Ok, so here is the deck, modified slightly from post #2266 (-millikin+shriekhorn -skull+crystal chimes -reforge+sphinx -decree+congregation)
Currently using about half of the cards in the analysis (first 27+#35+#(43-46)+#60)
trying to get into the actual Chalice of the Void lines, I am going to be a bit more granular than last time because I want to be careful. First, as they show up in the steps and I haven't exactly been using them consistently, I'm going to properly define a lock. Locks can either be locked or unlocked by actions. Actions that lock a lock can only be done when the lock is unlocked. On the other hand, actions that unlock a lock can be done even if the lock is unlocked.
For example, in the normal operation of the metallurgeon stage, the real metallurgeon's location acts as a lock on when we can make a hasty metallurgeon token.
Here are the operations we can do: (*=requires flash)
0. using Mirror of fate/shreikhorn we can move any card from exile->library and library->grave. Myr welder also lets us move artifacts from grave->exile.
1*. bounce and replay Vedalken Orrery to put a mirrorworks trigger on the stack that gives us flash when the trigger resolves.
2*. spend mana to increase our multiplier X (by making copies of enchantments and artifacts as in the previous post)
3*. Resolve a PB:M trigger to make X mana. (PB=Psychic Battle)
4. Spend a M to make X PB:M triggers. (M = hasty metallurgeons)
5. Resolve a PB:M trigger and lock M to put the real Metallurgeon in hand.
6*. If chalice=2 and Metallurgeon is in hand then we can cast and counter the metallurgeon to get X BM:M triggers. (BM=Bloodbond March)
7. If Metallurgeon is in the grave, resolve a BM:M trigger to unlock M.
8. Resolve a PB:M trigger and lock M to make one M.
I think that captures the mechanics of the top of the stack, this should roughly implement the Ackermann function on the initial amount of M.
Now we need to generate many Ms. We do that by making an initial one and using that to make x more. To do that For example, the "real Metallurgeon" kind of behaves as a lock in the above, but it is a bit confusing with that one because of how many zones it goes through.
8*. Lock EE (=2) and lock M to kill all of the Metallurgeons, and gain one M.
9. Resolve a Muzzio activation to unlock M.
10. Resolve Goryo's Vengeance to get a Muzzio activation, and an untapped muzzio. (this is a lie, but pretty close to what we get)
11. Resolve a Muzzio activation to put ee=0 or chalice=0 in play
12. Resolve a Retract to unlock EE if it is in play, reset chalice, and bounce all artifacts (losing flash, if M is unlocked, lock it and put M in hand)
13. Resolve GDD to put GV on the stack if Chalice !=2
14. Resolve GDD to put Retract on the stack if Chalice !=1
15*. Resolve Changeling Hero to exile one other creature (mostly GDD sometimes Vedalken Orrery)
16. Resolve a PB:CT trigger to bounce Changeling Hero and get the championed card back.
That's all the stuff we need for the transition, now the Cenn's tactician stage, which is similar to the metallurgeon one.
17. Spend a CT to make X PB:CT triggers. (CT = hasty Cenn's tacticians)
18. Resolve a PB:CT trigger and lock CT to put the real Cenn's tactician in hand.
19*. If chalice=1 and CT is in hand then we can cast and counter the Cenn's Tactician to get X BM:CT triggers.
20. If CT is in the grave, resolve a BM:CT trigger to unlock CT.
21. Resolve a PB:CT trigger and lock CT to make one CT.
22*. Lock EE=1 to lock CT and kill all CT and gain one CT.
I think that gets us to the point where we need to smite/collar the Changeling Hero?
I don't see any obvious infinites or anything like that. Though I may have missed something. Some of the actions could be combined/broken down more. Might need to look more into the transition and exactly when chalice is what.
Also, I only used chalice on 1 and 2, to conflict with GV/M and Recall/CT, no need to get it on other numbers anymore?
And using locks was less helpful for me than I expected, the EE lock helped, but the others are meh.
We still need to move the chalice to 3 to counter Myr Welder. If we don't need Myr Welder to obstruct anything, than I imagine we can replace Shriekhorn and Myr Welder with Perpetual Timepiece, and save a card. Although, while Stakfish mentioned that he thought we didn't really need Millikin, he didn't say the same about Myr Welder.
