Recently spoiled Rootha, Mercurial Artist allows for fairly cheap copying of any instant/sorcery, though because its anything on the stack it doesn't seem quite workable as part of a stage. It might be useful for the retargeting aspect too.
0 - Tapping a Dalakos gets a lot of colorless mana thanks to Forsaken Monuments
1 - Spending an R will give a lot of Dalakoses haste
2 - Casting a creature will genereate a lot of R, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
3 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
4 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
5 - Casting Bala Ged Recovery will return the above instant many times
6 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
7 - Targeting a Forest will create many copies
8 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
9 - Morphing a blue or black creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
10 - a snow land generates a lot of mana
11 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
12 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
13 - we can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug
Also, it doesn't seem to be useful at the moment, but lol at Exponential Growth!
Edit: Since we aren't using all colors, we can use Canopy Tactician for one more layer.
1 - Tapping a Canopy Tactician will generate a lot of green mana thanks to Nyxbloom Ancients
2 - Spending an R will give a lot of Canopy Tacticians haste
3 - Casting a creature will genereate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
4 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
5 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
6 - Casting Absorb Identity will return Ashiok's Erasure many times
7 - Tapping an Island generates a lot of blue mana
8 - Targeting a Island will create many copies
9 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
10 - Morphing a black creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
11 - a snow land generates a lot of mana
12 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
13 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
14 - we can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Tergrid's Lantern seems like a good way to start off the combo, destroying an enchantment that can be brought back by Archon of Falling Stars (which can also be destroyed by Tergrid's Lantern). Next, we can bring back a creature a lot of times thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord. So we can improve with:
1 - Activating Tergrid's Lantern starts the thaumabroom combo
2 - Tapping a Swamp generates a lot of black mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will return the above instant many times
8 - Tapping a green mana land generates a lot of green mana
9 - Targeting a green mana land will create many copies
10 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
11 - Morphing a blue creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
12 - A snow land generates a lot of mana
13 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
14 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
15 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Hmmm, I think we can have the instant card be an adventure instant, and then counter the adventure instant so that it can fetch itself. So we get two layers from the initial cast of the adventure instant, then we counter it (say with the adventure instant Mesmeric Glare, which costs blue mana), then each of the Extus triggers can fetch the first adventure instant, which we can then cast for another two layers. So we can get:
1 - Activating Tergrid's Lantern starts the thaumabroom combo
2 - Tapping a Swamp generates a lot of black mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7-8 - Repeat the above layers by countering the adventure instant
9 - Tapping a blue mana land generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting a blue mana land will create many copies
11 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
12 - A copy of Inscription of Abundance will gain us a lot of life
13 - Casting Instcription of Abundance generates many copies
14 - A snow land generates a lot of mana
15 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
16 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
17 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Oh, we need to counter an adventure instant every time, not just the one on the bottom, if it doesn't have flash for the creature, or else we can't cast it from exile with instant speed. But, the only adventure instant/creature that has flash is also blue, so that doesn't save on the blue mana. So, we only get at most one instant per blue mana, giving us two layers out of it, so we lose two. Down to 15.
Basically we can get stacks of alternating spell type triggers, with something like Bala Ged recovery can return our cyclers, therefore one of them needs to be a sorcery. All of those options cycle for colorless, so whatever our other card type is it needs to make and cycle for the same color.
Needing to cycle for a color limits us to creatures and shark typhoon, but enchantments are pretty much eliminated as unstable cyclone itself has cycling.
So we need a creature that remakes a small amount of mana on cast, something like Sanctuary Smasher + Ardent Electromancer, (and some way to cheaply kill the electromancer) seems promising, but however we are copying the Teferi's Ageless insight would probably also apply to electromancer...
Edit: I think Unpredictable cyclone + Teferi's Ageless insight is super close to enabling a stage but can't quite find the right cards for it, keep on wanting some cards that rotated.
Hmm, I'm a little fuzzy with how replacement effects for a bunch of card draws work. My thinking was, we start with a card draw, which is a single ability; with a bunch of Teferi's Ageless Insights, we replace that draw with a bunch of card draws, but it's still a single ability. Then Unpredictable Cyclone will replace each card draw one at a time, but this is all still in the resolution of a single ability, so we never get priority to do anything in between the draw events. So the above combo can fetch and cast the cards that are currently in the library, but we can't refill the library to fetch and cast cards again. Is this correct?
