Take any random Academy deck and replace every copy of Stroke or Braingeyser with a Fireball or Disintegrate. Or do something weird with a Phyrexian Processor, four Voltaic Keys, and something that gives all creatures Haste. I dunno.
[EDIT 2] Another way to add a layer is to replace Five-Alarm Fire with Cyclops Gladiator. Cyclops Gladiator can trigger Repercussion after attacking, and can then be removed from combat so that the opponent isn't damaged. This allows us to stick World at War back in.
I considered the possibility of adding Lord of Shatterskull Pass. Rules question: If we attack with a Lord of Shatterskull Pass, leveled up to level 6, with a Repercussion on the battlefield and at least one creature under the opponent's control, is it possible to time a Scrambleverse so that the damage from Repercussion is dealt to us rather than the opponent? The Repercussion will be triggered while the creature is under the opponent's control, but we can have it resolve while the creature is under our control.
Nice, you even found multiple ways to get the extra layer
The latest versions might need some more help to get started. The only 'hasty' thing that targets all creatures is Chaos Warp but that is sitting in the graveyard and can't get out without a hasty Organ Grinder.
Using Xenagos, God of Revels as the green enchantment creature should solve that problem. Before combat we can use Selvala's Enforcer to draw a bunch of cards (limited only by the opponents library), and that can be used to generate some colored mana to go through the bottom most stages. We can get a lot of Xenagos copies and a lot of non-hasty Endbringers, so that in the beginning of combat step we get all the creature targeting and card draw we might need. We are able to go through all stages before declaring attackers.
While I'm looking at the transition creatures: Soltari Monk is probably not the best choice for a white creature with shadow that we want to bounce with Dauthi Cutthroat
I'm pretty sure the above interaction with Lord of Shatterskull Pass works, but I guess it doesn't actually add a layer more than Cyclops Gladiator, since the damage is all dealt at the same time.
I wonder if Alhammarret's Archive is better than Boon Reflection; we will have to keep destroying most of the token copies when we are going to draw cards, but I think the disadvantage is minimal, and it will allow us to draw needed cards earlier, although that is pretty minimal as well.
[EDIT] I guess if we plan to use Alhammarret's Archive, it would make sense to switch Mirror of Fate out for Riftsweeper, as with Mirror of Fate we would only have up to seven cards in the library at a time. Riftsweeper should be able to work in the same way that Balustrade Spy worked for the flashback decks.
I'd like to get back to talking about the hyperstage combo again - Iijil, you were discussing it with tstorm, and suggested that the Dark Ritual / Possibility Storm construction he was thinking about required that the mana pool be cleared when we transitioned between life stages. Then evil_overlord suggested adding Glissa Sunseeker / Mana Crypt / Throne of Bone to add a life triggered by Dark Ritual, but only when the mana pool is empty. I think this doesn't quite work, because we can use the black mana from Dark Ritual to pay for the Throne of Bone instead. But, Glissa Sunseeker seems like an interesting possibility for requiring the mana pool to either be empty or set to a certain amount, which seems just as good. Either we can change the individual stages so that they don't use mana, or we can have Glissa Sunseeker fetch some other required artifact.
I still need some help in undestanding how the combo would work even if we do manage to clear the mana pool. If we can draw Dark Ritual using say Yawgmoth's Bargain, and get the life back somehow due to the casting of Dark Ritual (say with Throne of Bone), then that seems like it would go infinite. What we would need is to expend something at the 2 life level to restart the 1 life level stage. I'm not sure what that would be yet.
Okay, lets try to formulate my thoughts on the hyperstage. Lets beginn with my very abstract view of an Ackermannstage as we have it working currently.
Each stage uses the stack for 2 different triggers (say PB and BM), 1 input ressource (say I) and 1 output ressource (say O). We have 4 different operations that we can use:
1. Spend one I to put x PB on the stack.
2. Use one PB from the top of the stack to put y BM on the stack.
3. Use one BM from the top of the stack to generate some amount of O.
4. Use one PB from the top of the stack and one BM from the second position of the stack to generate one I.
Notes: One of x and y needs to grow when we have/used more O, both need to be at least two.
We can generate O from something other than BM, for example from PB or as a byproduct, that doesn't really matter. I find this view convenient.
The required order of the triggers in 4 is important to avoid infinites.
Using those operations with priority 4>2>1>3 whenever the stack/ressources allow the use results in one ackermann stage. (Using O for chaining stages or other things before using 2 or 1.)
The significant addition to the layer view is that we now have layers (PB with 1 I, PB with 2 I, PD with 3 I) as seperate layers instead of one layer for PB and one layer for I or something.
We chain Ackerman stages by using different input ressources. The O of one stage is the I of the next.
For the hyperstages we want to introduce a new ressource (say L) and chain Ackermnnstages with essentially the same input and output ressources by differentiating according to the amount of L.
The first thing I notice there is that we can't just let I = O as that would easily go infinite before even considering L. I think the easiest way is to add an operation along these lines:
5. Use one L to convert all O into I.
That would be easy enough. O could be tokens without haste and I the tokens with haste or something. IIRC the idea from tstorm had O be just the normal progress mark, and the changing event then generated some mana for each of those. The problem is that this is not enough to ever get back to the stages with higher L. We also need something to get back:
6. Increase L by one.
But being able to use that whenever leads to infinites again. We need use conditions. The easiest thing would be to maintain a strict border between stages by using a marking trigger (M) on the stack. I.e.
5'. Use one L to convert all O into I and put one M on the stack.
6'. Use one M from the top of the stack to increase L by one.
But here we still have the problem that we could use 5 to change I into O and then immediatly use 6. Essentially this just turns the output of one Ackermann stage into the input of that same stage. What we want is that the converted Is can have to be all used _before_ we can use 6'. This leads us to:
6''. Use one M from the top of the stack and delete all I to increase L by one.
If we had cards that allow 1,2,3,4,5' and 6'' then, as fas as I can tell we have a working Hyperstage. Ise 1 - 4 for any Ackermann stage, 5' to start a lower stage whenever the current level has produced some output and 6' to get back to the higher level after using the one below as much as you can.
Of course 6'' is pretty tough to implement. Few of the mana pool limiters or token clean ups are bound to triggers. Its even harder to increase any ressource by exactly one if and only if that clean up trigger resolved.
