Welcome to Duskmourn: House of Horror Standard. We hope you enjoy your stay. This fresh new format is barely a few days old and already we’ve seen huge bursts of innovation. Whole new archetypes are taking shape, and some old ones are getting a major shot in the arm. One such old archetype is Azorius Mentor, which has just received a big boost in the form of Abhorrent Oculus.
We’ve had high hopes for this card since we saw it in spoiler season. It even made our list of the best cards in the set. Now that it’s finally out there, it appears to be living up to the hype. Turns out a three mana 5/5 flier isn’t just good on its own, but also very synergistic with some of the cards in the current Standard metagame.
Abhorrent Oculus In Azorius Mentor
Azorius Mentor isn’t a new deck by any means. There are instances of the strategy as far back as January of this year. Essentially, it’s a kind of hybrid Tempo/Reanimator strategy, with the titular Monastery Mentor playing a central role. The deck mills cards into the graveyard early with Picklock Prankster and Ephara’s Dispersal then reanimates a powerful three drop like Mentor or Haughty Djinn. You can do this on the cheap thanks to Helping Hand and Recommission. So far, so simple. Abhorrent Oculus provides a pretty major upgrade to the deck, however, as a massive three drop that also fuels additional synergies.
First things first: a 5/5 Flying body for three is excellent, even in 2024. Haughty Djinn offered something similar but slightly worse stats-wise, and it was a staple in the deck until now. Sure, Djinn also granted a discount on instants and sorceries, but Oculus grants something even better. Manifesting Dread on each of your opponent’s upkeeps helps the deck in multiple ways. It fills your graveyard with reanimation targets if you have a spell in hand. If not, it puts them face-down, where they can be flipped up for a mere three mana. Great stuff either way.
Manifesting Dread is also a great way to fill your graveyard. Though the plan here is obviously to reanimate Oculus and not actually cast it, having the option to do so is always good. To that end, putting a card into your graveyard every turn helps you work towards the six cards needed for future copies. The synergy in Azorius Mentor is clear and very powerful, so it’s no surprise multiple lists have started jamming four copies of Abhorrent Oculus since Duskmourn’s release.
Reanimation Station
Those lists are delivering some promising results so far, too. While it isn’t totally dominating just yet, Azorius Mentor is performing well with the addition of Abhorrent Oculus. The list linked above, which comes via Shinon, went 5-2 in the recent Izzet Explosive Experiment event on MTG Arena. Makoobi did even better with the deck, going 7-2 in an MTGO Standard Challenge and topping the event. Interestingly, Makoobi’s list abandoned Monastery Mentor altogether, opting for a Djinn/Oculus package instead. It’s always funny to see a deck evolve beyond the card it’s named for.
Whichever set of three drops Azorius Mentor settles on, I predict it will be a force in the coming Standard for a while yet. Abhorrent Oculus is an exciting card for multiple formats, not just Standard. Pioneer, Modern, and Commander are all looking like great homes for the creepy peeper too. With that in mind, the card is a very safe investment, and one a lot of players will be picking up. Since the rest of Azorius Mentor is very affordable, a lot of these players will probably throw the deck together to have something to play in Standard.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the deck will be tier one, of course. Current Standard is extremely competitive and, as we’ll get to shortly, full of decks that play well against Mentor. That said, I think the chance to drop a 5/5 flier for just one mana is too exciting for many players to pass up. However Azorius Mentor is built, and however it performs, I think we can expect Abhorrent Oculus to stick around as a new staple. It just plays too perfectly with the rest of the deck not to.
Those Meddling Kids
While Azorius Mentor is certainly a powerful deck, it has its fair share of weak matchups in current Standard. Like pretty much every deck, it has the chance to stumble early and just fold to Gruul Prowess. The addition of the busted Leyline of Resonance Combo deck with Duskmourn doesn’t help matters, either. Other than sideboarding in Temporary Lockdown there isn’t a huge amount Mentor can do about these matchups either, which is unfortunate.
On the other end of the spectrum, early results also suggest that Domain Ramp is a rough matchup for Mentor. That’s true of a lot of decks, in fairness. Atraxa, Grand Unifier is just a fundamentally broken card, and the tempo Mentor gains early is easily undone as soon as she hits play. A 5/5 flier looks a lot less impressive against a 7/7 flier with Lifelink, too. Doorkeeper Thrull is a decent sideboard option against Domain, since it stops Atraxa’s etb while also shutting down a lot of the ramp that gets you there. Both Heaped Harvest and Overlord of the Hauntwoods look pretty silly against this card. You can also nab it with your reanimation spells, which is a plus.
Finally, beyond any specific matchups, Azorius Mentor is a casualty of Standard’s high-quality graveyard hate options. The deck really struggles without access to a healthy pile of cards in the ‘yard, and there are plenty of options in Standard for denying that. Rest in Peace and Leyline of the Void are the obvious options, and are already in a ton of sideboards. Beyond that, there’s also incidental hate like Tranquil Frillback and the new Ghost Vacuum. Artifact/enchantment hate like Loran of the Third Path is your best bet here.
Read More: Elite Eerie Payoffs Help Azorius Enchantments Shell Burst onto the Scenes
