Ah, that's a more efficient method; just need to ensure there's no way to get Claim // Fame in the graveyward without casting it (which we're already trying to avoid with Approach of the second sun too). I thought Mangara's Tome would make that an issue; but it's fine since it exiles cards face down where PFE can't retrieve them.
Start is a bit harder now.
I was concerned about the mana intensity of the artifacts we use now, but I think I have a working start:
Lotus, Island, Eureka, Omniscience, TYS, Copy Enchantment copying TYS, Steady Progress (2 storm, draw 3)
Spellweaver volute, Charge Across The Araba (3 storm), Boil the seas (4 storm) casting SP x9 (5 storm) to draw 9 and move volute to CatA
Amulet of vigor (8 cards)
3 Mirrormades copying it (5 cards)
Pull from eternity (4 cards, 6 storm)
Planar Birth (3 cards, 8 storm, 4U) volute moves to SP
Red mana battery with a counter (2 cards, 2U)
Mirrormade copying TYS (1 card)
Recoup (9 storm) casting SP (x28, 10 storm), volute moves to PFE, draw 28. 48 cards drawn total, so need to start using Mangara's Tome. Need to ensure there's enough mana to keep up.
Artificial Evolution (11 storm)
Echo Storm (casting PFE for 12 storm, volute moves to AE) (x37, 13 storm) making x RMBs and 37-x amulets (29-2x R, 2U left, 41-x amulets for some value of x)
Mangara's Tome (1 free draw remaining)
Orb of dreams
Kiora, -1 to draw and play Plains (41-x W) (all future draws now cost 2)
Flashback Planar Birth (40-x W, 28-2x R, 43-x U; 15 storm, volute casts AE and moves to SP)
Sea God's Scorn (16 storm, bounce the copies of TYS leaving 1 left; volute casts SP (17 storm) x17)
Writing some code finds that x=10, by tapping a battery whenever you run out of R, leaves you with 7 RMBs on 18 counters each, and 0R, 33U, 31W.
In general, raising the storm count from X by 6 by buying back Mystic Speculation 3 times, on the 3rd casting Steady Progress, costs 6+2(X+6) = 2X+18 and gets X+6 proliferates; so tapping 3 batteries is sufficient to pay for it.
So, now, tap 3 batteries for 54 R, buyback mystic speculation 3 times for 23 storm, 23 proliferates, paying that 54. (it's more efficient to tap batteries only when you need them, but that's harder to calculate and this is a lower bound). 41 counters on 4 batteries.
Flashback Echo Storm (x25; make 20 batteries, tapping 1, and 4 amulets)
This is enough resources to get going. Each battery is worth 2 storm; each echo storm makes X batteries thus doubling X; so each planar birth takes X to 2^X, and we have 31 W, so we can get up to 2^^31 which is more then enough (2^2^(number maybe in the 100s or 1000s) is sufficient for a UTM).
Looking good! I believe Baral's Expertise can be left for the end too, since we only need it to bounce artifacts to discard and for the opponent's draw.
So, I think this gets us 1 + 53 (opponent draw) + 60 (opponent discard) + 7 (our draw) + 14 (our artifact discard) + 2 (AotSS) = 137, for BB_12(137).
Edit: I noticed that we can get up to 4 token creatures when we cast Bankrupt in Blood, or up to 16 if we go with the Hand of Emrakul plan instead. So, I was wondering if there was some way to gain life from those tokens. Unfortunately, being able to bring back Confessor as many times as we want, allows us to keep allowing it to be destroyed during combat, and bringing it back afterwards. So we would have to work around that.
Anointer Priest looks interesting being restricted to creature tokens, but getting life when the enter the battlefield is too early. Surge of Righteousness would also not allow us to gain life from Confessor, but it is an instant that we would need to cast during combat.
A card similar to those two might work. Another idea is to have to sacrifice a creature to bring Confessor back.
Cool, the step in the opening where I use mirrormade to copy amulet can be replaced by an echo storm, so we won't need to bounce it later, allowing Baral's Expertise to be saved.
