We got a pretty good turnout of around 25 players to our most recent Vintage tournament in the Bay Area, and the main thing for me was trying to decide what to play in the final VSL trimester. I was far more concerned with that than actually performing well in this tournament. Oddly enough, I think that made it easier to play well in this tournament, as I felt less pressure and was probably more relaxed.
I played a Mentor deck that I thought was just absolutely busted in the VSL weeks 4-6 (one which I shared with Dave Williams - who made some personalized tweaks). The Mentor deck I played felt just so good that I told friends and teammates that I thought this would be the deck that gets Dig restricted, after Delver got Treasure Cruise restricted. It just reminds me so much of the most busted decks in Vintage history. Mentor is like a modern day Psychatog.
I got to test the deck a bit before the VSL, having just designed it, but clearly not enough. Although I modeled the Mentor deck for the VSL on my Delver list, there are a few areas in which it plays differently. Going 0-3 in the VSL was more than disheartening, but watching the matchups over again - and seeing not only the places where I could have played differently and won, but the numerous deep and complex intersections of such plays - emboldened me that this was a worth deck continuing to play and leveling up with.
Maybe my gut was wrong and my testing and perception of the deck was just wrong. Maybe it was something that was really awful despite everything my experience was telling me. The only way to know would be to play it in a real tournament. But there were clearly issues I wanted to solve.
After a totally devastating loss to Tom Martell in the VSL, and after more testing and rewatching my match against LSV probably 10 times, and after discussion with Kevin and some teammates, I ultimately came to the realization that what I really wanted was some Pyromancers. This conclusion rested largely on two key understandings.
First, I needed more permanents. If your opponent lets all of your spells resolve, one thing that can happen with the critical Turn 3 Gush is that you draw beyond your hand size limit. I talk about this in more detail in my Delver Primer, but the way that happens is as follows:
Turn 1: Land (6 cards in hand on the play, 7 cards in hand on the draw)
Turn 2: Land (6 cards in hand on the play, 7 on the draw)
Turn 3: Float mana, Gush. Replay a land. Now you have as many as TEN or ELEVEN cards in hand.
Even if you just have 8, you will have to discard a card.
This is a critical play for the Gush pilot. Generating the third land drop through turn three gush is a general imperative. Dack is a permanent, but Dack and 4 Mentor wasn't enough. My last Delver list had 2 Trygon, 3 Delver and 4 Pyromancer - that's 9 permanents.
I decided my deck needed more permanents.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, I found myself often wishing that times I had Mentor that it was a Pyromancer. Not in every matchup, but in a few.
One of the reasons I play Delver as a control deck is that playing Pyromancers and Delvers don't inhibit my ability to maximize my countermagic production. That's because, in the scenario sequenced above, I can keep a Pyroblast/Flusterstorm live AND cast Pyromancer.
T1: Land
T2: Land
T3: Gush, replay a Land, cast Pyromancer
In testing, against Grixis decks and a few other decks, I often found myself wanting a Pyromancer. But as we saw against Merfolk, for example, I just needed more firepower.
People misunderstand the role of Delver in Delver. As I play that archetype, Delver is not there as a pure aggro card. Rather, I use Delver for its matchup role flexibility. In matchups like Merfolk or Workshops, Delver is an important threat. In other matchups, it's not - it's used to filter (with it's peek ability) or to pitch to Force.
In any case, I felt that I needed a bit more permanent based threat density. Not because this deck can't win The Deck style with just a few win conditions - but because that's not optimal for the full range of matches in the format. It's the same reason I played Delver despite everyone saying "it's the worst card in that deck." They just don't understand it's specific function.
That led me to this design approach, which is just a few cards off from my 2nd Trimester VSL list:
1st Place: Stephen Menendian
"Mentor Control"
3 Monastery Mentor
3 Young Pyromancer
4 Mental Misstep
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
2 Pyroblast
1 Misdirection
2 Dack Fayden
4 Preordain
4 Gush
1 Treasure Cruise
4 Dig Through Time
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Swords to Plowshares
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Lotus Petal
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
1 Island
Sideboard:
1 Stony Silence
1 Mountain
4 Ingot Chewer
3 Shattering Spree
1 Pyroblast
4 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Wear/Tear
A few notes are in order.
First of all, the main thing I couldn't settle on before the tournament was whether to run 3 Dig and 2 Misd or 4 Dig and 1 Misd. Misdirection is better on turns 1-2, and Dig is usually better after that, and much, much better later in the game. Misdirection is better here than in Delver because Mentor is more likely to be Forced than Pyromancer - making Misdirection function more like a Force of Will. I ended up playing 4/1, but ended up changing that for the VSL.
