Oh I misread the Reverberation, nice. I thought it could go infinite with itself like expansion or Narset's Reversal.
Reverberation clearly gets us another layer in the old Excavation Elephant deck, massively multiplying the number of Teferi Activations.
As for your latest deck
I think having both Oath of teferi and Ajani the Greathearted causes some issues with planeswalkers being able to kill themselves, but I haven't found a loop yet.
Unfortunately, its incompatible with our current nova stage as the saga lets a purify nova kill the creature that gets our mana rock back.
Edit 2: Nice, Reckless Air Strike lets us hit Citywatch Sphinx but not Excavation Elephant. Unfortunately it can hit an artifact too. We might still be able to build a stage out of the reshuffles. (or at least a 'pseudo-stage' where it gets rebuilt taller with every wrath/purify but cant rebuild itself?)
That would be awesome, if you could build another stage out of reshuffling! Please continue your investigations, it looks like you are getting somewhere.
Okay, so I think I have found a way to get Replicate back in. So, the problem with Replicate is that, after a Purify Nova, we could play Golgari Findbroker or whatever our artifact fetching creature is, get the Mox Amber back, resolve another Purify Nova, cast Quasiduplicate to copy the Findbroker, and get Mox Amber back again. So we get to fetch Mox Amber twice, which is no good.
But, I noticed with Finale of Devastation, it puts the fetched creature on the battlefield immediately. Since we have to cast FoD after a Wrath Nova, to bring back needed Tragic Poets, we can arrange it so that we have to bring back the Findbroker as well - so long as we don't have any reshuffles available while we are resolving Purify Novas. So get rid of The Mending of Dominaria, and go back to Citywatch Sphinx, I suppose.
So, the idea I had in mind was to actually have two copies of Replicate. After a Wrath Nova, we have to cast FoD, to bring back Tragic Poet. We also have to bring back the Findbroker, since if we don't bring him back now, we won't be able to at all until after the Purify Novas resolve. We also need to cast a Replicate at this point, since one Tragic Poet is not enough - we need three to bring back our enchantments. So we cast Replicate, and get enough copies of Tragic Poets, and the rest can create Citywatch Sphinxes or whatever. So we have used both FoD and one Replicate. Then we resolve a Purify Nova, and use three Tragic Poets to bring back our enchantments. We then cast Replicate again, and use one copy on the Findbroker, so that we can bring back Mox Amber. And that's it, we have no way of getting more Findbrokers on the battlefield until we cast a Wrath Nova again. So I think this keeps us from getting to many Mox Ambers. Does this work?
If that works, what do we gain from having Replicate back? Unfortunately, I don't see a way to get to 8 layers, since we still don't have Nikya available. But, we can go back to our old life gain combo of Banefire targeting a lifelinked, indestructible Sun-Crowned Hunters. This allows us to bring back Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, so we get two nested chains of 7 layers.
As for the extra card slots: First, we can go back to our proliferate in combat combo, and this time we can attack with many replicated Guildpact Informants, so we get another big influx of red mana to add to all the Sanctum of the Suns. Next, we can add four Smothering Tithe plus Unmoored Ego. We can couple that with our three big life gainers (Huatli and the two Ajanis), plus Oath of Teferi, plus Ugin, the Ineffable to recycle them all again once we've used them. So that gets us 12 more big life gains in addition to the one for Sun-Crowned Hunters, and then we can recycle for each red mana. So we get 205 * 13 = 2665 big life gains, for about 3 -> 3 -> 2665 -> 6 TYS count, or more than 2 -> 11 -> 2 -> 7. Then, we get proliferates and our 30 Sanctum of the Suns, taking us to 2 -> 11 -> 33 -> 7. Then, we can activate Teferi many times to get us to more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 11 -> 33 -> 7) -> 7.
The rest of the deck can be filled out by early life gain: Grasping Thrull and Spear Spewer, aided by [c}Angel of Vitality[/c].
Hmm, Gideon's indestructibility messes with that plan but other than that lets see:
We are still trying to resolve the novas as WW PP WW PP to maximize the WP and PW pairs.
After a wrath nova we have a bunch of reshuffles on the stack.
We cast FoD getting poet + Findbroker (Findbroker returns mox if possible).
Replicate many copies of sphinx
Reshuffles make mana and other abundant resources.
Next wrath resolves,
Get poet and not findbroker (no mox to grab).
Copy enough poets, (do this before we are out of FoD, they need haste)
Reshuffle
Purify resolves.
poets rebuild
FoD for Findbroker get mox
Purify resolves.
Poets rebuild.
Can now replicate Findbroker for mox.
This is infinite with even one replicate. Spark double might be safe within the stage but doesn't look safe with the PWs.
Basically the idea with phyrexian scriptures and Martyr was that it was a semi repeatable way to wrath, but that it needed to be kicked off by a wrath nova. Refetch the Martyr before phyrexian scripture's II resolves, and we can refetch the saga with poets.
I think a "pseudo-stage" that can't rebuild itself might not be good enough, but I'm not sure. Its certainly not as powerful as a stage, but it does get rebuilt bigger and bigger by the Nova stage. I defer to your large number knowledge.
If Reckless Air Strike couldn't kill artifacts, would the combo in my previous post be worth losing the current advantages that limited red gives?
Hmm, that's too bad. It looks like it might work if we only get one shuffle per Wrath, but of course with Replicate we can get many copies of Citywatch Sphinx. With an ETB shuffling creature, we could just get a reshuffle with a Replicate. What we need is something like Excavation Elephant, except for reshuffling. I don't suppose there is a card like that.
I don't quite follow your Reckless Air Strike combo, but anything below a stage that is less than a stage is not going to account for much; even if that pseudo-stage was a googolplex layers, that will quickly get dwarfed by a following stage. Adding layers following a stage is far more profitable.
In this theoretical 'pseudo-stage' the number of layers is the storm count.
For the fliers only Reckless Air Strike combo, we make a ton of red mana in the normal Nova stage.
And we can use that red mana to start a reshuffle sequence, we make X copies of Citywatch sphinx and target each of them with an air strike for R. Whenever one resolves we get a reshuffle, We use the reshuffle to make more nonlegendary copies of Teysa Karlov so that the next sphinx gives even more reshuffles. (and we also get ~5-10 storm per reshuffle)
Eventually the original Air strike resolves and we can do the whole thing over again but with 1 less red and more storm and Teysas.
Repeat for each red we can make.
Once we are out of red, before we get back to the next wrath, we make a bunch of Nikya of the old ways, and tap the mountains for a bunch of red. Then resolve the wrath.
