Edit: The latter would then reintroduce a way to spend black to get the potential to recover it. This time not in spellform, but still... maybe stick with Stormscape Apprentice.
[EDIT] I was contemplating a possible change to the hyperstage to reduce the creatures to one color, allowing a potential third stage. It would be nice to put in Staff of the Flame Magus or something similar. Turning life into +1/+1 counters would require a creature of another color, so that's out. What about paying life directly, say with Spatial Binding? The problem is that we could store up life to be used during a higher stage, so that doesn't work. Unless the stage transition requires life to be reset. So, I was looking at Sway of the Stars and Worldfire. Now, Sway of the Stars leaves us with 7 life, so we could still spend some life at the higher stage; but Worldfire sets our life to 1, which seems to be good. The downside is that it exiles everything, including enchantments and our hand and graveyard. Maybe some way to get card draws or put permanents in the library on the battlefield, and have those abilities on the stack? Like using Endbringer as our hyperstage creature. We would also need a way to build up to X again; we would only have our mana to do it. Is there some way to build up X Psychic Battles or Bloodbond Marches with X mana? We could do it with Simic Guildmage, or Izzet Guildmage + Aura Graft, but those get us other colored creatures. Also, we would need some way to require colored mana to be spent to recover the stage transition...
[EDIT] Even if we can't get a third stage, getting rid of Gelectrode and Ion Storm could allow us to generate more layers. For example:
[EDIT 6] Hmm, I was assuming that the combo would not go infinite because of the finite toughness of Justice, but we can keep gaining emblems from Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. I think replacing it with Spear of Heliod should do the trick.
But if we can't increase the toughness, then we can only use a fixed amount of Guilty Conscience triggers before the creature dies.
Maybe if we have a way to set the toughness to a high value once, but that cannot be repeated, like Master Biomancer we would get the additional layer. But that one is a green creature and can't be used.
Edit: Nah, even if Master Biomancer was allowed it would give an extra layer since all the Justices have to be around at the same time to trigger from a single Spiteful Shadows.
Still, even with fixed toughness I count one layer more then with the Repercussion sequence.
Yes, I count four layers from damage bouncing, for 16 layers total.
Now that you mention it though, even though we can't get a Guilty Conscience layer for Justice, we should be able to get a Guilty Conscience layer for the red creature. Dracoplasm seems like a good fit.
We can't use Dracoplasm because that would give a cheap sacrifice outlet durcíng the Ackermann stages, going infinite with Mimic Vat token creation.
I think the red creature we use also has to actually be an enchantment: We can't change the traget of different Dragon Tempests between resolution of the triggers and all actual creatures will die during the hyperstage. Enchantments are the only things we can target that can stay around.
I thought about perhaps saving creatures with regenerate; it seems that this would be safe, since regeneration taps the permanent so we can't keep an untapped Gelectrode or Mimic Vat past a mass destruction spell. Sadly, Obliterate prevents any regeneration, as does Jokulhaups. I couldn't find a suitable replacement. (A "destroy all permanents" spell would probably be okay, as we could regenerate all the creatures.)
If that doesn't work, we would need a way to pump up a creature's toughness, but only one time, to get an additional layer. Graft seems like the perfect ability, but unfortunately they are all either green or can target creatures or draw cards too easily, except for Llanowar Reborn, which we can't get copies of. Juniper Order Ranger and Sigil Captain would also work, but are of the wrong colors. Savage Summoning only works for creature cards.
I figure there is probably some way to boost toughness, though.
Hmm, Spiteful Shadows + Guilty Conscience don't need the toughness boost to go infinite. They just need to enchant our indestructible creature and get triggered (for 3+) on that one. We need the indestructible creature to keep Splinter Twin around during the Hyperstage.
I'm also not sure how we can use Llanowar Reborn and Hardened Scales to add a layer. Just like the Justices need to be on the battlefield at the same time to trigger from a single damage event, the targets of Dragon Tempest also need to be on the battlefield at the same tame so a single dragon entering can put all those Dragon Tempest triggers on the stack. I don't see how we could change the target, or the toughness of the target between different Dragon Tempest triggers.
If we switch back from Dragon Tempest to Five-Alarm Fire we can take advantage of that toughness layer, but we lose the layer from Mirror Mockery. We do however get more World at War casts, as now the first combat phase can be used better. That seems to be the best way to change things at the moment.
Edit: That change also gets rid of Sarkhan Vol who can boost the toughness of our creatures with the [+1] and thus goes infinite.
