Monastery Mentor

[gkraigher]

White now has a young pyromancer of its own.  Costs more, but allows for White/Blue design.  Probably not as good as pyromancer because mana cost is one of the most important characteristics that makes a card playable in vintage, but the effect is proven. 


Long live Khans block!

[The Atog Lord]

This card is actually worth considering. First, it triggers more easily than Pyromancer -- such as off Moxen. Second, the Tokens this generates themselves have Prowess. This means that you can very easily win the game with a handful of these tokens. In a way, the damage output multiples your spells from one turn with your spells for the next turn. Now, there is a huge cost when you move from 2 to 3 mana. This card might be unplayable. But it's actually a card that might be awesome.

[Coopes]

White now has a young pyromancer of its own.  Costs more, but allows for White/Blue design.  Probably not as good as pyromancer because mana cost is one of the most important characteristics that makes a card playable in vintage, but the effect is proven. 


Long live Khans block!

It hits off moxen/artifacts/pws though, which is super awesome . i will fool around with this card 100%, love it

[Protoaddict]

White is so very different than red it is so hard to tell. I think the deck that wants this would be less like delver and more like u/w control. More counters, swords for removal, more silver bullets.

White does get stony silence, rest in peace, and a few other gems. If it forsook treasure cruise and played maindeck grave hate it could be a good meta challenging pick.

[diopter]

I'm torn.

On one hand Pyromancer against Shops is a huge bomb because it doesn't cost 3.

On the other hand this card kills way, WAY faster (the tokens have Prowess OMG) and trumps opposing Pyromancer.

Intriguing!!!

[Hrishi]

Wow I love the look of this card. Definitely want to fool around with this. It's worth noting that all the tokens have prowess too, so the clock should be much faster than YP.

[Saya]

This is pretty good.Play with haste-enhancer like Concordant Crossroads to kill opponent swiftly!

[vaughnbros]

If there wasn't enough reason to play white over green in delver builds here you go.  Lateral and horizontal growth in the same card.  The only thing possibly limiting it is its mana cost.

[serracollector]

So does this guy not fit about perfectly in bomberman? Think trinket mage into crypt or lotus cast top tap top to draw cast a cantrip repeat? Not to mention recursion of about anything powers it out too.

[JarofFortune]

Wow, I'm unbelievably happy with how Wizards has handled this block. While obviously insane on its own, think of this card with Hurkyl's recall or Magus of the Future. Definitely a Vintage playable.

And poor Tarmogoyf, how you have fallen.

[fsecco]

I love this guy. The least we can say about him is Talrand is now outclassed entirely. But now decks like LSV's Vintage Super League Dig Through Time Top 4 deck have a much more reliable win con. I mean, for a control deck, this is a much better wincon than Pyromancer.

Loved this card.

[tribet]

2/2 body so it's now time to un-sleeve all your Electrickeries (not even mentioning Prowess).

It doesn't really feel like a new card though so I'm half bitter about the whole thing. But yeah, it's sure great Vintage becomes more like Legacy! 

[MTGFan]

Crazy how good some of these new Human bears are.

Guli's deck has received two shots in the arm in consecutive days. I don't see why you can't just build around these two guys now in a blue or red splashed shell.

[marcb]

I really want to see this guy in a control humans deck with caverns, trinket mage, and skullclamp as a secondary draw engine.

[serracollector]

Bomberman say what?

[marcb]

I didn't want to make the blue angels players feel left out, but yeah. Bomberman is what I was thinking.

[zeus-online]

.

[benk499]

> If there wasn't enough reason to play white over green in delver builds here you go.  Lateral and horizontal growth in the same card.  The only thing possibly limiting it is its mana cost.


That's exactly what I was thinking for it too.  WUR Delver could be pretty sweet.  Or maybe even make it UW and bring in Stongeforge Mystic?

[enderfall]

There is a lot of benefit to playing red beyond young pyromancer such as pyroblast, chewer, bolt, etc. in Delver. I think this would be a great card in non-Delver decks, though. As mentioned, Bomberman and stone forge decks could use this for sure. I'm Not sold on the idea that straight U/W control would be playable even with this card, but Esper decks like Bomberman seem like a natural fit.

[vaughnbros]

I'm Not sold on the idea that straight U/W control would be playable even with this card, but Esper decks like Bomberman seem like a natural fit.

Bomberman is a UW deck, not Esper, and is already playable even without this card.  Two sensei's tops is probably enough to easily get out of hand with this card, and of course after comboing an infinite number of infinite/infinite creatures is pretty silly.

[enderfall]

I'm Not sold on the idea that straight U/W control would be playable even with this card, but Esper decks like Bomberman seem like a natural fit.

Bomberman is a UW deck, not Esper, and is already playable even without this card.  Two sensei's tops is probably enough to easily get out of hand with this card, and of course after comboing an infinite number of infinite/infinite creatures is pretty silly.