We can reset our mountains with Fall of the Thran + Grow from the ashes every Purify Nova.
So each Wrath/Purify pair gives us 1 white as usual, and X red where x is the current storm count.
That looks like just a couple of layers to me. Each reshuffle adds a constant amount to the TYS count. Each trigger of Citywatch Sphinx gets a bunch of reshuffles, so it multiplies the storm count. Each Reckless Air Strike can destroy X Citywatch Sphinxes, which exponentaites the TYS count, or Layer 1 in our usual method of counting. Each X red mana can cast a bunch of Reckless Air Strikes, so that's Layer 2. So each Wrath Purify pair generates X red, which allows us to take X to 2^^X. That's I think another two layers over just a bunch of reshuffling from Wrath, but those layers are unnoticeable in a big stage.
Hmmm, I was wondering if Martyr for the Cause plus The Mending of Domnaria (we would take out Gaea's Blessing) would restrict reshuffling enough. Let's see: We resolve a Wrath Nova, which destroys possibly many copies of Martyr for the Cause, which puts a bunch of proliferate triggers on the stack. We respond by casting Finale of Devastation, which brings back creatures including Tragic Poet and Martyr for the Cause, and we cast Replicate to get many copies of Tragic Poet. So we can repeatedly proliferate TMoD to reshuffle, then use a Tragic Poet to bring it back to our hand and recast it. So we can still get a lot of reshuffles that way.
Even one reshuffle per wrath is enough, if we can make some poets indestructible.
Hmm, I think if we are going to make an additional stage, we either need another way to counter spells, or to find a way to make a stage out of ETB abilities or creature death triggers.
For ways to counter spells, we already have disdainful stroke and Ionize to make countering cmc 3 or less cost 2 life.
Siren Stormtamer can counter things that target us or one of our guys for a blue. (Gaea's Blessing also targets a player) Cerulean Drake is similar.
a Role Reversal-ed Lavinia, Azorious Renegade counters things we don't spend mana on, at the cost of not being able to cast big things (Like Cleansing Nova, Omniscience, or Thousand Year-Storm) at all until we kill her or swap her back.
M20's Aether Gust also looks interesting and is another way to counter Gaea's Blessing.
None of these yet seem like the way to go.
As for the creature ETB stage, this seems difficult. Even though we do have the core of the stage combo from last year's standard, it is not compatible with the Nova stage.
Any compatible creature stage:
Can't kill or bounce our artifact retriever, (packbeast/Findbroker/Elephant)
Cant draw cards,
Can't kill or bounce artifacts.
Indestructibility is not really a problem, since we don't really need Gideon - we can just use Bolt Bend to retarget each Banefire onto a new Sun-Crowned Hunters.
It would be pretty cool if we could find a way to use Lavinia, although that seems pretty tricky.
Yeah, Lavinia seems super awkward to actually use.
Lumbering battlement seems safe with Excavation Elephant, Is there potential there?
I was also a bit hasty when I said we couldn't draw cards, we just cant draw our mana rock or Cleansing nova, so Niv-Mizzet Reborn can get up to 10 cards at a time.
Lumbering Battlement might have potential, but I'm not seeing what to use it for yet. It allows us to get ETB effects when we Wrath Nova, but we can already do that.
So, now that we are back to the deck in post #427, I want to check if we can actually execute the stage with that we have. FortyTwo, do you see a way to run the stage with three Tragic Poets and a The Mending of Dominaria? The problem I am encountering is, not only do we need Omniscience, Precognition Field, and Thousand-Year Storm, we also need The Mending of Dominaria, if we are to retrieve a Golgari Findbroker to get back our artifact. And we can't use the reshuffling from The Mending of Dominaria until we get all our enchantments, since Tragic Poet gets them from the graveyard.
Could we possibly have an enchantment in our hand when the first Purify Nova goes off, like The Mending of Dominaria? Let's see - after the Purify Nova goes off, we still need to recover the other three enchantments, so we use all three of our Tragic Poets. We then play The Mending of Dominaria, and reshuffle. We need Tragic Poets again, so we cast Finale of Devastation and get all three back, with haste. Hmm, now we can get only three enchantments back, so we are in trouble.
Can we do it with four Tragic Poets? So, let's start after a Wrath Nova again. We cast a Finale of Devastation to bring back our creatures, except Golgari Findbroker.. We have four Tragic Poets on the battlefield now, so we can retrieve all four enchantments, and then The Mending of Dominaria can reshuffle our graveyard into our library. We cast Finale of Devastation to get our four Tragic Poets back, then resolve another Purify Nova. We bring our enchantments back again. Since we reshuffled, we can certainly cast a Wrath Nova at this point. We can resolve a Wrath Nova. Now we can play The Mending of Dominaria to fetch Golgari Findbroker, and bring back our Mox Amber a second time, and also reshuffle. So now after all our Wrath Novas, we will have Finale of Devastation in our library, so we can cast it again to bring back our Tragic Poets. Golgari Findbroker will be in the graveyard, so all is good I think.
What about WWPPWW? So we follow the above until after the second Purify Nova. We then resolve the next Wrath Nova rather than cast it. Again, we play The Mending of Dominaria to fetch Golgari Findbroker and bring back Mox Amber. We also reshuffle. We then resolve another Wrath, putting Golgari Findbroker in the graveyard; the Tragic Poets are in the library, as is Finale of Devastation and Cleansing Nova. We now cast a Purify Nova. We also need to cast Finale of Devastation, to bring back our Tragic Poets. We then resolve a Purify Nova, and our Tragic Poets bring back our enchantments, and The Mending of Dominaria brings back Golgari Findbroker and reshuffles. We cast Finale of Devastation again, and bring back our Poets. We resolve another Purify Nova, and the Poets bring the enchantments back. We cast a Wrath Nova, and resolve it to destroy our Findbroker. We cast The Mending of Dominaria, bringing back the Findbroker, which fetches our Mox Amber, and reshuffle. So all seems to go according to plan.
So, is four Tragic Poets and one The Mending of Dominaria the minimum?
You are missing that the same Finale cast can get the same poet multiple times as long as there is an enchantment for it to get, I was pretty sure 3 worked but lets see:
So after purify1 we have all the enchantments, Findbroker, and the Mox in the yard. And we need to use the 3 hasty poets to get back our main 3 enchantments.
Now we can use a copy of Finale to get back a Findbroker, Findbroker back the Mox and make white as usual.
Some copies of Finale get poets to return other enchantments, like TMoD, end with 3 hasty poets.
