This is a combo/storm-ish deck helmed by Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Paradox Engine is the centerpiece of the deck, but while it's very difficult for the deck to function without it, you can still put up a good fight even if it gets exiled. There are number of different win conditions in the deck, most of them involving casting a lot of spells, drawing a lot of cards, and having a lot of artifacts. Aetherflux Reservoir, Firebrand Archer, Reckless Fireweaver, Walking Ballista, The Locust God, and The Antiquities War all deliver pain in large doses to quickly end a 1v1, and eventually win a multiplayer match.
Many of the pieces speak for themselves, but there's a few inclusions and omissions to make note of.
Inclusions:
Blink of an Eye and River's Rebuke are included to deal with disruption that utterly screws the deck. Notably good for bouncing the Kambal, Consul of Allocation player's namesake as well as Gideon's Intervention and O-ring effects that may have temporarily exiled important pieces of yours. Also turns out Rebuke usually reads "delete target player" most of the time.
Spell Swindle is pricy at 5 mana but it's invaluable if you can't manage to storm off in a single turn. Treasure tokens are generally very flexible and can serve as card draw (Treasure Map
, colorless ramp (Inspiring Statuary), beaters (The Antiquities War), colored ramp (Storm the Vault
and just by themselves), or token pumpers (Karn, Scion of Urza).
The Antiquities War helps you dig through ten cards for two artifacts and is a win condition as well. Plus it cantrips with Jhoira, representing a total of three cards (two of which are ones you probably really wanted) for 4 mana. It's just amazing value and I see little reason not to run it in most artifact-heavy decks.
Hope of Ghirapur, while it may appear to just be a simple one mana artifact to cycle with Jhoira, actually has some very important utility in stopping counterspells and other disruption. You know, as long as they don't have fliers. Fingers crossed. Worst case you got a flying blocker and cantripped for a colorless.
Azor's Gateway
is in here to make sure your hand doesn't get flooded with lands, above all else. The flip side of it is just a bonus and is ultimately not quite as valuable as the front side most of the time, and you have a similar effect with Storm the Vault
.
Scavenger Grounds and Silent Gravestone are purely here to hate out The Scarab God, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, and other graveyard shenanigans. Gravestone also doubles as an egg in a pinch. Beware the nonbos with Workshop Assistant though.
Treasure Map
is very slow to get going but provides a lot of value in the end. Treasures become 5/5 creatures with The Antiquities War, can help you improvise, and can be sacrificed to draw when your hand is lands.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance may be a complete nonbo with The Immortal Sun, but in the early game she acts as one of your few removal pieces, a weird draw engine, and provides acceleration. She ultimately provides too much general value to consider cutting in lieu of TIS.
Karn, Scion of Urza, much like Chandra, is also a nonbo with TIS, so just watch out for that. I originally cut him because I didn't find a janky card draw engine that amazing in a deck that cycles as much as it does, but his -2 is very much a win condition in this deck and both of those things in tandem for 4 mana revealed Karn as a better card than I originally gave him credit for.
Exclusions:
Opt is unassuming here but especially in the later game it lets you filter highly undesirable lands to the bottom. Very useful, but can be safely cut in favor of more counterspells and hate cards. In my case I had to squeeze in a few of those.
Scrap Trawler I found to be just a 1/2 that was the first artifact to be destroyed, in order to deny me value from its ability. With that scenario in mind, there aren't any <2CMC artifacts you care to recur that badly, with the exception of Walking Ballista. Workshop Assistant is much more consistent in grabbing Paradox Engine and friends, even if it can only grab one thing.
Powerstone Shard is the most basic of basic mana rocks in Standard right now, and while this deck loves rocks more than any other, it just doesn't make the cut compared to the other seven or eight-ish rocks in the deck already. Also have my eye on Hierophant's Chalice in the future...
Neheb, the Eternal I've seen on several storm lists with the justification that he provides tons of mana once you bop someone with Aetherflux Reservoir or a bunch of 5/5s. I never found myself needing that mana more than card filtration, however. Ultimately I just decided that Azor's Gateway
and Storm the Vault
, along with the standard Paradox Engine and a pile of rocks, were better than him. He just never really did anything for me.
Admiral's Order and Spell Pierce are fine options if you find yourself getting hated on a lot, but note that they can't be cycled via Jhoira and are usually as useful as lands are when you're in the middle of storming off (which is to say, not at all). My meta doesn't necessitate the inclusion of these, but YMMV. Personally I'll consider swapping these in and out with the mainboarded graveyard hate if/when my meta changes.
4/28/2018: + Artificer's Assistant, - Silent Gravestone. The birb is pretty good (probably better than Opt), and Gravestone wasn't doing much in my meta at the moment.
5/1/2018: + Blink of an Eye, - Expel from Orazca. Being able to draw one yourself and keep the train chugging is better than skipping one of your opponents' next draw.
*f-pre*
Flip
*f-pre*