Myr welder is colorless, so Forerunner makes making copies of it is not super hard, Target the original, make a mimic vat copy... oh i see, getting the original back is tricky now. Hmm, i guess we need one of the muzzio activations to get it back? (Or chalice on 3)
We also can't go to timepiece because of ...? something? Hmm... I thought there was still a reason to make reshuffling from the graveyard more expensive?
Saving a card would be nice, but maybe needing to soak up that extra muzzio activation ends up being key? (it's kinda awkward as we can get them in a 1,3,1,3... cadence, instead of a cleaner 2,2,2,2...)
Hmm, I can't think of anything else that we need to move directly from the graveyard to the library other than artifacts. We need to move Reality Spasm back to the library, but that is very high up, and whether we use Perpetual Timepiece or Spellweaver Volute plus Mirror of Fate to move it back to the library makes little difference.
If we are indeed able to get rid of Myr Welder, then we could add Consecrated Sphinx back to the deck, and we would get:
Getting more draw triggers from the sphinxes is pretty nice for the start, but i think that freely reshuffling things in might let Muzzio get things back too easily?
I think I need to see the metallurgeon stage get rebuilt from one Cenn's tactician activation, (giving a bunch of PB triggers) because the stack gets real complicated there, and we gotta keep track of everything's location and when chalice is what.
Edit:
Looking back to stakfish's earlier explanation I think I see the problem: Metallurgeon conflicting with Goryo's Vengence is NOT wanted for the rebuilding process. The conflict we need is between the Cenn's tactician slot and the recall/retract/rebuild slot.
Unfortunately, there aren't exactly other cards like Goryo's vengeance or Metallurgeon, Hero's Demise is actually close, but also targets child of alara.
Yuki-Onna is interesting but doesn't solve the problem with recycling chalice (or especially EE)? If Whir of invention was arcane it looks like it would work.
Hmm, Argivian Find is close but lets us recast EE too cheaply.
Ah, the thought with Arcum Dagsson was a card to both both target and fetch metallurgeon so we don't need chalice on 2 to make them. But I see Arcum only fetches noncreature artifacts.
Salvaging station adds back in the infinite mana combo, which currently allows for infinite copies of artifacts and enchantments, and switching to march of the machines makes the start difficult/ugly/tricky/awkward but maybe not impossible. (ugh no, it means a matallurgeon trigger can't make mana without killing the chalice so probably a dead end unless we switch to a different way to animate artifacts?)
Sydri, galvanic genius makes animating artifacts expensive enough that we can use Salvaging Station and the WB ability is too expensive to use. So maybe?
Edit:
By replacing Karn with Sydri, Yuki-Onna + Salvaging Station is looking hopeful. We can even use Goryo's vengence still as the arcane spell now that it doesn't need to resolve to generate metallurgeons. Though there might be a more useful arcane instant at cmc 3 or less?
Oh and also Sydri+Salvaging Station letting us wash U into 2 should speed up the start.
It would be nice, though, if we could deal with artifacts with just one card, rather than requiring both Salvaging Station and Wormfang Behemoth.
Hmm, I don't know what would be a useful Arcane instant to pick. Wear Away can target an artifact or enchantment[/c]. Maybe Stream of Consciousness, to shuffle cards into the library? Neither one is particularly needed, but they could help with the start perhaps.
The trouble with getting rid of mana crypt is that most other mana rocks go infinite with the Forerunner of Slaughter tech we are using to restore progress.
Goryo's Vengence is still useful, its the easy way to get child of alara back into play.
I guess wear away is basically just doing what Yuki-Onna is doing but with a little more of a timing restriction? At that point I suppose we could just cut the middleman and use a Shatter variant? Molten Frame lets us sneak cycling in. Sundering Growth probably goes infinite, vision charm + time and tide I think works as a way to save our artifacts? (oops works too well and lets us smuggle metallurgeon tokens down the stack)
Edit:hmm I think goblin welder being 1 cmc might cause some issues
Another thought is that we can even champion yuki-onna or any uktabi orangutan guy instead of goblin dark dewllers. aside from a bunch of boring creatures that destroy an artifact on etb, Sharuum the hegemon is the only creature that puts an artifact from the graveyard to play on ETB but goes infinite. Hasty Goblin welder from goblin warchief looks like the next best thing.