1 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
2 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
8 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
9 - Tapping Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
11 - Tapping a black payland will generate a lot of black mana
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain us a lot of life
13 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
14 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
15 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
16 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Unfortunately, we lose a layer in the life gaining section, since I couldn't find a white instant as good as Inscription of Abundance. Heliod's Intervention isn't as good because the X doesn't increase between copies. Rally for the Throne seems close, but the Adamant keyword isn't satisfied by the copies.
We could perhaps get 18, if we could go back to the mutating creature version, and could cast a spell that allowed us mutate many times. An instant destroying a creature seems like a possibility, since Skyway Sniper only targets flying creatures. However, we currently need to cast a creature spell in Layer 4, and then return it to our hand with Extus, Oriq Overlord, and there don't seem to be any red or green flying flash creatures. So it looks like we need another destruction effect for that, and I don't know how to separate Wildborn Preserver (the only green flash creature) from Pouncing Shoreshark or Sea-Dasher Octopus.
Edit: Oh, I guess countering the flash creature will work. Voracious Greatshark should do. So, we get:
1 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
2 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
8 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
9 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
11 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of black mana
12 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
13 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
14 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
15 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
16 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
17 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
18 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Oh, I think I miscounted the layers in the thaumabroom combo. Each time we sacrifice something, we can double the amount of Thaumabrooms, so that is layer 0; each time we copy an enchantment, we can turn a lot of Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures, so this is layer 1; and each time we respond to a sacrifice with a constellation trigger, we can turn a lot of Thaumabrooms into enchantments so that they can create more enchantments, so that is layer 2. So we get one more layer than I thought, up to 19!
Thinking about what to do with the remaining cards, of course we need a way to draw the rest of the cards, but that should be pretty straightforward. In terms of adding more power, the first thing that comes to mind is a limited way to add black mana. Shrine of Boundless Harvest looks like a possibility, except we can't put it into play by turn 2, which is when we need it. Similarly for lands that come into play tapped, besides the Sulfurous Mire on turn 1. Treasure tokens won't work, since even if we switch from Ketria Crystal to a land, it seems like we still need Shepherd of the Flock to copy it, and so we'll always be able to make copies of our treasure tokens. So I'm not sure what's best to add to the deck.
Drawing the rest of the deck is easy as we can hit a Keruga, the macrosage or two off of the ugin activation. (though the math for not decking is a little tricky there)
The start looks a bit light on mana, as the combo is pretty mana hungry before we get enough mana triplers going.
I think adding an extra Nyxbloom ancient solves it as between those and the initial thaumaturge copy, to get 27 mana from the first crawling barrens tap.
I've still been searching for stages, though, rather unsuccessfully. Plargg, Dean of Chaos is a way to give a spell flash, though only a cheap one...
Similar to Svella, Ice shaper, but without ruining everything by making manaliths.
Yes, by all means keep looking for that stage! I've been looking a little bit, but also pretty unsuccessfully.
My thoughts were trying to find some alternate version of our "putting Skull Prophet (or some other mana creature) on and off the battlefield" strategy. A big hurdle is that we need to replicate our instants (or sorceries if we can cast them at instant speed), and I haven't been able to find a good replicator other than Sea Gate Stormcaller. The problem there is, how can we put increasing amounts of SGSes on the battlefield, without messing with the Skull Prophet balance? It seems tricky.
Edit: Putting blue mana in the beginning allows us to play Brazen Borrower cheaply, so that we can counter it for more layers. This hopefully gets us to 20 layers.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Thassa, Deep-Dwelling allows us to put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping an Island generates a lot of blue mana
4 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
5 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
6 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
7 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
8-9 - Countering the above instant will allow us to duplicate the above layers
10 - Casting Once and Future can bring back the counter spell many times
11 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of green mana
12 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
13 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of white mana
14 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
15 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
16 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
17 - A snow land generates a lot of black mana
18 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
19 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
20 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Yeah we have a lot of cool tools but I can't get them to fit together nearly as nicely as they did last standard, feels like I can get halfway there in about a dozen ways, but they don't quite link up right.