Second, Dack Fayden is much more powerful in Mentor decks than in any Delver deck I've ever played. In Delver, Dack is obviously a strong card, but in a Mentor deck, it can make Mentor lethal. Gush into a Dack activation is usually enough to win this turn or next with a Mentor in play. That makes Dack so much more powerful here than in Delver. I actually would consider a 3rd Dack over a Pyromancer.
Third, and most importantly, the main concern I've had about playing Mentor over RUG is the Workshop matchup. Ancient Grudge is arguably the best anti-Workshop tactic in existence, and, in my experience, Trygon Predator is just much better - as a general matter- against Shops than Dack (although I know there happens to be a range of opinion on this point - having alot of experience with both - I believe Trygon is soundly more devastating to Shops).
Over and over again I was having trouble with Shops. I knew I'd play 4 Ingot Chewer, but couldn't figure out the rest of the configuration. After beating my head against the wall, Shattering Spree proved itself to be fantastic. What finally made me go all in on Shat Spree was a game in which I wanted to Mystical Tutor for another, but didnt have a 2nd in my Sideboard. Had I had one, I would have been able to Shattering Spree destroying a Trinisphere and a Lodestone Golem.
With this specific Shop plan:
+ 4 Chewer
+ 3 Shat Spree
+ 1 Mountain
+ 1 Wear/Tear
All 8 of my anti-Shop tactics answer Chalice @1, which is super nice.
I finally felt as confident in my Shops matchup with THIS deck as I had with Delver.
Finally, I moved outside of my comfort zone by trying to accommodate myself too much to Mentor rather than the other way around. As described in my Delver primer, the key priority for me is being able to play both roles simultaneously. In order to enact and maintain a strong control role, I need to maximize my virtual card advantage - which means having a lower than usual mana count. Mentor pushes the mana count upward. By reconfiguring to a Mentor/Pyro split, this becomes less of a problem. Relatedly, I turned my Mox Pearl into Lotus Petal. I'd say Petal is as good or better roughly 75% of the time. The bonus is that it feeds Dig sooner, so that helps any ties.
Tom Andrews came to the tournament armed with my VSL Mentor list - he played the exact 60 maindeck with 13 of the 15 sideboard cards the same. Unfortunately, I lost some interesting games to him and had to squeeze into the Top 8 as the last seed.
Decklists here:
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=47498.0In the Top 8 I had to defeat Eric Campusano, then an interesting Mentor Mirror against Joe Barthall, and then the finals against Shops. Eric was playing a typical Grixis deck, which my deck preys on, but he is a very good player, so I had to be on my toes.
Joe Barthall had lots of interesting technology, including Back to Basics, which I wasn't sure he'd bring in against me. But I sideboarded in my Mountain and a Shattering Spree for his artifacts, just in case, after losing to Jitte & Batterskull in Game 2.
Game 3 of the finals was decided simply by my overwhelming amounts of hate. I found 3 Chewers before my first Shattering Spree, but Shattering Spree and Dack ended the game.
For the VSL, I also tweaked the ratios to 4 Mentor and 2 Pyro, but I had no reason to do that except that I felt that, if Rich was playing Delver, the 4th Mentor was better than the 3rd Pyromancer.
I wholeheartedly believe in this deck. I look back at Delver, and am amazing just how superior this deck is, while constructed on many of the same core principles. Plow isn't always better than Bolt (especially against Jace/Dack), but it's far superior against Mentor, and it's really nice to be able to throw Plows at BSCs and large artifact creatures like Forgemaster or even a Dark Depths token.
I've said this to my teammates, but I believe that in terms of pure power level alone, this is one of the great Vintage decks of the metagame, and perhaps even all time (I doubt that 2003 GroAtog could beat this easily, despite having a better Gushbond engine, because of the inferior countermagic, despite having 4 Brainstorm/Scroll). I'm not saying this is unbeatable or anything like that - none of the Vintage decks of the past, like GroAtog or Meandeck Gifts were.
But, it has a solid plan for every key matchups (if you want to fight Dredge more, add Containment Priests, etc). Going out on a limb, I wouldn't at all be surprised if we see this archetype pushing Dig closer and closer to restriction, eventually. But, in the short term, I think this is an excellent choice for people who enjoy playing Delver type decks, but want to transition to something not only more powerful, but that will test their skills and abilities beyond their existing limits. That's certainly been the case for me.