Note that with activated abilities as from Glissa Sunseeker in the best case we get an operation like this:
6''': Delete all I to increase L by one.
That is not good enough for a hyperstage as we can just convert all the I into PB and BM triggers before using 6'''. Requiring trigger seems to be the most feasible way to guarantee the ressources are not hidden on the stack.
I think that all operations that use a trigger from the top of the stack are not allowed to be executed only half way through with the rest later. I.e. you are allowd to convert the trigger into another trigger that does something more useful, but converting it into an artifact that you then activate is not allowed. Maybe one can argue on a case by case basis that a specific half executed operation doesn't help, but it seems dangerous. Timing restrictions are very important to avoid the recovering of the ressources from going infinite.
It might not be the best approach to list what we want the cards to do and then looking for cards that fit that narrow definition. Maybe looking at cards and trying to build the hyperstage framework around their actual effects would be more successful. But that is not the way I think about this at the moment. The hyperstage is complicated enough that I need a somewhat rigid guideline to avoid going infinite or losing important ressources.
My hope with the Possibility Storms was to find the right combination of spells that either something would only work the time you cast it from hand or there'd be a trigger that could only benefit you when the spell wasn't caught on the stack, but I never did manage it (though I did find some weird ackermann options along the way, like the one I recently asked to check for infinites. (I really was just proud of getting Mind's Desire involved without being infinite)
But I was looking for things that would interact in an extremely limited way with Glissa Sunseeker just now and found Urza's Miter, which if that was the draw mechanic for the deck, it'd be very limiting since it would create the situation where you can activate Glissa to draw a card, but only if you have an artifact target that costs 3 or more and only once without generating another batch of mana.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
So, the way I had conceived of the hyperstage was a stack looking like
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
So we have a third type of trigger which separates our traditional alternating sets of triggers. When the M triggers are on the top, we can spend them to create a large stack of alternating PB and BM triggers. After we have expended the M triggers, we can spend a BM trigger (or a PB trigger) to create the next set of M triggers. Of course, this last operation cannot be uncontrolled, or else we will go infinite. We need to limit the number of groups of M triggers to some set finite amount, so we need some resource L to control the number of groups of M triggers. Each time we create a group of M triggers we reduce L by one, and after we run through the M triggers, we spend a BM or PB trigger (possibly with an M trigger above it) to get one L back.
That last part seems to be the trickiest part; we need to get the L back somehow, but we can't allow just any BM or PB trigger to be able to generate one L, so we need to somehow tie it in to the M trigger on top of it. So we have a seemingly difficult to find mechanic to create a hyperstage. Iijil gives one possible solution, but I am not sure it is the only solution.
My first thought was to look at cards with multiple abilities, like Grixis Battlemage for example. If say red mana is plentiful, then we get a normal Ackermann stage by tapping Grixis Battlemage to target itself. We can also spend a blue mana and tap it to draw a card and discard a card. If we can use drawing a card to generate lots of Grixis Battlemages (which seems easy enough), we have part of a hyperstage going. The problem again is how to get the blue mana back in some delayed fashion without going infinite.
One possible way to do that is if Grixis Battlemage were blue, then we could bounce Grixis Battlemage with Cowardice and then imprint it onto Chrome Mox. The problem is that any target creature ability can just as easily bounce it with Cowardice as destroy it with Horobi, Death's Wail. So, one possibility I see for a hyperstage is something similar to the Cowardice/Horobi combo, but with more differentiation somehow; perhaps say Cowardice came with a cost of a blue mana. Then we could have a "target creature" ability either destroy a creature for free, or bounce a creature at the cost of a blue mana. Of course, it doesn't have to be targeting creatures, although we haven't found other ways of creating an Ackermann combo yet.
Having multiple cards that trigger off the same event seems like a promising line of attack.
The first 21 cards should be our usual support structure with one Ackermann stage: the Grixis Battlemage. Red mana is unlimited due to Mox Ruby, while blue mana can't be generated from those cards.
We can then use one blue mana to draw Devastation. When we cast that we trigger Staff of the Flame Magus, wchich triggers Ajani's Pridemate, which can be used with Korozda Gorgon to start the Ackermann stage anew a couple times. We leave the unresolved Devastation on the stack as a marker. (This implements the 5' I talked about in my last post.) Notably nothing else can trigger Staff of the Flame Magus or Ajani's Pridemate, so drawing and playing any other card doesn't help.
When we finally resolve Devastation we destroy all creatures. Importantly we drestroy all Grixis Battlemage tokens, and all +1/+1 counters that might be left on Ajani's Pridemates. (We can save our progress in Psychic Battles by bouncing Opalescence, which is why there are two of those.) This also destroys our Island, and is in fact the only way to do that. So only after we have resolved Devastation can we shuffle the Island back in the deck and replay it from there using Oracle of Mul Daya. So we can only recover the blue mana we spend to draw Devastation after resolving Devestation. (To get enough extra land drops just create enough Oracle of Mul Daya copies.) This should implement the 6'' from my last post.
So we can extend the Ackermann stage tower by one for each blue mana that we start out with.
Have I overlooked some infinite damage combo in there? Some other mistake? Does this really implement a Hyperstage?
Any ideas on how to generate an initial batch of blue mana without going infinite?
Edit: Ah, the first thing I overlooked is that when we leave Devastation on the stack as a marker we can't draw it again.
Certainly allowing copies of Devastation would go infinite since that would generate blue mana. Except.. Maybe Riku of two Reflections to get a copy, while we counter the original. But then the copy could be stacked to resolve before Staff of the Flame Magus triggers to recover the blue mana before starting the next stage.
Is there some way to donate the first part of a trigger chain as an alternative to the Staff of the Magus? That would force the donated triggers to resolve first, before we get to the copy trigger... Thinking some more...
Riku won't work since with that it costs two blue mana to get down one stage, while we only recover 1, assuming we counter the original. We can't allow the recovering of two since then we don't need to counter the original. So maybe putting 4 Devestations into the deck is the best thing doable with this frame. Would still be some cool new tech, I guess.
Edit2: Maybe Eye of the Storm can fix the copy problem. If we change the card draw mechanic to something else... maybe a flashback sorcery for blue?
