This was a necessary evolution. I am glad all the discussion will be focused on one list with you leading.

How's Astral Cornucopia working? Seems like you'd either be casting it for 0 to get storm up, or for 3 as a bad rock.

Heya. Nice to see the update. And I'm glad to hear that Baral was tested thoroughly. I tried it and it was marginal, but it is a tempting card. Good to get the verdict on it solidly one way or the other.

Also I have similar feelings about Sylvan Library: it seems really good but paying 8 life twice is too much life, basically. People send their dorks at you and you'd rather be using that life on an Ad Naus or a Necropotence, and it all kinda adds up. I feel like Sylvan Library is frequently basically a one-time draw-2.

I have to say, I'm sad to see Waste Not go. It was a pretty strong engine; I played a lot of games with early Waste Not, then set up a protected Wheel a few turns later. Also got a bunch of draws of someone else's necropotence when they drew ~15 cards then discarded a handful. It always felt like one of the strongest cards in the deck, but one that other people undervalued, or let sit until it became a problem.

Have you reconsidered cutting Gemstone Caverns for another basic?

fatdroid13: The card is suprisingly decent in this deck. We can often produce plenty of mana quickly so paying three for a rock that can tap for any color that can be used that turn cycle is usually worth it. I often play it for 0 early to Transmute Artifact it into something like Mana Crypt or as a way to activate Mox Opal turn 1. I don't usually care about the storm count as we almost always just go infinite. Where the card shines is that it serves as a free Dramatic Reversal after I play engine or as a massive color fixer for 6-9 mana after we have untapped a few times post engine and are drowning in spare colorless mana.

mmcgeach: Hey man good to hear from you! Your experience with Sylvan Library is pretty dead on with mine. I ultimately would rather just run something like lim duls vault that will easily win me the game the turn after I cast it than a draw engine that costs life I would rather spend on better cards.

I am a big fan of Waste Not, but it is too narrow for this particular list and feels bad if I dont have windfall or wheel of fortune handy. It does enable some really early victories, but not as consistently as other enablers available to us. With that being said I could see replacing a big money card like timetwister or inperial seal with waste not if budget is a barrier. It is incredible in my budget list that runs both whispering madness and jace's archivist, and in wheel heavy metas it becomes too good to pass up. Either way if you love it, by all means play it. It does offer some extremely fun and complex lines to victory.

Frank_Glascock: Not really. I know alot of people hate gemstome caverns, but I love its explosiveness. The only reason to go with more basics is nonbasic hate and that is a meta decision. I aim to make meta free decks, but if you feel the need for it, however, please dont hesitate to sub a swamp in as Gemstone Caverns is the right swap.

I see quite a few updates to the list since I was here last and quite frankly, I do not understand them.

Llanowar Elves seems out of place in a 4 color deck primarily splashing R and G. Even at 2 mana, I feel that Bloom Tender would be better at least 90% of the time due to the fact it can actually make more relevant colors. I understand the Notion Thief, but I strongly feel that cutting Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip is a mistake. Also, what purpose does Winds of Change serve without Notion Thief in play? If Leovold, Emissary of Trest wasn't banned and you wanted to build the list more around resource denial to give you more time to set up, I could see it, but I just don't get it. Also, Dark Petition was abhorrent in testing for me. The most comon way that I lose with the deck is by hitting poorly off of an Ad Nauseam, resulting in me drawing too few cards from it and not having enough resources to win. Every single time I ever hit Dark Petition of of an Ad Nauseam or just had it in hand while trying to win, it was an entirely dead card, or directly caused me to lose.

I could definitely be wrong about the changes, and it is possible I have just had bad experiences with some of these cards and are therefore judging them unjustly, but without an explanation, these changes do not feel like the appropriate direction for the deck to evolve.

Decrepit_Angel: Thank you for the excellent questions/observations. Have no fear an updated primer is in the works that will explain these decisions and more.