Problem: Primevals' Glorious Rebirth requires a legendary creature or planeswalker to cast. So adding in, say, a second Kiora brings the number of iterations down by 2.
So, our creatures are Xathrid Necromancer, Confessor, Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper, Driver of the Dead, and Hand of Emrakul. Confessor can be Mirrorweaved to a Necromancer, and the Necromancers hacked so that when an Eldrazi dies, a creature token is created. So afterwards we have Confessor, Hand of Emrakul, and 12 creature tokens. We can then allow various creatures to die in combat one at a time, leaving just one token at the very end, for 13 more life gains.
Almost, but realized that Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper can be returned using Primevals' Glorious Rebirth; and then you could mirrorweave for a necromancer and kill Confessor from the damage on it for more hasty tokens.
Only suitable replacement I can find is Cyclone Sire; and we'd also need a spare land. Now deck space is becoming an issue.
Edit: Now that discarding isn't bad, Coersion -> Scroll of Griselbrand is one more.
Edit 2: Disrupting Scepter allows for replacing Artificer's Intuition for Proper Burial for more life from the creatures; which can be 10 (8 from 4 deaths to 2 necromancers, confessor, hand of emrakul). Can itself also be discarded once finished. Total: BB_12(143).
Looks like we have already moved away, but Claim // fame doesn't work because it adds haste, so we can mirrorweave into necromancers without losing haste.
The only potential problem I see with the Hand of Emrakul line is that it looks like we can save our mirrorweave until after declaring attackers? We don't have Artificial Evolution, because we needed to make things into eldrazi.
(also Hand of Emrakul requires creatures to have two types but Dralnu's Crusade fixes that)
Edit: actually we can Dralnu's Crusade to get enough Edlrazi Spawn without using AE
Nice! Realised Proper Burial actually doesn't work because you can donate it to give the opponent infinite life; however Sylvok Lifestaff works.
A second PW is still needed for PGR though. (a legendary creature could be infinitely returned and killed for life).
Edit: I was thinking how to get the most tokens out of the 2 unspecified creature slots; which would by default be 4 if it were a necromancer. Symbyotic Wurm gets 7; but Leige of the Hollows gets as many as we can generate mana up to that point!
So, we'd do the full combo up to life but without setting up a TM. Then, play Hand of Emrakul, and get BB_12(X) where X is a number with about 10 up arrows.
(Edit: This makes a second Kiora the clear choice for the other legend, as then the whole combo is possible without using combat steps; also Revenge of Ravens -> Yawgmoth's Edict)
I was wondering if we could maybe use the extra cards to gain a layer or two out of our Knuth arrows - in particular, using red mana to cast Mystic Speculation seems like it could be improved. If not, the draw/discard plan seems like the best.
Scroll of griselbrand doesn't work since we can donate it to have our opponent make us discard the plains, but Coersion still works. Then as we aren't discarding artifacts (one deck slot short), Baral's Expertise isn't necessary so can be something else that gives one-time life gain, such as Approach.
Okay, so we can get 1 + 53 + 60 + 2 + 4 + however many other cards we don't need to draw for the Knuth arrow section. I count 23? So we get something like BB_12 (10 -> 144 -> 10).
Then one RMB = 2^X storm
one echo storm = 2^^X
one planar birth = 2 -> X -> 3
land drop: 4
B: 5
G: 6
opp life: 7
life = 2 -> X -> 8
one-time life gain = 2 -> X -> 9
N iterations: 2 -> N -> 10 (looks like we were 1 layer too high previously)
N = 1 + 53 + 2 + however many cards we don't need to draw (I count 23) = 79
If we're using 2 as our base, then we can get more than 2 -> 3 -> 10 before any life gains, since that is just 2 -> 4 -> 9. For the number of cards that we don't need to draw, I counted 27 before, but I think I incorrectly counted Orb of Dreams. So I get 26 - all the cards in the 3rd and 4th sections besides Harmless Offering, Orb of Dreams, and Mangara's Tome, plus Mana Echoes and the last 4 cards.
