One possibility is to give some creatures +1/+1 counters, then use Ion Storm to damage (non-flying) creatures and trigger something. I'm not sure what though, since damaging Grollub to give opponent life doesn't work.
Magus of the Candelabra untaps lands, which is not a mana ability. So it will go infinite if we try to use it as a stage creature.
Mnemonic Wall can get Disembowel to our hand, which then targets anything as soon as we get access to black mana, also going infinite. It is also an enter the battlefield effect, which we can make use of via Worldpurge without any defender targeting.
So the 15 stage sequence doesn't look too good.
The alternate 14 stage sequence seems fine. But while the stages work without donation the current layer sequence needs Pain Magnification controled by the opponent, so the saved card is lost again when we put Sky Swallower back in.
Although there is the option to try and build a layer sequence without donation. That would allow us to make use of the opponents life, and they wouldn't be able to pick discarded cards back up, providing another possible limiter.
Hmm, can the opponent gain life too cheaply with the current deck (14 stage deck with Promised Kannushi), even with donation? We don't have Judge of Currents anymore, and we don't animate lands anymore, so no donating a Mimic Vat with a lifegain land imprinted on it. If he can't, then perhaps it is possible to go back to Godo, Bandit Warlord again. We can only use Floating-Dream Zubera about 30 times, as both the number of discarded cards and the Zubera count go up, but that would still get us to F_{w^3 + w14 + 8}(30), with two card slots still remaining.
Yeah, opportunities for the opponent to gain life are getting low, but at least one is still there. Nectar Faerie gives lifelink to itself or some other elf/faerie. So we can donate lifelink creatures and attack into them. Opponent blocks and gains life when combat damage occurs. Allowing us to get more combats afterwards and go infinite. That particualar source of lifegain also seems near impossible to get rid of, unless we remove donations entirely.
Hmm, removing donations is an interesting idea to keep in mind - but, as things currently stand, losing Pain Magnification is quite painful, as it is currently our only way to take advantage of Repercussion and Justice without running afoul of Centaur Archer. So that is 3 layers lost, which is quite significant. I suppose we could still take advantage of Repercussion to deal damage to the opponent, if we give the opponent creatures using something like Hunted Phantasm. But, I'm not sure how to take advantage of dealing damage to the enemy, as Night Dealings is hard to make work with Black Lotus. I suppose we could use something like Devastate, to kill Minion of Tevesh Szat while being limited by the opponent's life. We won't get Repercussion that way though.
EDIT: I think I have an improvement. By adding Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, we can make Ion Storm deal out 4 damage to a target creature, enough to eventually trigger Pain Magnification. We can then use Gleam of Battle to get +1/+1 counters. So far, we've just replicated Five-Alarm Fire at the cost of two additional cards. But, we can now add Enduring Scalelord to get a bunch of +1/+1 counters for every Gleam of Battle trigger. That should give us another layer, getting us to F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 1} (N)))). It took a bunch of cards to get that layer, so it's probably not optimal.
EDIT: Nuts, we still need the original attacking creatures with Gleam of Battle. Not sure how to make this not be a problem.
EDIT: Well, we can replace Gleam of Battle and Enduring Scalelord with Borborygmos and Mirror Gallery. But, that requires that we deal combat damage to the opponent, and we don't currently have a way to replenish the opponent's life. So, still no improvement.
EDIT: We can still save a card, by going back to the Assault Formation deck, and replacing the lifegain lands with Gerrard's Verdict. We still need a card to get started; Floating-Dream Zubera looks like the best candidate. It can also be used to gain life - not quite as much as we would want, but we can still make the opponent gain life close to 30 times (I think 29), allowing us to deal F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (29) damage in the end.
Hopefully, this gets us to F_{w^3 + w15 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w15 + 6} (N)).
EDIT: Heh, we aren't saving red mana because it's used in the megastage. >_< So replace Goblin Bushwhacker with Herbal Poultice, and subtract two layers.
Luckily we can do without the toughness boost for Tree of Redemption. When we want to put a new megastage on the stack we just stockpile a bunch of hasty Tree tokens. Tap the first to go to 13 life and put 4 hyperstages on the stack. Then tap the next tree, go to 13 again and put another 4 hyper stgages on the stack. continue until we run out of trees.
Ooh, nice, and we save a card! It would be nice to use the extra card for an extra layer, but we probably need Floating-Dream Zubera at this point, so that slides nicely in.
EDIT: Checked the start without Floating-Dream Zubera, seems like it's close but no cigar. The best I could do was:
and we can't get access to mana/life from Su-Chi/Tree of Redemption without first activating Herbal Poultice. If we try to remove either Su-Chi or Tree of Redemption, we pay for it later. I can't figure out what else to remove.
We could check the Pain Magnification versions, for which we could get an additional layer, but I doubt that it is any easier.
There is an infinite in the 15 stages after all. Disembowel with X=0 can destroy the animated Island. Is there any other way for goblins to produce blue?
Believe me, I've been trying . But, does Disembowel with X=0 go infinite? I guess the idea is to get blue mana from destroying an Island, but I don't know what we would spend it on. We have already cast Disembowel with X=0, so we can't spend blue to destroy a Promised Kannushi and continue the sequence.
EDIT: Hmm, I guess we can have copies of Disembowel with both X=0 and X=1 on the stack at the same time. But, I'm not seeing how we get more than one blue mana out of a use of Disembowel with X=0. After destroying and imprinting the Island, we need Primeval Titan to put the Island back onto the battlefield, which requires Worldpurge. Somehow we would have to navigate getting extra uses out of Primeval Titan without running afoul of Worldpurge.
Hmm, what we would like is a version of Black Lotus that gets us blue mana but not black, but there doesn't appear to be a blue-only Black Lotus. What about using Seat of the Synod? Primeval Titan will only return it into play tapped, but we can use Goblin Welder to return it to play untapped. Of course, that means no Black Lotus, which is quite painful for the start. Can you think of the economical ways to get started without Black Lotus?
Okay, giving it another try: Perhaps we can use the destroying Islands deck, but we have to get rid of Swarm Intelligence. If we do, then I don't think there is any way to have the Disembowel available for Spellweaver Volute while still having it on the stack for Izzet Guildmage. So we either can have Disembowel for X=0 or X=1 at a time, so I don't think things go infinite.
The only problem I see is how to get a lot of red mana from Mana Geyser; we want to send a lot of tapped lands to the opponent, but how? I would like to just add Dryad Arbor, but then we can use Disembowel with X=0 to destroy it and get a hasted copy, giving us green to easily. Another idea I had was to create token copies, perhaps with Clone Legion and Druid's Deliverance. But, we can make copies of Island, and they come into play untapped.
How about using an artifact land? Ancient Den can come onto the battlefield with March of the Machines on the battlefield, and then we get lots of token copies. Perhaps that works.
