You know I think by now we can drop the whole "dies to removal" thing cause frankly everything is removable sooner or later/one way or another.
I remember hearing arguments between Blood Moon vs Magus of the Moon. And Eidolon vs Pyrostatic Pillar at Legacy tables. In a perfect world Turn 3 gives us 6 total mana for the game and gets them to zero. But until we get Fireblast or Price of Progress in Modern whenever there is a Red card that has possibility to do more damage we test it out. It may work in your meta and it may not for the next guy.
Monastery Swiftspear dies to removal and Grim Lavamancer even easier to kill but they both add value damage wise worthy of a slot. Harsh Mentor may do that as well. Anyone here remember when Eidolon came out (not saying this dude is the 2nd revival of it) people were like it dies to removal its not gonna be good and then what happens, it helped Modern Burn jump into Tier 1 when we were in the Tier 2 list (well its not the only card but made a big impact).
Anyhow fellow flamethrowers lets see how this card plays out during matches, how it may or may not alter opponent decks, strategies, etc. Heck this card may be bonkers/bananas for a year then another side board card/tech comes out for opposing decks and forces us to never use it again making it a distant memory then 2 years later a few new decks are created that make it hard on Burn but this card rises and cements a place. Cause MTG never makes a card thats good for a time then bad for a time and good again...so on and so on.
Whats the worst that can happen you proxy (write the name on a worthless land card) a few, test it, dont like it and move on but you still get to play some Magic. Be glad we have options to test/play with and it keeps Burn fresh and alive.
Harsh Mentor is not trying to be a Lightning Bolt or Skullcrack, it is trying to be a 2/2 creature for 2 with a relevant ability. So yes, it gets compared to Eidolon. I agree, with you when you say "You have to compare it to things that it might replace". Well it isn't replacing Lightning Bolt, or any other spell I can see that sees play (I'm not sure why you mention a card like lightning strike) the only real ability or part or curve it compares to is Eidolon.
To matter against Fetchlands Harsh Mentor is dependent on drawing it in your opening hand, being on the play, having an opponent that needs to fetch, and is easily killed. So for those reasons I do not buy the Fetchland argument. I do not like to use the "dies to removal" argument but in this case it is a 2/2 for 2, not a Goyf, or a Snapcaster, or an islandwalking lord. It's power and toughness are mediocre and has no ETB. It doesn't do enough.
Since I think Harsh Mentor will not see play and you do, would you post a list you could see it in as well instead of just saying it should be included?
I don't know where you think I brought up Lightning Strike, but perhaps you should go back and re-read my statements because you only skimmed them the first time. I said that Skullcrack is often a player-only Lightning Strike, because that's what it is in the absence of lifegain.
You're not correctly approaching this card at all.
Let's build a 60 card Burn deck with 20 lands. I think Lightning Bolt is good, so let's play 4. Next up: Rift Bolt. Hmm, not as good as Lightning Bolt so I won't add it. Lava Spike: not as good as Lightning Bolt, so I won't add it either. And on and on it goes and eventually I've exhausted all of the reasonable Burn spells and still only have 24 cards in my deck becaue none of them are as good as Lightning Bolt. I made a mistake of expecting every card to be better than Lightning Bolt or it's not worth playing.
You say "it's a 2CMC 2/2, so compare to Eidolon, if it's not better it's bad". It's obviously not as good as Eidolon, which doesn't mean Harsh Mentor is bad but rather that Eidolon is better. But it was a waste of time to make that comparison because HM isn't going to replace Eidolon at all. But, it may go in some of those other 36 spots that I wrongly excluded Rift and Spike from above. You're making the same error as that.
A Nocatl Burn deck has 51-52 cards that are either lands or 4x auto-includes. After that, you find flex spots that are filled with things like:
2-4 Searing Blaze
0-2 Skullcrack
0-2 Grim Lavamancer
0-3 Lightning Helix
It is cards like that that would be removed to make room for maindeck Harsh Mentor. It's not Eidolon. It doesn't compete for Eidolon's slot at all and you're wrong to latch onto "2CMC 2/2, must fight with Eidolon". That's wrong.
I already gave you examples of deck lists here:
If you're playing Nocatl and have some spare maindeck Skullcracks (which are often just player only Lightning Strikes), 1 Harsh Mentor is a perfectly valid swap. If you play 2 Grim Lavamancers, 1 and 1 is reasonable. If you still have Firewalkers in the side, a couple of these is reasonable. Stony Silence? Again, a couple of these is reasonable.
