Planeswalkers in Cube: Blue
We’re back at it again with more ‘walkers and more Cubing- this time, with Blue cards instead of White ones. Expect a lot more drawing cards, and a lot less token making.
Blue’s Planeswalkers tend to hold a different role to White’s ones in general in most cubes. In general, most White walkers are value or boardstate generators for the slower decks, with a handful leaning more aggressive and very rarely more control. They are very frequently a win condition, either by making tokens or by being named Gideon, which is something Blue walkers don’t do as much for obvious reasons. With that in mind, they sure do draw cards, and while that isn’t directly a wincon, it will still grant a huge advantage and an unanswered Jace of basically any variety will still end up winning the game. Anyway!
As in the previous case, I’m not including the Planeswalker deck cards and I’m not including the flip walkers.. In this case, I will also not be including the MDFC Will/Rowan from Strixhaven, since I would play that as a hybrid or multicolour Izzet card rather than having it in the Blue section.
Jace Beleren
The original baby Jace, before we had an actual, significantly younger baby Jace to talk about. An old classic of the format, but also one that hasn’t aged particularly well. The original 3-drop walker and the really conservative one.
Jace Beleren is kind of just a slow draw spell that your opponent might be able to attack down. I’m still not sure whether you’re best off just drawing 3 or whether using the +2 is ever worth it, but you definitely do not want to be spamming the +2 for the ultimate considering how shite it is. My man really does not do much of anything, not to mention how utterly abysmal he is when your opponent has creatures and you don’t. At least he’s kinda cheap?
Tezzeret the Seeker
Do you enjoy having an artifact deck as an option for Blue in your cube? Okay, cool, but followup question: how fuckbusted are the artifacts you’re running? If the answer is “as much as possible”, then you’re the person who should be running Tezzeret the Seeker.
At 5 mana, tutoring a cheap artifact onto the battlefield kinda necessitates that artifact to be really good if you want Tezzeret to survive. I don’t think trying to protect him with a 3CMC creature in a lower power setting is going to work, and the +1 basically does nothing (if you’re at 5 mana, do you really need your rocks to work better?).
Otherwise, though, I think the key (heh) question for Tezzeret is: Do you want your players to instant-win the game with this and Time Vault? If yes, run him, if not, probably don’t.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor
Man, he’s only $55, that’s the cheapest I can remember. Yeah, uh, JTMS is still very good. He helps you draw cards, weaken your opponent’s boardstate, and fateseal your opponent out of the game, not to mention eventually winning it given the chance. It’s a long way to that ultimate, but the deck that plays this card is the deck that can give him the time.
Admittedly I’ve never played this card in Cube before. My copy is in a commander deck, where it’s much more fair (though it utterly crushed the draft I opened it in), and is staying away from the cube because it would tilt the whole thing so heavily in its own favour. If your cube is powerful enough to let him rip, then go for it, but don’t just slam it in if you open one. This thing has broken formats before and will do that again if you give it the chance.
Jace, Memory Adept
I don’t know if you’ve ever played against this card in a 40-card format, but it is not even remotely fair. By the time this comes down, the 0 is wiping a full third of your deck, so if you can’t answer him within 2 turns, you’re kinda just dead.
Of course, it’s not the hardest thing in the world to deal with JMA in a well-supported cube, and if he only 0s once you might actually benefit from the mill. No, what makes Jace, Memory Adept not for cube is just how fucking boring he is. I cannot imagine he’s ever not just hitting 0 every turn, and the dull repetitive play pattern that makes is just not interesting enough for the kinds of gameplay cube owners want to support. I think this one is going to be the only one on this list that I’ll actually judge you for playing. Unless it’s an EDH cube, because self-milling 10 is fun and cool in 100-card formats.
Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Man remember when this character was mono-blue? Been a bloody while, innit. Tamiyo is kind of one-dimensional as well, as if you’re in a situation where the -2 is good then either she’s not surviving or you aren’t surviving many more turns. However, her +1 is quite strong, and it protects her long enough to get to an ultimate that basically wins the game provided you have…a spell.
