[Free Article] Nowadays

[wappla]

It’s valuable to look at struggle between combo-control and anti-combo-control as one of two main narratives of Vintage’s past half-decade. The second was Workshops, which just kept rising in dominance and metagame share ever since Lodestone Golem was printed in Worldwake. Chalice’s restriction, should it remain restricted, marks the end of that story. The five years since Worldwake were defined by these twin narratives: the rise of blue creature decks and their fight against Jace and combo-control, and the quieter but unrelenting rise of Workshops. I think we can look at the format as having a central conflict between combo-control, anti-combo-control, and Workshops, with a flank consisting of Dredge, Landstill, Storm, Hatebears, City Vault, etc, each attacking that center.

Nowadays – An article about Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Monastery Mentor, Gush creature decks, Thirst for Knowledge, Dark Confidant, Workshops, Dragonlord Dromoka, and Moxen; or, Why I hate Sudden Shock (puremtgo.com)

[brianpk80]

Wonderful article.  Congratulations to Michael Lynch and Keith Seals who've also scored first place finishes this month with Dromoka-Mentors.  I'm happy to see the great Dragon flourishing in so many different archetypes. 

[Phele]

Great, really great articles Wappla! I am playing and watching this format now for 20 years and never or just randomly read something with such deep understanding of the mechanics of the format.

That said, what are your thoughts on Balance? The card is tricky to play but also can be a very cost effective everything that can't be stopped by Misstep.

[dangerlinto]

When it comes to ineffective, Illness in the Ranks is by far the worst offender. In just what scenario does your Illness prevent a horde of tokens but all those monk-generating spells not put you incredibly behind anyway? The more effective Illness is, the more likely you are to lose.

I've found Illness in the ranks + Notion Thief is pretty sweet vs Mentor.  Of course Notion Thief itself is really the sweet spot there, but if you are already playing it, Illness is the perfect card to stop them going wide.

[brianpk80]

On Balance, it's something I tried early in the year for Mentor mirrors when you fall behind and Young Pyromancer matches.  Unfortunately, the conclusion I came to was that it was too unpredictable for this metagame.  Balance does so much that we try to optimize all three modes and synchronize the best possible blowout possible, including allowances made for the type of counter war predicted.  But in the Gush metagame, that draw spell throws a monkey wrench into all modes of its outcome.  You end up with unforeseen self-inflicted harm too often to consider it reliable. 

[tito del monte]

Another cracking read Wappla! It's interesting though that your conclusion comes back to the power of the moxen; their defining nature of the format. It sounds a little like Wizards' justification for restricting Chalice, namely that everyone should get to play their moxen, because that's what Vintage is all about. It sounded like bunk when they announced the restriction, a poor criterion to base the decision on - if the format really does just become combo-control versus anti-combo-control won't that have been proven the case? Is the format really as healthy as you argue - or is that just a quirk of Vintage; that the devotees of various pet decks provide enough variety to keep things from being carved up completely between Big Blue and Gush + Creatures?

Yet to give Brian's Bant Mentor deck a proper run-out, but it looks like the perfect sweet spot for this metagame, still being agile enough to outpace Grixis - and having the benevolent Dragonlord herself to go over the top against Jeskai Mentor. Having a difficult-to-remove source of card advantage like Sylvain Library is the icing on the cake... the green Baby Jace!

Anyway, thanks for writing this - a lot of food for thought!

[wappla]

You make a really fascinating point about Chalice's restriction that I now feel I overlooked, especially considering just a few weeks ago I argued it helped explained Mentor's ascent.


Thanks for the feedback all, sometimes I fear these less focused articles are just whistling in the wind.

[Aaron Patten]

On Balance, it's something I tried early in the year for Mentor mirrors when you fall behind and Young Pyromancer matches.  Unfortunately, the conclusion I came to was that it was too unpredictable for this metagame.  Balance does so much that we try to optimize all three modes and synchronize the best possible blowout possible, including allowances made for the type of counter war predicted.  But in the Gush metagame, that draw spell throws a monkey wrench into all modes of its outcome.  You end up with unforeseen self-inflicted harm too often to consider it reliable.  

I've also found balance to be difficult to optimize in a gush list.  Perhaps it's time to bust out Planar Collapse to shore up the mentor/pyro/hangerback metagame?

