Noted. I had no idea Mana Reflection existed, so I'll re-vamp my list with this information replacing Mana Flare.
In addition I'll remove one of each doubling enchantment to add 3 Dual Natures.
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund along with Xenograft looks intriguing, but after some analysis it doesn't look like it will improve the estimate. Each time a Karrthus comes into play, it allows all the Kiki-Jikis to be untapped, each of which can be tapped to produce more Doubling Seasons, but unfortunately the number of Kiki-Jikis doesn't increase between Karrthuses, so it's always the same Kiki-Jikis getting untapped. If there are M Karrthuses and N Kiki-Jikis, we get MN untappings total, which is not enough to boost the combo. But adding Leyline of Anticipation does allow Praetor's Counsel to be replicated, which should get you to 2^^^^^^7 damage: after the initial Radiates you have more than 2^^^^^7 > 2^^^^^^3 Doubling Seasons, then each Praetor's Counsel pumps up the right number by one.
Found a few more cards I didn't know about (Felhide Spiritbinder for one), so I'll be back later in the week when I have time to browse and revamp the list and play order.
Copy Enchantment targeting nothing
Each Copy Enchantment coming into play via Dual Nature should copy a Doubling season/Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor card, until the last Dual Nature trigger batch copys Dual Nature.
This sequence will be used repeatedly until the very last cycle.
Monk Idealist. In response to it's ETB trigger, Tap Copy Enchantment to untap your land (when Earthcraft is in play),
and sacrifice it to Goblin Chirurgeon to regenerate a Boros Reckoner (if they are in play. If not, then anything).
The ETB trigger resolves, getting back Copy Enchantment that you then play as an instant repeating step 4.
Repeat this process for every ETB trigger of Monk Idealist tokens.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. In response to anything else on the stack, tap to copy Monk Idealist and repeat step 6.
Repeat for every Kiki-Jiki token and or card as soon as they ETB.
Same for the Clones that will copy kiki.
(Or would it be better to have the clones copy nothing and die being a 0/0 to be replayed later?)
Krenko, Mob Boss. Unlike Kiki-Jiki, Krenko is happy to wait until all other Krenko's are in play before tapping to produce tokens.
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund. In response to it's EBT effect, tap all non-Kiki-Krenko creatures to untap your land to produce R and G mana in even amounts.
(all Kiki's and Krenko's should already have been used as listed in steps 7 and 9.)
After each untap, repeat steps 7 and 9.
The very last cycle of step 4, Copy enchantment should copy Furnace of Rath.
Cast Fireball using flashback and all of your mana, targeting a Reckoner. Sacrifice a goblin token to Goblin Chirurgeon to regenerate that Reckoner.
Target another Reckoner and repeat sacing goblins (tokens first, then creatures that no longer have a use) to keep rengenerating and retargeting to Recokners.
One thing to keep in mind is that Monk Idealist has a triggered ability, and a targeted triggered ability at that. By the time it's possible to do anything "in response to" the triggers, you already had to place the triggers on the stack, and choose targets for them. Let's say you get a batch of 128 tokens (in reality, all your batches will be much bigger of course). That's 128 triggers for which you have to choose a target before any of them can resolve, and the target must be an enchantment card that is in your graveyard right at that very moment. If all of them target the same Copy Enchantment, then the first one resolves and returns it to your hand. No matter what you do with that card thereafter, even if it returns to the graveyard before the next ability's turn, that's not good enough: the other triggers have all lost track of their target, and end up being completely wasted. The Monk Idealist step is thus almost a non-step.
Suppose you replaced Monk Idealist with Drake Familiar. That returns an enchantment from the battlefield instead of from the graveyard, so you don't get to sacrifice it, but more relevantly it does no in a non-targeted way. You don't determine which enchantment, if any, that you want to bounce until resolution time, so every single copy that you get out of a batch of tokens will still be effective.
Assuming that you take SadisticMystic's advice and trade Monk Idealist for Drake Familar, I calculate the following:
As I showed before, each alternation of Doubling Season and Dual Nature will take X to 2^^X. After 4 Dual Natures and 4 Copy Enchantments we get more than 2^^^10.
When Drake Familiar is cast, you get a bunch of Dual Nature triggers, each of which gets a bunch of Drake Familiars due to all the Doubling Seasons. So casting it takes X to 2^^^^X, and we get more than 2^^^^2^^^10.
When a Kiki-Jiki copies a Drake Familiar, we don't get Dual Nature triggers, so it is just X to 2^^^X. Casting Kiki-Jiki gets two more layers for Dual Nature and Doubling Season, so it takes X to 2^^^^^X. After 4 Kiki-Jikis, 3 Clones and 1 Karrthus, we get more than 2^^^^^^11.
When a copy of Rite of Replication copies Karrthus or Kiki-Jiki, we again don't get Dual Nature triggers so it takes X to 2^^^^X. Each Radiate copy will then take X to 2^^^^^X, and each replicated casting of Radiate will take X to 2^^^^^^X. After four Radiates we get more than 2^^^^^^^7.
Each Praetor's Counsel takes X to 2^^^^^^^X, so for our final damage we get between 2^^^^^^^^7 and 2^^^^^^^^8, an improvement of two arrows.
So I get a final damage of about 10 -> 10 -> ... -> 10 -> X -> 17, where X should be in the upper 40's - a small improvement.
The weak spot seems to be the Night Dealings / Ion Storm / Chasm Skulker / Phelddagrif section, which requires four cards but only adds two layers. Anyone see anything better?
I pretty sure Chaos Warp only gives one Flame Elemental token per cast, due to having to react to Bloodbond March triggers, so you wouldn't gain layers there.
(Edit: That was wrong, the Chaos Warp can return Flame Elemental to the Battlefield by itself, I forgot that this card actually has an effect aside from targeting... Too few cards like that in here ^^)
For Firemind's Foresight I assume there should be a card in there that allows to put sorceries/instants back into the library, but I can't find it.
Phelddagrif allows us to go infinite with the opponents hand, by giving us +1/+1 counters on Chasm Skulker for only lower level ressources:
Get Mindshrieker blodbond march triggers on the stack.
Exile Mindshrieker to some new Chrome Mox. Donate (with replicates) that Mox and Phelddagrif.
The opponent taps the mox for mana and makes us draw a card.
We get +1/+1 counters and can move the Mindshrieker into our graveyard before the Bloodbond March trigger comes up.
The Bloodbond march triggers can be created by spending our own blue mana and Donate can be recovered using Sage's Knowledg a few layers later.
An alternative to have the opponent not die, that's safe with donate would be Soul Echo.
Donate makes stuff really complicated because all the things that usually only effect the opponent suddenly work on you too. The same vice versa. For example we have to make sure that whatever mechanisms we use to refill our library cannot be donated and used by the opponent, otherwise the limiter on Words of Wisdom is gone.
Lumberknot (and possibly also Garza Zol) spoils Ion Storm, but fortunately both of those cards are just Chrome Mox enablers, so any other green Treefolk/blue Vampire can replace them for minimal loss.
Since Psychic Battle is still there, Reality Strobe and Venser's Diffusion can squeeze an extra card (and 2 layers) into the Chaos Warp shaped hole, although Chaos Warp has to stay in the deck given its role in setup. Weed Strangle also scales slightly better than Poison Arrow. We can't go to Profane Prayers if Night Dealings is still going to be used, because that can be redirected to a player and give Night Dealings triggers for a closed loop. Another option in that slot is Wrack with Madness, which can target an Everglove Courier that's been given lifelink from Nectar Faerie and a whole bunch of +1/+1s from green Paragons--and notably, that Courier has the potential to be donated, allowing either player to gain life off the spell and rendering Phelddagrif unnecessary (but we also can't add Repercussion, and its layer of triggers, for the same reason).
[EDIT] If there's a limit to how big our own life total can get by making a lifelink creature fight itself with Wrack with Madness, then clearly there's a limit to how big the opponent's life total can get using Donate and the same. Then that itself can be the limiting factor of the Night Dealings step, rather than having to donate a Soul Echo to the opponent or anything like that: Chandra's Ignition is capable of being recurred in the same ways as Wrack with Madness is, and can be used to gain large amounts of life just like Wrack with Madness, but since it says "target creature you control" instead of "target creature", it can't give the opponent any life. Furthermore, since the deck currently has no creatures that are capable of surviving at 0 power (unless we somehow forgo a Gideon emblem, attack with Karn, and let it get blocked by a donated creature...and that's assuming we even have enough setup tools to get to that position), each resolution of Chandra's Ignition is guaranteed to deal damage to the opponent, which means before we can allow that copy to resolve, we have to raise the opponent's life total high enough to survive it.
