If we resolve two worldfires in a row (from TYS) we lose our hand that was hidden by wormfang behemoth and dead end. Something like Swarm intelligence looks like it would have that issue.
Oh and to clarify about the blue 2 mana creature stage with stolen by the fae, we can only kill floating-dream zubera a small number of times before we deck ourselves, so there are only 3 loopable blue creatures and it doesn't go infinite.
I don't think losing the hand is a problem for going infinite by producing too much red mana. We can use Dual Nature copies of enchantments and artifacts to do the few things we need to do after putting the transition on the stack and hide all the originals on the stack beforehand.
Hmm, it would be nice if we could make our hand indispensable, and thus avoid having to sacrifice green mana. It seemed like this happened with the newer deck, where we had to protect our lifelands from Worldfire. But, I suppose even then we could just not cast Worldfire, as we don't need computations to go infinite.
But, maybe there's something similar that could make multiple Worldfires a nono.
Yeah that seems about right, there was also some decks with Chalice of the Void trickery right before that which were probably better but it was tricky to track the state and know how to set things up the way you'd want them to be later. That discussion got pretty much dropped once we had a (mostly)working TWM implementation.
Edit:And as for the Worldfire/TYS/red mana issue yeah it does look like we can hide anything important on the stack. For other workarounds, I dont see anything obvious that saves us green. I wanted Blood moon + Drownyard temple to work but the temple comes in from the yard tapped.
Oh yeah that should work, putting in darkbore pathway allows it to generate one initial green as our land drop, many black via restore, and the right amount of red with blood moon.
Losing a card slot hurts but is probably better than losing green
Hmm, with [c}Darkbore Pathway[/c] generating black mana, I think we don't need [c}Gravitic Punch[/c] to generate life for ourselves. So, perhaps we could remove the copies of Gravitic Punch, and add a second Recoup? That would equalize the number of card slots. But, I guess it's possible there's an infinite with Recoup.
With green mana freed up, I'd like to look for a green mana stage. Unfortunately, the requirement for our land to be a nonbasic land means we can't replace [c}Restore[/c] with Journey for the Elixir to fetch it. So, if we need lands to be sacrificed and not come back cheaply in the green mana stage, that doesn't seem to work out with Restore bringing lands back. But maybe there's a different buy similar stage we could implement.
Oh, we can't generate black from the land as that lets us effectively smuggle life through the transition. as worldfire does not empty our mana pool.
And besides, we already want Crucible of the Spirit Dragon later and it is a perfectly functional non basic, and having two nonbasics would let us make too much red.
@hyp_cos: So, for the computational decks, we had a megastage (w^3 level) deck ready to go to the presses, but my lazy ass never got around to writeup up the full thing. (I have a partial writeup.) The decklist is described in this post, but since then Thousand-Year Storm has come out, giving us a spell copier that gives more copies as the combo continues, so it can serve as a way to restore progress after a sweeper like Worldpurge. So, it can replace Swarm Intelligence and Vile Redeemer in the deck, leaving a space open for another card. I think I was able to add a layer with that space, but I don't remember the card anymore.
So that deck has a final damage number of about F_{w^3 + w13 + 4 or 5) (X), where I don't remember what X is anymore.
Since then, Stakfish came by with a bunch of ideas on how to bump things up to a gigastage (w^4), so we were working on that all the way up to when the Busy Beaver decks started to be working on. Stakfish came up with intricate decks using Chalice of the Void. The strongest proposed deck got to F_{w^4 + w8 + c} (X), described in this post.
I had some non-Chalice of the Void decks in the works, one of which relied on Razorfin Abolisher and Bramblewood Paragon in the hyperstage; a decklist is here, going for F_{w^4 + w6 + c} (X). I also had a deck using Wirewood Herald and Godtoucher, described here. That decklist had seven stages, so F_{w^4 + w7 + c) (X). I'm just grabbing these decklists from the middle of the thread, so it's quite likely that there are still problems with these decks, but the ideas looked promising.
