You can't have 2 Spell Quellers with the Panharmonicon. The Hyperstage would go infinite with a loop that is pretty much exactly like the loop I posted 2 pages (2 pages! You go so fast!) back.
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Lets look at this gamestate: We have both Engineered Explosives in hand, one Western Paladin is in the graveyard, the other Western Paladin is exiled under a Spell Queller. All the instants and sorceries are under the same Spell Queller as well. Vedalken Orrery is exiled under the other Spell Queller.
On the Battlefield we have at least one Orrery token and one hasty untapped Western Paladin token. We also have a bunch of Psychic Battles and [c]Bloodbond March[c]es and the other usual stuff.
On the stack is a Mirrorworks trigger for Vedalken Orrery and say 10 layers worth of Metallurgeon PB and BM triggers.
Onto the infinite loop:
We can tap a Western Paladin token to get <enough> PB triggers.
We can use 1 of these triggers to resolve a Make a Stand copy:
-- Use the PB to bounce the original Spell Queller with all those instants and sorceries. Cast all of the spells under it.
-- Recast the Spell Queller and exile all those spells again.
-- Resolve all the Swarm Intelligence triggers we got. Refuse to copy any spells you don't wan't to resolve here, but get a copy of and resolve.
We are back to where we were before, except with 1 PB trigger less and all creatures are now indestructible.
We can use the same procedure to cast any of the other instants/sorceries or use Bloodbond March for Western Paladin. So lets do that:
- Use 1 PB to bring Western Paladin to the battlefield.
- Cast Engineered Explosives from hand so that it gets 4 counters.
- Explode the Explosives, imprint Western Paladin on Mimic Vat. Create a hasty untapped token Western Paladin and move the card to the graveyard.
- cast the second Engineered Explosive to trigger Mishra, Artificer Prodigy and get the first copy back to the abttlefield.
- Use 1 PB to bounce all artifacts, including the Explosives.
- Use 1 PB to bounce the Spell Queller that exiles Vadalken Orrery. Cast and resolve that.
- Use 1 PB to make creatures indestructible again, including the new Western Paladin token and the Orrery.
- Use 1 PB to bring Western Paladin to the battlefield.
- Cast Engineered Explosives from hand so that it gets 4 counters.
- Explode the Explosives, imprint Western Paladin on Mimic Vat. Create a hasty untapped token Western Paladin and move the card to the graveyard.
- cast the second Engineered Explosive to trigger Mishra, Artificer Prodigy and get the first copy back to the abttlefield.
- Use 1 PB to bounce all artifacts, including the Explosives.
We are back to where we started except that we have one additional Western Paladin token and the Vedalken Orrery is not exiled under a Spell Queller any more. Instead we have the Orrery on the Battlefield and 1 Spell Queller in hand.
Resolve the Mirrorworks trigger to get back instant speed capability via Vedalken Orrery token.
Use the Metallurgeon layers to create 10 layers worth of hasty, tapped Metallurgeon tokens along with the 5 hasty untapped tokens we can get out of them. This also lets us top off on mana and vastly increase the numbers of our enchantments, so progress is made. The stack is now empty.
Tap one hasty Western Paladin token to get <enough> PB triggers. Use 1 PB to untap all those hasty Metallurgeons.
Use the Metallurgeons to put 10 layers worth of triggers on the stack. Look at the rest of them and don't care because we are going infinite anyway~
Cast Orrery, get a Mirrorworks trigger and use one of the untapped Metallurgeons to bounce it again. Cast Orrery, cast Queller and let it exile the Orrery.
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The 1 Queller version of the Hyperstage seems to work! Having that token based Hyperstage is a great step towards building an Ultrastage.
I haven't looked to deep into the Mega and Ultra stages proposed here yet. You are right to keep in mind the Vedalken Orrery under Spell Queller as a danger for them. With spare Western Paladins from the higher Hyperstage getting the Orrery under there would be basically free, so there is a lot of danger. I'm not sure if it is enough to make Omniscience hard to get back. I guess it depends on what specifically needs to be done to double dip on the resource generation of a transition.
Separating the different types of stages via cheap instants, expensive instants and sorceries looks like a good plan. Could be workable.