EDIT: Perhaps we can save a card by changing from Mana Geyser to Peak Eruption. We can use the Psychic Battle triggers to destroy the Mountain one at a time after animating it with Natural Affinity; after a token copy is made, we can return the Mountain to the battlefield with Natural Connection. So we get:
EDIT: I have a possible improvement to the deck without sideboard:
The idea was to replace Mox Emerald with Tree of Tales. This seems to have no immediate benefit, other than to require something like Walking Atlas in addition. But, we can generate lots of green at the megastage transition by playing Tree of Tales with March of the Machines on the battlefield, generating a lot of token copies; then we can bring it back using Restore. At this point, I would like to have used Gerrard's Verdict, so that we could just reuse Tree of Tales as our discarded land, but it seems like we can always use Restore and Rebuild to put the land back in our hand, and nothing makes us use Worldpurge. Still, we can switch to lifegain lands, and we save a card over the previous version with lifegain lands, leading to a one layer gain:
EDIT: Hmm, it looks like the first two decks don't quite work, as we can bring both lands back to our hand, and Gerrard's Verdict can discard them both, and we gain 6 life. If we do that, we can't get our normal influx of red mana, but I don't think that stops the infinite loop from happening; we can just forego the red mana one time to gain life, and on the ensuing transitions we can get the red mana.
For the first deck, we can just switch back to lifegain lands, although that costs us an extra card slot. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we can just do the same for the second deck, as Natural Connection only brings back basic lands, none of which give us life. We need to add something like Primeval Titan to bring back all lands, and either keep Natural Connection, or add in say Mana Flare to get lots of red mana.
EDIT: I guess we can save a card by using Watcher of the Roost to gain 2 life, and using Prophecy to gain the remaining life. This eliminates the need for Clear the Land, and we have:
EDIT: I've beem thinking seriously about the possibility of replacing Battle Cry with something that only affects artifacts. Of course, Blinkmoth Infusion doesn't work, since we can't be allowed to untap Mimic Vats with high level creatures imprinted. An instant that merely targets an artifact will not be enough, as we will only be able to destroy the stage artifact creature once before it is stuck in the graveyard/library. Obviously an instant that gave artifacts or artifacts creatures haste would be great, but there doesn't seem to be a suitable instant. (Metallic Mastery is a sorcery, and untaps the target artifact as well.) An instant that returned an artifact creature card from the graveyard or library would also be welcome, but there is no such instant, and the cards that do don't seem to be suitable. I was wondering if we could somehow make Skeleton Shard work; of course we can normally bounce Skeleton Shard with our stage artifact creature, but perhaps if we got rid of March of the Machines, we could make it work. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to avoid getting an extra use out of Skeleton Shard each time we get it back to our hand via Rebuild, and then recast it.
EDIT: Another possibility is to use Argivian Find to retrieve our stage artifact creature from our graveyard, and use Disenchant to destroy it again. (I don't think Argivian Find by itself is enough, due to stack problems again.) Of course, Argivian Find can be used to retrieve Mox Emerald from our graveyard, so we will switch it out for a Forest, and then use Myr Landshaper to turn it into an artifact. Then we will need Walking Atlas to put it back on the battlefield again.
The next tricky part is to figure out how to do the megastage. The problem with Gerrard's Verdict is that, once we add in a card to bring back the forest from the graveyard/library to the battlefield, we can use Myr Landshaper and Rebuild to return it to our hand rather than use Worldpurge. And the lifegain lands can be turned into artifacts and also brought back to our hand via Rebuild. So, the idea is to use Watcher of the Roost to gain 2 llfe, and to use Joyous Respite or Prophecy for the one remaining life. Now we cannot use Swarm Intelligence, but Deconstruct and Precursor Golem should work fine for the sorcery green mana.
The painful part is that now we cannot have Black Lotus, which puts a serious crimp on our start. However, since we need to use Myr Landshaper to turn our Forest into an artifact so that Rebuild can return it to our hand, perhaps Show and Tell is safe again. In that case, we can do the following:
The loss of Black Lotus is still painful, and we need three mana artifacts in our deck now. And unfortunately, we could not use Goblin Bushwhacker, so this deck does not quite beat the previous one, despite getting to Minion of Tevesh Szat in only 54 cards.
So it's been a while since I replied and you've accumulated some ideas. Let's start with the 75 card decks.
Removing Swarm Intelligence doesn't make Disembowel safe for the island later in the sequence. Spellweaver Volute can cast a copy of Disembowel with X=0. In response to that we can do some actions to draw the actual card and cast it with X=1. Once both of the spells are on the stack we can copy the 0 version to create blue mana from the island many times (with help from Primeval Titan and Natural Affinity between the [c]Psachic Battle[/c} triggers. That blue mana can be used to copy the X=1 version to access the higher parts of the combo. Sadly this kills all the proposed decks.
Another problem with the first proposed deck is that we can repeat the megastage transition without the need for hasty Metallurgeons under the Worldpurge. Ancient Den tokens would easily produce enough mana for that. To fix that we could witch to a Walking Atlas setup. At some point we would need to create new hasty Atlas tokens under the worldpurge and those tokens are required to access the Ancient Den mana there. But that conflicts with the use of island later.
I like the use of Peak Eruption to produce red from a sorcery. You already noted the infinite with Gerrard's Verdict and multiple lands, and the fixes for that in the later versions seem to work. If it wasn't for that Disembowel problem
An idea I had for the artifact lands is to use Walking Atlas + Ancient Den + Expedition Map instead of Su-Chi + Farrelite Priest. the extra card can be saved back in the megastage transition because we would not need Primeval Titan. But we would be unable to use Gerrard's Verdict versions (the wouldn't need to cast Worldpurge) and we lose some ways to make use of lands later on, so I don't see it actually helping.
Now on to the 60 card deck. The first proposed improvement doesn't work. Restoring the Tree of Tales doesn't force us to gain the green mana right then. We can just bounce it to hand with Worldpurge and after resolving that we can put the Tree back into play as a creature, having it die but creating lots of tokens that give us the green mana on the wrong side of the transition. Going infinite.
The second version also goes infinite. This time we can repeat the hyperstage transition without need for hasty Metallurgeons in the lower stage. We can use Walking Atlas in the higher stage to put the land into play and generate the green mana. So once the ressources we have in the higher stage are running out we arrange everything as needed, resolve the Rebuild from the transition on the stack and immediatly put the next transition on the stack, getting new hasty Metallurgeon tokens via Argivian Find and Disenchant.
This infinite doesn't work in the Battle Cry version because that only gives us hasty untapped Metallurgeons if we have some tapped ones on the battlefield already. And those are destroyed by the Rebuild and we need to create new ones before we transition again, requiring Metallurgeon activations in the lower stage.
Can we create lots of blue mana using Psychic Battle and Primeval Titan though? Both Disembowel and Primeval Titan use the stack, so we we can't interweave the triggers. Maybe there is some way to make it too expensive to get more blue mana.