Ideally it should hit them for the full effect of their life total minus 1, to get the most out of the fixed number of Precursor copies we have, but that might be problematic. Chandra's Ignition causes the creature to indiscriminately hit all creatures on both sides, and we don't want to lose anything like Bloodbond March that serves to store our current level of progress. For Bloodbond March itself, it's less of a problem, because it receives pumps from both color of Paragons. Still, any Elf or Faerie is guaranteed to be at least as big as the Paragons that are pumping that color up, making that pump go away. Even more troubling, we really don't want to lose the Leyline of Anticipation, and yet we have no way at all to pump it beyond 5 toughness (other than getting more Gideon emblems, a process that can only be done once per round of Chaos Warp, after the stack clears, and which will pump everything else including the intended damage-dealer at the same rate). This is unfortunate for a card with as helpful a profile as Chandra's Ignition. Fiery Gambit, a card that works for us completely unlike any other application of the card in all of Magic, occupies a similar profile except that the Magical Christmasland Jackpot, "draw nine cards", is ultimately fatal.
Other options for a profile of sorcery 3+ or instant 4+, can target a creature, can deal damage to a player, the amount of damage is determined at resolution time, amount of damage isn't bound by a nonexistent or hard-capped resource (such as the number of lands, or the converted mana cost of a single card)...hmm, actually instant 3+ is safe as long as it doesn't gain life or have the creature deal the damage. That means Massive Raid is potentially a go, but we have no sacrifice outlets in the traditional sense and all our low-level board development is based on iterating the successor function, so getting the opponent's life total high enough to exceed our own creature may require tearing down a large chunk of the board, using things like other Massive Raid or Wrack with Madness copies. Cinder Cloud is another theoretically workable option, if a bit unwieldy; the only white creature in the deck that can be pumped up as the spell allows is Grassland Crusader. Finally, the only other option I found is Roar of the Crowd, which seems ideal for cherry-picking a creature type whose fractional representation is on par with the opponent's life total.
So now we just need a way to plug opponent's life total into card draws, but have about zero cards to do it in.
So turn 1 lotus, show and tell, omniscience, enter the infinite idk leave a rite or preator cuncil doesnt matter really matter, dual natures, doubling seasons, primal vigor, parallel lives, boon reflections, mana echoes, soul sisters, storm herds, ajanis gaining an unbelievable amount of life and equally as many creatures netting an obsurd amount of life and i could think of a good way of going about a finsiher so banefire def uncounterable and very very very very very... very very big
Your decklist is currently at 61 cards without Omniscience or Enter the Infinite. The other thing that's striking about that list is that you use 4 Mana Echoes but don't actually use any of the mana for anything except Banefire, and your Praetor's Counsels are likewise underwhelming. In fact, playing out your enchantments in the first place is the most powerful step in the entire procedure, and everything after that is just moseying along without really changing anything that's notationally meaningful.
A simple Clone or Clever Impersonator would do so much more, since you could play it without copying anything, let it die as a 0/0 creature, let Dual Nature kill off all the tokens that share a name with it (hint: there are none), then get some Clone tokens that are free to copy whatever you want, such as Dual Nature and Doubling Season--the multitude of tokens can copy several different things. Then, because you actually have a permanent card in the graveyard, Praetor's Counsel can bring it back so you can replay it and get even more Dual Nature triggers. It's a rather crude and limited way of recycling or bouncing a permanent, but even just those 5 casts of Clone would do more for the total than all the redundant cards that currently fill steps 2 and 3.
I assumed that we could use Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Mindshrieker to put instants and sorceries back into the library, does that not work?
The Sage's Knowledge snafu (I think I was confusing it with Soul's Majesty, which unfortunately doesn't work with Psychic Trance) means we lose two layers. However, the suggestion to replace Poison Arrow with Wrack with Madness is a very good one, since it not only adds a layer, it allows us to get rid of Phelddagrif, which was causing an infinite problem. We can't add Repercussion with the extra slot since that would negate the benefit of Wrack with Madness, but we can add Corpsejack Menace to add another layer, and we wind up where we started with 10 -> ... -> 10 -> X -> 17.
Alright, start with the hand of black lotus, show and tell, omniscience, and enter the infinite, plus anything else. Cast the hand in that order to draw your deck. Cast all the remaining cards from the singles set. Now cast all copies of doubling season and pyromancer ascension, followed by 1 clone legion, doubling all of our creatures, giving us 64 new doubling seasons and 64 new pyromancer ascensions. To make the math a little easier, I will ignore the copies of the other cards from here on as well as the original doubling seasons and pyromancer ascensions. Also, for now choose not to trigger pandemonium.
Now cast the next another clone legion, giving around 2^64 copies of doubling season and pyromancer ascension, and activating the first 64 pyromancer ascension. Then the pandemonium trigers happen, but ). Now cast anther clone legion, allowing it to be copied 64 times. I think this ends up with (2^^64)^(2^64) or 2^^64^^2 (rounding down a fair bit) copies of both cards, but I am not positive yet. This also ends up with 2^64 active copies of pyromancer ascension. Now, cast the final clone legion. This should give (2^^2^^64^^2)^(2^^64^^2), although, again, I am not positive and I am not sure how to join the layers of tetration...
Moving on, now that we have used up all our clone legions, cast a cytoshape targeting the ink-treader nephilim and thus targeting all the field. Now for this and every following cytoshape that targets the nephilim, for all the copies that target non-token creatures, have that copy choose to turn into itself. This will leave all pieces of the combo intact. For all copies targeting our tokens, we will choose either doubling season or pyromancer ascension and make all of them that card. In this case, we will make them into pyromancer ascension. Now cast another cytoshape, this time targeting transguild courier and making it into itself, thus activating all (2^^2^^64^^2)^(2^^64^^2) of the ascensions.
Now we will cast bound // determined, using the 5 color transguild courier to sacrifice to Bound, and then returning the 4 cards in the combo and the courier, bound // determineds recasting the courier after the combo to set up for the next Bound. This should allow for X more iterations of the combo. Repeat for the next three bound // determineds.
On the very last iteration of the combo, things will go a little different. First we will actually use the pandemonium trigger. We will set it up so that the triggers form a circuit allowing the damage to grow after each trigger. Second, we not cast the 2 cytoshape leaving all the tokens as [c]doubling season[c] instead.
Now, we will sacrifice the tokens, starting with the largest one (at the end of the circuit) to the altar of dementia milling the opponent, and then moving the +1/+1 counters to the next largest doubling season via death's presence. Repeat this until all doubling seasons are gone, moving the tokens to vigor.
Pyromancer Ascension goes active from all the Clone Legions. Once that's in place, you can play any of your targeted graveyard-return cards such as Treasured Find or Vengeful Rebirth. It doesn't really matter what you target; Pyromancer Ascnsion will trigger on top of the spell, making copies that resolve before the original and that allow you to regrow more cards. In particular, you can duplicate the original target for one of the copies, so that the copy will return it first. When the original spell resolves, it no longer has a target, so in fact it's countered and does not resolve, meaning it does not get exiled. It sits there in the graveyard, ready for you to return it by playing another copy of the spell, and so on back and forth. That continues without limit, and the deck is lost because of it.
How about going back to Poison Arrow so Pain Magnification can come in? We can add Boon Reflection to get the lost layer back and get an additional one when the opponent gains life via donation.
But how would we trigger Pain Magnification? Just some first strikers? And do I recall correctly that the start works just fine without Consecrated Sphinx because Precursor Golem is there?
Is there a sorcery of the form "Target creature deals 1 or 2 damage to target creature or player" or "Deal 1 or 2 damage to target creature or player, you gain life"? Either of those would be ideal.
I keep forgetting to check the start whenever we change the deck. I don't see an obvious way to get started; the problem is we need to get Chaos Warp back somehow, but for Mindshrieker we need mana, presumably from Mana Crypt, which is tapped.
Wet Willie of the Damned would be perfect, except for the border color. And you thought you couldn't tempt the Pain Magnification line with any more than 2 damage.
Other than that, the search is coming up shockingly empty, and that's without even taking into account that a number of card profiles are going to be off-limits up where this card is going to have to reside (sorceries < 3, instants < 4, white or multicolored cards regardless of CMC). There are some that target only players and therefore won't get Precursor triggers (Touch of Death, Vampiric Touch), some that target only creatures and therefore won't get Night Dealings triggers (Last Kiss, Feast of Flesh), and a whole host of spells for either X damage or a fixed damage that's at least 3. There's also Searing Meditation, which can turn one lifegain event into X damage events, and that doesn't seem likely to play nice with the order of resource flow up there.
That managed to get 16 layers, so it was actually better than the new version until you found the Wrack with Madness improvement. But maybe this older version can be improved as well.
