I'd like to start this post by saying that I'm sorry I don't have any ideas to help the deck being worked on. I don't even understand what you're doing with it right now...
I've been interested in this thread ever sense I found it, and I'm glad to see that it's back. (Even if I am a month late to the return) There was so much madness that it inspired me to try this challenge and the results are something I know how it works, but I don't fully understand... especially the math... By the time I was ready to show off this deck the thread had kind of died down and I didn't want to necro a thread. This has come a long way sense I asked "Is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Heroes' Bane, and Paradox Engine close?" I don't really care if it can compete with the current deck because I view it as a fun personal project. In fact I'd feel kind of weird if an "out of nowhere" deck like mine dethroned the current one. Anyway, I put the deck in a spoiler tab because the description is one of the biggest walls of text I've ever seen. Please check it out.
Even though decks like this one should be the definition of insanity, this one is very understandable, especially compared to the other insane decks that try for the highest non-infinite amount of damage possible. That said, there about a Metric ****-Ton of stuff going on. Because of the card that helped inspire this one and makes it work, I call it The Paradox of Infinity without Infinite.
Cards 1-3
This deck starts with Black Lotus for three Blue Mana to cast Show and Tell to get Omniscience. From there we play any card we want for free. No "in theory only deck" is complete without this combo.
(If you're playing against a troll instead of the 60 Waste Deck this challenge is meant for, he will get a Black Lotus off of Show and Tell.)
Cards 4-6
Now that we can play cards for free, we start with Opalescence, Doubling Season, and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Opalescence makes it so enchantments, like Doubling Season, are creatures which can then be cloned by Kiki-Jiki. We want as many Doubling Seasons as possible, so we start cloning them as soon as possible.
Cards 7-9 Maelstorm Wanderer "Draws" two cards with Cascade, Cascade and we get two cards that give us what we need. The first Cascade hits Paradox Engine which lets us untap our creatures when we cast a spell, including one from the second cascade. Selvala, Explorer Returned (AKA Selvala V1) lets us draw cards because Maelstorm Wanderer gives our creatures haste. Now, use Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season and Selvala V1 to draw. Do that again whenever Paradox Engine untaps them, (but stop using Selvala V1 after when there's 24 cards left in library.)
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V1.
This list will be updated when we add more cards.
Card 10
Selvala V1 has been making Mana and in this deck nothing goes to waste. Aura of Dominion puts it to use. It's a rarely use enchantment that allows you to pay one mana and tap a creature to untap the enchanted creature. In normal MTG, it sucks. In this deck, there are no words good enough for it. Enchant Kiki-Jiki and spare mana can be used to clone Doubling Season. You can see why we played it as soon as possible.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V1 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
Card 11
Selvala V1 makes both players draw a card and we don't want to make our opponent draw so we play Consecrated Sphinx and clone it with Kiki-Jiki once. When we tap Selvala V1, we let 24 Consecrated Sphinx's abilities draw us two cards each plus the one from Selvala V1 totaling 49, the number of cards in the rest of our deck. (Save Selvala V1's Mana for the next card.)
Card 12
The next card is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. (AKA Selvala V2) Selvala V2 makes mana equal to the greatest power among creatures you control at the cost of one Green mana. (By the way, guess what Selvala V1's Draw ability makes.)
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V2 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
Card 13
Selvala V2 is a very nice card because her effectiveness scales with your biggest creature. Hamletback Goliath is, what is for this deck, the biggest possible because it scales with the growth. It gets +1/+1 counters when a creature enters the battlefield which are then multiplied by Doubling Season. (multiply instead of doubled feels like the right word to me when your doubling countless times.)
Cards 14-17 Precursor Golem's synergy with over half the deck makes it a must have. Even though its main use comes much later, we play it now so we can copy an artifact creature with Sculpting Steel. With Sculpting Steel as a creature, it can be sacrificed by Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter and imprinted onto Mimic Vat. (From now on, this will be called Sac-Vatting.) We will need more Mimic Vats so we activate Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat to get two more. The rest of the Sculpting Steels can copy Precursor Golem because that's more useful. After you tap Selvala V2, Sac-Vat her and activate her Mimic Vat to “untap” her.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V2 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
Card 18
You may think the Legend rule is annoying when you have a Mimic Vat with a Legend, but we can just get rid of that rule with Mirror Gallory. At this point, the deck starts getting stupid because not only can you have duplicate Selvala V2s, but you can now have multiple Paradox Engines. That's the main use for Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
If five steps is intimidating, remember that three of them are step two and step one is half of step two, and step five doesn't happen often.
Card 19
Cathars' Crusade gives a small (relatively speaking) boost to Selvala V2's ability to make mana by making it so when a creature enters the battlefield it gets "one" +1/+1 counter which then gets multiplied by Doubling Season. Hamletback Goliath's ability then activates and the counters it gets get multiplied again. For Maximum effect, clone Doubling Season without letting the abilities resolve. There will be more creatures to get counters and more Doubling Seasons to multiply them than if you let the abilities resolve.
Buffing Hamletback Goliath more isn't a good enough reason to run a card. Buffing over half the deck, on the other hand, is. Over half of this deck is spells that care about a creature's power and/or toughness. If you're not understanding why we wouldn't want to just target Hamletback Goliath with those spells, I'd like to remind you that we have Precursor Golem.
Cards 20-26
Even though the cycle is assembled, we still need a little more preparation so that we can do it as much as possible.
Playing these cards is preparation. Eldrazi Monument and Vedalken Orrery let you play Sever Soul as though it's just a life gain instant. Xenograft lets you do the same with Death's Caress if you pick Human and amplifies Precursor Golem's spell amplification if you pick Golem. You'll need to Sac-Vat Xenograft for both because cloning one will get you more of a version with the same creature. Swarm Intelligence and Boon Reflection replicate and amplify your spells respectively. Play Kheru Spellsnatcher face down. It's easier to explain the use of it and Augur of Bolas later. Because of Boon Reflection, we get to add another conditional step to the Paradox Cycle.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
6: If the next thing that happens makes you gain life, tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Boon Reflection once.
Card 27
We need to activate the Paradox Cycle as many times as possible and we do that with Wydwen, the Biting Gale. Being able to pay one life to unsummon her makes it so we can repetitively summon and unsummon her. (Using all but one of your life Summoning and Unsummoning Wydwen will be called the Wydwen Dance from now on.) Selvala V1 made us gain life when we drew cards with her, so our Life Total is 22. That means we can do the Wydwen Dance 21 times without dying.
Side Note
If you've looked at the list of cards in this deck before reading how to use the deck, you might have been confused about why over half of the deck is life gain spells. By now, you're probably feeling like the effect of those life gain spells is ether hilarious, disturbing, overkill, or all of the above.
Cards 28-59
Before you cast a spell, clone Precursor Golem. Each life gain spell has a single target, so Precursor Golem will copy that spell for each other Golem you control. Swarm Intelligence also copies instants sorceries, even if they don't target a Golem, but only once.
When using the life gain spells, start with targeting your weakest creature with it and ordering the stack so that Swarm Intelligence's ability resolves before Precursor Golem's, so that when Precursor Golem's resolves there's more targets. Needless to say, you want to target the Hamletback Goliath with Swarm Intelligence's copies. With Precursor Golem's copies, you want them to order from weakest target to strongest. After a copy of the spell resolves, do the Wydwen Dance. Radiate technically isn't a life gain spell, but you're targeting Predator's Rapport with it, so it's close enough. For Radiate, clone Swarm Intelligence instead of Precursor Golem.
Card 60
Before I get into this part, please let me brag. I found a use for the card everyone agrees is the worst Mythic where it outclasses every other option!
Once you've cast all you life gain spells, clone Swarm Intelligence and use Archangel's Light to shuffle your spells back into your library. After each copy resolves, we do the Wydwen Dance, clone Augur of Bolas to “draw” the deck, then use the life gain spells the way we did before.
When we're down to just the original Archangel's Light on the stack, we pay the morph cost of Kheru Spellsnatcher to turn it face up it and counter then recast Archangel's Light. When the second to last Archangel's Light is about to resolve, sacrifice Kheru Spellsnatcher to so Archangel's Light can shuffle it back into your library. You can redraw it with Selvala V1, (and do the Weyden dance with the life gained) then play it face down again. (Augur of Bolas doesn't “draw” creatures.)
This may sound like an infinite combo, but the reason it isn't is because Selvala V1 Makes both players draw a card and Augur of Bolas can't “draw” creatures. Your opponent's library had 50 cards left when we started abusing Weaver of Lies. (We skipped two used of Selvala by using Maelstorm Wanderer to "draw" two cards and Consecrated Sphinx to "draw" 48 more.) You know you've taken "Everything is a resource" to an extreme when your opponent's deck is a resource in this way.
It may be hard to grasp the insanity when I'm going over the bigger steps without rementioning the smaller ones, so here's a recap of the insanity.
For each Kheru Spellsnatcher you copy Archangel's Light.
For each Archangel's Light you cast every life gain spell.
For each life summon and unsummon Wydwen, the Biting Gale
For each Wydwen, the Biting Gale summoning activate each Paradox Engine
For each Paradox Engine trigger do the thing
The Thing
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
6: If the next thing that happens makes you gain life, tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Boon Reflection once.
The Finale
End you main phase and move to combat.
Attack.
Thank you very much for reading. I mean it. One or two line posts take me about ten minutes to be happy with, this one took me four five days!
