I feel like this deck is one card short of being amazing. There are three cards that just frequently don't pull their weight:
1) Cancel
2) Mind Spring
3) Iona
1) and 2) are the biggest problems.
On 1)
Cancel is a huge problem with the deck, as it forces the deck into awkward plays with the second best card in the deck - Everflowing Chalice. The need to leave up 1UU makes Chalice MUCH less effective, as you have to have two real lands untapped after casting your Chalice. A two-mana counter which is not conditional on spell type (e.g. Mana Leak) would be the fix that the doctor ordered.
On 2)
I don't like the space Mind Spring occupies in this deck. It is too mana intensive to draw lots of cards and is terribly inefficient at drawing small numbers of cards. This deck needs a second streamlined draw spell to support Treasure Hunt. A spell like Compulsive Research or Thirst for Knowledge would be excellent.
On 3)
This really isn't a problem as much as a matter of personal preference. Iona is in the deck because she randomly wins games by herself. Sometimes she rots in your hand, that's the risk you take. Jace minimizes the instances of this, but I would understand if anyone felt like cutting the big angel.
I really think that this deck is a single card away from going from good to really good. Replacing Cancel with a counter like Mana Leak, Rune Snag, or something like Prohibit (although it would need to counter CMC 3 stuff in its unkicked state) would allow the deck to rely on a sub-optimal draw suite to find answers, as the countermagic would be far more flexible. Replacing Mind Spring would allow the deck to rely on a combination of Essence Scatter and Negate, while actually drawing them when they were needed with reasonable consistency. Obviously, if both problems were fixed the deck gets even better, but I think if Rise fixes one of the two the deck will get a lot better.
1) Cancel
2) Mind Spring
3) Iona
1) and 2) are the biggest problems.
On 1)
Cancel is a huge problem with the deck, as it forces the deck into awkward plays with the second best card in the deck - Everflowing Chalice. The need to leave up 1UU makes Chalice MUCH less effective, as you have to have two real lands untapped after casting your Chalice. A two-mana counter which is not conditional on spell type (e.g. Mana Leak) would be the fix that the doctor ordered.
On 2)
I don't like the space Mind Spring occupies in this deck. It is too mana intensive to draw lots of cards and is terribly inefficient at drawing small numbers of cards. This deck needs a second streamlined draw spell to support Treasure Hunt. A spell like Compulsive Research or Thirst for Knowledge would be excellent.
On 3)
This really isn't a problem as much as a matter of personal preference. Iona is in the deck because she randomly wins games by herself. Sometimes she rots in your hand, that's the risk you take. Jace minimizes the instances of this, but I would understand if anyone felt like cutting the big angel.
I really think that this deck is a single card away from going from good to really good. Replacing Cancel with a counter like Mana Leak, Rune Snag, or something like Prohibit (although it would need to counter CMC 3 stuff in its unkicked state) would allow the deck to rely on a sub-optimal draw suite to find answers, as the countermagic would be far more flexible. Replacing Mind Spring would allow the deck to rely on a combination of Essence Scatter and Negate, while actually drawing them when they were needed with reasonable consistency. Obviously, if both problems were fixed the deck gets even better, but I think if Rise fixes one of the two the deck will get a lot better.