Making sure that the Mega and Ultra stages use up the extra substage resources they create during the transition is indeed important and seems like a hard problem.
When we were constructing the Megastage we eventually resorted to using lifecost flashback spells of the same color as the hyperstage for the mana -> life setup. i.e. Chatter of the Squirrel + Acorn Harvest. For the life -> mana setup we had to use lifecost flashback spells for both.
Seperating the cost form the actual triggering spell, for example with painlands would often go infinite because we could convert the life into mana in the higher substage and keep it through the transition. So you have to make sure that the entire payment for triggering the Ultrastage can only be made after reolving the transition.
Not sure how that is supposed to work when the cost should include mana, life and a token/explosives activation... With Fumarole for example I don't see how you are using green? But Worldpurge gets you both the Tropical Island and the Pale Recluse into your hand, so that's 2 green generated right there.
lijil, does that infinite still work if we instead make a Spell Queller token with a Soul Foundry that's been exiled under Spell Queller? I think with that, you need to resolve down to the next batch down of Skyshroud Archer/Western Paladin/whatever triggers. I'm not sure though, so I've been going with the second Queller instead.
Also, does it still work if we cut the indestructibility granter wholesale? The death trigger version I edited into my last post (before I saw you'd commented) might let us do that. Either one should at least be able to get us up to the megastage if they work, since we won't be able to create a new token in the megastage (we'd never get the chance to recast our cheap instant spells at a time where they'd actually matter).
For the gigastage... that's gonna be tougher. I didn't think about the two green mana we need to generate.
I wonder if there's a way to force us to use a starting cost of 2 green to get Fumarole into our hand? That might do the trick.
If we went to the Goblin Dark-Dwellers version of the hyperstage, we could switch out Fumarole for Acorn Harvest, which uses up one green. Doesn't take care of the two green problem, but maybe we could amend the megastage so that the gigastage picks up only one green.
Sadly, I think Goblin Dark-Dwellers goes infinite in the megastage transition: we can make sure to leave it on the battlefield at the end of the higher hyperstage, then Kederekt Leviathan will bounce it back to hand during the transition. Then, in the lower megastage, we can replay it to get another stage worth of stuff.
Also, Acorn Harvest is cheap enough to exile and recast with Spell Queller, so it goes infinite. In fact, all the "flashback-pay life" cards in that cycle are closed off by Spell Queller. I believe our only option, if separating the cost with something like Mana Confluence is off the table, is Fumarole.
Why is that cost separation off the table, though? I don't see why it would be, which means there's something I'm not understanding about these n-stage interactions, which is gonna be a real problem down the line when we actually try to make a gigastage.
Edit: I think this list works up through the megastage, only going infinite when we store green mana through the gigastage transition. Putting it here so lijil can see what I'm talking about in deck form rather than just notes.
WAIT WAIT WAIT: If we switch to Dark-Dwellers, it actually doesn't matter if we store it and replay it, using that to generate a hasty Archer token: in fact, we have to! For us to restart the next hyperstage up, we NEED at least one hasty Skyshroud Archer token to untap with Thoughtweft Gambit, just like how we need a hasty Metallurgeon token to kick-start each stage in the hyperstage. We can resolve down to the next hyperstage transition to get one, but then we're using up a full token in the bottom level to make a new one, which doesn't work. I think we actually NEED that first token to get stored before we move on to the next, right? Or am I missing something about the math?
Hmm, I don't think Mana Confluence is off the table. I think Iijil was talking about using painlands when we had say Worldfire, then we could convert the life into mana and avoiding losing anything to Worldfire. But in the above deck, there is no reason to convert life into mana above Worldpurge, so you would just do it when paying for the transition sorcery.
Edit: I think the problem with getting a an extra hasty Archer token, is that it allows us to extend the hyperstage by one stage. We can then resolve the newly extended hyperstage a bit, and we are still ahead, and we'll have hasted tokens to untap with Thoughtweft Gambit.
I don't think that necessarily means Dark-Dwellers is dead; if we can require the Explosives to be used on something other than the Skyshroud Archer (I know, I keep harping on this), then we will have to use up one hasted Archer token to reset the Explosives, and that should balance things.
