After being a little burned out on Magic Arena for a while, I got back in with Theros Beyond Death. First thing I made was enchantments, using Paradise Druid with auras that give vigilane, and Barkhide Troll with Hydra’s Growth to get some hard to remove threats, and eventually get something really big. The deck was fun, if a little inconsistant, requiring drawing a good mix of creatures, aura’s and land to work.

Eventually, that became boring as well, so I made an Esper () deck using Folio of Fancies, Smothering Tithe backed up with Underworld Dreams and Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted to turn all the card draw into damage. This worked pretty okay, but I found I could do without the black in the deck. Often, Folio was enough to mill someone out, and slightly better mana made stabilizing early on a lot easier.

So, I threw something together, and it works well, even it’s not the final list:

~ Azorius Folio Control ~

Creatures (14) 3 Dimir Informant 3 Dream Trawler 2 Elite Guardmage 4 Overwhelmed Apprentice 2 Thassa, Deep-Dwelling Artifacts (3) 3 Folio of Fancies Enchantments (7) 4 Banishing Light 1 The Birth of Meletis 2 Smothering Tithe

Lands (23) 8 Island 7 Plains 2 Azorius Guildgate 2 Castle Vantress 1 Castle Ardenvale 1 Hallowed Fountain 2 Temple of Enlightenment Spells (13) 4 Didn’t Say Please 4 Quench 1 Shatter the Sky 2 Sinister Sabotage 1 Time Wipe 1 Warrant // Warden

I really love Overwhelmed Apprentice. Being a 1/2 for one mana already stops most other one-drops in red, or at least bait a shock, slowing red down a little. It also mills a little, which helps the Folio win a little, but the most important bit is the scry 2, setting up later draws.

Dimir Informant is a similar speedbump, and the 4 toughness is significant, requiring additional removal spells to get rid of it, most of the time. The surveil further helps setting up the draws. Both these creatures have power 1, making running into them a little problematic for aggresive decks. They tend to be more of a deterent than the 0/4 walls I’ve concidered.

Elite Guardmage is 3 life and a card, and can block flyers. is on the expensive side, but I’ve gotten a lot of value out of them while I had Thassa, Deep-Dwelling. Thassa repeats the scry/surveil/draw on my creatures. It also untaps them by blinking, which helps getting more value out of Dream Trawler, so I can attack with it and still have a lifelinking blocker afterwards. Thassa can tap down something in a pinch, although I haven’t used the option much, if at all. It’s nice to have in an emergency though.

Dream Trawler itself is a nice, hard to remove card draw engine, a source of life, and with Folio of Fancies out, something that can end the game quickly. It’s such a fun card, and some decks simply can’t deal with it, especially if they have to race it after a board wipe.

Speaking of board wipes, I currently run two total, but the idea is to get more. Time Wipe is one, Shatter the Sky is the other. I prefer the latter, because it’s slightly easier on the mana, and sometimes the card draw generates me some extra mana with Smothering Tithe. I plan on getting one or two more Shatter the skies in the deck. Fortunately with all the card draw and scry effects, I get to my wipes often already.

The main part of the strategy is to draw lots of cards using the Folio, and use tempo to invalidate anything the opponent does. Banishing Light is a catchall removal spell, and I run several counter spells. Both Sinister Sabotage and Didn’t Say Please have their merits. Extra mill is good, but setting up draws is nice as well. I had several times where I knew I had a counter on top, and just got it with Folio. Counter-wise I’m concidering Absorb as well, for a little bit more of a life buffer. In want of extra early removal, I run Warrant // Warden. I can Warrant something, then mill it, or counter it later.

The other counter is Quench, which loses some value later on. It helps stabilizing early though.

Finally, there is the “combo” part. Smothering Tithe is there to generate lots of extra mana using Folio of Fancies, potentially chaining Folios into each other to win the game. I think I want an extra Tithe, even though the means I’ll often go shields down when casting it. It is where the fun is for the deck, though, and it’ll often end games within a couple of turns after it.

Other potential inclusions are:

– Teferi, Time Raveler. It might replace Warrant as the bounce spell of choice. It also stops opposing counter decks, and sometimes allows me to insta-wrath or hold up a counter, and still have the opportunity to play sorceries risk-free.

