I believe this card will be included in a number of casual decks despite being one of the easiest cards ever printed to accidentally go overboard with, almost on the same level as palinchron.
Almost every deck, due to the formats nature, has tons of mana rocks in it already, and I believe the "oh I guess I can cast my hand and the top 50 cards of my deck before running out of gas" moments warrants giving this card a good close look and if it actually belongs in commander.
In reality, decks vary widely in regard to how many mana rocks they play. If I am running green, I usually go for ramp spells and creatures that ramp over mana rocks, in part because like many metas, people in mine don't play MLD, but things like Bane of Progress and Vandalblast are common. Paradox Engine would thus do very little for my Riku deck, as just one example. Other color mixes, I do run a lot more in the way of signets and other mana rocks, but usually not in the sort of density one finds in more competitive decks. By the point in the game that I would be able to cast Paradox Engine, I will often have a couple mana rocks out, but as the game goes on, I will often be emphasizing casting other things than mana rocks (though of course having Paradox Engine in hand or on the table likely would change that priority somewhat). I can definitely see it being a strong card in my Nicol Bolas deck, which does run a larger percentage of mana rocks, and have been considering what to cut to fit it in there.
So far, in the couple decks where I run it and in the times I've seen it played by others, I've never seen it accomplish more than I often see happen when someone uses Garruk Wildspeaker to untap something like Cabal Coffersand/or Gate to Nykthos, but I'm expecting I will see it do some pretty crazy things one of these days. It likely will be kinda nuts if I ever get it into play in my Rhys the Redeemed deck, which is full of mana dorks, but that deck already often produces more mana than I can actually use without any problem. I suppose it would let me create more or less infinite tokens, but again, that can already more or less happen. So far it has been merely okay in my Sharuum deck, despite that deck including a fair number of mana rocks and several creatures that tap to activate abilities.
I seriously doubt Paradox Engine is going to be ban worthy. You have to really work to make it better than "just okay".
My take as well. The card is not being added to my Daretti list because of how difficult it would be to get extreme value out of. To make it go infinite, I need to be able to continuously draw cards and cast spells to keep untapping, which is not an easy accomplishment in most decks.
I have a colorless eldrazi deck who uses TONS of ramp and I am not running it either. It requires too much setup and is too winmore. Its like a bad combo card in that you need a bunch of specific cards to go with it. It takes too many specific setups to go infinite and most of them are slow to assemble with this card. Its own casting cost of 5 mana is really a big part of what holds it back.
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Seemed awful busted in Selvala, Explorer Returned on Sunday. Went through about 25 parleys before we scooped. He had an Akroma's Memorial somewhere in the deck and he was going to find it and cast it eventually. I just let to a 15 minute turn that probably would've taken an hour to actually play out. It was among the most bored I've ever been playing Magic. Stax, MLD, infinite combo, all of that's fine if the turns don't slow to a crawl.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
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Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
All you need is a few rocks and a tappable effect and you've got yourself a degenerate combo. Works especially well with things like buyback, free spells, bounce shenanigans, any anything that feeds you more gas really. IDK about ban-worthy, but it will be a build around me card with tons of potential to win games on the spot sometimes of left unchecked.
Seemed awful busted in Selvala, Explorer Returned on Sunday. Went through about 25 parleys before we scooped. He had an Akroma's Memorial somewhere in the deck and he was going to find it and cast it eventually. I just let to a 15 minute turn that probably would've taken an hour to actually play out. It was among the most bored I've ever been playing Magic. Stax, MLD, infinite combo, all of that's fine if the turns don't slow to a crawl.
All you need is a few rocks and a tappable effect and you've got yourself a degenerate combo. Works especially well with things like buyback, free spells, bounce shenanigans, any anything that feeds you more gas really. IDK about ban-worthy, but it will be a build around me card with tons of potential to win games on the spot sometimes of left unchecked.
Both of these situations spell out that yes, this card can be powerful, but the fact that it takes numerous cards around it to be degenerate, does not make it ban worthy. Take Mycosynth Lattice for an example - by itself, it's kinda cute. But when you combine it with something like Vandalblast Overloaded, you just made a degenerate play. Should we ban the lattice in this case or should the table recognize the potential and deal with the threat?
When this card was first spoiled people in Rumor Mill were tearing eachother apart over whether it would be 100$ Crucible of Worlds good or so good it'd need reprinting every fortnight to make it possible for the average player to get to share a room with one, and I couldn't find anyone who agreed with me that it was kind of meh. I guess that's the nature of the game though!
