Can we answer a Mentor?

[Chubby Rain]

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

http://i.tcgplayer.com/1667.jpg

Seriously, this thread has been going a bit too deep. I prefer Sudden Shock and Supreme Verdict.

[tribet]

We don't have 4 brainstorm in Vintage but we have top deck tutors. Miracle in Vintage (I'm mostly thinking here Terminus & Devastation Tide) may have some place. I mean Sensei & JTMS are still ok in the format.

[xouman]

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

http://i.tcgplayer.com/1667.jpg

Seriously, this thread has been going a bit too deep. I prefer Sudden Shock and Supreme Verdict.

I have played with some success Anarchy, Pyrokinesis and Aether flash in the past (albeit in monored). Sulfur elemental is in my SB lots of times nowadays. Sudden demise also seems ok, despite being a sorcery. Even incendiary command has a place in very specific lists, despite being really expensive all 4 choices are really relevant in the right deck.

I agree that superme verdict is a great choice if you don't fear losing your own creatures, and sudden shock is nice if you already draw lots of cards and don't need 2x1. But there are other options too.

[Aaron Patten]

Comeuppance could be decent too if it weren't for the tokens that stay behind due to summoning sickness on what would otherwise be the final turn of the game. 

[Chubby Rain]

I have played with some success Anarchy, Pyrokinesis and Aether flash in the past (albeit in monored). Sulfur elemental is in my SB lots of times nowadays. Sudden demise also seems ok, despite being a sorcery. Even incendiary command has a place in very specific lists, despite being really expensive all 4 choices are really relevant in the right deck.

I agree that superme verdict is a great choice if you don't fear losing your own creatures, and sudden shock is nice if you already draw lots of cards and don't need 2x1. But there are other options too.

Mono red is a different type of thing. Even then, I would think the opponent Flusterstorming or Forcing your Anarchy would be a legitimate concern. Sulfur Elemental is great but somewhat narrow. Sudden Demise has the same problems as Anarchy and also Lightning Bolt...the opponent can prowess out of range in response to the Demise. Incendiary Command seems much worse than Fiery Confluence (which I am conflicted about in Blue Moon - it can be fantastic but the double red is difficult.).

Supreme Verdict has been excellent, not just against Mentor but also against Pyromancer and Hatebears. Even Merfolk. I'll even run 2 in Mentor as if I have a Mentor, I'm probably winning anyway and can pitch the Verdict to Force, Jace, or Dack. And if my opponent has a Mentor, I need my answer to resolve, no questions asked. But yes...all these answers are contextual.

[xouman]

Incendiary Command seems much worse than Fiery Confluence (which I am conflicted about in Blue Moon - it can be fantastic but the double red is difficult.).

I have to agree about fiery confluence, just forgot about that. For the same cost I'm not sure it's better than incendiary command, but 4cc is way better than 5cc.

Supreme Verdict has been excellent, not just against Mentor but also against Pyromancer and Hatebears. Even Merfolk. I'll even run 2 in Mentor as if I have a Mentor, I'm probably winning anyway and can pitch the Verdict to Force, Jace, or Dack. And if my opponent has a Mentor, I need my answer to resolve, no questions asked.

Well, I bought a couple of verdicts recently just because of your lists (and from other people here too), but haven't played them yet. My typical bomberman list features
6 fetchland
1 island
1 plain
2 tundra
2 volcanic island
1 tolarian
3 cavern of souls
plus the regular 8 artifact mana. So that's 6+3 white mana from lands plus 2 artifact mana. I have to say I'm pretty happy with that manabase, but I'm not sure if it would happily support supreme verdict. I suppose I could dish a cavern to play the third tundra, but I don't own that one third currently, would you play it?

[p3temangus]

I admit to not reading the whole thread, so perhaps this has already been suggested but what about Arcane Lab?  It serves double duty against both Mentor & storm, and should provide ample time to dig for a more "permanent" solution should a mentor hit the table (abrupt decay, dismember, sudden shock, ect...)

[Methuselahn]

It seems Wotc tried to answer Mentor by restricting Chalice.  The move gave Rituals a little wiggle room.  Was it wise or effective?  Who knows.  That said, Dark Ritual combo has to be faster than anything that uses attacking creatures, right?

I've found that finding silver bullets has never been the most effective way of solving a metagame.  /shrug

[Khahan]

I admit to not reading the whole thread, so perhaps this has already been suggested but what about Arcane Lab?  It serves double duty against both Mentor & storm, and should provide ample time to dig for a more "permanent" solution should a mentor hit the table (abrupt decay, dismember, sudden shock, ect...)

Arcane lab is not an answer to mentor.  They play mentor. On your turn they play an instant. On their turn they play a spell and swing for 5. On your turn they play an instant. On their turn they play a spell and swing for 9.  Next turn you are dead if you aren't dead already from fetches, vault, crypt type damage.

[Wagner]

I admit to not reading the whole thread, so perhaps this has already been suggested but what about Arcane Lab?  It serves double duty against both Mentor & storm, and should provide ample time to dig for a more "permanent" solution should a mentor hit the table (abrupt decay, dismember, sudden shock, ect...)

