I imagine Iijil will probably find some issues with this deck, but if we can get everything fixed it will be a nice improvement, so we should definitely investigate.
I think we can probably improve the ending layers using the damage bouncing we were using in the more recent decks.
We get our required instants back by resolving a Worldfire, which puts our instants into exile, which we can then put into the library with Riftsweeper, and then back into our hand with Mystical Teachings.
Oh, some very nice ideas! Comeuppance in particular is a very nice way to remove the creature asymmetry with Arcbond.
I'm wondering if we need to have Artificial Evolution uncounterable? It seems similar to the problem you fixed with Scarab God... If we counter, we can have copies of Artificial Evolution waiting on the stack, which I guess can hack permanents in play as well as cards on the stack. So I guess this is different.
Have you confirmed whether or not the infinite with Eureka is there? It does look problematic.
What about, rather than ensuring that we can survive both a Worldfire and a Worldpurge in a hyperstage transition, we make things so that we can recycle the lifelands using one or the other, but not be able to survive both? (or profit from both, if we could survive it) So perhaps add something like Molderhulk to retrieve our lifelands from the graveyard, and remove Eureka, replacing it with something like Patron of the Moon or Walking Atlas.
Perhaps removing Eureka could remove the problem we have with spell copying enabling us to recycle lifelands multiple times? Then perhaps we could add Thousand-Year Storm back in.
Edit: I've been thinking again about having the primary stage be a creature token stage, but the standard ways of doing it seem to require Cowardice. The problem with Cowardice is that we can then bounce with our Arcbonds and Artificial Evolution, which allows us to profit from a hyperstage transition into Worldfire I think. So we want to avoid Cowardice.
We could avoid Cowardice with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Soul Foundry, but I can't figure out how to avoid the problem of turning damaged creature tokens into Goblin Boom Keg and having them die at the start of combat.
The Bone Shredder version was another possibility, but that version ran into a number of problems, detailed in posts 3900 and 3901.
So, how can we get additional stages from here? The hyperstage mana color can be arbitrary, so we can use any two of white, green, and red for the additional stages, as well as life.
Keep in mind that we can only have two Arcbonded creatures in a computation. So the only way I see Mirrorpool being safe is if we have one Arcbond, and we get the second one using Mirrorpool. But, it looks like the plan is to only be able to recycle Mirrorpool in the additional stage, and of course if we do the computation that infrequently, we don't get a Busy Beaver hyperstage.
Edit: Okay, if taking out Dual Nature works, the next step is to fill out the ending layers. How can we generate a lot of red mana?
Edit: Hmm, without Fractured Identity, we can't give the opponent Treasure tokens or Gold tokens, so we can use those in the layer sequence. So, how about:
That would be 1 hyperstage + 1 stage + 5 layers, it looks like. I'm not sure that the changes don't require extra cards, so that's something we should look out for.
March of the Machines should be okay, we cut it after it was no longer necessary; we just have to make sure that any further changes we made don't mess with it, e.g. Burnt Offering.
The reason for using Fractured Identity is explained in post #3858; basically, we can use Artificial Evolution to changed the text of Rotlung Reanimators and Dralnu's Crusades that are still on the stack, and then Worldfire can exile Artificial Evolution, allowing us to get it back. Then, if we can get an infinite computation going with using the text-changed permanents, we can end whenever we want with the Artificial Evolution still in our hand.
Iijil's solution was to use The Scarab God to create copies of Rotlung Reanimator, and Fractured Identity to bring it over to the opponent's side. I guess we have to check whether Domineering Will allows the opponent to go infinite.
Edit: Oh, about the basic lands: for the Vintage version, we assume that all the opponent's cards are Wastes, so if they can put those into play they have access to colorless mana.
Edit: Okay, I think Domineering Will and Dual Nature will go infinite, because we can change the text of a Rotlung Reanimator and a Dralnu's Crusade, then resolve those spells, and then Dual Nature can create non-hacked versions of Rotlung Reanimator, and we can make an infinite computation just like in Iijil's example.
But, if we remove Dual Nature, then I think we are fine. If we resolve a hacked Rotlung Reanimator, it will be the only one we have, and we can't go infinite with just that one. To make more copies, we have to use The Scarab God, which means putting our hacked Rotlung Reanimator in the graveyard, so all our copies will have normal text. So yeah, that should be fine.
