Ok, so I haven't read it all yet, but some ideas I've had:
If we can get a large number of or infinite main phases Sphinx of The Second Sun and the new Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch gives a lot of instant/sorcery recursions, however Tzeentch stops us from going infinite by pinging the opponent each time an ins/sorc is cast, thereby limiting us by the opponent's life.
This faces the risk of going infinite with infinite combats (which is the only way I've found to get infinite main phases) but if we can avoid that, and prevent the opponent losing life from combat damage, possibly using a Archon of Coronation given to them, Angel of Destiny can give the opponent very large numbers of life, assuming our loops gain us attackers.
Assuming some way to prevent going infinite, this could allow us to recur a key instant/sorcery around X times where X is the damage the previous step produces in the form of attackers.
Also, if we can only give the opponent the Monarch a finite amount of times (or if we're assuming the opponent wants us to deal as little damage as possible, in which case they can chump with the Archon of Coronation), Angel of Destiny doesn't lead to an infinite because it only nets as much life to the opponent as you already deal when Coronation isn't active.
However, this method does net you large/infinite amounts of life, so if channel is used, this might lead to infinite mana if unchecked.
Also also, assuming we have a way to stop them from chumping with the Coronation, we can repeat this process for each time we give them monarch. This means that if we have a way to non-infinitely give them monarch a number of times proportional to the last loop's result we can get really really big.
Ok, so I haven't read it all yet, but some ideas I've had:
If we can get a large number of or infinite main phases Sphinx of The Second Sun and the new Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch gives a lot of instant/sorcery recursions, however Tzeentch stops us from going infinite by pinging the opponent each time an ins/sorc is cast, thereby limiting us by the opponent's life.
This faces the risk of going infinite with infinite combats (which is the only way I've found to get infinite main phases) but if we can avoid that, and prevent the opponent losing life from combat damage, possibly using a Archon of Coronation given to them, Angel of Destiny can give the opponent very large numbers of life, assuming our loops gain us attackers.
Assuming some way to prevent going infinite, this could allow us to recur a key instant/sorcery around X times where X is the damage the previous step produces in the form of attackers.
Also, if we can only give the opponent the Monarch a finite amount of times (or if we're assuming the opponent wants us to deal as little damage as possible, in which case they can chump with the Archon of Coronation), Angel of Destiny doesn't lead to an infinite because it only nets as much life to the opponent as you already deal when Coronation isn't active.
However, this method does net you large/infinite amounts of life, so if channel is used, this might lead to infinite mana if unchecked.
Also also, assuming we have a way to stop them from chumping with the Coronation, we can repeat this process for each time we give them monarch. This means that if we have a way to non-infinitely give them monarch a number of times proportional to the last loop's result we can get really really big.
Something to keep in mind is that there are a lot of things that could contribute to the combo, but we have to figure out which ones make the most efficient use of our card slots. Looping a key card at the top of the combo a number of times proportional to our previous output (Smoke Spirits' Aid, in this case) would add one layer, but our last few card slots are contributing a layer each, and other card slots are doing even more.
In addition, I don't think additional combat steps are viable in a deck using Turing machine computations. If we attack, that allows the opponent to block and cause their creatures to take damage, starting a computation without clearing our board. This means we'd have the chance to start a computation that wouldn't end on its own, and could terminate it at an arbitrarily high output. With a single combat step (and no first strike or double strike, and no way to deal damage after combat), we'd have no way to turn the output of that computation into damage, but with a second chance to damage the opponent after the first damage step, we could go infinite and then deal unbounded damage.
Welcome Corbee! It's great to get new people and new ideas coming in.
More combat steps are possible, so long as our creatures don't have unrestricted haste. This is compatible with doing computations, but not with our megastage plan: we need a different resource for each of the three stage levels, and we don't really know how to do it other than creature tokens / life / mana or creature tokens / mana / life (maybe artifact tokens are possible), and for the creature token stage we need haste. So some ideas are possible with the basic idea, but aren't being used because we can't reach the maximum with them (i.e. the megastage and the two additional stages).
Welcome Corbee! It's great to get new people and new ideas coming in.
More combat steps are possible, so long as our creatures don't have unrestricted haste. This is compatible with doing computations, but not with our megastage plan: we need a different resource for each of the three stage levels, and we don't really know how to do it other than creature tokens / life / mana or creature tokens / mana / life (maybe artifact tokens are possible), and for the creature token stage we need haste. So some ideas are possible with the basic idea, but aren't being used because we can't reach the maximum with them (i.e. the megastage and the two additional stages).
Is there a problem with using different colors of mana for different stage levels?
On that note, what did the gigastage deck ideas do to add a resource for a fourth level?
I don't quite understand what each piece does yet, but can we use Thousand-Year Elixir or Dynaheir, Invoker Adept as a haste enabler without having infinite attacks? Edit: never mind, we actually have to attack with all creatures to actually give opponent lots of life
Something the note though, the only easily recurrable extra combat I've found is Aggravated Assault which untaps creatures (most extra combats do) which may be a problem.
The main idea with Tzeentch was a recurrer and a pinger on a triggered ability on the same card, which makes the opponent's life total a resource, if we have a non-infinite way to give them large* amounts of life.
Just looked at unfinity and had an idea:
Attractions aren't much useful but the stickers could possibly (still don't 100% quite get how it works in the details) simplify "using life as a resource" with the second sticker in Eldrazi Guacamole Tightrope with it providing recursion with an in-built lifecost, and even better in terms of not causing infinites, if we put only enough cards to reach at most 9 tickets in the deck, the card we put the sticker on loses the ability once we return it to hand, preventing unintended shenanigans.
A computation starts by dealing damage to the Arcbond creature. The deck is built to make it so that starting a relevant computation requires getting ourselves into a state where we can't interfere with it: we need the damage to come from a Goblin Boom Keg trigger, which can only happen from sacrificing it to Kaervek's Spite. This wipes our hand and board, ensuring that we won't be able to do anything until it finishes. To make sure that we'll be able to start doing things again once it does finish, we have to set up triggers to get relevant cards back to our hand as well as Twinning Glass activations to play them once we get them - these things will only happen once all the triggers caused by Kaervek's Spite have finished.
The computation itself is the chain reaction started by the damage. K'rrik takes 3 damage, then Arcbond causes him to deal 3 damage to everything. Lifelink (his only ability relevant to the computation itself) heals the opponent for more damage than they took, while Comeuppance prevents the damage dealt to ourselves and points another damage trigger back at K'rrik. Meanwhile, this kills any creatures that were 3 or less damage away from dying, and potentially triggers Xathrid Necromancers keyed to their creature type to make more creatures of other types. The Necromancer triggers resolve first since the opponent controls them, then the Comeuppance trigger resolves. Meanwhile, Coat of Arms adjusts the toughness of creatures left on the field, based on which creature types are now showing up in different numbers.
