Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to quite work out either. Suppose that we have a bunch of ]Deafening Clarion copies on the stack. Nikya of the Old Ways, Mox Amber, and Skilled Animator are in our graveyard. We can cast Finale of Devastation to get a bunch of copies, then cast Primevals' Glorious Rebirth on top of that. PGR resolves, we put Nikya and Mox Amber on the battlefield, and we can reshuffle PGR and FoD into our library. We can then tap Mox Amber for a red mana. We then resolve a Finale of Devastation to bring Skilled Animator on the battlefield. Then Deafening Clarion can destroy both Nikya and Mox Amber, as well as Skilled Animator, and I see no reason why we can't loop this for a while and get a bunch of red mana. Dang, this is hard!
Oh right, we cant let Deafening Clarion kill Mox Amber. I was thinking that it would kill the Skilled Animator and the mox wouldn't be a creature anymore, but it would still have 3 damage on it so the next time through the clarion gets it.
When the last deafening clarion resolves we fetch Tragic Poet and Goblin Motivator giving all haste, and reshuffling Finale. Then all our enchantments get turned into 3/3s. Next we can return Precognitive Perception to find Revival, revival back the poet, give it haste with the motivator and get Thousand-Year Storm. I think we need a second copy of revival to also return Path of Discovery so we can reshuffle after casting PGR and Deafening Clarion.
Tragic Poet looks like a good plan. Unfortunately, I think that Rampage of the Clans doesn't actually fix our problem. After copies of Deafening Clarion remove all our creatures from the battlefield, I see no reason why we can't cast all our spells and bring everything back, and get to tap Mox Amber for a red mana. The problem is, why can't we just repeat the process with more Deafening Clarion copies, and generate more red mana? Something has to allow it to happen the first time, but not the other times. So this is our biggest hurdle right now.
It would be really nice to be able to include Grand Warlord Radha but she lets mox amber tap for red without cutting us off of spells.
I think this is free from infinite combos as we can only reshuffle as long as we can keep finding creatures, and the poet needs a target to sacrifice themselves and the other creatures have to die from clarion.
I'm not really sure how to fill the rest of the deck out other than more copies of smothering tithe. Life hasn't been used as a resource yet, and we can get to 320 from Revenge before it'd kill them (negate the extra copies). We can use Bolas's Citadel to turn 3 life into a casting of clarion, but I'm not sure that's the best option.
Is there a good way to gain life or make them gain life that doesn't go infinite here?
Okay, so say we cast Deafening Clarion, costing us a red mana, and gaining us presumably a lot of copies via Thousand-Year Storm. We can play Mox Amber and Nikya, allowing us to get the red mana back. Then we resolve a Deafening Clarion to destroy Nikya. This frees us up to cast our spells, so we can cast Primevals' Glorious Rebirth, Finale of Devastation, and Rampage of the Clans, in that order. First, Rampage of the Clans resolves, destroying our Mox Amber along with our needed enchantments. Then, the copies of Finale of Devastation resolves; if we cast it with X at least 10, each time we can bring Tragic Poet back with haste, so that we can tap and sacrifice it to bring back an enchantment. So with three copies we can get Precognitive Field and Thousand-Year Storm, and Omniscience as well. Then we get to PGR, which brings back Nikya and Mox Amber, and we can tap Mox Amber for another red mana. Here's the thing though - as long as we have more copies of Deafening Clarion on the stack, we can just repeat this process. So one casting of Deafening Clarion can get us lots of red mana, so it appears to go infinite.
Edit: I think one of the reasons why this isn't working is that we have the abilities reversed - Deafening Clarion is what we are using to spend our red mana, but it is the spell that unlocks the state, rather than locking it.
What if we switched around to green mana somehow, and had Rampage of the Clans as our resource-spending spell? Well, then we couldn't use Finale of Destruction to get back Tragic Poet, in order to get our enchantments back. But, it is an interesting possibility. What Rampage of the Clans does is get rid of Precognitive Field, which could be another way to lock the state. We can't bring back Precognitive Field with an instant/sorcery until it is off the battlefield, and we can't cast an instant/sorcery with it off the battlefield. So we would have no choice but to resolve all the Rampage of the Clans until we got to an instant/sorcery below.
But, we have to be careful. If our method of retrieving Precognitive Field was to bring Tragic Poet onto the battlefield and haste it, then we could do so before we resolve Rampage of the Clans to get rid of our enchantments, and so our method to lock out instants/sorceries wouldn't work in that case.
Certainly food for thought though!
Edit: Okay, I think I have something which is close to working. Switch from Rampage of the Clans to Cleansing Nova, so that we can use white mana as our limited resource rather than green mana. Use Finale of Devastation to get our enchantments back, but rather than use Tragic Poet, use Golgari Findbroker, whose ability is an ETB ability, so we can't hold on to it like we can for Tragic Poet. We need a way to retrieve Golgari Findbroker multiple times - perhaps just a sacrifice outlet like Thallid Omnivore will do.
So, when we resolve Cleansing Nova, we get two white mana producing artifacts off the battlefield, as well as Precognitive Field, which locks the state. Then we can use Finale of Devastation to bring back our artifacts and Precognitive Field, which unlocks the state. So that seems to be working so far. The one issue seems to be: What's to prevent us from repeatedly casting Finale of Devastation? We supposedly are allowing Finale to somehow generate enough mana to recast it (say by shuffling Gift of Growth back into the library), and if we use Path of Discovery and Gaea's Blessing to reshuffle our instants/sorceries back into our library, then Finale can shuffle itself back in. So we can recast Finale without having to dip down into the stack further, which is a problem.
Perhaps using Junktroller, or multiple copies of Junktroller, could be a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, Junktroller is a creature, so we can just sacrifice it to Thallid Omnivore and bring it back with Finale of Devastation. Well, if Finale is our only haste-giving ability, then we would have to use Finale to bring Junktroller back directly, which means searching for Junktroller in the library. So we would have to tap a Junktroller to put a Junktroller into the library, which means we don't actually benefit from Junktroller. On the other hand, if we have some other haste-granting ability, then we can use Finale to bring back Golgari Findbroker, and use that to bring back Junktroller.
What if we make putting our creatures into our graveyard harder somehow? The ideal solution, I think, would be if we could cast Cleansing Nova to destroy all artifacts and enchantments, and have its copies destroy all creatures. Then we would have to resolve one copy of Cleansing Nova to put Golgari Findbroker (or multiple copies, if necessary) into our graveyard, which is exactly what we want to happen. Sadly, the rules don't allow us to do that (grrr...). What if we cast two Cleansing Novas, one to destroy creatures, and one to destroy artifacts and enchantments? That seems really dicey, but I'll think about it some more.
Yeah a sacrifice outlet like omnivore is too cheap. We can only loop Finale of Devastation as long as there are creatures to find, but once they are all on the battlefield it can't generate another reshuffle without resolving a copy of Cleansing Nova on creatures.
I think the rules forcing the copies to have the same mode helps us here actually, we need to resolve both types of novas to get our white mana back to cast another nova. Which is 4 spent white mana, if we only get 2 back it can most optimally be spent on the opposite type of Nova.
Excavation elephant is convenient because it costs a white to return an artifact and that plus the two to cast the next cleansing nova are exactly balanced out by gilded lotus. (The Mending as a way to be able to kick the elephant)
Hmm, how are we looping the stage with just two white mana back for Cleansing Nova?
I suppose Tragic Poet may be safe without an easy sacrifice outlet, but we do have to check if we can go infinite by having it on the battlefield when an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova is resolved, and using it to return Precognition Field or Path of Discovery. Probably not though.