So I think we get N = 3 + 53 + 2 + 26 = 84.
Edit: Oof. Seize the Day can untap our animated land, which can be a Forest, for example.
Looking at replacements for Seize the Day, there is Response // Resurgence, which would be a nice replacement, except that it costs white mana. The other cards all seem to be able to untap creatures. There are some cards that untap creatures that previously attacked - but that's still bad, since if we can give the Forest vigilance, it can attack without tapping, then tap to create mana. If we don't give our hasted creature vigilance, we lose a layer.
Edit: Hold the phone, I think I know how to get another layer.
We use something that deals one damage to both players. This will give counters to a lot of Angelheart Vials. We can activate each Angelheart Vial one at a time, each time increasing our life by a bunch. So we can get two layers from opponent's life to our life, rather than one.
The sticky problem is that, we can donate Angelheart Vials to the opponent, and he can use them to gain life after taking damage. The safety net seems to be the card draw, which would prevent him from using it infinitely. But, he has to not be allowed to avoid the card draw. I haven't found any cards that can prevent card draws from our side that can't be donated to the opponent, so this is a bit tricky. The only thing I can think of right now is something that keeps us from dying, like Angel's Grace.
Then, we need to give the opponent a lot of life. The best way would be to solve our Hand of Emrakul problem, and allow us to have Liege of the Hollows on the battlefield and create a lot of Squirrel tokens. We can then give the opponent a lot of life by donating Sylvok Lifestaff.
Without Liege of the Hollows or Confessor, it gets a little bit hard. We can't do straight opponent card draw, because Alhammaret's Archive doubles card draw as well as life. And using discard via Spiritual Focus has the problem that the opponent can choose to draw a card. We can still make the opponent discard/draw at 2 life per card (perhaps aided by a bunch of Boon Reflections), and then we can get one card draw on our side, for a lot of opponent life. That at least will put this ahead of any 12-layer version, I think.
Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper would almost work; if we had a way to ensure that no nontokens can exist when he gets brought back, which Hand of Emrakul doesn't do.
However, I think I have a solution: Shadowborn Apostle + Spy Kit
Then we'd have exactly 6 creatures in the deck: Necromancer, Sek'Kuar, Apsotle, Liege of the Hollows, and 2 more.
Yeah, true. One Necromancer and Konda is okay, I think, because Konda is indestructible. But, we can get multiple token creatures, at least with Hand of Emrakul.
Okay, so next issue: Is there a way to prevent ourselves from decking, without preventing the opponent from decking? The only way I saw was to use something that prevented us from losing the game in any manner, like Angel's Grace. If we use Angel's Grace though, we need to replace Melt Terrain. Something that pays life to destroy or bounce a land would be good. Fumarole though would allow us to destroy Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper and keep Xathrid Necromancer on the battlefield.
Possible more efficient combo:
Put Xathrid Necromancer and Confessor into play. Sacrifice them with Bankrupt in Blood. Bring the Confessor back with Claim // Fame, then cast Fame on the Confessor to attack with.
Current deck:
2 Eureka
3 Omniscience
4 Thousand-Year Storm
5 Spellweaver Volute
6 Pull from Eternity
7 Recoup
8 Coat of Arms
9 Xathrid Necromancer
10 Arcbond
11 Artificial Evolution
12 Mirrorweave
13 Dowsing Dagger
14 Dralnu's Crusade
15 Mirrormade
16 Mirrormade
17 Mirrormade
18 Mirrormade
19 Copy Enchantment
20 Roar of Challenge
21 Forebear's Blade
22 Orbs of Warding
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
26 Mangara's Tome
27 Baral's Expertise
28 Sea God's Scorn
29 Confessor
30 Bankrupt in Blood
31 Claim // Fame
33 Mystic Speculation
34 Mana Echoes
35 Red Mana Battery
36 Steady Progress
37 Echo Storm
38 Island
39 Amulet of Vigor
40 Boil the seas
41 Planar Birth
42 Plains
43 Charge Across the Araba
44 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
45 Rings of Brigthearth
46 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
47 Watery Grave
48 Splendid Reclamation
49 Forest
50 Melt Terrain
51 Revenge of Ravens
52 Alhammarret's Archive
53 Mirror Gallery
55 Approach of the Second Sun
56 Temple Bell
57 Coercion
58 Artificer's Intuition
59 Any artifact
60 Any artifact
Start is a bit harder now.
