@J_Kibbs: Wow! I have to admit, I haven't read through the entirety of your write-up yet, but even if FortyTwo's lower estimate for your final layer count is accurate, you'd have one of the higher totals this challenge has ever gotten from a solo deckbuilder. Most challengers have topped out at 7 or 8 layers, from what I've read of the early pages on this thread. Congratulations!
I do concur with FortyTwo though, I'm not sure what having both Dual Nature AND Flameshadow Conjuring could possibly get you. If it's the leaves-the-battlefield trigger on Dual Nature you're worried about, there's a trick you can use to dodge that. Right before a Dual Nature trigger resolves, you remove the enchantment from the battlefield and replay it (or not, if it's a token). That way, the leaves-the-battlefield trigger happens before the enters-the-battlefield trigger resolves, and you get to keep the token forever. You can also do the same by clearing out your Dual Natures before removing one of your higher level creatures. That's more expensive, but when you're talking about multiple layers, it doesn't really matter.
@FortyTwo: Yeah, I'm realizing I've never actually written out the entire process of the hyperstage transition in this Chalice deck. It goes like so:
We let another trigger resolve, casting False Memories. Chalice counters it, we put it back in our library, and the copies mill all three of our instants.
Now comes the tricky part. We let another trigger resolve, and cast Hurkyl's Recall, then counter it with the triggers on the stack. While those Recall copies are still waiting to resolve, we play Anaba Ancestor for Bloodbond March triggers. We activate the second Ancestor token, bouncing the nontoken (and giving us the triggers we need to regenerate that buffer), but we also use it to cast another False Memories, milling Hurkyl's Recall and False Memories. At this point, we can still cast Goryo's Vengeance, in fact, we can cast it as much as we want. But we haven't used up any key artifacts yet, and we don't have any Clockwork Gnomes, so doing so won't help us at all.
In any case, after we've milled Hurkyl's Recall again, we play the nontoken Ancestor again for another stack of Bloodbond March triggers. We play Engineered Explosives for 2, then play Wheel of Sun and Moon. We can't resolve Wheel with Chalice on 2, so we kill it. We now can no longer self-mill without fizzling, so our window to cast Goryo's Vengeance is closed: if we cast it no, we have no way to get it back in the graveyard to cast again once we wrap up the transition. We crack Explosives, it goes on the bottom, and we resolve the trigger, getting an Anaba Ancestor. The Psychic Battle and Bloodbond March triggers from earlier resolve, and we get the second Anaba Ancestor back, too.
The way it's SUPPOSED to go from there is, we can't get back Engineered Explosives without recasting Goryo's Vengeance, at which point it's in exile and we forego any future uses of it, at least until we can play Hurkyl's Recall again and put Chalice on 2. But there are two different infinites we can do even with Goryo's Vengeance in exile:
We can play Goryo's Vengeance after clearing Chalice, using Muzzio to get back Explosives and to get back an untapped Muzzio. Then we can champion Vedalken Orrery, resolve the Hurkyl's Recall copies, and then use the next two Psychic Battle triggers down to bounce Changeling Hero and get back Vedalken Orrery again, and to bounce Anaba Ancestor again. When we first resolved Hurkyl's Recall in this transition, we had an untapped Muzzio, Explosives and Chalice in our hand, Anaba Ancestor in hand, Vengeance and Recall in exile, and Brain Freeze/False Memories and Wheel of Sun and Moon in the graveyard. Now, we're three triggers down in the hyperstage, and all of those things are true again. So there's nothing to stop us from doing it again, building our stack of Anaba Ancestor triggers, playing Explosives, and making a third token. And then making a fourth below that, and so on. In the past, Myr Welder made it so that even if we resolved additional Hurkyl's Recalls, they couldn't bounce Explosives, because the only way to get Explosives back on the battlefield was with Muzzio, which required it be in the library, which required it to be in exile so we could Mirror of Fate it, which required tapping a Myr Welder, which required a Clockwork Gnomes/Psychic Battle trigger. Ditto with Millikin, though that was a lot less reliable. With neither, there's nothing stopping us from repeating that part of the hyperstage transition for each Psychic Battle.
Even if we fixed that infinite, we could still save Muzzio and Explosives, then play Chalice on 2 BELOW the hyperstage transition when we'd normally play it on 4, mill Goryo's Vengeance again, and go to town. I haven't put that one into as much detail, but basically this still isn't good enough to stop ourselves from casting Goryo's Vengeance in the middle of the transition.
With that said, I've found a couple interesting potential interactions:
If we go back to March of the Machines over Karn, Silver Golem, we'd forego the topmost Clockwork Gnomes stage, but ONLY the topmost one. It would also mean that for us to champion Vedalken Orrery, we'd have to kill both Chalice AND Explosives, and we can only get back 1 in time, so we wouldn't be able to champion it going into the transition. That would force us to use up a Muzzio just to get that intermediate Vedalken Orrery, and for the second Recall, we wouldn't even be able to do that: we can't get Orrery into the library for Muzzio to fetch at that point, because we have no way to kill it in the middle of the hyperstage transition. That means we either have to give up on saving Explosives AND use up a Muzzio, or wait for a Mirrorworks trigger underneath all the Anaba Ancestor triggers. I haven't found anything yet, but if we could find a way to make it so the only way to get Vedalken Orrery back was to activate Muzzio one way or another, that would guarantee our safety without any of these fancy shenanigans I've been giving myself a headache over for the last two weeks.
We can use Hermit Druid as a mill condition that's limited to one per explosives activation: we crack explosives for 2, kill it, make a token, use the token to mill, then get the nontoken back with Verdant Succession. I haven't found a way to get us to safety with that yet but maybe another pair of eyes will find something.
If we can find a way to make this safe WITHOUT restricting our ability to mill ourselves, we can save another card by replacing both our mill condition and Titania, Protector of Argoth with Cavalier of Thorns. That would give us an extra layer and maybe, just maybe, another stage.
This is a minor thing far higher up, but I noticed that we want Thousand-Year Storm copies of Multani's Decree, but not Worldfire. Easy fix is to have two Worldfires and two Spider Spawnings instead of three Spider Spawnings, so the Decree cast happens after Worldfire goes on the stack. That also frees us up to play any lifegain sorcery (cmc 4+) we want, since they now can never happen after a Worldfire resolves.
That's all I have for now. Hope this helps!
Edit: First post on a new page, so for anyone trying to catch up, here's the curent list we're discussing. It still has multiple infinites we are trying to fix, but we're close.
Stitching together the line from before and this infinite the line from your first bullet point gives this as the infinite line:
Quote from Stakfish »
[With Chalice of the Void on 2,] we let another [Anaba Ancestor] trigger resolve, casting Brain Freeze. Chalice counters it, we put it back in our library, and the copies mill all three of our instants.
Now comes the tricky part. We let another trigger resolve, and cast Hurkyl's Recall, then counter it with the triggers on the stack. While those Recall copies are still waiting to resolve, we play Anaba Ancestor for Bloodbond March triggers. We activate the second Ancestor token, bouncing the nontoken (and giving us the triggers we need to regenerate that buffer), but we also use it to cast another Brain Freeze, milling Hurkyl's Recall and Brain Freeze. At this point, we can still cast Goryo's Vengeance, in fact, we can cast it as much as we want. But we haven't used up any key artifacts yet, and we don't have any Clockwork Gnomes, so doing so won't help us at all.
In any case, after we've milled Hurkyl's Recall again, we play the nontoken Ancestor again for another stack of Bloodbond March triggers. We play Engineered Explosives for 2, then play Wheel of Sun and Moon. We can't resolve Wheel with Chalice on 2, so we kill it.
We can play Goryo's Vengeance after clearing Chalice, using Muzzio to get back Explosives and to get back an untapped Muzzio. Then we can champion Vedalken Orrery, resolve the Hurkyl's Recall copies, and then use the next two Psychic Battle triggers down to bounce Changeling Hero and get back Vedalken Orrery again, and to bounce Anaba Ancestor again. When we first resolved Hurkyl's Recall in this transition, we had an untapped Muzzio, Explosives and Chalice in our hand, Anaba Ancestor in hand, Vengeance and Recall in exile, and Brain Freeze and Wheel of Sun and Moon in the graveyard. Now, we're three triggers down in the hyperstage, and all of those things are true again. So there's nothing to stop us from doing it again, building our stack of Anaba Ancestor triggers, playing Explosives, and making a third token. And then making a fourth below that, and so on.
Hmm, but popping EE=2 kills all of the excess AA tokens, so I don't know if they build up like that. And also, Wheel of Sun and Moon puts itself in our library, not the yard after it dies (just like killing a Rest in Peace exiles it) so we need to mill it again to get it back.
It's also confusing because there are a few groups of Anaba ancestor triggers on the stack in this line. Lets go through this carefully.
Building up the stack from that line gives: Bottom-->Top (A=Ancestor PB trigger, B=Ancestor BM trigger, H=Hurkyl's, M=Mill from Brain Freeze)
X
Tap the first token
XAAAAA
Bounce the original Anaba ancestor with a trigger
XAAAA
we let another trigger resolve, casting Brain Freeze.
XAAAMMMM
Chalice counters it, we put it back in our library, and the copies mill all three of our instants.
XAAA
We let another trigger resolve, and cast Hurkyl's Recall, then counter it with the triggers on the stack.
XAAHHHHH
While those Recall copies are still waiting to resolve, we play Anaba Ancestor for Bloodbond March triggers.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBB
We activate the second Ancestor token,
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAAAA
Bouncing the nontoken (and giving us the triggers we need to regenerate that buffer), but we also use it to cast another Brain Freeze,
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMM
milling Hurkyl's Recall and Brain Freeze. At this point, we can still cast Goryo's Vengeance, in fact, we can cast it as much as we want. But we haven't used up any key artifacts yet, and we don't have any Clockwork Gnomes, so doing so won't help us at all.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMM (+Possible GV resolutions from the top level of 'A's give us an untapped muzzio and an untapped vat with muzzio)
In any case, after we've milled Hurkyl's Recall again, we play the nontoken Ancestor again for another stack of Bloodbond March triggers.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMBBBBB
We play Engineered Explosives for 2, then play Wheel of Sun and Moon. We can't resolve Wheel with Chalice on 2, so we kill it.
Let's pause and take stock of where we are at this moment:
At the point where we kill chalice, we have EE=2 in play, Wheel of sun and moon in hand, Ancestor in play, and all of our instants in the yard (except GV in exile and Allay in hand).
