Jace, Multiverse Architect

Commander Intelligence

Jace, Multiverse Architect - Intelligence

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Commander context

Jace turns expendable tokens into the best creature or planeswalker still hiding in your library. His +1 repairs your hand and puts accidentally drawn bombs back into the deck, while his −3 converts disposable permanents into game-changing threats.

Immediate −3 Is Legal

Jace enters with 4 loyalty. A freshly resolved Jace may activate −3 immediately (loyalty abilities only require paying the cost once per turn per planeswalker, and this is his first activation that turn), leaving him at 1 loyalty.

+1 Is Not Optional Discard

The +1 ability draws two cards, then mandates putting a card from hand onto the bottom of the library whenever a card is available to bottom. This is bottoming, not discarding, and the bottomed card need not be a card just drawn.

−3 Target Restriction

The word "another" in −3's target line prevents Jace from targeting himself. Legal targets are limited to another creature you control or another planeswalker you control -- including creature tokens, nontoken creatures, planeswalker tokens, and other planeswalkers.

Illegal Target Voids The Whole Ability

If the sole target of −3 becomes illegal before the ability resolves, the ability is removed from the stack without resolving: no exile, no reveal, no battlefield entry. Loyalty already paid as the activation cost is not refunded.

Token Fodder Ceases To Exist After Exile

A token target exiled by −3 ceases to exist under normal token state-based-action rules once it leaves the battlefield. That disappearance does not interrupt or cancel the rest of an already-resolving −3 ability -- the reveal and battlefield-entry steps still happen.

Nontoken Fodder Is A Real Cost

A nontoken permanent exiled by −3 stays exiled unless a separate effect returns it. This is not a sacrifice, blink, tuck, shuffle, or graveyard-recursion effect, and using a nontoken permanent as fodder is a genuine card-advantage cost, not a free action.

Broader Hit Pool Than Creature-Only Polymorph

−3 reveals until a creature OR planeswalker card, which is a broader hit pool than a standard creature-only Polymorph effect. Both eligible-hit types can dilute or improve pool quality depending on what's left in the library.

Hit Enters, Is Not Cast

The revealed hit is put onto the battlefield directly. It is not cast, so cast-triggered abilities, cascade, storm, and "whenever you cast a spell" effects do not trigger from this deployment. ETB triggers, static abilities, and replacement effects on the permanent itself apply normally, and a planeswalker hit enters with its normal starting loyalty.

No-Hit Library State

If no creature or planeswalker card remains anywhere in the library when −3 resolves, the entire remaining library is revealed, no permanent enters the battlefield, and every revealed card goes to the bottom in a random order. No permanent is invented to fill the miss.

Deterministic Hit, Not An Infinite Combo

If exactly one eligible creature-or-planeswalker card remains in the library, any legal −3 activation guarantees that exact hit. This is a deterministic single-hit Polymorph line, not an infinite combo -- it still costs loyalty, a permanent target, and one activation per hit.

Polymorph Redundancy Differences

Proteus Staff (puts target creature on the bottom of its owner's library, then that creature's controller reveals until a creature card and puts it onto the battlefield) and Jace's −3 (exiles the target, reveals until a creature-or-planeswalker hit, bottoms the rest) both cheat a permanent into play, but differ in cost, target scope, bottom-vs-exile handling of the target, and creature-only vs. creature-or-planeswalker hit pool. Mass Polymorph and Synthetic Destiny affect multiple creatures at once; Transmogrify and Reweave are single-target creature-for-creature swaps. None of these are duplicates of Jace's own ability, and none of this file's relationships assume they are.

Deterministic One-Hit Polymorph

Reduce the library to one eligible creature-or-planeswalker card, then activate −3 on any legal token or permanent to guarantee that hit.

Bomb-Suite Polymorph

Run several premium creature/planeswalker hits behind heavy noncreature token generation, accepting hit-pool variance for resilience.

Token Control

Maximize noncreature/permanent-token generation so Jace never has to spend a nontoken card as −3 fodder.

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Sources

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