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Welcome to another edition of Boosh’s Deckbox of Tricks. Before we go any further, I want to reiterate that I am a Johnny, and prescribe to a combo-tastic approach to Magic the Gathering. I haven’t gotten an article done in over half a month, and I’m sorry for the hiatus. I can’t wait to share with you another column filled with decks and synergy, but first, allow me a few moments of your time to talk about a few things I feel are lingering in the aethers:

The major reason for my hiatus is because I was off judging the Custom Card Contest from the forums.  I won third in the month of June, and as such, I was one of the judge’s for July’s contest. I will say we had a massive turnout this month, which more or less came back to bite me on the rump. I love that so many participated, but it did make my job harder. It was a great feeling winning third the previous month, but I had no idea it would entail so much work! Twenty-six entries in all, each one fun to dissect, grade/judge, and discuss. However, it took me away from my main joy, which is writing articles for PureMTGO, but now I’m back, and hopefully you’ll see a bit more regularity in my article submissions.

In my last article, I discussed my love of flickering, and I missed an important archetype, Astral Slide. In my most humble opinion, Astral Slide has been done to death, and a pal of mine, Hyjinxthemule, has been creating them since Astral Slide was printed in paper. That doesn’t excuse me from at least mentioning it in my analysis of flickering, and I absolutely hate it when I miss out on an important piece of research. It doesn’t sit right with me.  Winter.Wolf pointed this fact out to me in my last column’s comments, and I thank him for it. I also found yet another card I missed out on talking about since my last article and this one, and I’d like to discuss it now.

I played a couple of the nix pax twelve-ticket ME1,ME2,ME3 drafts that happened for that brief week on MTGO. I was hoping, honestly, to score some Duals—but that wasn’t in the cards for me. However, one card I did wind up snagging in one of my drafts was Tawnos’s Coffin.

Now, if you click that card-link, and read what MTGOtrader’s has as the Coffin’s text, it reads this:

Target creature phases out. It can't phase in as long as Tawnos's Coffin remains tapped. When Tawnos's Coffin leaves play or becomes untapped, the creature phases in tapped. – this is the old wording for this card.

If you read the card’s wording now, it says:

Exile target creature and all Auras attached to it. Note the number and kind of counters that were on that creature. When Tawnos’s Coffin leaves the battlefield or becomes untapped, return the exiled card to the battlefield under its owner’s control tapped with the noted number and kind of counters on it, and if you did, return the exiled Aura cards to the battlefield under their owner’s control attached to that permanent.

Besides being a mouthful, and overly complicated, this essentially turns Tawnos’s Coffin into a flicker-artifact. It may not make most flicker deck’s maindeck build, but it certainly will be another flicker-card to add to a 100-card singleton or prismatic flicker deck, and warrants mentioning as well..

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Now that I’m done revisiting my last article, let’s get moving forward on this article. Today’s article showcases another card that is both near and dear to me personally, and is, in general, a johnny’s dream-card: Paradox Haze.

Paradox Haze was created by Wizards to be exploited and abused. I started singing its praises in my Stuffy Doll article, using a combo of Stuffy Doll, Paradox Haze, and upkeep related creature burn. I love the card's design concept. I love that it was created in “the future;” and is an enchant-player.

If you do a search for upkeep related effects/abilities, even barring echo effects (which do the opposite of helping exploit Paradox Haze), there really are far too many choices to chronicle in one article. Instead I’ll present you with a number of decks that completely abuse Paradox Haze and then go into detail about card choices/combos.

There are some particulars to talk about though.

First, these decks are going to seriously lengthen your turn. If you are a particularly slow player, or your opponent in impatient, this leads to an equation where often times your opponent will concede. Hopefully this can be overcome by testing this deck on your friends, getting the hang of it, and being on top of timely turns while you play a Haze deck.