I think we do need Mirror Gallery to pull off the Hyperstage:
For our stage transitions we need a hasty Kaho, Minamo Historian. The only way to get one with the Hyperstage ressources is to use Mimic Vat. But then we have to get the original Kaho back from exile/library/graveyard via Bloodbond March. But if the token is still around when we resolve a Bloodbond March trigger it dies to the legend rule. The other option is that the original dies and we accomplish nothing. That means to get the original back to hand/battlefield the ability of the token has to be used already or the creation of the token was pointless. But since we also need to clear the stack to use the Bloodbond March trigger that means the ability and all chained triggers have resolved already. Kaho had to sit in the graveyard the entire time while we wanted to go through the lower levels of the Hyperstage. But without Kaho around we couldn't get any more stage transitions.
We need the Mirror Gallery to get Kaho back while also keeping a token around. This takes another card slot.
That also means we can't use Spear of Heliod to make Chrome Mox usable while providing only a fixed toughness bonus. We should be able to use something like Rootwater Diver instead. I don't know if there is an option cheap enough to also cut Mirrorworks.
Nice catch. There are cards like Junk Diver and Myr Retriver that are very cheap with Mirrorworks, but aren't quite cheap enough to cut Mirrorworks. There are some creatures that retrieve artifacts on ETB, but they are all white except for Saprazzan Bailiff, which also retrieves enchantments unfortunately. Faerie Mechanist can retrieve artifacts from the library on ETB, but that's probably not good enough since we would need to move Mirror of Fate from the graveyard to the library somehow.
However, perhaps Chromescale Drake can both retrieve artifacts from the library and mill cards as well? That would save a card.
[EDIT] Weird, my last edit got lost. Anyway, it looks like losing Spear of Heliod means that we lose the ability to retrieve Mana Crypt as well. I'm not sure how to settle that other than to add a card that retrieves artifacts very easily (not sure what), or add another card to produce mana (like Mana Echoes).
Sharuum the Hegemon should be usable and I don't think recycling artifacts can get any cheaper for us.
How does the start work out with the current deck? Can we achieve a critical mass of tokens or do we run out of ressources before that? I don't see any lifegain for us before combat, so we can draw at most 19 cards up to that point and have to use Night Dealings if we want access to our entire deck. But everything seems to be so reliant on the steps before it and 'free' support actions like donations. At a glance there is no obvious thing I would point to and say: 'This is where we can build up all that support'.
The most likely sub-combo for getting started seems to be the green mana Ackermann stage, as that requires minimal support to get a few layers. I'm not entirely sure we can get there, but if we manage it we can build up a lot of Night Dealings, black mana and some Gelectrode tokens and use that to really take off using the opponents starting life.
Ah, I forgot that Chrome Mox couldn't be used on artifact cards. It really is important to read cards carefully!
Yeah, I wasn't sure whether or not Yawgmoth's Bargain could get started by itself, but I figured that we should investigate it first to see if it could be done, rather than bail out prematurely. Of course, it's not essential that we access the entire deck prior to the first combat phase; if we can access the full combo at any point, than we will probably deal more damage than if we give up a layer or give up Finest Hour when we don't have to.
[EDIT]
Okay, so we can start with
1 Mana Crypt
2 Chrome Mox
3 blue card (Cloven Casting?)
4 Show and Tell
5 Omniscience
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Then, in addition to the one card we have left in our hand, we can get 20 cards. Cards we would like:
1 Opalescence
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Cultural Exchange
6 Hunted Phantasm
7 Bloodbond March
8 Cephalid Shrine
9 Mindshrieker
10 Mimic Vat
11 Leyline of Anticipation
12 Mirror of Fate
13 Splinter Twin
14 Crown of the Ages
15 Gelectrode
16 Sharuum the Hegemon
17 Night Dealings
18 Downdraft
19 Elvish Guidance
20 Elf Replica
21 March of the Machines
22 Underground Sea
23 Phyrexian Crusader
24 Oversoul of Dusk
What cards can we do without?
[EDIT] We can replace Elf Replica with the much better Xenograft, if that helps at all.
Xenograft certainly helps in getting some burst green for the start.
We should also be able to replace Night Dealings with Curiosity to convert opponent life into access to our deck easier. Easier meaning we just need a Gelectrode with haste and enchanted by curiosity, instead of multiple gelectrodes to put enough counters on Night Dealings and the black mana to use them. The downside is, that it is easier to produce Night Dealings copies than Curiosity copies.
