Resolving it in the other direction leads to the same problem with Obliterate. We could try to always resolve the Caravan Vigil immediately, but that won't work when we need to put two transitions on the stack before resolving one, as the land wouldn't die in between.
We should be able to keep all the enchantments alive during the lower stages via bouncing and extra copies on extra instants like those X spells. That would allow Elvish Guidance as we can't keep that alive that easily.
EDIT: I'd like to get a double-dip of the five layer damage bouncing. We already have one that leads into Pain Magnification, we would like another one based on 1-2 damage, perhaps leading into Night Dealings. If we do that, however, we need some way to give life to the opponent cheaply, but not to ourselves. So for example, I would like to add Soldevi Steam Beast, but that can be donated to the opponent to give ourselves life. Still looking for a good way.
Am I missing something or is the deck missing a card to mill ourselves? Increasing Confusion should be too expensive. Same thing for a card to get the Island back into the library from the graveyard?
Why can't we use Roots of Life to gain life ourselves? We can't donate lands, but the opponent has 60 Islands themselves. I guess they are not able to reuse those multiple times. Let's see: They can easily put them from hand to battlefield via donated Walking Atlas. The lands can be destroyed after use via Obliterate. I'm not sure if we can give a Mycosynth Wellspring trigger to the opponent, but they can certainly draw cards via Farsight Mask. So the only step missing is graveyard to library. So we need a method there that can't be donated. I guess Emrakul, the Aeons Torn fits. Okay, this seems to work out as you said
The original rules state that the opponent has a deck of 60 Islands, but that was before Wastes came out. I think it makes more sense for a generic goldfish opponent to have 60 Wastes.
The way the damage bouncing works is as follows: We put a single Grip of Chaos onto the battlefield with Opalescence and Mighty Emergence in play, getting a bunch of +1/+1 counters. Use Cultural Exchange to donate it to the opponent. We put a single Spiteful Shadows and as many Guilty Consciences as we can on the Grip of Chaos, or just enough to kill it. Tap a Rath's Edge to deal damage to the Grip of Chaos; it will trigger the Spiteful Shadows, and when that resolves, that will trigger all the Guilty Consciences. Before each Guilty Conscience resolves, we put as many Spiteful Shadows on the Grip of Chaos as we can, so that when Guilty Conscience resolves it will trigger all the Spiteful Shadows. Before each Spiteful Shadows resolves, put as many Justices onto the battlefield as you can and donate them to the opponent; these will all get triggered by Spiteful Shadows. Before each Justice resolves, put four Guilty Consciences on it. (This is just from a damage optimization perspective; it doesn't add an actual layer) Before each Guilty Conscience resolves, put as many Spiteful Shadows on the Justice as you can. And finally, before each Spiteful Shadows resolves, put as many Backfires on Justice as you can. So that should be five layers in total.
The Five-Alarm Fire version is of course the same, except we don't donate the enchantments to the opponent.
Hmmm, so we are using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to move the Island from the graveyard to the library, Mycosynth Wellspring to bring the Island from the library to our hand, and Walking Atlas just to put the Island from our hand onto the battlefield. That's three card slots used up just to bring the Island from the graveyard to the battlefield. Surely we can do better?
EDIT#1: So it occurred to me that, instead of targeting general creatures, we could have our second hyperstage creature target a narrower type of creature, like with Flamestick Courier. That will free up other creature types for the later stages. Mobilize will still untap all creatures (I couldn't find anything that untapped narrower creatures, except for Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, and Merrow Commerce, but those trigger conditions don't seem to be workable.), so we couldn't have any further Mimic Vat stages, but we can free up the mana stages a bit. In particular, this opens up the possibility of a snow mana stage. Unfortunately, imprinting a snow permanent onto Chrome Mox won't allow it to generate snow mana, and our normal stage with Boreal Druid is vulnerable to Mobilize.
What about landcyclers? That would work, except unfortunately all the snow lands with land subtypes happen to be basic lands. So I don't quite see how to differentiate them from the hyperstage land. Is there an alternative we can do for the hyperstage land? Still looking for a way.
EDIT #2: Okay, I think I have a possibility. Drownyard Temple combined with Deep Water or Urborg would be nice, but the problem is that it enters the battlefield tapped. The obvious solution is Amulet of Vigor, but unfortunately we can usually get multiple copies of it, allowing Drownyard Temple to be untapped and used too many times. The solution we used the last time was to use Animate Artifact, which gets destroyed by Obliterate, and has to be redrawn or refetched. Unfortunately, that poses problems with reusing the artifacts that need to be cheaper, particularly Mirror of Fate. Previously we used Sharuum the Hegemon / Grinding Station, but that no longer works now that we have Metallurgeon.
Since none of the of the landcyclers are snow, it looks like we have to end on the snow mana stage, which means we can't use Elvish Guide or the like next. So we go to Korozda Gorgon, which is now usable, as is Tamanoa. This new sequence can get as many as 23 layers, but as you can see, that requires 66 cards. The following cuts seem good: dropping Consecrate Land, losing a layer, followed by dropping Reality Spasm / Repeal / Precursor Golem, losing three layers; dropping Vampiric Touch + Boon Reflection, losing two layers[/c]; or dropping World at War, losing one layer. Dropping the first six cards drops us a total of six layers, leaving us with 17 at the moment.
Repeal can be replaced by Dregs of Sorrow, but there's no room for it at the moment anyway.
For damage bouncing, we can still get two off of Justice and Repercussion. I don't think that we can add Guilty Conscience or Mangara's Equity, as we can keep adding Repercussions before those cards' triggers are resolved, so I think it goes infinite.
EDIT: So long as we are using the Dual Nature / Changeling Hero combo anyway, we can use some creature with an ETB trigger to retrieve the land. Wood Elves seems like a good fit, allowing us to save a card. World at War can go back in.
EDIT #2: Hmm, can we use Nectar Faerie to transition directly to Wood Elves? Nectar Faerie requires tapping, but we do get Mobilize to untap our creatures. But, we will also get Obliterate, which will destroy all our token copies, so we would have to make another token somehow. I guess it doesn't work.
EDIT #3: Well, we can imprint Nectar Faerie on a Mimic Vat and tap it, then go through the second hyperstage before resolving the Mimic Vat activation. But, that would mean spending a black mana, and we don't get it back if we imprint it on Mimic Vat rather than Chrome Mox. I don't think we can afford to do that.
EDIT #5: Now that we have a flying creature (Shoreline Ranger), we can replace Reality Spasm by Winter Blast. Unfortunately, Winter Blast won't get that second Precursor Golem layer, because the Shoreline Rangers will all die from Obliterate. We could get that layer by adding Levitate, but that costs us another card. Still, this allows us to remove Keldon Megaliths and Consecrate Land, so we can add two more layer cards.
EDIT #7: Shoot, I've noticed a problem: We don't have a way to recycle the Spellweaver Volutes enchanting the instants. Originally I thought that maybe we could switch them back and forth, but the timing doesn't work out right; if we try to move the first Spellweaver Volute onto the second instant, when the second instant gets exiled the Spellweaver Volute will go to the graveyard. Copy Enchantment took care of that because we could keep copying the Spellweaver Volutes, but without it we do have a problem. I'm not seeing an obvious way that doesn't go infinite.
EDIT #8: I have one solution: use Kiora's Dismissal to bounce Spellweaver Volute back to our hand. When we cast the first hyperstage sorcery, we resolve the Spellweaver Volute triggers in the following order: Kiora's Dismissal, then Battle Cry, then Retract. When the Kiora's Dismissal trigger resolves, we put the first Spellweaver Volute on one of the other two instants (Battle Cry, say). Then, when Kiora's Dismissal resolves, we bounce the first Spellweaver Volute back to our hand. We then put Kiora's Dismissal back in our graveyard, so that when the second Spellweaver Volute trigger resolves, we can put it on Kiora's Dismissal. Then we put Battle Cry back in the graveyard, so that when the third Spellweaver Volute resolves we put it on the Battle Cry. Finally, we put Retract back in our graveyard, and cast the Spellweaver Volute in our hand, putting it on Retract.
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Justice 4
5 Repercussion 5
6 Winter Blast 6
7 Dregs of Sorrow 8
8 Spiritual Focus 9
9 Pain Magnification 10
4 Justice 11
5 Repercussion 12
10 Five-Alarm Fire 13
11 World at War 14
EDIT #9: We're losing several card slots to Spellweaver Volute, and we're also losing some of the damage bouncers, so it would be nice if we could get away from the Dual Nature / Changeling Hero combo. Splinter Twin will also trigger ETB effects cheaply; the problem seems to be that Obliterate will destroy all the hasted tokens, so that we need bounce the original creatures in order to get the Splinter Twin combo going again.
I think we can work our way around it. Before we are about to cast Chatter of the Squirrel to trigger Obliterate, we tap all the necessary creatures enchanted with Splinter Twin to create token copies of themselves. We respond to these abilities by casting Chatter of the Squirrel. After Obliterate is resolved, the Splinter Twin abilities will resolve, creating token copies of any creature that we can't afford to lose. I don't think that this goes infinite, since we need to tap a hasted token in advance, which we get back, and also use other resources (namely bounce Copy Enchantment to put Splinter Twins on the creatures that we need to save) that we don't get back. So we use up resources below the Obliterate marker, and the combo should stay finite.
Korozda Gorgon 0
Archangel of Thune 2
Tamanoa 3
Vampiric Touch 3
Boon Reflection 4
Tamonoa 5
Backfire 6
Spiteful Shadows 7
Justice 8
Guilty Conscience 9
Mighty Emergence 10
Rath's Edge 10
Spiritual Focus 11
Pain Magnification 12
Backfire et al 13-17
Five-Alarm Fire 18
World at War 19
EDIT #10: Upon further examination, it doesn't look like the Weaver of Lies stage works anymore. To bounce Weaver of Lies and Goblin Taskmaster, we need to have a token of Weaver of Lies that we turn face down. Which would normally work, except that Obliterate destroys all creature tokens. We can use the Splinter Twin trick to create a new token, but it will be face up. So we will have to turn the token face down again, which will cost us a blue; we won't get the blue back, because we need to cast the original Weaver of Lies face down, so we can't use Bloodbond March to put it onto the battlefield. So we keep losing a blue each time, and the stage doesn't work.