Haze can enchant you, or your opponent. I personally like enchanting myself more, and in my research, it seems that making Haze decks that enchant you are a little easier than finding ways to make your opponent’s multiple upkeeps detrimental to them. I do have a deck that does just that, presented last, but I find it a lot more fun to enchant myself, so the bulk of these decks are built that way.

Paradox Haze is blue; much like flickering requires part of your deck to be white—every deck here requires blue. As such, you’re going to see a few repeat blue cards showing up from deck to deck. This can’t be helped. Honden of Seeing Winds for example, could go in every single Paradox Haze deck I’ll/I've ever build, and you won’t see me complain about it.

 

I might be mixing movie references, but it’s my article, so deal with it . In any event, these cards are the cards you’ll find most often in my various Paradox Haze decks.

	The 5 Legendary Shrines of the Kamigawa block (pictured as the Usual Suspects above): Each of these do pesky and awesome things for you during your upkeep. The more Shrines you have, the more triggered abilities you get. The more upkeeps you have, the more triggered abilities you get from just one shrine. The more shrines and upkeeps you have... Well you see my point. The various Hondens always find a way into Paradox Haze decks, and with good reason. Copy Enchantment copies your Paradox Haze, supplying you with even more upkeep phases. Paradox Haze goes great with a slew of other "upkeep matters" enchantments; often-times you can copy those as well. This card is a staple in any 'Haze deck.
	Drift of Phantasms is the perfect companion to any Paradox Haze deck. You can Transmute it to find your Haze, or a Copy Enchantment or any other 3-mana card in your deck (such as Jhoira of the Ghitu). If you need flying defense, it's also not such a bad chump blocker. Lost Auramancers really shines in a deck where the Haze targets you. If you have two upkeeps a turn, these guys die quicker and provide Enchantment-searching faster. You can then use them to snag another Paradox Haze or any of the other Enchantments in your deck. I think these fellas are underrated as is, but in a Haze deck, they really become a very budget, very effective Enlightened Tutor... but they plop the card right onto the battlefield!
	Followed Footsteps goes particularly well with numerous upkeeps, and since all Paradox Haze decks have blue in their manabase, this card shows up a lot. Who doesn't love breaking the four-of rule for creatures? I certainly love watching multiple couples of Mulldrifter tokens drop onto the battlefield during each of my upkeeps. Aeon Chronicler is a pretty nifty card in its own right, but using him alongside a Paradox Haze nets you more cards, sooner. Since he's very budget-friendly, and all-blue, he's a great fit in a lot of these decks. If you have the money, though, you might replace him with Ancestral Vision. He is a creature, though, and he can become rather beefy with all the card-draw in these decks.
	Jhoira is a tricksy minx when it comes to giving yourself multiple upkeeps. First off, she can combo with Aeon Chronicler to net you 4 cards for 2 mana, superseding the X3 Suspend cost. She can suspend a massive spell, like Time Stretch, and avoid a huge CMC. She combos really well in a Haze deck, so if red is in your deck, you may want to include her. Doubling Season may seem like an odd choice to consider a staple alongside Paradox Haze, in a Haze deck. As you will see as you read on, a lot of upkeep effects produce tokens or counters, and giving yourself a lot of upkeeps give you that many more tokens or counters; so, of course, throwing in a Doubling Season or two really helps you produce a ton of tokens/counters.

Now that we’ve established some of the cards that you’re going to see over and over, let’s go over some decks. I have 12 decks to present to you, dear readers, all classic/legacy (I just like the bigger cardpool) that abuse Paradox Haze as much as possible.

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The first deck idea to spring to mind focused heavily on the synergy found within the Time Spiral block that spawned Paradox Haze. Of course, I’m talking about Suspend, and Vanishing.

