Since Dig through time and treasure cruise were spoiled I have been trying to make some sort of Esper control deck, and initially it was pretty bad so I went back to miracles. But seeing mentor increased my interest again, so while still playing miracles in any tournament I went to, I brewed and tested an Esper mentor control deck. Most of my testing has just been in causal games vs friends or on cockatrice, and I made a thread to discuss the deck here: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...1-Esper-Mentor
I tried tons of variations and cards in the archetype, stoneforge, deathrite, esper charm, gut shot, daze, counterbalance/top/terminus, Sorin 2.0 and 3.0, linger souls, thoughtscour, cavern of souls, karakas/venser/clique, but finally settled on this list:
19 Land:
4 Flooded Strand
2 Marsh Flats
4 Polluted Delta
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Island
3 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Baleful Strix
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Snapcaster Mage
4 Brainstorm
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Ponder
3 Dig Through Time
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
2 Counterspell
2 Spell Pierce
4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Toxic Deluge
Sideboard:
1 Council's Judgment
1 Disenchant
1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hydroblast
3 Meddling Mage
1 Null Rod
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Zealous Persecution
I am actually quiet surprised I did so well because I had some annoying upper respiratory tract symptoms so I wasn’t feeling 100%. Additionally, In the past 2 months I graduated, moved, went on a vacation, studied for boards like it was a full time job, searched for actual jobs and got engaged. So I have not actually played any magic outside of cockatrice in over 2 months, making me quiet rusty. My notes on the matchup and sideboar are purely from memory so I am sure that some details are wrong.
With 169 people, there was 8 rounds.
Round 1: Omnitell
Game 1: I keep a hand with lots of white cards and a few cantrips. After seeing scalding tarn into preordain I blind therapy Show and tell and miss. My turn 2 strix gets countered. I cantrip a bunch the next turn and then lose without finding any permission.
Out: -4 Swords, -2 Strix, -1 Deluge, -2 Mentor, -1 swamp
In: +3 Meddling mage, +1 Disenchant, +1 Council’s Judgment, +1 Hydroblast, +2 Flusterstorm, +2 Surgical Extraction
The next too games blend together a little, but I THINK this is how they went.
Game 2: My opening hand is something like 2 Probe, surgical, 2 lands, Ponder, Fluster. I probe him and see a hand of with S&T, land, and a lot of cantrips. I cantrip and find therapy. He cantrips or probes or something irrelevant. I probe again seeing he still has nothing to stop what I am about to do. I name show and tell with therapy, and then extract it. I then play 3 meddling mages turns 3-5 naming, Pyromancer, lightning bolt, pyroblast (in that order). He later informed me he drew pyro the turn after I named it and bolt a few turns later.
SB for Game 3: +1 Swamp, -1 Jace
Game 3: He keeps a hand with 1 land, cantrips, and combo pieces. Gaining that knowledge from probe, I counter all his cantrips, therapy 2 show and tells. Then beat down with mage, snapcaster and mentor.
1-0
Round 2: Merfolk
Both games he mulls and keeps very mediocre hands, I kill all his creatures with snapcaster, strix, therapy and swords. In both games I played a turn 4 or 5 mentor and on turn 6 I swung for over 30 damage. It felt like I was playing a vintage deck against a sealed deck but I got very lucky here. I had solid hands and he had bad ones. In my brief testing against merfolk, this is a very bad matchup, especially the chalice versions.
Out: -2 Pierce, -2 Counterspell
In: +1 Null rod, +1 Disenchant, +1 Council’s Judgment, +1 Zealous Persecution
2-0
Round 3: Burn
If merfolk is a bad matchup, burn is worse. My hands were pretty bad in both games, but luckily my opponents were worse. The details of each game all blend together and I might be mixing them up.
Game 1 I keep a shakey 1 land hand. My opponent goes mountain, top, go. I thought maybe miracles, more likely painter, but maybe burn. I had recently seen a burn list with 1 top and thought it was a neat idea. Well a turn 2 goblin guide makes the plan obvious. After a couple turns, guide helps me find land in exchange for 6 or 8 damage. I clearn up the board, therapy 2 sulfuric vortexes and the flashback to force an early fireblast. I get to 1 but swords a monk token to gain 4 life, he has to find 2 castable burn spells with top, but doesn’t and dies.