Arcane lab is not an answer to mentor.  They play mentor. On your turn they play an instant. On their turn they play a spell and swing for 5. On your turn they play an instant. On their turn they play a spell and swing for 9.  Next turn you are dead if you aren't dead already from fetches, vault, crypt type damage.

Agreed. If you already have a Mentor on the board, Arcane Lab is very dangerous for the person playing it. It often means that whatever spell you want to counter actually gets countered. You can just hit with Mentor and 1-2 tokens and win just fine.

[Aaron Patten]

It seems Wotc tried to answer Mentor by restricting Chalice.  The move gave Rituals a little wiggle room.  Was it wise or effective?  Who knows.  That said, Dark Ritual combo has to be faster than anything that uses attacking creatures, right?

I've found that finding silver bullets has never been the most effective way of solving a metagame.  /shrug

The restriction of chalice is what has brought Mentor to a head.  It was almost certainly not intended to have that effect.  Chalice has kept storm down for a long time and I'm counting Mentor as a member of the storm archetype. 

[Chubby Rain]

Incendiary Command seems much worse than Fiery Confluence (which I am conflicted about in Blue Moon - it can be fantastic but the double red is difficult.).

I have to agree about fiery confluence, just forgot about that. For the same cost I'm not sure it's better than incendiary command, but 4cc is way better than 5cc.

Supreme Verdict has been excellent, not just against Mentor but also against Pyromancer and Hatebears. Even Merfolk. I'll even run 2 in Mentor as if I have a Mentor, I'm probably winning anyway and can pitch the Verdict to Force, Jace, or Dack. And if my opponent has a Mentor, I need my answer to resolve, no questions asked.

Well, I bought a couple of verdicts recently just because of your lists (and from other people here too), but haven't played them yet. My typical bomberman list features
6 fetchland
1 island
1 plain
2 tundra
2 volcanic island
1 tolarian
3 cavern of souls
plus the regular 8 artifact mana. So that's 6+3 white mana from lands plus 2 artifact mana. I have to say I'm pretty happy with that manabase, but I'm not sure if it would happily support supreme verdict. I suppose I could dish a cavern to play the third tundra, but I don't own that one third currently, would you play it?

Ironically, one of the best color fixers is Gush. I don't think your manabase can support Verdict.

[Methuselahn]

I'm counting Mentor as a member of the storm archetype. 

Mentor is like a Quirion Dryad that got blasted with gamma rays, then got bit by something radioactive.

[Khahan]

What about this from  Conflux?


Volcanic Fallout

Card Type: Instant

Casting Cost: 1RR

Card Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

Oracle Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

 
Now, they could always have an instant to play in response and pump the mentor itself. But it will get the token from that instant and any other tokens already on the board with a good chance of getting the mentor. They could easily play a counter in response just to trigger 1 more toughness so it survives.

There doesn't seem to be a great answer. Supreme verdict wipes out your own mentor.  This can get tokens but mentor can sometimes dodge it.  Toxic Sludge could cost you a good bit of life and end up being countered. Massacre could be countered and/or dodged but is going to be free to cast.

Here's what I see as the best mentor answers depending on the deck:
1. supreme verdict for the mirror match, bomberman or any fish match up.  Not really any other archetypes that support its casting cost
2. Toxic sludge or massacre for any deck that runs black including storm deck, grixis decks.
3. Volcanic Fallout for any deck that can supports RR including grixis and various red/mud hybrids.

[dangerlinto]

What about this from  Conflux?


Volcanic Fallout

Card Type: Instant

Casting Cost: 1RR

Card Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

Oracle Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

 
Now, they could always have an instant to play in response and pump the mentor itself. But it will get the token from that instant and any other tokens already on the board with a good chance of getting the mentor. They could easily play a counter in response just to trigger 1 more toughness so it survives.

There doesn't seem to be a great answer. Supreme verdict wipes out your own mentor.  This can get tokens but mentor can sometimes dodge it.  Toxic Sludge could cost you a good bit of life and end up being countered. Massacre could be countered and/or dodged but is going to be free to cast.

Here's what I see as the best mentor answers depending on the deck:
1. supreme verdict for the mirror match, bomberman or any fish match up.  Not really any other archetypes that support its casting cost
2. Toxic sludge or massacre for any deck that runs black including storm deck, grixis decks.
3. Volcanic Fallout for any deck that can supports RR including grixis and various red/mud hybrids.

Took me a minute to figure out you mean Toxic Deluge.  Perhaps Toxic Sludge is some nickname I'm unaware of?

At any rate, trying to pick out cards in isolation is not going to work.  The best bet against mentor the answer is going to depend largely on your deck - not simply the colours you can safely play.  For example, Massacre is great but not so hot if you are running DRS, for example.  The answer will have to compliment your deck.

[Khahan]

What about this from  Conflux?


Volcanic Fallout

Card Type: Instant

Casting Cost: 1RR

Card Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

Oracle Text: Volcanic Fallout can't be countered.
Volcanic Fallout deals 2 damage to each creature and each player.