20 layers is a lot, though I don't think Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is the card you meant.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
3 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
4 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
5 - Putting a copy of The Bloodsky Massacre into play will generate a lot of red mana
6 - A Karok Wrangler trigger will put a lot of +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
7 - Copying an instant spell will create a lot of Karok Wrangler triggers
8 - Casting an instant will create a lot of copies
9 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
10 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
11 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
12 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
13 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of black mana
14 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
15 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
16 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
17 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
18 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
19 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
20 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Okay, I guess we go back to the 19 layer version. Minor change: Instead of putting a Forest into play, and recycling it with Murasa Rootgrazer, we can simply use Canopy Tactician, saving a card.
Hmm, actually if we get an animated The Bloodsky Massacre via say Dance of the manse
We can have the thaumabrooms come in as them and provide all of the needed resources: constellation, mana, and sacrifices all at once.
I'm not sure if it goes infinite as we need some specific trigger timings for the thaumaboom combo to work properly. (Think there's similar logic to how guilded goose+nyxbloom ancient ended up not going infinite with the thaumabrooms.)
If it is infinite, we can just use a saga that doesn't make mana and be limited by colorless mana.
Hmmm... I believe it does not go infinite, just like the Thaumabroom combo; the only way to make a token copy of something other than a Thaumabroom, is to sacrifice something to trigger the Thaumabrooms, and then respond with putting an enchantment into play to have the Thaumabrooms copy another creature before the broom trigger resolves. So, we can't go infinite by simply resolving triggers, we have to continually respond with spells or abilities.
However, I'm not seeing how to use Sagas to improve the Thaumabroom combo. Instead of just coming in as enchantments, we can add mana and sacrifices to the mix, but those are lower level anyway. I guess this allows us to put a sacrifice trigger underneath a constellation trigger, but that doesn't seem to do anything?
One thing we can look at is what our Sagas can individually do, now that we can have them come into play repeatedly. One possibility is delayed triggers, but I didn't see anything really good, although there are multiple ways to draw cards. So if we want card draw to be really cheap, we can do that, although that was something I didn't think would be hard anyway. Showdown of the Skalds looks pretty interesting, if we can find a way to make use of +1/+1 counters; then casting any spell would give us many Skald triggers, and each one would give us many +1/+1 counters via Vorinclex. But, after the prior snafu I haven't found a good use for +1/+1 triggers. We can use Steelbane Hydra to destroy artifacts and enchantments, but I'm not sure what to do with that. Fertilid unfortunately comes in with +1/+1 counters automatically. There's also a Wizard that can copy kicker spells, but that doesn't seem to do anything we can't do already.
Another Saga that looked interesting was Battle for Bretagard, which can create a token copy of a creature or artifact token. This seemed nice, since it can't copy an enchantment that normally isn't a creature, as only the nontoken enchantment can be a creature via Dance of the Manse. So that could stratify nicely. Unfortunately, it only makes one token for each token name, and I don't see how to turn that into may tokens. (We could get so many more layers with a card like Doubling Season!)
Edit: An attempt at 21 layers:
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper and Steelbane Hydra put an enchantment into play
3 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
4 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
5 - Casting an instant will create many copies
6 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
7 - Countering Once and Future will duplicate the above layer
8 - Tapping an Island will generate a lot of blue mana
9 - Casting Forever Young will put a lot of creature cards on top of our library, allowing us to resolve Eureka Moment many times
10 - Tapping Zagoth Crystal will generate a lot of black mana
11 - Casting Usher to Safety will create many copies of Zagoth Crystal
12 - Tapping Emeria, Shattered Skyclave will generate a lot of white mana
13 - Resolving an Essence Symboite will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
14 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
15 - Casting Fire Prophecy will destroy many Sea-Drinker Octopus many times
16 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Fire Prophecy many times
17 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
18 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
19 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
20 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
21 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Changed the life sequence a little bit; it's still 21 layers, but we can use the opponent's life now for a better start.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper and Steelbane Hydra put an enchantment into play
3 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
4 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
5 - Casting an instant will create many copies
6 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
7 - Countering Once and Future will duplicate the above layer
8 - Tapping an Island will generate a lot of blue mana
9 - Casting Forever Young will put a lot of creature cards on top of our library, allowing us to resolve Eureka Moment many times
10 - Tapping Zagoth Crystal will generate a lot of black mana
11 - Casting Usher to Safety will create many copies of Zagoth Crystal
12 - Tapping Emeria, Shattered Skyclave will generate a lot of white mana
13 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
14 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
15 - Casting Lorehold Command will give the opponent a lot of life
16 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Fire Prophecy many times
17 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
18 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
19 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
20 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
21 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Hmm, I think we can get to 22. Instead of Lorehold Command, we can give the opponent creatures (say with Clackbridge Troll), and then give them lifelink and pump them up. Then Go for Broke will give the opponent a lot of life each copy.
