I have been brewing hard with Paradoxical Outcome and I have cut Time Vault based on the Eternal Weekend decks and the results from MTGO. I have not been doing well with the deck in it's current form.

Playing the deck without Time Vault means you must win with Mentor or Tendrils. If you cut the Vault then I usually cut Tinker, which means the bot is out too.

Is this the best way to go? I can see why the bot is a liability. He only wins some of the time when he hits the board. He can be stolen or copied, bounce or plowed.

But Time Vault is much harder to stop. The set up gives you an edge and a hidden out against decks that attack your Paradoxical strategy. It appears to me that players like thepowernine prefer losing the Vault because they prefer a storm kill. IamActuallyLvL1 is playing Time Vault but his list is not breaking through like it did before.

What are the pros and cons of running Time Vault? I know it eats up some slots - at least 4 for 2 key, 1 vault, 1 tinker. Maybe 6 if you add bot or Tezzeret the Seeker. But these are all good cards, they just push you to play a different game over a consistent storm kill.

Thoughts?

Cut the Vault, keep the Tinker. Tinkering for Lotus is often a valuable play, and having it lets you run Bot in the sideboard for certain matchups.

@revengeanceful said in Paradoxical Outcome - Time Vault or no Time Vault?:

Cut the Vault, keep the Tinker. Tinkering for Lotus is often a valuable play, and having it lets you run Bot in the sideboard for certain matchups.

So you want to play Tinker with no Time Vault or Blighsteel maindeck? That seems very loose.

@griselbrother Yeah, you're probably right. Lotus and Jar is probably not enough targets.

@moorebrother1 said in Paradoxical Outcome - Time Vault or no Time Vault?:

Playing the deck without Time Vault means you must win with Mentor or Tendrils.

Isn't this the case anyway? Vaultkey isn't a kill, especially on Magic online, where it can be a suicide.

I don't really have strong feelings on whether or not to play Time Vault. However, I do really like playing Voltaic Key. Being able to untap your Mana Vault, ramping by multiple-tapping Sol Ring, Vault, and Crypt are all quite nice. Turning colorless into colored by untapping Mox Opal has saved me multiple times. And if you're going to play Voltaic Key, I think you might as well play Time Vault.

@thecravenone I like your point. If you are playing with Time Vault you do get more benefit from the bot and even a Snapcaster can win you the game at that point. I have stolen many games with a random Vault/Key oops I win.

What's interesting is on MTGO, is that it does not appear to work as well as when I play it on paper. Maybe it's just a perception or a bias.

I have started testing it both ways and I do side out the Vault/Key/Bot against Xerox decks to streamline. The strategy is working.

I am on the fence about this myself. I win a lot of games with Vault, but I have also lost a lot of games due to drawing BSC. Drawing a key isn't the worst because at least it can be mana accel/extra card with Top/PO fodder.

@moorebrother1 I am guessing it depends on the U/x meta. If the meta is leaning more towards RUG-like builds with lots of Dacks then bot is not as good, but if the meta is leaning more towards Jeskai-like builds then Vault seems worse because of Stony Silence. I do not play PO, so this is just me letting you know what makes sense to me, but maybe this could help you?

I would keep Blightsteel in. Blightsteel + Time Walk is almost as much a win condition as Mentor and its easy to hard cast Blightsteel.

Thepowernine's PO storm with no vault key is better versus the best deck online atm UR Xerox.

Tinker version is playable but better versus a different metagame.