TMoD reshuffles.
Resolve purify,
Use the 3 poets to rebuild the big 3
Resolve wrath.
Use TMoD to get back Findbroker (and reshuffle?)
Use Findbroker to get Mox and make white
Resolve wrath
Use Finale to get 3 hasty poets
resolve purify
hmm this is close to working but is a bit short as now finale is in the yard instead of the deck as it was at the start.
I think we may need another way to reshuffle, another poet or another way to get haste?
Yeah, the problem seems to be that we have to cast the Finale of Devastation to get our Poets, so we won't have it around to get our Findbroker. It could work, if we could keep The Mending of Dominaria around after we cast Finale of Devastation, but it looks like we need to play the TMoD at some point to get back Golgari Findbroker.
A second copy if Finale of Devastation should do it, but that doesn't save us a card.
Okay, so let's see if we can execute a WWPPWW combo. So, between Wrath Novas, we can put a Loaming Shaman into play, and reshuffle. So we have a filled library, then we resolve a Wrath Nova. We cast Finale of Devastation to retrieve our Tragic Poets and give them haste, and cast Find // Finale to retrieve our Loaming Shaman; Golgari Findbroker can be in our hand.
So, we resolve the first Purify Nova. We sacrifice our Tragic Poet to retrieve our enchantments, and replay them. We then cast Golgari Findbroker, and bring back our Mox Amber to tap. We also play Loaming Shaman to reshuffle, and cast Finale of Devastation to bring back our Tragic Poets. We then resolve the second Purify Nova, destroying our enchantments and Mox Amber again. We retrieve the enchantments with our new Tragic Poets. Then a Wrath Nova resolves, which destroys the Shaman and the Findbroker. We cast Find // Finale to bring them back, and play the Findbroker to bring back the Mox Amber and tap it. We play the Shaman to reshuffle. Another Wrath resolves, and we play Finale of Devastation to bring our Tragic Poets back, and Find // Finale to bring the Shaman and the Findbroker back.
Next, we cast a Purify Nova. Since we have our creatures in the same position as before, we can resolve those two Purify Novas in the same way, getting our enchantments back, and getting one tap from Mox Amber. Since we reshuffled during that, we can now cast a Wrath Nova. The first one resolves, destroying the Shaman and the Findbroker. We fetch them with Find // Finale, and play the Findbroker to fetch the Mox Amber and tap it for the fourth time. Play Shaman again to reshuffle, and we can proceed this way through all the Wrath Novas until we get to the Purify Novas again.
So it does look like this saves a card. I was wondering if it was perhaps possible to get by with two Tragic Poets, since we could sacrifice those two to get back Omniscience and Precognition Field, and then we could play Finale of Devastation from the library to retrieve one of those Tragic Poets, which could retrieve the Thousand-Year Storm. But that only works once, while we have to get through two Purify Novas.
So, the previews haven't given us any color-restricted mana artifacts, but they did give us an interesting artifact: Manifold Key. This artifact can untap another artifact, so having it allows us two uses of Mox Amber, which is what we needed to make Excavation Elephant work with it. So, how about:
Just like the previous attempt, getting Replicate back doesn't give us any more layers, since we still don't have access to Nikya of the Old Ways. But, we get the advantage of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria back. In the above, we get 204 red mana from Smothering Tithe, and each red mana allows us to get a lot of life from Sun-Crowned Hunters, and also from our Planeswalkers; we get six big life gains from our life-gaining Planeswalkers (thanks to Angel of Vitality), doubled for Oath of Teferi and doubled again for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria recycling them. So we get 205 * 25 = 5125big life gains, for more than 2 -> 12 -> 2 -> 7. Then we gain a lot of red mana through proliferation, and then 26 more times from 26 Sanctum of the Suns, for a total of more than 2 -> 12 -> 29 -> 7. Then we go ham with Teferi, getting us to more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 12 -> 29 -> 7) -> 7.
Nice, losing Nikya kind of sucks but its definitely worth it.
One unfortunate wrench in this plan is that Karn can animate the key, making it both replicate-able and gift of growth-able.
Does Yarok, the Desecrated cause sagas to trigger a second time when cast? I don't think so because they enter with the counter and the counter triggers the effect.
Yeah the spoilers have been good for a core set, but its still a core set.
We did just get some new potentially interesting cards: Kethis, the hidden hand is another recursion option, legendary artifacts can be returned with Karn, but this seems awkward and can only be done sorcery speed. Blood for Bones is a non-targeting reanimation/raise dead that costs a creature sacrifice to cast.
Oh right, we lose Karn. Is there any other way to return exiled cards other than Squee or Karn?
Otherwise, we can still probably exile around 40 cards, which gives us 8 [c]Sanctum of the Sun[c/]s. That will still take us to about 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 12 -> 11 -> 7) -> 7.
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is interesting; I take it only the legendary cards that are currently in the graveyard when we activate Kethis gain that ability? If so, then yeah it could be quite hard to use. Not sure how we can use Blood for Bones.
Edit: I agree with you about Yarok and Sagas - the triggered effects are only indirectly related to ETB, so I don't think that the are duplicated by Yarok and company. And I don't think adding a lore counter is a triggered effect, since it doesn't have the magic keywords, so I don't think that is duplicated either.
Ooh, I think I found a way to add another layer, without even needing to add any more cards. We donate a lifelinked, indestructible token copy of Sun-Crowned Hunters to the opponent, along with as many copies of Angel of Vitality as we can. We then cast Banefire, and direct each copy of Banefire at the opponent's token. So long as both we and the opponent have at least 4 life, it doesn't much matter where the opponent targets the 3 damage. The opponent will then gain a lot of life with each copy of Banefire. Each time, we repeatedly play Grasping Thrull, this time with lots of Angels of Vitality on our side, to gain a lot of life. So that's another layer, up to 8.
This new combo means that Dowsing Dagger and Switcheroo are now unexilable. According to my count, we have up to 39 unexilable cards, missing out on 8 Sanctum of the Suns by just one card. The 21 cards that don't seem to be exilable are:
1 Omniscience
2 Emergency Powers
3 Thousand-Year Storm
4 Precognition Field
5 Adventurous Impulse
6 Repudiate // Replicate
7 Mox Amber
8 Manifold Key
9 Excavation Elephant
10 Cleansing Nova
11 Disdainful Stroke
12 The Mending of Dominaria
13 Gaea's Blessing
14 Hijack
15 Honor the God-Pharaoh
16 Ionize
17 Banefire
18 Dowsing Dagger
19 Switcheroo
20 Azor's Gateway
21 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Some possibilities to reduce the list: Is there a creature that can give the opponent permanents, to replace Dowsing Dagger? Or can we possibly replace The Mending of Dominaria and/or Gaea's Blessing with some combo that has at most one noncreature?
