@oestrus it’s typically not used, and it’s very situational. I mainly put it on the list as an additional option for people to consider. You are correct that dread returning it doesn’t really do much in the short term at all, and hard casting it would be very difficult. I actually haven’t tried it out myself either, but it has enough going for it that I felt it deserved at least some mention. I have seen it used a couple times in Dredge/Reanimator lists. But I’m thinking it’s more of a niche card that only works in certain builds and is very very situational.

Congratulations to @neo_altoid for taking Seat of the Synod Mentor to a Top 8 finish in a recent Vintage Challenge.

@BlindTherapy yea that definitely makes sense. It is a compounded problem. It doesn't look like they're long for my list. I'm only running 3 Ichorid in the list so they def aren't maxed. I want to play test with some prized Amalgam as well. Also interested to see if Hollow ones make any sort of impact on dredge lists.

I look at lists like this and just wonder if JacoDrazi isn't just better and possibly the same cost. But that is not why you are asking for help....

I think that mental Misstep, dryad militant, and Thorn of Amethyst should be considered. These cards are possible on turn one. point being is you NEED a turn one play. Dryad militant turns off Baby Jace, Snapcaster, cabal therapies, dread returns, and delve spells relatively well. Your biggest fear with this deck is Mentor and STPs (and maybe Oath.) MM helps against one of those. Mentor is just going to steam roll the deck. You have no way to come back from an early Mentor other than your STPs.

The other problem with a deck like this is that it is an anti-meta deck. What decks do you play against in your area or online? You can tune this deck to have an edge against Shops by playing maindeck Kataki and Null Rod. Against blue decks I would have 4 spirit of the labyrinths and 4 Thalia 1.0.

Just my 2 cents. Good luck!

Changed Cruise to Mana Drain, sideboard changed Dread to Spitters and cut third Leyline for another Mana Drain. Went 4-3 in P9 challenge. Losses to Dredge, Esper Mentor, and Montolio (Tks Shops). Beat Dredge, UW Standstill, Blue Moon, and UWR Mentor. Main deck feels pretty good at this point. I might want to change 1 of the colorless lands or the basic swamp to some other land (Bayou or Trop). Sideboard is very tough to figure out. You need certain cards like Cage to not auto lose to Oath but maybe Oath is so small a % it is worth skipping? They would just be more Leyline anyways though. Spitters are great against White Eldrazi and Grixis but suck against TKShops and Mentor. Idk what to do with the board from here.

Also Trickster on a Ravager while they are tapped out so the cant put counters on a factory for instance, or on a Mentor in response to first spell so they cant make a million tokens etc.

@Ten-Ten i dont think playing cobra without gush is a good idea, the whole point of playing cobra is because of gush

@Islandswamp Who knows what I'm Oathing into... I usually run a creature package that include 1 Gris and 1 or 2 other things, often Emrakul, and more recently Salvagers because, seriously, that stuff is just really good.

@Brass-Man I suspect this is probably the main reason why Yawgmoth's Will isn't what it used to be. I find the path of Yawgmoth's Will's domination of the format, and subsequent falling off, to be fascinating.

The miracle is probably a better candidate. The problem is that it shifts Jace activations into your opponent's turn. Not that we haven't all dreamed of "Your end step, cast Time Walk. Resolves?" I assume the card got thoroughly tested in Legacy, and it's not like you see it in RUG and BUG decks there despite 4x Brainstorm and 4x Ponder.

I saw Sylvan Library in one of Rich Shay's decks from a while ago and gave it a try. I haven't been impressed so far but I've only played about 4 events with it. Most of the time it is too slow. Sometimes I can't afford the life. When I get an extra 3 cards out of it it's incredible but that doesn't seem to happen all that often.

The primary purpose of the Shamans is Wasteland resistance, but their incidental value in fighting Crucible, Snapcaster, Will, and JVP is not zero. It's not normally a card I'm a big fan of in Vintage (I generally think of it as "too fair") but it's been very useful in covering the third or fourth color.

I'm just not sure the fifth color is worth adding more fragility to the manabase; especially in a relatively fair list. I'm usually the first to climb aboard the Greed Train but in this case I'm happy to trade it for fewer games of getting randomly crushed by Shops, Landstill, or BUG Fish.

Going back to the original post and card list Brassman:
Considering all the mentor, the rise of the eldrazi and some recent success of various fish type decks would you swap out duress for thoughtseize? Seems a much better meta-game call to me.

Please consider breaking out the "Business" sections of your decklists. Years of reading decklists has trained me that at least separating creatures makes for greatly improved readability.

Seems reasonable, but i am really not liking kataki. I was testing against Doomsday and I was surprised by how much game the deck had. I think cutting kataki for hammer mage and then playing chalice seems real interesting.