Unfortunately, I don't see an efficient red to blue stage or blue to red stage; the best sequence I found loses two layers, for 17 total.
layer count:
Korozda Gorgon 0
Archangel of Thune 2
Tamanoa 3
Backfire 4
Spiteful Shadows 5
Justice 6
Guilty Conscience 7
Mighty Emergence 8
Rath's Edge 8
Spiritual Focus 9
Pain Magnification 10
Backfire et al 11-15
Five-Alarm Fire 16
World at War 17
EDIT: Hmmm, actually I think we don't need Coal Stoker. When we get to the lowest stage of the second hyperstage and resolve Mobilize to untap a bunch of Paragon of Fierce Defiances, we can then bounce the original Paragon of Fierce Defiance a bunch of times and imprint it on Chrome Mox to get a bunch of red mana to go through the first hyperstage. So we can add one layer. (Add Vampiric Touch and Boon Reflection, remove World at War).
EDIT: It looks like with the new Splinter Twin setup we can have Nectar Faerie after all. We can keep an untapped Nectar Faerie token around, and at the Nectar Faerie stage we can tap it and spend a black to target the original Nectar Faerie, along with Wood Elves and/or Riftsweeper. Then Mobilize will untap the Nectar Faerie token, and Splinter Twin will preserve it. So we save an additional card, up to 20 layers.
EDIT: There seems to be a problem with Bump in the Night; without Cephalid Shrine, there's no way to counter it and the opponent will run out of life. So we need to go back to Cephalid Shrine, which means we have to get rid of Dregs of Sorrow. Replacing it with World at War drops a layer to 19.
We could switch the second color from red to something else, but I don't see how to do that without losing card slots.
We could also potentially switch the flashback spell, but I don't see any one which is safe. The closest is maybe Recoup and Past in Flames, but those allow us to cast Obliterate for red, which is too cheap. If we could replace Obliterate with a nonred/nonwhite spell, that would be useful, but I didn't see anything close other than Soulscour.
EDIT: I changed the ending sequence around to get to 21 layers.
I found a way to add another stage: colorless mana! We can use a card like Kozilek's Pathfinder to target creatures for a colorless. Unfortunately, there's no Wastecycling card, and the only basic landcycling cards are instants/sorceries. However, we can use a general cycling card, and some even come with protection like Disciple of Law, so they can be safely put above the snow mana stage. Any land that generates a colorless will fill out the stage.
This means we cannot start the layer sequence with Reality Spasm. Since drawing cards has been mooted, we might as well start with that. Yawgmoth's Bargain, leading into life gain, seems like a good idea since we can use Yawgmoth's Bargain for the start as well.
EDIT: Hmmm, actually I think we don't need Coal Stoker. When we get to the lowest stage of the second hyperstage and resolve Mobilize to untap a bunch of Paragon of Fierce Defiances, we can then bounce the original Paragon of Fierce Defiance a bunch of times and imprint it on Chrome Mox to get a bunch of red mana to go through the first hyperstage.
I don't really see how that works. To generate a red via Chrome Mox + Paragon of Fierce Defiance and return the card to its position so we can repeat it we need both a bounce and a Bloodbond March trigger. We can generate one of those in bulk and keep it on the stack, but the other will cost the red we are trying to generate every time. Am I missing something?
Oh, I guess we can also bounce and imprint Rimescale Dragon at that point, so that should work out as red mana generator.
I found a way to add another stage: colorless mana!
Nice!
Most of the deck seems to work. We can't use Shoreline Ranger in a stage after Air Servant. Jhessian Zombies should work to replace it and you had that change in the deck that introduced Air Servant but apparently missed it later. You also changed the layers to account for Cephalid Shrine instead of Invoke Prejudice but didn't switch the actual card.
An actual problem seems to appear with Telekinetic Bonds. That can be triggered far to easily due to the cyclers in the stages. That easy discard on our side makes it hard to use Pain Magnification to double dip on the damage bounce layers. I don't see an easy fix for that at the moment.
An actual problem seems to appear with Telekinetic Bonds. That can be triggered far to easily due to the cyclers in the stages. That easy discard on our side makes it hard to use Pain Magnification to double dip on the damage bounce layers. I don't see an easy fix for that at the moment.
Urk, yeah that is a problem. The card that jumps out is Spiritual Focus, which only triggers from an opponent's ability. But, both drawing cards and gaining life are mooted by Yawgmoth's Bargain and its immediate successor.
It looks like we can use Spiritual Focus for the opponent though. The problem is the opponent has the choice of drawing or not drawing; I think we need something like Reito Lantern/Stunted Growth/Nullmage Advocate to handle all the things the opponent might do.
If we can refill the opponents library there is no limiter to them gaining life using donated Angelheart Vials earlier in the sequence, going infinite. So putting in Reito Lantern is too much. (We can move the opponents cards from hand to graveyard via Show and Tell + Obliterate, so them discarding can't be the limiter.)
EDIT: Can Eye for an Eye add a layer on top of Backfire? I guess not, since all the damage is dealt at once. Combining Eye for an Eye with Reverse Damage doesn't work either since Reverse Damage is also a replacement effect. Any similar card or cards that might work?
EDIT: It looks like Eye for an Eye and Circle of Affliction can combine for a layer; unfortunately, Circle of Affliction can be donated to the opponent and used by him.
I have found a major potential problem. Each stage of Paragon of Fierce Defiance gets replenished by resolving Mobilize to untap all the tapped token copies of Paragon of Fierce Defiance. But, eventually we have to resolve Obliterate, which kills off all the Paragon tokens. Most of the time we have Psychic Battle triggers for Paragon of Fierce Defiance underlying the Obliterate, but eventually we get to the end of the hyperstage. How do we start the Paragon stages up again? Of course, Rimescale Dragon and Kozilek's Pathfinder can target the Paragon to start things up again, but they are too expensive. Same thing goes for Metallurgeon.
We should be able to preserve one hasty Paragon of Fierce Defiance via Splinter Twin activation on the stack. We can then turn that into a bunch of hasty tapped Paragons by copying Splinter Twin and then we just need one green to untap them all with Mobilize as we do at the start of every substage. The Nectar Faerie stage can produce a bunch of green by repeatedly imprinting Wood elves, so I think that should work out. The same one hasty token preserved thing should work with the Metallurgeon.
Hmm, it seems Splinter Twin can't actually survive through Obliterate and is not there to be copied, so that doesn't work. But that also means it can't provied the Wood Elves ETB trigger, so that would have to be fixed.
BUT I think Splinter Twin goes infinite anyway: With a bunch of hasty tapped Metallurgeons tap the last untapped Metallurgeon to activate Splinter Twin. With the activation on the stack cast Bump in the Night and go through some triggers to first resolve Battle Cry and then put Retract on the stack. Use all those freshly untapped Metallurgeons to go through an Ackermann stage, producing more Psychic Battles and ending up with a lot more ressources than you started with. Make sure to save up some white mana. Then play and tap the Mox Ruby to get the red mana you used earlier back, reolve the Retract and Splinter Twin and use the mana you stockpiled to create a new bunch of hasty tapped Metallurgeons via Splinter Twin copies.
Shoot, that's even worse! The first thing that comes to mind is to go back to our Dual Nature / Changeling Hero setup, and give up several layers at the end due to the loss of Auras. Also, we need to change the stage creatures until we figure out how to handle the problem that I mentioned; Royal Assassin / Devout Chaplain can target Metallurgeon, and then Merfolk Seastalkers can target Royal Assassin. So we get:
So we save two cards if we use the current stage layout. We also gain back auras for the layers.
Maybe: Leyline of Anticipation -> Vedalken Orrery if we need to prevent going off in the upkeep because of Eternal Dragon. As a bonus the dragon lets us go infinite on turn two. I'm a fan of everything that pushes us closer to breaking the rules of the challenge without quite going too far
EDIT: I just noticed that during the second Hyperstage using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to shuffle the graveyard back into the library will destroy all our Spellweaver Volutes. I don't see a way to preserve them at that point if we cut Kiora's Dismissal. Suggestions for that problem?
Hmm, what we would like is a replacement for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that didn't shuffle the whole graveyard and only affected our own graveyard. After a quick search I didn't find anything. But, we can always go back to Reito Lantern, since the latest layer sequence doesn't require opponent drawing as a limiter. Wheel of Fortune can be replaced by Yawgmoth's Bargain.
EDIT: I think I found a good way to bring Wood Elves back: have the hyperstage creature be able to target it, for example with Everglove Courier. Adding Wee Dragonauts allows us to replenish both Everglove Couriers and red mana with Nectar Faerie. So the deck now goes:
[EDIT] Unfortunately, Everglove Courier has to ability to pump the toughness of Elves, which causes problems with the Guilty Conscience / Spiteful Shadows combo. Pumping the original Everglove Courier won't go infinite, since we can only create more Everglove Courier tokens by removing it from the battlefield, and then it loses all its toughness buffs. But we can certainly pump up a token. Tokens can get destroyed from Dual Nature and Obliterate, but I believe we can just ignore those cards and run the combo from Everglove Courier up to Guily Conscience, going infinite.
So, I guess we go back to the second deck in post #913.
[EDIT] I've been wondering if there is a way to go back to the older stage creatures, by having some mechanism that replenishes the hyperstage creatures other than Disenchant and the next stage creature. I had the idea of using Insurrection instead of Mobilize; unfortunately, if we resolve Obliterate before Insurrection, we can then play the hyperstage creature and have Dual Nature make several token copies. Insurrection will then give them all haste, so we can bounce the hyperstage creature, replay it in order to get Bloodbond March triggers, and then make some progress with the token copies that now have haste. We can then repeat the procedure to go infinite.
Still, I was wondering if there was an alternative for Insurrection (or we could keep Insurrection and find an alternative for Dual Nature.). Any ideas?
