The Sacrifice of Isaac by Paolo Veronese (1588). Isperia, Supreme Judge by Scott M. Fischer.
... before it gets BANNED!
Do I know something you don't know?
Of course not.
I actually have no idea if Paradox Engine will be banned or not, but I do know that you couldn't read a post about the thing in the weeks after it came out without somebody proclaiming that it was broken enough to be banned.
I recently picked one up and decided I'd do some research and brainstorming to try to find ways to break it. This article could probably be titled "10 dumb things to do with Paradox Engine" because the stuff I've uncovered isn't always game-ending, but does cover a lot of dumb things you can pull off with the Engine and the right boardstate.
My Sidar & Tana deck actually won me our EDH league's top point total for February so I'm on to a new commander for March. We can actually switch decks every week or even in between rounds, but I like to go with the same deck all month long. One of my goals for March will be to try to abuse Paradox Engine. I'm not going "all in" and completely rebuilding a deck around it, but in the right circumstances, the "little Engine that could" might well win me a game or two.
Let's take a look at what we're dealing with here...
At 5 mana, it's not too expensive. If you're doing anything involving nonland permanents that tap, the potential for this card being busted wide open is enormous. In its own way Paradox Engine is every bit as broken as Purphoros' best friend, Panharmonicon, if not more so.
My first thought was that building a storm deck would be great. You'd be building up a huge storm count, untapping mana rocks and dorks as you go, and then playing a storm card and getting even more untap triggers, but that doesn't work. Storm cards do copy themselves, but the copies aren't technically cast. This means that you don't get to untap for each of those copies, so storm looks like a dead end.
Going Infinite
What will work, however, is a fantastic little artifact called Isochron Scepter.
Isochron Scepter will let us imprint an instant with CMC 2 or less, and for 2 mana, we can cast a copy of the imprinted spell. You also have to tap your scepter, but with paradox Engine out, your scepter will untap so you can use it again.
Add enough mana dorks or mana rocks to be able to pay for the scepter's activation cost without tapping lands and you've got infinite castings of the imprinted spell. It also means that you get infinite activations of any ability requiring you to tap so long as you can generate any extra mana required to pay for the ability.
For now let's focus on the spells cast by the Isochron Scepter. Remember those storm spells I was saying weren't very useful?
Now you can get a storm count as high as you like. Your imprinted spell doesn't even have to be very useful. You just have to be able to establish that infinite storm count and lots of storm cards will suddenly become game-breaking or game ending.
Grapeshot an infinite number of times?
Yes, please!
Of course, this might all be old news for you guys. Paradox Engine has been out for a while, and brighter minds than me have probably written at length about just this interaction, up to and including the storm card as the cherry on top of your neat new combo.
What I'm hoping to do today is to, possibly, explore some uncharted territory.
I want to look at obscure cards that could get a little crazy with Paradox Engine. Some of these might be familiar to you but hopefully there will be something interesting in here that you might not have thought of, or even known existed.
These won't be full decklists - just a non-legendary card to try to "break" with Paradox Engine, a proposed commander for that deck, and a few cards that might fit well with them. It goes without saying, especially in EDH, that getting your Engine, your "trick" card, your Isochron Scepter AND any other cards required for the combo all out at once, and protecting them, is not an easy thing to do.
This is "magical Christamasland", where all your wishes come true, all your boosters contain masterpieces, and you are able to get everything you need onto the battlefield.
Low Hanging Fruit
So when I say I'm going to explore cards you might not think of, I'm assuming when you thought of broken commanders that could be abused with Paradox Engine, you thought of at least a few of these guys...
The most obvious way to abuse Paradox Engine is to grab a commander who just loves to be tapped and just go to town. Any of them are good when you get to tap them once. If you can tap them four or five times... things get real stupid real fast. I particularly love the idea of building a pseudo-storm burn deck with Heartless as your main engine to get opponents so low that even if you can't go infinite with Isochron Scepter, you still stand a good chance of clearing a table with cheap burn spells.
Of course, this is "low hanging fruit".
They're easy picks but I want to find stuff you might not have heard or thought of. It should go without saying that all of these deck ideas will need plenty of mana rocks or dorks so you can untap them and get more mana after every Paradox Engine activation.