Then, unless we are able to replay the actual Devestation card in between triggers from Eye of the Storm we are allowed to cast exactly one copy of Devestation from those triggers. So without other ways to get Devestation casts this might just work:
Additionally, if you're stacking things up, you're doing everything at instant speed, which means Oracle of Mul Daya isn't actually going to help you get the land back into play until after the stack resolves unless there's a way I don't know to play land drops at instant speed.
Possible way to get one big batch of blue mana that can't be repeated: on upkeep, you can somehow play a large amount of Plasm Captures or Elemental Resonances to get blue mana at the beginning of the main phase only.
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Edit: The flashback thingy is to cheap to initiate the stage transition: we can do that without any ressources on top. We just need a floating blue mana which we can then get back after going though the ackermann below. We can repeat the lower ackermann stage as often as we want to.
This means my 5' operation needs to be modiefied as well, to something like
5'': Use one I and one L to get a lot of I and put one M on the stack.
Using an I specifically would not be necessary, but we need some sort of cost that ensures there is an Upper Ackermann running.
Also that cost has to be too expensive to carry through the ressource glear in 6''. In the Devastation case we can essentially carry one set of BM triggers from a lower Ackermann through by just having the card in hand. I think we can only get a hasty token through under Mimic Vat if we already have BM triggers in place on the other side. We can not attempt both at once.
So I guess using a Grixis Battlemage token to draw was a good idea. But I don't think that is compatible with Eye of the Storm. Thinking some more...
You could also possibly use flashback to cast Devastation as well, although it would be more convenient to replace Devastation with something that only used one colored mana. (couldn't find anything though)
[EDIT] Is the problem of drawing Devastation that we don't have a Grixis Battlemage on the battlefield? Can we not simply activate a Grixis Battlemage, then respond by casting Devastation?
Casting Flicker with flashback runs into the same problem of too low cost, that I just found and edited into my last post.
We could use Grixis Battlemage here and leave the enter the battlefield trigger on the stack instead of the spell card. That could be a good approach.
But we would need to make sure that Flicker is the only way to get those enter the battlefield triggers. Currently there is the changeling end all the creature targting available from the Ackermann stages, and each would be able to just trigger those, essentially producing the white mana when we should not be able to. They can even just bounce/champion the Goblin Firebug.
On a minor note: Archangel of Thune can put +1/+1 counters on enchantements and artifacts that don't necesseraily get destroyed when clearing all creatures. So those can be carried up to the higher level Ackermann, which we can't allow.
cast devastation, getting two triggers from E1 and E2.
resolve the first from E1 to get the mana back.
draw devastation again and cast it. getting triggers from E1 and E2.
resolve the one from E2 first and get mana back.
the one from E1 does nothing.
Now we can resolve the E2 trigger from our first casting to cast another copy. This gets an additional mana!
Turns out it is even easier to go infinite with this. There is nothing stopping you from redrawing Devastation in the lower stage and waiting until you are back in the higher stage to cast it again.
I.E it is not guaranteed that the I ressource is from the correct stage.
It's there specifically so that we cast a copy of the card. Otherwise the card has to remain on the stack to mark the stage transition and can not be redrawn and used for any other transition.
For other ways of casting a copy, there's Elite Arcanist and Mizzix's Mastery. I did not find a suitable instant to cast with Elite Arcanist.
Mizzix's Mastery is red, so we can't use the red spell trigger from Devastation. Soulscour and some white spell trigger can probably work. We use some ressource to draw and play the Mastery, create a copy of Soulscour and cast that copy to mark the transtition.
We need an artifacty way to carry our progress through the boardclear. Adding a Assembly-Worker stage at the bottom should do that. before the clear create X hasty workers and use them to recreate the Psychic Battles after.
That still leaves the problem of ensuring the ressource spent is from the correct stage, which I have no solution for at the moment. Elite Arcanist would be good for that, but since the correct stage needs to spend some ressources to get a hasty token, but there is nothing stopping us from just casting the <whatever> card from hand if we want to go infinite by spending ressources from the ackermannstage below. In that case we don't need the copy effect, as we don't care that we can't transition another time.
Another permanent that casts a copy of a spell is Spellweaver Helix, which also feels like it could make for some interesting opportunities since you can make the triggering sorcery anything you want and limit it that way by only having that one sorcery in the deck in multiples. At the very least, you'd be able to dodge the red cast trigger from Mizzix Mastery and go back towards the original build.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Kaho, Minamo Historian would be a way to tie the casting of an instant to the current Ackermannstage. Assuming no other way to get the instant out of the library we need a hasty Kaho to cast it, and that can only come from Mimic Vat. If the Mimic Vat was 'loaded' before the board clear then the original Kaho card gets stuck in the graveyard, so that can only be done once without additional ressources to get it out.
Combine that with Eye of the Storm to turn the instant into Devastation. We still need the blue (or other color?) mana requirement for reusing the instant. I guess moving it from graveyard to library can be the step where that is required. Mortiphobia?
Sooo, how does this go infinite? Or does everything crumble without resembling a hyperstage?
(Going with an instant that doesn't target for now, so that Kaho can't tap to target creatures. Might not hurt, but lets leave complications for later.)
Edit: So that didn't last long either: Kaho is legendary, so after the boardclear we can cast counte return him, get a dual nature token and have the original die to the legendary rule. Then we can make a hasty copy with mimic vat and return the original to the hand. All without spending any triggers that need to be on the stack under Devastation.
Changing the engine away from Dual Nature might help.
On that note: does a cheap death to legendary rule go infinite in the current normal ackermannstages deck? We are not forced to play out the Mirror Gallery. We can even bounce/champion it to have the death occur when we want. Oh damn, that seems serious.
Edit2: Yup, I'm pretty sure using Mimic Vat is not compatible with using legendaries as Ackermann stage tokens. So we lose 2 stages, assuming the rest fits together. Maybe we can stitch together the 25 stages left from the sideboard deck to fit into 60 cards. Gaaah.
For the normal Ackermann deck, perhaps we have to give up on Dual Nature. We can take that out and put Splinter Twin and Crown of the Ages back in, which I don't _think_ has the same problem; To get a Splinter Twin copy, the original must already have haste, i.e. has to be a Splinter Twin or Mimic Vat copy. Does anyone see a way to preserve the Changeling Berserker start? If not, we can always go back to the earlier 25-stage version. (which would become 26 stages for the deck with sideboard) For our last Splinter Twin version we only had a couple card slots available, but we might do better now with more recent improvements.
