Jace has become one of the most defining icons in modern Magic, surpassing every other card I can think of. Jace, the Mind Sculptor was a game breaking icon. Literally good in every format, it was officially banned from standard a few days ago. With M12 around the corner, we will be receiving our third generation of Jace. Where does Jace go from here?

Last Friday, Tom Lapille posted an article covering the design process of M12's new planeswalkers. The focus of that article was on how the functional elements of the planeswalkers were designed. It was accompanied by an oversized shot of a hoodless Jace, but no mention about Jaceīs new art.



This new art for Jace spawned some controversy among Magic players. Thereīs one group of people that like Jace, Memory Adeptīs new art, but thereīs also a group that shows less enthusiasm for the new Jace. They raise concerns about whether or not Magic is starting to look too much like Yugioh now. There is a fear that Wizards perhaps tries to cater to the younger crowd too much by going for a more anime approach. Jace, Memory Adept isn't the source of these concerns though. Jace Beleren gradually went from traditional art to straight up anime, with new iterations of the card in the Jace vs Chandra Duel Decks. With Jace 3.0 around the corner, I decided to ask D. Alexander Gregory, the artist for all of the three new Planeswalkers in M12, to tell me more about the design of Jace 3.0. He was kind enough to answer my email, and I received permission to post it in whole.

Below is an excerpt from Tom Lapille's article, and the email communication between me and Doug.

Tom Lapille's Article
Jace was the most challenging of the three new cards to make. At the design handoff, that was the card I described as "all right" above. That slot went through many iterations, even going through a brief period of time as a reprint of Jace, the Mind Sculptor. (I'm glad I didn't do that.) I ended up using our internal hole-filling process to generate a huge list of abilities, then built a card using some of our favorites from that process. The middle ability is all mine, though, as I felt that it was pretty strange for a mind mage to not have a card that went after libraries. Here's the final version of the card.

(source: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazin...g/daily/ld/149 )
My Email
Hi Doug,

I have some questions concerning the art of Jace, Memory Adept. Prior to your interpretation of Jace, there have been 5 different pieces of artwork before that. The art started as a traditional high-fantasy piece of art, and gradually became more and more stylized / anime. Your version of Jace also looks very Japanese, mostly due to the spikey hair.

How did you come up with this idea for Jace? Did the Japanese direction come out of a design brief from WoTC, or was it something that you wanted to pursue? I would love to know more about the creative process behind Jace, Memory Adept. All of your other Magic related artwork is much more typical to Magic, whereas Jace, Memory Adept strikes a lot of players as something you would see in a game like Yugioh. Jace has become one of the most iconic cards of modern magic, and this has caused some controversy/fear among players that the game will become increasingly influenced by anime art direction. Anything you could say about the creation process would be immensely interesting to us! Below are pictures of all the variations prior to your Memory Adept:

Lorwyn Jace Beleren (Aleksi Briclot)


Agent of Artifice Book Promo (Aleksi Briclot)

(More info http://www.magiclibrarities.net/189-...rds-index.html )

Duel Decks: Jace vs Chandra:

(More info http://www.magiclibrarities.net/190-...jace-deck.html )

Duel Decks: Jace vs Chandra Japanese: (Yoshino Himori)

(More info http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...ily/arcana/481 )

Jace the Mind Sculptor


Best,

Bart
D. Alexander Gregory's reply
hey Bart,

This idea for Jace came from seeing Aleksi's version and being asked to show him without his hood on.
The pose was meant to show an intent toward action and his hair a stylized interpretation of wind.
Being influenced at a young age by the work of Phil Hale
http://wideworldimages.blogspot.com/...phil-hale.html
you'll start to see where my choices can be linked to my past
but no doubt I have a huge respect for certain anime artists as well.

So to stab at the larger question, no, Magic the Gathering did not ask for spiky hair ( nor would I have
painted it that way had he been standing in a kitchen making eggs) nor did they ask to not have it. Magic and the art
director there embrace a global view and interpretation of their world. They give us a basic style guide but encourage us
to be the artists that we are. There is no short lease on style there. And as the internet continues to bridge cultures and artists
find influences from everywhere, I think you are going to see a lot of everything being blended becoming the norm.

When I started on Magic, it was all traditional art. That was the look of the game. Then during the late 90's it was heavy on
the British painted style that was prevalent on Judge Dredd since most of the top artists from 2000AD were the art director's favorite.
Some said then, why so stylized...then it became the norm. In the early 2000's, digital art was starting to enter MTG and people were
afraid of this non-traditional look. Now the game is almost 100% digital and more 'realistic' than ever...which if you are talking about
'traditional high fantasy art'...then Magic looks nothing like that as a whole. Traditional high fantasy is Frank Frazetta, The Hildebrandt Bros.,
Jeff Jones, Larry Elmore, Michael Whelan and so on....none of them less than highly stylized artists. Magic constantly evolves and has a rich
look that has been crucial to its relevance and cultural influence.

I'm glad that you and fellow players have such a strong connection to Jace. I think what you will find is the more interpretations there are, the greater the chance
that he will have to connect to an ever widening world and thus ensure his longevity. Look at how many versions of Batman we have. I have never thought that
the animated Batman took anything away from the Nolan movie Batman. Nor when my favorite artist stopped drawing Spiderman and the new guy took over, did
I stop buying Spiderman if the story was still good. So the cool thing is that my version will resonate with some more than others and i'm good with that.
I'm happy to be invited to the party with such great talents and that Magic the Gathering would trust me with their top tier characters.

I hope that helps
best,

-doug
And thatīs the truth about Jace!

As an aside: Jace, Memory Adept looks like a strong card. Perhaps it's not Legacy-grade, but that's mostly due to its mana-cost. I do think that the abilities are Jace-worthy, even though I wished he would have a less win-big ultimate and cost 2UU. Art-wise I think Garruk Primal Hunter wins by a long shot. Itīs a less controversial piece of art, but itīs certainly badass.

For reference, here are the other new D. Alexander Gregory walkers!