Hmmm... that's problematic. I'm only aware of Rings of Brighthearth, Illusionist's Bracers, and Onakke, Kurkesh Ancient as ways to get copies of our activated abilities in a limited fashion. Onakke can't copy Storm Front's ability (We can't make arbitrary creatures into artifacts because of Stern Proctor bouncing them, and I don't know anything that turns just enchantments into artifacts), whereas RoB and IB allow Urborg to get too many copies of its activated ability. So I'm not quite sure how to make Urborg work.
Edit: Oh, I think we can use Winter Blast instead of Storm Front. Then, we just have to make sure that we don't use any flying creatures. That actually saves a couple of cards.
Hmm... perhaps Soul Separator can be replaced, but yeah maybe Surrakar Banisher is a problem with Urborg as well. It does look like Storm Front is not going to work with Urborg, so we're having trouble getting a green stage to work with Urborg.
Perhaps we could consider switching from a red mana hyperstage to a green one? For a while I thought that we need the hyperstage to be red, because we needed red to cast [c}Recoup[/c]. But, since we can put Recoup underneath a Spellweaver Helix, we can cast Recoup for green mana using a green mana hyperstage. So then we would need a red additional stage.
I took a look at Stakfish's red stage using Axgard Armory:
Yeah exactly, we can just use a green creature to avoid the looping problem.
Edit: A possible alternative to Draconian Cylix and Urborg, Syphon-Mage is Pestilent Cauldron. It doesn't require as many support cards as Draconian Cylix, and doesn't have the black mana cost of Urborg, so it has some advantages. But, it has an ability that draws cards relatively easily, so we have to replace the drawing of Black Lotus with something less efficient.
Hmm I guess Restorative burst is actually safe because we can't get the front side out of the yard?
Unfortunately need to cut doubling season to only make one pest at a time, but if we need a second artifact creature anyway Academy Manufactor at least saves treasures.
Yeah, it seems like Restorative Burst is something that we could cast once, and then never again. I had a thought that it would be nice to cast it once for a little bump, but then we won't have access to Pestilent Cauldron either.
I think the Recoup + BR sorcery plan with 2 lands for the hyperstage goes infinite. We get back 2 red mana from a transition with Worldfire, but we don't need to spend a red mana on casting recoup every time. A single cast of that can put a bunch of Thousand-Year Storm triggers on the stack. Then we can resolve one of those to give the BR sorcery flashback, go through a transition, paying 1 red, but gaining 2. Before we get back to the TYS-recoup layer we can put the sorcery back into the graveyard and use the next trigger to give it flashback again. Red mana is the hyperstage-ressource here, so gaining 1 of that per TYS trigger breaks things.
@Iijil: Great to see you posting again! Yeah, that's unfortunate about the double red mana plan.
@FortyTwo: The problem with going with one red mana is that we either have to spend a red mana to cast the initial Recoup, or we have to cast in during the next lower hyperstage transition. The problem with the latter is that we will only get a layer worth of Recoup copies from the cast, rather than the stage's worth that we need.
It seems like the only way to get enough power from the Recoup cast is to cast it from under Spellweaver Helix in the same hyperstage transition. But, I don't know how to get past the board sweep from Worldfire.
The best fix seems to be going back to Flash of Defiance. Increasing our life gain will cost us another card, but we save a card by needing just one land. So it seems to be the same number of cards required, and we can stay at 5 layers.
Edit: We can do a little better by using The Kami War to retrieve our Black Lotus, and using Contentious Plan to proliferate our The Kami Wars, but we need to be able to draw to do so. Thus:
Death Pit Offering is unsafe, since it is a toughness boost for animated Goblin Boom Keg, so with the right setup and damage marked we can start a computation by bouncing it and without clearing our board. Does Desolation Giant work for starting the computation in these latest versions?
Adding a second artifact creature to gain more life out of the transition goes infinite in the life stage, where starting the bounce operation still costs only 2 life. I'm also unsure if it works correctly with the transitions. During stage operations it would gain on average 1 life because we can weave it in every second time. But when we recover from a transition we kinda need 1 additional life every time if we don't want to get stuck, right? I was thinking that a lifegain land might work, but timing seems complicated. And I'm not really motivated enough to think that through completely right now.
