The most basic kill is getting a Chalice or Cornucopia charged up, then generating a bunch of mana from it with Paradox Engine, then drawing tons of cards with Atlas or Outcome. The kill is Aetherflux Reservoir. All the pieces of the deck are searchable with Whir and Reshape, Mox Opal is very easy to turn on turn 1 or turn 2.
Goldfishes turn 5 normally, sometimes turn 4, but it's pretty redundant and flexible, with sideboard bullets being easy to get. This deck also abuses Chalice of the Void. more than any other deck could dream too. Removal hitting a charged up mana rock is a big weakness, Welding Jar tries to fight that but it might not be enough. I haven't messed around with non-charge versions very much. They feel a lot slower since you need a couple different mana producing artifacts in play instead of just 1 or two, and Coretapper is so strong at accelerating. But they would be safer from removal.
Not sure where to take the deck from here, any thoughts?
I have been working on this deck since Paradox Engine got spoiled. The card seems broken like barely any other card I have seen so far. Many reactions on the internet were pairing it with mana dorks, but in this case one could just play Jeskai Ascendancy and/or Intruder Alarm. This assessment seems wrong, since a) creatures face more hate, b) they have summmoning sickness and c) there are no useful zero-mana dorks. Artficats on the other hand have none of these problems, while also getting Ancient Stirrings as a bonus. This idea was also before Gitaxian Probe got banned, which had a natural home in this deck. Shame.
The basic idea is, of course, to get Paradox Engine in play and then draw cards via Temple Bell and Otherworld Atlas, while playing cheap card draws and mana rocks.
Problem 1: The kill condition. This one is easy. We want primarily something that isn't a complete blank, while we try to start going off. So it must be cheap. We want more than one piece because of discard. My idea was to take advantage of Temple Bell and the low card count of my opponent. Any combination of two out of Blue Sun's Zenith, Elixir of Immortality and Noxious Revival does the trick. I'm currently going with (1,1,0), since Blue Sun's Zenith draws me cards in a pinch, but costs the most mana, and Elixir of Immortality, since it gives 5 life against burn. The most elegant way is 2 Noxious Revival and an active Temple Bell, while also giving the deck more free spells in the critical turn, where Paradox Engine hits the battlefield. The correct constellation is probably meta-dependant.
Problem 2: The engine. We can play any combination of Temple Bell and Otherworld Atlas. Both have disadvantages. Temple Bell will always dig only card at a time, making it more likely to fizzle, while Otherworld Atlas costs one mana more and needs to be first charged up. I'm going currently for the speedier version, but I don't know if this is correct. The next problem arises naturally, because we dig our opponent even pre-board into answers (Kolaghan's Command and counterspells) or kill conditions (burn can wait until it assembles the correct kill spells). To prevent that I run Defense Grid main. But this card is a bad draw when trying to go off, so I went for one copy and Whir of Invention instead. Whir of Invention on the other hand is expensive, but has instant speed and gives toolbox possiblities. (That implies the one-of Spellskite main.) The four Remand can work in this way, but are more flexible.
The rest is pretty self-explanatory:
4 Serum Visions: Digs 3 and sets up draws. With 1 mana also excellent, when chaining spells for Paradox Engine together.
4 Ancient Stirrings: Digs 5. The best card selection spell of the format has a natural home in an artifact-based combo deck. With 1 mana also excellent, when chaining spells for Paradox Engine together.
2 Thoughtcast: Digs only 2. Incredibly good, when going off, since "U: Draw two cards." is nuts. Couldn't find more room for more than two copies.
4 Remand: Gives interaction, protection and time. Replaces itself and is not completely dead, while going off, since you can counter your own spells. Gives more incentives to go with a one-of Defense Grid.
2 Whir of Invention: Does it all. Savior of the day, clunky toolbox engine, dead draw, when you need that one or zero mana spell. Two seem justified.
1 Spellskite: The only creature in the deck. I wanted to go with zero creatures to make Path to Exile and Fatal Push as bad as possible against this deck, but Spellskite has applications against Burn, Aggro, Infect and targeted artifact destruction.