So, I'm thinking the two Cleansing Nova idea will actually work. But, I think we will need enough artifacts to produce four white mana. The idea is that we spend two white mana to cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all artifacts and enchantments. Then we cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all creatures. If necessary, we resolve one to put our creatures into our graveyard. Next we cast Finale of Devastation. Finale can return whatever creatures it needs to, including Golgari Findbroker to bring back any other permanents that are necessary. When it brings back a creature, it can shuffle itself and, if necessary, Cleansing Nova back into the library. Then we need to resolve down to the next Cleansing Nova to put creatures back into our graveyard for Finale to retrieve them. So we gradually work through our Cleansing Novas. Once we go through all the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, for the last CN we choose not to retrieve Golgari Findbroker (or multiples if necessary). Then the artifact and enchantment destroying Cleansing Novas resolve. Then the Finale of Devastation copies from the next level down are next, and we can resolve enough to bring what we need to onto the battlefield, including our artifacts that can produce four white mana. So then we use that four white mana to cast our two Cleasning Novas, and we can rebuild our stage, except with fewer Finale of Devastations at the next level down. So I think this is operating correctly as a stage!
The thing that we have to worry about is, is there some way to create a loop where we can get our mana more than one time per two Cleansing Novas cast? I think not after examining it, since we need to get rid of our creatures for Finale of Devastation to work, each time we get rid of our enchantments. Now, Cleansing Nova does get copies, so we have to worry about just resolving one copy at a time to do what we need. But, I think we can't do that - if we resolve an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova without a creature destroying Cleansing Nova, then any Finale of Devastations that are next on the stack won't do anything. So we have to resolve down to a group of creature destroying Cleansing Novas. But, we can't just resolve one and then respond with Finale of Devastation, since we don't have Precognition Field on the battlefield. So we have to resolve all of the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, and so we will have to recast Cleansing Nova the next time we want to get white mana back.
But, I think you are saying that I am wrong, and we are able to get by with just two white mana available for Cleansing Nova? Could you explain in more detail how that works?
When a wrath version resolves we can generate a bunch of nonwhite mana by fetching all of our creatures again with Finale of Devastation.
we repeat that until we resolve the last wrath, then we fetch all of our creatures again except for Excavation Elephant. Now when our purify nova resolves we can get back all of our enchantments with Tragic Poet We use The Mending of Dominaria to put the elephant in our hand where we can kick it spending our floating white to return Gilded Lotus to make 3 white which is exactly enough to pay for the kicker as well as the next copy of nova, which we cast in wrath mode.
So we can turn a Wrath then a Purify resolving into a lot of wraths.
What do we do when running low on Purifies? When we get down to 2 Purifies left we do the above process again to get 2 mana but instead of casting a wrath now we let the last Purify resolve, use Tragic poet to find our enchantments except for The Mending then let the wrath from the next layer resolve killing our Elephant, now we can return Gilded Lotus and have 4 floating white mana which is enough to rebuild the top layer (by casting Nova=purify, negate it, then Nova=Wrath) at the cost of one of the spells from the lower layer.
The key is that to restore our white mana we need both types to resolve but can only spend that white on one of them.
We can get ~200 white mana with 4x Smothering Tithe, allowing us to build the tower ~100 levels. The cool thing is that this can all be done in response to the TYS triggers so the bottom layers will have more copies when their TYS triggers finally resolve.
Oh, nice! That is an efficient use of white mana. So it does look like what you are thinking depends on using Tragic Poet - perhaps with Golgari Findbroker, the four white mana version might work as well. But for now, it looks like we have a working stage! (fingers crossed)
So, I believe that we can create stages using Flood of Recollection. The first time it retrieves Cleansing Nova from the graveyard, and we cast it for free as the top group of the stage. Then, when that group gets used up, we resolve the next copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve it again from the graveyard, and cast it to represent the next group lower down. So each casting of Flood of Recollection can create a stage, taking X to 3 -> 3 -> X.
We can then cast Ionize to counter the original Flood of Recollection, costing us 2 life, and putting Flood of Recollection in the graveyard to be cast again later. So, each time we gain a lot of life, say with Ajani, Wise Counselor with the aid of Assure // Assemble, we take X to 3 -> 3 -> X -> 2.
So, each time we play a land, we can put two proliferate triggers on the stack, from Evolution Sage plus a Spark Double copy. Then, we can put two counters on Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and one counter on four [c]Spark Double[c/]s copying Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. That allows Ajani to gain life once, and then each of the five Teferis can tuck Ajani into the library twice after gaining life twice, so each one can indirectly contribute to four life gains. So each time we play a land, we can get 21 life gains.
We have 25 lands remaining in the library, plus we can play and sacrifice Emergence Zone five times using Wayward Swordtooth and four Spark Double copies, so we can put lands into play 30 times, not including the opening. That gets us 21*30 = 630 life gains, and at the end we can use our six Planeswalkers for two life gains each (either directly or by tucking in Ajani once) for 642 life gains each. So we should wind up with more than 3 -> 3 -> 644 -> 3 at the end.
I like the flood/ionize extension. It's not quite as good as you want due to targeting and timing. But if we follow up my combo by spending our penultimate white mana on Assemble then use ajani to gain a bunch of life, Each 2 life turns into a layer of nova, Then we use Oath to do it again,
Spark double is not safe as it can be found, copy teferi, then tuck itself, netting another reshuffle. (Or copy nothing and die) it also let's us use Teferis and oath to draw and avoid using Emergency Powers too early.
I don't think Teferi is safe either, though I haven't proven it to myself yet.
Oh right, that targeting thing that I keep forgetting about.
I'm pretty sure we can fix that by adding Bolt Bend. While we are resolving the stage, and after Cleansing Nova is cast for the last time before we need another Flood of Recollection to return it, we simply cast Bolt Bend to redirect the next Flood of Recollection to the Cleansing Nova in the graveyard, and it should all work out.
Hmm yeah, it looks like we can't have both Teferi and the Spark Double copies in the same deck. Either one will yield five life gains per land, but Teferi does so with fewer card slots, so he wins I believe.
I just noticed that we currently have no way to retrive Planeswalkers. I think Demonlord Belzenlok is good, we can retrieve nonland cards but at the cost of life. So we would only use that to retrieve our Planeswalkers.
So we can put 28 lands into play, each one getting us five life gains. (Ajani can gain life once and the destroy himself; we can then twice retrieve Ajani and gain life twice, and then destroy him with Teferi.) Then in the end we can gain life four times, for 28*5 + 4 = 144 life gains. So about 3 -> 3 -> 146 -> 3, I believe.
Edit: So, I'm thinking it would be nice to save a color of mana to be used higher up. If we could save white, we could use Sanguine Sacrament to gain a lot of life, and if we could save red, we could use Banefire to destroy Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and gain life indirectly. We can't save white if we use Cleansing Nova, but maybe we could save red mana. The only tricky thing is Bolt Bend. But, I don't think we actually need red mana for Bolt Bend. We can use a copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve Bolt Bend from the graveyard. Then, after the final Cleansing Nova is put into the graveyard, we can cast Bolt Bend, counter it, and use two copies of Bolt Bend to redirect the next two copies of Flood of Recollection to target the Bolt Bend and Cleansing Nova now sitting in the graveyard. So we don't need red mana after all.
The other thing we have to worry about is, how to switch out from Gilded Lotus. It seems like Orzhov Locket is a reasonable choice, but we need two of them. I guess we can just go with Golgari Findbroker to retrieve them.
After that, it's just a matter of generating a lot of red mana. We can use the Smothering Tithe and Induced Amnesia to get around 200 mana; adding something that will make the opponent discard (like Burglar Rat) will allow us to make the opponent draw 53 times for maximum effect. Then, just adding Nikya and a bunch of Mountains to top it off. Finally, we can add Grand Warlord Radha, along with Quasiduplicate, to generate a whole bunch of red mana during the combat phase.