I was concerned about the mana intensity of the artifacts we use now, but I think I have a working start:
Lotus, Island, Eureka, Omniscience, TYS, Copy Enchantment copying TYS, Steady Progress (2 storm, draw 3)
Spellweaver volute, Charge Across The Araba (3 storm), Boil the seas (4 storm) casting SP x9 (5 storm) to draw 9 and move volute to CatA
Amulet of vigor (8 cards)
3 Mirrormades copying it (5 cards)
Pull from eternity (4 cards, 6 storm)
Planar Birth (3 cards, 8 storm, 4U) volute moves to SP
Red mana battery with a counter (2 cards, 2U)
Mirrormade copying TYS (1 card)
Recoup (9 storm) casting SP (x28, 10 storm), volute moves to PFE, draw 28. 48 cards drawn total, so need to start using Mangara's Tome. Need to ensure there's enough mana to keep up.
Artificial Evolution (11 storm)
Echo Storm (casting PFE for 12 storm, volute moves to AE) (x37, 13 storm) making x RMBs and 37-x amulets (29-2x R, 2U left, 41-x amulets for some value of x)
Mangara's Tome (1 free draw remaining)
Orb of dreams
Kiora, -1 to draw and play Plains (41-x W) (all future draws now cost 2)
Flashback Planar Birth (40-x W, 28-2x R, 43-x U; 15 storm, volute casts AE and moves to SP)
Sea God's Scorn (16 storm, bounce the copies of TYS leaving 1 left; volute casts SP (17 storm) x17)
Writing some code finds that x=10, by tapping a battery whenever you run out of R, leaves you with 7 RMBs on 18 counters each, and 0R, 33U, 31W.
In general, raising the storm count from X by 6 by buying back Mystic Speculation 3 times, on the 3rd casting Steady Progress, costs 6+2(X+6) = 2X+18 and gets X+6 proliferates; so tapping 3 batteries is sufficient to pay for it.
So, now, tap 3 batteries for 54 R, buyback mystic speculation 3 times for 23 storm, 23 proliferates, paying that 54. (it's more efficient to tap batteries only when you need them, but that's harder to calculate and this is a lower bound). 41 counters on 4 batteries.
Flashback Echo Storm (x25; make 20 batteries, tapping 1, and 4 amulets)
This is enough resources to get going. Each battery is worth 2 storm; each echo storm makes X batteries thus doubling X; so each planar birth takes X to 2^X, and we have 31 W, so we can get up to 2^^31 which is more then enough (2^2^(number maybe in the 100s or 1000s) is sufficient for a UTM).
Sea God's Scorn is needed to keep bouncing Revenge of Ravens. We technically don't need Curse of Fool's Wisdom, Alhammaret's Archive, and Mirror Gallery to run the full combo up to life, but without all three we don't get a big life gain with the next draw.
So, I think this gets us 1 + 53 (opponent draw) + 60 (opponent discard) + 7 (our draw) + 14 (our artifact discard) + 2 (AotSS) = 137, for BB_12(137).
Edit: I noticed that we can get up to 4 token creatures when we cast Bankrupt in Blood, or up to 16 if we go with the Hand of Emrakul plan instead. So, I was wondering if there was some way to gain life from those tokens. Unfortunately, being able to bring back Confessor as many times as we want, allows us to keep allowing it to be destroyed during combat, and bringing it back afterwards. So we would have to work around that.