That's too bad about the Argivian Find attempt. I'm still thinking that there might be a way to moot only artifacts in the hyperstage. Do you have any ideas?
Yeah, we need to use Worldpurge to bounce Primeval Titan every time we want to produce a blue, so we can't accumulate any. But we can produce a single blue lots of times and that should be enough to go infinite.
I'm not sure what can be done to save white creatures for after the hyperstage. We'd need a new way to ensure there are hasty token activations required to repeat the transition. That seems like a difficult problem, since bouncing all our artifacts leaves most of our board alone. Maybe we can use another effect for that part? No idea what could possibly work though.
Hmm, I'm still not sure about the blue mana infinity. Let's say we have a blue mana in our mana pool, an animated tapped Island on the battlefield, and Disembowels with X=0 and X=1 on the stack. How do we get an infinite loop from this position? We can spend the blue mana to copy Disembowel with X=0, and destroy the animated Island. This allows us to created a hasted token of the Island, and get the blue mana back. But, now the Island is in the library/graveyard/exile. To get the Island back on the battlefield, we can spend the blue mana and eventually cast Worldpurge, allowing us to replay Primeval Titan and get our Island back. But now, we've spent the blue mana. We can now use the next Psychic Battle trigger of Disembowel to destroy the Island again, and we get our blue mana back, but the Island is off the battlefield again. So, we keep trading between the Island and the blue mana, and we never reset our position. I suppose that if we have X blue mana, we can create a stage using Noble Hierarch tokens. But, I think once we unravel the stage, we wind up with at most X-1 blue mana back in the end. So that doesn't keep us from losing the blue mana when trying to cast Worldpurge to get the Island back.
Concerning the Argivian Find deck: I wondered briefly if maybe Disenchant could be replaced by something that would redirect the target of a Rust Tick. Then we would require having a hasted Rust Tick in the hyperstage. But, I couldn't find a suitable card; closest I could find was Spellskite, which doesn't trigger either Psychic Battle or Grip of Chaos, so no way to redirect it onto the original Rust Tick. Oh well.
EDIT: Thinking of other ideas for the hyperstage transition: Perhaps Metal Fatigue, using Pili-Pala to get our mana back? But, I don't see why we couldn't untap lots of Pili-Palas, so that doesn't seem to be particulraly controllable.
Perhaps phasing our permanents out and back in again could be a possibility. But, the only cards that I could find that could do that are Teferi's Protection and Time and Tide, and I don't like Teferi's Protection preventing us from changing our life total.
EDIT: I moved the land destruction to before the Disembowel stage:
For the Disembowel + Island infinite keep in mind that spending a blue on a X=1 copy does not give us only a single Worldpurge. We should easily be able to bounce Primeval Titan, play it to return the island and bounce it again to keep in hand, ready to fetch the island after copying X=0.
To kill the reordered stage sequence I found another infinite. Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro produces green by itself without any targeting required. Just play it to get Bloodbond March triggers. For all but the last trigger return Sachi to the battlefield, get a Dual Nature token and destroy the original via legend rule. Imprint on Mimic Vat to get a hasty token that taps for green. After the last Bloodbond March trigger keep the original around, bounce it via Worldpurge and repeat.
But, I guess with land destruction before Disembowel, we can just cast Disembowel with X=0 to destroy the Swamp, and get an infinite loop without ever needing Disembowel with X=1. Perhaps if we made animating lands more expensive, it could work? I'm not sure how though.
EDIT: Welp, without Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro, or the ability to use both Disembowel and land destruction, I don't know how to get 15 stages anymore. So the best I can currently do is:
The new innovation: add Indomitable Creativity and Precursor Golem, with Mizzium Meddler to redirect the target of Indomitable Creativity copies to a legal target. Should get around F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 3} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 3} (116)) or thereabouts.
If you guys are moving on to 60+sideboard, can we get a writeup on how the 60-card deck works? I'd do it myself if I actually understood it, but unfortunately I don't.
Hi, 0evil_overlord0! Yeah, I've been lazy about getting the writeup done. I'll try starting it up again.
EDIT: I looked again at the idea of using opponent life gain in the ending sequence. We can't postpone the lifegain beyond combat, or else the opponent can gain life via Nectar Faerie. If we follow Repercussion with something that depends on opponent's life, can we get a couple of layers or more from there? One idea is to use Blockbuster, dealing damage to both the opponent and some tapped creatures, and follow that with Nectar Faerie life gain:
Patron of the Vein + Cultural Exchange + 1 creature for the opponent goes infinite. The etb is too powerful. Start with Minion of Tevesh Szat in hand, play it to get Bloodbond March triggers. Then use Cultural Exchange to swap it with the opponents creature. Play Patron of the Vein, etb targets the Minion of Tevesh Szat and triggers Horobi, Death's Wail. Cast Cultural Exchange to swap the Minion back to our control and give the opponent a creature that stays around. Horobi's trigger destroys the Minion and we can imprint it on Mimic Vat to get a hasty token. Then we return it to the battlefield with those Bloodbond March triggers we got in the beginning. Tap the Minion token to bounce the original, the Patron and other stuff we need to generate ressources to complete this loop. For example bounce Primeval Titan and bounce/kill Hurloon Shaman to get the life needed to cast Cultural Exchange. We never need to cast Worldpurge and the number of creatures under the opponents control is never reduced, so no limit to this loop.
Another way for a cooperative opponent to gain more creatures would be to start them off with an untapped token Mimic Vat. Then we can destroy our own original Mimic Vat as a creature. They imprint it under theirs and tap it to create a new untapped token. The tapped one can be exchanged for a Su-Chi, which we destroy to give them the mana the need and trigger our 'opponent's creature dies' effects. But this loop seems currently impossible since we can't get Mimic Vat back from the graveyard/exile/library. Still this sort of stuff has many dangers.
Hmm, that Mimic Vat loop is interesting - if we could somehow give the opponent a creature by sending one of our noncreature artifacts to the graveyard, we could follow it up with Indomitable Creativity, getting four layers piror to card draw.
What if we went Pain Magnification into Waste Not into Psychic Possession? Psychic Possession enchants an opponent, so if we try to donate it to the opponent, it will go to the graveyard, since it is enchanting an illegal target.
EDIT: Unfortunately, we can donate a Mimic Vat imprinted with Copy Enchantment, and the opponent can have the created Copy Enchantment token copy Psychic Possession. There are ways to get rid of Copy Enchantment, but then we wouldn't be able to create many copies of Psychic Possession to get a layer.
EDIT: Hmm, we could use Grollub to give the opponent life, and transition to Hurricane to damage both the opponent and flying creatures we control. If we were to follow that with Five-Alarm Fire however, I don't think we would gain a layer. We could gain a layer by following Grollub with Lord of Shatterskull Pass, except that Lord of Shatterskull Pass would destroy the Grollbs, and we couldn't bring them back under our control so that they would give life to the opponent. I guess we could add Snarling Undorak, but now we need too many cards.
