Can we answer a Mentor?

[Wagner]

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

But it doesn't work if they have cast a single spell that turn. For something that costs 3, Slice and Dice seems much better than this.

[dangerlinto]

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

Against mentor tokens, the can just respond to a statticaster activation with an instant.  Of course timing blah blah blah but still, that's a game they can still win.

[brianpk80]

The monk phases in on their turn with "haste" anyway.

I think phased out tokens cease to exist as a state based action, but they change the rules more often than Madonna changes her hair so who knows.  If they do go away permanently, Equipoise is an interesting card to consider.  What's tough is that a lot of this Mentor hate can hurt tokens but don't kill the Mentor itself; they simply turn him into a Seeker of the Way without lifelink, which is still often lethal. 

[serracollector]

What about Abrupt Decay Maelstrom Pulse and Pernicious Deed or are black and green no longer played in Vintage?

[Protoaddict]

I would argue that any solution that requires 2 cards that you normally would not play just to work is not really a solution.

Ebb and Flow of the game would dictate if Mentor really becomes the problem we all feel it is it will start dominating the format, in which case one of 2 things would happen, either WOTC hits it with the restrict hammer, or a deck geared towards beating it emerges. I think Supreme verdict is honestly the best solution, that it does not fit into a current shell just means people would have to come up with a different shell. It is not as if W/U is a slouch in the power department either.

Maybe it is something a bit more obtuse than just a board wipe though. Rule of law effect on your turn plus a swords in hand means they can never cast it and pump it in the same turn. White hatebears can windmill Eidolon of Rhetoric off a cavern with 4 swords and 4 paths in a list, meaning if they ever resolve a mentor you can at least 1 for 1 it, and Eidolon of Rhetoric is bolt proof. Eidolon of Rhetoric off cavern turn one is also BRUTAL against most blue deck and most shops decks, so maybe that is something to look at.

[vaughnbros]

The monk phases in on their turn with "haste" anyway.

I think phased out tokens cease to exist as a state based action, but they change the rules more often than Madonna changes her hair so who knows.  If they do go away permanently, Equipoise is an interesting card to consider.  What's tough is that a lot of this Mentor hate can hurt tokens but don't kill the Mentor itself; they simply turn him into a Seeker of the Way without lifelink, which is still often lethal.  

 Phased tokens are destroyed.

[psly4mne]

The monk phases in on their turn with "haste" anyway.

I think phased out tokens cease to exist as a state based action, but they change the rules more often than Madonna changes her hair so who knows.  If they do go away permanently, Equipoise is an interesting card to consider.  What's tough is that a lot of this Mentor hate can hurt tokens but don't kill the Mentor itself; they simply turn him into a Seeker of the Way without lifelink, which is still often lethal.  

 Phased tokens are destroyed.

Lolno. They cease to exist as a SBA, as brianpk80 said. Anyway, Equipoise and Teferi's Realm are not a great answers to Mentor or Pyro, as they allow the player to get tokens by casting instants and still attack once with the tokens.

[Chubby Rain]

Also, blue enchantments aren't where you want to be when Mentor runs 1-2 Pyroblasts in the main (not to mention Wear/Tear in some lists).

The problem with Mentor is all the answers are less efficient or effective than the card itself and the card itself gives you so little time to produce an answer.

[vaughnbros]

The monk phases in on their turn with "haste" anyway.

I think phased out tokens cease to exist as a state based action, but they change the rules more often than Madonna changes her hair so who knows.  If they do go away permanently, Equipoise is an interesting card to consider.  What's tough is that a lot of this Mentor hate can hurt tokens but don't kill the Mentor itself; they simply turn him into a Seeker of the Way without lifelink, which is still often lethal.  

 Phased tokens are destroyed.

Lolno. They cease to exist as a SBA, as brianpk80 said. Anyway, Equipoise and Teferi's Realm are not a great answers to Mentor or Pyro, as they allow the player to get tokens by casting instants and still attack once with the tokens.

