A Well-Oiled Machine

Pretty Fucking Sweet, eh? Yes, our favorite Esperite Planeswalker is back with a new bag of tricks for all the girls and boys wanting to cash in on Mirrodin's artifact-rich environment. I know, I missed Alara too. But so far, none of the planeswalkers have stayed out of rotation very long, in one form or another. Tezzie here is now the fourth planeswalker (after Jace, Chandra, and then Elspeth) to get the buffout makeover and the third to be kept in Standard play without being part of a core-set. But you already knew all this, so why am I making such a big deal out of it? Because of a couple key things here. First, I want you to read his [-1] ability. Now picture it with this:
 
Okay, so we'll say its turn 5, and you have 3 Islands and 2 Swamps. You have Liquimetal Coating already on the field and just popped Jace last turn, using his [+2] immediately when you gain priority. You peek at a Blightsteel Colossus on your deck and bottom deck him. So, now what? You next draw goes into top-deck mode, and you drop another Island and Tezzie 2. Use your priority to tap LMC into Jace, that way if they respond, you lose a 2-drop you tutor up for and not a Planeswalker. Assuming theres no responce, Jace is now an Artifact Planeswalker. Use Tezzeret's [-1] ability, and...then what?

This is where things usually start to get tricky. Our first assumption is that Jace, The Mind Sculptor becomes a 5/5 Artifact Creature Planeswalker with the subtype Jace, and retains his loyalty counters and abilities.
This in fact is absolutely correct. I can cite some rules on artifact interaction and type changes, but there's is one rule that is overly pertinent here:

From the Comprehensive Rules

• 103. The Magic Golden Rules
  • 103.1. Whenever a card’s text directly contradicts these rules, the card takes precedence. The card overrides only the rule that applies to that specific situation. The only exception is that a player can concede the game at any time (see rule 102.3a).

So, here we get to the weird part. Jace now abides by three sets of rules. Anything that targets anything except lands can now affect him. And here's a general breakdown of "falls-to"s:

• He can attack an opponent and use his loyalty abilities anytime he normally could.
• He can be dealt lethal damage.
• He can be destroyed or sacrificed
• He is now vulnerable to -1/-1 counters and other State-Based Actions. 
• Damage dealt to him comes out of his Loyalty because he is still a Planeswalker
• Per above bullet, being dealt lethal damage, having his toughness reduced to 0, having his Loyatly reduced to 0, or having another Planeswalker with the subtype "Jace" enter the battlefield are all ways he can be destroyed now. 

Doesn't sound very appealing on your end does it? The fact is, a Blue/Black deck isn't going to need the extra aggro that often, but it has enough practical (if not situational) uses to come up often enough to need widespread addressing. Now I am not a Rules Advisor nor a DCI Judge, but after examining the rules, This is what I got from it.

This isn't the first time things like this have come up, though. If we look at an example from a nice Vintage format view, we see possibilities not at all unlike the one described above:

 

 In this case we see Bolas is a whoppin', badass 8/8 Indestructible Artifact Creature Planewalker with the subtype Bolas, and 5 Loyalty with the usual table-turning abilities. This wasn't an issue when Mycosynth Lattice and March of the Machines came out because there were no planeswalker cards. And the two never really mingled in Standard or even Extended, so nothing was really addressed. 

When Mark Rosewater was doing his usual recap of interesting stories from the design process of Scars of Mirrodin ( Click Here for the Article), he said that the wording on Liquimetal Coating was a huge mistake on Design's part. I do think that had it been intended to do what we're using it for now, it would have been a rare. But we have to live with it for two more years in Standard Constructed, and even Limited for another 6 months. So I suggest we make the most of it, and as I'm sure Spank and The Meister would say "cause as many ridiculous shenanigans with it as possible."

Till next time, when we take a look-see at some really cool Infect combos!

-Zetsu