UW Puresteel Testing - 9/28

I made a few edits to the deck since yesterday, taking the sideboard I'd built into account. I'm playing via MWS, and for those of you who don't know me personally, I'll admit to not being the world's best pilot. I usually do notice my mistakes in hindsight, so there's still hope for me, but I wouldn't take this as the gospel-truth of how the deck plays at extremely high end competition. I'm sure Caleb or someone could do much better with it.

Worthy of noting is that I ended up not including any counterspells in my 75. I don't like this, and I plan to change it at some point. Just need to figure out where the cuts are.

Here's the list I played:

Round 1 vs RB Army of the Dead Ramp

Game 1:

I probe him off the bat, seeing a ton of Red and Black – including a Black Sun. I also see a Warstorm Surge and a Spellskite, so I put him solidly on a rogue deck with a late game plan. Having kept a pretty good anti-aggro hand involving a puresteel and two mortarpods, I decide to play it fast and loose and trot the Paladin out on T2. Love the pressure you can put on if you get in an early probe and see no spot removal.

I probe him again around turn 3-4 and see an Army of the Damned. Oh. Hey. That makes sense. Cool combo.

My paladin goes unanswered for 3-4 turns and finally dies to a doom blade after I've drawn the second. By that point, I have a sword already in play, cast the second paladin, snap-equip him with everything and turn him into an 8/6. I swing for the win next turn, with an O-Ring as backup.

Admittedly, he was on 7 lands at the time, so, was getting a little worried there. 26 power of zombies is enough to kill you, no matter how you cut it.

SB: -2 Mentor of the Meek (too slow if 7 mana wins him the game.) , -1 Accorder's Shield, -1 Mortarpod, +4 Mirran Crusader (Push extra damage through.)

Alright, in hindsight, this was a shitty board. I've got 3 dead dispatches in the deck, could've brought Nevermore to name Army, could've done so many things better. Gotta get my head in this now before I hit an actual deck. (Also notable: I forgot to track my SB choices for the later matches, so, I'm pretty bad at this whole 'recording games' thing.)

Game 2:

I start off curving Flayer Husk > Puresteel > Mirran Crusader. He kills the paladin on end step, then casts Torpor Orb. I reach for the trinket mage...huh. Damn. I guess that Torpor Orb does stop something I'm playing. I play a lifestaff instead and equip it, beating him down for 7. He Black Sun's Zeniths to wipe the board. I play a moorland haunt and make a guy, and play a Sword of Feast and Famine. He plays a Bloodgift Demon to block. I Oblivion Ring it, then equip the Sword of Feast and Famine and Lifestaff, beat in to take him to 4. Out of cards in hand, he concedes.

Moorland Haunt felt like a champ in this game. Even though I had two creatures in hand, I found that the flying body it provided was absolutely incredible. This deck probably wasn't the most competitive opponent to start the night off with, but it did give me a feel for how this version runs, and I like it.

Victory 2-0

Round 2 vs.Solar Flare

Game 1:

Game was close. Having dispatched a grave titan and a sun titan in subsequent turns, he was running out of gas, but had board position when one of our internet's crapped out. Damn. That's disappointing. I wanted to test vs this deck...I'm marking it down as a draw because I had top decks that killed him, and if I didn't he'd have won the first game. Unfortunately, the client wouldn't let me draw to see if I had it, so, we'll never know.

Connection Issue 0-0-1

Round 3 vs RDW

Game 1

I keep a fairly defensive hand with a Mortarpod, which is lucky, because he trots out the turn 1 Arsonist on the play. I'm a little nervous here, because swinging with the arsonist to enable bloodthirst for a Stormblood Berserker is a little tough to deal with. I'm finding that 3/3's with relevant abilities seem to be about the size that we can't deal with early game. Even before rotation, Blade Splicers always gave me some trouble. He ends up not having the Berserker, and the game proceeds on. Eventually, I'm able to get metalcraft online and Etched Champion takes the day with a few clutch sword swings. Sword makes him Slagstorm-immune, so I mostly walk over him from there.

Game 2

He gets an early tempo advantage when he burns out my hex parasite that was chewing on his shrine. I tap out to eat the counters off it, and he extends into the board with a Phoenix. Long story short, he lands a Koth, alongside the Phoenix, while I'm on the backfoot because the shrine is ticking upwards to 6 and 7 now. I end up swinging at Koth to kill him, and I'm burned out the next turn. I think I misplayed the last turn though, and realized it right afterward. If I had hit him instead, I could have made him discard his last burn spell, preventing him from recurring back the phoenix, and then dispatched the mountain when he animated it, giving me board position, despite the Koth on 5.

Live and learn, I suppose. Don't tunnel vision, Andrew! You've got this.

