Can we answer a Mentor?

[Protoaddict]

Are lock pieces not the best answer to mentor? I cannot help but feel shops is best suited to beat mentors simply by getting spheres online because it slows down the mentor and all the spells you need to cast to make mentor go off. Maybe its time for main deck witchbane orbs to stop hyurkls?

[Stormanimagus]

Are lock pieces not the best answer to mentor? I cannot help but feel shops is best suited to beat mentors simply by getting spheres online because it slows down the mentor and all the spells you need to cast to make mentor go off. Maybe its time for main deck witchbane orbs to stop hyurkls?

I've been using a concert of tabernacle (tutorable with knight of the reliquary), Eidolon of Rhetoric, Thalia, and Abrupt Decay to deal with the mentor menace and it is working pretty well for my GWB Human Knight list. Just pointing out that hate can come from many different angles.

-Storm

[mmcgeach]

I swear I'm gonna use Slaughter Games against mentor in a grixis shell.

[desolutionist]

I swear I'm gonna use Slaughter Games against mentor in a grixis shell.

That's ridiculous... In Grixis, you just win the game with Gifts Ungiven at 4 mana.... Not modern fringe cards to "cranial extract" a 3 mana 2/2.

[mmcgeach]

I swear I'm gonna use Slaughter Games against mentor in a grixis shell.

That's ridiculous... In Grixis, you just win the game with Gifts Ungiven at 4 mana.... Not modern fringe cards to "cranial extract" a 3 mana 2/2.

Eh, maybe.  I do love me some jank.  But uncounterability is pretty good in some metas, and against some of these delver-like lists with 14+ counterspells.

You're right, tho.  It's hard to find the stuff to cut out of otherwise competitive lists to make room for narrow answers to mentors.  :/  I sort of wish there were answers that were also good against the field.  I'm leaning toward a couple versatile spot removal cards (swords, lightning bolt, abrupt decay) backed up with a couple sweepers (toxic deluge, supreme verdict) depending on what fits the build.

[desolutionist]

I mean there are going to be times that your opponent has a Mentor but not much else... A Mentor is not that scary if he doesn't have some cantrips to go with it.  So being able to answer it with Bolt, Decay, Swords, etc. might be all you need especially if your deck has good cards itself (Tasigur combo, Gifts, Jace, Tinker, Will, etc.)

[Zieby]

Thats been a long time i was here, but I really would like to mention the following cards.

Balance - Clears the board and when played correct, can give you a pseudo Mind Twist and Armagedon.
Old man of the Sea - The cards for taking over Monk where mentioned in the beginning of this topic, but this one was missing. A old favorit of mine when surging for these solutions (played it in Almost Bleu against Fish)

Greetz

[orgcandman]

Thats been a long time i was here, but I really would like to mention the following cards.

Balance - Clears the board and when played correct, can give you a pseudo Mind Twist and Armagedon.
Old man of the Sea - The cards for taking over Monk where mentioned in the beginning of this topic, but this one was missing. A old favorit of mine when surging for these solutions (played it in Almost Bleu against Fish)

Greetz

FYI, old man is an awful "answer" to Mentor. I'll let the oracle tell you why.

[Zieby]

Thats been a long time i was here, but I really would like to mention the following cards.

Balance - Clears the board and when played correct, can give you a pseudo Mind Twist and Armagedon.
Old man of the Sea - The cards for taking over Monk where mentioned in the beginning of this topic, but this one was missing. A old favorit of mine when surging for these solutions (played it in Almost Bleu against Fish)

Greetz

FYI, old man is an awful "answer" to Mentor. I'll let the oracle tell you why.

Yes indeed, I should read read the card a little better.
As mentioned, it is been a while that I have played a game and I made the comment from memmory (its over 2 years that i have played a game or where active on this site).

[Ten-Ten]

Has anybody tried blasphemous act against mentor?

[diophan]

Has anybody tried blasphemous act against mentor?

Unless in a mentor/pyromancer mirror I have basically never made more than 4 tokens, since you might as well save your spells until the next turn to trigger prowess, so I can't imagine this is worth it.

[Guli]

Has anybody tried blasphemous act against mentor?

