From Espers Paradox, we move to the deck that I played at last years Vintage Tournament, Paradoxical Storm. Much like Espers Paradox, we are trying to get a bunch of artifacts into play, make a ton of mana, and then cast Paradoxical Outcome to draw a bunch of cards and get more mana until we have cast enough spells for a lethal Tendrils of Agony. The key difference here is that our win condition only requires one card rather than two, Tendrils of Agony.
As with before, were playing all the broken artifact mana cards: Black Lotus, Moxen, Lions Eye Diamond, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, and Sol Ring. Here, we are going to expand that list to include Chrome Mox, and additional copies of Mox Opal as well as Grim Monolith. We are trying to make as much mana as quickly as possible to get the Paradox going.
Our typical blue cards are here, Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, 4 Force of Wills, Brainstorm and Ponder. We are also running the typical combo deck package for addition cantrips in Gitaxian Probe and 2 Preordain. Our tutor package is much more typical here, Demonic and Vampiric Tutors to get whatever we need, Tinker to get Memory Jar or Blightsteel (can you tell that I like Tinker into Blightsteel as an alternate win condition?), and Merchant Scroll to get Paradoxical Outcome or Recall (Ancestral or Hurkyls, but mostly Ancestral).
Since we are more dedicated to casting Tendrils of Agony, we are running a lot of what are known as draw sevens. These are cards that turn 3 mana into a bunch of new cards, at the cost of getting rid of your current ones. Fortunately for you, you have already cast all the artifacts in you hand and get to go looking for more artifacts and more draw sevens until you have a high enough storm count to lethal your opponent with Tendrils. Our true draw sevens are Timetwister, Memory Jar and Wheel of Fortune, which are essentially the same in our deck, except we can Tinker for Jar. Just be careful to remember that cards you put in your graveyard before Timetwister will not be there when you cast Yawgmoths Will. Speaking of Will, that is our first fake draw seven. It does not say draw anywhere on the card, but you get plenty of card advantage by casting it. Windfall is our other fake draw seven, but hopefully paired with other draw sevens and Paradoxical Outcome, either you or your opponent will have enough cards to make it worth it. Paradoxical Outcome also counts as a fake draw seven, since you will typically only draw 4 cards the first time you cast it, but it can only get better from there.
Our last nonartifact cards to talk about are Minds Desire and Chain of Vapor Minds Desire is the kind of card that might not do a whole lot most of the game, and then suddenly you can cast the top twenty cards of your library for free (we will accept shuffling once as a suitable shortcut if there is no deck manipulation between the copies resolving). At that point, you are probably winning the game. Chain of Vapor is the sort of catch all that a deck like this needs. Any problematic permanent is gone with this handy little spell, just be careful that your troublesome permanent is not a Chalice of the Void with one counter on it (though you should be able to get around a Chalice for one easily). Speaking of Chalice, we have one in our deck, since we can cast all of out 0-drop artifacts, then prevent our opponent from ever doing the same. We also do not have to worry all that much about drawing more of our own later, as Paradoxical Outcome will put our Chalice back into our hand and let us play it once we have cast all the new Moxen. Our las artifact is a Defense Grid, which allows us to go off without worrying whether or not our opponent is going to Force our Demonic Tutor for Tendrils.
For the mana base, we are running three different blue fetchlands in Scalding Tarn, Flooded Strand, and Polluted Delta to play around Pithing Needle or Sorcerer's Spyglass. These get our 2 Underground Sea, single Volcanic Island, or 1 Basic Island. As with the Esper's Paradox, we are playing Library of Alexandria and Tolarian Academy for frequent card advantage and ridiculous mana production.
Our sideboard shares about half in common with Espers Paradox because we are trying to win a bit quicker and have different things to worry about. The Flusterstorm, Grafdiggers Cage, Hurkyls Recall, and Island are all here for the same reasons as before. We have additional copies of Chain of Vapor and Defense Grid for the same reasons they are in the main deck. Empty the Warrens functions as an alternative win condition in case the others fall through. A single copy of Mindbreak Trap is there to help against opposing Storm decks if they get to combo off first.
One deck left to go, full on black based storm, built to be as explosive as possible. Check the deck tech out here: Storm's Bargain
Or check out Espers Paradox if you havnt yet: Esper's Paradox