EDIT: Okay, I've started the writeup again: I've written up the hyperstage section. The previous sections are now outdated; I'll get to them later.
EDIT: Hmm, there's something I haven't quite gotten to work: the idea I had to put a Dual Nature trigger for Vedalken Orrery on the stack was to cast Vedalken Orrery, then respond by tapping the last untapped Metallurgeon token to bounce Vedalken Orrery and the original Metallurgeon. But, then the Psychic Battle triggers will be above the Dual Nature triggers, so when we get back to this stage the Psychic Battle triggers will resolve without being able to destroy the original Metallurgeon, and we will lose a layer. (two, actually) We could just cast Vedalken Orrery without bouncing it, but then in the next stage up Vedalken Orrery will be on the battlefield, and we will have to do something different to put Dual Nature triggers on the stack.
How do we handle this?
EDIT: Oh, I see: We can bounce March of the Machines after Cowardice has been triggered, and then Dual Nature will not destroy Vedalken Orrery tokens after the original card has been bounced to our hand.
Does the need to bounce Vedalken Orrery mean that we need to expend a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon in the hyperstage transition, making Su-Chi perhaps not necessary? But, perhaps we can get an infinite loop without needing Vedalken Orrery then.
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Autnie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Genesis Wave
63 Spiritual Focus
64 Pain Magnification
65 Justice
66 Repercussion
67 Five-Alarm Fire
68 Finest Hour
69 World at War
70 Floating-Dream Zubera
71 Rebuild?
72 Rebuild?
73 Channel
74 Black Lotus
75 Living Wish
One possibility is to give some creatures +1/+1 counters, then use Ion Storm to damage (non-flying) creatures and trigger something. I'm not sure what though, since damaging Grollub to give opponent life doesn't work.
Here's a possible 15-stage sequence, sorta:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Mana Geyser
27 Sky Swallower
28 Swarm Intelligence
29 Worldpurge
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Primeval Titan
35 Sejiri Refuge
36 Kabira Crossroads
37 Hurloon Shaman
38 Anaba Ancestor
39 Promised Kannushi
40 Izzet Guildmage
41 Disembowel
42 Magus of the Candelabra
43 Animist's Awakening
44 Mnemonic Wall
45 Vine Trellis
46 Assault Formation
48 Mad Auntie
49 Facevaulter
50 Basal Thrull
51 Thrull Champion
52 Godtoucher
53 Everglove Courier
54 Nectar Faerie
55 Ghosthelm Courier
56 Possessed Aven
57 Centaur Archer
58 Maze Glider
59 Possessed Centaur
60 Eastern Paladin
61 Frightshroud Courier
62 Dwarven Warriors
63 Possessed Barbarian
64 Minion of Tevesh Szat
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
The problem is that we've mooted X instants/sorceries, so I have no idea how to get started in the beginning.
Mnemonic Wall can get Disembowel to our hand, which then targets anything as soon as we get access to black mana, also going infinite. It is also an enter the battlefield effect, which we can make use of via Worldpurge without any defender targeting.
So the 15 stage sequence doesn't look too good.
The alternate 14 stage sequence seems fine. But while the stages work without donation the current layer sequence needs Pain Magnification controled by the opponent, so the saved card is lost again when we put Sky Swallower back in.
Although there is the option to try and build a layer sequence without donation. That would allow us to make use of the opponents life, and they wouldn't be able to pick discarded cards back up, providing another possible limiter.
EDIT: I think I have an improvement. By adding Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, we can make Ion Storm deal out 4 damage to a target creature, enough to eventually trigger Pain Magnification. We can then use Gleam of Battle to get +1/+1 counters. So far, we've just replicated Five-Alarm Fire at the cost of two additional cards. But, we can now add Enduring Scalelord to get a bunch of +1/+1 counters for every Gleam of Battle trigger. That should give us another layer, getting us to F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 1} (N)))). It took a bunch of cards to get that layer, so it's probably not optimal.
EDIT: Nuts, we still need the original attacking creatures with Gleam of Battle. Not sure how to make this not be a problem.
EDIT: Well, we can replace Gleam of Battle and Enduring Scalelord with Borborygmos and Mirror Gallery. But, that requires that we deal combat damage to the opponent, and we don't currently have a way to replenish the opponent's life. So, still no improvement.
EDIT: We can still save a card, by going back to the Assault Formation deck, and replacing the lifegain lands with Gerrard's Verdict. We still need a card to get started; Floating-Dream Zubera looks like the best candidate. It can also be used to gain life - not quite as much as we would want, but we can still make the opponent gain life close to 30 times (I think 29), allowing us to deal F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (29) damage in the end.
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Sky Swallower
28 Swarm Intelligence
29 Worldpurge
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Panharmonicon
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Primeval Titan
37 Judge of Currents
38 Merfolk Sovereign
39 Aquatic Incursion
40 Guardian Zendikon
41 Vine Trellis
42 Assault Formation
43 Goblin Digging Team
44 Mad Auntie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Genesis Wave
63 Spiritual Focus
64 Pain Magnification
65 Justice
66 Repercussion
67 Ion Storm
68 Borborygmos
69 World at War
70 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
71 Mirror Gallery
72 Floating-Dream Zubera
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Sky Swallower
28 Swarm Intelligence
29 Worldpurge
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Panharmonicon
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Primeval Titan
37 Tree of Redemption
38 Builder's Blessing
39 Vine Trellis
40 Assault Formation
41 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
42 Felhide Spiritbinder
43 Anaba Ancestor
44 Promised Kannushi
45 Izzet Guildmage
46 Disembowel
47 Noble Hierarch
48 Natural Affinity
49 Goblin Gardener
50 Mad Auntie
52 Basal Thrull
53 Thrull Champion
54 Godtoucher
55 Everglove Courier
56 Nectar Faerie
57 Ghosthelm Courier
58 Possessed Aven
59 Centaur Archer
60 Maze Glider
61 Possessed Centaur
62 Eastern Paladin
63 Frightshroud Courier
64 Dwarven Warriors
65 Possessed Barbarian
66 Minion of Tevesh Szat
67 Goblin Bushwhacker
68 Genesis Wave
69 Angelheart Vial
70 Karplusan Minotaur
71 Impulsive Maneuvers
72 World at War
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
Hopefully, this gets us to F_{w^3 + w15 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w15 + 6} (N)).
EDIT: Heh, we aren't saving red mana because it's used in the megastage. >_< So replace Goblin Bushwhacker with Herbal Poultice, and subtract two layers.
Except that Builder's Blessing lets us go infinite with Dual Nature copies of Mox Ruby, which doesn't die as a creature anymore.
Luckily we can do without the toughness boost for Tree of Redemption. When we want to put a new megastage on the stack we just stockpile a bunch of hasty Tree tokens. Tap the first to go to 13 life and put 4 hyperstages on the stack. Then tap the next tree, go to 13 again and put another 4 hyper stgages on the stack. continue until we run out of trees.
