Brain in a Jar

Artifact

{1}, {T}: Put a charge counter on Brain in a Jar, then you may cast an instant or sorcery card with converted mana cost equal to the number of charge counters on Brain in a Jar from your hand without paying its mana cost.

{3}, {T}, Remove X charge counters from Brain in a Jar: Scry X.

Combos

• Brain in a Jar + Dramatic Reversal

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

wallisface on Cheap Deck Cheap Tricks

2 weeks ago

My current concerns:

• after you cast Amplifire you still need to to survive till your upkeep, and with only 1-toughness this seems like a very hard goal to achieve - particularly as the opponent will still have all of their interaction.

• even if you get to trigger the ability of Amplifire, you’ll only have a 60% chance of making it a 20/20 (as the other 40% of the time you’re hitting another Amplifire). And even then, your opponent can still just block your creature unless you’ve got Artful Dodge in hand - making this a lot of hoops to jump through.

• Brain in a Jar looks super unhelpful here.

Omniscience_is_life on Black LURRUS ETB hand, library, …

2 years ago

You're asking for a sub-three CMC black card that freecasts spells from the GY OR library? That would be a very powerful card indeed!

Brain in a Jar is the closest thing I can find, but Aetherworks Marvel is also good, just maybe for more mana than you're looking for.

acbooster on Chandra Casts Gun

2 years ago

Brain in a Jar nets you almost no value, with Lightning Strike being the only card that would benefit since you have to pay a mana into it to get the effect. Wild Slash requires a lot of legwork to get the useful part of the effect, which is the unpreventable damage.

Bonecrusher Giant , Skullcrack , and Insult / Injury are better includes than Wild Slash, if only because it's a guaranteed 'damage can't be prevented' effect as well as damage. As for walkers, Chandra, Torch of Defiance would likely do better than Chandra, Flame's Catalyst . Comes out earlier, has a mana ability, and is strong creature spot removal in a pinch. Burning for face is important, but you definitely need to keep your opponent's board state in check at the same time.

Chats on When Hel freezes over (27/12/22 major update)

3 years ago

Phion

Brain in a Jar will probably be taken out.

Agh so many tough decisions. Trying to capture:

1.Token Swarm 2.Control (tapping creatures, bouncing creatures) 3.Graveyard tricks

Phion on When Hel freezes over (27/12/22 major update)

3 years ago

Chats the only 2 cuts I think you should perhaps reconsider are Discovery / Dispersal (early game this card can dig in your deck a bit to help find land while also supplying your grave with cards for Empty the Pits + Rise from the Tides . In addition the second half is decent late game to bounce peoples higher costed cards) and Forbidden Alchemy (fills up your grave again while also helping you find the card you need, can cast again with flashback instant speed).

In terms of cuts I think Brain in a Jar and Diregraf Colossus are on the chopping block simply because unless they are played early game the deck does not feel the benefit when they are drawn.

enpc on Card costs, Land mana calculation …

3 years ago

If you're cracking any sort of fetchland to get a basic (barring a few special ones), it's important to remember thath the fetchland is only going to get one land. So it turns into something that could tap for white OR green OR blue, but not all three (fetches that get duals are better for this reason).

The things I would be paying attention to are hard costs (i.e. things that have double or triple of one mana colour) in them and then using that to dictate how many lands that tap for multiple colours you will need.

For split cards, the casting cost of Dusk is 4, however the overall cost of the card is 9. This is an important distiction. there was a Modern (I think) deck that used Brain in a Jar to abuse split cards so that you could pick the one with the cheaper mana cost but cast the one with the more expensive cost under the old rulings. So the rulings were changes which effectively killed the deck, but makes split cards less ambigous.

MagicMarc on What mad science am I …

3 years ago

In case you have not seen these. Here are a couple in a "Frankenstein's Monster" kind of theme.

Brain in a Jar, Scour the Laboratory, Amass the Components, Alchemist's Apprentice. Including the Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde card as well; Civilized Scholar  ^Flip.

And, in case you wanted to see the lineup for the Delver of Secrets  ^Flip series, you can see all three here: Once It Was Human.

I am a fan of mad scientist decks, have fun building your deck.

KorandAngels on Most Powerful Creature Type

4 years ago

Eventually, once things get to earth-shattering sizes, their normal-sized enemies can just walk inside of them or something and kill them that way.

---

Anyway My choice: I don't really know what I'm voting for. I would say La'Ayiv, but he's my fan character and isn't real. So I would say that the most powerful magic character is Gleemax and thus the most powerful race are the Brain in a Jars.