[EDIT] It seems that we can't get a layer going from Guilty Conscience / Mighty Emergence to Searing Meditation. Whenn we gain life via Spiritual Focus, all the Searing Meditiatons trigger at the same time, and even though Searing Meditation has an optional ability that we have to pay for, we still have to choose their targets as they are placed on the stack. So all the target creatures must already be on the battlefield, and we cannot bump up the number of Mighty Emergence triggers in between target creatures. That drops the damage to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 15}(2).
[EDIT] Since Searing Meditation doesn't get a layer, it makes sense to replace it with Reckless Assault. Reckless Assault doesn't get a layer either, but it allows us to spend our original life total to bump up the number of Five-Alarm Fires prior to the first combat phase.
[EDIT] Unfortunately, it looks like Disenchant is too cheap. We can flashback Bump in the Night, allowing us to cast Battle Cry, Recall, and Disenchant. Make sure to resolve Recall before Disenchant. This will allow us to get Mox Ruby back, getting us our red mana back. Then, we can recast Metallurgeon, and then cast Disenchant, getting a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers. The first trigger we can use to bounce Metallurgeon, and then we can cast it again, and get a bunch of Bloodbond March triggers. This will enable us to get a bunch more Psychic Battles, and we can repeat the whole procedure repeatedly, going infinite.
Thinking about it, we are not able to use Drowner of Secrets anyway. It's a creature that we can't preserve through Obliterate, and yet we need the effect during the low level operations of the deck. We also can't preserve Hunted Troll, but I don't think we need to repeatedly donate things to the opponent before we are able to reuse that one.
Hmm, I don't see an obvious replacement for Izzet Guildmage. So, the best we have right now is to go back to the first deck from post #913. With some corrections:
That will pull the damage back to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 14}(3).
[EDIT] I believe we can go back to the Disenchant version, provided we replace Disenchant with Hoard-Smelter Dragon, which should be expensive enough to avoid going infinite.
Hoard-Smelter Dragon doesn't work because we can't keep it around through Obliterate but need a copy on the battlefield every time we transition between the Hyperstages. But we should be able to use Goblin Replica instead to make the deck work.
I spotted another small problem: The last round of damage bouncing comes from Five-Alarm Fire, which deals damage in packets of 5. Unfortunately, that is enough to kill Justice, which isn't big enough to benefit from Mighty Emergence. The damage dealt to Justice will still trigger all the Spiteful Shadows before Justice is put in the graveyard, and I think Justice will still do damage when Spiteful Shadows resolves, even though it is no longer on the battlefield. But I don't think there is any way to trigger Backfire off of those Spiteful Shadows triggers.
We can replace Mighty Emergence with Simic Initiate, which I believe solves the problem. Simic Initiate is also destroyed by Oblivion, but it functions high enough that it doesn't matter.
[EDIT] I just discovered Perpetual Timepiece, which can perform the functions of both Hair-Strung Koto and Reito Lantern. I'm not quite sure what to do with the extra card - I don't see an obvious extra layer to be added. Boon Reflection won't add an extra layer between Spiritual Focus and Reckless Assault, since after the first Reckless Assault we will lose all our life but 1 to the damage bouncing. So, for now I am adding back Finest Hour.
[EDIT] Actually, it does look like Boon Reflection adds an extra layer. The trick is to activate Reckless Assault many times before resolving the activations. The difference between Reckless Assault and Searing Meditation is that the abilities of the former don't all go on the stack at the same time, so they can be nicely spaced out by the Psychic Battle triggers. The Psychic Battle triggers allow us to update the target with the latest number of +1/+1 counters, so that the layers stack.
So, we replace Finest Hour with Boon Reflection, increasing the final number to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 16}(2).
Ugh - previously, I had decided that Nectar Faerie worked as the stage creature for a black mana stage, but I think that was back when we had Splinter Twin. Without Splinter Twin, I don't quite see how to make it work. Obliterate is the culprit again; after Obliterate, all the token copies of Nectar Faerie are destroyed, and we need one to activate the ability. We can use a Psychic Battle ability to send the original Nectar Faerie to the graveyard and get a token copy, but that costs us an opportunity to bounce it and generate a black mana. We can cast Mobilize to untap a bunch of Nectar Faerie tokens and put a bunch of its abilities on the stack, but I believe the stage combo requires us to repeatedly add the ability throughout the combo. So it looks like it doesn't work.
So, without Nectar Faerie, the best thing I see at the moment is to go back to the Royal Assassin version, which loses one card slot; so we lose Boon Reflection.
Hmm, yes. If we can replace Royal Assassin/Devout Chaplain it can work. Crypt Sliver can substitute for Royal Assassin, but then how do we target Metallurgeon? It seems like the only thing that is the right cost for targeting Metallurgeon is either tapping the second hyperstage creature or the second color, and I don't see anything for which we can spend a black mana to target Metallurgeon, except Sydri, Galvanic Genius. But, as you pointed out, any native creature will get destroyed by Obliterate, so it needs to be replaceable at that level or below, and Sydri isn't. It looks like we need an enchantment, artifact, or creature targetable by the second hyperstage creature to provide the Metallurgeon-targeting ability.
What about other colors? For green we have a Metallurgeon targeter with Sylvok Replica, but the problem is the second hyperstage creature. For blue, we have Filigree Sages, but again no second hyperstage creature, that I have found.
For red, we do have Magma Sliver and Goblin Replica. But red is the one color for which I don't know how to complete the sequence. For the first mana stage, the only cards I know of are Break Through the Line / Goblin Kites or Merfolk Seastalkers. If we go with Magma Sliver, we can't use the first two, so we have to go with Merfolk Seastalkers. But then I don't know what to do for the second mana stage, now that Nectar Faerie doesn't work. We need the second mana stage creature to be flying, and the only cards that I could find were Olivia Bloodsworn and Ali Baba. But those are both red, of course. Are there any flying possibilities for other colors?
[EDIT] I was just looking for an improvement over Royal Assassin, but now that I think about it, I don't think Royal Assassin/Devout Chaplain works. Again it's Obliterate; that destroys all token copies of Devout Chaplain, and without any such copies we can't tap any of the original cards to be targeted.
So now, we really do need an alternative.
[EDIT] Okay, I think I have a solution. We go with Magma Sliver/Goblin Replica for the second hyperstage creature/artifact targeter. Then, we stick in Wandering Mage, which is a blue creature that can target itself for a blue. The first ability costs a life, so it is no harm. The third ability is interesting; we can use it to put a -1/-1 counter on a creature at the cost of a black mana. We can spend three black to destroy Magma Sliver, allowing us to create a token copy every time we need to restart the second hyperstage. We add Ashiok's Adept to generate black mana from Wandering Mage.
[EDIT] A minor variation, this time using Break Through the Line after Ghosthelm Courier. Could potentially save a card if we could find a low power/toughness black creature that had some other use, but I couldn't find one.
You might have missed the edit to my earlier post: I think we can use Copy Enchantment and Allay instead of Skull of Orm, Steal Enchantment and the duplicate Spellweaver Volute.
We should be able to keep all the enchantments alive during the lower stages via bouncing and extra copies on extra instants like those X spells. That would allow Elvish Guidance as we can't keep that alive that easily.
Great idea with Copy Enchantment and Allay. Trying the deck again:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Mirror of Fate
12 Chrome Mox
13 Copy Enchantment
14 March of the Machines
15 Dual Nature
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Jet
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Increasing Confusion
26 Increasing Confusion
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Island
31 Mycosynth Wellspring
32 Walking Atlas
33 Coal Stoker
34 Viashino Fangtail
35 Aven Smokeweaver
36 Phyrexian Crusader
37 Retribution of the Ancients
38 Oversoul of Dusk
39 Downdraft
40 Elvish Guidance
41 Distorting Wake
42 Night Dealings
43 Boon Reflection
44 Lifetap
45 Overgrown Tomb
46 Farsight Mask
47 Spiritual Focus
48 Pain Magnification
49 Backfire
50 Spiteful Shadows
51 Guilty Conscience
52 Justice
53 Mighty Emergence
54 Five-Alarm Fire
55 World at War
56 Sylvan Offering
57 Cultural Exchange
58 Amulet of Vigor
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
2 hyperstages, 2 stages, and 17 layers!
EDIT: I'd like to get a double-dip of the five layer damage bouncing. We already have one that leads into Pain Magnification, we would like another one based on 1-2 damage, perhaps leading into Night Dealings. If we do that, however, we need some way to give life to the opponent cheaply, but not to ourselves. So for example, I would like to add Soldevi Steam Beast, but that can be donated to the opponent to give ourselves life. Still looking for a good way.
EDIT: Found a solution: Roots of Life.
I can get as many as 20 layers, but I ran over the card limit. So I removed Distorting Wake (since it's only worth one layer):
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Mirror of Fate
12 Chrome Mox
13 Copy Enchantment
14 March of the Machines
15 Dual Nature
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Jet
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Increasing Confusion
26 Increasing Confusion
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Island
31 Mycosynth Wellspring
32 Walking Atlas
33 Coal Stoker
34 Hurr Jackal
35 Aven Smokeweaver
36 Phyrexian Crusader
37 Retribution of the Ancients
38 Oversoul of Dusk
39 Downdraft
40 Elvish Guidance
41 Night Dealings
42 Backfire
43 Spiteful Shadows
44 Guilty Conscience
45 Justice
46 Mighty Emergence
47 Keldon Megaliths
48 Farsight Mask
49 Boon Reflection
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Amulet of Vigor
57 Roots of Life
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
F_{w^2*2 + w2 + 19}(3)
Why can't we use Roots of Life to gain life ourselves? We can't donate lands, but the opponent has 60 Islands themselves. I guess they are not able to reuse those multiple times. Let's see: They can easily put them from hand to battlefield via donated Walking Atlas. The lands can be destroyed after use via Obliterate. I'm not sure if we can give a Mycosynth Wellspring trigger to the opponent, but they can certainly draw cards via Farsight Mask. So the only step missing is graveyard to library. So we need a method there that can't be donated. I guess Emrakul, the Aeons Torn fits. Okay, this seems to work out as you said
To me it looks like Consecrate Land would be needed to get a layer out of Keldon Megaliths + Amulet of Vigor.
