@Ancalagon: Yeah, I too started Magic quite a while ago, and after I left and came back I had quite a bit of catching up to do. The rule change on split cards is probably bad for this challenge, but doesn't come up too much I guess.
It looks like FortyTwo's observation of not being able to deal damage once we get to the cleanup step makes Pitchstone Wall okay, so long as we use life gain lands rather than Gerrard's Verdict? In which case, it looks like we have:
Edit: Oh right, the fact that Worldpurge empties our mana pools kills some of these layers. So we lose 3, going down to 8 layers. I'm sure that we can do better.
One idea is to switch to Worldfire, so that we can keep mana layers later.
Hmm, now that Angelheart Vial + Mournful Zombie are only worth two layers, we can replace them with Brightflame + Precursor Golem. Brightflame gets a layer, and Precursor Golem adds two, for 3 layers total. That eliminates the need for Marchesa Smuggler, so we can use blue mana somewhere as well.
Yeah, one of the ways Lithoform Engine goes infinite is by copying an artificial evolution to bounce simian spirit guide without spending red mana. Wouldn't be surprised if there were more ways too.
Edit: How do we recuur Dawnglow Infusion? It needs to not bypass the flashback that triggers the hyperstage.
Hey everyone,
So I've been working on my decklist for the last few days and think it really improved with all the tips from here. Also it's now a 60 card Vintage instead of Commander deck. A Commander deck goes infinite way too easy because you can always recast your commander from the command zone...
Basically I've tried to more or less use a consistent main line now instead of multiple ways to do stuff.
Start is as usual: Black Lotus -> Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Enter the Infinite
Isochron Scepter will now imprint 7 cards (4 Outnumber, Kabira Tabedown (essentially the same card), Rush of Vitality and Fling), this is possible with multiple EtB triggers from Yarok, the Desecrated. I'm not sure if this is the best move, but there were 5 slots open and I figured that additional Outnumbers would be best.
The combo is now: Unbender Tine untaps Isochron Scepter, which is copied by every Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient. Every Kurkesh then copies the Isochron activation. All the copies are cast, which triggers every Precursor Golem for every creature we have. First we use Fling on a Saber Ants, to set the number of creatures we have to a multiple of the power of the creature we sacrificed with the help of Fiery Emancipation and Doubling Season. Unfortunately Fling doesn't do much after that because the damage stays constant, but with Outnumber, the damage increases with the increasing number of creatures we get. Psychic Battle redirects all of the Golem copies to Saber Ants, which creates more golems (Xenograft)
Every creature then comes into play with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of Master Biomancer, multiplied by Doubling Season and triggers Hamletback Goliath, also multiplied by Doubling Season. This increases the power of Heroes' Bane enchanted with Gleam of Authority.
Every creature entering the battlefield also triggers Intruder Alarm, multiplied by Yarok and untaps every Alena, Kessig Trapper, which can be used to increase the power of Heroes' Bane further.
Once every copy of every copy from the Isochrone Spells is resolved, we use one Alena to cast Haze of Rage with buyback X/2 times where X is Heroes' Bane's power, to increase the storm count of Thousand-Year Storm.
All of the creature tokens created by Saber Ants can be used as any combo piece (Precursor Golem, Doubling Season, Fiery Emancipation, Alena, Intruder Alarm, Yarok, Kurkesh, etc) at every point of the combo with Shapesharer. So every Isochrone activation gives multiplies all combo pieces multiple times.
Unbender Tine can then be untapped with Lapis Lazuli Talisman every time a blue spell is cast.
They way to do that is: One play of Gingerbread Cabin creates a lot of Food tokens with Doubling Season and Yarok (Dryad Arbor copies in play count for the forests so the Cabin enters untapped). Cracking a Food token nets 3 life, copied by Kurkesh and multiplied by Rhox Faithmender. For 1 life, Wydwen, the Biting Gale can be bounced and discard to Chainer, Nightmare Adept, which gets copied by Kurkesh to get a lot of creature replays from the grave. The creature we recast is Bygone Bishop, which creates a lot of Clue tokens, again copied by Doubling Season. Cracking a Clue draws a card for every Kurkesh we have, one at a time so this can recast Blue Sun's Zenith that many times to trigger the Talisman and untap Unbender Tine.
Chandra also casts Chandra's Ignition (how fitting). Before casting it, every creature (except one of each combo piece) should be turned into a Precursor Golem from Shapesharer, to generate the most triggers. Every trigger then counts the number of Golems when it resolves, so this really scales. With Psychic Battle, the Ignition copy from the Golems is redirected to the Heroes' Bane with Gleam of Authority. Then every creature is turned into Saber Ants or Fiery Emancipation, to get the most token triggers. Before the first token trigger resolves, we change everything into Doubling Season, Yarok, the Desecreated and Intruder Alarm to get the most tokens, while the powerful Heroes' Bane with Gleam of Authority gets turned into Master Biomancer and one other creature gets turned into Hamletback Goliath. This makes Heroe's Bane a lot more powerful and gives a bunch of untap triggers. After an untap trigger resolves, we turn one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper and every other creature into Nyxbloom Ancient, tap it, increase the power of Heroes' Bane, then repeat that until every creature (including the new ones) is tapped for mana and Heroes' Bane is vastly more powerful.
Since Heroes' Bane has lifelink, this also creates a lot of Unbender Tine untaps for every copy and even more with the next copy.
With spells that don't target a single creature, like Second Sunrise, Surreal Memoir, Eerie Ultimatium, Echo of Eons and Time Spiral, it's best to turn every token into a Thousand-Year Storm before casting it, otherwise it's best to turn every token into a Precursor Golem because the Golem triggers scale as they count the number of Golems when the ability resolves.
Hopefully I did a decent job explaining it and I hope there's not some infinite combo still hidden in there.
How would the new list compare? It's certainly a lot more to the point than the one before, thanks to the help from everyone here.
/Edit:
Just found that Mycosinth Lattice doesn't work with Chandra Ablaze. That would have to be replaced by Memnarch or something like that.
But Khalni Gem and Llanowar Scout would be another layer with Second Sunrise.
Sorry for the double post... I'm trying to understand how my deck - or any other "most damage deck" - works mathematically and I'm not sure if I got this correct. Tbh I'm a bit confused.
For example with my list, what would happen with the first use of Unbender Tine? Let's assume for simplicity's sake that there are 100 creatures which can be freely transformed into combo pieces by Shapesharer while there's still at least one of every combo piece available as Shapesharer target. And enough mana to do that (that should be easy because Heroes' Bane always grows much faster than the number of creatures, so mana for Shapesharer or Kurkesh isn't limiting) and Scepter has only Outnumber imprinted, nothing else.
Tap Unbender Tine to untap Isochron Scepter. Turn 100 creatures into Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient for 100 untaps. Let the first untap resolve, activate Scepter, copy the activation 100 times, then change every creature into Precursor Golem. Let the first activation resolve, get 100 Golem triggers.
Let the first trigger resolve, get 100 copies of Outnumber (which can all be redirected to Saber Ants). Change 99 creatures into Fiery Emancipation, let the first Outnumber resolve, then with the Saber Ants trigger on the stack, change 100 creatures into Doubling Season. We should then get 100 * 3^99 * 2^100 tokens.
Let the second Outnumber resolve, get 3^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100 -1) * 2^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100) * (100 * 3^99 * 2^100) tokens. This is more than 3^(3^99).
The next Outnumber should then create more than 3^3^3^99 tokens.
In total, we get some more than 3^^99 tokens from the second Golem trigger, is that correct?
And the third Golem trigger would turn that into 3^^^99, the 4th into 3^^^^99 and so forth? Or am I calculating this wrong?
And what would the second activation of Isochron Scepter do? That's where I totally get lost in the maths (if that didn't happen before O.o). And after the 100 activations are done, what would the second untap do when Googols of Googols of Googols of Kurkeshs produce an absolutely enormous number of activations?
In any case, it seems like Outnumber isn't significantly better than Lightning Bolt in the scenario - the damage pretty much only depends on the number of Fiery Emancipations?
The only way to make a difference would be to switch Outnumber for Justice Strike because Heroes' Bane is always much, much more powerful than the number of creatures. That would exclude any lifelink effects, so cut Yarok and Rush of Vitality for Naban, Dean of Iteration and Elspeth, Knight-Errant (emblem for indestructible). Outnumber can be cut since it's actually useless.
The new combo would then be: Unbender Tine -> Isochron Scepter -> Justice Strike on the Heroes' Bane, enchanted with Druid's Call and Gleam of Authority, turn it into Hungering Hydra and everything else into Fiery Emancipation before Justice Strike resolves. Let Strike resolve, turn it into Master Biomancer before Druid's Call trigger resolves. Turn all creatures into Doubling Season. The tokens get their counters and trigger Hamletback Goliath, which grows the creature enchanted with Gleam of Authority again. Turn it into Heroes' Bane again, let the untap trigger from Intruder Alarm resolve. Change everything except Heroe's Bane into Nyxbloom Ancient and one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper. Tap it, use the mana to grow Heroes' Bane, repeat until every creature is tapped, let the next Justice Strike resolve.
What would happen here?
Haven't looked through everything, but can help a little with the math.
Having a process that takes 3^x to 3^^x is good, but you need to repeat it about x times to get to 3^^^x, so a lot of the math gets simplified. So by the end of the golem triggers in your example you'd be at 3^^^99 and then it looks like a few more layers for the other activations and kurkesh to get to 3^^^^^99
Haven't looked through everything, but can help a little with the math.
Having a process that takes 3^x to 3^^x is good, but you need to repeat it about x times to get to 3^^^x, so a lot of the math gets simplified. So by the end of the golem triggers in your example you'd be at 3^^^99 and then it looks like a few more layers for the other activations and kurkesh to get to 3^^^^^99
Thanks! In that case what would happen if the first blue spell is cast and there are 3^^^^^99 scepter untaps and 3^^^^^99 scepter activations for the first untap and so on? Would that add more up arrows?
That was the version with Outnumber if I interpret it correctly?
With Justice Strike the number of tokens should scale better:
If there were 100 creatures and a hydra with power 2^10000, that would be 2^10000*3^100 tokens ( = 2^10150). With 50 Naban and 50 Intruder Alarm, there would be 250 untap triggers for every creature. All creatures get turned into Nyxbloom Ancient and one into Alena. Alena taps for about 3^2^10150 mana. One activation costs approximately just R, because all tokens get turned into Kurkesh to copy the ability so Hydra grows to about 2^3^2^10150. Next Alena grows it to about 2^2^3^2^10150 and so on for each of the 2^10150 tokens, for every untap trigger. That would add another two or three(?) up arrows unless I'm wrong?
And of course it turned out that Master Biomancer, Hamletback Goliath, Hungering Hydra, Gleam of Authority are useless. How big the Hydra is at the beginning is almost irrelevant.
*note i'm probably going to have to edit these posts to get everything formatted and spellchecked but i do want to just get it posted and i'll clean it up shortly. i have it all written and just need to get it cleaned up and posted*
it's been awhile since i posted anything on this deck but i have been working on it in the background. figured i'd post my progress so far. it's still incomplete as i'm around 5 or so cards short of the full 60 but i feel like sharing the deck at this point. a lot of this will be familiar as it's based of the last version but it makes significant strides in potency in quite a few ways. i'll try to not talk too much about the old deck so i'll be presenting some stuff that feels like a rehash but often there are some pretty important improvements so i really did need to go through it all again.
A- play both moxes(1,2) and wall(3), sac wall for RR and tap pearl for RRW to cast chaos warp #1(4) targeting pearl. pearl shuffles back into the deck and we get Omniscience(8) into play
B- cast Kykar, Wind's Fury(5)(KWF), then cast Thousand-Year Storm(6)(TYS), triggering KWF to get 1 spirit token(i will refer to KWF tokens as K and will track the amount as K=x, currently K=1)
C- cast chaos warp #2(7) targeting mox emerald. we trigger both TWS and KWF. we will resolve the TYS trigger first and we target the K token with our copy of warp. this resolves(K=0) and we get Doubling Season(9)(DS) into play. then the KWF trigger resolves and we get 2 tokens(K=2). now we resolve our original warp #2 and shuffle emerald back into the deck and get Future Sight(10) into play
D- we play a basic swamp(11) off the top of the library
E- cast welding jar #1(12) and #2(13) off the top. we get 2 K each(K=6). we sack 5 K(K=1) to cast Mirrorworks(14)(MW), which get us 2 K(K=3). cast sorcerer's wand(K=2 then 4)(15, we won't be using this for a very long time), then cast Vedalken Orrery(VO)(16)(K=0 then 2). when VO enters we have a MW trigger go onto the stack
*now we have flash and we will start responding to triggers. i will try to periodically restate what is still on the stack, floating mana, etc as we move through the process of playing things. we want to leave this VO/MW trigger on the stack*
<last<VO/MW>first> K=2
F- cast mox pearl of the top(K=4), enters get MW trigger but respond to pearl/MW trigger by casting mox emerald(K=6). this time we will let emeralds MW trigger resolve and sac 2 K(K=4) to pay for it, and we get 2 mox emerald tokens. we then tap 2 mox emeralds and sac 4 K(K=0) to cast Mana Reflection(MR)(17) for RRRRGG, and get 2 K(K=2). we now tap our last mox emerald to get GG and cast Green Sun's Zenith(18)(GSZ)on X=0(K=4) off the top with GSZ finding nothing and then shuffling back into the deck. we now tap our mox pearl and get WW.
<VO/MW, pearl/MW> K=4, WWG floating
G- sac 2 K(K=2) and then pay GRR to cast chaos wrap #3(19) targeting original mox emerald. we get 2 K(K=4) as we will let the KWF trigger resolve first and then target welding jar #1, mox pearl, and DS with our 3 TYS copies.
H- jar shuffles back into the deck and we get Opalescence(20) into play. now our non auras enchantments are also creatures
I- pearl shuffles into our deck and we get Flameshadow Conjuring(21)(FSC) into play. it enters as a creature and self triggers. we pay with a K(K=3) and get 2 FSC tokens
J- DS shuffles back in and we re-find it with the copy of warp and it enters as a creature triggering all 3 FSC. we sac our last 3 K(K=0) to pay for the 3 triggers get 2, then 8, then 2048 DS. before we resolve the original warp #3 we cast welding jar #1 off the top and get X K(K=X)
K- the original warp #3 resolves on emerald. it shuffles in and we find Sumala Woodshaper(22)(SWS) which enters and we get it's own etb and also 3 SWS/FSC triggers. we will resolve SWS own etb first and pick up Drake Familiar(23)(DF). still responding to our SWS/FSC triggers we will play DF. same as with SWS we will resolve DFs own etb before the DF/FSC triggers resolve. with this etb we will just let DF die and go to the graveyard
L- now we use a K to pay for our first DF/SWS trigger and make 2^2059(current X) DF tokens. our first trigger we will pick up FSC and then replay it(during this process we will get many many K and can easily pay of all FSC triggers we will create). we get 3 FSC/FSC triggers which we will pay for getting 3X more FSCs. the next DF etb trigger will pick up DS and again we will replay it, this time with X FSC triggers(actually 3X+, tho X is scaling so fast it doesn't matter much). each of these DF triggers we resolve updates X at 2^X rate and we have X of them to work through. we then pick up FSC again and play it again getting X FSC triggers to make X FSC each. next its DS again. this was 4 DF tokens triggers. we have 2^2059 - 4 left to work through. we will repeat the bounce/replay dance with DS and FSC using up all the bounce triggers from all of our DF tokens. next we pay for our next DF/FSC trigger and get and updated X DF tokens. we again proceed in the same manner and use all these triggers to bounce and replay FSC and DS alternating between the 2 for maximum growth. after that DF/FSC has been used up we pay for our final DF/FSC trigger and again proceed to use all but 3 of these triggers up as well. we need to save 2 so once X has been fully updated we can update our number of MR and TYS, and the last 1 will be used to pick opalesence up into hand.