EDIT: Oath of the Gatewatch finally brings us some Eldrazi that can target creatures. Blinding Drone is only 1/3 so it conflicts with Goblin Tunneler. Endbringer is better, but it can draw a card as well. I do see two solutions for that though: First, we can just not have anything that benefits by drawing a card above it, like our current 60-card deck. Second, we can make it so that we have no access to actual colorless mana; we could replace Mana Crypt by say a Mox Ruby and a Mountain. That might work out better in the deck with sideboard. So I believe Endbringer can be made to work.
Unfortunately, I don't see any good spots to put a red creature stage, which would be the whole point of bringing in an Eldrazi. Both Possessed Barbarian and Paragon of Fierce Defiance are Humans, so they can't go above our Royal Assassin stage. But we currently have Goblin Tunneler / Flamestick Courier above Royal Assassin, and the red creature stage has to go above that. So any improvement is going to require major surgery to our deck. Anyone have any ideas?
EDIT #2: I wonder if Balustrade Spy can be made to work in our 60-card deck. The problem we encountered was that at the Rust Tick stage, we needed to mill the Rust Tick after each time we imprinted it on Mimic Vat, so we thought we would have to use up the one Assembly-Worker we created to trigger the mill.
But, what if we had an untapped Mimic Vat imprinted with Changeling Berserker available? Let's say we need a Rust Tick Mill, and we start with Changeling Berserker in our hand, and an available Mimic Vat on the battlefield. We play Changeling Berserker and counter it, getting a bunch of Bloodbond March triggers. Wait, we also need Dual Nature on the battlefield. So we resolve a Bloodbond March trigger, and Changeling Berserker is brought to the battlefield, triggering Champion and Dual Nature. Resolve the Dual Nature trigger first, creating a token Changeling Berserker, which we use to Champion Balustrade Spy. The the Champion of the original Changeling Berserker resolves, and we sacrifice it. This triggers Mimic Vat and Dual Nature. Destroy the token Changeling Berserker, bringing Balustrade Spy back into play, allowing Rust Tick to be milled. Now we can imprint Changeling Berserker on Mimic Vat, and we can use Bloodbond March to bring Changeling Berserker back to the battlefield. The next time we need a mill of Rust Tick, we can tap the Mimic Vat, putting a token Changeling Berserker onto the battlefield. The token Berserker champions the original Berserker, which goes into exile. This creates a Dual Nature trigger to destroy all Berserker tokens. This brings the original Berserker back into play. We get Champion and Dual Nature triggers. We resolve the Dual Nature trigger first, creating a token Berserker, which Champions Balustrade Spy again. the original Champion trigger resolves, and we Champion the token Berserker, sending it to exile and bringing Balustrade Spy back, getting the mill of Rust Tick that we need.
But now, we can't allow the original Berserker to go to the graveyard because we have no Bloodbond March triggers left, so no more Mimic Vat imprintings. So we only get two mills of Rust Tick before we need to bounce Changeling Berserker again. But I believe that's enough; each mill of Rust Tick allows us to create a Rust Tick token and an Assembly-Worker token, and we can tap the Assembly-Worker token for two more Changeling Berserker bounces, hence two more mills. So X Bloodbond March triggers of Rust Tick gets us X/2 new Assembly-Worker tokens, so I think it works!
... and we can use Bloodbond March to bring Changeling Berserker back to the battlefield. The next time we need a mill of Rust Tick, we can tap the Mimic Vat, ...
I think the timing there doesn't work. We have to clear the Bloodbond March part of the stack to get into the situation where we need the next mill, so the Changeling would be back on the battlefield by then. But that means it is not in exile any more and the Mimic Vat won't create the copy that we want.
I haven't found any use for the Eldrazi. Maybe they can replace a stage in the 60 card deck, saving a card? There seems to be too much conflict between the stages, in particular with human vs nonblack paragons and black paragon vs possessed stuff. Since the whole point is to get all the color targeting in the human/tapped stage seems most likely to be replaced, but I don't see any good way to do it.
It looks like in the Poison Arrow + Boon Reflection plan we could use Viashino Fangtail as the last stage creature to damage the opponent when wanted as that layer is limited by their life. That still seems to leave that version unable to get started.
Okay, take #2. So say we are at the topmost layers of the Rust Tick stage. (i.e. there is one Rust Tick token left.) Cast and counter Rust Tick, getting Bloodbond March triggers, and use one to bring Rust Tick onto the battlefield. Do the same for Assembly-Worker. Tap the last remaining Rust Tick token to target both the original Rust Tick and the original Assembly-Worker, destroying them. Imprint them onto two Mimic Vats. Tap the two Mimic Vats to create token copies of both Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker. Use Mirror of Fate to put Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker back into the library. Now, play Changeling Berserker and do the usual shenanigans to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker into the graveyard. Resolve an Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker, putting it back onto the battlefield. Tap the Assembly-Worker token getting a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers; use two to target both the Changeling Berserker and the original Assembly-Worker, bringing Changeling Berserker back to your hand and destroying the Assembly-Worker. That triggers the Mimic Vats; imprint the Assembly-Worker onto one of them, tap the Mimic Vat to create an Assembly-Worker token, then use Mirror of Fate to put Assembly-Worker back into the library. Play the Changeling Berserker to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Assembly-Worker into the graveyard. Resolve another Psychic Battle trigger for Assembly-Worker to bring Changeling Berserker back to your hand; let the rest resolve without effect. Resolve a Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker to bring it back onto the battlefield; let the rest resolve without effect. Resolve a Bloodbond March trigger for Rust Tick to bring it back onto the battlefield. Tap the Rust Tick token to get lots of Psychic Battle triggers; use two to target both the Rust Tick and the Assembly-Worker again. Bounce the Assembly-Worker back to your hand, and destroy the Rust Tick, imprinting it on a Mimic Vat, creating a token copy of Rust Tick and putting it back into the library with Mirror of Fate. Play and counter the Assembly-Worker, getting lots of Bloodbond March triggers, and bring it back to the battlefield. Tap the Assembly-Worker token, getting lots of Psychic Battle triggers, and use one to target the original Assembly-Worker, destroying it; imprint it, create a token, and put it back into the library. Cast Changeling Berserker to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Rust Tick and Assembly Worker into the graveyard. Use a Psychic Battle trigger for Assembly-Worker to bounce Changeling Berserker back to your hand. Use a Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker to put it back onto the battlefield. Use a Psychic Battle trigger for Rust Tick to bounce Assembly-Worker back to your hand. Use a Bloodbond March trigger for Rust Tick to bring it back onto the battlefield. We our now at our initial setup after playing Rust Tick, but with one more Assembly-Worker token and two less Bloodbond March triggers for Rust Tick; so with X Bloodbond March triggers, we can create X/2 Assembly-Worker tokens, which is sufficient for the combo.
Using one set of bloodbond march triggers for the assembly worker to create multiple tokens is pretty clever. It essentially gives you a free set of psychic battle triggers. Nice.
Buuuut, the devil is in the details. We have to consider what we do with Dual Nature. A dual Nature has to be around when we play the changeling to do the mill stuff. Nothing here targets enchantments, so we can't bounce dual nature to the hand. It can only not be on the battlefield during the sequence when it is championed by some changeling. If we want it to be on the battlefield whenever we pplay the changeling we might as well say dual nature is championed by the original changeling since we need to target (i.e. bounce) the championing changling before we play the original changeling from hand anyway.
Now the problem is that Dual Nature can't be in play when we destroy/bounce the original assembly worker for obvious reasons. So we can't have the changeling in hand when we destroy/bounce the assembly worker. That happens four times during your described sequence and I don't see an obvious way to reorder things so that it doesn't happen.
So that seems to be really close to doing it, but is not quite there. Do you see another way to handle Dual Nature or the changeling state?
Edit: We can avoid Dual Nature problems if we find a sequence that only needs the mill effect when the changeling gets back into the hand. To make such a sequence work we then always have the Dual Nature championed by some Changeling token whenever we are not in the last layer of the Assembly Worker stage. That can be done by creating a Changeling token with Mimic Vat. In other places where we used Dual Nature + Changeling shenanigans we can get away with a few more bounces of the changeling, I think.
In the sequence we can then use the changeling to champion Balustrade Spy and when we bounce the changeling it comes back and mills us.
The current proposed sequence needs the mill effect to happen on entering the battlefield once. It is very possible that there is some variation that avoids needing it.