I'm not going to type out a deck list and replace the 2 Grim Lavamancers with 1 Grim and 1 HM, or replace 2 Skullcracks with 1 Skullcrack and 1 Grim. You can envision that on your own. I'm also not going to type out multiple permutations of Burn sideboard cards for you. You can envision on your own a sideboard that used to have Firewalkers but has these instead.
Frankly, I think this card is at best a 1 of in the main and a few in the side. I'm not beating the drum saying "remove eidolon, play this!!!11one" or "maindeck 4 of them!!!11one". I'm being calm and measured in how I see this card fitting into Burn. My statements are in stark contrast to your overblown praise for Slowspear.
Nacatl is horrible right now. I wouldn't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Regarding the Mentor... I sat down and thought about a list of decks in which I'd consider sideboarding it in (aka every deck that's light on removal), and I came away impressed with the results. Here's my list:
That's not a bad list. The big-mana ones I'm skeptical on whether I'd actually side it in or not (since Burn's matchup there is good, and it's tough to find what to take out), but overall I'm thinking it has a home.
Harsh Mentor should not replace any spells, if it also isn't replacing Eidolon then it isn't replacing any creatures either. Therefore, it is replacing nothing and won't be played. Simple as that. I've said my piece, waste your time with this card if you like.
Harsh Mentor should not replace any spells, if it also isn't replacing Eidolon then it isn't replacing any creatures either. Therefore, it is replacing nothing and won't be played. Simple as that. I've said my piece, waste your time with this card if you like.
Sideboard card. Sideboard card. Sideboard card sideboard card sideboard card. How many times do people have to say "sideboard card"? That's where narrow hate cards go. In the sideboard. So that they can be brought in from the sideboard when they're relevant. When is it relevant? Removal light decks that will trigger the heck out of it.
Please go back and re-read what I've written, because I'm convinced you think I've said something that I have absolutely not said. I've said that I'd play 1 in the main at best. Beyond that, it's 2 int he side. I would consider one of these in a Grim Lavamancer slot (which was still a creature last I checked). I would consider it in a Skullcrack slot, which is a redundant spell that is either a hate card or a player-only Lightning Strike (and that's pretty bad). That's how flex spots work. They're flexible, meta dependent cards and they're things like the cards that I mentioned above. How many maindeck? ONE, maybe. One. Not four.
You're still acting like I've said this is an auto-4 main and that it should replace Eidolon. I have not said that and I've not even seen anyone here say that. Maybe you're confusing my tepid approach toward this card with your approach toward Slowspear, which you said is an auto-4?
By the way, are you finally off the "Slowspear is the second coming of Swiftspear" thing? It's not. It's really bad in Burn. You're saying that a card that is clearly very good, Harsh Mentor, "should not replace any spells" yet you were willing to drop at least 2 spells (or the 4 Nacatls that you dropped 2 spells for) to make room for 4 Slowspears? Please be consistent.
Harsh Mentor should not replace any spells, if it also isn't replacing Eidolon then it isn't replacing any creatures either. Therefore, it is replacing nothing and won't be played. Simple as that. I've said my piece, waste your time with this card if you like.
Sideboard card. Sideboard card. Sideboard card sideboard card sideboard card. How many times do people have to say "sideboard card"? That's where narrow hate cards go. In the sideboard. So that they can be brought in from the sideboard when they're relevant. When is it relevant? Removal light decks that will trigger the heck out of it.
Please go back and re-read what I've written, because I'm convinced you think I've said something that I have absolutely not said. I've said that I'd play 1 in the main at best. Beyond that, it's 2 int he side. I would consider one of these in a Grim Lavamancer slot (which was still a creature last I checked). I would consider it in a Skullcrack slot, which is a redundant spell that is either a hate card or a player-only Lightning Strike (and that's pretty bad). That's how flex spots work. They're flexible, meta dependent cards and they're things like the cards that I mentioned above. How many maindeck? ONE, maybe. One. Not four.
You're still acting like I've said this is an auto-4 main and that it should replace Eidolon. I have not said that and I've not even seen anyone here say that. Maybe you're confusing my tepid approach toward this card with your approach toward Slowspear, which you said is an auto-4?
