PoK would come down. If nobody had untapped mana and an answer, the controller would be able to untap and protect it. PoK needs you to have card draw or mana sinks to take advantage. These are easy to come by.(emphasis added)
When Paradox Engine comes down, unless the person can immediately start untapping things, people will have a turn cycle to deal with it(emphasis added). Paradox engine needs you to have mana rocks or mana dorks, and to have card draw. Paradox Engine requires a board presence before being played, and it requires open mana to trigger it to take advantage.
I know that Paradox Engine has the capacity to be more degenerate. But there are many cards that have that capacity. I think winning with Reveillark is easier than winning with Paradox Engine(emphasis added). It requires just about the same amount of set-up, and it is more resilient as you already have a built-in reanimator shell.
Since the capacity to be degenerate is not a criteria for banning, you would need to establish that it is broken by itself.
1) The fact that "people will have a turn cycle to deal with it" is not a valid consideration to the RC. Case in point, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is a creature with a tap ability, meaning players will have a turn cycle to deal with it, yet it's on the ban list. Same with Panoptic Mirror.
2) Reveillark has a specific color identity, which Paradox Engine does not have, and it requires setup as well. You need small creatures. You need them in your graveyard.
3) Needing a mana sink and card draw for Prophet of Kruphix is about as easy to come by as is card draw and mana rocks for Paradox Engine.
I suppose your experiences have been different, but the three times I've played against Paradox Engine in the past two weeks, it was degenerate every single time. My experience is that it violates a few of the criteria the RC looks at to determine if a card needs a ban: Creates Undesirable Game States, Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly, and possibly in the future Problematic Casual Omnipresence.
First off, PoK is a joke compared to Paradox Engine in the competitive sense. PoK powered exactly one deck: Momir Vig, while Paradox Engine has almost singlehandedly shaken the entire competitive metagame, created two completely new decks that can't function properly without it (Paradox Arcum and Paradox Sisay) and is a crazy strong include in many other top tier decks. Also, please don't compare Paradox Engine to Reveillark. I have been playing a Reveillark deck for more than 7 years and the actual card is almost never as strong as Paradox Engine is in routine situations. Furthermore, where PE synergizes with any non-land mana producer, Reveillark really only combos with a handful of specific creatures and is merely a one-off value play otherwise. If anything, Paradox Engine should be compared to cards like Sneak Attack, since they are both pseudo Ritual factories. The main difference being that Paradox Engine works on all spells, not just creatures.
Think of it this way. If you are ONLY playing the most basic mana rocks (no Sol Ring, no Mana Vault, no Gilded Lotus, not even mana producing creatures, and definitely no other strong tap abilities), Paradox Engine basically says: Spells you cast have affinity for artifacts. Do you realize how broken that it?
I think you need to remember that competitive play has no influence on cards being put up for the ban list. Taking it out of that scenario and focusing on casual decks, really the synergistic effect of the card is strong, don't get me wrong, but not broken inherently by itself. Can people do more? Sure. But will PE normally always break a game, certainly not.
I think you need to remember that competitive play has no influence on cards being put up for the ban list. Taking it out of that scenario and focusing on casual decks, really the synergistic effect of the card is strong, don't get me wrong, but not broken inherently by itself. Can people do more? Sure. But will PE normally always break a game, certainly not.
Fair enough. I admit that PE will have a lesser impact in decks that are not built specifially to abuse it. I was merely trying to illustrate how strong the card becomes if people really try to make it work. That being said, I also think it is too powerful in a more casual setting. People are talking about it like they do about Hermit Druid: like it's a card that needs to have a deck with a very specific and unusual build. But that actually couldn't be further from the truth. Everyone likes ramping. Mana rocks as well as mana dorks are universally popular.
You say that PE will normally not break the game. Perhaps. But I would wager it'll break it a lot more than PoK.
Have people been seeing Paradox Engine getting cloned by other players? Because that was one of the issues with Prophet. She'd come into play and other players would start to clone/steal/reanimate her in order to get the advantage. I haven't personally seen that level of centralizing with PE, but I also haven't gotten to play EDH very much lately.
First off, PoK is a joke compared to Paradox Engine in the competitive sense. PoK powered exactly one deck: Momir Vig.
You must be in a completely different meta than I am - I hardly ever see Momir Vig, but I saw Prophets everywhere, powering big decks and tough combos. My favorite use for it was in Animar, where it frequently resulted in a win within a couple turns of dropping Prophet.
First off, PoK is a joke compared to Paradox Engine in the competitive sense. PoK powered exactly one deck: Momir Vig.
You must be in a completely different meta than I am - I hardly ever see Momir Vig, but I saw Prophets everywhere, powering big decks and tough combos. My favorite use for it was in Animar, where it frequently resulted in a win within a couple turns of dropping Prophet.
Competitive edh is much faster than that.
