Can we answer a Mentor?

[mmcgeach]

I've so far been impressed with the number of things that don't adequately deal with an opposing monastery mentor. One-for-one spot removal doesn't really work.  Dread of Night seems too narrow.  I've even landed chalice@1 and had my opponent throw 5 spells into the chalice just for mentor triggers.  I mean, spells don't even have to resolve. I think basically, there's a small list of things that stop the mentor at <= 4 mana, and most of them are board wipes.


Option 1: Stop the Mentor.

They can be cast turn 1, and they can be cast off cavern of souls.  So I'd like to focus on answers that a) are 4 or less CMC, and b) aren't counterspells.

1. Toxic Deluge.  It's CMC 3.  Although you may have to pay several extra life, it seems like 5 would pretty much assure it wipes the board.
2. Supreme Verdict.  CMC 4.  Although there are many board wipes for 4-mana, I think this is probably the most playable since its uncounterable, although the casting cost is hard to accelerate into. But, wait for it, ...it pitches to force.
3. Moat. CMC 4.  Probably better than Humilty and The Abyss and friends, in some ways worse than just a wrath; in some ways better?
4. I know I'm missing something...

Narrow Answers: eg, sudden shock, dread of night, virtue's ruin, glissa the traitor, IDK what, but I'm not sure how many of these could have additional value in the format.

Expensive Answers: Elesh Norn seems like the best one of these, but at this mana cost there's probably at least a few things that stop an ever-expanding army of prowess dudes.  But outside of archetypes like Oath, I'm not sure if these are super relevant.  Pernicious Deed is interesting since it splits the 6 mana up across two turns; but still seems slow.  Also, I'd love to see a kicked Molten Disaster resolve in vintage at some point, but thats 2RRR, which again seems slow.  Maybe miracles?  Terminus and Bonfire do it cheap if you can miracle them; but Miracles doesn't work so well in vintage because mystical tutor and brainstorm are restricted.


Option 2: Race the Mentor.

Mentor kills in 2 or 3 turns, and realistically is only likely to come down on turn 2, with turn 1 being pretty rare.  So any other combo deck that reliably wins on turn 3 should be a safe option against a mentor deck.  This includes stuff like: oath, doomsday, storm, some gifts decks.  I can't really imagine some kind of creature strategy that could race Mentor, and planeswalkers are useless.  Tinker->Robot doesn't seem effective if the opponent has a free and growing bunch of blockers; but maybe blightsteel races Mentor ok?  Still, tinker is restricted.


Option 3: If you can't beat them, join them.

We could all just play 4 mentors, and then each match would be decided by who resolved the first mentor!   I hope this is where the meta game is going!


Help me out here...  How do I stop this guy?


A complete list:

Spot removal (1-for-1)
abrupt decay
sudden shock
lightning bolt
swords to plowshares
dead weight
deathmark

Sweepers
balance
toxic deluge
pyroclasm
supreme verdict
terminus
massacre
virtue's ruin
massacre wurm
elesh norn
devastation tide
starstorm
nevinyrral's disk
aether flash
sulfur elemental

Speed Bumps
Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
ghostly prison
propaganda
moat
peacekeeper
silent arbiter
orim's chant
angel's grace
fog
sphinx of the steel wind
illness in the ranks
dread of night
leyline of singularity
wing shards
echoing truth
engineered explosives

Pro-Active Answers
meddling mage
surgical extraction / extirpate

[serracollector]

Tabernacle at pendrell vale works very well as does propaganda for at least slowing the beast til you find your own win condition. Any card that allows only one creature to attack per turn is also good. It may seem a lil funny to some but Fog effects could also be viable in a Mentor meta giving you a crucial turn. Also something as silly as Control Magic or Threads of Disloyalty could be really good versus Mentor. Just some thoughts of mine.

[desolutionist]

Dead Weight might be the cheapest solution to Mentor.  I vote it superior to Deathmark since it can also kill Dark Confidant, Delver, and Pyromancer.

Dead Weight has been pauper sideboard tech for years. The idea was to bring it in vs. Infect because they could just dodge instant speed removal with pump spells. Dead Weight lingers on and the creature does immediately the next turn.  There might be a better version of this as uncommon/rare

[mmcgeach]

I've been using Swords to Plowshares, which is better than Dead Weight (although, thanks for pointing that card out), it's just that Swords is a) unlikely to resolve and b) leaves behind several dangerous tokens.  Spot removal hasn't really worked for me.

I used to run tabernacle and propaganda in MonoBlueControl vs. pyromancer, and it was generally insufficient to survive for very long.  I guess MBC lacks a strong wincon; but I was pretty unimpressed with the degree to which either slowed down pyromancer tokens.  I think if I was in UB, I'd probably rather have toxic deluge than propaganda, for the same mana cost...  I think it bares mentioning that tabernacle and propaganda were actually better vs. pyromancer decks that only ran 18 total mana sources, than they are/will be against mentor decks that run 22-23 mana sources.