Anointer Priest looks interesting being restricted to creature tokens, but getting life when the enter the battlefield is too early. Surge of Righteousness would also not allow us to gain life from Confessor, but it is an instant that we would need to cast during combat.
A card similar to those two might work. Another idea is to have to sacrifice a creature to bring Confessor back.
Problem: Primevals' Glorious Rebirth requires a legendary creature or planeswalker to cast. So adding in, say, a second Kiora brings the number of iterations down by 2.
Edit: Bigger problem: We can Mirrorweave to get another necromancer so that we can Fame it.
So we have to use Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper, Hand of Emrakul, Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants, and a 4th creature.
I think there's exactly enough deck slots for it to work.
So, our creatures are Xathrid Necromancer, Confessor, Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper, Driver of the Dead, and Hand of Emrakul. Confessor can be Mirrorweaved to a Necromancer, and the Necromancers hacked so that when an Eldrazi dies, a creature token is created. So afterwards we have Confessor, Hand of Emrakul, and 12 creature tokens. We can then allow various creatures to die in combat one at a time, leaving just one token at the very end, for 13 more life gains.
Does this work?
Only suitable replacement I can find is Cyclone Sire; and we'd also need a spare land. Now deck space is becoming an issue.
2 Eureka
3 Omniscience
4 Thousand-Year Storm
5 Spellweaver Volute
6 Pull from Eternity
7 Recoup
8 Coat of Arms
9 Xathrid Necromancer
10 Arcbond
11 Artificial Evolution
12 Mirrorweave
13 Dowsing Dagger
14 Dralnu's Crusade
15 Mirrormade
16 Mirrormade
17 Mirrormade
18 Mirrormade
19 Copy Enchantment
20 Roar of Challenge
21 Forebear's Blade
22 Orbs of Warding
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
26 Mangara's Tome
27 Sea God's Scorn
28 Confessor
29 Cyclone Spire
30 Driver of the Dead
31 Hand of Emrakul
32 Darksteel Citadel
34 Mystic Speculation
35 Mana Echoes
36 Red Mana Battery
37 Steady Progress
38 Echo Storm
39 Island
40 Amulet of Vigor
41 Boil the seas
42 Planar Birth
43 Plains
44 Charge Across the Araba
45 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
46 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
47 Rings of Brigthearth
48 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
49 Watery Grave
50 Splendid Reclamation
51 Forest
52 Melt Terrain
54 Alhammarret's Archive
55 Mirror Gallery
56 Curse of Fool's Wisdom
57 Artificer's Intuition
58 Temple Bell
59 Baral's Expertise
60 Coercion
Ah; just enough space though. Had to cut the approach though.
1 + 4 (our deck) + 53 (opp deck) + 60 (opp discard) + 13 (artifacts) = 131
Edit: Now that discarding isn't bad, Coersion -> Scroll of Griselbrand is one more.
Edit 2: Disrupting Scepter allows for replacing Artificer's Intuition for Proper Burial for more life from the creatures; which can be 10 (8 from 4 deaths to 2 necromancers, confessor, hand of emrakul). Can itself also be discarded once finished. Total: BB_12(143).
The only potential problem I see with the Hand of Emrakul line is that it looks like we can save our mirrorweave until after declaring attackers? We don't have Artificial Evolution, because we needed to make things into eldrazi.
(also Hand of Emrakul requires creatures to have two types but Dralnu's Crusade fixes that)
Edit: actually we can Dralnu's Crusade to get enough Edlrazi Spawn without using AE
Edit: wait what am I thinking? we need to hack the crusades, default goblin->zombie is not useful.