Sideboard: I'm currently tinkering with a transformational sideboard consisting of Vendilion Clique, Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher + X. Because removal is so bad against us and artifact removal is so good, I expect little to no resistance against a disruptive beat-down. Even if they know your plan, you can always choose between two proactive plans, while they hit the correct reactive plan only half the time.
Closing thoughts: I still believe that a version based on Etherium Sculptor, Renowned Weaponsmith, Vedalken Engineer and Grand Architect is faster, but it encounters the same problem as all mana dorks as explained above. I also expect Fatal Push in basically every deck the coming weeks, so 'No, thanks' to that.
The creature-less version has still many problems and the splits are only crafted through theory, but testing will hopefully bring some light in this mistery. And a 5-color Bring to Light version with Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry seems also interesting.
I agree with you that the deck shouldn't rely on creatures, blanking their removal spells makes it really hard to interact for them. Have you tried Coretapper? My version is probably a bit more focused on charges than you, obviously he needs a mana rock to work but if you can untap with him it's super strong, and often 2 free charges if they want to waste time killing it.
I think Blue Sun is a better win than Aetherflux, good call there. You draw your whole deck anyway, might as well have something that could help earlier. I think 1 maindeck Defense Grid and 1 skite/jar would be about right. You play Whir so 1 Otherworld Atlas should really be in there, sometimes Bell can't do it.
I tried out Stirrings, obviously its an insane card on paper. It should probably be in this deck but I was a bit hesitant to stretch the mana requirements into green, since you need to play Citadel and I like to play Inventors Fair. But I guess its really easy to do that in modern, and just have green for free (minus some life costs).
I haven't tested borderposts much. Was worried about the comes in tapped part, since the deck has a lot of spells to play on turn 1 and 2. But it would be a lot safer than charge rocks. Maybe a few is good.
I don't like them, since they cost three, or require you to have a basic land, while also offering no mana advancement. But the 5-mana threshold must be reached as soon as possible. I just don't see them as good in this deck.
Just diving into this deck over the past few weeks and have it largely built. I'm very impressed with my goldfish testing and seem to be able to keep disruption up while I'm tutoring and going off.
What about Isochron Sceptre and cards like Remand and Swan Song? Both of those instants are good on their own but on an Isochron with the Engine can provide an infinite amount of birds or cards in your favour, going off as early as turn 3 or 4. I would side them out in Game 2 but many decks will fold even if you just play the Sceptre with a Remand and say go in my experience with other decks.
For SB I am loving the idea in this thread about going with an aggressive beat down plan. I love Reality Smasher but how about Lodestone Golem? Yes he eats their removal but he also makes it hard to cast and is sort of a welding jar since your opponent will really want it removed.
Overall this deck is very exciting, it will take a lot of work for us to dig up the best cards.
Long time fan of this archetype, played it in SoM standard, and I have been wondering just where Paradox Engine fits into the mix since Aether Revolt has come out.
It of course fits best in an artifact heavy version of Dice Factory and seems like possibly a better Unwinding Clock allowing the deck to combo off to a win much faster rather than grinding them down into the late game.
What I am seeing with these lists is that they just don't seem fast enough against many decks in the format. Game 1 is really big for a big artifact deck like this because most decks will have creature removal maindeck rather than artifact removal. If you lose game 1, games 2 and 3 can seem that much harder.
I think the deck is best with a heavy ramp shell including Mox Opal, Astral Cornucopia, Everflowing Chalice, Surge Node, Voltaic Key, and Coretapper. You will have 6 mana on average turn 3 utilizing all of these cards. Sometimes, with a very nutty hand, you can have 5-7 on turn 2 or something crazy like 18 on turn 3.
Also you need some way to interact with the opponent that has a bigger impact than Remand.
Final thoughts, I'm not really sure that this style of Dice Factory is fast enough or consistently fast enough. Trying to find 2 cards to ramp, and then finding 2+ cards to combo off just seems kind of slow, even with all of the digging. This seems like it could be a consistent turn 6 kill with very light disruption from the opponent. I think the deck would be better off playing towards the other strengths of the archetype and throwing the combo in as a backup or extra finisher.