By the way, are you finally off the "Slowspear is the second coming of Swiftspear" thing? It's not. It's really bad in Burn. You're saying that a card that is clearly very good, Harsh Mentor, "should not replace any spells" yet you were willing to drop at least 2 spells (or the 4 Nacatls that you dropped 2 spells for) to make room for 4 Slowspears? Please be consistent.
You say that it dies to everything--but so do Goblin Guide, Monastery Swiftspear, Eidolon of the Great Revel, Wild Nacatl, and Grim Lavamancer. None of our dudes escape removal. Soul scar mage suffers from the exact same problem. So let's lose that argument.
You're free to lose that argument all you want. All the creatures you mentioned either have haste or eidolon will hit them for 2 when they use a removal spell. This is a two mana do-nothing bear.
Again, you contradict yourself a lot.
You don't like it because no haste, yet you like Soul Scare mage--which lacks haste.
We've seen the deck succeed with non-haste creatures such as Grim Lavamancer and Wild Nacatl.
You say dies to removal--but soul scar mage and everything else we have die to removal.
Soul Scar mage very possibly has no effect, and is much less powerful when in the optimal spot.
Harsh Mentor is not trying to be a Lightning Bolt or Skullcrack, it is trying to be a 2/2 creature for 2 with a relevant ability. So yes, it gets compared to Eidolon. I agree, with you when you say "You have to compare it to things that it might replace". Well it isn't replacing Lightning Bolt, or any other spell I can see that sees play (I'm not sure why you mention a card like lightning strike) the only real ability or part or curve it compares to is Eidolon.
To matter against Fetchlands Harsh Mentor is dependent on drawing it in your opening hand, being on the play, having an opponent that needs to fetch, and is easily killed. So for those reasons I do not buy the Fetchland argument. I do not like to use the "dies to removal" argument but in this case it is a 2/2 for 2, not a Goyf, or a Snapcaster, or an islandwalking lord. It's power and toughness are mediocre and has no ETB. It doesn't do enough.
Since I think Harsh Mentor will not see play and you do, would you post a list you could see it in as well instead of just saying it should be included?
First off, I thought your initial post bashing Mentor and advocating Soul-Scar was blatant sarcasm. Now that I can see it wasn't, I'm baffled. I could see either easily seeing SB play, but while Scar seems like a niche option to deal with something like Kitchen Finks, Mentor looks to be the card with the most upside and a shot to see some copies played MB. Mentor is basically a slightly worse Eidolon #5 with the upside that it only hurts our opponent and doesn't die to enchantment hate.
Of course, I'm all for testing both cards and letting the numbers decide, but your line of reasoning for why there's no chance in hell Mentor sees play is pretty shaky at best.
Mentor is basically a slightly worse Eidolon #5 with the upside that it only hurts our opponent and doesn't die to enchantment hate.
I'm not even sure it is "slightly" worse. Maybe slightly worse in the context it might not trigger as much? I guess it is contextual. I think Eidolon and Mentor do different things. Burn's Decklist is pretty tight right now. I am thinking of running Mentor as a 2 of Main Board replacing either 2 Skullcrack or 2 Atarka's Command, and running 2 in the side.
Note, the reason I'd consider taking out 2 AC is because I run 3 Skullcrack mainboard. I don't play Nacatl and I very rarely get to cast the +1/+1 mode on AC, so playing Skullcrack over it is just for mana consistency's sake.
I am a mono red burn player with 4 flex spots I alternate between spark elemental and Keldon marauders, with marauders usually taking home the win. Ive had some time to digest the spoiler and come back with an analytical mind.
I don't like this new Harsh Mentor guy at all. If anything, he is sideboard material. I would rather play Keldon Marauders main deck. This guy feels like a worse ash zealot, and I tried to make my girl ash zealot work.
I am a mono red burn player with 4 flex spots I alternate between spark elemental and Keldon marauders, with marauders usually taking home the win. Ive had some time to digest the spoiler and come back with an analytical mind.
I don't like this new Harsh Mentor guy at all. If anything, he is sideboard material. I would rather play Keldon Marauders main deck. This guy feels like a worse ash zealot, and I tried to make my girl ash zealot work.
