Yeah, I think I can work around Swamps. Use some black mana land, kill it with Sinkhole, bring it back with Splendid Reclamation. Do the same for Mana Confluence, but we need to pay a life to use it. Add Caged Sun to get a lot of mana from one usage.
That costs an extra card though, but it could certainly be the case that we prefer one noncreature card over two creature cards. Also, we can switch back from Nexus of Fate to Angel's Grace, if we find some reason to.
So, we are back to optimizing pre-Liege. That will be something like 2 -> X+3 -> 11, where X is how many times we can give the opponent a lot of life.
What are the best ways to go about doing that? I don't know how to do that for opponent draws or discards at the moment. (except for 2-12 life per card) We can get life gain off of our draw, then we have to draw out our deck to use Angelheart Vials, if we don't use Nexus of Fate. So those opponent life gain lands are looking good right now.
But, those don't work with our land manipulation change. Is there some way to avoid using Swamps, but still not be able to recycle a general land? If not, it looks like going back to Shadowborn Apostle is better than - unless we find some alternative life gain possibilities.
Hmm, the Hectacomb version still has one open creature slot; perhaps it could be Angel of Vitality that we give them a lot of via Mirrorweave? That way we can use their deck for their life without having to worry about Archive
In a Nexus of fate version, Kiss of the Amesha could be used as the card draw to life conversion without going infinite with nexus; it would half the number of draws but does take one fewer card which could end up being relevant.
Edit: Actually, archive is needed for a BB-layer; to set up a TM we need to mirrorweave to give them necromancers, but then they no longer have their angels of vitality.
Hmm... we need Mirrorweave rather than Cytoshape so that we can't give ourselves Xathrid Necromancers without overwriting our hasted creatures, I guess. But it is more restrictive. Good catch.
Edit: Sorry, forgot about the Peak Eruption damage. So I don't know what to do with the last slot yet.
Edit: Hmmm, we don't want to get all the Thousand-Year Storm copies for Coercion, since that will cause the opponent to discard all seven cards in his hand, and he can choose to draw another seven. Disrupting Scepter and Scroll of Giselbrand can be done one at a time, but I guess they can be donated to the opponent and go infinite. So, we need something like Spell Burst or Sea God's Scorn to be able to make the opponent discard one card at a time. Maybe Sea God's Scorn is better, since it allows us to vary the use of our copying enchantments.
Edit: Actually, Cryptwailing can be used one at a time, and the opponent can't use it.
Realized that Sea God's Scorn can bounce Hecatomb, allowing us to go infinite by mirrorweaving all our tokens to Necromancers, and repeatedly saccing them to get more back + life.
Sea God's Scorn is useful though for Happily Ever After, as well as allowing TYS to be copied so that Steady Progress multiplies the storm count by 7, increasing the base.
With apostle there's no way to kill creatures once it's used without using combat damage, requiring the haste tokens thus not allowing necromancer.
Edit: Cinder Hellion would allow the second Kiora to be cut (oracle text says opponent or planeswalker) allowing for a nocreature slot, whichever is more helpful.
We get more than 7 -> 55 -> 12, since 7 -> 2 -> 12 = 7 -> 7 -> 11, and we can get more than that off of the opponent's starting 20 life. (We also get more than 20 -> 55 -> 12 or 2 -> 56 -> 12.)
If we switch out Sea God's Scorn for something that doesn't bounce creatures, we can use Blade Juggler for one instance of damage to us. Or, we could keep Sea God's Scorn, and add Demonlord Belzenlok. With Belzenlok we can get multiple damage instaces to ourselves, but the important ones are the ones we can get with the full combo available up to self-damage, not including the TWM computation. I count 19 cards that we don't need that have CMCs of three or less, so we can get an initial usage, 19 more for those 19 cards, and then we can end with a larger CMC card, for 21 damage instances with the full combo available. Of course, that all depends on whether we can make this work with the start.
All that would be beaten by opponent life gain, but I haven't found anything that gives the opponent life that doesn't go infinite.
I guess we might as well go with Centaur Peacemaker, so that both players gain 4 life.
