Pointed Discussion

Moar Illusions. Thank you wizards.

I mean you probably aren't going to beat face as quickly as you might think unless you complement this with mill (Mill-beatdown?).
Still, it's better than all those other 1 drop 1/1 fliers

Thanks for your patience, mill decks. Here's your alternative win condition.
And even if you're not milling, there's bound to be ten cards in the graveyard mid- to late-game.

Since control decks some time use mill as an alt win condition this seems like it might be good there. At the very least it seems good verse other control decks since the graves often fill up with spells.

using this in mill decks feels awkard. but I'm not gonna argue with a 5/5 flier for one mana.

An amazing blocker for mill decks.

I tend to use this more as a blocker than a finisher for mill. Maybe as another wincon, but mostly as deterrent.

Love the reference.

Play it now together with its lord!

This is going to be a thing. Amazing with Trepanation Blade and Thought Scour in addition to Jace, Memory Adept himself.

Belongs in UB mill with Glimpse the Unthinkable, Mind Funeral, and Nemesis of Reason.

a one-drop 5/5 in EDH with evasion. Possibly worth considering for both early and late game, especially if you just did a hard reset on the board, lands included.

That's a nice alternate win condition for a mill deck. It's low manacost is probably not there to have it played on turn one, but rather to play it a few turns later, while keeping mana for counterspells open.

I'm thinking the original intent was less "alternate win condition" than "barricade to make it easier for you to finish milling the opposition away".

To me, this looks like a great sideboard answer to many delver decks in standard right now. A cheap flyer that can easily reach its +4/+4 potential thanks to your opponents stream of instants and sorceries (and not to mention their own thought scours targeting themselves) sounds like a good deal to me.

Oooooo.

It can turn into 5/5 almost instantly with mill spells these days, and a 1/1 flyer for U to begin with. Powerful.

Watch out - this card tries to be deceptive, but it's very powerful. 10 cards add up fast and he has plenty of support in U.

Hm, it's so a 5/5 flier for U.
Wait, what?

Use with Chancellor of the Spires

Cool new one-drop for illusion deck. Jace's mill ability makes it pretty scary 5/5.

Really good with Smallpox and Thought Scour in a UB control deck, it works just as hard as Tombstalker if you build it right. Great in Illusions, Ninjas and Blue Skys style decks. Also one of the best Ranger of Eos targets available.

Combos with... um... uh........

Seriously though. Why is it that every card with Jace's name on it is a no-brainer with something else in the same set?

It's almost like... Jace is building his own decks.

Wait...

At worse this is an Illusion version of Zephyr Sprite or Flying Men. Which are solid one drops without any additional abilities.

Before you start talking about how this guy is going to be the new Delver of Secrets, ask yourself "How easy is it to get ten cards in my opponent's graveyard?"

I don't see this being a card that will do its major damage early on. I do see it being a very useful card in control decks with Nephalia Drownyard, against control decks, against Delver, and as a cheap late-game beater. Unfortunately, Tormod's Crypt just got reprinted, and Nihil Spellbomb is still legal, so it's pretty easily answered.

Good combo with the chancellor, though.

For use with Mindcrank, perhaps?

Why not just use this in a combination mill/aggro deck?

A playset of these, a playset of Sword of Body and Mind, a couple Mindcranks, a few Tormod's Crypts, maybe a set of Trepanation Blade, a set of Phantasmal Images, and a set of Invisible Stalkers. Sure, the crypt seems inefficient, but if they want to use their graveyard they're gonna have to work for it. May as well stick in some counters and a kill spell or two as well.

With all these low cmc cards, I could see this being pretty fast and powerful.

1cc for a 1/1 flying is pretty good by itself! Plus this is pretty good to draw late game also.

This is my favorite Uncommon in M13, and I'm looking forward to trying monoblue Mill in Standard. A great card, synergizes well with a big theme in Blue, but not too broken. At worst, he's a Flying Men. At best he's like Serra Ascendant. Kind of a symbol of power creep, but I still love it, 4.5/5.

Damn, a potential 5/5 for U. We just need the Glimpse now.

How can this card have a lower rating than Zephyr Sprite? This is strictly better because of its ability.

Forget mill decks, even in non-mill blue decks this could be useful. It's a 1-drop 1/1 flyer for starters. Then, late game there is a good chance an opponent has 10 or more cards in their graveyard, so this would be a 5/5 1-drop flyer. In mill decks this is a beast. Anyone ever play Jace's deck in DotP 2013? Utterly devastating. Becomes a real threat real fast. A few Thought Scours and Mind Sculpts later, it can be 5/5 by turn 3. Have 2 of them out when this happens and its GG.