Of course, I haven't made allowances to get started - any extra cards needed can take away from those 8 red planeswalkers.
Edit: Oh whoops, if we can put our Planeswalkers in the graveyard, then we can bring them back to our hand to replay. So we can have at most one of each productive Planeswalker, I guess.
We could maybe replace Once and Future with something else? We can use Biblioplex Assistant to put instants into the library, then draw them with blue mana. (Eureka Moment is an obvious choice, since we already have it.) But, that puts a land from our hand into play easily... we would need some way to restrict moving them from the battlefield to our hand. I'm not sure how to do that. Mystic Sanctuary is another way to put instants into our library, but we need to put an Island into play to do that, and we want to be below blue mana at this point.
Another possibility is to bring instants and sorceries from our graveyard to our hand, rather than any card. Shipwreck Dowser seems too cheap though, whereas the kicked creature, or a red instant/sorcery, seems to expensive. What we would like is to spend black or white mana to get this done, but I don't see how to do that.
Would like to replace the Islands with something better of course... there should probably be more safe ways to add life, either to ourselves or our opponents.
The Tibalt, cosmic imposter idea was to do with thaumaboom shenanigans (enabled with Mercurial Transformation), to get a 'tibalt' emblem for another card, but it doesn't look like it works that way ruleswise.
Just out of curiousity, what goes wrong? I would think that if a Thaumabroom turned Tibalt got a copy, that would indeed get an emblem, and you could use it - but you would have to exile something at sorcery speed. Unless, you intend to turn the Tibalt into something else that has an exile ability? Then yeah, I'm pretty sure something you exiled with a different creature's ability couldn't be cast with the Tibalt emblem.
Edit: Oh whoops - since Once and Future exiles itself, we have to counter every single cast, so we don't get a second layer because of the counterspell. Down to 21 layers.
It would be nice if there was something that fetched cards from the graveyard without exiling itself. I think there is a sorcery, but we need an instant.
cmcmv restrictionEureka Moment and Zimone, Quandrix prodigy let us put nonbasic lands into play from our hand at instant speed
Accomplished Alchemist provides quite a lot of mana, and keeps its progress through a sweeper.
Rootha, Mercurial Artist allows cheap copying, so that seems difficult to make work.
Accomplished Alchemist perhaps isn't worth trying too hard to make work, with the presence of Nyxbloom Ancient.
Double Major or Echoing Equation could be possible pieces of an alternate base combo to Thaumabroom.
I was able to get back up to 13 layers:
0 - Tapping a Dalakos gets a lot of colorless mana thanks to Forsaken Monuments
1 - Spending an R will give a lot of Dalakoses haste
2 - Casting a creature will genereate a lot of R, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
3 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
4 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
5 - Casting Bala Ged Recovery will return the above instant many times
6 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
7 - Targeting a Forest will create many copies
8 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
9 - Morphing a blue or black creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
10 - a snow land generates a lot of mana
11 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
12 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
13 - we can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug
Also, it doesn't seem to be useful at the moment, but lol at Exponential Growth!
Edit: Since we aren't using all colors, we can use Canopy Tactician for one more layer.