Edit: Hmmm, I think we can replace Spy Kit with a seventh creature. Then, we need to mirrorweave the six creatures besides Sek'Kuar into Shadowborn Apostles, and then sacrifice them, in order to get hasted tokens.
Edit: Oh, that loses us our Xathrid Necromancers, so I guess it doesn't work.
That doesn't work, since we need the opponent to have necromancers before setting up the TM, but mirrorweaveing everything into Shadowborn Apostle would take away their necromancers.
Hmm, in that case, I think Reduce to Dreams will still be cheaper than Dawn to Dusk. It gets rid of our artifact tokens, but we can quickly replenish them with a casting of Echo Storm.
Hmm, Mogg Infestation seems to work - we don't actually need indestructible; on our own creatures it's just a convenience that can be worked around by using output clocks that keep them alive, and on our opponents creatures we can use Kiora's +1 ability.
It can even replace Dowsing Dagger - we donate them sek'kuar, blow it up for a token, and keep doubling it. It just can't be used after the machine is set up, as otherwise it would irrecoverably destroy their necromancers, but that's ok as we can ensure they have BB(X) other creatures between computations.
Hmm, though the lack of indestructible on our creatures means its taking combat damage from every creature, surely enough to kill it. Solution is to use Armed // Dangerous or Grappling Hook - in the first strike step we assign all but 1 of our combat damage to something on which damage is prevented, then 1 to another creature we want, triggering arcbond; then by the normal damage step there are BB(X) creatures that can keep our attacker alive and only X creatures blocking it dealing a maximum of X^2 damage back. (or all the blockers could have died by this point).
In that case, we can switch to Death Pit Offering or Soulblast. Soulblast should be okay, since as the only way to get hasted tokens, we can't keep it in our hands to play during a computation. We can damage ourselves to gain a bunch of life each time we use it.
I think sacrificing all of our creatures means there are no limits to how many creatures we can have, which could be very useful. For starters, we can add Starfield of Nyx, and remove our five copy enchantments.
With these new options there may be ways to get more layers. But, for the time being, our best play looks like putting a bunch of Liege of the Hollows into play. We save five cards from the changes, and then we can also remove any cards that we don't need for the TM part of the combo. This includes Centaur Peacemaker, Angel of Vitality, Honor-Worn Shaku, Happily Ever After, and Reduce to Dreams. So we can cut 10 cards, allowing for a possible 11 Lieges. Of course, deck construction rules prevent us from having more than four. Can we increase the number of Lieges somehow? I haven't found a copy card that works. Soul Foundry could get double usage out of the Lieges, since it could tap during the Amulet of Vigor untapping triggers, and then again at any time we choose. Similarly for Mimic Vat. But, by the same token, we could get double usage out of Xathrid Necromancer, which is bad.
Edit: Hmmm, I guess copy cards are fine. We can even use creature doublers like Doubling Season, and make multiple tokens perhaps? We just have to be sure that we can't make enough Xathrid Necromancers to go infinite. I'm actually not sure how many that would be.
Hmm, I think it doesn't work since you could get a necromancer at the same time as a haste token by the following steps:
- Get a haste token
- Play a nontoken creature from hand
- Go to combat, and have your nontoken creature take damage
- Mirrorweave for a necromancer
- Get back Sek'kuar
- Change the type of the creature with damage to kill it and get a haste token
The key thing about Shadowborn Apostle and Hecatomb is that they kill all the nontoken creatures in the deck at the same time, which Soulblast doesn't do.
Although, perhaps Soulblast could be used to start a computation rather than using combat steps? Though it would lose a layer.
Blaze Commando seems intriguing. Can we make it so that the instant/sorcery that deals damage always kills our Xathrid Necromancer? Unfortunately, Solar Blaze doesn't actually deal damage itself. Perhaps, if we are required to put Thousand-Year Storm on the battlefield to get off the ground, and we can't remove Thousand-Year Storm, then Blasphemous Act would be enough? I dunno.
Edit: Okay, what about Soulblast and Akroan Crusader? Akroan Crusader is targeted before it goes to the graveyard, so it will still trigger and create a hasted token.