I have 3 different builds that I test while I play the one with tron finishers main deck on MTGO, this is the list that I threw together for testing on tappedout.
I have reworked my list from above. Sadly I'm currently occupied,so I had no chance to really play the deck. But I hope to play a big tournament in a month or so, so let's hope Mox Opal doesn't bite the dust until then.
The changes are:
-1 Breeding Pool
+1 Island
+1 Botanical Sanctum
As for the Sideboard:
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Obstinate Baloth
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Flexible Slots (2 Spell Pierce, 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Beast Within)
Especially the four flex slots give me a huge headache currently.
Closing thought: I really like the feel of the deck. It consists of only good cards and can do some pretty cool things.
But the emergence of Death Shadow Jund with the heavy discard suite is troublesome. So the deck will face hard times. Discard really is the modern counter-magic.
First things first: This deck works! It does have some tough match-ups, but the deck works. I just played a small tournament tonight with 4 rounds and ended up 2-2 with this:
My first match was against RG Titan Breach.
The first game was really close, but a Remand on Primeval Titan and a whiffing Summoning Trap gave me a window to go off.
The second game I lost, since I tapped my last mana to Serum Vision instead to keep it open for Spell Pierce and walked into Through the Breach into 15/15 Emrakul. This game I could have won, damn.
In the third game I sideboarded into the beat down plan. Bad idea. I mulliganed to five and was crushed by a Titan.
0-1 in matches, 1-2 in games
The second match was against Merfolk. There is little to say, since I felt like hugely favorited.
The first game I nearly lost by a misplay (thinking I could go off with Paradox Engine and Temple Bell, but had no mana open for Simic Signet), but he couldn't get enough pressure down in one turn.
The second game I fizzled due to 11 lands, 6 of them in my hand...
The third game I did my plan and end of story.
1-1 in matches, 3-3 in games.
The third match was against Eldrazi 'n Taxes. This match-up is really hard unsurprisingly.
First game Thalia on turn 2, Thought-Knot on turn 3. Nope.
For the second game I used the beat-down plan. This actually looked better with an overperforming Etched Champion, but I lost the attrition war.
1-2 in matches, 3-5 in games.
The fourth match was an unwinable one: Death's Shadow Jund.
Turns out I win game one without much struggling. His only Inquisition doesn't pick my Temple Bell and I go off relatively fast.
Game two was bizzare. I won through triple Inquisition, double Fulminator Mage and one Kolaghan's Command. I think this was a classic mistake of "Who's aggro? Who's control?". With more pressure the game would have been much harder.
Some key thoughts:
-Inquisition can't take Paradox Engine and Thoughtcast. This is really a problem for them.
-All slots in the sideboard should be dedicated to beat-down.
-The curve in the beat-down plan should top out at the four Reality Smashers. The reason is that Stony Silence hinders our mana.
-Remand is a great card. It also helps with the one win condition.
-Dungeon Geists suck!
-Paradox Engine is good even without Temple Bell.
-Save your Ancient Stirrings until you know what you're looking for.
-Nobody wants to sit through the combo! One Elixir of Immortality is really enough.
-The deck is really fun!
Nice write-up. I know this isn't a strict dice factory shell that you are running, but it is really only off by a couple of cards. I have been playing Paradox Combo a lot recently and it is one of the main win-conditions or ways to build the deck around. We have a lot of discussion on different card choices and different match-ups. I think it would be better to condense the discussion into one thread instead of 3 as this is quite the niche archetype. It would help grow the deck idea and make it more visible for other people who are interested in it.
Any spell put under an Isochron Scepter with cause the paradox to untap everything when used. If you have 2 mana worth of rocks, mana dorks, boderposts, etc, you can generate infinite untaps, infinite mana with 3. If you have a temple bell or an atlas, you can dig your library out for an Angel's Grace and just cause both players to draw any remaining cards.
Honestly, Paradox Engine is just a janky version of the old Retraction Helix and Isochron + Dramatic Reversal combos, both of which have much earlier consistent kill turns and dont have main combo pieces that cost 5 mana just by themselves, and are infinite in all variations.
