KFC, I hit that dagger flail crusader combo twice in a row at my last FNM... so much fun to pull off. Didn't work out as well against control though. Mana leaked T3, T4 crusaders.
No mortarpods or dispatches? Have any trouble with Inkmoth Nexus? They've been pretty rampant in meta so far in Wolf Run Ramp decks.
Nevermore shines against a 100% incoming play you know is going to ruin the board for you. But as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I would recommend against Nevermore unless you:
have personally playtested it and have found success. (I haven't)
are running Gitaxian Probe or Memoricide or w/e else to see your opponents hand and play it accordingly.
or if you feel something is so gamebreakingly devastating you 100% have to make sure it can't be played.
I think Phyrexian Revoker is much more effective (albeit only against cards w/ activated abilities), and you can play it reactively, as opposed to trying to play Nevermore proactively and potentially wasting it. Or of course, you can play Oblivion Ring, which is good for getting rid of anything.
I'm currently running 2 Revokers and 2 O Rings instead of Nevermore, which I used to run as a 3 of off the board.
Homeland, I decided last night I don't need 4 Nevermore/Revokers total, but creating a sideboard has never been my forte, so I din't figure until after I got some significant playtesting in.
Nevermore is hit and miss in this.. Ex: last night against a G/W ramp I nevermore'd Primeval Titan, which had given me a scare game 1. So he just dropped a Primordial Hydra. Definitely a case where O-Rings would be more worthwhile. The fact that they can end up being completely useless hurts too. It worked great in my Venser deck, where I can Gitaxian Probe and see what threats are in hand to use it on, but here, I think it might be worth dropping. For Puresteel there's just too much guessing for me to use them.
Also, they suck in the mirror, or even a semi-mirror. The other guys biggest threat is a sword carrying crusader? Well thats my threat too. So I can Nevermore one and make it a bit harder for me to win (and he might not even have drawn either), spend 3 mana to stop him from playing something not very threatening, or I can let it rot in my hand. I think I'd rather just O-Ring him.
The Revokers are a lot easier to use. If someone drops Liliana (or any planeswalker really) I'm chucking the revoker at it asap. Likewise with any other threatening cards. Once we can equip up our Inkmoths, Crusaders or Etched Champions (or Geist or Stalker if your U/W) it's a quick clock, so I didn't really hold onto them waiting for the opponents biggest threat to appear.
So I think at the least I'm gonna drop the Nevermore's for 2 O-Rings.. which I'll maybe stick main deck. Might drop 1 Mortarpod and flail for em. I love the flail on a crusader or metalcrafted champion, but since they're about all I can equip them on.. might a little situational to have two of.
Bein following the SCG Boltimore Open Series and as of halfway point, glad to hear that Puresteel has been noticed as a contender!
Quote:
"We've reached the midpoint of the StarCityGames.com Baltimore Standard Open, and the field is shaping up to appear much as players thought it would. There's Wolf Run as far as the eye can see, with U/B Control and Solar Flare valiantly fighting to make a dent in the Primeval Titan population. A surprising contender landing near the top tables has been Puresteel Paladin—the block deck that never quite made the jump to mainstream last season has shown some serious potential this weekend, largely utilizing Invisible Stalker to present U/B Control with a cheap but powerful clock."
Round 1: crushed your standard fare round 1 zombie homebrew. I was pumping out more cates w/ Kemba and Puresteel out that he could make zombies, pretty easy win. (great little combo there by the way.. shuffle your equips over to kemba on second main for free with the paladin, get cats, switch em back next main)
Round 2: G/W Ramp. Pretty good deck. Lost game two to a pro-creatures Primordial Hydra. I was too fast the other two games though.
Round 3: G/W Humans. I went first, which proved to be decisive. Game devolved into whoever could get a sword onto a Mirran Crusader faster. I got the first round, he got the second, I got the third. Whoever went first won.