Ahhh, that makes sense. If we can force life payment on a color of Mana, that makes the gigastage at least somewhat easier.
And yeah, that makes good sense. In that case, we can go back to Spell Queller. I /think/ Soul Foundry stores the Instants in a safe way, right? Then we have to resolve down to the next hyperstage transition, steal a token from it, and use it as the way to bounce Spell Queller/continue the megastage. Because we can't produce a new Archer token until the entire top stack of Archer psychic Battle triggers is done, the best we can do is put our Vedalken Orrery Mirrorworks trigger on the stack under that activation, and proceed through the upper hyperstage again.
Hmm, getting rid of indestructible granters and using deathtriggers from 4cmc to destroy Skyshroud Archer would work. Using a tap creature that can target itself probably won't work. We might be able to create a layer worth of Skyshroud Archer tokens when we are only allowed to create one. Errant Doomsayers in particular can also be untapped by Battle Cry, removing the need for Retract completely.
And yeah, painlands was a problem with Worldfire. As long as the thing we convert into also gets removed by the transition we should be good. I guess Worldpurge plays a bit better in that regard.
EDIT: How is Soul Foundry going to work in the Megastage? In particular, how do we get the Spell Queller back out of exile/graveyard/library?
We can create Bloodbond March triggers for Spell Queller by using up a Psychic Battle on Skyshroud Archer. I think we can put those at the top of a hyperstage transition in the hyperstage below, use them to get Spell Queller to the battlefield, and then use a Battle trigger below that to bounce the nontoken back to hand. That's my idea, at least.
Stakfish, can you explain how the death triggers combo is supposed to work? In the deck, it looks like Engineered Explosives is supposed to destroy Errant Doomsayers, except that Fiend of the Shadows can already sacrifice the Doomsayers. We can't be using the Explosives on Skyshroud Archers, because then we would need Heroic Intervention. So I'm not sure what we are supposed to target.
The short answer is, it doesn't, per lijil, but the idea is you need to hit Driver of the Dead to get Doomsayers back. Then you can bin the Doomsayers to get a hasty token, and you're off.
Of course, it doesn't actually work, sadly. Fortunately, I'm not sure it's necessary: it depends on whether Soul Foundry alone can lijil-proof the hyperstage and megastage, by keeping us from making use of the Orrery trick.
The other option, of course is to use a color of mana: thanks to the Ramunap Ruins cycle in Amonkhet, we might only need one color to get those working.
If we can find a sorcery that lets us turn Worldpurge into life, then that deck works...
I don't see how Soul Foundry would let us go infinite with the hyperstage. Of course that doesn't mean there is no infinite, but lets assume it works for now.
Okay, making Worldpurge itself the trigger sorcery is actually brilliant. The only problem is, we can now use Xira Arien to get back Geneis Wave, too. I'm pretty sure that lets us take our setup infinite...
I'm also worried about whether we can leverage the Engineered Explosives bounce in the megastage. If we do, that probably means we just have to find a death trigger at the 4cmc level, chain it with the tapper, and cut the indestructibility. Then, we can convert Kederekt Leviathan to Child of Alara, which will destroy artifacts instead of bouncing them, and we won't be able to make use of the explosives.
Hmm, Genesis Wave might go infinite, but let's check. Activating Xira Arien costs us a green mana and one life. Genesis Wave can get us the one life by putting Glimmerpost on the battlefield. But, that takes Glimmerpost from the library to the battlefield. I don't know any way to put it back into the library, except through Worldpurge. But, retrieving Worldpurge costs us another green mana and one life, and if we stick it in the library, we don't get the one life back. So the loop costs us two life and only gets us one life, so I don't see an infinite. (Of course, that's a far cry from meaning there isn't an infinite...)
In any case, a strong alternate possibility is Flash, if it doesn't go infinite. Then we can just go Black Lotus + Flash + Academy Rector + Omniscience; that's just two cards extra, and then we need a card to draw out our deck... not sure what the best one is actually.
You mentioned that we use Engineered Explosives to destroy Kederekt Leviathan. We need to do this before each megastage transition, so perhaps this could be what we use the additional Engineered Explosives for?