We play wheel, pop EE, it gets tucked, and in response Allay the Wheel so the AA properly dies. Resolve EE's trigger, killing our AAs and making a token.
Then we Allay Bloodbond March, imprint it on the vat, putting AA in the yard, and triggering Verdant succession, now we can mirror of Fate it back into the library and fetch it out again.
Then we let the top B resolve and return AA to play.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMBBBB
Then, instead of activating the fresh token, I think the line is to let most of that resolve, using the 'BA' sub-string in there to remake the other Anaba Ancestor token. We also champion the real Vedalken Orrery.
So we resolve down to:
XAAHHHHH
Activate the untapped Muzzio to get EE, and the untapped vat to make a muzzio to get chalice.
Let Hurkyl's finally resolve and return the artifacts to hand
XAAHHHH
Tap the first token to get Vedalken Orrery back.
XAAHHHHAAAA
Now we can repeat from the beginning, but with more on the stack.
Eventually we have
XAAHHHAAHHAAHHAAHHAA
very funny
One other thing to note is that this line costs a fair amount of mana, (something like 30 mana?) and Hurkyl's only makes 6 or so mana. How are we making enough mana in these lines? Also, it looks like we run out of excess Mimic vats and Mirror of fates without any gnomes to repower them? Or as I guess a bigger question for the deck: How do we make the first hasty Clockwork Gnomes token?
As for the other points you raised:
1. Going back to March of the machines is attractive, but I think it kills the clockwork gnomes stage? We can't refresh or make copies of artifacts like Mimic Vat without it being a creature, and that turns off chalice on 4.
2. Hermit druid is interesting in that it is a full mill from one trigger, so cards we would want to stay in the library (Engineered Explosives) have to be protected by being in another zone. I think there might be something here?
3. Cavalier of thorns is a nice replacement if we could be assuredly safe for milling, but it doesn't look like we are.
4. Nice optimization, I was thinking of just killing all of the TYS before casting Spider Spawning, but that is much cleaner. And as for other lifegain cards Divine Congregation is the obvious candidate, though Rejuvenate's cycling probably helps out the most. Captured Sunlight and Planewide Celebration are too good for the rest of the deck.
Forty two: thanks for even the smallest of evaluations. My last attempt only got to 11-15 I think so if I’m already at 10 I feel pretty good I’ll be able to match my max and hopefully exceed it. If I’m anywhere near the highs you have purposed I’ll be very surprised.
Stack: thanks! Yeah I’ve been lurking in this challenge mostly but I did help out a bit with the most recent std edition of the deck, so I sorta know my way around these concepts. The exact understanding of the mechanics of stages still alludes me but layers I think I understand reasonably well enough to build looking for them.
All: as far as Dual nature vs FSC, you guys might be correct. I can’t get rid of the red mana entirely as it has uses later on but I do think I can use DN instead. I know DN + copy enchantment would still work for the enchantment updating but I’ll have to dig into things a bit more to see if DN works with the non enchantment creatures. FWIW DN itself doesn’t work alone in my deck. In most of the other decks u guys have control over when u r able to bounce most things that matter. In my case it’s a bit different. Most of my updates are done and put into motion almost exclusively via triggers. I don’t have a mechanism in the deck to interrupt that process in a successful manner to do the DN trigger avoidance trick. Also with me bouncing and replaying things I would be updating the DS count but I’m pretty sure I would be losing all previous progress(so on the update that takes me from 11 to 2048 DS I think I lose the 11, then when I would go from 2048 to 2^2048 I would lose the 2048 and back). This might not be a big deal if I can indeed update to the higher number but I would be losing some progress, tho possibly trivial in scope.
Also, I didn’t get the rest of the deck posted yet but I’m hoping to get the white->green portion written up and posted in the next few days. The white-green process operates at a much much more efficient level and I think it’s 2-3 layers just by itself, possibly more. It’s also my favorite interactions in the deck, so I just think it’s cool.
Yeah, my high estimates seem a bit optimistic in retrospect, but I'm pretty confident you've gotten past x->x->10 at this point. I think once you can wrap your head around how the Ackermann function gets implemented in these decks you can have a better understanding of whats happening with the stage combos. And I do want to see the rest of your deck, as you had some really nice ideas for the standard deck, but unfortunately most of them didn't make the cut.
As for new cards so far, the escape mechanic seems to be putting a lot of things in exile, maybe we'll get a different way to bring them back? Ashiok's Erasure also seems kinda interesting,
Maybe I'm missing something silly, but it looks like resolving a Hurkyl's Recall turns off our ability to make mana until we resolve down to a Clockwork Gnomes trigger. We don't currently have a way to make(/remake) the first hasty Clockwork Gnomes/Rust tick? Once we have one it can start the stage just fine.
There are expensive ways such as tapping a much lower creature like Devout Chaplain or Old Man of The Sea or we can maybe get EE up to 4? Those work to get started.
But if those are our only way, we dont have unlimited access to them in that infinite. We will run out of mana attempting to go through that infinite as written. Even sneaking in some extra Hurkyl's (from the extra B triggers I mostly ignored in the line) doesn't help us at that costs 3 to remake the AA to give us the triggers to cast Hurkyl's, 2 to make a mirror to return the instants, and 4 to recast chalice on 2 to counter brain freeze to mill what we exiled. Totaling 9, while our artifacts only make 6 (UG+3-2+3).
So that infinite line #1 seems to actually be safe. The #2 line is still a bit worrying, but maybe salvageable?
@deedlit: March being the same CMC as Clockwork Gnomes was not even the problem I was thinking of. March of the machines just kills chalice as a 0/0. But yes I think we can move to Rust Tick now?
Edit:
Hmm, if the mana made exactly equaled the mana used it looks like we wouldn't go infinite, but create a stagelike structure?
Edit2: My mana tracking was kinda wrong, we don't need to remake the Anaba Ancestor each time, we can let the Hurkyl's resolve fully and then use the same AA's trigger to bounce changeling hero and get flash again. However, we do still need to spend 6 to make 6 (2 to copy Mirror of fate and 4 for Chalice on 2). But sometimes we would need to activate Mimic Vat for 3 mana, so we slowly lose mana every full cycle. So its not a full sub-stage in the transition.
Also, Rust Tick conflicts with mimic vat on 3 so in order to not be bottle-necked we'd need to pre-make all of the vats for the stage which will be a ridiculous amount of vats. We need a vat not only for every time we remake a stage creature, but also each time we copy an enchantment at the top, and we just can't make that much mana.
I have the phase 3 primer pretty much finished. Need to go over it one more time to be sure I haven’t missed anything. Then I need to get it grammar checked, formatted and tagged properly to be able to post it here.
I might have it up by tomorrow but more likely it won’t be until the following day.
In terms of text amount it will be a pretty large post. Likely similar to phase 1 but it’s only adding 6 cards. They do a lot for sure so being sure to include everything was pretty tedious going.
It's been a while since anyone made a full stack diagram, I think this is what we currently have/are trying to make work. (or is at least the structure I have in my head)
Top:
Copying enchantments
PB triggers for Allay copies
TYS triggers for Allay
Allay (For buyback to work this allay needs to resolve, so it targets an aura [Spellweaver Volute])
Copying Artifacts mostly for mana
PB trigger for Clockwork Gnomes
...
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (0 untapped hasty gnomes)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (1 untapped hasty gnome)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
... skipping ahead a bit
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (X untapped hasty gnomes)
Muzzio/AA Transition (0 extra AA) - See other posts for explanation of this
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (0 untapped hasty gnomes)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (1 untapped hasty gnome)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
...
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (X untapped hasty gnomes)
Muzzio/AA Transition (1 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (2 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
...
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (X extra AA)
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (0 extra life)
Muzzio/AA Transition (0 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (1 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
...
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (X extra AA)
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (3 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (6 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (9 extra life)
AA stage
...
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (X extra life)
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (0 black floating)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (0 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (3 extra life)
AA stage
...
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (X extra life)
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (1 black floating)
Life stage
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (2 black floating)
Life Stage
...
Life Stage
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (X black floating)
(CG stage in a AA stage in a Life stage in a black mana stage, everything below is an extension)
Vastwood animist triggers
Grassland Crusader stage
Western Paladin triggers
Frightshroud Courier stage
Havengul Runebinder triggers
Ghosthelm Courier stage
...
etc, with all the other creatures, this part of the deck is pretty fluid
...
Phase 3: getting our first white mana batch, updating our black mana usage, and then using white mana to make green
so it's actually a bit less optimum to do the black mana change first but it's a pain to explain the change in the middle of the white->green process. i'd rather just get it out of the way now as i'm going to be adding a few things to the black mana usage and it's just gonna get tedious to explain things inside of other things. i'll just explain this and get it over with so once we get to looking at white->green we can just focus on that. we do need white mana to do the change so lets go ahead and get started with that. also to do it in this order is less optimal as we lose out on an iteration of MR updates but as i said its just way easier this way. we also need an additional BB mana available so we actually need BBBBGGGG floating as we start this.
A) we tap our mox pearl token and get many white mana.
B) we will need to use up 2 SWS draws to get ?????????(36) and screeching phoenix(35). SP we will cast now and copy it. it is important to note here that it is optimum to make as many copies of everything not just the seemingly useful ones. we will hold our ???? card for a bit longer.
C) we will now cast Beacon of Unrest off the top and get our batch making triggers onto the stack. at this point our batch size will be far larger than we can ever hope to use. we will be eating all of the first batches excess copies with Nivmagus Elemental and then proceeding relatively normally. well almost.
D) our Drake Familiar updating procedure we will be changing slightly. this time we won't be killing itself and can use it to update something. the other change is that at the very very end of all these updates we will use the very last trigger to pick opalescence up. this will turn all of our non aura enchantments back into non creatures. this will be very convenient quite soon. we will now proceed through the rest of the batch basically normally. before our next TYS/BU batch gets created we will be doing some things. another thing we will want to do here is make sure our swamp in in play, with genju enchanting it and with the swamp animated.
E) we will now use up WW and cast planar outburst(37) off the top of the deck. we want the original to resolve but we will be eating all TYS copies of it with NME. before the original resolves we have a neat red mana amplification we can do.
F) red mana loop: so as PO shows we have ways to kill our creatures. this red mana loop will be very useful anytime our creatures are dying(a few or almost all of them). so we take all of our floating red mana(not using kykar tokens, yet, as those can kill themselves) and pump it through SP activation's. this will pump our entire teams p/t. we then sac any one of our self killable creatures. this gets us many DP triggers, which we will put all of them onto our RSKs. we then remove those counters and then again filter it back through our SP. this processing continues until all of our killable creatures have been turned into p/t and then into mana and then back into p/t and then repeating. this gives us a huge boost to our non killable board. now the reason we needed our animated swamp will now be revealed.
