MTG Salvation

Hello everyone - I have recently taken heavy interest into a deck that many people might or might not recognize - Puresteel Storm.  The typical Puresteel Storm decks typically revolve around the card Puresteel Paladin (obviously where it gets it's name) and the card Grapeshot by playing a slew of 0 drop equipment artifacts, using Retract and repeating this until they draw into a Grapeshot and are able to effectively kill their opponent with their absurd storm count.

If you aren't familiar with a typical Puresteel Storm build, I suggest looking at some of them, then coming back to this post.  The deck has the very rare, but possible chance to win on turn two, decent consistency turn 3, and a typical very consistent kill turn 4-6

But wait, if the deck is so fast, why isn't it more popular? One simple answer - Consistency.  The deck is famous for not being consistent at all, not playing Paladin on time, and bricking.  How do we fix these inconsistencies and put this deck back on the map?  That was the answer I was eager to find out.  So I took it upon myself to try to work out these common problems. 

Here is the list we came up with to try to answer these consistency issues. 

Now, I will address why we made certain card choices, what each piece in the deck is functioning as, and what inconsistencies we fixed that existed in the old lists

Lets start with the land base. 

Previous land bases in these Puresteel Storm decks sat around anywhere from 11-16 lands, with 13 being the average - That is simply just not enough, and those lists are relying too heavily on Mox Opal to do their mana fixing work.  So we set our number at 17.  We decided to go with 5 fetchlands, that all search for Plains as fetches are going to help thin the deck of lands, and white is a necessary color early to get us started.  We are running Mana Confluence as we have a need for double white and double blue in this build, and while we aren't concerned about life total too much, we can make the small sacrifice to run it.  Mystic Gate Is in the list as double white is something that we need for Paladin, and we aren't always guaranteed to have it, but it also provides the double blue needed for Muddle the Mixture.  And finally we are running Cavern of Souls to protect our Monastery Mentor and our Puresteel Paladin (Cavern naming Human obviously) as the deck lacks a good amount of protection from counterspells. 

Creature base

The creature base is obviously going to contain Puresteel Paladin, but now we have the addition of Monastery Mentor - this card can simply win us games by itself, and it an obvious choice for a deck that running free non creature spells.  We can't always rely on Grapeshot to get us there, so Mentor gives us a very powerful alternative game ending strategy. 

Other Spells 

We wont speak about the artifacts and combo pieces as those are pretty self explanatory and are mainly only there for Puresteel Paladin and Mentor to benefit off of (if you don't know how the deck works, again, please look it up and come back to this).  We are running Gitaxian Probe for some very great reasons - It's free most of the time, it replaces itself, and it gets us information (also triggers Prowess) so we don't have to go all in on the combo just to find out they can stop up halfway through - this gives the deck a spell that nets us card advantage, is never a brick to draw, and it gains us information.  We are running a single Hurkyl's Recall as it acts as a 5th Retract effect, and we can find it with Muddle the Mixture.  And finally, we are running Noxious Revival - Noxious Revival can save the combo most times - hold onto one equipment, with Retract in the graveyard, cast Noxious Revival for phyrexian mana (we are fairly much all in on the combo, theres no reason to run an actual green source) put Retract on top, drop your equipment, and keep going. It not only gets Retract back, but it can also bring back a Paladin, a Mentor, anything you want really. (also triggers Prowess)  Muddle the Mixture isn't new to these style of decks - its protection, and we can Transmute it to find Paladin. 

Sideboarding

After some eye opening review of the deck from some great mtg salvation users, I opted to transform the sideboard a bit. 

Silence - We don't have the greatest match against burn, and we would much rather play Silence rather than Leyline of Sanctity, as it's not really a life race, more than it is about us keeping our creatures alive.  Silence puts a halt to burn throwing burn spells at our Paladin and Mentor, and gives us time to get our gears turning.

Repeal - More protection from removal, not intended so much for burn particularly, Repeal seems more suited for decks running removal alongside strong creature based strategies, plus it replaces itself by netting us card advantage. 

Apostles Blessing - Giving a couple of different protection options a try, Apostles Blessing is unique in the sense that we can find it with Muddle the Mixture, it can act as a path clearer for a huge Monastery swing, and having the Phyrexian cost option makes it easier to cast without committing a bunch of our mana into it.

Echoing Truth - Just more Tutor-able protection really - also acts as a good card for on board problems like a blood moon, and chalice of the void.

Elixir of Immortality - I can't express how bad of a match-up burn is for us.  Once they tick away at our creatures, they will obviously go for our face, so Elixir lets us get our creatures back in the deck, and gain some life while we are at it to soften the blow that we have taken from direct burn damage.  

How we fixed the inconsistencies

--- Power Level - By adding in Monastery Mentor, we are given a whole other win condition that our opponent may not expect.  A lot of these builds would run Laboratory Maniac in the side, or run an amount of Riddlesmith in the main, but this card has an immense power level in a deck like this, and often times wins games by itself. 

--- Speed - By upping the land count, we assure ourselves more consistent plays of our needed creatures almost every time.  A lot of the other Puresteel builds run the risk of waiting until they can hit a land, and use their land and mox opal to play their Puresteel Paladin, and by then, they would have to of cast two other artifacts to let Mox Opal be active, so they run the risk of not even being able to combo that turn or the following - We are more often than not going to be casting our Paladin and Mentor fairly, with lands. 

--- Filtering - We are one of the only lists of Puresteel to use fetchlands and Thoughtcast.  Fetchlands pulls our lands out of the deck, and gets them out the way so we aren't drawing a ton mid combo - something most of the Puresteel decks don't accomplish. 

I hope everyone enjoys my take on Puresteel Storm, and I hope this variant can give some respect back to this fine combo.