Ash Zealot is probably better at attacking but in Boros/Naya Burn, we usually stop attacking and early and finish the game with burn spells. Harsh Mentor doesn't have to attack, he just has to sit there. If Harsh Mentor is on the battlefield when your opponent fetches twice during a game, it's already done a great job. Ash Zealot's bolt trigger will never happen as much as Mentor's shock trigger. It's way too narrow.
I am a mono red burn player with 4 flex spots I alternate between spark elemental and Keldon marauders, with marauders usually taking home the win. Ive had some time to digest the spoiler and come back with an analytical mind.
I don't like this new Harsh Mentor guy at all. If anything, he is sideboard material. I would rather play Keldon Marauders main deck. This guy feels like a worse ash zealot, and I tried to make my girl ash zealot work.
Ash Zealot is probably better at attacking but in Boros/Naya Burn, we usually stop attacking and early and finish the game with burn spells. Harsh Mentor doesn't have to attack, he just has to sit there. If Harsh Mentor is on the battlefield when your opponent fetches twice during a game, it's already done a great job. Ash Zealot's bolt trigger will never happen as much as Mentor's shock trigger. It's way too narrow.
true, but the same could be argued for marauders, the just sitting there argument. If the "dies to removal" argument is still one that people are making, marauders is better as well.
Mentor is really good for people who don't have a plan to deal with it. If that is the case, we should already be doing well with our eidolons, gobby guides, and swifty.
Im not saying Mentor is bad, its a good card, but for burn, there are better to have in the flex slots. Chandra's Phoenix is a good card, but we are not playing it in burn.
I am a mono red burn player with 4 flex spots I alternate between spark elemental and Keldon marauders, with marauders usually taking home the win. Ive had some time to digest the spoiler and come back with an analytical mind.
I don't like this new Harsh Mentor guy at all. If anything, he is sideboard material. I would rather play Keldon Marauders main deck. This guy feels like a worse ash zealot, and I tried to make my girl ash zealot work.
Ash Zealot is probably better at attacking but in Boros/Naya Burn, we usually stop attacking and early and finish the game with burn spells. Harsh Mentor doesn't have to attack, he just has to sit there. If Harsh Mentor is on the battlefield when your opponent fetches twice during a game, it's already done a great job. Ash Zealot's bolt trigger will never happen as much as Mentor's shock trigger. It's way too narrow.
true, but the same could be argued for marauders, the just sitting there argument. If the "dies to removal" argument is still one that people are making, marauders is better as well.
Mentor is really good for people who don't have a plan to deal with it. If that is the case, we should already be doing well with our eidolons, gobby guides, and swifty.
Im not saying Mentor is bad, its a good card, but for burn, there are better to have in the flex slots. Chandra's Phoenix is a good card, but we are not playing it in burn.
No... not quite. Keldon Marauders is nowhere near on the same power level as Harsh Mentor. When I say, "just sits there," I am talking about when you can't attack into your opponent's creatures but your opponent can't make profitable attacks due to a risk of dying on the crack back. It happens often. Marauders goes away after 2 turns and only the ability does 1 damage. Mentor sits there and locks your opponent out of using their fetch lands, Oozes, displacers, and everything else mentioned in this thread and shocks them if they do. Harsh Mentor is 10000x better than Keldon Marauders.
No they havent given us a Cant Be Countered Instant do 3 damage for each non basic land for .
Or how about a Legacy useful card that Cant Be Countered for 1 Phyrexian and says if you play Force of Will or Show and Tell you auto lose.
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
I remember hearing arguments between Blood Moon vs Magus of the Moon. And Eidolon vs Pyrostatic Pillar at Legacy tables. In a perfect world Turn 3 gives us 6 total mana for the game and gets them to zero. But until we get Fireblast or Price of Progress in Modern whenever there is a Red card that has possibility to do more damage we test it out. It may work in your meta and it may not for the next guy.
Monastery Swiftspear dies to removal and Grim Lavamancer even easier to kill but they both add value damage wise worthy of a slot. Harsh Mentor may do that as well. Anyone here remember when Eidolon came out (not saying this dude is the 2nd revival of it) people were like it dies to removal its not gonna be good and then what happens, it helped Modern Burn jump into Tier 1 when we were in the Tier 2 list (well its not the only card but made a big impact).