Wanted Scoundrels will give the opponent tokens, but unfortunately the opponent can sacrifice them at any time.
Because the cards need to actually be exiled for a bit, I don't think there's anything other than Squee and Karn and a quick look didn't turn anything up.
2xSquee is the obvious pairing with Kethis, the hidden hand, but spending RRRR just to be able to recast some legends seems very expensive.
(and yes its just the cards currently in the yard, otherwise 2 Mox Ambers would go infinite.)
And Squee is red, so incompatible with Mox Amber.
Nice, Angel of Vitality is pretty convenient for that. Note that we can't control a Gideon as the opponent can just shoot that with the trigger.
Do we even need Angrath's Marauders anymore? They were a large part of the final damage, but now they don't really add much else to the combo.
Also, Bond of discipline is redundant with Teysa Karlov.
Nah, we don't need Angrath's Marauders anymore; while it doubles rather than just adding 1, we would need to keep more life to survive the hit then, which would actually cost us more.
True, we can just Repudiate the original Grasping Thrull, so that all our hits are made using Thrull tokens.
Finale of Devastation can be replaced by Torch Courier, getting us one away from having 40 exilable cards. I went back to Finale of Devastation in the current deck, since if we can't get to 40, we might as well exile just 35 cards, and I figured that Finale of Devastation was a little better than Torch Courier otherwise.
If finale is coming out, is Spark Double working? having lots of extra Yarok and Teysas as well as having bonus walkers is nice. (oh conflicts with the start and Teferi + oath of Teferi)
Hmm, maybe animating the key isn't so bad, as it dies to either nova (if we remove Gideon so it can't be indestructible). We can make a bunch of mana from it once sure, but need to reshuffle to make more, which needs a nova to get kicked off, and then we would need to animate it again, which needs karn to die which we can only do with red mana, Red mana that the key can't make.
Losing Gideon is bad, but Bolt Bend can work in its place.
Edit: hmm also Gideon was key to be able to attack them without killing them. we can lose a card slot and some efficiency with Role Reversal+any other gideon (make it a creature, swap it with a plant, swap it with one of our real walkers)
So, the changes make our number of exilable cards drop drastically, down to 22 by my count. (just the last 20 cards plus Marwyn, the Nurturer and Karn, the Great Creator) But that's still 22 Sanctum of the Suns as opposed to 7; so that should give us more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 7 -> 25 -> 8) -> 8.
I think my write up from a few weeks ago was -> 5.
The start up looks a little awkward to get to an x=10 finale, but after that, the rest of the setup is very smooth due to extra early copies of Replicate and Honor the God pharaoh drawing an extra card.
The Karn return loops are also a little terrible because we are exiling two of our stage combo pieces, so we need to kill him an extra time to get everything back, and he can only be activated at sorcery speed.
Edit: oh another interesting thing, Karn turns off treasure tokens for them, so we can maybe go to wanted scoundrels? (pivoting to creatures with role reversal through sphinx of the guildpact)
Or maybe Baffling End?
Yeah, the Karn loops look like a pain, but they should be doable. Although actually, we can just cast a Repeated Reverberation prior to using Karn, and then after we activate Karn we can retrieve all four artifacts.
If we switch out Dowsing Dagger for Wanted Scoundrels or Baffling End, we would also need to add another artifact, and Wanted Scoundrels/Baffling End won't be exilable. So we would lose a card slot that way. On the plus side, we would be able to exile Gift of Growth if we got an artifact with a different CMC, so it would actually break even more or less.
Edit: Okay, I think I have an idea for getting more layers, and it involves Dreadhorde Butcher again. So, we give a bunch of Dreadhorde Butchers lifelink with Gideon, and use Role Reversal to transfer them over to the opponent, along with a bunch of Teysa Karlovs and a bunch of Angel of Vitality. We cast Banefire to target them one by one, destroying them and getting a lot of triggers because of all the Teysa Karlovs, and each trigger causes the opponent to gain a lot of life, because of all the Angels of Vitality. Then, we can use Grasping Thrull to turn all of their life into a lot of life for us.
Edit: Hmm, after what you noticed regarding how we need to reshuffle to continue an infinite combo, and that involves repeatedly casting Cleansing Nova, it occurs to me that many of the combos that we thought were infinite maybe are actually not. With the right reshuffling trigger, perhaps Dreadhorde Butcher plus Teysa Karlov does not go infinite?
Reverberation clearly gets us another layer in the old Excavation Elephant deck, massively multiplying the number of Teferi Activations.
As for your latest deck
I think having both Oath of teferi and Ajani the Greathearted causes some issues with planeswalkers being able to kill themselves, but I haven't found a loop yet.
Also March of the Multitudes is probably the token maker we want.
Edit: I think I may have found an interesting interaction with Martyr for the cause and Phyrexian Scriptures
Unfortunately, its incompatible with our current nova stage as the saga lets a purify nova kill the creature that gets our mana rock back.
Edit 2: Nice, Reckless Air Strike lets us hit Citywatch Sphinx but not Excavation Elephant. Unfortunately it can hit an artifact too. We might still be able to build a stage out of the reshuffles. (or at least a 'pseudo-stage' where it gets rebuilt taller with every wrath/purify but cant rebuild itself?)
IE, Using Fall of the Thran+mountains+Nikya of the old ways+Grow From the ashes to make a bunch of red within the Nova Stage, but can't generate more red just from reshuffling.
Yeah, Ajani, the Greathearted looks like it might be dangerous - it's life gain is not a big deal anyway.
I guess if we are going to have Elenda, the Dusk Rose, we might as well use it for our own token maker as well.
Can you describe the interesting interaction with Martyr for the Cause and Phyrexian Scriptures in more detail?
That would be awesome, if you could build another stage out of reshuffling! Please continue your investigations, it looks like you are getting somewhere.
Okay, so I think I have found a way to get Replicate back in. So, the problem with Replicate is that, after a Purify Nova, we could play Golgari Findbroker or whatever our artifact fetching creature is, get the Mox Amber back, resolve another Purify Nova, cast Quasiduplicate to copy the Findbroker, and get Mox Amber back again. So we get to fetch Mox Amber twice, which is no good.