Semantics.  Tokens don't get phased out by Teferi's Realm.  Equipoise will prevent any attacks from mentor tokens that were created during your opponents turn, and it will phase out the mentor himself (meaning he doesn't produce tokens on your turn).  The card has no effect on stopping mentor himself, but is certainly quite effective at stopping his friends.

[TheWhiteDragon]

What about Abrupt Decay Maelstrom Pulse and Pernicious Deed or are black and green no longer played in Vintage?

Too hard to splash easily into blue, can't be cast by workshops, and can't be played from the grave - therefore unplayable in vintage.

Sudden shock is decent and can hit before tokens are made if they pass priority or at worst you face one weak monk token after you respond to a spell.  I prefer mass sweepers like deluge or verdict.

[Islandswamp]

Also, blue enchantments aren't where you want to be when Mentor runs 1-2 Pyroblasts in the main (not to mention Wear/Tear in some lists).

The problem with Mentor is all the answers are less efficient or effective than the card itself and the card itself gives you so little time to produce an answer.

True. The best defense would be prevention.


Someone said that Abrupt Decay isn't playable in Vintage anymore? Not ChubbyRain. But I would have to disagree. I played Decay in Oath and I've seen this deck called BUG Fish around too. The thing is, many decks want blue and red, then maybe white for mentor, where do you fit black in? And Green?

Obviously you can, but people want their Dack Faydens and their Pyroblasts. Doesn't mean you can't play other colors if you want to.

And I still say that Mentor is at an appropriate power level. I do have to play differently when I think my opponent is playing with the card though.

[ApolloGod]

I've been brewing a UW deck based off already existing grindstone decks. The deck can win with through painter/grindstone, vault/key, or tinker/bot. I enjoy it quite a bit so far, and I've had moderate success battling against Mentor.

I run a still-in-flux number of Supreme Verdicts (right now it's 1 main, 1 side.) It's nice. Also, I'm running two additional sideboard answers which help to slow the game down enough to at least allow me to process lines of play: Lightmine Field and Circle of Protection: White. The Lightmine Field has been OK in testing. The opponent usually just grows the token army over a couple turns and then goes for an alpha strike. However, the Field buys me a couple turns to construct my combo (painter/stone is my preferred route, and it's extremely compact.)

Circle of Protection: White has been another option to slow down the game, and it's quite good at that function. Eventually the opponent gets enough tokens to go wide around my ability to pay for the enchantment's ability, but it serves a similar purpose to Lightmine Field: slow down the game and buy some time.

I'm still deciding on other possible sideboard cards. Lately, I've been expanding my field of view when choosing cards for decks.  There are hundreds of cards which I might have never played before, but I'm willing to experiment and see if something works. At the very least, it's fun playing niche cards in vintage.

As a final note, one spicy maindeck card I use is Meddling Mage. I name Monastery Mentor, and they dig furiously for an answer. The opponent usually has several answers to find: Bolt, StP, whatever else. But I also run a full counter suite which helps protect the Mage. Again, it's just another option I'm testing out.

[vaughnbros]

True. The best defense would be prevention.

Too bad this card isn't very good...

[Aaron Patten]

This one can be exiled to Force of Will and costs the same as mentor but I think Verdict is better unless you don't have any white mana or never plan on getting to 4.

[msg67183]

This one can be exiled to Force of Will and costs the same as mentor but I think Verdict is better unless you don't have any white mana or never plan on getting to 4.

This one also gets Pyroblasted all day long.

[Khahan]

Well since people are throwing out fun ideas that don't really  have a hope of working there is always Goblin Sharpshooter:
 
 : deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Goblin Sharpshooter doesn't untap during your untap step. When a creature dies, untap goblin sharpshooter.

He'd be fun and functionally he does what you want. But this is vintage. A 3CC spell that doesn't have immediate impact (or the ability to have immediate impact w/out waiting a turn to activate) just isn't going to cut it.

One card I've always been fond of that I just haven't really seen played since I came back is Echoing Truth.   Not only does it answer Mentor tokens but it also answers young pyromancer tokens and zombie tokens from bridge from  below. It doesn't answer mentor but it can slow it down and give you another few turns.  It also has the flexibility of being an anti-hate card getting rid of answers others bring in against your deck.