10. Vehicle Shenanigans
If you've been playing Magic much recently you must be aware that Wizards introduced vehicles in Kaladesh. They are artifacts that turn into creatures when they get crewed, which requires tapping creatures with combined power equal to or greater than the crew cost listed on the card. Once a vehicle has been crewed, it is only a creature until end of turn.
What that means is that you can use a creature to crew a vehicle and then use that vehicle to crew another vehicle. In limited, folks had a lot of fun using a small vehicle like Sky Skiff to crew a bigger vehicle and then using that to crew an even bigger vehicle, in an attempt to be able to attack with something big enough to do some damage. It was dumb, goofy fun to play Russian nesting dolls with your shiny new vehicle cards.
For this first entry in our "let's do goofy stuff with Paradox Engine" brainstorming session, our goal is to line up as many vehicles as possible. Also, you should probably note that I'm breaking my promise of putting a single card in the second slot to try "break" with Paradox Engine. In this first entry, a single use of Paradox Engine will work for all of our vehicles, and there is no single card we're trying to abuse.
We'll use Depala for our commander, as she's got some nice synergy with vehicles. Our goal is NOT to take 10 vehicles and use each one to crew the next one until we can finally attack with the biggest. With Paradox Engine we can play a single spell, untap ALL of them and attack with a wide and wacky board of vehicles of all shapes and sizes!
There are lots of good spells to choose for our untap trigger. I'd suggest something that pumps the whole team. While this seems slightly too ridiculous to be effective, at a casual table this could probably win a game or two and make for some fantastic stories.
I even think it might be a goofy enough strategy that folks wouldn't be salty about losing like that.
When this goes infinite: If you can hook up your Isochron Scepter casting combo and go infinite does it help? Well, you can make your vehicles put on an old Chubby Checker 45 and "Do the Twist", tapping and untapping forever. That on its own doesn't really do much. What you really want is to just swing in and recreate the final scene of Smokey and the Bandit II. In case you missed that cinematic gem from the early 1980's, it's OK - I'll help you out.
That pretty much conveys what we're trying to do here.
Create a board of huge vehicles and smash them into our opponents. You're lucky I didn't go find a clip from Cannonball Run, but I think the one above does the job pretty well.
9. Ancestor's Prophet
Way back in Onslaught Wizards created a whole bunch of cards with abilities requiring you to untap certain types of creatures. Our first pick is Ancestor's Prophet. It lets you tap 5 untapped clerics to gain 10 life. While that on its own doesn't sound like a huge deal in Commander, if you can manage to do it 8-10 times over the course of several turns, it puts you in a nice spot where you don't have to worry too much about your life total any longer.
If I were going to build a janky Paradox Engine EDH deck around Ancestor's Prophet, I would probably have Mikaeus, the Lunarch as the commander. He's a cleric and he can put +1/+1 counters on all your creatures. Obviously, you'll want to put lots of good clerics in this deck. We'll also want cleric token generators like Heliod, God of the Sun, and Hanweir Militia Captain - which transforms into Westvale Cult Leader (shown below). One of the non-creature all-stars of the deck would probably be Sunbond. Slap that on Mikaeus. Tap 5 clerics. Gain 10 life. Put 10 +1/+1 counters on White Mike. Tap him to put a +1/+1 counter on each of your clerics. Cast a spell, and do it all again.
This Mikaeus deck certainly won't be the most broken Paradox Engine deck you could build, but if you're into mono-white, into life-gain, into clerics, and want to give it a shot, it might wind up being a fun little pile of cardboard to play at casual tables. There are some pretty strong clerics out there - I'm looking at you, Grand Abolisher - but I'm not suggesting this is really going to be all that good.
When it goes infinite: You get infinite life. If you've got cards like Sunbond out, you've also got an infinitely large creature, and any good deckbuilder can find ways to turn that life into a win. Aetherflux Resevoir comes to mind, but on its own life gain is not game-ending and you've still got commander damage, infect, milling and combo decks to fend off.
