So I know this is belated, but I’ve been really busy and wanted to make sure I wrote up something good for everyone. Starting off, I think it’s clear from the amount of comments that people like mentor. I think mentor is a very powerful and more importantly very fun card. The way the card “combos” with cantrips, discard (because you can cast them unlike counters), and removal (both obviously for creatures and less obviously as letting you kill extra tokens with summoning sickness to get the combo kill), makes one shot kills incredibly fun in a way that young pyromancer does not.

That being said, it is still a “dies to removal” creature that is also (in my stern belief) not a 4 of. The discard and nonbo with counters leads naturally to liliana and jace. I think it’s a very fair deck, aside from the mentor combo, and would benefit from a sideboard that may include unfair/answers to unfair cards. The gifts package is something I had always liked the idea of but never tried. My unfair angle came from meddling mage, which I think is right to play in this deck. I could see mage as an answer to combo along with a gifts package of iona to seal the deal and elesh norn backed by sweepers and extra removal in the board as an ideal package against more creature heavy decks and may try to test that sideboard together at some point. One of the most important qualities of the deck is it’s ability to be aggressive against linear spell-based combo strategies and defensive control deck against creature heavier decks and I think meddling mage is a key player in the aggressive side of things.

I’m currently just running a generic answers sideboard to mainly get through kinks in the main deck, which has been a pain, but I do think is very close to right. I’ve playtested this deck consistently since shortly before you guys wrote your first article on mentor and can defend every card against many others, but would love to talk to anyone who has suggestions.

2 Monastery Mentor
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Lingering Souls
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4 Serum Visions
2 Thought Scour
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
2 Disfigure

1 Ghost Quarter
3 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Shambling Vent
1 Celestial Colonnade
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains

2 Disenchant
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Go for the Throat
2 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Stony Silence
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Thoughtseize
2 Supreme Verdict

Sideboard I’m gonna start testing:

1 Elesh Norn
1 Iona
1 Unburial Rites
2 Gifts Ungiven
2 Meddling Mage
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Damnation
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wrath of God
1 Stony Silence
1 Disenchant
2 Timely Reinforcements

As a rundown of the cards in the md, 2 Mentor allows you the time you need to setup while still making an appearance at the time you need him. I’ve waffled between 2 and 3 and the difference between the two quantities is absolutely startling. I’ve liked setting up my board state until I draw into a Mentor than actually having one in the opener/first few turns and is why I settled on 2.

Jace, Liliana and Souls are a three card package that makes up the engine of the deck. 4 jace is necessary because of removal and because he’s great. 3 liliana is acceptable since I really don’t want to flood on her. It’s just a bonus that she triggers mentor. 4 souls rather than 3 mostly because running less just feels wrong. having jace and liliana synergize so well with them makes them essentially flood-proof. Also, thoughtscour into flashback souls from said thoughtscour is just dirty. The cherry is that they all synergize so well with mentor.

Tasigur because 2nd turn Tasigur off fetches and thoughtscour is great against any deck and 1st turn cantrip/discard/fetchland into 2nd turn fetch/jace into 3rd turn cantrip/discard/removal into flipped jace flashback into one mana tasigur is also insane.

Snapcaster mage is a star in this deck. nuff said

Elspeth because it’s one of the only reach the colors have. The deck ends up in gamestates with random tokens as the sole survivors of an attrition battle and the singleton is a gamechanger. Of important note is the fact that it also perfectly complements the manland army.

4 serum visions/2 thoughtscour is a result of months of testing and a very difficult and still-nagging ocd battle. 4/4 just seems so clean. If you want scour’s effect, don’t you want the full 4? amazingly, those extra 2 scours changes the game from drawing too much air to drawing just what you need when you need it. The fact that it’s not essential to casting tasigur or flipping jace (because the deck tends to fill it’s graveyard anyway) was the tipping point as I was often casting my third scour with a giant graveyard and nothing to show for it.

4 inquisition/2 thoughtseize also as a result of a lot of testing. I ran 3 inquisition/2 thoughtseize/1 duress for a long time, but just thought duress was too cute. 3/3 proved too painful so I went with the full 4. The sideboard I currently run reflects the need for one more discard effect that can snag those higher casting costs. The lack of it in the brew reflects my belief that meddling mage and iona cover that loss.