M- we now tap our swamp for X(actually 2^X but again X will be scaling so fast it doesn't matter much) black mana(B)
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, SWS/FSC x3> K = more than X but not sure by how much, WW and X B floating
N- before we start using our black mana we will need a few more tools. we pay for all 3 of our SWS/FSC triggers and let them start to resolve. we will be using up all of these right now. we will be "drawing" 9 cards and then the rest of them will be drawing the same card a lot of times
O- the first 5 cards will be Death's presence(24)(DP), Genju of the Fens(25), Cathars' Crusade(26)(CC), Runaway Steam-Kin(27)(RSK), and Inexorable Tide(28)(IT). Now we are going to lose some value here as we will be playing some enchantments onto a board with no Opalescence to get FSC triggers but the value loss should be minimal as we will be capable of updating soon enough and can catch these ones we are playing now up to the others very quickly and easily
P- we play DP onto the field and then genju onto our swamp, which we then animate. next comes CC into play. then we play RSK. this is naturally a creature so we do get FSC triggers which we do pay for using the CC trigger. next comes IT which again is just a single copy of. RSK/CC/IT is our new red mana engine. combined with KWFs token generation we will be capable of a staggering amount of red mana production. honestly IT is the weakest part of this production but it's real role in the deck is actually a bit later. it adds value here tho so im introducing it now. this core when properly updated makes 2-4 layers of mana above what ever layer we are currently at. it is also adding tons of power to the board w/ CC doling out just tons of counters. the power that is being accumulated is not just to attack with. we have a mechanism to convert much if not all of it directly back into red mana without giving up P/T in the process. while the red mana isn't super valuable right now it does ensure we can pay for all of our FSC triggers which isn't a small matter. with RSKs active now we no longer need to sac any K. K will just grow and accumulate CC counters for now
Q- our 6th "draw" will pick up a very powerful tool for us in Spellseeker(29)(SS). this card interacts really well with our deck in that it allows us to update our "storm" counts of TYS. so SS enters and we get X FSC triggers which we will pay for all of them before we start to resolve any etbs. we unfortunately can't get all the bodies into play at first but that's a small bump. the first SS trigger will find GSZ. we will cast it for free. it finds nothing but shuffles back into the deck. we get all triggers from this cast(KWF/IT/TYS). our TYS copies don't really do anything here unfortunately but KWF and IT help make a bunch of bodies and mana. the important thing is that GSZ is back in the deck for the next SS to go find so we can cast it again, which we do. then we continue to do this for each SS token. we will get about X^2 SS tokens, which means we get X^2 casts of GSZ which updates our storm count to X^2
R- our 7th will be Moonveil Dragon(30)(MVD) which we will cast and make full copies of *i should probably play this before SS but it's not a huge deal tbh. we just need access to this ability coming up shortly*
S- our 8th and 9th draws we will keep in hand as ??????(31) and ??????(32)
T- our 10th draw will be God-Eternal Rhonas(33)(GER) who we are about to see a lot of. so during what is about to happen we will want to for the most part keep as many counters on our RSKs as possible. we will remove them to pay for FSC triggers but we shouldn't be doing it very often. when GER enters we will stack the triggers so that it's doubling effect is the last thing to happen. once all this nonsense has resolved we will get 1 more double power buff. we will have our CC trigger before the FSC. so the order in first<CC/FSC/buff>last. so GER enters, CC triggers, X FSCs trigger, buff waiting. when we pay for our first FSC trigger we get X GERs. immediately we need to resolve the legend rule. we pick one token GER and sac the rest including the original(who shuffles in 3rd from top of our library). this sets off X DP triggers from X GER dying. we put these counters on 1 RSK. This RSK will be our alpha RSK and will absorb all DP counters from GER deaths. next we get X(actually X-1 but close enough) buffs resolving. next up is the next FSC trigger to resolve, which we do. again we get X GER entering. we choose one of the new ones to be our survivor and again put all DP counters on our alpha RSK. we repeat this process for all of our X FSC triggers. then we proceed to our 11th of our 3(2^X) draws, which is, surprise surprise, GER again. we repeat this process of playing GER over and over for each of these SWS "draw" triggers. so our stack has shrunk back to just our pearl and VO MW triggers. we don't yet want to resolve either of these so we are going to use up the WW we have floating
U- we spend RRRWW to cast Planar Outburst(PO)(34) off the top of our deck. so a lot is about to happen. one thing we want to do is after the dust settles we will need to have X + 7 red mana floating where X is the number of FSC we have. so we remove X + 7 counters from one of our RSK making red mana and then the fireworks begin. also of note here is that this is why we had to pay a few enchantments for less value. we haven't had a chance since step L to return opalescence to hand. we had to do it there or we would have lost all of our progress in enchantments. so the important thing here is that we are going to getting our creatures into our yard but there is also some stuff going on with preserving out gained power as well
V- so i've already talked a bit about our red mana engine of KWF/RSK/IT/CC but the really powerful engine is all those plus SWS/GER/PO/MVD/DP and our animated swamp. so our swamp doesn't die in these PO's, even as a creature, because of PO specific wording about non land creatures. this means we can "store" all of our power progress on the swamp for retrieval later via our DP triggers(spoiler, the swamp will die). before any PO resolve though we can do some powerful stuff to actually amplify our total power in a pretty significant manner. *when i say all mana i am referring to all disposable mana, our saved red and floating black are not to be touched* so first thing we do is pull all counters of RSKs possible by converting them into red mana. then we filter it all through MVD. this means that we should get something like X->L+2->X red mana(where L is number of layers of X, i think the mana is at 2-4 layers higher so this was a guess) which means our team of f(X) bodies each get that much additional power. this in itself would be good but we can do far better. we have a ton of K tokens *in fact the amount of K tokens will be far great than any other type of permanent* still around(esp after the X^2 casts of GSZ). these can kill themselves so we sac 1. we get our MVD buff plus its original non buff power back in counters from DP that are amplified by 2^X. we put all these counters back onto one RSK, and then remove them all again to buff our team again. then we sac the next K token and repeat. we do this for all of our K tokens. what's important here is in none of this process are we losing ground power wise. sure we go down when we convert the counters into mana but that mana is a 1/1 ratio coming back from the MVD buff. and yes we lose power when we sac a K token but again we get it back(modified by X actually) from DP(X of them when i can update properly). while the MVD buff isn't amplified by X itself, the output is because the number of bodies in play is most certainly some f(X) so even this is scaling to X. once we work through all the sac'able creatures and used them to buff our team it's time to let our POs to start resolving. the first POS resolves and kill all of our huge creatures. this triggers DP to put P(our total power) counters(P^X actually from DS modification) onto our swamp (the only thing still alive). the rest of the PO rage but ultimately don't do anything. we still don't want our pearl/MW trigger to resolve yet so we will responding further using the cards in our hand
W- with the board clear and all POs resolved(original in the yard) we now cast Halimar Tidecaller(31)(HTC). this is why we needed our X red mana floating. we still get X FSC triggers, but we will let the original's etb trigger first getting PO back to hand, which we will recast before our FSC triggers are resolved. this puts our HTC into the yard. after all the POs have resolved and our DP counters have gone to our swamp we pay for our first HTC/FSC trigger. we get X tokens but only 1 of those etb's can grab PO, which it will, and again we cast PO before resolving the next FSC trigger. we move the DP counters to the swamp again. we repeat this for all but the last FSC trigger. with that one we will get PO back but we will leave it in hand. this means we get X casts of PO. not as good as the SS/GSZ loop but it does serve a better purpose of resetting my creatures by putting them into the yard. with all POs resolved it is now safe to replay opalescence from hand. we will have a chance to get it back to hand before we wipe again. now its time to move onto using our B we still have floating
X- we pay RRRBB and cast Beacon of Unrest(35)(BU) off the top. because we were able to update storm to X^2 earlier, and because we have X TYS as well we will get many many BU copies. the original target actually doesn't matter. we are about to fix one of my old decks shortcomings. the copies targets don't matter either. we are about to modify them anyway
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, org BU, X-1 TYS/BU triggers, X copies of BU> RRRR and X-2 B floating
Y- before any BU copies resolve we cast Goblin Flectomancer(32)(flect) from our hand. we get some FSc triggers, but we only pay for 1 getting X flect tokens. we sac the original flect to target RSK with the first BU and put flect into the yard. we let this BU resolve and get RSK back into play. we resolve the CC trigger first to allow us to pay for all FSC/RSK triggers. before the next BU resolves we sac a flect to re-target onto KWF. we get KWF back(paying for at least 1 FSC trigger so we can kill the orginal to legend rule) and now we have our basic red mana engine back online. we then sac a flect token to get DF back with a BU copy. with our mana engine online we have no issues paying for all DF/FSC triggers. we let the original die, and use the other DFs to update X again through DF/FSC alternating bounces. we use the last of our DF token bounces to update CC/IT/DP so our mana engine is operating in a more standard manner. now that our current X is updated past our X^2 storm/TYS count we can use a flect/BU to bring the original flect back to play, then pay for enough FSC triggers to get enough tokens to redirect the rest of the BU chain. we will of course sac the original flect to get it back into the yard. this means we can use every BU copy(and org) to get back DF(or anything else). while the majority of the BUs will indeed be getting DF we will need to get other stuff to fully be able to update everything
*so i'm gonna be honest i don't understand the math well enough to know exactly how to best use the full BU chain here. my gut says that the best option is to do 1 full creature reset per BU chain(so per BB spent). we are fully capable of doing this with the chain. the only thing we need to be sure of is to pull it off we need to cast PO when we still have at least 1 flect/FSC trigger still on the stack. that way we can redirect the BUs we have left to get back up and running. i think we need 1 BU on flect per BU chain and an additional 1 BU on flect per reset but its possible my math is wrong here. my instinct is that we want to as late as possible in the BU chain to do our reset. the DF update engine is very powerful and the difference between resetting on BU/DF 25 vs even BU/DF 26 is a huge difference in our X value, so 25 to say 1 million basically makes our 25 X have contributed basically nothing. if we wait and do our full reset near the end our BU chain X will be appropriately high and we will update the things that need to be updated to that current very high X which those updated values will be higher than if we did many updates as the next update will be drastically more powerful than the last. also along those same lines we get get additional value in only doing 1 creature update because it menas we didn't waste possible DF updates(our most powerful effect currently) on anything less powerful. we need to do creature reset to update storm so we should probably be resetting everything and doing as full a reset/update as possible when we need to be doing it anyway. this may change later but this is how i see me best using these BU chains currently*
<VO/MW, pearl/MW> X-2 B floating
Z- so once we have worked through our BU chain and used them all up our original BU shuffles back to the top of the deck. we just finished a BU chain so our storm and number of TYS should be updated so we can pay another RRRBB and cast BU again getting a much much much longer BU chain this time. we repeat our chain use and work through it in a similar fashion to the last one. once we finish this chain we use up another BB and start the chain again. we do this for each BB we have until we have used all of our B up. in our very last creature update while we are working through many SWS triggers finding GER we will instead use 1 of them to find Kaya's Ghostform(36)(KGF) and keep it in our hand until our BU chain has run its course. still before our 2 MW triggers resolve we do cast the KGF onto our animated swamp. once there we sac the swamp to KWF(genju makes the swamp a spirit) to make R. we get a massive amount of DP triggers returning all our "stored" power back onto our RSK's. we can then remove them to make a huge amount of red mana we will have floating to use for triggers or buffs. the other thing that happens tho is that KGF brings the swamp back into play untapped(also genju comes back to our hand as part of its own ability). since we just did a massive update at the end our our last BU chain we should have updated our MR so our swamp will tap for an updated X amount of B. once we have tapped for mana we play the genju again and animate the swamp. *it's def possible that casting genju later is optimum as we really only need the swamp animated for PO resolutions. there are def some creature deaths during our BU chains that are not from PO but its not many and i believe RSK will be in play for most if not all of them so we might be able to wait until X is much higher to cast genju and get more KWF tokens if played correctly* so with this batch of B we will use it up the same way we did before with 2 exceptions. we will use one of our SWS triggers to find Dowsing Shaman(37)(sham). we will also want to make sure that our very last BU to resolve(which will be the actual card) will get us back SS. this will allow a very late storm update but it will also allow something else. the very last of those GSZ to resolve will actually find us Dryad Arbor(38)(DA). while the original has summoning sickness, when we pay for its first FSC trigger, those tokens will not. we will then tap 1 DA token and get X green mana(G)
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, X-1 DA/FSC triggers> X G floating, X-1 DA tokens untapped
AA- we will then cast sham from hand, and again we will have to pay for 1 sham/FSC trigger to get a lot of hasty sham's. we then pay RRG and tap one of our sham to get KFG back from our yard. we then cast KGF onto the swamp just as before. also as before we sac the swamp, KFG goes to yard, swamp into play, and genju back to hand. we tap the swamp for X B and then replay the genju onto the swamp and animate it. once again the SS/GSZ loop has updated our storm count to X^2 so when we cast BU again its a huge chain. we again use flect and his tokens to make sure we can use the full length of the BU chain. this process is how we turn 1 G into many B
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, X-1 DA/FSC, original BU, X-1 BU/TYS triggers, X^X BU copies> X-1 G floating, X-2 B floating, X-1 DA tokens untapped
BB- we use our B up at BB each time and work through our increasingly longer BU chains. then once we have used all the B up we use up another of our floating G, get KGF back and make another batch of B scaled to our new X once again. we repeat this G->X B until our first batch of G has been used up. we then tap our next DA token and get an updated X amount of G. we then again work on converting G->X B and using that B up to update us fully in BU chains. once we have used up our first DA/FSCs triggers worth of DA tokens we pay for our next DA/FSC trigger and once again get and newly updated X DA tokens to use to make many ever increasing X sized batches of G which in turn makes B and in turn updates everything aggressively. once we have work through all of the DA/FSC triggers we will be back to our waiting pearl/MW trigger. because W is so powerful in this deck we still will be responding before we let the pearl/MW trigger resolve
CC- we now cast mox emerald off the top. we will respond to this emerald/MW trigger by tapping the original emerald for G. this process will play out identically to the DA/FSC triggers and G use. before we use the very last of this G up we will want to leave GGGG floating
DD- when our original BU shuffles into the deck after using up the last B with GGGG floating we will actually have it shuffle into the 2nd from the top slot instead of the top slot. this top slot will be Spitting Image(39)(SI) and we will cast it of the top for RRRRGG. we will get X TYS triggers, each making X copies. all of these plus the original will target our animated swamp. i could target DA but these SI tokens don't have haste like the FSC ones do. luckily when we target the swamp and try to copy it the copy will be a copy of the original card which is just a swamp land. these don't care about summoning sickness and can be tapped to make mana as soon as they exist. because we can use BB to update our MR we will be tapping these swamps one at a time and then using all the mana to update further before tapping the next. then we let the next SI copy resolve and repeat. then the next TYS trigger resolves and makes a bunch more, we use these up and move to the next TYS trigger. once we have let all the TYS triggers resolve the original SI resolves and makes ones last batch of swamps and the SI goes to the graveyard. we use up these last swamps to update but we do use a SWS trigger to pick one more card(40,??????) before we finish things up
EE- we pay RR and our pearl/MW trigger is paid for we get X mox pearl tokens. we then pay an additional RR and let our VO/MW trigger happen. we get X VO tokens. our stack is now empty for the first time in quite some time. we tap one of these pearl tokens to get X W and prepare to move into the use of W
FF- we play Aegis Automaton(40)(AA) from hand. we will be leaving the triggers on the stack as we only ever need 1 of these in play. unfortunately our creature resets will be destroying these AA so we will have to use up a AA/FSC trigger each time we come back to use up a W but that will last us awhile *i think it actually covers the entirety of each mox pearl we tap but i might be messing the math up. it's possible welding jar's could be used here but it doesn't seem worth it as we need to use up BU for those too and we will have many many PO this would need to regenerate through* regardless if we need to we can use up a random BU to get AA back into play and if we do it as our last BU(the original card) to resolve we can again leave AA/FSC triggers on the stack. we now pay RRRRW and bounce our DA to our hand. we then retrace SI from the yard with RRRRGG and discarding DA. SI and all its copies will again target our animated swamp. we will use the swamps up until we are on our last BB from our last swamp. we will wait until our very last BU(original card) from our last chain and we will bring DA back into play. *i think its correct to use up the swamps first instead of bringing back DA first, tho i might be wrong* and set off our FSC triggers on DA. we use up there DA/FSC triggers and their resulting tokens to get our B->G loops going. this time though when we run out of G(well we need to leave GG to restart after using a W) we can just go and use up a W to refresh our G supply. so now its W->G->B. now we work our way through the mox pearl tokens one at a time until we have used them all up. we will be making more white here shortly so we do need to leave GG floating
GG- we now cast mox pearl off the top of the deck. we again respond to the pearl/MW trigger and tap our original pearl. we get X W. we use this up and pay for our pearl/MW trigger again and get X pearl tokens. we use these up as well. we are back to an empty stack. we will want to leave GG floating here as we transition into our next phase of the deck. we will want in our last SWS loop to use up another trigger to pick up another card(41, ???????)