– Apostle of Purifying Light. Might be a good  sideboard card against Cauldron Familiar / Witch’s Oven decks, as well as aggresive mono-black decks.

…and ofcourse the mana needs to be better.

Conclusion: It’s a fun deck to play, and sometimes wins by surprise. Games tend to go a little long though, so it’s not a deck to quickly get multiple wins.

Recently I came across an interesting deck involving the Throne of Eldraine Food mechanic. It’s a bit of a combo deck, and it offers some opportunities to use some random cool cards that work around sacrificing things. The base combo works with Cauldron Familiar and Witch’s Oven. These work together in a kind of sacrifice loop, slowly draining opponent’s life.

You can sacrifice the cat to the oven, get a food, and sacrifice that food to get back the cat, then drain a little life each turn. This in itself works great, and you’ll always have a little ground blocker, buying some extra time. It’s great that this works at instant speed, and doesn’t require mana. The real trick, however, is using these sacrifices as a trigger to deal lots of damage and maybe draw some extra cards.

So, lets take a look at the sequence: You sacrifice Cauldron Familiar to Witch’s Oven, Mayhem Devil triggers. Then you sacrifice the food to get back the familiar. Mayhem Devil triggers again. That’s already 3 damage and an extra life.

Korvold, Fae-cursed king is similar. On entering the battlefield he eats a cat or food, draws you a card and grows bigger, then you sacrifice a food to get back a cat and before you know it he’s a huge dragon that already drew you a bunch of cards, even before anyone can remove him.

The rest of the deck is food production and mana ramp and mana fixing, as well as some other haymakers that play into the food/sacrifice theme. I made the following prototype for testing the archetype, and it already works well, although there is a lot of room for improvement:

~ Jund Food ~

Creatures (22) 4 Cauldron Familiar 3 Gilded Goose 2 Korvold, Fae-Cursed King 2 Mayhem Devil 3 Murderous Rider 3 Paradise Druid 1 Rankle, Master of Pranks 1 Savvy Hunter 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim 2 Tempting Witch Planeswalkers (2) 1 Garruk, Cursed Huntsman 1 Vraska, Golgari Queen

Lands (24) 6 Forest 5 Swamp 6 Mountain 1 Blood Crypt 1 Castle Locthwain 3 Overgrown Tomb 1 Stomping Ground 1 Temple of Malady Spells (12) 2 Assassin’s Trophy 4 Golden Egg 1 Status // Statue 1 Trail of Crumbs 4 Witch’s Oven

Even though the list is suboptimal, it works really well. Generally, the mana is pretty good, but sometimes I had an egg countered or a goose killed, and then I ran into some colour screw. Well, it happened once in testing, and the game went on for a while, and I had an improbable amount of bad luck finding my third colour. I must craft some Fabled Passages, for further colour fixing. Also some Once Upon a Times will make the deck and the mana more consistent.

Some other thoughts:

• I noticed that once Murderous Rider dies, this will trigger Syr Konrad, the Grim twice, due to changing zones twice. Sure, it makes sense, but it’s an interaction that’s easy to miss in a paper game.
• One of the cards I’m debating is Woodland Champion. With all the food tokens coming down, he should grow quickly. But then;
• I want to include an extra Trail of Crumbs. The card is similar to Golden Egg in function, minus the mana fixing, but with more long-term upside in grindy matches. Most of my cards are permanents anyway.
• Gilded Goose turns food into mana, and mana into food. And it works well with Trail of Crumbs, because it provides both the mana and the sacrifice (and given long enough, the food tokens) for the card selection to work.
• Judith, the Scourge Diva is being considered, although generally she is a worse Mayhem Devil in this deck.
• I want to have some extra, free sacrifice effects, maybe. An additional Savvy Hunter might be the key.
• Gingerbread Cabin is a trap. 3 other forests isn’t likely to happen in a 2 or 3 colour deck.
• Status // Statue is something I’m on the fence about. I first included it as an extra removal spell, but it might not have been the best choice. However, the hidden trick is also that it grants Deathtouch, and that’s savage with Mayhem Devil, and a couple of sacrifices.