Can we simply make the same change for the hyperstage deck?
[EDIT] Hmm, I'm not sure. Say we have an original Legend on the battlefield, without Mirror Gallery, and we target it somehow. We destroy it, imprint it on a Mimic Vat, and create a hasted token copy. Then we bring the original back to the graveyard, bring it back with Bloodbond March, and sacrifice it again. We respond to the sacrifice by playing Mirror Gallery. Then we imprint the original and create another hasted token. So we get two tokens for one targeting. This only works if we take Mirror Gallery off the battlefield, so we can't generate more than two, but if we do it at the top of a stage, I think it enough to add one more group of alternating triggers to the stage, which would go infinite. If that is correct, this is a serious blow.
Changing to Splinter Twin + Crown of the Ages wont help since the legend rule applies with those tapped tokens that we leave lying around too. The problem arises since Mimic Vat assumes the death requires that we tap a token but we can actually just bounce Mirror Gallery.
In the hyperstage deck a switch to Splinter Twin + Crown of the Ages or some other combo actually seems more promising, since Devastation clears all old tokens and creating new ones with Twin would require haste in the first place. As long as the legendary can't tap to target(bounce) itself there doesn't seem to be a problem.
The challenge then is getting the low end logistics right.
Edit: Additional challenge - due to Eye of the Storm the instant never gets to to graveyard, so Mortiphobia doesn't work for imposing a colored mana cost. Spellweaver Helix instead of Eye of the Storm would be nice, but I did not find a way to cast a sorcery through tapping yet.
What we would really like is an instant that would destroy/exile creatures and lands, but there doesn't seem to be any. Damn Wizards, why you gotta make everything so hard?
A few possibilities for instants:
Fated Retribution destroys all creatures and planeswalkers, which leaves the possibility of using planeswalkers to get our mana back. Kiora, Master of the Depths could untap a land, but unfortunately it does so only at sorcery speed. The only way I know to get around that is with Teferi, Temporal Archmage, but we would need Doubling Season to get the required emblem, which is not allowed with our token creature Ackermann setup. (I don't suppose it would be easy to switch to a mana setup.)
Synthetic Destiny would exile all creatures, so we could use Dryad Arbor or an artifact land, or Nature's Revolt or Enchanted Evening to get a land creature. Mirror of Fate can bring it back to the library, so we need a way to bring it from the library to the battlefield. There are a bunch of cards that search the library for a card and puts it on the battlefield tapped, which is suboptimal; adding Amulet of Vigor would allow us to untap the same land many times. Skyward Eye Prophets would work, but it can also draw a nonland card. Perhaps Reap and Sow, if we can make sorceries cheap? Or maybe just Civic Wayfinder and Walking Atlas.
No, Walking Atlas would allow us to bounce the land and put it back on the battlefield. Could Reap and Sow work?
No, Mimic Vat makes it easy to move the card out of the graveyard.
Soul Foundry seems to make it harder to get the requirement that some cost is paid from the current stage, as we would no longer have hasty creatures as something just the current stage can produce.
With creature lands we have the problem, that we can also destroy them just by targeting them.
Spellshift is an instant that can chain into a sorcery. So that might work in combination with Kaho, Minamo Historian and Spellweaver Helix. But we need to move both the Spellshift and the sorcery we want to cast to trigger helix from the graveyard to the library for each transition. Not sure if there is a way to get that for one colored mana, or if adding a second swamp would make problems.
Edit: Oooh, Spellweaver helix can take care of moving the trigger sorcery to the library, but not the Spellshift. Sweet.
[EDIT] No, we need one of the Appetite for Brains to be imprinted onto Spellweaver Helix, so if we counter the other it won't be in the library when we need it to be. So maybe add a third Appetite for Brains?
[EDIT 2] Hmm, if we are using Spellweaver Helix to get Appetite for Brains out of the graveyard, then we have to remove two at a time, so even three Appetite for Brains doesn't seem to work out. So, four Appetite for Brains?
Something like Battle Screech can produce dummy spells that we can counter. That and Show and Tell can round up the numbers when imprinting with Spellweaver Helix. Just using a second Show and Tell for triggering should also work.
Replace the Mirror of Fate with a Riftsweeper, as we can't profitably create Mirror tokens to sacrifice with Splinter Twin. The rest of the cards should work out. Having the lowest layer targeting all creatures makes it easy to bounce everything we need to reuse.
We also need some indestructible creature that can carry the Splinter Twin when Devastation resolves. Creepy Doll.
I don't see anything else wrong with the combo a the moment.
Adding a Consecrated Sphinx combines with Selvala's Enforcer to get a finite amount of card draw. Card draw can be converted into black mana by drawing and casting Devastation or the sorcery that triggers it.
A Channel can provide starting mana to bounce the Enforcer with Korozda Gorgon and it's own counter. We can quickly start producing Sphinx tokens. So a start is possible (An Island can provide the first blue mana. In fact fill the deck up with Island as not-going-infinite dummy cards), as well as repeatedly creating a ever bigger batch of black mana when the opponent draws a card.
That puts us to very roughly f_{\omega^2+1}(X) in the Wainer hierarchy, with X the number of cards in the opponents Library after setup. X should be at least 30.
Of course with 24 dummy cards there is some room for improvement. But for now I think we have a working Hyperstage deck
Lets go over everything again and make sure we are not missing something. It's too good to be true. ^^
EDIT: Using the opponents cards in library as a limiter doesn't work out in the deck that I outlined above. The opponent can put a land on the battlefield with Show and Tell, we can destroy that land with Devastation, exile it with Mortiphobia and put it back into the library with Riftsweeper.
But carddraw and that limit is useful, and we have a lot of room in the deck, so I'd suggest leaving out Riftsweeper and going back to Mirror of Fate, with a Mirrorworks to provide expendable tokens.
Does Chaos Warp go infinite? It can target any permanent and create a hasted token of any creature, but getting it back requires spending a black mana, and you don't get the black mana back. So it seems too expensive.
If so, we could switch Show and Tell to Chaos Warp instead of switching Riftsweeper for Mirror of Fate. That doesn't save a card, since we need to add two sorceries to trigger Spellweaver Helix, but Chaos Warp might get the deck started faster, and also Riftsweeper seems more convenient than Mirror of Fate.