EDIT: Checked the start without Floating-Dream Zubera, seems like it's close but no cigar. The best I could do was:
Opening hand:
Black Lotus
Channel
Perpetual Timepiece
Rebuild
Genesis Wave
Allay
Herbal Poultice
Do the normal start, cast Genesis Wave with X=13 (2 life remaining):
Finest Hour
Impulsive Maneuvers
Karplusan Minotaur
Mimic Vat
Opalescence
Tree of Redemption
Dual Nature
Omniscience
Horobi, Death's Wail
Angelheart Vial
March of the Machines
Psychic Battle
Su-Chi
and we can't get access to mana/life from Su-Chi/Tree of Redemption without first activating Herbal Poultice. If we try to remove either Su-Chi or Tree of Redemption, we pay for it later. I can't figure out what else to remove.
We could check the Pain Magnification versions, for which we could get an additional layer, but I doubt that it is any easier.
EDIT: Hmm, I guess we can have copies of Disembowel with both X=0 and X=1 on the stack at the same time. But, I'm not seeing how we get more than one blue mana out of a use of Disembowel with X=0. After destroying and imprinting the Island, we need Primeval Titan to put the Island back onto the battlefield, which requires Worldpurge. Somehow we would have to navigate getting extra uses out of Primeval Titan without running afoul of Worldpurge.
EDIT: Okay, first attempt:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Sky Swallower
28 Swarm Intelligence
29 Worldpurge
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Panharmonicon
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Forest
36 Natural Connection
37 Tree of Redemption
38 Vine Trellis
39 Assault Formation
40 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
41 Felhide Spiritbinder
42 Anaba Ancestor
43 Promised Kannushi
44 Izzet Guildmage
45 Disembowel
46 Noble Hierarch
47 Seat of the Synod
48 Goblin Welder
49 Mad Auntie
50 Facevaulter
51 Basal Thrull
52 Thrull Champion
54 Everglove Courier
55 Nectar Faerie
56 Ghosthelm Courier
57 Possessed Aven
58 Centaur Archer
59 Maze Glider
60 Possessed Centaur
61 Eastern Paladin
62 Frightshroud Courier
63 Dwarven Warriors
64 Possessed Barbarian
65 Minion of Tevesh Szat
66 Herbal Poultice
67 Genesis Wave
68 Consecrated Sphinx
69 Floating-Dream Zubera
70 Elvish Spirit Guide
71 Elvish Spirit Guide
72 Elvish Spirit Guide
73 Elvish Spirit Guide
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
EDIT: Heh, forgot to take out Builder's Blessing.
The only problem I see is how to get a lot of red mana from Mana Geyser; we want to send a lot of tapped lands to the opponent, but how? I would like to just add Dryad Arbor, but then we can use Disembowel with X=0 to destroy it and get a hasted copy, giving us green to easily. Another idea I had was to create token copies, perhaps with Clone Legion and Druid's Deliverance. But, we can make copies of Island, and they come into play untapped.
How about using an artifact land? Ancient Den can come onto the battlefield with March of the Machines on the battlefield, and then we get lots of token copies. Perhaps that works.
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Sky Swallower
28 Worldpurge
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Panharmonicon
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Gerrard's Verdict
34 Island
35 Ancient Den
36 Primeval Titan
37 Tree of Redemption
38 Vine Trellis
39 Assault Formation
40 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
41 Felhide Spiritbinder
42 Anaba Ancestor
43 Promised Kannushi
44 Izzet Guildmage
45 Disembowel
46 Noble Hierarch
47 Natural Affinity
48 Goblin Gardener
49 Mad Auntie
50 Facevaulter
51 Basal Thrull
52 Thrull Champion
54 Everglove Courier
55 Nectar Faerie
56 Ghosthelm Courier
57 Possessed Aven
58 Centaur Archer
59 Maze Glider
60 Possessed Centaur
61 Eastern Paladin
62 Frightshroud Courier
63 Dwarven Warriors
64 Possessed Barbarian
65 Minion of Tevesh Szat
66 Herbal Poultice
67 Angelheart Vial
68 Karplusan Minotaur
69 Impulsive Maneuvers
70 World at War
71 Genesis Wave
72 Floating-Dream Zubera
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
EDIT: Perhaps we can save a card by changing from Mana Geyser to Peak Eruption. We can use the Psychic Battle triggers to destroy the Mountain one at a time after animating it with Natural Affinity; after a token copy is made, we can return the Mountain to the battlefield with Natural Connection. So we get:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Worldpurge
28 Flash of Defiance
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Panharmonicon
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Gerrard's Verdict
33 Island
34 Mountain
35 Natural Connection
36 Tree of Redemption
37 Vine Trellis
38 Assault Formation
39 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
40 Felhide Spiritbinder
41 Anaba Ancestor
42 Promised Kannushi
43 Izzet Guildmage
44 Disembowel
45 Noble Hierarch
46 Natural Affinity
47 Goblin Gardener
48 Mad Auntie
49 Facevaulter
50 Basal Thrull
51 Thrull Champion
53 Everglove Courier
54 Nectar Faerie
55 Ghosthelm Courier
56 Possessed Aven
57 Centaur Archer
58 Maze Glider
59 Possessed Centaur
60 Eastern Paladin
61 Frightshroud Courier
62 Dwarven Warriors
63 Possessed Barbarian
64 Minion of Tevesh Szat
65 Reality Spasm
66 Precursor Golem
67 Angelheart Vial
68 Karplusan Minotaur
69 Impulsive Maneuvers
70 World at War
71 Genesis Wave
72 Floating-Dream Zubera
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
Iijil, what do you think of the above decks?
EDIT: I have a possible improvement to the deck without sideboard:
The idea was to replace Mox Emerald with Tree of Tales. This seems to have no immediate benefit, other than to require something like Walking Atlas in addition. But, we can generate lots of green at the megastage transition by playing Tree of Tales with March of the Machines on the battlefield, generating a lot of token copies; then we can bring it back using Restore. At this point, I would like to have used Gerrard's Verdict, so that we could just reuse Tree of Tales as our discarded land, but it seems like we can always use Restore and Rebuild to put the land back in our hand, and nothing makes us use Worldpurge. Still, we can switch to lifegain lands, and we save a card over the previous version with lifegain lands, leading to a one layer gain:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Tree of Tales
24 Walking Atlas
26 Vile Redeemer
27 Restore
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Sejiri Refuge
34 Kabira Crossroads
35 Hurloon Shaman
36 Anaba Ancestor
37 Promised Kannushi
38 Izzet Guildmage
39 Disembowel
40 Noble Hierarch
41 Sea Scryer
42 Merfolk Sovereign
43 Godtoucher
44 Everglove Courier
46 Ghosthelm Courier
47 Possessed Aven
48 Centaur Archer
49 Maze Glider
50 Possessed Centaur
51 Eastern Paladin
52 Frightshroud Courier
53 Dwarven Warriors
54 Possessed Barbarian
55 Minion of Tevesh Szat
56 Goblin Bushwhacker
57 Consecrated Sphinx
58 Noggle Ransacker
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
EDIT: Hmm, it looks like the first two decks don't quite work, as we can bring both lands back to our hand, and Gerrard's Verdict can discard them both, and we gain 6 life. If we do that, we can't get our normal influx of red mana, but I don't think that stops the infinite loop from happening; we can just forego the red mana one time to gain life, and on the ensuing transitions we can get the red mana.