I don't know much about the specifics of the chain reaction, but it ends up functioning as a Turing machine. What it boils down to is, depending on how many Necromancers the opponent starts with, we can keep it going an extremely long time. It would be easy to make it run infinitely, but since we can't interrupt the computation, that would mean we couldn't escape it to actually win the game. So we have to program it in a way that will produce as much output as possible while eventually allowing K'rrik to die, causing the computation to terminate.
At that point, we can rebuild our board. The main output is the number of surviving creatures the opponent ends up with - between Divine Congregation and Smoke Spirits' Aid, we can plug that back into the rest of the combo and restart with higher numbers. We can keep doing this as long as we can keep redrawing our cards, which is dependent on Floating-Dream Zubera. We can keep changing Zubera's creature type and duplicating its triggers with Harmonic Prodigy, but once all the creature types have a death count of 60+, we can't use it anymore. So that's our final constraint limiting how many times we can iterate through the rest of the combo.
As for stickers, I'm not sure how this challenge will handle those.
As a bit more about how computation works, the goal is to implement the waterfall model of computation (https://esolangs.org/wiki/The_Waterfall_Model) which is an inefficient yet turing complete programming language.
To do this implementation we we need to use Artificial evolution to hack a bunch of Xathrid Necromancers and Dralnu's crusades to manipulate creature types. The rough idea is that for each clock there is one primary token that gets two types, being bolstered by a bunch of tokens of just the second type. Because of how Arcbond and coat of arms works, when any creature of the secondary type dies, they shrink and the next one dies and so on, killing all of the tokens. When the primary token dies we have one necromancer that remakes the primary token, and a bunch of other necromancers that create various secondary types buffing the primary creatures of the other clocks.
There are a few subtle issue that make it more complicated than that in practice, for example the behavior when 2 waterclocks zero on the same tick is not defined, however our implementation can only resolve that situation in one way, so it is well defined for us. Another tricky bit is that we can't actually make all possible initial states, some like "we can't start a waterclock at zero" are easily solved, others like "We are limited in the number of waterclocks due to there only being so many creature types" required a proof to show we are still TC, but the real complication comes from "The necromancers share a type with the tokens and so artificially pump them with coat of arms, so we can't encode all waterfall programs" and it is tricky to fix, yet possible.
I noticed a problem with the Archon of Falling Stars plan: If we have a Spellweaver Volute trigger for a targeting instant on the top of the stack while we sacrifice everything to another Volute trigger on Kaervek's Spite then we can use an Archon trigger to bring Cowardice back to the battlefield. That would allow the lower Volute trigger to bounce the Armor Thrull if we have it donated to the opponent to survive the mass sacrifice.
We can get the two Volute triggers from the same Lingering Souls flashback since no casting is required between them. It might be complicated to set that up, but I believe whatever shenanigans we do to manage to cast the multiple instants necessary to set up a computation would also allow us to do this with an otherwise normal hyperstage transition.
So we can bring the stage creature back to hand through the transition when resolving it. That means we get an additional stage resource in the lower stage, going infinite.
Usually any Volutes below the mass sacrifice can't bounce anything because all copies of Cowardice have just been sacrificed. We can't use Wrong Turn to donate Cowardice, because to be targeted it needs to be a creature and then it bounces itself before it can get to the opponent.
I suppose we can also add "things that counter the Cowardice triggered ability" to the list of stuff that makes us go infinite. If we can get Cowardice into the library, then using Academy Rector for the start becomes unsafe for the same reason as Archon.
So I think another plan for gaining life out of the hyperstage transition is required. Maybe we need to use lands for the Tier 2 or 3 stage and two additional stages are too ambitious.
hmm, I don't see a way out of that pickle unless we can somehow get down to just one copy of Spellweaver Volute, but that doesn't look like it is workable...
Hey friends. I just figured I'd mention that there's a new Discord server for mathematically-oriented Magic players to discuss the intersection of math and Magic. Since the server opened to the public a few hours ago we've already had conversations about the computational complexity of declaring blockers, how Aura enchant abilities fit into a set-theoretic framework, and how to use graph theory to find the optimal way to stack Hamletback Goliath triggers after a kicked Rite of Replication.
This thread and its predecessors are one of the best-known (and IMO coolest) applications of mathematics to Magic, and you'd be more than welcome to use the Discord as a place to brainstorm with the flexibility and faster feedback loop offered by a live chat platform over a traditional forum.
Well I don't think the new set solved our problem, though we may want to try and start with Infectious Inquiry as it poisons much slower than Caress of Phyrexia
the dominus cycle has some interesting cards though I don't think any of them do much for us, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus is at least a pretty unique effect. might combo with like voidwing hybrid? but that still seems kinda weak. Elesh norn, mother of machines is a panharmonicon variant, that we can donate to turn into torpor orb
I don't see anything too exiting with all the oil cards either.
Maybe Mirran safehouse can do something busted but I don't see it.
A summary of processes in the deck (even though this particular deck apparently doesn't actually work, but it's useful to understand the ideas and what was intended):
Computation:
Setup: opponent controls coat of arms, a configuration of hacked dralnu's crusades and xathid necromancers, several creatures of various types, a lifelink creature with arcbond. Comeuppance cast at any point during the turn.
Activation: Cast Kaeverk's Spite with Goblin Boom Keg in play. Damage an arcbond creature.
Output: Opponent controls BB(X) creatures once stack resolves.
Note: Only a few copies of AE are required to set up a new computation from a previous one.
General tier-N stage template:
A tier-N resource A, with tier N-1 resource B
Transition creation: A process to spend 1 A and a small amount of triggers to create a transition on the stack and many B
Transition use: A process to remove all B and create 1 A. After which, everything is back in the same state necessary to create another transition.
(the "spending a small amount of triggers" can be done in transition use instead of creation, but that's equivalent to considering those triggers as part of the transition)
Procedure: Start with X A. Repeatedly: create a transition for many B, convert this B into triggers (so it's not lost on transition use; but it isn't accessible above higher transitions).
Once out of (or low on) A, use B for "top-level" work, typically scaling resource gain.
Once out of/low on B/triggers, use transition to get A. Use some triggers to recreate transition for many B again. This can recursively be treated as the "top-level" work for for the tierN-1 stage below this first transition. (it's ok if resource scaling as actually only obtained after resolving several transitions; as *that* point can be treated as the "top level".)
Overall result is many tierN-1 stages. (where a tier0 stage is a layer).
General "alternating triggers/activations" stage template:
Resource A.
Batch creation: Spend A to create a batch of X triggers and a batch of Y triggers.
Resource regain: Resolving a few Y trigger followed by an X trigger, and a few X triggers followed by a Y trigger, generates A, and resets the state necessary to create more batches.
Can be transformed to the general tier-N stage template for N=1, as follows:
Lower tier resource: Y triggers
Transition: X batch after a Y
Transition creation: Spend A to create an X batch and a Y batch
Transition use: Resolve Y batch (using them up). Use X after Y, then resolve down to next Y, to create A.
