It is part II of the Card Focus series and this time we will discuss on the Red two-drop creature from Amonkhet and that is the Harsh mentor. With Red as the expected deck to shine for every new set that arrives, we expect people to brew a build ahead especially during the spoiler season.

Harsh mentor was initially priced at 500php in preorder in one of my fave online card shop and we expected the card to have an impact in the current Standard metagame. It ability looks to deal extra damage and punish opponents that uses Vehicles and creatures with non-Mana abilities. The card together with Glorybringer and Soul-scar Mage, Red Deck Wins will surely become a tier deck.

That, unfortunately, didn’t happened. The archetype was trumped by other builds like Temur Combo (that time when the cat combo was still legal) and Black Green Energy. In effect was a decline in card value and as of the current, the mentor is priced around 1 to 2 usd or around 80 to 100 pesos in the local market. The current Red-based builds has zero count of the card.

With Hour of Devastation entering the Standard scene, there are a few card choices that might again add up to the component of the Mono Red deck. Examples are Earthshaker Khenra and Abrade. Will the mentor fit a role in this build again? We shall see and observe. I have seen one related build in the recent Starcity Games Standard Open that is more of an Eldrazi Red deck that uses Thought-knot Seers and Reality Smasher in the late game. We might have a more aggressive build for RDW or even a Boros Humans version build soon.

That is a wrap for now. Until next post.