Hair-Strung Koto instead of Mindshrieker should remove some dependence on colorless mana for the operations. (Now that I look at Mindshrieker again, that also removes a creature that can gain toughness and go infinite with damage bouncing.)
We can avoid the donation package and Mimic Vat for a while if we give the initial haste using Screaming Fury. Downside is that we need to draw it again everytime we want to give a new type of thing haste. That would save about 2 draws for the start, if we only give Psychic Battle and one Gelectrode haste.
We can get access to artifacts by milling them, but there are not a lot of artifacts in the list this could be used on. Should save another 2 draws.
To me it seems like a start should be doable, but it's hard to find the correct sequence.
If we stick to using Mimic Vat, we can avoid the donation package at least for Gelectrode by bouncing Cowardice and then allowing Gelectrode to destroy itself. But it seems like we would need at least three Psychic Battles for that to be profitable. Also, we need at least two Bloodbond Marches for that to be useful as well.
Chrome Mox, Backfire, Mana Crypt, Show and Tell, Omniscience, Yawgmoth's Bargain. (1 card, 20 life)
(I'll number the steps by how many cards we have to have drawn to do it. We can use 20 cards before the sequence needs to be self sustaining)
1. Psychic Battle.
2. Copy Enchantment, copying Psychic Battle.
3. March of the Machines. Mana Crypt and Chrome Mox die.
4. Cowardice.
5. Opalescence.
6. Screaming Fury, targeting March of the Machines. Bounce that with Cowardice. First Psyhcic battle then targets Cowardice, bounce that. Second Psychic Battle targets Psychic Battle, that gains haste.
. Cowardice.
7. Sharuum the Hegemon. Return Mana Crypt. Tap for {2}.
. Replay March of the Machines. Mana Crypt dies.
8. Cast Splinter Twin, bounce Copy Enchantment and Cowardice, put Splinter Twin on Psychic Battle. Make a token.
9. Bloodbond March.
. Copy Enchantment copying Bloodbond March.
. Cowardice.
10. Leyline of Anticipation.
11. Downdraft.
12. Cephalid Shrine.
13. Gelectrode.
14. Hair-Strung Koto.
15. Xenograft.
16. Underground Sea.
17. Elvish Guidance.
18. Oversoul of Dusk. Counter it, return it with the first Bloodbond March trigger.
. Tap Underground Sea for a black. Get 14 green from Elvish Guidance.
. Activate Downdraft to bounce Sharuum two times pulling Crown of the Ages and Mirror of Fate out of the library. Also bounce March of the Machines.
. ???
. 2 Psychic Battles are not enough to form meaningful layers, because we need some extra bounces for Chrome Mox and Mirror of Fate when saving up mana to climb up in layer count. But we should definitly have enough mana to get the sufficient number of Psychic Battles and still put ~10 layers on the stack. 2 Bloodbond Marches are enough to have one Bloodbond MArch trigger seperating the layers.
. ???
. The layers can create a bunch of Psychic battles, and with those on the stack we can move on to the card drawing phase:
. ???
19. Curiosity enchanting Gelectrode.
. Copy Enchantment copying that Curiosity on the same Gelectrode.
20. Screaming Fury to give that Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
. Move Curiosities to another creature, bounce Gelectrode.
21. Screaming Fury to give haste to replayed Gelectrode.
. Move Curiosities to hasty Gelectrode.. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
. Kill the copy enchantment by bouncing the creature its enchanting.
22. Copy enchantment copying nothing.
23. Screaming Fury to give Copy Enchantment haste.
. Create a token copy of Curiosity, move both curiositys to the same Gelectrode.
24. Screaming Fury to give that Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
25. Screaming Fury to give copy enchantment haste. create another curiosity copy.
26. Screaming Fury to give Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 3 card draws. Progress!
. ???
. Use damage to the opponent to increase the number of curiosities exponentially, until there are enough.
. ???
. Use all that card draw and the last few life of the opponent to go through the combo from there.
. ???
Two hazy segments in there, where I'm not exactly sure about the numbers involved, but the stuff like access to cards should be correct.
I'm not sure the order of card draw and psychic battle triggers for the segment at the end works out. We might need access to bouncing that is not tied to the stack somehow. But just casting the Screaming Fury allows for a lot of artifact bounces at that point, so it will probably work out.