For the first deck, we can just switch back to lifegain lands, although that costs us an extra card slot. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we can just do the same for the second deck, as Natural Connection only brings back basic lands, none of which give us life. We need to add something like Primeval Titan to bring back all lands, and either keep Natural Connection, or add in say Mana Flare to get lots of red mana.
So, we have:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Mana Flare
28 Worldpurge
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Flash of Defiance
31 Panharmonicon
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Clear the Land
34 Natural Affinity
35 Mountain
36 Glimmerpost
37 Radiant Fountain
38 Tree of Redemption
39 Vine Trellis
40 Assault Formation
41 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
42 Felhide Spiritbinder
43 Anaba Ancestor
44 Promised Kannushi
45 Izzet Guildmage
46 Disembowel
47 Noble Hierarch
48 Tolarian Academy
49 Goblin Gardener
50 Mad Auntie
52 Basal Thrull
53 Thrull Champion
54 Godtoucher
55 Everglove Courier
56 Nectar Faerie
57 Ghosthelm Courier
58 Possessed Aven
59 Centaur Archer
60 Maze Glider
61 Possessed Centaur
62 Eastern Paladin
63 Frightshroud Courier
64 Dwarven Warriors
65 Possessed Barbarian
66 Minion of Tevesh Szat
67 Reality Spasm
68 Precursor Golem
69 Sylvan Echoes
70 Sentry Oak
71 World at War
72 Genesis Wave
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
EDIT: I guess we can save a card by using Watcher of the Roost to gain 2 life, and using Prophecy to gain the remaining life. This eliminates the need for Clear the Land, and we have:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Worldpurge
28 Flash of Defiance
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Panharmonicon
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Watcher of the Roost
33 Prophecy
34 Island
35 Mountain
36 Natural Connection
37 Tree of Redemption
38 Vine Trellis
39 Assault Formation
40 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
41 Felhide Spiritbinder
42 Anaba Ancestor
43 Promised Kannushi
44 Izzet Guildmage
45 Disembowel
46 Noble Hierarch
47 Natural Affinity
48 Goblin Gardener
49 Mad Auntie
50 Facevaulter
51 Basal Thrull
52 Thrull Champion
54 Everglove Courier
55 Nectar Faerie
56 Ghosthelm Courier
57 Possessed Aven
58 Centaur Archer
59 Maze Glider
60 Possessed Centaur
61 Eastern Paladin
62 Frightshroud Courier
63 Dwarven Warriors
64 Possessed Barbarian
65 Minion of Tevesh Szat
66 Reality Spasm
67 Precursor Golem
68 Sylvan Echoes
69 Sentry Oak
70 Finest Hour
71 World at War
72 Genesis Wave
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
EDIT: I've beem thinking seriously about the possibility of replacing Battle Cry with something that only affects artifacts. Of course, Blinkmoth Infusion doesn't work, since we can't be allowed to untap Mimic Vats with high level creatures imprinted. An instant that merely targets an artifact will not be enough, as we will only be able to destroy the stage artifact creature once before it is stuck in the graveyard/library. Obviously an instant that gave artifacts or artifacts creatures haste would be great, but there doesn't seem to be a suitable instant. (Metallic Mastery is a sorcery, and untaps the target artifact as well.) An instant that returned an artifact creature card from the graveyard or library would also be welcome, but there is no such instant, and the cards that do don't seem to be suitable. I was wondering if we could somehow make Skeleton Shard work; of course we can normally bounce Skeleton Shard with our stage artifact creature, but perhaps if we got rid of March of the Machines, we could make it work. Unfortunately, I don't see a way to avoid getting an extra use out of Skeleton Shard each time we get it back to our hand via Rebuild, and then recast it.
EDIT: Another possibility is to use Argivian Find to retrieve our stage artifact creature from our graveyard, and use Disenchant to destroy it again. (I don't think Argivian Find by itself is enough, due to stack problems again.) Of course, Argivian Find can be used to retrieve Mox Emerald from our graveyard, so we will switch it out for a Forest, and then use Myr Landshaper to turn it into an artifact. Then we will need Walking Atlas to put it back on the battlefield again.
The next tricky part is to figure out how to do the megastage. The problem with Gerrard's Verdict is that, once we add in a card to bring back the forest from the graveyard/library to the battlefield, we can use Myr Landshaper and Rebuild to return it to our hand rather than use Worldpurge. And the lifegain lands can be turned into artifacts and also brought back to our hand via Rebuild. So, the idea is to use Watcher of the Roost to gain 2 llfe, and to use Joyous Respite or Prophecy for the one remaining life. Now we cannot use Swarm Intelligence, but Deconstruct and Precursor Golem should work fine for the sorcery green mana.
The painful part is that now we cannot have Black Lotus, which puts a serious crimp on our start. However, since we need to use Myr Landshaper to turn our Forest into an artifact so that Rebuild can return it to our hand, perhaps Show and Tell is safe again. In that case, we can do the following:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Mana Vault
17 Rust Tick
18 Deep Reconnaissance
19 Argivian Find
20 Disenchant
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Forest
24 Myr Landshaper
25 Walking Atlas
27 Vile Redeemer
28 Deconstruct
29 Precursor Golem
30 Worldpurge
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Panharmonicon
35 Joyous Respite
36 Watcher of the Roost
37 Judge of Currents
38 Merfolk Sovereign
39 Godtoucher
40 Everglove Courier
41 Nectar Faerie
42 Ghosthelm Courier
43 Possessed Aven
44 Grassland Crusader
45 Possessed Nomad
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 Reality Spasm
56 Consecrated Sphinx
57 Noggle Ransacker
58 Mox Sapphire
59 Obelisk of Esper
60 Show and Tell
The loss of Black Lotus is still painful, and we need three mana artifacts in our deck now. And unfortunately, we could not use Goblin Bushwhacker, so this deck does not quite beat the previous one, despite getting to Minion of Tevesh Szat in only 54 cards.
Removing Swarm Intelligence doesn't make Disembowel safe for the island later in the sequence. Spellweaver Volute can cast a copy of Disembowel with X=0. In response to that we can do some actions to draw the actual card and cast it with X=1. Once both of the spells are on the stack we can copy the 0 version to create blue mana from the island many times (with help from Primeval Titan and Natural Affinity between the [c]Psachic Battle[/c} triggers. That blue mana can be used to copy the X=1 version to access the higher parts of the combo. Sadly this kills all the proposed decks.