4/5

Combo with Chancellor of the Spires in standard for the next couple months. Very likely to start with at least 1, then drop an early Dream Twist or something the second turn, swinging for 5. Even might have those games you start with 2+ of them in your hand and just bomb them with 14+ mill at the start and drop a 5/5 flier first turn. Sounds good to me >_>

Absolutely perfect for anyone still hanging on to an M12-based Illusion tribal deck (Lord of the Unreal, Phantasmal Image, Phantasmal Bear). Those cards and Jace's Phantasm are both in Standard from now until October 5, 2012.

Otherwise, looks like a good blocker/striker to drop down in a Blue mill-them deck if you need one.

@CorkBulb Because Fairies has more synergies with better cards than Illusion does.

Strictly better than Flying Men! Poor Flying Men...

Also, I love the flavor text reference to the Iquati, the same race/group/who knows referenced in the flavor text of Narcomoeba.

Mono-{U} Mill as a standard deck, maybe? Mill your opponent with Thought Scour (which also cantrips), Mind Sculpt and Dream Twist and then finish them off with this little guy.
Also, flavorfully satisfying when used with a Jace, Memory Adept.

T1 this
T2 Glimpse the Unthinkable, SMACK.

@DarthParallax Excuse me? Glimpse the Unthinkable needs to be reprinted, so shut up. The damn card is so overpriced right now, it's not even funny. And what better set to do so than RTR?

As for this card; wow, this thing is amazing, and you don't even need to run a focused mill deck to trigger its ability.

EDIT: ok, so far this hasn't done anything broken with Delver of Secrets like make 'Mono Blue Zoo' a thing. I overreacted.

Yes, I want Glimpse Reprinted too- but I don't think that Wizards wants a Mill Deck in Standard that works as fast as a Burn Deck in Legacy, so, looking at the cards they've made, it doesn't look like they'd add Glimpse to that. Which is a SHAME. I'd rather just have Glimpse back then have Mind Sculpt be a little too good with Glimpse. But that's what I think we're looking at.

On a side note:

20x Island

4x Jace's Phantasm
4x Jace's Ingenuity
4x Jace's Erasure
4x Jace's Archivist
4x Jace's Counterspell
4x Jace's Fact or Fiction
4x Jace's Mind Sculpt

4x Jace Beleren
4x Jace, Memory Adept
4x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

is currently a legal list in Vintage and Legacy. I would be greatly entertained if this could perform well in Legacy xD

This is the ultimate creature for a mill deck. I am a pro and will probably build a mill deck around this card soon.

my mill deck has won more games with this than anything and many of the games i did mill them i have this to thank for keeping me alive. 5/5

Stupidly, stupidly powerful. Basically a 5/5 for . No deck that uses this will have it any other way. Even if it were just +1/+1 it'd be powerful, this is just STUPID.

How could this card even have 3 1/2 stars, it's one of the best cards in the whole M13 set, mythic rares included. First turn, this; second turn, two Tome Scour's, I get that combo in the first hand almost every time, this card is a beast.

@OMG_A_Fox
First, in a 60 card deck with 4 Jace's Phantasm, 4 Tome Scours, and 24 blue sources, the chance of getting at least one Phantasm, at least two Scours, and at least two blue mana in the first eight cards is roughly 4%.

Second, there are other ways to get five power on turn two with three cards. Judge's Familiar and two Ethereal Armor. Most green one drops and double Rancor. Lotleth Troll and two Slitherheads gets 6 power, trample, and regenerates. The problem with each of these, although they can work, is that you just exhausted three cards to create one thing. Even for two mana, there are plenty of ways in standard to stop your 4% chance of happening Phantasm:

Abrupt Decay, Tragic Slip in response to the Scours, Izzet Charm in response to the Scours, Fog Bank, Pacifism, Dreadbore, Selesnya Charm after the Scours, Golgari Charm in response to the Scours, Deadly Recluse, Bonds of Faith, Victim of Night, Dead Weight if they have the play, Pillar of Flame if they have the play, Thunderbolt in response to the Scours, Azorius Charm, Ultimate Price, Bone Splinters saccing a Gravecrawler or Slitherhead, Plummet, Geistflame in response to the Scours, etc.

The chance of at least one of these being in the opponent's first eight cards is surely greater than 4%. Frankly I would estimate as much higher. So most of the time, all that should accomplish is some serious card disadvantage for you. If you're lucky and your opponent doesn't find an answer, you do win four turns later, but the same can be said of those other three card super-creatures.

Now what about the value of having milled for 10? Well, that depends. If they have flashback and Snapcaster Mage, you may have just done them a favor. But even if not, the Phastasm has done nothing to advance the plan to deck them. If it is your only aggressive creature, the opponent can easily race or remove it and that alluring five power proves useless. If you have a significant number of other aggressive creatures, the mill plan will be compromised, and all your mill cards will be worthless except to pump the Phantasm; you may as well be using equipment or auras that can help your other creatures. It's a case of half measures; if you have a strong mill plan, Jace's Phantasm is very efficient, but not efficient enough to win on it's own, and since it contributes in no way to milling, it ends up being dead weight that will likely die before affecting the game in any way. If you have a weak mill plan, then the Phantasm loses it's early aggressive potential, and what limited mill you have can even backfire by enabling the opponent's flashback while never threatening to deck them.

