Today I have two post-ban Modern brews built to abuse Monastery Mentor, and these decks push things to the limit. At the heart of these two decks are the free spells, Gitaxian Probe and Manamorphose, which, beyond the obvious synergy with Monastery Mentor, generate extra tokens from Young Pyromancer, fill the graveyard, and add to the Storm count.

Monastery Mentor Storm

This deck is a fusion between Storm Aggro decks like this one I shared last year, and classic Empty the Warrens-Goblin Bushwhacker Storm decks.

The defining card here is Battle Hymn, which produces an obscene amount of mana paired with a token generator. Monastery Mentor provides the critical mass necessary to push the card from mediocre to excellent, and it leads to some busted draws. Keep in mind that it triggers any token-generation ability while still on the stack, so with either of the creatures, it will at least break even on mana, but it comes with the potential to do huge things.

I originally built this deck intending to abuse Haze of Rage. And while it didn't make the final cut of the deck, it's certainly a powerful card and worth experimenting with further, especially when paired with Monastery Mentor.

Mentor Ascension

In the old post-nerf 2010 Extended format, at PT: Amsterdam I played a Pyromancer Ascension-Tarmogoyf control deck that could abuse the enchantment as a draw engine and win condition with burn spells, but could also play a fair aggro-control game with creatures.

This deck is a Modern interpretation that uses Monastery Mentor and Young Pyromancer to create board presence, but it has a potent draw engine and alternative card-advantage attrition plan with Pyromancer Ascension. Both of these plans are married together by the suite of cheap spells, including eight free spells, and 12 1-mana draw spells to find action and fuel the graveyard.

Share your thoughts on these decks in the forums!

-Adam