Captain Sisay/Arcum Daggson have lines that win just by having paradox engine + a few specific cards in their deck, where casting a single spell with engine out means the game will end if every spell they get to cast resolves.
Prophet of Kruphix is a problem card in slower, less competitive edh games. In competitive POK isn't fast enough.
PoK would come down. If nobody had untapped mana and an answer, the controller would be able to untap and protect it. PoK needs you to have card draw or mana sinks to take advantage. These are easy to come by.(emphasis added)
When Paradox Engine comes down, unless the person can immediately start untapping things, people will have a turn cycle to deal with it(emphasis added). Paradox engine needs you to have mana rocks or mana dorks, and to have card draw. Paradox Engine requires a board presence before being played, and it requires open mana to trigger it to take advantage.
I know that Paradox Engine has the capacity to be more degenerate. But there are many cards that have that capacity. I think winning with Reveillark is easier than winning with Paradox Engine(emphasis added). It requires just about the same amount of set-up, and it is more resilient as you already have a built-in reanimator shell.
Since the capacity to be degenerate is not a criteria for banning, you would need to establish that it is broken by itself.
1) The fact that "people will have a turn cycle to deal with it" is not a valid consideration to the RC. Case in point, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is a creature with a tap ability, meaning players will have a turn cycle to deal with it, yet it's on the ban list. Same with Panoptic Mirror.
2) Reveillark has a specific color identity, which Paradox Engine does not have, and it requires setup as well. You need small creatures. You need them in your graveyard.
3) Needing a mana sink and card draw for Prophet of Kruphix is about as easy to come by as is card draw and mana rocks for Paradox Engine.
I suppose your experiences have been different, but the three times I've played against Paradox Engine in the past two weeks, it was degenerate every single time. My experience is that it violates a few of the criteria the RC looks at to determine if a card needs a ban: Creates Undesirable Game States, Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly, and possibly in the future Problematic Casual Omnipresence.
1. Rofellos was banned as a commander. They decided to change this to a single banlist, and obviously Rofellos is still broken as a commander... so...
I have never seen Panoptic Mirror, so I can't really comment on it.
2. Reveillark goes infinite without any mana, whether it is in play or in your graveyard. I sometimes discard to hand size just to get it in my graveyard and win on the next upkeep. My example here is that it is a busted card when built around. Paradox engine needs to be built around
3. You need a mana sink or card draw for PoK to be busted. PoK untapped your stuff no matter what. When I saw it come down, it was always a quick check to see if anybody had an immediate answer. If not - game over.
I don't think color identity needs to be a consideration. The fact is, you need card draw (or repeated ways of casting spells) and you need mana dorks/rocks. And, on top of that, you wouldn't be able to do anything if you tapped out for the Paradox Engine. This is a huge consideration - PoK was largely banned because it didn't allow people the opportunity to deal with it.
From the announcement when banning PoK:
Casual groups haven't been able to work around it and problematic play has not dropped off in hoped-for ways. Instead, the primary approach has been to steal it, clone it, run it yourself, or get run over. Ultimately, it seems the card is too perfect - it does everything U/G Commander players want to be doing and it does it in a way that makes counterplay difficult. With traditional boogeymen such as Consecrated Sphinx, you're forced to expend a lot of your mana to cast it and will have a challenge protecting it as the turn goes around the table. With Prophet, it has virtual protection built in, negating that disadvantage almost immediately.
The "virtual protection" from PoK untapping everything so quickly is a problem for commander tables, from competitive to casual.
Paradox Engine - you need to leave up your protection, or a way to immediately start abusing it.
Your experience - 3 occasions - does not speak for the card at large. I use it in Maelstrom Wanderer. It can go infinite, but it doesn't necessarily go infinite. The deck has a lot of mana rocks and every time I cast my general I will get three triggers.
I also intend to use it in Phenax, god of deception, as a second Intruder Alarm. Can it be broken in the deck? Yes. Will it go infinite? - statistically very unlikely. I would need 4 specific cards in play.
There are many cards I've seen instantly win the game every time they are cast. From Deadeye Navigator to Tooth and Nail to Boonweaver Giant...
Paradox Engine does not win the game by itself. Boonweaver Giant needs a sac outlet. Paradox Engine needs mana rocks/dorks AND a way to repeatedly cast cards.
I do not see how it is more broken than any number of cards in EDH. It does not meet the same criteria as bannings like PoK or Sylvan Primordial, which were too good by themselves.
Please don't argue that cards banned for casual reasons are as strong as paradox engine. They aren't. They are just too strong when people aren't trying to win as quickly and efficiently as possible, so they are banned for ruining casual games. POK, Reveillark etc are not in the same league as paradox engine when it comes to competitive play.
The question is if paradox engine is also oppressive in casual play. Right now the answer seems to be no, unless the casual player changes their deck to support paradox engine more.