Edit: Remove Weaver of Lies and replaced Enchanted Evening with Sculpting Steel to remove infinites and replaced cards that only help Selvala V2 for more life gain spells and two other cards. Thanks lijil.
Welcome back, CTNC! I'll look through your deck when I have some time.
Thinking of ways to shorten the "saving progress" section, I thought about using energy counters. Perhaps we can use Whirler Virtuoso to use energy counters to create tokens, then use Mana Echoes to turn that into colorless mana. Can we also use the same Whirler Virtuoso to create the energy counters in the first place? The problem is that, to save our current progress, we would need to cast Whirler Virtuoso after significant progress has been achieved, to get enough Dual Nature copies to matter. But, we need to have a Whirler Virtuoso on the battlefield to restore our progress. So I don't quite see how to make that work.
So, it looks like we need another card to save our progress. We could use a second Whirler Virtuoso to save our progress. (It's a shame this is necessary.) But then, that is a three card replacement for three cards, no improvement. I suppose it does free us from having to use Core Prowler / Calciform Pools; we could switch to say Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest, saving blue for later.
EDIT: In the Worldfire version, we couldn't make mana stages at the end, because we could use Evacuation to bring the original creature back to our hand, while leaving mana intact. In the Worldpurge version, we can't use Worldpurge to substitute for Evacuation, because Worldpurge clears the mana pools. So I believe mana stages are allowable again.
Heya CTNC, nice to see another deck here, thanks for sharing your work
I found two ways to go infinite with your cards.
First, it is possible to create token copies of Weaver of Lies (while it is face up), then redraw the original, play it face down and use its ability to turn some of the tokens face down. Then you can use the ability of those tokens to turn the original face down again. They can keep flipping each other over infinitely, supplying you with face down Kheru Spellsnatcher without ever needing to draw another creature.
Second, it is possible to play Aura of Dominion on Mimic Vat instead of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Specifically on the Mimic Vat that has Selvala, Heart of the Wilds imprinted. Tapping that Mimic Vat then gives a bunch of those Selvalas, which can in turn tap for mana and use the Aura of Dominions ability to untap the Mimic Vat again.
In general I like the structure of your layers after Paradox Engine, but the stuff you do with the Paradox Engines untaps looks like a mess. The relevant parts seem to be getting Selvala V2 tokens, getting Mana, using that mana to untap Kiki-Jiki and creating more Doubling Seasons. All those alternate ways to increase the number of creatures and counters wouldn't even show up in the estimate (even if that wasn't infinite) and in so far as you need to draw Krenko, Mob Boss, you are better off leaving him in the library and drawing Weaver of Lies one more time. Even assuming the draw is free, spending mana on Ooze Flux would be detrimental. The main problem with those cards is that they only increase the output of Selvala V2, but not the number of Doubling Seasons. The latter is what your main progress is dependent on. A single card to tie Selvala's output to the number of doubling seasons would be more efficient, leaving room to increase your numbers at more significant parts of the combo, like those lifegain spells.
I'm also not a fan of using almost 30 copies of the same card, but I guess as long as you don't have a better use for those cards it can't be helped. Just keep in mind to insert multiples as deep in your layer combo as possible.
I hope you don't get discouraged by all that criticism I just heaped on you and keep on building non infinite damage combos
@Deedlit11
Huh, the Worldpurge version is closer than I thought. Although we need to get rid of two infinites before/while we cut cards there.
First, Deconstruct targets artifacts and goes infinite, just like Terashi's Grasp did in the Worldfire version. I don't know if we have an alternative sorcery to create only one specific color?
In regards to cutting cards: We need to make sure Metallurgeon stays required to repeat both of the possible transitions. If a card like Mana Echoes gives us massive amounts of colorless mana to use with I think necessity would go away. Otherwise we could keep using Core Prowler to get energy counters for Whirler Virtuoso, but I don't see a way to turn nondescript tokens into progress that doesn't make Metallurgeon superfluous.
I agree that Worldpurge would allow us to use mana stages. I'm not sure if that benefit is more likely to be achieved by Worldpurge or by Worldfire without Evacuation.
I did remember the previous infinites in the Worldfire version with Terashi's Grasp and Show and Tell, but I am wondering if perhaps the need to save progress keeps those infinites from happening. In order to save progress, we need to cast Time and Tide twice, once to phase out Calciform Pools so that it doesn't get exiled, and another time to phase it back in so that we can make use of its counters. Terashi's Grasp went infinite because bouncing Metallurgeon to recast it and get more Bloodbond March triggers was enough, but that's not enough here. It looks like the same for Show and Tell; we can get an extra green mana by imprinting Show and Tell on Spellweaver Helix, but if we do so we can't cast Deconstruct to get more than that green mana, and we need to spend that green mana on Time and Tide. So, I'm thinking that neither of these actually go infinite.
Now, this does seem to make it harder to replace the current saving progress section, since we need it to be expensive enough to prevent the aforementioned infinities. Yeah, it looks like Mana Echoes goes infinite, and I don't see an obvious way to replace it if we are to use energy counters. Besides creating many tokens, we can also build a large creature with energy tokens, but I don't see a way to turn that into progress either.
Hmmm... we can deal with Show and Tell by adding one more card, but I don't know how to deal with replacing Deconstruct. Some of the alternate sorceries target a creature, which will go infinite. But, a sorcery that doesn't target a creature like Inner Fire will go infinite by putting it below Worldpurge.
Seismic Spike is interesting - it won't do anything if placed below Worldpurge, so that's not an infinite. It doesn't destroy enough lands to repay the Flash of Defiance by itself. But it also doesn't generate enough red mana for a hyperhyperstage. Adding Swarm Intelligence will allow it to generate enough life, so that's no good.
We could always go back to Fungal Sprouting and Utopia Mycon, but that uses up all colors, so we couldn't use the normal stage sequence; the Godtoucher-less version can get 12 stages, but uses a couple more cards. Probably the best possibility is to put in something that really is too expensive for the Deconstruct infinite. The "saving progress" section comes to mind first, but it could be anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that Worldpurge is a not-so-cheap way to bring permanents back to our hand. So we don't necessarily have to use lands to regain life. Stormscape Battlemage seems to be good, and could replace both lands and Titania, Protector of Argoth. However, this does mean that we can't continue with something that destroys lands like Goblin Gardener. Also, we can't have cheap black, so we have to find an alternative to Fungal Sprouting / Utopia Mycon. Still, perhaps this breathes some life back into the Worldpurge deck. I would still like to find some way to save Deconstruct.
EDIT: I guess now that lands are no longer being used, we can make use of Seismic Spike. Put in Dryad Arbor, and we can cast Seismic Spike on Dryad Arbor and all its Dual Nature copies, with the aid of Swarm Intelligence. However, we still need something to put Dryad Arbor onto the battlefield, like Walking Atlas. So we need four cards to generate lots of red mana, and by my count we are three cards behind the Worldfire deck after taking the loss of Show and Tell into account. (But not taking into account a fix for Goblin Gardener yet.)
EDIT: Better yet, we can cast Hunting Wilds to bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield tapped, and then untap it many times with Amulet of Vigor. We can then use Forest and Mox Emerald to cast Channel, then Black Lotus is enough to cast Omniscience. So this saves two cards. But we still need a 12-stage sequence that transitions into life.
EDIT: Well, I haven't yet found a way to complete the deck using Stormscape Battlemage. If we stick with life lands, we can use Rude Awakening to untap a Forest, coupled with Swarm Intelligence. Then, we don't want the Forest coming into play untapped, so we would like to replace Titania, Protector of Argoth with a version that brings lands onto the battlefield tapped. I didn't find such a version though, so I went with Patron of the Moon. This makes things trickier for Goblin Gardener, but we can flaskback an Acorn Harvest to cast Rude Awakening and instead turn lands into creatures, augmented by Swarm Intelligence. We then resolve the Rude Awakening copies one at a time, each time following it by destroying a Goblin Gardener token to bounce Radiant Fountain back to our hand.
Back to three layers behind the Worldfire version, although we can perhaps employ Swarm Intelligence to our advantage somehow. (I don't think it works with Reality Spasm though.)
EDIT: We could replace Forest with Gaea's Cradle to eliminate the need for Swarm Intelligence, but then we wouldn't have enough to start the deck off, and we would need another card. So that change doesn't help currently.
Gaea's Cradle could perhaps be used to restore progress, combined with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack, if we switched the main color from green to red. We would somehow need to obtain an untapped Gaea's Cradle after each hyperhyperstage transition, without allowing an infinite. I haven't figured out a way to make that work yet.
Looking at other ways to save and restore progress, we could use energy counters to pump up Bristling Hydra, and then take advantage of either the +1/+1 counters, or the large power/toughness of the Bristling Hydra. I don't see any use for +1/+1 counters on a random creature other than abilities that are too strong, like Korozda Gorgon or Ion Storm. Workhorse seems like a good use for +1/+1 counters, but it goes infinite with the current hyperstage setup, and also I don't know how to transfer counters without targeting a creature anyway. As for high power/toughness, I don't know - we could convert it to life or lots of creatures, but the former is off limits, and the latter we could get with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack with fewer cards.
Grand Architect seems like a good use for lots of creatures, if they are blue. I haven't found a way to come up with lots of blue creatures after Worldpurge though. If we can, we would also need an artifact with an ability that would restore progress.