Right now, I'm not seeing a good way to deal with Dual Nature. Right off the bat, we have to mill Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker from the library, so if we need a bounce of Changeling Berserker to trigger the mill, that means we have to tap an Assembly-Worker token at this point. But we don't currently have the original Assembly-Worker on the battlefield, and it won't get onto the battlefield until Bloodbond March triggers resolve further down, so we won't get an Assembly worker token back. So we need to produce a gain of at least two Assembly-Worker tokens from that point on to register a profit. I'm not sure how to do that.
Attempt #2, I think the infinite combos are gone this time since I removed all the targeted recursion cards. Also, I have reassessed the importance of Cytoshape. Correct me if I am wrong, but for all X greater than some number, 2 * 2^^X ~= 2^^X, so it is more efficient to have a multiple groups of cards at 2^^X each than attempt to repeatedly make them all the same with cytoshape (since the doubling leaves me with the same number I started with). Am I right in this reassessment.
Step Four:
Cast Insurrection allowing it to be copied by the Ascensions. Let 1 resolve to give our creatures haste and continue to Step Five.
Step Five:
Tap all the Kiki-Jikis targeting Doubling Season. For each set of Doubling Seasons coming into play, they trigger all the Pandemoniums. For each those triggers, target the Joraga Warcaller, letting the damage be multiplied by all the Furnace of Raths. As they individually resolve, the damage will be converted into +1 counters on the Warcaller thanks to Vigor, pumping all the creatures thanks to Conspiracy, and increasing the next ammount of damage. Let all the triggers resolve and move on to Step Six.
Step Six:
Now tap all the Living Infernos targeting the Joraga Warcaller again. As they resolve they will again pump each other, each dealing increasing damage.
Step Seven:
While Insurrections are on the stack, let 1 resolve to give all creatures haste, and then repeate steps Five and Six.
Step Eight:
Cast Mercy Killing and copy it for all the active Pyromancer Ascensions (which should be a fraction of the current number, although still a large number), each targeting a different Doubling Season. As they individually resolve, use the damage from the Pandemonium like before, and then since a creature died, all the Death's Presence tigger putting many +1 counters onto the Joraga Warcaller, increasing the number of tokens made by the next Mercy Killing resolution. Let all the triggers resolve and move to Step Nine.
Step Nine:
Cast Fossil Find copying it for each Ascension (The first time through this step, they wont all be active, but every other time they all will be).
Step Eleven:
Now cast Cytoshape, activating all the new Ascensions, and changing the large number of boring elf tokens into into Doubling Season. This should put the number of Doubling seasons to an order greater than the number of Ascensions and other cards which will be important when we revisit Step Eight.
Step Twelve:
Repeat Steps Four through Seven. Then allow an additional Fossil Find to resolve getting another Cytoshape and then cast that Cytoshape, using it to just activate the new Ascensions. Then repeat Step Eight copying Mercy Killing for all the Ascensions this time, since there are now always many more Doubling Seasons than Ascensions.
Step Thirteen:
While there are Fossil Finds on the stack, repeat Steps Eleven and Twelve. Each cycle should use up 5 Fossil Finds.
Step Fourteen:
Cast Bound // Determined, copying it for each Ascension. For each copy, sacrifice the Ink-treader Nephilim to bring back the Nephilim and the Fossil Find (ignore the other two cards we could recur). Then Repeat Steps Nine through Thirteen, and then move on to the next copy of Bound // Determined.
Step Fifteen:
Repeat Step Fourteen three times. Then sacrifice on token (doesn't matter which) to Altar of Dementia to mill ourselves, giving access to the last Praetor's Counsel in our library.
Step Sixteen:
Cast Praetor's Counsel, copying it for each Ascension. Each copy will return the whole graveyard, so we need to cast Cytoshape changhing nothing. This will allow the later Cytoshapes to still activate the Ascensions. Then Repeat Steps Nine through Thirteen, and then move on to the next copy of Praetor's Counsel.
Step Twenty:
Start sacrificing things to the Altar of Dementia to mill the opponent, and more importantly to activate the Death's Presence putting an increasing number of counters on the Joraga Warcaller. Start with all the Ascensions, then the Kiki-Jikis, then the Living Infernos, then the Furnace of Raths, then all but one of the Death's Presences, followed by all the Doubling Seasons.
Step Twentyone:
Enter combat, declare the Joraga Warcaller attacking, they dont block and we win.
How does this perform?
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In addition I'll remove one of each doubling enchantment to add 3 Dual Natures.
Also I will be removing Conspiracy for Xenograft, Goblin Chieftain for Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
and lastly, Ink-Treader Nephilim with Leyline of Anticipation.
This will result in MUCH higher mana generation, far more creature untappings, and as suggested instant response between replicating Praetor's Counsel with Doubling/Kiki/Rite-Radiate/Replicate/Turnabout fun.
1 Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund
4 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Boros Reckoner
1 Djinn Illuminatus
1 Realmwright
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Goblin Chirurgeon
1 Monk Idealist
3 Clone
Artifact: 2
1 Mirror Gallery
1 Mana Crypt
1 Xenograft
1 Furnace of Rath
1 Opalescence
1 Omniscience
4 Copy Enchantment
4 Primal Vigor
4 Doubeling Season
4 Parallel Lives
4 Dual Nature
1 Earthcraft
1 Mana Reflection
1 Leyline of Anticipation
4 Radiate
Sorcery: 12
4 Rite of Replication
4 Praetor's Counsel
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Show and Tell
1 Past in Flames
1 Fireball
Land: 1
1 Island
Mana crypt, Island, Show and Tell, putting Omniscience into play.
Next Opalescence, and Mirror Gallery.
Follow with Enter the Infinite, drawing the rest of the deck.
In this order (there about's)
Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Copy Enchantment targeting Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Copy Enchantment targeting Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Copy Enchantment targeting Dual Nature, Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Doubling Season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor)
Copy Enchantment targeting nothing
Each Copy Enchantment coming into play via Dual Nature should copy a Doubling season/Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor card, until the last Dual Nature trigger batch copys Dual Nature.
This sequence will be used repeatedly until the very last cycle.
The last Doubling season (or Parallel Lives/Primal Vigor),
Xenograft (Goblins and Dragons), Goblin Chirurgeon, Leyline of Anticipation.
Monk Idealist. In response to it's ETB trigger, Tap Copy Enchantment to untap your land (when Earthcraft is in play),
and sacrifice it to Goblin Chirurgeon to regenerate a Boros Reckoner (if they are in play. If not, then anything).
The ETB trigger resolves, getting back Copy Enchantment that you then play as an instant repeating step 4.
Repeat this process for every ETB trigger of Monk Idealist tokens.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. In response to anything else on the stack, tap to copy Monk Idealist and repeat step 6.
Repeat for every Kiki-Jiki token and or card as soon as they ETB.
Same for the Clones that will copy kiki.
(Or would it be better to have the clones copy nothing and die being a 0/0 to be replayed later?)
Earthcraft, Mana Reflection, Realmwright (naming Mountian and Forest), Djinn Illuminatus, Boros Reckoner, Furnace of Rath.
Krenko, Mob Boss. Unlike Kiki-Jiki, Krenko is happy to wait until all other Krenko's are in play before tapping to produce tokens.
Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund. In response to it's EBT effect, tap all non-Kiki-Krenko creatures to untap your land to produce R and G mana in even amounts.
(all Kiki's and Krenko's should already have been used as listed in steps 7 and 9.)
After each untap, repeat steps 7 and 9.
Cast Rite of Replication, kicked targeting one of the following:
Earthcraft, Realmwright, Djinn Illuminatus, Xenograft, Goblin Chirurgeon, Opalescence, Omniscience or Leyline of Anticipation.
Cast Radiate on Rite, using all of your mana to replicate it.
Between each resolution, repeat step 4, 6, 7, 9, and 10.
Repeat three more times.
Praetor's Counsel, replecated with all mana.
Between each resolution, repeat step 11.
(the first round wont get replecated but following ones will)
Cast Fireball for zero, then cast Past in Flames.
Using flashback, repeat step 11.
The very last cycle of step 4, Copy enchantment should copy Furnace of Rath.
Cast Fireball using flashback and all of your mana, targeting a Reckoner. Sacrifice a goblin token to Goblin Chirurgeon to regenerate that Reckoner.
Target another Reckoner and repeat sacing goblins (tokens first, then creatures that no longer have a use) to keep rengenerating and retargeting to Recokners.
Suppose you replaced Monk Idealist with Drake Familiar. That returns an enchantment from the battlefield instead of from the graveyard, so you don't get to sacrifice it, but more relevantly it does no in a non-targeted way. You don't determine which enchantment, if any, that you want to bounce until resolution time, so every single copy that you get out of a batch of tokens will still be effective.
As I showed before, each alternation of Doubling Season and Dual Nature will take X to 2^^X. After 4 Dual Natures and 4 Copy Enchantments we get more than 2^^^10.