To directly reply to OP, most of what you're envisioning is pretty Christmasland, and the chances of climbing to five mana while also assembling an infrastructure of untappables and then finding, casting and resolving Paradox and having it stay around long enough to provide consistent value over a series of turns while ALSO not dying along the way, are pretty slim
Both of these situations spell out that yes, this card can be powerful, but the fact that it takes numerous cards around it to be degenerate, does not make it ban worthy. Take Mycosynth Lattice for an example - by itself, it's kinda cute. But when you combine it with something like Vandalblast Overloaded, you just made a degenerate play. Should we ban the lattice in this case or should the table recognize the potential and deal with the threat?
To use you're Lattice example: Isn't that exactly why Painter's Servant is banned?
On Paradox Engine: I think it's far too early to be calling for a banning on it. The card can absolutly do some crazy broken things in games, but it's also brand new so people are brewing with it. I think the true test will be if the engine is still causing games to degerate in a year to twos time.
Seemed awful busted in Selvala, Explorer Returned on Sunday. Went through about 25 parleys before we scooped. He had an Akroma's Memorial somewhere in the deck and he was going to find it and cast it eventually. I just let to a 15 minute turn that probably would've taken an hour to actually play out. It was among the most bored I've ever been playing Magic. Stax, MLD, infinite combo, all of that's fine if the turns don't slow to a crawl.
All you need is a few rocks and a tappable effect and you've got yourself a degenerate combo. Works especially well with things like buyback, free spells, bounce shenanigans, any anything that feeds you more gas really. IDK about ban-worthy, but it will be a build around me card with tons of potential to win games on the spot sometimes of left unchecked.
Both of these situations spell out that yes, this card can be powerful, but the fact that it takes numerous cards around it to be degenerate, does not make it ban worthy. Take Mycosynth Lattice for an example - by itself, it's kinda cute. But when you combine it with something like Vandalblast Overloaded, you just made a degenerate play. Should we ban the lattice in this case or should the table recognize the potential and deal with the threat?
My ultimate belief is in no banned list, but if we have a ban list, I would want lattice to be on it. Lattice, alongside enchanted evening, create some of the most stressful board states I can think of. Any player at any time can suddenly use their otherwise normal board wipe spells to also wipe all lands, and possibly lock out lands entirely. I do not think lattice has any place at a fun commander table, but casual players might think otherwise and mistakenly include it.
Seemed awful busted in Selvala, Explorer Returned on Sunday. Went through about 25 parleys before we scooped. He had an Akroma's Memorial somewhere in the deck and he was going to find it and cast it eventually. I just let to a 15 minute turn that probably would've taken an hour to actually play out. It was among the most bored I've ever been playing Magic. Stax, MLD, infinite combo, all of that's fine if the turns don't slow to a crawl.
Keep in mind even with this, Selvala, Explorer Returned only generates mana based on the number of non lands so you would have to design with a very low curve to keep this going. You also need to cast another spell every time you want to untap so if you were to hit a land it means that your hand quickly becomes more land heavy and you CANNOT go infinite with this because lands would accumulate in your hand and you only get to untap for every cast. It also draws opponents cards which means that anyone who runs answers will be drawing them so suddenly counterspells / spot removal can happen.
This corner case is not even good as it does not go infinite unless you are running a landless deck. It could also at any point not generate any mana and fall flat on its face.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Seemed awful busted in Selvala, Explorer Returned on Sunday. Went through about 25 parleys before we scooped. He had an Akroma's Memorial somewhere in the deck and he was going to find it and cast it eventually. I just let to a 15 minute turn that probably would've taken an hour to actually play out. It was among the most bored I've ever been playing Magic. Stax, MLD, infinite combo, all of that's fine if the turns don't slow to a crawl.
Keep in mind even with this, Selvala, Explorer Returned only generates mana based on the number of non lands so you would have to design with a very low curve to keep this going. You also need to cast another spell every time you want to untap so if you were to hit a land it means that your hand quickly becomes more land heavy and you CANNOT go infinite with this because lands would accumulate in your hand and you only get to untap for every cast. It also draws opponents cards which means that anyone who runs answers will be drawing them so suddenly counterspells / spot removal can happen.
This corner case is not even good as it does not go infinite unless you are running a landless deck. It could also at any point not generate any mana and fall flat on its face.
We must remember that there is more than just selvala in the deck. Mana elves, mana rocks, and draw spells that can help fill in the gaps.
