[Baalz]

Eh, I don't know, I suppose you could pick up drain but it wouldn't be my first choice. It'll drop your researchers from 8 to 6 research, a drop of over a third. You could make it work for sure with your strong early game using no research, but if you're planning on having your pretender out site searching rather than researching this can be a long way up to constr-4, and you're likely not going to have the D gems to do something like what I suggested in the Helheim guide (where several mages are out site searching). All in all I'd say you're better off stacking the mentors on top of already solid research - your research is going to win it for you in the end of the game rather than your blessing.