A way for the stage to work with multiples of 3 life would be cool. Alternatively Hungry for More seemed like a great solution to the problem with the stage/transition cost mismatch and it might be worth it to construct the deck without additional combats and ways to deal X damage after combat, just to be allowed to use it despite the haste.
Yeah, I think Desolation Giant is safe? I think the idea behind an infinite is that we would have a Dsesolation Giant alive on our side, and cast [c}Arcbond[/c] on it. But, if we do so then we will die after a finite number of steps from the Arcbond damage. So it should be okay.
Ah, the first deck I posted had Moan from the Unhallowed to properly make it cost 4 life, but I forgot to replace it in the second deck. So yeah, the correct flashback sorcery to use is Moan from the Unhallowed.
In order to gain 4 life from the flashback sorcery cast, we can either use 2 artifact creatures of the same kind, or 3 different artifact creatures. So if we need a second artifact creature like Academy Manufactor, we can add a third different artifact creature, otherwise it is more efficient to add a second Aegis Automaton.
Working out how to use a lifegain land could be profitable if our current strategies don't work. Currently, it doesn't seem to quite work with our plan of not having Thousand-Year Storm around for the hyperstage transition, since it means that Worldfire and Recoup will be cast during the resolution of a Spellweaver Helix, so there's no way to put a Pull from Eternity in between. One simple fix would be to replace Restore with a green creature that brings a land or lands back to the battlefield upon ETB, but of course that moots green, so we would either need to switch to a green hyperstage, or be satisfied with two additional stages. I still want to go for three additional stages as long as there seems to be a reasonable possibility to do so.
Otherwise, we could try to do something to switch out the timing. Having Thousand-Year Storm on the battlefield during a hyperstage transition seems to kill our combo - Iijil mentioned being able to cast all the cards we bring back to our hand and have them on the stack during the transition, but I don't think that works for the hyperstage in general. Perhaps we could replace Thousand-Year Storm with Swarm Intelligence? Then we could counter the original Worldfire, and have a single Worldfire copy from a Swarm Intelligence be resolved. This allows us to put Pull from Eternity in between Worldfire and Restore, so things should work. Perhaps even better would be a replacement for Cephalid Shrine that allows us to counter copies of spells, rather than just spells that are cast. Not sure of a counterspell that would be cheap enough though. Forbid definitely seems too expensive.
Edit: Aw shoot, it does seem like there is another problem. Pestilent Cauldron can be given to the opponent, where it can potentially halt a nonhalting computation. I don't see any obvious fix for this. Could there be a way to make it so that we could only get started with a card that empties both hands? I don't know a good card for that.
The same problem seems to exist for Draconian Cylix as well. At least here we could fix it by depriving the opponent of mana. But, for that we need to get rid of Show and Tell and Mana Echoes. Show and Tell is probably replaceable, but it will cost a few cards. I wonder what the best replacement is for Mana Echoes - perhaps Mana Crypt? That should certainly work once we get a few Panharmonicons on the battlefield, but it could make the start really tricky.
I guess we're still looking for a really good setup for discard-for-life. A direct discard for life wouldn't necessarily disturb the computation, but Draconian Cylix and Pestilent Cauldron work in roundabout ways that make them unsafe. Urborg Syphon-Mage seems okay thanks to the black mana cost in the activation, but I don't see how to make a third additional stage work yet. Perhaps a look at Nihilistic Glee again is in order?
Edit: Oh, I guess we don't want to be able to shuffle in Black Lotus too cheaply, because we can put it back onto the battlefield with Genesis Wave. Switching over to Nyx Lotus and Tolarian Kraken, we have:
Hmm, I think we don't need Copy Enchantment. We can increase our number of enchantments by alternating between bouncing and replaying Panharmonicon, and then bouncing Dual Nature, and replaying it after we've resolved the "exile all Dual Natures" trigger but before we've resolved all the "exile all tokens created by Dual Nature" triggers. So we should still be able to build up our resources with this.
The other issue is Spellweaver Volute; without Copy Enchantment we will only have one of them available. But, I think this is fine. Normally we will just trigger the casting of Pull from Eternity, to bring whatever we need from the exile to the graveyard. When we want to do a computation, we cast Lingering Souls to trigger the casting of Pull from Eternity, creating a whole bunch of TYS triggers. We can then use these triggers to be able to cast Lingering Souls and trigger the other instants. So it seems like we are fine with just one Spelllweaver Volute?