Out: -1 Jace, -4 Probe, -1 Deluge
In: +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Hydroblast, +1 Timely reinforcements, +1 Disenchant, +1 Council's Judgment
Game 2 he mulls and gets stuck on 1 land while beating me down with goblin guide again. I take a very long time to find removal, but he was on a mull to 6 and my therapy hits 2 lightning bolts (his only other castable spells). I think at some point I disenchant an eidolon, hydoblast the guide after digging and finding no removal, spell pierce a vortex and then end the game quickly with a mentor.
My opponent was a nice guy and we chat after and then play a 3rd game for fun. I end up casting a timely reneforcement against a board of 2 swiftspear, 1 guide, and then flashing it back 2 turns later with snapcaster. I clean up the board but still get down to bolt range. He bricks for a few turns and I get lethal in. He played very well, just having poor draws, and went on to the top 32 I believe.
3-0
Round 4: Infect
Game 1, Turn 1, I blind therapy off of a underground sea and name brainstorm but miss, seeing a hand with berserk, vines, invigorate, 2 mistys, Inkmoth and ponder. He ponders turn 1, possibly fearing wasteland. He plays turn 2 library, and draws 3-4 extra cards over the game with it. I play a turn 2 strix and turn 3 cast another therapy for the berserk. Strix is a champ in this matchup. One play I make a few time in our games is blocking with strix, but then swords the blocked creature to force vines out of their hand. As long as they don’t have agent, this works great. Either way I come out on top and it makes later turns feel much safer. I bury him in card advantage with dig. He is low from library and snap or mentor kill him (can’t remember).
Out: -1 Jace, -2 Counterspell
In: +2 Flusterstorm, +1 Disenchant
*For some reason I think I did not bring in ZP, but I should have. I think it is probably better than deluge. Digs could also be cut in this matchup just because surviving till turn 4 usually means we’ll win regardless.
Game 2: I don’t remember much, but I remember it was close. He had a lot of threats but no pump. I killed the creatures I could not block and then stalled the board with monk blockers, finally swinging for over 20 in one hit. At some point I probed and forgot to draw, and then cracked a fetch getting me a warning. Knowledge of my opponents hand is just so good, sometimes I forget probe also draws a card. My opponent did well with the deck for borrowing it and went on to top 32 as well.
4-0
Round 5: Turbo Eldrazi (Jeremiah Rudolph)
Game 1 Jeremiah gets a turn 1 top. Therapy takes his important cards but leaves him with a trickbind which he uses on a fetchland. I was flooding on land so this was fine. At one point I had 3 lands in play and 5 cards in the GY and was planning on digging at the end of his turn. He main phase wipe awayed a land and then reliced my graveyard. This was a great use of wipe away, which otherwise does not do much against me. A few turns later I get a mentor and make a bunch of tokens. I get him down to 8ish and he hides behind a chasm before dying. I actually made a big, mistake here. I had 1 more spell I could cast (swords maybe?) the turn before I knew he would make chasm and I should have gotten in the extra damage while I could. I gave him more outs than I should have.
Out: -2 strix, -1 Swords, -2 Pierce, -1 Deluge
In: +1 Null Rod, +3 Meddling Mage, +1 Council's Judgment, +1 Disenchant
Game 2 I don’t remember much but I think at one point, after probing, I therapied 2 show and tells. I swordsed an Emperion. And then beat down the mentor.
Jeremiah wished me luck, and optimistically said he looked forward to our rematch in the top 8.
5-0
Round 6: Grixis Control (Richard Shay)
We know what the other is playing, so I blind therapy pyromancer (miss). His first turn he blind therapies mentor and hits 2. OUCH! He casts a dig or 2 and then killed me without much resisitence.
Out: -1 Jace, -3 Force, -2 strix
In: + 2 Flusterstorm, + 1 Hydroblast, +1 Council's Judgment, +2 Zealous Persecution
Boarding for this is awkward. Our best cards are Therapy and Dig. My creatures are better. He has blasts, I have sweepers. His forces and planeswalkers are good, while mine are not safe due to blast. In retrospect I would have boarded differently. I did not need so much removal, 4 swords was unneed. I brainstormed away a swords 3 times in game 2.