Can you post the layer count? The damage bouncing section is really complicated.
The original rules state that the opponent has a deck of 60 Islands, but that was before Wastes came out. I think it makes more sense for a generic goldfish opponent to have 60 Wastes.
So, the new deck:
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Mirror of Fate
12 Chrome Mox
13 Copy Enchantment
14 March of the Machines
15 Dual Nature
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Jet
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Increasing Confusion
26 Increasing Confusion
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Island
31 Mycosynth Wellspring
32 Walking Atlas
33 Coal Stoker
34 Hurr Jackal
35 Aven Smokeweaver
36 Phyrexian Crusader
37 Retribution of the Ancients
38 Oversoul of Dusk
39 Downdraft
40 Elvish Guidance
41 Night Dealings
42 Backfire
43 Spiteful Shadows
44 Guilty Conscience
45 Justice
46 Mighty Emergence
47 Rath's Edge
48 Farsight Mask
49 Boon Reflection
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Roots of Life
57 Shriekhorn
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
The layer count:
Elvish Guidance - 1
Night Dealings - 2
Backfire - 3
Spiteful Shadows - 4
Justice - 5
Spiteful Shadows - 6
Guilty Conscience - 7
Rath's Edge - 7
Farsight Mask - 8
Boon Reflection - 9
Spiritual Focus - 10
Pain Magnification - 11
Backfire - 12
Spiteful Shadows - 13
Justice - 14
Spiteful Shadows - 15
Guilty Conscience - 16
Five-Alarm Fire - 17
World at War - 18
The way the damage bouncing works is as follows: We put a single Grip of Chaos onto the battlefield with Opalescence and Mighty Emergence in play, getting a bunch of +1/+1 counters. Use Cultural Exchange to donate it to the opponent. We put a single Spiteful Shadows and as many Guilty Consciences as we can on the Grip of Chaos, or just enough to kill it. Tap a Rath's Edge to deal damage to the Grip of Chaos; it will trigger the Spiteful Shadows, and when that resolves, that will trigger all the Guilty Consciences. Before each Guilty Conscience resolves, we put as many Spiteful Shadows on the Grip of Chaos as we can, so that when Guilty Conscience resolves it will trigger all the Spiteful Shadows. Before each Spiteful Shadows resolves, put as many Justices onto the battlefield as you can and donate them to the opponent; these will all get triggered by Spiteful Shadows. Before each Justice resolves, put four Guilty Consciences on it. (This is just from a damage optimization perspective; it doesn't add an actual layer) Before each Guilty Conscience resolves, put as many Spiteful Shadows on the Justice as you can. And finally, before each Spiteful Shadows resolves, put as many Backfires on Justice as you can. So that should be five layers in total.
The Five-Alarm Fire version is of course the same, except we don't donate the enchantments to the opponent.
Hmmm, so we are using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to move the Island from the graveyard to the library, Mycosynth Wellspring to bring the Island from the library to our hand, and Walking Atlas just to put the Island from our hand onto the battlefield. That's three card slots used up just to bring the Island from the graveyard to the battlefield. Surely we can do better?
EDIT#1: So it occurred to me that, instead of targeting general creatures, we could have our second hyperstage creature target a narrower type of creature, like with Flamestick Courier. That will free up other creature types for the later stages. Mobilize will still untap all creatures (I couldn't find anything that untapped narrower creatures, except for Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, and Merrow Commerce, but those trigger conditions don't seem to be workable.), so we couldn't have any further Mimic Vat stages, but we can free up the mana stages a bit. In particular, this opens up the possibility of a snow mana stage. Unfortunately, imprinting a snow permanent onto Chrome Mox won't allow it to generate snow mana, and our normal stage with Boreal Druid is vulnerable to Mobilize.
What about landcyclers? That would work, except unfortunately all the snow lands with land subtypes happen to be basic lands. So I don't quite see how to differentiate them from the hyperstage land. Is there an alternative we can do for the hyperstage land? Still looking for a way.
EDIT #2: Okay, I think I have a possibility. Drownyard Temple combined with Deep Water or Urborg would be nice, but the problem is that it enters the battlefield tapped. The obvious solution is Amulet of Vigor, but unfortunately we can usually get multiple copies of it, allowing Drownyard Temple to be untapped and used too many times. The solution we used the last time was to use Animate Artifact, which gets destroyed by Obliterate, and has to be redrawn or refetched. Unfortunately, that poses problems with reusing the artifacts that need to be cheaper, particularly Mirror of Fate. Previously we used Sharuum the Hegemon / Grinding Station, but that no longer works now that we have Metallurgeon.
So, here's an idea: Go back to the Dual Nature / Changeling Berserker combo, and switch Mirror of Fate out with Riftsweeper. After making the necessary changes, I get the following:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Jet
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
26 Increasing Confusion
27 Increasing Confusion
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Obliterate
30 Mobilize
31 Deep Water
32 Drownyard Temple
33 Amulet of Vigor
34 Akki Rockspeaker
35 Flamestick Courier
35 Broodstar
36 Krosan Groundshaker
37 Everbark Shaman
38 Black Poplar Shaman
39 Snow-Covered Island
40 Shoreline Ranger
41 Adarkar Windform
42 Korozda Gorgon
43 Archangel of Thune
44 Tamanoa
45 Boon Reflection
46 Vampiric Touch
47 Backfire
48 Spiteful Shadows
49 Justice
50 Guilty Conscience
51 Mighty Emergence
52 Keldon Monoliths
53 Reality Spasm
54 Repeal
55 Spiritual Focus
56 Pain Magnification
57 Five-Alarm Fire
58 World at War
60 Cultural Exchange
61 Precursor Golem
62 Consecrated Land
63 Shriekhorn
64 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
65 Show and Tell
66 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Vampiric Touch 3
5 Boon Reflection 4
3 Tamonoa 5
6 Backfire 6
7 Spiteful Shadows 7
8 Justice 8
9 Guilty Conscience 9
10 Mighty Emergence 10
11 Keldon Monoliths 10
12 Reality Spasm 12
13 Repeal 14
13 Spiritual Focus 15
14 Pain Magnification 16
6-11 Backfire et al 17-21
15 Five-Alarm Fire 22
16 World at War 23
Since none of the of the landcyclers are snow, it looks like we have to end on the snow mana stage, which means we can't use Elvish Guide or the like next. So we go to Korozda Gorgon, which is now usable, as is Tamanoa. This new sequence can get as many as 23 layers, but as you can see, that requires 66 cards. The following cuts seem good: dropping Consecrate Land, losing a layer, followed by dropping Reality Spasm / Repeal / Precursor Golem, losing three layers; dropping Vampiric Touch + Boon Reflection, losing two layers[/c]; or dropping World at War, losing one layer. Dropping the first six cards drops us a total of six layers, leaving us with 17 at the moment.
Some errors I noticed in the new version:
- Mox Jet should be Mox Ruby.
- Akki Rockspeaker goes infinite with Dual Nature and Changeling Hero. Should be replaceable with Coal Stoker if you switch the Hyperstage creature to Paragon of Fierce Defiance.
- Without Copy Enchantment we need a second Spellweaver Volute. We can't use Copy Enchantment since that goes infinite with Dual Nature + Changeling Hero.
- Without Copy Enchantment we can't copy auras, so a bunch of the layers won't work. Particularly the damage bounce section. Still worth it for the third stage
- Repeal enchanted by Spellweaver Volute can return the Mox to the hand without touching the rest of the Hyperstage, going infinite.
For damage bouncing, we can still get two off of Justice and Repercussion. I don't think that we can add Guilty Conscience or Mangara's Equity, as we can keep adding Repercussions before those cards' triggers are resolved, so I think it goes infinite.
Okay, so making the latest changes:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Ruby
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Increasing Confusion
28 Increasing Confusion
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Deep Water
33 Drownyard Temple
34 Amulet of Vigor
35 Coal Stoker
36 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
37 Broodstar
38 Krosan Groundshaker
39 Everbark Shaman
40 Black Poplar Shaman
41 Snow-Covered Island
42 Shoreline Ranger
43 Adarkar Windform
44 Korozda Gorgon
45 Archangel of Thune
46 Tamanoa
47 Boon Reflection
48 Vampiric Touch
49 Justice
50 Repercussion
51 Keldon Monoliths
52 Spiritual Focus
53 Pain Magnification
54 Five-Alarm Fire
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Shriekhorn
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Vampiric Touch 3
5 Boon Reflection 4
3 Tamonoa 5
6 Justice 6
7 Repercussion 7
8 Keldon Monoliths 7
9 Spiritual Focus 8
10 Pain Magnification 9
6 Justice 10
7 Repercussion 11
11 Five-Alarm Fire 12
EDIT: So long as we are using the Dual Nature / Changeling Hero combo anyway, we can use some creature with an ETB trigger to retrieve the land. Wood Elves seems like a good fit, allowing us to save a card. World at War can go back in.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Ruby
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Increasing Confusion
28 Increasing Confusion
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Forest
33 Wood Elves
34 Coal Stoker
35 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
36 Everbark Shaman
37 Black Poplar Shaman
38 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
39 Walker of Secret Ways
40 Snow-Covered Island
41 Shoreline Ranger
42 Adarkar Windform
43 Korozda Gorgon
44 Archangel of Thune
45 Tamanoa
46 Boon Reflection
47 Vampiric Touch
48 Justice
49 Repercussion
50 Keldon Monoliths
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 Five-Alarm Fire
54 World at War
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Shriekhorn
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Vampiric Touch 3
5 Boon Reflection 4
3 Tamonoa 5
6 Justice 6
7 Repercussion 7
8 Keldon Monoliths 7
9 Spiritual Focus 8
10 Pain Magnification 9
6 Justice 10
7 Repercussion 11
11 Five-Alarm Fire 12
12 World at War 13
EDIT #2: Hmm, can we use Nectar Faerie to transition directly to Wood Elves? Nectar Faerie requires tapping, but we do get Mobilize to untap our creatures. But, we will also get Obliterate, which will destroy all our token copies, so we would have to make another token somehow. I guess it doesn't work.
