Combo deck building around Paradox Engine, Aetherflux Reservoir and card draw spells.
This is my take on this fringe combo deck, which has been around in a few different incarnations since Kaladesh was released, but it has really been solidified with cards from Aether Revolt.
This deck primarily wins by gaining life with Aetherflux Reservoir in play, and one-shotting your opponent to win. Unlike previous versions, it most often wins on a single turn rather than building life continuously throughout the game. In this way it has the feel of a classic combo deck: it's strategic and intense to play, and hard to disrupt. Your opponent only has a small window to beat down before you can very likely win on any subsequent turn.
During Kaladesh I prefered playing cheap creatures (such as Jaddi Offshoot), in a blue-green version of the deck, rather than the junky 0 cost cards, and I found that to have a better winrate, as well as being more enjoyable aesthetically.
With Aether Revolt, we get excellent card draw from Reverse Engineer (2 mana draw three on turn 3), card tutoring Whir of Invention and the second part of the paradox engine, appropriately titled.. Paradox Engine.. (does what it says on the tin).
Pros
- very consistent for a standard combo deck
- wins on T7/8 despite hand disruption, artifact destruction, counterspells etc
- strategic and fun!
Cons
- probably too slow against fliers
STRATEGY
This deck has two main win conditions, and one backup plan:
Taking them in order of likelihood:
1. Pay 50 life with Aetherflux Reservoir and kill your opponent.
This is the only aim in mind when you shuffle up and draw your starting hand.
How to get there? This is what makes the deck fun to play, as each game is a puzzle (appropriate given how many Puzzleknots there are) which requires putting the right pieces in play in the right order in order to set up a winning turn. You can win as early as turn 5, but you'll most often be crafting a win on turn 7 or 8.
The key pieces you want to get down early are:
If you have no card draw, and no cheap artifacts, the hand is a bust, draw 6!
You should first make use of any card draw artifacts, playing mana artifacts on curve if possible, and then use card draw spells such as Paradoxical Outcome or Reverse Engineer. It's sometimes necessary to cast Whir of Invention and put Caravan or Statuary into play if you can't play one of them on curve. Your servos power your Improvise spells, so only trade them off as blockers for substantial amounts of damage (most often, you don't block).
With some or all of these in place, you have inevitability, you can try and win on any turn, or pass turns to accumulate more mana artifacts/card draw spells. Bear in mind how your opponent is trying to win.
On your winning turn, you will have Paradox Engine in play (though you can win without it if you have a lot of mana), and maybe Aetherflux Reservoir too, if you're lucky! You want to have a few card draw artifacts in play, at least one mana artifact (ideally two), and a card draw spell in hand. You're set up to draw these components and usually are only missing one of them after the opening turns. Most often, it will be turn 7 or 8, and you'll start the turn with Paradox Engine, and go fishing for Reservoir.
The key thing to bear in mind is that on this 'winning turn' you will be looking to be untapping your mana artifacts in order to play card-draw spells for free, and often you will go up a mana each time. Make sure to always tap your artifacts, and always use colourless mana from your pool first.
The best thing about this deck is that it can win out of nowhere when it seems implausible (low mana, no Reservoir, being beaten down, etc). You just draw cards, play the pieces you need, bounce your card draw artifacts or servo makers with Paradoxical Outcome, and keep going. If you bust out, you'll either have a full grip and you'll win the next turn, or you'll be at 20-something life with a lot of blockers in play. There's little penalty to 'going for it', which makes it a fun adventure.
2. Crush opponent with card advantage, go wide with servos or constructs.
This is a very real side-effect of playing so much card draw and having the ability to recur the servo generation cards nearly endlessly in many mid-game scenarios. You can start a turn with 2 servos in play and end up with a board of 8 of them, plus maybe some constructs from Metallurgic Summonings, which you can essentially flunge in with every turn until you win, or delay the game endlessly if your opponent only has ground creatures.
3. Win with Mechanized Production.
This is the backup plan, it's very situational but it can cause problems for your opponent in specific games. With card draw and tutor effects you can choose it when you need it. If you can get this down on turn 4 you can sit back on it, creating servos to block with or card draw from Prophetic Prism, or even extra mana with Cultivator's Caravan. If your opponent targets it with removal that's great because it clears the way for the main win conditions. This is a fun way to win but it's mostly there as redundancy.
