Since Monastery Mentor was spoiled I have been trying to find the right build of an mentor deck, because mentor is a broken card. I tried UWr in a stoneblade shell but also in a shell with top/CB/terminus (similar to Claudios GP winning list) but black seemed like the more appealing splash. I tried all kinds of configurations esper, testing delvers, linger souls, stoneforge, cavern of souls, deathrites, 2-4 planewalkers, and CB/top/terminus. Through my various iterations of the deck I initially started out with 2-3 mentors and 2 therapies, but quickly realized that therapy and mentor where the best part of the deck since every time I drew either card my deck got to be broken. After upping both to 4ofs everything seemed to come together. Ultimately this is what I have come to:

4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
2 Marsh Flats
2 Island
1 Plains
3 Tundra
3 Underground Sea

2 Baleful Strix
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Snapcaster Mage

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Gitaxian Probe
3 Dig Through Time

4 Cabal Therapy
1 Inquisition of Kozilek

2 Counterspell
2 Daze
4 Force of Will

4 Swords to Plowshares

Sideboard:
4 Meddling Mage
2 Disenchant
2 Flusterstorm
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Null Rod
1 Timely Reinforcements
1 Toxic Deluge

The list I settled on is similar to what Kotter alluded to in this article: http://www.starcitygames.com/article...-Top-Tier.html
It is essentially grixis control with white instead of red. Grixis control at this point is a very proven archtype, and this gives up some of red's strengths for some very good benefits of white.

Grixis:
- Cheaper main threat (pyromancer)
- Bolts (reach)
- Blasts, this is probably the biggest boon
- Access to blood moon and better artifact hate
Esper:
- Meddling mage/cannonist are amazing right now with Omnitell and storm being the combo decks to beat.
- Mentor being objectively more powerful than pyromancer and kills much faster. All tokens demand quick anwsers.
- Way better late game. Mentor is a much better threat than pyro and if cabal therapy is drawn late in the game, it's not dead, it's an overrun.*
- Not having any difficulty with goyf, angler, etc
- Better sweepers (Zealous Persecution) goes a long way in helping vs elves, mentor, or mother of runes decks.
- Access to life gain, enchantment hate, and versatile removal cards like council's judgment or vindicate.

*this is a big deal. Untapping with mentor and 2-3 tokens is almost always game over.


The list I have above is probably far from perfect. The 2/2 daze/counterspell split, the MD IoK, the SB deluge and timely reinforcements and the 4 MM, 0 Cannonists are all things that are likely not correct.

I have not played in any large events with the deck yet, but it has been very good in testing so far and I plan on attending an SCG IQ with this deck soon.

Is anyone else playing anything like this? Does anyone have any suggestions, especially with the bolded things above?