I'm not a huge fan of this card, but I do think people are being over critical. A lot of the analysis in this thread hinges on the card dealing twenty damage, but most cards don't do that.

If this card consistently dealt 7 damage for 3 mana and a card, that feels vintage quality to me. 5 damage, and I'm not sure.

I cut my teeth in vintage on the Psychatog control deck, which often ran the card Berserk. Now Berserk has a lot of things going for it that this card doesn't, but it filled essentially the same role as a direct damage spell.

When I look at cards that are interesting, but not obviously good, I like to ask a few questions:

• What does this card do in an average game, and what sort of deck would be improved if that happened more often?
• In what game state would this card be better than any other option, and what sort of other cards can increase the chances of that game state happening.
• In which game states is this card dead, and what cards/strategies decrease the chance of that ever happening.
• are there any existing strategies that have a weakness that this card shores up? E. G. "I lose games when X happens, but I would win if I had this card"

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/player/[username] will give you recent results. It doesn't go back super far but it's an option!

@mourningpalace - I know right? and then some punk named mourningpalace beat me up in the quarterfinals! 0 Stars. :D

The short answer is that Stony Silence doesn't stop them from attacking.

Null Rod does hurt a lot of the cards in their deck, but in my experience (and @ZebraUnicorn's, who built the pre-restriction list I've worked from), the matchup is very tempo-centric, and Stony/Rod can be a giant tempo sink. Since Ballista was printed, as a shops pilot I've won more games against resolved Null Rod/Stony than I've lost ... and I'm not sure how many games I won where they were unable to cast it.

Stony Silence turn 1 on the play can be a huge blowout, but a lot of the time you're spending 3 or 4 mana, (which amounts to your whole turn) and not getting ahead on board against whatever threats they have.

Even if you have Wastelands, they're mana denial deck and you aren't. They're just better at that game than you are (this is one of the reasons I've been backing down from 3 strip effects to 1). I've seen a lot of games where the Null Rod player will shut off one of their own moxes, and two moxes and a Ravager on the other side of the board .... and STILL end up way behind, because that mana and that turn was way more important for them than the moxes on the other side of the table, and the ability for the now 3/3 Ravager.

On it's own, Stony Silence doesn't solve any problems - it's only really exciting when you combine it with something like a now-Ravager-proof Dack Fayden ... but Swords to Plowshares also makes your Dack Fayden Ravager-Proof ... and it also protects Jaces and doesn't turn off your own artifacts and costs one less.

It's not the worst card in the list - I'd rather have a Stony Silence against shops than a Mental Misstep ... but I dislike it enough to run an extra dedicated shops-hate card in the sideboard instead of boarding it in. If other matchups became more important, I might consider boarding it in to free up the sideboard space

@Tom-Bombadil said in Building Mentor based Control:

Why do you play just one Stony Silence? I have found it the clearly best card you want to see against decks with Paradoxical Outcome (and together with the Wastelands it helps against Shops and other Big Blue variants as well).

I agree that the card is very good against Paradoxical Outcome decks, but honestly I'm just not that worried about them. If I was prioritizing the matchup I might want 2, but I'm more concerned with the mirror, Shops, Eldrazi, Oath, Landstill, BUG, and Dredge matchups than I am Outcome. I've considered cutting Stony entirely, but I keep running into random Tezzeret or Painter decks.

Incidentally I do not like the card against stock Ravager Workshop decks, and I don't board it in there. Obviously that changes my valuation of how many to run.

Here's my list at the moment:

I'm still changing a slot or two around each event, but it doesn't deviate much from this.

There are certainly other approaches to Mentor+Control now, the biggest questions being where you land on the tempo<->controlling scale, and which colors you run.

I like to keep my curve fairly low, but not to the point of becoming an aggro deck.

For colors, I wasn't worried about running a 3 color manabase, but wasn't comfortable with four. Between Swords to Plowshares and Fragmentize, Red or Green aren't strictly necessary for the shops matchup in the way they once were.