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I was wondering if there is a way to trade our life for our opponent's, and then Organ Grinder could target the opponent for another layer.
[EDIT] I think I have it: Polluted Bonds, which can be donated to the opponent, along with a bunch of Boon Reflections. Then we can use Titania, Protector of Argoth to trigger it.
[EDIT 2] Another way to add a layer is to replace Five-Alarm Fire with Cyclops Gladiator. Cyclops Gladiator can trigger Repercussion after attacking, and can then be removed from combat so that the opponent isn't damaged. This allows us to stick World at War back in.
I considered the possibility of adding Lord of Shatterskull Pass. Rules question: If we attack with a Lord of Shatterskull Pass, leveled up to level 6, with a Repercussion on the battlefield and at least one creature under the opponent's control, is it possible to time a Scrambleverse so that the damage from Repercussion is dealt to us rather than the opponent? The Repercussion will be triggered while the creature is under the opponent's control, but we can have it resolve while the creature is under our control.
The latest versions might need some more help to get started. The only 'hasty' thing that targets all creatures is Chaos Warp but that is sitting in the graveyard and can't get out without a hasty Organ Grinder.
Using Xenagos, God of Revels as the green enchantment creature should solve that problem. Before combat we can use Selvala's Enforcer to draw a bunch of cards (limited only by the opponents library), and that can be used to generate some colored mana to go through the bottom most stages. We can get a lot of Xenagos copies and a lot of non-hasty Endbringers, so that in the beginning of combat step we get all the creature targeting and card draw we might need. We are able to go through all stages before declaring attackers.
While I'm looking at the transition creatures: Soltari Monk is probably not the best choice for a white creature with shadow that we want to bounce with Dauthi Cutthroat
Good call on Xenagos, God of Revels.
I'm pretty sure the above interaction with Lord of Shatterskull Pass works, but I guess it doesn't actually add a layer more than Cyclops Gladiator, since the damage is all dealt at the same time.
I wonder if Alhammarret's Archive is better than Boon Reflection; we will have to keep destroying most of the token copies when we are going to draw cards, but I think the disadvantage is minimal, and it will allow us to draw needed cards earlier, although that is pretty minimal as well.
[EDIT] I guess if we plan to use Alhammarret's Archive, it would make sense to switch Mirror of Fate out for Riftsweeper, as with Mirror of Fate we would only have up to seven cards in the library at a time. Riftsweeper should be able to work in the same way that Balustrade Spy worked for the flashback decks.
I still need some help in undestanding how the combo would work even if we do manage to clear the mana pool. If we can draw Dark Ritual using say Yawgmoth's Bargain, and get the life back somehow due to the casting of Dark Ritual (say with Throne of Bone), then that seems like it would go infinite. What we would need is to expend something at the 2 life level to restart the 1 life level stage. I'm not sure what that would be yet.
Each stage uses the stack for 2 different triggers (say PB and BM), 1 input ressource (say I) and 1 output ressource (say O). We have 4 different operations that we can use:
1. Spend one I to put x PB on the stack.
2. Use one PB from the top of the stack to put y BM on the stack.
3. Use one BM from the top of the stack to generate some amount of O.
4. Use one PB from the top of the stack and one BM from the second position of the stack to generate one I.
Notes: One of x and y needs to grow when we have/used more O, both need to be at least two.
We can generate O from something other than BM, for example from PB or as a byproduct, that doesn't really matter. I find this view convenient.
The required order of the triggers in 4 is important to avoid infinites.
Using those operations with priority 4>2>1>3 whenever the stack/ressources allow the use results in one ackermann stage. (Using O for chaining stages or other things before using 2 or 1.)
The significant addition to the layer view is that we now have layers (PB with 1 I, PB with 2 I, PD with 3 I) as seperate layers instead of one layer for PB and one layer for I or something.
We chain Ackerman stages by using different input ressources. The O of one stage is the I of the next.
For the hyperstages we want to introduce a new ressource (say L) and chain Ackermnnstages with essentially the same input and output ressources by differentiating according to the amount of L.
The first thing I notice there is that we can't just let I = O as that would easily go infinite before even considering L. I think the easiest way is to add an operation along these lines:
5. Use one L to convert all O into I.
That would be easy enough. O could be tokens without haste and I the tokens with haste or something. IIRC the idea from tstorm had O be just the normal progress mark, and the changing event then generated some mana for each of those. The problem is that this is not enough to ever get back to the stages with higher L. We also need something to get back:
6. Increase L by one.
But being able to use that whenever leads to infinites again. We need use conditions. The easiest thing would be to maintain a strict border between stages by using a marking trigger (M) on the stack. I.e.
5'. Use one L to convert all O into I and put one M on the stack.
6'. Use one M from the top of the stack to increase L by one.
But here we still have the problem that we could use 5 to change I into O and then immediatly use 6. Essentially this just turns the output of one Ackermann stage into the input of that same stage. What we want is that the converted Is can have to be all used _before_ we can use 6'. This leads us to:
6''. Use one M from the top of the stack and delete all I to increase L by one.
If we had cards that allow 1,2,3,4,5' and 6'' then, as fas as I can tell we have a working Hyperstage. Ise 1 - 4 for any Ackermann stage, 5' to start a lower stage whenever the current level has produced some output and 6' to get back to the higher level after using the one below as much as you can.
Of course 6'' is pretty tough to implement. Few of the mana pool limiters or token clean ups are bound to triggers. Its even harder to increase any ressource by exactly one if and only if that clean up trigger resolved.
Note that with activated abilities as from Glissa Sunseeker in the best case we get an operation like this:
6''': Delete all I to increase L by one.
That is not good enough for a hyperstage as we can just convert all the I into PB and BM triggers before using 6'''. Requiring trigger seems to be the most feasible way to guarantee the ressources are not hidden on the stack.
I think that all operations that use a trigger from the top of the stack are not allowed to be executed only half way through with the rest later. I.e. you are allowd to convert the trigger into another trigger that does something more useful, but converting it into an artifact that you then activate is not allowed. Maybe one can argue on a case by case basis that a specific half executed operation doesn't help, but it seems dangerous. Timing restrictions are very important to avoid the recovering of the ressources from going infinite.