I suppose she’s a bit boring in that way, but she’s also fairly powerful. She both stalls out the game by acting as pseudo-removal and builds towards an ulti that isn’t too far out of the way. I’d respect seeing this in a draft easily, though I don’t respect the lack of reprints. She’s not good enough to justify sixteen dollarydoos!
Jace, Architect of Thought
Ah, JAoT. This is the one I always think of as “Blue Walker”, even as it’s relevance wanes. Jace 4, but balanced, does a fair bit- the +1 protects both itself and you, and makes combat math painful if you have creatures to block with, while the -2 is not the most efficient card draw effect but FoFs are always fun. And once again, it’s an ultimate that wins the game and takes a while to get there.
None of those things are particularly powerful, however, and Jace is going to find himself lacking in what is now the average cube. Magic design has simply moved past this power level, which some would argue is kind of a shame. However, this combined with his astonishingly low price means that he’s perfect for low powered or budget cubes (that still run rares/mythics), where he can still be both fun and effective. Reliving the glory days of that standard environment, I guess.
Jace, the Living Guildpact
I think they overcorrected from JTMS when they were designing 4-drop walkers. We went from obviously nuts to solid for a long time but now underpowered to this thing. Jace, the Living Guildpact. It has a high loyalty for 2014, I guess, but that’s kind of all he has going for him.
Not only does the +1 not draw a card, but it doesn’t even scry/surveil 2 correctly- you can’t put both cards in the bin or leave them both on top! While the -3 is flexible, it’s also quite expensive for what it does, and the ultimate doesn’t take too long, but you have to have a card that effectively does nothing sitting around for three turns minimum to pull it off, and it still doesn’t affect the board. This card is just utterly unplayable. And it’s more expensive than Architect of Thought. Just don’t bother.
Teferi, Temporal Archmage
The original Teffers (kinda), and not really the best. This is built for the format whose name is on the card, not anything resembling cubing. 6 mana with an underwhelming +1 and a ludicrously situational ultimate. Okay, buddy. The -1 is actually decent, though, since it means you can cast something to protect him or hold up a counterspell, but at the end of the day it’s a 6 mana card that isn’t winning the game, ever, so. Sorry Teferi, better luck next time?
Wait the next one was Hero of Dominaria what a fucking glow-up
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
We’ll get to it next week, but there’s kind of an archetypal 4 or 5 mana planeswalker design that’s just, +1 draw a card somehow, -2 or -3 protect yourself or remove something, ultimate that wins the game. Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is the Blue version of this. +1 to scry and draw, -2 to bounce something, -8 to lock your opponent out. Cool.
You could be doing more interesting things than this. There’s nothing really wrong with Unraveler of Secrets, he’s perfectly functional, just kind of uninteresting and a little underpowered. And that’s fine. But I feel like we could all be doing better here.
Jace, Cunning Castaway
This guy is very different, on the other hand. Unlike any other card on this list so far, what Jace, But His Character Is Good provides is a more aggressive ‘walker for blue tempo decks, what with costing 3 mana and making an honest-to-god creature token in the process.
Unfortunately, he’s also not particularly good. The +1 is super mediocre, and 3 mana for a 2/2 that you can maybe squeeze into a second 2/2 later isn’t the most incredible thing in the world. If you have decks in your format that care about the discard, I can see this being solid, but that’s a very specific niche. And there’s another card further down that’s just kind of this, but better. So JCC is one I’ve ended up dropping as a result.
Will Kenrith
Unlike with Teferi, Temporal Archmage, you can solidly ignore the parts that aren’t loyalty abilities on this guy (though it’s worth noting that “Partner with” does let you shuffle when he ETBs if you want). Will Kenrith fucks, and I think he’s easily the best blue Planeswalker that’s explicitly a control finisher- not to mention definitely the best 6-mana blue walker in general.
His +2 not only locks down two creatures, both for your attacks and theirs, it also puts him at enough loyalty that he’s probably not dying to the rest of their board if they have one. The -2 is disgusting, seeing as it works to make your counterspells cheaper on the turn cycle as well. And the ultimate isn’t incredible, but you honestly don’t really need it here- just keep -2ing. I cannot stress enough that this card is very good in cube, and that you shouldn’t overlook it just because of it’s “other half”. Rowan is a dogshit card (that I have a soft spot for), but fortunately, Will is more than worth it on his own.