*this is where i got to in the last deck for what i posted to the thread. the next aspect i had finished designing but never got to posting it. i did have even further figured out as well but most of that end game has changed over time. some of it is the same but most of it is repetitively new or is a much improved version of the idea/concept. part of reason i never posted this next step is tbh i have no idea how to optimize it or even the correct order to play some of these cards. one of the cards is pretty confusing to me as to when i should introduce it. it doesn't effect the use of B but it definitely can effect the G->B and W->G. i don't know how powerfully but it's def something. also this card effects a decent amount of things after this so i know it's correct to use it but i do wonder if it should have come down sooner. much like the PO enable a form of advanced red mana creation, we are about to move into advanced white mana creation*
*i made a mistake on labeling the and listed FF and GG twice, i'll change to FF2 and GG2*
FF2- using RRR we play Sculpting Steel(42)(steel) off the top. we have it enter as a copy of MW, and the orginal MW triggers. we pay for that MW trigger and get X new MW tokens. now we play Coretapper(41)(CT) from hand *i actually think our SWS are worth less than even red mana so that is why i have used SWS triggers to pick up CT and AA instead of just playing them off the top, it's not clear tho as arbitrarily a SWS trigger is worth some fraction of a red mana that was used to pay for the FSC trigger that made them, but each SWS trigger can also find GER in our red mana amplification phase so its not so simple*, and we make get X MW triggers and X FSC triggers. we pay for all of them
GG2- now we play White Mana Battery(43)(WMB) off the top, it resolves and we get X MW triggers. now tap all X CT/FSC tokens and each puts X counters on our original WMB. then we sac all CT/FSC and CT/MW tokens to put 2X counters on WMB from each token sac'ed(this also puts X counters on RSK from DP triggers). now we tap our WMB and remove X counters and get X^X white mana thanks to X MR
HH- we use up this W the same way we did before off the pearl moxes. we will want to make sure we do bring back CT and makes all copies during our last BU chain after our creature reset. we then pay RR and resolve our first WMB/MW trigger and get X WMB token
II- unlike our first original WMB now we have many WMB in play. we now tap our CT that can tap and target each WMB token once. we should have many CTs left over after(probably ones that can just tap, vs sac only) and we then pick one of our WMB to be the next one we will draw W from. onto this WMB token we sac and tap all of our remaining CT tokens and get a lot of counters we then tap and remove all counters with the WMB and get a X W again
*this is where my understanding of the math gets a bit fuzzy. im just not sure how to best my tools optimumly. i know we need to use CT to get counter onto the WMBs originally but tbh i'm not sure its worth recurring them during our BU chains. i'm honestly no even sure its worth bringing them back during or after our creature resets. to do that we need to use up BU copies and i think those r too valuable to "waste" on CT. if we update IT properly IT should be doing far more work than CT ever can in terms of putting counters on our waiting WMBs. within our DF updates our DF triggers r bouncing and recasting our enchantments. while TYS only cares about ins/sor storm IT looks at true storm and those DF updates actually have our true storm at or above TYS storm until we do a SS/GSZ loop and that only bring our TYS storm up to where our true storm already is right before the loop begins (so true storm is about X pre SS/GSZ loop and then our TYS storm goes to X^2 and our true storm becomes X+X^2). the strength of IT in all of this is that it's giving X counters to each WMB and not just one that CT copies could do. also CT costs us a BU copy to get up and running where IT just does it automatically(we do need to give up a few DF etb's to update IT occasionally) so it costs us basically nothing and its easy to keep on top of the updates should we need or want to. which is another thing. i know IT is doing gross things but its possible to update it during our DF stuff. should i add it to the alternating of DS and FSC or should i more be looking at alternating less often? im pretty sure we want to update IT once per DF/FSC trigger but maybe its 1 per entire BU chain, i just don't know. maybe its an arbitrary number(i was thinking maybe 1 per X DF etb where X is # of DF/FSC triggers at start of the chain so 1st DF/FSC trigger we would just do 1 IT update but next DF/FSC we do every 1 per Xth DF tokens inside an new X that just got made) but if so how do we choose? fwiw i know IT triggers will be the 2nd most common thing happening in the deck behind CC triggers. maybe the updating on our DS/FSC bouncing is allowing the IT triggers to scale well enough that updating isn't as needed. i just dont know*
JJ- now we work our way through this W all the while growing the counters on the WMB tokens we haven't tapped yet via our IT triggers. once we run out of W we will use our last creature update from the very last of our BU chains to get a bunch more CT and load the next WMB up *i think it's correct to do this once, at least, per W batch we get from tapping a WMB. it's possible more is correct but i think at least 1 as we transition into the next WMB is def correct* we then tap that one and get another batch of white mana. we proceed to do this process of getting and using white mana from our WMB tokens we got from our WMB/MW trigger we resolved. once we have used them all up we pay for and resolve the next WMB/MW trigger getting a new X WMB tokens to work with. we proceed to use these up as well. we proceed this way until all but the very last WMB/MW trigger is left
KK- now before this last WMB/MW trigger resolves we will be playing Rings of Brighthearth(44)(rings). we will get X MW triggers and pay for all of them
* yeah so this is happening. while this doesn't gain us a ton of value in the BU chains we get ton of value from our sham activation's, our AA activation's, and even our CT activation's. i don't really know if this addition changes how we should process the events that those activation's put into action but i do know that we can stack things so that we can always get full rings value from these activation's. we can always get our targets back to where they need to be. we will give up the original activation but all rings copies can be used as long as we don't pay for the trigger until we have our target back where it needs to be to not fizzle which we can easily do*
*i wanted to wait to cast rings until we had X as high as we could. as i noted with IT the DF update engine means each X is progressively more powerful than the last so the most recent X will be more potent than all value gained from those earlier X's combined. this is why i waited until now and this last WMB/MW trigger. if i wait longer we won't have any top end triggers to work with to gain value from. if we did it sooner, well it might be correct to get rings down sooner. as u will see updating artifacts isn't an easy thing to do so if we play it earlier it won't have a very high X to be copied by. playing it hrre just felt right tho im not opposed to playing it elsewhere in the sequence if there is more value to be gained than i realize*
LL- so now with rings at our disposal our use of W gains value as each W now gets X activation's and not just the one. so X white gets X AA bounces and each bounce gets copied X times. our white mana generation also goes up as now CTs counter making can be copied. i don't know if this makes it a legitimate BU target during BU chains but if we are bringing it back at all rings makes it that much better. similarly to how W is used our G usage gets better as sham's targeting of KGF can and will be copied. so X green gets X activation's and each gets X rings copies
MM- so as we work through our last of our W from our very last WMB from the last WMB/MW trigger we will need to pick up Djinn Illuminatus(45)(djinn) from a random SWS trigger. once we have djinn at our disposal we will want to be sure as we run down out of our W/G/B resources we are being sure to do our advanced red mana making. we will want to sac our swamp this time even if we don't have any G left to recur the KFG. we just want to ensure that we have access to as much R as possible. it's important to now see why it's for our R generation to be as efficient as possible
NN- with BB floating and all of our R as well we play djinn and then we cast Shatterstorm(46)(s-storm) off the top. as we cast it we use all of our R to replicate it as much as possible. if like i believe our R engine is stronger than our other engines then we should be able to replicate s-storm for more copies than all of our TYS and thier triggers combined. this is why i wanted the R engine to be so powerful and so prevalent even when our R costs weren't all that high
< orginal s-storm, X s-storm copies>
OO- now before we let any of our s-storm's resolve at all we will need to do one last thing. with our last BU chain before this during our last creature update we will need to set aside one BU copy to bring back a welding jar(# 1 or 2) . luckily i think 1 jar/MW trigger will be enough to make X copies and that will be all we need to save the things we need to. we sac enough jar's to put regen shields on all token copies of WM, all token rings, and then 1 token VO. this will leave all of our artifact progress in play and still allow us to now update our rings and MW while also getting our artifacts into our yard where we can bring them back with BU. we let the first s-strom copy resolve putting our actual artifacts cards into the yard
< X-1 s-strom copies >
PP- so now we need to start bringing things back. we cast BU and get a BU chain. the original BU will target the first of our artifacts we want to bring back. the weakest i think is to just do mox emerald. let our BU chain play out as normal but with the original BU we go ahead and bring emerald back. we get X MW triggers for emerald and go abut using those up. luckily since we had our original BU target the mox we can recast BU inside this value engine we just recurred. i originally thought i needed multiple BU in the deck but with this set up i think just the 1 is all we need. so we use up all the value from the emerald coming back. next is the pearl and we go ahead and use up all that value before moving on
QQ- now we are down to our last few artifacts we want to recur in MW, rings, WMB, and steel. i'm pretty sure we want lead out with MW after using up our moxes to get X up bit higher, but it get's complicated after this. the ability for steel to come in as itself and have different numbers of things enter as different things kinda makes my head hurt. my gut tells me that we just want steel to make more copies of MW but i could be grossly underestimating the power of WMB and rings. maybe a combination of them all is correct, i just don't know
RR- once we have an optimal sequence settled on we proceed to work through this engine. getting and using large amounts of various colors of W/G/B mana as we work through getting our artifacts back. then once we have extracted maximum value we again make sure we get jar back (to save our progress via regen shields) and then let the next copy of s-storm resolve and start again. this should be fairly regimented in its structure for most of the s-storm chain. the one exception to this is when we have used up the last original s-storm. while we will still use much of the mana for just redoing what we have already been doing we will at the very end want to make sure we sequence the returning of our artifacts to ensure we can produce the maximum amount of rings
SS- during our last SWS dig we will want to pick up Yawgmoth's Bargain(47)(bargain) with one of the triggers. once our max rings have been created we will play bargain. we will make max copies as its just correct to do so but we really need 1 of these in play. we then pay 1 life and get X rings triggers. we pay for 2 of these triggers and pick up Psychic Spiral(48)(spiral) and Scatter to the Winds(49)(scatter). we leave the other bargain/rings triggers on the stack by responding to them. we cast spiral from hand. we then respond to spirals TYS triggers and cast scatter targeting spiral. TYS will trigger for scatter and we counter the original scatter and the original spiral. then the rest of the TYS/scatter triggers happen and bunch of scatters get created that don't do anything. once all of those have resolved we will then cast HTC from hand(we will need to alter our creature reset loop slightly to do this but it shouldn't lose too much value) and pick up PO and scatter. now we let the first spiral/TYS trigger happen and we get X copies of spiral. the first spiral resolves and shuffles spiral, s-storm, 3 copies of chaos warp, VO and tinder wall back into our library. we also mill our opponent for a few cards. luckily we still have flash so now we can recast these reshuffled cards from our library before the next spiral resolves
TT- with the help of flect and gobs of red mana we can now recast chaos warps 1-3 off the top and reset one permanent per copy and use djinn and that red mana to make many many copies. we will always just target WMB, MW, or rings (unless doing it with steel is just better) to maximize our value. once all of our red mana artifact resets have been cast and copied and their value has been used up we let the next copy of spiral resolve
< oirginal bargain activation, x-2 bargain/rings triggers, x-1 spiral/TYS triggers, x-2 copies of spiral > 19 life
UU- once our first full spiral/TYS trigger has resolved we then let the next one happen and get another set of X(old X but still) spirals to work with. we use these up just as before and let another spiral/TYS trigger happen. again we use these up. we continue to work through all these spiral/TYS triggers. once we have used all of these up we pay for our next bargain/rings trigger and draw spiral from the deck again. we again cast and counter spiral just as before and get another giant spiral chain. once all of these bargain/rings triggers have been used up we do let the original bargain activation also resolve and again create another long spiral chain. then once the stack has cleared again we pay another 1 life and get X rings triggers again(new X this time) and again start working through these to draw and re cast/counter spiral to create many more spiral chains off draws from bargain and rings. we continue down this structure until we have used all but our last 1 life with bargain
*so a brief note about scatter and HTC. originally i thought we would be able to add +1 storm into our creature resets by using scatter w/ PO and HTC but i think things get messy. because of the way things will stack we will make many more scatter copies from TYS than we will ever have PO copies on the stack. this means when the scatter/TYS triggers happen we will be forced to target whatever is available to target. this means things like s-storm copies or even worse spiral copies which most certainly will still be on the stack. i think we may be able to cast scatter occasionally for storm gains but we have to be very very careful on when we actually do that. the fact that the original spiral is the only thing on the stack when we do the cast/counter helps ensure we aren't forced to counter desirable effects from the TYS triggers of scatter. it doesn't really matter much now that the SS/GSZ loop exist making updating TYS storm easy to do *
< empty stack > 1 life
VV- now we have used up the easy to use resources, time to get creative. in our last SWS loop we will pick up Deathrite Shaman(50)(DRS), ???????(51), ???????(52), ????????(53)and ???????(54). we cast DRS and conveniently during our many spirals resolving our opp library of 53 wastes(opp 1-60) are in their graveyard. while yes we can copy DRS trigger with rings it's actually pretty terrible to do so. what is very very good for us is that because MR is worded very specifically it effects the mana generation output of these DRS activation's. so we play DRS and get a FSC copy of him. we then exile one of our opp's wastes and get X blue(U) mana. now as good as using this mana to cast spiral off the top would be we can do far far better. we now cast Boon Reflection(51)(boon) and River Hoopoe(52)(RH)
< empty stack > X U, 1 life, and 1 opp wastes in exile
WW- so we play boon and get X copies of it, and then play RH. we then pay U(actually UGRRR, so we will have had to float G, easy enough) to gain 2(2^X) life and draw 1 card, onto the stack. while DRS's ability didn't make sense for us to copy w/ rings this ability from RH certainly does so we get X RH/rings triggers happening in front of the original RH ability
*so this is about to get a bit complicated but explaining this next loop uses a card that has even more value in a little bit*
XX- so now before we let any of our RH abilities resolve we have a loop we can now start that cards 53 and 54 allow. we cast Oblivion Sower(53)(sower) of the top. there is no library for us to exile away but DRS did put a land into exile we can now use. we indeed do put that land into play. we then tap it to get X colorless(C) mana. now we play Eldrazi Displacer(54)(ED). now we use ED to blink DA. DA re-enters and triggers X FSC and we then can make many green to use to get value. this doesn't really seem like a loop per say as we seem to only get 1 tap of a waste per DRS activation. the thing is tho we get way way more than that. the next time we have W we can cast PO for its awaken cost and target our waste. once that has been done when we bounce DA using a AA ability(rings or actual) we can recast SI and target our animated waste instead of targeting our swamp. these wastes come in as the land like our swamp did and don't care about having summoning sickness because they aren't creatures anymore. this means our W->G loop is now W->C->G now. this is even further compounded by the fact that EDs ability is copy-able by rings
*so i need to explain a few things to show that this doesn't go infinite. we could exile the animated waste w/ ED but that doesn't do us any good as the waste comes back from the blink in it's original non animated form(and tapped too) meaning we don't get any FSC triggers. also the blink happens in time span small enough(ie priority doesn't pass) that we cannot recast sower to get it back from exile over and over. we have no way to kill generic lands, only swamps via genju(spirit) and KWF because PO still doesn't kill lands or land creatures. we can chaos warp the land or the animated land but it doesn't actually net putting cards into back into our opp deck. however many cards r in the deck as warp resolves will be the same number after warp finishes resolving. there is no time the card is in the deck we can access it. it just gets revealed and forced into play. our opp cannot decide to leave it in the library to allow us to go infinite. this does mean we can put lands we can exile w/ DRS into play under their control but that doesn't do us much good. we can't animate them there and we cannot destroy them even if they are in play. there is a lot of scary stuff that just opened up and it is possible i missed something. i'm usually pretty thorough tho and i'm pretty confident that these cards and lines of play are safe and don't go infinite. ED is also safe with all of our artifact mana producers as ED can only blink creatures which none of our artifact mana makers are, and cannot become, creatures. we can bounce our animated wastes in an attempt to be able to retrace SI by discarding the waste but when we do the bounce the waste goes back to our opp hand, which doesn't do us any good as we can't access them there(yet)*
yy- so we now have an increase of layers down in our lower powered layers, but we need to start resolving our RH abilities to get things started. the life gain and the card draw do happen at the same time unfortunately so we cannot stack those 2 things. each time we resolve this ability we will gain 2^X life and draw spiral. we should then recast spiral from hand the start a spiral chain before using any of our newly acquired life. once that spiral chain has run its course we start working through the life via bargain. the best part about all of this is that while the number of RH abilities per single U mana will have a fixed X(rings at the time of activation of the original ability) the X in the life gain is not static. that will scale to what ever X is at the time as we can easily update the number of BR to as high as possible right before we resolve another RH ability
< RH original ability, X-1 RH/rings triggers > X-1 U, 1 + 2^X life, 52 lands in opp graveyard
ZZ- so we work through the RH abilities resolving until we have used them all including the original. then we use up our next U to restart this chain again. then we use the next U. we work through all of the U we have. then we activate another DRS and get a freshly updated X amount of U to work with, which eats another land out of our opp graveyard. once we have used up all 53 lands in our opp graveyard(bouncing and recasting sower each time to get a bit of C for each exile *i actually think it's proper to just wait until we have all additional 52 exiled before doing sower tricks*) it's time to move to card 55 which we will have to use up 1 last SWS trigger to pick up
AAA- once all 53 of our opp lands have been exiled with DRS from their graveyard and then brought back into play on our board, via sower, we will again cast PO w/ awaken and we will let our copies from TYS animate all of our actual wastes cards. we will then use at least W to use AA to bounce all waste land cards back to our opp hand(meaning they now have 60 waste cards in hand). we then play Nicol Bolas(55)(bolas) from hand, we need bolas to have haste so we pay for 1 FSC trigger and let the original die to keep a FSC token copy. we then equip sorcerer's wand(card #15 from way back when, it didn't need to live through all s-storms but it does need to have at least 1 copy of it in play now). we then activate bolas using his new ability from wand. this means bolas does 1 damage to our opp(they are now at 19 life). this triggers bolas's triggered ability and forces our opp to discard their entire hand. now we have the full 60 wastes in the yard and can start activating DRS again to make more U
*this means instead of 53 DRS activation's to make U, we now get 1193(60x19 + 53) activation's. this obviously greatly increases our amount of RH activation's as well and as such everything else that is happens deeper and deeper into the decks recursive engines*
BBB- one thing we will want to do is during the instance where we are using PO to animate the actual waste land cards into creatures we will want to animate at least 1 of our token waste lands. this way we can always have a animated waste to target with our SI retraces and its copies so the W->C->G loop is aways valid once we gain access to it. its a small thing but it's worth doing
CCC- so yeah we exile the lands, make the blue mana, make that into life, then use up the life, then need to use bolas again and use up one of their life points. we do this until we have used all 19 of their available life and then we are kinda done. we run through the loops as much as we can but we have essentially reached the end of the line. eventually we will run out of life and can no longer reshuffle s-storm and our warps to reset our artifact mana. we will have gone as far as we can
DDD- so once its all finally over we make sure our enchantments are creatures and we do our best to use up the last of our red mana on MVD buffs and then we swing with everything and our opp takes a lot of damage
notes-
with the addition of RH the 2nd welding jar can change back to chrome mox. then we can add painters servant back in as well. i had to take this out for awhile as chrome mox allowed an infinite using different cards that are no longer in the deck. the servant would allow the red mana engine to become even more powerful all be it only slightly. the big thing is that once we exhaust our opp life total we can still make a little bit more U mana from chrome mox. all of our cards can be blue(all colors if it matters) so we exile redundant pieces to gain some blue mana. cards like our chaos warps(i assume s-storm is the best of the artifact resets?) and then bolas, sower, DRS, tinder wall and possibly some others. we can get some of that value currently as we can use DRS to exile non useful creatures to gain life once they have run their course(bolas etc) but blue mana is significantly more scarce than life so it mght be worth giving up a card slot especially since we have 5 to work with currently
it would be possible to replace scatter with a 2nd spiral. this effectively allows us to run without counters. we could then run a card like approach of the 2nd sun for a 1 time life gain boost. we could also then run a instant damage dealer as our win which would allow us to cast approach a 2nd time and then get the life gain from the copies and then do our damage with the final approach cast from hand still on the stack as we did the damage.
i could easily add a damage multiplier for another layer but id have to be careful to bounce them when bolas was doing his damge or just wait to get it into play after bolas has fully done his job0
sangromancer is a card that fits into the deck. tbh i don't know how exactly it would work with the mass discard off bolas. i know it would be really good but i'm not sure how the math works on it. also the other line of text about opp creatures is a bit scary as if i figure out a way to give my opp creatures i can go infinite easily.