EDIT #3: Well, we can imprint Nectar Faerie on a Mimic Vat and tap it, then go through the second hyperstage before resolving the Mimic Vat activation. But, that would mean spending a black mana, and we don't get it back if we imprint it on Mimic Vat rather than Chrome Mox. I don't think we can afford to do that.
EDIT #4: We can save another card slot, by switching to Merfolk Sovereign, which can target Drowner of Secrets.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Sapphire
20 Metallurgeon
21 Increasing Confusion
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Chatter of the Squirrel
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Forest
33 Wood Elves
34 Drowner of Secrets
35 Merfolk Sovereign
36 Everbark Shaman
37 Black Poplar Shaman
38 Earwing Squad
39 Goblin Wizard
40 Snow-Covered Island
41 Shoreline Ranger
42 Adarkar Windform
43 Korozda Gorgon
44 Archangel of Thune
45 Tamanoa
46 Justice
47 Repercussion
48 Keldon Megaliths
49 Reality Spasm
50 Dregs of Sorrow
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 Five-Alarm Fire
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Precursor Golem
57 Consecrate Land
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Justice 4
5 Repercussion 5
6 Keldon Monoliths 5
7 Reality Spasm 7
8 Dregs of Sorrow 9
9 Spiritual Focus 10
10 Pain Magnification 11
4 Justice 12
5 Repercussion 13
11 Five-Alarm Fire 14
P.S. The new Chrome Mox looks awesome!
EDIT #5: Now that we have a flying creature (Shoreline Ranger), we can replace Reality Spasm by Winter Blast. Unfortunately, Winter Blast won't get that second Precursor Golem layer, because the Shoreline Rangers will all die from Obliterate. We could get that layer by adding Levitate, but that costs us another card. Still, this allows us to remove Keldon Megaliths and Consecrate Land, so we can add two more layer cards.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Sapphire
20 Metallurgeon
21 Increasing Confusion
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Chatter of the Squirrel
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Forest
33 Wood Elves
34 Drowner of Secrets
35 Merfolk Sovereign
36 Everbark Shaman
37 Black Poplar Shaman
38 Earwing Squad
39 Goblin Wizard
40 Snow-Covered Island
41 Shoreline Ranger
42 Adarkar Windform
43 Korozda Gorgon
44 Archangel of Thune
45 Tamanoa
46 Vampiric Touch
47 Boon Reflection
48 Justice
49 Repercussion
50 Winter Blast
51 Dregs of Sorrow
52 Spiritual Focus
53 Pain Magnification
54 Five-Alarm Fire
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Precursor Golem
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Vampiric Touch 3
5 Boon Reflection 4
3 Tamanoa 5
6 Justice 6
7 Repercussion 7
8 Winter Blast 8
9 Dregs of Sorrow 10
10 Spiritual Focus 11
11 Pain Magnification 12
6 Justice 13
7 Repercussion 14
12 Five-Alarm Fire 15
EDIT #6: We can save another card by switching from Merfolk Sovereign to Frightshroud Courier. This allows us to switch to Goblin Taskmaster into Weaver of Lies in the stage section. We can add World at War back in, getting us up to 16 layers.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Opalescence
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Let
20 Metallurgeon
21 Lingering Souls
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Chatter of the Squirrel
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Forest
33 Wood Elves
34 Crow of Dark Tidings
35 Frightshroud Courier
36 Hungry Spriggan
37 Goblin Taskmaster
38 Weaver of Lies
39 Snow-Covered Island
40 Shoreline Ranger
41 Adarkar Windform
42 Korozda Gorgon
43 Archangel of Thune
44 Tamanoa
45 Vampiric Touch
46 Boon Reflection
47 Justice
48 Repercussion
49 Winter Blast
50 Dregs of Sorrow
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 Five-Alarm Fire
54 World at War
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Precursor Golem
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
EDIT #7: Shoot, I've noticed a problem: We don't have a way to recycle the Spellweaver Volutes enchanting the instants. Originally I thought that maybe we could switch them back and forth, but the timing doesn't work out right; if we try to move the first Spellweaver Volute onto the second instant, when the second instant gets exiled the Spellweaver Volute will go to the graveyard. Copy Enchantment took care of that because we could keep copying the Spellweaver Volutes, but without it we do have a problem. I'm not seeing an obvious way that doesn't go infinite.
EDIT #8: I have one solution: use Kiora's Dismissal to bounce Spellweaver Volute back to our hand. When we cast the first hyperstage sorcery, we resolve the Spellweaver Volute triggers in the following order: Kiora's Dismissal, then Battle Cry, then Retract. When the Kiora's Dismissal trigger resolves, we put the first Spellweaver Volute on one of the other two instants (Battle Cry, say). Then, when Kiora's Dismissal resolves, we bounce the first Spellweaver Volute back to our hand. We then put Kiora's Dismissal back in our graveyard, so that when the second Spellweaver Volute trigger resolves, we can put it on Kiora's Dismissal. Then we put Battle Cry back in the graveyard, so that when the third Spellweaver Volute resolves we put it on the Battle Cry. Finally, we put Retract back in our graveyard, and cast the Spellweaver Volute in our hand, putting it on Retract.
The latest deck:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Dual Nature
14 Changeling Hero
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Assembly-Worker
17 Kiora's Dismissal
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Sapphire
20 Metallurgeon
21 Increasing Confusion
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
26 Spellweaver Volute
28 Chatter of the Squirrel
29 Chatter of the Squirrel
30 Spellweaver Helix
31 Obliterate
32 Mobilize
33 Forest
34 Wood Elves
35 Drowner of Secrets
36 Merfolk Sovereign
37 Everbark Shaman
38 Black Poplar Shaman
39 Earwing Squad
40 Goblin Wizard
41 Snow-Covered Island
42 Shoreline Ranger
43 Adarkar Windform
44 Korozda Gorgon
45 Archangel of Thune
46 Tamanoa
47 Justice
48 Repercussion
49 Winter Blast
50 Dregs of Sorrow
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 Five-Alarm Fire
54 World at War
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Precursor Golem
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
1 Korozda Gorgon 0
2 Archangel of Thune 2
3 Tamanoa 3
4 Justice 4
5 Repercussion 5
6 Winter Blast 6
7 Dregs of Sorrow 8
8 Spiritual Focus 9
9 Pain Magnification 10
4 Justice 11
5 Repercussion 12
10 Five-Alarm Fire 13
11 World at War 14
EDIT #9: We're losing several card slots to Spellweaver Volute, and we're also losing some of the damage bouncers, so it would be nice if we could get away from the Dual Nature / Changeling Hero combo. Splinter Twin will also trigger ETB effects cheaply; the problem seems to be that Obliterate will destroy all the hasted tokens, so that we need bounce the original creatures in order to get the Splinter Twin combo going again.
I think we can work our way around it. Before we are about to cast Chatter of the Squirrel to trigger Obliterate, we tap all the necessary creatures enchanted with Splinter Twin to create token copies of themselves. We respond to these abilities by casting Chatter of the Squirrel. After Obliterate is resolved, the Splinter Twin abilities will resolve, creating token copies of any creature that we can't afford to lose. I don't think that this goes infinite, since we need to tap a hasted token in advance, which we get back, and also use other resources (namely bounce Copy Enchantment to put Splinter Twins on the creatures that we need to save) that we don't get back. So we use up resources below the Obliterate marker, and the combo should stay finite.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Splinter Twin
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Dual Nature
16 March of the Machines
17 Allay
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Let
20 Metallurgeon
21 Lingering Souls
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Obliterate
30 Mobilize
31 Forest
32 Wood Elves
33 Crow of Dark Tidings
34 Frightshroud Courier
35 Hungry Spriggan
36 Goblin Taskmaster
37 Weaver of Lies
38 Snow-Covered Island
39 Shoreline Ranger
40 Adarkar Windform
41 Korozda Gorgon
42 Archangel of Thune
43 Tamanoa
44 Vampiric Touch
45 Boon Reflection
46 Backfire
47 Spiteful Shadows
48 Justice
49 Guilty Conscience
50 Mighty Emergence
51 Rath's Edge
52 Spiritual Focus
53 Pain Magnification
54 Five-Alarm Fire
55 World at War
57 Cultural Exchange
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
Korozda Gorgon 0
Archangel of Thune 2
Tamanoa 3
Vampiric Touch 3
Boon Reflection 4
Tamonoa 5
Backfire 6
Spiteful Shadows 7
Justice 8
Guilty Conscience 9
Mighty Emergence 10
Rath's Edge 10
Spiritual Focus 11
Pain Magnification 12
Backfire et al 13-17
Five-Alarm Fire 18
World at War 19
EDIT #10: Upon further examination, it doesn't look like the Weaver of Lies stage works anymore. To bounce Weaver of Lies and Goblin Taskmaster, we need to have a token of Weaver of Lies that we turn face down. Which would normally work, except that Obliterate destroys all creature tokens. We can use the Splinter Twin trick to create a new token, but it will be face up. So we will have to turn the token face down again, which will cost us a blue; we won't get the blue back, because we need to cast the original Weaver of Lies face down, so we can't use Bloodbond March to put it onto the battlefield. So we keep losing a blue each time, and the stage doesn't work.
Unfortunately, I don't see an efficient red to blue stage or blue to red stage; the best sequence I found loses two layers, for 17 total.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Splinter Twin
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Dual Nature
16 March of the Machines
17 Allay
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Ruby
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Obliterate
30 Mobilize
31 Forest
32 Wood Elves
33 Coal Stoker
34 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
35 Everbark Shaman
36 Black Poplar Shaman
37 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
38 Walker of Secret Ways
39 Snow-Covered Island
40 Shoreline Ranger
41 Adarkar Windform
42 Korozda Gorgon
43 Archangel of Thune
44 Tamanoa
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Mighty Emergence
50 Rath's Edge
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 Five-Alarm Fire
54 World at War
56 Cultural Exchange
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
Korozda Gorgon 0
Archangel of Thune 2
Tamanoa 3
Backfire 4
Spiteful Shadows 5
Justice 6
Guilty Conscience 7
Mighty Emergence 8
Rath's Edge 8
Spiritual Focus 9
Pain Magnification 10
Backfire et al 11-15
Five-Alarm Fire 16
World at War 17
EDIT: Hmmm, actually I think we don't need Coal Stoker. When we get to the lowest stage of the second hyperstage and resolve Mobilize to untap a bunch of Paragon of Fierce Defiances, we can then bounce the original Paragon of Fierce Defiance a bunch of times and imprint it on Chrome Mox to get a bunch of red mana to go through the first hyperstage. So we can add one layer. (Add Vampiric Touch and Boon Reflection, remove World at War).