At the top level, X and Y can be used for other work.
As it's symmetric between X and Y, you only need a small number of X triggers with a big Y batch or vice versa.
There's a special case where generating an X batch and a Y batch both cost A, but resolving a few Y any time after a few X have resolved generates A:
Batch creation: Spend A on X batch, resolve some. Spend A on Y batch, resolve some to generate A.
Resource regain: Resolve the Xs, then result a Y to generate A.
Foundry stage:
Setup: Many copies of bloodblond march and psychic battle in play, Cowardice, Cephalid shrine, Embelem of the warmind in play. Nontoken thrull in play.
Resource: Thrull tokens (and nontoken thrull in play)
Batch creation: Spend thrull token to bounce thrull and get many PB triggers. Play thrull for many BBM triggers.
Resource regain: Resolving PB after BBM bounces thrull. Resolving BBM after PB returns it to play after putting it under a foundry for a token, then using riftsweeper and shreikhorn to return to hand.
At the top level, PB triggers can be used to bounce various things.
(the special-case stage form above, where creating both batches costs the resource, doesn't apply since creating a thrull token from a BP after a BBM does not leave you in a state where you can create more batches)
Volute hyperstage:
Resource: Life
Lower tier resource: Thrull tokens
Setup: Krirk in play, volutes in pay on spite and fated, TYS in play, thrull in hand
Transition creation: Fairly convoluted, due to needing to juggle the volutes, the nontoken artifacts, and multiple archons, and ensuring we still get the necassary resource scaling, and can set up computations; and also only assuming access to one TYS (as I can't find a way to keep copies).
(section A):
- Put a twinning glass trigger, and BBM triggers for the various creatures on the stack, including thrull
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute-fated
(section B)
- Resolve volute-fated, moving volute to a spell X. Keep TYS-fated on the stack. Use PB-fated to bounce thrull.
- Put BBM-archon triggers on the stack
- Put a shreikhorn trigger on the stack
- Put BBM-riftsweeper triggers on the stack
- Put BBM-thrull triggers on the stack. Using one, bounce riftsweeper and shreikhown, and put fated and souls back into grave.
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute X (where X is AE or arcbond)
(section C)
- Resolve volute-X, moving volute to fated
- Use X (it's PB triggers and/or TYS triggers) to bounce thrull; cowardice can also be bounced to use X to setup computational stuff.
- Put BBM-Archon triggers on the stack
- Put souls back into grave
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-sprite and volute-fated
(section D)
- Resolve volute-fated, moving volute to wrong turn.
- Use fated's TYS to make many thrulls, as well as BBMs, PBs, and anything else needed
- Put BBM-archon triggers on the stack
- Put souls and fated back into grave
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute-wrong
(section E)
- Resolve volute-wrong, keeping TYS trigger on the stack
- Use many thrull tokens to build stage
Transition use:
(section F - setup from E)
- Bounce cowardice, and use TYS-wrong to donate many things - BBMs and PBs to keep resource scaling, the nontoken artifacts (including orrery), anything else wanted for computations, and nontoken thrull
- Resolve volute-spite. Everything is sacced, all volutes triggers on the stack are now using LKI, spite is exiled. A computation may be started.
(section G - setup from D)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life.
- Resolve BBM-archon
(section H - setup from C)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life
- Resolve BBM-archon
(section I - setup from B)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life
- Resolve BBM-archon
- Resolve BBM-riftsweeper and shreikhorn to put spite in the yard
- Resolve TYS-fated for many archons
(section J - setup from A)
- Resolve many archons, for pious for 2 life as well as all other necassary enchantments, including volutes on spite and fated
- Resolve BBM-thrull triggers, as well as other BBM triggers. use thrull to bounce nontoken artifacts from opponent.
- Resolve twinning staff trigger to play orrery.
Now we're back in the position to set up A, and we needed to use BBM-thrull triggers to bounce the stuff at the end to do so - and must resolve down to the next PB trigger to get thrull to hand again. (we could have set it up similarly to use PB-thrull triggers, but we'd need to resolve down to the next BBM-thrull to recover the same state as the start)
But the problem lijil identified was that when volutes are resolved in the opposite order, volute triggers could be used instead and go infinite.
However... is the line lijil suggested actually possible?
In order to go infinite this way, there must be a volute-X trigger below a volute-spite trigger; and below that normal stage stuff. When resolving through that we need to to have multiple archons in play (at least 2 for pious and cowardice, and probably more for embelem,opelesence,omni,TYS,etc). We also need to have donated our stuff in order to be able to recover properly into normal stage stuff (as well as bounce a donated thrull for infinite).
How do we have multiple archons in play?
In my line above, I needed to ensure a TYS-fated trigger was available at the equivilant point for this purpose. But because we're using a backwards volute stack, that's not possible.
Having to donate stuff means we have to have resolved wrong turn and thus played a second spite (else, we're down 2 life on the exchange and not infinite). This means any archons we created before don't work - we need to create them in between resolving the spite for wrong turn and this spite.
Harmonic prodigy could get a second archon trigger but you'd need to use AE first; which doesn't seem possible in this window either.
The closest thing would be saving up foundry activations. However, apparently LKI isn't used to refer to "the exiled card" in linked abilities (I recently asked in RulesGuru server about whether Skyclave Apparition can use LKI). This means the foundry ability on the stack would need to actually track the archon in exile, making it difficult for archon to have also been accessible during the needed wrong turn cast.
Additionally, setting up a suitable foundry activation seems to need thrull. If it's on the battlefield, using it means there are no accessible BBM triggers to return it until after the volute triggers, and we don't go infinite. If it's in hand and we play it for BBM triggers, it ought to have been in hand at the start of the setup too - I don't see a way to get an extra bounce with the backwards volute stack - and thus bouncing it back to hand at the end of the combo ought to not be an issue.
Maybe there's some clever convoluted way to make this setup go infinite but I'm not sure I see it.
Edit: Oh, dralnu's makes harmonic apply.
But that's still only 2 archon triggers. It still seems like you need more than that to go infinite though?
Edit: Maybe we can get to a 3rd by hanging a foundry activation on harmonic.
Helix megastage
Resource: Red mana
Lower tier resource: Life
Setup: Spellweaver helix in play with worldfire, divine congregation, and hungry for more exiled.
Transition creation:
- Using some BBM/PB triggers, Put a twinning glass activation, some chromescale triggers, and some riftweaver triggers (with corresponding PB triggers) on the stack
- Flashback hungry for more for R. Trigger helix, play all the sorceries.
- Resolve TYS-divine. Gain many life. Build megastage.
As the megastage can run computations, each copy of divine scales resources by BB.