With Smothering Tithe + Amnesia we can generate 53*4 = 212 red mana, then another 40 from the Mountains + Nikya. Each red mana can allow us to destroy Ajani and Teferi. So we can use Ajani and Teferi 253 times each; Ajani can life gain twice, and Teferi can tuck Ajani into the library to achieve another two life gains. So we get 1012 life gains, for 3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3. Then we can use Grand Warlord Radha to bump us up to 3 -> 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3) -> 3.
It would be nice to use Quasiduplicate to make many copies of Nikya, or our lands. But, if Spark Double is unsafe, then the only way we can make many copies of Nikya is with Helm of the Host. But Helm of the Host triggers at the beginning of combat, which means the stack is cleared. So we can't use instants/sorceries on the stack to get rid of Nikya when we need to. Perhaps there is some creature that we can play to destroy Nikya?
The other option is to make many copies of our lands. In that case, we would need our lands to come in tapped, and we would need something to untap them. Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage is no good, because we can recycle Planeswalkers with Banefire. Wilderness Reclamation happens only at the end step, when it is too late to activate our Planeswalkers. Tenth District Veteran should work, but both Tenth District Veteran and Grand Warlord Radha trigger on attacking, so we won't be able to have one profit off of the other.
I think the lockets don't work as we can sacrifice them using the other color of mana to draw the Cleansing Nova. (oh wait we don't have black mana anymore either, nice)
Ionize would also need red mana but can be returned with Bolt bend on Flood.
Quasiduplicate is definitely no good as it lets us reshuffle without removing a creature from our library/GY/hand. We have a bunch of creatures from Assure // Assemble anyway, they could even be indestructible (that's actually probably a bad idea, we dont want our attack to kill them).
Brawl-Bash Ogre is safe to remove Nikya midcombat. Undercity Scavenger would be slightly better mid-combo but isn't safe in multiples. One of each then?
Actually, Nikya's mana doesn't stick around after combat and we can't activate the walkers in combat so this isn't quite as good as we want. Lazav, The Multifarious can be a copy of Nikya when we need it to be, and then change to a Marwyn or w/e to help the combo on both ends.
Is there any hope for fitting in Response // Resurgence? I dont see a how it could possibly be safe, but would be awesome.
Hmm yes, good point about Quasiduplicate. Perhaps our reshuffling is too easy. In what other ways can we reshuffle?
Something that has caught my eye is Citywatch Sphinx. If we use that, then we can't reshuffle by putting a creature into play anymore, only a creature-destroying Cleansing Nova will do it.
The main problem that I see, is that we will reshuffle our graveyard into our library, but we will need to have permanents in our graveyard to be fetched by Tragic Poet and Golgari Findbroker. I think having multiple Citywatch Sphinxes will fix the problem - the first Citywatch Sphinx will reveal Gaea's Blessing and shuffle our graveyard into our library, and the rest can put artifacts and enchantments into our graveyard. I think having two Sphinxes will be enough, we will just fetch our permanents over multiple creature destroying Cleansing Novas. Also, I think Spark Double is now safe, so we can use that as our second Sphinx, and also second copy of other creatures.
So when we need more red mana, we can put a creature destroying Cleansing Nova on the stack, followed by Quasiduplicate and Bolt Bend. Then we play Nikya and Spark Double copying Nikya. The Bolt Bend redirects all the Quasiduplicate targets to the Spark Double, which we resolve, and then tap our Mountain for a gajillion mana. Then the Cleansing Nova resolves and we can cast again.
We can do that 29 times, so that should get us to about 3 -> 3 -> 31 -> 4. (Assuming that the abovev all works)
It would be nice to turn our lands into creatures and make a gajillion copies, but our only safe mass untapper seems to be Tenth District Veteran. Which we could use to untap lands a gajillion times, and we could use Grand Warlord Radha to save our mana between steps and phases - but, without the ability to activate our Planeswalker during combat, we won't be able to increase the number of Nikyas between Mountain tappings, not by much anyway. So Nikya + Tenth District Veteran will be a multiplicative effect, and it won't be as powerful as it looks. Even though TDV + Radha only uses up two cards, I think having two more Mountains is actually more valuable.
It would be nice to be able to use Response // Resurgence, but if we gain any benefit from attacking, it will probably go infinite since we can just destroy the attackers and repeat the process. It might be safe if the benefit comes from combat damage. So something like "when this creature deals combat damage, untap all lands (or creatures)" would be awesome, but I haven't run in to anything like that.
I think CityWatch Sphinx+Spark Double works, as it still requires a wrath to resolve to do it again. Its actually better with Quasiduplicate giving us many reshuffles per wrath (as opposed to equal to the number of creatures we have). And each reshuffle lets us quasiduplicate more sphynxes so I think this is a much better top layer.
The only way the sphynx wouldn't work is if we cant rebuild after losing all of our enchantments, but we can make copies of Tragic Poet with quasiduplicate right before, so we can rebuild pretty easily.
Also for combat, we should make Grand Warlord Radhas with Spark Double and Quasiduplicate, I think its best to do that before using all of our red from mountains rather than after, but I'm not sure.
As for other issues Kamahl's Druidic Vow goes infinite, letting us reshuffle many times for 1gg by milling Gaea's Blessing. I think something like Demonlord Belzenlock is the way to go for drawing Huatli (Tithebearer Giant is probably slightly more optimal). And Grow from the Ashes to put the mountains into play. (We can put Emergence Zone into play from the initial Emergency powers).
Hmm... with many Grand Warlord Radhas, her ability will trigger many times, but it will always trigger the same amount of times, since we can't change the number of creatures that attack. So it will be a multiplicative effect, and will take X to 3 -> 3 -> X^2 -> 3 roughly, and be about the same as a Mountain. Still, I guess Radha just requires one more card slot, so we might as well put her in in place of a Mountain. Since Radha is at the same level as tapping a Mountain, but slightly better, it's best to go into combat first, and then tap the Mountains with lots of Nikyas later.
Would there be anything to be gained by switching Finale of Devastation with Nature's Spiral? Radha gives our creatures haste already. I think we would still need Tragic Poet, but I was wondering if it could eliminate the need for Golgari Findbroker. Nature's Spiral will only work if we only have to ever cast it and immediately resolve it; if we have to cast it and leave it on the stack for a future Cleansing Nova, it won't be able to target properly.
Good point with Findbroker, I was thinking of it just for artifacts.
I think we need Finale, Its one of the best cards in the deck (well, other than Thousand-Year Storm). Finale makes Marwyn make rapidly increasing amounts of mana which can be fed back into finale. It is also how we can gain so much life from Huatli and it is a lot harder to get set up with nature's spiral (if its even possible?).
(also Radha just has haste, doesn't grant it so we'd lose another slot to say Samut, Tyrant Smasher)
I think Radha is still worth it though as red mana is our limiter and making x^2 is better than x.
My first idea was to try to make it work with Rampage of the Clans and maybe Fiery Confluence to destroy artifacts and creatures respectively. I was hoping that getting rid of Tragic Poet would force us to resolve both Rampage of the Clans and Fiery Confluence to be able to recast, so that having one red mana artifact would exactly balance it out. Here's what it would look like: We have Fiery Confluence on top of the stack, followed by Rampage of the Clans, followed by copies of Finale of Devastation. The Fiery Confluence would get rid of creatures, and shuffle our graveyard into our library. Then Rampage of the Clans would put our enchantments and artifacts into the graveyard. Then, Finale would bring our creatures back, and Golgari Findbroker could bring our enchantments and artifacts back (perhaps with Quasiduplicate to make more Findbrokers). Hmm, but then I'm not seeing how we need to resolve the next Fiery Confluence down. So yeah, it's not quite working.