We must remember that there is more than just selvala in the deck. Mana elves, mana rocks, and draw spells that can help fill in the gaps.
Yes but in each case you have to be net generating mana for this to continue. So even if you draw into draw, you have to have the average mana probably at or under 2 to make this work right reliably. Once you roll up a lot of extra mana / draw it becomes more likely to go on without pause but the first bunch of activations are far more questionable.
This "could" go off, I am just saying its not a guarentee and its still very dependnat on building arround a lot of specific things. When you look at a Mind over Matter combo there is a lot less maybes in it and that is not banned.
EDIT: also, keep in mind that we are talking about a GW combo involving a not very popular commander. I can guarantee that Captain Sisay / Saffi Eriksdotter are more compatative that whan we have been describing not to mention just moving to blue or blue black instead. White Green has what, like one on color tutor for non equipment artifacts. For something to be ban worthy it cant be super niche deck combo.
This corner case is not even good as it does not go infinite unless you are running a landless deck. It could also at any point not generate any mana and fall flat on its face.
But infinite would be preferable, because at least then the game would be over and you could shuffle up and start a new one. Watching someone try to string things together for as long as they can is way, way less fun than just losing to an infinite combo.
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I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
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Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Earthcraft and Shrieking Drake make this a Simic Staple lol. I really like the card, I don't yet own one, but I see how some could call for a banning. Overall I like the card for like convokesynergies and think it can be applied in non-infinite shenanigans.
As an experiment, I have decided to include Paradox Engine in the deck in my latest deck project, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. I plan to include a greater-than-usual amount of mana rocks as well as a few mana dorks, Cryptolith Rite and some flash enablers. Along with a fair bit of card draw and the card advantage Rashmi provides, I figure this should provide a pretty good test of how broken the Engine can be in a deck which is built around it in a "fair" way, i.e., no infinite or "I win" combos.
As an experiment, I have decided to include Paradox Engine in the deck in my latest deck project, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. I plan to include a greater-than-usual amount of mana rocks as well as a few mana dorks, Cryptolith Rite and some flash enablers. Along with a fair bit of card draw and the card advantage Rashmi provides, I figure this should provide a pretty good test of how broken the Engine can be in a deck which is built around it in a "fair" way, i.e., no infinite or "I win" combos.
I predict that if your opponents allow it to remain on the battlefield for more than a couple of turns, you will declare it broken. I played exactly one game with it in my Mizzex deck when I got it in play with a couple of mana rocks and a fortunate state of a couple of big draw spells in the yard, and it went "infinite" when I cast Mizzex's Mastery. I didn't even have Mizzex in play or any other cost reduction enabler.
As an experiment, I have decided to include Paradox Engine in the deck in my latest deck project, Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. I plan to include a greater-than-usual amount of mana rocks as well as a few mana dorks, Cryptolith Rite and some flash enablers. Along with a fair bit of card draw and the card advantage Rashmi provides, I figure this should provide a pretty good test of how broken the Engine can be in a deck which is built around it in a "fair" way, i.e., no infinite or "I win" combos.
I predict that if your opponents allow it to remain on the battlefield for more than a couple of turns, you will declare it broken. I played exactly one game with it in my Mizzex deck when I got it in play with a couple of mana rocks and a fortunate state of a couple of big draw spells in the yard, and it went "infinite" when I cast Mizzex's Mastery. I didn't even have Mizzex in play or any other cost reduction enabler.
I suspect your prediction will turn out to be correct. I did a few shuffle-ups with one possible (nowhere near final) version of the deck, and each time I got Paradox Engine into play, the results were kind of insane. That's just goldfishing, of course, but it was also nowhere near a finalized decklist, and given that I am planning to have a good number of counterspells and lots of card draw, I suspect that if I get it in play, I can probably make it stick for awhile at least against anything that doesn't have split second... and if Krosan Grip gets it, I have ways to get it back.
I'm doing the experiment in part because so far when I've gotten it in play in any of my other decks - only one of which is anything close to ideal for it - or when anyone else has played it, the results have just been okay. I've not yet seen it do anything truly bonkers, and from the comments above, it doesn't sound like very many other people have seen it really do anything too crazy either, though in theory that should be possible if you have a handful of mana rocks and/or dorks in play at the same time as some reliable card draw. We'll see. I won't finalize my deck for at least a week, as I await a couple cards from ebay.