Meanwhile cards like Trash for Treasure are just taunting us with their sorceryness.
Edit: hmm goblin welder being 1 cmc might cause an issue...
So long as we have Goryo's Vengeance then, can we add Muzzio or Arcum Dagsson to retrieve our artifacts? But, I don't see how to get multiple Muzzios or Dagssons after the gigastage transition; we can do it if we get a token copy, since it can repeatedly kill the original and we can create more copies. But to get the first token, we need to kill the original first. So we either have to add a card for that, or add a second Muzzio/Dagsson. That isn't a savings over Salvaging Station / Wormfang Behemoth, and our Sydri / Mana Crypt thing is looking pretty good, so I guess we can keep that.
Unfortunately, Shatter and its variants don't seem to get us many token copies of Metallurgeon. When we tap a Cenn's Tactician, it will create many Psychic Battle triggers, and each one can bounce Changeling Hero, which will bring back Goblin Dark-Dwellers and allow us to cast Shatter or whatever. This can destroy the original Metallurgeon, but to get more than one token copy, we need to bring Metallurgeon back to the battlefield. If we play Metallurgeon after Cenn's Tactician is tapped, the Bloodbond March triggers go on the top, so they will resolve before we destroy Metallurgeon. So we have to play Metallurgeon before Cenn's Tactician is tapped. But then, we won't get Metallurgeon back until after all the Psychic Battle triggers resolve. So I don't see how to get more than one token that way.
It would be different if we replaced Cenn's Tactician with something that targeted Goblin Dark-Dwellers directly, like Mad Auntie. Then we would have discretion on when we played Goblin Dark-Dwellers, and could prepare for it. But, that would also allow us to fruitfully cast Retract multiple times, I think.
(Note: These are all my thoughts without really thinking about how Chalice of the Void might throw a monkey wrench into things. But certainly, switching for Chalice of the Void only restricts what we can do, so it's not going to enable us to gain multiple tokens of Metallurgeon if we couldn't with Cephalid Shrine.)
Just using elvish spirit guides for mana seems difficult to get started with. We'd need 3 of them + bayou just to get to Eureka.
Good point about shatter, we need the timing window from yuki-onna.
I think the real issue with Goblin Welder is that as a tap ability we can save it after the retract transition to make more metallurgeons and go infinite that way. Being CMC 1 is almost another problem but I think that is actually ok.
Mad Auntie I think might be fine, but cmc 3 conflicts with Mimic vat for EE. goblin lookout or Goblin trashmaster are also interesting, but I think we decided were dead ends.
We can get Metallurgeons with tokens of Goblin Welder, but how are we getting those tokens cheaply? We can destroy Goblin Welder with Engineered Explosives, but we need a way to get the Goblin Welder back.
I was thinking of not making tokens and just using Changeling hero to untap the goblin welder, if it has haste via goblin warchief we get one activation per changeling bounce.
Hmm, so I guess we would use Goblin Welder and Goblin Warchief to get more Metallurgeons, rather than Yuki-Onna and Goryo's Vengeance? We need to flicker Goblin Dark-Dwellers to cast Retract at some point to get Engineered Explosives back, and after we do that, we lose Vedalken Orrery. But, we can replay Changeling Hero prior to Retract going off, and Champion Goblin Welder. We'll get a hasted Goblin Welder, which we can't use after Retract goes off, but we can save it for when we get artifacts back, and then we can use the Goblin Welder to bring back a Metallurgeon for another Metallurgeon token. So that looks like it might be a problem, as well as the CMC 1 cost.
yeah, goblin welder and similar tap abilities don't look good because being able to save them causes problems.
I think Yuki Onna might suffer a similar thing actually, saving the spirit for after we get artifacts back after retract looks like we can gain a metallurgeon in the lower stage, but maybe chalice of the void saves us here?
True, that was the problem with the creatures targeting or retrieving artifacts, and Stakfish's idea was that the Chalice of the Void thing would force us to use the creature up (in that case Muzzio, Visionary Architect) after a hyperstage transition. So whatever we do, we have to make sure that it works in a similar fashion.