Transition use:
- Resolve worldfire
- Resolve riftweaver triggers, using PB triggers to retarget to legal targets, reshuffling everything
- Resolve chromescale triggers, putting artifacts to hand
- Resolve twinning glass, playing orrery
- Play mox ruby for R
- Use BBM/PB triggers to re-set up helix and other exiled things
Blue mana can also be amassed through mox saphire.
Life can also be spent to trigger volute without spite for plentiful use of things instants provide (copies, AE-hacks).
At the end of the megastage then R can be spent without worldfire for plentiful life and lower resources.
Edit: However, an issue I've noticed with this setup: how do we get omni into play?
Twinning glass doesn't work, as we don't have a way to put omni in hand. (and using something like Arcanist's Owl looks like it enables pious to be recycled too cheaply.) Replenish doesn't work as it's only able to be cast immediately after worldfire. So it looks like we need to resolve down to the hyperstage transition to sac an archon.
But then we're casting spite. We don't have a way to counter it; cephalid shrine isn't in play (we're having difficulty getting enchantments into play). So somebody has to lose 5 life, but both are at 1.
We can't even afford to lose 5 life if we had it - that would make the hyperstage too expensive.
But giving the opponent life is hard too. We need to give them an arcbonded lifelinker and sac GBK to spite. But it doesn't look like we're able to cast both arcbond and wrong turn in time. Plus, if we lose the nontoken GBK, how do we actually start computations?
Maybe we could add Ivory mask, so that an archon trigger can put that into play to fizzle spite targetting ourself. But that uses a cardslot.
Also it does need 2 archon triggers (as we also need pious) but perhaps archon+harmonic can be used and the spell waiting in the volute trigger for this transition is AE rather than wrong turn. (or simply fated). But then we're losing orrery without a chance to safely donate, so we need to set this up to be able to happen without orrery?
Green mana stage
Resource: Green mana
Setup: Hacked kunesh and many harmonic prodigy in play, groundskeeper/firebrand ranged in play and turned into artifacts. Many gauntlets in play. Forest and Mounatin in grave.
Batch creation: Spend G on groundskeeper for many kunesh-GK triggers. Spend G on firebrand ranger for many kunesh-FR triggers. (Also resolve some in between as per the special-case stage form above)
Resource regain: When an FR resolves after having resolved GK, get many R and a G. Build hyperstage to put the lands back grave.
White mana stage (mislabeled as blue mana stage)
This actually doesn't work for 2 reasons, but is fixable.
Patron of the moon can sacrifice archon too cheaply through offering. I think it can be replaced by Arboreal Grazer.
Dryad arbor can be cloned for too cheap green mana. But it seems like its purpose is just to be donatable for wayfarer, so any colourless manland works (e.g. mutavault).
(Edit: In fact I think it has to be exactly mutavualt. If it had a creature type, it could be hacked, and then opp could activate it to change the type which breaks computation).
Resource: White mana
Setup: Opponent controls several mutavaults. Hacked kunesh and many harmonic prodigy in play, wayfarer and ruin ghost are artifacts. Archaelogical dig in library.
Batch creation: Spend W on weathered wayfarer for many kunesh-WWF triggers. Spend W on ghost for many kunesh-RG triggers.
(Resolve some in between as per special-case stage setup).
Resource regain: After WWF has resolved, dig can be put into play with grazer. Resolving a RG flickers dig for W, and resolving some more can flicker forest for G. (we can resolve half of the RGs for many G). Build G stage, putting dig in library.
Layers
Each resolution of SSA creates a treasure (thus a W)
Each golem trigger creates many SSA copies
Casting SSA creates many golem triggers
Each draw allows one SSA cast
Each zubera death creates many draw triggers
60 zubera deaths are allowed per creature type not used in computation.
It doesn't look like there's a necessity for artificat-ification to be gated by blue.
Activating it during a computation only interferes if MotM is in play; but MotM in play during a computation means that coat of arms will die and we don't go infinite.
It does allow opponents to kill pious during a batch of archon triggers, but I don't think that's an issue - after having resolved one, there are no PB triggers able to retarget and get an extra pious from the batch.
And that allows room for the Ivory mask that I determined may be necessary for megastage transitions.
A tier-N resource A, with tier N-1 resource B
Transition creation: A process to spend 1 A and a small amount of triggers to create a transition on the stack and many B
Transition use: A process to remove all B and create 1 A. After which, everything is back in the same state necessary to create another transition.
(the "spending a small amount of triggers" can be done in transition use instead of creation, but that's equivalent to considering those triggers as part of the transition)
Small nitpick: the transition use needs to remove the resources of all lower tier stages, not only those of the tier N-1 stage. Basically all the resources that would allow replacing the triggers used.
The good news for Tier 3 stages is that the Tier 1 resource, triggers, gets cleared just by resolving the stack. But it is a problem when trying to get Tier 4 to work.
Regarding the infinite, it has been to long since I looked at the deck. I'd need to study it again to figure out if the infinite I had in mind back then actually works. If you can proof it is impossible that would be great! But getting this close to any infinite is risky, even if it currently doesn't work. If we miss any small implication anywhere when working on the rest of the deck, it will quickly blow up. Personally I wouldn't want to risk it.
Liquimetal Torque goes infinite by giving the opponent access to mana, which allows them to interrupt a computation: We Wrong Turn a few copies of Liquimetal Torque and a Soul Foundry with an imprinted creature while March of the Machines is out, then get rid of MoM and start the computation. After an arbitrary time the opponent activates the Foundry with mana from the Torques and gets an additional typed creature, which can lead to halting.
The type creature of Palladium Myr is the important part of the old card combo, since only creatures on our side of the battlefield can have haste from Emblem of the Warmind. So the opponent can't use it to gain mana.
The closest thing would be saving up foundry activations. However, apparently LKI isn't used to refer to "the exiled card" in linked abilities (I recently asked in RulesGuru server about whether Skyclave Apparition can use LKI). This means the foundry ability on the stack would need to actually track the archon in exile, making it difficult for archon to have also been accessible during the needed wrong turn cast.
I'm pretty sure my line relied on this interaction working to make enough archons. But if that is not how LKI works, then maybe there isn't an infinite? I'll need to think on it again.
Here's my attempt at proving that this infinite idea doesn't work:
In order to go infinite, we need a process that, starting with thrull in play, ends up with thrull in hand, without having used a token; and leave the state in such a way that this process is repeatable.
At the start we may assume that there are no PB triggers from a thrull at the top of the stack - such triggers would either come from the nontoken (and thus thrull is in the grave), or a token (in which case we're either down one token and thrull is in hand, or we've remade that token and thrull is in grave/exile/library).
The process must look like:
(section A)
flashback souls for 2 life and trigger volute on spite and X, putting the spite on *top*.