This deck takes full advantage of your extra upkeeps with four separate stratagems, The first is by making sure your suspended cards’ time counters are removed even faster. The second part of this deck’s appeal is making a veritable army of Chronozoa copies/tokens, by removing numerous Vanishing counters during your extra upkeeps, and then employing haste-granting (Anger + Fervor) to make sure your army of flying 3/3s can always attack.  The third part of this deck is using all of your extra upkeeps to  exploit and repeatedly cast Arc Blade and Reality Strobe. The final bit of combo fun in this deck is Jhoira of the Ghitu using her ability to Suspend Aeon Chronicler or one of the 4 huge CMC creatures in the deck (Darksteel and his Legendary Eldrazi buddies).

Drift of Phantasms can be transmuted to search up a Copy Enchantment, Paradox Haze, Jhoira of the Ghitu or the lone Fervor (to make your Chronozoa army viable). The gargadon and kraken can be suspended for cheaper with Jhoira as well, and hopefully one of the synergies comes together and your smash your opponent’s face, or burn him slowly to death with Arc Blade.

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After penning the previous Blue/Red deck, I got to thinking about another Blue/Red deck that can exploit Paradox Haze, and is an overall fun way to play the game. Have you guessed yet?

Coin flipping is a small little continent of magic building, that sometimes works out to hilarious and game-winning results. With Chance Encounter, Goblin Bomb, and Karplusan Minotaur your upkeeps become very valuable and can help generate enough extra coin-flips to help you win the game. No coin-flip deck is complete without a playset of Krark’s Thumb, and Mirror Gallery is too perfect to not include alongside the Thumb. Having out Multiple Thumbs ensures a lot more coin-cheatery, hopefully winning you the day with extra damage from the Minotaur or straight-up winning faster with the Encounter. Since Mirror Gallery is in our deck-build, I threw in two copies each of our blue and red Hondens—it would be awesome to have out two Honden of Infinite Rages at the same time. Drift of Phantasms searches up the normal combo pieces, or searches up a Stitch in Time, Squee’s Revenge, or Fiery Gambit. Use the potential of a ton of upkeeps and thumbs to coinflip your way to victory.

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The next deck I thought of seems a little convoluted, but it gives you a ton of free mana during your upkeep... you just have to find ways to use it.

In this tri-color build, the main goal is to win with Helix Pinnacle. Thran Turbine, Braid of Fire, and the various green creatures that give you free upkeep mana can be used to pay the X activation of Helix Pinnacle. Comet Storm, Whetwheel, and Oracle of Nectars can be activated during your upkeep as well, and you can use any mana floating around to pump into Gemstone Array to be used during any phase of any turn. If you have multiples of three mana, you can put more counters on your Feral Hydra. Braid of Fire can combo with Magmatic Core to wipe out all of your opponents' creatures, and you can also use it to fire off damage at your Stuffy Doll. Awakening Zone can be exploited to gain excess Spawn tokens that can be sac'ed for mana, to be used in Helix Pinnacle. Since so many of the cards in this deck have "X" in the casting or suspend cost, I threw in a Rosheen Meanderer for good measure. Hopefully you can stave off death with spawn tokens and hydras while you rack up the counters on your pinnacle.

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Saprolings are awesome. I have loved the little squishy green-mana-infused planty chest-burster-esque 1/1s since Fallen Empires. I have always had a Saproling Deck among my choices for decks to play, and playing online has afforded me the luxury of being able to make numerous different saproling builds. Fungi make Saprolings; Fungi get Spore Counters during your upkeep. More upkeeps = more counters = more saprolings. Paradox Haze, do your stuff.

Doubling Season shows its prowess here, as it doubles all your spore counters, tokens, and quest counters. Hopefully you have out a Thelon of Havenwood, a bunch of fungi, a bunch of saprolings, and Nemata, Grove Guardian, with the Overwhelming Stampede in your hand. You can sac a bunch of saprolings to Nemata, and attack with your big beefy ‘Stampeded saprolings and your Thelon-beefed-up ‘Stampeded fungi. Sac Saprolings for lifegain and Fecundity card-draw. Multiple upkeeps means more spore counters on your Spore Flower hopefully enabling you to Fog more often. Drift of Phantasms acts as your flying defense, or as your tutors for your various combo pieces such as Fecundity or Filigree Fracture and so on.