Game 3

This was a great game. I start slow again (noticing a trend) and kept an iffy hand involving a bunch of 3 drops and 2 lands. Luckily, no turn 1 play from him gives me the breathing room I need to set up. I topdeck an invisible stalker, and play it, into a trinket mage finding the dagger. He wants to race – I can race with the best of them. It gets bad enough that I force him to slagstorm two of his own guys to reset the board, catching only the stalker and the trinket mage in the blast. I drop a puresteel paladin and Sword of Feast and Famine. No mana to activate my inkmoth though, so I can't equip this turn.. He plays out a Koth, and throws a mountain at me, taking me to 5. He's got a chandra's phoenix, but I've got a spirit to chump block it. Next turn I play Etched Champion, and equip/swing at him with the paladin to take him to 7 from 14. He incinerates me in response to save the burn spell from discard, taking me to two with a Koth on 5, and Chandra's Phoenix.

He swings in, I dispatch the phoenix, and block the mountain with Etched Champion. He reveals his topdeck – shrine of burning rage. I swing with paladin to take him down the last 7.

Victory 2-1

Round 4 vs. Josue's UG Hexblade

This is actually a deck I've been worried about, because of the hexproof issue. He was running Thrun, Dungrove, and Invisible Stalker and I felt like he blanked most of my removal. My friend runs a very similar list pre-rotation, so I know how annoying it is. This is one of the reasons for the 4 Mirran crusaders in the sideboard.

Game 1:

If this game has taught me one thing it's this: Invisible Stalker is TERRIBLE without a sword. I go t2 Puresteel into t3 Sword of Feast and Famine. He goes t2 invisible stalker, then he beast within's the sword during my attack, plays second stalker on his turn, and passes. I play a second sword and equip it. He hits me with a second beast within. I trinket for Dagger, and start swinging away. He plays a Garruk, makes a blocker, I cast Oblivion Ring at the walker. He finally finds a sword and hits me with it, untaps, and Green Sun's Zenith for Thrun. I make a flyer with Moorland Haunt on my end step, suit him up, and fly to victory.

Game 2:

Bird vs Flayer Husk. Stalker vs Mortarpod. I play a Mirran Crusader on 3.

Take that sideboard tech.

He copies it with Phantasmal Image. (That cheeky bastard!)

I kill his bird with my mortarpod, then equip Mirran Crusader with it and swing anyway. (Because pfft!)

Fun fact kids: Mortarpod does have uses outside of sacrificing guys to kill mana dorks! It also provides a toughness boost that wins stalemates and improves the value you get from your creatures.

Long game, involving me killing a Thrun with a double-equipped germ, and basically just getting there by forcing bad blocks because of two creatures with protection from Green. I kept up the pressure, and ultimately, killed him with no real chance to come back outside of a non-green miracle, which he never saw. I do get the kill a turn early via mortarpod shennanagins, so, that's probably notable, since he had a naturalize on his topdeck, but I think I could've sealed the game either way.

Of note: Moorland Haunt was dead this game because I never lost a real creature, just germs. Doesn't make it less awesome, but is something to note.

Victory 2-0

Round 5 vs Grand Architect

Game 1: He resolves a sword of body and mind on his vault skirge. I never see removal for it, or more than one thing that can block the air, despite drawing like 9 cards. Blah. I ask for game two, pretty confident that I can beat him because that's literally all he did all game, and he was already out of cards, but he drops instead.

Loss 0-1

Personally, I don't really count that. Single game matches aren't really that relevant, right?

OVERALL:

6 wins - 2 losses – 1 drop – one refused to play games 2 and 3.

Deck felt pretty strong on the overall. I can tell that this version has a bit more punch than the old one – probably stemming from the dagger, which seems to get there more than anything else in the deck. It's absurd how useful that thing is. I don't know if I agree with people saying to cut lifestaff. It didn't show up against RDW, but it's still a critical part of the anti-aggro match up.

4 Mirran Crusader in the sideboard felt very strong. I think it blanked a bunch of his removal options, and forced him to adopt a defensive posture. Didn't see any GY based decks to test the Nihil Spellbomb on. Hex parasite was lackluster, but this isn't really the match up I wanted to use it in. Nevermore felt like I never wanted to bring it in – but even without it, Gitaxian Probe was such a hero. Dispense Justice came in against the Hexproof deck, and I really like that interaction, noting a number of times when drawing it would have lead to a complete blowout. I might increase the count on those, especially since you can effectively use to to stop Geist of St. Traft, who appears to be gaining popularity in decks like this. I'd love to see them go t3 Geist, t4 angelic destiny, attack, and then Metalcraft Dispense them both (or use it before the trigger resolves if he has another creature!). I did find myself bringing the mortarpod in for some of the match ups. I still like the card a lot.

Mentor of the Meek draw a bunch of cards, but still felt slow overall. Two invisible stalkers seems like enough to make sure I see one when I want to, and don't when I don't. It's pretty awesome with the silver-etched dagger, and swords are obviously great.

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I plan to test more in the coming days, and I'm attending Innistrad's first Standard on Saturday. I'll obviously be in contact with you all via more posts here, and of course, the wonderful Puresteel Paladin thread over at MTGSalvation. (Link).

Wish me luck,

Andrew