EDIT2: I just noticed that the hasty Gelectrode's untap, when casting sorceries, so moving curiosities around in the end would not be necessary.
Hmmm. Krark-Clan Ironworks would allow us to generate infinite colorless, by using Sharuum the Hegemon to return himself after getting sacrificed. I don't think we can convert that into damage, so that should be save for now. Certainly makes things a little easier. Nice idea.
A potential problem is that we can never create any noncreature artifact tokens, but I don't think that is necessary for anything as it is. We also can't donate artifacts, which might actually be useful to avoid infinites
EDIT: If we can't donate artifacts there is no way to get cards back into the opponents library. We can then get started way easier by using Memory Jar instead of Yawgmoth's Bargain
Now that Chrome Mox cannot exist as a creature, it looks like untapping is safe again. So, we can replace Screaming Fury with something that untaps, like Breaking Wave. This allows us to go back to the Crimson Acolyte version of the stages, opening up one card slot.
[EDIT] I guess a card that untaps and gives haste would be better, like Insurrection or Mob Rule.
[EDIT] I believe we can save yet another card by replacing Krark-Clan Ironworks and Hair-Strung Koto by Grinding Station. Grinding Station is a bit of a nuisance since it ties sacricing artifacts with milling cards, but I think we should be able to deal with that.
Sharuum never returns itself because the etb has to be put on the stack, including picking the target, before you get the priority to sacrifice it. So it wouldn't make easy infinite colorless mana that way, not that it particularly matters.
Private Mod Note
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
I think, though, if we have an artifact in the graveyard, then we can target that artifact with Sharuum. That targeting triggers the Psychic Battles, provided we have at least one. Before we resolve Psychic Battle, we can sacrifice Sharuum, and then use the Psychic Battle ability to target Sharuum in the graveyard. So it does appear to be an infinite mana combo.
To be honest, I would rather do without an infinite mana combo, unless having one is a serious improvement to the final damage.
If we have infinite mana we can actually get infinite tapped Sharuum the Hegemon tokens by sacrificing Crown of the Ages and returning it with the new Splinter Twin copy of Sharuum. Those could be turned into damage via an untap all creatures effect, or Xenograft + Elvish Guidance.
I don't see anything like that if we use Grinding Station. Creating a Splinter Twin token would require 3 artifact returns (1x Thron + 2x Mana Crypt). A Mimic Vat token would require 3.5 (1x Mimic Vat. 1x Mirror of Fate, 1.5x Mana Crypt). Both only provide one artifact return if the token is a Sharuum Copy.
We can't really do anything about the Sharuum returning himself loop. Even without a sacrifice outlet we can have a token copy sitting around and use the legend rule to put him into the graveyard. (That puts him there even before the trigger is put on the stack, so we don't even need Psychic Battle.) So we need to ensure that we can't profit from the guy repeatedly entering the battlefield unless we use some other card to reuse artifacts.
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Edit: The latter would then reintroduce a way to spend black to get the potential to recover it. This time not in spellform, but still... maybe stick with Stormscape Apprentice.
Current deck:
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Dismiss Into Dream
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Mana Crypt
9 March of the Machines
10 Mindshrieker
11 Mimic Vat
12 Omniscience
13 Leyline of Anticipation
14 Mirror of Fate
15 Splinter Twin
16 Crown of the Ages
17 Chrome Mox
18 Mirrorworks
19 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
20 Gelectrode
22 Stifle
23 Spellweaver Helix
24 World at War
25 World at War
26 Life from the Loam
27 Izzet Guildmage
28 Walking Atlas
29 Obliterate
30 Spellshift
31 Kaho, Minamo Historian
32 Underground Sea
33 Phyrexian Crusader
34 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
35 Stormscape Apprentice
36 Oversoul of Dusk
37 Downdraft
38 Elvish Guidance
39 Genesis Wave
40 Night Dealings
41 Boon Reflection
42 Lifetap
43 Breeding Pool
44 Spiritual Focus
45 Pain Magnification
46 Backfire
47 Repercussion
48 Dragon Tempest
49 Mirror Mockery
51 Hunted Phantasm
52 Pyromancer Glasses
53 Painter's Servant
54 Screaming Fury
55 Sarkhan Vol
56 Thrummingbird
57 Show and Tell
58 Yawgmoth's Bargain
59 Thought Reflection
60 Copy Enchantment
[EDIT] I was contemplating a possible change to the hyperstage to reduce the creatures to one color, allowing a potential third stage. It would be nice to put in Staff of the Flame Magus or something similar. Turning life into +1/+1 counters would require a creature of another color, so that's out. What about paying life directly, say with Spatial Binding? The problem is that we could store up life to be used during a higher stage, so that doesn't work. Unless the stage transition requires life to be reset. So, I was looking at Sway of the Stars and Worldfire. Now, Sway of the Stars leaves us with 7 life, so we could still spend some life at the higher stage; but Worldfire sets our life to 1, which seems to be good. The downside is that it exiles everything, including enchantments and our hand and graveyard. Maybe some way to get card draws or put permanents in the library on the battlefield, and have those abilities on the stack? Like using Endbringer as our hyperstage creature. We would also need a way to build up to X again; we would only have our mana to do it. Is there some way to build up X Psychic Battles or Bloodbond Marches with X mana? We could do it with Simic Guildmage, or Izzet Guildmage + Aura Graft, but those get us other colored creatures. Also, we would need some way to require colored mana to be spent to recover the stage transition...