[ObstinateFamiliar]

First off I want to say thanks for the article!  Personally I really enjoy "concept" articles like this that go a bit deeper than the usual "here's some winning decklists...seems good" type of deal.

That being said, I'm not quite sure that finding the best Mentor removal spell is the way to beat a Mentor deck.  As you mention in the article, all the answers are situational (Sudden Shock kills Mentor but not the tokens, Supreme Verdict costs 4, etc.).  If your opponent has some threat diversity, that compounds the problem even further (Dismember is not exactly insane against Dromoka for instance).  Of course that's not even getting into the issue of those cards being dead in other matchups, taking up sideboard slots, etc.

I'm not denying the Mentor deck is strong but...have we forgotten the most tried-and-true Vintage removal package of them all?



Win now.  Ignore the dudes.  

[Grand Inquisitor]

To shortcut this whole article...Mental Misstep and Flusterstorm certainly help as well.

[dangerlinto]

First off I want to say thanks for the article!  Personally I really enjoy "concept" articles like this that go a bit deeper than the usual "here's some winning decklists...seems good" type of deal.

That being said, I'm not quite sure that finding the best Mentor removal spell is the way to beat a Mentor deck.  As you mention in the article, all the answers are situational (Sudden Shock kills Mentor but not the tokens, Supreme Verdict costs 4, etc.).  If your opponent has some threat diversity, that compounds the problem even further (Dismember is not exactly insane against Dromoka for instance).  Of course that's not even getting into the issue of those cards being dead in other matchups, taking up sideboard slots, etc.

I'm not denying the Mentor deck is strong but...have we forgotten the most tried-and-true Vintage removal package of them all?



Win now.  Ignore the dudes.  

Only problem with that is Mentor decks very easily run this:



Getting critical storm against resolved Stony Silence is, shall we say, difficult at best. 

[ObstinateFamiliar]

First off I want to say thanks for the article!  Personally I really enjoy "concept" articles like this that go a bit deeper than the usual "here's some winning decklists...seems good" type of deal.

That being said, I'm not quite sure that finding the best Mentor removal spell is the way to beat a Mentor deck.  As you mention in the article, all the answers are situational (Sudden Shock kills Mentor but not the tokens, Supreme Verdict costs 4, etc.).  If your opponent has some threat diversity, that compounds the problem even further (Dismember is not exactly insane against Dromoka for instance).  Of course that's not even getting into the issue of those cards being dead in other matchups, taking up sideboard slots, etc.

I'm not denying the Mentor deck is strong but...have we forgotten the most tried-and-true Vintage removal package of them all?



Win now.  Ignore the dudes.  

Only problem with that is Mentor decks very easily run this:



Getting critical storm against resolved Stony Silence is, shall we say, difficult at best.  

Fair point, but most Mentor decks I've seen run 1-2 copies of Stony Silence if they run it at all (due to tension with their own moxen).  If you're planning to point 10+ drills at their face on turn 2-3, the chances that they draw and resolve one of those copies before that is, shall we say, unlikely at best.

Also, this is still a thing:



Full disclosure: I spam cantrips and dudes that spit out dudes just like everyone else.  Not so much because Mentor is insane but because the Tiny Jace + Gush + Dack draw engine is insane.  

The only problem is, that draw engine doesn't really get insane until about turn 3-4 when you can fire off Gush, activate Tiny Jace, etc.  The longer the game goes, the more you can capitalize on the virtual card advantage created by cutting lands/moxen for cantrips, etc.  If you've been playing Gush decks for a while, you know what I'm talking about.

Removal isn't what terrifies me when I'm on Mentor.  Neither is Tinker/BSC/Vault/Key.  What terrifies me is:

a) Decks that are going to force me to empty most of my hand on turns 1-3 just trying to stay alive (Storm, Belcher, etc.).

b) Decks that can go toe-to-toe on countermagic / card draw, but can go over the top and win through a resolved Mentor (ala Doomsday).

c) Brian Kelly jamming highly advanced technology that I cannot reasonably expect to be prepared for (e.g. Dromoka, Oath -> Magus of the Moat, running less than a playset of Force of Will, etc.)