How about:
2 Eureka
3 Omniscience
4 Thousand-Year Storm
5 Spellweaver Volute
6 Pull from Eternity
7 Recoup
8 Coat of Arms
9 Xathrid Necromancer
10 Arcbond
11 Artificial Evolution
12 Mirrorweave
13 Dowsing Dagger
14 Dralnu's Crusade
15 Mirrormade
16 Mirrormade
17 Mirrormade
18 Mirrormade
19 Copy Enchantment
20 Roar of Challenge
21 Forebear's Blade
22 Orbs of Warding
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
26 Mangara's Tome
27 Cyclone Sire
28 creature
29 creature
30 Darksteel Citadel
31 Hand of Emrakul
33 Mystic Speculation
34 Mana Echoes
35 Red Mana Battery
36 Steady Progress
37 Echo Storm
38 Island
39 Amulet of Vigor
40 Boil the seas
41 Planar Birth
42 Plains
43 Charge Across the Araba
44 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
45 Rings of Brigthearth
46 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
47 Watery Grave
48 Splendid Reclamation
49 Forest
50 Melt Terrain
51 Revenge of Ravens
52 Alhammarret's Archive
53 Mirror Gallery
54 Sea God's Scorn
56 Primal Vigor
57 Doubling Season
58 Doubling Season
59 Doubling Season
60 Doubling Season
We can have 10 token doublers, so we get 2^10 * 12 = 12,288 creature tokens, plus 2 nontoken creatures. So that should get us to BB_12(12,290)?
A second PW is still needed for PGR though. (a legendary creature could be infinitely returned and killed for life).
Edit: I was thinking how to get the most tokens out of the 2 unspecified creature slots; which would by default be 4 if it were a necromancer. Symbyotic Wurm gets 7; but Leige of the Hollows gets as many as we can generate mana up to that point!
So, we'd do the full combo up to life but without setting up a TM. Then, play Hand of Emrakul, and get BB_12(X) where X is a number with about 10 up arrows.
(Edit: This makes a second Kiora the clear choice for the other legend, as then the whole combo is possible without using combat steps; also Revenge of Ravens -> Yawgmoth's Edict)
Edit: Konda, Lord of Eiganjo lets us not have to worry about devotion.
Edit: Ooh, Liege of the Hollows is very nice!
2 Eureka
3 Omniscience
4 Thousand-Year Storm
5 Spellweaver Volute
6 Pull from Eternity
7 Recoup
8 Coat of Arms
9 Xathrid Necromancer
10 Arcbond
11 Artificial Evolution
12 Mirrorweave
13 Dowsing Dagger
14 Dralnu's Crusade
15 Mirrormade
16 Mirrormade
17 Mirrormade
18 Mirrormade
19 Copy Enchantment
20 Roar of Challenge
21 Forebear's Blade
22 Orbs of Warding
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
26 Mangara's Tome
27 Cyclone Sire
28 Liege of the Hollows
29 Confessor
30 Darksteel Citadel
31 Hand of Emrakul
33 Mystic Speculation
34 Mana Echoes
35 Red Mana Battery
36 Steady Progress
37 Echo Storm
38 Island
39 Amulet of Vigor
40 Boil the seas
41 Planar Birth
42 Plains
43 Charge Across the Araba
44 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
45 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
46 Rings of Brigthearth
47 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
48 Watery Grave
49 Splendid Reclamation
50 Forest
51 Melt Terrain
53 Alhammarret's Archive
54 Mirror Gallery
55 Sea God's Scorn
56 Curse of Fool's Wisdom
57 Temple Bell
58 Baral's Expertise
59 Disrupting Scepter
60 Sylvok Lifestaff
Edit: Actually, Confessor doesn't quite work because we can infinitely discard and recur the Plains, so the discard stuff doesn't work. Replace Disrupting Scepter for Approach of the second sun. Confessor could be replaced by Daxos, Blessed by the sun for 3 one-time life gains.
Edit 2: No Daxos, he's legendary. Healer of the Pride instead.
I was wondering if we could maybe use the extra cards to gain a layer or two out of our Knuth arrows - in particular, using red mana to cast Mystic Speculation seems like it could be improved. If not, the draw/discard plan seems like the best.
Replace Confessor for a colourless mana dork (say, Kozilek's Channeler), and replace Coersion for Thousand-Year Elixir).