The real question to me with this card is the same I have with any other card that gets talked for banning. "Can you slap this card in any random kitchen-table EDH deck and make that deck better/more obnoxious just with it's inclusion." This is a truth for Tooth and Nail or Prophet of Kruphix, as well as Solemn Simulacrum and Eternal Witness. This shows that it may not be a ban argument on it's own, but I do feel it's an argument that needs to be met before you think about the actual ban itself.
And in Paradox Engine's case, I'm a bit on the fence. I do think that in most decks with the "average" number of mana rocks and all that good stuff, you won't get a lot of mileage out of the thing. It's only when you get packed with Rocks, Dorks and the likes that it really shines, and there are a select few commanders - most notably Selvala 1.0 - that become obnoxious with it. Being an artifact does obviously give it a wide range of decks to fit in, but I do feel it's not "overpreforming" enough to be considered bannable.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
The real question to me with this card is the same I have with any other card that gets talked for banning. "Can you slap this card in any random kitchen-table EDH deck and make that deck better/more obnoxious just with it's inclusion." This is a truth for Tooth and Nail or Prophet of Kruphix, as well as Solemn Simulacrum and Eternal Witness. This shows that it may not be a ban argument on it's own, but I do feel it's an argument that needs to be met before you think about the actual ban itself.
And in Paradox Engine's case, I'm a bit on the fence. I do think that in most decks with the "average" number of mana rocks and all that good stuff, you won't get a lot of mileage out of the thing. It's only when you get packed with Rocks, Dorks and the likes that it really shines, and there are a select few commanders - most notably Selvala 1.0 - that become obnoxious with it. Being an artifact does obviously give it a wide range of decks to fit in, but I do feel it's not "overpreforming" enough to be considered bannable.
Well since most decks "should" be playing on average 5-10 mana sources that come from rocks or dorks, in theory Paraox Engine will be noticeable if you include it.
The real question to me with this card is the same I have with any other card that gets talked for banning. "Can you slap this card in any random kitchen-table EDH deck and make that deck better/more obnoxious just with it's inclusion." This is a truth for Tooth and Nail or Prophet of Kruphix, as well as Solemn Simulacrum and Eternal Witness. This shows that it may not be a ban argument on it's own, but I do feel it's an argument that needs to be met before you think about the actual ban itself.
And in Paradox Engine's case, I'm a bit on the fence. I do think that in most decks with the "average" number of mana rocks and all that good stuff, you won't get a lot of mileage out of the thing. It's only when you get packed with Rocks, Dorks and the likes that it really shines, and there are a select few commanders - most notably Selvala 1.0 - that become obnoxious with it. Being an artifact does obviously give it a wide range of decks to fit in, but I do feel it's not "overpreforming" enough to be considered bannable.
Well since most decks "should" be playing on average 5-10 mana sources that come from rocks or dorks, in theory Paraox Engine will be noticeable if you include it.
Yes and no. Let's average out there and say your average deck runs 8 dorks/rocks. Let's say we dig 20 cards deep. On average, we're not going to hit over 2 of them. And then we also have that roughly 1-in-5 chance of hitting the Engine itself. Now suppose the 2 dorks/rocks you hit together tap for a total of 4 mana. Paradox Engine in that case essentially becomes a 5 mana engine that gives you 4 mana on every spell you cast. Strong, yes, but not all that backbreaking given the crazy stuff already going on in EDH.
Of course this equation changes when you really build around the Engine, but at that point we're veering towards the comboers gonna combo section of EDH, which the banlist rarely, if ever, truly cares about.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Yes and no. Let's average out there and say your average deck runs 8 dorks/rocks. Let's say we dig 20 cards deep. On average, we're not going to hit over 2 of them. And then we also have that roughly 1-in-5 chance of hitting the Engine itself. Now suppose the 2 dorks/rocks you hit together tap for a total of 4 mana. Paradox Engine in that case essentially becomes a 5 mana engine that gives you 4 mana on every spell you cast. Strong, yes, but not all that backbreaking given the crazy stuff already going on in EDH.
Of course this equation changes when you really build around the Engine, but at that point we're veering towards the comboers gonna combo section of EDH, which the banlist rarely, if ever, truly cares about.
Well, historically speaking "build around this card" hasn't been a ban criteria, but "this card is good so let me slowly add things to make it better" is a thing, as was explained for Protean Hulk. Paradox Engine strikes me as a card in the latter category.