In fact, Soulblast could repeatedly sac a board full of necromancers into more tokens that can be mirrorweaved back into necromancers, which goes infinite with any way of getting mana from creatures such as Sylvok Lifestaff or just Mana Echoes. This was the same problem that Hecatomb had.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Does Hecatomb work as an alternative for Shadowborn Apostle?
Though currently we're using Watery Grave so that it can be destroyed by Boil/Boil the seas
That costs an extra card though, but it could certainly be the case that we prefer one noncreature card over two creature cards. Also, we can switch back from Nexus of Fate to Angel's Grace, if we find some reason to.
So, we are back to optimizing pre-Liege. That will be something like 2 -> X+3 -> 11, where X is how many times we can give the opponent a lot of life.
What are the best ways to go about doing that? I don't know how to do that for opponent draws or discards at the moment. (except for 2-12 life per card) We can get life gain off of our draw, then we have to draw out our deck to use Angelheart Vials, if we don't use Nexus of Fate. So those opponent life gain lands are looking good right now.
But, those don't work with our land manipulation change. Is there some way to avoid using Swamps, but still not be able to recycle a general land? If not, it looks like going back to Shadowborn Apostle is better than - unless we find some alternative life gain possibilities.
Edit: Oh, but we also want Kozilek's Channeler or Weaver of Currents, so I guess Shadowborn Apostle is better.
Prospective decklist:
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
21 Forebear's Blade
22 Chameleon Blur
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
26 Angel's Grace
27 Hectacomb
28 Liege of the Hollows
29 Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
30 Angel of Vitality
31 Seize the Day
32 Mystic Speculation
33 Mana Echoes
34 Red Mana Battery
35 Steady Progress
36 Echo Storm
37 Island
38 Amulet of Vigor
39 Stone Rain
40 Planar Birth
42 Charge Across the Araba
43 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
44 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
45 Rings of Brigthearth
46 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
47 Dimir Guildgate
48 Splendid Reclamation
49 Mana Confluence
50 Caged Sun
51 Angelheart Vial
52 Borrowing the East Wind
53 Alhammarret's Archive
54 Mirror Gallery
55 Curse of Fool's Wisdom
56 Unmoored Ego
57 Sylvok Lifestaff
3 slots remaining to work with.
In a Nexus of fate version, Kiss of the Amesha could be used as the card draw to life conversion without going infinite with nexus; it would half the number of draws but does take one fewer card which could end up being relevant.
Edit: Hectacomb -> Shadowborn Apostle makes 2 of the 3 deck slots Kozilek's Channeler and Spy Kit.
So I have:
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 Chameleon Blur
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Shadowborn Apostle
26 Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
27 Liege of the Hollows
28 Kozilek's Channeler
29 Angel of Vitality
30 Spy Kit
31 Thousand-Year Elixir
33 Mystic Speculation
34 Mana Echoes
35 Red Mana Battery
36 Steady Progress
37 Orb of Dreams
38 Echo Storm
39 Island
40 Amulet of Vigor
41 Boil
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 Stomping Ground
52 Peak Eruption
54 Borrowing the East Wind
55 Nexus of Fate
56 Curse of Fool's Wisdom
57 Oona's Grace
58 Sylvok Lifestaff
59 Grove of the Burnwillows
60 Grove of the Burnwillows
Good catch with not needing Archive any more though.
Also, Peak Erruption deals damage thus going infinite with Angelheart Vial so we need to use Mana Confluence either way
Edit: Actually, archive is needed for a BB-layer; to set up a TM we need to mirrorweave to give them necromancers, but then they no longer have their angels of vitality.
Honor-Worn Shaku can get us our colorless mana off of Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper. So we can go back to Hecatomb and save two cards.
Edit: Oh, I realized that Nexus of Fate is actually worth another layer: each time we cast a Steady Progress, we can cast a bunch of copies of Nexus of Fate, doubling our storm count. So it's worth getting it back in. Replacing Curse of Fool's Wisdom with Spiritual Focus should do the job, I think. We can have both Coercion and Oona's Grace to make sure that we can get the maximum number of discards from the opponent. Also, with Nexus of Fate we are free to go back to the Stomping Ground version, so we can use the last card slot for a Grove of the Burnwillows.