It might not be the best approach to list what we want the cards to do and then looking for cards that fit that narrow definition. Maybe looking at cards and trying to build the hyperstage framework around their actual effects would be more successful. But that is not the way I think about this at the moment. The hyperstage is complicated enough that I need a somewhat rigid guideline to avoid going infinite or losing important ressources.
But I was looking for things that would interact in an extremely limited way with Glissa Sunseeker just now and found Urza's Miter, which if that was the draw mechanic for the deck, it'd be very limiting since it would create the situation where you can activate Glissa to draw a card, but only if you have an artifact target that costs 3 or more and only once without generating another batch of mana.
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
...
group of PB triggers
group of BM triggers
group of M triggers
So we have a third type of trigger which separates our traditional alternating sets of triggers. When the M triggers are on the top, we can spend them to create a large stack of alternating PB and BM triggers. After we have expended the M triggers, we can spend a BM trigger (or a PB trigger) to create the next set of M triggers. Of course, this last operation cannot be uncontrolled, or else we will go infinite. We need to limit the number of groups of M triggers to some set finite amount, so we need some resource L to control the number of groups of M triggers. Each time we create a group of M triggers we reduce L by one, and after we run through the M triggers, we spend a BM or PB trigger (possibly with an M trigger above it) to get one L back.
That last part seems to be the trickiest part; we need to get the L back somehow, but we can't allow just any BM or PB trigger to be able to generate one L, so we need to somehow tie it in to the M trigger on top of it. So we have a seemingly difficult to find mechanic to create a hyperstage. Iijil gives one possible solution, but I am not sure it is the only solution.
My first thought was to look at cards with multiple abilities, like Grixis Battlemage for example. If say red mana is plentiful, then we get a normal Ackermann stage by tapping Grixis Battlemage to target itself. We can also spend a blue mana and tap it to draw a card and discard a card. If we can use drawing a card to generate lots of Grixis Battlemages (which seems easy enough), we have part of a hyperstage going. The problem again is how to get the blue mana back in some delayed fashion without going infinite.
One possible way to do that is if Grixis Battlemage were blue, then we could bounce Grixis Battlemage with Cowardice and then imprint it onto Chrome Mox. The problem is that any target creature ability can just as easily bounce it with Cowardice as destroy it with Horobi, Death's Wail. So, one possibility I see for a hyperstage is something similar to the Cowardice/Horobi combo, but with more differentiation somehow; perhaps say Cowardice came with a cost of a blue mana. Then we could have a "target creature" ability either destroy a creature for free, or bounce a creature at the cost of a blue mana. Of course, it doesn't have to be targeting creatures, although we haven't found other ways of creating an Ackermann combo yet.
Having multiple cards that trigger off the same event seems like a promising line of attack.
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Horobi, Death's Wail
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
9 Mana Crypt
10 Show and Tell
11 Mox Ruby
12 March of the Machines
13 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
14 Mindshrieker
15 Mimic Vat
16 Omniscience
17 Leyline of Anticipation
18 Mirror of Fate
20 Changeling Titan
21 Grixis Battlemage
22 Korozda Gorgon
23 Ajani's Pridemate
24 Staff of the Flame Magus
25 Devastation
26 Island
27 Oracle of Mul Daya
The first 21 cards should be our usual support structure with one Ackermann stage: the Grixis Battlemage. Red mana is unlimited due to Mox Ruby, while blue mana can't be generated from those cards.
We can then use one blue mana to draw Devastation. When we cast that we trigger Staff of the Flame Magus, wchich triggers Ajani's Pridemate, which can be used with Korozda Gorgon to start the Ackermann stage anew a couple times. We leave the unresolved Devastation on the stack as a marker. (This implements the 5' I talked about in my last post.) Notably nothing else can trigger Staff of the Flame Magus or Ajani's Pridemate, so drawing and playing any other card doesn't help.
When we finally resolve Devastation we destroy all creatures. Importantly we drestroy all Grixis Battlemage tokens, and all +1/+1 counters that might be left on Ajani's Pridemates. (We can save our progress in Psychic Battles by bouncing Opalescence, which is why there are two of those.) This also destroys our Island, and is in fact the only way to do that. So only after we have resolved Devastation can we shuffle the Island back in the deck and replay it from there using Oracle of Mul Daya. So we can only recover the blue mana we spend to draw Devastation after resolving Devestation. (To get enough extra land drops just create enough Oracle of Mul Daya copies.) This should implement the 6'' from my last post.
So we can extend the Ackermann stage tower by one for each blue mana that we start out with.
Have I overlooked some infinite damage combo in there? Some other mistake? Does this really implement a Hyperstage?
Any ideas on how to generate an initial batch of blue mana without going infinite?
Edit: Ah, the first thing I overlooked is that when we leave Devastation on the stack as a marker we can't draw it again.
Certainly allowing copies of Devastation would go infinite since that would generate blue mana. Except.. Maybe Riku of two Reflections to get a copy, while we counter the original. But then the copy could be stacked to resolve before Staff of the Flame Magus triggers to recover the blue mana before starting the next stage.
Is there some way to donate the first part of a trigger chain as an alternative to the Staff of the Magus? That would force the donated triggers to resolve first, before we get to the copy trigger... Thinking some more...
Riku won't work since with that it costs two blue mana to get down one stage, while we only recover 1, assuming we counter the original. We can't allow the recovering of two since then we don't need to counter the original. So maybe putting 4 Devestations into the deck is the best thing doable with this frame. Would still be some cool new tech, I guess.
Edit2: Maybe Eye of the Storm can fix the copy problem. If we change the card draw mechanic to something else... maybe a flashback sorcery for blue?
Then, unless we are able to replay the actual Devestation card in between triggers from Eye of the Storm we are allowed to cast exactly one copy of Devestation from those triggers. So without other ways to get Devestation casts this might just work:
- Replace Grixis Battlemage with, say Auriok Bladewarden.
- add Eye of the Storm and Artful Dodge as our way to cast one copy of Devastation for one blue.
- at that point we can also remove Mox Ruby I guess.
Possible way to get one big batch of blue mana that can't be repeated: on upkeep, you can somehow play a large amount of Plasm Captures or Elemental Resonances to get blue mana at the beginning of the main phase only.
Edit: The flashback thingy is to cheap to initiate the stage transition: we can do that without any ressources on top. We just need a floating blue mana which we can then get back after going though the ackermann below. We can repeat the lower ackermann stage as often as we want to.