But, I noticed with Finale of Devastation, it puts the fetched creature on the battlefield immediately. Since we have to cast FoD after a Wrath Nova, to bring back needed Tragic Poets, we can arrange it so that we have to bring back the Findbroker as well - so long as we don't have any reshuffles available while we are resolving Purify Novas. So get rid of The Mending of Dominaria, and go back to Citywatch Sphinx, I suppose.
So, the idea I had in mind was to actually have two copies of Replicate. After a Wrath Nova, we have to cast FoD, to bring back Tragic Poet. We also have to bring back the Findbroker, since if we don't bring him back now, we won't be able to at all until after the Purify Novas resolve. We also need to cast a Replicate at this point, since one Tragic Poet is not enough - we need three to bring back our enchantments. So we cast Replicate, and get enough copies of Tragic Poets, and the rest can create Citywatch Sphinxes or whatever. So we have used both FoD and one Replicate. Then we resolve a Purify Nova, and use three Tragic Poets to bring back our enchantments. We then cast Replicate again, and use one copy on the Findbroker, so that we can bring back Mox Amber. And that's it, we have no way of getting more Findbrokers on the battlefield until we cast a Wrath Nova again. So I think this keeps us from getting to many Mox Ambers. Does this work?
If that works, what do we gain from having Replicate back? Unfortunately, I don't see a way to get to 8 layers, since we still don't have Nikya available. But, we can go back to our old life gain combo of Banefire targeting a lifelinked, indestructible Sun-Crowned Hunters. This allows us to bring back Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, so we get two nested chains of 7 layers.
As for the extra card slots: First, we can go back to our proliferate in combat combo, and this time we can attack with many replicated Guildpact Informants, so we get another big influx of red mana to add to all the Sanctum of the Suns. Next, we can add four Smothering Tithe plus Unmoored Ego. We can couple that with our three big life gainers (Huatli and the two Ajanis), plus Oath of Teferi, plus Ugin, the Ineffable to recycle them all again once we've used them. So that gets us 12 more big life gains in addition to the one for Sun-Crowned Hunters, and then we can recycle for each red mana. So we get 205 * 13 = 2665 big life gains, for about 3 -> 3 -> 2665 -> 6 TYS count, or more than 2 -> 11 -> 2 -> 7. Then, we get proliferates and our 30 Sanctum of the Suns, taking us to 2 -> 11 -> 33 -> 7. Then, we can activate Teferi many times to get us to more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 11 -> 33 -> 7) -> 7.
The rest of the deck can be filled out by early life gain: Grasping Thrull and Spear Spewer, aided by [c}Angel of Vitality[/c].
So we have:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Sulfur Falls
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Emergence Zone
11 Thousand-Year Storm
12 Precognition Field
13 Finale of Devastation
14 Gyre Engineer
Stage Combo:
15 Mox Amber
16 Trusty Packbeast
17 Cleansing Nova
18 Cleansing Nova
19 Disdainful Stroke
Rebuild and reshuffle:
20 Tragic Poet
21 Repudiate // Replicate
22 Repudiate // Replicate
23 Citywatch Sphinx
24 Gaea's Blessing
25 Hijack
26 Honor the God-Pharaoh
27 Ionize
Life Gain:
28 Banefire
29 Sun-Crowned Hunters
30 Gideon Blackblade
31 Angrath's Marauders
Proliferating:
32 Fall of the Thran
33 Guildpact Informant
34 Dowsing Dagger
35 Switcheroo
Land Transforming:
36 Azor's Gateway
Untapping:
37 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Returning from Exile:
38 Karn, the Great Creator
39 Sphinx of the Guildpact
40 Parhelion II
Early Red Mana:
41 Smothering Tithe
42 Smothering Tithe
43 Smothering Tithe
44 Smothering Tithe
45 Unmoored Ego
46 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
47 Ajani, Wise Counselor
48 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
49 Oath of Teferi
50 Repeated Reverberation
51 Elenda, the Dusk Rose
52 Ugin, the Ineffable
53 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
54 Grasping Thrull
55 Bond of Discipline
56 Angel of Vitality
57 Angel of Vitality
58 Angel of Vitality
59 Angel of Vitality
60 Spear Spewer
Edit: In case Golgari Findbroker is problematic, we can switch back to Trusty Packbeast.
We are still trying to resolve the novas as WW PP WW PP to maximize the WP and PW pairs.
After a wrath nova we have a bunch of reshuffles on the stack.
We cast FoD getting poet + Findbroker (Findbroker returns mox if possible).
Replicate many copies of sphinx
Reshuffles make mana and other abundant resources.
Next wrath resolves,
Get poet and not findbroker (no mox to grab).
Copy enough poets, (do this before we are out of FoD, they need haste)
Reshuffle
Purify resolves.
poets rebuild
FoD for Findbroker get mox
Purify resolves.
Poets rebuild.
Can now replicate Findbroker for mox.
This is infinite with even one replicate. Spark double might be safe within the stage but doesn't look safe with the PWs.
Basically the idea with phyrexian scriptures and Martyr was that it was a semi repeatable way to wrath, but that it needed to be kicked off by a wrath nova. Refetch the Martyr before phyrexian scripture's II resolves, and we can refetch the saga with poets.
I think a "pseudo-stage" that can't rebuild itself might not be good enough, but I'm not sure. Its certainly not as powerful as a stage, but it does get rebuilt bigger and bigger by the Nova stage. I defer to your large number knowledge.
If Reckless Air Strike couldn't kill artifacts, would the combo in my previous post be worth losing the current advantages that limited red gives?
I don't quite follow your Reckless Air Strike combo, but anything below a stage that is less than a stage is not going to account for much; even if that pseudo-stage was a googolplex layers, that will quickly get dwarfed by a following stage. Adding layers following a stage is far more profitable.
For the fliers only Reckless Air Strike combo, we make a ton of red mana in the normal Nova stage.
And we can use that red mana to start a reshuffle sequence, we make X copies of Citywatch sphinx and target each of them with an air strike for R. Whenever one resolves we get a reshuffle, We use the reshuffle to make more nonlegendary copies of Teysa Karlov so that the next sphinx gives even more reshuffles. (and we also get ~5-10 storm per reshuffle)
Eventually the original Air strike resolves and we can do the whole thing over again but with 1 less red and more storm and Teysas.
Repeat for each red we can make.
Once we are out of red, before we get back to the next wrath, we make a bunch of Nikya of the old ways, and tap the mountains for a bunch of red. Then resolve the wrath.
We can reset our mountains with Fall of the Thran + Grow from the ashes every Purify Nova.
So each Wrath/Purify pair gives us 1 white as usual, and X red where x is the current storm count.