**** i'm going to see if i can get a full list soon but i just wanted the walk through done, which it is, finally ******
Ah I had a post with the approximation for ancalgon's deck but looks like i never posted it.
redoing it a bit quicker for my sanity:
First note that certain things can't get their number of copies updated at their optimal times: most notably Doubling season in the early parts of the combo.
Heroes bane takes X mana to X^X (really its 2^X,
Alena uses a tap to make X^X mana X^^X
Each creature can tap as an Alena X^^^X
A copy of outnumber makes creatures X^^^^X
Precursor Golem gives many copies X^^^^^X
A Isochron scepter trigger gives many targets thanks to TYS X^^^^^^X = X->X->6
Kurkesh turns a tap into many triggers X->X->7
Unbender tine gives many taps X->X->8
Talisman untaps tine when we cast a blue spell
which we can do with every card draw
cracking a clue gives many draws X->X->9
Doubling season turns an investigate into clues X->X->10
Bygone Bishop gives many investigates X->X->11
Chainer Nightmare adept gives many creature casts X->X->12
Wydwen gives Chainer activations X->X->13
Rhox Faithmender on food X->X->14
Kurkesh on food X->X->15
doubling season with food X->X->16
Yarok with gingerbread cabin X->X->17
second sunrise X->X->18
surreal memoir X->X->19
chandra ablaze X->X->20
Eerie Ultimatum X->X->21
echo of eons X->X->22
Time spiral X->X->23
I might have missed some layers, but I'd say this is a reasonable lower bound, and pretty close to the upper bound.
Just came across a card that could be potentially interesting: Stunning Reversal. Could it be useful as part of a hyperstage? You could spend some resource that would allow you to lose the game, and then you reset your life total (for a life-based inner stage) and the card draw helps replenish that resource. An issue could be that it could be difficult to ensure that this process isn't self-contained, and does require a couple of triggers on the stack to replenish the resource. You also need to enure that there's no way to lose the game in the inner stage - so you'd need to only be able to pay or gain life in intervals of some number greater than 1 (say, 3) and have no more granular life total manipulation to set your life to exactly 3. In the current busy beaver deck, a creature with Arcbond could cause us to lose the game but only at the cost of opponent life, which would be a higher level resource.
Could this be an alternative to Worldfire that doesn't wipe the board, or even something that doesn't require Spellweaver Helix at all and thus might be able to be used on top of our current hyperstage to form a megastage?
Interesting, but Stunning Reversal sets up a delayed trigger instead of doing it on resolution.
Though maybe theres some way to use the "you lose" enchantments like Lich's Mastery
Sway of the stars is another similar card but 7 is probably too high. We cant let our sweeper gain us life like that.
Also, we do need to clear some of the board, as we don't want to be able to keep flash during the transition.
ok, sorry this took so long J_Kibbs, but here's what i have on your deck:
It was a bit easier to untangle from the other direction so:
we get about 1200 activations of Deathrite shaman before we run out of targets/they run out of life
Each makes X blue thanks to Mana Reflection
Each blue gains us x river hoopoe activations, thanks to Rings of Brighthearth
Each of the birds activations gives us x life via Boon Reflection.
Each point of life is X draws via bargan and rings
each draw gives us X reshuffles via psychic spiral and TYS
each reshuffle lets us cast shatterstorm and replicate it X times (yes you have more red than storm here, but it doesn't matter much)
Each copy of shatterstorm lets us make x copies of our artifacts (Welding Jar saves the Mirrorworks progress)
each white mana battery taps for x white (coretapper+doubling season vs mana reflection doesn't really matter)
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of it with beacon of unrest and FSC/DS
each copy of dryad arbot taps for x green
each green activates dowsing shaman for kaya's ghostform, netting us X black
each black casts x copies of beacon of unrest
each beacon of unrest gives x FSC triggers for all the creatures
each FSC trigger for SWS gives x SXS triggers (parallel combo here with drake giving us copies of the enchantments)
each SWS trigger gives x FSC triggers for Rhonas (copies of drake familiar pick up enchantments)
each Rhonas trigger gives x power to elementals (recasting the enchantments gives triggers and copies)
each power on an elemental gives x counters to a runaway steamkin (parallel drake combo ends)
which makes X red
and finally, each red gives X power.
so by my count that's around X->X->20
Again im not claiming to be perfect here, but that should be pretty close.
The main areas for improvement would be some clever way to give the opponent life, an easier way to copy artifacts(mirrormade? No, that goes
infinite...), panharmonicon (currently would only give one layer, but if artifacts were easier to copy could be worth more), reconfiguring the combo so that drake familiar and sumala woodshaper happen in sequence instead of in parallel (they are both recast with beacon, so they have the same bottleneck.)
There's also some card slots that don't help as much as you'd think they would.
So I have a lot of questions. These are not to expose what I think r mistakes but more of an effort on my part to understand the math I managed to create. I’m super appreciative that u took the time to even give me an estimate in the first place, so for that, thank u!!
So I just want to do a better layout of the BU loops as they r stronger than they were in the last version. So I think the DF/FSC/DS interaction got credit for 4 layers in the last deck if I remember correctly but I’ll admit I don’t understand the math well enough to understand the actual growth rate. I can explain it but I can’t turn that into a mathematical expression. It’s very possible your 20 layer estimation is dead on, I’m kinda just doing this part for me, so I can understand the math in my own deck a bit better. FWIW my very rough estimation was 20-40 layers but I was so confused on how the math worked so I wasn’t even sure how to even estimate. I just knew it was stronger than my last deck and went farther down the chain as well.
So let’s just start with 1 DF card entering the battlefield event.
-DF card enters gets X FSC triggers
-Each FSC trigger makes X DF tokens
-Each DF token recasts DS or FSC
-Each recast gets X FSC triggers of DS or FSC
-Each FSC/FSC trigger makes X additional FSC
-Each DS/FSC trigger adds 2^X more DS per trigger and each next trigger scales off the new X not the same X as the previous.
So on a FSC update we take FSC from X to X(2^X). With DS being updated we take X to 2^X but repeated (updated?) X times.
*I tried to do a bit of manual calculation just to see what the math looks like and it looks to me like when we end this full use of all DS/FSC on a DS recast we appear to get a exponent stack being X exponents high being added to one x-1 then x-2 then x-3 exponents high until we r back adding our original X to the total. So the first resolves and gets us 2^X growth. Next is 2^(2^X). Next is 2^(2^(2^X)). This addition of an exponent happens each time and we r going to be doing it X times, so we should end with a calculation that is X parentheses in size with a ^ inside each of them. On top of this it’s actually even larger as we are always adding the new to the old so the end is a X exponents number added to a X-1 added to X-2 etc etc and this will just be the final trigger. I don’t know how to express it in a simplified manner but I’m sure it can be*
We can repeat the alternating between DS and FSC across the entire X DF tokens we get off 1 FSC trigger. So if we have X DF tokens we get X/2 “full cycle” update to FSC and DS
All of this is happening off of 1 DF/FSC trigger. We should have X(granted this X is static and “locked” at time of FD card entering the battlefield) triggers to work through and each time we pay for a trigger we get an updated X amount of DF tokens to use to update DS and FSC again.
Now with the old deck we were bottlenecked on BU strength as we could only get Y instances of DF entering where Y was the number of TYS on cast of BU. With the addition of flectomancer tho we can do much better. If we have done a Spellseeker/GSZ loop to update our TYS storm count our storm is actually at X(2^X) if we have X DS to start, *of note here is it doesn’t matter which we updated last FSC or DS as we either get X(2^X) FSC trigger for X seekers each or X FSC triggers for 2^X seekers each* which means our full BU chain length is Y times “storm” count. If we update Y and our storm count after settling on X DS we get a BU chain length of (2^X)(X(2^X)).
Now while that will be the total length it’s easier to break it down looking at individual TYS triggers resolving making X(2^X) BU copies. Each of the copies we can retarget to get back whatever we want thanks to flectomancer. This means the entirety of a TYS trigger of X(2^X) BU copies can be used to recur DF each time *we will have to give up a tiny amount of that number to ensure we have enough flectomancer’s to allow is to do this but as I stated in the original post I think it’s literally 1 BU copy per TYS trigger after X has been updated to get enough flectomancers to cover it, so a very small amount, it is a few more if we r doing creature resets but again it’s a tiny number in the bigger scheme of things* So let’s look again at the BU chains. We will let X be the number of DS we start with.
-We have X DS and all of important/relevant perms have been updated from this X
-we have X(2^X) mana reflections
-we tap our swamp for 2^(X(2^X)) black mana(B)
-we can spend BB to cast BU
-each BU cast gets X(2^X) TYS triggers and each TYS trigger makes X(2^X) BU copies giving us a BU chain length of (X(2^X))^2
-each BU copy can allow DF to enter the battlefield to get X(2^X) FSC triggers and start the DF token/FSC/DS updating again
*in the final TYS/BU batch we will be doing a creature reset which will allow us to update our perm and storm counts to the current X, which will cost us some very small amount BU copies to do. We do not need to update everything, just things relevant to what will be happening next or what ever else is gaining us value. Things like mana reflection don’t need updates until we will tap for mana etc. In the most basic BU loop we need to update storm/TYS/DS/FSC and I think that is it and realistically it’s mostly just DS and FSC until we are going to recast BU which then we can and should update both TYS perm count and also our TYS storm count as well*
Even at its most simplified we will get X-C DF card enters battlefield per BU chain of length X with C being enough to cover our creature resets/updates.
So another thing I was curious about is why it seems the mana battery is only getting credit for what a mox would in the same situation. Even just the first original battery will tap for at the very least X^2 compared to a mox’s production as it will have at least X counters to remove in addition to the 2^X mana reflection buff. The estimation also doesn’t seem to reflect the counters the untapped batteries gain while a batch of white mana from a battery is being used. We will have some amount of inexorable tides each producing X counters(updating) per cast of any spell for each untapped battery. We can then update IT during our DF triggers at as fast a rate of adding it to our normal DS/FSC alternating to be DS then FSC then IT using 3 DF token triggers instead of just the 2. I think it’s a mistake to update IT that often but regardless if updating it is beneficial(it makes us more W so it can’t be correct to ignore it completely) we can indeed do that quite easily.
So I think the difficulty in me knowing how to do the math is knowing how to keep track of everything once they start overlapping. You kinda hit on it by talking about parallel chains and that is where I really struggle as I’m just not sure how they all kinda intermingle. The deck doesn’t have just 1 linear chain it follows so it gets really hard to figure out what the hell is going on. It’s def possible my non linear growths just don’t grow hard enough to matter in the larger scheme of things but I am kinda curious why they don’t.
This was kinda my thoughts on what the layer count would look like, tho if around 20 is correct I’m def misunderstanding something somewhere in all of this. Number on the left is number of layers, then card, then interactions I think might be worth a layer. I tried to not double count though I might have.
1- MVD = power
5- Rings = bargain, RH, AA, sham, displacer
1- Boon = RH
1- Bargain = spiral
4- TYS = s-storm, spiral, BU, SI
2- MW = rings, WMB
1- GER = power
1- SWS = GER
1- SS = storm count
1- HTC = creature resets
1- PO/sower = colorless
1- DP = power
1- RSK = red mana
1- CC = power
5- MR = DRS, WMB+pearl, DA+emerald, wastes, swamp(s)
3- IT = WMB, red mana, power
5(6?)- DF = MR, DS, FSC, boon, TYS, (storm count?)
2- KWF = red mana/power(bodies to hold counters), power(CC triggers)
?- (Mana producers/separation?)
?- FSC/DS as our base
Also in your estimation I think u missed the colorless layer(s). Each white gets x bounces of DA. Each bounce casts SI targeting an animated waste(token or real). Each cast of SI gets x copies. Each copy makes x waste. Each waste taps for x colorless. Each colorless blinks DA x times with displacer and rings. Each blink makes x FSC/DA triggers. Then BU brings DA back gets another set of FSC triggers and is ready to be bounced again .....
Again thanks for the estimation and for being patient with me. I’ve ask a lot of questions on this thread(and the std one too) so thanks for bearing with me!
I did miss colorless, sorry, forgot you could animate them with the sweeper.
so:
...
each white mana battery taps for x white (coretapper+doubling season vs mana reflection doesn't really matter)
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of it with beacon of unrest and FSC/DS
each copy of dryad arbor taps for x green
...
becomes:
each white mana battery taps for x white
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of SI
each SI gives us X wastes
each waste lets us blink DA X times
each blink gives X FSC triggers
each FSC trigger gives X DAs
each copy of dryad arbor taps for x green
4 layers becomes 8 layers. bringing my estimate to ->24.
White mana battery is interesting, and it really isn't better than the mox for the estimate. The main problem with it is that all of the combo pieces are doing the same thing: letting the battery tap for more mana. You get to remove 2^(X->X->L) counters and get 2^(X->X->L)*2^(X->X->L) = 2^((X->X->L)+(X->X->L)) mana but thats basically the same number as if you had just had Mana Reflection. What you want would be something more like calciform pools (though obviously that goes infinite) that lets you remove the counters slowly.
The problem with your Beacon of creation/Drake familiar/Sumala woodshaper is that the creatures don't chain into each other. The two combos run in parallel. you have one combo updating your enchantments, and another (slightly better) combo that increases your total power, but updating your enchantments doesn't also give you SWS without spending black casting beacon and increasing your power doesnt give more DF without spending black casting beacon.
Replacing Sumala woodshaper with a card like Growing Rites of Itlimoc would let your drake familiars also bring out tons of rhonas and combo into the elementals and power part of your combo. netting 3 ish layers.
However even that is not fully optimal as your enchantments like DS, DP, and CC would be set constants and then not contribute layers to the power section of the combo.
Instead if there was a way to turn your power combo into DFs, (Sinking feeling is the only card I can think of that is even close) then you would be able to update the enchantment numbers in between the triggers and get more layers. This is why most of the past layer decks have focused on duplicating artifacts/enchantments as early as possible.
Getting back to the waterfall deck, I'm interested in trying to make Worldfire work so we can use mana layers better.
Switching satyr's cunning for K'rrik and a black flashback/escape card seems the easiest first step, and the a creature we can use for the life gain: Moan of the unhallowed + Ghost-lit redeemer seems like a start, (though using white like this is not great).
Edit: actually, since Worldfire resets their life total as well, we can use their life total along with ours.
The transition seems like there are more options if we can use most flashback sorceries, we spellweaver helix some lifegain (starlight?), worldfire, and some way to get the mana exactly back (restore?)
from there we open up with many mana options, and optimizing that seems daunting.
Edit: hmm we don't need the intervening stage before worldfire/worldpurge as the BB calculation is better than that anyway.
We can use Flowstone Flood as our recastable sorcery (using Crystal chimes/Skull of orm and Darksteel citadel [Edit:March of the machines kills darksteel citadel so something like Consecrate land or Drownyard Temple instead)
Then using some flashback spell, Starlight, Worldfire, and something to get the flashback mana back, and then we have access to any mana for the later stages, and can therefore definitely do better than 8 layers.
@jfb and FortyTwo: Thanks for the explanations!
So, we can replace Howling Gale with Ashcloud Phoenix. To make Helldozer recycle Gaea's Cradle, we need to be able to bring back Gaea's Cradle after we destroy it. Something like Titania, Protector of Argoth should work, I think.
It looks like FortyTwo's observation of not being able to deal damage once we get to the cleanup step makes Pitchstone Wall okay, so long as we use life gain lands rather than Gerrard's Verdict? In which case, it looks like we have:
Layer 1 - Angelheart Vial
Layer 2 - Mournful Zombie
Layer 3 - Plains
Layer 4 - Firebrand Ranger
Layer 5 - Gaea's Cradle
Layer 6 - Helldozer
Layer 7 - Lotus Petal
Layer 8 - Dragon Appeasement
Layer 9 - Pitchstone Wall
Layer 10 - Curse of Chaos
Layer 11 - Finest Hour, World at War
Edit: Oh right, the fact that Worldpurge empties our mana pools kills some of these layers. So we lose 3, going down to 8 layers. I'm sure that we can do better.
