An attempt to create a storm-like combo within standard. The goal of this deck is to play lots of mana rocks then generate mana with Paradox Engine, following with life gain from Aetherflux resevior to burst your opponent for the win.
During the early game, a turn 1 Pyramid of the Pantheon is a powerful start. The faster you build up the brick counters on those pyramid the faster and easier it is to combo off. Usually if on turn 2 you have a pyramid and are able to play a Prophetic Prism, don't. The reason for this is that by playing the artifact on turn two it slows your progress of building up brick counters by one turn, which can be the difference between winning and losing. Especially if your opponent is playing a midrange or aggro deck, the artifact will only harm you and it is better off to develop your brick counter than draw a card.
On the contrary, if you are able to play Glint-Nest Crane on turn 2, do so. Against decks with creatures, the 3 toughness can block varieties of creatures and survive, buying you more time to assemble your combo piece. The crane also helps you go through your deck, finding the artifact you require. Hitting a Powerstone Shard or Cultivator's Caravan can grant you a solid mana rock to play the next turn. On the turn after, if you are able to play Paradox Engine, do so, otherwise if you can play Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, she can greatly help you draw a lot more cards while comboing off, greatly reducing the chance of your fizzling during the combo.
During the mid-game, you will have to get your Paradox Engine running as quickly as possible. As the more you wait, your opponent will be able to overwhelm you with creatures; countermagic with control decks. Ideally you would want to have at least pyramid and one of the 3 mana rocks on board, or two of Powerstone Shard on board. Note that the Powerstone Shard does not provide color mana so you will have to find Cultivator's Caravan to generate color mana for future spells or Prophetic Prism to start filtering your colorless mana into colored ones.
After you have your board set up with Paradox Engine and other mana rocks, it is time to start drawing cards to find your win condition, Aetherflux Reservior. You have draw spells like Pull from Tomorrow and Glimmer of Genius to go through your deck quickly. Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain is best played before you start comboing off to help with card draw. While Quicksmith Spy is best played on Paradox Engine and Prophetic Prism. Most of the time you would want to fetch Aetherflux Reservior with Whir of Invention to have a soft-defense against countermagic. If they do counter it, in a control matchup, you can find another Whir of Invention and fetch the artifact. However, if you have your Aetherflux Reservior in hand and your opponent is playing a control deck and they have mana open. One of the ways to try to get pass their countermagic is to cast Whir of Invention for four. This will [sometimes] cause them to use their countermagic on the spell to "prevent" you from getting the artifact due to the spell's ability to put the artifact right into play without the need to cast it. If they take the bait and they are low on mana, you can more safely cast your artifact needed to finish the game. If they don't, chances are they do not have countermagic in their hand. If they do counter your hard cast artifact, you can still fetch one from your sideboard with Mastermind's Acquisition. Although this card choice can be adjust to your local meta depending on how control heavy it is. After you have got the engine going (get it?), you can simply cast more spells, generating more mana with the mana rocks and the Paradox Engine and win with your life, literally.
Lastly, sideboards. Control decks will usually take out their creature removal due to how low the creature count in this deck is, so bring in some Regal Caracal and your countermagic like Negate and Spell Pierce, Duress can also help in getting rid of countermagic. Against Approach of the Second Sun, bring in Duress to discard it out and Negate to fight their spells and possible countermagic. Against creature heavy decks, bring in Authority of the Consuls and possibly a Regal Caracal. The enchantment will slow them down and the cats can provide as blockers and life gain. Possible cards to board out are Paradox Engine, Prophetic Prism, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, Pull from Tomorrow, and one of two of either Pyramid of the Pantheon or Cultivator's Caravan.
That's about covers it up. Some of you might have seen this deck do its job back when BFZ and SOI was still in standard. But the rotation of Hedron Archive almost completely killed the deck's playability due to the lack of good mana rocks. Now with the upcoming Powerstone Shard, the deck might once again rise back up from the dead. Any suggestions and comments on the deck is greatly appreciated.