Let me know if you want me to go into more detail about how these decks work.
It seems that: at the bottom of growth, use Psychic Battle triggers on Clockwork Gnomes to bounce artifacts. Use Mana Vault to get mana, play Allay with buyback, increasing the amount of enchantments. But there is Horobi, Death's Wail, meaning that Allay would not resolve due to lack of target, then buyback is useless. How to reuse Allay?
Also, have Horobi destroyed an enchantment, imprinting it on Mimic Vat, and then get token copy. Then use Mirror of Fate, False Memories and Skull of Orm to get the card back. But how to reuse False Memories?
Opalescence is not creature so it is unaffected by Cowardice or Horobi.
Maybe, resolve Allay on Opalescence, destroy it, then use Skull of Orm to get it back?
Also, we need one use of False Memories each time we increase an enchantment. That is quite frequent. Even though we can stack many copies from Thousand-Year Storm, we still need one cast per (death of Clockwork Gnomes, meaning a series of PB triggers targeting artifacts). Then how to startGoblin Dark-Dwellers (maybe also Changeling Hero) on and off?
And, how would you use the champion, given that there is no cheap way to get copies of Changeling Hero.
with the ending layers still to be optimized, I don't think there's a card that has something like "when this attacks, shuffle a card from a graveyard into it's owner's library" to slot in nicely to #55.
I think there was a better ending sequence somewhere, but I can't really piece it together.
I think there is a problem with the hyperstage. In particular the Worldfire transition doesn't work well with the "pay 2 life to gain 4" method of discarding a card to gain life.
After resolving a Worldfire it will sometimes be necessary to gain a bunch of life in the process of refreshing layers in the lower primary stage. Since we are at 1 life we can't start that process by paying for Urborg Syphon-Mage with life. We also can't gain life via lifelink and Gravitic Punch, if we could that would go infinite.
The only option I see is to have a Syphon-Mage activation waiting on the stack. But to set that up before putting the transition on the stack we need to discard Aegis Automaton as part of the cost. If we then leave the ability on the stack we can never reach any Bloodbond March triggers. That means Aegis Automaton wouldn't be available in the higher primary stages. But that obviously won't work.
Actually we have the same problem with discarding to Jump-start when putting the transition on the stack. We can't get back the discarded card before resolving the transition that was triggered by discarding it.
Yeah, that looks like a problem. Gravitic Punch can be replaced as the hyperstage sorcery, (say with two Recoups), but yeah our current method of using Urborg Syphon-Mage to gain life needs to be replaced.
I'm hoping we can keep that system of using Comeuppance to allow for Thousand-Year Storm and [c}Spellweaver Volute[/c] can still be made to work, and that we can still get 2-3 additional stages.
Hmm, I think the problem with Jump start can be avoided with a Recoup on the Gravitic punch in the yard every transition? Not mooting it with worldfire seems tricky though.
But those issues issue of being stuck at 1 and unable to wait for a syphon-mage activation without losing access to a card higher up, does seem like it needs a fix. Maybe a second Aegis automation, swapping lingering souls for Moan of the unhallowed? (or even Army of the damned?)
Does it not work to have, under the worldfire, a bunch of triggers necessary to set up a computation to give the opponent life, followed by a punch to give us life?
The problem is that we have to lose a little bit of resources in the stage every time we make a hyperstage transition. Gaining a lot of life in the lower stage allows us to keep it going indefinitely.
If we could use a punch there to gain life we would go infinite, because we just got a lot of life on the wrong side of the transition. It doesn't work because there is (as far as I can tell) no way to insert the triggers to set up a computation between the Worldfires and Gravitic Punches of a transition.
We need to set up those triggers for a computation anyway, just so the opponent can survive a Urborg Syphon-Mage ability.
