For now we can keep scaling via Mirrorworks + Master Transmuter. While there is some overlap between Mirrorworks and Dual Nature we need to use both. Dual Nature can't create copies of Mox Sapphire without it dying and losing access to it. (If it could it would go infinite because it would produce mana.) Mirrorworks creates those copies to turn our mana blue, but can't help us create easy enchantment and creature copies for the start.
Making the switch to Dual Nature shouldn't require any big changes. It also doesn't give a lot of benefits, other than helping to start. But there it can really make things go smoother.
Ah, I see. I was hoping maybe we could get rid of Mirrorworks, so that something like Black Lotus could come back in, and we could get a couple of layers going into white mana.
I suppose we could still do so perhaps. I don't see anything stopping Caged Sun, which would allow lands to tap for a lot of mana, so we wouldn't necessarily need Hidden Strings for our beneficial sorcery. If we used say Journey for the Elixir, then we could save nonbasic lands for later. What I would like to do is go Tolarian Academy into Arbiter of the Ideal into some land that comes in animated and creates a bunch of Dual Nature triggers. But, I don't know how to get the land to be usable for Arbiter of the Ideal and not in our normal hyperstage.
Perhaps we could use something like Splendid Reclamation in our hyperstage? That seems like it could work.
Using Caged Sun to replace Hidden Strings would be good. But I don't quite see how to make it work. Journey for the Elixir or similar sorceries would only ensure that we need to go through a transition to reuse the land, but they allow us to get the mana on the wrong side of the transition. Hidden Strings requiring a land to be in play and to stay in play for targeting is important to prevent that.
But even without any changes there is a type of land that we can not reuse in the hyperstage. Once a non-forest land is in graveyard/library/exile we can't get them out of there. So lands with sacrifice abilities could be used with fetching them out of the library as part of the layer.
Hmm, I seem to recall that Rude Awakening was bad, but I don't remember why. Animating lands will allow us to kill them, but that just puts them in the graveyard where we can't get them back.
Animating the lands also allows us to bounce them. We could then skip Worldpurge and the transition wouldn't clear the mana pool. Going infinite.
Even without the extra mode we would be able to put the tapped land into play with Show and Tell and untap it with Rude Awakening on the wrong side of the transition.
Unfortunately most of the spells that untap a target land or permanent are instants, so we can't use them.
Edit: Mobilize + Siege of Towers could replace Hidden Strings. It allows us to untap creatures on either side of the Worldpurge but only turns the mountain into a creature on the correct side, due to targeting. Animating only Mountains and not all lands should not cause any infinites.
I think that allows for Arbiter of the Ideal because it makes it hard to tap those.
Getting the desired order of Siege of Towers and Mobilize copies is tricky, but can be done:
When we resolve a Spellweaver Helix we first cast Show and Tell, Worldpurge, Eureka, optionally Worldfire and Fractured Identity. Then we cast Mobilize and X delayed triggers from Sea Gate Stormcaller trigger and wait to be put on the stack. Then we cast Siege of Towers paying the replicate cost once. The replicate ability triggers and waits to be put on the stack.
We finish resolving the Helix trigger and after state-based actions we get to put the triggers on the stack. Put the Stormcaller copies on it first and the replicate copy on top.
When we start resolving the stack we first animate the mountain and then untap it a bunch of times.
I don't see how to do it without paying the replicate cost. So we need some access to red mana after resolving a Worldpurge. Mox Ruby should be safe and can replace Mana Crypt for the start.
We need a way to trigger Night Dealings. They can't survive to see any of the damage triggered by Kaervek's Spite while on our side on the board. We could add Nettle Drone, though I hope we can find some combination with another role to save a card. (We can't steal Night Dealings with counters from the opponent because Fractured Identity just creates new copies. That's good because stealing them would go infinite)
A rules question: Do we choose the target for Tolarian Kraken's ability when it triggers from drawing a card? Or does it happen when paying the mana triggers a "reflexive triggered ability"?
If it is the first we don't get a layer from the triggers because Worldpurge would remove the targets. Upside of that would be that Harmonic Prodigy wouldn't give a layer so we wouldn't be at 61 cards
Apparently, you choose targets after making the mana payment.
That's good news, but of course we still have the slot problem.
I was wondering if we could just bounce enchantments to avoid needing Reality Twist, but I guess Opalescence is the problem?
Now that we have Dual Nature, we can put an Omniscience token trigger on the stack. So we don't have to Show and Tell it in, although we would still like to have Show and Tell. Perhaps we can Show and Tell the Stomping Ground, eliminating the need for Wood Elves?