[EDIT] Even if we can't get a third stage, getting rid of Gelectrode and Ion Storm could allow us to generate more layers. For example:
Breeding Pool - 1
Reality Spasm - 3
Night Dealings - 4
Boon Reflection - 5
Exquisite Blood - 6
Backfire - 7
Underworld Dreams - 8
Dragon Appeasement - 9
Spirit Cairn - 10
Pain Magnification - 11
Backfire - 12
Repercussion - 13
Dragon Tempest - 14
Mirror Mockery - 15
World at War - 16
[EDIT 3] We can add a layer by adding Justice, triggering off of Repercussion.
[EDIT 4] Is there any way to get more than three layers using damage bouncers? Here our the ones I could find:
Guilty Conscience
Repercussion
Binding Agony
Spiteful Shadows
Backfire
Justice
Mangara's Equity
It seems like there should be a way to get more than three, but I haven't found any yet.
[EDIT 5] I think I figured out an improvement. Dragon Tempest deals damage to a red creature, say Gelectrode, enchanted with a bunch of Spiteful Shadowses. Each Spiteful Shadows will trigger a bunch of Justices. Each time a Justice resolves, it will trigger Guilty Conscience, which will trigger Spiteful Shadows, which will trigger Backfire.
[EDIT 6] Hmm, I was assuming that the combo would not go infinite because of the finite toughness of Justice, but we can keep gaining emblems from Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. I think replacing it with Spear of Heliod should do the trick.
But if we can't increase the toughness, then we can only use a fixed amount of Guilty Conscience triggers before the creature dies.
Maybe if we have a way to set the toughness to a high value once, but that cannot be repeated, like Master Biomancer we would get the additional layer. But that one is a green creature and can't be used.
Edit: Nah, even if Master Biomancer was allowed it would give an extra layer since all the Justices have to be around at the same time to trigger from a single Spiteful Shadows.
Still, even with fixed toughness I count one layer more then with the Repercussion sequence.
Now that you mention it though, even though we can't get a Guilty Conscience layer for Justice, we should be able to get a Guilty Conscience layer for the red creature. Dracoplasm seems like a good fit.
I think the red creature we use also has to actually be an enchantment: We can't change the traget of different Dragon Tempests between resolution of the triggers and all actual creatures will die during the hyperstage. Enchantments are the only things we can target that can stay around.
If that doesn't work, we would need a way to pump up a creature's toughness, but only one time, to get an additional layer. Graft seems like the perfect ability, but unfortunately they are all either green or can target creatures or draw cards too easily, except for Llanowar Reborn, which we can't get copies of. Juniper Order Ranger and Sigil Captain would also work, but are of the wrong colors. Savage Summoning only works for creature cards.
I figure there is probably some way to boost toughness, though.
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar would prevent all damage, but would provide the toughness boost for the other infinite. Gideon, Champion of Justice should work.
As for the toughness boost, we can use Llanowar Reborn plus Hardened Scales.