Don't forget to add Soulfire for life gain

[gkraigher]

as a mud player, i have decided to shift my build and include steel hellkites main again.  When I saw mentor, I panic bought 2 tabernacles for the sideboard.  But that is all i've got working for me.  I guess I could add a couple of ratchet bombs to the board as well, but man, as a shops player this card scares me.  

It scares me because I have no real way of killing it.  This card makes Triskelion look terrible, which is a shame because Trik was one of the best ways to beat the Dack Fayden/Pyromancer decks.  And the fact that Mentor decks easly slide in Serenity scares me even more.  

Unless I get some new toys that can interact with all these token makers, I might be switching to dredge at Worlds this year.

[Chubby Rain]

as a mud player, i have decided to shift my build and include steel hellkites main again.  When I saw mentor, I panic bought 2 tabernacles for the sideboard.  But that is all i've got working for me.  I guess I could add a couple of ratchet bombs to the board as well, but man, as a shops player this card scares me. 

It scares me because I have no real way of killing it.  This card makes Triskelion look terrible.  Which is a shame because Trik was one of the best ways to beat the Dack Fayden/Pyromancer decks.  And the fact that Mentor decks easly slide in Serenity scares me even more. 

I might have to switch to dredge at Worlds this year. 

If only White didn't also have the best Dredge hate in Rest in Peace and Containment Priest...

[gkraigher]

white is the sideboard color.  It basically has all the best sideboard cards except for ReB and pyroblast

[vaughnbros]

white is the sideboard color.  It basically has all the best sideboard cards except for ReB and pyroblast

Ingot chewer?  Red is certainly on par with white for sideboard cards.

[gkraigher]

Serenity > ingot chewer.

White has the best of breed sideboard cards.

Now back to mentor....

I guess I could run portcullis and man lands. 

[Phele]

Serenity > ingot chewer.

I wouldn't agree with this. Serenity is terrific if it resolves and you stay alive for one turn. But Ingot Chewer is the best way in the Shops matchup to reach a point where you can play bombs like Serenity. I think, you can't compare Chewer and Serenity. Pure UW builds also need efficent answers like Chewer as well to support Serenity. There are cards that fulfill this role like Explosives, StP or Steel Sabotage, but they are not as good as Chewer in what it is doing against Shops.

[tribet]

Abolish may be slightly closer to Chewer then. Still quite expensive & loosing lands is not really the idea against MUD. Saying that if you Mentor.deck runs Gush, why not as a 2-off?

Real closest would then be Divine Offering & better would be Disenchant. Both dodge 80% of Chalice & Tangle Wire but cost 2 and run into Thorn... Yeah Chewer is quite good!

[desolutionist]

Serenity > ingot chewer.

White has the best of breed sideboard cards.

Now back to mentor....

I guess I could run portcullis and man lands. 

Thats funny because in the other thread (from the Mentors perspective) they were claiming they had to play either green or red to deal with Shops.

Jeff, if you load up on Spheres they cant really make tokens.

[sirgog]

Abolish may be slightly closer to Chewer then. Still quite expensive & loosing lands is not really the idea against MUD. Saying that if you Mentor.deck runs Gush, why not as a 2-off?

Real closest would then be Divine Offering & better would be Disenchant. Both dodge 80% of Chalice & Tangle Wire but cost 2 and run into Thorn... Yeah Chewer is quite good!

I don't like Abolish now. Used to love the card, then, fetchlands became hegemonic in manabases.

Nothing sucks quite as much as having Abolish in hand, having enough mana to pay for all the Spheres, but your hand has a Flooded Strand, not a Tundra, and so the Lodestone Golem kills you and your family.

[nyghtrunner]

Just a quick note: you can either get Young Pyromancer and Delver OR the tokens. The tokens are Elementals and the Pyromancer and Delver are Humans (Shaman and Wizard/Insect, respectively.) I love Engineered Plague, but it's better against Mentor and a bunch of tokens than pyromancer and a bunch of tokens.

The Monk tokens are also not human so if the Mentor deck is running other Humans or Pyromancer, it doesn't hit them.

Good point. For some reason, I was thinking Night of Soul's Betrayal's effect, in that it was just all critters or something. Too many cards. Too long playing casual.