[Commandant]

Do people really consider Sudden Shock a narrow answer? It still domes and how many X/2's are there in the format worth killing?

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Do people really consider Sudden Shock a narrow answer? It still domes and how many X/2's are there in the format worth killing?

I loved running 3-4 sudden shock in my RW hate and it wasn't as narrow as people think.

[Smmenen]

Elesh Norn 

[tribet]

Massacre Wurm FTW!

I used to sometimes side them in Oath (swapping the Grisel out) when playing against fish, warrens and dredge!
It's cheaper to hardcast and giving them Orchard tokens just to blow them out later is icing on the cake!

[desolutionist]

Massacre Wurm FTW!

I used to sometimes side them in Oath (swapping the Grisel out) when playing against fish, warrens and dredge!
It's cheaper to hardcast and giving them Orchard tokens just to blow them out later is icing on the cake!

I actually considered this card to be a possible foil to Mentor and hate bears for a Ritual deck.  It's better than Thrashing Wumpus in a lot of ways.

[tribet]

Yep Massacre Wurm in Ritual Oath in 2012!. Worked fine.

[boggyb]

Abrupt Decay and BUG Control/Tempo decks in general are natural predators to Mentor strategies.

To win: Hold up Decay forever; stick a bunch of dudes; beat them down as they durdle with tops and cantrips; repeat.

[Chubby Rain]

Abrupt Decay and BUG Control/Tempo decks in general are natural predators to Mentor strategies.

To win: Hold up Decay forever; stick a bunch of dudes; beat them down as they durdle with tops and cantrips; repeat.

Interesting. Delver decks all but pushed BUG control/tempo from the metagame and Mentor decks seem to employ a lot of similar strategies. In any case, holding up Decay seems like it inhibits your ability to advance your game plan while sticking a bunch of dudes seems idealistic in the face of Missteps, Forces, and Swords/Bolts. Oh, and a bunch of Mentor decks are running Misdirection as a free counter to Abrupt decay. If your testing is different, I would defer to that but this is my initial impression.

[Protoaddict]

Ghostly Prison and Propaganda are really quite good and slot into a many decks. Propaganda obviously pitches to force but they are also very strong against dredge if you land them early, can really slow down shops, I think has a lot of value in the mirror, etc, likely not dead cards unless your matched against storm.

[MaximumCDawg]

I'm thinking Deluge or Moat are your best answers.  Nothing else that has been suggested can stop Mentor before it drops (Moat only), after it drops, and after it has babies.  Propoganda effects are just roadblocks, because the Mentor player now can choose to swarm you or to pump.  I mean, so you drop prop.  He attacks with one creature after pumping it twice, and now he's got even more dudes.  If he cant pump, he just spends the cash mana swarming.  I suspect you want to do more than just slow him down, given Mentor is probably in a control shell anyway and is quite content to slow roll if it means you're giving up a whole turn to play Prop.

[tribet]

I've always been a big fan of Upheaval effects and Devastation Tide has been one of my favourite tech lately in Vintage (don't worry, I still haven't broken the card so it is borderline becoming a private a joke now). Echoing Truth may still be the most versatile bounce available around.

Fog effects have already been listed but maybe Orim's Chant & Angel's Grace effects should have a small mention as well (especially in the UW mirrors).

[diopter]

Sphinx of the Steel Wind with protection from Swords via Missteps is a fine trump, but it requires a deck intensely dedicated to doing that.

[dragzz]

Illness in the Ranks has potential - kills all the baby monks and elementals. Plus it deals with sprit tokens, potentially saving you from Oath. If you get 2 in play it also deals with dredge.

Doesn't kill mentor, but a 2/2 prowess is easier to deal with, than a swarm of monks.

[John Cox]

I think the main issue is that anything that hits mentor has to do something else as well to be worth putting in the main deck. Or even the sideboard.

[serracollector]

I have recently been coming to the same conclusion of adding one or two maindeck Orims Chants to my Mentor builds as an offensive and defensive card. It can double up as a Timewalk affect or Fog to let you live another turn. I am ofc assuming said build is running its own Missteps to for protection.

[desolutionist]

nevinyrral's disk could work honestly... Its probably going to take their mana out with it and youd have to be careful yourself running out your moxes

[p3temangus]

Both cards are board sweepers, but Massacre and Starstorm both come to mind.  If you are on Black, Massacre would likely be free Vs  a Mentor deck and despite sorcery speed, free is always nice.  Starstorm could fit in workshop type decks where double red is hardly un-realistic and they can easily pump it up to 2 if via ancient tomb.  Starstorm also cycles, for the rare occasion where that may come in handy. 

