How much equipment do you need in a deck? There
is, of course, no one answer, but the existence
of Puresteel Paladin may push many people's
answer slightly higher. The fact that you can
use equip abilities for free once you reach the
metalcraft threshold is convenient, as it will
probably have been preceded by a few turns of
casting equipment cards and, likely, doing
little else. Pairing him with the living weapon
cards from Mirrodin Besieged and New Phyrexia
will probably be effective, if not consistent
with lore, and like Stoneforge Mystic, he can
only get better with time.
Today's card of the day is Puresteel Paladin
which is a two mana 2/2 White creature that
allows you to draw a card whenever an equipment
enters the battlefield under your control and
when Metalcraft is active reduces the equip cost
of artifacts to zero. This is a very nice
support card for any White deck running
equipments, particularly one with more of a
theme in that area which could include the Kor
or Living Weapon cards. The double White
really keeps this from being as useful in a two
color deck, but if enough early sources of White
mana exist it can be managed. Overall a
2/2 for two with card advantage, not limited to
played from hand, that can remove the equip
costs that sometimes reach six mana is certainly
a card to consider when building a deck.
In Limited a 2/2 for a double color is difficult
to work with and multiple equipment cards might
not be available in your pool. If several
are present using this card is a very good
strategy, but without the equipment to work with
it is a poor investment compared to creatures
that are easier to play. In Sealed it
should be considered only if playing purely
White, have a solid base of equipment cards, or
both.
For Booster drafting this first is a gamble that
can pay off as you can build an all White deck
and get several extra equipment cards that may
be passed around the table. Anything with
Living Weapon should be given even more
attention than usual as they both support the
Paladin's effects and work as a creature which
will avoid an excess of potentially bad topdecks.
Welcome to another week of Card of
the day reviews here at Pojo.com. Today we are
taking a look at Puresteel Paladin from New
Phyrexia. The Puresteel Paladin costs just two
white mana, and is a 2/2. The Puresteel Paladin
says whenever an equipment card enters the
battlefield under your control, draw a card. He
also has Metalcraft: Equipment you control have
a zero cost to equip as long as you control
three or more artifacts.
This guy is crazy good for only two mana. He easily could
have cost much more, or even been given the nod
to become mythic, but here he sits. This guy
makes in impact in any equipment based deck, and
I am sure that many of the competitive Standard
decks are already looking forward to this guy’s
aide, for both the card draw, and freedom of
mana once Metalcraft is achieved.
In Vintage formats, this guy so easily combos with the Leonin
Shikari from the original Mirrodin. The reason
is because then once you have Metalcraft, you
can bounce your equipments around at instant
speed, for free!
All in all one of my personal favorite cards from New
Phyrexia, and perhaps one of the most useful,
but underappreciated cards.