When Drake Familiar is cast, you get a bunch of Dual Nature triggers, each of which gets a bunch of Drake Familiars due to all the Doubling Seasons. So casting it takes X to 2^^^^X, and we get more than 2^^^^2^^^10.
When a Kiki-Jiki copies a Drake Familiar, we don't get Dual Nature triggers, so it is just X to 2^^^X. Casting Kiki-Jiki gets two more layers for Dual Nature and Doubling Season, so it takes X to 2^^^^^X. After 4 Kiki-Jikis, 3 Clones and 1 Karrthus, we get more than 2^^^^^^11.
When a copy of Rite of Replication copies Karrthus or Kiki-Jiki, we again don't get Dual Nature triggers so it takes X to 2^^^^X. Each Radiate copy will then take X to 2^^^^^X, and each replicated casting of Radiate will take X to 2^^^^^^X. After four Radiates we get more than 2^^^^^^^7.
Each Praetor's Counsel takes X to 2^^^^^^^X, so for our final damage we get between 2^^^^^^^^7 and 2^^^^^^^^8, an improvement of two arrows.
2 Splinter Twin
3 Mana Crypt
4 Rust Tick
5 Archetype of Aggression
6 Gleeful Sabotage
7 Avarax
8 Krosan Groundshaker
9 Lumberknot
10 Black Poplar Shaman
11 Fellhide Brawler
12 Anaba Ancestor
13 Urgent Exorcism
14 Mindshrieker
15 Izzet Guildmage
16 Garza Zol, Plague Queen
17 Baron Sengir
18 Empress Galina
19 Merfolk Sovereign
20 Seahunter
21 Mercenary Informer
22 Boreal Griffin
23 Boeral Druid
24 Ohran Yeti
25 Everglove Courier
27 Ghosthelm Courier
28 Possessed Aven
29 Grassland Crusader
30 Possessed Nomad
31 Shauku's Minion
32 Centaur Archer
33 Maze Glider
34 Paragon of Eternal Wilds
35 Devout Chaplain
36 Royal Assassin
37 Goblin Tunnelers
38 Flamestick Courier
39 Dralnu's Crusade
40 Frightshroud Courier
41 Paragon of Open Graves
42 Flame Elemental
43 Chaos Warp
44 Firemind's Foresight
45 Supply // Demand
46 Stromgald Cabal
47 Poison Arrow
48 Sage's Knowledge
49 Psychic Trance
50 Night Dealings
51 Ion Storm
52 Chasm Skulker
53 Consecrated Sphinx
54 Words of Wisdom
56 Djinn Illuminatus
57 Donate
58 Phelddagrif
59 Mirrorworks
60 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
61 Crown of the Ages
62 Mimic Vat
63 Chrome Mox
64 Mirror Gallery
65 Invoke Prejudice
66 Cowardice
67 Horobi, Death's Wall
68 Psychic Battle
69 Omniscience
70 Leyline of Anticipation
71 Starfield of Nyx
72 Karn, Silver Golem
73 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
74 Mirror of Fate
75 Living Wish
Replaced Karplusan Yeti with Flame Elemental to avoid lifelink problems, and added Phelddagrif so that the opponent can always stay alive despite Ion Storm.
So Chaos Warp is worth two layers due to Precursor Golem, then Firemind's Foresight and Supply // Demand are worth one layer each due to Djinn Illuminatus. Countering Supply // Demand with Stromgald Cabal gets you another layer, then Poison Arrow and Sage's Knowledge are worth two layers each from Precursor Golem. Countering by tapping a Wizard allows Sage's Knowledge to fetch itself, getting two more layers from Precursor Golem. Psychic Trance then gets two more layers, one for Djinn Illuminatus and one for all the Wizards that gain the countering ability. Night Dealings, Chasm Skulker, and Consecrated Sphinx all gain a layer each from multiple triggered effects, and then Words of Wisdom gets a pseudolayer at the top for casting it many times.
So I get a final damage of about 10 -> 10 -> ... -> 10 -> X -> 17, where X should be in the upper 40's - a small improvement.
The weak spot seems to be the Night Dealings / Ion Storm / Chasm Skulker / Phelddagrif section, which requires four cards but only adds two layers. Anyone see anything better?
(Edit: That was wrong, the Chaos Warp can return Flame Elemental to the Battlefield by itself, I forgot that this card actually has an effect aside from targeting... Too few cards like that in here ^^)
Sage's Knowledge also doesn't work with Precursor Golem, so you lose one layer two times for using only Djinn Illuminatus.
For Firemind's Foresight I assume there should be a card in there that allows to put sorceries/instants back into the library, but I can't find it.
Phelddagrif allows us to go infinite with the opponents hand, by giving us +1/+1 counters on Chasm Skulker for only lower level ressources:
Get Mindshrieker blodbond march triggers on the stack.
Exile Mindshrieker to some new Chrome Mox.
Donate (with replicates) that Mox and Phelddagrif.
The opponent taps the mox for mana and makes us draw a card.
We get +1/+1 counters and can move the Mindshrieker into our graveyard before the Bloodbond March trigger comes up.
The Bloodbond march triggers can be created by spending our own blue mana and Donate can be recovered using Sage's Knowledg a few layers later.
An alternative to have the opponent not die, that's safe with donate would be Soul Echo.
Donate makes stuff really complicated because all the things that usually only effect the opponent suddenly work on you too. The same vice versa. For example we have to make sure that whatever mechanisms we use to refill our library cannot be donated and used by the opponent, otherwise the limiter on Words of Wisdom is gone.
Since Psychic Battle is still there, Reality Strobe and Venser's Diffusion can squeeze an extra card (and 2 layers) into the Chaos Warp shaped hole, although Chaos Warp has to stay in the deck given its role in setup. Weed Strangle also scales slightly better than Poison Arrow. We can't go to Profane Prayers if Night Dealings is still going to be used, because that can be redirected to a player and give Night Dealings triggers for a closed loop. Another option in that slot is Wrack with Madness, which can target an Everglove Courier that's been given lifelink from Nectar Faerie and a whole bunch of +1/+1s from green Paragons--and notably, that Courier has the potential to be donated, allowing either player to gain life off the spell and rendering Phelddagrif unnecessary (but we also can't add Repercussion, and its layer of triggers, for the same reason).
[EDIT] If there's a limit to how big our own life total can get by making a lifelink creature fight itself with Wrack with Madness, then clearly there's a limit to how big the opponent's life total can get using Donate and the same. Then that itself can be the limiting factor of the Night Dealings step, rather than having to donate a Soul Echo to the opponent or anything like that: Chandra's Ignition is capable of being recurred in the same ways as Wrack with Madness is, and can be used to gain large amounts of life just like Wrack with Madness, but since it says "target creature you control" instead of "target creature", it can't give the opponent any life. Furthermore, since the deck currently has no creatures that are capable of surviving at 0 power (unless we somehow forgo a Gideon emblem, attack with Karn, and let it get blocked by a donated creature...and that's assuming we even have enough setup tools to get to that position), each resolution of Chandra's Ignition is guaranteed to deal damage to the opponent, which means before we can allow that copy to resolve, we have to raise the opponent's life total high enough to survive it.
Ideally it should hit them for the full effect of their life total minus 1, to get the most out of the fixed number of Precursor copies we have, but that might be problematic. Chandra's Ignition causes the creature to indiscriminately hit all creatures on both sides, and we don't want to lose anything like Bloodbond March that serves to store our current level of progress. For Bloodbond March itself, it's less of a problem, because it receives pumps from both color of Paragons. Still, any Elf or Faerie is guaranteed to be at least as big as the Paragons that are pumping that color up, making that pump go away. Even more troubling, we really don't want to lose the Leyline of Anticipation, and yet we have no way at all to pump it beyond 5 toughness (other than getting more Gideon emblems, a process that can only be done once per round of Chaos Warp, after the stack clears, and which will pump everything else including the intended damage-dealer at the same rate). This is unfortunate for a card with as helpful a profile as Chandra's Ignition. Fiery Gambit, a card that works for us completely unlike any other application of the card in all of Magic, occupies a similar profile except that the Magical Christmasland Jackpot, "draw nine cards", is ultimately fatal.
Other options for a profile of sorcery 3+ or instant 4+, can target a creature, can deal damage to a player, the amount of damage is determined at resolution time, amount of damage isn't bound by a nonexistent or hard-capped resource (such as the number of lands, or the converted mana cost of a single card)...hmm, actually instant 3+ is safe as long as it doesn't gain life or have the creature deal the damage. That means Massive Raid is potentially a go, but we have no sacrifice outlets in the traditional sense and all our low-level board development is based on iterating the successor function, so getting the opponent's life total high enough to exceed our own creature may require tearing down a large chunk of the board, using things like other Massive Raid or Wrack with Madness copies. Cinder Cloud is another theoretically workable option, if a bit unwieldy; the only white creature in the deck that can be pumped up as the spell allows is Grassland Crusader. Finally, the only other option I found is Roar of the Crowd, which seems ideal for cherry-picking a creature type whose fractional representation is on par with the opponent's life total.