 
Now, they could always have an instant to play in response and pump the mentor itself. But it will get the token from that instant and any other tokens already on the board with a good chance of getting the mentor. They could easily play a counter in response just to trigger 1 more toughness so it survives.

There doesn't seem to be a great answer. Supreme verdict wipes out your own mentor.  This can get tokens but mentor can sometimes dodge it.  Toxic Sludge could cost you a good bit of life and end up being countered. Massacre could be countered and/or dodged but is going to be free to cast.

Here's what I see as the best mentor answers depending on the deck:
1. supreme verdict for the mirror match, bomberman or any fish match up.  Not really any other archetypes that support its casting cost
2. Toxic sludge or massacre for any deck that runs black including storm deck, grixis decks.
3. Volcanic Fallout for any deck that can supports RR including grixis and various red/mud hybrids.

Took me a minute to figure out you mean Toxic Deluge.  Perhaps Toxic Sludge is some nickname I'm unaware of?

At any rate, trying to pick out cards in isolation is not going to work.  The best bet against mentor the answer is going to depend largely on your deck - not simply the colours you can safely play.  For example, Massacre is great but not so hot if you are running DRS, for example.  The answer will have to compliment your deck.

Yes, toxic deluge, sorry.

[Islandswamp]

I read through this entire thread and I think I've found the answer:

Yes. Yes we can. We can answer a Mentor. It's not a super villain, it's a creature.

[Hrishi]

No shit, of course it's a creature and can be answered that way. The thread is mostly debating the best ways to answer a mentor based deck as traditional creature removal does not fare so well against creatures that grow horizontally.

I'm sure posting a silly picture instead is incredibly useful.

On topic, the card I've liked most of all has been Toxic Deluge as well. Very few cards completely remove any trace of Mentor's board presence like this one can. I've been tempted to try Virulent Plague over Illness in the Ranks as it dodges Misstep and sort of counts as Dredge hate (even if it's not a very good one).

[Islandswamp]

No shit, of course it's a creature and can be answered that way. The thread is mostly debating the best ways to answer a mentor based deck as traditional creature removal does not fare so well against creatures that grow horizontally.

I'm sure posting a silly picture instead is incredibly useful.

On topic, the card I've liked most of all has been Toxic Deluge as well. Very few cards completely remove any trace of Mentor's board presence like this one can. I've been tempted to try Virulent Plague over Illness in the Ranks as it dodges Misstep and sort of counts as Dredge hate (even if it's not a very good one).

Sorry. I was just kidding around. I had posted my opinions on the best options, but at some point digging up random old cards with no utility anywhere except against a Monastery Mentor is kind of nuts.

Toxic Deluge is great. I also used Dread of Night in my Grixis Therapy decks. I would NOT play some card like Anarchy or Teferi's whatever. You can also kill the thing with a bolt if you play right. It does't always work that way, but it isn't impossible by any means.

[ObstinateFamiliar]

It seems Wotc tried to answer Mentor by restricting Chalice.  The move gave Rituals a little wiggle room.  Was it wise or effective?  Who knows.  That said, Dark Ritual combo has to be faster than anything that uses attacking creatures, right?

I've found that finding silver bullets has never been the most effective way of solving a metagame.  /shrug

The restriction of chalice is what has brought Mentor to a head.  It was almost certainly not intended to have that effect.  Chalice has kept storm down for a long time and I'm counting Mentor as a member of the storm archetype. 

I mean...you can count Mentor as whatever you want but he did specifically say "Dark Ritual combo" which pretty clearly does not include the Gush-based Mentor lists (seeing as they rarely run black at all much less Dark Ritual).

I hesitate to make statements like "Deck A beats Deck B" but I will say that in my experience both Doomsday and various straight up count-to-9-then-slam-drills decks seem to do pretty well against the Gush-based Mentor deck. 

Doomsday can go toe-to-toe with card draw / disruption and either go off in your face if the coast is clear or just slow roll until you commit to a Mentor and then untap and win before you ever get a chance to attack with your tokens.

The faster storm decks can just overwhelm your counters with bombs / defense grid / discard and as the Mentor player you are pretty much on your heels for the first few turns until they brick or otherwise run out of gas. If you make it this far you can actually start getting your draw engine online but you still have to play pretty tight and hope you have the fluster/misstep/force when you need it since they can always peel a bomb and just kill you if you drop your guard. Honestly, this matchup is kind of hard for me to judge.  There is a lot of variance at work and of course when I get blown out I like to chalk it up to that. But given that rituals have been kind of dormant for a while it wouldn't surprise me if someone was able to brew up a more consistent build that could be a real contender. 

Tl;dr maybe looking at "strategies to answer Mentor" is a better idea than focusing on "cards to answer Mentor".  I know I'm not the first one to say this (OP mentions it as "Option 2") but this thread does seem to have pretty much exhausted the "card" approach and it seems like the "strategy" approach is getting hand-waved away a bit more than it should.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

POTUCEK LANDSTILL OATH doyyyyyy