[EDIT] Unfortunately, after updating the deck we wind up with 61 cards:
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Dismiss Into Dream
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Mana Crypt
9 March of the Machines
10 Mindshrieker
11 Mimic Vat
12 Omniscience
13 Leyline of Anticipation
14 Mirror of Fate
15 Splinter Twin
16 Crown of the Ages
17 Chrome Mox
18 Mirrorworks
19 Spear of Heliod
20 Gideon, Champion of Justice
22 Mortiphobia
23 Spellweaver Helix
24 World at War
25 World at War
26 Life from the Loam
27 Izzet Guildmage
28 Walking Atlas
29 Obliterate
30 Spellshift
31 Kaho, Minamo Historian
32 Underground Sea
33 Phyrexian Crusader
34 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
35 Stormscape Apprentice
36 Oversoul of Dusk
37 Downdraft
38 Elvish Guidance
39 Wargate
40 Night Dealings
41 Boon Reflection
42 Lifetap
43 Breeding Pool
44 Spiritual Focus
45 Pain Magnification
46 Backfire
47 Spiteful Shadows
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Justice
50 Dragon Tempest
51 Mirror Mockery
53 Hunted Phantasm
54 Cloven Casting
55 Screaming Fury
56 Sarkhan Vol
57 Thrummingbird
58 Llanowar Reborn
59 Hardened Scales
60 Show and Tell
61 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Do you see any potential card savings?
I'm also not sure how we can use Llanowar Reborn and Hardened Scales to add a layer. Just like the Justices need to be on the battlefield at the same time to trigger from a single damage event, the targets of Dragon Tempest also need to be on the battlefield at the same tame so a single dragon entering can put all those Dragon Tempest triggers on the stack. I don't see how we could change the target, or the toughness of the target between different Dragon Tempest triggers.
If we switch back from Dragon Tempest to Five-Alarm Fire we can take advantage of that toughness layer, but we lose the layer from Mirror Mockery. We do however get more World at War casts, as now the first combat phase can be used better. That seems to be the best way to change things at the moment.
Edit: That change also gets rid of Sarkhan Vol who can boost the toughness of our creatures with the [+1] and thus goes infinite.
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Dismiss Into Dream
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Mana Crypt
9 March of the Machines
10 Mindshrieker
11 Mimic Vat
12 Omniscience
13 Leyline of Anticipation
14 Mirror of Fate
15 Splinter Twin
16 Crown of the Ages
17 Chrome Mox
18 Mirrorworks
19 Spear of Heliod
20 Gideon, Champion of Justice
22 Mortiphobia
23 Spellweaver Helix
24 World at War
25 World at War
26 Life from the Loam
27 Izzet Guildmage
28 Walking Atlas
29 Obliterate
30 Spellshift
31 Kaho, Minamo Historian
32 Underground Sea
33 Phyrexian Crusader
34 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
35 Stormscape Apprentice
36 Oversoul of Dusk
37 Downdraft
38 Elvish Guidance
39 Wargate
40 Night Dealings
41 Boon Reflection
42 Lifetap
43 Breeding Pool
44 Spiritual Focus
45 Pain Magnification
46 Backfire
47 Spiteful Shadows
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Justice
50 Five-Alarm Fire
52 Cultural Exchange
53 Hunted Phantasm
54 Cloven Casting
55 Screaming Fury
56 Llanowar Reborn
57 Hardened Scales
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
I think getting another layer between attacking/combat damage and damaging the red creature seems like a promising area of attack.
For our stage transitions we need a hasty Kaho, Minamo Historian. The only way to get one with the Hyperstage ressources is to use Mimic Vat. But then we have to get the original Kaho back from exile/library/graveyard via Bloodbond March. But if the token is still around when we resolve a Bloodbond March trigger it dies to the legend rule. The other option is that the original dies and we accomplish nothing. That means to get the original back to hand/battlefield the ability of the token has to be used already or the creation of the token was pointless. But since we also need to clear the stack to use the Bloodbond March trigger that means the ability and all chained triggers have resolved already. Kaho had to sit in the graveyard the entire time while we wanted to go through the lower levels of the Hyperstage. But without Kaho around we couldn't get any more stage transitions.
We need the Mirror Gallery to get Kaho back while also keeping a token around. This takes another card slot.
That also means we can't use Spear of Heliod to make Chrome Mox usable while providing only a fixed toughness bonus. We should be able to use something like Rootwater Diver instead. I don't know if there is an option cheap enough to also cut Mirrorworks.
However, perhaps Chromescale Drake can both retrieve artifacts from the library and mill cards as well? That would save a card.
[EDIT] Weird, my last edit got lost. Anyway, it looks like losing Spear of Heliod means that we lose the ability to retrieve Mana Crypt as well. I'm not sure how to settle that other than to add a card that retrieves artifacts very easily (not sure what), or add another card to produce mana (like Mana Echoes).