1 - Tapping a Canopy Tactician will generate a lot of green mana thanks to Nyxbloom Ancients
2 - Spending an R will give a lot of Canopy Tacticians haste
3 - Casting a creature will genereate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
4 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
5 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
6 - Casting Absorb Identity will return Ashiok's Erasure many times
7 - Tapping an Island generates a lot of blue mana
8 - Targeting a Island will create many copies
9 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
10 - Morphing a black creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
11 - a snow land generates a lot of mana
12 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
13 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
14 - we can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Tergrid's Lantern seems like a good way to start off the combo, destroying an enchantment that can be brought back by Archon of Falling Stars (which can also be destroyed by Tergrid's Lantern). Next, we can bring back a creature a lot of times thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord. So we can improve with:
1 - Activating Tergrid's Lantern starts the thaumabroom combo
2 - Tapping a Swamp generates a lot of black mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will return the above instant many times
8 - Tapping a green mana land generates a lot of green mana
9 - Targeting a green mana land will create many copies
10 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
11 - Morphing a blue creature will gain us a lot of life thanks to Essence Symbiote
12 - A snow land generates a lot of mana
13 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
14 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
15 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Hmmm, I think we can have the instant card be an adventure instant, and then counter the adventure instant so that it can fetch itself. So we get two layers from the initial cast of the adventure instant, then we counter it (say with the adventure instant Mesmeric Glare, which costs blue mana), then each of the Extus triggers can fetch the first adventure instant, which we can then cast for another two layers. So we can get:
1 - Activating Tergrid's Lantern starts the thaumabroom combo
2 - Tapping a Swamp generates a lot of black mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7-8 - Repeat the above layers by countering the adventure instant
9 - Tapping a blue mana land generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting a blue mana land will create many copies
11 - A white payland generates a lot of white mana
12 - A copy of Inscription of Abundance will gain us a lot of life
13 - Casting Instcription of Abundance generates many copies
14 - A snow land generates a lot of mana
15 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
16 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
17 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Oh, we need to counter an adventure instant every time, not just the one on the bottom, if it doesn't have flash for the creature, or else we can't cast it from exile with instant speed. But, the only adventure instant/creature that has flash is also blue, so that doesn't save on the blue mana. So, we only get at most one instant per blue mana, giving us two layers out of it, so we lose two. Down to 15.
Basically we can get stacks of alternating spell type triggers, with something like Bala Ged recovery can return our cyclers, therefore one of them needs to be a sorcery. All of those options cycle for colorless, so whatever our other card type is it needs to make and cycle for the same color.
Needing to cycle for a color limits us to creatures and shark typhoon, but enchantments are pretty much eliminated as unstable cyclone itself has cycling.
So we need a creature that remakes a small amount of mana on cast, something like Sanctuary Smasher + Ardent Electromancer, (and some way to cheaply kill the electromancer) seems promising, but however we are copying the Teferi's Ageless insight would probably also apply to electromancer...
Another thought is to use something like Omen of the Dead + Acolyte of affliction? with say Woe Strider to kill the acolyte.
Edit: I think Unpredictable cyclone + Teferi's Ageless insight is super close to enabling a stage but can't quite find the right cards for it, keep on wanting some cards that rotated.
1 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
2 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
8 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
9 - Tapping Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
11 - Tapping a black payland will generate a lot of black mana
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain us a lot of life
13 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
14 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
15 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
16 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Unfortunately, we lose a layer in the life gaining section, since I couldn't find a white instant as good as Inscription of Abundance. Heliod's Intervention isn't as good because the X doesn't increase between copies. Rally for the Throne seems close, but the Adamant keyword isn't satisfied by the copies.
We could perhaps get 18, if we could go back to the mutating creature version, and could cast a spell that allowed us mutate many times. An instant destroying a creature seems like a possibility, since Skyway Sniper only targets flying creatures. However, we currently need to cast a creature spell in Layer 4, and then return it to our hand with Extus, Oriq Overlord, and there don't seem to be any red or green flying flash creatures. So it looks like we need another destruction effect for that, and I don't know how to separate Wildborn Preserver (the only green flash creature) from Pouncing Shoreshark or Sea-Dasher Octopus.
Edit: Oh, I guess countering the flash creature will work. Voracious Greatshark should do. So, we get:
1 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
2 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
3 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
4 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
5 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
6 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
7 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
8 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
9 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
10 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
11 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of black mana
12 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
13 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
14 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
15 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
16 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
17 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
18 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Oh, I think I miscounted the layers in the thaumabroom combo. Each time we sacrifice something, we can double the amount of Thaumabrooms, so that is layer 0; each time we copy an enchantment, we can turn a lot of Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures, so this is layer 1; and each time we respond to a sacrifice with a constellation trigger, we can turn a lot of Thaumabrooms into enchantments so that they can create more enchantments, so that is layer 2. So we get one more layer than I thought, up to 19!