(section B)
flashback souls for 2 life and trigger volute on spite and Y
(section C)
resolve spite
(section D - setup from B)
resolve spite, resolve another spell from volute
(section E - setup from A)
At least 2 flashbacks are necessary during the process as otherwise there's no opportunity to cast wrong turn and safely donate critical pieces such as orrery (and thrull that we hope to bounce for free at the end of the process).
Section D must be done without orrery in play; as there's no opportunity to cast wrong turn between the two spites (and no way to keep a token one). So everything that happens in section D must be setup in section B. Similarly, we also can't have foundry in play.
The minimum number of archon triggers we need from the D-E spite is at least 5 - both volutes, embelem, pious, and cowardice. Each of these are necessary for recreating the state necessary in section E to repeat this process, and are not donatable.
The maximum number of archon triggers we can arrange in section D is at most 4 - using a BBM-archon, foundty-archon, BBM-harmonic, and foundry-harmonic; while opponent controls a suitable hacked dralnu's crusade. In between those foundry and BBM triggers we also need riftsweeper and shreikhorn triggers.
Even achieving this is difficult and perhaps not possible. In section B, we only have access to the thrull in play (not in hand, as it must have been in play at section A else this process doesn't achieve an infinite in the first place; and we don't have any tokens; else those tokens were also in play at A and would be lost by this process regardless and not help go infinite - and we can't resolve fated (or a bounce) as the volute-spite trigger is on top). So with just that one thrull it seems hard to get the required bounces to set up so many triggers on the stack.
Additionally, requiring a foundry on the stack tracking the archon in exile (which doesn't get to use LKI) makes it difficult to also have the archons necassary in section C.
Also, it looks like harmonic is completely replaceable by Mirror Gallery or Mirror Box, which would make this even harder.
Thus, we can't create the archon triggers necassary to make the process repeatable, thus we don't go infinite.
Yeah, I can't get the infinite to work with LKI working that way. Even with harmonic.
I'm trying to remember the trick to the worldfire transition, but it does seem troublesome to get omniscience into play. It kind of looks like it needs to be replenish, but the next one of those is way down in the next spellweaver volute trigger. Can we afford to do that?
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A lot of that discussion focused on smaller/simpler versions of the combos here, which has moved to a dedicated splinter thread: https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/827241-to-grahams-number-and-beyond-massive-finite-damage
If we can get a large number of or infinite main phases Sphinx of The Second Sun and the new Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch gives a lot of instant/sorcery recursions, however Tzeentch stops us from going infinite by pinging the opponent each time an ins/sorc is cast, thereby limiting us by the opponent's life.
This faces the risk of going infinite with infinite combats (which is the only way I've found to get infinite main phases) but if we can avoid that, and prevent the opponent losing life from combat damage, possibly using a Archon of Coronation given to them, Angel of Destiny can give the opponent very large numbers of life, assuming our loops gain us attackers.
Assuming some way to prevent going infinite, this could allow us to recur a key instant/sorcery around X times where X is the damage the previous step produces in the form of attackers.
Also, if we can only give the opponent the Monarch a finite amount of times (or if we're assuming the opponent wants us to deal as little damage as possible, in which case they can chump with the Archon of Coronation), Angel of Destiny doesn't lead to an infinite because it only nets as much life to the opponent as you already deal when Coronation isn't active.
However, this method does net you large/infinite amounts of life, so if channel is used, this might lead to infinite mana if unchecked.
Also also, assuming we have a way to stop them from chumping with the Coronation, we can repeat this process for each time we give them monarch. This means that if we have a way to non-infinitely give them monarch a number of times proportional to the last loop's result we can get really really big.
In addition, I don't think additional combat steps are viable in a deck using Turing machine computations. If we attack, that allows the opponent to block and cause their creatures to take damage, starting a computation without clearing our board. This means we'd have the chance to start a computation that wouldn't end on its own, and could terminate it at an arbitrarily high output. With a single combat step (and no first strike or double strike, and no way to deal damage after combat), we'd have no way to turn the output of that computation into damage, but with a second chance to damage the opponent after the first damage step, we could go infinite and then deal unbounded damage.
More combat steps are possible, so long as our creatures don't have unrestricted haste. This is compatible with doing computations, but not with our megastage plan: we need a different resource for each of the three stage levels, and we don't really know how to do it other than creature tokens / life / mana or creature tokens / mana / life (maybe artifact tokens are possible), and for the creature token stage we need haste. So some ideas are possible with the basic idea, but aren't being used because we can't reach the maximum with them (i.e. the megastage and the two additional stages).
On that note, what did the gigastage deck ideas do to add a resource for a fourth level?
Something the note though, the only easily recurrable extra combat I've found is Aggravated Assault which untaps creatures (most extra combats do) which may be a problem.
The main idea with Tzeentch was a recurrer and a pinger on a triggered ability on the same card, which makes the opponent's life total a resource, if we have a non-infinite way to give them large* amounts of life.
Attractions aren't much useful but the stickers could possibly (still don't 100% quite get how it works in the details) simplify "using life as a resource" with the second sticker in Eldrazi Guacamole Tightrope with it providing recursion with an in-built lifecost, and even better in terms of not causing infinites, if we put only enough cards to reach at most 9 tickets in the deck, the card we put the sticker on loses the ability once we return it to hand, preventing unintended shenanigans.
A computation starts by dealing damage to the Arcbond creature. The deck is built to make it so that starting a relevant computation requires getting ourselves into a state where we can't interfere with it: we need the damage to come from a Goblin Boom Keg trigger, which can only happen from sacrificing it to Kaervek's Spite. This wipes our hand and board, ensuring that we won't be able to do anything until it finishes. To make sure that we'll be able to start doing things again once it does finish, we have to set up triggers to get relevant cards back to our hand as well as Twinning Glass activations to play them once we get them - these things will only happen once all the triggers caused by Kaervek's Spite have finished.
The computation itself is the chain reaction started by the damage. K'rrik takes 3 damage, then Arcbond causes him to deal 3 damage to everything. Lifelink (his only ability relevant to the computation itself) heals the opponent for more damage than they took, while Comeuppance prevents the damage dealt to ourselves and points another damage trigger back at K'rrik. Meanwhile, this kills any creatures that were 3 or less damage away from dying, and potentially triggers Xathrid Necromancers keyed to their creature type to make more creatures of other types. The Necromancer triggers resolve first since the opponent controls them, then the Comeuppance trigger resolves. Meanwhile, Coat of Arms adjusts the toughness of creatures left on the field, based on which creature types are now showing up in different numbers.
I don't know much about the specifics of the chain reaction, but it ends up functioning as a Turing machine. What it boils down to is, depending on how many Necromancers the opponent starts with, we can keep it going an extremely long time. It would be easy to make it run infinitely, but since we can't interrupt the computation, that would mean we couldn't escape it to actually win the game. So we have to program it in a way that will produce as much output as possible while eventually allowing K'rrik to die, causing the computation to terminate.