G) our PO resolves finally, and all the DP triggers will be generated and put onto our swamp(also of note is that our enchantments are safely not creatures at this point, so they don't die). the next time we have green mana to spend we can sac the swamp with is huge p/t and put those counters on our RSK and then redistribute it back onto the board via SP, and at an amplified rate via a huge amount of mana via RSK/DP.
H) so now PO has resolved and our next batch of BU/TYS are wanting to get created. we have one more trick up our sleeve before we start bringing all of our creatures back. we cast our 36th card which is halimar tidecaller(36).
I) so HTC enters and we will resolve its original trigger, with the HTC/FSC trigger still on the stack, which will pick up PO back into our hand. now we will respond further before the next BU/TYS batch trigger resolves.
J) we recast PO again. first copy will kill HTC, we will put our counters on the swamp, and then the extra copies of PO won't do much. then we let the first FSC/HTC trigger get paid for and resolve. this makes a bunch of HTCs but we can only pick up PO once, which we will do. then before the next FSC/HTC resolves we again cast and resolve PO, moving the DP counters to our swamp again. what this means is that for each FSC/HTC trigger we can up our storm count 1 per FSC we control at the start. upping our storm count doesn't do too much up to this point but it is significant later on.
K) on the last of these HTC/FSC triggers we will just pick up the PO. all of our creatures have long been in our graveyard and we can't make the chain any longer. we are now ready to move into the next BU/TYS batch, but this time we get all of our creatures back and not just our self sac'ing ones. this includes our SWS from earlier which will allow us to again set in motion many God-Eternal Rhonas entering and buffing our board many times. this will again aid in making our red mana loops much more potent in each of these BM+ cycles.
L) before we start resolving this new BU/TYS loop we will actually recast opalescence from hand. this way we can again use DF to update our enchantments very efficiently. as before since will be using PO destruction in this loop we will want to use our last DF trigger to pop opalescence back to our hand before we get to cast/resolving PO this allows us to have opalescence in play when we need it but still allows us to protect our enchantment progress through the creature wipe which is very convenient, then recast it to be able to update once again, and just keep repeating this bounce/recast dance as needed.
M) as a last note here is that normally when we process the BM+ we want to update first and then destroy last. when we are ready to move back out of this and back into green mana use or white mana use we will do the opposite. we will have our batch of BU/TYS return HTC to the battlefield first, do a bunch of wipes/FSC stuff, then put PO back into hand and then rebuild the rest of our creatures. this way when we leave this part of the stack it will be with our board back to its most powerful state. conveniently the whole process allow us to reset our Dowsing shaman so that it is untapped. it's actually really the only way to efficiently reset D-sham without using white mana or an even higher resource. we can do it with black mana so we should do this when needed. it is important to note that we need to do all the killing of creatures before a BU/TYS batch trigger resolves and gets created. if we don't then we won't be able to target the things we just destroyed and will have to wait for the next batch which loses value. the timing works favorably for us though, and we can time it to work properly.
so this shows the updated black mana usage(BM+). one of the really nice things is that we in a way preserve the progress in our P/T by allowing all DP counters from a resolving wipe to have a home to go to with our animated swamp. another nice thing is that we just need 2 white mana once to get access to PC, after that we will always be able to get it back to hand and not need white to cast it thanks to omniscience. using 2 white mana is rough but the alternative is to use up an even higher resource which makes up even less sense. as powerful a this new BM+ process is, sometimes we are using our black mana for a much narrower use. we can still opt to use black mana in a way that doesn't involve blowing all of our creatures up and just allows us to get something back from the yard(if we can put it there in the first place) and do some enchantment updates along the way, the updated version is BM+ and the std non wipe version i'll just refer to as BM. even later we will get another update to this process but this is more than enough stuff going on currently for our needs. for now lets get to the white mana use as we still have a lot of it waiting in our mana pool.
N) so now that we are ready to use up our white mana we need to make sure we still have GGGGBB floating. we need to use up 2 more SWS triggers to pick up ???????(38) and dryad arbor(39). this will also leave spitting image(40) on top of our library. SI is one of the reasons it's important for us to use the BM+ process as it accelerates our TYS storm count growth and SI reaps those rewards.
O) we cast SI targeting TYS, and we get a bunch of TYS/SI triggers. we let these all resolve and the copies all target DS. the original resolves and TYS gets updated as well.
P) we now pitch DA and spend GG to recast SI via retrace, targeting TYS. we again get a bunch of TYS/SI triggers but this time we are going to respond. we spend our last 2 floating black mana and do a std BM usage process, with BU targeting DA. we will update the hell out of the board as our batches of TYS/BU keep recurring DF and a few other small things. then our original BU targeting DA will resolve and DA will enter play. BU shuffles back to top of library. *of note here im still working out the number of BU i think i need in the deck. i think it's 2 but i could see 3 or even 4, it just depends on if we want to leave BU on the stack in certain cases*
Q) ok so now still responding before our SI/TYS triggers happen we now get a bunch of DA/FSC triggers. these triggers are incredibly powerful and are a blueprint for how our mox's will work once we finally decide to make sculpting steel into a mirrorworks and make a ton of them.
R) before we resolve any DA/FSC triggers we will tap our new DA for a lot of green mana. well now we can use that green immediately, still with DA/FSC on the stack, all happening with our SI/TYS triggers also still on the stack. we use our green mana 1 at a time to make black mana and then use those black mana(2 at a time) in BM+ fashion. the reason this doesn't immediately go infinite is that DA is a land creature and PC won't send it to the graveyard for us to just recur with BU. not the original and not the copies either. they are stuck in play(for now).
S) now we have used up our green mana from our original DA and updated all resources/amplifiers. now we can pay for the first DA/FSC trigger. this makes many many DA tokens. we can now tap those 1 at a time, use up their green mana to do massive amounts of updating(inc mana reflection), and then tap the next one and repeat. we will continue doing this until we have used up all tokens generated from 1 DA/FSC trigger. then we pay for the next trigger and repeat. we continue this process until we have fully used up all DA/FSC triggers.
T) now we let our SI/TYS triggers resolve, and you guessed it, we will target a DA with each of these SI copies. again once one resolves we will immediately generate green mana from the new tokens(1 at a time) before the next SI resolves, use that mana to update via green->black and BM+ processes. then the next SI copy resolves and we again use up our tokens 1 at a time. we repeat this process until we have exhausted all SI/TYS copies. then the original finally resolves updating TYS to current progress and resolving SI into the yard.
U) now we play our 38th card which is Aegis automaton(38), we make what copies we can, and prepare to finally use some white mana. instead of needing GGGGBB we only need GGBB but we do need that floating.
so you might see how this works but i want to explain some things that prevent this from going infinite. the wipe i use doesn't kill DA as i noted earlier, so we can't use black mana to make green. also yes we will be bouncing DA from battlefield to hand. if this were any other mana producing creature we could just replay it but DA is also a land so to do that we need a valid land play and we also need the stack to be clear. we don't have ether of those things luckily. so back to how this works.
V) we spend W and pick our original DA up into our hand
W) we again use pitching DA and GG to retrace SI. this time though we have DA tokens in play to target so we will let the SI/TYS copies resolve now. these again we will let 1 resolve and then tap the tokens 1 at a time, use up all that green mana and then, move to the next token. repeat until those are used up and let the next SI copy resolve. we let these full resolve all the way through, up to and including the original SI which will resolve and go to yard. doing it in this order lets us update FSC amounts much much more before needing to have amount of them solidified as DA enters play. we just didn't have any DA to target when we first started this but we do now so this line is now optimum
Y) now with the stack clear we cast BU off the top targeting DA. we again do small std BM loops here working through the TYS batches and then finally get DA back into play and BU back to top of deck. again we use up the mana from the original DA before paying for any FSC triggers. we use the FSC triggers up 1 at a time, and inside of that group of tokens we use each DA token 1 at a time to make green and then spend it efficiently in green->black and then BM or BM+ processes.
Z) we now loop back to step V and need to use up another white mana to rebuild. again when we do this the output will be fully updated. after all the last thing we will have done is a BM or BM+ process which updates us fully. we will need to have GGBB floating but that's the only criteria we need along side our single white mana.
so obviously once we have used all of our existing white mana we will be pretty low on resources. we will next be moving into re-casting our mox's from the deck. so on our last BM or BM+ processing we will want sculpting steel to enter the battlefield at the last possible moment. this time it will not enter as a self killing creature/artifact. this time it will enter as mirrorworks. this will cause the original MW to trigger once which we will pay for. obviously we will be fully updated on doubling season at this point so when we resolve this trigger we will get many many new MW tokens. so when we get to casting our mox's(emerald first and then pearl) we will get layers of triggers where we can extract mana from our resource with triggers on the stack to make more of them. it's very similar to how DA interacts with multiple FSC and the ability to use it's mana before paying for the FSC triggers. this time though it's mox's and MW triggers. we can't update the number of MW(easily anyway) unfortunately but we can update their outputs on the resolution of triggers.
*i may need to edit this some more but i wanted to get it posted*
Some interesting additions, not any of the cards i expected, I like halimar tidecaller fetching planar outburst.
Just glancing through I did notice some things:
we will now cast Beacon of Unrest off the top and get our batch making triggers onto the stack. at this point our batch size will be far larger than we can ever hope to use. we will be eating all of the first batches excess copies with Nivmagus Elemental and then proceeding relatively normally. well almost.
Even if we have excess copies of spells, nivmagis elemental is not worth the card slot. It's just another thing that outputs power to the board, and you have much stronger engines for that already. Same with several of your cards, (God-eternal Rhonas, screeching phoenix). I know it seems counter-intuitive that repeatedly doubling or squaring the total power is negligible, but really that just because of how powerful layers are. In this context (x->x->4) and (x->x->4)^2 are indistinguishable.
we cast SI targeting TYS, and we get a bunch of TYS/SI triggers. we let these all resolve and the copies all target DS. the original resolves and TYS gets updated as well.
It's much more efficient to make copies of the creatures lower on the stack, for example, just going one step to drake familiar gives you way more copies of the enchantments than copying them directly.
I think you can go all the way down to around Dowsing Shaman/Dryad Arbor/halimar tidecaller.
I don't see any obvious infinites yet, but you do have some close calls.
