Why Jinx?

[fas723]

I would like to know why I should use Jinx?

To me it seems like a loss towards you oponent. He loses an quick cast action, so do you. He loses no mana, but you loses 3 (or 4?).

[Shad0w]

I would like to know why I should use Jinx?

To me it seems like a loss towards you oponent. He loses an quick cast action, so do you. He loses no mana, but you loses 3 (or 4?).

As a mandatory flip it is underpowered but can be used to end a game. For example if you have imitative your opponents health is low. So you jinx your opponent and they try to heal you flip jinx. Then kill them with creature because the heal failed.

[piousflea]

Sometimes you have a temporary advantage and you want to prolong it as much as possible. For example, your opponent has enough mana to toss a Fireball and will finish off one of your creatures. Jinx may cost 3 mana (or 2 if you have ring of enchantments) but prolonging the life of a creature by 1 turn may be well worth it. Even if your Hydra still gets fireballed next turn and still dies, it gets in 3x3 dice of attacks before dying.

Granted, it might have been more efficient to use a Block on the Hydra. But maybe he wouldn't have fireballed your hydra, maybe he would have fireballed your Timber Wolf and killed it instead.

Ideally, you want to cause a snowball effect with Jinx. Because the hydra lives for 1 extra turn, it kills off his dark pact slayer. Because the dark pact slayer is dead, your timber wolf lives for longer. Swing of momentum.

[Klaxas]

very well said.  jinx does have an element of time gained that cant be expressed just in the mana and action input/output.

[Jon.Ambriz]

Excellently said Shad0w.

fas723, having a Jinx thrown in the mix has saved my Mage and my creatures on more than one occasion. The same could be said for Decoy. Granted both have a negative cost to you in terms of mana (granted Decoy returns mana to you for a net loss of 0 mana), the player, but what you are in essence doing is prolonging the game just long enough for the flow of battle to turn in your favor, and you've cost your opponent his action marker, or quick cast marker.

A good meta-game analysis that I heard Shad0w say at the demo Tournament this passed Gen Con was (and I am paraphrasing), "Always watch the tempo of the game. If your opponent is casting a lot of spell and has no creatures, work to stop his casting. If he is summoning a lot of creatures, work to stop the creatures."

[Rumsey]

Actually the best reason to use it is so that you can savor that look of stink-eye and scowl that reveals itself on your opponents face.

[Shad0w]

Excellently said Shad0w.

fas723, having a Jinx thrown in the mix has saved my Mage and my creatures on more than one occasion. The same could be said for Decoy. Granted both have a negative cost to you in terms of mana (granted Decoy returns mana to you for a net loss of 0 mana), the player, but what you are in essence doing is prolonging the game just long enough for the flow of battle to turn in your favor, and you've cost your opponent his action marker, or quick cast marker.

A good meta-game analysis that I heard Shad0w say at the demo Tournament this passed Gen Con was (and I am paraphrasing), "Always watch the tempo of the game. If your opponent is casting a lot of spell and has no creatures, work to stop his casting. If he is summoning a lot of creatures, work to stop the creatures."

Jinx and other cards like it are fall into the mindset of the classic blue player in MTG. Its your job to change the pace of the game to your play-style. The idea behind a more classic control style is to make your enemy think they are playing his/her style game but you are actually making them play your game.

[Nihilistiskism]

I thought that was what Decoys were for! :-P

-nihil

[Shad0w]

Decoy is not good enough of an answer.

[Hedge]

Nullify, and block are both better than Jinx in all situations where you have initiative and you need a Full action to either seal the win or obtain the win in a do or die situation.  Because with those two, you control what type of spell gets cancel With Jinx they can remove it with any Quickspell and not lose the mana and then you are back to where you started.  Except they have not used any mana this turn.


Hedge

[Shad0w]

Accept you are limited to the number of copies of each card you can use and sometimes you just need one extra action. Since Jinx is action doers not return the action it can be used in a similar way. It is not the best option but it is an option.

[Mgrancey]

Another good reason to use Jinx, since many spells are quickcast, is to force them to build up their Mana Supply for when you hit them with a Mana Drain.