So now we just need a way to plug opponent's life total into card draws, but have about zero cards to do it in.
1 Show and Tell
1 Opalescence
1 black lotus
4 ?
Step 1 token support
4 Dual Nature
4 Doubling Season
4 Parallel Lives
4 Primal Vigor
4 Mana Echoes
4 Boon Reflection
4 Soul Warden
4 Soul's Attendant
4 Suture Priest
4 Auriok Champion
4 Storm Herd
4 Ajani, Caller of the Pride
4 Rite of Replication
Tep 4 repeat bc why not
4 Praetor's Counsel
Step 5 Win
1 Banefire
So turn 1 lotus, show and tell, omniscience, enter the infinite idk leave a rite or preator cuncil doesnt matter really matter, dual natures, doubling seasons, primal vigor, parallel lives, boon reflections, mana echoes, soul sisters, storm herds, ajanis gaining an unbelievable amount of life and equally as many creatures netting an obsurd amount of life and i could think of a good way of going about a finsiher so banefire def uncounterable and very very very very very... very very big
BWTeysa, Orzhov Scion Combo
GUEzuri, Claw of progress Morph
GUBSidisi, Brood tyrant
RWGisela, Blade of Goldnight Random red white cards i dont use.dec
GBLoam Pox
Modern
UBFaeries
GBWGoyfless Abzan
On Squirrels
On Risen Executioner
A simple Clone or Clever Impersonator would do so much more, since you could play it without copying anything, let it die as a 0/0 creature, let Dual Nature kill off all the tokens that share a name with it (hint: there are none), then get some Clone tokens that are free to copy whatever you want, such as Dual Nature and Doubling Season--the multitude of tokens can copy several different things. Then, because you actually have a permanent card in the graveyard, Praetor's Counsel can bring it back so you can replay it and get even more Dual Nature triggers. It's a rather crude and limited way of recycling or bouncing a permanent, but even just those 5 casts of Clone would do more for the total than all the redundant cards that currently fill steps 2 and 3.
I assumed that we could use Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Mindshrieker to put instants and sorceries back into the library, does that not work?
The Sage's Knowledge snafu (I think I was confusing it with Soul's Majesty, which unfortunately doesn't work with Psychic Trance) means we lose two layers. However, the suggestion to replace Poison Arrow with Wrack with Madness is a very good one, since it not only adds a layer, it allows us to get rid of Phelddagrif, which was causing an infinite problem. We can't add Repercussion with the extra slot since that would negate the benefit of Wrack with Madness, but we can add Corpsejack Menace to add another layer, and we wind up where we started with 10 -> ... -> 10 -> X -> 17.
2 Splinter Twin
3 Mana Crypt
4 Rust Tick
5 Archetype of Aggression
6 Gleeful Sabotage
7 Avarax
8 Krosan Groundshaker
9 Ghoultree
10 Black Poplar Shaman
11 Fellhide Brawler
12 Anaba Ancestor
13 Urgent Exorcism
14 Mindshrieker
15 Izzet Guildmage
16 Szadek, Lord of Secrets
17 Baron Sengir
18 Empress Galina
19 Merfolk Sovereign
20 Seahunter
21 Mercenary Informer
22 Boreal Griffin
23 Boeral Druid
24 Ohran Yeti
25 Everglove Courier
27 Ghosthelm Courier
28 Possessed Aven
29 Grassland Crusader
30 Possessed Nomad
31 Shauku's Minion
32 Centaur Archer
33 Maze Glider
34 Paragon of Eternal Wilds
35 Devout Chaplain
36 Royal Assassin
37 Goblin Tunnelers
38 Flamestick Courier
39 Dralnu's Crusade
40 Frightshroud Courier
41 Paragon of Open Graves
42 Flame Elemental
43 Chaos Warp
44 Firemind's Foresight
45 Supply // Demand
46 Stromgald Cabal
47 Wrack with Madness
48 Sage's Knowledge
49 Psychic Trance
50 Night Dealings
51 Ion Storm
52 Chasm Skulker
53 Consecrated Sphinx
54 Words of Wisdom
56 Djinn Illuminatus
57 Donate
58 Corpsejack Menace
59 Mirrorworks
60 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
61 Crown of the Ages
62 Mimic Vat
63 Chrome Mox
64 Mirror Gallery
65 Invoke Prejudice
66 Cowardice
67 Horobi, Death's Wall
68 Psychic Battle
69 Omniscience
70 Leyline of Anticipation
71 Starfield of Nyx
72 Karn, Silver Golem
73 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
74 Mirror of Fate
75 Living Wish
It does, I just... couldn't find Emrakul in the list, my bad.
The plan is to get as many doubling seasons in play as possible, and the trick will be to use cytoshape and ink-treader nephilim to reshape my field repeatedly between pyromancer ascension and doubling season.
1 black lotus
1 show and tell
1 omniscience
1 enter the infinite
1 opalescence
1 ink-treader nephilim
1 transguild courier
1 vedalken orrery
1 death's presence
1 vigor
1 pandemonium
1 altar of dementia
4 doubling season
4 pyromancer ascension
3 cytoshape
4 clone legion
Recusion: 32
4 pull from the deep
4 vengeful rebirth
4 woodland guidance
4 treasured find
4 restock
4 all suns' dawn
4 bound // determined
4 praetor's counsel
1 fling
Alright, start with the hand of black lotus, show and tell, omniscience, and enter the infinite, plus anything else. Cast the hand in that order to draw your deck. Cast all the remaining cards from the singles set. Now cast all copies of doubling season and pyromancer ascension, followed by 1 clone legion, doubling all of our creatures, giving us 64 new doubling seasons and 64 new pyromancer ascensions. To make the math a little easier, I will ignore the copies of the other cards from here on as well as the original doubling seasons and pyromancer ascensions. Also, for now choose not to trigger pandemonium.
Now cast the next another clone legion, giving around 2^64 copies of doubling season and pyromancer ascension, and activating the first 64 pyromancer ascension. Then the pandemonium trigers happen, but ). Now cast anther clone legion, allowing it to be copied 64 times. I think this ends up with (2^^64)^(2^64) or 2^^64^^2 (rounding down a fair bit) copies of both cards, but I am not positive yet. This also ends up with 2^64 active copies of pyromancer ascension. Now, cast the final clone legion. This should give (2^^2^^64^^2)^(2^^64^^2), although, again, I am not positive and I am not sure how to join the layers of tetration...
Moving on, now that we have used up all our clone legions, cast a cytoshape targeting the ink-treader nephilim and thus targeting all the field. Now for this and every following cytoshape that targets the nephilim, for all the copies that target non-token creatures, have that copy choose to turn into itself. This will leave all pieces of the combo intact. For all copies targeting our tokens, we will choose either doubling season or pyromancer ascension and make all of them that card. In this case, we will make them into pyromancer ascension. Now cast another cytoshape, this time targeting transguild courier and making it into itself, thus activating all (2^^2^^64^^2)^(2^^64^^2) of the ascensions.
Now the combo can begin.
The goal of the combo is to start with X activated pyromancer ascensions, cast clone legion copied X times, and then while all are on the stack, cast cytoshape targeting the ink-treader nephilim, switching all the pyromancer ascensions into doubling season, and then letting all X clone legions resolve, making more doubling season. After the cloning has resolved, cast another cytoshape tagetting the ink-treader nephilim again and switch all the doubling seasons into pyromancer ascensions. Then cast another cytoshape targeting transguild courier and making it into itself to reactivate all the pyromancer ascensions.
Note: At the end of the combo I will have a large number of activated pyromancer ascensions.
Alright, start of casting pull from the deep copying it X times for the ascensions. For every 2 copies, grab one clone legion and 3 cytoshapes and cast the combo (should be X/2 times). Repeat for the next three pull from the deeps, followed by the 4 restocks, followed by the 4 all suns' dawn.
Now cast treasured find copying it X times for the ascensions. For every 4 copies, grab one clone legion and 3 cytoshapes and cast the combo (should be X/2 times). Repeat for the next three treasured finds, the 4 woodland guidances and finally all 4 vengeful rebirths (dealing the damage to any creature you control but vigor).
Now we will cast bound // determined, using the 5 color transguild courier to sacrifice to Bound, and then returning the 4 cards in the combo and the courier, bound // determineds recasting the courier after the combo to set up for the next Bound. This should allow for X more iterations of the combo. Repeat for the next three bound // determineds.