And the start looks much easier with both sphinges (apparently a valid plural of sphinx?) making drawing early cheaper, and Sydri makes the mirrorworks/amulet/borderpost mana engine profitable sooner thanks to mana crypt + salvaging station.
Fallen a bit behind, but I'm worried about the possibility of resolving Goryo's Vengeance mid transition now that Chalice is getting set to 1. You also can't use Aven Riftwatcher or any enters/leaves the battlefield triggers, because you can champion them under Changeling Hero. That's why I stuck with Verdant Succession and Centaur Safeguard: you need a death trigger in the megastage.
Edit: since Metallurgeon and Goryo's Vengeance have the same CMC, you have to reset Chalice to start the Metallurgeon stage, which I think is too expensive.
Also, I believe Myr Welder is still necessary here to prevent an infinite. If it's cheap to exile Explosives (i.e. doesn't require a resource Retract completely blanks), you can repeatedly tuck Explosives back in after using it, Muzzio it back out with the next Vengeance, then bounce it again with Retract, letting you make another hyperstage token for each Dark-Dwellers trigger.
Yeah the transition is tricky, and I think we had it wrong. Because metallurgeon means we want chalice on 2, we can't resolve a Goryo's vengence until after a retract, so we can't get muzzios to make more metallurgeons at the right time. Currently we are trying to use Yuki-onna as that doesn't require GV to resolve.
Oh right the Aven riftwatcher was from a Boggart mob deck, good catch, that definitely needs to change.
Edit: hmm good point about EE, I was thinking that activating ee kills all the built up tokens, but they can just be used before.
Ah, I missed Yuki-Onna, that makes a lot of sense.
I also want to throw out a possible out that may be a lot cheaper than any of our current plans: Wheel of Sun and Moon over Myr Welder.
Now, because we can't exile Engineered Explosives after sacrificing it, we need Wheel out when we sacrifice Explosives. However, we can't play it before playing Chalice on 2, because if we do then our Anaba Ancestor will skip the graveyard and we won't be able to Bloodbond March it back. Since we both need it on the field with Bloodbond March triggers on the stick (only possible with Chalice on 2), and can't play it then get the triggers, the only way to make it work is by killing Chalice after getting all our triggers, then resolving Wheel. We also need to get it off the field before Explosives's ability resolves, but since it's an aura, we can't bounce it. It will skip the graveyard and go to our library, where we need to use an untapped Millikin to get it in the graveyard where we can rebuy it. That means that, while we can get Explosives back again in the hyperstage, we won't have a Wheel to put it back in the library when we sacrifice it, and the entire hyperstage will fizzle. So it protects us the same way Myr Welder did.
Assuming I haven't missed anything, that makes Thousand-Year Storm safe again, because now we also have to resolve Wheel later on in the transition, That lets us skip all the scaling mechanisms we've been working with so far.
That's 61 cards (I'm hopeful we can find 1 slot of fat to trim because the two sphinxes work so well here), 8 stages, 3 layers on top, and a final iteration count that probably lands somewhere between 20 and 40. The main questions we have to answer are: is this Chalice magic safe through the Megastage transition? And does Wheel of Sun and Moon break anything lower down on the stack?
That's clever! Wheel of sun and moon being an aura is very nice here. Making TYS safe is a much cleaner way to save progress. We can still sacrifice the wheel to phantatog or Allay and get it back with crystal chimes or skull, but if chalice is on 2 (for metallurgeon/Anaba ancestor) we can't resolve it. We can't get any copies of it because like Spellweaver vollute it never becomes a creature from opalescence.
That looks better than what we had I think.
I am a bit worried about getting started still but it seems possible.