Hmm, I think if we are going to make an additional stage, we either need another way to counter spells, or to find a way to make a stage out of ETB abilities or creature death triggers.
For ways to counter spells, we already have disdainful stroke and Ionize to make countering cmc 3 or less cost 2 life.
Siren Stormtamer can counter things that target us or one of our guys for a blue. (Gaea's Blessing also targets a player)
Cerulean Drake is similar.
a Role Reversal-ed Lavinia, Azorious Renegade counters things we don't spend mana on, at the cost of not being able to cast big things (Like Cleansing Nova, Omniscience, or Thousand Year-Storm) at all until we kill her or swap her back.
M20's Aether Gust also looks interesting and is another way to counter Gaea's Blessing.
None of these yet seem like the way to go.
As for the creature ETB stage, this seems difficult. Even though we do have the core of the stage combo from last year's standard, it is not compatible with the Nova stage.
Any compatible creature stage:
Can't kill or bounce our artifact retriever, (packbeast/Findbroker/Elephant)
Cant draw cards,
Can't kill or bounce artifacts.
And probably more...
It would be pretty cool if we could find a way to use Lavinia, although that seems pretty tricky.
Hmm, with Yarok, the Desecration, Spark Double, and Quasiduplicate, it looks like we can make a stage out of ETB. But yeah, it seems pretty difficult to make that work with our Nova stage.
Lumbering battlement seems safe with Excavation Elephant, Is there potential there?
I was also a bit hasty when I said we couldn't draw cards, we just cant draw our mana rock or Cleansing nova, so Niv-Mizzet Reborn can get up to 10 cards at a time.
So, now that we are back to the deck in post #427, I want to check if we can actually execute the stage with that we have. FortyTwo, do you see a way to run the stage with three Tragic Poets and a The Mending of Dominaria? The problem I am encountering is, not only do we need Omniscience, Precognition Field, and Thousand-Year Storm, we also need The Mending of Dominaria, if we are to retrieve a Golgari Findbroker to get back our artifact. And we can't use the reshuffling from The Mending of Dominaria until we get all our enchantments, since Tragic Poet gets them from the graveyard.
Could we possibly have an enchantment in our hand when the first Purify Nova goes off, like The Mending of Dominaria? Let's see - after the Purify Nova goes off, we still need to recover the other three enchantments, so we use all three of our Tragic Poets. We then play The Mending of Dominaria, and reshuffle. We need Tragic Poets again, so we cast Finale of Devastation and get all three back, with haste. Hmm, now we can get only three enchantments back, so we are in trouble.
Can we do it with four Tragic Poets? So, let's start after a Wrath Nova again. We cast a Finale of Devastation to bring back our creatures, except Golgari Findbroker.. We have four Tragic Poets on the battlefield now, so we can retrieve all four enchantments, and then The Mending of Dominaria can reshuffle our graveyard into our library. We cast Finale of Devastation to get our four Tragic Poets back, then resolve another Purify Nova. We bring our enchantments back again. Since we reshuffled, we can certainly cast a Wrath Nova at this point. We can resolve a Wrath Nova. Now we can play The Mending of Dominaria to fetch Golgari Findbroker, and bring back our Mox Amber a second time, and also reshuffle. So now after all our Wrath Novas, we will have Finale of Devastation in our library, so we can cast it again to bring back our Tragic Poets. Golgari Findbroker will be in the graveyard, so all is good I think.
What about WWPPWW? So we follow the above until after the second Purify Nova. We then resolve the next Wrath Nova rather than cast it. Again, we play The Mending of Dominaria to fetch Golgari Findbroker and bring back Mox Amber. We also reshuffle. We then resolve another Wrath, putting Golgari Findbroker in the graveyard; the Tragic Poets are in the library, as is Finale of Devastation and Cleansing Nova. We now cast a Purify Nova. We also need to cast Finale of Devastation, to bring back our Tragic Poets. We then resolve a Purify Nova, and our Tragic Poets bring back our enchantments, and The Mending of Dominaria brings back Golgari Findbroker and reshuffles. We cast Finale of Devastation again, and bring back our Poets. We resolve another Purify Nova, and the Poets bring the enchantments back. We cast a Wrath Nova, and resolve it to destroy our Findbroker. We cast The Mending of Dominaria, bringing back the Findbroker, which fetches our Mox Amber, and reshuffle. So all seems to go according to plan.
So, is four Tragic Poets and one The Mending of Dominaria the minimum?
So after purify1 we have all the enchantments, Findbroker, and the Mox in the yard. And we need to use the 3 hasty poets to get back our main 3 enchantments.
Now we can use a copy of Finale to get back a Findbroker, Findbroker back the Mox and make white as usual.
Some copies of Finale get poets to return other enchantments, like TMoD, end with 3 hasty poets.
TMoD reshuffles.
Resolve purify,
Use the 3 poets to rebuild the big 3
Resolve wrath.
Use TMoD to get back Findbroker (and reshuffle?)
Use Findbroker to get Mox and make white
Resolve wrath
Use Finale to get 3 hasty poets
resolve purify
hmm this is close to working but is a bit short as now finale is in the yard instead of the deck as it was at the start.
I think we may need another way to reshuffle, another poet or another way to get haste?
A second copy if Finale of Devastation should do it, but that doesn't save us a card.
So, how about the following idea: We get rid of The Mending of Dominaria and Gaea's Blessing, and go with Finale of Devastation, Find // Finale, Loaming Shaman, and three Tragic Poets. That should reduce our card count by one.
Okay, so let's see if we can execute a WWPPWW combo. So, between Wrath Novas, we can put a Loaming Shaman into play, and reshuffle. So we have a filled library, then we resolve a Wrath Nova. We cast Finale of Devastation to retrieve our Tragic Poets and give them haste, and cast Find // Finale to retrieve our Loaming Shaman; Golgari Findbroker can be in our hand.
So, we resolve the first Purify Nova. We sacrifice our Tragic Poet to retrieve our enchantments, and replay them. We then cast Golgari Findbroker, and bring back our Mox Amber to tap. We also play Loaming Shaman to reshuffle, and cast Finale of Devastation to bring back our Tragic Poets. We then resolve the second Purify Nova, destroying our enchantments and Mox Amber again. We retrieve the enchantments with our new Tragic Poets. Then a Wrath Nova resolves, which destroys the Shaman and the Findbroker. We cast Find // Finale to bring them back, and play the Findbroker to bring back the Mox Amber and tap it. We play the Shaman to reshuffle. Another Wrath resolves, and we play Finale of Devastation to bring our Tragic Poets back, and Find // Finale to bring the Shaman and the Findbroker back.
