Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast (WotC) and Jimmy Wong, check out the newest version of Jace from Zendikar Rising — Jace, Mirror Mage!
Jace, Mirror Mage stands out for two reasons: it only costs three mana and it has kicker, a first for planeswalkers.
Kicker 2
When Jace, Mirror Mage enters the battlefield, if Jace was kicked, create a token that’s a copy of Jace, Mirror Mage, except it’s not legendary and its starting loyalty is 1.
Growing off previous design iterations on planeswalkers, Jace, Mirror Mage has a kicker cost that allows the owner to make an additional copy of it calling back to Jace, Cunning Castaway from Ixalan. The first line of text not only breaks new ground for planeswalkers, but informs us that kicker is a returning mechanic in Zendikar Rising, making its return since last showing up in Dominaria.
Specifically for Jace, Mirror Mage, kicker gives its owner an option between a three-mana planeswalker or two planeswalkers for five mana. The flexibility offers powerful plays early or late and the loyalty abilities work well on a single Jace but get even more powerful when working together with an additional copy.
+1: Scry 2.
While scrying usually doesn’t cut it on its own as enough value for a card to be played in constructed, the +1 ability can put the three-mana planeswalker on five loyalty. The real power comes from having two copies of Jace that allow you to scy up to four and have two planeswalkers with seven loyalty combined or when combining Jace’s 0 ability with a scry from the other.
0: Draw a card and reveal it. Remove a number of loyalty counters equal to that card’s converted mana cost from Jace, Mirror Mage.
Even for three mana you immediately get to draw a card and have a good chance of Jace sticking around. Once you get two copies of Jace going, the options become plentiful. You can scry to set up a cheap draw from the other or you can dig for action with the original Jace and use the copied Jace to draw an expensive spell, losing the copy but still having a planeswalker with a bunch of loyalty on the battlefield.
There’s a ton going on with Jace, Mirror Mage and that is contained within just the card itself. The possibilities spiral once you start building around Jace and maximize his abilities. Whether a deck is built around an older format like Modern and Legacy and contains mostly one or two-mana spells to generate the most draws and durability or its used in Standard or Commander and engineered toward finding late-game bombs, Jace, Mirror Mage has plenty of potential.
While every three-mana planeswalker hasn’t dominated Standard, enough of them have to make Jace, Mirror Mage a must-watch in the future of Magic.