Forty-two: as to the targeting DF rather than TYS or DS, u are very correct. Good catch. The NME I think I actually need later to limit the resolution of spells but I might have other ways around it. If I don’t need it I can see cutting it. The Rhonas end of things I’m a bit more skeptical. It’s a 3-4 step process that is amplified at each point. SWS enters and gets FSC triggers. Each of these triggers will make many SWS. Each SWS will find the card Rhonas. Each time we find Rhonas we can play it and get many GER/FSC triggers, each making many Rhonas, each Rhonas doubling our power on each trigger. This is also happening during our BM+ process which the most common process to happen. It will also be happening after our updating for the process(or single BU/TYS batch specifically) has happened so our FSC triggers and amount of DS will be maxed out. This is probably the best I’m going to do unless I can somehow find a way to convert SWS triggers into finding DF(which would be awesome btw). It might just be another line I perused that doesn’t really lead anywhere it just cleans things up nicely.
Looking a little more in depth at your combo, starting with X copies of each enchantment:
You make X power by spending R for screeching phoenix,
make X R by removing counters from runaway steamkin,
put X counters on RSK with kykar/death's presence by spending an elemental buffed by Rhonas,
and make X Rhonas triggers with sumala woodshaper,
and make X sumala woodshaper with planar outburst/halimar tidecaller/Beacon of Unrest Spending black,
make X black with the Swamp/Genju/Ghostform loop spending a green on Dowsing shaman.
Then make X green with Dryad Arbor,
make X dryad arbors with Spitting Image,
Cast Spitting Image X times via aegis automaton and spending a white,
Make X white by tapping a mox pearl,
make X mox pearls via mirrorworks triggers on Sculpting Steel.
Is a chain of length 11 or so, which is very good, and you still have space to go.
But because you can't increase X until planar outburst/Beacon can return Drake Familiar and give us a bunch of bounces, the first few aren't proper full layers. And IDK if you (It's a bit more complicated as Screeching phoenix lets red increase the power of the tokens before Rhonas so there might be layers there? But also you need to keep up with the number of elementals, which gets tricky to keep track of, but I think you make enough). So I think your deck is currently at at least around x->x->8, or if I'm missing extra layers from stuff, maybe up to x->x->20.
Only thing I see u missed is I make x dryad arbors when it enters as well off FSC. So I get x Spitting images copies and then x FSC copies, each of these x’s fully updating before the next resolves.
And yeah 8-11 layers sounds about right for where I normally end up. I do still have space as u mentioned. I should still have 3-4 more layers, maybe a bit more. I hope to get those written up in the next week or so.
Pretty sure this is my layout so far. Pretty sure not all of these are layers but it’s at least a map for what is happening. Not sure how the question marks at the bottom fit in to it.
1- White mox entering battlefield
2- X mirrorworks triggers
3- each trigger makes x mox’s
4- each mox makes x white mana
5- each white mana bounces DA
6- each DA bounce casts SI
7a1- each mox emerald entering gives x MW triggers
7a2- each MW triggers makes x green mox’s
7b-each cast of SI puts x DA into play getting x FSC triggers and getting x copies of SI targeting DI
8- each DA(or mox emerald) can tap for X green mana
9- each green mana can recur KGF which allows us to retap our swamp for x black mana
10- 2 black mana can cast BU
11- each BU cast gets x batches
12- each batch makes 1 BM or BM+ loop
13a- each BM loop makes x DF tokens enter
13b- each BM+ loop is BM plus ups our storm count x
13c- each BM+ loop gives us SWS entering
14- each SWS gives us Rhonas card
15- each Rhonas entering gives us x FSC triggers
16- each FSC triggers gives x Rhonas
17- each Rhonas token gives us double power buff
? Whenever creatures die we get x^2 counter(x DP and then x DS).
?? Each BM+ loop all non lands creatures die
??? When we make the green->black transition we will get back all p/t back lost since last g->b transition as we can save it all on the swamp during PO resolving.
???? We can convert these counters into x red mana via RSK
????? We can convert 3 red into a buff for the team.
yeah that's pretty accurate, though BM=Bloodbond March from the other decks for me so I was confused for a bit.
As a rough count of the layers its the number of lines with an x in them that chain into each other. When there are branching paths you want to use the longest one/ For example, with the Dryad Arbor you have two linked ways to make more Dryad Arbors: SI and Beacon, you can only cast one of them on Dryad arbor after you have cast the other. SI gets X TYS copies and each TYS copy gives X tokens from doubling season (tokens don't trigger FSC) for 2 layers, while Beacon can't use all of the TYS copies, but does get X FSC triggers each of which gets X tokens from doubling season, which is also 2 layers. But because they are running in parallel instead of in sequence this section only gives you 2 layers.
Going through the steps
1- no x -> no layer
2- You don't have a good enough way to get more Mirrorworks yet, so this does not give a layer. (you can currently make a lot once)
3- Layer
4- Layer
5- no x -> no layer
6- no x -> no layer
7a- Better to make white moxes for a longer chain
7b- 2 layers from above analysis
8- layer
9- layer
10- no x -> no layer
11- layer
12- no x -> no layer (We mostly want to do the + loop)
Step 13 is where things get complicated as you have important ETB triggers that increase different things, we'll need to keep track of the number of enchantments and the amount of power, and TYS's storm.
13a-This gives 4 (!) layers of enchantments (BC on DF gives X FSC, each gives X bounces, replaying the enchantment gives X FSC, each gives X tokens from doubling season) This means that after 4 layers power has caught up and won't have an equivalent X
13b-this is the last area we update TYS's storm, which means that each TYS doesn't make enough copies to be a full layer, fortunately the above analysis has a different path to get two layers with Dryad Arbor.
13c- You didn't mention it but SWS gets X FSC for a layer for power
14- Each SWS FSC trigger gets x SWS triggers for a layer for power
15- layer for power
16- layer for power
17- no x -> no layer
we are now caught up with the number of enchantments [and elementals], X will have to refer to power somehow now.
?-we can sac an elemental to we get X counters on RSK and the next elemental, where X is it's power
??-yup would be a problem but
???- this saves us from ??
????-Since we can't update the number of Mana reflections here we only get red equal to RSK's power
?????-Red gives +1 power to the team, but the team is shrinking as you sac elementals, so this does not actually give a layer.
So my current count has you at x->x->11 for both enchantments and power.
Again, I'm not 100% on this analysis, but it should be pretty close
Also I'm not exactly sure what Coretapper is doing? None of your artifacts want charge counters.
Cathar's Crusade, Nivmagus Elemental, and Painter's Servant also aren't adding to your layers.
Edit: fixed typos and Fervor is redundant with the haste from FSC, getting to tap each thing one extra time is not necessary.
Back to the mega-giga-hyper-whatever stage deck, one possible sweeper that I missed earlier is Kalemne's Captain which seems like it could be a good fit in between Retract and Child of Alara. It is even a soldier for Cenn's tactician. Not sure if it can be expanded into another stage, but it is doing the right kind of thing and in a good color with a useful type.
Thoughts?
Edit: found a problem with the recent spellweaver helix fix, so we'll need to go back to 3x spider spawning. To prevent it from triggering itself endlessly, helix only triggers off of cards being cast, not copies. So we can't use the spider spawning->worldfire helix to trigger the worldfire->divine congregation helix.
Edit 2: I was kinda right about there being a new way to get cards back from exile, unfortunately ashiok, nightmare muse only targets opponents.
I'm not seeing anything particularly useful in the spoilers, Sage of mysteries might help with our milling problem? (Brain freeze still seems better) Triumphant surge is almost but not quite entirely unlike that nonexistent green creature with a dies for life trigger.
Hi, this is a really interesting challenge that I don't understand very much of what's going on with.
I had an idea recently by reading through the thread that's a bit out there: Using Magic Turing machines.
In particular, I found this Turing-machine setup that has the constraint of fitting within the sideboard of an actual competitive deck; and in particular requires a small number of cards. It also requires only a single turn to set up and run it.
Now, the idea is that we use a stage/layer based combo to generate a large but finite amount of mana (or some other resource); and use it to set up a turing machine (no omniscience or anything allowing us to set it up for free). We then set off the TM, somehow in such a way that no player can interrupt it. When it halts, we want some way of converting the output into damage (e.g. by attacking with a creature that accumulates +1/+1 counters during the process).
The kicker is, if the turing machine *doesn't* halt, the game is a draw so no damage is dealt. So, the maximum amount of damage the deck can produce is proportional to the maximum runtime of a non-halting turing machine of size up to X, where X is the amount of mana we can generate. In other words, the Busy Beaver function. Which grows faster than any computable function and thus completely outclasses anything on the fast growing hierarchy.
The main difficulty of this approach that I can think of is preventing inturruption once the turing machine is set in motion. The above link does so by putting a split second spell on the stack, but we can obviously choose not to do that. You could have the entire deck be sorcery speed; except that a key card in the setup is Artificial Evolution, an instant, with a completely unique effect. (There are some sorceries that change a colour word, but none that change a creature type arbitrarily). With it, you could set up a non-halting TM, run it for a while, then modify it so that it halts, to get an arbitrary amount of damage. So you'd somehow need to tie setting the TM in motion to exiling that spell (unlikely, as its driven by death triggers and it's pretty easy to make stuff die), or tie mana generation to donating the opponent a Teferi, Time Raveler or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - which is a bit more plausible but still difficult.
I thought of a way to solve the above issue: Ensure that there are no ways to get instants and sorceries out of the graveyard or exile, so that the only way to repeatedly cast them is with spellweaver volute/helix and a sorcery that is repeatedly castable, say Raven's Crime. This means that Omniscience becomes legal for setup.
The rest of the deck needs to be a sorcery-speed big mana combo. Ensure there's a way to copy spellweaver helix.
Whenever we retrace Raven's Crime, we trigger the Helixes, and get to cast Fractured Identity (part of TM setup) and Grim Discovery (recurring the land used for retracing and some creatures); we also trigger the Volute and get to cast either of aour TM-setup instants, or a PFE, which is copied twice so can return another PFE, another instant, and a creature that may be exiled. This is enough to cast our spells as many times as we have black mana.
With this, we can set up an arbitrary TM, then once it's going we have no way to stop it. If it does terminate, we can arrange for it to put a lot of +1/+1 counters to be put on one of our creatures, which will have flying and haste for us to attack with, unable to be blocked, converting it to damage.
I believe this deck goes Busy-Beaver.
Edit: I've convinced myself that Thousand Year Storm is safe to replace the Swarm Intelligences, the initial concern being that you could set up an infinite through one use of your instants copied many times, which I don't believe is the case.