To replace the doubled transition sorcery we still have to ensure that the extra card in hand we can conserve through the transition needs to be discarded as a cost to put the transition back on the stack. It just can't be directly in the cost for the doubled sorcery. If it is there in the form of life or black mana that should be fine. So we can double up on a sorcery that costs 1 or 2 black. We give that card flashback with Recoup to have the red cost for the transition in there.
Using a second copy of Aegis Automaton seems like a good idea. We'll have to make sure that this breaks nothing else but I think it has potential.
My own idea to salvage the situation was to have the transition provide us with 2 life on the lower side via Radiant Fountain. We can use that to get started on lifegain with Urborg and require it to be paid back when putting the transition on the stack by increasing the black cost of the doubled sorcery. Though I think this requires Titania, Protector of Argoth instead of Restore just to be able to put the land into play on the correct side of the transition. So even if it works we'd lose green as future resource.
Oh and to clarify about the blue 2 mana creature stage with stolen by the fae, we can only kill floating-dream zubera a small number of times before we deck ourselves, so there are only 3 loopable blue creatures and it doesn't go infinite.
Titania, Protector of Argoth would indeed avoid that infinite.
But, maybe there's something similar that could make multiple Worldfires a nono.
I want to know some details about such a deck.
Edit:And as for the Worldfire/TYS/red mana issue yeah it does look like we can hide anything important on the stack. For other workarounds, I dont see anything obvious that saves us green. I wanted Blood moon + Drownyard temple to work but the temple comes in from the yard tapped.
@hyp_cos: I'll go into more detail about the computational decks later, busy weekend.
Losing a card slot hurts but is probably better than losing green
With green mana freed up, I'd like to look for a green mana stage. Unfortunately, the requirement for our land to be a nonbasic land means we can't replace [c}Restore[/c] with Journey for the Elixir to fetch it. So, if we need lands to be sacrificed and not come back cheaply in the green mana stage, that doesn't seem to work out with Restore bringing lands back. But maybe there's a different buy similar stage we could implement.
And besides, we already want Crucible of the Spirit Dragon later and it is a perfectly functional non basic, and having two nonbasics would let us make too much red.
So that deck has a final damage number of about F_{w^3 + w13 + 4 or 5) (X), where I don't remember what X is anymore.
Since then, Stakfish came by with a bunch of ideas on how to bump things up to a gigastage (w^4), so we were working on that all the way up to when the Busy Beaver decks started to be working on. Stakfish came up with intricate decks using Chalice of the Void. The strongest proposed deck got to F_{w^4 + w8 + c} (X), described in this post.
I had some non-Chalice of the Void decks in the works, one of which relied on Razorfin Abolisher and Bramblewood Paragon in the hyperstage; a decklist is here, going for F_{w^4 + w6 + c} (X). I also had a deck using Wirewood Herald and Godtoucher, described here. That decklist had seven stages, so F_{w^4 + w7 + c) (X). I'm just grabbing these decklists from the middle of the thread, so it's quite likely that there are still problems with these decks, but the ideas looked promising.
Let me know if you want me to go into more detail about how these decks work.
It seems that: at the bottom of growth, use Psychic Battle triggers on Clockwork Gnomes to bounce artifacts. Use Mana Vault to get mana, play Allay with buyback, increasing the amount of enchantments. But there is Horobi, Death's Wail, meaning that Allay would not resolve due to lack of target, then buyback is useless. How to reuse Allay?
Also, have Horobi destroyed an enchantment, imprinting it on Mimic Vat, and then get token copy. Then use Mirror of Fate, False Memories and Skull of Orm to get the card back. But how to reuse False Memories?
I think we were casting the other instants with Goblin dark-dwellers shenanigans with champion?
Maybe, resolve Allay on Opalescence, destroy it, then use Skull of Orm to get it back?
Also, we need one use of False Memories each time we increase an enchantment. That is quite frequent. Even though we can stack many copies from Thousand-Year Storm, we still need one cast per (death of Clockwork Gnomes, meaning a series of PB triggers targeting artifacts). Then how to start Goblin Dark-Dwellers (maybe also Changeling Hero) on and off?