EDIT: We can save a card slot by replacing the Walker of Secret Ways stage with Merfolk Seastalkers. World at War can come back in, for 19 layers.
EDIT: It looks like with the new Splinter Twin setup we can have Nectar Faerie after all. We can keep an untapped Nectar Faerie token around, and at the Nectar Faerie stage we can tap it and spend a black to target the original Nectar Faerie, along with Wood Elves and/or Riftsweeper. Then Mobilize will untap the Nectar Faerie token, and Splinter Twin will preserve it. So we save an additional card, up to 20 layers.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Splinter Twin
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Dual Nature
16 March of the Machines
17 Allay
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Ruby
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Obliterate
30 Mobilize
31 Forest
32 Wood Elves
33 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
34 Nectar Faerie
35 Air Servant
36 Snow-Covered Island
37 Jhessian Zombies
38 Rimehorn Aurochs
39 Korozda Gorgon
40 Archangel of Thune
41 Tamanoa
42 Backfire
43 Spiteful Shadows
44 Justice
45 Guilty Conscience
46 Mighty Emergence
47 Rath's Edge
48 Reality Spasm
49 Dregs of Sorrow
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Precursor Golem
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Korozda Gorgon 0
Archangel of Thune 2
Tamanoa 3
Backfire 4
Spiteful Shadows 5
Justice 6
Guilty Conscience 7
Mighty Emergence 8
Rath's Edge 8
Spiritual Focus 9
Reality Spasm 10
Dregs of Sorrow 12
Pain Magnification 13
Backfire et al 14-18
Five-Alarm Fire 19
World at War 20
EDIT: Hmm, we can't have anything between Rath's Edge and Dregs of Sorrow or Spiritual Focus, because then we aren't able to draw Rath's Edge easily enough after it gets destroyed. We can solve it by adding Consecrate Land, getting rid of World at War.
EDIT: There seems to be a problem with Bump in the Night; without Cephalid Shrine, there's no way to counter it and the opponent will run out of life. So we need to go back to Cephalid Shrine, which means we have to get rid of Dregs of Sorrow. Replacing it with World at War drops a layer to 19.
We could switch the second color from red to something else, but I don't see how to do that without losing card slots.
We could also potentially switch the flashback spell, but I don't see any one which is safe. The closest is maybe Recoup and Past in Flames, but those allow us to cast Obliterate for red, which is too cheap. If we could replace Obliterate with a nonred/nonwhite spell, that would be useful, but I didn't see anything close other than Soulscour.
EDIT: I changed the ending sequence around to get to 21 layers.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mana Vault
8 Mimic Vat
9 Omniscience
10 Leyline of Anticipation
11 Riftsweeper
12 Chrome Mox
13 Splinter Twin
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Dual Nature
16 March of the Machines
17 Allay
18 Tooth of Ramos
19 Mox Ruby
20 Metallurgeon
21 Bump in the Night
22 Battle Cry
23 Retract
24 Spellweaver Volute
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Obliterate
30 Mobilize
31 Forest
32 Wood Elves
33 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
34 Nectar Faerie
35 Air Servant
36 Snow-Covered Island
37 Shoreline Ranger
38 Adarkar Windform
39 Reality Spasm
40 Night Dealings
41 Boon Reflection
42 Tamanoa
43 Scald
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Guilty Consciece
47 Justice
48 Spiteful Visions
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Precursor Golem
56 Rage Thrower
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
layer count:
Reality Spasm 2
Night Dealings 3
Boon Reflection 4
Tamanoa 5
Scald 6
Boon Reflection 7
Tamanoa 8
Backfire 9
Spiteful Shadows 10
Justice 11
Spiteful Shadows 12
Spiteful Visions 13
Spiritual Focus 14
Pain Magnification 15
Backfire et al 16-19
Five-Alarm Fire 20
World at War 21
EDIT: It looks like Mana Vault is not strictly necessary - we can use Tooth of Ramos for the standard mana generator, since a bounce will get us one white mana per Dual Nature, provided that March of the Machines is in play. And we can start the combo with land, Mox Ruby, Chrome Mox, Show and Tell, Omniscience. The downside is then we cannot get started during the upkeep, to allow Spiteful Visions to draw us extra cards, but that is a minor consideration. We can replace Mana Vault with Mighty Emergence, bumping the number of layers to 22.
EDIT: Of course, Yawgmoth's Bargain is not usable. Without Changeling Hero, Selvala's Enforcer probably isn't enough to get going, as are other small draw cards like Words of Wisdom. Minds Aglow might have had a shot with Mana Vault, but not now. The best bet is Wheel of Fortune or Memory Jar.
This means we cannot start the layer sequence with Reality Spasm. Since drawing cards has been mooted, we might as well start with that. Yawgmoth's Bargain, leading into life gain, seems like a good idea since we can use Yawgmoth's Bargain for the start as well.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Invoke Prejudice
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Leyline of Anticipation
10 Riftsweeper
11 Chrome Mox
12 Splinter Twin
13 Copy Enchantment
14 Dual Nature
15 March of the Machines
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Ruby
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Savannah
31 Wood Elves
32 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
33 Nectar Faerie
34 Air Servant
35 Snow-Covered Island
36 Shoreline Ranger
37 Rimescale Dragon
38 Aether Hub
39 Disciple of Law
40 Kozilek's Pathfinder
41 Yawgmoth's Bargain
42 Boon Reflection
43 Angelheart Vial
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Devastate
49 Lifeblood
50 Cinder Glade
51 Telekenetic Bonds
52 Pain Magnification
53 World at War
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Consecrate Land
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Finest Hour
This will generate about F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 17}(3) damage.
This would have been true a month ago, but they just printed Ash Barrens.
I don't really see how that works. To generate a red via Chrome Mox + Paragon of Fierce Defiance and return the card to its position so we can repeat it we need both a bounce and a Bloodbond March trigger. We can generate one of those in bulk and keep it on the stack, but the other will cost the red we are trying to generate every time. Am I missing something?
Oh, I guess we can also bounce and imprint Rimescale Dragon at that point, so that should work out as red mana generator.
Nice!
Most of the deck seems to work. We can't use Shoreline Ranger in a stage after Air Servant. Jhessian Zombies should work to replace it and you had that change in the deck that introduced Air Servant but apparently missed it later. You also changed the layers to account for Cephalid Shrine instead of Invoke Prejudice but didn't switch the actual card.
An actual problem seems to appear with Telekinetic Bonds. That can be triggered far to easily due to the cyclers in the stages. That easy discard on our side makes it hard to use Pain Magnification to double dip on the damage bounce layers. I don't see an easy fix for that at the moment.
Iijil, thanks for the corrections!
Urk, yeah that is a problem. The card that jumps out is Spiritual Focus, which only triggers from an opponent's ability. But, both drawing cards and gaining life are mooted by Yawgmoth's Bargain and its immediate successor.
It looks like we can use Spiritual Focus for the opponent though. The problem is the opponent has the choice of drawing or not drawing; I think we need something like Reito Lantern/Stunted Growth/Nullmage Advocate to handle all the things the opponent might do.
So that gives us:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Leyline of Anticipation
10 Riftsweeper
11 Chrome Mox
12 Splinter Twin
13 Copy Enchantment
14 Dual Nature
15 March of the Machines
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Ruby
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Savannah
31 Wood Elves
32 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
33 Nectar Faerie
34 Air Servant
35 Snow-Covered Island
36 Jhessian Zombies
37 Rimescale Dragon
38 Aether Hub
39 Disciple of Law
40 Kozilek's Pathfinder
41 Yawgmoth's Bargain
42 Boon Reflection
43 Angelheart Vial
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Devastate
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Mighty Emergence
56 Stunted Growth
57 Nullmage Advocate
58 Drowner of Secrets
59 Reito Lantern
60 Show and Tell
layer count:
0 Yawgmoth's Bargain 0
1 Boon Reflection 1
2 Angelheart Vial 2
3 Backfire 3
4 Spiteful Shadows 4
5 Justice 5
4 Spiteful Shadows 6
6 Guilty Conscience 7
7 Devastate 7
1 Boon Reflection 8
8 Spiritual Focus 9
9 Pain Magnfication 10
3-6 damage bouncers 11-15
10 Five-Alarm Fire 16
11 World at War 17
for about F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 17}(2) damage.
EDIT: Can Eye for an Eye add a layer on top of Backfire? I guess not, since all the damage is dealt at once. Combining Eye for an Eye with Reverse Damage doesn't work either since Reverse Damage is also a replacement effect. Any similar card or cards that might work?
EDIT: It looks like Eye for an Eye and Circle of Affliction can combine for a layer; unfortunately, Circle of Affliction can be donated to the opponent and used by him.
Samite Ministration would work, except Eye for an Eye is not black or red.
EDIT: I guess we could go Eye for an Eye + Deflecting Palm + Samite Ministration, but that would be two extra cards for one layer, and we don't have the room.
EDIT: I found a slightly better sequence:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Leyline of Anticipation
10 Riftsweeper
11 Chrome Mox
12 Splinter Twin
13 Copy Enchantment
14 Dual Nature
15 March of the Machines
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Ruby
19 Metallurgeon
20 Bump in the Night
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Savannah
31 Wood Elves
32 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
33 Nectar Faerie
34 Air Servant
35 Snow-Covered Island
36 Jhessian Zombies
37 Rimescale Dragon
38 Aether Hub
39 Disciple of Law
40 Kozilek's Pathfinder
41 Night Dealings
42 Backfire
43 Spiteful Shadows
44 Justice
45 Guilty Conscience
46 Searing Meditation
47 Spiritual Focus
48 Pain Magnification
49 Five-Alarm Fire
50 World at War
52 Cultural Exchange
53 Mighty Emergence
54 Soul Echo
55 Drowner of Secrets
56 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
57 Show and Tell
58 Wheel of Fortune
59 Finest Hour
60 Consecrated Sphinx
Still 16 layers, but saved a couple of card slots. Perhaps Searing Meditation could be replaced by a longer transition.