Tezzeret, Artifice Master
Almost 10 years later, Tezzeret returns to Mono-Blue, right before War of the Spark comes out and he goes back to Dimir. And this time, he makes Thopters and doesn’t break the game in half in powered environments, so that’s nice of him. This card is just sort of generically powerful in non-aggressive Blue decks- don’t let the 0 fool you, you do not need to support an artifact theme to make this card functional.
He plusses to make tokens that can either chip in to slowly lead to a win or to fuel his 0 or to block and die to save your collective asses. He draws cards for no loyalty cost, which is a very nice change from all those minuses. And the -9, which isn’t too hard to work towards with the +1 saving him from the bulk of attacks, will win the game eventually, though you do require other wincons in the deck to make it actually do that. This Tezzeret is nothing particularly fancy, but he will get the job done, even in a modern Unpowered cube environment.
Jace, Wielder of Mysteries
Jace, but he costs Cryptic Command mana is kind of not actually a Planeswalker. Like, you can stick him in, and he’ll basically do an impression of a cheaper (but harder to cast) Memory Adept that you’re forced to play fair with. He does nothing on the board, but card advantage is obviously always nice.
No, this card is here for if you want to support a Laboratory Maniac/Thassa’s Oracle style of deck. Oracle kind of blows him out of the water, but redundancy is kind of key for this kinda thing, and at the time he was better than Lab Man since he could draw the last non-card for you as well as actually doing something if he’s drawn early. So if you’re supporting that archetype, you’re playing this, and if you don’t like that deck, probably don’t bother.
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
I think blue’s uncommon WAR offerings were a Bit Better than white’s. Kasmina is still fairly medium, though it’s probably on par with the rest of the 4-drops available in Uncommon cubes in the colour. You’ve got Whirler Rogue, Murmuring Mystic, and…uh…the common Monarch guy, I guess? Next to that, Kasmina looks alright.
I mean looks it’s basically 4 mana for two tokens and a couple loots, but you could do worse. I would never consider playing this in a more powerful environment, but if you’re looking for a third or fourth blue 4 in that sort of cube, she’ll be okay.
Narset, Parter of Veils
And then there’s this asshole. Oh, boy, this card. I think at this point more people are going to be familiar with it’s power in commander next to cards like Windfall, but it’s genuinely good enough without something like that, even in higher power cubes. Just stopping your opponents from getting major card advantage and drawing two spells on its own makes this card very powerful.
Obviously aggro/tempo decks don’t care about this, and you might whiff on midrange, but it’s still good enough that I’d consider playing it anyway. This is not even bringing in unfair things you can do in higher power environments like playing her next to Dack Fayden. And yet, she’s both cheap enough and not directly powerful enough to be playable in lower power cubes too, even Peasant. And you won’t draw hate from it in 1v1. Basically, uh, play this card? She’s really good.
Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer
We skipped the first iteration of her because she was technically a Planeswalker Deck card (though I did play Jiang Yanggu for a bit, it was weird), but we aren’t skipping this one. She’s kind of the number one biggest reason not to play Jace, Cunning Castaway- because she’s not only a 3-drop blue walker that fast decks enjoy, but also one that completely stops opposing ones in their tracks.
Cast on 3, on the play, she stops all but the biggest green things from cracking her, and then drops a fucking 4/4 flyer like it’s no big deal. And then can make another one not long afterwards if you want, or build towards that gamewinning ultimate. And in aggressive decks…she makes 4/4 flyers and has extra text, so. Mu Yanling is my favourite 3-mana blue walker at the moment- like Narset is probably better, but I like this one more- and I’m not expecting that to change for a while. She’s also like a buck fifty go grab her while you can.
B.O.B. (Bevy of Beebles)
Okay, look. I play this card, so I know how it works. Or apparently I don’t as I read the quite funny oracle wordings and find out you can sac a beeble that would be dying anyway when damage happens. Okay, sure.