Finally use praetor's counsel to fuel to combo, allowing another X iterations. Repeat 3 times for the remaining praetor's counsels.
On the very last iteration of the combo, things will go a little different. First we will actually use the pandemonium trigger. We will set it up so that the triggers form a circuit allowing the damage to grow after each trigger. Second, we not cast the 2 cytoshape leaving all the tokens as [c]doubling season[c] instead.
Now, we will sacrifice the tokens, starting with the largest one (at the end of the circuit) to the altar of dementia milling the opponent, and then moving the +1/+1 counters to the next largest doubling season via death's presence. Repeat this until all doubling seasons are gone, moving the tokens to vigor.
Finally, fling the very large vigor.
Anyone have an idea of how that compares to other attempts?
But how would we trigger Pain Magnification? Just some first strikers? And do I recall correctly that the start works just fine without Consecrated Sphinx because Precursor Golem is there?
Edit: Oh, Profane Prayers would also be used to trigger Night Dealings, so Poison Arrow can't replace it I guess.
I keep forgetting to check the start whenever we change the deck. I don't see an obvious way to get started; the problem is we need to get Chaos Warp back somehow, but for Mindshrieker we need mana, presumably from Mana Crypt, which is tapped.
Other than that, the search is coming up shockingly empty, and that's without even taking into account that a number of card profiles are going to be off-limits up where this card is going to have to reside (sorceries < 3, instants < 4, white or multicolored cards regardless of CMC). There are some that target only players and therefore won't get Precursor triggers (Touch of Death, Vampiric Touch), some that target only creatures and therefore won't get Night Dealings triggers (Last Kiss, Feast of Flesh), and a whole host of spells for either X damage or a fixed damage that's at least 3. There's also Searing Meditation, which can turn one lifegain event into X damage events, and that doesn't seem likely to play nice with the order of resource flow up there.
44 Firemind's Foresight
45 Supply // Demand
46 Psychic Trance
47 Night Dealings
48 Repercussion
49 Searing Meditation
50 Horizon Chimera
51 Consecrated Sphinx
52 Words of Wisdom
53 Pain Magnification
54 Five-Alarm Fire
56 Djinn Illuminatus
57 Donate
58 Soul Echo
That managed to get 16 layers, so it was actually better than the new version until you found the Wrack with Madness improvement. But maybe this older version can be improved as well.
EDIT: Oath of the Gatewatch finally brings us some Eldrazi that can target creatures. Blinding Drone is only 1/3 so it conflicts with Goblin Tunneler. Endbringer is better, but it can draw a card as well. I do see two solutions for that though: First, we can just not have anything that benefits by drawing a card above it, like our current 60-card deck. Second, we can make it so that we have no access to actual colorless mana; we could replace Mana Crypt by say a Mox Ruby and a Mountain. That might work out better in the deck with sideboard. So I believe Endbringer can be made to work.
Unfortunately, I don't see any good spots to put a red creature stage, which would be the whole point of bringing in an Eldrazi. Both Possessed Barbarian and Paragon of Fierce Defiance are Humans, so they can't go above our Royal Assassin stage. But we currently have Goblin Tunneler / Flamestick Courier above Royal Assassin, and the red creature stage has to go above that. So any improvement is going to require major surgery to our deck. Anyone have any ideas?
EDIT #2: I wonder if Balustrade Spy can be made to work in our 60-card deck. The problem we encountered was that at the Rust Tick stage, we needed to mill the Rust Tick after each time we imprinted it on Mimic Vat, so we thought we would have to use up the one Assembly-Worker we created to trigger the mill.
But, what if we had an untapped Mimic Vat imprinted with Changeling Berserker available? Let's say we need a Rust Tick Mill, and we start with Changeling Berserker in our hand, and an available Mimic Vat on the battlefield. We play Changeling Berserker and counter it, getting a bunch of Bloodbond March triggers. Wait, we also need Dual Nature on the battlefield. So we resolve a Bloodbond March trigger, and Changeling Berserker is brought to the battlefield, triggering Champion and Dual Nature. Resolve the Dual Nature trigger first, creating a token Changeling Berserker, which we use to Champion Balustrade Spy. The the Champion of the original Changeling Berserker resolves, and we sacrifice it. This triggers Mimic Vat and Dual Nature. Destroy the token Changeling Berserker, bringing Balustrade Spy back into play, allowing Rust Tick to be milled. Now we can imprint Changeling Berserker on Mimic Vat, and we can use Bloodbond March to bring Changeling Berserker back to the battlefield. The next time we need a mill of Rust Tick, we can tap the Mimic Vat, putting a token Changeling Berserker onto the battlefield. The token Berserker champions the original Berserker, which goes into exile. This creates a Dual Nature trigger to destroy all Berserker tokens. This brings the original Berserker back into play. We get Champion and Dual Nature triggers. We resolve the Dual Nature trigger first, creating a token Berserker, which Champions Balustrade Spy again. the original Champion trigger resolves, and we Champion the token Berserker, sending it to exile and bringing Balustrade Spy back, getting the mill of Rust Tick that we need.
But now, we can't allow the original Berserker to go to the graveyard because we have no Bloodbond March triggers left, so no more Mimic Vat imprintings. So we only get two mills of Rust Tick before we need to bounce Changeling Berserker again. But I believe that's enough; each mill of Rust Tick allows us to create a Rust Tick token and an Assembly-Worker token, and we can tap the Assembly-Worker token for two more Changeling Berserker bounces, hence two more mills. So X Bloodbond March triggers of Rust Tick gets us X/2 new Assembly-Worker tokens, so I think it works!
What do you guys think, does this all work out?
I haven't found any use for the Eldrazi. Maybe they can replace a stage in the 60 card deck, saving a card? There seems to be too much conflict between the stages, in particular with human vs nonblack paragons and black paragon vs possessed stuff. Since the whole point is to get all the color targeting in the human/tapped stage seems most likely to be replaced, but I don't see any good way to do it.
It looks like in the Poison Arrow + Boon Reflection plan we could use Viashino Fangtail as the last stage creature to damage the opponent when wanted as that layer is limited by their life. That still seems to leave that version unable to get started.
Okay, take #2. So say we are at the topmost layers of the Rust Tick stage. (i.e. there is one Rust Tick token left.) Cast and counter Rust Tick, getting Bloodbond March triggers, and use one to bring Rust Tick onto the battlefield. Do the same for Assembly-Worker. Tap the last remaining Rust Tick token to target both the original Rust Tick and the original Assembly-Worker, destroying them. Imprint them onto two Mimic Vats. Tap the two Mimic Vats to create token copies of both Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker. Use Mirror of Fate to put Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker back into the library. Now, play Changeling Berserker and do the usual shenanigans to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker into the graveyard. Resolve an Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker, putting it back onto the battlefield. Tap the Assembly-Worker token getting a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers; use two to target both the Changeling Berserker and the original Assembly-Worker, bringing Changeling Berserker back to your hand and destroying the Assembly-Worker. That triggers the Mimic Vats; imprint the Assembly-Worker onto one of them, tap the Mimic Vat to create an Assembly-Worker token, then use Mirror of Fate to put Assembly-Worker back into the library. Play the Changeling Berserker to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Assembly-Worker into the graveyard. Resolve another Psychic Battle trigger for Assembly-Worker to bring Changeling Berserker back to your hand; let the rest resolve without effect. Resolve a Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker to bring it back onto the battlefield; let the rest resolve without effect. Resolve a Bloodbond March trigger for Rust Tick to bring it back onto the battlefield. Tap the Rust Tick token to get lots of Psychic Battle triggers; use two to target both the Rust Tick and the Assembly-Worker again. Bounce the Assembly-Worker back to your hand, and destroy the Rust Tick, imprinting it on a Mimic Vat, creating a token copy of Rust Tick and putting it back into the library with Mirror of Fate. Play and counter the Assembly-Worker, getting lots of Bloodbond March triggers, and bring it back to the battlefield. Tap the Assembly-Worker token, getting lots of Psychic Battle triggers, and use one to target the original Assembly-Worker, destroying it; imprint it, create a token, and put it back into the library. Cast Changeling Berserker to pop Balustrade Spy in and out of exile, putting Rust Tick and Assembly Worker into the graveyard. Use a Psychic Battle trigger for Assembly-Worker to bounce Changeling Berserker back to your hand. Use a Bloodbond March trigger for Assembly-Worker to put it back onto the battlefield. Use a Psychic Battle trigger for Rust Tick to bounce Assembly-Worker back to your hand. Use a Bloodbond March trigger for Rust Tick to bring it back onto the battlefield. We our now at our initial setup after playing Rust Tick, but with one more Assembly-Worker token and two less Bloodbond March triggers for Rust Tick; so with X Bloodbond March triggers, we can create X/2 Assembly-Worker tokens, which is sufficient for the combo.
