Jace Beleren
Jace Beleren is a Planeswalker with a knack for mind magic and illusions. He is aloof, more powerful than he would admit, angsty at times, and plays an important role in many storylines. He is also a massive asshole, but that's aside the point. In short, he's a massive emo Mary Sue, but he gets better.
Font
WotC uses a custom font (Beleren) for Magic and Jace is the namesake of this font.
Origins
Born and raised in a place called Silmot's Crossing on a plane called Vryn, his abilities surfaced at a young age while he was learning to work on the mage-rings that stabilized and produced mana on his plane, resulting in constant bullying. A sphinx called Alhammarret took him as his apprentice where Jace began to learn new spells, talents and types of magic.
During a training sessions Jace discovered that his Spark had triggered a year earlier, something he continuously had to hide from Alhammarret by erasing his own memory and writing down his thoughts in a hidden journal. He eventually found out that Alhammarret was basically using him as a child spy so that he could infinitely prolong a war on Jace's home plane while profiting from it by selling intel to both sides and stalemating them. Coming into his first Emo phase, Jace tried to run away from home. Alhammarret caught him though, and tried to mind crush him in a mental duel. Jace lost his early childhood memories, but Alhammarret forgot how to breathe. The stress of the duel made Jace planeswalk to a random plane.
Agents of Artifice
Jace ended up on Ravnica, eking out a not-quite modest living by blackmailing the rich by reading the minds of the wealthy. During this time he was approached violently by the Infinite Consortium, an interplanar trading association/mafia run by the artificer Tezzeret. While having some reservations, Jace decided to join the organisation. Here he went on assignments with Kallist, a swordsman who performed the wetwork if needed, and a pyromancer and fellow Planeswalker called Baltrice.
A rift began to grow between Jace and Tezzeret: the mind mage refused to become as ruthless and obedient as Tezzeret wanted. When Baltrice leveled an entire Nezumi village on Kamigawa after Jace made a mistake he was savagely beaten by Tezzeret. When Tezzeret negociated with none other than Nicol Bolas himself Jace was to act as mental barrier, but Bolas just batted his mental defenses aside. Tezzeret punished him by cutting him with a manablade, a weapon tearing at the target's very being, completely disregarding that he expected a 25-30 year old man to stand against the mental attacks of a 25.000 year old dragon who holds titles such as "The Forever Serpent" and "Lord of the Blind Eternities". The final straw for Jace was when he was sent to the Church of the Incarnate Soul (a religious organisation that has the color pie as their holy symbol) to enslave the August Questor (the mana-pope). Jace fled with Kallist into the lower parts of Ravnica. Here they met Liliana Vess with whom Jace had a short affair. When a Consortium assassin found them Jace screwed up his mind magic that ended up switching the minds of Kallist and himself around, making one stuck in the body of the other without them knowing this. When Kallist's body died the magic snapped, Jace's mind was send shooting back into this body and kicking Kallist's out, effectively killing him.
Tired of running, Jace turned to Bolas to find Tezzeret's sanctum. He wrecked the Consortium's cell's leadership on Ravnica before he attacked Tezzeret directly along with Liliana, but failed and was captured. Not Liliana, because she was revealed to be a double-agent for the Consortium, being on Tezzeret's side all along. Jace was imprisoned for months while Baltrice tortured him frequently, before Liliana approached him. She said she genuinely had feelings for him and wanted to help him escape. She did, and while Liliana did a number on Baltrice Jace fought Tezzeret, lured him to Ravnica, cut his Etherium arm off and left him at the mercy of the Nezumi who had their village destroyed by his servants. Unbeknownst to Jace was that this was Liliana's plan all along, acting under the orders of Nicol Bolas all along, planning to run the Infinite Consortium together with Jace, making him malleable to the will of the Forever Serpent. Jace declined, not even meetng her in the sanctum's throne room.
Zendikar Shenanigans
With nothing better to do he took over the remains of the Ravnica cell for his own. Baltrice was traumatised by what Liliana had done to her, so he wiped part of her mind and took her as his right-hand woman. During this time he encountered Garruk Wildspeaker who was looking for Liliana Vess, going as far as throat-slamming Jace into a table and threatening to chop his head off if he did not tell her where she was. Jace told him what he knew (not having seen her since the incident with Tezzeret either) and Garruk went on his way, mentioning the scroll he had was a map to Zendikar.