We optimized our deck around having Dual Nature, so we may need to make some changes if we remove it. But, moxes now can't be given to the opponent, so perhaps the setup works now.
Oh, one of the nonos is we can't allow the opponent to get certain colors of mana: If the opponent gets blue and black, the can activate The Scarab God to affect the computation. If they get green mana, they can activate Temur Sabertooth. If they get red and blue, they can activate Master Transmuter...
Oh, maybe! Oh, but Rings of Brighthearth, combined with Master Transmuter, seems to be a problem. We could use a Master Transmuter to bounce Mox Sapphire to our hand, to put into play and get a lot of blue mana at the cost of generic mana; or, we could use Master Transmuter via Earthcraft to get a lot of black mana, if we have a Swamp. So that seems to go infinite.
Edit: I thought about using Mana Echoes on the opponent's side, and then using Drain Power to steal the colorless mana, but then I remembered that Mana Echoes goes infinite with Mirrorworks and Master Transmuter.
Ah, I missed what Thopter Engineer was for. That should work, although it removes combat stages from the layer sequence.
Edit: Hmmm... For Vile Redeemer, I don't think we want a creature that triggers in our graveyard, since then it would trigger the same time as our Arcbonds, so we could decide whether or not the creature goes back to the battlefield immediately, or gets buried underneath Arcbond triggers. But, a creature that triggers when it dies could work.
Edit: I think Young Wolf probably doesn't work, since it will come back on our side, and from then on it will be our trigger, which we can choose how we resolve compared to the Arcbonds.
Welcome back Stakfish! Great to have you back, and to have your creativity available for this challenge.
Oh, very interesting! Still thinking about the the new stage, but one thing I noticed: I don't see how Sacrifice can allow us to store the progress of a computation. Previously we have used Brightstone Ritual, because the opponent can output Goblins, or Battle Hymn, which we can resolve after killing off a large number of opponent's creatures by bouncing Coat of Arms, while having a Rotlung Reanimator on our side, so that we get lots of creatures. Sacrifice gets us the mana value of the creature, which can only get really large if we cast a creature with an X in its casting cost, timees the number of Sea Gate Stormcallers which can't be really large until we have taken advantage of the result of an opponent's computation, so that's kind of a Catch-22.
Previously, we used Mana Echoes to get mana commensurable with the output of the computation, but we won't have that with Kaevek's Spite.
Oh, we are also currently using Master Transmuter to convert mana into artifacts like Rings of Brighthearth, so if we require red mana for haste, then we need to turn the result of the computation into red mana. Maybe the best way to salvage your idea then is to find a way to turn the result of a computation into usable resources without using red mana or Master Transmuter.
Looking at the counting again, it looks like 10 is inadvertently dropped, from 54 to 46. But, the +2's that we are getting from Death's Oasis and Bloodbond March turn into +4's starting from Kamahl until Iname; assuming that's an error, that adds an extra +8. Accounting for both errors results in +2, for 101 layers.
Edit: Going back to the busy beaver deck, I suppose switching out Mox Sapphire for Eye of Ramos will allow us to pay 3 mana instead of 7 for Mirrorworks, so we wind up with 14 cards rather than 9. 14 cards are hopefully enough to get started.
Edit: I think we can get 14 layers with fewer cards, by using Thrummingbird and proliferating Invasion of the Giants rather than Tymarret. Invasion of the Giants only does 2 damage, but we can use Gisela, Blade of Goldnight to double the damage. That's 2 extra cards rather than 3, so we have an extra card we can use to help out with the opening, perhaps Master Skald.
I think we can probably improve the ending layers using the damage bouncing we were using in the more recent decks.
We get our required instants back by resolving a Worldfire, which puts our instants into exile, which we can then put into the library with Riftsweeper, and then back into our hand with Mystical Teachings.
I'm wondering if we need to have Artificial Evolution uncounterable? It seems similar to the problem you fixed with Scarab God... If we counter, we can have copies of Artificial Evolution waiting on the stack, which I guess can hack permanents in play as well as cards on the stack. So I guess this is different.
Have you confirmed whether or not the infinite with Eureka is there? It does look problematic.
What about, rather than ensuring that we can survive both a Worldfire and a Worldpurge in a hyperstage transition, we make things so that we can recycle the lifelands using one or the other, but not be able to survive both? (or profit from both, if we could survive it) So perhaps add something like Molderhulk to retrieve our lifelands from the graveyard, and remove Eureka, replacing it with something like Patron of the Moon or Walking Atlas.