Llanowar Elves is significantly better than Bloom Tender for a variety of reasons. The biggest is simply that bloom tender is a trap. Its one of those cards that is great in theory, but is often counterproductive in practice. Whenever I play Bloom Tender in any list I feel a strong urge to warp my gameplan around tapping for absurd amounts of mana, which is usually way slower than playing rocks and tutors. The other issues are also important. Turn 1 ramp is fantastic. Turn 2 ramp that cannot be used the turn you play it is bad. Also paradox storm has nowhere near enough colored symbols to support the card. If I were running Kess, leovold, and notion thief (along with several other solid colored permanents) it might be worth it, but 90% of the time it is strictly worse than a turn 1 dork. This deck has no trouble casting a dork on turn 1 and that essentially guarantees a turn 2 wheel or turn 3 ad naus.

Cutting Jace was sort of an accident. I remember now that I did it to see if I miss him and come to find out I forgot I had cut him so I guess he is not an essential card, merely a very good one. Jace can be phenomenal if you play him early enough, and I will likely find room for him, but he is significantly worse than my other 3 recursion spells.

Dark Petition is about 100 times better than Fabricate. At the end of the day I could no longer justify a really slow and limited tutor simply to save 2cc for Ad Naus. Petition is fantastic with necropotence, yawgwin lines, notion thief shenanighans, and dramatic scepter combo. It is only slightly worse for ad naus as it is something I would actually cast post ad naus (unlike fabricate). It also tutors for ad naus (unlike fabricate). So while I am kind of weakening the main phase ad naus, it makes every other aspect of my deck stronger. With creature based decks taking over cEDH (blood pod/hulkweaver/Raz decks) this is not a good time to be a dedicated ad naus deck. We need to be more adaptable. That is the reason for my changes.

With that being said, I hope you don't think I am abandoning main phase ad naus all together. In addition to making Notion Thief a 5 mana win condition, Winds of Change is absolutely one of the best cards to have in hand post ad naus. It allows us to play all net positive spells then draw a fresh 25-30 cards for . So while we occassionally draw less cards off ad naus we have the tech (between this and a number of other tricks I will explain soon) to still get there consistently without having to pass on really good cards at the top of our curve. With that being said, if you want to keep your curve low then do it! Its a hell of a lot of fun to draw 35-40 cards off ad naus after all. The updated primer will explain how to cater paradox storm to any meta and playstyle. I hope I answered your questions sufficiently.

The difference between you and Sigi's list is down to four cards if I counted right. If you had to add three of Baral, Chief of Compliance, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip, Delay, or Sylvan Library which three woild make it and what would be cut?

Was Dan's and Sigi's experience with Tainted Pact the tipping point or did you come to the same conclusion through experience? It seems like a more all in card which fits your style.

Frank_Glascock I like JVP the most by a fair margin. As for pact, its certainly good enough most of the time, but I agree that if I am not using it as an alt wincon it is sometimes too risky to justify. Merchant scroll gets me what I need without risk even if I cannot do it on my endstep. I still think if you aren't greedy it will work out wonderfully more often than not, but its hardly an essential card.

Lilbrudder Thank you for the response and explanations. I have not encountered much in terms of the creature based cEDH decks so those changes make far more sense to me now. I'll try out the new changes and see if I end up agreeing with them after some testing. Also, I forgot to mention, I tried out Copy Artifact because I had one lying around. In the 15 or so times I have seen it, it has been absurdly good. It usually just copies a mana rock, but it does absurd things if you use it to copy an Aetherflux Reservoir if you are trying to storm off the "fair" way by just casting a bunch of spells. And a few days ago, I used it to copy an opponents Chromatic Lantern while there was a Blood Moon in play which actually allowed me to play that game. If you haven't already tried it, I would give it a shot.

Weird, Bloom Tender was basically a game-winner everytime I cast it. Tapping for 4 mana is just so good with paradox engine or thrasios, I can't imagine cutting it. Although, I like it better in the white version where you get more value out of playing Tymna, so having both generals in play is more common.

I love Bloom Tender in sans red, but sans white us a different beast altogether imo.

So here is some hopefully useful data about my experience (25 or so games) with the updated list:

Notion Thief + Winds of Change/any other wheel effect: has been decent but fragile and I rarely ever want to tutor for one of these. Winds of Change in particular has been incredibly bad when I did not have the Notion Thief or if it was not cast post Ad Nauseam to mix up my hand. This is to be expected but I am still not sold on this card. For now, I will continue testing it to see if my opinion changes.