4 path/2 disfigure is really just to talk about the 2 disfigure because 4 path is elementary. I’ve found that disfigure provides the consistent 1 mana removal necessary to compete in modern. Murderous cut is not available 1st/2nd turn, and more importantly is a complete nonbo with tasigur, which is your best play against the decks you want that removal for. Go for the throat is a great card, but it being a complete blank against affinity is a huge strike against main deck inclusion. The 2 mana cost is also a big strike. Dismember is just way too painful against the decks you need this effect for, and the thought of 2 is just unbearable. Most importantly, Disfigure is really the perfect complement to path. Having a path and disfigure in your starting hand against a deck like zoo, elves, mono-white anything is really good and allows you to delay ramping your opponent. This synergy with path is the biggest reason to run 2 disfigure.

As for the manabase, 22 lands is just enough with 6 cantrips to get the job done. The single ghost quarter is just great tech for something that is missing from the deck. With no quarter, there is no LD anywhere. The nihil spellbomb mise in the board also reflects this desire to have something to play into instead of nothing. The big one, however, is the presence of 6 manlands. This is by far the most important revelation in my testing. In playing the deck, the biggest problem I had was the tension between having enough threats to present, mana to cast them on time, and spells (cantrips especially) to support them. Allowing to combing the threat and mana really let the deck walk that tight line this extremely fair and grindy deck needs. The shambling vents has been amazing as it also checks the lifegain box that the deck needs. Mana is rounded out with 1 each basic and dual and rest fetches.

Thanks for reading. I really love this deck and it is just very fun to play. Jordan included a deck I brewed up (Grixis Delver) in one of his articles, but I have since come back to Esper as my favorite deck. Just can’t get off it.

1) I am fine with making the 3 land almost every game. For whatever reason I love to draw land. I played a small tournament with RUG iGrow in which I shaved the land count down to 15. My opening hand I had 2 which worked great. Turns 3-8 straight land after fetching on 2 separate occasions.
2) I actually play pyromancers now in place of the mentors. I shelved the deck because it was just too tough/slow to account for the protection of mentor + the cost of playing him. At least geist give me a hexproof body that can finish with unblockable.

First thought: That is an AGGRESSIVELY light land count. How consistently are you hitting 3 for Mentor and Geist?
Second thought: This looks like a Young Pyromancer deck rather than a Mentor deck. Pyromancer fits better into the curve and plays better with all the counters and low land count.
Third thought: This is really aggressive and reminds me of Standard Geist lists. Definitely worth a try, those decks were pretty good.

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-08-15-murica-tempo/

Pyromancer is much better in these kinds of decks, and he’s great in them. Mentor is just too pricey. That one mana difference is a huge deal in Modern.

I’d like to second the call for Mardu Mentor. I’ve been toying with a deck that uses Mentor and Young Pyromancer as token generators (along with cards such as Bitterblossom and Lingering Souls), along with a whole heck of a lot of disruption and removal (Kommand really takes the sting out of getting a Mentor Bolted early, for example). You could even throw Butcher of the Horde in there as a Aristocrats-style finisher if you feel that Mentor’s not getting you there fast enough, though probably not if you run Dark Confidant.

Well Butcher of the Horde seems cute and unnecessary but the rest seems reasonable. Though I wonder if this is actually better than straight BW.

Not a bad idea. Mardu certainly has the cheap spells to fuel Mentor and Command to grind the game out. Night’s Whisper is also a pretty reasonable card draw spell, and I would like to try Confidant now that I’m not trying to run delve spells. I worry though that it might just be a bad Grixis or BW Tokens list. Definitely worth testing though.

Well as Jordan will happily talk your ear off Shoal is a tempo card and Mentor is not. I think the card advantage is going to be too severe most of the time, though there may be an actual tempo list that wants Mentor that I haven’t found yet.

Well if my experiences in Standard are any indication then Ascendancy doesn’t want Mentor, it wants Goblin Rabblemaster. Ascendancy tokens wanted to be aggressive and Mentor was too slow, even if it was arguably more powerful. Even then Rabble was usually the first thing I trimmed in sideboard games, so it may not be good enough for Modern.

As for zero cost artifacts that deck already exists, it’s called Cheerios and we’ve covered it before on Modern Nexus. I’ve played against the deck and it seems way too swingy and inconsistent for my tastes, but it might just need some tuning, we’ll see.

I played against that deck on MTGO. It was really hard to deal with and a ton of insane value on the other side of the board. It’s been the most effective Mentor list I’ve seen, I think.