If we want to use Show and Tell to put the mountain into play we'd need to have it in hand. It then has the same problems with Worldfire into Worldpurge as our lifegain lands, so we wouldn't be able to have it on the battlefield when we need it.
But since we have Dual Nature again we should be able to cut the second Wormfang Behemoth. We don't need to get the original out of the graveyard if we only run dual nature copies into Worldfire.
The final damage will be a bit lower though: We can't go through the full combo when leeching away the opponents starting life because of Worldfire. So the damage would be BB_{w^2+8}(BB_{w^2+6}(S)) with S being a few normal layers worth of progress we can get out of the opponents starting life without using Worldfire.
Hmm, so we can do the full combo once we drop the opponent from 2 life to 1, that's where the B_{w^2+6} comes from. Before that, I guess we have one use of our instants, so we get one application of BB? And before that, we have 18 drops without being able to use Worldfire. Can we still process the usual hyperstage, just without using Worldfire and getting computations? Then we would get something like F_{w^2+7}(18) or so.
Oh, yes, with the initial use of instants we could get one BB computation with the opponent at 2 life. Good catch.
We can't get a hyperstage without repeated use of Dark Ritual to regain progress after Worldpurge. We only make use of the Sea Gate Stormcaller delayed triggers when we put a new transition on the stack. If we manage to do that using only a Bloodbond March trigger on Elvish Spirit Guide we would get a weird life based stage with layers of Bloodbond March triggers.
We can't use Angelic Skirmisher because it gives first strike to start an illegal computation.
The chain of triggered layers from Arcbond damage to Angelheart Vial also won't work because we can't trigger the arcbond without removing all permanents from our side of the battlefield.
Megrim is a good card that could replace Nettle Drone and Spiritual Focus in the other sequence. The opponent could survive the damage if we use a lifelinker instead of Amulet of Safekeeping and don't bother countering Kaervek's Spite. But I don't see what we would do with an extra card slot that is better than hooking into the opponents life for the start.
Hmmm, I think we can do a little better with Whispering Snitch into Pain Magnification into Geth's Grimoire. We can't use Goblin Boom Keg or Arcbond to deal the 3 damage because of losing all our permanents, but we can add something like Flame Rift. This doesn't add another layer, but at least we can get B_{w^2+8}(B_{w^2+7}(S)) instead of B_{w^2+8}(B_{w^2+6}(S)).
I would like to use Pain Magnfication on ourselves, and then go Megrim into Angelheart Vial, but that takes over the deck limit.
Oh, that's a nice nice sequence, with potential for an extra layer if we can cut a card. (Can we start without surveilling if we use a card for that instead of the card for milling?)
Unfortunately Wild Research makes us discard. I'm not sure we can replace that one with a single card. I guess Mystical Teachings could work for the instants. So we really need to figure out if we can get away without the enchantment retrieval.
Actually, even the opponent can discard with Wild Research when they search for an instant. So if we can't replace that one only the Spiritual Focus version survives.
If we can get away without the enchantment retrieval, that would be even better, we could save that card we need.
Edit: Oh, we need the white mana for Blighted Steppe. So unless we find something clever, we need a card for white mana, and two cards for instants and enchantments, which would be a card loss, making it hard to beat the current best.
If it's possible to get by without enchantment retrieval, then we can use the Pain Magnification version.
Having thought about it for a bit I think we can keep all the enchantments around by bouncing them. I'll go through the plays in detail later to make sure, but for now I'm assuming it works.
Translating the damage from our previous expression, it looks like this gets BB_{w^2+9}(BB_{w^2+8}(BB(F_{w^2+8(3)))).
Edit: I think we can use Atarka's Command instead of Pulse of the Forge to deal 3 damage rather than 4, allowing us to use it 6 times in the beginning rather than 4. Could it replace Eureka to put lands from our hand into play? Maybe impossible with Wild Research, but it looks reasonably doable with Mystical Teachings. That would give us an extra card, although I'm not sure what to do with it yet.
For the final damage, the innermost F should be F_{w+8}, without ^2 because we don't get a hyperstage without reusing Dark Ritual.
We wouldn't be able to use Atarka's Command to replace Eureka. We just can't cast instants often enough. When we need to resolve multiple Worldpurges in succession to get to the deeper stages with more life we won't be able to recycle Atarka's Command, which requires a Worldfire every time.
It would improve the start, but to take advantage of the lesser damage we need to set up Sea Gate Stormcaller copies on the first cast. Otherwise we need Worldfire to reuse it, which would miss the point entirely. This could lead to slightly less Pain Magnification copies seeing the first time we deal damage.