Then there is Storm. Hunting Pack we already talked about, and there is also Sprouting Vines. We would need a way to put the basic land back into the library after we used it, which seems like it could require multiple cards. Or, perhaps we could find a use for discarding a land. Spitting Image seems like a good option, except that it targets a creature.
Anyway, I've been focusing pretty heavily on the saving progress section, when there may be other parts that can be improved.
EDIT: Ah, I believe I have found the card! Vile Redeemer can restore progress all by itself, by generating a colorless mana for every nontoken creature that has died this turn. (which will be mostly Metallurgeons)
My first fear is that we can still go infinite with that: after killing enough creatures during setup we can repeat Worldpurges without using Metallurgeon. While that means we don't get any more deaths we can still progress in some manner by accumulating Dual Nature triggers for extra creatures on the stack. After an arbitrary number of those has been accumulated we turn them into damage with Goblin Bushwhacker.
But actually after resolving a Worldpurge we don't have any mana in our pool. Where can fresh mana come from?
1. Mox Emerald is our only source of green mana. If we use it for something other than the Acorn Harvest flashback we can not repeat the Worldpurge.
2. Su-Chi does require Metallurgeon activations to die.
3. Vile Redeemer requires an initial mana payment. Old Eldrazi Scion tokens have been removed by the Worldpurge.
4. Our Lands enter tapped, so we don't get mana from them.
So it looks like we actually do need the Metallurgeon for Worldpurge repetitions. So I guess we are fine. Great stuff
Although I count 9 cards that we can't bounce before Worldpurge, so we'd have to put away 2. The easiest fix would be to allow the lands to be put into the library. But we also need them to enter tapped, otherwise they generate mana in the infinite consideration above...
EDIT: Primeval Titan should work for land retrieval. Not as hard of a problem as I thought ^^'
EDIT: So how do the Deconstruct and Show and Tell infinites work out now? The previous infinite loop described using Terashi's Grasp doesn't work anymore, since any mana we generate in the higher hyperstage gets wiped out by Worldpurge. So maybe Deconstruct is okay now.
With Show and Tell, I guess the loop goes:
Prepare for Acorn Harvest by putting Dual Nature triggers of Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery on the stack.
Flashback Acorn Harvest, triggering castings of Worldpurge, Show and Tell, and Retract.
Make the necessary preparations for Worldpurge, bouncing everything we can back to our hand and playing Wormfang Behemoth.
Resolve Worldpurge.
Resolve Show and Tell, putting Mox Emerald onto the battlefield and tapping it for a green mana.
Resolve Retract, pulling Mox Emerald back to our hand.
Resolve the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery.
Put our permanents back on the battlefield.
Resolve a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon to destroy a Dual Nature copy of Su-Chi, getting four colorless mana.
Play Vile Redeemer, getting lots of Eldrazi Scion tokens generating lots of colorless mana.
With all this mana we should be able to prepare for Worldpurge again no problem, and we can use the extra green mana to extend the lower hyperstage.
So, I don't see a way to bring back Show and Tell, unless we perhaps make casting an instant a requirement for the hyperstage transition.
Yeah, I Terashi's Grasp seems safe now. Doesn't save a card though, since we use Forest to get started. But switching that to Replenish should at least make the start more powerful.
But what I said in my last EDIT, about Primeval Titan allowing Goblin Gardener to generate life is wrong, because we now need to cast Worldpurge all the time to bounce the Titan. So I currently don't see a way to gain life out of the goblin stage. (In the Worldfire version Evacuation was cheap enough to bounce Titania, so that wasn't a problem there.)
Oh, poo. So, we need a card that brings lands form the library or graveyard onto the battlefield. With Deconstruct available, we don't need the lands to enter the battlefield tapped. Instants might be very good, since they might allow Show and Tell back in. But, I haven't found such a card - most cards that bring back lands only bring back basic lands.
Or, we could replace Goblin Gardener with say Goblin Fireslinger plus Reverse Damage, but that would require another card. On the plus side, that would free us from using lands to gain life, so we could theoretically replace the three cards we need to gain life with one or two. Unfortunately, Stormscape Battlemage doesn't work since it can target a nonblack creature for a black, and we need black mana by Nectar Faerie; we would have to radically change the stage sequence to make it work. Watcher of the Roost can gain two life, so if there is another card that can gain one life, that could work.
With N Mad AuntiePsychic Battle trigger on the stack, we use two to destroy gardener tokens and in turn destroy our lifegain lands. Then we play the Titan to bring those lands to the battlefield and gain 3 life. We leave some Dual Nature trigger on the stack. We use N untapped Metallurgeon tokens to put Psychic Battle and Bloodbond March layers on the stack. Then we flashback Acorn Harvest for 3 life and do all that Worldpurge stuff. We use the Metallurgeon layers to recover N-1 untapped hasty tokens. Then we resolve the Titan Dual Nature triggers to get the lands back and gain another 3 life.
Ah, very good. I did figure out a way to save a card in the life gain section: add Gerrard's Verdict and Acorn Harvest, and then replace Chatter of the Squirrel with Deep Reconnaissance, which can bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield. But, then this doesn't work with Goblin Gardener, so unless we find a fix for that we don't save a card.
Thinking about the start: Currently, we can't use Replenish, since we don't have a white mana available. If we try to go back to Core Prowler and Calciform Pools, Primeval Titan will bring Calciform Pools back to the battlefield tapped, and we can't put an initial storage counter on it so that we can use Core Prowler to proliferate it. So, it looks like we add a Forest and just hardcast Omniscience, unless we find an alternate start.
We cast Opalescence and Mirror of Fate.
We put Spellweaver Volute on Words of Wisdom, then cast Acorn Harvest to trigger it.
After Words of Wisdom gets exiled, we sacrifice Mirror of Fate to put Words of Wisdom back into the library.
We can now create however many copies of Swarm Intelligence that we want, so we can draw 4N cards after we cast Words of Wisdom. What we want is to be able to safely cast Worldpurge so that we can bring Consecrated Sphinx back to our hand. Or, it might be easier to bounce Consecrated Sphinx with something like Minion of Tevesh Szat, giving one haste through Goblin Bushwhacker. I will have to give it more thought.
EDIT: Heh, I just realized we would deck ourselves because of Mirror of Fate. So, some reworking is required.
Mirror of Fate exiles our library so that start doesn't quite work. How about this:
Same initial 7.
Draw 4: Spellweaver Volute, Precursor Golem, Vedalken Orrery, Deconstruct.
Play those. After Deconstruct resolve the Golem trigger first, destroying both tokens, gaining 6 mana. Resolve the Words of Wisdom, draw 2, leave Sphinx trigger on the stack.
Draw Perpetual Timepiece, Mirror of Fate.
Play Timepiece, mill Battle Cry and Chatter of the Squirrel. Play Mirror and sac to put Words into library. Sac Timepiece to put Mirror, Black Lotus, Volute into library.
Resolve Sphinx trigger to draw Words and Volute. Also resolve Deconstruct for 3 more mana.
Cast Words again, draw Lotus and Mirror. With Sphinx on the stack cast and crack Mirror to put whatever into the library.
draw two more cards: Timepiece and Cowardice.
Use Timepiece to mill Acorn Harvest x2 and to put Mirror back in the library.
Put Volute on Words. Flashback Chatter to cast Words. Draw Mirror and Minion of Tevesh Szat.
Before the Sphinx activate Mirror again and put Words, Timepiece, Goblin Bushwhacker, Dual Nature, Opalescence, Copy Enchantment and X into the library.
Draw Words and Timepiece. Cast Words to draw Bushwhacker, Dual Nature, Opalescene and Copy Enchantment.
Play the enchantments to get 6 copies of Dual Nature. Play Black Lotus to get 3 red mana. Play Tevesh Szat gain tokens, give them haste with bushwacker.
Bounce enchantments to get more dualnatures, play tevesh Szat and Bushwhacker again.
Realize you cant play bushwhacker a 3rd time because you need the red mana to flash back a sorcery, so put a copy enchantment as Volute on Words of Wisdom, flash back Acorn Harvest and resolve a Words.
Draw Mirror and X and trigger a lot of Sphinxes. Immediately play and use Mirror to not get decked.
That start is a mess. I probably messed up somewhere with the Mirror/Timepiece zone changes. I'd be surprised if this can't be improved. Point is we can get started.
Not a bad start. I feel though that using Swarm Intelligence on Words of Wisdom will allow us not to have to redraw as many cards, although I guess your start doesn't redraw that many. Instead of Deconstruct / Precursor Golem, a single Deconstruct on say Mox Emerald will get us 3 green mana, and that plus the mana from Channel should be enough, I think.
The lands still come into play tapped, except for Breeding Pool, which can come in untapped if you pay 2 life. You can pay 2 life to get a green mana, but the cost is greater than what you receive, so no infinite.
But, I don't see any advantage to this switch. It might become better if we find a way to cut a land, or find a way to make Precursor Golem more effective than Swarm Intelligence.
The Gerrard's Verdict version also doesn't have access to blue mana, and I don't see a way to add it without adding another card, so it drops out of the tie.
Play Opalescence. Play Dual Nature, get token. Play Copy Enchantment as Swarm Intelligence, get two tokens. Play Cowardice. Play Black Lotus, sac it for 3 red.