Next, we cast a Purify Nova. Since we have our creatures in the same position as before, we can resolve those two Purify Novas in the same way, getting our enchantments back, and getting one tap from Mox Amber. Since we reshuffled during that, we can now cast a Wrath Nova. The first one resolves, destroying the Shaman and the Findbroker. We fetch them with Find // Finale, and play the Findbroker to fetch the Mox Amber and tap it for the fourth time. Play Shaman again to reshuffle, and we can proceed this way through all the Wrath Novas until we get to the Purify Novas again.
So it does look like this saves a card. I was wondering if it was perhaps possible to get by with two Tragic Poets, since we could sacrifice those two to get back Omniscience and Precognition Field, and then we could play Finale of Devastation from the library to retrieve one of those Tragic Poets, which could retrieve the Thousand-Year Storm. But that only works once, while we have to get through two Purify Novas.
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Sulfur Falls
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Emergence Zone
11 Thousand-Year Storm
12 Precognition Field
13 Adventurous Impulse
14 Gyre Engineer
15 Repudiate // Replicate
16 Finale of Devastation
Stage Combo:
17 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Yarok, the Desecrated
23 Tragic Poet
24 The Mending of Dominaria
25 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana and Drawing:
26 Hijack
27 Honor the God-Pharaoh
28 Ionize
Life Gain:
29 Banefire
30 Sun-Crowned Hunters
31 Gideon Blackblade
32 Angrath's Marauders
Land Transforming:
33 Azor's Gateway
Untapping:
34 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Returning from Exile:
35 Karn, the Great Creator
36 Sphinx of the Guildpact
37 Parhelion II
Proliferating:
38 Fall of the Thran
39 Guildpact Informant
40 Baffling End
41 Switcheroo
Early Red Mana:
42 Smothering Tithe
43 Smothering Tithe
44 Smothering Tithe
45 Smothering Tithe
46 Unmoored Ego
47 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
48 Ajani, Wise Counselor
49 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
50 Oath of Teferi
51 Repeated Reverberation
52 Ajani, the Great-Hearted
53 Ajani, Inspiring Leader
54 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
55 Angel of Vitality
56 Whispering Snitch
57 Grasping Thrull
58 Bond of Discipline
59 Thorn Lieutenant
60 Citywatch Sphinx
Just like the previous attempt, getting Replicate back doesn't give us any more layers, since we still don't have access to Nikya of the Old Ways. But, we get the advantage of Teferi, Hero of Dominaria back. In the above, we get 204 red mana from Smothering Tithe, and each red mana allows us to get a lot of life from Sun-Crowned Hunters, and also from our Planeswalkers; we get six big life gains from our life-gaining Planeswalkers (thanks to Angel of Vitality), doubled for Oath of Teferi and doubled again for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria recycling them. So we get 205 * 25 = 5125big life gains, for more than 2 -> 12 -> 2 -> 7. Then we gain a lot of red mana through proliferation, and then 26 more times from 26 Sanctum of the Suns, for a total of more than 2 -> 12 -> 29 -> 7. Then we go ham with Teferi, getting us to more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 12 -> 29 -> 7) -> 7.
One unfortunate wrench in this plan is that Karn can animate the key, making it both replicate-able and gift of growth-able.
Does Yarok, the Desecrated cause sagas to trigger a second time when cast? I don't think so because they enter with the counter and the counter triggers the effect.
Yeah the spoilers have been good for a core set, but its still a core set.
We did just get some new potentially interesting cards: Kethis, the hidden hand is another recursion option, legendary artifacts can be returned with Karn, but this seems awkward and can only be done sorcery speed. Blood for Bones is a non-targeting reanimation/raise dead that costs a creature sacrifice to cast.
Otherwise, we can still probably exile around 40 cards, which gives us 8 [c]Sanctum of the Sun[c/]s. That will still take us to about 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 12 -> 11 -> 7) -> 7.
Kethis, the Hidden Hand is interesting; I take it only the legendary cards that are currently in the graveyard when we activate Kethis gain that ability? If so, then yeah it could be quite hard to use. Not sure how we can use Blood for Bones.
Edit: I agree with you about Yarok and Sagas - the triggered effects are only indirectly related to ETB, so I don't think that the are duplicated by Yarok and company. And I don't think adding a lore counter is a triggered effect, since it doesn't have the magic keywords, so I don't think that is duplicated either.
Ooh, I think I found a way to add another layer, without even needing to add any more cards. We donate a lifelinked, indestructible token copy of Sun-Crowned Hunters to the opponent, along with as many copies of Angel of Vitality as we can. We then cast Banefire, and direct each copy of Banefire at the opponent's token. So long as both we and the opponent have at least 4 life, it doesn't much matter where the opponent targets the 3 damage. The opponent will then gain a lot of life with each copy of Banefire. Each time, we repeatedly play Grasping Thrull, this time with lots of Angels of Vitality on our side, to gain a lot of life. So that's another layer, up to 8.
This new combo means that Dowsing Dagger and Switcheroo are now unexilable. According to my count, we have up to 39 unexilable cards, missing out on 8 Sanctum of the Suns by just one card. The 21 cards that don't seem to be exilable are:
1 Omniscience
2 Emergency Powers
3 Thousand-Year Storm
4 Precognition Field
5 Adventurous Impulse
6 Repudiate // Replicate
7 Mox Amber
8 Manifold Key
9 Excavation Elephant
10 Cleansing Nova
11 Disdainful Stroke
12 The Mending of Dominaria
13 Gaea's Blessing
14 Hijack
15 Honor the God-Pharaoh
16 Ionize
17 Banefire
18 Dowsing Dagger
19 Switcheroo
20 Azor's Gateway
21 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Some possibilities to reduce the list: Is there a creature that can give the opponent permanents, to replace Dowsing Dagger? Or can we possibly replace The Mending of Dominaria and/or Gaea's Blessing with some combo that has at most one noncreature?
Wanted Scoundrels will give the opponent tokens, but unfortunately the opponent can sacrifice them at any time.
Hmm, but maybe we can replace Gaea's Blessing with Martyr for the Cause? But no, that's the same as Citywatch Sphinx + Gaea's Blessing. Both versions can't reshuffle after we cast a Purify Nova, so we would need to add another Cleansing Nova to make it work.