We can get the advantage of dealing exactly 3 damage and being reusable without Worldfire by using Kaboom!. Despite being a sorcery the opponent can never use it to deal damage to us to trigger Farsight Mask because they would only reveal lands. Also, I like the name
Opalescence will be bounced as a creature. To do that we need to have a token copy of it, so it is animated. So as part of the preparation before putting Worldfire/Worldpurge/Kaervek's Spite on the stack we put a Dual Nature trigger for Opalescence on the stack (using the existing token to have it enter as creature).
To initially get a token copy without having the Opalescence animated we use Fractured Identity and redraw the original. That method is too expensive to maintain through the hyperstage, but we only need to get started once to switch to the Dual Nature tokens.
Making the switch to Dual Nature shouldn't require any big changes. It also doesn't give a lot of benefits, other than helping to start. But there it can really make things go smoother.
I suppose we could still do so perhaps. I don't see anything stopping Caged Sun, which would allow lands to tap for a lot of mana, so we wouldn't necessarily need Hidden Strings for our beneficial sorcery. If we used say Journey for the Elixir, then we could save nonbasic lands for later. What I would like to do is go Tolarian Academy into Arbiter of the Ideal into some land that comes in animated and creates a bunch of Dual Nature triggers. But, I don't know how to get the land to be usable for Arbiter of the Ideal and not in our normal hyperstage.
Perhaps we could use something like Splendid Reclamation in our hyperstage? That seems like it could work.
But even without any changes there is a type of land that we can not reuse in the hyperstage. Once a non-forest land is in graveyard/library/exile we can't get them out of there. So lands with sacrifice abilities could be used with fetching them out of the library as part of the layer.
So a potential layer sequence would be:
Blighted Steppe
Animist's Awakening
Prosperity
Night Dealings
Spiritual Focus
Shrieking Specter
Hmm, I seem to recall that Rude Awakening was bad, but I don't remember why. Animating lands will allow us to kill them, but that just puts them in the graveyard where we can't get them back.
If it's safe, we can put Arbiter of the Ideal back in, for perhaps 8 layers.
Even without the extra mode we would be able to put the tapped land into play with Show and Tell and untap it with Rude Awakening on the wrong side of the transition.
Unfortunately most of the spells that untap a target land or permanent are instants, so we can't use them.
Edit:
Mobilize + Siege of Towers could replace Hidden Strings. It allows us to untap creatures on either side of the Worldpurge but only turns the mountain into a creature on the correct side, due to targeting. Animating only Mountains and not all lands should not cause any infinites.
I think that allows for Arbiter of the Ideal because it makes it hard to tap those.
2 Opalescence
3 Dual Nature
4 Vedalken Orrery
5 Riftsweeper
6 Millstone
7 Anger
8 Coat of Arms
9 Rotlung Reanimator
10 Dralnu's Crusade
11 Arcbond
12 Arcbond
13 Fractured Identity
14 Artificial Evolution
15 Sea Gate Stormcaller
16 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
17 Kaervek's Spite
18 Amulet of Safekeeping
19 Goblin Boom Keg
20 Brightstone Ritual
21 Mirrorworks
22 Master Transmuter
23 Mox Sapphire
25 The Scarab God
26 Rings of Brighthearth
27 Temur Sabertooth
28 Elvish Spirit Guide
29 Mobilize
30 Siege of Towers
31 Worldfire
32 Worldpurge
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Acorn Harvest
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Akoum Refuge
37 Eureka
38 Show and Tell
39 Wood Elves
40 Dark Ritual
41 Panharmonicon
42 Spellweaver Helix
43 Wormfang Behemoth
44 Wormfang Behemoth
45 Deathgrip
46 Wild Research
48 Reality Twist
49 Mana Crypt
50 Tolarian Academy
51 Channel
52 Prosperity
53 Blighted Steppe
54 Arbiter of the Ideal
55 Tolarian Kraken
56 Night Dealings
57 Spiritual Focus
58 Shrieking Specter
59 Harmonic Prodigy
60 Falconer Adept
When we resolve a Spellweaver Helix we first cast Show and Tell, Worldpurge, Eureka, optionally Worldfire and Fractured Identity. Then we cast Mobilize and X delayed triggers from Sea Gate Stormcaller trigger and wait to be put on the stack. Then we cast Siege of Towers paying the replicate cost once. The replicate ability triggers and waits to be put on the stack.