If so, we have one more card to play around with. This gives us the potential for 5 layers. But, right now I don't see how to get it. The best I see at the moment is to add Floating-Dream Zubera to get X back up to 54. So we have:
I think we needed more spellweaver volutes? (and so we can have animated enchantments with opalescence in hand)
each computation needs a whole cycle of instants, so we'd only get one computation per lingering souls.
Every computation we need to kill off our own march of the machines to the giant trigger and not kill the opponent's Dralnu's Crusades to arcbond. Possibly switching to Starfield of Nyx so we can just leave it in play during computation? Though I think there might have been another problem with starfield?
I'm still not sure its enough computation... Though if one computation per sorcery is truly enough, there has got to be a smaller computational setup. It's currently optimized to only require a constant number of Spellweaver Volute triggers.
Ah okay, I wasn't aware of the need to kill off our enchantments without killing off the opponent's. But yeah, it looks like having Starfield of Nyx fixes that problem. I don't recall an issue with Starfield of Nyx, I remember switching to Opalescence simply because it's easier if there's no reason not to use it.
I would certainly be interested in finding a smaller computational setup!
Even one computation per top-level hyperstage should be fine - we're only actually profiting from them when gravitic punch resolves anyway. So one computation per N sorceries for some N should also be fine.
Hmm, so we are just effectively losing a layer of computations, yeah it looks like the black stage gets a little tricky with less room for setup, but still should be possible, pull from eternity does good work.
Something I should have noticed earlier: Desolation Giant is not compatible with draconian cylix as it can save us a necromancer to ruin computation with. Since Death Pit offering isn't actually safe, we are down to just ... I guess Hellion Eruption? as a self wipe. Which is not very nice to use at all.
Ah, good catch. I think Hellion Eruption should still be doable, we just move everything down a stage. So Hellion gets cast in the topmost hyperstage transition, and then second stage from the top is where we cast our Arcbond and Artificial Evolution. I think it should work?
Another option is Kaervek's Spite. We do have to make someone lose 5 life, but that can be ourselves after the topmost hyperstage transition. Since this does not cost us a stage, perhaps this is better. Kaervek's Spite seems to have the advantage that we don't have to worry about casting instants from our hand during the computation, since we discard our hand. So, bringing instants back to our hand or shuffling them back into the library seems to be okay again. I don't immediately see a use for this, but there definitely could be some, since it's a pretty big advantage.
Edit: Oh no, we have Wormfang Behemoth to protect ourselves from losing our hand to Worldfire, but then Wormfang Behemoth also prevents this advantage for Kaervek's Spite, heh.
Also welcome newcomers, you probably have a lot of questions.
Edit: Oh, I think we can use Winter Blast instead of Storm Front. Then, we just have to make sure that we don't use any flying creatures. That actually saves a couple of cards.
So:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Death Pit Offering
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Echoes
23 Urborg Syphon-Mage
24 Thousand-Year Elixir
25 Alhammarret's Archive
26 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
27 Lingering Souls
R Transition
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Worldfire
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Recoup
34 Restore
35 Environmental Sciences
36 Blood Moon
37 Academy Ruins
38 Panharmonicon
39 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
40 Distorting Wake
41 Chrome Mox
G stage
42 Surrakar Banisher
43 Winter Blast
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Guardian of the Guildpact
46 Aegis Automaton
47 Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient
48 Harmonic Prodigy
Initial setup
49 Black Lotus
50 Show and Tell
51 Omniscience
52 Floating-Dream Zubera
53 Marchesa Smuggler
Layers
54 Blue Sun's Zenith
55 Angelheart Vial
56 Justice
57 Brallin, Skyshark Rider
58 Pain Magnification
59 Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Misc utility
60 Doubling Season
That gets us to BB_{w^2 + w3 + 7} (BB_{w^2 + w3 + 7} (BB_{w^2 + w3 + 3} (X))) damage.
And I think Surrakar Banisher can go infinite with Urborg Syphon-Mage and chrome mox?
Perhaps we could consider switching from a red mana hyperstage to a green one? For a while I thought that we need the hyperstage to be red, because we needed red to cast [c}Recoup[/c]. But, since we can put Recoup underneath a Spellweaver Helix, we can cast Recoup for green mana using a green mana hyperstage. So then we would need a red additional stage.