Heh, I think you found the Worldpurge equivalent to painlands: As far as I can tell there is nothing stopping us from using Xira Arien in the higher Megastage with green mana from Aether Mutation copies. We can keep the Worldpurge in Hand through the transition and in the higher Megastage we have an extra green mana from resolving Worldpurge to provide all the resources we need to put the next transition on the stack and go infinite.
Shoot. So it seems like using the green mana just to fetch the sorcery is tough to make work. It should activate the sorcery. So, I think we want to go to the Goblin Dark-Dwellers version and use Acorn Harvest in the gigastage. We would need to make sure any extra Engineered Explosives uses need to be spent - perhaps we can switch to Child of Alara as well?
Edit: Question - what goes wrong with the Goblin Dark-Dwellers deck if, instead of filtering through Boggart Mob, we just target it directly with, say, Lowland Oaf? Bouncing Goblin Dark-Dwellers allows us to play it when we choose, but, we could already tap Lowland Oaf when we choose. So it's not obvious to me that it goes infinite.
The idea is that, after a hyperstage resolution, we need to create two Winding Constrictor tokens so that we can use Engineered Explosives on Lowland Oaf. To get those tokens, we will use the Engineered Explosives and Goblin Dark-Dwellers that have been brought back to our hand. Hopefully, that will neutralize the advantage obtained by bringing those two cards back to our hand.
Guys, does the above work in terms of taking care of the extra uses of Engineered Explosives, and if not, how do we handle that problem?
Hmmmmm, how do you keep first token alive when you pop the explosives for 2? Do we have the time to cast an indestructible-granter in between?
The other problem is that Lowland Oaf is not green, so we have no way to get it back to the bank when we kill it. If we fix that though, I think that works, with an impressive 12 slots to build on afterwards!
After Winding Constrictor dies for the first time, we imprint it and put a Mimic Vat activation on the stack, but don't let it resolve. Then we go ahead and sacrifice another Engineered Explosives, imprinting Winding Constrictor a second time, and two Constrictor tokens will enter the battlefield in close succession.
As far as I can tell, that works! Granted, I'm not as good as either of you guys at finding infinites in working decks, but until lijil confirms that this does or doesn't work, we should start talking about how we build on top of this. I'm assuming we can't get any stages after an effect as big as Thoughtweft Gambit, but if I'm not mistaken we still have blue, black, and red mana to work with. We also have the potential for an energy layer and a snow layer, though those might be pipe dreams. Is there a settled-on most efficient way to make the whole Night Dealings layering work, and can we fill 12 card slots with that much space?
Edit: with Elvish Spirit Guide as the green producer and life-costing flashback spells as the life spender, I believe Mana Reflection is actually a safe add here for an easy 3 layers. Also, if we can switch to a red mana megastage instead of green mana, Krosan Druid and Boon Reflection gain add 2 layers together, from green mana->life. Each Druid triggers N times from Panharmonicons, each trigger doubled N times by Boon Reflection, etc.
Yeah, Thoughtweft Gambit definitely kills off any future creature token stages. And unfortunately, it looks like Kederekt Leviathan will put the kibosh on further mana stages, as I think all of those are recycled by bouncing a creature back to our hand. Fortunately, I think Worldpurge does not eliminate mana stages, since it clears the mana pool. So if you are willing, perhaps we can check how difficult it is to replace Kederekt Leviathan with Child of Alara (or possibly Worldgorger Dragon?), in the hope of getting some mana stages at the end.
I don't think we'll have any trouble filling out 60 cards - even before one could easily use 10+ cards, and now we have life, mana, and card drawing available!
Well, Worldgorger Dragon breaks the gigastage, and I don't think it's fixable. So it's out.
Child of Alara needs two things: it needs a death trigger-based regeneration for the hyperstage tokens, so we don't need indestructibility. And it needs a way to buy back the cards we can't normally buy back. Argivian Find can work, potentially. Since it still won't let us get Vedalken Orrery.
Edit: for reference purposes, the current proposed gigastage structure is below.
We can save one card by replacing Tooth of Ramos and Bog Initiate with Orzhov Keyrune.