Play Indomitable Creativity targeting the Mox, Copy Enchantment, Swarm Intelligence and Cowardice. Cowardice and 4 Swarm Intelligence triggers. Resolve the Cowardices to bounce the enchantments. Replay Copy Enchantment as itself, tokens become Dual Nature. Replay Swarm Intelligence.
Sac the Mirror, put Timepiece and Words into the library. Play Cowardice. Resolve the 2nd Swarm Intelligence. Target Vat, Cowardice, Copy Enchantment and Consecrated Sphinx. Resolve the cowardice triggers. Resolve the Indomitable Creativity and put Timepiece into play.
Play Copy Enchantment as itself, tokens become Dual Nature (8 DN). Play Timepiece, mill Words and exile Timepiece to put Mirror, Lotus and Minion of Tevesh Szat into the library. Resolve the 3rd Swarm Intelligence, targeting Bushwhacker tokens. Resolve Indomitable Creativity and put Mirror, Lotus and Minion into play.
Sac the Mirror, put Timepiece and some other cards into the library. Replay Cowardice. Resolve the 4th Swarm Intelligence. Target Helix, Copy Enchantment, Bushwhacker and Minion. Let Cowardice resolve. Resolve the Indomitable Creativity and put Timepiece into play.
Sac Lotus for 3 red. Exile Timepiece to put Lotus and Mirror into the library. Resolve the original Indomitable Creativity and put Lotus into play. Sac Lotus for 3 red.
Play Copy Enchantment as Dual Nature, get tokens (18 DN).
Play Minion, get tokens. Play kicked Bushwhacker to give those Minions haste. Use 17 of them to bounce Copy Enchantment. Each time replay it as Dual Nature in response to the token destruction trigger. Use the last 2 Minions to bounce Bushwhacker and Minion. (18*2^17 ~ 2^21 DN)
Repeat for the other 5 red mana. (~2^2^2^2^2^2^21 > 2^^9 DN)
Play Sphinx, get tokens. Play Volute on Words. Flashback Chatter of the Squirrel. Cast Words via Volute, triggering all those Sphinxes. The cards in the library include Mirror, which allows setting up more cards to draw - we won't deck ourselves.
This improves the previous start by one resolved Words of Wisdom
Iijil, I was wondering what you thought of the possibility of adding a hyperstage at the end rather than just stages. I posted some incomplete thoughts in a previous post. Do you think any of those ideas are worth pursuing, or do you have any ideas of your own?
I currently don't think we are close to adding a hyperstage. The ideas in that post work as far as they go, but all are missing a critical component. Most importantly: How to trigger a beneficial effect from putting a copy of something transitiony on the stack. Without causing problems from resolving triggers in the wrong order, but with enough power to be repeatable...
There is a small range of viable effects we can use and finding cards that implement those AND have useful limitations... yeah, I have not a lot of hope for that.
By using Allay buybacks we can get some extra Swarm Intelligences before we cast the Indomitable Creativity, so retrieving extra creatures/artifacts should not be a significant cost. Then, thanks to March of the Machines we get an extra layer of red mana for each Black Lotus retrieval. We can also reuse Mirror of Fate and Perpetual Timepiece, so we can use instants and sorceries from the graveyard. instead of bouncing Copy Enchantment with the Minion of Tevesh Szat we kill Goblin Gardeners and bounce Primeval Titan to gain life. then we use that life to cast Rude Awakening via Spellweaver Helix. We get a layer worth of green mana thanks to Swarm Intelligence. We use that green mana to flashback Chatter of the Squirrel triggering a layer worth of Spellweaver Volutes. We destroy the Volute tokens, so each time we resolve a trigger we actually get to cast the instant and get a layer worth of Swarm Intelligence trigger. Each of those then gives us a copy of Battle Cry untapping some hasty Metallurgeons. (Sadly not a layer because we can't increase their number cheaply.) Each of those creates mana by destroying Su-Chi and we cast Allay with buyback, gaining another layer from Swarm Intelligence.
The next best card to draw will probably be Psychic Battle. After that we should use one less Words of Wisdom for the setup.
Sorry for the late reply. When you say that we should use one less Words of Wisdom for the setup, does that mean that we can get lots of Consecrated Sphinxes by the third Words of Wisdom? I don't see how to make that work. If, after the first Words of Wisdom, we draw and play Swarm Intelligence[/], but not Vedalken Orrery, then we will get the second and third Words of Wisdom before we are able to do anything with Consecrated Sphinx. If we do not play Swarm Intelligence, then we only get four more cards, and I don't see how to both get Words of Wisdom back and get lots of Consecrated Sphinxes before we draw more cards.
Sorry for the confusion. That last sentence was meant for theoretical future improvements for the start where we might be free to draw extra cards of our choice from those first three Words of Wisdoms. When we get those 2 extra cards we might be able to create lots of Sphinxes before the third Words of Wisdom, but we are certainly not there at the moment.
yeah but in a real game, these all seem like fairytale land.
You're right about these ideas not working outside of fairytake land, but some people love hypothetical extremes enough that they wonder about it anyway. For those who wonder about the fairytale land games, this is the ultimate puzzle.
That said, I like that you brought up the question "What's the highest damage in the first turn of a realistic game without infinite combos?"
With Un-Sets legal in Commander until January 15th, I'd like to point out that the Commander variant of this challenge is "solved" by a Turn 1 Infinity Elemental with Haste. It's Infinite Power, but it's NOT an Infinite Combo. The death glares I'm getting means there's going to be a rule change, don't they?
The question of course is, does this give us a better start? We would have to get going by the fourth Words of Wisdom or earlier.
Do we have any way to get Black Lotus out of the graveyard if we use Sands of Delirium instead of Perpetual Timepiece? I don't see one, and without that switch the Replenish starting hand doesn't stand a chance. If I'm missing something and we can actually use Sands to dump most of our enchantments into the graveyard and still reuse Black Lotus, then we could probably get going on the third Words of Wisdom.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I've been interested in this thread ever sense I found it, and I'm glad to see that it's back. (Even if I am a month late to the return) There was so much madness that it inspired me to try this challenge and the results are something I know how it works, but I don't fully understand... especially the math... By the time I was ready to show off this deck the thread had kind of died down and I didn't want to necro a thread. This has come a long way sense I asked "Is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Heroes' Bane, and Paradox Engine close?" I don't really care if it can compete with the current deck because I view it as a fun personal project. In fact I'd feel kind of weird if an "out of nowhere" deck like mine dethroned the current one. Anyway, I put the deck in a spoiler tab because the description is one of the biggest walls of text I've ever seen. Please check it out.
2 Show and Tell
3 Omniscience
4 Opalescence
5 Doubling Season
6 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
7 Maelstorm Wanderer
8 Paradox Engine
9 Selvala, Explorer Returned
10 Aura of Dominion
11 Consecrated Sphinx
12 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
13 Hamletback Goliath
14 Enchanted Evening
15 Mimic Vat
16 Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
17 Mirror Gallory
18 Ooze Flux
19 Cathars' Crusade
20 Master Biomancer
21 Joraga Warcaller
22 Xenograft
24 Krenko, Mob Boss
25 Precursor Golem
26 Eldrazi Monument
27 Vedalken Orrery
28 Swarm Intelligence
29 Augur of Bolas
30 Weaver of Lies
31 Kheru Spellsnatcher
32 Wydwen, the Biting Gale
33 Dazzling Reflection
34 Dazzling Reflection
35 Dazzling Reflection
36 Sever Soul
37 Sever Soul
38 Sever Soul
39 Sever Soul
40 Soul's Grace
41 Soul's Grace
42 Soul's Grace
43 Soul's Grace
44 Heal the Scars
45 Heal the Scars
46 Heal the Scars
47 Heal the Scars
48 Sheltering Word
49 Sheltering Word
50 Sheltering Word
51 Sheltering Word
52 Predator's Rapport
53 Predator's Rapport
54 Predator's Rapport
55 Predator's Rapport
56 Radiate
57 Radiate
58 Radiate
59 Radiate
Finding out Weaver of Lies goes infinite hurt.
2 Show and Tell
3 Omniscience
4 Opalescence
5 Doubling Season
6 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
7 Maelstorm Wanderer
8 Paradox Engine
9 Selvala, Explorer Returned
10 Aura of Dominion
11 Consecrated Sphinx
12 Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
13 Hamletback Goliath
14 Precursor Golem
15 Sculpting Steel
16 Mimic Vat
17 Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter
18 Mirror Gallory
19 Cathars' Crusade
20 Eldrazi Monument
21 Vedalken Orrery
22 Xenograft
23 Swarm Intelligence
24 Boon Reflection
25 Kheru Spellsnatcher
26 Augur of Bolas
28 Dazzling Reflection
29 Dazzling Reflection
30 Dazzling Reflection
31 Dazzling Reflection
32 Soul's Grace
33 Soul's Grace
34 Soul's Grace
35 Soul's Grace
36 Sever Soul
37 Sever Soul
38 Sever Soul
39 Sever Soul
40 Death's Caress
41 Death's Caress
42 Death's Caress
43 Death's Caress
44 Heal the Scars
45 Heal the Scars
46 Heal the Scars
47 Heal the Scars
48 Sheltering Word
49 Sheltering Word
50 Sheltering Word
51 Sheltering Word
52 Predator's Rapport
53 Predator's Rapport
54 Predator's Rapport
55 Predator's Rapport
56 Radiate
57 Radiate
58 Radiate
59 Radiate
Even though decks like this one should be the definition of insanity, this one is very understandable, especially compared to the other insane decks that try for the highest non-infinite amount of damage possible. That said, there about a Metric ****-Ton of stuff going on. Because of the card that helped inspire this one and makes it work, I call it The Paradox of Infinity without Infinite.