Round 4: Solar Flare. This one was a pain.. Round 1 he dropped a Liliana turn 3 (after a t2 mana leak on my paladin). From there it wasn't close.. I couldn't draw and play enough threats to do anything. 2 Smallpoxes to Snapcasters recalling it pretty much drowned me out. Round 2 I got out too fast, knocked him out before I could get anything going. Round 3 was a pretty good one.. Ended up with me at the end with a crusader with 2 swords and a dagger at 6 life, and him with a Sun Titan, and 1 snapcaster at 8 life. Ended when I topdecked a dispatch, killed the snapcaster, and attacked with my crusader. He flashed another one in to block, swinging for the win the next turn.
Anyway, W Puresteel seemed viable to me tonight, so for those who don't want to play more of a U/W hex blade puresteel deck, mono white is definitely doable.
Just out of curiosity how has Strata Scythe been working out for you, it seems like its a sub-par Sword substitute. (Not that that's necessarily a problem, if your on a budget.)
On blue, U adds Invisble Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft for the inevitability of untargetable attackers (as well as unblockablity in Invisble Stalker's case) that can only be dealt with by sweepers, the Trinket Mage "Toolbox" for any singleton answers you may need, and a impressive suite of counter magic. All in all, I'd say U's worth the splash.
Strata Scythe has actually performed fairly well for me (especially in games that drag on for w/e reason). The mono white makes it really add up, though I suspect extra swords there might be better. I haven't tossed in any of my FaF or BaM yet to test. That build was really just the first draft I've put together post-rotation.
Fair points on the blue splash; the lack of hexproof has really been the only problem I've run into playing this so far. I'll do a little testing with W and U/W. It'd be nice if Puresteel could be competitive in a few different forms, but I'll convert to U/W if its just flat better.
I'd also suggest red/black. All the burn and removal in there could keep you fairly competitive.
Infect is also pretty easy.. A few infectors, some pumps, throw in some evasion, w/e else. Yakusoko's stickied post has a pretty decent one you could build from.
This has performed pretty well for me, though I've only tested against sub-par Solar Flare, U/W control, some other budgeted top decks..
The Flayer Husk, Mortarpods, Swords, Crusaders, and Paladins are all standard fare, and pretty much entrenched in here. Still not sure about the other equipment inclusion.
Champion of the Parish makes sense to me in this as a 1 drop. It can build up fast, since every creature you'll be casting is human (excluding the living weapons).
Elite Inquisitor could be subbed out, though I'm not sure what for. It's a fairly decent equipment holder though with its abilities. Again, could sub it, though I've rarely been disappointed to draw it.
The sideboard makes me sad, as I've decided most of it to protecting our equipment. Could use work I think.
Seems like all the decklists in the thread are U/W. Anyone been playing around at all with mono white? Or is U/W just flat better w/ the Invisible Stalkers and w/e else it adds?
Yeah, the no flyers thing could be a problem.. the only defense I have is the 5 instants and mortarpod, although with the mortarpod I can neutralize Inkmoth Nexus, which is obviously the biggest flying threat out there. Hopefully I can kill people quick enough to not get pecked to death by Storm Crow (or a lesser flier).
What a great concept (the 20 dollar challenge/adjusting to competetive level of your metagame). I've always liked Shrine of Loyal legions with the Mortarpod free equip synergy, but that might push it over the 20 dollar limit for you. Strata Scythe could potentially be a beating. Other cards to look at would include Sylvok Lifestaff (with Mortarpod) and Goblin Gaveleer (relevant due to trample).
I tried initially to copy Shinbatsu's budget creation threads with the intro pack pricing limit (13.5), but when I priced the Puresteel paladins they were ~$9 alone, and I wasn't creative enough to work around that, so I settled on $20.
I'm gonna try testing the strata scythe, considering I have more than enough plains to work with for them to be effective. The gaveleer has some fun synergy with Jor too. Love the thought of having Jor out and making 6/1 pseudo-Ball Lightnings by tossing a Swiftfoot boots on my goblins.
Stopping someone trying to pull off the extremely unlikely play of T3 Forbidden Alchemy / T4 flashback Unburial Rites on Sun Titan bringing back Phantasmal Image bringing back w/e by using the much more likely to be in your hand Mana Leak (or counter of your choice). An even more powerful play would be countering a followup T5 Unburial Rites played from hand with a Dissipate
Geist-Honored Monk and Mimic Vat would be a fierce combo to main board. You'd get to keep the tokens, and each turn the monks you're copying would just get stronger.