One idea is to switch to Worldfire, so that we can keep mana layers later.
Also while the spoilers have mostly been a bust, Lithoform Engine is pretty good. Though it does seem likely to go infinite.
We can also get some new potential links to kicker via Coralhelm Chronicler or lullmage's familiar
This adds a layer for Greenside Watcher, and one for Marchesa's Smuggler, so we go back up to 10 layers.
Edit: How do we recuur Dawnglow Infusion? It needs to not bypass the flashback that triggers the hyperstage.
And is there any possibility of switching to Worldfire to keep mana stages?
So I've been working on my decklist for the last few days and think it really improved with all the tips from here. Also it's now a 60 card Vintage instead of Commander deck. A Commander deck goes infinite way too easy because you can always recast your commander from the command zone...
Anyway, here it is:
1 Kabira Takedown // Kabira Plateau
1 Seize the Day
1 Fling
1 Arcbound Ravager
1 Hamletback Goliath
1 Echo of Eons
1 Chandra's Ignition
1 Gleam of Authority
1 Haze of Rage
1 Fiery Emancipation
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Silverfur Partisan
1 Domri Rade
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Rush of Vitality
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Master Biomancer
1 Alena, Kessig Trapper
1 Shapesharer
1 Bygone Bishop
1 Saber Ants
1 Gingerbread Cabin
4 Outnumber
1 Precursor Golem
1 Xenograft
1 Black Lotus
1 Prismite
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Tidal Barracuda
1 Surreal Memoir
1 Nyxbloom Ancient
1 Opalescence
1 Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Thousand-Year Storm
1 Abyssal Persecutor
1 Oath of Teferi
1 Wydwen, the Biting Gale
1 Chainer, Nightmare Adept
1 Second Sunrise
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Mirror Gallery
1 Intruder Alarm
1 Yarok, the Desecrated
1 Molten Echoes
1 Doubling Season
1 Lapis Lazuli Talisman
1 Omniscience
1 Show and Tell
1 Unbender Tine
1 Teferi, Temporal Archmage
1 Time Spiral
1 Eerie Ultimatum
1 Isochron Scepter
Basically I've tried to more or less use a consistent main line now instead of multiple ways to do stuff.
Start is as usual: Black Lotus -> Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Enter the Infinite
Isochron Scepter will now imprint 7 cards (4 Outnumber, Kabira Tabedown (essentially the same card), Rush of Vitality and Fling), this is possible with multiple EtB triggers from Yarok, the Desecrated. I'm not sure if this is the best move, but there were 5 slots open and I figured that additional Outnumbers would be best.
The combo is now:
Unbender Tine untaps Isochron Scepter, which is copied by every Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient. Every Kurkesh then copies the Isochron activation. All the copies are cast, which triggers every Precursor Golem for every creature we have. First we use Fling on a Saber Ants, to set the number of creatures we have to a multiple of the power of the creature we sacrificed with the help of Fiery Emancipation and Doubling Season. Unfortunately Fling doesn't do much after that because the damage stays constant, but with Outnumber, the damage increases with the increasing number of creatures we get. Psychic Battle redirects all of the Golem copies to Saber Ants, which creates more golems (Xenograft)
Every creature then comes into play with a number of +1/+1 counters equal to the power of Master Biomancer, multiplied by Doubling Season and triggers Hamletback Goliath, also multiplied by Doubling Season. This increases the power of Heroes' Bane enchanted with Gleam of Authority.
Every creature entering the battlefield also triggers Intruder Alarm, multiplied by Yarok and untaps every Alena, Kessig Trapper, which can be used to increase the power of Heroes' Bane further.
Once every copy of every copy from the Isochrone Spells is resolved, we use one Alena to cast Haze of Rage with buyback X/2 times where X is Heroes' Bane's power, to increase the storm count of Thousand-Year Storm.
All of the creature tokens created by Saber Ants can be used as any combo piece (Precursor Golem, Doubling Season, Fiery Emancipation, Alena, Intruder Alarm, Yarok, Kurkesh, etc) at every point of the combo with Shapesharer. So every Isochrone activation gives multiplies all combo pieces multiple times.
Unbender Tine can then be untapped with Lapis Lazuli Talisman every time a blue spell is cast.
They way to do that is: One play of Gingerbread Cabin creates a lot of Food tokens with Doubling Season and Yarok (Dryad Arbor copies in play count for the forests so the Cabin enters untapped). Cracking a Food token nets 3 life, copied by Kurkesh and multiplied by Rhox Faithmender. For 1 life, Wydwen, the Biting Gale can be bounced and discard to Chainer, Nightmare Adept, which gets copied by Kurkesh to get a lot of creature replays from the grave. The creature we recast is Bygone Bishop, which creates a lot of Clue tokens, again copied by Doubling Season. Cracking a Clue draws a card for every Kurkesh we have, one at a time so this can recast Blue Sun's Zenith that many times to trigger the Talisman and untap Unbender Tine.
The rest is similar as it was before:
Second Sunrise can return Gingerbread Cabin for more combos.
Surreal Memoir can return Second Sunrise
Chandra Ablaze can return Surreal Memoir
Eerie Ultimatum can return Chandra Ablaze
Echo of Eons can return Ultimatum
Time Spiral can return Echo of Eons
flashback Echo of Eons
Chandra also casts Chandra's Ignition (how fitting). Before casting it, every creature (except one of each combo piece) should be turned into a Precursor Golem from Shapesharer, to generate the most triggers. Every trigger then counts the number of Golems when it resolves, so this really scales. With Psychic Battle, the Ignition copy from the Golems is redirected to the Heroes' Bane with Gleam of Authority. Then every creature is turned into Saber Ants or Fiery Emancipation, to get the most token triggers. Before the first token trigger resolves, we change everything into Doubling Season, Yarok, the Desecreated and Intruder Alarm to get the most tokens, while the powerful Heroes' Bane with Gleam of Authority gets turned into Master Biomancer and one other creature gets turned into Hamletback Goliath. This makes Heroe's Bane a lot more powerful and gives a bunch of untap triggers. After an untap trigger resolves, we turn one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper and every other creature into Nyxbloom Ancient, tap it, increase the power of Heroes' Bane, then repeat that until every creature (including the new ones) is tapped for mana and Heroes' Bane is vastly more powerful.
Since Heroes' Bane has lifelink, this also creates a lot of Unbender Tine untaps for every copy and even more with the next copy.
With spells that don't target a single creature, like Second Sunrise, Surreal Memoir, Eerie Ultimatium, Echo of Eons and Time Spiral, it's best to turn every token into a Thousand-Year Storm before casting it, otherwise it's best to turn every token into a Precursor Golem because the Golem triggers scale as they count the number of Golems when the ability resolves.
Hopefully I did a decent job explaining it and I hope there's not some infinite combo still hidden in there.
How would the new list compare? It's certainly a lot more to the point than the one before, thanks to the help from everyone here.
/Edit:
Just found that Mycosinth Lattice doesn't work with Chandra Ablaze. That would have to be replaced by Memnarch or something like that.
But Khalni Gem and Llanowar Scout would be another layer with Second Sunrise.
For example with my list, what would happen with the first use of Unbender Tine? Let's assume for simplicity's sake that there are 100 creatures which can be freely transformed into combo pieces by Shapesharer while there's still at least one of every combo piece available as Shapesharer target. And enough mana to do that (that should be easy because Heroes' Bane always grows much faster than the number of creatures, so mana for Shapesharer or Kurkesh isn't limiting) and Scepter has only Outnumber imprinted, nothing else.
Tap Unbender Tine to untap Isochron Scepter. Turn 100 creatures into Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient for 100 untaps. Let the first untap resolve, activate Scepter, copy the activation 100 times, then change every creature into Precursor Golem. Let the first activation resolve, get 100 Golem triggers.
Let the first trigger resolve, get 100 copies of Outnumber (which can all be redirected to Saber Ants). Change 99 creatures into Fiery Emancipation, let the first Outnumber resolve, then with the Saber Ants trigger on the stack, change 100 creatures into Doubling Season. We should then get 100 * 3^99 * 2^100 tokens.
Let the second Outnumber resolve, get 3^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100 -1) * 2^(100 * 3^99 * 2^100) * (100 * 3^99 * 2^100) tokens. This is more than 3^(3^99).
The next Outnumber should then create more than 3^3^3^99 tokens.
In total, we get some more than 3^^99 tokens from the second Golem trigger, is that correct?
And the third Golem trigger would turn that into 3^^^99, the 4th into 3^^^^99 and so forth? Or am I calculating this wrong?
And what would the second activation of Isochron Scepter do? That's where I totally get lost in the maths (if that didn't happen before O.o). And after the 100 activations are done, what would the second untap do when Googols of Googols of Googols of Kurkeshs produce an absolutely enormous number of activations?
In any case, it seems like Outnumber isn't significantly better than Lightning Bolt in the scenario - the damage pretty much only depends on the number of Fiery Emancipations?
The only way to make a difference would be to switch Outnumber for Justice Strike because Heroes' Bane is always much, much more powerful than the number of creatures. That would exclude any lifelink effects, so cut Yarok and Rush of Vitality for Naban, Dean of Iteration and Elspeth, Knight-Errant (emblem for indestructible). Outnumber can be cut since it's actually useless.
The new combo would then be: Unbender Tine -> Isochron Scepter -> Justice Strike on the Heroes' Bane, enchanted with Druid's Call and Gleam of Authority, turn it into Hungering Hydra and everything else into Fiery Emancipation before Justice Strike resolves. Let Strike resolve, turn it into Master Biomancer before Druid's Call trigger resolves. Turn all creatures into Doubling Season. The tokens get their counters and trigger Hamletback Goliath, which grows the creature enchanted with Gleam of Authority again. Turn it into Heroes' Bane again, let the untap trigger from Intruder Alarm resolve. Change everything except Heroe's Bane into Nyxbloom Ancient and one creature into Alena, Kessig Trapper. Tap it, use the mana to grow Heroes' Bane, repeat until every creature is tapped, let the next Justice Strike resolve.
What would happen here?
For the Gingerbread Cabin, Nature's Revolt would create a lot more Food tokens with Dual Nature and Doubling Season and Naban, Dean of Iteration.
Having a process that takes 3^x to 3^^x is good, but you need to repeat it about x times to get to 3^^^x, so a lot of the math gets simplified. So by the end of the golem triggers in your example you'd be at 3^^^99 and then it looks like a few more layers for the other activations and kurkesh to get to 3^^^^^99
Thanks! In that case what would happen if the first blue spell is cast and there are 3^^^^^99 scepter untaps and 3^^^^^99 scepter activations for the first untap and so on? Would that add more up arrows?
That was the version with Outnumber if I interpret it correctly?
With Justice Strike the number of tokens should scale better:
If there were 100 creatures and a hydra with power 2^10000, that would be 2^10000*3^100 tokens ( = 2^10150). With 50 Naban and 50 Intruder Alarm, there would be 250 untap triggers for every creature. All creatures get turned into Nyxbloom Ancient and one into Alena. Alena taps for about 3^2^10150 mana. One activation costs approximately just R, because all tokens get turned into Kurkesh to copy the ability so Hydra grows to about 2^3^2^10150. Next Alena grows it to about 2^2^3^2^10150 and so on for each of the 2^10150 tokens, for every untap trigger. That would add another two or three(?) up arrows unless I'm wrong?
And of course it turned out that Master Biomancer, Hamletback Goliath, Hungering Hydra, Gleam of Authority are useless. How big the Hydra is at the beginning is almost irrelevant.
it's been awhile since i posted anything on this deck but i have been working on it in the background. figured i'd post my progress so far. it's still incomplete as i'm around 5 or so cards short of the full 60 but i feel like sharing the deck at this point. a lot of this will be familiar as it's based of the last version but it makes significant strides in potency in quite a few ways. i'll try to not talk too much about the old deck so i'll be presenting some stuff that feels like a rehash but often there are some pretty important improvements so i really did need to go through it all again.
max damage 2020
opening 7:(this is the same)
1 mox pearl
2 mox emerald
3 tinder wall
4 chaos warp(#1)
5 kykar, wind's fury(KWF)
6 thousand-year storm(TYS)
7 chaos warp(#2)
A- play both moxes(1,2) and wall(3), sac wall for RR and tap pearl for RRW to cast chaos warp #1(4) targeting pearl. pearl shuffles back into the deck and we get Omniscience(8) into play
B- cast Kykar, Wind's Fury(5)(KWF), then cast Thousand-Year Storm(6)(TYS), triggering KWF to get 1 spirit token(i will refer to KWF tokens as K and will track the amount as K=x, currently K=1)
C- cast chaos warp #2(7) targeting mox emerald. we trigger both TWS and KWF. we will resolve the TYS trigger first and we target the K token with our copy of warp. this resolves(K=0) and we get Doubling Season(9)(DS) into play. then the KWF trigger resolves and we get 2 tokens(K=2). now we resolve our original warp #2 and shuffle emerald back into the deck and get Future Sight(10) into play
D- we play a basic swamp(11) off the top of the library
E- cast welding jar #1(12) and #2(13) off the top. we get 2 K each(K=6). we sack 5 K(K=1) to cast Mirrorworks(14)(MW), which get us 2 K(K=3). cast sorcerer's wand(K=2 then 4)(15, we won't be using this for a very long time), then cast Vedalken Orrery(VO)(16)(K=0 then 2). when VO enters we have a MW trigger go onto the stack
*now we have flash and we will start responding to triggers. i will try to periodically restate what is still on the stack, floating mana, etc as we move through the process of playing things. we want to leave this VO/MW trigger on the stack*
<last<VO/MW>first> K=2
F- cast mox pearl of the top(K=4), enters get MW trigger but respond to pearl/MW trigger by casting mox emerald(K=6). this time we will let emeralds MW trigger resolve and sac 2 K(K=4) to pay for it, and we get 2 mox emerald tokens. we then tap 2 mox emeralds and sac 4 K(K=0) to cast Mana Reflection(MR)(17) for RRRRGG, and get 2 K(K=2). we now tap our last mox emerald to get GG and cast Green Sun's Zenith(18)(GSZ)on X=0(K=4) off the top with GSZ finding nothing and then shuffling back into the deck. we now tap our mox pearl and get WW.
<VO/MW, pearl/MW> K=4, WWG floating
G- sac 2 K(K=2) and then pay GRR to cast chaos wrap #3(19) targeting original mox emerald. we get 2 K(K=4) as we will let the KWF trigger resolve first and then target welding jar #1, mox pearl, and DS with our 3 TYS copies.
H- jar shuffles back into the deck and we get Opalescence(20) into play. now our non auras enchantments are also creatures
I- pearl shuffles into our deck and we get Flameshadow Conjuring(21)(FSC) into play. it enters as a creature and self triggers. we pay with a K(K=3) and get 2 FSC tokens
J- DS shuffles back in and we re-find it with the copy of warp and it enters as a creature triggering all 3 FSC. we sac our last 3 K(K=0) to pay for the 3 triggers get 2, then 8, then 2048 DS. before we resolve the original warp #3 we cast welding jar #1 off the top and get X K(K=X)
K- the original warp #3 resolves on emerald. it shuffles in and we find Sumala Woodshaper(22)(SWS) which enters and we get it's own etb and also 3 SWS/FSC triggers. we will resolve SWS own etb first and pick up Drake Familiar(23)(DF). still responding to our SWS/FSC triggers we will play DF. same as with SWS we will resolve DFs own etb before the DF/FSC triggers resolve. with this etb we will just let DF die and go to the graveyard
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, SWS/FSC x3, DF/FSC x3> K=X, WW floating
L- now we use a K to pay for our first DF/SWS trigger and make 2^2059(current X) DF tokens. our first trigger we will pick up FSC and then replay it(during this process we will get many many K and can easily pay of all FSC triggers we will create). we get 3 FSC/FSC triggers which we will pay for getting 3X more FSCs. the next DF etb trigger will pick up DS and again we will replay it, this time with X FSC triggers(actually 3X+, tho X is scaling so fast it doesn't matter much). each of these DF triggers we resolve updates X at 2^X rate and we have X of them to work through. we then pick up FSC again and play it again getting X FSC triggers to make X FSC each. next its DS again. this was 4 DF tokens triggers. we have 2^2059 - 4 left to work through. we will repeat the bounce/replay dance with DS and FSC using up all the bounce triggers from all of our DF tokens. next we pay for our next DF/FSC trigger and get and updated X DF tokens. we again proceed in the same manner and use all these triggers to bounce and replay FSC and DS alternating between the 2 for maximum growth. after that DF/FSC has been used up we pay for our final DF/FSC trigger and again proceed to use all but 3 of these triggers up as well. we need to save 2 so once X has been fully updated we can update our number of MR and TYS, and the last 1 will be used to pick opalesence up into hand.
