Paradoxical Outcome is a deck that powers one of the most powerful decks in Vintage and lately has been dominating Modern as well. Let's see how powerful of a deck we can build with it in Pioneer.
Paradoxical Outcome Decklist (Pioneer)
We need to play a bunch of crappy 0-mana artifacts to support Paradoxical Outcome anyway, but we happen to have access to a massive 16 copies of 0-mana equipment. At worst Sram, Senior Edificer is a 2-mana 2/2 that cantrips and then eats removal, and at best it's a 2-drop that lets you draw most of your deck.
Inspiring Statuary is what makes Paradoxical Outcome work in this format. In Vintage you're bouncing actual Moxen, in Modern you can turn your artifacts into Moxen with Urza, but in Pioneer we need another way to be able to chain copies of our key spell.
We're going with Aetherflux Reservoir as our win condition of choice as it is also an artifact that we can search out with Whir of Invention. All of our free artifacts make it easy to cast Whir for whichever piece we are missing, crucially giving us reliable access to Inspiring Statuary.
Baral's Expertise might be overkill, but it does fit very well with the other cards we're already playing. It's hard to cast without Inspiring Statuary, but if we do have it then it means we can get our Aetherflux Reservoir into play for just two blue mana. It can either bounce three equipment to redraw with Sram and add to the storm count for Reservoir, or it can bounce opposing creatures in a pinch to buy time. If you're casting it the hard way, it could also let you buy a turn while also being able to cast Paradoxical Outcome to dig a few cards deeper.
Sai, Master Thopterist is quite strong in this deck even if it's not needed for our Plan A combo. It's a backup plan to Sram for getting value out of all the cheap artifacts we're casting, and the thopters it creates can be used as chump blockers, improvise artifacts, or slowly sacrificed to dig deep in a grindy game. If we find that having more of this type of effect would be good, we can also consider Saheeli, Sublime Artificer.
Mox Amber is a worthy 1-of inclusion since it can be the difference between being able to fully combo or needing to wait a turn to untap lands. If we are able to get white mana from Sram it is mildly helpful, but it really shines when we have Sai in play. Having access to a real Mox means we can play any number of Paradoxical Outcomes that we draw, letting us draw through our entire deck if needed.
Since we're playing a Whir of Invention deck, we get quite a few options after sideboarding. Metallic Rebuke could simply be worth playing maindeck, but if any of the cheap artifact hate cards are any good in the format, this deck gets a leg up.
Thanks for reading! This deck is super fun to play so we'll be sure to record a video piloting it very soon.