Ultimately I value Pyroblast, Dack Fayden, and By Force higher than Demonic Tutor and Painful Truths (and possibly Tasigur + Deathrite Shaman, but that's a stretch).

For a hot second I considered a Tarmogoyf build but thought better of it before I put it together. I'm just not impressed at all by Sylvan Library, but I'm sure someone in this thread will have an impassioned counterargument to that

To address your specific questions:

Are Supreme Verdict and Sudden Shock still good?

My pre-restriction list had Sudden Shocks, which I no longer run — mostly because Mentor is less popular now.

I suspect it's also worse in the matchup than it used to be, as the deck is less likely to have (and less reliant on) explosive Mentor draws that force you to kill it immediately or lose.

I expect Mentor to get more popular over the next few months, so some sort of more dedicated mirror card might become more important soon.

Counter Choices

My valuation of Pyroblast has gone up a little. Pyroblast vs Gush and Gitaxian Probe was a little lackluster, but it's strong against a lot of the cards you see replacing it.

I haven't moved to Mana Drains, which some people predicted would start showing up. I've tried them in a few blue lists and really don't think they're very strong right now.

Draw spell selection

So far I've been getting the impression that filtering for your good restricted spells (with Preordain, mostly) seems to outdraw decks trying to capitalize on unrestricted draw engines like Thirst for Knowledge.

The card that obviously stands out in my list is Compulsive Research. While I think cantrips are, in general, better than unrestricted draw, they hit diminishing returns eventually, and I felt like I could use one more "pull ahead" card to cantrip into.

After plotting out the deck, I found myself looking for 1 or 2 extra cards that 1) generated actual card advantage, 2) didn't cost 4 or more mana, and 3) didn't require me to change cards I was happy with to support them. Compulsive Research was simply the best card that fit all three of those criteria. It's not an all-star but it has yet to disappoint me

If you were already running the cards necessary to support Painful Truths or Thirst for Knowledge, those are likely better choices. For me they don't seem worth the cost to the rest of the deck.

Other Threats

I've just been sticking to Mentors and Jaces. Personally I think the 5+CMC threats just don't work without supporting them with a bigger manabase, and perhaps some Mana Drains (both of which I think are a mistake in Mentor), and even then they lead to some consistency issues.

Tendrils just needs too much support from cards I'm not running (mostly Moxes). Obviously the Storm+Mentor decks are an entirely different animal.

Various utility creatures (Snapcaster Mage; Vendilion Clique; Containment Priest; Kataki, War's Wage) seem okay to me, but I usually end up cutting them.

@Teazia yeah, I see this being appealing to the sort of player that plays a lot of MTGO but doesn't hang out on TMD/hasn't played vintage before. As long as they're paying to 32 players, with big prizes, for 8-person events, these weekly challenges are going to appeal to anyone who just generally likes grinding MTGO.

@revengeanceful I thought they were much more than that ... I'll have to pick a couple up!

@revengeanceful World Championship cards are AMAZING for proxies, especially if you have a friend (or are a friend) with some good markers and an artistic streak. They're genuine magic cards so there's no thickness/cheating issues (as long as your sleeves are very opaque because they have different backs). I didn't bring it up earlier because I've heard they can be pretty pricey these days .... probably from decades of people buying them to use as proxies!

for personal playtesting, I use (and highly recommend) simple paper printouts, on regular printer paper, cut out and put in a sleeve over a cheap card. They look nicer, and totally eliminate the cognitive load of "what does this card do again?" when playing a bunch of games. Unfortunately this changes the thickness of the cards in a way that most TOs are uncomfortable with (less than a regular, legal foil imo, but c'est la vie).

For playtesting and games with friends though, it can't be beat. Cheaper and looks better than internet proxies, easier, faster to make, and WAY more readable than sharpie proxies, and doesn't ruin a card forever. Just don't cheat in playtesting.