Another Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths card that I will preview and discuss for today, April 8th, is a card I found in a thread on Magic TCG Reddit which is somewhat a Green counterpart of my previous blog post. The card is called Hornbash Mentor and is previewed below.

A 3/3 for three mana, looks decent enough but we don’t want any elephant in our creature lineup. Its ETB ability is quite useful for aggro decks that anchor on large creatures but don’t have ways to deal with chump blockers. While initially, a trample counter will not give any relevant benefit especially against control decks where the ability is irrelevant, Hornbash Mentor presents a second ability that lets you push through the goal of lethal damage on your attackers. This also works if a board stall with your opponents’ creatures and the added +1/+1 counter will make it hard for them to block your assault.

What is next here is the best deck to build around and what the current Standard format offers to us is the Red-Green aggro deck. Their list has been in the metagame for quite a while now and the addition of the mentor will surely improve it. For a quick decklist:

You will notice that almost all of the creatures are non-Human so the trample counter will not go to waste whilst also not affecting the creature curve. ‘Bolsting’ your creature in the late game will become relevant in damage and combat advantage.

In conclusion, Hornbash Mentor will be an icon component of Green-based creature decks in the coming Ikoria Standard format.

Until the next blog post.