Game 2, was super long (35-40 minutes) and was one of the best games of magic I have played in a while. By the end we both had about 20 cards in our libraries. There were several occasions I almost scooped, and there were a few times I thought I had won but Rich turned the game around. I made one big mistake. I had not played against Baby Jace before and let Rich Flashback a kolgan’s command killing my mentor and getting his pyromancer back. The turn before, I wasted my counterspell fighting over a ZP to kill the pyromancer. I had all the information before me. If I had just been more observant and sequenced things better I would have ended the game sooner. I should have let his pyromancer live for a turn, counter the command and then clean up the board. I quickly found another mentor and had more removal for the pyromancer so it was ok, but still a big blunder. Thoughtout the game, we each cast at least 3 digs, but I cast therapy like 5-6 times, while Rich I do not believe cast any therapys. Therapy made a HUGE difference.
Game 3, we only had like 5 minutes and we both did great jobs of killing or countering everything the other player did. When we ran out of time, it was anyones game. Neither of us had a board and we both had permission in hand still.
5-0-1
Round 7: Miracles (Christopher Stitson)
Now officially in the miracles bracket, I get crushed in two fairly uneventful games. I had mediocre draws both games while Chris had very strong hands and got the CB/top lock both games. I saw 2 Jaces game 1 and no mentors so I assumed they were in the sideboard and would be coming in in game 2, this made me sideboard incorrectly.
Out: -2 Strix, -2 Swords, -1 Jace, -1 Swamp
In: + 1 Rod, +1 needle, +1 Disenchant, +2 Fluster, +1 Elspeth
Game 2 is basically a repeat of game 1. I only see 1 sideboard card (Elspeth) and it gets trumped by staticaster and then pressured by snapcaster mages. I manage to sneak a mentor through CB but my opponent kills it with DOUBLE IZZET STATICASTER.
5-1-1
Round 8: Elves
Game 1: Game 1 is very close and my opponent played scared and aggressive at the wrong times, although based on his information these were not incorrect plays. Seeing his hand with a turn 3 lethal NO so I just left mana open (bluffing) and passed. He instead just focused on establishing a board while I searched for answers. Around turn 5-6ish he made a lot of mana with double cradle and cast craterhoof into a counterspell and then the same turn FINALLY cast NO into my, otherwise dead, spell pierce.
A GSZ for Shaman of the Pack and some attacks in putting me to 1 or 2. I was able to stabilize the board with removal for the shaman and with a mentor but was only able to make small attacks, barely making enough tokens to block his attackers. He resolves a natural order but with his only hoof gone and shaman exiled he just got visionary and then cast DRS. Well, I was at 2 so I had to find an answer this turn. I untap go digging. Dig finds therapies, probes and lands. With 5 untapped monks with a powers equal to my opponent’s life total so he HAS to block ALL of them. He can symbiote his deathrite, but he will just die to the 10+ monks that will attack the next turn. He has no outs so he scoops.
Out: -2 Pierce
In: +2 Zealous Persecution.
*in retrospect I should have also taken out Jace for a mage.
Game 2, he mulls to 6 and I have a 7 with a swords, ZP, lands and cantrips. End of my turn 2 he fetches for 2 dryad arbors and I cast ZP. It was brutal. He has more lands though, and eventually plays a bunch of elves that get deluged. My Mentor survives the deluge at X=2 thanks to prowess and continues to poop out tokens the following turns ending the game quickly.
6-1-1
I was 4th Seed going into top 8, and Jeramiah announced that was not going to prize split so we got our rematch!
Quarter Finals: Turbo Eldrazi (Jeremiah Rudolph)
On the play, I mull and keep a weak 6 of ponder, stp, force, 3 lands. Jermiah plays a turn 1 top and I force which was a mistake. I disrupt him a bit with therapy, but never find a mentor. Another of my biggest mistakes: I know his hand but not his draw (titan), and willingly let a crop rotation resolve (My hand had like 3 counters in it). I completely forgot about Cavern of souls’s existence and he gets to cast titan off a cavern, which I swords, but it doesn’t matter at that point. The next turn, Jermiah has exactly 13 mana, searches for Emrakul EOT and I am at exactly 15.