All in all I’m having fun with this deck, and all the moving parts. There is a potential for lots of card selection, and the food means you can keep a high life total if needed. Mill is popular right now, and it doesn’t interact with that at all, but the damage output is real, and most of the time control decks have a hard time disrupting everything. I’m really looking forward to testing some more and make some improvements. It’s delicious!

It’s time to also develop a second deck in Arena, and I’m interested in a Golgari build. In fact, it’s going to have similarities to my Dimir deck, but instead of surveil, it’s going to explore. I can port some cards over between decks, because surveil and explore are similar in ways; Both are scry-alike mechanics that are able to dump things in the graveyard. I can imagine things will converge from there, and I might even end up with a Sultai () deck, with at least a splash of for… Muldrotha, the Gravetide, maybe?

Also the Golgari has the best logo of all Guilds.

So, why explore? Well, there are a lot of aggressive decks, and red is getting more and more traction with decks around Runaway Steam-Kin and Experimental Frenzy, so I want to run some Wildgrowth Walkers to have an escalating threat, that also gains me life. And explore allows me to dump creatures from the top of my deck into the graveyard, almost as good as Surveil does, but I have more, or better recursion available to take advantage of that.

I also like Journey to Eternity a lot. Once set up, I quickly get full access to my graveyard, especially in unison with Golgari Findbroker. And there are other cool synergies to be found:

Stitcher’s Supplier and Plaguecrafter feel like a one-two (or one-three, if you look at CMC)  punch that fills the grave with cool stuff. Plaguecrafter also makes it easier to use Journey, and set up quite a bit of a string of sacrifice effects the Atzal.

Ideally, I’m looking for something to sacrifice my creatures to, to help activating Atzal, and to keep reusing enter the battlefield effects. So far, I have seen a lot that can help with that.

Doom Whisperer is a good way to set up Explores, as well as filling the graveyard. Since I use 2 in my Dimir deck, it’s an easy include.

At it’s core, it looks like something like this:

~ Golgari Reanimator ~

Exploration Suite (12) 4 Merfolk Branchwalker 4 Seekers’ Squire 4 Wildgrowth Walker Graveyard Filling (8) 4 Stitcher’s Supplier 4 Plaguecrafter Reanimation and Recursion (8) 2 Find // Finality 3 Golgari Findbroker 3 Journey to Eternity Reanimation Targets (4) 2 Doom Whisperer 2 Izoni, Thousand-Eyed Removal (4) 4 Ravenous Chupacabra

Lands (24) 6 Forest 2 Golgari Guildgate 4 Overgrown Tomb 8 Swamp 4 Woodland Cemetery

This is only the base of the deck, and from there things can be added. Maybe some incarnation of Vraska, or Assassin’s Trophy, or maybe a Lotleth Giant as a finisher. Once the base is there, I can test different variations and single cards and tweak the numbers. I do like decks that have card selection and snowballing synergies.

Now I’m strongly concidering Phyrexian Scriptures in my Dimir deck. One of the things I have problems with is decks that go wide, or decks that have hexproof creatures. Scriptures is a good way to deal with those, I think. The downside is the delay in destroying things, giving opponents the chance to deal with scriptures. At least it’s an extra counter that can be useful for Thoughtbound Phantasm, and it makes Nightveil Predator even harder to deal with.

It also seems like a card worth getting, because it also works very nicely in Golgari decks, because it’s a recursive wrath effect with Golgari Findbroker. Another positive thing the Scriptures does is dealing with graveyards. This puts a lot of pressure on decks that use the graveyard, and with Jump-Start and Undergrowth, a lot of decks actually use the graveyard.

So, it’s worth testing. Maybe some sorcery-based Wrath is better, because I run Mission Briefing, but I can’t pinpoint the exact card I want to use. Ritual of Soot is the closest competition, but unlocking that in Arena doesn’t conflict with Scriptures, due to it being from a different set that I can draft, and being a different rarity, and it deals with a different subset of creatures.

I’ve been tinkering with the red/green Pummeler deck since Kaladesh, and I really like the aggresive style of the deck, combinded with the energy management that comes with it. I’ve been playing it a lot in Magic Duels (Sadly, it’s not possible to play the ideal version in there.) Then, when Amonketh was released, I tried Ahn-Crop Crasher and the card always felt fantastic. The Exert mechanic also felt similar to the Energy mechanic in the sense that sometimes you can pour a little extra into the creatures to get more out of them. Crashing for extra damage and sometimes disabling a blocker helped the deck a lot, especially faced with indestructable gods in the way.

