Monday, May 16, 2011

Legacy Weapon - Of Paladins and Puresteel

I only made a brief mention of Puresteel Paladin when I was talking about the set, but let's take another look at him.  I've been asked about my building process, so I'm also going to go into that in this post.

I may not play a lot of actual Magic these days, but I still think about it and write about it a lot.; I'm trying to get it to about 2 nights a week, which has been a good balance of life and Magic.  Most of which I've written never sees the light of day, but that's okay.

The initial questions about playing Puresteel Paladin shape the building process:
1.  How much of a buildaround me card do I want it to be?
2.  Is there a previous shell that this card fits into?  How does it change how those decks work?
3.  Is this card best in a monocolored deck?  Two colors?  Three?
4.  Where does it fit into the curve?  I mean, where does it really fit into the curve?
5.  Initial decklist.  Battle and figure out what's good and bad about it.

Individual traits:

Whenever an equipment enters the battlefield under your control, you may draw a card.
All equipment you play or Stoneforge Mystic into play now cantrip.  This is the initial draw toward the card, but I think it's actually the weaker of the two abilities; which is one of the reasons why I'm attracted to the card.  It just happens to be a very nice upside.

Metalcraft - Equipment you control have equip 0 as long as you control three or more artifacts.
I cannot stress enough that Magic is a game of resources.  In a game against a not-Dredge opponent, each player starts off with the same constants; the same reasons why 'free' spells are powerful, and free effects are desirable.  This has the downside of needing 3 artifacts in play, but will often lead to game states where you play Paladin, and suit up another creature with multiple equipment immediately; effectively granting plenty of free mana.


WW in the casting cost.
Big detriment.  Hard to cast when trying to make a powerful manabase that does more than just cast spells.  Stoneforge Mystic wouldn't have seen nearly the same amount of play with a stressful manacost like this one.

2/2
Disappointing.

Human Knight
I feel like mentioning this was a mistake.

There are three decks that immediately come to mind when considering this card:

A more recent deck:



















An older list:


















And an even older deck despite this deck making me actively want to vomit:



















It was pretty clear that there would be Stoneforge Mystic involved in our Paladin shenanigans, but I don't know the right number; I'm going to start off with 3, and see where it takes me.

Considering all of these decks supported Serra Avenger, and I've never seen Serra Avenger in a 3 color deck, I'm going to jump to the conclusion that I don't want to be playing 3 colors.  Even the monowhite deck is basically supporting 2 colors; Rishadan Port + Wasteland for land-light decks is basically a second color.

However, I don't feel like any of the aforementioned decks can get Metalcraft to capitalize on the Paladin's metalcraft ability.  When he does have metalcraft, he will be a boss, but when he doesn't... he's a 2/2 that sometimes draws a card; not exciting.

So how are we metalcrafting?
Utility artifacts - Sensei's Divining Top, Aether Vial; considerable options, Vial is definitely in, but Top doesn't fit as well into an aggressive shell.
Equipment overload - Not a fan, even if it draws additional cards.  The danger of drawing equipment without a creature is all too real.
Artifact lands - This one is usually not what you want either, it unnecessarily opens you up to Wasteland.
Lands that can also be artifacts - Mishra's Factory, Blinkmoth/Inkmoth Nexus; To me, this is very appealing option.  It hurts that they don't help cast Paladin, but they can activate and immediately get equipped to attack.
Artifact creatures - Phyrexian Revoker fits well in here, and so does Ethersworn Canonist.

Now, I initially had Blue in this list for Brainstorm, Ponder, Daze, Spell Pierce, Mental Misstep and Standstill - but more and more blue cards kept getting cut for white cards; so I thought I might as well just make it monowhite; get to play more basics, and more punisher cards like Leonin Arbiter.





















Some notes:
Squadron Hawk instead of Serra Avenger - I just need a random dude with equipment, I'm probably wrong about this though.
Equipment - Sword, Sword, Sword and Jitte.  War and Peace is protection from Legacy removal, Fire and Ice can remove threats, and Feast and Famine is protection from most of Legacy's creatures.  Also, there's a Jitte in there.  That one's a good one.  The exclusions: Light and Shadow, Body and Mind.  Light and Shadow was used primarily for the protection from white, but War and Peace ends the game significantly faster.  Body and Mind tends to fall by the wayside, because the effects just aren't enough.
Arbiter combined with your own search effects - play around your own cards.  Arbiter's a very powerful effect.

Curve considerations:
This deck's curve blows.  I really can't think of a nice to thing to say about it, but it's modeled after the curve of most Death and Taxes style decks; that is, the curve blows.  But it's chock full of threats, and creatures that hold equipment to good end; that's worth something.

Time to battle:
If I can assemble everything for this deck, I will be battling with it at a local Legacy tournament near you.

-G

10 comments:

V said...

I don't think this guy fits into GW Ladies.

... because I think it's a dude.

Andy Moore said...

I'll be interested to see if this guy makes the cut in Legacy. I like him a lot; both effects are extremely powerful.

Regarding the decklist: at first glance I feel like Ethersworn Canonist is too low impact in some matchups to be in the main. However I really like the Ports, since I feel like Rishadan Port has sort of fallen by the wayside and people have forgotten how powerful it could be.

I'll be interested to see how this idea does in testing.

Gandhi said...

I played some pretty poor Magic last night, still good enough for 2-1-1.

Initial decklist needs significant revision - hands with Aether Vial are awesome, hands without it are super clunky.

Canonist was good to boost metal count, but my gut reaction of making yourself mostly Wasteland-proof is unnecessary if your basic plains don't do enough to begin with; Ancient Den needed to be there to get more immediate impact with Paladin. Canonist was also there for random disruption, but I do agree - it feels like it should be something else.

I Metalcrafted a lot, but it was often a turn or two later than I wanted to - much of the potential explosiveness that Paladin could have had was neutralized by the curve.

Things learned:
Needs more Artifact 1 drops; Ancient Den counts, if there's a good 1cc Artifact creature.
Curve needs tons of work.
Monowhite is probably not where you want to be at; an additional color should provide significantly more options.
Sword of War and Peace is okay, but not great. Relevant protection color is still White, but Light and Shadow should do it as well.

Andy Moore said...

I think ancient den is a great idea. Also, if you splash a color, I would recommend anything but blue, as I feel like blue just takes it in a direction you don't want to go. By the time you add brainstorm, daze, spell pierce, ponder, misstep, standstill... you might as well just play standstill. I could be wrong though.

I think you could go the GW Beats direction like Mike, you get cool guys like Tarmogoyf, pridemage, teeg, and knight. You can also play horizon canopy for extra value.

I feel like 3 mirran crusaders are far, far too many. IMO he is unimpressive when he isn't connecting with some equipment and he's expensive for what you want to be doing. Id say he should be a 1 or 2-of, max, or maybe just cut him altogether for Knight.

Andy Moore said...

I just thought of something:
Would it be awful to splash black and play Bitterblossom? I feel like that card could be absolutely bananasandwich with so much equipment.

Gandhi said...

I really wish this deck could support Hymn to Tourach. That would just make my day.

I'll have to see what kind of things I can do with the secondary colors - I really thought monowhite would be better than it was :/

Gandhi said...

Puresteel is getting benched for a bit, while I try out other cards from New Phyrexia that pique my interest; unless I have an epiphany somewhere about the card.

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