Paradox Power precon upgrade guide

One card in four in this box can be cast from outside your hand, and only two of those have an effect that damages a creature.

The Thirteenth Doctor puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, and at your end step he untaps every creature you control that carries a counter. Going through the decklist card by card, 25 of the 98 cards besides the two commanders can feed him. That is the stock deck's argument and it is a sound one. The gap is on the other side of the table.

The nine swaps keep every one of those 25 that earns its place. They add answers that fire the Doctor on the way out, two sources of steady fuel, the payoff the box is missing, and two lands that fix blue. Together they cost $9.94 at the cheapest printings.

What are the best Paradox Power upgrades?

Ranked by what they do for this deck. The cut list pays for the slots, and each price is the lowest one for a printing that's out today, promos included.

1. The Lost and the Damned ($3.54): a 3/3 Spawn every time you cast from outside your hand, and another when a land enters from anywhere but your hand.
2. Outpost Siege ($0.24): on Khans it exiles your top card every upkeep for you to play, which is a cast from exile each turn you can pay for it.
3. Staggershock ($0.17): 2 damage now and 2 more next upkeep, and the second cast is the one that fires the Doctor.
4. Demon Bolt ($0.24): 4 damage to a creature, foretold so the cast that kills it comes from exile.
5. Etali, Primal Storm ($0.46): a 6/6 that exiles the top card of every library when it attacks and casts any of those spells for free.
6. Struggle for Skemfar ($0.14): a counter and a fight in one spell, and a creature that attacks and carries the counter untaps at end of turn.
7. Behold the Multiverse ($0.29): scry 2 and draw 2, foretold so the draw comes out of exile.
8. Spirebluff Canal ($4.59): blue and red, untapped as any of your first three lands.
9. Hinterland Harbor ($0.27): blue and green, untapped whenever you control a Forest or an Island.

Only two of the box's off-hand casts can hurt a creature

The 25 break down like this. Foretell is on four cards (Impending Flux, The Foretold Soldier, Frost Fair Lure Fish, Surge of Brilliance), rebound on two (Quantum Misalignment, Into the Time Vortex), retrace on two (Throes of Chaos, Decaying Time Loop) and flashback on two (Think Twice, Wreck and Rebuild). One card suspends, one jump-starts, one escapes and two are adventures. The last ten hand out exile permissions in other ways: River Song's Diary, Ryan Sinclair, Heaven Sent, The Flux, Return the Past, Confession Dial, The Fugitive Doctor, Me, the Immortal, TARDIS and Bigger on the Inside.

Of all 25, only Impending Flux and The Flux deal damage to a creature. Impending Flux hits every creature an opponent controls for 1 plus the spells you've cast from outside your hand this turn, and The Flux deals 4 to one creature on its first chapter. The rest of the box's answers are the ordinary kind. Beast Within hands the owner a 3/3. Chaos Warp swaps the permanent for the top card of its owner's library, and that card comes in if it's a permanent. Become the Pilot is five mana with two blue pips to steal one creature that isn't a commander. Flaming Tyrannosaurus deals 3 damage to any target on each cast, but it costs seven.

So the deck has plenty of ways to make the Doctor trigger and few ways to clear a path for the creatures he grows. Three of the nine swaps are answers built so that casting them is itself the trigger.

Three answers that arrive from exile

Demon Bolt deals 4 damage to a creature or planeswalker. Foretelling it costs {2} on your turn and the later cast costs {R}, so the total is the same 3 mana as casting it from hand, split across two turns. The cast that kills the creature comes from exile, so the Doctor puts a counter on something while it resolves. A foretold instant can be cast as soon as the next player's turn.

Struggle for Skemfar puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control and then has it fight up to one creature you don't. Foretold it costs {2} then {G}, one mana less than the {3}{G} hard cost. The Doctor's trigger goes on the stack above the spell, so it can put its counter on the same creature first, and the fighter is +2/+2 before a point of damage is dealt. A counter placed on a creature for the first time each turn also draws a card under Danny Pink, and the Doctor's end-step untap picks up any creature that carries one. It needs a creature of yours to be worth anything, and that's the one real restriction.

Staggershock deals 2 damage to any target, then rebounds at your next upkeep for 2 more. The first cast is from hand and does nothing for the Doctor. The second is from exile and does. That is one trigger and two shocks for 3 mana. Behold the Multiverse is the same trick with cards: foretell it for {2} and cast it later for {1}{U}, four mana in total, the same as casting it from hand, with the trigger attached to the draw.

One payoff and two ways to keep it fed

The Doctor's payoff is one counter. The Lost and the Damned pays a 3/3 for the same event, and again whenever a land enters from outside your hand. Five cards already in the box do that second job. Cultivate and Farseek each put a land onto the battlefield from the library. Search for Tomorrow does the same and is itself cast from exile when you suspend it, so a suspended copy is two Spawn and a counter for one green mana. Myriad Landscape puts two basics onto the battlefield when you sacrifice it, which is two more. The second mode of Wreck and Rebuild returns a land from the graveyard to the battlefield. Into the Time Vortex cast from hand is three casts from exile, so it's three 3/3s with this enchantment out.