Also, Composite Golem can be replaced with any creature that sacs itself
An interesting idea, but the issue is how difficult it is to actually ensure that you can't make a simple non halting machine, and then, after letting that run for a while, stopping that combo and attacking for some arbitrary amount.
Maybe if we only get one cast of Artificial Evolution?
Also, the size will be limited by the number of creature types we can name? BB(250) is certainly big, but IDK how it compares to what we have?
And wouldnt we need to say how we are setting up this machine? Can we just say "assign creature types in accordance with the BB machine for X states"?
The first point is addressed by the idea that the only way to interrupt a running TM is to have an instant in hand, but setting up anything non-halting requires having used our instants already, and the only way to reuse them is via a sorcery.
The author of the TM setup above presumably has in mind a UTM that fits within the required number of creature types, and can encode the state of an arbitrary TM via +1/+1 counters on stuff; so the size really is only limited by the number of times we can cast the setup spells.
Actually saying how to set it up is a little weird; it depends whether the rules of the challenge require you to fully describe the line of play leading to the maximum damage or simply prove that it exists. The latter makes more sense for considering ideas like this.
However, I've unfortunately realized a fatal flaw in the plan: It could be set up in a way that allows us (or the opponent) to have control over the order that etb/death triggers are put on the stack; thus this does allow a way to inturrupt a non-halting machine, thus going infinite.
Yeah but it can be difficult to set up a large combo without having excess instant speed interaction. Limiting ourselves to sorcery speed drastically cuts our usual options.
Right, encoding a UTM does solve being limited by creature types issue, and we can definitely fit one in the space. That's a non-issue.
What about how larger busy beaver numbers start running into Godel's Incompleteness Theorem? (Original bound was BB(8000) https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2725 Though it looks like the bound is currently down to 1919)
And yeah getting extra stacking death triggers is a problem with this construction. Though there may be other constructions that don't have that issue.
If a working Turing-machine setup could be found (which I now think is unlikely; you'd need to have enough freedom to be able to set up arbitrary TM states but in such a way that limits all your freedom to interact once they're set in motion), restricting the rest of the deck to sorcery speed would be worth the payoff because busy beaver numbers are just so unimaginably huge, and if you can generate even one additional layer on top of the it then you're iterating the BB function, which completely dwarfs every deck where the play sequence can be algorithmicly described (which it already does even before iteration for a large enough initial value; around the 1000s or so). I like the idea that the challenge description (max damage in a deck with no infinites) mirrors that of the BB problem (max run time of a TM that terminates) and may end up being on the order of the BB numbers.
But it's probably not possible to find such a setup. Though perhaps something like it could perform some more limited computation outside of the normal stage/layer setup. The inspiration for this idea was a post on this thread (around page 70-ish) stating that the only plausible way to reach something like F_{e0} would be via a turing machine that computes it.
Having the TM setup all be sorcery speed, or at least with limited casts of the instants, is a good start. It does seem difficult to ensure that exactly one rule is triggered by the previous rule+state.
Yeah, iterating the BB function would be very nice, but we'd need to implement it once to start with. While it would require a huge overhaul of the deck, it would be totally worth it.
Edit:
Also with Theros fully spoiled, we only have 2 more sets to add to the standard combo, which is looking pretty shaky right now. Probably too early to split into another thread, but currently, I'm thinking of using 4xLeylines+Goose into turn 2 Emergency powers dropping Bolas's Citadel as our start and Omniscience stand-in, and therefore whatever stage probably has to be based on life? We can make a bunch of mana and use an X spell to gain life for fuel, Clear the mind can reshuffle, but might be too good unless we somehow don't want to draw all those cards?
I do concur with FortyTwo though, I'm not sure what having both Dual Nature AND Flameshadow Conjuring could possibly get you. If it's the leaves-the-battlefield trigger on Dual Nature you're worried about, there's a trick you can use to dodge that. Right before a Dual Nature trigger resolves, you remove the enchantment from the battlefield and replay it (or not, if it's a token). That way, the leaves-the-battlefield trigger happens before the enters-the-battlefield trigger resolves, and you get to keep the token forever. You can also do the same by clearing out your Dual Natures before removing one of your higher level creatures. That's more expensive, but when you're talking about multiple layers, it doesn't really matter.
@FortyTwo: Yeah, I'm realizing I've never actually written out the entire process of the hyperstage transition in this Chalice deck. It goes like so:
Start with two untapped Anaba Ancestor tokens, Chalice of the Void set to 4, Engineered Explosives in the graveyard or on the battlefield, a Muzzio, Visionary Architect token (tapped or untapped), and an untapped Clockwork Gnomes. Tap the first Ancestor, and go through it like a normal Muzzio hyperstage. Then, when you cast Hurkyl's Recall, you also champion Vedalken Orrery under Changeling Hero. Everything gets bounced, you bounce the Hero with the next Psychic Battle trigger, Orrery comes back, and we play Chalice on 2. From here, we follow the procedure I described in post #2365:
The way it's SUPPOSED to go from there is, we can't get back Engineered Explosives without recasting Goryo's Vengeance, at which point it's in exile and we forego any future uses of it, at least until we can play Hurkyl's Recall again and put Chalice on 2. But there are two different infinites we can do even with Goryo's Vengeance in exile:
With that said, I've found a couple interesting potential interactions:
That's all I have for now. Hope this helps!
Edit: First post on a new page, so for anyone trying to catch up, here's the curent list we're discussing. It still has multiple infinites we are trying to fix, but we're close.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Brain Freeze
13 Allay
14 Skull of Orm
15 Mirrorworks
16 Mana Vault
17 Eye of Ramos
18 Clockwork Gnomes
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Hurkyl's Recall
22 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
23 Changeling Hero
24 Anaba Ancestor
25 Engineered Explosives
26 Wheel of Sun and Moon
28 Acorn Harvest
29 Smite the Monstrous
30 Child of Alara
31 Centaur Safeguard
32 Verdant Succession
33 Select for Inspection
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Worldfire
36 Worldfire
37 Spider Spawning
38 Spider Spawning
39 Titania, Protector of Argoth
40 Multani's Decree
41 Bayou
42 Eureka
43 Mox Emerald
44 Vastwood Animist
45 Grassland Crusader
46 Western Paladin
47 Frightshroud Courier
49 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Devout Chaplain
51 Simian Spirit Guide
52 Goblin Kites
53 Old Man of the Sea
54 Sea Snidd
55 Reign of Chaos
56 Xathrid Gorgon
57 Tribal Unity
58 Thousand-Year Storm
59 Consecrated Sphinx
60 Sphinx of Enlightenment
Stitching together the line from before and this infinite the line from your first bullet point gives this as the infinite line:
Hmm, but popping EE=2 kills all of the excess AA tokens, so I don't know if they build up like that. And also, Wheel of Sun and Moon puts itself in our library, not the yard after it dies (just like killing a Rest in Peace exiles it) so we need to mill it again to get it back.
It's also confusing because there are a few groups of Anaba ancestor triggers on the stack in this line. Lets go through this carefully.
Building up the stack from that line gives: Bottom-->Top (A=Ancestor PB trigger, B=Ancestor BM trigger, H=Hurkyl's, M=Mill from Brain Freeze)
X
Tap the first token
XAAAAA
Bounce the original Anaba ancestor with a trigger
XAAAA
we let another trigger resolve, casting Brain Freeze.
XAAAMMMM
Chalice counters it, we put it back in our library, and the copies mill all three of our instants.
XAAA
We let another trigger resolve, and cast Hurkyl's Recall, then counter it with the triggers on the stack.
XAAHHHHH
While those Recall copies are still waiting to resolve, we play Anaba Ancestor for Bloodbond March triggers.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBB
We activate the second Ancestor token,
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAAAA
Bouncing the nontoken (and giving us the triggers we need to regenerate that buffer), but we also use it to cast another Brain Freeze,
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMM
milling Hurkyl's Recall and Brain Freeze. At this point, we can still cast Goryo's Vengeance, in fact, we can cast it as much as we want. But we haven't used up any key artifacts yet, and we don't have any Clockwork Gnomes, so doing so won't help us at all.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMM (+Possible GV resolutions from the top level of 'A's give us an untapped muzzio and an untapped vat with muzzio)
In any case, after we've milled Hurkyl's Recall again, we play the nontoken Ancestor again for another stack of Bloodbond March triggers.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMBBBBB
We play Engineered Explosives for 2, then play Wheel of Sun and Moon. We can't resolve Wheel with Chalice on 2, so we kill it.
Let's pause and take stock of where we are at this moment:
At the point where we kill chalice, we have EE=2 in play, Wheel of sun and moon in hand, Ancestor in play, and all of our instants in the yard (except GV in exile and Allay in hand).
We play wheel, pop EE, it gets tucked, and in response Allay the Wheel so the AA properly dies. Resolve EE's trigger, killing our AAs and making a token.
Then we Allay Bloodbond March, imprint it on the vat, putting AA in the yard, and triggering Verdant succession, now we can mirror of Fate it back into the library and fetch it out again.
Then we let the top B resolve and return AA to play.
XAAHHHHHBBBBBAAAMMMMBBBB
Then, instead of activating the fresh token, I think the line is to let most of that resolve, using the 'BA' sub-string in there to remake the other Anaba Ancestor token. We also champion the real Vedalken Orrery.
So we resolve down to:
XAAHHHHH
Activate the untapped Muzzio to get EE, and the untapped vat to make a muzzio to get chalice.
Let Hurkyl's finally resolve and return the artifacts to hand
XAAHHHH
Tap the first token to get Vedalken Orrery back.
XAAHHHHAAAA
Now we can repeat from the beginning, but with more on the stack.
Eventually we have
XAAHHHAAHHAAHHAAHHAA
very funny
One other thing to note is that this line costs a fair amount of mana, (something like 30 mana?) and Hurkyl's only makes 6 or so mana. How are we making enough mana in these lines? Also, it looks like we run out of excess Mimic vats and Mirror of fates without any gnomes to repower them? Or as I guess a bigger question for the deck: How do we make the first hasty Clockwork Gnomes token?
As for the other points you raised:
1. Going back to March of the machines is attractive, but I think it kills the clockwork gnomes stage? We can't refresh or make copies of artifacts like Mimic Vat without it being a creature, and that turns off chalice on 4.
2. Hermit druid is interesting in that it is a full mill from one trigger, so cards we would want to stay in the library (Engineered Explosives) have to be protected by being in another zone. I think there might be something here?