Edit: So, I guess so far we have:
2 Forest
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Tormod's Crypt
5 Tibalt's Trickery
6 Tibalt's Trickery
7 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
8 Ugin, Spirit Dragon
9 Protean Thaumaturge
10 Sorcerer's Broom
11 Nyxbloom Ancient
12 Crawling Barrens
13 Alseid of Life's Bounty
15 Skyway Sniper
16 Murasa Rootgrazer
17 Kenrith, the Returned King
18 Wildborn Preserver
19 Voracious Greatshark
20 Birgi, God of Storytelling
21 Snakeskin Veil
22 Extus, Oriq Overlord
23 Sea Gate Stormcaller
24 Once and Future
25 Miscast
27 Shepherd of the Flock
28 Emeria, Shattered Skyclave
29 Honor Troll
30 Essesnce Symbiote
31 Sea-Dasher Octopus
32 Heartless Act
33 Jorn, God of Winter
34 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Thinking about what to do with the remaining cards, of course we need a way to draw the rest of the cards, but that should be pretty straightforward. In terms of adding more power, the first thing that comes to mind is a limited way to add black mana. Shrine of Boundless Harvest looks like a possibility, except we can't put it into play by turn 2, which is when we need it. Similarly for lands that come into play tapped, besides the Sulfurous Mire on turn 1. Treasure tokens won't work, since even if we switch from Ketria Crystal to a land, it seems like we still need Shepherd of the Flock to copy it, and so we'll always be able to make copies of our treasure tokens. So I'm not sure what's best to add to the deck.
The start looks a bit light on mana, as the combo is pretty mana hungry before we get enough mana triplers going.
I think adding an extra Nyxbloom ancient solves it as between those and the initial thaumaturge copy, to get 27 mana from the first crawling barrens tap.
I've still been searching for stages, though, rather unsuccessfully.
Plargg, Dean of Chaos is a way to give a spell flash, though only a cheap one...
Similar to Svella, Ice shaper, but without ruining everything by making manaliths.
My thoughts were trying to find some alternate version of our "putting Skull Prophet (or some other mana creature) on and off the battlefield" strategy. A big hurdle is that we need to replicate our instants (or sorceries if we can cast them at instant speed), and I haven't been able to find a good replicator other than Sea Gate Stormcaller. The problem there is, how can we put increasing amounts of SGSes on the battlefield, without messing with the Skull Prophet balance? It seems tricky.
Edit: Putting blue mana in the beginning allows us to play Brazen Borrower cheaply, so that we can counter it for more layers. This hopefully gets us to 20 layers.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Thassa, Deep-Dwelling allows us to put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping an Island generates a lot of blue mana
4 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
5 - Casting a creature will generate a lot of red mana, thanks to Birgi, God of Storytelling
6 - Copying an instant will return a creature many times, thanks to Extus, Oriq Overlord
7 - Casting an instant will generate many copies thanks to Sea Gate Stormcaller
8-9 - Countering the above instant will allow us to duplicate the above layers
10 - Casting Once and Future can bring back the counter spell many times
11 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of green mana
12 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
13 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of white mana
14 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
15 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
16 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
17 - A snow land generates a lot of black mana
18 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
19 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
20 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
20 layers is a lot, though I don't think Thassa, Deep-Dwelling is the card you meant.
Edit: no of course it doesn't, I'm big stupid.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper can activate the Thaumaturge combo
3 - Tapping a Forest generates a lot of green mana
4 - Spending a red mana gives many Murasa Rootgrazers haste
5 - Putting a copy of The Bloodsky Massacre into play will generate a lot of red mana
6 - A Karok Wrangler trigger will put a lot of +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
7 - Copying an instant spell will create a lot of Karok Wrangler triggers
8 - Casting an instant will create a lot of copies
9 - Casting Once and Future will bring back the above instant many times
10 - Countering Once and Future will allow us to duplicate the above layer
11 - Tapping a Ketria Crystal generates a lot of blue mana
12 - Targeting Ketria Crystal will create many copies
13 - Tapping a white payland will generate a lot of black mana
14 - A trigger of Essence Symbiote will gain us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll
15 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
16 - Casting Heartless Act will destroy many mutated creatures
17 - A snow land generates a lot of white mana
18 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
19 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
20 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
We can have the thaumabrooms come in as them and provide all of the needed resources: constellation, mana, and sacrifices all at once.