We should be able to preserve one hasty Paragon of Fierce Defiance via Splinter Twin activation on the stack. We can then turn that into a bunch of hasty tapped Paragons by copying Splinter Twin and then we just need one green to untap them all with Mobilize as we do at the start of every substage. The Nectar Faerie stage can produce a bunch of green by repeatedly imprinting Wood elves, so I think that should work out. The same one hasty token preserved thing should work with the Metallurgeon.
Hmm, it seems Splinter Twin can't actually survive through Obliterate and is not there to be copied, so that doesn't work. But that also means it can't provied the Wood Elves ETB trigger, so that would have to be fixed.
BUT I think Splinter Twin goes infinite anyway: With a bunch of hasty tapped Metallurgeons tap the last untapped Metallurgeon to activate Splinter Twin. With the activation on the stack cast Bump in the Night and go through some triggers to first resolve Battle Cry and then put Retract on the stack. Use all those freshly untapped Metallurgeons to go through an Ackermann stage, producing more Psychic Battles and ending up with a lot more ressources than you started with. Make sure to save up some white mana. Then play and tap the Mox Ruby to get the red mana you used earlier back, reolve the Retract and Splinter Twin and use the mana you stockpiled to create a new bunch of hasty tapped Metallurgeons via Splinter Twin copies.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Leyline of Anticipation
10 Riftsweeper
11 Chrome Mox
12 Dual Nature
13 Changeling Hero
14 Assembly-Worker
15 Karn, Silver Golem
16 Kiora's Dismissal
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Mox Jet
19 Metallurgeon
20 Lingering Souls
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
24 Spellweaver Volute
25 Spellweaver Volute
27 Chatter of the Squirrel
28 Chatter of the Squirrel
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Obliterate
31 Mobilize
32 Savannah
33 Wood Elves
34 Royal Assassin
35 Devoted Chaplain
36 Merfolk Seastalkers
37 Duskmantle Seer
38 Blood Tyrant
39 Olivia's Bloodsworn
40 Snow-Covered Island
41 Shoreline Ranger
42 Adarkar Windform
43 Aether Hub
44 Bloated Toad
45 Kozilek's Pathfinder
47 Justice
48 Repercussion
49 Ion Storm
50 Archangel of Thune
51 Spiritual Focus
52 Pain Magnification
53 World at War
54 Hunted Phantasm
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Soul Echo
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
59 Show and Tell
60 Wheel of Fortune
2 hyperstages + 4 stages + 10 layers. Assuming it works, of course.
We replace Changeling Hero + Assembly-Worker with Copy Enchantment + Allay. That then leads to these changes:
Support cards:
- Riftsweeper -> Mirror of Fate, since ETB is no longer cheap.
- Karn, Silver Golem -> March of the Machines, since we need to reuse Mirror of Fate easily.
First Hyperstage:
- We can cut Kiora's Dismissal and two copies of Spellweaver Volute. We now get easy copies of the enchantment.
Second Hyperstage:
- Wood Elves + Savannah -> Bayou + Walking Atlas + Gem of Becoming. We lose one card and search for different land types.
Stages:
- Snow-Covered Island + Shoreline Ranger -> Snow-Covered Plains + Eternal Dragon.
So we save two cards if we use the current stage layout. We also gain back auras for the layers.
Maybe: Leyline of Anticipation -> Vedalken Orrery if we need to prevent going off in the upkeep because of Eternal Dragon. As a bonus the dragon lets us go infinite on turn two. I'm a fan of everything that pushes us closer to breaking the rules of the challenge without quite going too far
EDIT: I just noticed that during the second Hyperstage using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to shuffle the graveyard back into the library will destroy all our Spellweaver Volutes. I don't see a way to preserve them at that point if we cut Kiora's Dismissal. Suggestions for that problem?
Hmm, what we would like is a replacement for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn that didn't shuffle the whole graveyard and only affected our own graveyard. After a quick search I didn't find anything. But, we can always go back to Reito Lantern, since the latest layer sequence doesn't require opponent drawing as a limiter. Wheel of Fortune can be replaced by Yawgmoth's Bargain.
With the changes:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Jet
18 Metallurgeon
19 Lingering Souls
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Chatter of the Squirrel
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Taiga
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Walking Atlas
32 Royal Assassin
33 Devoted Chaplain
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Duskmantle Seer
36 Blood Tyrant
37 Olivia's Bloodsworn
38 Snow-Covered Plains
39 Eternal Dragon
40 Adarkar Windform
41 Aether Hub
42 Bloated Toad
43 Kozilek's Pathfinder
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Searing Meditation
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 World at War
53 Hunted Phantasm
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Soul Echo
56 Drowner of Secrets
57 Reito Lantern
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
That should be about F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 15}(3).
EDIT: Changed around the stage creatures to save a card. Disenchant is used to target the Metallurgeon.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Ruby
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Disenchant
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Taiga
31 Gem of Becoming
32 Walking Atlas
33 Magma Sliver
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Faerie Invaders
36 Nectar Faerie
37 Snow-Covered Plains
38 Eternal Dragon
39 Adarkar Windform
40 Aether Hub
41 Bloated Toad
42 Kozilek's Pathfinder
43 Night Dealings
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Searing Meditation
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Mighty Emergence
56 Soul Echo
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Reito Lantern
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Final damage of F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 16}(2)
EDIT: I think I found a good way to bring Wood Elves back: have the hyperstage creature be able to target it, for example with Everglove Courier. Adding Wee Dragonauts allows us to replenish both Everglove Couriers and red mana with Nectar Faerie. So the deck now goes:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Emerald
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Disenchant
25 Bump in the Night
26 Bump in the Night
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Taiga
31 Wood Elves
32 Everglove Courier
33 Knotvine Mystic
34 Nectar Faerie
35 Air Servant
36 Snow-Covered Island
37 Jhessian Zombies
38 Rimescale Dragon
39 Aether Hub
40 Disciple of Law
41 Kozilek's Pathfinder
42 Night Dealings
43 Backfire
44 Spiteful Shadows
45 Justice
46 Guilty Conscience
47 Searing Meditation
48 Spiritual Focus
49 Pain Magnification
50 Five-Alarm Fire
51 World at War
53 Cultural Exchange
54 Mighty Emergence
55 Soul Echo
56 Drowner of Secrets
57 Reito Lantern
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
Total damage of about F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 16}(3)
EDIT: Whoops, Wee dragonaughts is out of bounds because it is blue. Replace it with a red elf like Knotvine Mystic.
EDIT: Nope, we can't use red elves. I don't quite see how to make the last deck work.
Result:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Emerald
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Disenchant
25 Bump in the Night
26 Bump in the Night
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Taiga
31 Wood Elves
32 Everglove Courier
33 Merfolk Seastalkers
34 Faerie Invaders
35 Nectar Faerie
36 Snow-Covered Island
37 Shoreline Ranger
38 Adarkar Windform
39 Aether Hub
40 Bloated Toad
41 Kozilek's Pathfinder
42 Night Dealings
43 Backfire
44 Spiteful Shadows
45 Justice
46 Guilty Conscience
47 Searing Meditation
48 Spiritual Focus
49 Pain Magnification
50 Five-Alarm Fire
51 World at War
53 Cultural Exchange
54 Mighty Emergence
55 Soul Echo
56 Drowner of Secrets
57 Reito Lantern
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
[EDIT] Unfortunately, Everglove Courier has to ability to pump the toughness of Elves, which causes problems with the Guilty Conscience / Spiteful Shadows combo. Pumping the original Everglove Courier won't go infinite, since we can only create more Everglove Courier tokens by removing it from the battlefield, and then it loses all its toughness buffs. But we can certainly pump up a token. Tokens can get destroyed from Dual Nature and Obliterate, but I believe we can just ignore those cards and run the combo from Everglove Courier up to Guily Conscience, going infinite.
So, I guess we go back to the second deck in post #913.
[EDIT] I've been wondering if there is a way to go back to the older stage creatures, by having some mechanism that replenishes the hyperstage creatures other than Disenchant and the next stage creature. I had the idea of using Insurrection instead of Mobilize; unfortunately, if we resolve Obliterate before Insurrection, we can then play the hyperstage creature and have Dual Nature make several token copies. Insurrection will then give them all haste, so we can bounce the hyperstage creature, replay it in order to get Bloodbond March triggers, and then make some progress with the token copies that now have haste. We can then repeat the procedure to go infinite.
Still, I was wondering if there was an alternative for Insurrection (or we could keep Insurrection and find an alternative for Dual Nature.). Any ideas?
[EDIT] Hmm, we need a green creature without flying so that Merfolk Seastalkers can generate green mana. Change Hunted Phantasm with Hunted Troll.
[EDIT] It seems that we can't get a layer going from Guilty Conscience / Mighty Emergence to Searing Meditation. Whenn we gain life via Spiritual Focus, all the Searing Meditiatons trigger at the same time, and even though Searing Meditation has an optional ability that we have to pay for, we still have to choose their targets as they are placed on the stack. So all the target creatures must already be on the battlefield, and we cannot bump up the number of Mighty Emergence triggers in between target creatures. That drops the damage to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 15}(2).
[EDIT] Since Searing Meditation doesn't get a layer, it makes sense to replace it with Reckless Assault. Reckless Assault doesn't get a layer either, but it allows us to spend our original life total to bump up the number of Five-Alarm Fires prior to the first combat phase.
[EDIT] Unfortunately, it looks like Disenchant is too cheap. We can flashback Bump in the Night, allowing us to cast Battle Cry, Recall, and Disenchant. Make sure to resolve Recall before Disenchant. This will allow us to get Mox Ruby back, getting us our red mana back. Then, we can recast Metallurgeon, and then cast Disenchant, getting a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers. The first trigger we can use to bounce Metallurgeon, and then we can cast it again, and get a bunch of Bloodbond March triggers. This will enable us to get a bunch more Psychic Battles, and we can repeat the whole procedure repeatedly, going infinite.