Anyway, we can go with something like:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Sulfur Falls
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Emergence Zone
11 Thousand-Year Storm
12 Precognition Field
13 Adventurous Impulse
14 Gyre Engineer
15 Repudiate // Replicate
16 Finale of Devastation
Stage Combo:
17 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Yarok, the Desecrated
23 Tragic Poet
24 The Mending of Dominaria
25 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana and Drawing:
26 Hijack
27 Honor the God-Pharaoh
28 Ionize
Life Gain:
29 Banefire
30 Sun-Crowned Hunters
31 Gideon Blackblade
32 Angel of Vitality
33 Dowsing Dagger
34 Switcheroo
35 Grasping Thrull
Land Transforming:
36 Azor's Gateway
Untapping:
37 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Proliferating:
38 Fall of the Thran
39 Guildpact Informant
Early Red Mana:
40 Smothering Tithe
41 Smothering Tithe
42 Smothering Tithe
43 Smothering Tithe
44 Unmoored Ego
45 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
46 Ajani, Wise Counselor
47 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
48 Oath of Teferi
49 Repeated Reverberation
50 Ajani, the Greathearted
51 Ajani, Inspiring Leader
52 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
53 Bond of Discipline
54 Revival // Revenge
55 Whispering Snitch
56 Citywatch Sphinx
57 Teysa Karlov
58 Repudiate // Replicate
59 Repudiate // Replicate
60 Repudiate // Replicate
2xSquee is the obvious pairing with Kethis, the hidden hand, but spending RRRR just to be able to recast some legends seems very expensive.
(and yes its just the cards currently in the yard, otherwise 2 Mox Ambers would go infinite.)
And Squee is red, so incompatible with Mox Amber.
Nice, Angel of Vitality is pretty convenient for that. Note that we can't control a Gideon as the opponent can just shoot that with the trigger.
Do we even need Angrath's Marauders anymore? They were a large part of the final damage, but now they don't really add much else to the combo.
Also, Bond of discipline is redundant with Teysa Karlov.
I think we still need Finale of Devastation to give haste, so two cards short.
True, we can just Repudiate the original Grasping Thrull, so that all our hits are made using Thrull tokens.
Finale of Devastation can be replaced by Torch Courier, getting us one away from having 40 exilable cards. I went back to Finale of Devastation in the current deck, since if we can't get to 40, we might as well exile just 35 cards, and I figured that Finale of Devastation was a little better than Torch Courier otherwise.
Hmm, maybe animating the key isn't so bad, as it dies to either nova (if we remove Gideon so it can't be indestructible). We can make a bunch of mana from it once sure, but need to reshuffle to make more, which needs a nova to get kicked off, and then we would need to animate it again, which needs karn to die which we can only do with red mana, Red mana that the key can't make.
Losing Gideon is bad, but Bolt Bend can work in its place.
Edit: hmm also Gideon was key to be able to attack them without killing them. we can lose a card slot and some efficiency with Role Reversal+any other gideon (make it a creature, swap it with a plant, swap it with one of our real walkers)
Okay, so after some changes we have:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Sulfur Falls
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Emergence Zone
11 Thousand-Year Storm
12 Precognition Field
13 Adventurous Impulse
14 Gyre Engineer
15 Repudiate // Replicate
16 Finale of Devastation
Stage Combo:
17 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Yarok, the Desecrated
23 Tragic Poet
24 The Mending of Dominaria
25 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana and Drawing:
26 Hijack
27 Honor the God-Pharaoh
28 Ionize
Life Gain:
29 Banefire
30 Sun-Crowned Hunters
31 Teysa Karlov
32 Bolt Bend
33 Angel of Vitality
34 Dowsing Dagger
35 Role Reversal
36 Grasping Thrull
Land Transforming:
37 Azor's Gateway
Untapping:
38 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Returning from Exile:
39 Karn, the Great Creator
40 Sphinx of the Guildpact
Proliferating:
41 Fall of the Thran
42 Guildpact Informant
43 Gideon, the Oathsworn
44 Smothering Tithe
45 Smothering Tithe
46 Smothering Tithe
47 Smothering Tithe
48 Unmoored Ego
Early Life Gain:
49 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
50 Ajani, Wise Counselor
51 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
52 Oath of Teferi
53 Repeated Reverberation
54 Ajani, the Great-Hearted
55 Ajani, Inspiring Leader
56 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
57 Revival // Revenge
58 Citywatch Sphinx
59 Repudiate // Replicate
60 Repudiate // Replicate
So, the changes make our number of exilable cards drop drastically, down to 22 by my count. (just the last 20 cards plus Marwyn, the Nurturer and Karn, the Great Creator) But that's still 22 Sanctum of the Suns as opposed to 7; so that should give us more than 10 -> 10 -> (2 -> 7 -> 25 -> 8) -> 8.
I think my write up from a few weeks ago was -> 5.
The start up looks a little awkward to get to an x=10 finale, but after that, the rest of the setup is very smooth due to extra early copies of Replicate and Honor the God pharaoh drawing an extra card.
The Karn return loops are also a little terrible because we are exiling two of our stage combo pieces, so we need to kill him an extra time to get everything back, and he can only be activated at sorcery speed.
Edit: oh another interesting thing, Karn turns off treasure tokens for them, so we can maybe go to wanted scoundrels? (pivoting to creatures with role reversal through sphinx of the guildpact)
Or maybe Baffling End?
If we switch out Dowsing Dagger for Wanted Scoundrels or Baffling End, we would also need to add another artifact, and Wanted Scoundrels/Baffling End won't be exilable. So we would lose a card slot that way. On the plus side, we would be able to exile Gift of Growth if we got an artifact with a different CMC, so it would actually break even more or less.
Edit: Okay, I think I have an idea for getting more layers, and it involves Dreadhorde Butcher again. So, we give a bunch of Dreadhorde Butchers lifelink with Gideon, and use Role Reversal to transfer them over to the opponent, along with a bunch of Teysa Karlovs and a bunch of Angel of Vitality. We cast Banefire to target them one by one, destroying them and getting a lot of triggers because of all the Teysa Karlovs, and each trigger causes the opponent to gain a lot of life, because of all the Angels of Vitality. Then, we can use Grasping Thrull to turn all of their life into a lot of life for us.
Edit: Oh, right, Teysa Karlov gives tokens lifelink.
Edit: Hmm, after what you noticed regarding how we need to reshuffle to continue an infinite combo, and that involves repeatedly casting Cleansing Nova, it occurs to me that many of the combos that we thought were infinite maybe are actually not. With the right reshuffling trigger, perhaps Dreadhorde Butcher plus Teysa Karlov does not go infinite?