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Currently using about half of the cards in the analysis (first 27+#35+#(43-46)+#60)
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Shriekhorn
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Fieldmist Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Crystal Chimes
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Myr Welder
29 Moan of the Unhallowed
30 Collar the Culprit
31 Child of Alara
32 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
33 Aven Riftwatcher
34 Ramosian Commander
35 Forerunner of Slaughter
36 Spellweaver Helix
37 Worldfire
38 Acorn Harvest
39 Acorn Harvest
40 Acorn Harvest
41 Titania, Protector of Argoth
42 Divine Congregation
43 Bayou
44 Eureka
45 Mana Crypt
46 Elvish Spirit Guide
47 Everglove Courier
49 Western Paladin
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Havengul Runebinder
52 Ghosthelm Courier
53 Devout Chaplain
54 Royal Assassin
55 Simian Spirit Guide
56 Goblin Kites
57 Old Man of the Sea
58 Karplusan Yeti
59 Reality Spasm
60 Sphinx of Enlightenment
trying to get into the actual Chalice of the Void lines, I am going to be a bit more granular than last time because I want to be careful. First, as they show up in the steps and I haven't exactly been using them consistently, I'm going to properly define a lock. Locks can either be locked or unlocked by actions. Actions that lock a lock can only be done when the lock is unlocked. On the other hand, actions that unlock a lock can be done even if the lock is unlocked.
For example, in the normal operation of the metallurgeon stage, the real metallurgeon's location acts as a lock on when we can make a hasty metallurgeon token.
Here are the operations we can do: (*=requires flash)
0. using Mirror of fate/shreikhorn we can move any card from exile->library and library->grave. Myr welder also lets us move artifacts from grave->exile.
1*. bounce and replay Vedalken Orrery to put a mirrorworks trigger on the stack that gives us flash when the trigger resolves.
2*. spend mana to increase our multiplier X (by making copies of enchantments and artifacts as in the previous post)
3*. Resolve a PB:M trigger to make X mana. (PB=Psychic Battle)
4. Spend a M to make X PB:M triggers. (M = hasty metallurgeons)
5. Resolve a PB:M trigger and lock M to put the real Metallurgeon in hand.
6*. If chalice=2 and Metallurgeon is in hand then we can cast and counter the metallurgeon to get X BM:M triggers. (BM=Bloodbond March)
7. If Metallurgeon is in the grave, resolve a BM:M trigger to unlock M.
8. Resolve a PB:M trigger and lock M to make one M.
I think that captures the mechanics of the top of the stack, this should roughly implement the Ackermann function on the initial amount of M.
Now we need to generate many Ms. We do that by making an initial one and using that to make x more. To do that For example, the "real Metallurgeon" kind of behaves as a lock in the above, but it is a bit confusing with that one because of how many zones it goes through.
8*. Lock EE (=2) and lock M to kill all of the Metallurgeons, and gain one M.
9. Resolve a Muzzio activation to unlock M.
10. Resolve Goryo's Vengeance to get a Muzzio activation, and an untapped muzzio. (this is a lie, but pretty close to what we get)
11. Resolve a Muzzio activation to put ee=0 or chalice=0 in play
12. Resolve a Retract to unlock EE if it is in play, reset chalice, and bounce all artifacts (losing flash, if M is unlocked, lock it and put M in hand)
13. Resolve GDD to put GV on the stack if Chalice !=2
14. Resolve GDD to put Retract on the stack if Chalice !=1
15*. Resolve Changeling Hero to exile one other creature (mostly GDD sometimes Vedalken Orrery)
16. Resolve a PB:CT trigger to bounce Changeling Hero and get the championed card back.
That's all the stuff we need for the transition, now the Cenn's tactician stage, which is similar to the metallurgeon one.
17. Spend a CT to make X PB:CT triggers. (CT = hasty Cenn's tacticians)
18. Resolve a PB:CT trigger and lock CT to put the real Cenn's tactician in hand.
19*. If chalice=1 and CT is in hand then we can cast and counter the Cenn's Tactician to get X BM:CT triggers.
20. If CT is in the grave, resolve a BM:CT trigger to unlock CT.
21. Resolve a PB:CT trigger and lock CT to make one CT.
22*. Lock EE=1 to lock CT and kill all CT and gain one CT.
I think that gets us to the point where we need to smite/collar the Changeling Hero?
I don't see any obvious infinites or anything like that. Though I may have missed something. Some of the actions could be combined/broken down more. Might need to look more into the transition and exactly when chalice is what.
Also, I only used chalice on 1 and 2, to conflict with GV/M and Recall/CT, no need to get it on other numbers anymore?
And using locks was less helpful for me than I expected, the EE lock helped, but the others are meh.
We also can't go to timepiece because of ...? something? Hmm... I thought there was still a reason to make reshuffling from the graveyard more expensive?