I still think this combo needs some more redundancy in case Notion Thief gets hit by removal or is taken by a Praetor's Grasp effect. If only Leovold, Emissary of Trest wasn't banned. The removal spell problem happens a lot considering this deck does not run a lot of relevant creatures to remove so I have noticed a lot of the time the rest of the table ends up "stockpiling" on creature removal. I can usually Force of Will my way through one or even two, but when there are 4+ removal spells that have been dead against our deck the whole game finally being useful again, it is hard to get this combo to work.

Tormod's Crypt: even with a bunch of graveyard decks floating around my meta, I have been incredibly disappointed by this. Although it is good as a free untap after a Paradox Engine, I would almost always prefer another source of acceleration or at least a card that cycles upon use. Relic of Progenitus is bad because it hits our own graveyard so I recommend Nihil Spellbomb. I feel the 1 extra mana is entirely justified because it can replace itself when it is not needed or to keep you up on resources if it is needed.

Llanowar Elves: I understand why turn 1 acceleration is important, but this card has been terrible for me in testing. Green mana is almost always irrelevant so it might as well just make colorless and mana dorks are mediocre on Paradox Engine lines because they are far more vulnerable to removal and cannot be used the turn I play them. If this was a more dedicated mana dork deck that could abuse Gaea's Cradle, I would like it far more, but I am not a fan. I would at least consider Candelabra of Tawnos as a potential replacement due to how good it is on Paradox Engine lines to just filter away the abyss of colorless mana we make into actually relevant mana. Candelabra of Tawnos can also help you fight through Back to Basics effects which are incredibly good against this deck (and have picked up in popularity since all of the 4 color flash+hulk decks took over).

Dark Petition: I finally actually had some good experience with this card and I do believe it is better than Fabricate. Although the 5cmc hurts on Ad Nauseam lines, the explosiveness of this card on Necropotence/Yawgmoth's Will lines is very good. Not a fan of it for Notion Thief/Wheel of Fortune lines considering the BBB is not particularly relevant but it is at least reasonable.

Decrepit_Angel: Thank you for the feedback. I will be the first one to admit that winds of change is a spice include. I have a love for powerful and cheap cards even if they aren't always useful in every situation (i.e. culling the weak).

As for redundancy of noton thief it does not exist, unless you mean waste not which is ok but different. Since Notion Thief+wheel is like plan C/D and all the wheels but winds are autoincludes for the deck anyways I don't feel the need to have backup to this "wincon."

I have to disagree with your assessment of llanowar elves. It has consistently been good for me but to each their own. If you do decide to cut it that is totally fine as its a flex spot, but candleabra of tawnos is a poor choice imo. Literally Anything that ramps would be better or you could just play more removal (i.e red elemental blast; into the roil)

I am suprised to hear your experience with tormod's crypt. Rarely is there a win condition with more utility than crypt. If you want a card that replaces itself that is fair however. The good news is that there are like 15 cards that work nearly as well or better based on meta.

I am betting that I have quite a bit more stax and control decks in my meta and that is why I am getting such drastically different results for cards that should be better in practice than they are ending up for me. There is a lot of creature and land hate in my meta, hence why Candelabra of Tawnos seems better than a mana dork that is just going to die to a random removal spell before I get to do anything relevant with it. Also, Back to Basics and Winter Orb are annoying and Candelabra of Tawnos is really good against these.

I never meant to say that Tormod's Crypt is bad, just that when playing against multiple control decks, keeping my hand full or resources is far more important than having the spell cost one less. And as for the Notion Thief redundancy statement, it was more of just wishing that it existed than a requirement for the combo to work. If that is your plan C/D, I can understand it.

That is the impression I had as well. Im suprised Null Rod isn't an issue for you as that card is more damaging to our gameplan than land hate.

It definitely is a problem, but a lot of the stax decks in my meta are artifact based decks so they do not run Null Rod/Stony Silence and also have trouble functioning through them. Although these cards are impossible for this deck to win through, they don't tend to stick around too long.

I can confirm that Candelabra of Tawnos is not good in this deck... although if I was sure I was going to play against Back to Basics and Winter Orb, then it gets pretty tempting. Also Winds of Change is not good. :P