It looks like Iijil has arisen! prays to Iijil for noninfinite
Edit: Wait, why do we need Krosan Constrictor?
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Lets look at this gamestate: We have both Engineered Explosives in hand, one Western Paladin is in the graveyard, the other Western Paladin is exiled under a Spell Queller. All the instants and sorceries are under the same Spell Queller as well. Vedalken Orrery is exiled under the other Spell Queller.
On the Battlefield we have at least one Orrery token and one hasty untapped Western Paladin token. We also have a bunch of Psychic Battles and [c]Bloodbond March[c]es and the other usual stuff.
On the stack is a Mirrorworks trigger for Vedalken Orrery and say 10 layers worth of Metallurgeon PB and BM triggers.
Onto the infinite loop:
We can tap a Western Paladin token to get <enough> PB triggers.
We can use 1 of these triggers to resolve a Make a Stand copy:
-- Use the PB to bounce the original Spell Queller with all those instants and sorceries. Cast all of the spells under it.
-- Recast the Spell Queller and exile all those spells again.
-- Resolve all the Swarm Intelligence triggers we got. Refuse to copy any spells you don't wan't to resolve here, but get a copy of and resolve.
We are back to where we were before, except with 1 PB trigger less and all creatures are now indestructible.
We can use the same procedure to cast any of the other instants/sorceries or use Bloodbond March for Western Paladin. So lets do that:
- Use 1 PB to bring Western Paladin to the battlefield.
- Cast Engineered Explosives from hand so that it gets 4 counters.
- Explode the Explosives, imprint Western Paladin on Mimic Vat. Create a hasty untapped token Western Paladin and move the card to the graveyard.
- cast the second Engineered Explosive to trigger Mishra, Artificer Prodigy and get the first copy back to the abttlefield.
- Use 1 PB to bounce all artifacts, including the Explosives.
- Use 1 PB to bounce the Spell Queller that exiles Vadalken Orrery. Cast and resolve that.
- Use 1 PB to make creatures indestructible again, including the new Western Paladin token and the Orrery.
- Use 1 PB to bring Western Paladin to the battlefield.
- Cast Engineered Explosives from hand so that it gets 4 counters.
- Explode the Explosives, imprint Western Paladin on Mimic Vat. Create a hasty untapped token Western Paladin and move the card to the graveyard.
- cast the second Engineered Explosive to trigger Mishra, Artificer Prodigy and get the first copy back to the abttlefield.
- Use 1 PB to bounce all artifacts, including the Explosives.
We are back to where we started except that we have one additional Western Paladin token and the Vedalken Orrery is not exiled under a Spell Queller any more. Instead we have the Orrery on the Battlefield and 1 Spell Queller in hand.
Resolve the Mirrorworks trigger to get back instant speed capability via Vedalken Orrery token.
Use the Metallurgeon layers to create 10 layers worth of hasty, tapped Metallurgeon tokens along with the 5 hasty untapped tokens we can get out of them. This also lets us top off on mana and vastly increase the numbers of our enchantments, so progress is made. The stack is now empty.
Tap one hasty Western Paladin token to get <enough> PB triggers. Use 1 PB to untap all those hasty Metallurgeons.
Use the Metallurgeons to put 10 layers worth of triggers on the stack. Look at the rest of them and don't care because we are going infinite anyway~
Cast Orrery, get a Mirrorworks trigger and use one of the untapped Metallurgeons to bounce it again. Cast Orrery, cast Queller and let it exile the Orrery.
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The 1 Queller version of the Hyperstage seems to work! Having that token based Hyperstage is a great step towards building an Ultrastage.
I haven't looked to deep into the Mega and Ultra stages proposed here yet. You are right to keep in mind the Vedalken Orrery under Spell Queller as a danger for them. With spare Western Paladins from the higher Hyperstage getting the Orrery under there would be basically free, so there is a lot of danger. I'm not sure if it is enough to make Omniscience hard to get back. I guess it depends on what specifically needs to be done to double dip on the resource generation of a transition.
Separating the different types of stages via cheap instants, expensive instants and sorceries looks like a good plan. Could be workable.