Then came Hour of Devestation with the Desert theme. I quickly noticed the deck could use a full complement of Hashep Oasis because I just needed more creature pump for greater consistancy and combo wins with Electrostatic Pummeler. I also noticed I sometimes had a little problem dealing the last bits of damage, so the Ramunap Ruins where included to have extra deserts to sacrifice to either effect. I didn’t dare to include lands that are purely colourless or enter the battlefield tapped, and the all-or-nothing approach makes the painlands a little less problematic.

Since the deserts go into the land slots, it didn’t cost me much deck space. The thing that left to make room for Crashers and more Harnessed Lightning where my two Uncaged Fury cards. They are good at stealing wins, but Crasher does it better.

Cards that didn’t make the cut where Rhonas the Indomitable and Hazoret the Fervent. These cards should be good in the deck, but somehow they always underperformed. Rhonas was often not solving problems when my creatures got removed, and Hazoret I felt was always late to the party, and is a competing 4-drop to the Bristling Hydras. The hydras generate energy, so I prefer those.

One other thing I might run instead of Uncaged Fury is Insult // Injury. It’s more telegraphed, but it might steal some games and it functions as extra removal.

Here is my current list:

~ Ramunap Pummeler ~

Creatures (22) 2 Ahn-Crop Crasher 4 Bristling Hydra 4 Electrostatic Pummeler 4 Longtusk Cub 4 Servant of the Conduit 4 Voltaic Brawler Spells (18) 4 Attune with Aether 4 Blossoming Defense 4 Harnessed Lightning 4 Invigorated Rampage 2 Larger Than Life

Lands (20) 4 Aether Hub 5 Forest 4 Mountain 4 Hashep Oasis 3 Ramunap Ruins Sideboard (15) 4 Abrade 4 Chandra’s Defeat 4 Hapatra’s Mark 3 Mountain

While looking for cool ideas for a standard deck, I ran into a nifty thing on MtgSalvation. It’s a deck based on Hero’s Blade and uses various legendary creatures to wield them. Of particular interest, however, is the synergy between these three legends.

I never found Tymaret particularly interesting,  but here he fills an important role: When Yasova steals a creature, Tymaret can sacrifice it before you have to give it back.  Alesha can bring Tymaret back, if needed, among other things and is generally an efficient first striker to wield a blade. And there is more going on in the deck, like Yisan, who will find increasingly bigger things, but mostly is there for Hero’s Blade too. Because Yisan is pretty slow.

The original deck looks like this:

~ Jund Legendary Heroes ~

Heroes (23) 3 Tymaret, the murder king 3 Yasova Dragonclaw 3 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death 3 Yisan, the Wanderer Bard 1 Pharika, God of Affliction 3 polukranos, world eater 1 king macar, the gold-cursed 3 Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury 1 Xenagos, God of Revels 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang 1 Atarka, World Render Squires (8) 4 elvish mystic 4 sylvan caryatid Artifacts (5) 4 Hero’s Blade 1 Heroes’ Podium

Lands (23) 3 Forest 3 Mountain 1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx 2 Swamp 3 Temple of Abandon 3 Temple of Malice 4 Wooded Foothills 4 Bloodstained Mire

It’s a good starting point. It could use a Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth instead of one swamp maybe, to make some splashes easier.  And while the Hero’s Blade is fun, there might be some legends that can be left out to make place for a Hornet Queen.  If you can somehow dump a queen in the graveyard, with, say Tormenting Voice, Alesha and Tymaret can team up for all kinds of nastyness.