I'm not sure if it goes infinite as we need some specific trigger timings for the thaumaboom combo to work properly. (Think there's similar logic to how guilded goose+nyxbloom ancient ended up not going infinite with the thaumabrooms.)
If it is infinite, we can just use a saga that doesn't make mana and be limited by colorless mana.
However, I'm not seeing how to use Sagas to improve the Thaumabroom combo. Instead of just coming in as enchantments, we can add mana and sacrifices to the mix, but those are lower level anyway. I guess this allows us to put a sacrifice trigger underneath a constellation trigger, but that doesn't seem to do anything?
One thing we can look at is what our Sagas can individually do, now that we can have them come into play repeatedly. One possibility is delayed triggers, but I didn't see anything really good, although there are multiple ways to draw cards. So if we want card draw to be really cheap, we can do that, although that was something I didn't think would be hard anyway. Showdown of the Skalds looks pretty interesting, if we can find a way to make use of +1/+1 counters; then casting any spell would give us many Skald triggers, and each one would give us many +1/+1 counters via Vorinclex. But, after the prior snafu I haven't found a good use for +1/+1 triggers. We can use Steelbane Hydra to destroy artifacts and enchantments, but I'm not sure what to do with that. Fertilid unfortunately comes in with +1/+1 counters automatically. There's also a Wizard that can copy kicker spells, but that doesn't seem to do anything we can't do already.
Another Saga that looked interesting was Battle for Bretagard, which can create a token copy of a creature or artifact token. This seemed nice, since it can't copy an enchantment that normally isn't a creature, as only the nontoken enchantment can be a creature via Dance of the Manse. So that could stratify nicely. Unfortunately, it only makes one token for each token name, and I don't see how to turn that into may tokens. (We could get so many more layers with a card like Doubling Season!)
Edit: An attempt at 21 layers:
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper and Steelbane Hydra put an enchantment into play
3 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
4 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
5 - Casting an instant will create many copies
6 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
7 - Countering Once and Future will duplicate the above layer
8 - Tapping an Island will generate a lot of blue mana
9 - Casting Forever Young will put a lot of creature cards on top of our library, allowing us to resolve Eureka Moment many times
10 - Tapping Zagoth Crystal will generate a lot of black mana
11 - Casting Usher to Safety will create many copies of Zagoth Crystal
12 - Tapping Emeria, Shattered Skyclave will generate a lot of white mana
13 - Resolving an Essence Symboite will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
14 - Mutating a Sea-Drinker Octopus will trigger many Essence Symbiotes
15 - Casting Fire Prophecy will destroy many Sea-Drinker Octopus many times
16 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Fire Prophecy many times
17 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
18 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
19 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
20 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
21 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Changed the life sequence a little bit; it's still 21 layers, but we can use the opponent's life now for a better start.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper and Steelbane Hydra put an enchantment into play
3 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
4 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
5 - Casting an instant will create many copies
6 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
7 - Countering Once and Future will duplicate the above layer
8 - Tapping an Island will generate a lot of blue mana
9 - Casting Forever Young will put a lot of creature cards on top of our library, allowing us to resolve Eureka Moment many times
10 - Tapping Zagoth Crystal will generate a lot of black mana
11 - Casting Usher to Safety will create many copies of Zagoth Crystal
12 - Tapping Emeria, Shattered Skyclave will generate a lot of white mana
13 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
14 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
15 - Casting Lorehold Command will give the opponent a lot of life
16 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Fire Prophecy many times
17 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
18 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
19 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
20 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
21 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Edit: Hmm, I think we can get to 22. Instead of Lorehold Command, we can give the opponent creatures (say with Clackbridge Troll), and then give them lifelink and pump them up. Then Go for Broke will give the opponent a lot of life each copy.
