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 negotiated 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.
He did have one notable moment during Eldritch Moon, though, where he learns he made a backup copy of his mind to use when his normal mind got cosmic horrored into madness. He then engaged in a chess match with a mental avatar of Emrakul that saw her reveal she knows she's not supposed to be on Innistrad yet, before intentionally using the Gatewatch to seal herself in Innistrad's silver moon until Wizards of the Coast decides they want another Eldrazi set the stars are metaphorically right.
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 (again), causing him to Planeswalk to Ixalan. He washes on the shores of an Island, with no memories at all. Unable to planeswalk out of Ixalan, Jace is left stranded on the Island with no friends or a past. However, free from the shackles of his 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 illusion magic. 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.
The two of them end up bonding in their travels together, starting from distrust, to mutual agreement, to full-blown respect for each other. It eventually comes to a point that Vraska seriously considers dating Jace after she deals with this whole Golden City situation. Eventually, the two of them make it to the Golden City, where the two of them slip and Jace hits his head, causing a sudden recollection of who he was before coming to Ixalan. Vraska had to watch as Jace painfully remembered every single event from his past unfold before him in the form of out of control illusions. After he calmed down though, Jace actually doesn't change his opinion about Vraska all that much. In fact, armed with all of he knowledge of what Vraska did back in Ravinca, he remarks that his time with her in Ixalan had some of the best moments of his life.
The two still working together, they meet Azor in the Golden City, stranded in Ixalan. He reveals that the object of Vraska's quest, the Immortal Sun, was made by Azor using his spark as a way to to trap Nicol Bolas on Ixalan. The artifact has the power to prevent planeswalking, which explains why Jace and all of the other Planeswalkers were trapped on Ixalan the entire time. Things went not as planned when Ugin got attacked by Bolas before everything was set up, leaving Azor stuck. Jace, through manipulation of his Guildpact powers, overpowers Azor, and leaves him guarding the Island that Jace first landed on.
With this new information, Vraska proposes a plan to attempt to beat Bolas at his own game: Jace would excise every memory that Vraska had of their time together on Ixalan, only to restore them later on after Vraska's deal to become the new Golgari Guildmaster. This would leave her as a sleeper agent to be called upon for help later. She also promises Jace that once all of this is done, they would go out on a date together. Jace agrees and does exactly that. He planeswalks off of Ixalan after the Immortal Sun gets stolen by Bolas.
Jace was last seen in the story during the Dominaria set, briefly appearing to tell Liliana that trying to kill Belzenlok was a bad idea, and that she should really reconsider backing down before she does something stupid. Liliana refuses, and Jace mans the fuck up, telling her off and asking everyone to go to Ravnica to meet with Ajani. Everyone refuses, and Jace peaces out. Liliana kills Belzenlok, gets Bolas'd, and Jace reappears again with his smuggest "I-told-you-so" face.
The Multiplanar Community tackles Nicky B
Immediately after getting to Ravnica to go fight Nicky B alongside pretty much every named Planeswalker, Jace gets trapped by the Immortal Sun and loses his Guildpact powers after Nicky B drops a giant portal on top of the Chamber of the Guildpact. Jace and everyone who isn't on Nicky B's side goes to fight a bunch of zombies from Amonkhet and eventually, Jace coordinates everyone on separate tasks to try and repel the invasion. He got stuck with the job of trying to kill Liliana, as she's currently working for Nicky B on pain of death. He didn't really like having to kill her, because even though she emotionally manipulated him for years and teased his heartstrings pretty much ever since they met, the fact of the matter is that Liliana is kind of the hottest Planeswalker in the Multiverse, and he still kind of wants a piece of her. He ends up failing in his task, but he's not too hung up about it since he's still got a date with Vraska.
Speaking of Vraska, the first thing he does after his job is "complete" is he goes to restore her memories from Ixalan but fails at that too because someone had already done that for her. While Jace was doing his thing, Vraska was off trying to revive Niv-Mizzet, who died off-screen. Were it not for Niv's intervention, they would have died at the hands of the Gods that Bolas resurrected and brainwashed. They reassure each other that despite their misgivings, they still had the hots for each other and promise to meet up after they go beat up Nicky B.
A lot of rowdy fighting later, everyone gathers on top of Bolas's Citadel to go beat him up. Niv-Mizzet takes out a couple more of the Gods from Amonkhet, leaving only two of them to be used as a surprise tool for later. Liliana betrays Bolas and nearly dies, if not for the intervention from Gideon Jura, who dies in her stead. Chandra tries to kill Liliana, but Jace holds her back. Liliana severs the brainwashing from the two remaining Gods, allowing them to rip Bolas's Planeswalker Spark from his body, rending him powerless. Everyone is ready to rip into Bolas, but Jace gets a message from Ugin telling him that if they were to kill him right now, he'd just do the same thing he did the last time Bolas died (he got better), so Jace makes an illusion of Bolas dying instead, letting Ugin trap Bolas in the Meditation Realm.