Kinda like Kasmina, this card is basically not actually a Planeswalker, it’s 5 1/1s. Or, 3 1/1s and a card. It plays super weirdly, especially since the -1 is kind of a sacrifice outlet that would support a weirdo blue-inclusive aristocrats strategy. Or something. Look, I’m playing it because it’s funny, not because it’s actually good. Though, if you have a functional boardstate, this does just keep making tokens and swinging for damage- almost like a colourshifted Elspeth of some kind… basically, I’m undecided on how powerful the card actually is.
This card does lose a lot from being a silver-bordered card, but I do think those are always worth a second look. Especially from Unhinged and Unsanctioned, the cards are designed to be playable and therefore interesting in a less competitively-minded setting.
Teferi, Master of Time
Can someone explain to me why this card has 4 almost identical variants I don’t fucking get it. This card is kinda nuts in Commander, seeing as it gets to uptick every single turn and ultimate quickly as a result, but in cube, I’m going to hard pass on this. The +1 just doesn’t do enough for 4 mana, even if you get to do it twice, and the -3 is both too expensive and too ineffective to make up for it. You’re never getting to 10 with it either. And because it’s commander playable, it’s much too expensive for budget, so.
If you’re going to play with Teferis in cube, probably stick to the Azorius ones. Or maybe the creature, but he’s also showing his age these days, so.
Jace, Mirror Mage
Man, what a weird card. Okay, for 3 mana you get a walker that scries or draws with a potential health risk in the latter case, or for 5 mana you get *twinsies* and you either scry with the OG to sac off the copy with a big card or you scry with the token to try and get something decent but cheap or you just scry twice or draw twice. Okay?
There are so many lines with this card, but none of them seem particularly strong. At the end of the day, this Jace still doesn’t impact the board at all, and the fact that drawing a spell hurts him means they kinda don’t need to attack it if you get unlucky. So it’s just sort of a very medium but very flexible draw spell? I guess? I dunno, he’s in my cube at the moment but I think he needs more testing to figure out if he’s good.
Mordenkainen
I think this is the closest competition to Will Kenrith (by which I mean it’s the other playable blue walker at 6) but I don’t think he’s quite as good. Mordenkainen certainly kills your opponent quicker- those tokens are deceptively large, since 3 cards in hand isn’t hard to hit with that +2- but he lacks the lockdown effect that really takes Will over the edge. And the ultimate is kind of irrelevant- like if you’re in a position to just uptick this until you can do that, you might just be better off making the Dog tokens in case they draw an answer to this dude.
This card is new enough that, like with Jace, I haven’t quite got a read on it yet. The sheer size of those tokens might somehow beat out the competition by beating your opponent out of the game, and the card selection as a +1 is quite solid either way. Mordenkainen feels like he could be an example of one of those tiny knobs you adjust when designing your cube to tweak how a particular archetype plays if it’s a little too strong or a little too weak. Though unless you’re changing from a 5-drop, I doubt it’d be the latter.
Kiora, the Tide’s Fury
I talked about the last digital-only card, I might as well do the rest of them. This one has sweet Magali Villeneuve art, so that’s always a plus. As well, Kraken Hatchling (for reference, a vanilla 0/4 Kraken for U) is a card I kinda like just for its place in limited formats (and being kinda cute) so I like its reference here.
On the other hand, this card feels extremely slow. If you’re casting it on 5, you can get a blocker immediately, and if you already have a creature you can use the other +1 to do that or just to nerf another creature for a bit. I can’t imagine you’re picking Land on that very often, but it is at least a better version of the same ability on the original Kiora. But at best, this card is making a 0/4, then turning it into an 8/8, then it gets to attack (and you get another 0/4- though the mana requirement is kind of a pain. Funnily enough I think it will play kind of like the Teyo from the same set, though I just get the feeling it’s worse.
And that’s the lot of them. At the very least, while he’s still the most common one here, it’s not all Jaces, and I reckon most blue planeswalker sections are going to be character-diverse. And much like the variety in characters, it’s usually best to varietize what your walkers do. Can you tell I didn’t know how to end this? I sure don’t.