Cards 1-3
This deck starts with Black Lotus for three Blue Mana to cast Show and Tell to get Omniscience. From there we play any card we want for free. No "in theory only deck" is complete without this combo.
(If you're playing against a troll instead of the 60 Waste Deck this challenge is meant for, he will get a Black Lotus off of Show and Tell.)
Cards 4-6
Now that we can play cards for free, we start with Opalescence, Doubling Season, and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Opalescence makes it so enchantments, like Doubling Season, are creatures which can then be cloned by Kiki-Jiki. We want as many Doubling Seasons as possible, so we start cloning them as soon as possible.
Cards 7-9
Maelstorm Wanderer "Draws" two cards with Cascade, Cascade and we get two cards that give us what we need. The first Cascade hits Paradox Engine which lets us untap our creatures when we cast a spell, including one from the second cascade. Selvala, Explorer Returned (AKA Selvala V1) lets us draw cards because Maelstorm Wanderer gives our creatures haste. Now, use Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season and Selvala V1 to draw. Do that again whenever Paradox Engine untaps them, (but stop using Selvala V1 after when there's 24 cards left in library.)
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V1.
This list will be updated when we add more cards.
Card 10
Selvala V1 has been making Mana and in this deck nothing goes to waste. Aura of Dominion puts it to use. It's a rarely use enchantment that allows you to pay one mana and tap a creature to untap the enchanted creature. In normal MTG, it sucks. In this deck, there are no words good enough for it. Enchant Kiki-Jiki and spare mana can be used to clone Doubling Season. You can see why we played it as soon as possible.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V1 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
Card 11
Selvala V1 makes both players draw a card and we don't want to make our opponent draw so we play Consecrated Sphinx and clone it with Kiki-Jiki once. When we tap Selvala V1, we let 24 Consecrated Sphinx's abilities draw us two cards each plus the one from Selvala V1 totaling 49, the number of cards in the rest of our deck. (Save Selvala V1's Mana for the next card.)
Card 12
The next card is Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. (AKA Selvala V2) Selvala V2 makes mana equal to the greatest power among creatures you control at the cost of one Green mana. (By the way, guess what Selvala V1's Draw ability makes.)
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V2 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
Card 13
Selvala V2 is a very nice card because her effectiveness scales with your biggest creature. Hamletback Goliath is, what is for this deck, the biggest possible because it scales with the growth. It gets +1/+1 counters when a creature enters the battlefield which are then multiplied by Doubling Season. (multiply instead of doubled feels like the right word to me when your doubling countless times.)
Cards 14-17
Precursor Golem's synergy with over half the deck makes it a must have. Even though its main use comes much later, we play it now so we can copy an artifact creature with Sculpting Steel. With Sculpting Steel as a creature, it can be sacrificed by Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter and imprinted onto Mimic Vat. (From now on, this will be called Sac-Vatting.) We will need more Mimic Vats so we activate Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat to get two more. The rest of the Sculpting Steels can copy Precursor Golem because that's more useful. After you tap Selvala V2, Sac-Vat her and activate her Mimic Vat to “untap” her.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap Selvala V2 and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
Card 18
You may think the Legend rule is annoying when you have a Mimic Vat with a Legend, but we can just get rid of that rule with Mirror Gallory. At this point, the deck starts getting stupid because not only can you have duplicate Selvala V2s, but you can now have multiple Paradox Engines. That's the main use for Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
If five steps is intimidating, remember that three of them are step two and step one is half of step two, and step five doesn't happen often.
Card 19
Cathars' Crusade gives a small (relatively speaking) boost to Selvala V2's ability to make mana by making it so when a creature enters the battlefield it gets "one" +1/+1 counter which then gets multiplied by Doubling Season. Hamletback Goliath's ability then activates and the counters it gets get multiplied again. For Maximum effect, clone Doubling Season without letting the abilities resolve. There will be more creatures to get counters and more Doubling Seasons to multiply them than if you let the abilities resolve.
Buffing Hamletback Goliath more isn't a good enough reason to run a card. Buffing over half the deck, on the other hand, is. Over half of this deck is spells that care about a creature's power and/or toughness. If you're not understanding why we wouldn't want to just target Hamletback Goliath with those spells, I'd like to remind you that we have Precursor Golem.
Cards 20-26
Even though the cycle is assembled, we still need a little more preparation so that we can do it as much as possible.
Playing these cards is preparation. Eldrazi Monument and Vedalken Orrery let you play Sever Soul as though it's just a life gain instant. Xenograft lets you do the same with Death's Caress if you pick Human and amplifies Precursor Golem's spell amplification if you pick Golem. You'll need to Sac-Vat Xenograft for both because cloning one will get you more of a version with the same creature. Swarm Intelligence and Boon Reflection replicate and amplify your spells respectively. Play Kheru Spellsnatcher face down. It's easier to explain the use of it and Augur of Bolas later. Because of Boon Reflection, we get to add another conditional step to the Paradox Cycle.
To do on each Paradox Engine Trigger:
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
6: If the next thing that happens makes you gain life, tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Boon Reflection once.
Card 27
We need to activate the Paradox Cycle as many times as possible and we do that with Wydwen, the Biting Gale. Being able to pay one life to unsummon her makes it so we can repetitively summon and unsummon her. (Using all but one of your life Summoning and Unsummoning Wydwen will be called the Wydwen Dance from now on.) Selvala V1 made us gain life when we drew cards with her, so our Life Total is 22. That means we can do the Wydwen Dance 21 times without dying.
Side Note
If you've looked at the list of cards in this deck before reading how to use the deck, you might have been confused about why over half of the deck is life gain spells. By now, you're probably feeling like the effect of those life gain spells is ether hilarious, disturbing, overkill, or all of the above.
Cards 28-59
Before you cast a spell, clone Precursor Golem. Each life gain spell has a single target, so Precursor Golem will copy that spell for each other Golem you control. Swarm Intelligence also copies instants sorceries, even if they don't target a Golem, but only once.
When using the life gain spells, start with targeting your weakest creature with it and ordering the stack so that Swarm Intelligence's ability resolves before Precursor Golem's, so that when Precursor Golem's resolves there's more targets. Needless to say, you want to target the Hamletback Goliath with Swarm Intelligence's copies. With Precursor Golem's copies, you want them to order from weakest target to strongest. After a copy of the spell resolves, do the Wydwen Dance. Radiate technically isn't a life gain spell, but you're targeting Predator's Rapport with it, so it's close enough. For Radiate, clone Swarm Intelligence instead of Precursor Golem.
Card 60
Before I get into this part, please let me brag. I found a use for the card everyone agrees is the worst Mythic where it outclasses every other option!
It's time for Archangel's Light to shine!
Once you've cast all you life gain spells, clone Swarm Intelligence and use Archangel's Light to shuffle your spells back into your library. After each copy resolves, we do the Wydwen Dance, clone Augur of Bolas to “draw” the deck, then use the life gain spells the way we did before.
When we're down to just the original Archangel's Light on the stack, we pay the morph cost of Kheru Spellsnatcher to turn it face up it and counter then recast Archangel's Light. When the second to last Archangel's Light is about to resolve, sacrifice Kheru Spellsnatcher to so Archangel's Light can shuffle it back into your library. You can redraw it with Selvala V1, (and do the Weyden dance with the life gained) then play it face down again. (Augur of Bolas doesn't “draw” creatures.)
This may sound like an infinite combo, but the reason it isn't is because Selvala V1 Makes both players draw a card and Augur of Bolas can't “draw” creatures. Your opponent's library had 50 cards left when we started abusing Weaver of Lies. (We skipped two used of Selvala by using Maelstorm Wanderer to "draw" two cards and Consecrated Sphinx to "draw" 48 more.) You know you've taken "Everything is a resource" to an extreme when your opponent's deck is a resource in this way.
It may be hard to grasp the insanity when I'm going over the bigger steps without rementioning the smaller ones, so here's a recap of the insanity.
For each Kheru Spellsnatcher you copy Archangel's Light.
For each Archangel's Light you cast every life gain spell.
For each life summon and unsummon Wydwen, the Biting Gale
For each Wydwen, the Biting Gale summoning activate each Paradox Engine
For each Paradox Engine trigger do the thing
The Thing
1: Tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Doubling Season.
2: Tap One Selvala V2 for Mana and use your Spare Mana to Untap and Retap Kiki-Jiki.
3: Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
4: Use Selvala V2's Mimic Vat and Repeat Step 2 until you have no untapped Selvala V2s.
5: If this is the last Paradox Engine Trigger, Use Sculpting Steel's Mimic Vat for Paradox Engines.
6: If the next thing that happens makes you gain life, tap Kiki-Jiki to clone Boon Reflection once.
The Finale
End you main phase and move to combat.
Attack.
Thank you very much for reading. I mean it. One or two line posts take me about ten minutes to be happy with, this one took me
fourfive days!Edit: Remove Weaver of Lies and replaced Enchanted Evening with Sculpting Steel to remove infinites and replaced cards that only help Selvala V2 for more life gain spells and two other cards. Thanks lijil.
The
Necromancer (or Noob)
Cat.
Don't ask, I don't know why ether...
