[Free Article] The Rise of Monastery Mentor

[wappla]

The Rise of Monastery Mentor

URW Mentor has been the best performing deck since the DCI's announcement. Unlike the Winter and Spring of this year, we are seeing a single coherent archetype with a large number of common cards. I wrote briefly about what this deck looks like and how the B&R announcement led the shell to where it is.

[ajfirecracker]

Very nice article, I felt like I was learning a whole lot as I read it.

[diophan]

An insightful article as usual wappla. Your previous one led me to drop down to 1 dack in my delver list from the big Magic Online tournament. Your thoughts on the delver vs. mentor matchup, especially as it relates to baby Jace, are also consistent with my testing. On a more general level I appreciate that your articles are more theoretical in perspective than (I think) everything else that's currently being written about vintage.

[Minkar]

Link isn't working for me, says "502 Bad Gateway" error

edit: Now its fine!

[Islandswamp]

I agree, I liked this quite a bit. The only thing I would add would be at least one full decklist with results. Not for everyone here (most people know where to look up results), but other people have come to expect that sort of thing.

I think the next logical step is to prepare the Mentor deck to have multiple trumps in mirror matches. I've been playing with the deck and it's been very good. Barring the occasional extreme negative variance, I've felt like the deck was always in the lead in a game.

Keep up the good work 

[tito del monte]

Liked this a lot! A really helpful read - thanks for putting this together.

I notice big Jace wasn't considered in the flex spots. Sometimes, I find myself getting behind on cards in the late game and have wanted something that can just come down on an empty board and pull me ahead - without being succeptible to creature removal or being reliant on my graveyard. Does this mean maybe I'm just playing my counters/threats too aggressively? Or is a big Jace something worth considering - perhaps over a 2nd Dack in these tough times for Workshop pilots?

Look forward to your next piece, keep up the good work.

[wappla]

Thanks for the feedback.

tito del monte, I'd consider replacing one of your more aggressive cards (Mox Emerald/Jet, Young Pyromancer, if you're playing him) with a Gitaxian Probe to help diagnose if you're making positioning mistakes.

JTMS is definitely a consideration, as are a number of cards I omitted. Islandswamp makes a good point about the mirror, and Engineered Explosives might warrant inclusion since it can sweep both tokens and flipped Jaces. In that same vein, Repeal is going to be an increasingly important card as JVP sees more and more play. I think Jeskai Ascendancy over a second Dack is also a realistic option, albeit difficult to conclusively justify through testing.

[Holden1669]

I'll add to the positive feedback on this article (and on your articles in general). I appreciate that you present why something is good or why something changed rather than just telling us that things have changed and now X is good. I have felt a lot more comfortable playing Delver/Pyromancer rather than Mentor since Mentor was printed. The deck just flowed better and none of the various Mentor builds felt quite right. I haven't had the chance to play much Mentor since the DCI changes have come into effect but I have noticed that Mentor seems to be doing well. Thanks for explaining why.

[icecoldbath]

I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that JVP//TU is superior to Delver and thus pushing Mentor to be one of the strongest decks, if not the strongest deck in the format. I like your style of playing as little moxen as possible, since they limit the number of awkward openers that don't do anything. I do wonder though, why no thoughts on Sensei's Divining Top? Since you play as a control deck in the early part of the game the top helps you just hit your land drops, while once Mentor is on board, it just acts as a damage machine.

[Islandswamp]

I think it is becoming clearer and clearer that JVP//TU is superior to Delver and thus pushing Mentor to be one of the strongest decks, if not the strongest deck in the format. I like your style of playing as little moxen as possible, since they limit the number of awkward openers that don't do anything. I do wonder though, why no thoughts on Sensei's Divining Top? Since you play as a control deck in the early part of the game the top helps you just hit your land drops, while once Mentor is on board, it just acts as a damage machine.

Some people are playing Tops. I have one in my build. I think of it as the 7th one-drop "fixer" with preordain, brainstorm, and ponder. It's one of the first cards I side out, but not because it's bad. I view it as trimming redundant cards.

I'm still tuning my list and I've tried several people's builds. I'm not sure on some of the cards, but the core is well-defined in my opinion.

[boggyb]

Very cool.

Thoughts on Mentor with Remora? I don't see it mentioned in your article but it's put up good numbers at least historically.

[wappla]

Remora is a difficult card to evaluate, and it's inclusion pretty significantly changes a deck's positioning. As you note, it did do quite well pre-announcement. Kevin Cron was a consistent advocate of the pairing of Gush and Remora since Mentor was spoiled in January, and while I'd defer to him on the subject, I do think Jace is likely just better. Despite having a higher casting cost, he is actually less mana intensive. I think the fourth Jace is probably better than either the first Top or the first Remora. Meanwhile, the possibility of opposing Jaces actively makes Remora worse by giving decks a card advantage spell that happens to be a creature.

[Naixin]

I think of remora as a sideboard option that is maindeckable in certain metas. It just eats up the opponent in a blue mirror. If anything, I don't think it's comparable to baby jace, but comparable to mystic remora. I think with the current meta, preordain is much better since it filters your next 2 draws, where as remora is either heavy card draw or heavy useless mana sink.

[Phele]

What about Merchant Scroll? The card is quite flexible, especially if you run a mix of counter spells. And one added Repeal can help against several problems: Dark Depths, Oath, flipped Delver and Jaces ... And it is not to bad to get your hands easier on Ancestral in a deck, that has plenty options to play it again out of the grave.