Anyhow fellow flamethrowers lets see how this card plays out during matches, how it may or may not alter opponent decks, strategies, etc. Heck this card may be bonkers/bananas for a year then another side board card/tech comes out for opposing decks and forces us to never use it again making it a distant memory then 2 years later a few new decks are created that make it hard on Burn but this card rises and cements a place. Cause MTG never makes a card thats good for a time then bad for a time and good again...so on and so on.
Whats the worst that can happen you proxy (write the name on a worthless land card) a few, test it, dont like it and move on but you still get to play some Magic. Be glad we have options to test/play with and it keeps Burn fresh and alive.
I don't know where you think I brought up Lightning Strike, but perhaps you should go back and re-read my statements because you only skimmed them the first time. I said that Skullcrack is often a player-only Lightning Strike, because that's what it is in the absence of lifegain.
You're not correctly approaching this card at all.
Let's build a 60 card Burn deck with 20 lands. I think Lightning Bolt is good, so let's play 4. Next up: Rift Bolt. Hmm, not as good as Lightning Bolt so I won't add it. Lava Spike: not as good as Lightning Bolt, so I won't add it either. And on and on it goes and eventually I've exhausted all of the reasonable Burn spells and still only have 24 cards in my deck becaue none of them are as good as Lightning Bolt. I made a mistake of expecting every card to be better than Lightning Bolt or it's not worth playing.
You say "it's a 2CMC 2/2, so compare to Eidolon, if it's not better it's bad". It's obviously not as good as Eidolon, which doesn't mean Harsh Mentor is bad but rather that Eidolon is better. But it was a waste of time to make that comparison because HM isn't going to replace Eidolon at all. But, it may go in some of those other 36 spots that I wrongly excluded Rift and Spike from above. You're making the same error as that.
A Nocatl Burn deck has 51-52 cards that are either lands or 4x auto-includes. After that, you find flex spots that are filled with things like:
It is cards like that that would be removed to make room for maindeck Harsh Mentor. It's not Eidolon. It doesn't compete for Eidolon's slot at all and you're wrong to latch onto "2CMC 2/2, must fight with Eidolon". That's wrong.
I already gave you examples of deck lists here:
I'm not going to type out a deck list and replace the 2 Grim Lavamancers with 1 Grim and 1 HM, or replace 2 Skullcracks with 1 Skullcrack and 1 Grim. You can envision that on your own. I'm also not going to type out multiple permutations of Burn sideboard cards for you. You can envision on your own a sideboard that used to have Firewalkers but has these instead.
Frankly, I think this card is at best a 1 of in the main and a few in the side. I'm not beating the drum saying "remove eidolon, play this!!!11one" or "maindeck 4 of them!!!11one". I'm being calm and measured in how I see this card fitting into Burn. My statements are in stark contrast to your overblown praise for Slowspear.
Regarding the Mentor... I sat down and thought about a list of decks in which I'd consider sideboarding it in (aka every deck that's light on removal), and I came away impressed with the results. Here's my list:
Abzan Company (fetchlands, Viscera Seer)
Affinity (Arcbound Ravager, Cranial Plating, manlands, Steel Overseer)
Bant Eldrazi (Drowner of Hope, Eldrazi Displacer, fetches)
Death & Taxes (Aether Vial, Clue tokens, Eldrazi Displacer)
Eldrazi Tron (Basilisk Collar, Endbringer, Expedition Map, Mind Stone, Walking Ballista)
GX Tron (Expedition Map, Oblivion Stone)
Merfolk (Aether Vial, Cursecatcher, Mutavault)
RG Valakut (fetches, Sakura-Tribe Elder)
That's not a bad list. The big-mana ones I'm skeptical on whether I'd actually side it in or not (since Burn's matchup there is good, and it's tough to find what to take out), but overall I'm thinking it has a home.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Still of a lot of hits
"Are you serious?" Chandra replied.
You're right, forgot the Eggs were mana abilities. My bad.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
Sideboard card. Sideboard card. Sideboard card sideboard card sideboard card. How many times do people have to say "sideboard card"? That's where narrow hate cards go. In the sideboard. So that they can be brought in from the sideboard when they're relevant. When is it relevant? Removal light decks that will trigger the heck out of it.
Please go back and re-read what I've written, because I'm convinced you think I've said something that I have absolutely not said. I've said that I'd play 1 in the main at best. Beyond that, it's 2 int he side. I would consider one of these in a Grim Lavamancer slot (which was still a creature last I checked). I would consider it in a Skullcrack slot, which is a redundant spell that is either a hate card or a player-only Lightning Strike (and that's pretty bad). That's how flex spots work. They're flexible, meta dependent cards and they're things like the cards that I mentioned above. How many maindeck? ONE, maybe. One. Not four.