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From the above blue and green deck—a tribal deck even though the tribe is all tokens, my magic-logic progression lead me to another tribe, and another blue-green deck. Before I can introduce you to that deck, however, I have to introduce you to another alter ego; another Magic Persona, friend of the Flickerer, The Deadly Duplicator.

INTRODUCING: The Deadly Duplicator The Deadly Duplicator is a specific type of Johnny. He prefers to find ways to copy/doppelgang/duplicate permanents already on the battlefield, usually creatures. He prefers to have more than four of one card in a deck, even if that involves using duplication trickery. Just like the Flickerer, who has a specific set of tricks, the Deadly Duplicator has tricks in his utility belt that help elaborate on the his particular modis operendi, including, but not limited to: Followed Footsteps, Spawnwrithe, Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Splinter Twin, Spitting Image, Soul Foundry, Rite of Replication, Chronozoa, Sprouting Phytohydra, Dance of Many and Clone.

So, now that you’ve all met, The Deadly Duplicator is going to take over the next two decks.

Duplicating becomes key in this treefolk build. If you can stick a Followed Footsteps on an Orchard Warden, you can gain exponential life, as each new Orchard Warden token coming onto the 'field triggers all the other Orchard Warden tokens already there. After a few turns your life with climb into the hundreds. If you enchant a Dauntless Dourbark, each one will be bigger than the last. The Leaf-Crowned Elders can help you gain a lot more free shamans/treefolk during your extra upkeeps. The Timber Protectors are also fun to enchant with the Footsteps, and will help all of your treefolk climb in power. Cast the stampede to trample over your opponent for the win, or Rite of Replication your Dauntless Dourbark for a ton of trample-Dourbarks. Gravity Well is in there to help stave off death by flying. With so much Duplication, the Deadly Duplicator is pleased!

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The Deadly Duplicator’s next dastardly deck focuses on Mirror-Sigil Sergeant, and its ability to self-duplicate. Mirror-Sigil Sergeant is made to go hand in hand with (Pardox Haze) and Followed Footsteps. With Angelic Chorus and Soul Wardens, All the copies of the sergeant gain you life when they pop onto the battlefield. The Honden of Cleansing Fire and Heroes Remembered help your Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, and Felidar Sovereign go off, either winning you the game or making your creatures extremely hard to kill. The Lotus Blossoms gain extra verse counters thanks to the Paradox Hazes, which in turn help you cast your big spells (like the various white angels). Riftmarked Knight pops out an extra token, which can be doubled alongside all the other tokens thanks to Rhys. Honden of Seeing Winds & Walking Archive help you draw into your Mirror-Sigils, and before you know it, you have a ton of Rhino soldiers, Spirits, and extra life.

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Now that the Deadly Duplicator has had his say, we’ll move on to another deck, one that exploits Charge Counters.

This deck is built to exploit charge counters, by using Energy Chamber and Paradox Haze to slap a lot of extra counters on permanents you control. Gilder Bairn and Coretapper alongside Seedborn Muse (for extra untaps) pop even more charge counters on your various artifacts. Crystal Quarry can be activated to make sure your Heliophials and your Clearwater Goblet can come into play with the max charge counters, and then you can double them with Gilder Bairn. Curse of Chains can be used to stop-up an opponent’s creature—or it can be used on your Gilder Bairn ensuring you can always activate its untap ability. Darksteel Reactor is the craziest way to win; Clearwater Goblet and Sun Droplet keep your life up; Orochi Hatchery can have its charge-counter-count exploited to produce a ton of snakes; Altar of Shadows can be abused to be able to kill for free each turn (or every turn with Seedborn in play); Arcbound pumps itself; Heliophial can have counters dumped on it for massive damage, and Lightning Coils can pump out a ton of elementals.