I took a look at Stakfish's red stage using Axgard Armory:
Break through the Line
Primal Beyond
Guardian Zendikon
Axgard Armory
Tinder Farm
Viridian Harvest
but I'm not clear on how it works. How do we get our Auras in the library to fetch with Axgard Armory? But perhaps there are some useful ideas here.
But yeah, it seems we have a choice on whether we want to use red or green for the third additional stage.
Though I guess it does open us up to use like molderhulk instead of restore, and avoid the problem that way.
Edit: A possible alternative to Draconian Cylix and Urborg, Syphon-Mage is Pestilent Cauldron. It doesn't require as many support cards as Draconian Cylix, and doesn't have the black mana cost of Urborg, so it has some advantages. But, it has an ability that draws cards relatively easily, so we have to replace the drawing of Black Lotus with something less efficient.
So, a possibility is:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Death Pit Offering
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Echoes
23 Pestilent Cauldron
24 Aegis Automaton
25 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
26 Lingering Souls
R Transition
27 Spellweaver Helix
28 Worldfire
29 Gravitic Punch
30 Thought Hemorrhage
31 Thought Hemorrhage
32 Recoup
33 Restore
34 Blood Moon
35 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
36 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Distorting Wake
40 Chrome Mox
G stage
41 Thousand Winds
42 Storm Front
43 Shiv's Embrace
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Guardian of the Guildpact
47 Aegis Automaton
48 Illusionist's Bracers
49 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
50 Black Lotus
51 Show and Tell
52 Omniscience
53 Floating-Dream Zubera
Layers
54 Pirate's Prize
55 Widespread Panic
56 Renegade Map
57 Awakening
58 Sphinx of the Second Sun
59 World at War
Misc utility
60 Doubling Season
getting BB_{w^2 + w3 + 5} (X), where X is how much we can generate before starting the additional beginning phases.
Unfortunately need to cut doubling season to only make one pest at a time, but if we need a second artifact creature anyway Academy Manufactor at least saves treasures.
Good call about Academy Manufactor! That saves the 5 layers.
@FortyTwo: The problem with going with one red mana is that we either have to spend a red mana to cast the initial Recoup, or we have to cast in during the next lower hyperstage transition. The problem with the latter is that we will only get a layer worth of Recoup copies from the cast, rather than the stage's worth that we need.
It seems like the only way to get enough power from the Recoup cast is to cast it from under Spellweaver Helix in the same hyperstage transition. But, I don't know how to get past the board sweep from Worldfire.
The best fix seems to be going back to Flash of Defiance. Increasing our life gain will cost us another card, but we save a card by needing just one land. So it seems to be the same number of cards required, and we can stay at 5 layers.
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Death Pit Offering
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Echoes
23 Pestilent Cauldron
24 your favorite artifact creature
25 Alhammarret's Archive
26 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
27 Moan of the Unhallowed
R Transition
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Worldfire
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Recoup
34 Restore
35 Blood Moon
36 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Distorting Wake
40 Chrome Mox
G stage
41 Thousand Winds
42 Storm Front
43 Shiv's Embrace
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Guardian of the Guildpact
47 Aegis Automaton
48 Illusionist's Bracers
49 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
50 Black Lotus
51 Show and Tell
52 Omniscience
53 Floating-Dream Zubera
Layers
54 Pirate's Prize
55 Widespread Panic
56 Renegade Map
57 Awakening
58 Sphinx of the Second Sun
59 World at War
Misc utility
60 Academy Manufactor
Edit: We can do a little better by using The Kami War to retrieve our Black Lotus, and using Contentious Plan to proliferate our The Kami Wars, but we need to be able to draw to do so. Thus:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Death Pit Offering
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Echoes
23 Pestilent Cauldron
24 Aegis Automaton
25 Alhammarret's Archive
26 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
27 Lingering Souls
R Transition
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Worldfire
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Recoup
34 Restore
35 Blood Moon
36 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Distorting Wake
40 Chrome Mox
G stage
41 Thousand Winds
42 Storm Front
43 Shiv's Embrace
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Guardian of the Guildpact
47 Aegis Automaton
48 Illusionist's Bracers
49 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
50 Black Lotus
51 Show and Tell
52 Omniscience
53 Floating-Dream Zubera
Layers
54 The Kami War
55 Contentious Plan
56 Widesread Panic
57 Renegade Map
58 Awakening
59 Sphinx of the Second Sun
60 World at War
hopefully getting us to BB_{w^2 + w3 + 6} (X), where X is how much we can generate before the additional upkeeps.