8. Captivating Vampire
In 2011, Magic created Captivating Vampire. It lets you tap 5 untapped vampires to gain control of target creature and it becomes a vampire in addition to its other types. It also pumps your other vampires +1/+1. While you would only be stealing one creature from your opponent, it gets a whole lot better when combined with the commander I'd pick for this deck - Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet.
Kalitas will let you pay a paltry three black mana to destroy a creature and get a black vampire. Combine that with a little vampire token creation from Bloodline Keeper, a vampire that's hard to keep in the graveyard in Bloodghast, and as many other vampires as we can fit, and it should be easy to get to our target of five untapped vampires. The spells we use to trigger Paradox Engine will probably include cheap vampires and lots and lots of removal, hence the inclusion of Tragic Slip in the cards shown below.
I haven't played a lot of black in my time playing EDH but I know there are good vampires out there. It was suggested to me that Olivia Voldaren would make a fine choice for commander on this build as she can turn your creatures into Vampires.
A Pack Rat vampire army, tapping to gain control of your opponent's creatures sounds pretty sweet, but I'm keeping Kalitas as my choice because his ability has a tap activation that will work nicely with Paradox Engine. I suspect either choice would be pretty strong.
Vampire Nighthawk and Gifted Aetherborn are both must-haves for this build, and I'm sure there are plenty of others to include as well. I think this is the kind of deck that could get out of hand pretty quickly, even though the untap ability on Captivating Vampire isn't really that overwhelming on its own.
When it goes infinite: You get all the creatures and they are all Vampires. Whether you win or not has a lot to do with how many creatures your opponents had and whether they can wipe the board before you get to swing with them. It's good stuff, and should be a game-ender.
7. Catapult Master
We go back to the Onslaught set for our next Paradox Engine pairing - a creature called Catapult Master. He lets you tap five untapped soldiers to launch target creature off the table, out of the battlefield and out of the game - ideally with the sound effect "Wheeeeeee!"
This is your choice if you're really, really into exiling your opponent's creatures. For our commander, I'll be picking one that lets us make soldiers. Brimaz and Darien both would work with this build. Brimaz makes soldiers when he attacks and Darien makes soldiers when you take damage. I like attacking and hate taking damage so I went with Brimaz, but Darien might well be a better choice as he can make more than one at a time.
We don't care if our soldiers are tokens or not so we might as well double down and add other cards like Captain of the Watch and Mobilization, both of which let us generate tokens. If we can catapult away all of an opponent's blockers, we'll want something meaty to do some damage so Benalish Commander fits in nicely both as a token generator and as a potential threat when it eventually hits the table.
Our deck should probably include lots stuff like Oblivion Ring and Faith's Fetters to buy us enough time to amass our army. The trick of catapulting an opponent's creature off the field is cute, but at the cost of tapping five potential blockers, it isn't exactly cheap. If we can get to 10 or 15 soldiers, it's more of a threat but still isn't that great. If you can combine it with some Paradox Engine untaps, you're finally starting to get dangerous, but I would be surprised if this plan would see consistent success, even at mid-range tables.
It should go without saying that there are plenty of good white cards and good soldiers to throw into a deck like this. White does give us access to Enlightened Tutor, so you can go get your Paradox Engine, but this still doesn't feel like a particularly strong deck to me. If you're into soldiers, into exiling stuff or into annoying your friends by saying "Wheeeeee!" as you throw their (hopefully sleeved) creature cards through the air, this might be a deck worth building.
Yeah - that's a lot of "ifs". Still...
"Wheeeeeeeee!!!!"
When it goes infinite: Take that "Wheeee!" and do it for every creature your opponents control that doesn't have hexproof. It will open up the board for you to attack, but does your soldier tribal deck have the power to close out the game? If it doesn't and your opponents can't wipe the board, they might just give up, as you should be able to remove any creature they try to cast, making victory inevitable. Let's just hope it doesn't take too long.
6. Gravespawn Sovereign
We stay with the Onslaught block for our next pick - Gravespawn Sovereign. This Zombie Lord lets you tap five untapped Zombies you control to put target creature card from a graveyard into play under your control. It should come as no surprise that Ghoulcaller Gisa is probably our best pick. She has a tap ability which goes nicely with Paradox Engine, and she can work hand in hand with Gravespawn Sovereign.