Please don't argue that cards banned for casual reasons are as strong as paradox engine. They aren't. They are just too strong when people aren't trying to win as quickly and efficiently as possible, so they are banned for ruining casual games. POK, Reveillark etc are not in the same league as paradox engine when it comes to competitive play.
The question is if paradox engine is also oppressive in casual play. Right now the answer seems to be no, unless the casual player changes their deck to support paradox engine more.
Or possibly if they just build the sort of deck Paradox Engine would already be good in - i.e., one having lots of mana rocks, lots of mana dorks and/or a general or multiple creatuers with a strong tap ability. I think that's really the big question. It can't ruin a deck that doesn't have one or more of those features, but there are a lot of decks which would be built with those features regardless of Paradox Engine. The real question, in my opinion, is whether tossing Paradox Engine into those decks will be broken. I am starting, based on my experiments and observations to date, to suspect that this might be the case, and that in that regard including the Engine in a deck which can most benefit from it, but which would not have to have it or be built around it, just might be too broken in less competitive Commander play.
I'm using it with Isochron Scepter iwth Boomerang/Orim's Chant. It's pretty janky casual, Engine should be fine for now, I've yet to see anyone turbo off with it. But we've been pretty slow at our tables lately so..
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Experiment 1: Rashmi
Another game in which I was the archenemy from early on. At the time I got Paradox Engine into play, I had only two mana rocks in play, plus Chief Engineer, Rashmi and some other creature but no mana dorks, but with the rocks consisting of Gilded Lotus and Sol Ring, I was able to empty my hand onto the table. My hand at the time included Soothsaying, and I was quickly able to start stacking my deck into more mana rocks and other threats. Paradox Engine got taken out at one point, but I was able to get it back into play a couple turns later, and I won the game shortly after that. Once again, the combination of card advantage offered by Rashmi and the untapping allowed by the Engine made for a pretty potent threat. This was without Cryptolith Rite or any of the flash enablers ever seeing play, and with Future Sight having been countered early on.
PoK would come down. If nobody had untapped mana and an answer, the controller would be able to untap and protect it. PoK needs you to have card draw or mana sinks to take advantage. These are easy to come by.(emphasis added)
When Paradox Engine comes down, unless the person can immediately start untapping things, people will have a turn cycle to deal with it(emphasis added). Paradox engine needs you to have mana rocks or mana dorks, and to have card draw. Paradox Engine requires a board presence before being played, and it requires open mana to trigger it to take advantage.
I know that Paradox Engine has the capacity to be more degenerate. But there are many cards that have that capacity. I think winning with Reveillark is easier than winning with Paradox Engine(emphasis added). It requires just about the same amount of set-up, and it is more resilient as you already have a built-in reanimator shell.
Since the capacity to be degenerate is not a criteria for banning, you would need to establish that it is broken by itself.
1) The fact that "people will have a turn cycle to deal with it" is not a valid consideration to the RC. Case in point, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is a creature with a tap ability, meaning players will have a turn cycle to deal with it, yet it's on the ban list. Same with Panoptic Mirror.
2) Reveillark has a specific color identity, which Paradox Engine does not have, and it requires setup as well. You need small creatures. You need them in your graveyard.
3) Needing a mana sink and card draw for Prophet of Kruphix is about as easy to come by as is card draw and mana rocks for Paradox Engine.
I suppose your experiences have been different, but the three times I've played against Paradox Engine in the past two weeks, it was degenerate every single time. My experience is that it violates a few of the criteria the RC looks at to determine if a card needs a ban: Creates Undesirable Game States, Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly, and possibly in the future Problematic Casual Omnipresence.
It does not create too much mana too quickly. It might produce a ton of mana, but it's not on the level of other cards that have been banned with this justification, namely Fastbond, Channel, Tolarian Academy and I guess Rofellos.
I'm hoping they don't ban the card. I'm guessing they'll wait to see how much it impacts casual tables before banning it. I haven't even seen the card played in paper, but a guy at my LGS finally added it to Sisay so I'll see how that goes (it's nowhere near a competitive Sisay list).
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I played a bunch of times with paradox engine in my very weak chandra, fire of kaladesh deck that uses a bunch of tap/untap effects and a lot of spell cast triggers
The card is an absolute kill on sight. If someone untaps with paradox engine they have almost certainly won the game. It gives my weak deck a kill if I untap with it, and this is mono red with almost no card draw. I'm certain it's even worse with decks that can draw additional cards to fuel it, or their general can tutor it, or they have green ramp creatures. Once you have something like gilded lotus with paradox engine out, you've got the functional equivalent of omniscience.
IMO, most cards wouldn't be considered for discussion if the enablers like efficient tutors and fast mana were locked up. I see no different for Paradox Engine.
IMO, most cards wouldn't be considered for discussion if the enablers like efficient tutors and fast mana were locked up. I see no different for Paradox Engine.
So, I played one game tonight with my Rashmi deck, continuing my experiment. I gotta say, it was pretty insane. I was playing against tribal Slivers and Lovisa Coldeyes.