Saving a card would be nice, but maybe needing to soak up that extra muzzio activation ends up being key? (it's kinda awkward as we can get them in a 1,3,1,3... cadence, instead of a cleaner 2,2,2,2...)
If we are indeed able to get rid of Myr Welder, then we could add Consecrated Sphinx back to the deck, and we would get:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Fieldmist Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Crystal Chimes
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
28 Moan of the Unhallowed
29 Collar the Culprit
30 Child of Alara
31 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
32 Aven Riftwatcher
33 Ramosian Commander
34 Forerunner of Slaughter
35 Spellweaver Helix
36 Worldfire
37 Acorn Harvest
38 Acorn Harvest
39 Acorn Harvest
40 Titania, Protector of Argoth
41 Divine Congregation
42 Bayou
43 Eureka
44 Mana Crypt
45 Elvish Spirit Guide
46 Everglove Courier
48 Western Paladin
49 Frightshroud Courier
50 Havengul Runebinder
51 Ghosthelm Courier
52 Devout Chaplain
53 Royal Assassin
54 Simian Spirit Guide
55 Goblin Kites
56 Old Man of the Sea
57 Karplusan Yeti
58 Reality Spasm
59 Consecrated Sphinx
60 Sphinx of Enlightenment
I think I need to see the metallurgeon stage get rebuilt from one Cenn's tactician activation, (giving a bunch of PB triggers) because the stack gets real complicated there, and we gotta keep track of everything's location and when chalice is what.
Edit:
Looking back to stakfish's earlier explanation I think I see the problem: Metallurgeon conflicting with Goryo's Vengence is NOT wanted for the rebuilding process. The conflict we need is between the Cenn's tactician slot and the recall/retract/rebuild slot.
Unfortunately, there aren't exactly other cards like Goryo's vengeance or Metallurgeon, Hero's Demise is actually close, but also targets child of alara.
What about replacing Muzzio, Visionary Architect with Yuki-Onna, and bounce her with an Arcane spell?
Hmm, Argivian Find is close but lets us recast EE too cheaply.
Does Second sunrise somehow possibly work?
Edit: no, it gets back cenn's tactician too. (and wrecks most of the extensions...)
Arcum Dagsson looks like he works though needing to also manage Horobi (to let the ability actually resolve and get EE) looks awkward?
Skill borrower looks like a possible 3 cmc metallurgeon band aid? Edit: Oops no, it copies the top artifact OR creature not only artifact creatures.
For Yuki-Onna, I was figuring we could go back to having Salvaging Station, along with something to deal with artifacts for Worldfire. (maybe Wormfang Behemoth again)
Salvaging station adds back in the infinite mana combo, which currently allows for infinite copies of artifacts and enchantments, and switching to march of the machines makes the start difficult/ugly/tricky/awkward but maybe not impossible. (ugh no, it means a matallurgeon trigger can't make mana without killing the chalice so probably a dead end unless we switch to a different way to animate artifacts?)
Sydri, galvanic genius makes animating artifacts expensive enough that we can use Salvaging Station and the WB ability is too expensive to use. So maybe?
Edit:
By replacing Karn with Sydri, Yuki-Onna + Salvaging Station is looking hopeful. We can even use Goryo's vengence still as the arcane spell now that it doesn't need to resolve to generate metallurgeons. Though there might be a more useful arcane instant at cmc 3 or less?
Oh and also Sydri+Salvaging Station letting us wash U into 2 should speed up the start.
It would be nice, though, if we could deal with artifacts with just one card, rather than requiring both Salvaging Station and Wormfang Behemoth.
Hmm, I don't know what would be a useful Arcane instant to pick. Wear Away can target an artifact or enchantment[/c]. Maybe Stream of Consciousness, to shuffle cards into the library? Neither one is particularly needed, but they could help with the start perhaps.
Goryo's Vengence is still useful, its the easy way to get child of alara back into play.