Tap 5 zombies to get a 5/5 out of someone's graveyard. Use Gisa to sacrifice it and make 5 zombies. Cast a spell. Untap your board. Do it again. Where it gets really spicy is if you can pull something bigger than 5/5 out of the yard. Let's say you pull an 8/8 out. Sacrifice it, make 8 zombies, then use 5 of them to tap and pull it right back out again! With the right target you can build up your zombie army pretty nicely.
A deck like this would probably look like most Gisa decks. I included Maalfeld Twins, as when you sacrifice him with Gisa, you get 4 2/2 zombies from her ability and then two more to give you enough to tap to bring the twins right back out using Gravespawn Sovereign's ability and 5 of your zombies. Gravecrawler is included because you'll want extra ways to guarantee a consistent zombie presence. Until he's exiled, he'll always be available. The all-stars of this deck will probably be your removal spells, as you want lots of juicy targets in graveyards to make the most out of your Paradox Engine/ Gravespawn Sovereign shenanigans.
It should be getting more and more evident that all of these plans are going to be very fragile. We'll be trying to get our dudes, our "tap x dudes" card, AND our Paradox Engine on the field, all at once, and some of these colors are decidedly lacking in ways to tutor these cards up when you need them. The best plan will probably be to try to build a fun, casual deck, and hope that we can get our combo online. The point isn't to have the deck built only for this interaction - it's to build a fun midrange deck and play it in hopes we'll eventually get to do some really dumb stuff.
When it goes infinite: You get all the creatures from everyone's graveyard. That means your outcome has a lot to do with how well you've helped to fill those yards up with dead bodies. Of course, with just a little help from other creatures over and above Gravespawn Sovereign, you've got infinite creatures and just need haste or a new turn to swing in for a win.
5. Voice of the Woods
Do you like elves? Do you like elf tokens? Do you like lots and lots of elf tokens?
Our next card, Voice of the Woods, is again from Onslaught. It was also printed in Duel Decks: Elves vs. Goblins, which explains the shiny new version I was able to find and include below. For a deck that wants lots of elf tokens, Rhys the Redeemed makes a lot of sense as the commander. Additional token generators also make sense, as we really want to go crazy with our elf army. Getting 5 out to be able to make a 7/7 green Elemental token with trample isn't bad, but if we can get 10 and use Paradox Engine to trigger it a few times, we'll establish a boardstate that should be able to win us a few games.
I threw Trostani in with the cards shown above, as her lifegain and Populate ability will help us out. This deck's going to want lots of ramp, lots of elves, and since you're in white you might as well load up on your white "answer" cards so you can do your part to keep other players from blowing up and running away with the game before you can. You'll ramp, play elves, and make tokens to build up your 7/7 Elemental army with Voice of the Woods. Add in a Concordant Crossroads for haste, and save a spot for cards like Overrun, Overwhelming Stampede, Triumph of the Hordes, and other ways to make a wide board really dangerous.
Not included in the are cards like Elvish Archdruid and Priest of Titania, both of which tap for a green for every elf you have in play and Citanul Hierophants to let you tap all your elves for mana and you've got your gas. Add in Upwelling to keep mana from draining at end of phase and you can build it up over multiple turns. Omnath, Locus of Mana would be great here as well as anything that you can pay mana into without tapping to make token creatures. I think this build could definitely be a strong elf deck that should win some games for you.
When it goes infinite: You get an endless army of 7/7 green Elementals. Not bad and again, you're looking for haste or a new turn to seal the deal.
4. Supreme Inquisitor
Wizard tribal decks can be really powerful. So powerful, they probably don't need help from the blue Onslaught "tap a bunch of dudes" creature, Supreme Inquisitor. Still, this card gives you the really powerful ability to exile an opponent's five best cards from their library. Do that once against certain decks and they'll have a hard time winning. Do that a couple of times and unless you truly can't identify possible threats, their ability to win the game might be completely gone. If they are short on mana, pulling 10 or 15 lands out of their deck might also cut them out of the game pretty well.