With the biggest threat to the Multiverse squared away (for now), the survivors throw the biggest party in the Multiverse. During that party, Vraska becomes the first true winner of the Jace-bowl, kissing him on the lips and presumably banging him off-screen. They don't get to be Magic's hottest power couple for long though, as Niv-Mizzet is still just a little pissed that Vraska helped Bolas get the Immortal Sun. As penance, Vraska is tasked with killing Dovin Baan, who ran off with his tail behind his legs after Bolas lost. Jace isn't actually too devastated by the loss of his Guildpact powers because he wasn't really on Ravnica all that often anyway, and pretty much the only time his powers came up was when he trapped Azor on Ixalan.
War of the Spark: Forsaken had Jace and Vraska break up, but it also never happened because everyone including Wizards of the Coast agreed it sucked.
Zendikar Rising
Jace does...something during Nissa and Nahiri's spat over whether to do something that would probably negate the Roil or not, seemingly trying to act as a middle ground between Nahiri's desire to revert the plane to how it was in her day and Nissa's desire to preserve the status quo of present Zendikar (which will also not kill a bunch of elementals). It wasn't exactly the most memorable storyline, especially given the first Praetor cameo of the New Phyrexia story arc didn't happen until Kaldheim.
The Multiplanar Community tries to tackle the Wizard Borg
After several more blocks with no Jace present whatsoever, Jace, Vraska, and eight other Planeswalkers (Nahiri, Nissa, Kaito, The Wanderer, Tyvar, Kaya, Lukka, and Elspeth) ended up headed to New Phyrexia to rendevous with Koth and try and destroy New Phyrexia with a recreated Sylex before New Phyrexia (now with the ability to compleat Planeswalkers) could connect to the entire multiverse.
This failed. Miserably.
Jace and Vraska's relationship ends up leading to him trying to console Vraska when he finds her ~99% compleated, with her mind finally giving out while in his arms. The result was that Jace became the second Planeswalker of the group to suffer a zombie bite situation after Nahiri, though his decision to try and use the Sylex to blow up New Phyrexia even after learning it was too late to likely avoid massive multiversal collateral damage was entirely his own. He ended up dying when his allies disagreed with that decision and Elspeth planeswalked into the Blind Eternities with the detonating Sylex in her arms, with Jace coming back to unlife because Phyrexia, and now he's presumably helping them.
Or he could be pulling the same trick he did in Eldritch Moon, with a sane, non-Phyrexianized consciousness hiding out somewhere that could pop up again in March of the Machine. Probably not, though.
Cards
Jace Beleren appears on over 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 loyalty 3. He can make everyone draw as his first ability, 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 protects himself with his +1, draws cards with his -2, and does nothing with his -8 because, if you're playing him right, you've already used him to draw another copy of himself/Sphinx's Revelation/Elspeth, Sun's Champion. A central part of the oppressive esper control deck during the RTR/Theros standard season.
Jace, The Living Guildpact is probably the weakest Jace ever printed. He doesn't draw cards or provide any sort of card advantage, can only protect himself at the price of three loyalty, and has an incredibly bad ultimate.
Jace, Prodigy of Vryn/Jace, Telepath Unbound decided to chill around $80 for the entire time it was in standard. Filters cards with his baby side, letting you stock up your graveyard for once he flips. Lets you snap back spells with his smaller minus and weakens creatures with his plus, making him the best Jace in standard that wasn't eventually banned.
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets: Draws cards, bounces creatures, and has a pretty cheesy ultimate, if you can get it off. An alright finisher in some UR control lists during SOI/BFZ/KLD standard.
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.
Jace, Wielder of Memories is one of the weird "lower rarity" walkers from War of the Spark. He has a passive ability a la Laboratory Maniac, draws you cards, can mill you or your opponent. Really he revolves around you decking yourself to win the game and is very good at making sure you can deck yourself out. For some reason, he decided to stop growing out his beard. How old is Jace Anyway, like he looks like a 21-year-old in the newer cards and like 31 in the older cards? Why does each iteration of him seem to be getting younger? Apparently he uses illusions in the lore to make himself look cooler, but why is he choosing to look more and more like a boy?
He also has at least two further cards--one from Zendikar Rising, the other in his compleated form from All Will Be One.
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 |