Another problem with the first proposed deck is that we can repeat the megastage transition without the need for hasty Metallurgeons under the Worldpurge. Ancient Den tokens would easily produce enough mana for that. To fix that we could witch to a Walking Atlas setup. At some point we would need to create new hasty Atlas tokens under the worldpurge and those tokens are required to access the Ancient Den mana there. But that conflicts with the use of island later.
I like the use of Peak Eruption to produce red from a sorcery. You already noted the infinite with Gerrard's Verdict and multiple lands, and the fixes for that in the later versions seem to work. If it wasn't for that Disembowel problem
An idea I had for the artifact lands is to use Walking Atlas + Ancient Den + Expedition Map instead of Su-Chi + Farrelite Priest. the extra card can be saved back in the megastage transition because we would not need Primeval Titan. But we would be unable to use Gerrard's Verdict versions (the wouldn't need to cast Worldpurge) and we lose some ways to make use of lands later on, so I don't see it actually helping.
Now on to the 60 card deck. The first proposed improvement doesn't work. Restoring the Tree of Tales doesn't force us to gain the green mana right then. We can just bounce it to hand with Worldpurge and after resolving that we can put the Tree back into play as a creature, having it die but creating lots of tokens that give us the green mana on the wrong side of the transition. Going infinite.
The second version also goes infinite. This time we can repeat the hyperstage transition without need for hasty Metallurgeons in the lower stage. We can use Walking Atlas in the higher stage to put the land into play and generate the green mana. So once the ressources we have in the higher stage are running out we arrange everything as needed, resolve the Rebuild from the transition on the stack and immediatly put the next transition on the stack, getting new hasty Metallurgeon tokens via Argivian Find and Disenchant.
This infinite doesn't work in the Battle Cry version because that only gives us hasty untapped Metallurgeons if we have some tapped ones on the battlefield already. And those are destroyed by the Rebuild and we need to create new ones before we transition again, requiring Metallurgeon activations in the lower stage.
Can we create lots of blue mana using Psychic Battle and Primeval Titan though? Both Disembowel and Primeval Titan use the stack, so we we can't interweave the triggers. Maybe there is some way to make it too expensive to get more blue mana.
That's too bad about the Argivian Find attempt. I'm still thinking that there might be a way to moot only artifacts in the hyperstage. Do you have any ideas?
I'm not sure what can be done to save white creatures for after the hyperstage. We'd need a new way to ensure there are hasty token activations required to repeat the transition. That seems like a difficult problem, since bouncing all our artifacts leaves most of our board alone. Maybe we can use another effect for that part? No idea what could possibly work though.
Concerning the Tree of Tales deck: It occurs to me that, since we are required to use Walking Atlas for the hyperstage transition, we can switch out Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest for something like Tooth of Ramos. This will enable us to switch out Restore for Deconstruct and Precursor Golem or Swarm Intelligence. But, we no longer have a way for Hurloon Shaman to gain life; That would require at least one more card, so no savings yet.
Concerning the Argivian Find deck: I wondered briefly if maybe Disenchant could be replaced by something that would redirect the target of a Rust Tick. Then we would require having a hasted Rust Tick in the hyperstage. But, I couldn't find a suitable card; closest I could find was Spellskite, which doesn't trigger either Psychic Battle or Grip of Chaos, so no way to redirect it onto the original Rust Tick. Oh well.
EDIT: Thinking of other ideas for the hyperstage transition: Perhaps Metal Fatigue, using Pili-Pala to get our mana back? But, I don't see why we couldn't untap lots of Pili-Palas, so that doesn't seem to be particulraly controllable.
Perhaps phasing our permanents out and back in again could be a possibility. But, the only cards that I could find that could do that are Teferi's Protection and Time and Tide, and I don't like Teferi's Protection preventing us from changing our life total.
EDIT: I moved the land destruction to before the Disembowel stage:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Worldpurge
28 Flash of Defiance
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Panharmonicon
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Watcher of the Roost
33 Prophecy
34 Mountain
35 Natural Connection
36 Purity
37 Goblin Fireslinger
38 Mad Auntie
39 Facevaulter
40 Swamp
41 Guardian Zendikon
42 Vine Trellis
43 Assault Formation
44 Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
45 Felhide Spiritbinder
46 Anaba Ancestor
47 Promised Kannushi
48 Izzet Guildmage
49 Disembowel
50 Noble Hierarch
52 Merfolk Sovereign
53 Godtoucher
54 Everglove Courier
55 Nectar Faerie
56 Ghosthelm Courier
57 Possessed Aven
58 Centaur Archer
59 Maze Glider
60 Possessed Centaur
61 Eastern Paladin
62 Frightshroud Courier
63 Dwarven Warriors
64 Possessed Barbarian
65 Minion of Tevesh Szat
66 Reality Spasm
67 Precursor Golem
68 Sylvan Echoes
69 Sentry Oak
70 Finest Hour
71 World at War
72 Genesis Wave
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
To kill the reordered stage sequence I found another infinite. Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro produces green by itself without any targeting required. Just play it to get Bloodbond March triggers. For all but the last trigger return Sachi to the battlefield, get a Dual Nature token and destroy the original via legend rule. Imprint on Mimic Vat to get a hasty token that taps for green. After the last Bloodbond March trigger keep the original around, bounce it via Worldpurge and repeat.
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Worldpurge
28 Flash of Defiance
29 Flash of Defiance
30 Panharmonicon
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Watcher of the Roost
33 Prophecy
34 Mountain
35 Natural Connection
36 Tree of Redemption
37 Vine Trellis
38 Assault Formation
39 Goblin Digging Team
40 Mad Auntie
41 Facevaulter
42 Swamp
43 Natural Affinity
44 Hurloon Shaman
45 Anaba Ancestor
46 Promised Kannushi
47 Izzet Guildmage
48 Disembowel
49 Noble Hierarch
50 Sea Scryer
51 Merfolk Sovereign
53 Everglove Courier
54 Nectar Faerie
55 Ghosthelm Courier
56 Possessed Aven
57 Centaur Archer
58 Maze Glider
59 Possessed Centaur
60 Eastern Paladin
61 Frightshroud Courier
62 Dwarven Warriors
63 Possessed Barbarian
64 Minion of Tevesh Szat
65 Reality Spasm
66 Precursor Golem
67 Angelheart Vial
68 Karplusan Minotaur
69 Impulsive Maneuvers
70 World at War
71 Genesis Wave
72 Floating-Dream Zubera
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
But, I guess with land destruction before Disembowel, we can just cast Disembowel with X=0 to destroy the Swamp, and get an infinite loop without ever needing Disembowel with X=1. Perhaps if we made animating lands more expensive, it could work? I'm not sure how though.
Perhaps Awakener Druid, animating a Bayou? We haven't had much luck with limiting things via Worldpurge though.