I guess a more promising setup would be one which used two spells of the same color, just like the two versions of Cleansing Nova. We have Fiery Confluence already, so some other red spell that would get rid of our red mana artifact should work. But, the best I could find were targeted spells like Smelt or Shatter. Using Bolt Bend is problematic, since it requires red mana as well. Perhaps with black spells, we could use Bolt Bend, if we could find good black spells. Maybe Bedevil or Status // Statue? The problem with Statue is that it is not different modes to destroy a creature or an artifact, so with a single cast we could get a lot of copies that can alternate between destroying our black mana artifact, and destroying a creature so that we can get the artifact back with Finale.
I suppose we could try having green as our stage color, so that we could use Rampage of the Clans. We would have to switch out of Finale of Devastation though. More troubling, we would have to eliminate Marwyn and Gift of Growth from our start, which would probably delay the start a few turns. Probably not worth it for just one more layer, I guess.
Also an unfortunate rules issue: Finale of Devastation x=10+ lets us find a Spark Double and not copy anything and it sticks around as a 10/10. This allows Quasiduplicate to make copies of planeswalkers, which clearly goes infinite.
I was looking into eliminating Gift of Growth from the start and if Rallying roar is ok I think it is possible to just be one turn later, but if Marwyn is also no good then its difficult.
Another interesting modal spell that doesn't target is Angrath's Rampage, though that does kill planeswalkers too.
Oof. Let's see what we can salvage. That only seems to be a problem if we have all three of Finale of Devastation, Spark Double, and Quasiduplicate. So, we can go to the last version before Spark Double. With some modifications, we have:
So, that still gets us to 3 -> 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 1022 -> 3) -> 3. You had some good suggestions for how to get rid of Nikya with a creature, but I guess that doesn't help; the problem is that we get the token copy at the beginning of combat, and we need to have our spells on the stack at that point, or we can never put them on.
To improve, we probably want a replacement for Finale of Devastation. I was looking to see if we can get by with replacing it with Nature's Spiral; it should work as long as we are never required to leave copies on the stack. One section I was worried about was when we resolve a creature Cleansing Nova followed by a Purity Cleansing Nova. If we just resolve them one after the other, Tragic Poet will be off the battlefield, and we will be in trouble. But, I think we can do the following: After the creature Cleansing Nova, we can have our permanents in the graveyard and our instants/sorceries in our library. We cast Nature's Spiral, and fetch our creatures from our graveyard. We can also cast Quasiduplicate to get various copies of our creatures, in particular enough copies of Citywatch Sphinx. Then we resolve the Purity Cleansing Nova. We still have Tragic Poets, so we can use them to get our enchantments back. We then cast a creature Cleansing Nova (This means we have to spend two white mana that we have to get back later, that should be fine.), counter it with Disdainful Stroke, and resolve one copy. That will destroy our creatures, and shuffle what we need to into our library. We can then cast Nature's Spiral to get our permanents back, including our two mana artifacts.
So Nature's Spiral worked for that section at least. Is there any point where it fails? If Nature's Spiral doesn't work, Adventurous Impulse is a possibility, but Nature's Spiral would be preferable since we could remove Golgari Findbroker.
I guess we're going to really have to look over the stage combo to make sure that it is working. Also, we have to make sure that we can get started; we have a lot of ways to retrieve things from the graveyard, not as many from the library.
I guess I'm just not really seeing the benefit of Nature's Spiral? I think it works, sure, but we have to be much more careful with our reshuffles,
It makes the setup awkward and less efficient (it does appear to still be possible at least) and the slot we save from Findbroker has to be spent on a haste granter.
The issue I'm seeing is when we are running out of Purify novas (down to two) we need to resolve them as WPPW, and we have to end with four white mana to cast Purify and Wrath again.
Also, when setting this up we need to reshuffle the purify nova after we counter it, I don't think we can actually do that with the sphynx as our reshuffler. So I think we need 2 copies?
I think I see the issue. In my above analysis, we had to cast a Wrath Cleansing Nova to reshuffle Nature's Spiral back into the deck after we used it. So we can't take advantage of two Purify Novas in a row. I think that happens whether we have Nature's Spiral or Finale of Devastation; it's probably the Sphinx that's making things difficult. I think we can fix this in a number of ways. We can keep Golgari Findbroker, so that after we resolve the first Purify Cleansing Nova, we can cast Quasiduplicate to copy the Findbroker, getting our artifacts back, which we can quickly tap before they get destroyed by the next Purify Nova. Or, we can just have another Nature's Spiral, so we can cast both before and after the first Purify Nova. We could even do something like have Nature's Spiral (for after a Purify Nova) and Adventurous Impulse (for after a Wrath Nova). Which do you think is best?
But yeah, we need that extra card, and also a haste-granter, so instead of saving one card, we need one extra card. But, it's all worth it if we can get our Nikyas back!
As for setting up the stage, remember we do it by casting Flood of Recollection with lots of copies, and continually fetching Cleansing Nova and Bolt Bend from the graveyard. So the stage starts with one Cleansing Nova at the top, and a bunch of Flood of Recollection copies below it. As we resolve the stage, the Flood of Recollection copies will gradually be turned into Cleansing Nova layers. So it's kind of complicated, but at least for the set up, we don't need to reshuffle Cleansing Nova into the library.
Now, during resolution we do need to be able to rebuild the stage. So yeah, maybe we do need two copies of Cleansing Nova.
Oh yeah, we can only make nonlegendary Nikyas once, darn.
I am sad to lose so much mana multiplication from seeing Finale go, but the extra red mana from Nikya is definitely worth it.
Adventurous Impulse will make the start much smoother than a second nature's spiral I think.
I think there's an issue with not requiring us to wrath immediately after two Purifies, allowing us to get 4 white and cast purify and wrath and use the new top wrath to reshuffle.
Also, there may be something fishy with Induced Amnesia targeting ourselves to draw cards that aren't fetch-able like cleansing nova. I'm not sure if that's just a dumb thing to do or a possible infinite.
Hmm... we can't get the 4 white mana before casting Purify and Wrath, but we can get 2 before, and 2 after. So we just need to have 2 white mana in reserve, and it looks like we can loop. Shoot, that is a problem.
How can we force ourselves to have to resolve a Wrath after the Purifies? I think the same problem occurs with Path of Discovery rather than Citywatch Sphinx. I figure the answer has something to do with the reshuffling, but I don't know what exactly.
So the initial combo worked because we used Excavation Elephant to get our artifact and the Mending of Dominaria to return the elephant, for it to be kickable, so we needed to resolve both a wrath and a purify in either order to tap Gilded Lotus again.
Nature's Spiral I think is trouble here because it can get artifacts slightly too cheaply. I think there's a similar problem with the Findbroker and Quasiduplicate.
That combo at least seems to still work with the Sphynx as our reshuffler and also with Adventurous Impulse instead of Finale.
But the Gilded Lotus lines could make red mana...
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Edit: as for how to get set back up after Rampage of the Clans, Tragic poet seems like a possible solution, recurring it with Revival // Revenge or Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
When the last deafening clarion resolves we fetch Tragic Poet and Goblin Motivator giving all haste, and reshuffling Finale. Then all our enchantments get turned into 3/3s. Next we can return Precognitive Perception to find Revival, revival back the poet, give it haste with the motivator and get Thousand-Year Storm. I think we need a second copy of revival to also return Path of Discovery so we can reshuffle after casting PGR and Deafening Clarion.
Once Mox Amber is tapped we need to resolve a copy of Rampage of the clans to kill it so that PGR can get it back.
We can only generate red with Nikya in play, and can only remove Nikya with Clarion.
