Empower Jace Was Built to Support Other Planeswalker Types

Empower was built to support planeswalker types beyond Jace, Mark Rosewater said on November 6, 2026. Asked on Blogatog whether it could return with other planeswalker types if the setting suited it, he answered: “My gut is we will one day do more. We built the mechanic to be able to have other planeswalker types.” That is an expectation, not an announced return.

Reality Fracture, released on October 2, 2026, made a planeswalker token a set-wide resource: 35 cards use empower Jace. Its predefined Jace token gives those cards a shared destination for loyalty counters, while the surrounding enchantments let players spend that loyalty on something other than finding more cards.

The First Predefined Planeswalker Token

Reality Fracture's Jace is Magic's first predefined planeswalker token, rather than its first token that happens to be a planeswalker; Scryfall's token search returns this single design. Jace, Cunning Castaway, from Ixalan in 2017, already made two nonlegendary token copies of itself with its −5. Those copies inherited an existing card's design instead of using a separate, predefined token.

As Matt Tabak explained in Wizards' September 8 mechanics article, empower Jace adds the specified loyalty to a Jace planeswalker token you control, creating a blue, nonlegendary Jace token with 0 loyalty first if necessary. That token has “−1: Surveil 1” and “−3: Draw a card”; nontoken Jace planeswalkers do not receive the counters.

Jeremy Geist Started With Amass

Rosewater credited Jeremy Geist's exploratory-design pitch in his September 14 design account: “amass Jace” would create a planeswalker token or add loyalty to one, replacing the Army at the centre of amass. The important inheritance was the repeated investment in one token. Players could build up a single permanent without making another token every time.

The original token scried rather than surveilled. Set Design changed that ability when the set moved from scry to surveil, and narrowed the mechanic from adding loyalty to any Jace planeswalker to adding it only to Jace tokens. Wizards renamed it because it borrowed from amass without actually being amass.

In his September 28 vision-design handoff, Rosewater described a mechanic that could appear on any card type and across all five colours, primarily , and . His design account also identifies its cost: empower Jace consumed complexity that other mechanics could no longer use. Wizards kept it because it made Jace's presence felt throughout the set.

The Ways Give Loyalty Other Jobs

Set design lead Yoni Skolnik explained on September 15 that five Way enchantments became ten, arranged into echoed pairs so noncreature cards could support empower Jace. They sit within the set's Lorwyn Five theme, but their mechanical reach is broader: their ongoing abilities work with planeswalkers rather than exclusively with Jace tokens.

Way of the Cryomancer costs , supplies 5 loyalty and lets a planeswalker spend 3 to copy your next instant or sorcery that turn. Way of the Pyromancer costs and gives planeswalkers a +1 that adds . A token that ordinarily spends itself drawing cards can now replenish loyalty while helping cast your next spell.

Sanctum Lurker keeps planeswalkers alive at 0 loyalty and gives them a +2 that deals 1 damage to each opponent while gaining you 1 life. The creature changes the token's basic rhythm: spending its last loyalty need not mean losing it. Way of the Healer, meanwhile, turns loyalty into a Cadet blocker, and Way of the Mind Sculptor rewards spending at least 2 loyalty with another card.

Sanctum Lurker

Creature — Horror

When this creature enters, empower Jace 1. Planeswalkers you control aren't put into their owners' graveyards for having 0 loyalty. Planeswalkers you control have "[+2]: This planeswalker deals 1 damage to each opponent and you gain 1 life."

$0.59 · €0.82 · 0.01 tix

Jace, Reality Sculptor makes the stockpiling plan explicit. The planeswalker empowers Jace according to your Island count, weakens attackers with its −3 and can exile almost all of each opponent's library once your Jaces hold at least 25 loyalty counters between them.

Drawing Cards Has Outperformed Stockpiling Loyalty

Second Main Phase's Draft Companion, reporting 17Lands results from 491,065 Premier Draft games played October 2–14, puts empower Jace cards 2.05 percentage points above the set median. Yet the Jace archetype ranked last among the ten pairs at 52.9% across 20,753 games. Its advice follows that split: spend loyalty unless a Way payoff justifies protecting it.

Standard has rewarded a similarly practical use. Jace's Machinations, a instant, combines empower Jace 8 with instant-speed loyalty activations for your Jaces. Tom Anderson's October 22 Card Kingdom analysis describes casting it on the opponent's turn, drawing immediately with the token, then drawing again on your turn and leaving 2 loyalty. It also lets The Theorist, Jace Beleren act during the opponent's turn.

Jace's Machinations appeared in 16 of 220 published Standard decks in the week of November 2, mainly Control and Control. roter_Erzengel won the 52-player Standard Challenge 32 on November 6 with it in Control, as MTGO's published results record. Jace, Reality Sculptor appeared in just 1 published Standard deck over the past 30 days.

What Another Planeswalker Could Keep

We see the portable design in creating one token, replenishing its loyalty and offering different ways to spend it. The Way enchantments and Sanctum Lurker already support planeswalkers without naming Jace. The token's colour, surveil and card draw belong to this execution, as does the story of Jace bringing versions of himself into battle. Rosewater's November 6 answer leaves room to change those parts without abandoning the structure.