Perhaps removing Eureka could remove the problem we have with spell copying enabling us to recycle lifelands multiple times? Then perhaps we could add Thousand-Year Storm back in.
The creature-based primary stage will probably take some work, but I feel like it opens more space for additional stages/layers.
Perhaps use Hunted Phantasm to give the opponent a lot of creatures, then Cultural Exchange to switch those with the creatures we want to give them. We can drop Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, and have 4 layers.
Edit: I've been thinking again about having the primary stage be a creature token stage, but the standard ways of doing it seem to require Cowardice. The problem with Cowardice is that we can then bounce with our Arcbonds and Artificial Evolution, which allows us to profit from a hyperstage transition into Worldfire I think. So we want to avoid Cowardice.
We could avoid Cowardice with Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Soul Foundry, but I can't figure out how to avoid the problem of turning damaged creature tokens into Goblin Boom Keg and having them die at the start of combat.
The Bone Shredder version was another possibility, but that version ran into a number of problems, detailed in posts 3900 and 3901.
Edit: Oh, I guess if we don't have March of the Machines, a Goblin Boom Keg won't die due to damage.
I will try to see if I can assemble a creature stage deck then.
Edit: Okay, I figure I'll just try something out, like:
2 Opalescence
3 Vedalken Orrery
4 Gravebreaker Lamia
6 Coat of Arms
7 Rotlung Reanimator
8 Dralnu's Crusade
9 Arcbond
10 Arcbond
11 Wrong Turn
12 Artificial Evolution
13 Sea Gate Stormcaller
14 Kaervek's Spite
15 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
16 Goblin Boom Keg
18 Immaculate Magistrate
19 Rage Weaver
20 Mirrorworks
21 Master Transmuter
22 Mox Sapphire
23 Mox Jet
24 Thopter Engineer
25 Bloodbond March
26 The Scarab God
27 Rings of Brighthearth
28 Riftsweeper
29 Sunscape Master
30 Soul Foundry
31 Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
32 Soulsworn Jury
34 Worldfire
35 Chatter of the Squirrel
36 Chatter of the Squirrel
37 Forest
38 Molderhulk
39 Panharmonicon
40 Spellweaver Helix
41 Wormfang Behemoth
42 Deathgrip
43 Wild Research
44 Show and Tell
45 Channel
So, how can we get additional stages from here? The hyperstage mana color can be arbitrary, so we can use any two of white, green, and red for the additional stages, as well as life.
Edit: Yeah, Thousand-Year Storm is also unsafe, because it can copy Arcbond. We're relying on Sea Gate Stormcaller to get copies of Artificial Evolution and Mobilize. (and Prosperity from the layer sequence)
Edit: Okay, if taking out Dual Nature works, the next step is to fill out the ending layers. How can we generate a lot of red mana?
Edit: Hmm, without Fractured Identity, we can't give the opponent Treasure tokens or Gold tokens, so we can use those in the layer sequence. So, how about:
2 Opalescence
3 Vedalken Orrery
4 Riftsweeper
5 Gravebreaker Lamia
6 Thopter Engineer
7 Coat of Arms
8 Rotlung Reanimator
9 Dralnu's Crusade
10 Arcbond
11 Arcbond
12 Domineering Will
13 March of the Machines
14 Artificial Evolution
15 Sea Gate Stormcaller
16 Kaervek's Spite
17 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
18 Goblin Boom Keg
19 Cryptic Trilobite
20 Immaculate Magistrate
21 Mox Jet
22 Rage Weaver
23 Mirrorworks
24 Master Transmuter
25 Mox Sapphire
27 The Scarab God
28 Rings of Brighthearth
29 Temur Sabertooth
30 Elvish Spirit Guide
31 Mobilize
32 Ambush Commander
33 Worldfire
34 Worldpurge
35 Acorn Harvest
36 Acorn Harvest
37 Radiant Fountain
38 Akoum Refuge
39 Eureka
40 Show and Tell
41 Panharmonicon
42 Spellweaver Helix
43 Wormfang Behemoth
44 Deathgrip
45 Wild Research
47 Channel
48 Break through the Line
49 Primal Beyond
50 Guardian Zendikon
51 Axgard Armory
52 Tinder Farm
53 Viridian Harvest
54 King Macar, the Gold-Cursed
55 Tolarian Kraken
56 Prosperity
57 Sylvan Echoes
58 Sentry Oak
59 Harmonic Prodigy
60 Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
That would be 1 hyperstage + 1 stage + 5 layers, it looks like. I'm not sure that the changes don't require extra cards, so that's something we should look out for.
