How good is Monastery Mentor as of this afternoon?
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To be honest, I'm a little surprised with the restrictions today. They really dropped the hammer again. I was expecting Mentor to be that target and the rest to me left alone, and I really hadn't considered that Gush and Probe would get hit and that Mentor would be left alone. (Boy I'm glad that I didn't buy into Miracles in Legacy by the way.)
My question to everyone is simply, do you think a Mentor deck with a bunch of Preordain, one Gush, one Probe is still a thing as of this afternoon... or is the archetype just dead now is Vintage?
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Maybe better. 4 x Misstep and possibly replacing 2 x Gush 2 x probe with cards that have text vs. Thorn decks. Spell Pierce, etc.. or just adding a Cavern or 2 to mentor more reliably in the skill intensive mirror.
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Mentor is straight-up busted in a format that can chain multiple spells per turn. None of the restrictions today have changed that fact. Maybe the deck will be slightly slower, as it reconfigures itself to incorporate a more robust manabase, but I am convinced Mentor will remain the premier blue-based Vintage strategy.
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Mentor is too powerful a card for the deck to be dead, but it needs a major rebuild right now. The tempo variant was probably fine if they hit one, but not both, of those cards. Running three sub-par replacements is odious, but acceptable. Making that five, or six cards, that have to be replaced is probably too onerous a task.
I guess we're all about to see whether or not a Mentor deck that's heavier on artifacts and runs a full suite of fast mana to complement Thirst for Knowledge is any good. Five Moxen, Mana Crypt, Lotus, Sol Ring, two or three Engineered Explosives and two Sensei's Divining Tops slotted into the deck is what I'd want to test first. It could be terrible. I'm interested to see what happens, all while I play through the Shop fratricide that's about to take place.
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I really think we're just going to see paradoxical mentor now.
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Mentor is still great. Young Pyromancer is the card that probably got a ton worse.
Time to take apart my Grixis Therapy and Gush Oath deck now.
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Pretty sure Mentor will stay so long as it's unrestricted, and even after it gets the axe. Wrong move if their goal is less restrictions, IMO.
On the plus side, this terrible deck I've been brewing gets slightly less bad due to Gush restrict so I'm not super angry, selfishly, but am pretty disappointed at their reasoning.
Probe restrict makes combo a little more fair, but for those who absolutely need that effect it still exists as a 1CMC card (can't remember the name) so not too terrible.
Mentor is here to stay and will likely be equally annoying.
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Do people think that this will bring Mana Drain back into the metagame to some extent?
Brian Kelly Freudian self-analysis of the day:
I like to express the id that a player would feel without the superego of being like, "oh you have to be nice." -
Its impossible to really know. Gush+Probe were probably the two most broken cards to be played with Mentor. The Gush Mentor shell will be significantly worse.
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@Topical_Island I think Mana Drain is going to get a little better in Blue vs Blue matchups, but still really problematic against Shops and Eldrazi. I'm not sure it's better than extra Flusterstorm or Pyroblast in blue mirrors. Will be fun to see, though!
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@Topical_Island said in How good is Monastery Mentor as of this afternoon?:
Do people think that this will bring Mana Drain back into the metagame to some extent?
In the short term, I think definitely yes. We could easily see the Justin Kohler Bomberman deck refitted with Mentors and Jace, Vryn's Prodigys over the Salvagers and Trinket Mages as well as Preordains thrown in for good measure, or something similar to that effect. I think that, along with the Paradoxical Mentor decks that are currently out there, will be the first 2 places Gush-Mentor pilots will go to while things shake themselves out over the summer leading into Eternal Weekend.
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How good is Monastery Mentor today?
It's the best deck, and it's not close this time.
In very short order, the best Mentor deck will emerge, and within 12 weeks it will be an even larger part of the metagame than the Gush Mentor deck was.
The only upside to the moves today is that it won't be long until people realize that Mentor was the problem.
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@Smmenen I expect we get a good month where people talk more about strategy than the B&R list, after which we'll be right back where we were.
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But oh what a glorious month it will be!
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@Smmenen Oh man, the poker player in me wants a prop bet on that one. I feel like you just tapped me in the patella tendon of my bet reflex with a little rubber mallet.
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@Brass-Man said in How good is Monastery Mentor as of this afternoon?:
@Smmenen I expect we get a good month where people talk more about strategy than the B&R list, after which we'll be right back where we were.
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But oh what a glorious month it will be!
You are being generous.
With a big MTGO P9 event this weekend, it will be a good two weeks, at best.
It will then only take 6 weeks for the best Mentor decks to conslidate, and another 4 weeks for paper to catch up.
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@Topical_Island At Deal Me In Games' last tournament (a few weeks ago) a handful of people (some of which are pretty damned good brewers) were playing 1-2 copies of Mana Drain. I don't think we're going to see the old style drain deck back though. You know where you have mana drain and a handful of expensive bombs like gifts ungiven or artifacts like mindslaver to dump the mana into.
Though I do have 3 new slots in my paradox-gush build. Drains will probably be the first card I slot in there. Could be an interesting set up for memory jar.
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@Smmenen why do you think that this strengthened Mentor? Were storm decks competing well and fueled by Gush, G Probe? Or is it more herding, in that without those cards, there are fewer ways to build the deck?
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@boxian said in How good is Monastery Mentor as of this afternoon?:
@Smmenen why do you think that this strengthened Mentor? Were storm decks competing well and fueled by Gush, G Probe? Or is it more herding, in that without those cards, there are fewer ways to build the deck?
@Kai Budde did a good job explaining why today on twitter and FB comments.
Here is what LSV said in response to Kai's FB post: "There's a reasonable chance Kai is right. Gush and Probe suck against shops and are why Mentor was the best in blue vs blue, so the next version of Mentor should be better against shops. This does open the door for non-Mentor blue decks though, or at least different draw engines in Mentor decks."
There is a longer explanation, but that's basically it. The next wave of Mentor decks are going to be stronger against Shops because they will be freed from the constraints of Gush.
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In addition, we have Eternal Weekend here in Australia (Melbourne) on the second weekend of June, so as the format starts to 'work itself out' over the coming months we might also contribute a little. It will be very interesting to see whether old blue archetypes resurface in the wake of Gush, and whether 4x Mentor will continue to be a thing (well, it is the 'better win con than a comparable restricted card' aka Tinker...)
I manage Adelaide Eternal, and we run monthly tournaments in SA for Vintage, Legacy and Australian Highlander. Video coverage from our tournaments is available on our YouTube channel every month: www.youtube.com/AdelaideEternal
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Mentor is either going to be terribly unplayable or too good, which is exactly what it was before the restrictions.
Such a binary outcome is not very interesting.
The expression "anyone with half a brain can see..." and I am interested to know the number of brains involved.