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Another card I love is Debtors’ Knell. Luckily for me, this also has an upkeep-trigger, and can be abused with Paradox Haze. Somewhere along the way, Panoptic Mirror weaseled its way into this deck, and using a black and blue manabase, I combined Reamination and Panoptic Mirror shenanigans.

Multi-upkeeps means multi-reanimation with: Myr Servitor’s built in reanimation, and Debtors’ Knell/Hell’s Caretaker. Altar of Dementia lets you sac the servitors or Kokushos, or you can just cast Damnation. You can evoke Mulldrifter and recur it later with a Knell. Panoptic Mirror falls into place alongside Damnation to start out. With your Knells out, you can afford to cast Damnation every upkeep with the mirror and then activate your Knells and grab back a couple creatures, If Kokusho is in the mix you are going to win from his triggered ability, and not by attacking. Panoptic Mirror decks have to have a infino-turn clause, it's an unwritten rule. So, Time Warp has to be plopped in the deck (though you can use a cheap substitute instead, like Temporal Manipulation). Rise From the Grave can be imprinted on your Mirror as well, for even more repeated recursion, and it never hurts to imprint a Ponder on the mirror either. Ponder is a great card, no matter your deck-build, as long as blue’s involved. Rounding out the Panoptic shenanigans is a solo-inclusion of Blood Tithe, so you can keep the Kokusho life-scales unbalancing theme, and also have another way to win with repeated Panoptic Mirror activations (thanks to Paradox Haze). With all the Damnations, you can even use your Knells or Rise from the Grave on your opponent's graveyard, sometimes snagging an awesome creature.

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Jumping off of the last deck’s black/blue build, I employed an Esper manabase to spin the game in order to win by Sanguine Bond.

This deck will take you a while to win, so make sure you get a patient opponent, and you yourself are prepared for a long game. Using the World Quellers and Porphyry Nodes keeps your opponent’s creature base down to minimal, while you slowly assemble your components to Sanguine Bond your opponent to death. Lost Auramancers search up your enchantment components. Subversion and Agent of Masks lower your opponent’s life while your own climbs. Ajani’s Mantra gains you life each upkeep, while whittling away your opponent’s life if Sanguine Bond is out. Etherwrought Page can gain you life, help your opponent lose life, or filter through your deck. If a creature ends up in the graveyard thanks to your Page, then use your Knell to snag it back. Gravestorm nets you more card-draw, or empties your opponent’s graveyard of cards. Debtors’ Knell can also be exploited to snag anything out of a graveyard that's been killed by your quellers or nodes. The Elixir can shuffle back in your graveyard, and trigger the Sanguine for 5 damage; and, finally, having a Heroes Remembered go off while a Sanguine Bond is out is absolutely priceless.

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Multiplying all sorts of counters and tokens! Bringing things back to Doubling Season!

In this red, green, and blue deckbuild, I exploit numerous creatures triggered upkeep abilities to produce counters and tokens.

With a Paradox Haze in play:
- Dragonmaster Outcast pops out more Dragons. Dragon Broodmother pops out more dragons. Master of the Wild Hunt slaps out more wolves.
- Scute Mob gains more counters.
- Honden of Seeing Winds gives you more card draw, which in turn, gives you more counters on Lorescale Coatl. (Honden of Life’s Web) gives you more spirits, which can be devoured by dragon tokens. (Hondend of Infinite Rage) does more damage.

With Doubling Season out:
- More dragon and spirit and wolf tokens.
- More counters on your lorescale, Scutes, Ancients, and Fertilids.