Thinking of ways to shorten the "saving progress" section, I thought about using energy counters. Perhaps we can use Whirler Virtuoso to use energy counters to create tokens, then use Mana Echoes to turn that into colorless mana. Can we also use the same Whirler Virtuoso to create the energy counters in the first place? The problem is that, to save our current progress, we would need to cast Whirler Virtuoso after significant progress has been achieved, to get enough Dual Nature copies to matter. But, we need to have a Whirler Virtuoso on the battlefield to restore our progress. So I don't quite see how to make that work.
So, it looks like we need another card to save our progress. We could use a second Whirler Virtuoso to save our progress. (It's a shame this is necessary.) But then, that is a three card replacement for three cards, no improvement. I suppose it does free us from having to use Core Prowler / Calciform Pools; we could switch to say Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest, saving blue for later.
EDIT: In the Worldfire version, we couldn't make mana stages at the end, because we could use Evacuation to bring the original creature back to our hand, while leaving mana intact. In the Worldpurge version, we can't use Worldpurge to substitute for Evacuation, because Worldpurge clears the mana pools. So I believe mana stages are allowable again.
So, we can do something like:
2 Mad Auntie
3 Dralnu's Crusade
4 Boneknitter
5 Llanowar Dead
6 Everglove Courier
8 Ghosthelm Courier
9 Possessed Aven
10 Centaur Archer
11 Maze Glider
12 Paragon of Eternal Wilds
14 Royal Assassin
15 Paragon of Open Graves
16 Lightbringer
17 Dwarven Warriors
18 Karplusan Yeti
Still 18 cards for 12 stages though.
I found two ways to go infinite with your cards.
First, it is possible to create token copies of Weaver of Lies (while it is face up), then redraw the original, play it face down and use its ability to turn some of the tokens face down. Then you can use the ability of those tokens to turn the original face down again. They can keep flipping each other over infinitely, supplying you with face down Kheru Spellsnatcher without ever needing to draw another creature.
Second, it is possible to play Aura of Dominion on Mimic Vat instead of Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Specifically on the Mimic Vat that has Selvala, Heart of the Wilds imprinted. Tapping that Mimic Vat then gives a bunch of those Selvalas, which can in turn tap for mana and use the Aura of Dominions ability to untap the Mimic Vat again.
In general I like the structure of your layers after Paradox Engine, but the stuff you do with the Paradox Engines untaps looks like a mess. The relevant parts seem to be getting Selvala V2 tokens, getting Mana, using that mana to untap Kiki-Jiki and creating more Doubling Seasons. All those alternate ways to increase the number of creatures and counters wouldn't even show up in the estimate (even if that wasn't infinite) and in so far as you need to draw Krenko, Mob Boss, you are better off leaving him in the library and drawing Weaver of Lies one more time. Even assuming the draw is free, spending mana on Ooze Flux would be detrimental. The main problem with those cards is that they only increase the output of Selvala V2, but not the number of Doubling Seasons. The latter is what your main progress is dependent on. A single card to tie Selvala's output to the number of doubling seasons would be more efficient, leaving room to increase your numbers at more significant parts of the combo, like those lifegain spells.
I'm also not a fan of using almost 30 copies of the same card, but I guess as long as you don't have a better use for those cards it can't be helped. Just keep in mind to insert multiples as deep in your layer combo as possible.
I hope you don't get discouraged by all that criticism I just heaped on you and keep on building non infinite damage combos
@Deedlit11
Huh, the Worldpurge version is closer than I thought. Although we need to get rid of two infinites before/while we cut cards there.
First, Deconstruct targets artifacts and goes infinite, just like Terashi's Grasp did in the Worldfire version. I don't know if we have an alternative sorcery to create only one specific color?
Second, with Worldpurge bouncing the Mox Emerald to hand instead of exiling it we can use Show and Tell to put it back into play and then resolve a Spellweaver Voluted Retract to bounce it again. This gets us two green out of the Acorn Harvest cast and we can use the second for an extra Chatter of the Squirrel to go infinite. So we can't use Show and Tell and presumably require an extra card for the start.
In regards to cutting cards: We need to make sure Metallurgeon stays required to repeat both of the possible transitions. If a card like Mana Echoes gives us massive amounts of colorless mana to use with I think necessity would go away. Otherwise we could keep using Core Prowler to get energy counters for Whirler Virtuoso, but I don't see a way to turn nondescript tokens into progress that doesn't make Metallurgeon superfluous.
I agree that Worldpurge would allow us to use mana stages. I'm not sure if that benefit is more likely to be achieved by Worldpurge or by Worldfire without Evacuation.
Now, this does seem to make it harder to replace the current saving progress section, since we need it to be expensive enough to prevent the aforementioned infinities. Yeah, it looks like Mana Echoes goes infinite, and I don't see an obvious way to replace it if we are to use energy counters. Besides creating many tokens, we can also build a large creature with energy tokens, but I don't see a way to turn that into progress either.
Seismic Spike is interesting - it won't do anything if placed below Worldpurge, so that's not an infinite. It doesn't destroy enough lands to repay the Flash of Defiance by itself. But it also doesn't generate enough red mana for a hyperhyperstage. Adding Swarm Intelligence will allow it to generate enough life, so that's no good.
We could always go back to Fungal Sprouting and Utopia Mycon, but that uses up all colors, so we couldn't use the normal stage sequence; the Godtoucher-less version can get 12 stages, but uses a couple more cards. Probably the best possibility is to put in something that really is too expensive for the Deconstruct infinite. The "saving progress" section comes to mind first, but it could be anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that Worldpurge is a not-so-cheap way to bring permanents back to our hand. So we don't necessarily have to use lands to regain life. Stormscape Battlemage seems to be good, and could replace both lands and Titania, Protector of Argoth. However, this does mean that we can't continue with something that destroys lands like Goblin Gardener. Also, we can't have cheap black, so we have to find an alternative to Fungal Sprouting / Utopia Mycon. Still, perhaps this breathes some life back into the Worldpurge deck. I would still like to find some way to save Deconstruct.
EDIT: I guess now that lands are no longer being used, we can make use of Seismic Spike. Put in Dryad Arbor, and we can cast Seismic Spike on Dryad Arbor and all its Dual Nature copies, with the aid of Swarm Intelligence. However, we still need something to put Dryad Arbor onto the battlefield, like Walking Atlas. So we need four cards to generate lots of red mana, and by my count we are three cards behind the Worldfire deck after taking the loss of Show and Tell into account. (But not taking into account a fix for Goblin Gardener yet.)
EDIT: Better yet, we can cast Hunting Wilds to bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield tapped, and then untap it many times with Amulet of Vigor. We can then use Forest and Mox Emerald to cast Channel, then Black Lotus is enough to cast Omniscience. So this saves two cards. But we still need a 12-stage sequence that transitions into life.
EDIT: Well, I haven't yet found a way to complete the deck using Stormscape Battlemage. If we stick with life lands, we can use Rude Awakening to untap a Forest, coupled with Swarm Intelligence. Then, we don't want the Forest coming into play untapped, so we would like to replace Titania, Protector of Argoth with a version that brings lands onto the battlefield tapped. I didn't find such a version though, so I went with Patron of the Moon. This makes things trickier for Goblin Gardener, but we can flaskback an Acorn Harvest to cast Rude Awakening and instead turn lands into creatures, augmented by Swarm Intelligence. We then resolve the Rude Awakening copies one at a time, each time following it by destroying a Goblin Gardener token to bounce Radiant Fountain back to our hand.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Calciform Pools
17 Core Prowler
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Shimmer
26 Sealock Monster
27 Time and Tide
28 Rude Awakening
29 Swarm Intelligence
30 Worldpurge
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Patron of the Moon
36 Glimmerpost
37 Radiant Fountain
38 Forest
39 Goblin Gardener
40 Mad Auntie
41 Facevaulter
42 Basal Thrull
43 Thrull Champion
45 Everglove Courier
46 Nectar Faerie
47 Ghosthelm Courier
48 Possessed Aven
49 Centaur Archer
50 Maze Glider
51 Possessed Centaur
52 Eastern Paladin
53 Frightshroud Courier
54 Dwarven Warriors
55 Possessed Barbarian
56 Minion of Tevesh Szat
57 Reality Spasm
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
Back to three layers behind the Worldfire version, although we can perhaps employ Swarm Intelligence to our advantage somehow. (I don't think it works with Reality Spasm though.)
EDIT: We could replace Forest with Gaea's Cradle to eliminate the need for Swarm Intelligence, but then we wouldn't have enough to start the deck off, and we would need another card. So that change doesn't help currently.
Gaea's Cradle could perhaps be used to restore progress, combined with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack, if we switched the main color from green to red. We would somehow need to obtain an untapped Gaea's Cradle after each hyperhyperstage transition, without allowing an infinite. I haven't figured out a way to make that work yet.
Looking at other ways to save and restore progress, we could use energy counters to pump up Bristling Hydra, and then take advantage of either the +1/+1 counters, or the large power/toughness of the Bristling Hydra. I don't see any use for +1/+1 counters on a random creature other than abilities that are too strong, like Korozda Gorgon or Ion Storm. Workhorse seems like a good use for +1/+1 counters, but it goes infinite with the current hyperstage setup, and also I don't know how to transfer counters without targeting a creature anyway. As for high power/toughness, I don't know - we could convert it to life or lots of creatures, but the former is off limits, and the latter we could get with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack with fewer cards.
