Standard Eggs (Standard)

Paradox Engine is the most important card in our deck. It's pretty much impossible to win the game without having a copy on the battlefield, but once we have one, we are extremely likely to win the very next turn from just about any board position. The basic idea of the deck is that we use the "untap all your stuff" ability on Paradox Engine to repeatedly untap mana rocks like Hedron Archive and Cultivator's Caravan, which makes enough mana that we can draw (and play) our entire deck until we eventually kill our opponent.

Whir of Invention is also extremely important because it works as copies five through eight of Paradox Engine. Since our deck is overflowing with cheap artifacts, we can typically use improvise to tutor out a Paradox Engine as early as Turn 5. Plus, there are a couple of huge upsides to Whir of Invention. First, since it is an instant, it's much easier to slip it through our opponent's defenses, casting it in response to a Glimmer of Genius or at the end of our opponent's turn. Second, Whir of Invention isn't a colorless spell, so it gives us a Paradox Engine that isn't countered by Ceremonious Rejection. Once we have a Paradox Engine on the battlefield, we can use Whir of Invention to tutor out anything, from some card draw, to a mana rock, to our finisher.

To go infinite with Paradox Engine, we need at least two mana rocks on the battlefield, and the more we have, the more mana we make. Hedron Archive is great because it taps for two mana, while Cultivator's Caravan is essential because it makes blue mana, and while we have a lot of colorless cards, some of our card draw and Whir of Invention are very blue-mana intensive. When it comes right down to it, the basic idea of the deck is that, with a combination of Paradox Engine and mana rocks, we can make it so our spells are either free or turn into rituals where they are actually generating extra mana, which leaves us with a bunch of mana floating and the ability to cast anything in our deck!

Cogworker's Puzzleknot and Metalspinner's Puzzleknot work pretty much like Prophetic Prisms as cards that add a bunch of additional mana while we are comboing off with Paradox Engine. While Prophetic Prism has the upside of fixing our mana, both Cogworker's Puzzleknot and Metalspinner's Puzzleknot have upsides as well. Metalspinner's Puzzleknot helps make sure we don't fizzle because we can sacrifice it from the battlefield to draw another card, while Cogworker's Puzzleknot helps power up our improvise cards by adding two artifacts to the battlefield.

Reverse Engineer is an absurd card in our deck, since we can tap all of our random artifacts—thanks to improvise—to cast it for only two real mana, and then, all of our artifacts will untap anyway thanks to Paradox Engine. Drawing three cards for two mana is huge, and it helps make sure that we won't fizzle when we are comboing off. Meanwhile, Glimmer of Genius gives us some backup card draw and can help pressure our opponent at the end of their turn—if they spend their counter to stop our Glimmer of Genius, we are free to resolve a Paradox Engine after we untap.

As we are comboing off, making tons of mana, and drawing through our deck, we'll eventually draw into our one copy of Quicksmith Spy, and then fizzling becomes almost impossible, since we can cast it and use its ability, targeting our Paradox Engine; then, whenever we cast a spell we can first tap the Paradox Engine to draw an extra card! At this point, not only does everything we cast generate additional mana by untapping all of our stuff, but they cantrip as well!

To actually kill our opponent, we have a single copy of Aetherflux Reservoir, which we can tutor up with Whir of Invention. Typically, we wait until we've already cast a bunch of spells as we combo off, so all we need to do is cast a few spells and we can 50 our opponent. Just a word of warning: if we somehow lose our Aetherflux Reservoir, we're going to have a really hard time winning the game (Quicksmith Spy beatdown isn't a reasonable plan), so be careful. This is why using Whir of Invention is ideal—if it gets countered, we don't really care because we can always draw into another copy or into the Aetherflux Reservoir itself.

And that's pretty much the deck: resolve Paradox Engine (maybe with the help of Whir of Invention), get two or three (or more) mana rocks on the battlefield, draw (and cast) our entire deck, and win the game with Aetherflux Reservoir! In my experience with the deck, we are extremely consistent at winning on Turn 6 and can occasionally win on Turn 5 with our best draws. This means that we are in great shape against midrange and control decks. On the other hand, we can have trouble against fast aggro (especially decks that start with a two-powered one drop and then curve out).