Building around this card is a waste of time. It will never be as competitive as these other combos, and those decks are not competitive. Any usable infinite variations of this card will actually probably involve Isochron or Helix in some way, And honestly, its just not worth it. Also the piece doesnt have enough intrinsic value to be put into a shell simply because of its hefty casting cost.
If you *really* want to brew this, dont brew it as a combo deck, find some way to just get value out of it with midrange or aggro.
So, first of all... It has been 5 months since anyone posted on this. Second of all, Darksteel Forge does exactly nothing for this deck.
Also: Isochron Scepter variants require you to play super inconsistent cards, that do nothing by themselves. Rectraction Helix is a bad card. Dramatic Reversal is (given the card pool in Modern) a bad card. And Isochron Scepter without Orim's Chant was never good and even with it died relatively fast. The idea of my deck build was to reduce the amount of useless cards to just Paradox Engine and a bit of Temple Bell. Also both can be found by Ancient Stirrings. Angel's Grace... Really? That card is more dead than anything else outside of the combo and can only played with an active Mox Opal.
You don't want to go infinite with the deck, although that is possible, but just large enough. Going infinite consistently is mostly just bad in combo decks, take Ad Nauseam, Modern Storm or the old Dredge decks. These usually just go large enough to kill you.
Lastly, if you really want to brew a deck with Paradox Engine you have to win the moment it hits the battlefield, otherwise it's just way too slow.
And I just want to add for record: I'm not salty because you say the deck is bad. It is! But all your suggestions make the deck just much more worse than it already is.
1 Academy Ruins
1 Inventor's Fair
4 Darksteel Citadel
6 Island
2 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Steam Vents
Mana
4 Mox Opal
4 Astral Cornucopia
4 Everflowing Chalice
Charges
4 Coretapper
4 Surge Node
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
3 Paradox Engine
1 Otherworld Atlas
1 Temple Bell
1 Voltaic Key
1 Welding Jar
Spells
3 Whir of Invention
4 Reshape
2 Paradoxical Outcome
4 Serum Visions
4 Defense Grid
4 Chalice of the Void
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Welding Jar
2 Dismantle
The most basic kill is getting a Chalice or Cornucopia charged up, then generating a bunch of mana from it with Paradox Engine, then drawing tons of cards with Atlas or Outcome. The kill is Aetherflux Reservoir. All the pieces of the deck are searchable with Whir and Reshape, Mox Opal is very easy to turn on turn 1 or turn 2.
Goldfishes turn 5 normally, sometimes turn 4, but it's pretty redundant and flexible, with sideboard bullets being easy to get. This deck also abuses Chalice of the Void. more than any other deck could dream too. Removal hitting a charged up mana rock is a big weakness, Welding Jar tries to fight that but it might not be enough. I haven't messed around with non-charge versions very much. They feel a lot slower since you need a couple different mana producing artifacts in play instead of just 1 or two, and Coretapper is so strong at accelerating. But they would be safer from removal.
Not sure where to take the deck from here, any thoughts?
The basic idea is, of course, to get Paradox Engine in play and then draw cards via Temple Bell and Otherworld Atlas, while playing cheap card draws and mana rocks.
My list so far:
3 Botanical Sanctum
2 Breeding Pool
4 Darksteel Citadel
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Yavimaya Coast
Engine(8):
4 Paradox Engine
4 Temple Bell
2 Astral Cornucopia
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Mox Opal
4 Surge Node
Dig(10):
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Serum Visions
2 Thoughtcast
1 Defense Grid
4 Remand
1 Spellskite
2 Whir of Invention
Kill(2):
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Elixir of Immortality
Problem 1: The kill condition. This one is easy. We want primarily something that isn't a complete blank, while we try to start going off. So it must be cheap. We want more than one piece because of discard. My idea was to take advantage of Temple Bell and the low card count of my opponent. Any combination of two out of Blue Sun's Zenith, Elixir of Immortality and Noxious Revival does the trick. I'm currently going with (1,1,0), since Blue Sun's Zenith draws me cards in a pinch, but costs the most mana, and Elixir of Immortality, since it gives 5 life against burn. The most elegant way is 2 Noxious Revival and an active Temple Bell, while also giving the deck more free spells in the critical turn, where Paradox Engine hits the battlefield. The correct constellation is probably meta-dependant.