Said scroll he had recovered from Chandra Nalaar during their earlier encounter at Keral Keep. Having inherited it when he took over the Ravnica cell he was studying it when Garruk came-a knockin'. Going to Zendikar he found the trail of his tsundere opposite and eventually stumbled upon her in the flesh, engaged in a duel with a dragon-shaped Sarkhan Vol. Following the scroll's words on "sheer fire, a flame without heat", he urged her to cast fire without a flame, which managed to bring Sarkhan down. The blast knocked him out and left him at Chandra's mercy, which she granted him. Before he could ask her on how they could have met again she left, leaving it up to Jace to report to some sages of Zendikar what happened before leaving the plane himself.
Test of Metal
Jace was correct when he had anticipated that Tezzeret was not dead. He had set up a number of traps to go off were Tezzeret to enter a number of places. When one of them was triggered he and Baltrice went to Esper to deal with him. Tezzeret gained the upper hand and infected Jace with a device that would kill him the moment he tried to use his magic or planeswalk. Being forced to help the artificer find Crucius the Mad, the three of them eventually ran into Nicol Bolas who removed the device but claimed Tezzeret before shit got real.
I AM THE LAW
Jace travels back to Ravnica, only to find that shit hit the fan once again with almost the entire city (that is the whole world) rioting. With the dissolution of Ravnica's magically binding guildpact that prevents the Ten Guilds from stepping out of line, the Ten are now waging open war in the streets.
Thankfully, there was a failsafe clause hidden in the fine print of the guildpact in case the plane somehow descended into civil war again, and the mysterious non-euclidian Implicit Maze activated.
The maze was created by Azor I to be revealed in case the Guildpact dissolved. In this way, the founder of the Azorius Senate tried to foster an atmosphere of peaceful collaboration. In order for it to be solved, all the guilds of Ravnica must transverse it at the same time.
The purpose of the maze was to determine if a new guildpact could be formed, and to determine what shape it would take if possible. However, if any of the guilds did not seek harmony with the others, Azor created the failsafe that would give the runners access to the Supreme Verdict which would eliminate the guilds in their entirety before their unfettered desires led to a war that might destroy the plane.
Niv-Mizzet, draconic leader of the Izzet, called a ceasfire, and turned the situation into an impromptu corn maze race, with the victor being given supreme power.
Jace entered the race, got to the end, and found the runners of the other guilds trying to kill each other. Jace used his telepathy to charm everyone, but Lazav, Ultra villanous badass shapeshifter and probably tzeentch fanboy, came in and broke the charm spell. When the embodiment of the maze, which might have been Azor I's ghost, saw the melee, he presented the button that would've given the one who pressed it the power that they and their guild (and secretly the other guilds) deserved.
Jace prevented the runners from activating the nuke by connecting the minds of all ten of the maze runners, which allowed them to see each other minds, but his mind began to rapidly unravel under the strain of creating a hive mind for so many people. The embodiment of the maze saw this, and assisted him, easing the burden he had put upon himself. In doing so, the embodiment had declared Jace the new Guildpact, the mediator who could understand the perspective of each of the guilds and keep the peace between them in Ravnica.
SUPERFRIENDS
Insert Summary of Gatewatch Storyline. Really quite tedious, up until he and his crew of Mary Sues get righteously bitch-slapped by Nicol Bolas.
Jace becomes a pirate
After his defeat at the hands of Bolas in Amonkhet, Jace ended up with a very severe case of brain damage, causing him to Planeswalk to Ixalan. He washes on the shores of an Island, with no memories at all. Free from his grim and edgy past, Jace quickly develops into an optimistic, decent human being, who's just happy to be alive. When he's not having hallucinations of a past he can't remember, he's having a blast learning about making tools to survive and learning things about himself, like rediscovering that he has more tricks than just mindfucking people and plays around with illusions a lot. He even goes so far as to make himself look more swole using illusions. Eventually, he grows tired, builds a raft, and then sails off only to find another Island. Tired from his travels, he eventually collapses on the sand, where he eventually meets Vraska.