Then, one R = X copies of Seize the day to untap it for X colourless = X storm; doubling X
Then one RMB = 2^X storm
one echo storm = 2^^X
one planar birth = 2 -> X -> 3
land drop: 4
B: 5
G: 6
opp life: 7
life = 2 -> X -> 8
one-time life gain = 2 -> X -> 9
N iterations: 2 -> N -> 10 (looks like we were 1 layer too high previously)
N = 1 + 53 + 2 + however many cards we don't need to draw (I count 23) = 79
If we're using 2 as our base, then we can get more than 2 -> 3 -> 10 before any life gains, since that is just 2 -> 4 -> 9. For the number of cards that we don't need to draw, I counted 27 before, but I think I incorrectly counted Orb of Dreams. So I get 26 - all the cards in the 3rd and 4th sections besides Harmless Offering, Orb of Dreams, and Mangara's Tome, plus Mana Echoes and the last 4 cards.
So I think we get N = 3 + 53 + 2 + 26 = 84.
Edit: Oof. Seize the Day can untap our animated land, which can be a Forest, for example.
Looking at replacements for Seize the Day, there is Response // Resurgence, which would be a nice replacement, except that it costs white mana. The other cards all seem to be able to untap creatures. There are some cards that untap creatures that previously attacked - but that's still bad, since if we can give the Forest vigilance, it can attack without tapping, then tap to create mana. If we don't give our hasted creature vigilance, we lose a layer.
So the best fix seems to be to replace Cyclone Sire. Balduvian Dead perhaps?
Edit: Hold the phone, I think I know how to get another layer.
We use something that deals one damage to both players. This will give counters to a lot of Angelheart Vials. We can activate each Angelheart Vial one at a time, each time increasing our life by a bunch. So we can get two layers from opponent's life to our life, rather than one.
Orbs of Warding can be replaced by Chameleon Blur.
The sticky problem is that, we can donate Angelheart Vials to the opponent, and he can use them to gain life after taking damage. The safety net seems to be the card draw, which would prevent him from using it infinitely. But, he has to not be allowed to avoid the card draw. I haven't found any cards that can prevent card draws from our side that can't be donated to the opponent, so this is a bit tricky. The only thing I can think of right now is something that keeps us from dying, like Angel's Grace.
Then, we need to give the opponent a lot of life. The best way would be to solve our Hand of Emrakul problem, and allow us to have Liege of the Hollows on the battlefield and create a lot of Squirrel tokens. We can then give the opponent a lot of life by donating Sylvok Lifestaff.
Without Liege of the Hollows or Confessor, it gets a little bit hard. We can't do straight opponent card draw, because Alhammaret's Archive doubles card draw as well as life. And using discard via Spiritual Focus has the problem that the opponent can choose to draw a card. We can still make the opponent discard/draw at 2 life per card (perhaps aided by a bunch of Boon Reflections), and then we can get one card draw on our side, for a lot of opponent life. That at least will put this ahead of any 12-layer version, I think.
Edit: Hmmm, what about using an indestructible legendary creature, like Konda, Lord of Eiganjo, and bring him back with Goryo's Vengeance?
However, I think I have a solution: Shadowborn Apostle + Spy Kit
Then we'd have exactly 6 creatures in the deck: Necromancer, Sek'Kuar, Apsotle, Liege of the Hollows, and 2 more.
What about the Konda + Goryo's Vengeance idea?
Okay, so next issue: Is there a way to prevent ourselves from decking, without preventing the opponent from decking? The only way I saw was to use something that prevented us from losing the game in any manner, like Angel's Grace. If we use Angel's Grace though, we need to replace Melt Terrain. Something that pays life to destroy or bounce a land would be good. Fumarole though would allow us to destroy Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper and keep Xathrid Necromancer on the battlefield.
So Fumarole and just one Necromancer as the only creature seems safe.
I'm pretty sure that we can replace Melt Terrain while keeping Liege of the Hollows.