And that is why it is 3.5 stars, at least in the Standard Constructed context. A 1/1 flyer for U is decent, and the ability is good enough to make it playable. But having played games that included it, it never reached the maximum potential you imagine when you first see it. Where it might shine is against self-mill decks, so you can focus on aggression or control while your opponent activates it for you, but I have not played that match-up yet.

This little guy is fantastic. A great way to play him is in an Mono {U} deck where you use your mill spells on your opponent just to get him pumped to a 5/5, then drop a Runechanter's Pike and from then on use the mill on yourself. Extremely efficient, difficult for most decks to block, and just plain flavorful fun. This little guy deserves to have Glimpse the Unthinkable reprinted so he can get the 4.0+ rating he deserves. 5 out of 5, personally.

1 CMC 1/1 flying? Decent.
Potential for a turn 2 5/5 flying? God DAMN.

This is insane. I have four in my Mill deck, and they pull their weight. It rocks as an early game defender, and in the mid-late game, I usually end up killing my opponents with it. Even outside of mill, it works well; in my Izzet EDH deck, there are lots of creatures hitting the 'yard from burn, so this gets big quite quickly

Problems Mill deck. There is a high possibility that your opponent will start to use cards that you sent to the graveyard. While one of the best way to avoid this is to exile their graveyard, which would cripple this cards effect. ~In this case, It can become a double-edged sword.

Oh god this card is amazing in a lord of the unreal illusion deck, like a phantasmal bear that took 1 p/t to give flying and trading the drawback for mid game gravy.

Ok. Werebear cost , was originally a 1/1, Llanowar tapping instead of Flying, and it could become a 4/4 if you have 7+ cards in your grave.

This has reverse Threshold (sometimes easier than normal threshold (see Glimpse the Unthinkable for easy way to mill 10)), is in a worse creature-based colour, has flying, is cheaper, and gets more power/toughness.

Please remind me why this isn't 4.5 stars.

Even if you ignore the second ability, it's still a no-drawback 1/1 flier for 1. Not bad at all.

As it has been predicted by some people here, it's gonna get "buffed" by Dimir.
Not only because of the "mill" subtheme that guild's doing, but also cipher.
This is indeed a great turn 1 cipher enabler, especially the one that mills people when it connects (aka Paranoid Delusions)
It's gonna go on like this :
T1 : This
T2 : Mill opponent for 3, encode spell to this creature, attack with this creature to mill for another 3
T3 : Mind Sculpt, swing for 5 (milling another 3!)
On turn 3, you've milled your opponent 16 cards and dealt 6 damage. With this kind of deck, milling is synonymous to generating resource, NOT as a victory condition (although it can be too...)
While you're at it, you can slip in a couple of Wight of Precinct Six, some flying/unblockable beaters, Consuming Aberration and you've got yourself a deck!

How is this rated lower than flying men?

Kill them with kindness. If that fails, kill them with metroids.

Compare the left side of this card's art to this. I'm predicting that Jace is joining a guild.

I don't see anyone else auto-carding my favorite combo, so I'll do it.

Archive Trap. If your opponent plays before you and plays any sort of fetch land, that's a turn-1 5/5 flyer for you. 1 card for an alternate win condition in any mill deck is alright in my books.

This thing loves Trepanation Blade.

It's funny how this card is just slightly rated under Zephyr Sprite and Flying Men. I guess Faerie and Human tribal is a thing, but so is Illusion tribal. This is a one-drop that's relevant late game and is good enough to be built around.

T1: Jace's Phantasm
T2: Glimpse the Unthinkable, PHANTASM SMASH!

They're trying to get threshold...and you want them to. Reminds me of Avatar of Woe's pseudo-threshold, somewhat.

Just my opinion: This is waaaaayyyy too powerful. It could have been and been 1/2 flying (the same cmc and body as a storm crow) and get +3/+2 with the 10 card requirement. This still would have been very good and balanced while not obsoleting other cards.
Or it could have been the exact same and cost (although that is pushed right up against the powercreep boundary in my opinion).
I guess what I am saying here is: Please stop obsoleting old cards with new ones. It is not necessary. We will still buy the cards if they are just different in style. They don't have to outshine their predecessors.

Dabok couldn't have said it better I added this card to a mill deck I built recently in place of the cloud fin raptors for a cheap flying 1 mana drop creature and its perfect for a mill deck. The only issues I see with it is that because of it's ability you tend to wanna hold onto it until after a few turns have passed and hopefully you have been able to mill your opponent enough for the +4/+4. Not the best turn one drop but it's great mid to late game because its so cheap a flying 5/5 for 1 mana, can't beat that.