Since he doesn't remember anything from his past, Jace is overly excited to meet Vraska, much to her bewilderment. After all, Vraska was planning to kill Jace back in Ravnica, and yet here he was, with nothing but a face of genuine thankfulness. Thinking that Jace could end up being useful in helping her find the Golden City of Orazca, she recruits him into her crew. After a bit of adjustment, Jace ended up integrating himself with the rest of Vraska’s crew quickly, and begins to enjoy the pirate life. While Vraska was initially wary of Jace, she quickly realizes how much he has changed from the memory wipe, and gets a lot closer to him.
Cards
Jace Beleren appears on nine cards. His first version is notable for being printed with four different images on it: the common form (see the page image), as he appeard in the Duel Deck (and another form in the Japanese print), and as a promotional card for the Agents of Artifice book where it depicts him as he appears on the cover art.
Jace Beleren has CMC and loyal 3. He can make everyone draw as his first abilitiy, his second makes a player draw 1, and the third mills a player for 20. Powerful, but requires a LOT of loyalty to pull it off.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is a source of major skub. He is the skubularity, split the skub atom and fell into a skub hole. He is in fact the quantum-skub. The first Planeswalker with four abilities (though not the only one with more than three), he can let you look at the opponent's top card and put it on the bottom, draw 3 and return 2 to the top, bounce a creature and as the anti-skub equation he has you exile a player's library and let his hand become his library instead. A single card of him costs about as much as a Valkyrie. That is not a joke. Play him (hell, OWN him) and you are that guy. He is in fact banned in Extended and Singleton. He was recently unbanned from Modern, alongside Bloodbraid Elf.
Jace, Memory Adept has a nasty case of the anime hair. Coming at 5 mana with 4 loyalty it lets you draw and a player mill, mill a player for 10 (note that this is free!), and makes any number of players draw 20. Obviously this is more of a Johnny card, and can devastate a player in entire turns. Just don't go up against Dredge decks or others that use the graveyard.
Jace, Architect of Thought
Jace, The Living Guildpact
Jace, Prodigy of Vryn/Jace, Telepath Unbound
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
Jace, Cunning Castaway has finally decided to stop being the wimpy basement-dweller and get somewhat swoll. The anime hair is finally gone, he's rocking a destroyed version of his stupid-looking coat/shirt/tunic... THING, and he's growing a beard. 3 mana, two of it blue, will get him on the field with 3 loyalty, he can give you card advantage from combat damage, produce 2/2 Illusions (which disappear if targeted by a spell), and CLONE HIMSELF. TWICE.
Oh, and the Planeswalker Deck version's okay, too.
Gallery
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Jace Beleren
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Jace, the Mind Sculptor
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Jace, Memory Adept
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Jace, Architect of Thought
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| Planeswalkers of Magic: The Gathering | |
|---|---|
| Original Five: | Ajani Goldmane - Chandra Nalaar Garruk Wildspeaker - Jace Beleren - Liliana Vess |
| Alara: | Elspeth Tirel - Nicol Bolas - Sarkhan Vol - Tezzeret |
| Zendikar: | Gideon Jura - Nissa Revane - Sorin Markov |
| Scars of Mirrodin: | Karn - Koth of the Hammer - Venser |
| Innistrad: | Tamiyo - Tibalt - Davriel Cane |
| Return to Ravnica: | Domri Rade - Ral Zarek - Vraska |
| Theros: | Ashiok - Kiora - Xenagos - Calix |
| Tarkir: | Ugin - Narset |
| Kaladesh: | Dovin Baan - Saheeli Rai |
| Amonkhet: | Samut |
| Other: | Dack Fayden - Vivien Reid - Kaya |
| Commander 2014: | Daretti - Freyalise - Nahiri - Ob Nixilis - Teferi |
| Pre-mending: | Bo Levar - Commodore Guff - Jaya Ballard - Urza |
| Forgotten Realms: | Ellywick Tumblestrum - Bahamut - Lolth - Zariel - Mordenkainen |
| Planeswalker Groups: | The Gatewatch |