M- we now tap our swamp for X(actually 2^X but again X will be scaling so fast it doesn't matter much) black mana(B)
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, SWS/FSC x3> K = more than X but not sure by how much, WW and X B floating
N- before we start using our black mana we will need a few more tools. we pay for all 3 of our SWS/FSC triggers and let them start to resolve. we will be using up all of these right now. we will be "drawing" 9 cards and then the rest of them will be drawing the same card a lot of times
O- the first 5 cards will be Death's presence(24)(DP), Genju of the Fens(25), Cathars' Crusade(26)(CC), Runaway Steam-Kin(27)(RSK), and Inexorable Tide(28)(IT). Now we are going to lose some value here as we will be playing some enchantments onto a board with no Opalescence to get FSC triggers but the value loss should be minimal as we will be capable of updating soon enough and can catch these ones we are playing now up to the others very quickly and easily
P- we play DP onto the field and then genju onto our swamp, which we then animate. next comes CC into play. then we play RSK. this is naturally a creature so we do get FSC triggers which we do pay for using the CC trigger. next comes IT which again is just a single copy of. RSK/CC/IT is our new red mana engine. combined with KWFs token generation we will be capable of a staggering amount of red mana production. honestly IT is the weakest part of this production but it's real role in the deck is actually a bit later. it adds value here tho so im introducing it now. this core when properly updated makes 2-4 layers of mana above what ever layer we are currently at. it is also adding tons of power to the board w/ CC doling out just tons of counters. the power that is being accumulated is not just to attack with. we have a mechanism to convert much if not all of it directly back into red mana without giving up P/T in the process. while the red mana isn't super valuable right now it does ensure we can pay for all of our FSC triggers which isn't a small matter. with RSKs active now we no longer need to sac any K. K will just grow and accumulate CC counters for now
Q- our 6th "draw" will pick up a very powerful tool for us in Spellseeker(29)(SS). this card interacts really well with our deck in that it allows us to update our "storm" counts of TYS. so SS enters and we get X FSC triggers which we will pay for all of them before we start to resolve any etbs. we unfortunately can't get all the bodies into play at first but that's a small bump. the first SS trigger will find GSZ. we will cast it for free. it finds nothing but shuffles back into the deck. we get all triggers from this cast(KWF/IT/TYS). our TYS copies don't really do anything here unfortunately but KWF and IT help make a bunch of bodies and mana. the important thing is that GSZ is back in the deck for the next SS to go find so we can cast it again, which we do. then we continue to do this for each SS token. we will get about X^2 SS tokens, which means we get X^2 casts of GSZ which updates our storm count to X^2
R- our 7th will be Moonveil Dragon(30)(MVD) which we will cast and make full copies of *i should probably play this before SS but it's not a huge deal tbh. we just need access to this ability coming up shortly*
S- our 8th and 9th draws we will keep in hand as ??????(31) and ??????(32)
T- our 10th draw will be God-Eternal Rhonas(33)(GER) who we are about to see a lot of. so during what is about to happen we will want to for the most part keep as many counters on our RSKs as possible. we will remove them to pay for FSC triggers but we shouldn't be doing it very often. when GER enters we will stack the triggers so that it's doubling effect is the last thing to happen. once all this nonsense has resolved we will get 1 more double power buff. we will have our CC trigger before the FSC. so the order in first<CC/FSC/buff>last. so GER enters, CC triggers, X FSCs trigger, buff waiting. when we pay for our first FSC trigger we get X GERs. immediately we need to resolve the legend rule. we pick one token GER and sac the rest including the original(who shuffles in 3rd from top of our library). this sets off X DP triggers from X GER dying. we put these counters on 1 RSK. This RSK will be our alpha RSK and will absorb all DP counters from GER deaths. next we get X(actually X-1 but close enough) buffs resolving. next up is the next FSC trigger to resolve, which we do. again we get X GER entering. we choose one of the new ones to be our survivor and again put all DP counters on our alpha RSK. we repeat this process for all of our X FSC triggers. then we proceed to our 11th of our 3(2^X) draws, which is, surprise surprise, GER again. we repeat this process of playing GER over and over for each of these SWS "draw" triggers. so our stack has shrunk back to just our pearl and VO MW triggers. we don't yet want to resolve either of these so we are going to use up the WW we have floating
< VO/MW, pearl/MW > WW floating
***** break for next post *******
U- we spend RRRWW to cast Planar Outburst(PO)(34) off the top of our deck. so a lot is about to happen. one thing we want to do is after the dust settles we will need to have X + 7 red mana floating where X is the number of FSC we have. so we remove X + 7 counters from one of our RSK making red mana and then the fireworks begin. also of note here is that this is why we had to pay a few enchantments for less value. we haven't had a chance since step L to return opalescence to hand. we had to do it there or we would have lost all of our progress in enchantments. so the important thing here is that we are going to getting our creatures into our yard but there is also some stuff going on with preserving out gained power as well
V- so i've already talked a bit about our red mana engine of KWF/RSK/IT/CC but the really powerful engine is all those plus SWS/GER/PO/MVD/DP and our animated swamp. so our swamp doesn't die in these PO's, even as a creature, because of PO specific wording about non land creatures. this means we can "store" all of our power progress on the swamp for retrieval later via our DP triggers(spoiler, the swamp will die). before any PO resolve though we can do some powerful stuff to actually amplify our total power in a pretty significant manner. *when i say all mana i am referring to all disposable mana, our saved red and floating black are not to be touched* so first thing we do is pull all counters of RSKs possible by converting them into red mana. then we filter it all through MVD. this means that we should get something like X->L+2->X red mana(where L is number of layers of X, i think the mana is at 2-4 layers higher so this was a guess) which means our team of f(X) bodies each get that much additional power. this in itself would be good but we can do far better. we have a ton of K tokens *in fact the amount of K tokens will be far great than any other type of permanent* still around(esp after the X^2 casts of GSZ). these can kill themselves so we sac 1. we get our MVD buff plus its original non buff power back in counters from DP that are amplified by 2^X. we put all these counters back onto one RSK, and then remove them all again to buff our team again. then we sac the next K token and repeat. we do this for all of our K tokens. what's important here is in none of this process are we losing ground power wise. sure we go down when we convert the counters into mana but that mana is a 1/1 ratio coming back from the MVD buff. and yes we lose power when we sac a K token but again we get it back(modified by X actually) from DP(X of them when i can update properly). while the MVD buff isn't amplified by X itself, the output is because the number of bodies in play is most certainly some f(X) so even this is scaling to X. once we work through all the sac'able creatures and used them to buff our team it's time to let our POs to start resolving. the first POS resolves and kill all of our huge creatures. this triggers DP to put P(our total power) counters(P^X actually from DS modification) onto our swamp (the only thing still alive). the rest of the PO rage but ultimately don't do anything. we still don't want our pearl/MW trigger to resolve yet so we will responding further using the cards in our hand
W- with the board clear and all POs resolved(original in the yard) we now cast Halimar Tidecaller(31)(HTC). this is why we needed our X red mana floating. we still get X FSC triggers, but we will let the original's etb trigger first getting PO back to hand, which we will recast before our FSC triggers are resolved. this puts our HTC into the yard. after all the POs have resolved and our DP counters have gone to our swamp we pay for our first HTC/FSC trigger. we get X tokens but only 1 of those etb's can grab PO, which it will, and again we cast PO before resolving the next FSC trigger. we move the DP counters to the swamp again. we repeat this for all but the last FSC trigger. with that one we will get PO back but we will leave it in hand. this means we get X casts of PO. not as good as the SS/GSZ loop but it does serve a better purpose of resetting my creatures by putting them into the yard. with all POs resolved it is now safe to replay opalescence from hand. we will have a chance to get it back to hand before we wipe again. now its time to move onto using our B we still have floating
X- we pay RRRBB and cast Beacon of Unrest(35)(BU) off the top. because we were able to update storm to X^2 earlier, and because we have X TYS as well we will get many many BU copies. the original target actually doesn't matter. we are about to fix one of my old decks shortcomings. the copies targets don't matter either. we are about to modify them anyway
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, org BU, X-1 TYS/BU triggers, X copies of BU> RRRR and X-2 B floating
Y- before any BU copies resolve we cast Goblin Flectomancer(32)(flect) from our hand. we get some FSc triggers, but we only pay for 1 getting X flect tokens. we sac the original flect to target RSK with the first BU and put flect into the yard. we let this BU resolve and get RSK back into play. we resolve the CC trigger first to allow us to pay for all FSC/RSK triggers. before the next BU resolves we sac a flect to re-target onto KWF. we get KWF back(paying for at least 1 FSC trigger so we can kill the orginal to legend rule) and now we have our basic red mana engine back online. we then sac a flect token to get DF back with a BU copy. with our mana engine online we have no issues paying for all DF/FSC triggers. we let the original die, and use the other DFs to update X again through DF/FSC alternating bounces. we use the last of our DF token bounces to update CC/IT/DP so our mana engine is operating in a more standard manner. now that our current X is updated past our X^2 storm/TYS count we can use a flect/BU to bring the original flect back to play, then pay for enough FSC triggers to get enough tokens to redirect the rest of the BU chain. we will of course sac the original flect to get it back into the yard. this means we can use every BU copy(and org) to get back DF(or anything else). while the majority of the BUs will indeed be getting DF we will need to get other stuff to fully be able to update everything
*so i'm gonna be honest i don't understand the math well enough to know exactly how to best use the full BU chain here. my gut says that the best option is to do 1 full creature reset per BU chain(so per BB spent). we are fully capable of doing this with the chain. the only thing we need to be sure of is to pull it off we need to cast PO when we still have at least 1 flect/FSC trigger still on the stack. that way we can redirect the BUs we have left to get back up and running. i think we need 1 BU on flect per BU chain and an additional 1 BU on flect per reset but its possible my math is wrong here. my instinct is that we want to as late as possible in the BU chain to do our reset. the DF update engine is very powerful and the difference between resetting on BU/DF 25 vs even BU/DF 26 is a huge difference in our X value, so 25 to say 1 million basically makes our 25 X have contributed basically nothing. if we wait and do our full reset near the end our BU chain X will be appropriately high and we will update the things that need to be updated to that current very high X which those updated values will be higher than if we did many updates as the next update will be drastically more powerful than the last. also along those same lines we get get additional value in only doing 1 creature update because it menas we didn't waste possible DF updates(our most powerful effect currently) on anything less powerful. we need to do creature reset to update storm so we should probably be resetting everything and doing as full a reset/update as possible when we need to be doing it anyway. this may change later but this is how i see me best using these BU chains currently*
<VO/MW, pearl/MW> X-2 B floating
Z- so once we have worked through our BU chain and used them all up our original BU shuffles back to the top of the deck. we just finished a BU chain so our storm and number of TYS should be updated so we can pay another RRRBB and cast BU again getting a much much much longer BU chain this time. we repeat our chain use and work through it in a similar fashion to the last one. once we finish this chain we use up another BB and start the chain again. we do this for each BB we have until we have used all of our B up. in our very last creature update while we are working through many SWS triggers finding GER we will instead use 1 of them to find Kaya's Ghostform(36)(KGF) and keep it in our hand until our BU chain has run its course. still before our 2 MW triggers resolve we do cast the KGF onto our animated swamp. once there we sac the swamp to KWF(genju makes the swamp a spirit) to make R. we get a massive amount of DP triggers returning all our "stored" power back onto our RSK's. we can then remove them to make a huge amount of red mana we will have floating to use for triggers or buffs. the other thing that happens tho is that KGF brings the swamp back into play untapped(also genju comes back to our hand as part of its own ability). since we just did a massive update at the end our our last BU chain we should have updated our MR so our swamp will tap for an updated X amount of B. once we have tapped for mana we play the genju again and animate the swamp. *it's def possible that casting genju later is optimum as we really only need the swamp animated for PO resolutions. there are def some creature deaths during our BU chains that are not from PO but its not many and i believe RSK will be in play for most if not all of them so we might be able to wait until X is much higher to cast genju and get more KWF tokens if played correctly* so with this batch of B we will use it up the same way we did before with 2 exceptions. we will use one of our SWS triggers to find Dowsing Shaman(37)(sham). we will also want to make sure that our very last BU to resolve(which will be the actual card) will get us back SS. this will allow a very late storm update but it will also allow something else. the very last of those GSZ to resolve will actually find us Dryad Arbor(38)(DA). while the original has summoning sickness, when we pay for its first FSC trigger, those tokens will not. we will then tap 1 DA token and get X green mana(G)
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, X-1 DA/FSC triggers> X G floating, X-1 DA tokens untapped
AA- we will then cast sham from hand, and again we will have to pay for 1 sham/FSC trigger to get a lot of hasty sham's. we then pay RRG and tap one of our sham to get KFG back from our yard. we then cast KGF onto the swamp just as before. also as before we sac the swamp, KFG goes to yard, swamp into play, and genju back to hand. we tap the swamp for X B and then replay the genju onto the swamp and animate it. once again the SS/GSZ loop has updated our storm count to X^2 so when we cast BU again its a huge chain. we again use flect and his tokens to make sure we can use the full length of the BU chain. this process is how we turn 1 G into many B
<VO/MW, pearl/MW, X-1 DA/FSC, original BU, X-1 BU/TYS triggers, X^X BU copies> X-1 G floating, X-2 B floating, X-1 DA tokens untapped
BB- we use our B up at BB each time and work through our increasingly longer BU chains. then once we have used all the B up we use up another of our floating G, get KGF back and make another batch of B scaled to our new X once again. we repeat this G->X B until our first batch of G has been used up. we then tap our next DA token and get an updated X amount of G. we then again work on converting G->X B and using that B up to update us fully in BU chains. once we have used up our first DA/FSCs triggers worth of DA tokens we pay for our next DA/FSC trigger and once again get and newly updated X DA tokens to use to make many ever increasing X sized batches of G which in turn makes B and in turn updates everything aggressively. once we have work through all of the DA/FSC triggers we will be back to our waiting pearl/MW trigger. because W is so powerful in this deck we still will be responding before we let the pearl/MW trigger resolve
CC- we now cast mox emerald off the top. we will respond to this emerald/MW trigger by tapping the original emerald for G. this process will play out identically to the DA/FSC triggers and G use. before we use the very last of this G up we will want to leave GGGG floating
DD- when our original BU shuffles into the deck after using up the last B with GGGG floating we will actually have it shuffle into the 2nd from the top slot instead of the top slot. this top slot will be Spitting Image(39)(SI) and we will cast it of the top for RRRRGG. we will get X TYS triggers, each making X copies. all of these plus the original will target our animated swamp. i could target DA but these SI tokens don't have haste like the FSC ones do. luckily when we target the swamp and try to copy it the copy will be a copy of the original card which is just a swamp land. these don't care about summoning sickness and can be tapped to make mana as soon as they exist. because we can use BB to update our MR we will be tapping these swamps one at a time and then using all the mana to update further before tapping the next. then we let the next SI copy resolve and repeat. then the next TYS trigger resolves and makes a bunch more, we use these up and move to the next TYS trigger. once we have let all the TYS triggers resolve the original SI resolves and makes ones last batch of swamps and the SI goes to the graveyard. we use up these last swamps to update but we do use a SWS trigger to pick one more card(40,??????) before we finish things up
EE- we pay RR and our pearl/MW trigger is paid for we get X mox pearl tokens. we then pay an additional RR and let our VO/MW trigger happen. we get X VO tokens. our stack is now empty for the first time in quite some time. we tap one of these pearl tokens to get X W and prepare to move into the use of W
FF- we play Aegis Automaton(40)(AA) from hand. we will be leaving the triggers on the stack as we only ever need 1 of these in play. unfortunately our creature resets will be destroying these AA so we will have to use up a AA/FSC trigger each time we come back to use up a W but that will last us awhile *i think it actually covers the entirety of each mox pearl we tap but i might be messing the math up. it's possible welding jar's could be used here but it doesn't seem worth it as we need to use up BU for those too and we will have many many PO this would need to regenerate through* regardless if we need to we can use up a random BU to get AA back into play and if we do it as our last BU(the original card) to resolve we can again leave AA/FSC triggers on the stack. we now pay RRRRW and bounce our DA to our hand. we then retrace SI from the yard with RRRRGG and discarding DA. SI and all its copies will again target our animated swamp. we will use the swamps up until we are on our last BB from our last swamp. we will wait until our very last BU(original card) from our last chain and we will bring DA back into play. *i think its correct to use up the swamps first instead of bringing back DA first, tho i might be wrong* and set off our FSC triggers on DA. we use up there DA/FSC triggers and their resulting tokens to get our B->G loops going. this time though when we run out of G(well we need to leave GG to restart after using a W) we can just go and use up a W to refresh our G supply. so now its W->G->B. now we work our way through the mox pearl tokens one at a time until we have used them all up. we will be making more white here shortly so we do need to leave GG floating
GG- we now cast mox pearl off the top of the deck. we again respond to the pearl/MW trigger and tap our original pearl. we get X W. we use this up and pay for our pearl/MW trigger again and get X pearl tokens. we use these up as well. we are back to an empty stack. we will want to leave GG floating here as we transition into our next phase of the deck. we will want in our last SWS loop to use up another trigger to pick up another card(41, ???????)