Yes and no. Let's average out there and say your average deck runs 8 dorks/rocks. Let's say we dig 20 cards deep. On average, we're not going to hit over 2 of them. And then we also have that roughly 1-in-5 chance of hitting the Engine itself. Now suppose the 2 dorks/rocks you hit together tap for a total of 4 mana. Paradox Engine in that case essentially becomes a 5 mana engine that gives you 4 mana on every spell you cast. Strong, yes, but not all that backbreaking given the crazy stuff already going on in EDH.
Of course this equation changes when you really build around the Engine, but at that point we're veering towards the comboers gonna combo section of EDH, which the banlist rarely, if ever, truly cares about.
Well, historically speaking "build around this card" hasn't been a ban criteria, but "this card is good so let me slowly add things to make it better" is a thing, as was explained for Protean Hulk. Paradox Engine strikes me as a card in the latter category.
We also both know Hulk was banned almost a decade ago and they can't seem to bring up any good arguments for it's current ban anymore, but let's not make this discussion about Hulk and instead focus on the Engine which is still far from bannable. It's only been out a few weeks, I think it'll slowly taper off in popularity in the next few months. Right after release is usually a poor time to discuss a card's bannability.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
We also both know Hulk was banned almost a decade ago and they can't seem to bring up any good arguments for it's current ban anymore, but let's not make this discussion about Hulk and instead focus on the Engine which is still far from bannable. It's only been out a few weeks, I think it'll slowly taper off in popularity in the next few months. Right after release is usually a poor time to discuss a card's bannability.
Independent on your opinions of that card, the cascade effect is a reason cited for remaining banned, and that is a similarity that I suspect we will see with Paradox Engine.
I feel I should mention again (unless it wasn't clear before) that I'm not actually in favor of banning it, simply adding my single experience and opinions to the thread.
I want to start this one early.
I believe this card will be included in a number of casual decks despite being one of the easiest cards ever printed to accidentally go overboard with, almost on the same level as palinchron.
Almost every deck, due to the formats nature, has tons of mana rocks in it already, and I believe the "oh I guess I can cast my hand and the top 50 cards of my deck before running out of gas" moments warrants giving this card a good close look and if it actually belongs in commander.
So far, in the couple decks where I run it and in the times I've seen it played by others, I've never seen it accomplish more than I often see happen when someone uses Garruk Wildspeaker to untap something like Cabal Coffersand/or Gate to Nykthos, but I'm expecting I will see it do some pretty crazy things one of these days. It likely will be kinda nuts if I ever get it into play in my Rhys the Redeemed deck, which is full of mana dorks, but that deck already often produces more mana than I can actually use without any problem. I suppose it would let me create more or less infinite tokens, but again, that can already more or less happen. So far it has been merely okay in my Sharuum deck, despite that deck including a fair number of mana rocks and several creatures that tap to activate abilities.
I seriously doubt Paradox Engine is going to be ban worthy. You have to really work to make it better than "just okay".
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To directly reply to OP, most of what you're envisioning is pretty Christmasland, and the chances of climbing to five mana while also assembling an infrastructure of untappables and then finding, casting and resolving Paradox and having it stay around long enough to provide consistent value over a series of turns while ALSO not dying along the way, are pretty slim
To use you're Lattice example: Isn't that exactly why Painter's Servant is banned?
On Paradox Engine: I think it's far too early to be calling for a banning on it. The card can absolutly do some crazy broken things in games, but it's also brand new so people are brewing with it. I think the true test will be if the engine is still causing games to degerate in a year to twos time.
My ultimate belief is in no banned list, but if we have a ban list, I would want lattice to be on it. Lattice, alongside enchanted evening, create some of the most stressful board states I can think of. Any player at any time can suddenly use their otherwise normal board wipe spells to also wipe all lands, and possibly lock out lands entirely. I do not think lattice has any place at a fun commander table, but casual players might think otherwise and mistakenly include it.
Keep in mind even with this, Selvala, Explorer Returned only generates mana based on the number of non lands so you would have to design with a very low curve to keep this going. You also need to cast another spell every time you want to untap so if you were to hit a land it means that your hand quickly becomes more land heavy and you CANNOT go infinite with this because lands would accumulate in your hand and you only get to untap for every cast. It also draws opponents cards which means that anyone who runs answers will be drawing them so suddenly counterspells / spot removal can happen.
This corner case is not even good as it does not go infinite unless you are running a landless deck. It could also at any point not generate any mana and fall flat on its face.
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We must remember that there is more than just selvala in the deck. Mana elves, mana rocks, and draw spells that can help fill in the gaps.