Adding a second artifact creature to gain more life out of the transition goes infinite in the life stage, where starting the bounce operation still costs only 2 life. I'm also unsure if it works correctly with the transitions. During stage operations it would gain on average 1 life because we can weave it in every second time. But when we recover from a transition we kinda need 1 additional life every time if we don't want to get stuck, right? I was thinking that a lifegain land might work, but timing seems complicated. And I'm not really motivated enough to think that through completely right now.
A way for the stage to work with multiples of 3 life would be cool. Alternatively Hungry for More seemed like a great solution to the problem with the stage/transition cost mismatch and it might be worth it to construct the deck without additional combats and ways to deal X damage after combat, just to be allowed to use it despite the haste.
Ah, the first deck I posted had Moan from the Unhallowed to properly make it cost 4 life, but I forgot to replace it in the second deck. So yeah, the correct flashback sorcery to use is Moan from the Unhallowed.
In order to gain 4 life from the flashback sorcery cast, we can either use 2 artifact creatures of the same kind, or 3 different artifact creatures. So if we need a second artifact creature like Academy Manufactor, we can add a third different artifact creature, otherwise it is more efficient to add a second Aegis Automaton.
Working out how to use a lifegain land could be profitable if our current strategies don't work. Currently, it doesn't seem to quite work with our plan of not having Thousand-Year Storm around for the hyperstage transition, since it means that Worldfire and Recoup will be cast during the resolution of a Spellweaver Helix, so there's no way to put a Pull from Eternity in between. One simple fix would be to replace Restore with a green creature that brings a land or lands back to the battlefield upon ETB, but of course that moots green, so we would either need to switch to a green hyperstage, or be satisfied with two additional stages. I still want to go for three additional stages as long as there seems to be a reasonable possibility to do so.
Otherwise, we could try to do something to switch out the timing. Having Thousand-Year Storm on the battlefield during a hyperstage transition seems to kill our combo - Iijil mentioned being able to cast all the cards we bring back to our hand and have them on the stack during the transition, but I don't think that works for the hyperstage in general. Perhaps we could replace Thousand-Year Storm with Swarm Intelligence? Then we could counter the original Worldfire, and have a single Worldfire copy from a Swarm Intelligence be resolved. This allows us to put Pull from Eternity in between Worldfire and Restore, so things should work. Perhaps even better would be a replacement for Cephalid Shrine that allows us to counter copies of spells, rather than just spells that are cast. Not sure of a counterspell that would be cheap enough though. Forbid definitely seems too expensive.
Hungry for More is another option that we could look into if we need it, but right now it seems like the only things we need to change are Lingering Souls -> Moan of the Unhallowed, and Death Pit Offering -> Desolation Giant? Are there any other problems?
Edit: Aw shoot, it does seem like there is another problem. Pestilent Cauldron can be given to the opponent, where it can potentially halt a nonhalting computation. I don't see any obvious fix for this. Could there be a way to make it so that we could only get started with a card that empties both hands? I don't know a good card for that.
The same problem seems to exist for Draconian Cylix as well. At least here we could fix it by depriving the opponent of mana. But, for that we need to get rid of Show and Tell and Mana Echoes. Show and Tell is probably replaceable, but it will cost a few cards. I wonder what the best replacement is for Mana Echoes - perhaps Mana Crypt? That should certainly work once we get a few Panharmonicons on the battlefield, but it could make the start really tricky.
I guess we're still looking for a really good setup for discard-for-life. A direct discard for life wouldn't necessarily disturb the computation, but Draconian Cylix and Pestilent Cauldron work in roundabout ways that make them unsafe. Urborg Syphon-Mage seems okay thanks to the black mana cost in the activation, but I don't see how to make a third additional stage work yet. Perhaps a look at Nihilistic Glee again is in order?
Edit: Okay, here's an attempt to fix the Draconian Cylix version, with Mana Crypt instead of Mana Echoes, and getting started with Sands of Delirium and Replenish.