Instead, we can go with Gleeful Sabotage, using Izzet Guildmage to make copies of it. We can then switch from Gem of Becoming / Walking Atlas to Nature's Lore, to keep from losing a card slot.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Ruby
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Chatter of the Squirrel
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Taiga
30 Nature's Lore
31 Gleeful Sabotage
32 Izzet Guildmage
33 Magma Sliver
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Faerie Invaders
36 Nectar Faerie
37 Snow-Covered Plains
38 Eternal Dragon
39 Adarkar Windform
40 Aether Hub
41 Bloated Toad
42 Kozilek's Pathfinder
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Reckless Assault
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
53 Hunted Troll
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Mighty Emergence
56 Soul Echo
57 Drowner of Secrets
58 Reito Lantern
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Hmm, Izzet Guildmage allows Merfolk Seastalkers to go infinite as it's a second blue creature that can be targeted and bounced for blue mana. Actually it's a third target atm, but Drowner of Secrets can be easily replaced - Hair-Strung Koto for example.
Thinking about it, we are not able to use Drowner of Secrets anyway. It's a creature that we can't preserve through Obliterate, and yet we need the effect during the low level operations of the deck. We also can't preserve Hunted Troll, but I don't think we need to repeatedly donate things to the opponent before we are able to reuse that one.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Jet
18 Metallurgeon
19 Lingering Souls
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Chatter of the Squirrel
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Taiga
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Izzet Guildmage
32 Royal Assassin
33 Devoted Chaplain
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Duskmantle Seer
36 Blood Tyrant
37 Olivia's Bloodsworn
38 Snow-Covered Plains
39 Eternal Dragon
40 Adarkar Windform
41 Aether Hub
42 Bloated Toad
43 Kozilek's Pathfinder
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Searing Meditation
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 World at War
53 Hunted Troll
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Soul Echo
56 Hair-Strung Koto
57 Reito Lantern
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
That will pull the damage back to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 14}(3).
[EDIT] I believe we can go back to the Disenchant version, provided we replace Disenchant with Hoard-Smelter Dragon, which should be expensive enough to avoid going infinite.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Ruby
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Hoard-Smelter Dragon
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Taiga
31 Gem of Becoming
32 Walking Atlas
33 Magma Sliver
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Faerie Invaders
36 Nectar Faerie
37 Snow-Covered Plains
38 Eternal Dragon
39 Adarkar Windform
40 Aether Hub
41 Bloated Toad
42 Kozilek's Pathfinder
43 Night Dealings
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Reckless Assault
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Mighty Emergence
56 Soul Echo
57 Hair-Strung Koto
58 Reito Lantern
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
Back to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 15}(2).
We can replace Mighty Emergence with Simic Initiate, which I believe solves the problem. Simic Initiate is also destroyed by Oblivion, but it functions high enough that it doesn't matter.
[EDIT] I just discovered Perpetual Timepiece, which can perform the functions of both Hair-Strung Koto and Reito Lantern. I'm not quite sure what to do with the extra card - I don't see an obvious extra layer to be added. Boon Reflection won't add an extra layer between Spiritual Focus and Reckless Assault, since after the first Reckless Assault we will lose all our life but 1 to the damage bouncing. So, for now I am adding back Finest Hour.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Ruby
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Goblin Replica
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Chatter of the Squirrel
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Obliterate
29 Mobilize
30 Taiga
31 Gem of Becoming
32 Walking Atlas
33 Magma Sliver
34 Merfolk Seastalkers
35 Faerie Invaders
36 Nectar Faerie
37 Snow-Covered Plains
38 Eternal Dragon
39 Adarkar Windform
40 Aether Hub
41 Bloated Toad
42 Kozilek's Pathfinder
43 Night Dealings
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Reckless Assault
49 Spiritual Focus
50 Pain Magnification
51 Five-Alarm Fire
52 World at War
54 Cultural Exchange
55 Simic Initiate
56 Soul Echo
57 Perpetual Timepiece
58 Show and Tell
59 Yawgmoth's Bargain
60 Finest Hour
[EDIT] Actually, it does look like Boon Reflection adds an extra layer. The trick is to activate Reckless Assault many times before resolving the activations. The difference between Reckless Assault and Searing Meditation is that the abilities of the former don't all go on the stack at the same time, so they can be nicely spaced out by the Psychic Battle triggers. The Psychic Battle triggers allow us to update the target with the latest number of +1/+1 counters, so that the layers stack.
So, we replace Finest Hour with Boon Reflection, increasing the final number to F_{w^2*2 + w*4 + 16}(2).
So, without Nectar Faerie, the best thing I see at the moment is to go back to the Royal Assassin version, which loses one card slot; so we lose Boon Reflection.
[EDIT] Made a minor improvement, switching out Merfolk Seastalkers with Break Through the Line, allowing us to use just Air Servant as the second mana stage. Added Boon Reflection back in.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Jet
18 Metallurgeon
19 Lingering Souls
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Chatter of the Squirrel
25 Chatter of the Squirrel
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Taiga
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Izzet Guildmage
32 Royal Assassin
33 Devout Chaplain
34 Break Through the Line
35 Hobgoblin Dragoon
36 Air Servant
37 Snow-Covered Plains
38 Eternal Dragon
39 Rimescale Dragon
40 Aether Hub
41 Disciple of Law
42 Kozilek's Pathfinder
44 Backfire
45 Spiteful Shadows
46 Justice
47 Guilty Conscience
48 Reckless Assault
49 Boon Reflection
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
54 Hunted Troll
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Simic Initiate
57 Soul Echo
58 Perpetual Timepiece
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
What about other colors? For green we have a Metallurgeon targeter with Sylvok Replica, but the problem is the second hyperstage creature. For blue, we have Filigree Sages, but again no second hyperstage creature, that I have found.
For red, we do have Magma Sliver and Goblin Replica. But red is the one color for which I don't know how to complete the sequence. For the first mana stage, the only cards I know of are Break Through the Line / Goblin Kites or Merfolk Seastalkers. If we go with Magma Sliver, we can't use the first two, so we have to go with Merfolk Seastalkers. But then I don't know what to do for the second mana stage, now that Nectar Faerie doesn't work. We need the second mana stage creature to be flying, and the only cards that I could find were Olivia Bloodsworn and Ali Baba. But those are both red, of course. Are there any flying possibilities for other colors?
[EDIT] I was just looking for an improvement over Royal Assassin, but now that I think about it, I don't think Royal Assassin/Devout Chaplain works. Again it's Obliterate; that destroys all token copies of Devout Chaplain, and without any such copies we can't tap any of the original cards to be targeted.
So now, we really do need an alternative.
[EDIT] Okay, I think I have a solution. We go with Magma Sliver/Goblin Replica for the second hyperstage creature/artifact targeter. Then, we stick in Wandering Mage, which is a blue creature that can target itself for a blue. The first ability costs a life, so it is no harm. The third ability is interesting; we can use it to put a -1/-1 counter on a creature at the cost of a black mana. We can spend three black to destroy Magma Sliver, allowing us to create a token copy every time we need to restart the second hyperstage. We add Ashiok's Adept to generate black mana from Wandering Mage.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Jet
18 Metallurgeon
19 Lingering Souls
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Lingering Souls
25 Lingering Souls
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Swamp
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Walking Atlas
32 Magma Sliver
33 Goblin Replica
34 Wandering Mage
35 Ashiok's Adept
36 Broodstar
37 Krosan Groundshaker
38 Snow-Covered Plains
39 Eternal Dragon
40 Adarkar Windform
41 Aether Hub
42 Bloated Toad
43 Kozilek's Pathfinder
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Reckless Assault
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
54 Hunted Troll
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Simic Initiate
57 Soul Echo
58 Perpetual Timepiece
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
[EDIT] Alternatively, we can use Ghosthelm Courier as our second hyperstage creature, and use Stern Proctor to target Metallurgeon. Spinal Villain can be used for both red and targeting Ghosthelm Courier.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Sapphire
18 Metallurgeon
19 Increasing Confusion
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Bump in the Night
25 Bump in the Night
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Mountain
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Walking Atlas
32 Ghosthelm Courier
33 Stern Proctor
34 Spinal Villain
35 Krosan Groundshaker
36 Ghoultree
37 Black Poplar Shaman
38 Snow-Covered Plains
39 Eternal Dragon
40 Adarkar Windform
41 Aether Hub
42 Bloated Toad
43 Kozilek's Pathfinder
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Reckless Assault
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
54 Hunted Troll
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Simic Initiate
57 Soul Echo
58 Perpetual Timepiece
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain
[EDIT] A minor variation, this time using Break Through the Line after Ghosthelm Courier. Could potentially save a card if we could find a low power/toughness black creature that had some other use, but I couldn't find one.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Dismiss Into Dream
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Chrome Mox
12 Copy Enchantment
13 Dual Nature
14 March of the Machines
15 Allay
16 Tooth of Ramos
17 Mox Sapphire
18 Metallurgeon
19 Increasing Confusion
20 Battle Cry
21 Retract
22 Spellweaver Volute
24 Lingering Souls
25 Lingering Souls
26 Spellweaver Helix
27 Obliterate
28 Mobilize
29 Swamp
30 Gem of Becoming
31 Walking Atlas
32 Ghosthelm Courier
33 Stern Proctor
34 Break Through the Line
35 Black Knight
36 Spinal Villain
37 Krosan Groundshaker
38 Snow-Covered Plains
39 Eternal Dragon
40 Rimescale Dragon
41 Aether Hub
42 Disciple of Law
43 Kozilek's Pathfinder
45 Backfire
46 Spiteful Shadows
47 Justice
48 Guilty Conscience
49 Reckless Assault
50 Spiritual Focus
51 Pain Magnification
52 Five-Alarm Fire
53 World at War
54 Hunted Troll
55 Cultural Exchange
56 Simic Initiate
57 Soul Echo
58 Perpetual Timepiece
59 Show and Tell
60 Yawgmoth's Bargain