Grand Architect seems like a good use for lots of creatures, if they are blue. I haven't found a way to come up with lots of blue creatures after Worldpurge though. If we can, we would also need an artifact with an ability that would restore progress.
Then there is Storm. Hunting Pack we already talked about, and there is also Sprouting Vines. We would need a way to put the basic land back into the library after we used it, which seems like it could require multiple cards. Or, perhaps we could find a use for discarding a land. Spitting Image seems like a good option, except that it targets a creature.
Anyway, I've been focusing pretty heavily on the saving progress section, when there may be other parts that can be improved.
EDIT: Ah, I believe I have found the card! Vile Redeemer can restore progress all by itself, by generating a colorless mana for every nontoken creature that has died this turn. (which will be mostly Metallurgeons)
So we have:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Rude Awakening
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Patron of the Moon
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Forest
37 Goblin Gardener
38 Mad Auntie
39 Facevaulter
40 Basal Thrull
41 Thrull Champion
42 Godtoucher
43 Everglove Courier
45 Ghosthelm Courier
46 Possessed Aven
47 Centaur Archer
48 Maze Glider
49 Possessed Centaur
50 Eastern Paladin
51 Frightshroud Courier
52 Dwarven Warriors
53 Possessed Barbarian
54 Minion of Tevesh Szat
55 Goblin Bushwhacker
56 Indomitable Creativity
57 Consecrated Sphinx
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
That should get us up to roughly F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(N), where N ~ 50.
There still appear to be avenues of improvement, like possibly making Deconstruct safe, or finding something that can gain 3 life with one card.
My first fear is that we can still go infinite with that: after killing enough creatures during setup we can repeat Worldpurges without using Metallurgeon. While that means we don't get any more deaths we can still progress in some manner by accumulating Dual Nature triggers for extra creatures on the stack. After an arbitrary number of those has been accumulated we turn them into damage with Goblin Bushwhacker.
But actually after resolving a Worldpurge we don't have any mana in our pool. Where can fresh mana come from?
1. Mox Emerald is our only source of green mana. If we use it for something other than the Acorn Harvest flashback we can not repeat the Worldpurge.
2. Su-Chi does require Metallurgeon activations to die.
3. Vile Redeemer requires an initial mana payment. Old Eldrazi Scion tokens have been removed by the Worldpurge.
4. Our Lands enter tapped, so we don't get mana from them.
So it looks like we actually do need the Metallurgeon for Worldpurge repetitions. So I guess we are fine. Great stuff
Although I count 9 cards that we can't bounce before Worldpurge, so we'd have to put away 2. The easiest fix would be to allow the lands to be put into the library. But we also need them to enter tapped, otherwise they generate mana in the infinite consideration above...
EDIT: Primeval Titan should work for land retrieval. Not as hard of a problem as I thought ^^'
That neatly solves another problem as well: Goblin Gardener can't produce life via land bouncing if we rely on Rude Awakening copies from a single Acorn Harvest cast to animate them. That is because the Mad Auntie activations to kill gardener are bound to the stack as well (either via Psychic Battle or via Bloodbond March), so they can't be properly weaved between Swarm Intelligence copies.
With the Titan we can just destroy the land with gardener and put it into the library with Perpetual Timepiece.
EDIT: So how do the Deconstruct and Show and Tell infinites work out now? The previous infinite loop described using Terashi's Grasp doesn't work anymore, since any mana we generate in the higher hyperstage gets wiped out by Worldpurge. So maybe Deconstruct is okay now.
With Show and Tell, I guess the loop goes:
Prepare for Acorn Harvest by putting Dual Nature triggers of Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery on the stack.
Flashback Acorn Harvest, triggering castings of Worldpurge, Show and Tell, and Retract.
Make the necessary preparations for Worldpurge, bouncing everything we can back to our hand and playing Wormfang Behemoth.
Resolve Worldpurge.
Resolve Show and Tell, putting Mox Emerald onto the battlefield and tapping it for a green mana.
Resolve Retract, pulling Mox Emerald back to our hand.
Resolve the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery.
Put our permanents back on the battlefield.
Resolve a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon to destroy a Dual Nature copy of Su-Chi, getting four colorless mana.
Play Vile Redeemer, getting lots of Eldrazi Scion tokens generating lots of colorless mana.
With all this mana we should be able to prepare for Worldpurge again no problem, and we can use the extra green mana to extend the lower hyperstage.
So, I don't see a way to bring back Show and Tell, unless we perhaps make casting an instant a requirement for the hyperstage transition.
But what I said in my last EDIT, about Primeval Titan allowing Goblin Gardener to generate life is wrong, because we now need to cast Worldpurge all the time to bounce the Titan. So I currently don't see a way to gain life out of the goblin stage. (In the Worldfire version Evacuation was cheap enough to bounce Titania, so that wasn't a problem there.)
Or, we could replace Goblin Gardener with say Goblin Fireslinger plus Reverse Damage, but that would require another card. On the plus side, that would free us from using lands to gain life, so we could theoretically replace the three cards we need to gain life with one or two. Unfortunately, Stormscape Battlemage doesn't work since it can target a nonblack creature for a black, and we need black mana by Nectar Faerie; we would have to radically change the stage sequence to make it work. Watcher of the Roost can gain two life, so if there is another card that can gain one life, that could work.
EDIT: We could perhaps use a Forest and Dark Heart of the Wood, if there is a card we can use that can bring a Forest back to the battlefield once, but only once per Acorn Harvest. Unfortunately, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Primeval Titan, and Wood Elves are all no good thanks to all the Dual Nature copies they get. We could use a sorcery like Explosive Vegetation, but that requires another Acorn Harvest, and we can't spare the card slot, unless we can save a card in Goblin stage somehow.
EDIT: We could use Gerrard's Verdict to discard Drownyard Temple, but then we need another Acorn Harvest again, and we have another tie in terms of card slots.
With N Mad Auntie Psychic Battle trigger on the stack, we use two to destroy gardener tokens and in turn destroy our lifegain lands. Then we play the Titan to bring those lands to the battlefield and gain 3 life. We leave some Dual Nature trigger on the stack. We use N untapped Metallurgeon tokens to put Psychic Battle and Bloodbond March layers on the stack. Then we flashback Acorn Harvest for 3 life and do all that Worldpurge stuff. We use the Metallurgeon layers to recover N-1 untapped hasty tokens. Then we resolve the Titan Dual Nature triggers to get the lands back and gain another 3 life.
Loss: 1 untapped Metallurgeon token, 2 Mad Auntie Psychic Battle trigger.
Gain: 3 life
The extra life can easily recover the token cost for a fixed price at the end, so this still works as intended.
Thinking about the start: Currently, we can't use Replenish, since we don't have a white mana available. If we try to go back to Core Prowler and Calciform Pools, Primeval Titan will bring Calciform Pools back to the battlefield tapped, and we can't put an initial storage counter on it so that we can use Core Prowler to proliferate it. So, it looks like we add a Forest and just hardcast Omniscience, unless we find an alternate start.
So the start perhaps goes:
Black Lotus
Forest
Mox Emerald
Channel
Omniscience
Consecrated Sphinx
Words of Wisdom
This allows us to draw four cards. We can draw perhaps
Spellweaver Volute
Acorn Harvest
Opalescence
Mirror of Fate
We cast Opalescence and Mirror of Fate.
We put Spellweaver Volute on Words of Wisdom, then cast Acorn Harvest to trigger it.
After Words of Wisdom gets exiled, we sacrifice Mirror of Fate to put Words of Wisdom back into the library.
Draw:
Words of Wisdom
Dual Nature
Swarm Intelligence
Copy Enchantment
We can now create however many copies of Swarm Intelligence that we want, so we can draw 4N cards after we cast Words of Wisdom. What we want is to be able to safely cast Worldpurge so that we can bring Consecrated Sphinx back to our hand. Or, it might be easier to bounce Consecrated Sphinx with something like Minion of Tevesh Szat, giving one haste through Goblin Bushwhacker. I will have to give it more thought.
EDIT: Heh, I just realized we would deck ourselves because of Mirror of Fate. So, some reworking is required.
Same initial 7.
Draw 4: Spellweaver Volute, Precursor Golem, Vedalken Orrery, Deconstruct.
Play those. After Deconstruct resolve the Golem trigger first, destroying both tokens, gaining 6 mana. Resolve the Words of Wisdom, draw 2, leave Sphinx trigger on the stack.
Draw Perpetual Timepiece, Mirror of Fate.
Play Timepiece, mill Battle Cry and Chatter of the Squirrel. Play Mirror and sac to put Words into library. Sac Timepiece to put Mirror, Black Lotus, Volute into library.
Resolve Sphinx trigger to draw Words and Volute. Also resolve Deconstruct for 3 more mana.
Cast Words again, draw Lotus and Mirror. With Sphinx on the stack cast and crack Mirror to put whatever into the library.
draw two more cards: Timepiece and Cowardice.
Use Timepiece to mill Acorn Harvest x2 and to put Mirror back in the library.
Put Volute on Words. Flashback Chatter to cast Words. Draw Mirror and Minion of Tevesh Szat.
Before the Sphinx activate Mirror again and put Words, Timepiece, Goblin Bushwhacker, Dual Nature, Opalescence, Copy Enchantment and X into the library.