I'm envisioning something like:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Glacial Fortress
4 Marwyn, the nurturer
5 Drowned Catacombs
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognition Field
13 Gaea's Blessing
14 Smothering Tithe
15 Induced Amnesia
16 Blossom Dryad
17 Emergence Zone
18 Mox Amber
19 Nikya of the Old Ways
21 Primevals' Glorious Rebirth
22 Deafening Clarion
23 Rampage of the Clans
24 Negate
26 Tragic poet
27 Goblin Motivator
28 Revival // Revenge
29 Revival // Revenge
30 Wayward Swordtooth
31 Polyraptor
60 Yargle, Glutton of Urborg
It would be really nice to be able to include Grand Warlord Radha but she lets mox amber tap for red without cutting us off of spells.
I think this is free from infinite combos as we can only reshuffle as long as we can keep finding creatures, and the poet needs a target to sacrifice themselves and the other creatures have to die from clarion.
I'm not really sure how to fill the rest of the deck out other than more copies of smothering tithe. Life hasn't been used as a resource yet, and we can get to 320 from Revenge before it'd kill them (negate the extra copies). We can use Bolas's Citadel to turn 3 life into a casting of clarion, but I'm not sure that's the best option.
Is there a good way to gain life or make them gain life that doesn't go infinite here?
edit: fixed typo in decklist
Edit: I think one of the reasons why this isn't working is that we have the abilities reversed - Deafening Clarion is what we are using to spend our red mana, but it is the spell that unlocks the state, rather than locking it.
What if we switched around to green mana somehow, and had Rampage of the Clans as our resource-spending spell? Well, then we couldn't use Finale of Destruction to get back Tragic Poet, in order to get our enchantments back. But, it is an interesting possibility. What Rampage of the Clans does is get rid of Precognitive Field, which could be another way to lock the state. We can't bring back Precognitive Field with an instant/sorcery until it is off the battlefield, and we can't cast an instant/sorcery with it off the battlefield. So we would have no choice but to resolve all the Rampage of the Clans until we got to an instant/sorcery below.
But, we have to be careful. If our method of retrieving Precognitive Field was to bring Tragic Poet onto the battlefield and haste it, then we could do so before we resolve Rampage of the Clans to get rid of our enchantments, and so our method to lock out instants/sorceries wouldn't work in that case.
Certainly food for thought though!
Edit: Okay, I think I have something which is close to working. Switch from Rampage of the Clans to Cleansing Nova, so that we can use white mana as our limited resource rather than green mana. Use Finale of Devastation to get our enchantments back, but rather than use Tragic Poet, use Golgari Findbroker, whose ability is an ETB ability, so we can't hold on to it like we can for Tragic Poet. We need a way to retrieve Golgari Findbroker multiple times - perhaps just a sacrifice outlet like Thallid Omnivore will do.
So, when we resolve Cleansing Nova, we get two white mana producing artifacts off the battlefield, as well as Precognitive Field, which locks the state. Then we can use Finale of Devastation to bring back our artifacts and Precognitive Field, which unlocks the state. So that seems to be working so far. The one issue seems to be: What's to prevent us from repeatedly casting Finale of Devastation? We supposedly are allowing Finale to somehow generate enough mana to recast it (say by shuffling Gift of Growth back into the library), and if we use Path of Discovery and Gaea's Blessing to reshuffle our instants/sorceries back into our library, then Finale can shuffle itself back in. So we can recast Finale without having to dip down into the stack further, which is a problem.
Perhaps using Junktroller, or multiple copies of Junktroller, could be a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, Junktroller is a creature, so we can just sacrifice it to Thallid Omnivore and bring it back with Finale of Devastation. Well, if Finale is our only haste-giving ability, then we would have to use Finale to bring Junktroller back directly, which means searching for Junktroller in the library. So we would have to tap a Junktroller to put a Junktroller into the library, which means we don't actually benefit from Junktroller. On the other hand, if we have some other haste-granting ability, then we can use Finale to bring back Golgari Findbroker, and use that to bring back Junktroller.
What if we make putting our creatures into our graveyard harder somehow? The ideal solution, I think, would be if we could cast Cleansing Nova to destroy all artifacts and enchantments, and have its copies destroy all creatures. Then we would have to resolve one copy of Cleansing Nova to put Golgari Findbroker (or multiple copies, if necessary) into our graveyard, which is exactly what we want to happen. Sadly, the rules don't allow us to do that (grrr...). What if we cast two Cleansing Novas, one to destroy creatures, and one to destroy artifacts and enchantments? That seems really dicey, but I'll think about it some more.
I think the rules forcing the copies to have the same mode helps us here actually, we need to resolve both types of novas to get our white mana back to cast another nova. Which is 4 spent white mana, if we only get 2 back it can most optimally be spent on the opposite type of Nova.
I specifically used tragic poet over Golgari Findbroker because we can't cast Finale of Devastation without Precognition Field in play, so we need to do that first. Then we need to get Path of Discovery to reshuffle the Finale, and only then can we get Thousand-Year Storm and remake our mana with Marwyn and Blossom Dryad.
So I currently have:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the nurturer
5 Drowned Catacombs
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
11 Precognitive Perception
12 Path of discovery
13 Gaea's Blessing
14 Smothering Tithe
15 Induced Amnesia
16 Blossom Dryad
17 Emergence Zone
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Negate
22 The Mending of Dominaria
23 Finale of Devastation
24 Tragic Poet
25 Wayward Swordtooth
Excavation elephant is convenient because it costs a white to return an artifact and that plus the two to cast the next cleansing nova are exactly balanced out by gilded lotus. (The Mending as a way to be able to kick the elephant)
Golgari Gravedigger- Dredge w/ Jarad https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11297-golgari-gravedigger-dredge-w-jarad
Simic Rules- +1/+1 Counter Deck with Ramp: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11293-simic-rules-1-1-counter-deck-with-ramp
Vampire Tribal-Black/White Expensive Stuff: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11291-vampire-tribal-black-white-expensive-stuff
Elf Tribal- Ramp and Nissa: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/11288-elf-tribal-ramp-and-nissa
White Weenies- Mono white Humans: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/decks/10887-white-weenies-mono-white-humans
I suppose Tragic Poet may be safe without an easy sacrifice outlet, but we do have to check if we can go infinite by having it on the battlefield when an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova is resolved, and using it to return Precognition Field or Path of Discovery. Probably not though.
So, I'm thinking the two Cleansing Nova idea will actually work. But, I think we will need enough artifacts to produce four white mana. The idea is that we spend two white mana to cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all artifacts and enchantments. Then we cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all creatures. If necessary, we resolve one to put our creatures into our graveyard. Next we cast Finale of Devastation. Finale can return whatever creatures it needs to, including Golgari Findbroker to bring back any other permanents that are necessary. When it brings back a creature, it can shuffle itself and, if necessary, Cleansing Nova back into the library. Then we need to resolve down to the next Cleansing Nova to put creatures back into our graveyard for Finale to retrieve them. So we gradually work through our Cleansing Novas. Once we go through all the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, for the last CN we choose not to retrieve Golgari Findbroker (or multiples if necessary). Then the artifact and enchantment destroying Cleansing Novas resolve. Then the Finale of Devastation copies from the next level down are next, and we can resolve enough to bring what we need to onto the battlefield, including our artifacts that can produce four white mana. So then we use that four white mana to cast our two Cleasning Novas, and we can rebuild our stage, except with fewer Finale of Devastations at the next level down. So I think this is operating correctly as a stage!
The thing that we have to worry about is, is there some way to create a loop where we can get our mana more than one time per two Cleansing Novas cast? I think not after examining it, since we need to get rid of our creatures for Finale of Devastation to work, each time we get rid of our enchantments. Now, Cleansing Nova does get copies, so we have to worry about just resolving one copy at a time to do what we need. But, I think we can't do that - if we resolve an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova without a creature destroying Cleansing Nova, then any Finale of Devastations that are next on the stack won't do anything. So we have to resolve down to a group of creature destroying Cleansing Novas. But, we can't just resolve one and then respond with Finale of Devastation, since we don't have Precognition Field on the battlefield. So we have to resolve all of the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, and so we will have to recast Cleansing Nova the next time we want to get white mana back.