This means my 5' operation needs to be modiefied as well, to something like
5'': Use one I and one L to get a lot of I and put one M on the stack.
Using an I specifically would not be necessary, but we need some sort of cost that ensures there is an Upper Ackermann running.
Also that cost has to be too expensive to carry through the ressource glear in 6''. In the Devastation case we can essentially carry one set of BM triggers from a lower Ackermann through by just having the card in hand. I think we can only get a hasty token through under Mimic Vat if we already have BM triggers in place on the other side. We can not attempt both at once.
So I guess using a Grixis Battlemage token to draw was a good idea. But I don't think that is compatible with Eye of the Storm. Thinking some more...
So something like:
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Horobi, Death's Wail
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Glorious Anthem
9 Mana Crypt
10 Chaos Warp
11 March of the Machines
12 Drowner of Secrets
13 Mimic Vat
14 Omniscience
15 Leyline of Anticipation
16 Mirror of Fate
18 Changeling Berserker
19 Rust Tick
20 Day of the Dragons
21 Flicker
22 Angel's Feather
23 Ajani's Pridemate
24 Korozda Gorgon
25 Goblin Firebug
26 Titania, Protector of Argoth
27 Plains
28 Snapcaster Mage
Does this work?
You could also possibly use flashback to cast Devastation as well, although it would be more convenient to replace Devastation with something that only used one colored mana. (couldn't find anything though)
[EDIT] Is the problem of drawing Devastation that we don't have a Grixis Battlemage on the battlefield? Can we not simply activate a Grixis Battlemage, then respond by casting Devastation?
We could use Grixis Battlemage here and leave the enter the battlefield trigger on the stack instead of the spell card. That could be a good approach.
But we would need to make sure that Flicker is the only way to get those enter the battlefield triggers. Currently there is the changeling end all the creature targting available from the Ackermann stages, and each would be able to just trigger those, essentially producing the white mana when we should not be able to. They can even just bounce/champion the Goblin Firebug.
On a minor note: Archangel of Thune can put +1/+1 counters on enchantements and artifacts that don't necesseraily get destroyed when clearing all creatures. So those can be carried up to the higher level Ackermann, which we can't allow.
Hmm, I though the problem with Grixis Battlemage + Devastation + Eye of the Storm was that we can have more than one Eye of the Storm and do something like this:
cast devastation, getting two triggers from E1 and E2.
resolve the first from E1 to get the mana back.
draw devastation again and cast it. getting triggers from E1 and E2.
resolve the one from E2 first and get mana back.
the one from E1 does nothing.
Now we can resolve the E2 trigger from our first casting to cast another copy. This gets an additional mana!
Turns out it is even easier to go infinite with this. There is nothing stopping you from redrawing Devastation in the lower stage and waiting until you are back in the higher stage to cast it again.
I.E it is not guaranteed that the I ressource is from the correct stage.
For other ways of casting a copy, there's Elite Arcanist and Mizzix's Mastery. I did not find a suitable instant to cast with Elite Arcanist.
Mizzix's Mastery is red, so we can't use the red spell trigger from Devastation. Soulscour and some white spell trigger can probably work. We use some ressource to draw and play the Mastery, create a copy of Soulscour and cast that copy to mark the transtition.
We need an artifacty way to carry our progress through the boardclear. Adding a Assembly-Worker stage at the bottom should do that. before the clear create X hasty workers and use them to recreate the Psychic Battles after.
That still leaves the problem of ensuring the ressource spent is from the correct stage, which I have no solution for at the moment. Elite Arcanist would be good for that, but since the correct stage needs to spend some ressources to get a hasty token, but there is nothing stopping us from just casting the <whatever> card from hand if we want to go infinite by spending ressources from the ackermannstage below. In that case we don't need the copy effect, as we don't care that we can't transition another time.
Combine that with Eye of the Storm to turn the instant into Devastation. We still need the blue (or other color?) mana requirement for reusing the instant. I guess moving it from graveyard to library can be the step where that is required. Mortiphobia?
Putting that together:
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Horobi, Death's Wail
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
9 Mana Crypt
10 Show and Tell
11 March of the Machines
12 Selvala's Enforcer
13 Mindshrieker
14 Mimic Vat
15 Omniscience
16 Leyline of Anticipation
17 Mirror of Fate
19 Changeling Titan
20 Auriok Bladewarden
21 Korozda Gorgon
22 Ajani's Pridemate
23 Staff of the Flame Magus
24 Devastation
25 Eye of the Storm
26 Kaho, Minamo Historian
27 Bar the Door
28 Mortiphobia
30 Titania, Protector of Argoth
Sooo, how does this go infinite? Or does everything crumble without resembling a hyperstage?
(Going with an instant that doesn't target for now, so that Kaho can't tap to target creatures. Might not hurt, but lets leave complications for later.)
Edit: So that didn't last long either: Kaho is legendary, so after the boardclear we can cast counte return him, get a dual nature token and have the original die to the legendary rule. Then we can make a hasty copy with mimic vat and return the original to the hand. All without spending any triggers that need to be on the stack under Devastation.
Changing the engine away from Dual Nature might help.
On that note: does a cheap death to legendary rule go infinite in the current normal ackermannstages deck? We are not forced to play out the Mirror Gallery. We can even bounce/champion it to have the death occur when we want. Oh damn, that seems serious.
Edit2: Yup, I'm pretty sure using Mimic Vat is not compatible with using legendaries as Ackermann stage tokens. So we lose 2 stages, assuming the rest fits together. Maybe we can stitch together the 25 stages left from the sideboard deck to fit into 60 cards. Gaaah.
For the normal Ackermann deck, perhaps we have to give up on Dual Nature. We can take that out and put Splinter Twin and Crown of the Ages back in, which I don't _think_ has the same problem; To get a Splinter Twin copy, the original must already have haste, i.e. has to be a Splinter Twin or Mimic Vat copy. Does anyone see a way to preserve the Changeling Berserker start? If not, we can always go back to the earlier 25-stage version. (which would become 26 stages for the deck with sideboard) For our last Splinter Twin version we only had a couple card slots available, but we might do better now with more recent improvements.
Can we simply make the same change for the hyperstage deck?