I initially drew a one-land hand, took a free mulligan and drew again, getting a better hand. That opening hand was: Forest, Inventors' Fair, Strip Mine, Birds of Paradise, Mana Crypt, Paradox Engine and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. I decided to keep that hand, since it included the Engine and with Forest, Birds and the other lands I could at least cast both Rashmi and the Engine, plus I had Mana Crypt if I wanted to get Rashmi out really early (and make a worse target of myself). My first turn draw was Brainstorm. I played the Forest, then Birds of Paradise and held onto the Crypt, since I had no follow-up. Pass turn.
Turn 2, I drew Thought Vessel. Rather than playing the Crypt and playing Rashmi turn 2, I decided to get the rock out and use Brainstorm to set up the next couple draws and/or Rashmi triggers. I already had in mind that I could play the Crypt on the same turn I cast Paradox Engine, allowing me to already start me untapping and casting more stuff. I tapped the Birds for U, cast Brainstorm and found Moss Diamond, Fabricate and Island. Seeing another rock and Fabricate made me happy, and I saw this as a set-up for a crazy turn when I played Paradox Engine in a couple turns. I put Island and Thought Vessel (from my hand) atop my library,keeping Fabricate in hand.. Then I played the Strip Mine, tapped both lands and played Moss Diamond
Turn 3, I drew and played the Island. I tapped all three lands and the Moss Diamond to play Rashmi. I then looked back and forth between the Birds and my hand for a moment (pure bluffing, as I had nothing to cast), then ended my turn.
Turn 4, I drew Thought Vessel, played Inventors' Fair, tapped all four lands, Moss Diamond and the Birds to cast Paradox Engine and float U. In response the Lovisa player Lightning Bolted Rashmi, but I still got the cast trigger, revealing Commander's Sphere and casting it for free. Casting the free rock told me things were about to absolutely go bonkers. Next I tapped the Sphere, floating G, cast Mana Crypt for 0, untapping the Birds, the Sphere and the Diamond, then tapped all of them and the Crypt (and floated three more mana) to cast Thought Vessel, which untapped them all again. I then tapped the Birds and rocks to cast Fabricate, finding Gilded Lotus and floating more mana, which again untapped the Birds and the rocks, allowing me to cast the Lotus. Tapping the Birds and all rocks, I used 6 of that mana to recast Rashmi, floating more mana and untapping the Birds and all the rocks. Tapping the rocks yet again and spending a bit of the floating mana gave me more than enough mana to cast Kozilek, drawing me 4 cards - Simic Signet, Mirrorpool, Stormtide Leviathan and Time of Need - while untapping everything yet again. While I was casting the Signet and floating yet more mana, Lovisa's player scooped. I cast Time of Need to tutor for Kruphix, God of Horizons, floating more mana, cast Kruphix, floating even more mana, and ended the turn with Rashmi, Paradox Engine, Kozilek, Kruphix and a bunch of rocks in play and untapped, a couple cards in hand and a bunch of colorless mana still floating in my pool. The sliver player had four lands and two slivers (I don't recall which ones) in play. He drew, saw it wasn't something that would make a difference and scooped rather than face Kozilek's Annihilator trigger, thereby giving me the win before I untapped for turn 5.
Now, some might say that was a god hand, I was really lucky, etc., but I rather dispute that. I had three lands - two colorless - one mana dork and a powerful mana rock, plus Paradox Engine and Kozilek. Keep in mind, the only library manipulation effect I got was Brainstorm. I kept that hand because I was likely going to be able to cast both Rashmi and the Engine by no later than turn 5, and I was confident that combination, along with whatever I drew into, would do me just fine. The fact that I ended up casting both - plus several other things and Kozilek - before turn 5 proved me right, but to a much greater degree than I'd anticipated. I will admit it was sort of funny to pull off that explosive a turn that early in the game, but it didn't really make for a very fun game for the other two players. And sure, Mana Crypt is crazy good, but even though I drew it in my opening hand, it didn't lead me to an explosive start. The enabler of all this broken stuff was Paradox Engine, pure and simple.
Conclusion re: Paradox Engine... seems pretty darn broken to me.
Dox Engine basically functions as an additional (strictly worse) Intruder Alarm in Slivers. Tutor for your entire library's worth of creatures and slam it on the table victoriously. I run Gemhide Sliver, Manaweft Sliver, and Cryptolith Rite. My Sliver deck is built to be cutthroat, consistent, and fast. It's the only deck I've spared no expense on with regards to making it as overpowered as possible. I think I only run 2 or 3 mana rocks in it, all that said. What makes Intruder Alarm better than Dox Engine in this deck is the simple fact that the former combos with Sliver Queen and the latter does not.