3. Cavalier of thorns is a nice replacement if we could be assuredly safe for milling, but it doesn't look like we are.
4. Nice optimization, I was thinking of just killing all of the TYS before casting Spider Spawning, but that is much cleaner. And as for other lifegain cards Divine Congregation is the obvious candidate, though Rejuvenate's cycling probably helps out the most. Captured Sunlight and Planewide Celebration are too good for the rest of the deck.
Stack: thanks! Yeah I’ve been lurking in this challenge mostly but I did help out a bit with the most recent std edition of the deck, so I sorta know my way around these concepts. The exact understanding of the mechanics of stages still alludes me but layers I think I understand reasonably well enough to build looking for them.
All: as far as Dual nature vs FSC, you guys might be correct. I can’t get rid of the red mana entirely as it has uses later on but I do think I can use DN instead. I know DN + copy enchantment would still work for the enchantment updating but I’ll have to dig into things a bit more to see if DN works with the non enchantment creatures. FWIW DN itself doesn’t work alone in my deck. In most of the other decks u guys have control over when u r able to bounce most things that matter. In my case it’s a bit different. Most of my updates are done and put into motion almost exclusively via triggers. I don’t have a mechanism in the deck to interrupt that process in a successful manner to do the DN trigger avoidance trick. Also with me bouncing and replaying things I would be updating the DS count but I’m pretty sure I would be losing all previous progress(so on the update that takes me from 11 to 2048 DS I think I lose the 11, then when I would go from 2048 to 2^2048 I would lose the 2048 and back). This might not be a big deal if I can indeed update to the higher number but I would be losing some progress, tho possibly trivial in scope.
Also, I didn’t get the rest of the deck posted yet but I’m hoping to get the white->green portion written up and posted in the next few days. The white-green process operates at a much much more efficient level and I think it’s 2-3 layers just by itself, possibly more. It’s also my favorite interactions in the deck, so I just think it’s cool.
Also happy new year.
Yeah, my high estimates seem a bit optimistic in retrospect, but I'm pretty confident you've gotten past x->x->10 at this point. I think once you can wrap your head around how the Ackermann function gets implemented in these decks you can have a better understanding of whats happening with the stage combos. And I do want to see the rest of your deck, as you had some really nice ideas for the standard deck, but unfortunately most of them didn't make the cut.
Speaking of standard, I haven't looked too hard but it is not looking particularly good so far.
Dance of the Manse+quasiduplicate let us make a bunch of Thousand-Year Storms and other enchantments.
The best acceleration we have is something like Gilded Goose + some number of Leyline of abundance?
As for new cards so far, the escape mechanic seems to be putting a lot of things in exile, maybe we'll get a different way to bring them back?
Ashiok's Erasure also seems kinda interesting,
I'm sorry that I haven't had time to contribute in a little while. I do intend to get back into this soon.
Is there any reason why we need Clockwork Gnomes over Rust Tick? That might handle the March of the Machines problem, if that works out better.
There are expensive ways such as tapping a much lower creature like Devout Chaplain or Old Man of The Sea or we can maybe get EE up to 4? Those work to get started.
But if those are our only way, we dont have unlimited access to them in that infinite. We will run out of mana attempting to go through that infinite as written. Even sneaking in some extra Hurkyl's (from the extra B triggers I mostly ignored in the line) doesn't help us at that costs 3 to remake the AA to give us the triggers to cast Hurkyl's, 2 to make a mirror to return the instants, and 4 to recast chalice on 2 to counter brain freeze to mill what we exiled. Totaling 9, while our artifacts only make 6 (UG+3-2+3).
So that infinite line #1 seems to actually be safe. The #2 line is still a bit worrying, but maybe salvageable?
@deedlit: March being the same CMC as Clockwork Gnomes was not even the problem I was thinking of. March of the machines just kills chalice as a 0/0. But yes I think we can move to Rust Tick now?
Edit:
Hmm, if the mana made exactly equaled the mana used it looks like we wouldn't go infinite, but create a stagelike structure?
Edit2: My mana tracking was kinda wrong, we don't need to remake the Anaba Ancestor each time, we can let the Hurkyl's resolve fully and then use the same AA's trigger to bounce changeling hero and get flash again. However, we do still need to spend 6 to make 6 (2 to copy Mirror of fate and 4 for Chalice on 2). But sometimes we would need to activate Mimic Vat for 3 mana, so we slowly lose mana every full cycle. So its not a full sub-stage in the transition.
Also, Rust Tick conflicts with mimic vat on 3 so in order to not be bottle-necked we'd need to pre-make all of the vats for the stage which will be a ridiculous amount of vats. We need a vat not only for every time we remake a stage creature, but also each time we copy an enchantment at the top, and we just can't make that much mana.
I have the phase 3 primer pretty much finished. Need to go over it one more time to be sure I haven’t missed anything. Then I need to get it grammar checked, formatted and tagged properly to be able to post it here.
I might have it up by tomorrow but more likely it won’t be until the following day.
In terms of text amount it will be a pretty large post. Likely similar to phase 1 but it’s only adding 6 cards. They do a lot for sure so being sure to include everything was pretty tedious going.
Jkibbs
Top:
Copying enchantments
PB triggers for Allay copies
TYS triggers for Allay
Allay (For buyback to work this allay needs to resolve, so it targets an aura [Spellweaver Volute])
Copying Artifacts mostly for mana
PB trigger for Clockwork Gnomes
...
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (0 untapped hasty gnomes)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (1 untapped hasty gnome)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
... skipping ahead a bit
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (X untapped hasty gnomes)
Muzzio/AA Transition (0 extra AA) - See other posts for explanation of this
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (0 untapped hasty gnomes)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (1 untapped hasty gnome)
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
...
BM triggers for Clockwork Gnomes
PB triggers for Clockwork Gnomes (X untapped hasty gnomes)
Muzzio/AA Transition (1 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (2 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
...
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (X extra AA)
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (0 extra life)
Muzzio/AA Transition (0 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (1 extra AA)
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
...
Clockwork Gnomes Stage
Muzzio/AA Transition (X extra AA)
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (3 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (6 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (9 extra life)
AA stage
...
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (X extra life)
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (0 black floating)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (0 extra life)
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (3 extra life)
AA stage
...
AA stage
Acorn Harvest/Smite the Monstrous/Child of Alara Transition (X extra life)
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (1 black floating)
Life stage
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (2 black floating)
Life Stage
...
Life Stage
Spider Spawning/Divine Congregation/Worldfire Transition (X black floating)
(CG stage in a AA stage in a Life stage in a black mana stage, everything below is an extension)
Vastwood animist triggers
Grassland Crusader stage
Western Paladin triggers
Frightshroud Courier stage
Havengul Runebinder triggers
Ghosthelm Courier stage
...
etc, with all the other creatures, this part of the deck is pretty fluid
...
Tribal Unity TYS copies
Consecrated Sphinx triggers drawing Tribal Unity
:Bottom
When that whole stack runs out, we make another Sphinx of Enlightenment and kick it all off again, but with 1 fewer card in the opponent's library.
Do I have anything wrong?
so it's actually a bit less optimum to do the black mana change first but it's a pain to explain the change in the middle of the white->green process. i'd rather just get it out of the way now as i'm going to be adding a few things to the black mana usage and it's just gonna get tedious to explain things inside of other things. i'll just explain this and get it over with so once we get to looking at white->green we can just focus on that. we do need white mana to do the change so lets go ahead and get started with that. also to do it in this order is less optimal as we lose out on an iteration of MR updates but as i said its just way easier this way. we also need an additional BB mana available so we actually need BBBBGGGG floating as we start this.
A) we tap our mox pearl token and get many white mana.
B) we will need to use up 2 SWS draws to get ?????????(36) and screeching phoenix(35). SP we will cast now and copy it. it is important to note here that it is optimum to make as many copies of everything not just the seemingly useful ones. we will hold our ???? card for a bit longer.
C) we will now cast Beacon of Unrest off the top and get our batch making triggers onto the stack. at this point our batch size will be far larger than we can ever hope to use. we will be eating all of the first batches excess copies with Nivmagus Elemental and then proceeding relatively normally. well almost.
D) our Drake Familiar updating procedure we will be changing slightly. this time we won't be killing itself and can use it to update something. the other change is that at the very very end of all these updates we will use the very last trigger to pick opalescence up. this will turn all of our non aura enchantments back into non creatures. this will be very convenient quite soon. we will now proceed through the rest of the batch basically normally. before our next TYS/BU batch gets created we will be doing some things. another thing we will want to do here is make sure our swamp in in play, with genju enchanting it and with the swamp animated.
E) we will now use up WW and cast planar outburst(37) off the top of the deck. we want the original to resolve but we will be eating all TYS copies of it with NME. before the original resolves we have a neat red mana amplification we can do.
F) red mana loop: so as PO shows we have ways to kill our creatures. this red mana loop will be very useful anytime our creatures are dying(a few or almost all of them). so we take all of our floating red mana(not using kykar tokens, yet, as those can kill themselves) and pump it through SP activation's. this will pump our entire teams p/t. we then sac any one of our self killable creatures. this gets us many DP triggers, which we will put all of them onto our RSKs. we then remove those counters and then again filter it back through our SP. this processing continues until all of our killable creatures have been turned into p/t and then into mana and then back into p/t and then repeating. this gives us a huge boost to our non killable board. now the reason we needed our animated swamp will now be revealed.
G) our PO resolves finally, and all the DP triggers will be generated and put onto our swamp(also of note is that our enchantments are safely not creatures at this point, so they don't die). the next time we have green mana to spend we can sac the swamp with is huge p/t and put those counters on our RSK and then redistribute it back onto the board via SP, and at an amplified rate via a huge amount of mana via RSK/DP.
H) so now PO has resolved and our next batch of BU/TYS are wanting to get created. we have one more trick up our sleeve before we start bringing all of our creatures back. we cast our 36th card which is halimar tidecaller(36).
I) so HTC enters and we will resolve its original trigger, with the HTC/FSC trigger still on the stack, which will pick up PO back into our hand. now we will respond further before the next BU/TYS batch trigger resolves.
J) we recast PO again. first copy will kill HTC, we will put our counters on the swamp, and then the extra copies of PO won't do much. then we let the first FSC/HTC trigger get paid for and resolve. this makes a bunch of HTCs but we can only pick up PO once, which we will do. then before the next FSC/HTC resolves we again cast and resolve PO, moving the DP counters to our swamp again. what this means is that for each FSC/HTC trigger we can up our storm count 1 per FSC we control at the start. upping our storm count doesn't do too much up to this point but it is significant later on.