We finish resolving the Helix trigger and after state-based actions we get to put the triggers on the stack. Put the Stormcaller copies on it first and the replicate copy on top.
When we start resolving the stack we first animate the mountain and then untap it a bunch of times.
I don't see how to do it without paying the replicate cost. So we need some access to red mana after resolving a Worldpurge. Mox Ruby should be safe and can replace Mana Crypt for the start.
We need a way to trigger Night Dealings. They can't survive to see any of the damage triggered by Kaervek's Spite while on our side on the board. We could add Nettle Drone, though I hope we can find some combination with another role to save a card. (We can't steal Night Dealings with counters from the opponent because Fractured Identity just creates new copies. That's good because stealing them would go infinite)
A rules question: Do we choose the target for Tolarian Kraken's ability when it triggers from drawing a card? Or does it happen when paying the mana triggers a "reflexive triggered ability"?
If it is the first we don't get a layer from the triggers because Worldpurge would remove the targets. Upside of that would be that Harmonic Prodigy wouldn't give a layer so we wouldn't be at 61 cards
That's good news, but of course we still have the slot problem.
I was wondering if we could just bounce enchantments to avoid needing Reality Twist, but I guess Opalescence is the problem?
Now that we have Dual Nature, we can put an Omniscience token trigger on the stack. So we don't have to Show and Tell it in, although we would still like to have Show and Tell. Perhaps we can Show and Tell the Stomping Ground, eliminating the need for Wood Elves?
If we want to use Show and Tell to put the mountain into play we'd need to have it in hand. It then has the same problems with Worldfire into Worldpurge as our lifegain lands, so we wouldn't be able to have it on the battlefield when we need it.
But since we have Dual Nature again we should be able to cut the second Wormfang Behemoth. We don't need to get the original out of the graveyard if we only run dual nature copies into Worldfire.
2 Opalescence
3 Dual Nature
4 Vedalken Orrery
5 Riftsweeper
6 Millstone
7 Anger
8 Coat of Arms
9 Rotlung Reanimator
10 Dralnu's Crusade
11 Arcbond
12 Arcbond
13 Fractured Identity
14 Artificial Evolution
15 Sea Gate Stormcaller
16 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
17 Kaervek's Spite
18 Amulet of Safekeeping
19 Goblin Boom Keg
20 Brightstone Ritual
21 Mirrorworks
22 Master Transmuter
23 Mox Sapphire
25 The Scarab God
26 Rings of Brighthearth
27 Temur Sabertooth
28 Elvish Spirit Guide
29 Mobilize
30 Siege of Towers
31 Worldfire
32 Worldpurge
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Acorn Harvest
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Akoum Refuge
37 Eureka
38 Show and Tell
39 Wood Elves
40 Dark Ritual
41 Panharmonicon
42 Spellweaver Helix
43 Wormfang Behemoth
44 Deathgrip
45 Wild Research
47 Reality Twist
48 Mox Ruby
49 Tolarian Academy
50 Channel
51 Prosperity
52 Blighted Steppe
53 Arbiter of the Ideal
54 Tolarian Kraken
55 Night Dealings
56 Spiritual Focus
57 Shrieking Specter
58 Falconer Adept
59 Harmonic Prodigy
60 Nettle Drone
Looks like it gets about BB_{w^2+8} (BB_{w^2+7}(19)) final damage.
The final damage will be a bit lower though: We can't go through the full combo when leeching away the opponents starting life because of Worldfire. So the damage would be BB_{w^2+8}(BB_{w^2+6}(S)) with S being a few normal layers worth of progress we can get out of the opponents starting life without using Worldfire.
We can't get a hyperstage without repeated use of Dark Ritual to regain progress after Worldpurge. We only make use of the Sea Gate Stormcaller delayed triggers when we put a new transition on the stack. If we manage to do that using only a Bloodbond March trigger on Elvish Spirit Guide we would get a weird life based stage with layers of Bloodbond March triggers.
Without Artificial Evolution we lose a layer from Harmonic Prodigy.
So while keeping the opponent on 2 life we might be able to reach BB(F_{w+6}(18))
Edit: Oh, that's not another layer - having lots of Underworld Dreams doesn't help when we are restricted by opponent health.
The chain of triggered layers from Arcbond damage to Angelheart Vial also won't work because we can't trigger the arcbond without removing all permanents from our side of the battlefield.
Megrim is a good card that could replace Nettle Drone and Spiritual Focus in the other sequence. The opponent could survive the damage if we use a lifelinker instead of Amulet of Safekeeping and don't bother countering Kaervek's Spite. But I don't see what we would do with an extra card slot that is better than hooking into the opponents life for the start.