Even though I didn’t have much time, I tried a proof-of-concept version of the deck, to see how it goes. My version looked like this:

~ Jund Legendary Heroes (Experiment) ~

Legends (17) 3 Tymaret, the murder king 4 Yasova Dragonclaw 4 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death 1 Yisan, the Wanderer Bard 1 polukranos, world eater 1 king macar, the gold-cursed 2 Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury 1 Atarka, World Render Other creatures (7) 3 Humble Defector 2 Shaman of the Great Hunt 2 Stormbreath Dragon Artifacts (5) 4 Hero’s Blade 1 Heroes’ Podium Instants (7) 4 Collateral Damage 3 Lightning Strike

Lands (24) 6 Forest 4 Swamp 6 Mountain 2 Bloodfell Caves 2 Jungle Hollow 4 Temple of Abandon

The experimental version is a little different. Since the deck has Dragon ‘lords’ and I had a couple of spare Stormbreath Dragons, I included those. I also like Humble Defector which has some cool syntergy with Yasova Dragonclaw. Sadly, during testing a few short games I didn’t run into my defectors, and most of the time Yasova got removed before I could go draw, steal, draw.

I even included the Collateral Damage to use with Yasova, but it’s difficult to get quick enough. It does make a nice addition to Tymaret, but so far I couldn’t steal, sacrifice and burn.

Shaman of the Great Hunt worked really great. Even when he couldn’t be used as a quick hasty attacker, he helped grow the other guys out of reach quickly. I didn’t use the draw ability much, but it’s nice that I could when I didn’t have something better to do.

A turn two Hero’s Blade, followed by one of the 3 drop legends is always awesome. The option to Dash in Kolaghan and do (at least) 8 through the air later on is great as well. There still is some room for improvement, though.

Even though the deck can be explosive, it needs to be as fast as possible to keep outpacing opponents. I’m eyeing Generator Servant to help out ramping things up, maybe supplemented by Satyr Hedonist. The latter might be helpful with the awkward mana, but granting haste seems very important in the deck. The Generator Servant could help provide the mana for a Hero’s Blade ánd drop a hasty Yasova or Alesha -Or a quick Kolaghan.

Both ramp creatures can create quite a jump in mana, and work well with Alesha. Potentially, the Servant can allow Alasha to attack turn 3 and she can bring the servant back, attacking.

Then there is Sylvan Caryatid,  which is a popular choice in mana ramp and fixing, while being a good early defense, too. If I had more of these available, I’d probably run it.

Another puzzle to solve is Yisan, the Wanderer Bard. His legendness is handy in this deck for both the Hero’s Blade and the Heroe’s Podium. His ability is nothing to write home about, though: It’s a bit to slow. Still, being an early 5/5 attacker with the blade is nice. What the deck lacks at this moment are valid 1-drops though, so the first activation will always whiff, even when the situation comes up that an activation is a valid option. There might be a couple of options though.

Potential viable one drops are Elvish Mystic, which adds to the ramp in the deck needs. Warden of the First Tree also seems to be a nice option. Being either a 1-drop, or a 3/3 for 3 is pretty good.  He could be potentially more, if you’re willing to risk sinking some mana into him. There is some risk in that, but maybe one of these guys could do some incidental cool things.

~ Minotaur Tribal V1.0 ~

Creatures (36) 4 Deathbellow Raider 4 Felhide Brawler 4 Felhide Petrifier 2 Felhide Spiritbinder 4 Gnarled Scarhide 4 Kragma Butcher 2 Kragma Warcaller 4 Minotaur Skullcleaver 4 Rageblood Shaman 4 Ragemonger

Lands (24) 10 Mountain 10 Swamp 4 Temple of Malice

This is an experiment with the Constellation mechanic. The idea is to hold the fort while gaining card advantage and filling up the graveyard to make some creatures really big. All the while Grim Guardian will chip at their lifetotal.

Pharika can turn creatures in the graveyard into snake tokens, which are conveniently enough also extra enchantments to trigger the constellation effects. This should result in extra cards draw, extra life loss and having Doomwake Giant downsizing the opposition.

Aside from some elves and land for mana production, everything is an enchantment, or in case of Renowned Weaver, can turn into an enchantment.

Nyx Weaver can exile itself to get something from the the graveyard. Deadbridge Chant kicks things in overdrive to set up the endgame by making sure you always have something you can do.

Humbler of Mortals is the last piece of meat. It combines nicely with Bow of Nylea to make blocking almost pointless by combining Deathtouch and Trample on your creatures.