Of course, wizard tribal's real power comes from cards that let you play the control game. Patronus Wizard will turn all of your wizards into counterspells. If you're going to tap a wizard anyways, you might as well play Surgespanner, who lets you pay a little extra to bounce a permanent to its owner's hand. This is just scratching the surface of what wizard tribal can do. While this particular tribe doesn't have lots of token generators to play with, it is definitely strong enough to compensate.
It should go without saying that we will want lots of counterspells and lots of card draw. Arcanis the Omnipotent will help with that part. Digging to get to our Paradox Engine is definitely part of our goal here, so her ability to draw three cards, untap with Paradox Engine, and then tap to draw three more will hopefully get us there. Laboratory Maniac will probably find a home in here and of course, lots and lots of counterspells.
It's possible that with Paradox Engine and a board of Wizards, this will be the strongest deck presented here. Azami is already strong. Will getting your Engine online pretty much guarantee a win? I don't know, but I think this might just be the most stupidly broken and overwhelming Paradox Engine build you'll be able to assemble. Azami is the deck that inspired my Saskia Screw Blue deck, so yeah... this is the real deal.
Your friends will all hate you. They may start calling you "Doctor No", but if you're seriously considering building wizard tribal, that's a small price to pay for the huge amounts of salt you will soon be sowing.
When it goes infinite: Your opponents decks get exiled. Go ahead and pass the turn. You should wind up winning without even going to combat.
3. Skirk Fire Marshal
The red Onslaught "tap a bunch of dudes" creature is a fiery little fellow who has protection from red and lets you tap five untapped Goblins to do 10 damage to each creature and each player. While he might find a kindred spirit in Ashling the Pilgrim, the only logical choice to lead his commander deck is our old friend Krenko. Fortunately, building with goblins gives us a great option to go get Skirk Fire Marshal in Goblin Matron. We'll be killing our own board if we use Skirk Fire Marshal's ability, so we want Akroma's Memorial out to give our creatures protection from red, ensuring they will survive to swing against anyone that no longer has creatures to block with.
Unfortunately, we'll be doing 10 damage to ourselves as well, so that's why we will want to slap Loxodon Warhammer or Basilisk Collar onto our Fire Marshal before he does his thing. If we're running Basilisk Collar we'll also want to run Goblin Sharpshooter, because that's all kinds of fun. Filling out a deck with goblins shouldn't be hard. What we'll wind up with is a fun goblin deck with some interesting wrinkles. Paradox Engine may more often act as pseudo-vigilance, but if we ever get all the pieces we need out, we should be able to secure a win.
It should be noted that you will want to use the stack properly for this build. If you tap your goblins without having a way to protect them and let it resolve, your goblins will all have 10 damage marked on them. With most goblins, that's more than enough to kill them. That means you need to tap your goblins, play an instant, tap them again, and do that as many times as you can all without letting the first tap ability resolve. Once you've loaded up the stack you can resolve everything and watch multiple waves of 10 damage wreak havoc on everyone's creatures and life totals.
When it goes infinite: If we've got lifelink on our fire marshal, we win. If we don't, we die. It's as simple as that. Also, you've gotta use that stack. Definitely don't screw that part up.
2. Myr Turbine
We again have a card from a set other than Onslaught. For our second-to-last pick we go to Mirrodin Besieged where we find Myr Turbine. It's a nifty little artifact that lets you tap it and 5 untapped Myr to search our library for a Myr card and put it onto the battlefield. There are lots and lots of Myr creatures including mana dorks in all 5 colors, but until Wizards deigns to give us a 5-color Myr Legendary Artifact Creature, we're going to have to look outside that tribe for our commander. I'm going to go with Child of Alara for my pick, mostly because getting Darksteel Reactor out will put us in a really, really solid position to wipe the board and swing.
For additional cards, I would put nearly every Myr into the deck that I can get my hands on. It should be noted that Myr Galvanizer, a copy spell like Stunt Double and a Myr mana dork will allow you generate infinite mana and get inifnit Myr untaps. That doesn't require Paradox Engine, but should probably be included in this build. Other cards like Unwinding Clock and Cranial Plating are must-haves for a deck like this, and with the right combination of Myr tutors you can do some fun stuff, but it isn't exactly going to make your opponents sweat.
When it goes infinite: You get all your Myr. That's all, and Myr aren't generally seen as game-breaking cards, so you've still got your work cut out for you.
1. Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
In the Morningtide set, Wizards released Gilt-Leaf Archdruid.
His party trick is pretty sweet. Tap seven untapped druids and steal all of target player's lands. Also, when you play a druid spell you draw a card, so you better believe we're building druid tribal!
If you were wondering how I could possibly have left Yisan out of my "low hanging fruit" section of easily abusable Paradox Engine commanders at the top, never fear - I was saving him for this final spot. In fact, this is the deck I'm going to be playing in our EDH league for the month of March.
Tap Yisan to get druids at verses one, two, and three. Get Squirrel Wrangler at verse four, and Gilt-Leaf Archdruid for the fifth. With Paradox Engine you might even get to do multiple Yisan searches per turn.
The goal is a perfect blend of power and whimsy. Steal your opponent's lands. Turn them into squirrels. Attack with a massive squirrel army. If you're willing to risk having lands that are also creatures, you can run Ambush Commander to turn your lands into elves so you can get your land-stealing engine going sooner. I've seen enough boardwipes in my time to be wary of having my lands that vulnerable, but with the right timing it can work really well.
It goes without saying that you'll also want to run other options. If you've got everyone's lands, you can turn them into creatures and if there isn't a Nev's Disk or other obvious boardwipe on the table, you can use a spell to turn them into creatures swing in with as many of them as you like. If your opponents don't have lands they shouldn't be much of a threat to wipe the board.
The normal Yisan staples will of course be in the deck, so if you have everyone's lands and can hit Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth, that's pretty much game over. If you're interested in the decklist, it isn't an optimized Yisan deck, but it's got some punch to it...
Yisan's Druid Party
When it goes infinite: You hopefully don't have an infinite number of opponents, but you should be able to lock everyone else out of playing lands and keeping them for very long.
Final Thoughts
Paradox Engine is really strong. I played my Yisan / Gilt-Leaf Archdruid deck today (Saturday, March 4th) for two rounds of EDH at our LGS. I got Paradox Engine out in both games.
In round 1 I was able to steal two players' lands with my druids' ability and the only thing that kept me from winning was a well-timed Purphoros interaction that killed the player whose lands I had just stolen before I could steal another player's lands and play Avenger of Zendikar for a truly ridiculous number of 0/1 plants. I lost but it was a good game and Paradox Engine was very strong.
I feel obligated to point out that Gilt-Leaf will sow a lot of salt because you are choosing a single opponent to steal lands from. Your goal may be to steal everyone's lands but there will be games where only one person gets screwed and if it's late game, they will probably be upset. If you're not prepared to navigate the rough waters of playing with cards that can make a single opponent really, really pissed off at you, don't play with this fire. The person you choose will almost always disagree with the choice you made - often vehemently. If your friends can deal with it or you're good enough dealing with people to pull this off and not have people hate you, have at it. Just know - it's every bit as filthy as infect or playing heavy blue control and your opponents will react accordingly.
In round two... well, let's just say that it was one of the grossest things I've done to a table in a long time. I was able to Selvala's Stampede into both a Terastadon and a Woodfall Primus, cast Concordant Crossroads to give my board haste, use Eldritch Evolution to turn Primus into a Craterhoof Behemoth, cast Triumph of the Horde and kill two players from a very modest board. Then I was able to draw a Myr Landshaper and use Yisan to get a 2-drop Thornweald Archer, a 3-drop Tanglewalker and a 4-drop Temur Sabertooth. I had Citanul Hierophants out so all my creatures could tap for mana, so I was floating tons of mana in between Paradox Engine untaps. I used Myr Landshaper to make my 2 remaining opponents have artifact lands and therefore make my board unblockable and used Temur Sabertooth to get a fresh Craterhoof casting. Paradox Engine meant that I was taking many turns worth of board-development and strategy and pounding it all into one turn in a really, really overpowering way.
Join the Conversation!
If you are inspired to try to build any of these ideas into a deck and actually pull off the Paradox Engine / Isochron Scepter / tap dudes combo, please share your story on our Reddit thread! I know I'd love to read about it, and I'm sure others would as well.
As always - thanks for reading and see you next week!