and I've seen an enchantment based deck with lots of Elixer of Immortalitys make this card work rather well. It doesn't play well with typical mill decks, but rather one that relies on a heavy control strategy and screwy draw card effects.

That said, milling can be problematic sometimes when it gets super lucky; taking away what you actually needed. But... a lot of times it instead takes away what you don't need, increasing your chances of getting what you do. Meh.