I don't know what you'd sub out though, hard to pick out much you'd want to drop..
EDIT: I didn't post this list in the Scars/Innistrad Boros topic a few below mine because I figured this was a different enough variation. Please merge if you see them as similar enough decktypes.
I usually play a much more expensive mono-white Puresteel variant (most of the cost from 4 ea of Sword of War and Peace, Mirran Crusader, Inkmoth Nexus), but since my local FNM group isn't hyper competitive I've been trying to build some budget decks lately based around some of my favorite individual cards. I set this one around Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer.
I set a $20 limit per deck. This came in at ~19.5. I'm gonna take this to my next few FNM's and see if I can win anything with it.
I'd love to get opinions on any improvements that could be made.
No mortarpods or dispatches? Have any trouble with Inkmoth Nexus? They've been pretty rampant in meta so far in Wolf Run Ramp decks.
have personally playtested it and have found success. (I haven't)
are running Gitaxian Probe or Memoricide or w/e else to see your opponents hand and play it accordingly.
or if you feel something is so gamebreakingly devastating you 100% have to make sure it can't be played.
I think Phyrexian Revoker is much more effective (albeit only against cards w/ activated abilities), and you can play it reactively, as opposed to trying to play Nevermore proactively and potentially wasting it. Or of course, you can play Oblivion Ring, which is good for getting rid of anything.
I'm currently running 2 Revokers and 2 O Rings instead of Nevermore, which I used to run as a 3 of off the board.
Yes, by all means. There's also a bunch of U/W variants on previous pages that would be great starting blocks if you want to go that route.
Nevermore is hit and miss in this.. Ex: last night against a G/W ramp I nevermore'd Primeval Titan, which had given me a scare game 1. So he just dropped a Primordial Hydra. Definitely a case where O-Rings would be more worthwhile. The fact that they can end up being completely useless hurts too. It worked great in my Venser deck, where I can Gitaxian Probe and see what threats are in hand to use it on, but here, I think it might be worth dropping. For Puresteel there's just too much guessing for me to use them.
Also, they suck in the mirror, or even a semi-mirror. The other guys biggest threat is a sword carrying crusader? Well thats my threat too. So I can Nevermore one and make it a bit harder for me to win (and he might not even have drawn either), spend 3 mana to stop him from playing something not very threatening, or I can let it rot in my hand. I think I'd rather just O-Ring him.
The Revokers are a lot easier to use. If someone drops Liliana (or any planeswalker really) I'm chucking the revoker at it asap. Likewise with any other threatening cards. Once we can equip up our Inkmoths, Crusaders or Etched Champions (or Geist or Stalker if your U/W) it's a quick clock, so I didn't really hold onto them waiting for the opponents biggest threat to appear.
So I think at the least I'm gonna drop the Nevermore's for 2 O-Rings.. which I'll maybe stick main deck. Might drop 1 Mortarpod and flail for em. I love the flail on a crusader or metalcrafted champion, but since they're about all I can equip them on.. might a little situational to have two of.
Thanks for posting this up. Good to hear!
My final list looked like this:
2 Elite Inquisitor
2 Etched Champion
2 Kemba, Kha Regent
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Puresteel Paladin
3 Dispatch
4 Flayer Husk
4 Mortarpod
2 Silver-Inlaid Dagger
2 Inquisitor's Flail
1 Strata Scythe
3 Sword of War and Peace
19 Plains
2 Celestial Purge
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Indomitable Archangel
2 Nevermore
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Timely Reinforcements
Round 1: crushed your standard fare round 1 zombie homebrew. I was pumping out more cates w/ Kemba and Puresteel out that he could make zombies, pretty easy win. (great little combo there by the way.. shuffle your equips over to kemba on second main for free with the paladin, get cats, switch em back next main)
Round 2: G/W Ramp. Pretty good deck. Lost game two to a pro-creatures Primordial Hydra. I was too fast the other two games though.
Round 3: G/W Humans. I went first, which proved to be decisive. Game devolved into whoever could get a sword onto a Mirran Crusader faster. I got the first round, he got the second, I got the third. Whoever went first won.