But, I think you are saying that I am wrong, and we are able to get by with just two white mana available for Cleansing Nova? Could you explain in more detail how that works?
So we spend all but one of our white mana making a stack of alternating novas's TYS triggers
TYS: nova=wrath of god
TYS: nova=purify
TYS: nova=wrath
TYS: nova=purify
TYS: nova=wrath
TYS: nova=purify
TYS: nova=wrath
TYS: nova=purify
TYS: nova=wrath
...
When a wrath version resolves we can generate a bunch of nonwhite mana by fetching all of our creatures again with Finale of Devastation.
we repeat that until we resolve the last wrath, then we fetch all of our creatures again except for Excavation Elephant. Now when our purify nova resolves we can get back all of our enchantments with Tragic Poet We use The Mending of Dominaria to put the elephant in our hand where we can kick it spending our floating white to return Gilded Lotus to make 3 white which is exactly enough to pay for the kicker as well as the next copy of nova, which we cast in wrath mode.
So we can turn a Wrath then a Purify resolving into a lot of wraths.
What do we do when running low on Purifies? When we get down to 2 Purifies left we do the above process again to get 2 mana but instead of casting a wrath now we let the last Purify resolve, use Tragic poet to find our enchantments except for The Mending then let the wrath from the next layer resolve killing our Elephant, now we can return Gilded Lotus and have 4 floating white mana which is enough to rebuild the top layer (by casting Nova=purify, negate it, then Nova=Wrath) at the cost of one of the spells from the lower layer.
The key is that to restore our white mana we need both types to resolve but can only spend that white on one of them.
We can get ~200 white mana with 4x Smothering Tithe, allowing us to build the tower ~100 levels. The cool thing is that this can all be done in response to the TYS triggers so the bottom layers will have more copies when their TYS triggers finally resolve.
So, I believe that we can create stages using Flood of Recollection. The first time it retrieves Cleansing Nova from the graveyard, and we cast it for free as the top group of the stage. Then, when that group gets used up, we resolve the next copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve it again from the graveyard, and cast it to represent the next group lower down. So each casting of Flood of Recollection can create a stage, taking X to 3 -> 3 -> X.
We can then cast Ionize to counter the original Flood of Recollection, costing us 2 life, and putting Flood of Recollection in the graveyard to be cast again later. So, each time we gain a lot of life, say with Ajani, Wise Counselor with the aid of Assure // Assemble, we take X to 3 -> 3 -> X -> 2.
So I'm thinking of something like:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Drowned Catacomb
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognitive Field
12 Path of Discovery
13 Gaea's Blessing
15 Emergence Zone
16 Gilded Lotus
17 Excavation Elephant
18 Cleansing Nova
19 Disdainful Stroke
20 The Mending of Dominaria
21 Finale of Devastation
22 Tragic Poet
23 Wayward Sawtooth
24 Flood of Recollection
25 Ionize
27 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
28 Spark Double
29 Spark Double
30 Spark Double
31 Spark Double
32 Oath of Teferi
33 Assure // Assemble
34 Evolution Sage
35 Grow from the Ashes
25 Island
So, each time we play a land, we can put two proliferate triggers on the stack, from Evolution Sage plus a Spark Double copy. Then, we can put two counters on Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and one counter on four [c]Spark Double[c/]s copying Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. That allows Ajani to gain life once, and then each of the five Teferis can tuck Ajani into the library twice after gaining life twice, so each one can indirectly contribute to four life gains. So each time we play a land, we can get 21 life gains.
We have 25 lands remaining in the library, plus we can play and sacrifice Emergence Zone five times using Wayward Swordtooth and four Spark Double copies, so we can put lands into play 30 times, not including the opening. That gets us 21*30 = 630 life gains, and at the end we can use our six Planeswalkers for two life gains each (either directly or by tucking in Ajani once) for 642 life gains each. So we should wind up with more than 3 -> 3 -> 644 -> 3 at the end.
Spark double is not safe as it can be found, copy teferi, then tuck itself, netting another reshuffle. (Or copy nothing and die) it also let's us use Teferis and oath to draw and avoid using Emergency Powers too early.
I don't think Teferi is safe either, though I haven't proven it to myself yet.
I'm pretty sure we can fix that by adding Bolt Bend. While we are resolving the stage, and after Cleansing Nova is cast for the last time before we need another Flood of Recollection to return it, we simply cast Bolt Bend to redirect the next Flood of Recollection to the Cleansing Nova in the graveyard, and it should all work out.
Hmm yeah, it looks like we can't have both Teferi and the Spark Double copies in the same deck. Either one will yield five life gains per land, but Teferi does so with fewer card slots, so he wins I believe.
I just noticed that we currently have no way to retrive Planeswalkers. I think Demonlord Belzenlok is good, we can retrieve nonland cards but at the cost of life. So we would only use that to retrieve our Planeswalkers.
So:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Drowned Catacomb
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognitive Field
13 Gaea's Blessing
14 Blossom Dryad
15 Emergence Zone
16 Gilded Lotus
17 Excavation Elephant
18 Cleansing Nova
19 Disdainful Stroke
20 The Mending of Dominaria
21 Finale of Devastation
22 Tragic Poet
24 Flood of Recollection
25 Bolt Bend
26 Ionize
27 Ajani, Wise Counselor
28 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
29 Demonlord Belzenlok
30 Oath of Teferi
31 Assure // Assemble
32 Evolution Sage
33 Grow from the Ashes
So we can put 28 lands into play, each one getting us five life gains. (Ajani can gain life once and the destroy himself; we can then twice retrieve Ajani and gain life twice, and then destroy him with Teferi.) Then in the end we can gain life four times, for 28*5 + 4 = 144 life gains. So about 3 -> 3 -> 146 -> 3, I believe.
Edit: So, I'm thinking it would be nice to save a color of mana to be used higher up. If we could save white, we could use Sanguine Sacrament to gain a lot of life, and if we could save red, we could use Banefire to destroy Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and gain life indirectly. We can't save white if we use Cleansing Nova, but maybe we could save red mana. The only tricky thing is Bolt Bend. But, I don't think we actually need red mana for Bolt Bend. We can use a copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve Bolt Bend from the graveyard. Then, after the final Cleansing Nova is put into the graveyard, we can cast Bolt Bend, counter it, and use two copies of Bolt Bend to redirect the next two copies of Flood of Recollection to target the Bolt Bend and Cleansing Nova now sitting in the graveyard. So we don't need red mana after all.
The other thing we have to worry about is, how to switch out from Gilded Lotus. It seems like Orzhov Locket is a reasonable choice, but we need two of them. I guess we can just go with Golgari Findbroker to retrieve them.
After that, it's just a matter of generating a lot of red mana. We can use the Smothering Tithe and Induced Amnesia to get around 200 mana; adding something that will make the opponent discard (like Burglar Rat) will allow us to make the opponent draw 53 times for maximum effect. Then, just adding Nikya and a bunch of Mountains to top it off. Finally, we can add Grand Warlord Radha, along with Quasiduplicate, to generate a whole bunch of red mana during the combat phase.
So we have:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Island
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Island
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognitive Field
12 Path of Discovery
13 Gaea's Blessing
15 Emergence Zone
16 Orzhov Locket
17 Orzhov Locket
18 Cleansing Nova
19 Disdainful Stroke
20 Golgari Findbroker
21 Finale of Devastation
22 Tragic Poet
23 Flood of Recollection
24 Bolt Bend
25 Ionize
26 Ajani, Wise Counselor
27 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
28 Oath of Teferi
29 Assure // Assemble
31 Quasiduplicate
32 Kamahl's Druidic Vow
33 Banefire
34 Smothering Tithe
35 Smothering Tithe
36 Smothering Tithe
37 Smothering Tithe
38 Induced Amnesia
39 Burgler Rat
40 Nikya of the Old Ways
20 Mountain
With Smothering Tithe + Amnesia we can generate 53*4 = 212 red mana, then another 40 from the Mountains + Nikya. Each red mana can allow us to destroy Ajani and Teferi. So we can use Ajani and Teferi 253 times each; Ajani can life gain twice, and Teferi can tuck Ajani into the library to achieve another two life gains. So we get 1012 life gains, for 3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3. Then we can use Grand Warlord Radha to bump us up to 3 -> 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3) -> 3.