At that point, we can rebuild our board. The main output is the number of surviving creatures the opponent ends up with - between Divine Congregation and Smoke Spirits' Aid, we can plug that back into the rest of the combo and restart with higher numbers. We can keep doing this as long as we can keep redrawing our cards, which is dependent on Floating-Dream Zubera. We can keep changing Zubera's creature type and duplicating its triggers with Harmonic Prodigy, but once all the creature types have a death count of 60+, we can't use it anymore. So that's our final constraint limiting how many times we can iterate through the rest of the combo.
As for stickers, I'm not sure how this challenge will handle those.
Explains the "busy beaver" comments I've seen around at least.
Thanks!
To do this implementation we we need to use Artificial evolution to hack a bunch of Xathrid Necromancers and Dralnu's crusades to manipulate creature types. The rough idea is that for each clock there is one primary token that gets two types, being bolstered by a bunch of tokens of just the second type. Because of how Arcbond and coat of arms works, when any creature of the secondary type dies, they shrink and the next one dies and so on, killing all of the tokens. When the primary token dies we have one necromancer that remakes the primary token, and a bunch of other necromancers that create various secondary types buffing the primary creatures of the other clocks.
There are a few subtle issue that make it more complicated than that in practice, for example the behavior when 2 waterclocks zero on the same tick is not defined, however our implementation can only resolve that situation in one way, so it is well defined for us. Another tricky bit is that we can't actually make all possible initial states, some like "we can't start a waterclock at zero" are easily solved, others like "We are limited in the number of waterclocks due to there only being so many creature types" required a proof to show we are still TC, but the real complication comes from "The necromancers share a type with the tokens and so artificially pump them with coat of arms, so we can't encode all waterfall programs" and it is tricky to fix, yet possible.
I noticed a problem with the Archon of Falling Stars plan: If we have a Spellweaver Volute trigger for a targeting instant on the top of the stack while we sacrifice everything to another Volute trigger on Kaervek's Spite then we can use an Archon trigger to bring Cowardice back to the battlefield. That would allow the lower Volute trigger to bounce the Armor Thrull if we have it donated to the opponent to survive the mass sacrifice.
We can get the two Volute triggers from the same Lingering Souls flashback since no casting is required between them. It might be complicated to set that up, but I believe whatever shenanigans we do to manage to cast the multiple instants necessary to set up a computation would also allow us to do this with an otherwise normal hyperstage transition.
So we can bring the stage creature back to hand through the transition when resolving it. That means we get an additional stage resource in the lower stage, going infinite.
Usually any Volutes below the mass sacrifice can't bounce anything because all copies of Cowardice have just been sacrificed. We can't use Wrong Turn to donate Cowardice, because to be targeted it needs to be a creature and then it bounces itself before it can get to the opponent.
I suppose we can also add "things that counter the Cowardice triggered ability" to the list of stuff that makes us go infinite. If we can get Cowardice into the library, then using Academy Rector for the start becomes unsafe for the same reason as Archon.
So I think another plan for gaining life out of the hyperstage transition is required. Maybe we need to use lands for the Tier 2 or 3 stage and two additional stages are too ambitious.
This thread and its predecessors are one of the best-known (and IMO coolest) applications of mathematics to Magic, and you'd be more than welcome to use the Discord as a place to brainstorm with the flexibility and faster feedback loop offered by a live chat platform over a traditional forum.
https://discord.gg/Mwknxg3drr
That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be.
- P. C. Hodgell
the dominus cycle has some interesting cards though I don't think any of them do much for us, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus is at least a pretty unique effect. might combo with like voidwing hybrid? but that still seems kinda weak.
Elesh norn, mother of machines is a panharmonicon variant, that we can donate to turn into torpor orb
I don't see anything too exiting with all the oil cards either.
Maybe Mirran safehouse can do something busted but I don't see it.
Computation:
Setup: opponent controls coat of arms, a configuration of hacked dralnu's crusades and xathid necromancers, several creatures of various types, a lifelink creature with arcbond. Comeuppance cast at any point during the turn.
Activation: Cast Kaeverk's Spite with Goblin Boom Keg in play. Damage an arcbond creature.
Output: Opponent controls BB(X) creatures once stack resolves.
Note: Only a few copies of AE are required to set up a new computation from a previous one.
General tier-N stage template:
A tier-N resource A, with tier N-1 resource B
Transition creation: A process to spend 1 A and a small amount of triggers to create a transition on the stack and many B
Transition use: A process to remove all B and create 1 A. After which, everything is back in the same state necessary to create another transition.
(the "spending a small amount of triggers" can be done in transition use instead of creation, but that's equivalent to considering those triggers as part of the transition)
Procedure: Start with X A. Repeatedly: create a transition for many B, convert this B into triggers (so it's not lost on transition use; but it isn't accessible above higher transitions).
Once out of (or low on) A, use B for "top-level" work, typically scaling resource gain.
Once out of/low on B/triggers, use transition to get A. Use some triggers to recreate transition for many B again. This can recursively be treated as the "top-level" work for for the tierN-1 stage below this first transition. (it's ok if resource scaling as actually only obtained after resolving several transitions; as *that* point can be treated as the "top level".)
Overall result is many tierN-1 stages. (where a tier0 stage is a layer).
General "alternating triggers/activations" stage template:
Resource A.
Batch creation: Spend A to create a batch of X triggers and a batch of Y triggers.
Resource regain: Resolving a few Y trigger followed by an X trigger, and a few X triggers followed by a Y trigger, generates A, and resets the state necessary to create more batches.
Can be transformed to the general tier-N stage template for N=1, as follows:
Lower tier resource: Y triggers
Transition: X batch after a Y
Transition creation: Spend A to create an X batch and a Y batch
Transition use: Resolve Y batch (using them up). Use X after Y, then resolve down to next Y, to create A.
At the top level, X and Y can be used for other work.
As it's symmetric between X and Y, you only need a small number of X triggers with a big Y batch or vice versa.
There's a special case where generating an X batch and a Y batch both cost A, but resolving a few Y any time after a few X have resolved generates A:
Batch creation: Spend A on X batch, resolve some. Spend A on Y batch, resolve some to generate A.
Resource regain: Resolve the Xs, then result a Y to generate A.
Setup: Many copies of bloodblond march and psychic battle in play, Cowardice, Cephalid shrine, Embelem of the warmind in play. Nontoken thrull in play.
Resource: Thrull tokens (and nontoken thrull in play)
Batch creation: Spend thrull token to bounce thrull and get many PB triggers. Play thrull for many BBM triggers.
Resource regain: Resolving PB after BBM bounces thrull. Resolving BBM after PB returns it to play after putting it under a foundry for a token, then using riftsweeper and shreikhorn to return to hand.
At the top level, PB triggers can be used to bounce various things.