*this is where i got to in the last deck for what i posted to the thread. the next aspect i had finished designing but never got to posting it. i did have even further figured out as well but most of that end game has changed over time. some of it is the same but most of it is repetitively new or is a much improved version of the idea/concept. part of reason i never posted this next step is tbh i have no idea how to optimize it or even the correct order to play some of these cards. one of the cards is pretty confusing to me as to when i should introduce it. it doesn't effect the use of B but it definitely can effect the G->B and W->G. i don't know how powerfully but it's def something. also this card effects a decent amount of things after this so i know it's correct to use it but i do wonder if it should have come down sooner. much like the PO enable a form of advanced red mana creation, we are about to move into advanced white mana creation*
***** break for post size ******
FF2- using RRR we play Sculpting Steel(42)(steel) off the top. we have it enter as a copy of MW, and the orginal MW triggers. we pay for that MW trigger and get X new MW tokens. now we play Coretapper(41)(CT) from hand *i actually think our SWS are worth less than even red mana so that is why i have used SWS triggers to pick up CT and AA instead of just playing them off the top, it's not clear tho as arbitrarily a SWS trigger is worth some fraction of a red mana that was used to pay for the FSC trigger that made them, but each SWS trigger can also find GER in our red mana amplification phase so its not so simple*, and we make get X MW triggers and X FSC triggers. we pay for all of them
GG2- now we play White Mana Battery(43)(WMB) off the top, it resolves and we get X MW triggers. now tap all X CT/FSC tokens and each puts X counters on our original WMB. then we sac all CT/FSC and CT/MW tokens to put 2X counters on WMB from each token sac'ed(this also puts X counters on RSK from DP triggers). now we tap our WMB and remove X counters and get X^X white mana thanks to X MR
HH- we use up this W the same way we did before off the pearl moxes. we will want to make sure we do bring back CT and makes all copies during our last BU chain after our creature reset. we then pay RR and resolve our first WMB/MW trigger and get X WMB token
II- unlike our first original WMB now we have many WMB in play. we now tap our CT that can tap and target each WMB token once. we should have many CTs left over after(probably ones that can just tap, vs sac only) and we then pick one of our WMB to be the next one we will draw W from. onto this WMB token we sac and tap all of our remaining CT tokens and get a lot of counters we then tap and remove all counters with the WMB and get a X W again
*this is where my understanding of the math gets a bit fuzzy. im just not sure how to best my tools optimumly. i know we need to use CT to get counter onto the WMBs originally but tbh i'm not sure its worth recurring them during our BU chains. i'm honestly no even sure its worth bringing them back during or after our creature resets. to do that we need to use up BU copies and i think those r too valuable to "waste" on CT. if we update IT properly IT should be doing far more work than CT ever can in terms of putting counters on our waiting WMBs. within our DF updates our DF triggers r bouncing and recasting our enchantments. while TYS only cares about ins/sor storm IT looks at true storm and those DF updates actually have our true storm at or above TYS storm until we do a SS/GSZ loop and that only bring our TYS storm up to where our true storm already is right before the loop begins (so true storm is about X pre SS/GSZ loop and then our TYS storm goes to X^2 and our true storm becomes X+X^2). the strength of IT in all of this is that it's giving X counters to each WMB and not just one that CT copies could do. also CT costs us a BU copy to get up and running where IT just does it automatically(we do need to give up a few DF etb's to update IT occasionally) so it costs us basically nothing and its easy to keep on top of the updates should we need or want to. which is another thing. i know IT is doing gross things but its possible to update it during our DF stuff. should i add it to the alternating of DS and FSC or should i more be looking at alternating less often? im pretty sure we want to update IT once per DF/FSC trigger but maybe its 1 per entire BU chain, i just don't know. maybe its an arbitrary number(i was thinking maybe 1 per X DF etb where X is # of DF/FSC triggers at start of the chain so 1st DF/FSC trigger we would just do 1 IT update but next DF/FSC we do every 1 per Xth DF tokens inside an new X that just got made) but if so how do we choose? fwiw i know IT triggers will be the 2nd most common thing happening in the deck behind CC triggers. maybe the updating on our DS/FSC bouncing is allowing the IT triggers to scale well enough that updating isn't as needed. i just dont know*
JJ- now we work our way through this W all the while growing the counters on the WMB tokens we haven't tapped yet via our IT triggers. once we run out of W we will use our last creature update from the very last of our BU chains to get a bunch more CT and load the next WMB up *i think it's correct to do this once, at least, per W batch we get from tapping a WMB. it's possible more is correct but i think at least 1 as we transition into the next WMB is def correct* we then tap that one and get another batch of white mana. we proceed to do this process of getting and using white mana from our WMB tokens we got from our WMB/MW trigger we resolved. once we have used them all up we pay for and resolve the next WMB/MW trigger getting a new X WMB tokens to work with. we proceed to use these up as well. we proceed this way until all but the very last WMB/MW trigger is left
KK- now before this last WMB/MW trigger resolves we will be playing Rings of Brighthearth(44)(rings). we will get X MW triggers and pay for all of them
* yeah so this is happening. while this doesn't gain us a ton of value in the BU chains we get ton of value from our sham activation's, our AA activation's, and even our CT activation's. i don't really know if this addition changes how we should process the events that those activation's put into action but i do know that we can stack things so that we can always get full rings value from these activation's. we can always get our targets back to where they need to be. we will give up the original activation but all rings copies can be used as long as we don't pay for the trigger until we have our target back where it needs to be to not fizzle which we can easily do*
*i wanted to wait to cast rings until we had X as high as we could. as i noted with IT the DF update engine means each X is progressively more powerful than the last so the most recent X will be more potent than all value gained from those earlier X's combined. this is why i waited until now and this last WMB/MW trigger. if i wait longer we won't have any top end triggers to work with to gain value from. if we did it sooner, well it might be correct to get rings down sooner. as u will see updating artifacts isn't an easy thing to do so if we play it earlier it won't have a very high X to be copied by. playing it hrre just felt right tho im not opposed to playing it elsewhere in the sequence if there is more value to be gained than i realize*
LL- so now with rings at our disposal our use of W gains value as each W now gets X activation's and not just the one. so X white gets X AA bounces and each bounce gets copied X times. our white mana generation also goes up as now CTs counter making can be copied. i don't know if this makes it a legitimate BU target during BU chains but if we are bringing it back at all rings makes it that much better. similarly to how W is used our G usage gets better as sham's targeting of KGF can and will be copied. so X green gets X activation's and each gets X rings copies
MM- so as we work through our last of our W from our very last WMB from the last WMB/MW trigger we will need to pick up Djinn Illuminatus(45)(djinn) from a random SWS trigger. once we have djinn at our disposal we will want to be sure as we run down out of our W/G/B resources we are being sure to do our advanced red mana making. we will want to sac our swamp this time even if we don't have any G left to recur the KFG. we just want to ensure that we have access to as much R as possible. it's important to now see why it's for our R generation to be as efficient as possible
NN- with BB floating and all of our R as well we play djinn and then we cast Shatterstorm(46)(s-storm) off the top. as we cast it we use all of our R to replicate it as much as possible. if like i believe our R engine is stronger than our other engines then we should be able to replicate s-storm for more copies than all of our TYS and thier triggers combined. this is why i wanted the R engine to be so powerful and so prevalent even when our R costs weren't all that high
< orginal s-storm, X s-storm copies>
OO- now before we let any of our s-storm's resolve at all we will need to do one last thing. with our last BU chain before this during our last creature update we will need to set aside one BU copy to bring back a welding jar(# 1 or 2) . luckily i think 1 jar/MW trigger will be enough to make X copies and that will be all we need to save the things we need to. we sac enough jar's to put regen shields on all token copies of WM, all token rings, and then 1 token VO. this will leave all of our artifact progress in play and still allow us to now update our rings and MW while also getting our artifacts into our yard where we can bring them back with BU. we let the first s-strom copy resolve putting our actual artifacts cards into the yard
< X-1 s-strom copies >
PP- so now we need to start bringing things back. we cast BU and get a BU chain. the original BU will target the first of our artifacts we want to bring back. the weakest i think is to just do mox emerald. let our BU chain play out as normal but with the original BU we go ahead and bring emerald back. we get X MW triggers for emerald and go abut using those up. luckily since we had our original BU target the mox we can recast BU inside this value engine we just recurred. i originally thought i needed multiple BU in the deck but with this set up i think just the 1 is all we need. so we use up all the value from the emerald coming back. next is the pearl and we go ahead and use up all that value before moving on
QQ- now we are down to our last few artifacts we want to recur in MW, rings, WMB, and steel. i'm pretty sure we want lead out with MW after using up our moxes to get X up bit higher, but it get's complicated after this. the ability for steel to come in as itself and have different numbers of things enter as different things kinda makes my head hurt. my gut tells me that we just want steel to make more copies of MW but i could be grossly underestimating the power of WMB and rings. maybe a combination of them all is correct, i just don't know
RR- once we have an optimal sequence settled on we proceed to work through this engine. getting and using large amounts of various colors of W/G/B mana as we work through getting our artifacts back. then once we have extracted maximum value we again make sure we get jar back (to save our progress via regen shields) and then let the next copy of s-storm resolve and start again. this should be fairly regimented in its structure for most of the s-storm chain. the one exception to this is when we have used up the last original s-storm. while we will still use much of the mana for just redoing what we have already been doing we will at the very end want to make sure we sequence the returning of our artifacts to ensure we can produce the maximum amount of rings
SS- during our last SWS dig we will want to pick up Yawgmoth's Bargain(47)(bargain) with one of the triggers. once our max rings have been created we will play bargain. we will make max copies as its just correct to do so but we really need 1 of these in play. we then pay 1 life and get X rings triggers. we pay for 2 of these triggers and pick up Psychic Spiral(48)(spiral) and Scatter to the Winds(49)(scatter). we leave the other bargain/rings triggers on the stack by responding to them. we cast spiral from hand. we then respond to spirals TYS triggers and cast scatter targeting spiral. TYS will trigger for scatter and we counter the original scatter and the original spiral. then the rest of the TYS/scatter triggers happen and bunch of scatters get created that don't do anything. once all of those have resolved we will then cast HTC from hand(we will need to alter our creature reset loop slightly to do this but it shouldn't lose too much value) and pick up PO and scatter. now we let the first spiral/TYS trigger happen and we get X copies of spiral. the first spiral resolves and shuffles spiral, s-storm, 3 copies of chaos warp, VO and tinder wall back into our library. we also mill our opponent for a few cards. luckily we still have flash so now we can recast these reshuffled cards from our library before the next spiral resolves
TT- with the help of flect and gobs of red mana we can now recast chaos warps 1-3 off the top and reset one permanent per copy and use djinn and that red mana to make many many copies. we will always just target WMB, MW, or rings (unless doing it with steel is just better) to maximize our value. once all of our red mana artifact resets have been cast and copied and their value has been used up we let the next copy of spiral resolve
< oirginal bargain activation, x-2 bargain/rings triggers, x-1 spiral/TYS triggers, x-2 copies of spiral > 19 life
***** post size break *****
UU- once our first full spiral/TYS trigger has resolved we then let the next one happen and get another set of X(old X but still) spirals to work with. we use these up just as before and let another spiral/TYS trigger happen. again we use these up. we continue to work through all these spiral/TYS triggers. once we have used all of these up we pay for our next bargain/rings trigger and draw spiral from the deck again. we again cast and counter spiral just as before and get another giant spiral chain. once all of these bargain/rings triggers have been used up we do let the original bargain activation also resolve and again create another long spiral chain. then once the stack has cleared again we pay another 1 life and get X rings triggers again(new X this time) and again start working through these to draw and re cast/counter spiral to create many more spiral chains off draws from bargain and rings. we continue down this structure until we have used all but our last 1 life with bargain
*so a brief note about scatter and HTC. originally i thought we would be able to add +1 storm into our creature resets by using scatter w/ PO and HTC but i think things get messy. because of the way things will stack we will make many more scatter copies from TYS than we will ever have PO copies on the stack. this means when the scatter/TYS triggers happen we will be forced to target whatever is available to target. this means things like s-storm copies or even worse spiral copies which most certainly will still be on the stack. i think we may be able to cast scatter occasionally for storm gains but we have to be very very careful on when we actually do that. the fact that the original spiral is the only thing on the stack when we do the cast/counter helps ensure we aren't forced to counter desirable effects from the TYS triggers of scatter. it doesn't really matter much now that the SS/GSZ loop exist making updating TYS storm easy to do *
< empty stack > 1 life
VV- now we have used up the easy to use resources, time to get creative. in our last SWS loop we will pick up Deathrite Shaman(50)(DRS), ???????(51), ???????(52), ????????(53)and ???????(54). we cast DRS and conveniently during our many spirals resolving our opp library of 53 wastes(opp 1-60) are in their graveyard. while yes we can copy DRS trigger with rings it's actually pretty terrible to do so. what is very very good for us is that because MR is worded very specifically it effects the mana generation output of these DRS activation's. so we play DRS and get a FSC copy of him. we then exile one of our opp's wastes and get X blue(U) mana. now as good as using this mana to cast spiral off the top would be we can do far far better. we now cast Boon Reflection(51)(boon) and River Hoopoe(52)(RH)
< empty stack > X U, 1 life, and 1 opp wastes in exile
WW- so we play boon and get X copies of it, and then play RH. we then pay U(actually UGRRR, so we will have had to float G, easy enough) to gain 2(2^X) life and draw 1 card, onto the stack. while DRS's ability didn't make sense for us to copy w/ rings this ability from RH certainly does so we get X RH/rings triggers happening in front of the original RH ability
*so this is about to get a bit complicated but explaining this next loop uses a card that has even more value in a little bit*
XX- so now before we let any of our RH abilities resolve we have a loop we can now start that cards 53 and 54 allow. we cast Oblivion Sower(53)(sower) of the top. there is no library for us to exile away but DRS did put a land into exile we can now use. we indeed do put that land into play. we then tap it to get X colorless(C) mana. now we play Eldrazi Displacer(54)(ED). now we use ED to blink DA. DA re-enters and triggers X FSC and we then can make many green to use to get value. this doesn't really seem like a loop per say as we seem to only get 1 tap of a waste per DRS activation. the thing is tho we get way way more than that. the next time we have W we can cast PO for its awaken cost and target our waste. once that has been done when we bounce DA using a AA ability(rings or actual) we can recast SI and target our animated waste instead of targeting our swamp. these wastes come in as the land like our swamp did and don't care about having summoning sickness because they aren't creatures anymore. this means our W->G loop is now W->C->G now. this is even further compounded by the fact that EDs ability is copy-able by rings
*so i need to explain a few things to show that this doesn't go infinite. we could exile the animated waste w/ ED but that doesn't do us any good as the waste comes back from the blink in it's original non animated form(and tapped too) meaning we don't get any FSC triggers. also the blink happens in time span small enough(ie priority doesn't pass) that we cannot recast sower to get it back from exile over and over. we have no way to kill generic lands, only swamps via genju(spirit) and KWF because PO still doesn't kill lands or land creatures. we can chaos warp the land or the animated land but it doesn't actually net putting cards into back into our opp deck. however many cards r in the deck as warp resolves will be the same number after warp finishes resolving. there is no time the card is in the deck we can access it. it just gets revealed and forced into play. our opp cannot decide to leave it in the library to allow us to go infinite. this does mean we can put lands we can exile w/ DRS into play under their control but that doesn't do us much good. we can't animate them there and we cannot destroy them even if they are in play. there is a lot of scary stuff that just opened up and it is possible i missed something. i'm usually pretty thorough tho and i'm pretty confident that these cards and lines of play are safe and don't go infinite. ED is also safe with all of our artifact mana producers as ED can only blink creatures which none of our artifact mana makers are, and cannot become, creatures. we can bounce our animated wastes in an attempt to be able to retrace SI by discarding the waste but when we do the bounce the waste goes back to our opp hand, which doesn't do us any good as we can't access them there(yet)*
yy- so we now have an increase of layers down in our lower powered layers, but we need to start resolving our RH abilities to get things started. the life gain and the card draw do happen at the same time unfortunately so we cannot stack those 2 things. each time we resolve this ability we will gain 2^X life and draw spiral. we should then recast spiral from hand the start a spiral chain before using any of our newly acquired life. once that spiral chain has run its course we start working through the life via bargain. the best part about all of this is that while the number of RH abilities per single U mana will have a fixed X(rings at the time of activation of the original ability) the X in the life gain is not static. that will scale to what ever X is at the time as we can easily update the number of BR to as high as possible right before we resolve another RH ability
< RH original ability, X-1 RH/rings triggers > X-1 U, 1 + 2^X life, 52 lands in opp graveyard
ZZ- so we work through the RH abilities resolving until we have used them all including the original. then we use up our next U to restart this chain again. then we use the next U. we work through all of the U we have. then we activate another DRS and get a freshly updated X amount of U to work with, which eats another land out of our opp graveyard. once we have used up all 53 lands in our opp graveyard(bouncing and recasting sower each time to get a bit of C for each exile *i actually think it's proper to just wait until we have all additional 52 exiled before doing sower tricks*) it's time to move to card 55 which we will have to use up 1 last SWS trigger to pick up
AAA- once all 53 of our opp lands have been exiled with DRS from their graveyard and then brought back into play on our board, via sower, we will again cast PO w/ awaken and we will let our copies from TYS animate all of our actual wastes cards. we will then use at least W to use AA to bounce all waste land cards back to our opp hand(meaning they now have 60 waste cards in hand). we then play Nicol Bolas(55)(bolas) from hand, we need bolas to have haste so we pay for 1 FSC trigger and let the original die to keep a FSC token copy. we then equip sorcerer's wand(card #15 from way back when, it didn't need to live through all s-storms but it does need to have at least 1 copy of it in play now). we then activate bolas using his new ability from wand. this means bolas does 1 damage to our opp(they are now at 19 life). this triggers bolas's triggered ability and forces our opp to discard their entire hand. now we have the full 60 wastes in the yard and can start activating DRS again to make more U
*this means instead of 53 DRS activation's to make U, we now get 1193(60x19 + 53) activation's. this obviously greatly increases our amount of RH activation's as well and as such everything else that is happens deeper and deeper into the decks recursive engines*
BBB- one thing we will want to do is during the instance where we are using PO to animate the actual waste land cards into creatures we will want to animate at least 1 of our token waste lands. this way we can always have a animated waste to target with our SI retraces and its copies so the W->C->G loop is aways valid once we gain access to it. its a small thing but it's worth doing
CCC- so yeah we exile the lands, make the blue mana, make that into life, then use up the life, then need to use bolas again and use up one of their life points. we do this until we have used all 19 of their available life and then we are kinda done. we run through the loops as much as we can but we have essentially reached the end of the line. eventually we will run out of life and can no longer reshuffle s-storm and our warps to reset our artifact mana. we will have gone as far as we can
DDD- so once its all finally over we make sure our enchantments are creatures and we do our best to use up the last of our red mana on MVD buffs and then we swing with everything and our opp takes a lot of damage
notes-
with the addition of RH the 2nd welding jar can change back to chrome mox. then we can add painters servant back in as well. i had to take this out for awhile as chrome mox allowed an infinite using different cards that are no longer in the deck. the servant would allow the red mana engine to become even more powerful all be it only slightly. the big thing is that once we exhaust our opp life total we can still make a little bit more U mana from chrome mox. all of our cards can be blue(all colors if it matters) so we exile redundant pieces to gain some blue mana. cards like our chaos warps(i assume s-storm is the best of the artifact resets?) and then bolas, sower, DRS, tinder wall and possibly some others. we can get some of that value currently as we can use DRS to exile non useful creatures to gain life once they have run their course(bolas etc) but blue mana is significantly more scarce than life so it mght be worth giving up a card slot especially since we have 5 to work with currently
it would be possible to replace scatter with a 2nd spiral. this effectively allows us to run without counters. we could then run a card like approach of the 2nd sun for a 1 time life gain boost. we could also then run a instant damage dealer as our win which would allow us to cast approach a 2nd time and then get the life gain from the copies and then do our damage with the final approach cast from hand still on the stack as we did the damage.
i could easily add a damage multiplier for another layer but id have to be careful to bounce them when bolas was doing his damge or just wait to get it into play after bolas has fully done his job0
sangromancer is a card that fits into the deck. tbh i don't know how exactly it would work with the mass discard off bolas. i know it would be really good but i'm not sure how the math works on it. also the other line of text about opp creatures is a bit scary as if i figure out a way to give my opp creatures i can go infinite easily.