[msg67183]

Well since people are throwing out fun ideas that don't really  have a hope of working there is always Goblin Sharpshooter:
 
 : deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Goblin Sharpshooter doesn't untap during your untap step. When a creature dies, untap goblin sharpshooter.

He'd be fun and functionally he does what you want. But this is vintage. A 3CC spell that doesn't have immediate impact (or the ability to have immediate impact w/out waiting a turn to activate) just isn't going to cut it.

One card I've always been fond of that I just haven't really seen played since I came back is Echoing Truth.   Not only does it answer Mentor tokens but it also answers young pyromancer tokens and zombie tokens from bridge from  below. It doesn't answer mentor but it can slow it down and give you another few turns.  It also has the flexibility of being an anti-hate card getting rid of answers others bring in against your deck.

The problem with Echoing Truth is the same as Propaganda, but not to the degree as it, Pyroblast.

The way I have beaten mentor builds is with Elesh Norn (Dredge) but also you could just go over the top with Tendrils ir Vault Key.

[Khahan]

Well since people are throwing out fun ideas that don't really  have a hope of working there is always Goblin Sharpshooter:
 
 : deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Goblin Sharpshooter doesn't untap during your untap step. When a creature dies, untap goblin sharpshooter.

He'd be fun and functionally he does what you want. But this is vintage. A 3CC spell that doesn't have immediate impact (or the ability to have immediate impact w/out waiting a turn to activate) just isn't going to cut it.

One card I've always been fond of that I just haven't really seen played since I came back is Echoing Truth.   Not only does it answer Mentor tokens but it also answers young pyromancer tokens and zombie tokens from bridge from  below. It doesn't answer mentor but it can slow it down and give you another few turns.  It also has the flexibility of being an anti-hate card getting rid of answers others bring in against your deck.

The problem with Echoing Truth is the same as Propaganda, but not to the degree as it, Pyroblast.

The way I have beaten mentor builds is with Elesh Norn (Dredge) but also you could just go over the top with Tendrils ir Vault Key.

Saying 'it can be countered' which is what saying its susceptible to pyroblast is not really a problem. Its hardly unique to this card. Yes, because its blue there is 1 more counter it is susceptible to, but so what? A deck running echoing truth will have counters as well including mental misstep, force, flusterstorm etc.

The deck you are building that I played against last night wouldn't have this issue but then again that deck is kind of unique in its build and needs a whole other set of answers.

[DaveKap]

Sudden Shock has been getting the job done from a Pyromancer's perspective. Dread of Night could do it too. Sulfur Elemental seems inferior to Dread, although I haven't tested either extensively.

I did get Propaganda'd yesterday by a Mentor deck. It slowed me down, I still won.

I still hold the theory that if something costs 3 mana in Vintage, it better be capable of shifting the balance of the game dramatically.

[Aaron Patten]

I am in complete agreement.  If it is at 3 mana then it has to be as good as Monastery Mentor, Tinker, Yawgmoth's Will and a slew of other 3 drops that are potentially better than playing defensively.  Maybe propaganda can be that good but it doesn't seem very likely to often. 

I like Dread of Night but it doesn't seem like enough.  Even considering the splash damage it doesn't kill mentor which is now sort of like a Monastery Swiftspear and can still win the game on the spot.  

Supreme Verdict is a good card but if you're supporting double white you should really be playing good white threats like Monastery Mentor in your deck.  So really, if you're not playing a Monastery Mentor deck, why bother showing up?

[vaughnbros]

The biggest problem of Propaganda is once its removed its as if it was never there in the first place.  Many of the anti token cards are weak for a different reason in that they still don't fully address the problem.  Supreme Verdict is actually one of the nicest answers since it is a clean kill on Mentor as well as his tokens and is uncounterable.  Sudden Shock is also great if you have it right away, but not so great if they are allowed to get a couple triggers off.

This whole sentiment is why mentor is so good.  All of the answers are fairly narrow and more expensive than mentor himself.  Whereas when we consider Yawg Will, Tinker, ect. there are more efficient and less narrow answers.