Buuuut, the devil is in the details. We have to consider what we do with Dual Nature. A dual Nature has to be around when we play the changeling to do the mill stuff. Nothing here targets enchantments, so we can't bounce dual nature to the hand. It can only not be on the battlefield during the sequence when it is championed by some changeling. If we want it to be on the battlefield whenever we pplay the changeling we might as well say dual nature is championed by the original changeling since we need to target (i.e. bounce) the championing changling before we play the original changeling from hand anyway.
Now the problem is that Dual Nature can't be in play when we destroy/bounce the original assembly worker for obvious reasons. So we can't have the changeling in hand when we destroy/bounce the assembly worker. That happens four times during your described sequence and I don't see an obvious way to reorder things so that it doesn't happen.
So that seems to be really close to doing it, but is not quite there. Do you see another way to handle Dual Nature or the changeling state?
Edit: We can avoid Dual Nature problems if we find a sequence that only needs the mill effect when the changeling gets back into the hand. To make such a sequence work we then always have the Dual Nature championed by some Changeling token whenever we are not in the last layer of the Assembly Worker stage. That can be done by creating a Changeling token with Mimic Vat. In other places where we used Dual Nature + Changeling shenanigans we can get away with a few more bounces of the changeling, I think.
In the sequence we can then use the changeling to champion Balustrade Spy and when we bounce the changeling it comes back and mills us.
The current proposed sequence needs the mill effect to happen on entering the battlefield once. It is very possible that there is some variation that avoids needing it.
Right now, I'm not seeing a good way to deal with Dual Nature. Right off the bat, we have to mill Rust Tick and Assembly-Worker from the library, so if we need a bounce of Changeling Berserker to trigger the mill, that means we have to tap an Assembly-Worker token at this point. But we don't currently have the original Assembly-Worker on the battlefield, and it won't get onto the battlefield until Bloodbond March triggers resolve further down, so we won't get an Assembly worker token back. So we need to produce a gain of at least two Assembly-Worker tokens from that point on to register a profit. I'm not sure how to do that.
1 Black Lotus
1 Show and Tell
1 Omniscience
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Opalescence
1 Ink-treader Nephilim
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Conspiracy
1 Mirror Gallery
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Vigor
1 Joraga Warcaller
1 Insurrection
1 Mercy Killing
1 Clone Legion
1 Fossil Find
1 Death's Presence
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Pyromancer Ascension
1 Living Inferno
1 Furnace of Rath
1 Pandemonium
2 Cytoshape
4 Dual Nature
4 Copy Enchantment
4 Clever Impersonator
Doubling Seasons: 12
4 Doubling Season
4 Clone
4 Vesuvan Doppelganger
Single Use Recursion: 12
4 Bound // Determined
4 Praetor's Counsel
4 Ill-gotten Gains
Inital Hand:
Black Lotus, Show and Tell, Omniscience, Enter the Infinite, and 3 other random cards.
Step One:
Cast Black Lotus, Show and Tell, Omniscience Enter the Infinite in that order to draw your deck, putting one Praetor's Counsel back. Then cast all the cards that we only care about having 1 of, namely: Opalescence, Vedalken Orrery, Mirror Gallery, Ink-treader Nephilim, Vigor, Joraga Warcaller, and Altar of Dementia. Finally cast Conspiracy naming elf as the creature type.
Step Two:
Cast a Dual Nature and then a Doubling Season. Repeat 11 times, with the 4 Copy Enchantments and 4 Clever Impersonators as Dual Natures and the 4Clones and 4 Vesuvan Doppelgangers as Doubling Seasons.
Step Three:
Cast Living Inferno, Furnace of Rath, Pandemonium, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Death's Presence, and Pyromancer Ascension allowing them all to be copied many times. Now that we are done with non-token permanents, cast Cytoshape targeting the Ink-treader Nephilim, changing all the Dual Natures into Doubling Seasons, and leaving everything else as they are. Then cast another Cytoshape leaving everything as it is. This will activate the ascensions.
Step Four:
Cast Insurrection allowing it to be copied by the Ascensions. Let 1 resolve to give our creatures haste and continue to Step Five.
Step Five:
Tap all the Kiki-Jikis targeting Doubling Season. For each set of Doubling Seasons coming into play, they trigger all the Pandemoniums. For each those triggers, target the Joraga Warcaller, letting the damage be multiplied by all the Furnace of Raths. As they individually resolve, the damage will be converted into +1 counters on the Warcaller thanks to Vigor, pumping all the creatures thanks to Conspiracy, and increasing the next ammount of damage. Let all the triggers resolve and move on to Step Six.
Step Six:
Now tap all the Living Infernos targeting the Joraga Warcaller again. As they resolve they will again pump each other, each dealing increasing damage.
Step Seven:
While Insurrections are on the stack, let 1 resolve to give all creatures haste, and then repeate steps Five and Six.
Step Seven:
Cast Clone Legion copying it for each Ascension. For each of the new Pandemonium triggers target the Joraga Warcaller (we will target it every time we do noncombat damage). This will inrease our count of Doubling Season, Living Inferno, Furnace of Rath, Pandemonium, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Death's Presence, and Pyromancer Ascension (ignore the rest they dont matter).
Step Eight:
Cast Mercy Killing and copy it for all the active Pyromancer Ascensions (which should be a fraction of the current number, although still a large number), each targeting a different Doubling Season. As they individually resolve, use the damage from the Pandemonium like before, and then since a creature died, all the Death's Presence tigger putting many +1 counters onto the Joraga Warcaller, increasing the number of tokens made by the next Mercy Killing resolution. Let all the triggers resolve and move to Step Nine.
Step Nine:
Cast Fossil Find copying it for each Ascension (The first time through this step, they wont all be active, but every other time they all will be).
Step Ten:
Let 4 resolve to randomly Fossil Find (and in a non-targeted manner) return Clone Legion, Mercy Killing, Insurrection, and 1 of the Cytoshapes. With the remaining Fossil Finds on the stack proceed to the next step.
Step Eleven:
Now cast Cytoshape, activating all the new Ascensions, and changing the large number of boring elf tokens into into Doubling Season. This should put the number of Doubling seasons to an order greater than the number of Ascensions and other cards which will be important when we revisit Step Eight.
Step Twelve:
Repeat Steps Four through Seven. Then allow an additional Fossil Find to resolve getting another Cytoshape and then cast that Cytoshape, using it to just activate the new Ascensions. Then repeat Step Eight copying Mercy Killing for all the Ascensions this time, since there are now always many more Doubling Seasons than Ascensions.
Step Thirteen:
While there are Fossil Finds on the stack, repeat Steps Eleven and Twelve. Each cycle should use up 5 Fossil Finds.
Step Fourteen:
Cast Bound // Determined, copying it for each Ascension. For each copy, sacrifice the Ink-treader Nephilim to bring back the Nephilim and the Fossil Find (ignore the other two cards we could recur). Then Repeat Steps Nine through Thirteen, and then move on to the next copy of Bound // Determined.
Step Fifteen:
Repeat Step Fourteen three times. Then sacrifice on token (doesn't matter which) to Altar of Dementia to mill ourselves, giving access to the last Praetor's Counsel in our library.
Step Sixteen:
Cast Praetor's Counsel, copying it for each Ascension. Each copy will return the whole graveyard, so we need to cast Cytoshape changhing nothing. This will allow the later Cytoshapes to still activate the Ascensions. Then Repeat Steps Nine through Thirteen, and then move on to the next copy of Praetor's Counsel.
Step Seventeen:
Repeat Step Sixteen three times.
Step Eighteen:
Cast Ill-gotten Gains, copying it for each Ascension. For every copy but the very last, only return the Fossil Find. Then Repeat Steps Nine through Thirteen, and then move on to the next copy of Ill-gotten Gains. On the last copy of Ill-gotten Gains, return both the Fossil Find and another Ill-gotten Gains if there is one.
Step Nineteen:
Repeat Step Eighteen three times.
Step Twenty:
Start sacrificing things to the Altar of Dementia to mill the opponent, and more importantly to activate the Death's Presence putting an increasing number of counters on the Joraga Warcaller. Start with all the Ascensions, then the Kiki-Jikis, then the Living Infernos, then the Furnace of Raths, then all but one of the Death's Presences, followed by all the Doubling Seasons.
Step Twentyone:
Enter combat, declare the Joraga Warcaller attacking, they dont block and we win.
How does this perform?