Making sure that the Mega and Ultra stages use up the extra substage resources they create during the transition is indeed important and seems like a hard problem.
When we were constructing the Megastage we eventually resorted to using lifecost flashback spells of the same color as the hyperstage for the mana -> life setup. i.e. Chatter of the Squirrel + Acorn Harvest. For the life -> mana setup we had to use lifecost flashback spells for both.
Seperating the cost form the actual triggering spell, for example with painlands would often go infinite because we could convert the life into mana in the higher substage and keep it through the transition. So you have to make sure that the entire payment for triggering the Ultrastage can only be made after reolving the transition.
Not sure how that is supposed to work when the cost should include mana, life and a token/explosives activation... With Fumarole for example I don't see how you are using green? But Worldpurge gets you both the Tropical Island and the Pale Recluse into your hand, so that's 2 green generated right there.
Also, does it still work if we cut the indestructibility granter wholesale? The death trigger version I edited into my last post (before I saw you'd commented) might let us do that. Either one should at least be able to get us up to the megastage if they work, since we won't be able to create a new token in the megastage (we'd never get the chance to recast our cheap instant spells at a time where they'd actually matter).
For the gigastage... that's gonna be tougher. I didn't think about the two green mana we need to generate.
I wonder if there's a way to force us to use a starting cost of 2 green to get Fumarole into our hand? That might do the trick.
Also, Acorn Harvest is cheap enough to exile and recast with Spell Queller, so it goes infinite. In fact, all the "flashback-pay life" cards in that cycle are closed off by Spell Queller. I believe our only option, if separating the cost with something like Mana Confluence is off the table, is Fumarole.
Why is that cost separation off the table, though? I don't see why it would be, which means there's something I'm not understanding about these n-stage interactions, which is gonna be a real problem down the line when we actually try to make a gigastage.
Edit: I think this list works up through the megastage, only going infinite when we store green mana through the gigastage transition. Putting it here so lijil can see what I'm talking about in deck form rather than just notes.
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 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirrorworks
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Bog Initiate
18 Metallurgeon
19 Battle Cry
20 Retract
21 Heroic Intervention
22 Swarm Intelligence
23 Spell Queller
24 Skyshroud Archer
25 Driver of the Dead
26 Driver of the Dead
27 Errant Doomsayers
28 Fiend of the Shadows
29 Panharmonicon
30 Engineered Explosives
31 Engineered Explosives
32 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
33 Winding Constrictor
35 Spellweaver Volute
36 Thoughtweft Gambit
37 Fated Return
38 Kederekt Leviathan
39 Roar of the Wurm
40 Pale Recluse
41 Wand of the Elements
42 Tropical Island
43 Walking Atlas
44 Academy Rector
45 Wormfang Behemoth
46 Vile Redeemer
47 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed
48 Spellweaver Helix
49 Worldpurge
50 Fumarole
51 Fumarole
52 Radiant Fountain
53 Glimmerpost
55 Channel
56 Black Lotus
WAIT WAIT WAIT: If we switch to Dark-Dwellers, it actually doesn't matter if we store it and replay it, using that to generate a hasty Archer token: in fact, we have to! For us to restart the next hyperstage up, we NEED at least one hasty Skyshroud Archer token to untap with Thoughtweft Gambit, just like how we need a hasty Metallurgeon token to kick-start each stage in the hyperstage. We can resolve down to the next hyperstage transition to get one, but then we're using up a full token in the bottom level to make a new one, which doesn't work. I think we actually NEED that first token to get stored before we move on to the next, right? Or am I missing something about the math?
Edit: I think the problem with getting a an extra hasty Archer token, is that it allows us to extend the hyperstage by one stage. We can then resolve the newly extended hyperstage a bit, and we are still ahead, and we'll have hasted tokens to untap with Thoughtweft Gambit.
I don't think that necessarily means Dark-Dwellers is dead; if we can require the Explosives to be used on something other than the Skyshroud Archer (I know, I keep harping on this), then we will have to use up one hasted Archer token to reset the Explosives, and that should balance things.