That's a lot narrower than I was thinking, despite still being somewhat decent. I assume Night of Soul's would probably not work that well. {B} is a pretty rough mana cost for something that wouldn't just win the game when it hit. I do wonder if it might not be a slightly better answer than Moat in the abstract, though, since it would kill actually things, rather than just slow them down while they build their army looking for an answer.

[John Cox]

I think this would be worth trying (especially in oath) or as splash against other decks.

[Naixin]

I think this would be a good time to revisit how to answer mentor due to recent metagame changes. Because Chalice is no longer there to keep Moxes in check, mentor decks can now afford to jam 4 Mentor and MoxSolCrypt and wreck havoc.

So far i've been using moat in my SB. I want to test Ghostly Prison, Supreme Verdict, Sudden Shock, or Balance.

I currently play bomberman. Any other answers?

[Protoaddict]

Does mentor run anything to stop supreme verdict? I guess venser could stop it but you really do not see him see play that often if at all. Meddling mage is an answer to everything too, but he just feels too weak right now without umpteen counters to back it.

There are a number of wraths that will kill everything, the real trick is resolving it against mentor.

[ben_berry]

I think this would be worth trying (especially in oath) or as splash against other decks.

I know it's been a while but I didn't see when this was posted. I came across this as well looking for anti token tech. Tokens aren't cards so they don't phase out.

[dangerlinto]

Does mentor run anything to stop supreme verdict? I guess venser could stop it but you really do not see him see play that often if at all. Meddling mage is an answer to everything too, but he just feels too weak right now without umpteen counters to back it.

There are a number of wraths that will kill everything, the real trick is resolving it against mentor.

The problem with supreme verdict is that if your are on those colors, you are probably playing mentor as well.

Illness in the Ranks is currently the go-to card in many lists

[Islandswamp]

Does mentor run anything to stop supreme verdict? I guess venser could stop it but you really do not see him see play that often if at all. Meddling mage is an answer to everything too, but he just feels too weak right now without umpteen counters to back it.

There are a number of wraths that will kill everything, the real trick is resolving it against mentor.

The problem with supreme verdict is that if your are on those colors, you are probably playing mentor as well.

Illness in the Ranks is currently the go-to card in many lists

LSV ran Supreme Verdict in his Mentor list a long time ago, and I've seen other people do it too. Sometimes people just get their Mentor resolved first, be it with Cavern or a better combination of countermagic to help it resolve. Verdict gives you a one-shot panic button. If you're not running mentor, but playing those colors, it is a potential option.

It's been a while since I was playing Grixis Therapy or Delver, but cards I used against Mentor were Sulfur Elemental, Dread of Night, Swords to Plowshares, and even Lightning Bolt.

Bolt in theory has a tough time killing a Mentor. The trick that I always tried to employ was this: If I sensed or otherwise knew a Mentor was on the horizon, I just tried to stockpile as much countermagic as I could. I'd fight over Mentor as much as I humanly could, ideally with a combination of Force of Will AND Flusterstorm. If you're successful, problem solved If you aren't, there's a really good chance that they've spent enough cards out of their hand that they can't get value out of Mentor immediately, or they don't have enough to grow it beyond 3 toughness so Bolt will kill it.

Granted, this plan won't always work, but as a general guideline it has served me well. I should point out that even one Monk token can be dangerous. I've won several games with just one prowess token coming in for two or three each turn. That means that killing Mentor might not be enough if they do manage to get at least one trigger from it.

Good luck killing Monks. 

[Aaron Patten]

I think this would be worth trying (especially in oath) or as splash against other decks.

I know it's been a while but I didn't see when this was posted. I came across this as well looking for anti token tech. Tokens aren't cards so they don't phase out.

The monk phases back in on their turn with "haste" anyway.  You could also think about Bazaar of Wonders or just Leyline of Singularity but I think Engineered Plague or something makes more sense.  Of course mentor decks always have the counter/bolt/answer because the whole deck is cantrips and counters so resolving anything other than supreme verdict seems like a pointless endeavor to attempt.  

[Naixin]

Any love for Izzet Statticaster? It answers both mentor and pyromancer tokens and can be jammed out with cavern of souls. Also has flash