Stoneforge Mystic Analysis

We all know those two massive mistakes from Worldwake, as they are called. Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic, for some time, were present in (and usually the centerpiece) of pretty much every top-level deck in competitive Standard. The excuse for these two game-breaking "errors" in design is that they slipped past R&D's "testing team," but I'll be damned if it actually seems like they played one game with either of these screwups. In fact, I strongly believe that both of these cards were designed to be broken from the start, though for vastly different reasons. Of course, I have no proof of either of these accusations/conspiracy theories, but I believe they have some merit as reasonable explanations for something that shouldn't have happened in the last 15 years or so.

Stoneforge Mystic is the lesser problem of the two. The reason that Stoneforge Mystic was made so powerful is a nearsighted attempt at easing new players in to the game by giving them an overpowered card in an event deck that they would likely play in their first tournament. This would boost the new player's self-esteem …show more content…
We all know Jace is basically one of, if not THE, face of Magic. You see his face everywhere: card sleeves, backpacks, card boxes, even the shirt I'm wearing right now (pretty comfortable.) It's understandable that with the Wallet Sculptor's artwork being so omnipresent in MTG that new players would want to own the "face of Magic." Wizard's plan for a massive profit was thus formulated. Make Jace so horribly broken that he will be bought up until he is running far higher than any new card ever should, tournament integrity be damned to all hell. Then, new players will want to own one. Money for Wizards. Oh, and people will play the "MTG Lottery" with Worldwake boxes in hopes of getting their very own foil Jace. Again, a huge surplus for Wizards, who must make an insane amount off all the boxes they'd sell in this