**** i'm going to see if i can get a full list soon but i just wanted the walk through done, which it is, finally ******
1 mox pearl
2 mox emerald
3 tinder wall
4 chaos warp
5 kykar, wind’s fury
6 thousand-year storm
7 chaos warp
8 omniscience
9 doubling season
10 future sight
11 swamp
12 welding jar
13 welding jar
14 mirrorworks
15 Sorcerer’s wand
16 vedalken orrery
17 mana reflection
18 green sun’s zenith
19 chaos warp
20 opalescence
21 flameshadow conjuring
22 sumala woodshaper
23 drake familiar
24 death’s presence
25 genju of the fens
26 cathars’ crusade
27 runaway steam-kin
28 inexorable tide
29 spellseeker
30 moonveil dragon
31 halimar tidecaller
32 goblin flectomancer
33 god-eternal rhonas
34 planar outburst
35 beacon of unrest
36 kaya’s ghostform
37 dowsing shaman
38 dryad arbor
39 spitting image
40 aegis automaton
41 coretapper
42 sculpting steel
43 white mana battery
44 rings of brighthearth
45 djinn Illuminatus
46 shatterstorm
47 yawgmoth’s bargain
48 psychic spiral
49 scatter to the winds
50 deathrite shaman
51 boon reflection
52 river hoopoe
53 oblivion sower
54 eldrazi displacer
55 nicol Bolas
here’s the list, in order, and in deck format
redoing it a bit quicker for my sanity:
First note that certain things can't get their number of copies updated at their optimal times: most notably Doubling season in the early parts of the combo.
Heroes bane takes X mana to X^X (really its 2^X,
Alena uses a tap to make X^X mana X^^X
Each creature can tap as an Alena X^^^X
A copy of outnumber makes creatures X^^^^X
Precursor Golem gives many copies X^^^^^X
A Isochron scepter trigger gives many targets thanks to TYS X^^^^^^X = X->X->6
Kurkesh turns a tap into many triggers X->X->7
Unbender tine gives many taps X->X->8
Talisman untaps tine when we cast a blue spell
which we can do with every card draw
cracking a clue gives many draws X->X->9
Doubling season turns an investigate into clues X->X->10
Bygone Bishop gives many investigates X->X->11
Chainer Nightmare adept gives many creature casts X->X->12
Wydwen gives Chainer activations X->X->13
Rhox Faithmender on food X->X->14
Kurkesh on food X->X->15
doubling season with food X->X->16
Yarok with gingerbread cabin X->X->17
second sunrise X->X->18
surreal memoir X->X->19
chandra ablaze X->X->20
Eerie Ultimatum X->X->21
echo of eons X->X->22
Time spiral X->X->23
I might have missed some layers, but I'd say this is a reasonable lower bound, and pretty close to the upper bound.
@j_kibbs, reading through yours next.
Could this be an alternative to Worldfire that doesn't wipe the board, or even something that doesn't require Spellweaver Helix at all and thus might be able to be used on top of our current hyperstage to form a megastage?
Though maybe theres some way to use the "you lose" enchantments like Lich's Mastery
Sway of the stars is another similar card but 7 is probably too high. We cant let our sweeper gain us life like that.
Also, we do need to clear some of the board, as we don't want to be able to keep flash during the transition.
It was a bit easier to untangle from the other direction so:
we get about 1200 activations of Deathrite shaman before we run out of targets/they run out of life
Each makes X blue thanks to Mana Reflection
Each blue gains us x river hoopoe activations, thanks to Rings of Brighthearth
Each of the birds activations gives us x life via Boon Reflection.
Each point of life is X draws via bargan and rings
each draw gives us X reshuffles via psychic spiral and TYS
each reshuffle lets us cast shatterstorm and replicate it X times (yes you have more red than storm here, but it doesn't matter much)
Each copy of shatterstorm lets us make x copies of our artifacts (Welding Jar saves the Mirrorworks progress)
each white mana battery taps for x white (coretapper+doubling season vs mana reflection doesn't really matter)
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of it with beacon of unrest and FSC/DS
each copy of dryad arbot taps for x green
each green activates dowsing shaman for kaya's ghostform, netting us X black
each black casts x copies of beacon of unrest
each beacon of unrest gives x FSC triggers for all the creatures
each FSC trigger for SWS gives x SXS triggers (parallel combo here with drake giving us copies of the enchantments)
each SWS trigger gives x FSC triggers for Rhonas (copies of drake familiar pick up enchantments)
each Rhonas trigger gives x power to elementals (recasting the enchantments gives triggers and copies)
each power on an elemental gives x counters to a runaway steamkin (parallel drake combo ends)
which makes X red
and finally, each red gives X power.
so by my count that's around X->X->20
Again im not claiming to be perfect here, but that should be pretty close.
The main areas for improvement would be some clever way to give the opponent life, an easier way to copy artifacts(mirrormade? No, that goes
infinite...), panharmonicon (currently would only give one layer, but if artifacts were easier to copy could be worth more), reconfiguring the combo so that drake familiar and sumala woodshaper happen in sequence instead of in parallel (they are both recast with beacon, so they have the same bottleneck.)
There's also some card slots that don't help as much as you'd think they would.
So I just want to do a better layout of the BU loops as they r stronger than they were in the last version. So I think the DF/FSC/DS interaction got credit for 4 layers in the last deck if I remember correctly but I’ll admit I don’t understand the math well enough to understand the actual growth rate. I can explain it but I can’t turn that into a mathematical expression. It’s very possible your 20 layer estimation is dead on, I’m kinda just doing this part for me, so I can understand the math in my own deck a bit better. FWIW my very rough estimation was 20-40 layers but I was so confused on how the math worked so I wasn’t even sure how to even estimate. I just knew it was stronger than my last deck and went farther down the chain as well.
So let’s just start with 1 DF card entering the battlefield event.
-DF card enters gets X FSC triggers
-Each FSC trigger makes X DF tokens
-Each DF token recasts DS or FSC
-Each recast gets X FSC triggers of DS or FSC
-Each FSC/FSC trigger makes X additional FSC
-Each DS/FSC trigger adds 2^X more DS per trigger and each next trigger scales off the new X not the same X as the previous.
So on a FSC update we take FSC from X to X(2^X). With DS being updated we take X to 2^X but repeated (updated?) X times.
*I tried to do a bit of manual calculation just to see what the math looks like and it looks to me like when we end this full use of all DS/FSC on a DS recast we appear to get a exponent stack being X exponents high being added to one x-1 then x-2 then x-3 exponents high until we r back adding our original X to the total. So the first resolves and gets us 2^X growth. Next is 2^(2^X). Next is 2^(2^(2^X)). This addition of an exponent happens each time and we r going to be doing it X times, so we should end with a calculation that is X parentheses in size with a ^ inside each of them. On top of this it’s actually even larger as we are always adding the new to the old so the end is a X exponents number added to a X-1 added to X-2 etc etc and this will just be the final trigger. I don’t know how to express it in a simplified manner but I’m sure it can be*
We can repeat the alternating between DS and FSC across the entire X DF tokens we get off 1 FSC trigger. So if we have X DF tokens we get X/2 “full cycle” update to FSC and DS
All of this is happening off of 1 DF/FSC trigger. We should have X(granted this X is static and “locked” at time of FD card entering the battlefield) triggers to work through and each time we pay for a trigger we get an updated X amount of DF tokens to use to update DS and FSC again.
Now with the old deck we were bottlenecked on BU strength as we could only get Y instances of DF entering where Y was the number of TYS on cast of BU. With the addition of flectomancer tho we can do much better. If we have done a Spellseeker/GSZ loop to update our TYS storm count our storm is actually at X(2^X) if we have X DS to start, *of note here is it doesn’t matter which we updated last FSC or DS as we either get X(2^X) FSC trigger for X seekers each or X FSC triggers for 2^X seekers each* which means our full BU chain length is Y times “storm” count. If we update Y and our storm count after settling on X DS we get a BU chain length of (2^X)(X(2^X)).
Now while that will be the total length it’s easier to break it down looking at individual TYS triggers resolving making X(2^X) BU copies. Each of the copies we can retarget to get back whatever we want thanks to flectomancer. This means the entirety of a TYS trigger of X(2^X) BU copies can be used to recur DF each time *we will have to give up a tiny amount of that number to ensure we have enough flectomancer’s to allow is to do this but as I stated in the original post I think it’s literally 1 BU copy per TYS trigger after X has been updated to get enough flectomancers to cover it, so a very small amount, it is a few more if we r doing creature resets but again it’s a tiny number in the bigger scheme of things* So let’s look again at the BU chains. We will let X be the number of DS we start with.
-We have X DS and all of important/relevant perms have been updated from this X
-we have X(2^X) mana reflections
-we tap our swamp for 2^(X(2^X)) black mana(B)
-we can spend BB to cast BU
-each BU cast gets X(2^X) TYS triggers and each TYS trigger makes X(2^X) BU copies giving us a BU chain length of (X(2^X))^2
-each BU copy can allow DF to enter the battlefield to get X(2^X) FSC triggers and start the DF token/FSC/DS updating again
*in the final TYS/BU batch we will be doing a creature reset which will allow us to update our perm and storm counts to the current X, which will cost us some very small amount BU copies to do. We do not need to update everything, just things relevant to what will be happening next or what ever else is gaining us value. Things like mana reflection don’t need updates until we will tap for mana etc. In the most basic BU loop we need to update storm/TYS/DS/FSC and I think that is it and realistically it’s mostly just DS and FSC until we are going to recast BU which then we can and should update both TYS perm count and also our TYS storm count as well*
Even at its most simplified we will get X-C DF card enters battlefield per BU chain of length X with C being enough to cover our creature resets/updates.
So another thing I was curious about is why it seems the mana battery is only getting credit for what a mox would in the same situation. Even just the first original battery will tap for at the very least X^2 compared to a mox’s production as it will have at least X counters to remove in addition to the 2^X mana reflection buff. The estimation also doesn’t seem to reflect the counters the untapped batteries gain while a batch of white mana from a battery is being used. We will have some amount of inexorable tides each producing X counters(updating) per cast of any spell for each untapped battery. We can then update IT during our DF triggers at as fast a rate of adding it to our normal DS/FSC alternating to be DS then FSC then IT using 3 DF token triggers instead of just the 2. I think it’s a mistake to update IT that often but regardless if updating it is beneficial(it makes us more W so it can’t be correct to ignore it completely) we can indeed do that quite easily.
So I think the difficulty in me knowing how to do the math is knowing how to keep track of everything once they start overlapping. You kinda hit on it by talking about parallel chains and that is where I really struggle as I’m just not sure how they all kinda intermingle. The deck doesn’t have just 1 linear chain it follows so it gets really hard to figure out what the hell is going on. It’s def possible my non linear growths just don’t grow hard enough to matter in the larger scheme of things but I am kinda curious why they don’t.
This was kinda my thoughts on what the layer count would look like, tho if around 20 is correct I’m def misunderstanding something somewhere in all of this. Number on the left is number of layers, then card, then interactions I think might be worth a layer. I tried to not double count though I might have.
1- MVD = power
5- Rings = bargain, RH, AA, sham, displacer
1- Boon = RH
1- Bargain = spiral
4- TYS = s-storm, spiral, BU, SI
2- MW = rings, WMB
1- GER = power
1- SWS = GER
1- SS = storm count
1- HTC = creature resets
1- PO/sower = colorless
1- DP = power
1- RSK = red mana
1- CC = power
5- MR = DRS, WMB+pearl, DA+emerald, wastes, swamp(s)
3- IT = WMB, red mana, power
5(6?)- DF = MR, DS, FSC, boon, TYS, (storm count?)
2- KWF = red mana/power(bodies to hold counters), power(CC triggers)
?- (Mana producers/separation?)
?- FSC/DS as our base
Also in your estimation I think u missed the colorless layer(s). Each white gets x bounces of DA. Each bounce casts SI targeting an animated waste(token or real). Each cast of SI gets x copies. Each copy makes x waste. Each waste taps for x colorless. Each colorless blinks DA x times with displacer and rings. Each blink makes x FSC/DA triggers. Then BU brings DA back gets another set of FSC triggers and is ready to be bounced again .....
Again thanks for the estimation and for being patient with me. I’ve ask a lot of questions on this thread(and the std one too) so thanks for bearing with me!
so:
...
each white mana battery taps for x white (coretapper+doubling season vs mana reflection doesn't really matter)
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of it with beacon of unrest and FSC/DS
each copy of dryad arbor taps for x green
...
becomes:
each white mana battery taps for x white
each white lets us bounce dryad arbor x times
each time we discard dryad arbor we can get x copies of SI
each SI gives us X wastes
each waste lets us blink DA X times
each blink gives X FSC triggers
each FSC trigger gives X DAs
each copy of dryad arbor taps for x green
4 layers becomes 8 layers. bringing my estimate to ->24.
White mana battery is interesting, and it really isn't better than the mox for the estimate. The main problem with it is that all of the combo pieces are doing the same thing: letting the battery tap for more mana. You get to remove 2^(X->X->L) counters and get 2^(X->X->L)*2^(X->X->L) = 2^((X->X->L)+(X->X->L)) mana but thats basically the same number as if you had just had Mana Reflection. What you want would be something more like calciform pools (though obviously that goes infinite) that lets you remove the counters slowly.
The problem with your Beacon of creation/Drake familiar/Sumala woodshaper is that the creatures don't chain into each other. The two combos run in parallel. you have one combo updating your enchantments, and another (slightly better) combo that increases your total power, but updating your enchantments doesn't also give you SWS without spending black casting beacon and increasing your power doesnt give more DF without spending black casting beacon.
Replacing Sumala woodshaper with a card like Growing Rites of Itlimoc would let your drake familiars also bring out tons of rhonas and combo into the elementals and power part of your combo. netting 3 ish layers.
However even that is not fully optimal as your enchantments like DS, DP, and CC would be set constants and then not contribute layers to the power section of the combo.
Instead if there was a way to turn your power combo into DFs, (Sinking feeling is the only card I can think of that is even close) then you would be able to update the enchantment numbers in between the triggers and get more layers. This is why most of the past layer decks have focused on duplicating artifacts/enchantments as early as possible.
Switching satyr's cunning for K'rrik and a black flashback/escape card seems the easiest first step, and the a creature we can use for the life gain: Moan of the unhallowed + Ghost-lit redeemer seems like a start, (though using white like this is not great).
Edit: actually, since Worldfire resets their life total as well, we can use their life total along with ours.
The transition seems like there are more options if we can use most flashback sorceries, we spellweaver helix some lifegain (starlight?), worldfire, and some way to get the mana exactly back (restore?)
from there we open up with many mana options, and optimizing that seems daunting.
Edit: hmm we don't need the intervening stage before worldfire/worldpurge as the BB calculation is better than that anyway.
We can use Flowstone Flood as our recastable sorcery (using Crystal chimes/Skull of orm and Darksteel citadel [Edit:March of the machines kills darksteel citadel so something like Consecrate land or Drownyard Temple instead)
Then using some flashback spell, Starlight, Worldfire, and something to get the flashback mana back, and then we have access to any mana for the later stages, and can therefore definitely do better than 8 layers.
Isn't it a stage of BB calculations? Surely that's much better than a single BB calculation.