It would be nice to use Quasiduplicate to make many copies of Nikya, or our lands. But, if Spark Double is unsafe, then the only way we can make many copies of Nikya is with Helm of the Host. But Helm of the Host triggers at the beginning of combat, which means the stack is cleared. So we can't use instants/sorceries on the stack to get rid of Nikya when we need to. Perhaps there is some creature that we can play to destroy Nikya?
The other option is to make many copies of our lands. In that case, we would need our lands to come in tapped, and we would need something to untap them. Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage is no good, because we can recycle Planeswalkers with Banefire. Wilderness Reclamation happens only at the end step, when it is too late to activate our Planeswalkers. Tenth District Veteran should work, but both Tenth District Veteran and Grand Warlord Radha trigger on attacking, so we won't be able to have one profit off of the other.
I think the lockets don't work as we can sacrifice them using the other color of mana to draw the Cleansing Nova. (oh wait we don't have black mana anymore either, nice)
Ionize would also need red mana but can be returned with Bolt bend on Flood.
Quasiduplicate is definitely no good as it lets us reshuffle without removing a creature from our library/GY/hand. We have a bunch of creatures from Assure // Assemble anyway, they could even be indestructible (that's actually probably a bad idea, we dont want our attack to kill them).
Brawl-Bash Ogre is safe to remove Nikya midcombat. Undercity Scavenger would be slightly better mid-combo but isn't safe in multiples. One of each then?
Actually, Nikya's mana doesn't stick around after combat and we can't activate the walkers in combat so this isn't quite as good as we want. Lazav, The Multifarious can be a copy of Nikya when we need it to be, and then change to a Marwyn or w/e to help the combo on both ends.
Is there any hope for fitting in Response // Resurgence? I dont see a how it could possibly be safe, but would be awesome.
Something that has caught my eye is Citywatch Sphinx. If we use that, then we can't reshuffle by putting a creature into play anymore, only a creature-destroying Cleansing Nova will do it.
The main problem that I see, is that we will reshuffle our graveyard into our library, but we will need to have permanents in our graveyard to be fetched by Tragic Poet and Golgari Findbroker. I think having multiple Citywatch Sphinxes will fix the problem - the first Citywatch Sphinx will reveal Gaea's Blessing and shuffle our graveyard into our library, and the rest can put artifacts and enchantments into our graveyard. I think having two Sphinxes will be enough, we will just fetch our permanents over multiple creature destroying Cleansing Novas. Also, I think Spark Double is now safe, so we can use that as our second Sphinx, and also second copy of other creatures.
So, if that works, Spark Double and Quasiduplicate are now safe, and we can now make many Nikyas. I think then it's not worth it to try to boost our life gain with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Oath of Teferi, the most powerful thing we can do now is to add more Mountains. Also, Huatli, Warrior Poet looks slightly superior to Ajani, Wise Counselor.
So we have:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Island
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Island
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognitive Field
13 Spark Double
14 Gaea's Blessing
15 Gyre Engineer
16 Emergence Zone
17 Orzhov Locket
18 Orzhov Locket
19 Cleansing Nova
20 Disdainful Stroke
21 Golgari Findbroker
23 Tragic Poet
24 Flood of Recollection
25 Bolt Bend
26 Ionize
27 Huatli, Warrior Poet
28 Kamahl's Druidic Vow
29 Banefire
30 Nikya of the Old Ways
31 Quasiduplicate
So when we need more red mana, we can put a creature destroying Cleansing Nova on the stack, followed by Quasiduplicate and Bolt Bend. Then we play Nikya and Spark Double copying Nikya. The Bolt Bend redirects all the Quasiduplicate targets to the Spark Double, which we resolve, and then tap our Mountain for a gajillion mana. Then the Cleansing Nova resolves and we can cast again.
We can do that 29 times, so that should get us to about 3 -> 3 -> 31 -> 4. (Assuming that the abovev all works)
It would be nice to turn our lands into creatures and make a gajillion copies, but our only safe mass untapper seems to be Tenth District Veteran. Which we could use to untap lands a gajillion times, and we could use Grand Warlord Radha to save our mana between steps and phases - but, without the ability to activate our Planeswalker during combat, we won't be able to increase the number of Nikyas between Mountain tappings, not by much anyway. So Nikya + Tenth District Veteran will be a multiplicative effect, and it won't be as powerful as it looks. Even though TDV + Radha only uses up two cards, I think having two more Mountains is actually more valuable.
It would be nice to be able to use Response // Resurgence, but if we gain any benefit from attacking, it will probably go infinite since we can just destroy the attackers and repeat the process. It might be safe if the benefit comes from combat damage. So something like "when this creature deals combat damage, untap all lands (or creatures)" would be awesome, but I haven't run in to anything like that.
The only way the sphynx wouldn't work is if we cant rebuild after losing all of our enchantments, but we can make copies of Tragic Poet with quasiduplicate right before, so we can rebuild pretty easily.
Also for combat, we should make Grand Warlord Radhas with Spark Double and Quasiduplicate, I think its best to do that before using all of our red from mountains rather than after, but I'm not sure.
As for other issues Kamahl's Druidic Vow goes infinite, letting us reshuffle many times for 1gg by milling Gaea's Blessing. I think something like Demonlord Belzenlock is the way to go for drawing Huatli (Tithebearer Giant is probably slightly more optimal). And Grow from the Ashes to put the mountains into play. (We can put Emergence Zone into play from the initial Emergency powers).
Hmm, I think Huatli, Warrior Poet is safe to fetch with Golgari Findbroker. If so, I would rather just switch Kamahl's Druidic Vow for Grow from the Ashes straight up, rather than put in Tithebearer Giant and lose a Mountain.
Would there be anything to be gained by switching Finale of Devastation with Nature's Spiral? Radha gives our creatures haste already. I think we would still need Tragic Poet, but I was wondering if it could eliminate the need for Golgari Findbroker. Nature's Spiral will only work if we only have to ever cast it and immediately resolve it; if we have to cast it and leave it on the stack for a future Cleansing Nova, it won't be able to target properly.
I think we need Finale, Its one of the best cards in the deck (well, other than Thousand-Year Storm). Finale makes Marwyn make rapidly increasing amounts of mana which can be fed back into finale. It is also how we can gain so much life from Huatli and it is a lot harder to get set up with nature's spiral (if its even possible?).
(also Radha just has haste, doesn't grant it so we'd lose another slot to say Samut, Tyrant Smasher)
I think Radha is still worth it though as red mana is our limiter and making x^2 is better than x.
I think we could increase the rightmost number to a 5 if we could switch out of using white mana. Then we could use Sanguine Sacrament instead of having to Banefire a Planeswalker, and then that would allow us to use Wilderness Reclamation, Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage and Tenth District Veteran to untap a gazillion lands.
My first idea was to try to make it work with Rampage of the Clans and maybe Fiery Confluence to destroy artifacts and creatures respectively. I was hoping that getting rid of Tragic Poet would force us to resolve both Rampage of the Clans and Fiery Confluence to be able to recast, so that having one red mana artifact would exactly balance it out. Here's what it would look like: We have Fiery Confluence on top of the stack, followed by Rampage of the Clans, followed by copies of Finale of Devastation. The Fiery Confluence would get rid of creatures, and shuffle our graveyard into our library. Then Rampage of the Clans would put our enchantments and artifacts into the graveyard. Then, Finale would bring our creatures back, and Golgari Findbroker could bring our enchantments and artifacts back (perhaps with Quasiduplicate to make more Findbrokers). Hmm, but then I'm not seeing how we need to resolve the next Fiery Confluence down. So yeah, it's not quite working.
