GP Louisville has come and gone. I no longer have a major event to prepare for. While it is sad to see the GP in the rearview mirror, it is a bit freeing at the same time. After several months of playing grindy control I am ready for a change. I am sick of playing fair and square. I want to do big, dumb, crazy stuff.

Luckily for all of us, I played against a wonderful deck on MTGO that fits the bill perfectly. The creator of the deck was kind enough to share their decklist with me. They admitted that the deck was a bit rough around the edges, but that did not stop them from [casthaven]Brain Freeze[/casthaven]-ing me out for 99 cards in one of our games.

I liked the deck so much, I decided to polish off some of the rough edges. The end result is a crazy fun deck that makes me think that if [casthaven]High Tide[/casthaven] and MUD had a baby, it would look like this.

It’s a Paradox!!! Lands (24)

3 Ancient Tomb

4 Seat of the Synod

2 City of Traitors

6 Island

4 Mox Opal

3 Chrome Mox

2 Mox Diamond



Creatures (4)

3 Snapcaster Mage

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn



Spells (33)

4 Grim Monolith

4 Basalt Monolith

4 Helm of Awakening

2 Intuition

4 Cunning Wish

3 Paradoxical Outcome

4 Force of Will

3 Thoughtcast

4 Chalice of the Void

1 Power Artifact

Sideboard (15)

4 Defense Grid

2 Flusterstorm

1 Stroke of Genius

1 Surgical Extraction

1 Brain Freeze

1 Paradoxical Outcome

1 Repeal

1 Hurkyl's Recall

1 Pact of Negation

1 Slaughter Pact

1 Wipe Away



The concept is quite simple really.

Step 1: Play a bunch of mana rocks ([casthaven]Grim Monolith[/casthaven], [casthaven]Basalt Monolith[/casthaven], [casthaven]Chrome Mox[/casthaven], ect).

Step 2: Tap the rocks for a bunch of mana, cast [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven], return the rocks to your hand and draw a bunch of cards.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have enough mana and storm count to cast [casthaven]Cunning Wish[/casthaven] to find [casthaven]Brain Freeze[/casthaven] in your sideboard and win the game.

[casthaven]Helm of Awakening[/casthaven] makes your job extra easy by reducing the cost of pretty much every spell in your deck. Having multiples in play means you are casting most spells for next to nothing.

[casthaven]Snapcaster Mage[/casthaven] will help keep the chain going by recasting [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven] from your graveyard. Bouncing [casthaven]Snapcaster Mage[/casthaven] with [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven] to draw a card and reload your flashback enabler is just icing on the cake.

Between the natural copies of [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven] in the main deck, [casthaven]Snapcaster Mage[/casthaven], and grabbing the fourth [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven] in your sideboard with [casthaven]Cunning Wish[/casthaven], the deck has ten ways to start the combo. This means your chances of bricking on the combo and not being able to go off are very low.

[casthaven]Chalice of the Void[/casthaven] is one of the most backbreaking cards in Legacy right now. Chalice is able to shut off aggressive creatures, like [casthaven]Delver of Secrets[/casthaven], as well as many disruption cards like [casthaven]Flusterstorm[/casthaven], [casthaven]Thoughtseize[/casthaven], [casthaven]Spell Pierce[/casthaven], [casthaven]Surgical Extraction[/casthaven] and many more. Any deck able to play a Chalice on one right at the beginning of the game will have an upper hand against the majority of the Legacy metagame. However adding [casthaven]Chalice of the Void[/casthaven] means we need to cut our one mana cantrips like [casthaven]Ponder[/casthaven] and [casthaven]Brainstorm[/casthaven].

[casthaven]Intuition[/casthaven] helps add a little consistency to the deck. When you factor in [casthaven]Snapcaster Mage[/casthaven], even the cards that go to your graveyard will remain available to you. This allows you to find exactly the right cards you need when it comes time to go off. Being able to power out a turn one [casthaven]Intuition[/casthaven] is a very powerful play, that will be sure to put your opponent on the edge of their seat.

Adding [casthaven]Emrakul, the Aeons Torn[/casthaven] to the mix seems a natural choice. The deck can get to 15 mana fairly quickly, even when not comboing off. Being able to recycle your graveyard back into your library is also another benefit of adding the flying spaghetti monster. This deck draws a lot of cards and if you are not careful, you may just lose yourself the game by running out. The main reason to add Emrakul though, is to have an alternate win condition to [casthaven]Brain Freeze[/casthaven]. Sometimes you will play against a deck like Sneak and Show which runs its own big bad Eldrazi to shuffle their graveyards back in. For these situations you need to have a way to win the game when plan A fails.

The Spicy 61st

A big thank you to Aaron Gazzaniga for reminding me of this sweet old school card from Antiquities. Throw [casthaven]Power Artifact[/casthaven] on a [casthaven]Grim Monolith[/casthaven], or [casthaven]Basalt Monolith[/casthaven], and you are able to generate infinite mana. This will ensure that you can do any number of ridiculous things. You can cast Emrakul four or five times by bouncing it with [casthaven]Paradoxical Outcome[/casthaven]. If you need protection you can cast [casthaven]Chalice of the Void[/casthaven] on 1, 2, 3, 4, or any key numbers to shut off any answers your opponent may have. My personal favorite is to use all of that mana to cast [casthaven]Cunning Wish[/casthaven], to find [casthaven]Stroke of Genius[/casthaven] in the sideboard and deck my opponent through card draw.

Hope you all enjoyed this week’s article!

Jerry Mee is a Boston Native who has been playing Magic since Onslaught Block. Primarily a Legacy player, he cohosts the weekly Leaving a Legacy Podcast found on Mtgcast.com. He can be reached on Twitter at @Jmee3rd