(the special-case stage form above, where creating both batches costs the resource, doesn't apply since creating a thrull token from a BP after a BBM does not leave you in a state where you can create more batches)
Volute hyperstage:
Resource: Life
Lower tier resource: Thrull tokens
Setup: Krirk in play, volutes in pay on spite and fated, TYS in play, thrull in hand
Transition creation: Fairly convoluted, due to needing to juggle the volutes, the nontoken artifacts, and multiple archons, and ensuring we still get the necassary resource scaling, and can set up computations; and also only assuming access to one TYS (as I can't find a way to keep copies).
(section A):
- Put a twinning glass trigger, and BBM triggers for the various creatures on the stack, including thrull
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute-fated
(section B)
- Resolve volute-fated, moving volute to a spell X. Keep TYS-fated on the stack. Use PB-fated to bounce thrull.
- Put BBM-archon triggers on the stack
- Put a shreikhorn trigger on the stack
- Put BBM-riftsweeper triggers on the stack
- Put BBM-thrull triggers on the stack. Using one, bounce riftsweeper and shreikhown, and put fated and souls back into grave.
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute X (where X is AE or arcbond)
(section C)
- Resolve volute-X, moving volute to fated
- Use X (it's PB triggers and/or TYS triggers) to bounce thrull; cowardice can also be bounced to use X to setup computational stuff.
- Put BBM-Archon triggers on the stack
- Put souls back into grave
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-sprite and volute-fated
(section D)
- Resolve volute-fated, moving volute to wrong turn.
- Use fated's TYS to make many thrulls, as well as BBMs, PBs, and anything else needed
- Put BBM-archon triggers on the stack
- Put souls and fated back into grave
- Play souls for 2 life, triggering volute-spite and volute-wrong
(section E)
- Resolve volute-wrong, keeping TYS trigger on the stack
- Use many thrull tokens to build stage
Transition use:
(section F - setup from E)
- Bounce cowardice, and use TYS-wrong to donate many things - BBMs and PBs to keep resource scaling, the nontoken artifacts (including orrery), anything else wanted for computations, and nontoken thrull
- Resolve volute-spite. Everything is sacced, all volutes triggers on the stack are now using LKI, spite is exiled. A computation may be started.
(section G - setup from D)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life.
- Resolve BBM-archon
(section H - setup from C)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life
- Resolve BBM-archon
(section I - setup from B)
- Resolve archon trigger for pious for 2 life
- Resolve BBM-archon
- Resolve BBM-riftsweeper and shreikhorn to put spite in the yard
- Resolve TYS-fated for many archons
(section J - setup from A)
- Resolve many archons, for pious for 2 life as well as all other necassary enchantments, including volutes on spite and fated
- Resolve BBM-thrull triggers, as well as other BBM triggers. use thrull to bounce nontoken artifacts from opponent.
- Resolve twinning staff trigger to play orrery.
Now we're back in the position to set up A, and we needed to use BBM-thrull triggers to bounce the stuff at the end to do so - and must resolve down to the next PB trigger to get thrull to hand again. (we could have set it up similarly to use PB-thrull triggers, but we'd need to resolve down to the next BBM-thrull to recover the same state as the start)
But the problem lijil identified was that when volutes are resolved in the opposite order, volute triggers could be used instead and go infinite.
However... is the line lijil suggested actually possible?
In order to go infinite this way, there must be a volute-X trigger below a volute-spite trigger; and below that normal stage stuff. When resolving through that we need to to have multiple archons in play (at least 2 for pious and cowardice, and probably more for embelem,opelesence,omni,TYS,etc). We also need to have donated our stuff in order to be able to recover properly into normal stage stuff (as well as bounce a donated thrull for infinite).
How do we have multiple archons in play?
In my line above, I needed to ensure a TYS-fated trigger was available at the equivilant point for this purpose. But because we're using a backwards volute stack, that's not possible.
Having to donate stuff means we have to have resolved wrong turn and thus played a second spite (else, we're down 2 life on the exchange and not infinite). This means any archons we created before don't work - we need to create them in between resolving the spite for wrong turn and this spite.
Harmonic prodigy could get a second archon trigger but you'd need to use AE first; which doesn't seem possible in this window either.
The closest thing would be saving up foundry activations. However, apparently LKI isn't used to refer to "the exiled card" in linked abilities (I recently asked in RulesGuru server about whether Skyclave Apparition can use LKI). This means the foundry ability on the stack would need to actually track the archon in exile, making it difficult for archon to have also been accessible during the needed wrong turn cast.
Additionally, setting up a suitable foundry activation seems to need thrull. If it's on the battlefield, using it means there are no accessible BBM triggers to return it until after the volute triggers, and we don't go infinite. If it's in hand and we play it for BBM triggers, it ought to have been in hand at the start of the setup too - I don't see a way to get an extra bounce with the backwards volute stack - and thus bouncing it back to hand at the end of the combo ought to not be an issue.
Maybe there's some clever convoluted way to make this setup go infinite but I'm not sure I see it.
Edit: Oh, dralnu's makes harmonic apply.
But that's still only 2 archon triggers. It still seems like you need more than that to go infinite though?
Edit: Maybe we can get to a 3rd by hanging a foundry activation on harmonic.
Helix megastage
Resource: Red mana
Lower tier resource: Life
Setup: Spellweaver helix in play with worldfire, divine congregation, and hungry for more exiled.
Transition creation:
- Using some BBM/PB triggers, Put a twinning glass activation, some chromescale triggers, and some riftweaver triggers (with corresponding PB triggers) on the stack
- Flashback hungry for more for R. Trigger helix, play all the sorceries.
- Resolve TYS-divine. Gain many life. Build megastage.
As the megastage can run computations, each copy of divine scales resources by BB.
Transition use:
- Resolve worldfire
- Resolve riftweaver triggers, using PB triggers to retarget to legal targets, reshuffling everything
- Resolve chromescale triggers, putting artifacts to hand
- Resolve twinning glass, playing orrery
- Play mox ruby for R
- Use BBM/PB triggers to re-set up helix and other exiled things
Blue mana can also be amassed through mox saphire.
Life can also be spent to trigger volute without spite for plentiful use of things instants provide (copies, AE-hacks).
At the end of the megastage then R can be spent without worldfire for plentiful life and lower resources.
Edit: However, an issue I've noticed with this setup: how do we get omni into play?
Twinning glass doesn't work, as we don't have a way to put omni in hand. (and using something like Arcanist's Owl looks like it enables pious to be recycled too cheaply.) Replenish doesn't work as it's only able to be cast immediately after worldfire. So it looks like we need to resolve down to the hyperstage transition to sac an archon.
But then we're casting spite. We don't have a way to counter it; cephalid shrine isn't in play (we're having difficulty getting enchantments into play). So somebody has to lose 5 life, but both are at 1.
We can't even afford to lose 5 life if we had it - that would make the hyperstage too expensive.