[Aaron Patten]

Does white even need blue anymore?  All it really wants is the card draw engine to trigger Monastery Mentor.  So, what if you used black instead?  You'd wreck their hand with Duress effects and make it impossible to answer the army of mentor tokens you just generated.  You're not really weaker to blue in this case I don't think.  I guess Misstep gains them some tempo advantage as it counters your Duresses but you can play your own Mental Missteps in black white.  Black even has reasonable card drawing engines.  The first that comes to mind is Dark Confidant which can work around Spirit of the Labyrinth and then of course there is Necropotence and all the black tutors.  The creatures are uncounterable with Cavern of Souls.  You're no longer vulnerable to Pyroblast either.  You could play red as well and main-deck some mox monkeys or magus of the moon to go with your Duresses and Caverns.  Permanently shut down their draws with singleton Anvil of Bogardan with Spirit of the Labyrinth to finalize the deal so they can't top-deck out of it.  There must be other advantages to not playing blue in a primarily blue dominated field that I'm not thinking of.  Feel free to chime in.  

The reason this relates to this thread is that it alludes to the question of whether it's the mentor that's the problem.  Mentor is the best storm spell ever printed (sort of) so is it the problem or is gush?  

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

Oath of druids. Nuff said

[Chubby Rain]

Oath of druids. Nuff said

Oath is actually not great against Mentor. Compared to Delver, Mentor has the ability to combo kill you much more easily with Time Walk so you really need have the Orchard to go with it. When I ran Oath, I also felt I could bait Delver/YP decks into casting a creature then slamming oath. With Mentor, you risk dying that next turn and Jace normally transforms. Postboard, Mentor gets a lot of hate.

[Aaron Patten]

Seems O.K.
Even better if you control:

[msg67183]

Seems O.K.
Even better if you control:

This definitely seems interesting.

[Khahan]

Seems O.K.
Even better if you control:

Why does that seem ok?  If you put it in play before they cast mentor they just wait until its dealt with (a lot of mentor decks run repeal).   If you drop it after they play mentor...most likely you lose before you come back around to your upkeep. Or at the least you are beaten down so far that it doesn't take much more to win for them. Planar Collapse is an answer, but doesn't seem like a good one.

[Aaron Patten]

If you play it first they are restricted to having to win with only 4 creatures in play minus the number of creatures you control.  As soon as they try to go tall (make monks+mentor big) it becomes that army's last attack phase.  They need at least 4 spells that turn if they have a mentor and three monks and that will restrict the number of spells they can cast in some cases.  It's not quite a two mana wrath of god but it's as close to it as anything I can think of other than Balance.  It makes the game more interesting, especially when monk is not the only creature in play.  If you initiate some kind of counter battle during their turn it can cause some interesting scenarios because the mentor pilot has to consider whether it's worthwhile to win it.

[Khahan]

If you play it first they are restricted to having to win with only 4 creatures in play minus the number of creatures you control.  As soon as they try to go tall (make monks+mentor big) it becomes that army's last attack phase.  They need at least 4 spells that turn if they have a mentor and three monks and that will restrict the number of spells they can cast in some cases.  It's not quite a two mana wrath of god but it's as close to it as anything I can think of other than Balance.  It makes the game more interesting, especially when monk is not the only creature in play.  If you initiate some kind of counter battle during their turn it can cause some interesting scenarios because the mentor pilot has to consider whether it's worthwhile to win it.

Time Walk beats this strategy.
Repeal beats this strategy.
That is 2 main deck answers that makes this basically a dead card. Even if they didn't have main deck answers, they play a mentor, beat you down a bit. Get a few instants on your turn for just 3-4 creatures and then play a few spells on their turn and swing with 4 5/5 creatures.  Planar Collapse can kill a mentor but it is so far down the list I'd not consider it viable option.  Its too easy to play around AND mentor runs a few main deck answers to it.

[serracollector]

Just start running maindeck Anarchy. Cant be elemental blasted or mental misstep. seems obv guys.