How does the start work out with the current deck? Can we achieve a critical mass of tokens or do we run out of ressources before that? I don't see any lifegain for us before combat, so we can draw at most 19 cards up to that point and have to use Night Dealings if we want access to our entire deck. But everything seems to be so reliant on the steps before it and 'free' support actions like donations. At a glance there is no obvious thing I would point to and say: 'This is where we can build up all that support'.
The most likely sub-combo for getting started seems to be the green mana Ackermann stage, as that requires minimal support to get a few layers. I'm not entirely sure we can get there, but if we manage it we can build up a lot of Night Dealings, black mana and some Gelectrode tokens and use that to really take off using the opponents starting life.
Yeah, I wasn't sure whether or not Yawgmoth's Bargain could get started by itself, but I figured that we should investigate it first to see if it could be done, rather than bail out prematurely. Of course, it's not essential that we access the entire deck prior to the first combat phase; if we can access the full combo at any point, than we will probably deal more damage than if we give up a layer or give up Finest Hour when we don't have to.
[EDIT]
Okay, so we can start with
1 Mana Crypt
2 Chrome Mox
3 blue card (Cloven Casting?)
4 Show and Tell
5 Omniscience
6 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Then, in addition to the one card we have left in our hand, we can get 20 cards. Cards we would like:
1 Opalescence
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Cultural Exchange
6 Hunted Phantasm
7 Bloodbond March
8 Cephalid Shrine
9 Mindshrieker
10 Mimic Vat
11 Leyline of Anticipation
12 Mirror of Fate
13 Splinter Twin
14 Crown of the Ages
15 Gelectrode
16 Sharuum the Hegemon
17 Night Dealings
18 Downdraft
19 Elvish Guidance
20 Elf Replica
21 March of the Machines
22 Underground Sea
23 Phyrexian Crusader
24 Oversoul of Dusk
What cards can we do without?
[EDIT] We can replace Elf Replica with the much better Xenograft, if that helps at all.
We should also be able to replace Night Dealings with Curiosity to convert opponent life into access to our deck easier. Easier meaning we just need a Gelectrode with haste and enchanted by curiosity, instead of multiple gelectrodes to put enough counters on Night Dealings and the black mana to use them. The downside is, that it is easier to produce Night Dealings copies than Curiosity copies.
Hair-Strung Koto instead of Mindshrieker should remove some dependence on colorless mana for the operations. (Now that I look at Mindshrieker again, that also removes a creature that can gain toughness and go infinite with damage bouncing.)
We can avoid the donation package and Mimic Vat for a while if we give the initial haste using Screaming Fury. Downside is that we need to draw it again everytime we want to give a new type of thing haste. That would save about 2 draws for the start, if we only give Psychic Battle and one Gelectrode haste.
We can get access to artifacts by milling them, but there are not a lot of artifacts in the list this could be used on. Should save another 2 draws.
To me it seems like a start should be doable, but it's hard to find the correct sequence.
If we stick to using Mimic Vat, we can avoid the donation package at least for Gelectrode by bouncing Cowardice and then allowing Gelectrode to destroy itself. But it seems like we would need at least three Psychic Battles for that to be profitable. Also, we need at least two Bloodbond Marches for that to be useful as well.
EDIT: I think a start is possible:
Chrome Mox, Backfire, Mana Crypt, Show and Tell, Omniscience, Yawgmoth's Bargain. (1 card, 20 life)
(I'll number the steps by how many cards we have to have drawn to do it. We can use 20 cards before the sequence needs to be self sustaining)
1. Psychic Battle.
2. Copy Enchantment, copying Psychic Battle.
3. March of the Machines. Mana Crypt and Chrome Mox die.
4. Cowardice.
5. Opalescence.
6. Screaming Fury, targeting March of the Machines. Bounce that with Cowardice. First Psyhcic battle then targets Cowardice, bounce that. Second Psychic Battle targets Psychic Battle, that gains haste.
. Cowardice.
7. Sharuum the Hegemon. Return Mana Crypt. Tap for {2}.
. Replay March of the Machines. Mana Crypt dies.
8. Cast Splinter Twin, bounce Copy Enchantment and Cowardice, put Splinter Twin on Psychic Battle. Make a token.
9. Bloodbond March.
. Copy Enchantment copying Bloodbond March.
. Cowardice.