Edit: So, it's shaping up to look something like:
2 Island
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Tormod's Crypt
5 Tibalt's Trickery
6 Tibalt's Trickery
7 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
8 Ugin, Spirit Dragon
9 Protean Thaumaturge
10 Sorcerer's Broom
11 Nyxbloom Ancient
12 Selfless Savior
13 Leafkin Avenger
14 Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
16 Skyway Sniper
17 Steelbane Hydra
18 Karok Wrangler
19 Sudden Spinnerets
20 Once and Future
21 Teach By Example
22 Miscast
23 Sea Gate Stormcaller
24 Forever Young
25 Eureka Moment
26 Kazandu Stomper
27 Zagoth Crystal
28 Shepherd of the Flock
29 Orvar, the All-Form
31 Chandra's Incinerator
32 Blisterspit Gremlin
33 Honor Troll
34 Go for Blood
35 Clackbridge Troll
36 Unexpected Fangs
37 Reflections of Littjara
38 Jorn, God of Winter
39 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
4 Chandra, Heart of Fire
4 Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter
4 Narset of the Ancient Way
1 Kasmina, Enigma Sage
8 red planeswalkers
Of course, I haven't made allowances to get started - any extra cards needed can take away from those 8 red planeswalkers.
Edit: Oh whoops, if we can put our Planeswalkers in the graveyard, then we can bring them back to our hand to replay. So we can have at most one of each productive Planeswalker, I guess.
We could maybe replace Once and Future with something else? We can use Biblioplex Assistant to put instants into the library, then draw them with blue mana. (Eureka Moment is an obvious choice, since we already have it.) But, that puts a land from our hand into play easily... we would need some way to restrict moving them from the battlefield to our hand. I'm not sure how to do that. Mystic Sanctuary is another way to put instants into our library, but we need to put an Island into play to do that, and we want to be below blue mana at this point.
Another possibility is to bring instants and sorceries from our graveyard to our hand, rather than any card. Shipwreck Dowser seems too cheap though, whereas the kicked creature, or a red instant/sorcery, seems to expensive. What we would like is to spend black or white mana to get this done, but I don't see how to do that.
(Tibalt, Cosmic imposter kinda works too...)
I don't know how to make use of Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter, since we can only activate loyalty abilities at sorcery speed.
Edit: So, right now looking at something like:
2 Island
3 Tormod's Crypt
4 Tormod's Crypt
5 Tibalt's Trickery
6 Tibalt's Trickery
7 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
8 Ugin, Spirit Dragon
9 Protean Thaumaturge
10 Sorcerer's Broom
11 Nyxbloom Ancient
12 Selfless Savior
13 Leafkin Avenger
14 Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
15 Archon of Falling Stars
16 Skyway Sniper
17 Steelbane Hydra
18 Karok Wrangler
20 Once and Future
21 Teach By Example
22 Miscast
23 Sea Gate Stormcaller
24 Forever Young
25 Eureka Moment
26 Kazandu Stomper
27 Zagoth Crystal
28 Shepherd of the Flock
29 Orvar, the All-Form
30 Emeria, Shattered Skyclave
31 Chandra's Incinerator
32 Blisterspit Gremlin
33 Honor Troll
34 Go for Blood
35 Clackbridge Troll
36 Unexpected Fangs
37 Reflections of Littjara
39 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
1 Ingenious Mastery
1 Chandra, Heart of Fire
2 Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter
3 Narset of the Ancient Way
4 Kasmina, Enigma Sage
5 Lukka, Copporcoat Outcast
6 Nahiri, Heir to the Ancients
7 Rowan, Fearless Sparkmage
8 Rowan, Scholar of Sparks
9 The Royal Scions
10 Happily Ever After
11 Auspicious Starrix
3 Zagoth Crystal
6 Islands
Would like to replace the Islands with something better of course... there should probably be more safe ways to add life, either to ourselves or our opponents.
Edit: Oh whoops - since Once and Future exiles itself, we have to counter every single cast, so we don't get a second layer because of the counterspell. Down to 21 layers.
It would be nice if there was something that fetched cards from the graveyard without exiling itself. I think there is a sorcery, but we need an instant.