Since Mentor is now restricted and it is setting in that a single Mentor is difficult to build a deck around I looked back at decks that I played before Mentor was "the deck". I played StoneBlade for about a year and I did very well in local tournaments. The deck is very similar to Mentor is play style, the exceptions are a bit obvious, that Mentor only needs 4 creatures where StoneBlade usually needs 8 to 10. There are a few other very obvious issues with meta-game of today but overall the deck appears to be solid against most of the field. I see combo or dredge decks as the one arch-type(s) that this deck will need heavy support for outside of the main deck. The reason I say combo or dredge is that there are 2 ways to construct this deck. You can go heavy control similar to Mentor and sideboard heavy against the Dredge deck hoping to win games 2 and 3 or you can balance it out with main deck wastelands and Containment Priest making it weaker against Combo since you will need to cut some counterspells and/or artifact hate.
Here is my first draft at a list:
4 Stoneforge Mystic
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Force of Will
4 Mental Misstep
4 Preordain
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Batterskull
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 (Pick a creature) - True Name Nemesis or Vendellion Clique or Nimble Obstructionist
Restricted Stuff
Monastery Mentor ?
Ancestral Recall
Time Walk
Brainstorm
Ponder
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Gush
Moxes + Lotus
Lands
8 Fetch lands
4 Tundra
3 Island
2 Plains
I have played around with some slots going from 8 counters to 10 to 12 adding Flusterstorm, Mana drain, or Mindbreak Trap. I have looked at cutting some fetch lands and adding Wastelands + Stripmine and looking at card like Council's Judgement and Back to Basics. I think this deck is worth discussing seeing that this deck never died in Legacy and is now looking very strong in this meta-game but it is hard to figure out what the meta-game version looks like now. Since, I do not play MTGO I usually proxy it up and shuffle different versions until I find one that feels right, then I play it locally until it either works or dies.