In Thada Adel, Dox Engine has been strong, but not degenerate. I run Gilded Lotus but all of my other mana rocks are colorless. I've had Paradox Engine out with Vedalken Archmage and Vedalken Orrery together, which got really silly when I slammed down about 8 high-cost Artifacts in one turn. That said, one of my opponents had a 39/39 Flying Trample Intimidate creature out, so what really saved me there was having out Darksteel Forge and Platinum Emperion, the former which I already had out and the latter which I tutored for with Treasure Mage - though admittedly the extra mana off of Dox Engine helped cast Emperion that turn. (I ended the game with a Blightsteel Colossus imprinted on Prototype Portal off of Mindslaver, which, when cast with my 4 Sol Rings out, allowed me to activate it on the same turn I cast it.)
In the latter example, I ran out of colorless cards to keep casting and drawing off of, and tapped out the rest of my Islands trying to Blue Sun's Zenith for more. The only fruit Dox Engine + Archmage yielded after that was the Mindslaver win.
At any rate, unless you specifically build to make it OP and tutor for it consistently, I don't think Paradox Engine is worth banning.
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Four of my five decks do not want Paradox Engine at all. The fifth, however...
Last week, two of my friends borrowed my Selvala, Explorer Returned deck for one game each. The deck has no way to tutor for Paradox Engine, but they drew into it both games, and both games ended on turn 3 as a result.
Now admittedly, the deck is pretty much tailor-made for Paradox Engine, and is a far cry from the casual battlecruiser idea anyway, usually trying to end games on turn 4 or 5. But wow, what a power bump Paradox Engine turned out to be! It is definitely a kill-on-sight kind of card, sort of like like Mind Over Matter.
The Engine works really well in my Selvala, Heart of the Wilds but I can't tell if it is any more oppressive or just another form of massive mana that that deck and put out rather easily.
Have people been seeing Paradox Engine getting cloned by other players? Because that was one of the issues with Prophet. She'd come into play and other players would start to clone/steal/reanimate her in order to get the advantage. I haven't personally seen that level of centralizing with PE, but I also haven't gotten to play EDH very much lately.
I wouldn't think that would happen because Prophet works if you deck is playing creatures (which the clones are too), Engine requires a lot more specificity to get value out of.
Have people been seeing Paradox Engine getting cloned by other players? Because that was one of the issues with Prophet. She'd come into play and other players would start to clone/steal/reanimate her in order to get the advantage. I haven't personally seen that level of centralizing with PE, but I also haven't gotten to play EDH very much lately.
I wouldn't think that would happen because Prophet works if you deck is playing creatures (which the clones are too), Engine requires a lot more specificity to get value out of.
You would think wrong. It doesn't require THAT much specificity...I was able to go infinite with Captain Sisay, Selvala 2.0, and Elvish Archdruid. Granted, I got limited to casting green creatures, AND I got really lucky with Selvala's parley ability, but it's pretty easy to have an infinite engine(pun intended) going.
More accurately is how many moving parts would be required to have that infinite engine go off...in my example, I needed four pieces. Some people claim there's only two needed(one mana rock and the engine), but how often that would come up, and how true it is? Hard to say.
Any Creature deck playing Blue or Red(Stealing) could probably find value in copying a Prophet of Kruphix
Engine Requires you to be running creatures or artifacts that have tap effects
I am going to guess the top one is a more common deck, and creature clones are a far more common card than artifact clones.
Bold emphasis mine.
And usually, that won't be a problem. Sure, a lot of decks have activated abilities that don't require tapping, or triggered abilities, but just as many have decent to powerful tap effects too. Being able to have pseudo-vigilance`is something I believe most any deck can appreciate, especially ones that swing for the fences.
I would posit that spell-centric decks are actually the minority, but I do acknowledge that those kinds of decks would not benefit whatsoever from P.E.. My experience hasn't shown them to be that common, so...*shrug*
As for your last statement, yeah I believe you're right. Given shapeshifters, dopplegangers, and the infamous Clone, creature copying is pretty prevalent. Compare that to Phyrexian Metamorph and Copy Artifact, which are the only two I can think of off the top of my head, and the imbalance is pretty obvious.
Yet you rarely see random decks splashing Sculpting Steel. It's mostly a card that sticks to artifact-based decks in order to increase their own synergies, unlike something a la Bribery which Blue control decks will run because there's always something worth nabbing.
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1) The fact that "people will have a turn cycle to deal with it" is not a valid consideration to the RC. Case in point, Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary is a creature with a tap ability, meaning players will have a turn cycle to deal with it, yet it's on the ban list. Same with Panoptic Mirror.
2) Reveillark has a specific color identity, which Paradox Engine does not have, and it requires setup as well. You need small creatures. You need them in your graveyard.
3) Needing a mana sink and card draw for Prophet of Kruphix is about as easy to come by as is card draw and mana rocks for Paradox Engine.
I suppose your experiences have been different, but the three times I've played against Paradox Engine in the past two weeks, it was degenerate every single time. My experience is that it violates a few of the criteria the RC looks at to determine if a card needs a ban: Creates Undesirable Game States, Produces Too Much Mana Too Quickly, and possibly in the future Problematic Casual Omnipresence.