10. Leyline of Anticipation.
11. Downdraft.
12. Cephalid Shrine.
13. Gelectrode.
14. Hair-Strung Koto.
15. Xenograft.
16. Underground Sea.
17. Elvish Guidance.
18. Oversoul of Dusk. Counter it, return it with the first Bloodbond March trigger.
. Tap Underground Sea for a black. Get 14 green from Elvish Guidance.
. Activate Downdraft to bounce Sharuum two times pulling Crown of the Ages and Mirror of Fate out of the library. Also bounce March of the Machines.
. ???
. 2 Psychic Battles are not enough to form meaningful layers, because we need some extra bounces for Chrome Mox and Mirror of Fate when saving up mana to climb up in layer count. But we should definitly have enough mana to get the sufficient number of Psychic Battles and still put ~10 layers on the stack. 2 Bloodbond Marches are enough to have one Bloodbond MArch trigger seperating the layers.
. ???
. The layers can create a bunch of Psychic battles, and with those on the stack we can move on to the card drawing phase:
. ???
19. Curiosity enchanting Gelectrode.
. Copy Enchantment copying that Curiosity on the same Gelectrode.
20. Screaming Fury to give that Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
. Move Curiosities to another creature, bounce Gelectrode.
21. Screaming Fury to give haste to replayed Gelectrode.
. Move Curiosities to hasty Gelectrode.. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
. Kill the copy enchantment by bouncing the creature its enchanting.
22. Copy enchantment copying nothing.
23. Screaming Fury to give Copy Enchantment haste.
. Create a token copy of Curiosity, move both curiositys to the same Gelectrode.
24. Screaming Fury to give that Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 2 card draws.
25. Screaming Fury to give copy enchantment haste. create another curiosity copy.
26. Screaming Fury to give Gelectrode haste.
. 1 damage to the opponent to get 3 card draws. Progress!
. ???
. Use damage to the opponent to increase the number of curiosities exponentially, until there are enough.
. ???
. Use all that card draw and the last few life of the opponent to go through the combo from there.
. ???
Two hazy segments in there, where I'm not exactly sure about the numbers involved, but the stuff like access to cards should be correct.
I'm not sure the order of card draw and psychic battle triggers for the segment at the end works out. We might need access to bouncing that is not tied to the stack somehow. But just casting the Screaming Fury allows for a lot of artifact bounces at that point, so it will probably work out.
EDIT2: I just noticed that the hasty Gelectrode's untap, when casting sorceries, so moving curiosities around in the end would not be necessary.
Perhaps March of the Machines can be replaced with Krark-Clan Ironworks? That won't need to be bounced, will add extra mana, and can be milled by Hair-Strung Koto.
A potential problem is that we can never create any noncreature artifact tokens, but I don't think that is necessary for anything as it is. We also can't donate artifacts, which might actually be useful to avoid infinites
EDIT: If we can't donate artifacts there is no way to get cards back into the opponents library. We can then get started way easier by using Memory Jar instead of Yawgmoth's Bargain
Now that Chrome Mox cannot exist as a creature, it looks like untapping is safe again. So, we can replace Screaming Fury with something that untaps, like Breaking Wave. This allows us to go back to the Crimson Acolyte version of the stages, opening up one card slot.
[EDIT] I guess a card that untaps and gives haste would be better, like Insurrection or Mob Rule.
[EDIT] We can replace Life from the Loam and Walking Atlas with Restore, saving another card.
[EDIT] I believe we can save yet another card by replacing Krark-Clan Ironworks and Hair-Strung Koto by Grinding Station. Grinding Station is a bit of a nuisance since it ties sacricing artifacts with milling cards, but I think we should be able to deal with that.
[EDIT] Ooh, we can replace Wargate with Distorting Wake, adding a layer.
To be honest, I would rather do without an infinite mana combo, unless having one is a serious improvement to the final damage.
I don't see anything like that if we use Grinding Station. Creating a Splinter Twin token would require 3 artifact returns (1x Thron + 2x Mana Crypt). A Mimic Vat token would require 3.5 (1x Mimic Vat. 1x Mirror of Fate, 1.5x Mana Crypt). Both only provide one artifact return if the token is a Sharuum Copy.
We can't really do anything about the Sharuum returning himself loop. Even without a sacrifice outlet we can have a token copy sitting around and use the legend rule to put him into the graveyard. (That puts him there even before the trigger is put on the stack, so we don't even need Psychic Battle.) So we need to ensure that we can't profit from the guy repeatedly entering the battlefield unless we use some other card to reuse artifacts.