I guess wear away is basically just doing what Yuki-Onna is doing but with a little more of a timing restriction? At that point I suppose we could just cut the middleman and use a Shatter variant? Molten Frame lets us sneak cycling in. Sundering Growth probably goes infinite, vision charm + time and tide I think works as a way to save our artifacts? (oops works too well and lets us smuggle metallurgeon tokens down the stack)
Edit:hmm I think goblin welder being 1 cmc might cause some issues
Another thought is that we can even champion yuki-onna or any uktabi orangutan guy instead of goblin dark dewllers. aside from a bunch of boring creatures that destroy an artifact on etb, Sharuum the hegemon is the only creature that puts an artifact from the graveyard to play on ETB but goes infinite. Hasty Goblin welder from goblin warchief looks like the next best thing.
Meanwhile cards like Trash for Treasure are just taunting us with their sorceryness.
Edit: hmm goblin welder being 1 cmc might cause an issue...
Hmm yes, we aren't using the Verdant Succession version anymore, so we need a way to bring Child of Alara back. So Goryo's Vengeance seems like a good idea then.
So long as we have Goryo's Vengeance then, can we add Muzzio or Arcum Dagsson to retrieve our artifacts? But, I don't see how to get multiple Muzzios or Dagssons after the gigastage transition; we can do it if we get a token copy, since it can repeatedly kill the original and we can create more copies. But to get the first token, we need to kill the original first. So we either have to add a card for that, or add a second Muzzio/Dagsson. That isn't a savings over Salvaging Station / Wormfang Behemoth, and our Sydri / Mana Crypt thing is looking pretty good, so I guess we can keep that.
Unfortunately, Shatter and its variants don't seem to get us many token copies of Metallurgeon. When we tap a Cenn's Tactician, it will create many Psychic Battle triggers, and each one can bounce Changeling Hero, which will bring back Goblin Dark-Dwellers and allow us to cast Shatter or whatever. This can destroy the original Metallurgeon, but to get more than one token copy, we need to bring Metallurgeon back to the battlefield. If we play Metallurgeon after Cenn's Tactician is tapped, the Bloodbond March triggers go on the top, so they will resolve before we destroy Metallurgeon. So we have to play Metallurgeon before Cenn's Tactician is tapped. But then, we won't get Metallurgeon back until after all the Psychic Battle triggers resolve. So I don't see how to get more than one token that way.
It would be different if we replaced Cenn's Tactician with something that targeted Goblin Dark-Dwellers directly, like Mad Auntie. Then we would have discretion on when we played Goblin Dark-Dwellers, and could prepare for it. But, that would also allow us to fruitfully cast Retract multiple times, I think.
(Note: These are all my thoughts without really thinking about how Chalice of the Void might throw a monkey wrench into things. But certainly, switching for Chalice of the Void only restricts what we can do, so it's not going to enable us to gain multiple tokens of Metallurgeon if we couldn't with Cephalid Shrine.)
What is the issue with Goblin Welder being CMC 1?
Good point about shatter, we need the timing window from yuki-onna.
I think the real issue with Goblin Welder is that as a tap ability we can save it after the retract transition to make more metallurgeons and go infinite that way. Being CMC 1 is almost another problem but I think that is actually ok.
Mad Auntie I think might be fine, but cmc 3 conflicts with Mimic vat for EE. goblin lookout or Goblin trashmaster are also interesting, but I think we decided were dead ends.
We can get Metallurgeons with tokens of Goblin Welder, but how are we getting those tokens cheaply? We can destroy Goblin Welder with Engineered Explosives, but we need a way to get the Goblin Welder back.
I was thinking of not making tokens and just using Changeling hero to untap the goblin welder, if it has haste via goblin warchief we get one activation per changeling bounce.
I think Yuki Onna might suffer a similar thing actually, saving the spirit for after we get artifacts back after retract looks like we can gain a metallurgeon in the lower stage, but maybe chalice of the void saves us here?
It's a bit more complicated with Goblin welder, but I think the welder might still be able to go infinite?