Out: -2 strix, -1 Swords, -2 Pierce, -1 Deluge
In: +1 Null Rod, +3 Meddling Mage, +1 Council's Judgment, +1 Disenchant
Game 2: I shred his hand with probe/therapy, leaving only land. Relic is annoying, but Mentor pressures him into making a chasm while jace fateseals away his outs. Throughout this game I forgot a bunch of mentor triggers but it doesn’t matter, and I got my second warning for NOT drawing off probe.
Game 3: Again I shred his hand with probe/therapy. I do some cantriping and cast mentor but have little spells left. I meddling mage naming Primval titan (which Jeremiah then drew). Null rod makes a monk and I keep beating down. A turn before Jeremiah dies he draws a relic, but can’t use it.
The top 4 agreed to prize split, so the pressure is off.
Semi-Finals: Miracles (Christopher Stitson)
Game 1 I don’t really remember but I think therapy hit a bunch of cards. I got to cast a bunch of cantrips and digs and eventually cast a Jace and Mentor in the same turn after clearing the way of counters. With my opponent in topdeck mode, and entreat his simplest way out, I don’t risk brainstorming and instead fateseal with Jace’s first activation. Chris looks at me, “its entreat isn’t it?”, “YUP, bottom!”. He dies to monks while I brainstorm into a hand full of counters.
Out: -2 Strix, -4 Swords, -1 Jace, -1 Swamp, -1 Tissue
In: + 1 Rod, +1 needle, +1 Disenchant, +2 Fluster, +1 Elspeth, +2 Meddling Mage, +1 Dayquill
Game 2 I probe or therapy and see he has Jace, red blast, Counterspell, Staticaster we play draw go for a while, which is fine because I have 2 digs and 2 brainstorms. I brainstorms 3 times while we do this. My hand was stacked, I cast the brainstorms with a fetches out, but only had to shuffle away 1 card each time. Perhaps I should have just saved the brainstorms, but I wanted to build GY for Dig.
Around turn 3 or 4 he cast top, and I cast null rod the following turn. A turn or so later he taps out for a staticaster EOT which I counterspell. We fight over some digs and at some point I get a snapcaster in play. Later he has 5 lands and gets to cast jace with 1 mana up. I had pierce, FoW, blue card, Elspeth in hand but I let it resolve. He gets a 4 mana brainstorm. I untapped cast Elspeth, won the counter war and then killed Jace with a 5/4 flying snapcaster. He eventually gets a CB in play but my hand is 2 mentor and with Elspeth and null rod I don’t need to do much to win.
Finals Omni-Tell (Ken Briscoe)
I shuffle up and prepare to face off against omnitell but when Ken comes over he informs me that the finals won’t be happening and politely asks if I will conceded. Being only slightly more stubborn, I said no and so he conceded so we can both head home. To be fair, omnitell is a good matchup and I’d be on the play so the odds were in my favor to win.
Conclusions about my matches:
- I got very lucky against burn and merfolk. I think they are the decks worst matchups, along with Jund, and my opponents had average-to-bad draws.
- I made quite a few mistakes. Some simple things like forgetting monk triggers, or not drawing off probe (I got 2 warnings for this). But I also made a few major mistakes vs Rich and Jermiah where I gave them more outs than I should have.
- There was basically no delver decks at the top tables all day. I also did not play against a single wasteland. This was very strange to me, but it worked out because last minute I changed from 2 mystic, 1 batterskull, 1 gut shot to 2 snapcaster, 2 pierce. The other set up was better against delver, while I went with a set up better against miracles and combo.
- Jermiah seemed to think that I got very lucky and beat him, in what he thought was a great matchup for him. But I think this deck is actually good against Turbo Eldrazi. His trickbinds and wipe aways are basically dead cards, and his only really interacting is 2 relic. I did not get lucky that I found all the disruption I needed. I had tons of time to filter and find it and almost all the disruption my deck has is actually live against is deck. This is not the case for something like grixis. I don’t rely on useless soft counters. All of my removal works on primeval titan or emperion. Therapy, null rod and meddling mage are excellent ways to fight his deck. I don’t care if he gains 20 life off of posts, this deck regularly can fishbowls over 40 damage by turn 6.