Edit: Sorry, forgot about the Peak Eruption damage. So I don't know what to do with the last slot yet.
Edit: Hmmm, we don't want to get all the Thousand-Year Storm copies for Coercion, since that will cause the opponent to discard all seven cards in his hand, and he can choose to draw another seven. Disrupting Scepter and Scroll of Giselbrand can be done one at a time, but I guess they can be donated to the opponent and go infinite. So, we need something like Spell Burst or Sea God's Scorn to be able to make the opponent discard one card at a time. Maybe Sea God's Scorn is better, since it allows us to vary the use of our copying enchantments.
Edit: Actually, Cryptwailing can be used one at a time, and the opponent can't use it.
Edit: Even better, we can just use Happily Ever After, with Sea God's Scorn to recycle it.
Sea God's Scorn is useful though for Happily Ever After, as well as allowing TYS to be copied so that Steady Progress multiplies the storm count by 7, increasing the base.
With apostle there's no way to kill creatures once it's used without using combat damage, requiring the haste tokens thus not allowing necromancer.
So, switching back to Apostle gives us:
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 Chameleon Blur
23 Harmless Offering
24 Upwelling
25 Orb of Dreams
27 Liege of the Hollows
28 Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper
29 Angel of Vitality
30 (any creature)
31 Spy Kit
32 Honor-Worn Shaku
33 Mystic Speculation
34 Steady Progress
35 Nexus of Fate
36 Mana Echoes
37 Seize the Day
38 Red Mana Battery
39 Echo Storm
40 Island
41 Amulet of Vigor
42 Stone Rain
43 Planar Birth
44 Hallowed Fountain
45 Charge Across the Araba
47 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
48 Rings of Brigthearth
49 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
50 Dimir Guildgate
51 Splendid Reclamation
52 Mana Confluence
53 Caged Sun
54 Angelheart Vial
55 Borrowing the East Wind
56 Alhammarret's Archive
57 Mirror Gallery
58 Happily Ever After
59 Sea God's Scorn
60 Sylvok Lifestaff
with one available creature slot.
Should be BB_13(7 -> 54 -> 12).
Edit: Cinder Hellion would allow the second Kiora to be cut (oracle text says opponent or planeswalker) allowing for a nocreature slot, whichever is more helpful.
If we switch out Sea God's Scorn for something that doesn't bounce creatures, we can use Blade Juggler for one instance of damage to us. Or, we could keep Sea God's Scorn, and add Demonlord Belzenlok. With Belzenlok we can get multiple damage instaces to ourselves, but the important ones are the ones we can get with the full combo available up to self-damage, not including the TWM computation. I count 19 cards that we don't need that have CMCs of three or less, so we can get an initial usage, 19 more for those 19 cards, and then we can end with a larger CMC card, for 21 damage instances with the full combo available. Of course, that all depends on whether we can make this work with the start.
All that would be beaten by opponent life gain, but I haven't found anything that gives the opponent life that doesn't go infinite.
Edit: Hmmm, I think we can replace Spy Kit with a seventh creature. Then, we need to mirrorweave the six creatures besides Sek'Kuar into Shadowborn Apostles, and then sacrifice them, in order to get hasted tokens.
Edit: Oh, that loses us our Xathrid Necromancers, so I guess it doesn't work.
Kiora's Dismissal is cheaper than Dawn to Dusk
Oath of Teferi instead of the second Kiora can get two uses each time we bring back Kiora.
Oath of Teferi works though.
Edit: Hmm, I'm curious - what can be done with Fractured Identity? It seems like we can replace Alhammarret's Archive, Mirror Gallery, and Harmless Offering with Fractured Identity and Boon Reflection. We can use Crystal Chimes to get enchantments back from our graveyard. This would also allow us to get as many Dralnu's Crusades as we need, without needing any copy enchantments.
Oh, but we can use Fractured Identity on the opponent's Xathrid Necromancer to get one on our side. Phooey.