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Death Pit Offering
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Crypt
23 Draconian Cylix
24 Vampire Envoy
25 Aegis Automaton
26 Bala Ged Scorpion
27 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
28 Lingering Souls
R Transition
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Worldfire
31 Gravitic Punch
32 Hungry for More
33 Hungry for More
34 Restore
35 Blood Moon
36 Academy Ruins
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Stolen By the Fae
40 Recoup
41 Chrome Mox
G stage
42 Thousand Winds
43 Storm Front
44 Shiv's Embrace
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Karoo Meerkat
47 Guardian of the Guildpact
48 Aegis Automaton
49 Illusionist's bracers
50 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
51 Black Lotus
52 Channel
53 Sands of Dilerium
54 Lotus Petal
55 Replenish
56 Omniscience
57 Floating-Dream Zubera
Layers
58 Blue Sun's Zenith
59 Sphinx of the Second Sun
Misc Utility
60 Doubling Season
So if this works, it would deal [c]BB_{w^2 + w3 + 3} (BB_{w^2 + w3 + 3} (X)) damage, where X is almost 60.
Edit: A small improvement using Channel / Genesis Wave:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Desolation Giant
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Crypt
23 Draconian Cylix
24 Vampire Envoy
25 Aegis Automaton
26 Bala Ged Scorpion
27 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
28 Lingering Souls
R Transition
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Worldfire
31 Gravitic Punch
32 Hungry for More
33 Hungry for More
34 Restore
35 Blood Moon
36 Academy Ruins
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Stolen By the Fae
40 Recoup
41 Chrome Mox
G stage
42 Thousand Winds
43 Storm Front
44 Shiv's Embrace
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Karoo Meerkat
47 Guardian of the Guildpact
48 Aegis Automaton
49 Illusionist's bracers
50 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
51 Black Lotus
52 Lotus Petal
53 Channel
54 Genesis Wave
55 Omniscience
56 Floating-Dream Zubera
Layers
57 Blue Sun's Zenith
58 Consecrated Sphinx
59 Enlightened Sphinx
Misc Utility
60 Doubling Season
for BB_{w^2 + w3 + 4} (54) damage roughly.
Edit: Oh, I guess we don't want to be able to shuffle in Black Lotus too cheaply, because we can put it back onto the battlefield with Genesis Wave. Switching over to Nyx Lotus and Tolarian Kraken, we have:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Desolation Giant
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
16 Thousand-Year Storm
17 Spellweaver Volute
18 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
19 Bloodbond March
20 Cephalid Shrine
21 Soul Separator
22 Mana Crypt
23 Draconian Cylix
24 Vampire Envoy
25 Aegis Automaton
26 Bala Ged Scorpion
27 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
28 Lingering Souls
R Transition
29 Spellweaver Helix
30 Worldfire
31 Gravitic Punch
32 Hungry for More
33 Hungry for More
34 Restore
35 Blood Moon
36 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
37 Panharmonicon
38 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
39 Stolen By the Fae
40 Recoup
41 Chrome Mox
G stage
42 Thousand Winds
43 Storm Front
44 Shiv's Embrace
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Karoo Meerkat
47 Guardian of the Guildpact
48 Aegis Automaton
49 Illusionist's bracers
50 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
51 Black Lotus
52 Lotus Petal
53 Channel
54 Genesis Wave
55 Omniscience
Layers
56 Nyx Lotus
57 Tolarian Kraken
58 Blue Sun's Zenith
59 Consecrated Sphinx
60 Enlightened Sphinx
for BB_{w^2 + w3 + 4} (X), where X is about 50.
Pros:
More cards
More played?
Cons:
Arena Exclusive.
Patches could break things.
Less time with all of the cards.
Doesn't match up with previous decks.
The other issue is Spellweaver Volute; without Copy Enchantment we will only have one of them available. But, I think this is fine. Normally we will just trigger the casting of Pull from Eternity, to bring whatever we need from the exile to the graveyard. When we want to do a computation, we cast Lingering Souls to trigger the casting of Pull from Eternity, creating a whole bunch of TYS triggers. We can then use these triggers to be able to cast Lingering Souls and trigger the other instants. So it seems like we are fine with just one Spelllweaver Volute?