The reason for using Fractured Identity is explained in post #3858; basically, we can use Artificial Evolution to changed the text of Rotlung Reanimators and Dralnu's Crusades that are still on the stack, and then Worldfire can exile Artificial Evolution, allowing us to get it back. Then, if we can get an infinite computation going with using the text-changed permanents, we can end whenever we want with the Artificial Evolution still in our hand.
Iijil's solution was to use The Scarab God to create copies of Rotlung Reanimator, and Fractured Identity to bring it over to the opponent's side. I guess we have to check whether Domineering Will allows the opponent to go infinite.
Edit: Oh, about the basic lands: for the Vintage version, we assume that all the opponent's cards are Wastes, so if they can put those into play they have access to colorless mana.
Edit: Okay, I think Domineering Will and Dual Nature will go infinite, because we can change the text of a Rotlung Reanimator and a Dralnu's Crusade, then resolve those spells, and then Dual Nature can create non-hacked versions of Rotlung Reanimator, and we can make an infinite computation just like in Iijil's example.
But, if we remove Dual Nature, then I think we are fine. If we resolve a hacked Rotlung Reanimator, it will be the only one we have, and we can't go infinite with just that one. To make more copies, we have to use The Scarab God, which means putting our hacked Rotlung Reanimator in the graveyard, so all our copies will have normal text. So yeah, that should be fine.
We optimized our deck around having Dual Nature, so we may need to make some changes if we remove it. But, moxes now can't be given to the opponent, so perhaps the setup works now.
Oh wait, with Thopter Engineer they don't need the red mana, so Master Transmuter + Thopter Engineer + Mox Sapphire + Fractured Identity is no good.
Illusionist's Bracers would have the same problem, I think. Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient costs red mana, which we don't want.
Edit: I thought about using Mana Echoes on the opponent's side, and then using Drain Power to steal the colorless mana, but then I remembered that Mana Echoes goes infinite with Mirrorworks and Master Transmuter.
Edit: Hmmm... For Vile Redeemer, I don't think we want a creature that triggers in our graveyard, since then it would trigger the same time as our Arcbonds, so we could decide whether or not the creature goes back to the battlefield immediately, or gets buried underneath Arcbond triggers. But, a creature that triggers when it dies could work.
Edit: I think Young Wolf probably doesn't work, since it will come back on our side, and from then on it will be our trigger, which we can choose how we resolve compared to the Arcbonds.
Oh, very interesting! Still thinking about the the new stage, but one thing I noticed: I don't see how Sacrifice can allow us to store the progress of a computation. Previously we have used Brightstone Ritual, because the opponent can output Goblins, or Battle Hymn, which we can resolve after killing off a large number of opponent's creatures by bouncing Coat of Arms, while having a Rotlung Reanimator on our side, so that we get lots of creatures. Sacrifice gets us the mana value of the creature, which can only get really large if we cast a creature with an X in its casting cost, timees the number of Sea Gate Stormcallers which can't be really large until we have taken advantage of the result of an opponent's computation, so that's kind of a Catch-22.
Previously, we used Mana Echoes to get mana commensurable with the output of the computation, but we won't have that with Kaevek's Spite.
Oh, we are also currently using Master Transmuter to convert mana into artifacts like Rings of Brighthearth, so if we require red mana for haste, then we need to turn the result of the computation into red mana. Maybe the best way to salvage your idea then is to find a way to turn the result of a computation into usable resources without using red mana or Master Transmuter.
Edit: Going back to the busy beaver deck, I suppose switching out Mox Sapphire for Eye of Ramos will allow us to pay 3 mana instead of 7 for Mirrorworks, so we wind up with 14 cards rather than 9. 14 cards are hopefully enough to get started.
Edit: I think we can get 14 layers with fewer cards, by using Thrummingbird and proliferating Invasion of the Giants rather than Tymarret. Invasion of the Giants only does 2 damage, but we can use Gisela, Blade of Goldnight to double the damage. That's 2 extra cards rather than 3, so we have an extra card we can use to help out with the opening, perhaps Master Skald.