Outpost Siege is the repeating source the box lacks. On Khans it exiles the top card of your library at each upkeep and lets you play it that turn. Every spell you can pay for is a cast from exile, and a land you exile that way counts as a land entering from outside your hand for The Lost and the Damned. A card you can't use is gone for good, which is the price of the free draw.

Etali, Primal Storm is six mana for a 6/6 whose attack trigger exiles the top card of each player's library and lets you cast any number of those spells for free. At a four-player table that's up to four exiled cards, so up to four casts, each one a counter and a Spawn. The spells resolve before blockers are declared, whatever you don't cast stays exiled for good, and a creature cast this way can't join an attack that has already started.

Blue sits on the line and six lands make no colour

The box runs 36 lands with 11 basics, which is in range, so the question is what the other 25 do. Six make only colourless mana: Desolate Lighthouse, Rogue's Passage, Reliquary Tower, Myriad Landscape, Temple of the False God and Ominous Cemetery. Blue counts 24 sources, and a one-pip blue spell on turn two wants 24, so it sits exactly on the line at 90.1%. Two blue pips by turn four (Osgood, Become the Pilot and Twice Upon a Time ask for them) comes back at 75.3% against the 33 sources that would reach 90%. The counter also scores Carpet of Flowers as a source of every colour, though it makes mana only off an opponent's Islands, so the honest blue count is lower than 24.

Spirebluff Canal and Hinterland Harbor take the slots of Reliquary Tower and Rogue's Passage, and Carpet of Flowers leaves with them. Blue goes to 25 sources, one pip on turn two to 91.2% and two pips by turn four to 77.7%. Colourless-only lands fall from six to four. Spirebluff Canal enters untapped while you control two or fewer other lands, and ten of the deck's lands carry the Forest or Island type that keeps Hinterland Harbor untapped (eight basics and the two Mountain Forest duals).

The seven lands that always enter tapped all stay. Temple of Mystery, Temple of Abandon and Temple of Epiphany scry 1. Frontier Bivouac makes all three colours. Sheltered Thicket cycles, Path of Ancestry makes any colour in the commanders' identity, and Myriad Landscape is ramp and a Spawn engine in one.

The nine cards that leave

• Return the Past: gives all 21 of the deck's instants and sorceries flashback on your turn at their full mana cost, which means paying for them twice. That costs six mana with two red pips before the first recast. Throes of Chaos already recasts for four mana and a land.
• Clara Oswald: six colourless mana to make a Doctor's triggered ability trigger a second time. That doubles the commander's counters, and the commander costs three.
• Twice Upon a Time // Unlikely Meeting: the extra turn needs two Doctors on the battlefield at once, and the tutor half can only find the two Doctors in the 99 (FAQ below).
• Last Night Together: five mana to untap two creatures, give each two counters and add a combat only they can attack in. Cast from hand it does nothing for the Doctor.
• Strax, Sontaran Nurse: his fight costs {2}, a tap and an artifact, and the player is chosen at random from the whole table, which includes you.
• Psychic Paper: two mana plus {2} to equip, to make one creature unblockable and rename it.
• Carpet of Flowers: adds mana equal to the Islands an opponent controls. At a table with no Islands it's a one-mana enchantment that does nothing.
• Reliquary Tower: no maximum hand size on a colourless tap.
• Rogue's Passage: {4} to make a creature unblockable, which Sonic Screwdriver already does for {3}.

Why seven cards at five mana or more stay

Seven of the box's five-drops carry the usual case against a card of that size, and I kept all seven.

• Into the Time Vortex: cascade casts a cheaper spell from exile, the rebound cast at your next upkeep is another cast from exile, and that cast cascades again. That's three triggers for one five-mana spell.
• Quantum Misalignment: a token copy of a creature you control, twice, because it rebounds. The token isn't legendary, which matters in a deck where 18 of 25 creatures are, and the rebound cast is another trigger.
• Fugitive of the Judoon: a 4/4 Alien Rhino, a 1/1 Human with ward 2 and a Clue. Chapter III exiles the Human and an artifact, the Clue will do, to put a Doctor onto the battlefield from the library.
• The Twelfth Doctor: the first cast from outside your hand each turn gets demonstrate, so you copy it and he grows. The opponent who also copies it is the cost.
• The Fugitive Doctor: investigates on arrival, and on attack a sacrificed Clue gives an instant or sorcery in your graveyard flashback for {2}{R}{G}, which is a cast from the graveyard.
• Become the Pilot: the deck's only way to take a creature, and the creature it takes can't be blocked unless it attacks its owner.
• Bigger on the Inside: enchant a land and it taps for two mana of one colour with the next spell having cascade, so every turn you cast a spell, the cascade is a cast from exile.