How many Bomberman decks don't use DT VT and Will?

[Hrishi]

I'm Not sold on the idea that straight U/W control would be playable even with this card, but Esper decks like Bomberman seem like a natural fit.

Bomberman is a UW deck, not Esper, and is already playable even without this card.  Two sensei's tops is probably enough to easily get out of hand with this card, and of course after comboing an infinite number of infinite/infinite creatures is pretty silly.

How many Bomberman decks don't use DT VT and Will?

I've seen quite a few that are straight U/W, rather than using Esper colors. In fact, I've seen more U/W variants than Esper variants, to tell the truth. I'm no expert on Bomberman, but these are just the decks I've faced.

[msg67183]

I'm Not sold on the idea that straight U/W control would be playable even with this card, but Esper decks like Bomberman seem like a natural fit.

Bomberman is a UW deck, not Esper, and is already playable even without this card.  Two sensei's tops is probably enough to easily get out of hand with this card, and of course after comboing an infinite number of infinite/infinite creatures is pretty silly.

How many Bomberman decks don't use DT VT and Will?

Most of them don't. Most of them are UW Control with the Salvagers combo built in.

[enderfall]

OK fair  enough. Bomberman is unplayable on MTGO so I rarely see any version of the deck.

[mmcgeach]

Wow.  This card is so much more powerful than young pyromancer, and for only 1 more mana. 

Bonkers.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I just wish playsets weren't $80 already   Same for Soulfire Grand Master.  I'd like to wait and hope they drop, but I see them both being stupid good, with Soulfire more of a Modern burn card and this guy being good in all formats, but especially Vintage.

[gkraigher]

never buy into the hype.  both cards will go a lot lower.  standard is the main driver of card prices where no one deck is dominate, so the prices will go down as more product gets opened.  the eternal formats add value to the standard prices as well as stability, but the prices of new cards will always be driven by their play in standard.  

none of my standard playing friends think this card has a home in jeskai, but they are excited for modern and legacy.   as far as soulfire grand master is concerned, the card is great in standard and not very good in other formats.  

i'm in the same boat as you as i will be acquiring at least 1 of each for my french edh decks.  but i wouldn't buy into the hype.  remember $50 dack fayden and $35 temporal mastery?  If they started out at $5-10 range like sphinx's revelation and voice of resurgence, that would be a different story.  

The fade is designed to hurt people.  the main dealers already know what cards are coming, and you can tell (get your tin-foil hats for a conspiracy theory) that the order these cards have been released has been a boon to the people who do pre-sales.  Ugin (which has no standard play) starts at $30-35, then soulfire grand master, now monastery mentor.  There will be a series of 5 mythics, one of each clan (soulfire grand master) and all will be powerful.  It's not possible for everything in an in-print set to have tremendous value because then you have an arbitrage opportunity to buy and open boxes.  Lastly, this set will be opened approximately as much as the other 2 khans sets, because it will he khans-khans-fate then fate-NEXT-NEXT to draft.  AVOID THE FADE!

[coldcrow]

While it has obvious applications in burn lists, I think it will be far stronger in UWx control decks, like Angels or Bomber. For the low price of 2W you get a guy who will turn all the fast mana and control cards into threats and gum up the board vs aggro. This guy is easily on the powerlevel of dack fayden.

[MaximumCDawg]

This seems like the best card in the set so far, but I hesitate to call it better than Pyromancer.  That third mana in the casting cost is a real problem, and Pyromancer was the kind of natural fit for RU that this is not.  RU has access to lots of spells that can be reactive or proactive (burn and dig, primarily) meaning you can power it up easily.  We see this power come home in Delver lists.  Mentor does not come with the same shell attached.

Good?  Yes.  Does she have a home?  No, and I don't think you can just jam this into Angels or Salvagers and call it a day.  This card is possibly harder to find a shell for than Pyromancer.

[vaughnbros]

This seems like the best card in the set so far, but I hesitate to call it better than Pyromancer.  That third mana in the casting cost is a real problem, and Pyromancer was the kind of natural fit for RU that this is not.  RU has access to lots of spells that can be reactive or proactive (burn and dig, primarily) meaning you can power it up easily.  We see this power come home in Delver lists.  Mentor does not come with the same shell attached.

Good?  Yes.  Does she have a home?  No, and I don't think you can just jam this into Angels or Salvagers and call it a day.  This card is possibly harder to find a shell for than Pyromancer.

Not really buying this argument.  Pyromancer took over a year to really fit into delver.  When he was first printed saw next to 0 success even though people were constantly trying to play him, it wasn't until treasure cruise that he took off.  Monastery Mentor is far less restrictive than pyromancer in that it can be any non-creature spell.  I think you'd be crazy to not play him in almost every UWx deck.  Although they may not be the best to abuse him, it will be very powerful in both bomberman and angels.