Don’t forget to pop a footsteps on a Mulldrifter for extra card draw, or Soul Foundry a Fertilid for added mana-ramp. Use Elfhame Sanctuary in a weird loophole: If you have extra upkeeps, grab that many land and still only skip just your draw phase. If you have a Seeing Winds, you’ll draw during your upkeeps anyway. Use this to gain enough land for your Scute Mobs and Outcasts. Finally, a fun trick: Having out both Forgotten Ancients and a Doubling Season and Paradox Haze: put all the counters from one ancient onto the other, it doubles the counters. Return them all to the first ancient—it doubles the counters. Do this again during all your upkeeps.

Grab a massive Forgotten Ancient or Lorescale Coatl or Scute Mob, and slap your Whispersilk Cloak on it for death by unblockable beefy creature.

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This is the second to last deck, and the last deck where we enchant ourselves with the Paradox Haze. I saved the nuttiest (pun intended) deck for last. I’ll throw up the deck list, let you scratch your head, and then explain:

Using a little bit of every green creature that produces tokens during your upkeep, I threw black in this deck to add Conspiracy, so you can call “Squirrel”.

Nut Collector pumps everything if everything is a squirrel. Your Coat of Arms does a good job even without all your creatures being squirrels, but if they are squirrels, it pumps them even further. While they are all squirrels, why not cast Followed Footsteps on your Squirrel Mob? Also, since they're squirrels, they can all be regenerated with Swarmyard.

Leaf-Crowned Elder, if squirrelized, can flip over any creature and plop it on the field. Likewise, equipping the elder with the Runed Stalactite (if your Conspiracy is nowhere to be found) will make sure its kinship still puts any creature from your deck onto the battlefield. With all these extra tokens floating around, why not sac a few of them to the Sadistic Hypnotist, Plague Lord, or Doomgape? Then Fecundity can activate, letting you draw into more of your deck.

Awakening Zone produces tons of tokens that can be sac’ed for added mana (and card-draw thanks to Fecundity) to cast your beefy (beefy as in mana cost) Nut Collectors. If all your Nut Collectors are dead, but your Master of the Wild Hunts are going strong, why not cast Conspiracy and call Wolf? Devour all the rest with your Mycoloths and watch your (Squirrel Mobs) grow while everything is a squirrel.

Now that you have huge Mobs and a veritable squirrel army, use your Filth and Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth combo to finish off your opponent.

	+		=  AWESOME

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I present you, the reader, with one more deck. This deck targets your opponent with Paradox Haze. This deck, while still being Johnny through combos, is still pretty Spike in its excessive discard. This deck will not win you any friends.

With this Grixis build, I abuse discard in all its glory. Giving your opponent extra upkeeps means they take extra damage from Sulfuric Vortex. It also means they’ll take more damage (having a small-to-empty hand) from Hellfire Mongrel, Lavaborn Muse, Gibbering Descent, and a flipped Nezumi Shortfang. If they do happen to retain cards in their hand, then Dark Suspicions triggers during your opponent's numerous upkeeps. The creatures-with-triggered-discard-effects, and Blightnings, and Voids produce the extra discard to make sure all the other cards fire off damage during your opponent’s repeated upkeeps. Dimir Cutpurse takes the place of Drift of Phantasms, because you might not want to transmute it if you have Larceny out. Horsemanship, unblockable, and flying are evasion that help you hit your opponent, triggering the Larceny. Wound Reflection rounds the deck out, in order to widen the life gap. Sulfuric Vortex whittles away everyone, so the trick is to whittle your opponent away quicker, while making them discard anything that could save them. PURE EVIL.

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So there you have it. I hope this gives you some insight on how exploitable Paradox Haze can be. I hope this inspires you to go off and create your own upkeep-abusing decks, and lets your inner johnnyness soar out with yet another card to exploit. I had fun making these decks, and even if they aren’t game-winners everytime, they sure are fun to play and watch their various combos work. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what you can create to abuse Paradox Haze.

I thank you, my gracious readers, for your time and look forward to seeing you in MTGO.

Thanks for Reading!

~ Boosh,

(AtomicBoosh on MTGO and the PureMTGO Forums; Leader of The Guild of Calamitous Intent).