~ Green/Black Constellation ~

Creatures (30) 2 Doomwake Giant 4 Eidolon of Blossoms 4 Elvish Mystic 4 Grim Guardian 2 Humbler of Mortals 4 Nighthowler 4 Nyx Weaver 2 Pharika, God of Affliction 4 Renowned Weaver Other (6) 2 Bow of Nylea 2 Strength from the Fallen 2 Deadbridge Chant

Lands (24) 12 Forest 12 Swamp

Ever since Theros came out, I’ve been trying to make a Heroic deck work. I think it was Fabled Hero that drew me into the concept. Double strike works well with buffs, and the idea of an ever growing creature had a certain appeal to me. It seemed mono- white wasn’t going to cut it, so I ended up with blue so I could add some cipher cards.

Or, well, just Hidden Strings which should give me a stable supply of spells that target, so I could keep growing my heroes.  When Born of the Gods came along, things started to look better. Glimpse the Sun God added a better version of another trick I was using: Gridlock.

The deck worked decently and was lots of fun to play, if sometimes inconsistant. Then Journey into Nyx was released and gave me two more cards, that really completed the deck.  Lagonna-Band Trailblazer gives me another one-drop next to Favored Hoplite and makes the deck stronger when there is a need to play defensively. Battlefield Thaumaturge significantly reduces the cost of most of my combat tricks and rounds out my team of heroes.

So let’s take a look at the deck:

~ White/Blue Heroic V1.0 ~

Creatures (19) 3 Battlefield Thaumaturge 3 Fabled Hero 4 Favored Hoplite 4 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 2 Nivmagus Elemental 3 Phalanx Leader Other (17) 4 Glimpse the Sun God 2 Gridlock 3 Gods Willing 4 Hidden Strings 4 Ordeal of Thassa

Lands (24) 4 Hallowed Fountain 8 Island 9 Plains 3 Temple of Enlightenment

The extra one-drops are important. The deck needs enablers to make the heroes grow, but they do nothing without bodies on the table. The best opening is either Favored Hoplite or Lagonna-Band Trailblazer followed by an Ordea of Thassa turn two. This creates sizable creatures early on, and quickly draws you extra cards.

There are also two copies of Nivmagus Elemental.  The elemental turns some of the spells into counters, after they already have triggered heroic. Being able to eat instants makes them quite unpredictable. A good opening with them is tapping some blockers with Hidden Strings, attacking and eating the ciphered strings for counters. If there aren’t any blockers, the strings can untap land so extra creatures can be played, or Nivmagus can get an ordeal before combat. Explosive stuff.

Unsung Heroes

There are plenty of card I concidered, but ended up on the cutting table, especially in the crowded 2-drop section. Akroan Skyguard does offer evasion, but wasn’t agressive enough. Battlewise Hoplite is amazing but the seems difficult to get early on consitently. Right now Phalanx Leader is in it’s place, and also has a difficult mana cost. It’s hard to say which one is better. Scry is very good.

Triton Fortune Hunter and Wavecrash Triton where in the deck at some point, but their lack of growth caused me to seldom play them over other things I had in my hands. I haven’t tried Tethmos High Priest yet, since it falls in the same catagory, even though it has a slightly better body by itself.

Strifing to do better

Journey Into Nyx also gives us some strife cards. I’ve tried Launch the Fleet and while it’s good and won me some games, it requires quite a setup for it to be really worth it. There is no arguing with multiple hasty 1/1’s coming from one card though.

Polymorphous Rush seems to be a fun card, but since my own creatures start out small, it’s dependant on whatever the opponent is playing to make it worth it. Artisan of Form didn’t make it, so I doubt Rush will.

Then there is Phalanx Formation . This may replace Fabled Hero as the go-to card for Double Strike. Being an instant it is always a looming threat. The strife cost means it can even benefit from multiple Battlefield Thaumaturges. Having an alternative to get Double Strike, Battlewise Hoplite is getting more powerful in context. It’s still difficult to get the numbers right, but maybe I’ll test out this version:

~ White/Blue Heroic V2.0 ~

Creatures (18) 3 Battlewise Hoplite 3 Battlefield Thaumaturge 4 Favored Hoplite 4 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer 2 Nivmagus Elemental 2 Phalanx Leader Other (18) 4 Glimpse the Sun God 2 Gridlock 2 Gods Willing 4 Hidden Strings 4 Ordeal of Thassa 2 Phalanx formation

Lands (24) 4 Hallowed Fountain 8 Island 9 Plains 3 Temple of Enlightenment