Edit: Can we replace Shadowborn Apostle and Spy Kit with Mogg Infestation? We can reuse Mogg Infestation, but each time we will kill off all of our creatures, so there's no way to save a Xathrid Necromancer.
If this works, we can also use Mogg Infestation to quickly multiply the number of opponent's tokens.
Edit: Hmm, Mogg Infestation can't get past indestructible - but Hellion Eruption can.
It can even replace Dowsing Dagger - we donate them sek'kuar, blow it up for a token, and keep doubling it. It just can't be used after the machine is set up, as otherwise it would irrecoverably destroy their necromancers, but that's ok as we can ensure they have BB(X) other creatures between computations.
Hmm, though the lack of indestructible on our creatures means its taking combat damage from every creature, surely enough to kill it. Solution is to use Armed // Dangerous or Grappling Hook - in the first strike step we assign all but 1 of our combat damage to something on which damage is prevented, then 1 to another creature we want, triggering arcbond; then by the normal damage step there are BB(X) creatures that can keep our attacker alive and only X creatures blocking it dealing a maximum of X^2 damage back. (or all the blockers could have died by this point).
Edit: Actually, Mogg Infestation and Hellion Eruption both go infinite with Sylvok Lifestaff
In that case, we can switch to Death Pit Offering or Soulblast. Soulblast should be okay, since as the only way to get hasted tokens, we can't keep it in our hands to play during a computation. We can damage ourselves to gain a bunch of life each time we use it.
I think sacrificing all of our creatures means there are no limits to how many creatures we can have, which could be very useful. For starters, we can add Starfield of Nyx, and remove our five copy enchantments.
With these new options there may be ways to get more layers. But, for the time being, our best play looks like putting a bunch of Liege of the Hollows into play. We save five cards from the changes, and then we can also remove any cards that we don't need for the TM part of the combo. This includes Centaur Peacemaker, Angel of Vitality, Honor-Worn Shaku, Happily Ever After, and Reduce to Dreams. So we can cut 10 cards, allowing for a possible 11 Lieges. Of course, deck construction rules prevent us from having more than four. Can we increase the number of Lieges somehow? I haven't found a copy card that works. Soul Foundry could get double usage out of the Lieges, since it could tap during the Amulet of Vigor untapping triggers, and then again at any time we choose. Similarly for Mimic Vat. But, by the same token, we could get double usage out of Xathrid Necromancer, which is bad.
Edit: Hmmm, I guess copy cards are fine. We can even use creature doublers like Doubling Season, and make multiple tokens perhaps? We just have to be sure that we can't make enough Xathrid Necromancers to go infinite. I'm actually not sure how many that would be.
- Get a haste token
- Play a nontoken creature from hand
- Go to combat, and have your nontoken creature take damage
- Mirrorweave for a necromancer
- Get back Sek'kuar
- Change the type of the creature with damage to kill it and get a haste token
The key thing about Shadowborn Apostle and Hecatomb is that they kill all the nontoken creatures in the deck at the same time, which Soulblast doesn't do.
Although, perhaps Soulblast could be used to start a computation rather than using combat steps? Though it would lose a layer.
What if we replaced Sek'Kuar with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer? No, we could Mirrorweave tokens into Necromancers, and they would still have haste.
Blaze Commando seems intriguing. Can we make it so that the instant/sorcery that deals damage always kills our Xathrid Necromancer? Unfortunately, Solar Blaze doesn't actually deal damage itself. Perhaps, if we are required to put Thousand-Year Storm on the battlefield to get off the ground, and we can't remove Thousand-Year Storm, then Blasphemous Act would be enough? I dunno.
Edit: Okay, what about Soulblast and Akroan Crusader? Akroan Crusader is targeted before it goes to the graveyard, so it will still trigger and create a hasted token.
In fact, Soulblast could repeatedly sac a board full of necromancers into more tokens that can be mirrorweaved back into necromancers, which goes infinite with any way of getting mana from creatures such as Sylvok Lifestaff or just Mana Echoes. This was the same problem that Hecatomb had.