Yes but in each case you have to be net generating mana for this to continue. So even if you draw into draw, you have to have the average mana probably at or under 2 to make this work right reliably. Once you roll up a lot of extra mana / draw it becomes more likely to go on without pause but the first bunch of activations are far more questionable.
This "could" go off, I am just saying its not a guarentee and its still very dependnat on building arround a lot of specific things. When you look at a Mind over Matter combo there is a lot less maybes in it and that is not banned.
EDIT: also, keep in mind that we are talking about a GW combo involving a not very popular commander. I can guarantee that Captain Sisay / Saffi Eriksdotter are more compatative that whan we have been describing not to mention just moving to blue or blue black instead. White Green has what, like one on color tutor for non equipment artifacts. For something to be ban worthy it cant be super niche deck combo.
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But infinite would be preferable, because at least then the game would be over and you could shuffle up and start a new one. Watching someone try to string things together for as long as they can is way, way less fun than just losing to an infinite combo.
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I predict that if your opponents allow it to remain on the battlefield for more than a couple of turns, you will declare it broken. I played exactly one game with it in my Mizzex deck when I got it in play with a couple of mana rocks and a fortunate state of a couple of big draw spells in the yard, and it went "infinite" when I cast Mizzex's Mastery. I didn't even have Mizzex in play or any other cost reduction enabler.
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I suspect your prediction will turn out to be correct. I did a few shuffle-ups with one possible (nowhere near final) version of the deck, and each time I got Paradox Engine into play, the results were kind of insane. That's just goldfishing, of course, but it was also nowhere near a finalized decklist, and given that I am planning to have a good number of counterspells and lots of card draw, I suspect that if I get it in play, I can probably make it stick for awhile at least against anything that doesn't have split second... and if Krosan Grip gets it, I have ways to get it back.
I'm doing the experiment in part because so far when I've gotten it in play in any of my other decks - only one of which is anything close to ideal for it - or when anyone else has played it, the results have just been okay. I've not yet seen it do anything truly bonkers, and from the comments above, it doesn't sound like very many other people have seen it really do anything too crazy either, though in theory that should be possible if you have a handful of mana rocks and/or dorks in play at the same time as some reliable card draw. We'll see. I won't finalize my deck for at least a week, as I await a couple cards from ebay.
And in Paradox Engine's case, I'm a bit on the fence. I do think that in most decks with the "average" number of mana rocks and all that good stuff, you won't get a lot of mileage out of the thing. It's only when you get packed with Rocks, Dorks and the likes that it really shines, and there are a select few commanders - most notably Selvala 1.0 - that become obnoxious with it. Being an artifact does obviously give it a wide range of decks to fit in, but I do feel it's not "overpreforming" enough to be considered bannable.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Well since most decks "should" be playing on average 5-10 mana sources that come from rocks or dorks, in theory Paraox Engine will be noticeable if you include it.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
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Yes and no. Let's average out there and say your average deck runs 8 dorks/rocks. Let's say we dig 20 cards deep. On average, we're not going to hit over 2 of them. And then we also have that roughly 1-in-5 chance of hitting the Engine itself. Now suppose the 2 dorks/rocks you hit together tap for a total of 4 mana. Paradox Engine in that case essentially becomes a 5 mana engine that gives you 4 mana on every spell you cast. Strong, yes, but not all that backbreaking given the crazy stuff already going on in EDH.
Of course this equation changes when you really build around the Engine, but at that point we're veering towards the comboers gonna combo section of EDH, which the banlist rarely, if ever, truly cares about.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Well, historically speaking "build around this card" hasn't been a ban criteria, but "this card is good so let me slowly add things to make it better" is a thing, as was explained for Protean Hulk. Paradox Engine strikes me as a card in the latter category.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg
We also both know Hulk was banned almost a decade ago and they can't seem to bring up any good arguments for it's current ban anymore, but let's not make this discussion about Hulk and instead focus on the Engine which is still far from bannable. It's only been out a few weeks, I think it'll slowly taper off in popularity in the next few months. Right after release is usually a poor time to discuss a card's bannability.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Independent on your opinions of that card, the cascade effect is a reason cited for remaining banned, and that is a similarity that I suspect we will see with Paradox Engine.
I feel I should mention again (unless it wasn't clear before) that I'm not actually in favor of banning it, simply adding my single experience and opinions to the thread.
Misc. EDH Stuff: Commander Cube | Zombies (Horde)
Resources:Commander Rulings FAQ | Commander Deckbuilding Guide
Follow me on Twitter! @cryogen_mtg