[ben_berry]

I've been trying Leyline of Singularity.

[Wagner]

I've been trying Leyline of Singularity.

Seems about on par with Illness in the ranks, but also works sorta ok against Dredge. Any other uses?

[Ten-Ten]

If a deck is heavy in red, Aether Flash is great.
Also, Desolation Giant, maybe.
Sudden shock is actually pretty good though.

Either way, like stated before, combo and Oath decks seem best positioned as it is now to beat Mentor decks. Imho.

[youhavenogame]

Abrupt Decay and BUG Control/Tempo decks in general are natural predators to Mentor strategies.

To win: Hold up Decay forever; stick a bunch of dudes; beat them down as they durdle with tops and cantrips; repeat.

Interesting. Delver decks all but pushed BUG control/tempo from the metagame and Mentor decks seem to employ a lot of similar strategies. In any case, holding up Decay seems like it inhibits your ability to advance your game plan while sticking a bunch of dudes seems idealistic in the face of Missteps, Forces, and Swords/Bolts. Oh, and a bunch of Mentor decks are running Misdirection as a free counter to Abrupt decay. If your testing is different, I would defer to that but this is my initial impression.

Our Tasigur BUG fared well so far against Mentor decks. That said, the term "Mentor deck" is quite loose. Most Mentor Shells we have beaten so far were closer to Grixis than to Delver. Thanks to DRS and Co. we were able to build up a board way quicker than they were, so we never were in the need to keep up Decay unless we already had a well established board anyway.
I expect the matchup against Mentor builds closer to Delver a harder matchup, but so far they don't run any threat but mentor, so there is a bit less pressure and less ways to win off a 3/2 flyer that you just don't happen to have an answer against. It's not that bad for BUG if games go a bit longer, they just shouldn't go too long. 

[mmcgeach]

Two answers I saw mentioned in other threads are : Wing Shards, and Peacekeeper.  Wing Shards is kind of an amusing foil to prowess; although for 1 more mana Supreme Verdict is harder to counter and kills all the tokens that were just generated that turn.  Peacekeeper is pretty amusing, but vulnerable.

Also Balance is a good sweeper, but really requires a particular sort of deck.

[boggyb]

Abrupt Decay and BUG Control/Tempo decks in general are natural predators to Mentor strategies.

To win: Hold up Decay forever; stick a bunch of dudes; beat them down as they durdle with tops and cantrips; repeat.

Interesting. Delver decks all but pushed BUG control/tempo from the metagame and Mentor decks seem to employ a lot of similar strategies. In any case, holding up Decay seems like it inhibits your ability to advance your game plan while sticking a bunch of dudes seems idealistic in the face of Missteps, Forces, and Swords/Bolts. Oh, and a bunch of Mentor decks are running Misdirection as a free counter to Abrupt decay. If your testing is different, I would defer to that but this is my initial impression.

Yeah I mean you don't literally hold it up forever, I was trying to be a bit tongue in cheek. But basically, cards that are good against most "fast" Mentor decks I've seen:
• Abrupt Decay
• Wasteland
• Deathrite Shaman
• Thoughtseize
• Dark Confidant
• Null Rod
• Tarmogoyf is okay

I mean you still have to play tight to win -- you hold up Decay when you're ahead, which is pretty easy to achieve since BUGish decks are usually a turn or two faster to the board than a Mentor deck is. Generally speaking I think board presence/control tempo decks are good trumps to mana-hungry durdley mid-game blue strategies since they punish you so hard for spending your time Preordaining/Topping/Gushing and have the tools to effect a pretty good mana denial game. That said though of course it's case by case -- we're not even discussing specific decklists -- I just want to highlight a general strategic line that is worth exploring.

[mini1337s]

I've been playing a lot of Mentor lately and the hardest thing to beat is Shops on the play. Turn 1 Sphere is brutal and it's all downhill from there.
I'm using Supreme Verdict for the mirror. I wouldn't put much stock in Moat as Mentor lists generally run Wear / Tear. Swords is good, but you need to prepare for 3-4 Misstep.
Tabernacle seems interesting as the Mentor lists don't generally run Wasteland. That said, 2-3 Monks are still going to get there and I'd be happy to tap out for them.

[ben_berry]

I've been trying Leyline of Singularity.

Seems about on par with Illness in the ranks, but also works sorta ok against Dredge. Any other uses?

Well Shops can only put one of each sphere on the board and metamorph is two life to copy a factory. I haven't seen how limiting it would be for Acendency.

[EyeOfTheStorm]

One option I haven't seen listed is Sulfur Elemental. Doesn't answer the Mentor (it actually makes it worse!) but it does wipe all the tokens, uncounterably at instant speed while leaving behind a decent body that even trades with the Mentor unless they've played three spells.