And yeah, that makes good sense. In that case, we can go back to Spell Queller. I /think/ Soul Foundry stores the Instants in a safe way, right? Then we have to resolve down to the next hyperstage transition, steal a token from it, and use it as the way to bounce Spell Queller/continue the megastage. Because we can't produce a new Archer token until the entire top stack of Archer psychic Battle triggers is done, the best we can do is put our Vedalken Orrery Mirrorworks trigger on the stack under that activation, and proceed through the upper hyperstage again.
And yeah, painlands was a problem with Worldfire. As long as the thing we convert into also gets removed by the transition we should be good. I guess Worldpurge plays a bit better in that regard.
EDIT: How is Soul Foundry going to work in the Megastage? In particular, how do we get the Spell Queller back out of exile/graveyard/library?
Of course, it doesn't actually work, sadly. Fortunately, I'm not sure it's necessary: it depends on whether Soul Foundry alone can lijil-proof the hyperstage and megastage, by keeping us from making use of the Orrery trick.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death’s Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omnsicience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirroworks
16 Orzhov Keyrune
17 Metallurgeon
18 Battle Cry
19 Retract
20 Make a Stand
21 Swarm Intelligence
22 Spell Queller
23 Western Paladin
24 Western Paladin
25 Panharmonicon
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Engineered Explosives
28 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
29 Winding Constrictor
31 Spellweaver Volute
32 Thoughtweft Gambit
33 Synthetic Destiny
34 Fated Return
35 Kederekt Leviathan
36 Roar of the Wurm
37 Pale Recluse
38 Wand of the Elements
39 Tropical Island
40 Walking Atlas
41 Academy Rector
42 Wormfang Behemoth
43 Vile Redeemer
44 Gempalm Strider
45 Spellweaver Helix
46 Worldpurge
47 Fumarole
48 Fumarole
49 Radiant Fountain
50 Glimmerpost
52 Channel
53 Black Lotus
The other option, of course is to use a color of mana: thanks to the Ramunap Ruins cycle in Amonkhet, we might only need one color to get those working.
If we can find a sorcery that lets us turn Worldpurge into life, then that deck works...
Another attempt:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death’s Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omnsicience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirroworks
16 Orzhov Keyrune
18 Battle Cry
19 Retract
20 Make a Stand
21 Swarm Intelligence
22 Spell Queller
23 Western Paladin
24 Western Paladin
25 Panharmonicon
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Engineered Explosives
28 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
29 Winding Constrictor
30 Soul Foundry
31 Spellweaver Volute
32 Thoughtweft Gambit
33 Fated Return
34 Kederekt Leviathan
35 Roar of the Wurm
36 Elvish Spirit Guide
37 Academy Rector
39 Vile Redeemer
40 Spellweaver Helix
41 Aether Mutation
42 Worldpurge
43 Worldpurge
44 Xira Arien
45 Ramunap Ruins
46 Glimmerpost
47 Walking Atlas
48 Genesis Wave
49 Channel
50 Black Lotus
How does this look?
I'm also worried about whether we can leverage the Engineered Explosives bounce in the megastage. If we do, that probably means we just have to find a death trigger at the 4cmc level, chain it with the tapper, and cut the indestructibility. Then, we can convert Kederekt Leviathan to Child of Alara, which will destroy artifacts instead of bouncing them, and we won't be able to make use of the explosives.
In any case, a strong alternate possibility is Flash, if it doesn't go infinite. Then we can just go Black Lotus + Flash + Academy Rector + Omniscience; that's just two cards extra, and then we need a card to draw out our deck... not sure what the best one is actually.
You mentioned that we use Engineered Explosives to destroy Kederekt Leviathan. We need to do this before each megastage transition, so perhaps this could be what we use the additional Engineered Explosives for?
Edit: Question - what goes wrong with the Goblin Dark-Dwellers deck if, instead of filtering through Boggart Mob, we just target it directly with, say, Lowland Oaf? Bouncing Goblin Dark-Dwellers allows us to play it when we choose, but, we could already tap Lowland Oaf when we choose. So it's not obvious to me that it goes infinite.