I guess a more promising setup would be one which used two spells of the same color, just like the two versions of Cleansing Nova. We have Fiery Confluence already, so some other red spell that would get rid of our red mana artifact should work. But, the best I could find were targeted spells like Smelt or Shatter. Using Bolt Bend is problematic, since it requires red mana as well. Perhaps with black spells, we could use Bolt Bend, if we could find good black spells. Maybe Bedevil or Status // Statue? The problem with Statue is that it is not different modes to destroy a creature or an artifact, so with a single cast we could get a lot of copies that can alternate between destroying our black mana artifact, and destroying a creature so that we can get the artifact back with Finale.
I suppose we could try having green as our stage color, so that we could use Rampage of the Clans. We would have to switch out of Finale of Devastation though. More troubling, we would have to eliminate Marwyn and Gift of Growth from our start, which would probably delay the start a few turns. Probably not worth it for just one more layer, I guess.
Also an unfortunate rules issue: Finale of Devastation x=10+ lets us find a Spark Double and not copy anything and it sticks around as a 10/10. This allows Quasiduplicate to make copies of planeswalkers, which clearly goes infinite.
I was looking into eliminating Gift of Growth from the start and if Rallying roar is ok I think it is possible to just be one turn later, but if Marwyn is also no good then its difficult.
Another interesting modal spell that doesn't target is Angrath's Rampage, though that does kill planeswalkers too.
Oof. Let's see what we can salvage. That only seems to be a problem if we have all three of Finale of Devastation, Spark Double, and Quasiduplicate. So, we can go to the last version before Spark Double. With some modifications, we have:
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Island
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Island
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Precognitive Field
12 Citywatch Sphinx
13 Gaea's Blessing
15 Emergence Zone
16 Orzhov Locket
17 Orzhov Locket
18 Cleansing Nova
19 Disdainful Stroke
20 Golgari Findbroker
21 Finale of Devastation
22 Tragic Poet
23 Flood of Recollection
24 Bolt Bend
25 Ionize
26 Ajani, Wise Counselor
27 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
28 Oath of Teferi
30 Quasiduplicate
31 Grow from the Ashes
32 Banefire
33 Smothering Tithe
34 Smothering Tithe
35 Smothering Tithe
36 Smothering Tithe
37 Induced Amnesia
38 Burgler Rat
39 Nikya of the Old Ways
21 Mountain
So, that still gets us to 3 -> 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 1022 -> 3) -> 3. You had some good suggestions for how to get rid of Nikya with a creature, but I guess that doesn't help; the problem is that we get the token copy at the beginning of combat, and we need to have our spells on the stack at that point, or we can never put them on.
To improve, we probably want a replacement for Finale of Devastation. I was looking to see if we can get by with replacing it with Nature's Spiral; it should work as long as we are never required to leave copies on the stack. One section I was worried about was when we resolve a creature Cleansing Nova followed by a Purity Cleansing Nova. If we just resolve them one after the other, Tragic Poet will be off the battlefield, and we will be in trouble. But, I think we can do the following: After the creature Cleansing Nova, we can have our permanents in the graveyard and our instants/sorceries in our library. We cast Nature's Spiral, and fetch our creatures from our graveyard. We can also cast Quasiduplicate to get various copies of our creatures, in particular enough copies of Citywatch Sphinx. Then we resolve the Purity Cleansing Nova. We still have Tragic Poets, so we can use them to get our enchantments back. We then cast a creature Cleansing Nova (This means we have to spend two white mana that we have to get back later, that should be fine.), counter it with Disdainful Stroke, and resolve one copy. That will destroy our creatures, and shuffle what we need to into our library. We can then cast Nature's Spiral to get our permanents back, including our two mana artifacts.
So Nature's Spiral worked for that section at least. Is there any point where it fails? If Nature's Spiral doesn't work, Adventurous Impulse is a possibility, but Nature's Spiral would be preferable since we could remove Golgari Findbroker.
I guess we're going to really have to look over the stage combo to make sure that it is working. Also, we have to make sure that we can get started; we have a lot of ways to retrieve things from the graveyard, not as many from the library.
I guess I'm just not really seeing the benefit of Nature's Spiral? I think it works, sure, but we have to be much more careful with our reshuffles,
It makes the setup awkward and less efficient (it does appear to still be possible at least) and the slot we save from Findbroker has to be spent on a haste granter.
The issue I'm seeing is when we are running out of Purify novas (down to two) we need to resolve them as WPPW, and we have to end with four white mana to cast Purify and Wrath again.
Also, when setting this up we need to reshuffle the purify nova after we counter it, I don't think we can actually do that with the sphynx as our reshuffler. So I think we need 2 copies?
The benefit of Nature's Spiral is to eliminate the infinite that we are getting with Finale of Devastation + [c}Spark Double[/c] + Quasiduplicate. It doesn't happen with Nature's Spiral, correct?
I think I see the issue. In my above analysis, we had to cast a Wrath Cleansing Nova to reshuffle Nature's Spiral back into the deck after we used it. So we can't take advantage of two Purify Novas in a row. I think that happens whether we have Nature's Spiral or Finale of Devastation; it's probably the Sphinx that's making things difficult. I think we can fix this in a number of ways. We can keep Golgari Findbroker, so that after we resolve the first Purify Cleansing Nova, we can cast Quasiduplicate to copy the Findbroker, getting our artifacts back, which we can quickly tap before they get destroyed by the next Purify Nova. Or, we can just have another Nature's Spiral, so we can cast both before and after the first Purify Nova. We could even do something like have Nature's Spiral (for after a Purify Nova) and Adventurous Impulse (for after a Wrath Nova). Which do you think is best?
But yeah, we need that extra card, and also a haste-granter, so instead of saving one card, we need one extra card. But, it's all worth it if we can get our Nikyas back!
As for setting up the stage, remember we do it by casting Flood of Recollection with lots of copies, and continually fetching Cleansing Nova and Bolt Bend from the graveyard. So the stage starts with one Cleansing Nova at the top, and a bunch of Flood of Recollection copies below it. As we resolve the stage, the Flood of Recollection copies will gradually be turned into Cleansing Nova layers. So it's kind of complicated, but at least for the set up, we don't need to reshuffle Cleansing Nova into the library.
Now, during resolution we do need to be able to rebuild the stage. So yeah, maybe we do need two copies of Cleansing Nova.
I am sad to lose so much mana multiplication from seeing Finale go, but the extra red mana from Nikya is definitely worth it.
Adventurous Impulse will make the start much smoother than a second nature's spiral I think.
I think there's an issue with not requiring us to wrath immediately after two Purifies, allowing us to get 4 white and cast purify and wrath and use the new top wrath to reshuffle.
Also, there may be something fishy with Induced Amnesia targeting ourselves to draw cards that aren't fetch-able like cleansing nova. I'm not sure if that's just a dumb thing to do or a possible infinite.
How can we force ourselves to have to resolve a Wrath after the Purifies? I think the same problem occurs with Path of Discovery rather than Citywatch Sphinx. I figure the answer has something to do with the reshuffling, but I don't know what exactly.
Nature's Spiral I think is trouble here because it can get artifacts slightly too cheaply. I think there's a similar problem with the Findbroker and Quasiduplicate.
That combo at least seems to still work with the Sphynx as our reshuffler and also with Adventurous Impulse instead of Finale.
But the Gilded Lotus lines could make red mana...