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You say that PE will normally not break the game. Perhaps. But I would wager it'll break it a lot more than PoK.
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Competitive edh is much faster than that.
Captain Sisay/Arcum Daggson have lines that win just by having paradox engine + a few specific cards in their deck, where casting a single spell with engine out means the game will end if every spell they get to cast resolves.
Prophet of Kruphix is a problem card in slower, less competitive edh games. In competitive POK isn't fast enough.
1. Rofellos was banned as a commander. They decided to change this to a single banlist, and obviously Rofellos is still broken as a commander... so...
I have never seen Panoptic Mirror, so I can't really comment on it.
2. Reveillark goes infinite without any mana, whether it is in play or in your graveyard. I sometimes discard to hand size just to get it in my graveyard and win on the next upkeep. My example here is that it is a busted card when built around. Paradox engine needs to be built around
3. You need a mana sink or card draw for PoK to be busted. PoK untapped your stuff no matter what. When I saw it come down, it was always a quick check to see if anybody had an immediate answer. If not - game over.
I don't think color identity needs to be a consideration. The fact is, you need card draw (or repeated ways of casting spells) and you need mana dorks/rocks. And, on top of that, you wouldn't be able to do anything if you tapped out for the Paradox Engine. This is a huge consideration - PoK was largely banned because it didn't allow people the opportunity to deal with it.
From the announcement when banning PoK:
The "virtual protection" from PoK untapping everything so quickly is a problem for commander tables, from competitive to casual.
Paradox Engine - you need to leave up your protection, or a way to immediately start abusing it.
Your experience - 3 occasions - does not speak for the card at large. I use it in Maelstrom Wanderer. It can go infinite, but it doesn't necessarily go infinite. The deck has a lot of mana rocks and every time I cast my general I will get three triggers.
I also intend to use it in Phenax, god of deception, as a second Intruder Alarm. Can it be broken in the deck? Yes. Will it go infinite? - statistically very unlikely. I would need 4 specific cards in play.
There are many cards I've seen instantly win the game every time they are cast. From Deadeye Navigator to Tooth and Nail to Boonweaver Giant...
Paradox Engine does not win the game by itself. Boonweaver Giant needs a sac outlet. Paradox Engine needs mana rocks/dorks AND a way to repeatedly cast cards.
I do not see how it is more broken than any number of cards in EDH. It does not meet the same criteria as bannings like PoK or Sylvan Primordial, which were too good by themselves.
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The question is if paradox engine is also oppressive in casual play. Right now the answer seems to be no, unless the casual player changes their deck to support paradox engine more.
Or possibly if they just build the sort of deck Paradox Engine would already be good in - i.e., one having lots of mana rocks, lots of mana dorks and/or a general or multiple creatuers with a strong tap ability. I think that's really the big question. It can't ruin a deck that doesn't have one or more of those features, but there are a lot of decks which would be built with those features regardless of Paradox Engine. The real question, in my opinion, is whether tossing Paradox Engine into those decks will be broken. I am starting, based on my experiments and observations to date, to suspect that this might be the case, and that in that regard including the Engine in a deck which can most benefit from it, but which would not have to have it or be built around it, just might be too broken in less competitive Commander play.
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Another game in which I was the archenemy from early on. At the time I got Paradox Engine into play, I had only two mana rocks in play, plus Chief Engineer, Rashmi and some other creature but no mana dorks, but with the rocks consisting of Gilded Lotus and Sol Ring, I was able to empty my hand onto the table. My hand at the time included Soothsaying, and I was quickly able to start stacking my deck into more mana rocks and other threats. Paradox Engine got taken out at one point, but I was able to get it back into play a couple turns later, and I won the game shortly after that. Once again, the combination of card advantage offered by Rashmi and the untapping allowed by the Engine made for a pretty potent threat. This was without Cryptolith Rite or any of the flash enablers ever seeing play, and with Future Sight having been countered early on.
Experiment 2: Gahiji
I didn't ever get Paradox Engine into play, and it wouldn't have been of any help in this particular game. Some early ramp via Wood Elves and Oracle of Mul Daya got me a bunch of tokens early on, and the combination of Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Cathars' Crusade, Champion of Lambholt and Gahiji ended things pretty quickly after that.
It does not create too much mana too quickly. It might produce a ton of mana, but it's not on the level of other cards that have been banned with this justification, namely Fastbond, Channel, Tolarian Academy and I guess Rofellos.
I'm hoping they don't ban the card. I'm guessing they'll wait to see how much it impacts casual tables before banning it. I haven't even seen the card played in paper, but a guy at my LGS finally added it to Sisay so I'll see how that goes (it's nowhere near a competitive Sisay list).