If nothing goes wrong, what about:
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 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirroworks
16 Tooth of Ramos
18 Battle Cry
19 Rebuild
20 Make a Stand
21 Swarm Intelligence
22 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
23 Lowland Oaf
24 Panharmonicon
25 Engineered Explosives
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
28 Winding Constrictor
29 Verdant Succession
30 Spellweaver Volute
31 Thoughtweft Gambit
32 Roar of the Wurm
33 Fated Return
34 Kederekt Leviathan
35 Elvish Spirit Guide
37 Vile Redeemer
38 Spellweaver Helix
39 Aether Mutation
40 Worldpurge
41 Acorn Harvest
42 Acorn Harvest
43 Radiant Fountain
44 Glimmerpost
45 Walking Atlas
46 Black Lotus
47 Channel
48 Genesis Wave
The idea is that, after a hyperstage resolution, we need to create two Winding Constrictor tokens so that we can use Engineered Explosives on Lowland Oaf. To get those tokens, we will use the Engineered Explosives and Goblin Dark-Dwellers that have been brought back to our hand. Hopefully, that will neutralize the advantage obtained by bringing those two cards back to our hand.
Guys, does the above work in terms of taking care of the extra uses of Engineered Explosives, and if not, how do we handle that problem?
The other problem is that Lowland Oaf is not green, so we have no way to get it back to the bank when we kill it. If we fix that though, I think that works, with an impressive 12 slots to build on afterwards!
Hmm, I don't know how to get Lowland Oaf back, but I just realized that Krosan Constrictor also cost four mana, so we can just use the original Boggart Mob / Krosan Constrictor configuration after all!
Edit: with Elvish Spirit Guide as the green producer and life-costing flashback spells as the life spender, I believe Mana Reflection is actually a safe add here for an easy 3 layers. Also, if we can switch to a red mana megastage instead of green mana, Krosan Druid and Boon Reflection gain add 2 layers together, from green mana->life. Each Druid triggers N times from Panharmonicons, each trigger doubled N times by Boon Reflection, etc.
Yeah, Thoughtweft Gambit definitely kills off any future creature token stages. And unfortunately, it looks like Kederekt Leviathan will put the kibosh on further mana stages, as I think all of those are recycled by bouncing a creature back to our hand. Fortunately, I think Worldpurge does not eliminate mana stages, since it clears the mana pool. So if you are willing, perhaps we can check how difficult it is to replace Kederekt Leviathan with Child of Alara (or possibly Worldgorger Dragon?), in the hope of getting some mana stages at the end.
I don't think we'll have any trouble filling out 60 cards - even before one could easily use 10+ cards, and now we have life, mana, and card drawing available!
Edit: As an example of what we could do:
Support cards:
Layers:
Boon Reflection - 1
Tamanoa - 2
Justice - 3
Repercussion - 4
Winter Blast - 6
Spiritual Focus - 7
Pain Magnification - 8
Justice - 9
Repercussion - 10
Aurelia's Fury - 12
Boros Guildgate - 13
Reality Spasm - 15
Druid's Repository - 17
World at War - 18
18 layers, but too many cards. We didn't even use black mana or Night Dealings.
Child of Alara needs two things: it needs a death trigger-based regeneration for the hyperstage tokens, so we don't need indestructibility. And it needs a way to buy back the cards we can't normally buy back. Argivian Find can work, potentially. Since it still won't let us get Vedalken Orrery.
Edit: for reference purposes, the current proposed gigastage structure is below.
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 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirroworks
16 Tooth of Ramos
18 Battle Cry
19 Rebuild
20 Make a Stand
21 Swarm Intelligence
22 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
23 Lowland Oaf
24 Panharmonicon
25 Engineered Explosives
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Mishra, Artificer Prodigy
28 Winding Constrictor
29 Verdant Succession
30 Spellweaver Volute
31 Thoughtweft Gambit
32 Roar of the Wurm
33 Fated Return
34 Kederekt Leviathan
35 Elvish Spirit Guide
37 Vile Redeemer
38 Spellweaver Helix
39 Aether Mutation
40 Worldpurge
41 Acorn Harvest
42 Acorn Harvest
43 Radiant Fountain
44 Glimmerpost
45 Walking Atlas
46 Black Lotus
47 Channel
48 Genesis Wave