Draw Words and Timepiece. Cast Words to draw Bushwhacker, Dual Nature, Opalescene and Copy Enchantment.
Play the enchantments to get 6 copies of Dual Nature. Play Black Lotus to get 3 red mana. Play Tevesh Szat gain tokens, give them haste with bushwacker.
Bounce enchantments to get more dualnatures, play tevesh Szat and Bushwhacker again.
Realize you cant play bushwhacker a 3rd time because you need the red mana to flash back a sorcery, so put a copy enchantment as Volute on Words of Wisdom, flash back Acorn Harvest and resolve a Words.
Draw Mirror and X and trigger a lot of Sphinxes. Immediately play and use Mirror to not get decked.
That start is a mess. I probably messed up somewhere with the Mirror/Timepiece zone changes. I'd be surprised if this can't be improved. Point is we can get started.
So Mox Emerald, Tropical Island, Channel, Black Lotus, Omniscience, Consecrated Sphinx, Words of Wisdom.
Play them, draw 4: Spellweaver Volute, Vedalken Orrery, Swarm Intelligence, Rude Awakening.
Play them, draw 4, leave one Words copy on the stack: Perpetual Timepiece, Mirror of Fate, Opalescence, Dual Nature.
Play Timepiece, mill Chatter of the Squirrel + Psychic Battle.
Play and sac Mirror to put Words into the library.
Exile Timepiece to put Mirror, Psychic Battle and Lotus into the library.
Resolve Words and draw those 4 cards.
Play and sac Mirror to put Minion of Tevesh Szat, Goblin Bushwhacker, Cowardice, Copy Enchantment, Timepiece, X and Y into the library.
Play Words, get a total of two copies. Resolve the first to draw the first 4 of those cards.
Play Lotus, Opalescence, Dual Nature, Copy Enchantment, Psychic Battle, Cowardice, Minion and Bushwhacker to create loads of Sphinxes.
Resolve the Words on the stack, get lots of Sphinx triggers.
Draw Timepiece and X.
Play and exile Timepiece to put Mirror into the library.
Draw Mirror and Y.
Play and sac mirror to put whatever into the library.
I think we can get started from here
It was the 5th resolved Words that triggered tons of Sphinxes, 1 better than the attempt in my last post.
I think we can still save Deconstruct by replacing
Rude Awakening
Tropical Island
Glimmerpost
Radiant Fountaing
Primeval Titan
with
Deconstruct
Breeding Pool
Blossoming Sands
Kabira Crossroads
Titania, Protector of Argoth
The lands still come into play tapped, except for Breeding Pool, which can come in untapped if you pay 2 life. You can pay 2 life to get a green mana, but the cost is greater than what you receive, so no infinite.
But, I don't see any advantage to this switch. It might become better if we find a way to cut a land, or find a way to make Precursor Golem more effective than Swarm Intelligence.
The Gerrard's Verdict version also doesn't have access to blue mana, and I don't see a way to add it without adding another card, so it drops out of the tie.
Mox Emerald, Tropical Island, Channel, Black Lotus, Omniscience, Consecrated Sphinx, Words of Wisdom.
Play them, draw 4: Spellweaver Volute, Vedalken Orrery, Swarm Intelligence, Rude Awakening.
Play them, draw 6, leave one Sphinx trigger on the stack: Perpetual Timepiece, Opalescence, Dual Nature, Copy Enchantment, Indomitable Creativity, Cowardice.
Play Timepiece, mill Minion of Tevesh Szat, Chatter of the Squirrel and exile Timepiece to put Lotus and Volute into the library.
Resolve the Sphinx trigger and draw 2: Lotus and Volute.
Play Opalescence. Play Dual Nature, get token. Play Copy Enchantment as Swarm Intelligence, get two tokens. Play Cowardice. Play Black Lotus, sac it for 3 red.
Play Indomitable Creativity targeting the Mox, Copy Enchantment, Swarm Intelligence and Cowardice. Cowardice and 4 Swarm Intelligence triggers. Resolve the Cowardices to bounce the enchantments. Replay Copy Enchantment as itself, tokens become Dual Nature. Replay Swarm Intelligence.
Resolve the 1st Swarm Intelligence. Target Swarm Intelligence tokens. Resolve the Indomitable Creativity and put Mirror of Fate, Goblin Bushwhacker, Spellweaver Helix and Mimic Vat into play.
Sac the Mirror, put Timepiece and Words into the library. Play Cowardice. Resolve the 2nd Swarm Intelligence. Target Vat, Cowardice, Copy Enchantment and Consecrated Sphinx. Resolve the cowardice triggers. Resolve the Indomitable Creativity and put Timepiece into play.
Play Copy Enchantment as itself, tokens become Dual Nature (8 DN). Play Timepiece, mill Words and exile Timepiece to put Mirror, Lotus and Minion of Tevesh Szat into the library. Resolve the 3rd Swarm Intelligence, targeting Bushwhacker tokens. Resolve Indomitable Creativity and put Mirror, Lotus and Minion into play.
Sac the Mirror, put Timepiece and some other cards into the library. Replay Cowardice. Resolve the 4th Swarm Intelligence. Target Helix, Copy Enchantment, Bushwhacker and Minion. Let Cowardice resolve. Resolve the Indomitable Creativity and put Timepiece into play.
Sac Lotus for 3 red. Exile Timepiece to put Lotus and Mirror into the library. Resolve the original Indomitable Creativity and put Lotus into play. Sac Lotus for 3 red.
Play Copy Enchantment as Dual Nature, get tokens (18 DN).
Play Minion, get tokens. Play kicked Bushwhacker to give those Minions haste. Use 17 of them to bounce Copy Enchantment. Each time replay it as Dual Nature in response to the token destruction trigger. Use the last 2 Minions to bounce Bushwhacker and Minion. (18*2^17 ~ 2^21 DN)
Repeat for the other 5 red mana. (~2^2^2^2^2^2^21 > 2^^9 DN)
Play Sphinx, get tokens. Play Volute on Words. Flashback Chatter of the Squirrel. Cast Words via Volute, triggering all those Sphinxes. The cards in the library include Mirror, which allows setting up more cards to draw - we won't deck ourselves.
This improves the previous start by one resolved Words of Wisdom
Iijil, I was wondering what you thought of the possibility of adding a hyperstage at the end rather than just stages. I posted some incomplete thoughts in a previous post. Do you think any of those ideas are worth pursuing, or do you have any ideas of your own?
There is a small range of viable effects we can use and finding cards that implement those AND have useful limitations... yeah, I have not a lot of hope for that.
EDIT: We can still improve the start. By drawing Perpetual Timepiece instead of Vedalken Orrery we can keep the Spellweaver Volute alive by milling an instant and don't need to redraw it. We can also retrieve the Orrery via Indomitable Creativity for another extra draw. If we draw Allay and March of the Machines before the creativity cast we should be able to get an extra 5 layers worth of Consecrated Sphinxes before the next Words of Wisdom.
By using Allay buybacks we can get some extra Swarm Intelligences before we cast the Indomitable Creativity, so retrieving extra creatures/artifacts should not be a significant cost. Then, thanks to March of the Machines we get an extra layer of red mana for each Black Lotus retrieval. We can also reuse Mirror of Fate and Perpetual Timepiece, so we can use instants and sorceries from the graveyard. instead of bouncing Copy Enchantment with the Minion of Tevesh Szat we kill Goblin Gardeners and bounce Primeval Titan to gain life. then we use that life to cast Rude Awakening via Spellweaver Helix. We get a layer worth of green mana thanks to Swarm Intelligence. We use that green mana to flashback Chatter of the Squirrel triggering a layer worth of Spellweaver Volutes. We destroy the Volute tokens, so each time we resolve a trigger we actually get to cast the instant and get a layer worth of Swarm Intelligence trigger. Each of those then gives us a copy of Battle Cry untapping some hasty Metallurgeons. (Sadly not a layer because we can't increase their number cheaply.) Each of those creates mana by destroying Su-Chi and we cast Allay with buyback, gaining another layer from Swarm Intelligence.
The next best card to draw will probably be Psychic Battle. After that we should use one less Words of Wisdom for the setup.
Black Lotus
Channel
Sands of Delirium
Kabira Crossroads
Rude Awakening
Replenish
Words of Wisdom / Selvala's Enforcer
The question of course is, does this give us a better start? We would have to get going by the fourth Words of Wisdom or earlier.
Last week i landed 12 damage turn one with 20 power on board in a modern event.
You're right about these ideas not working outside of fairytake land, but some people love hypothetical extremes enough that they wonder about it anyway. For those who wonder about the fairytale land games, this is the ultimate puzzle.
That said, I like that you brought up the question "What's the highest damage in the first turn of a realistic game without infinite combos?"
With Un-Sets legal in Commander until January 15th, I'd like to point out that the Commander variant of this challenge is "solved" by a Turn 1 Infinity Elemental with Haste. It's Infinite Power, but it's NOT an Infinite Combo. The death glares I'm getting means there's going to be a rule change, don't they?
The
Necromancer (or Noob)
Cat.
Don't ask, I don't know why ether...
Do we have any way to get Black Lotus out of the graveyard if we use Sands of Delirium instead of Perpetual Timepiece? I don't see one, and without that switch the Replenish starting hand doesn't stand a chance. If I'm missing something and we can actually use Sands to dump most of our enchantments into the graveyard and still reuse Black Lotus, then we could probably get going on the third Words of Wisdom.