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The card is an absolute kill on sight. If someone untaps with paradox engine they have almost certainly won the game. It gives my weak deck a kill if I untap with it, and this is mono red with almost no card draw. I'm certain it's even worse with decks that can draw additional cards to fuel it, or their general can tutor it, or they have green ramp creatures. Once you have something like gilded lotus with paradox engine out, you've got the functional equivalent of omniscience.
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My Rashmi deck's best tutors for Paradox Engine would be Fabricate and Inventors' Fair. Would you consider either of those to be broken? I run Sol Ring and Mana Crypt in the deck, but even if I just get things lime Mind Stone, Simic Signet and Gilded Lotus, or a few token creatures with Cryptolith Rite, the Engine turns out to be pretty broken.
I initially drew a one-land hand, took a free mulligan and drew again, getting a better hand. That opening hand was: Forest, Inventors' Fair, Strip Mine, Birds of Paradise, Mana Crypt, Paradox Engine and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. I decided to keep that hand, since it included the Engine and with Forest, Birds and the other lands I could at least cast both Rashmi and the Engine, plus I had Mana Crypt if I wanted to get Rashmi out really early (and make a worse target of myself). My first turn draw was Brainstorm. I played the Forest, then Birds of Paradise and held onto the Crypt, since I had no follow-up. Pass turn.
Turn 2, I drew Thought Vessel. Rather than playing the Crypt and playing Rashmi turn 2, I decided to get the rock out and use Brainstorm to set up the next couple draws and/or Rashmi triggers. I already had in mind that I could play the Crypt on the same turn I cast Paradox Engine, allowing me to already start me untapping and casting more stuff. I tapped the Birds for U, cast Brainstorm and found Moss Diamond, Fabricate and Island. Seeing another rock and Fabricate made me happy, and I saw this as a set-up for a crazy turn when I played Paradox Engine in a couple turns. I put Island and Thought Vessel (from my hand) atop my library,keeping Fabricate in hand.. Then I played the Strip Mine, tapped both lands and played Moss Diamond
Turn 3, I drew and played the Island. I tapped all three lands and the Moss Diamond to play Rashmi. I then looked back and forth between the Birds and my hand for a moment (pure bluffing, as I had nothing to cast), then ended my turn.
Turn 4, I drew Thought Vessel, played Inventors' Fair, tapped all four lands, Moss Diamond and the Birds to cast Paradox Engine and float U. In response the Lovisa player Lightning Bolted Rashmi, but I still got the cast trigger, revealing Commander's Sphere and casting it for free. Casting the free rock told me things were about to absolutely go bonkers. Next I tapped the Sphere, floating G, cast Mana Crypt for 0, untapping the Birds, the Sphere and the Diamond, then tapped all of them and the Crypt (and floated three more mana) to cast Thought Vessel, which untapped them all again. I then tapped the Birds and rocks to cast Fabricate, finding Gilded Lotus and floating more mana, which again untapped the Birds and the rocks, allowing me to cast the Lotus. Tapping the Birds and all rocks, I used 6 of that mana to recast Rashmi, floating more mana and untapping the Birds and all the rocks. Tapping the rocks yet again and spending a bit of the floating mana gave me more than enough mana to cast Kozilek, drawing me 4 cards - Simic Signet, Mirrorpool, Stormtide Leviathan and Time of Need - while untapping everything yet again. While I was casting the Signet and floating yet more mana, Lovisa's player scooped. I cast Time of Need to tutor for Kruphix, God of Horizons, floating more mana, cast Kruphix, floating even more mana, and ended the turn with Rashmi, Paradox Engine, Kozilek, Kruphix and a bunch of rocks in play and untapped, a couple cards in hand and a bunch of colorless mana still floating in my pool. The sliver player had four lands and two slivers (I don't recall which ones) in play. He drew, saw it wasn't something that would make a difference and scooped rather than face Kozilek's Annihilator trigger, thereby giving me the win before I untapped for turn 5.
Now, some might say that was a god hand, I was really lucky, etc., but I rather dispute that. I had three lands - two colorless - one mana dork and a powerful mana rock, plus Paradox Engine and Kozilek. Keep in mind, the only library manipulation effect I got was Brainstorm. I kept that hand because I was likely going to be able to cast both Rashmi and the Engine by no later than turn 5, and I was confident that combination, along with whatever I drew into, would do me just fine. The fact that I ended up casting both - plus several other things and Kozilek - before turn 5 proved me right, but to a much greater degree than I'd anticipated. I will admit it was sort of funny to pull off that explosive a turn that early in the game, but it didn't really make for a very fun game for the other two players. And sure, Mana Crypt is crazy good, but even though I drew it in my opening hand, it didn't lead me to an explosive start. The enabler of all this broken stuff was Paradox Engine, pure and simple.
Conclusion re: Paradox Engine... seems pretty darn broken to me.
Sliver Overlord Sliverbox, and Thada Adel, Acquisitor Artifacts.