K) on the last of these HTC/FSC triggers we will just pick up the PO. all of our creatures have long been in our graveyard and we can't make the chain any longer. we are now ready to move into the next BU/TYS batch, but this time we get all of our creatures back and not just our self sac'ing ones. this includes our SWS from earlier which will allow us to again set in motion many God-Eternal Rhonas entering and buffing our board many times. this will again aid in making our red mana loops much more potent in each of these BM+ cycles.
L) before we start resolving this new BU/TYS loop we will actually recast opalescence from hand. this way we can again use DF to update our enchantments very efficiently. as before since will be using PO destruction in this loop we will want to use our last DF trigger to pop opalescence back to our hand before we get to cast/resolving PO this allows us to have opalescence in play when we need it but still allows us to protect our enchantment progress through the creature wipe which is very convenient, then recast it to be able to update once again, and just keep repeating this bounce/recast dance as needed.
M) as a last note here is that normally when we process the BM+ we want to update first and then destroy last. when we are ready to move back out of this and back into green mana use or white mana use we will do the opposite. we will have our batch of BU/TYS return HTC to the battlefield first, do a bunch of wipes/FSC stuff, then put PO back into hand and then rebuild the rest of our creatures. this way when we leave this part of the stack it will be with our board back to its most powerful state. conveniently the whole process allow us to reset our Dowsing shaman so that it is untapped. it's actually really the only way to efficiently reset D-sham without using white mana or an even higher resource. we can do it with black mana so we should do this when needed. it is important to note that we need to do all the killing of creatures before a BU/TYS batch trigger resolves and gets created. if we don't then we won't be able to target the things we just destroyed and will have to wait for the next batch which loses value. the timing works favorably for us though, and we can time it to work properly.
so this shows the updated black mana usage(BM+). one of the really nice things is that we in a way preserve the progress in our P/T by allowing all DP counters from a resolving wipe to have a home to go to with our animated swamp. another nice thing is that we just need 2 white mana once to get access to PC, after that we will always be able to get it back to hand and not need white to cast it thanks to omniscience. using 2 white mana is rough but the alternative is to use up an even higher resource which makes up even less sense. as powerful a this new BM+ process is, sometimes we are using our black mana for a much narrower use. we can still opt to use black mana in a way that doesn't involve blowing all of our creatures up and just allows us to get something back from the yard(if we can put it there in the first place) and do some enchantment updates along the way, the updated version is BM+ and the std non wipe version i'll just refer to as BM. even later we will get another update to this process but this is more than enough stuff going on currently for our needs. for now lets get to the white mana use as we still have a lot of it waiting in our mana pool.
N) so now that we are ready to use up our white mana we need to make sure we still have GGGGBB floating. we need to use up 2 more SWS triggers to pick up ???????(38) and dryad arbor(39). this will also leave spitting image(40) on top of our library. SI is one of the reasons it's important for us to use the BM+ process as it accelerates our TYS storm count growth and SI reaps those rewards.
O) we cast SI targeting TYS, and we get a bunch of TYS/SI triggers. we let these all resolve and the copies all target DS. the original resolves and TYS gets updated as well.
P) we now pitch DA and spend GG to recast SI via retrace, targeting TYS. we again get a bunch of TYS/SI triggers but this time we are going to respond. we spend our last 2 floating black mana and do a std BM usage process, with BU targeting DA. we will update the hell out of the board as our batches of TYS/BU keep recurring DF and a few other small things. then our original BU targeting DA will resolve and DA will enter play. BU shuffles back to top of library. *of note here im still working out the number of BU i think i need in the deck. i think it's 2 but i could see 3 or even 4, it just depends on if we want to leave BU on the stack in certain cases*
Q) ok so now still responding before our SI/TYS triggers happen we now get a bunch of DA/FSC triggers. these triggers are incredibly powerful and are a blueprint for how our mox's will work once we finally decide to make sculpting steel into a mirrorworks and make a ton of them.
R) before we resolve any DA/FSC triggers we will tap our new DA for a lot of green mana. well now we can use that green immediately, still with DA/FSC on the stack, all happening with our SI/TYS triggers also still on the stack. we use our green mana 1 at a time to make black mana and then use those black mana(2 at a time) in BM+ fashion. the reason this doesn't immediately go infinite is that DA is a land creature and PC won't send it to the graveyard for us to just recur with BU. not the original and not the copies either. they are stuck in play(for now).
S) now we have used up our green mana from our original DA and updated all resources/amplifiers. now we can pay for the first DA/FSC trigger. this makes many many DA tokens. we can now tap those 1 at a time, use up their green mana to do massive amounts of updating(inc mana reflection), and then tap the next one and repeat. we will continue doing this until we have used up all tokens generated from 1 DA/FSC trigger. then we pay for the next trigger and repeat. we continue this process until we have fully used up all DA/FSC triggers.
T) now we let our SI/TYS triggers resolve, and you guessed it, we will target a DA with each of these SI copies. again once one resolves we will immediately generate green mana from the new tokens(1 at a time) before the next SI resolves, use that mana to update via green->black and BM+ processes. then the next SI copy resolves and we again use up our tokens 1 at a time. we repeat this process until we have exhausted all SI/TYS copies. then the original finally resolves updating TYS to current progress and resolving SI into the yard.
U) now we play our 38th card which is Aegis automaton(38), we make what copies we can, and prepare to finally use some white mana. instead of needing GGGGBB we only need GGBB but we do need that floating.
so you might see how this works but i want to explain some things that prevent this from going infinite. the wipe i use doesn't kill DA as i noted earlier, so we can't use black mana to make green. also yes we will be bouncing DA from battlefield to hand. if this were any other mana producing creature we could just replay it but DA is also a land so to do that we need a valid land play and we also need the stack to be clear. we don't have ether of those things luckily. so back to how this works.
V) we spend W and pick our original DA up into our hand
W) we again use pitching DA and GG to retrace SI. this time though we have DA tokens in play to target so we will let the SI/TYS copies resolve now. these again we will let 1 resolve and then tap the tokens 1 at a time, use up all that green mana and then, move to the next token. repeat until those are used up and let the next SI copy resolve. we let these full resolve all the way through, up to and including the original SI which will resolve and go to yard. doing it in this order lets us update FSC amounts much much more before needing to have amount of them solidified as DA enters play. we just didn't have any DA to target when we first started this but we do now so this line is now optimum
Y) now with the stack clear we cast BU off the top targeting DA. we again do small std BM loops here working through the TYS batches and then finally get DA back into play and BU back to top of deck. again we use up the mana from the original DA before paying for any FSC triggers. we use the FSC triggers up 1 at a time, and inside of that group of tokens we use each DA token 1 at a time to make green and then spend it efficiently in green->black and then BM or BM+ processes.
Z) we now loop back to step V and need to use up another white mana to rebuild. again when we do this the output will be fully updated. after all the last thing we will have done is a BM or BM+ process which updates us fully. we will need to have GGBB floating but that's the only criteria we need along side our single white mana.
so obviously once we have used all of our existing white mana we will be pretty low on resources. we will next be moving into re-casting our mox's from the deck. so on our last BM or BM+ processing we will want sculpting steel to enter the battlefield at the last possible moment. this time it will not enter as a self killing creature/artifact. this time it will enter as mirrorworks. this will cause the original MW to trigger once which we will pay for. obviously we will be fully updated on doubling season at this point so when we resolve this trigger we will get many many new MW tokens. so when we get to casting our mox's(emerald first and then pearl) we will get layers of triggers where we can extract mana from our resource with triggers on the stack to make more of them. it's very similar to how DA interacts with multiple FSC and the ability to use it's mana before paying for the FSC triggers. this time though it's mox's and MW triggers. we can't update the number of MW(easily anyway) unfortunately but we can update their outputs on the resolution of triggers.
*i may need to edit this some more but i wanted to get it posted*
full list so far w/ additions noted at bottom
1 mox emerald
2 mox pearl
3 tinder wall
4 chaos warp(#1)
5 kykar, wind's fury
6 thousand-year storm
7 chaos warp(#2)
8 omniscience
9 doubling season
10 future sight
11 welding jar
12 chrome mox
13 mirrorworks
14 chaos warp(#3)
15 opalescence
16 flameshadow conjuring
17 cathar's crusade
18 swamp
19 runaway steam-kin
20 vedalken orrery
21 painter's servant
22 sumala woodshaper
23 drake familiar
24 God-eternal Rhonas
25 Death's Presence
26 Mana Reflection
27 Fervor
28 NivMagus elemental
29 Sculpting Steel
30 Core Tapper
31 Beacon of unrest(#1)
32 Genju of the fens
33 Kaya's ghostform
34 Dowsing shaman
35 new screeching phoenix
36 new halimar tidecaller
37 new planar outburst
38 new aegis automaton
39 new dryad arbor
40 new spitting image
Just glancing through I did notice some things:
Even if we have excess copies of spells, nivmagis elemental is not worth the card slot. It's just another thing that outputs power to the board, and you have much stronger engines for that already. Same with several of your cards, (God-eternal Rhonas, screeching phoenix). I know it seems counter-intuitive that repeatedly doubling or squaring the total power is negligible, but really that just because of how powerful layers are. In this context (x->x->4) and (x->x->4)^2 are indistinguishable.
It's much more efficient to make copies of the creatures lower on the stack, for example, just going one step to drake familiar gives you way more copies of the enchantments than copying them directly.
I think you can go all the way down to around Dowsing Shaman/Dryad Arbor/halimar tidecaller.
I don't see any obvious infinites yet, but you do have some close calls.
Jkibbs
You make X power by spending R for screeching phoenix,
make X R by removing counters from runaway steamkin,
put X counters on RSK with kykar/death's presence by spending an elemental buffed by Rhonas,
and make X Rhonas triggers with sumala woodshaper,
and make X sumala woodshaper with planar outburst/halimar tidecaller/Beacon of Unrest Spending black,
make X black with the Swamp/Genju/Ghostform loop spending a green on Dowsing shaman.
Then make X green with Dryad Arbor,
make X dryad arbors with Spitting Image,
Cast Spitting Image X times via aegis automaton and spending a white,
Make X white by tapping a mox pearl,
make X mox pearls via mirrorworks triggers on Sculpting Steel.
Is a chain of length 11 or so, which is very good, and you still have space to go.