Problem 2: The engine. We can play any combination of Temple Bell and Otherworld Atlas. Both have disadvantages. Temple Bell will always dig only card at a time, making it more likely to fizzle, while Otherworld Atlas costs one mana more and needs to be first charged up. I'm going currently for the speedier version, but I don't know if this is correct. The next problem arises naturally, because we dig our opponent even pre-board into answers (Kolaghan's Command and counterspells) or kill conditions (burn can wait until it assembles the correct kill spells). To prevent that I run Defense Grid main. But this card is a bad draw when trying to go off, so I went for one copy and Whir of Invention instead. Whir of Invention on the other hand is expensive, but has instant speed and gives toolbox possiblities. (That implies the one-of Spellskite main.) The four Remand can work in this way, but are more flexible.
The rest is pretty self-explanatory:
4 Serum Visions: Digs 3 and sets up draws. With 1 mana also excellent, when chaining spells for Paradox Engine together.
4 Ancient Stirrings: Digs 5. The best card selection spell of the format has a natural home in an artifact-based combo deck. With 1 mana also excellent, when chaining spells for Paradox Engine together.
2 Thoughtcast: Digs only 2. Incredibly good, when going off, since "U: Draw two cards." is nuts. Couldn't find more room for more than two copies.
4 Mox Opal: Busted card is busted.
4 Everflowing Chalice: Zero-mana spell, flexible mana stone, but doesn't give color.
2 Astral Cornucopia: Zero-mana spell, but worst mana stone. Has the advantage of generating color.
4 Surge Node: Busted with Everflowing Chalice and Astral Cornucopia, dead (except for Whir of Invention) otherwise. Incredible with Otherworld Atlas. Another one mana spell.
4 Remand: Gives interaction, protection and time. Replaces itself and is not completely dead, while going off, since you can counter your own spells. Gives more incentives to go with a one-of Defense Grid.
2 Whir of Invention: Does it all. Savior of the day, clunky toolbox engine, dead draw, when you need that one or zero mana spell. Two seem justified.
1 Spellskite: The only creature in the deck. I wanted to go with zero creatures to make Path to Exile and Fatal Push as bad as possible against this deck, but Spellskite has applications against Burn, Aggro, Infect and targeted artifact destruction.
1 Island: Because Ghost Quarter and Blood Moon are a thing in Modern, I've heard.
Botanical Sanctum vs. Yavimaya Coast: 4 vs. 3 is, most likely, correct, but...
Sideboard: I'm currently tinkering with a transformational sideboard consisting of Vendilion Clique, Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher + X. Because removal is so bad against us and artifact removal is so good, I expect little to no resistance against a disruptive beat-down. Even if they know your plan, you can always choose between two proactive plans, while they hit the correct reactive plan only half the time.
Closing thoughts: I still believe that a version based on Etherium Sculptor, Renowned Weaponsmith, Vedalken Engineer and Grand Architect is faster, but it encounters the same problem as all mana dorks as explained above. I also expect Fatal Push in basically every deck the coming weeks, so 'No, thanks' to that.
The creature-less version has still many problems and the splits are only crafted through theory, but testing will hopefully bring some light in this mistery. And a 5-color Bring to Light version with Glimmervoid and Spire of Industry seems also interesting.
I think Blue Sun is a better win than Aetherflux, good call there. You draw your whole deck anyway, might as well have something that could help earlier. I think 1 maindeck Defense Grid and 1 skite/jar would be about right. You play Whir so 1 Otherworld Atlas should really be in there, sometimes Bell can't do it.
I tried out Stirrings, obviously its an insane card on paper. It should probably be in this deck but I was a bit hesitant to stretch the mana requirements into green, since you need to play Citadel and I like to play Inventors Fair. But I guess its really easy to do that in modern, and just have green for free (minus some life costs).
Just diving into this deck over the past few weeks and have it largely built. I'm very impressed with my goldfish testing and seem to be able to keep disruption up while I'm tutoring and going off.