Also, we can avoid using Wormfang by hiding all of our real artifacts under tokens of Changeling hero.
edit: If I'm tracking the changes right we have
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Sydri, galvanic genius
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Fieldmist Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Crystal Chimes
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Yuki-onna
21 Salvaging Station
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
28 Moan of the Unhallowed
29 Collar the Culprit
30 Child of Alara
31 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
32 Aven Riftwatcher
33 Ramosian Commander
34 Forerunner of Slaughter
35 Spellweaver Helix
36 Worldfire
37 Acorn Harvest
38 Acorn Harvest
39 Acorn Harvest
40 Titania, Protector of Argoth
41 Divine Congregation
42 Bayou
43 Eureka
44 Mana Crypt
45 Elvish Spirit Guide
46 Everglove Courier
48 Western Paladin
49 Frightshroud Courier
50 Havengul Runebinder
51 Ghosthelm Courier
52 Devout Chaplain
53 Royal Assassin
54 Simian Spirit Guide
55 Goblin Kites
56 Old Man of the Sea
57 Karplusan Yeti
58 Reality Spasm
59 Consecrated Sphinx
60 Sphinx of Enlightenment
And the start looks much easier with both sphinges (apparently a valid plural of sphinx?) making drawing early cheaper, and Sydri makes the mirrorworks/amulet/borderpost mana engine profitable sooner thanks to mana crypt + salvaging station.
Edit: since Metallurgeon and Goryo's Vengeance have the same CMC, you have to reset Chalice to start the Metallurgeon stage, which I think is too expensive.
Also, I believe Myr Welder is still necessary here to prevent an infinite. If it's cheap to exile Explosives (i.e. doesn't require a resource Retract completely blanks), you can repeatedly tuck Explosives back in after using it, Muzzio it back out with the next Vengeance, then bounce it again with Retract, letting you make another hyperstage token for each Dark-Dwellers trigger.
Oh right the Aven riftwatcher was from a Boggart mob deck, good catch, that definitely needs to change.
Edit: hmm good point about EE, I was thinking that activating ee kills all the built up tokens, but they can just be used before.
I also want to throw out a possible out that may be a lot cheaper than any of our current plans: Wheel of Sun and Moon over Myr Welder.
Now, because we can't exile Engineered Explosives after sacrificing it, we need Wheel out when we sacrifice Explosives. However, we can't play it before playing Chalice on 2, because if we do then our Anaba Ancestor will skip the graveyard and we won't be able to Bloodbond March it back. Since we both need it on the field with Bloodbond March triggers on the stick (only possible with Chalice on 2), and can't play it then get the triggers, the only way to make it work is by killing Chalice after getting all our triggers, then resolving Wheel. We also need to get it off the field before Explosives's ability resolves, but since it's an aura, we can't bounce it. It will skip the graveyard and go to our library, where we need to use an untapped Millikin to get it in the graveyard where we can rebuy it. That means that, while we can get Explosives back again in the hyperstage, we won't have a Wheel to put it back in the library when we sacrifice it, and the entire hyperstage will fizzle. So it protects us the same way Myr Welder did.
Assuming I haven't missed anything, that makes Thousand-Year Storm safe again, because now we also have to resolve Wheel later on in the transition, That lets us skip all the scaling mechanisms we've been working with so far.
Glad you are still around, Stakfish.
So, assuming that works, and there is at least some chance it doesn't, we have a deck that looks like this:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Millikin
13 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirrorworks
16 Mana Vault
17 Simic Keyrune
18 Clockwork Gnomes
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Hurkyl's Recall
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Anaba Ancestor
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Wheel of Sun and Moon
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Smite the Monstrous
31 Child of Alara
32 Centaur Safeguard
33 Verdant Succession
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Worldfire
36 Spider Spawning
37 Spider Spawning
38 Spider Spawning
39 Molderhulk
40 Multani's Decree
41 Bayou
42 Eureka
43 Mox Emerald
44 Vastwood Animist
45 Grassland Crusader
46 Western Paladin
47 Frightshroud Courier
49 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Devout Chaplain
51 Royal Assassin
52 Simian Spirit Guide
53 Goblin Kites
54 Old Man of the Sea
55 Sea Snidd
56 Reign of Chaos
57 Xathrid Gorgon
58 Reality Spasm
59 Thousand-Year Storm
60 Consecrated Sphinx
61 Sphinx of Enlightenment
That's 61 cards (I'm hopeful we can find 1 slot of fat to trim because the two sphinxes work so well here), 8 stages, 3 layers on top, and a final iteration count that probably lands somewhere between 20 and 40. The main questions we have to answer are: is this Chalice magic safe through the Megastage transition? And does Wheel of Sun and Moon break anything lower down on the stack?
That looks better than what we had I think.
I am a bit worried about getting started still but it seems possible.