Two cheaper cards belong with them. Throes of Chaos retraces from the graveyard by discarding a land, and a deck with 36 lands has spare ones. Each recast is a cast from the graveyard plus a cascade, two triggers for four mana. Decaying Time Loop retraces the same way.

What the hundred looks like afterwards

Creatures go from 26 to 25 and legendary ones from 19 to 18. Average mana value falls from 3.44 to 3.37, and cards at five mana or more drop from 17 to 13. Lands stay at 36. Always-tapped lands stay at seven, conditional ones rise from eight to ten, and Beast Within, Chaos Warp and The Flux are joined by Demon Bolt, Staggershock and Struggle for Skemfar. The count of cards that cast from outside your hand rises from 25 to 29 once Return the Past and Twice Upon a Time leave and six adds arrive.

Neither list has a Game Changer, which keeps the deck at Bracket 1, and none of the cards I left out are Game Changers either. The box resolves to at least $97.96 at Scryfall market prices with two copies unpriced, and the upgraded hundred to at least $97.64. The nine adds are $9.94 of that.

Four good cards missed the list. Rift Bolt ($0.20) and Expressive Iteration ($0.28) are the next two in line, and I stopped at nine because every further card needs a cut I can't argue as well as these. Keeper of Secrets ($9.89) deals damage equal to a spell's mana value on every cast from outside your hand, and at that price it's a second copy of what Flaming Tyrannosaurus already does in the box. Mizzix, Replica Rider ($2.92) copies those casts, but a copy isn't cast, so it feeds neither the Doctor nor The Lost and the Damned.

The upgraded decklist

The full hundred after the nine swaps. Hover any name to see the card and its current prices.

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FAQ

Does casting a commander from the command zone trigger The Thirteenth Doctor?

Yes. The command zone isn't your hand, and the Doctor's Paradox ability counts a spell from any zone but your hand. With him on the battlefield, casting Yasmin Khan from the command zone puts a counter on a creature. His own cast doesn't count, because the ability works only from the battlefield. The two commanders are taxed separately, so casting one doesn't add {2} to the other.

What counts as casting a spell from anywhere other than your hand?

Anything cast from exile, the graveyard or the command zone: foretell, suspend, rebound, adventures, retrace, flashback, escape, jump-start, cascade and every effect that says you may cast or play an exiled card. A copy of a spell doesn't count, because it was never cast. Playing a land doesn't count either, so a land exiled by Yasmin Khan or Outpost Siege skips the Doctor but still makes a Spawn under The Lost and the Damned, which watches lands entering from anywhere but your hand. Surge of Brilliance counts itself when it's cast from exile.

What does the upgrade cost, and will the shocklands get cheaper?

The nine adds come to $9.94 at the cheapest released printing of each card, and Spirebluff Canal is $4.59 of that. I left out Breeding Pool ($9.15), Steam Vents ($9.91) and Stomping Ground ($7.04) because all three get Star Trek printings on 13 November 2026, which makes today's price the one most likely to fall. A fastland and a check land do most of the same work for about a quarter of the price.

Does Staggershock still rebound if Into the Time Vortex cascades into it?

No. Rebound works only on a spell cast from your hand. Cascade casts it from exile, so it deals its 2 damage once and goes to the graveyard. The cast still counts as one from outside your hand, so the Doctor and The Lost and the Damned both trigger. Rebound only matters when you cast Staggershock yourself.

Should I foretell Demon Bolt or just cast it?

Foretell it whenever you have 2 mana spare on your own turn. Foretelling costs {2} and the later cast costs {R}, so the total is the same 3 mana as casting it from hand. The difference is that the later cast comes from exile, which fires the Doctor, and a foretold instant can be cast as soon as the next player's turn. Cast it from hand only when something needs to die this turn.

Why cut Twice Upon a Time when it takes an extra turn?

It can be cast only while you control two or more Doctors, and the box has three: The Thirteenth Doctor, The Twelfth Doctor and The Fugitive Doctor. One of them is the commander, so the extra turn asks for two of the three on the battlefield together. The Unlikely Meeting half is a three-mana tutor whose only targets are The Twelfth Doctor and The Fugitive Doctor, which doesn't earn the slot.

Can another Doctor's companion lead instead of Yasmin Khan?

Yes, but it changes the colours you can play. Bill Potts, Dan Lewis, Graham O'Brien, Nardole and Ryan Sinclair are all in the box and all have Doctor's companion. Graham and Nardole add only green and blue, so pairing either with the Doctor leaves the red half of the deck illegal. Bill, Dan and Ryan are red and keep the colours. I kept Yasmin because her tap ability exiles your top card for you to play, which is a cast from exile on any turn the card is a spell you can pay for, with no attack needed.