Round 4: Solar Flare. This one was a pain.. Round 1 he dropped a Liliana turn 3 (after a t2 mana leak on my paladin). From there it wasn't close.. I couldn't draw and play enough threats to do anything. 2 Smallpoxes to Snapcasters recalling it pretty much drowned me out. Round 2 I got out too fast, knocked him out before I could get anything going. Round 3 was a pretty good one.. Ended up with me at the end with a crusader with 2 swords and a dagger at 6 life, and him with a Sun Titan, and 1 snapcaster at 8 life. Ended when I topdecked a dispatch, killed the snapcaster, and attacked with my crusader. He flashed another one in to block, swinging for the win the next turn.
Anyway, W Puresteel seemed viable to me tonight, so for those who don't want to play more of a U/W hex blade puresteel deck, mono white is definitely doable.
Strata Scythe has actually performed fairly well for me (especially in games that drag on for w/e reason). The mono white makes it really add up, though I suspect extra swords there might be better. I haven't tossed in any of my FaF or BaM yet to test. That build was really just the first draft I've put together post-rotation.
Fair points on the blue splash; the lack of hexproof has really been the only problem I've run into playing this so far. I'll do a little testing with W and U/W. It'd be nice if Puresteel could be competitive in a few different forms, but I'll convert to U/W if its just flat better.
Infect is also pretty easy.. A few infectors, some pumps, throw in some evasion, w/e else. Yakusoko's stickied post has a pretty decent one you could build from.
4 Elite Inquisitor
2 Mentor of the Meek
4 Mirran Crusader
4 Puresteel Paladin
3 Dispatch
4 Flayer Husk
4 Mortarpod
2 Silver-Inlaid Dagger
2 Strata Scythe
4 Sword of War and Peace
19 Plains
2 Celestial Purge
2 Grand Abolisher
3 Indomitable Archangel
2 Nevermore
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Timely Reinforcements
This has performed pretty well for me, though I've only tested against sub-par Solar Flare, U/W control, some other budgeted top decks..
The Flayer Husk, Mortarpods, Swords, Crusaders, and Paladins are all standard fare, and pretty much entrenched in here. Still not sure about the other equipment inclusion.
Champion of the Parish makes sense to me in this as a 1 drop. It can build up fast, since every creature you'll be casting is human (excluding the living weapons).
Elite Inquisitor could be subbed out, though I'm not sure what for. It's a fairly decent equipment holder though with its abilities. Again, could sub it, though I've rarely been disappointed to draw it.
The sideboard makes me sad, as I've decided most of it to protecting our equipment. Could use work I think.
Seems like all the decklists in the thread are U/W. Anyone been playing around at all with mono white? Or is U/W just flat better w/ the Invisible Stalkers and w/e else it adds?
I'm going to sub in Goblin Gaveleer for Porcelain Legionnaire or Auriok Edgewright. The thought of chucking an inquisitors flail and some swiftfoot boots on and potentially getting an 8/1 haste trampler dealing double damage for 1 mana was just too much fun not to include..
I tried initially to copy Shinbatsu's budget creation threads with the intro pack pricing limit (13.5), but when I priced the Puresteel paladins they were ~$9 alone, and I wasn't creative enough to work around that, so I settled on $20.
I'm gonna try testing the strata scythe, considering I have more than enough plains to work with for them to be effective. The gaveleer has some fun synergy with Jor too. Love the thought of having Jor out and making 6/1 pseudo-Ball Lightnings by tossing a Swiftfoot boots on my goblins.
I don't know what you'd sub out though, hard to pick out much you'd want to drop..
3 Etched Champion
3 Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer
4 Porcelain Legionnaire
4 Puresteel Paladin
3 Galvanic Blast
4 Flayer Husk
3 Inquisitor's Flail
4 Mortarpod
3 Swiftfoot Boots
17 Plains
I usually play a much more expensive mono-white Puresteel variant (most of the cost from 4 ea of Sword of War and Peace, Mirran Crusader, Inkmoth Nexus), but since my local FNM group isn't hyper competitive I've been trying to build some budget decks lately based around some of my favorite individual cards. I set this one around Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer.
I set a $20 limit per deck. This came in at ~19.5. I'm gonna take this to my next few FNM's and see if I can win anything with it.
I'd love to get opinions on any improvements that could be made.