But giving the opponent life is hard too. We need to give them an arcbonded lifelinker and sac GBK to spite. But it doesn't look like we're able to cast both arcbond and wrong turn in time. Plus, if we lose the nontoken GBK, how do we actually start computations?
Maybe we could add Ivory mask, so that an archon trigger can put that into play to fizzle spite targetting ourself. But that uses a cardslot.
Also it does need 2 archon triggers (as we also need pious) but perhaps archon+harmonic can be used and the spell waiting in the volute trigger for this transition is AE rather than wrong turn. (or simply fated). But then we're losing orrery without a chance to safely donate, so we need to set this up to be able to happen without orrery?
Green mana stage
Resource: Green mana
Setup: Hacked kunesh and many harmonic prodigy in play, groundskeeper/firebrand ranged in play and turned into artifacts. Many gauntlets in play. Forest and Mounatin in grave.
Batch creation: Spend G on groundskeeper for many kunesh-GK triggers. Spend G on firebrand ranger for many kunesh-FR triggers. (Also resolve some in between as per the special-case stage form above)
Resource regain: When an FR resolves after having resolved GK, get many R and a G. Build hyperstage to put the lands back grave.
White mana stage (mislabeled as blue mana stage)
This actually doesn't work for 2 reasons, but is fixable.
Patron of the moon can sacrifice archon too cheaply through offering. I think it can be replaced by Arboreal Grazer.
Dryad arbor can be cloned for too cheap green mana. But it seems like its purpose is just to be donatable for wayfarer, so any colourless manland works (e.g. mutavault).
(Edit: In fact I think it has to be exactly mutavualt. If it had a creature type, it could be hacked, and then opp could activate it to change the type which breaks computation).
Resource: White mana
Setup: Opponent controls several mutavaults. Hacked kunesh and many harmonic prodigy in play, wayfarer and ruin ghost are artifacts. Archaelogical dig in library.
Batch creation: Spend W on weathered wayfarer for many kunesh-WWF triggers. Spend W on ghost for many kunesh-RG triggers.
(Resolve some in between as per special-case stage setup).
Resource regain: After WWF has resolved, dig can be put into play with grazer. Resolving a RG flickers dig for W, and resolving some more can flicker forest for G. (we can resolve half of the RGs for many G). Build G stage, putting dig in library.
Layers
Each resolution of SSA creates a treasure (thus a W)
Each golem trigger creates many SSA copies
Casting SSA creates many golem triggers
Each draw allows one SSA cast
Each zubera death creates many draw triggers
60 zubera deaths are allowed per creature type not used in computation.
Start:
Crypt, Saphire, Dig, Ruby, Shreikhorn, Replenish (Omni+TYS), Infectious inquirery (1 copy + original)
Draw 4, lose 4, opp gets 2 poison.
End: Combat.
It doesn't look like there's a necessity for artificat-ification to be gated by blue.
Activating it during a computation only interferes if MotM is in play; but MotM in play during a computation means that coat of arms will die and we don't go infinite.
It does allow opponents to kill pious during a batch of archon triggers, but I don't think that's an issue - after having resolved one, there are no PB triggers able to retarget and get an extra pious from the batch.
And that allows room for the Ivory mask that I determined may be necessary for megastage transitions.
The good news for Tier 3 stages is that the Tier 1 resource, triggers, gets cleared just by resolving the stack. But it is a problem when trying to get Tier 4 to work.
Regarding the infinite, it has been to long since I looked at the deck. I'd need to study it again to figure out if the infinite I had in mind back then actually works. If you can proof it is impossible that would be great! But getting this close to any infinite is risky, even if it currently doesn't work. If we miss any small implication anywhere when working on the rest of the deck, it will quickly blow up. Personally I wouldn't want to risk it.
Liquimetal Torque goes infinite by giving the opponent access to mana, which allows them to interrupt a computation: We Wrong Turn a few copies of Liquimetal Torque and a Soul Foundry with an imprinted creature while March of the Machines is out, then get rid of MoM and start the computation. After an arbitrary time the opponent activates the Foundry with mana from the Torques and gets an additional typed creature, which can lead to halting.
The type creature of Palladium Myr is the important part of the old card combo, since only creatures on our side of the battlefield can have haste from Emblem of the Warmind. So the opponent can't use it to gain mana.
I'm pretty sure my line relied on this interaction working to make enough archons. But if that is not how LKI works, then maybe there isn't an infinite? I'll need to think on it again.
In order to go infinite, we need a process that, starting with thrull in play, ends up with thrull in hand, without having used a token; and leave the state in such a way that this process is repeatable.
At the start we may assume that there are no PB triggers from a thrull at the top of the stack - such triggers would either come from the nontoken (and thus thrull is in the grave), or a token (in which case we're either down one token and thrull is in hand, or we've remade that token and thrull is in grave/exile/library).
The process must look like:
(section A)
flashback souls for 2 life and trigger volute on spite and X, putting the spite on *top*.
(section B)
flashback souls for 2 life and trigger volute on spite and Y
(section C)
resolve spite
(section D - setup from B)
resolve spite, resolve another spell from volute
(section E - setup from A)
At least 2 flashbacks are necessary during the process as otherwise there's no opportunity to cast wrong turn and safely donate critical pieces such as orrery (and thrull that we hope to bounce for free at the end of the process).
Section D must be done without orrery in play; as there's no opportunity to cast wrong turn between the two spites (and no way to keep a token one). So everything that happens in section D must be setup in section B. Similarly, we also can't have foundry in play.
The minimum number of archon triggers we need from the D-E spite is at least 5 - both volutes, embelem, pious, and cowardice. Each of these are necessary for recreating the state necessary in section E to repeat this process, and are not donatable.
The maximum number of archon triggers we can arrange in section D is at most 4 - using a BBM-archon, foundty-archon, BBM-harmonic, and foundry-harmonic; while opponent controls a suitable hacked dralnu's crusade. In between those foundry and BBM triggers we also need riftsweeper and shreikhorn triggers.
Even achieving this is difficult and perhaps not possible. In section B, we only have access to the thrull in play (not in hand, as it must have been in play at section A else this process doesn't achieve an infinite in the first place; and we don't have any tokens; else those tokens were also in play at A and would be lost by this process regardless and not help go infinite - and we can't resolve fated (or a bounce) as the volute-spite trigger is on top). So with just that one thrull it seems hard to get the required bounces to set up so many triggers on the stack.
Additionally, requiring a foundry on the stack tracking the archon in exile (which doesn't get to use LKI) makes it difficult to also have the archons necassary in section C.
Also, it looks like harmonic is completely replaceable by Mirror Gallery or Mirror Box, which would make this even harder.
Thus, we can't create the archon triggers necassary to make the process repeatable, thus we don't go infinite.
I'm trying to remember the trick to the worldfire transition, but it does seem troublesome to get omniscience into play. It kind of looks like it needs to be replenish, but the next one of those is way down in the next spellweaver volute trigger. Can we afford to do that?