EDIT: Welp, without Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro, or the ability to use both Disembowel and land destruction, I don't know how to get 15 stages anymore. So the best I can currently do is:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Auntie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Indomitable Creativity
63 Spiritual Focus
64 Pain Magnification
65 Justice
66 Repercussion
67 Five-Alarm Fire
68 World at War
69 Mizzium Meddler
70 Sky Swallower
71 Genesis Wave
72 Floating-Dream Zubera
73 Channel
74 Black Lotus
75 Living Wish
The new innovation: add Indomitable Creativity and Precursor Golem, with Mizzium Meddler to redirect the target of Indomitable Creativity copies to a legal target. Should get around F_{w^3 + w14 + 8} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 3} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 3} (116)) or thereabouts.
EDIT: I looked again at the idea of using opponent life gain in the ending sequence. We can't postpone the lifegain beyond combat, or else the opponent can gain life via Nectar Faerie. If we follow Repercussion with something that depends on opponent's life, can we get a couple of layers or more from there? One idea is to use Blockbuster, dealing damage to both the opponent and some tapped creatures, and follow that with Nectar Faerie life gain:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Autnie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Indomitable Creativity
63 Spiritual Focus
64 Pain Magnification
65 Justice
66 Repercussion
67 Blockbuster
68 World at War
69 Mizzium Meddler
70 Genesis Wave
71 Master Warcraft
72 Sky Swallower
73 Channel
74 Black Lotus
75 Living Wish
Unfortunately, this is also at w^3 + w14 + 8. Another idea is to turn opponent damage into life gain via Tamanoa, and then go into Night Dealings:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Autnie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Genesis Wave
63 Night Dealings
64 Tamanoa
65 Spiteful Visions
66 Waste Not
67 Pain Magnification
68 Five-Alarm Fire
69 World at War
70 Cinder Hellion
71 Sky Swallower
72 Channel
73 Chancellor of the Tangle
74 Chancellor of the Tangle
75 Living Wish
But, this is also at w^3 + w14 + 8. Does anyone see a possible improvement?
EDIT: Looks like Engulfing Slagwurm can get an extra layer over Nectar Faerie. Unfortunately, we can't fit in both that and Indomitable Creativity, but if we remove Indomitable Creativity, we have room for Finest Hour.
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Autnie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Herbal Poultice
62 Genesis Wave
63 Spiritual Focus
64 Pain Magnification
65 Justice
66 Repercussion
67 Blockbuster
68 Engulfing Slagwurm
69 Finest Hour
70 World at War
71 Master Warcraft
72 Sky Swallower
73 Channel
74 Black Lotus
75 Living Wish
EDIT: Hmm, it looks like Worldpurge interferes with the extra layer from Engulfing Slagwurm. So no improvement here.
EDIT: We can use Korozda Gorgon + Patron of the Vein, or Reality Spasm + Toshiro Umezawa, to get two layers below giving the opponent creatures. Again, I can't get above w^3 + w14 + 8, but perhaps we can sqeeze in Finest Hour with the following:
2 Grip of Chaos
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 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Spellweaver Helix
32 Panharmonicon
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Promised Kannushi
39 Izzet Guildmage
40 Disembowel
41 Noble Hierarch
42 Postmortem Lunge
43 Krark-Clan Stoker
44 Mad Autnie
45 Facevaulter
46 Basal Thrull
47 Thrull Champion
48 Godtoucher
49 Everglove Courier
50 Nectar Faerie
52 Possessed Aven
53 Centaur Archer
54 Maze Glider
55 Possessed Centaur
56 Eastern Paladin
57 Frightshroud Courier
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Possessed Barbarian
60 Minion of Tevesh Szat
61 Korozda Gorgon
62 Patron of the Vein
63 Forbidden Orchard
64 Genesis Wave
65 Spiritual Focus
66 Pain Magnification
67 Justice
68 Repercussion
69 Lord of Shatterskull Pass
70 Finest Hour
71 World at War
72 Cultural Exchange
73 Channel
74 Black Lotus
75 Living Wish
Having Cultural Exchange allows the use of Lord of Shatterskull Pass, and using that eliminates the need for Floating-Dream Zubera (assuming that we can still get started).
Not sure how Toshiro Umezawa + Reality Spasm would get creatures to the opponent as Forbidden Orchard would go infinite.
Another way for a cooperative opponent to gain more creatures would be to start them off with an untapped token Mimic Vat. Then we can destroy our own original Mimic Vat as a creature. They imprint it under theirs and tap it to create a new untapped token. The tapped one can be exchanged for a Su-Chi, which we destroy to give them the mana the need and trigger our 'opponent's creature dies' effects. But this loop seems currently impossible since we can't get Mimic Vat back from the graveyard/exile/library. Still this sort of stuff has many dangers.
What if we went Pain Magnification into Waste Not into Psychic Possession? Psychic Possession enchants an opponent, so if we try to donate it to the opponent, it will go to the graveyard, since it is enchanting an illegal target.
EDIT: Unfortunately, we can donate a Mimic Vat imprinted with Copy Enchantment, and the opponent can have the created Copy Enchantment token copy Psychic Possession. There are ways to get rid of Copy Enchantment, but then we wouldn't be able to create many copies of Psychic Possession to get a layer.
EDIT: Hmm, we could use Grollub to give the opponent life, and transition to Hurricane to damage both the opponent and flying creatures we control. If we were to follow that with Five-Alarm Fire however, I don't think we would gain a layer. We could gain a layer by following Grollub with Lord of Shatterskull Pass, except that Lord of Shatterskull Pass would destroy the Grollbs, and we couldn't bring them back under our control so that they would give life to the opponent. I guess we could add Snarling Undorak, but now we need too many cards.
EDIT: Okay, I've started the writeup again: I've written up the hyperstage section. The previous sections are now outdated; I'll get to them later.
https://sites.google.com/site/deedlitsplace/ultracombo
Constructive feedback is much appreciated!
EDIT: Hmm, there's something I haven't quite gotten to work: the idea I had to put a Dual Nature trigger for Vedalken Orrery on the stack was to cast Vedalken Orrery, then respond by tapping the last untapped Metallurgeon token to bounce Vedalken Orrery and the original Metallurgeon. But, then the Psychic Battle triggers will be above the Dual Nature triggers, so when we get back to this stage the Psychic Battle triggers will resolve without being able to destroy the original Metallurgeon, and we will lose a layer. (two, actually) We could just cast Vedalken Orrery without bouncing it, but then in the next stage up Vedalken Orrery will be on the battlefield, and we will have to do something different to put Dual Nature triggers on the stack.
How do we handle this?
EDIT: Oh, I see: We can bounce March of the Machines after Cowardice has been triggered, and then Dual Nature will not destroy Vedalken Orrery tokens after the original card has been bounced to our hand.
Does the need to bounce Vedalken Orrery mean that we need to expend a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon in the hyperstage transition, making Su-Chi perhaps not necessary? But, perhaps we can get an infinite loop without needing Vedalken Orrery then.