[EDIT] Hmm, I'm not sure. Say we have an original Legend on the battlefield, without Mirror Gallery, and we target it somehow. We destroy it, imprint it on a Mimic Vat, and create a hasted token copy. Then we bring the original back to the graveyard, bring it back with Bloodbond March, and sacrifice it again. We respond to the sacrifice by playing Mirror Gallery. Then we imprint the original and create another hasted token. So we get two tokens for one targeting. This only works if we take Mirror Gallery off the battlefield, so we can't generate more than two, but if we do it at the top of a stage, I think it enough to add one more group of alternating triggers to the stage, which would go infinite. If that is correct, this is a serious blow.
In the hyperstage deck a switch to Splinter Twin + Crown of the Ages or some other combo actually seems more promising, since Devastation clears all old tokens and creating new ones with Twin would require haste in the first place. As long as the legendary can't tap to target(bounce) itself there doesn't seem to be a problem.
The challenge then is getting the low end logistics right.
Edit: Additional challenge - due to Eye of the Storm the instant never gets to to graveyard, so Mortiphobia doesn't work for imposing a colored mana cost. Spellweaver Helix instead of Eye of the Storm would be nice, but I did not find a way to cast a sorcery through tapping yet.
A few possibilities for instants:
Fated Retribution destroys all creatures and planeswalkers, which leaves the possibility of using planeswalkers to get our mana back. Kiora, Master of the Depths could untap a land, but unfortunately it does so only at sorcery speed. The only way I know to get around that is with Teferi, Temporal Archmage, but we would need Doubling Season to get the required emblem, which is not allowed with our token creature Ackermann setup. (I don't suppose it would be easy to switch to a mana setup.)
Synthetic Destiny would exile all creatures, so we could use Dryad Arbor or an artifact land, or Nature's Revolt or Enchanted Evening to get a land creature. Mirror of Fate can bring it back to the library, so we need a way to bring it from the library to the battlefield. There are a bunch of cards that search the library for a card and puts it on the battlefield tapped, which is suboptimal; adding Amulet of Vigor would allow us to untap the same land many times. Skyward Eye Prophets would work, but it can also draw a nonland card. Perhaps Reap and Sow, if we can make sorceries cheap? Or maybe just Civic Wayfinder and Walking Atlas.
No, Walking Atlas would allow us to bounce the land and put it back on the battlefield. Could Reap and Sow work?
No, Mimic Vat makes it easy to move the card out of the graveyard.
[EDIT] Perhaps we can abandon Mimic Vat / Horobi, Death's Wail and go back to the Soul Foundry construction.
With creature lands we have the problem, that we can also destroy them just by targeting them.
Planeswalkers seem good. Oath of Gideon + Mirror Gallery can get extra loyalty. But the Kiora, Master of the Depths ultimate is problematic. As is getting the planeswalker back, actually.
Spellshift is an instant that can chain into a sorcery. So that might work in combination with Kaho, Minamo Historian and Spellweaver Helix. But we need to move both the Spellshift and the sorcery we want to cast to trigger helix from the graveyard to the library for each transition. Not sure if there is a way to get that for one colored mana, or if adding a second swamp would make problems.
Edit: Oooh, Spellweaver helix can take care of moving the trigger sorcery to the library, but not the Spellshift. Sweet.
So something like:
2 Opalescence
3 Psychic Battle
4 Cowardice
5 Horobi, Death's Wail
6 Bloodbond March
7 Cephalid Shrine
8 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
9 Mana Crypt
10 Show and Tell
11 March of the Machines
12 Selvala's Enforcer
13 Mindshrieker
14 Mimic Vat
15 Omniscience
16 Leyline of Anticipation
17 Mirror of Fate
19 Crown of the Ages
20 Auriok Bladewarden
21 Korozda Gorgon
22 Ajani's Pridemate
23 Staff of the Flame Magus
24 Devastation
25 Spellweaver Helix
26 Kaho, Minamo Historian
27 Spellshift
28 Appetite for Brains
29 Appetite for Brains
30 Mortiphobia
32 Titania, Protector of Argoth
[EDIT] No, we need one of the Appetite for Brains to be imprinted onto Spellweaver Helix, so if we counter the other it won't be in the library when we need it to be. So maybe add a third Appetite for Brains?
[EDIT 2] Hmm, if we are using Spellweaver Helix to get Appetite for Brains out of the graveyard, then we have to remove two at a time, so even three Appetite for Brains doesn't seem to work out. So, four Appetite for Brains?
Replace the Mirror of Fate with a Riftsweeper, as we can't profitably create Mirror tokens to sacrifice with Splinter Twin. The rest of the cards should work out. Having the lowest layer targeting all creatures makes it easy to bounce everything we need to reuse.
We also need some indestructible creature that can carry the Splinter Twin when Devastation resolves. Creepy Doll.
I don't see anything else wrong with the combo a the moment.
Adding a Consecrated Sphinx combines with Selvala's Enforcer to get a finite amount of card draw. Card draw can be converted into black mana by drawing and casting Devastation or the sorcery that triggers it.
A Channel can provide starting mana to bounce the Enforcer with Korozda Gorgon and it's own counter. We can quickly start producing Sphinx tokens. So a start is possible (An Island can provide the first blue mana. In fact fill the deck up with Island as not-going-infinite dummy cards), as well as repeatedly creating a ever bigger batch of black mana when the opponent draws a card.
That puts us to very roughly f_{\omega^2+1}(X) in the Wainer hierarchy, with X the number of cards in the opponents Library after setup. X should be at least 30.
Of course with 24 dummy cards there is some room for improvement. But for now I think we have a working Hyperstage deck
Lets go over everything again and make sure we are not missing something. It's too good to be true. ^^
EDIT: Using the opponents cards in library as a limiter doesn't work out in the deck that I outlined above. The opponent can put a land on the battlefield with Show and Tell, we can destroy that land with Devastation, exile it with Mortiphobia and put it back into the library with Riftsweeper.
But carddraw and that limit is useful, and we have a lot of room in the deck, so I'd suggest leaving out Riftsweeper and going back to Mirror of Fate, with a Mirrorworks to provide expendable tokens.
If so, we could switch Show and Tell to Chaos Warp instead of switching Riftsweeper for Mirror of Fate. That doesn't save a card, since we need to add two sorceries to trigger Spellweaver Helix, but Chaos Warp might get the deck started faster, and also Riftsweeper seems more convenient than Mirror of Fate.