What about Isochron Sceptre and cards like Remand and Swan Song? Both of those instants are good on their own but on an Isochron with the Engine can provide an infinite amount of birds or cards in your favour, going off as early as turn 3 or 4. I would side them out in Game 2 but many decks will fold even if you just play the Sceptre with a Remand and say go in my experience with other decks.
For SB I am loving the idea in this thread about going with an aggressive beat down plan. I love Reality Smasher but how about Lodestone Golem? Yes he eats their removal but he also makes it hard to cast and is sort of a welding jar since your opponent will really want it removed.
Overall this deck is very exciting, it will take a lot of work for us to dig up the best cards.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/770966-surge-modern-dice-factory
Long time fan of this archetype, played it in SoM standard, and I have been wondering just where Paradox Engine fits into the mix since Aether Revolt has come out.
It of course fits best in an artifact heavy version of Dice Factory and seems like possibly a better Unwinding Clock allowing the deck to combo off to a win much faster rather than grinding them down into the late game.
What I am seeing with these lists is that they just don't seem fast enough against many decks in the format. Game 1 is really big for a big artifact deck like this because most decks will have creature removal maindeck rather than artifact removal. If you lose game 1, games 2 and 3 can seem that much harder.
I think the deck is best with a heavy ramp shell including Mox Opal, Astral Cornucopia, Everflowing Chalice, Surge Node, Voltaic Key, and Coretapper. You will have 6 mana on average turn 3 utilizing all of these cards. Sometimes, with a very nutty hand, you can have 5-7 on turn 2 or something crazy like 18 on turn 3.
Also you need some way to interact with the opponent that has a bigger impact than Remand.
Final thoughts, I'm not really sure that this style of Dice Factory is fast enough or consistently fast enough. Trying to find 2 cards to ramp, and then finding 2+ cards to combo off just seems kind of slow, even with all of the digging. This seems like it could be a consistent turn 6 kill with very light disruption from the opponent. I think the deck would be better off playing towards the other strengths of the archetype and throwing the combo in as a backup or extra finisher.
I have 3 different builds that I test while I play the one with tron finishers main deck on MTGO, this is the list that I threw together for testing on tappedout.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ParadoxEngineCombo.
Aside from Mox Opal, this entire list can be had for very cheap.
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
The changes are:
-1 Breeding Pool
+1 Island
+1 Botanical Sanctum
-2 Astral Cornucopia
-4 Surge Node
-1 Defense Grid
-1 Spellskite
-2 Whir of Invention
+4 Simic Signet
+2 Thoughtcast
+2 Repeal
+1 Echoing Truth
-1 Elixir of Immortality
+1 Blue Sun's Zenith
As for the Sideboard:
2 Vendillion Clique
1 Obstinate Baloth
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Flexible Slots (2 Spell Pierce, 1 Echoing Truth, 1 Beast Within)
Especially the four flex slots give me a huge headache currently.
Closing thought: I really like the feel of the deck. It consists of only good cards and can do some pretty cool things.
But the emergence of Death Shadow Jund with the heavy discard suite is troublesome. So the deck will face hard times. Discard really is the modern counter-magic.
3 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Buried Ruin
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Yavimaya Coast
Engine(8):
4 Paradox Engine
4 Temple Bell
Mana(12):
4 Everflowing Chalice
4 Mox Opal
4 Simic Signet
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Serum Visions
1 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Thoughtcast
Protection/Interaction(7):
1 Echoing Truth
4 Remand
2 Spell Pierce
Kill(1):
1 Elixir of Immortality
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Echoing Truth
1 Beast Within
1 Etched Champion
1 Dungeon Geists
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Wolfir Silverheart
The sideboard is a mess, since I couldn't get my hands on 2 Vendilion Clique and 2 additional Thought-Knot Seer. And the Echoing Truths should be Repeals.
My first match was against RG Titan Breach.
The first game was really close, but a Remand on Primeval Titan and a whiffing Summoning Trap gave me a window to go off.
The second game I lost, since I tapped my last mana to Serum Vision instead to keep it open for Spell Pierce and walked into Through the Breach into 15/15 Emrakul. This game I could have won, damn.