But because you can't increase X until planar outburst/Beacon can return Drake Familiar and give us a bunch of bounces, the first few aren't proper full layers. And IDK if you (It's a bit more complicated as Screeching phoenix lets red increase the power of the tokens before Rhonas so there might be layers there? But also you need to keep up with the number of elementals, which gets tricky to keep track of, but I think you make enough). So I think your deck is currently at at least around x->x->8, or if I'm missing extra layers from stuff, maybe up to x->x->20.
And yeah 8-11 layers sounds about right for where I normally end up. I do still have space as u mentioned. I should still have 3-4 more layers, maybe a bit more. I hope to get those written up in the next week or so.
Jkibbs
1- White mox entering battlefield
2- X mirrorworks triggers
3- each trigger makes x mox’s
4- each mox makes x white mana
5- each white mana bounces DA
6- each DA bounce casts SI
7a1- each mox emerald entering gives x MW triggers
7a2- each MW triggers makes x green mox’s
7b-each cast of SI puts x DA into play getting x FSC triggers and getting x copies of SI targeting DI
8- each DA(or mox emerald) can tap for X green mana
9- each green mana can recur KGF which allows us to retap our swamp for x black mana
10- 2 black mana can cast BU
11- each BU cast gets x batches
12- each batch makes 1 BM or BM+ loop
13a- each BM loop makes x DF tokens enter
13b- each BM+ loop is BM plus ups our storm count x
13c- each BM+ loop gives us SWS entering
14- each SWS gives us Rhonas card
15- each Rhonas entering gives us x FSC triggers
16- each FSC triggers gives x Rhonas
17- each Rhonas token gives us double power buff
? Whenever creatures die we get x^2 counter(x DP and then x DS).
?? Each BM+ loop all non lands creatures die
??? When we make the green->black transition we will get back all p/t back lost since last g->b transition as we can save it all on the swamp during PO resolving.
???? We can convert these counters into x red mana via RSK
????? We can convert 3 red into a buff for the team.
As a rough count of the layers its the number of lines with an x in them that chain into each other. When there are branching paths you want to use the longest one/ For example, with the Dryad Arbor you have two linked ways to make more Dryad Arbors: SI and Beacon, you can only cast one of them on Dryad arbor after you have cast the other. SI gets X TYS copies and each TYS copy gives X tokens from doubling season (tokens don't trigger FSC) for 2 layers, while Beacon can't use all of the TYS copies, but does get X FSC triggers each of which gets X tokens from doubling season, which is also 2 layers. But because they are running in parallel instead of in sequence this section only gives you 2 layers.
Going through the steps
1- no x -> no layer
2- You don't have a good enough way to get more Mirrorworks yet, so this does not give a layer. (you can currently make a lot once)
3- Layer
4- Layer
5- no x -> no layer
6- no x -> no layer
7a- Better to make white moxes for a longer chain
7b- 2 layers from above analysis
8- layer
9- layer
10- no x -> no layer
11- layer
12- no x -> no layer (We mostly want to do the + loop)
Step 13 is where things get complicated as you have important ETB triggers that increase different things, we'll need to keep track of the number of enchantments and the amount of power, and TYS's storm.
13a-This gives 4 (!) layers of enchantments (BC on DF gives X FSC, each gives X bounces, replaying the enchantment gives X FSC, each gives X tokens from doubling season) This means that after 4 layers power has caught up and won't have an equivalent X
13b-this is the last area we update TYS's storm, which means that each TYS doesn't make enough copies to be a full layer, fortunately the above analysis has a different path to get two layers with Dryad Arbor.
13c- You didn't mention it but SWS gets X FSC for a layer for power
14- Each SWS FSC trigger gets x SWS triggers for a layer for power
15- layer for power
16- layer for power
17- no x -> no layer
we are now caught up with the number of enchantments [and elementals], X will have to refer to power somehow now.
?-we can sac an elemental to we get X counters on RSK and the next elemental, where X is it's power
??-yup would be a problem but
???- this saves us from ??
????-Since we can't update the number of Mana reflections here we only get red equal to RSK's power
?????-Red gives +1 power to the team, but the team is shrinking as you sac elementals, so this does not actually give a layer.
So my current count has you at x->x->11 for both enchantments and power.
Again, I'm not 100% on this analysis, but it should be pretty close
Also I'm not exactly sure what Coretapper is doing? None of your artifacts want charge counters.
Cathar's Crusade, Nivmagus Elemental, and Painter's Servant also aren't adding to your layers.
Edit: fixed typos and Fervor is redundant with the haste from FSC, getting to tap each thing one extra time is not necessary.
Thoughts?
Edit: found a problem with the recent spellweaver helix fix, so we'll need to go back to 3x spider spawning. To prevent it from triggering itself endlessly, helix only triggers off of cards being cast, not copies. So we can't use the spider spawning->worldfire helix to trigger the worldfire->divine congregation helix.
Edit 2: I was kinda right about there being a new way to get cards back from exile, unfortunately ashiok, nightmare muse only targets opponents.
I'm not seeing anything particularly useful in the spoilers,
Sage of mysteries might help with our milling problem? (Brain freeze still seems better)
Triumphant surge is almost but not quite entirely unlike that nonexistent green creature with a dies for life trigger.
I had an idea recently by reading through the thread that's a bit out there: Using Magic Turing machines.
In particular, I found this Turing-machine setup that has the constraint of fitting within the sideboard of an actual competitive deck; and in particular requires a small number of cards. It also requires only a single turn to set up and run it.
Now, the idea is that we use a stage/layer based combo to generate a large but finite amount of mana (or some other resource); and use it to set up a turing machine (no omniscience or anything allowing us to set it up for free). We then set off the TM, somehow in such a way that no player can interrupt it. When it halts, we want some way of converting the output into damage (e.g. by attacking with a creature that accumulates +1/+1 counters during the process).
The kicker is, if the turing machine *doesn't* halt, the game is a draw so no damage is dealt. So, the maximum amount of damage the deck can produce is proportional to the maximum runtime of a non-halting turing machine of size up to X, where X is the amount of mana we can generate. In other words, the Busy Beaver function. Which grows faster than any computable function and thus completely outclasses anything on the fast growing hierarchy.
The main difficulty of this approach that I can think of is preventing inturruption once the turing machine is set in motion. The above link does so by putting a split second spell on the stack, but we can obviously choose not to do that. You could have the entire deck be sorcery speed; except that a key card in the setup is Artificial Evolution, an instant, with a completely unique effect. (There are some sorceries that change a colour word, but none that change a creature type arbitrarily). With it, you could set up a non-halting TM, run it for a while, then modify it so that it halts, to get an arbitrary amount of damage. So you'd somehow need to tie setting the TM in motion to exiling that spell (unlikely, as its driven by death triggers and it's pretty easy to make stuff die), or tie mana generation to donating the opponent a Teferi, Time Raveler or Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - which is a bit more plausible but still difficult.
So, the deck is:
2 Hungry Lynx
3 Rotlung Reanimator
4 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
5 Composite Golem
6 Artificial Evolution
7 Fractured Identity
8 Shields of Velis Vel
10 Spellweaver Helix
11 Pull from Eternity
12 Pull from Eternity
13 Grim Discovery
14 Raven's Crime
15 Raven's Crime
16 Raven's Crime
17 Swarm Intelligence
18 Swarm Intelligence
19 Forrest
The rest of the deck needs to be a sorcery-speed big mana combo. Ensure there's a way to copy spellweaver helix.
Whenever we retrace Raven's Crime, we trigger the Helixes, and get to cast Fractured Identity (part of TM setup) and Grim Discovery (recurring the land used for retracing and some creatures); we also trigger the Volute and get to cast either of aour TM-setup instants, or a PFE, which is copied twice so can return another PFE, another instant, and a creature that may be exiled. This is enough to cast our spells as many times as we have black mana.
With this, we can set up an arbitrary TM, then once it's going we have no way to stop it. If it does terminate, we can arrange for it to put a lot of +1/+1 counters to be put on one of our creatures, which will have flying and haste for us to attack with, unable to be blocked, converting it to damage.
I believe this deck goes Busy-Beaver.
Edit: I've convinced myself that Thousand Year Storm is safe to replace the Swarm Intelligences, the initial concern being that you could set up an infinite through one use of your instants copied many times, which I don't believe is the case.
Also, Composite Golem can be replaced with any creature that sacs itself
Maybe if we only get one cast of Artificial Evolution?
Also, the size will be limited by the number of creature types we can name? BB(250) is certainly big, but IDK how it compares to what we have?
And wouldnt we need to say how we are setting up this machine? Can we just say "assign creature types in accordance with the BB machine for X states"?
The author of the TM setup above presumably has in mind a UTM that fits within the required number of creature types, and can encode the state of an arbitrary TM via +1/+1 counters on stuff; so the size really is only limited by the number of times we can cast the setup spells.
Actually saying how to set it up is a little weird; it depends whether the rules of the challenge require you to fully describe the line of play leading to the maximum damage or simply prove that it exists. The latter makes more sense for considering ideas like this.
However, I've unfortunately realized a fatal flaw in the plan: It could be set up in a way that allows us (or the opponent) to have control over the order that etb/death triggers are put on the stack; thus this does allow a way to inturrupt a non-halting machine, thus going infinite.
Right, encoding a UTM does solve being limited by creature types issue, and we can definitely fit one in the space. That's a non-issue.
What about how larger busy beaver numbers start running into Godel's Incompleteness Theorem? (Original bound was BB(8000) https://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2725 Though it looks like the bound is currently down to 1919)
And yeah getting extra stacking death triggers is a problem with this construction. Though there may be other constructions that don't have that issue.
But it's probably not possible to find such a setup. Though perhaps something like it could perform some more limited computation outside of the normal stage/layer setup. The inspiration for this idea was a post on this thread (around page 70-ish) stating that the only plausible way to reach something like F_{e0} would be via a turing machine that computes it.
Yeah, iterating the BB function would be very nice, but we'd need to implement it once to start with. While it would require a huge overhaul of the deck, it would be totally worth it.
Edit:
Also with Theros fully spoiled, we only have 2 more sets to add to the standard combo, which is looking pretty shaky right now. Probably too early to split into another thread, but currently, I'm thinking of using 4xLeylines+Goose into turn 2 Emergency powers dropping Bolas's Citadel as our start and Omniscience stand-in, and therefore whatever stage probably has to be based on life? We can make a bunch of mana and use an X spell to gain life for fuel, Clear the mind can reshuffle, but might be too good unless we somehow don't want to draw all those cards?
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/816162-most-damage-without-going-infinite-grn-m21