And, how would you use the champion, given that there is no cheap way to get copies of Changeling Hero.
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Arcbond
4 Artificial Evolution
5 Wrong Turn
6 Dralnu's Crusade
7 Opalescence
8 Desolation Giant
9 Goblin Boom Keg
10 March of the Machines
11 Vedalken Orrery
12 Spellweaver Volute
13 Pull from Eternity
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Dual Nature
16 Bloodbond March
17 Cephalid Shrine
18 Thousand-Year Storm
19 Mana Echoes
20 Soul Separator
21 Urborg Syphon-Mage
22 Thousand-Year Elixir
23 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
24 Lingering Souls
25 Stern proctor
26 Comeuppance
28 Worldfire
29 Gravitic Punch
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Recoup
32 Restore
33 Blood Moon
34 Harmonic Prodigy
35 Panharmonicon
36 Wormfang Behemoth
37 Stolen By the Fae
38 Chrome Mox
39 Aegis Automaton
40 Guardian of the Guildpact
41 Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
42 Alhammarret's Archive
43 Black Lotus
44 Show and Tell
45 Omniscience
46 Floating-Dream Zubera
47 Marchesa's Smuggler
49 Amulet of Vigor
50 Animist's Awakening
51 Arbiter of the Ideal
52 Tolarian Kraken
53 Blue Sun's Zenith
54 Consecrated sphinx
55 ???
56 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
57 World at War
58 Doubling Season
59 Drafna's Restoration
60 Uproot
with the ending layers still to be optimized, I don't think there's a card that has something like "when this attacks, shuffle a card from a graveyard into it's owner's library" to slot in nicely to #55.
I think there was a better ending sequence somewhere, but I can't really piece it together.
After resolving a Worldfire it will sometimes be necessary to gain a bunch of life in the process of refreshing layers in the lower primary stage. Since we are at 1 life we can't start that process by paying for Urborg Syphon-Mage with life. We also can't gain life via lifelink and Gravitic Punch, if we could that would go infinite.
The only option I see is to have a Syphon-Mage activation waiting on the stack. But to set that up before putting the transition on the stack we need to discard Aegis Automaton as part of the cost. If we then leave the ability on the stack we can never reach any Bloodbond March triggers. That means Aegis Automaton wouldn't be available in the higher primary stages. But that obviously won't work.
Actually we have the same problem with discarding to Jump-start when putting the transition on the stack. We can't get back the discarded card before resolving the transition that was triggered by discarding it.
Am I missing something?
I'm hoping we can keep that system of using Comeuppance to allow for Thousand-Year Storm and [c}Spellweaver Volute[/c] can still be made to work, and that we can still get 2-3 additional stages.
But those issues issue of being stuck at 1 and unable to wait for a syphon-mage activation without losing access to a card higher up, does seem like it needs a fix. Maybe a second Aegis automation, swapping lingering souls for Moan of the unhallowed? (or even Army of the damned?)
We need to set up those triggers for a computation anyway, just so the opponent can survive a Urborg Syphon-Mage ability.
To replace the doubled transition sorcery we still have to ensure that the extra card in hand we can conserve through the transition needs to be discarded as a cost to put the transition back on the stack. It just can't be directly in the cost for the doubled sorcery. If it is there in the form of life or black mana that should be fine. So we can double up on a sorcery that costs 1 or 2 black. We give that card flashback with Recoup to have the red cost for the transition in there.
Using a second copy of Aegis Automaton seems like a good idea. We'll have to make sure that this breaks nothing else but I think it has potential.
My own idea to salvage the situation was to have the transition provide us with 2 life on the lower side via Radiant Fountain. We can use that to get started on lifegain with Urborg and require it to be paid back when putting the transition on the stack by increasing the black cost of the doubled sorcery. Though I think this requires Titania, Protector of Argoth instead of Restore just to be able to put the land into play on the correct side of the transition. So even if it works we'd lose green as future resource.