I would like to use Pain Magnfication on ourselves, and then go Megrim into Angelheart Vial, but that takes over the deck limit.
Unfortunately Wild Research makes us discard. I'm not sure we can replace that one with a single card. I guess Mystical Teachings could work for the instants. So we really need to figure out if we can get away without the enchantment retrieval.
Actually, even the opponent can discard with Wild Research when they search for an instant. So if we can't replace that one only the Spiritual Focus version survives.
If we can get away without the enchantment retrieval, that would be even better, we could save that card we need.
Edit: Oh, we need the white mana for Blighted Steppe. So unless we find something clever, we need a card for white mana, and two cards for instants and enchantments, which would be a card loss, making it hard to beat the current best.
If it's possible to get by without enchantment retrieval, then we can use the Pain Magnification version.
We should also be able to do everything with Watcher in the Mist instead of Millstone. When it is time for the opponent to gain life we can trigger their Whispering Snitches with Fractured Identity on the Watcher.
That leaves enough room for the extra layer:
2 Opalescence
3 Dual Nature
4 Vedalken Orrery
5 Riftsweeper
6 Watcher in the Mist
7 Anger
8 Coat of Arms
9 Rotlung Reanimator
10 Dralnu's Crusade
11 Arcbond
12 Arcbond
13 Fractured Identity
14 Artificial Evolution
15 Sea Gate Stormcaller
16 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
17 Kaervek's Spite
18 Amulet of Safekeeping
19 Goblin Boom Keg
20 Brightstone Ritual
21 Mirrorworks
22 Master Transmuter
23 Mox Sapphire
25 The Scarab God
26 Rings of Brighthearth
27 Temur Sabertooth
28 Elvish Spirit Guide
29 Mobilize
30 Siege of Towers
31 Worldfire
32 Worldpurge
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Acorn Harvest
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Akoum Refuge
37 Eureka
38 Show and Tell
39 Wood Elves
40 Dark Ritual
41 Panharmonicon
42 Spellweaver Helix
43 Wormfang Behemoth
44 Deathgrip
45 Mystical Teachings
47 Reality Twist
48 Mox Ruby
49 Tolarian Academy
50 Channel
51 Blighted Steppe
52 Arbiter of the Ideal
53 Tolarian Kraken
54 Prosperity
55 Farsight Mask
56 Brallin, Skyshark Rider
57 Pain Magnification
58 Whispering Snitch
59 Harmonic Prodigy
60 Pulse of the Forge
Using Brallin, Skyshark Rider instead of Megrim to make Pain Magnification on the opponent relevant and avoid an infinite from preserving the opponents life with Avacyn, Guardian Angel.
Using Farsight Mask instead of Angelheart Vial to avoid the opponent gaining life from that.
Using Pulse of the Forge instead of a sorcery to deal the damage so the effect can't be donated with Spellweaver Helix to trigger Farsight Mask on our side directly.
Translating the damage from our previous expression, it looks like this gets BB_{w^2+9}(BB_{w^2+8}(BB(F_{w^2+8(3)))).
Edit: I think we can use Atarka's Command instead of Pulse of the Forge to deal 3 damage rather than 4, allowing us to use it 6 times in the beginning rather than 4. Could it replace Eureka to put lands from our hand into play? Maybe impossible with Wild Research, but it looks reasonably doable with Mystical Teachings. That would give us an extra card, although I'm not sure what to do with it yet.
We wouldn't be able to use Atarka's Command to replace Eureka. We just can't cast instants often enough. When we need to resolve multiple Worldpurges in succession to get to the deeper stages with more life we won't be able to recycle Atarka's Command, which requires a Worldfire every time.
It would improve the start, but to take advantage of the lesser damage we need to set up Sea Gate Stormcaller copies on the first cast. Otherwise we need Worldfire to reuse it, which would miss the point entirely. This could lead to slightly less Pain Magnification copies seeing the first time we deal damage.
We can get the advantage of dealing exactly 3 damage and being reusable without Worldfire by using Kaboom!. Despite being a sorcery the opponent can never use it to deal damage to us to trigger Farsight Mask because they would only reveal lands. Also, I like the name
By the way, how do we keep from losing Opalescence to Worldfire?
To initially get a token copy without having the Opalescence animated we use Fractured Identity and redraw the original. That method is too expensive to maintain through the hyperstage, but we only need to get started once to switch to the Dual Nature tokens.
Hmm, can't we get black mana from Stomping Ground via Reality Twist?