In the third game I sideboarded into the beat down plan. Bad idea. I mulliganed to five and was crushed by a Titan.
0-1 in matches, 1-2 in games
The second match was against Merfolk. There is little to say, since I felt like hugely favorited.
The first game I nearly lost by a misplay (thinking I could go off with Paradox Engine and Temple Bell, but had no mana open for Simic Signet), but he couldn't get enough pressure down in one turn.
The second game I fizzled due to 11 lands, 6 of them in my hand...
The third game I did my plan and end of story.
1-1 in matches, 3-3 in games.
The third match was against Eldrazi 'n Taxes. This match-up is really hard unsurprisingly.
First game Thalia on turn 2, Thought-Knot on turn 3. Nope.
For the second game I used the beat-down plan. This actually looked better with an overperforming Etched Champion, but I lost the attrition war.
1-2 in matches, 3-5 in games.
The fourth match was an unwinable one: Death's Shadow Jund.
Turns out I win game one without much struggling. His only Inquisition doesn't pick my Temple Bell and I go off relatively fast.
Game two was bizzare. I won through triple Inquisition, double Fulminator Mage and one Kolaghan's Command. I think this was a classic mistake of "Who's aggro? Who's control?". With more pressure the game would have been much harder.
Some key thoughts:
-Inquisition can't take Paradox Engine and Thoughtcast. This is really a problem for them.
-All slots in the sideboard should be dedicated to beat-down.
-The curve in the beat-down plan should top out at the four Reality Smashers. The reason is that Stony Silence hinders our mana.
-Remand is a great card. It also helps with the one win condition.
-Dungeon Geists suck!
-Paradox Engine is good even without Temple Bell.
-Save your Ancient Stirrings until you know what you're looking for.
-Nobody wants to sit through the combo! One Elixir of Immortality is really enough.
-The deck is really fun!
Nice write-up. I know this isn't a strict dice factory shell that you are running, but it is really only off by a couple of cards. I have been playing Paradox Combo a lot recently and it is one of the main win-conditions or ways to build the deck around. We have a lot of discussion on different card choices and different match-ups. I think it would be better to condense the discussion into one thread instead of 3 as this is quite the niche archetype. It would help grow the deck idea and make it more visible for other people who are interested in it.
Come check us out over on the Dice Factory Primer.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/770966-surge-modern-dice-factory
Modern
xWBAffinityBWx
BBBVampiresBBB
BURGDice FactoryGRUB
Check out the Primer!
Honestly, Paradox Engine is just a janky version of the old Retraction Helix and Isochron + Dramatic Reversal combos, both of which have much earlier consistent kill turns and dont have main combo pieces that cost 5 mana just by themselves, and are infinite in all variations.
Building around this card is a waste of time. It will never be as competitive as these other combos, and those decks are not competitive. Any usable infinite variations of this card will actually probably involve Isochron or Helix in some way, And honestly, its just not worth it. Also the piece doesnt have enough intrinsic value to be put into a shell simply because of its hefty casting cost.
If you *really* want to brew this, dont brew it as a combo deck, find some way to just get value out of it with midrange or aggro.
Also: Isochron Scepter variants require you to play super inconsistent cards, that do nothing by themselves. Rectraction Helix is a bad card. Dramatic Reversal is (given the card pool in Modern) a bad card. And Isochron Scepter without Orim's Chant was never good and even with it died relatively fast. The idea of my deck build was to reduce the amount of useless cards to just Paradox Engine and a bit of Temple Bell. Also both can be found by Ancient Stirrings.
Angel's Grace... Really? That card is more dead than anything else outside of the combo and can only played with an active Mox Opal.
You don't want to go infinite with the deck, although that is possible, but just large enough. Going infinite consistently is mostly just bad in combo decks, take Ad Nauseam, Modern Storm or the old Dredge decks. These usually just go large enough to kill you.
Lastly, if you really want to brew a deck with Paradox Engine you have to win the moment it hits the battlefield, otherwise it's just way too slow.
And I just want to add for record: I'm not salty because you say the deck is bad. It is! But all your suggestions make the deck just much more worse than it already is.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/much-abrew-proliferate-engine-modern