You're still acting like I've said this is an auto-4 main and that it should replace Eidolon. I have not said that and I've not even seen anyone here say that. Maybe you're confusing my tepid approach toward this card with your approach toward Slowspear, which you said is an auto-4?
By the way, are you finally off the "Slowspear is the second coming of Swiftspear" thing? It's not. It's really bad in Burn. You're saying that a card that is clearly very good, Harsh Mentor, "should not replace any spells" yet you were willing to drop at least 2 spells (or the 4 Nacatls that you dropped 2 spells for) to make room for 4 Slowspears? Please be consistent.
Absolutely. El is a Harsh Mentor.
Again, you contradict yourself a lot.
You don't like it because no haste, yet you like Soul Scare mage--which lacks haste.
We've seen the deck succeed with non-haste creatures such as Grim Lavamancer and Wild Nacatl.
You say dies to removal--but soul scar mage and everything else we have die to removal.
Soul Scar mage very possibly has no effect, and is much less powerful when in the optimal spot.
First off, I thought your initial post bashing Mentor and advocating Soul-Scar was blatant sarcasm. Now that I can see it wasn't, I'm baffled. I could see either easily seeing SB play, but while Scar seems like a niche option to deal with something like Kitchen Finks, Mentor looks to be the card with the most upside and a shot to see some copies played MB. Mentor is basically a slightly worse Eidolon #5 with the upside that it only hurts our opponent and doesn't die to enchantment hate.
Of course, I'm all for testing both cards and letting the numbers decide, but your line of reasoning for why there's no chance in hell Mentor sees play is pretty shaky at best.
Link to Discord server where anybody from MTGS can keep up with thread topics while everything is being sorted out with the new site.
Gonna have to agree with that one.
I'm not even sure it is "slightly" worse. Maybe slightly worse in the context it might not trigger as much? I guess it is contextual. I think Eidolon and Mentor do different things. Burn's Decklist is pretty tight right now. I am thinking of running Mentor as a 2 of Main Board replacing either 2 Skullcrack or 2 Atarka's Command, and running 2 in the side.
Note, the reason I'd consider taking out 2 AC is because I run 3 Skullcrack mainboard. I don't play Nacatl and I very rarely get to cast the +1/+1 mode on AC, so playing Skullcrack over it is just for mana consistency's sake.
I don't like this new Harsh Mentor guy at all. If anything, he is sideboard material. I would rather play Keldon Marauders main deck. This guy feels like a worse ash zealot, and I tried to make my girl ash zealot work.
Ash Zealot is probably better at attacking but in Boros/Naya Burn, we usually stop attacking and early and finish the game with burn spells. Harsh Mentor doesn't have to attack, he just has to sit there. If Harsh Mentor is on the battlefield when your opponent fetches twice during a game, it's already done a great job. Ash Zealot's bolt trigger will never happen as much as Mentor's shock trigger. It's way too narrow.
true, but the same could be argued for marauders, the just sitting there argument. If the "dies to removal" argument is still one that people are making, marauders is better as well.
Mentor is really good for people who don't have a plan to deal with it. If that is the case, we should already be doing well with our eidolons, gobby guides, and swifty.
Im not saying Mentor is bad, its a good card, but for burn, there are better to have in the flex slots. Chandra's Phoenix is a good card, but we are not playing it in burn.
No... not quite. Keldon Marauders is nowhere near on the same power level as Harsh Mentor. When I say, "just sits there," I am talking about when you can't attack into your opponent's creatures but your opponent can't make profitable attacks due to a risk of dying on the crack back. It happens often. Marauders goes away after 2 turns and only the ability does 1 damage. Mentor sits there and locks your opponent out of using their fetch lands, Oozes, displacers, and everything else mentioned in this thread and shocks them if they do. Harsh Mentor is 10000x better than Keldon Marauders.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPzcXT2lOK8
No they havent given us a Cant Be Countered Instant do 3 damage for each non basic land for .
Or how about a Legacy useful card that Cant Be Countered for 1 Phyrexian and says if you play Force of Will or Show and Tell you auto lose.
Shameless advertising.