Conclusions about the deck:
- The maindeck felt very good. It’s not perfect, but there were no obvious changes I feel like I should make.
- Dig through time is busted and probably should be banned. This deck COULD play 4 of them, but it already cantrips into cantrips which find more cantrips, more often than I would like. I think I will stick with 3. Plus, snapcaster was often dig #4. Taisigur or angler are also considerations.
- Mentor is also busted. I think it is the most powerful creature in legacy right now. If you have not played with mentor, try it out in this shell (or in miracles). When it resolves, you often get to shred your opponents hand and then kill them 1-2 turns later. If mentor dies immediately you usually get AT LEAST one monk out of it, so you are already getting card advantage. People under estimate it, and pass when you have lethal damage in hand. Mentor lets you turn therapies, swords, and counterspells into extra damage if you don’t mind using them in unconventional ways (ex: swords mentor, in response spell pierce).
- Jace and deluge as 1 ofs were good, but I did not use either of them very much throughout the tournament. They could change depending on what the meta is.
- The basic Swamp I am still unsure about. I go back and forth between this and a 3rd sea. Obviously, sea would have been better for me since I played against zero wasteland, but that won’t always be the case.
- Timely Reinforcements was the only card I never actually cast (outside of my fun game with burn). It is mainly there to improve the burn matchup, but also is great against delver and synergizes with therapy. Overall, I am still happy with this card.
- The miracles matchup could be improved and I will look to improve this with more sideboard slots.
Well, thanks for reading. More discussion is happening on the archtype in its thread here. I am very interested to see how this deck develops and would love to hear any comments, questions or criticism people have.
Sweet deck, I'm testing sth similar right now and really like the deck. Would you think that Deathrite Shaman would work well in the deck?
Other people have had success with deathrite in the archetype. Personally, I did not like it. Deathrite changes the deck to be more aggressive, and less good at being a control deck. I also don't like how it forces the land base to be really greedy. However, I do plan to give it another try at some point in the future, because my bias towards the change it makes in the deck is probably effecting my perception of how good it actually is.
Nice article and way to represent man. For the past couple of months I've been working on the same deck. Strix really didn't seem appealing to me as much as stoneforge douse. With early drops or even mid to late its been a house. Any thoughts? The toxic was gonna be my next question. What males it better than supreme v or zp? Thanks and again gratz on the w
Thats totally not shady as hell lolOriginally Posted by TheArchitect
It wasn't shady, it was a nice of way of saying, "I want to get the hell out of here, but there is there any chance you dont want the open points?". Re-reading my phrasing, I suppose the way I wrote it, it sounds like he was trying to trick me or something. But no, his intention was very obvious and it was funny. And actually, if I had realized how late it I probably would have conceded first.
Strix and stoneforge do very different things. You can't just jam a turn 2 stoneforge and expect it to be good. Its also not a card you want to sac to therapy, or can pitch to FoW. Strix slows down aggressive decks while not being dead in the late game OR against combo. Strix is not essential to the deck, but I do think it is better than stoneforge. Stoneforge plays a more similiar role to mentor, if you protect it you can get A LOT of card advantage out of it (at least against fair decks).
This deck cannot really play verdict. WW puts a strain on the mana base and 4 mana is too much. Deluge works great though. It can often sweep the board while leaving mentor still alive, and against combo worse case scenario it at least makes a token and pumps monks. ZP maindeck is something I consider over deluge, but deluge is useful in more matchups.
Wasn't thinking about the possibilities with strix plus therapy. My line of thinking was they are both 2 drops and how important is one compared to the other early game to stabilize yourself long enough for the mentor plan. Did you ever try v clique or is uu rough.
Stoneforge mystic would rarely survive if played as a 2 drop. Strix, you can always cast on turn 2 and just not care what happens to it. Clique I did try, and he was pretty good. This deck wants to make UUUU by turn 4 so, UU is not trouble. It is a card I that I would consider running again.
Thanks for the report, your sideboarding tips will certainly help :)
Couldn't you tap the land for U, let the Wipe Away resolve and cast Dig first time you receive priority?
He might have targeted my fetch I needed to crack to get to delve 6. But I did not realize that you can still make mana in responce to split second, so maybe I could have done that but missed it.
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