Dox Engine basically functions as an additional (strictly worse) Intruder Alarm in Slivers. Tutor for your entire library's worth of creatures and slam it on the table victoriously. I run Gemhide Sliver, Manaweft Sliver, and Cryptolith Rite. My Sliver deck is built to be cutthroat, consistent, and fast. It's the only deck I've spared no expense on with regards to making it as overpowered as possible. I think I only run 2 or 3 mana rocks in it, all that said. What makes Intruder Alarm better than Dox Engine in this deck is the simple fact that the former combos with Sliver Queen and the latter does not.
In Thada Adel, Dox Engine has been strong, but not degenerate. I run Gilded Lotus but all of my other mana rocks are colorless. I've had Paradox Engine out with Vedalken Archmage and Vedalken Orrery together, which got really silly when I slammed down about 8 high-cost Artifacts in one turn. That said, one of my opponents had a 39/39 Flying Trample Intimidate creature out, so what really saved me there was having out Darksteel Forge and Platinum Emperion, the former which I already had out and the latter which I tutored for with Treasure Mage - though admittedly the extra mana off of Dox Engine helped cast Emperion that turn. (I ended the game with a Blightsteel Colossus imprinted on Prototype Portal off of Mindslaver, which, when cast with my 4 Sol Rings out, allowed me to activate it on the same turn I cast it.)
In the latter example, I ran out of colorless cards to keep casting and drawing off of, and tapped out the rest of my Islands trying to Blue Sun's Zenith for more. The only fruit Dox Engine + Archmage yielded after that was the Mindslaver win.
At any rate, unless you specifically build to make it OP and tutor for it consistently, I don't think Paradox Engine is worth banning.
Is it strong?
Absolutely.
Banworthy?
Probably not.
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{мы, тьма}
2012: Best (False?) Role Claim - Worst Town Performance (Group) - Best Mafia Performance (Group) - Best SK Performance - Best Overall Player
2013: Best Non-SK Neutral Performance
2014: Best Town Performance (Individual) - Best Town Performance (Group) - Most Interesting Role - Best Game - Best Overall Player
2015: Worst Mafia Performance (Group) - Best Read
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Last week, two of my friends borrowed my Selvala, Explorer Returned deck for one game each. The deck has no way to tutor for Paradox Engine, but they drew into it both games, and both games ended on turn 3 as a result.
Now admittedly, the deck is pretty much tailor-made for Paradox Engine, and is a far cry from the casual battlecruiser idea anyway, usually trying to end games on turn 4 or 5. But wow, what a power bump Paradox Engine turned out to be! It is definitely a kill-on-sight kind of card, sort of like like Mind Over Matter.
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I wouldn't think that would happen because Prophet works if you deck is playing creatures (which the clones are too), Engine requires a lot more specificity to get value out of.
You would think wrong. It doesn't require THAT much specificity...I was able to go infinite with Captain Sisay, Selvala 2.0, and Elvish Archdruid. Granted, I got limited to casting green creatures, AND I got really lucky with Selvala's parley ability, but it's pretty easy to have an infinite engine(pun intended) going.
More accurately is how many moving parts would be required to have that infinite engine go off...in my example, I needed four pieces. Some people claim there's only two needed(one mana rock and the engine), but how often that would come up, and how true it is? Hard to say.
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2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
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5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
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8. RCrush your enemies(W)
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Any Creature deck playing Blue or Red(Stealing) could probably find value in copying a Prophet of Kruphix
Engine Requires you to be running creatures or artifacts that have tap effects
I am going to guess the top one is a more common deck, and creature clones are a far more common card than artifact clones.
Bold emphasis mine.
And usually, that won't be a problem. Sure, a lot of decks have activated abilities that don't require tapping, or triggered abilities, but just as many have decent to powerful tap effects too. Being able to have pseudo-vigilance`is something I believe most any deck can appreciate, especially ones that swing for the fences.
I would posit that spell-centric decks are actually the minority, but I do acknowledge that those kinds of decks would not benefit whatsoever from P.E.. My experience hasn't shown them to be that common, so...*shrug*
As for your last statement, yeah I believe you're right. Given shapeshifters, dopplegangers, and the infamous Clone, creature copying is pretty prevalent. Compare that to Phyrexian Metamorph and Copy Artifact, which are the only two I can think of off the top of my head, and the imbalance is pretty obvious.
EDH decks: 1. RGWMayael's Big BeatsRETIRED!
2. BUWMerieke Ri Berit and the 40 Thieves
3. URNiv's Wheeling and Dealing!
4. BURThe Walking Dead
5. GWSisay's Legends of Tomorrow
6. RWBRise of Markov
7. GElvez and stuffz(W)
8. RCrush your enemies(W)
9. BSign right here...(W)
Yet you rarely see random decks splashing Sculpting Steel. It's mostly a card that sticks to artifact-based decks in order to increase their own synergies, unlike something a la Bribery which Blue control decks will run because there's always something worth nabbing.
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