If so, we have one more card to play around with. This gives us the potential for 5 layers. But, right now I don't see how to get it. The best I see at the moment is to add Floating-Dream Zubera to get X back up to 54. So we have:
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Opalescence
8 Wrong Turn
9 Desolation Giant
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
15 Thousand-Year Storm
16 Spellweaver Volute
17 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
18 Bloodbond March
19 Cephalid Shrine
20 Soul Separator
21 Mana Crypt
22 Draconian Cylix
23 Vampire Envoy
24 Aegis Automaton
25 Bala Ged Scorpion
26 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
27 Lingering Souls
R Transition
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Worldfire
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Hungry for More
32 Hungry for More
33 Restore
34 Blood Moon
35 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
36 Panharmonicon
37 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
38 Stolen By the Fae
39 Recoup
40 Chrome Mox
G stage
41 Thousand Winds
42 Storm Front
43 Shiv's Embrace
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Guardian of the Guildpact
47 Aegis Automaton
48 Illusionist's bracers
49 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
50 Black Lotus
51 Lotus Petal
52 Channel
53 Genesis Wave
54 Omniscience
Layers
55 Nyx Lotus
56 Tolarian Kraken
57 Blue Sun's Zenith
58 Consecrated Sphinx
59 Enlightened Sphinx
60 Floating-Dream Zubera
each computation needs a whole cycle of instants, so we'd only get one computation per lingering souls.
If we do need Opalescence in hand and animated enchantments simultaneously that is a problem, but when do we need it?
I'm still not sure its enough computation... Though if one computation per sorcery is truly enough, there has got to be a smaller computational setup. It's currently optimized to only require a constant number of Spellweaver Volute triggers.
I would certainly be interested in finding a smaller computational setup!
1 Coat of Arms
2 Xathrid Necromancer
3 Artificial Evolution
4 Arcbond
5 Comeuppance
6 Dralnu's Crusade
Starting a Computation
7 Starfield of Nyx
8 Wrong Turn
9 Desolation Giant
10 Goblin Boom Keg
11 March of the Machines
Utility: Enchantments/Artifacts
12 Vedalken Orrery
13 Dual Nature
14 Stern Proctor
Utility: Spells
15 Thousand-Year Storm
16 Spellweaver Volute
17 Pull from Eternity
Utility: Creatures
18 Bloodbond March
19 Cephalid Shrine
20 Soul Separator
21 Mana Crypt
22 Draconian Cylix
23 Vampire Envoy
24 Aegis Automaton
25 Bala Ged Scorpion
26 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
27 Lingering Souls
R Transition
28 Spellweaver Helix
29 Worldfire
30 Gravitic Punch
31 Hungry for More
32 Hungry for More
33 Restore
34 Blood Moon
35 Crucible of the Spirit Dragon
36 Panharmonicon
37 Wormfang Behemoth
U stage
38 Stolen By the Fae
39 Recoup
40 Chrome Mox
G stage
41 Thousand Winds
42 Storm Front
43 Shiv's Embrace
44 Karoo Meerkat
45 Karoo Meerkat
46 Guardian of the Guildpact
47 Aegis Automaton
48 Illusionist's bracers
49 Magnetic Theft
Initial setup
50 Black Lotus
51 Lotus Petal
52 Channel
53 Genesis Wave
54 Omniscience
Layers
55 Nyx Lotus
56 Tolarian Kraken
57 Blue Sun's Zenith
58 Night Dealings
59 Whispering Snitch
Misc Utility
60 Watcher in the Mist
Should get us up to BB_{w^2 + w3 + 4} (X) damage, where X is how much we can generate before having to use surveil.
Something I should have noticed earlier: Desolation Giant is not compatible with draconian cylix as it can save us a necromancer to ruin computation with. Since Death Pit offering isn't actually safe, we are down to just ... I guess Hellion Eruption? as a self wipe. Which is not very nice to use at all.
Another option is Kaervek's Spite. We do have to make someone lose 5 life, but that can be ourselves after the topmost hyperstage transition. Since this does not cost us a stage, perhaps this is better. Kaervek's Spite seems to have the advantage that we don't have to worry about casting instants from our hand during the computation, since we discard our hand. So, bringing instants back to our hand or shuffling them back into the library seems to be okay again. I don't immediately see a use for this, but there definitely could be some, since it's a pretty big advantage.
Edit: Oh no, we have Wormfang Behemoth to protect ourselves from losing our hand to Worldfire, but then Wormfang Behemoth also prevents this advantage for Kaervek's Spite, heh.