It is the case, but even if it wasn't, you could work around those semantics by virtue of the fact that you have multiple copies of Cinder Pyromancer and they all cost only a tap. So activate Alchemist, copy the ability, let the copy resolve, tap a Pyromancer without using Rings, let the original ability resolve, and tap another Pyromancer without using Rings. Still 2 life.
Yeah, I had that "dudoi, [facepalm]" moment while driving to family things. "Just target two different pyromancers, dummy." That can be fixed though. I haven't had too much chance to think of the best solution to that problem. I was thinking of finding a way to switch Rings to Kurkesh and make only what I want artifacts, but the easiest way is to jump into my as of yet unused lands category. Quick search of lands that hurt me, I've got tapping a Cabal Pit which is a mana ability so it can't be copied with Rings of Brighthearth, then stick a Ghostly Flicker in Eye of the Storm to untap the shrine each cycle. And then the only way to gain the second life is to copy the Alchemist ability, activate the Shrine, prevent the damage with the ability copy, then cast a spell to get a Ghostly Flicker before the original Alchemist ability resolves so that it can choose the Shrine after it reenters, but to cast a spell from hand again requires another 1 life paid to draw the card, so I end up not gaining an extra life anyway, and can only do that net free cast of Hinder while I have recurring Sphinx to cycle...
Even if that doesn't work, I'm very confident there is a solution that makes it so that no matter what I do, that Alchemist can only prevent 1 damage to me without paying a life to get there at all. So the real question is, does the rest of that thing I made seem to work out correctly? And if so, did I correctly assess the numbers?
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Yeah, I had that "dudoi, [facepalm]" moment while driving to family things. "Just target two different pyromancers, dummy." That can be fixed though. I haven't had too much chance to think of the best solution to that problem. I was thinking of finding a way to switch Rings to Kurkesh and make only what I want artifacts, but the easiest way is to jump into my as of yet unused lands category. Quick search of lands that hurt me, I've got tapping a Cabal Pit which is a mana ability so it can't be copied with Rings of Brighthearth, then stick a Ghostly Flicker in Eye of the Storm to untap the shrine each cycle. And then the only way to gain the second life is to copy the Alchemist ability, activate the Shrine, prevent the damage with the ability copy, then cast a spell to get a Ghostly Flicker before the original Alchemist ability resolves so that it can choose the Shrine after it reenters, but to cast a spell from hand again requires another 1 life paid to draw the card, so I end up not gaining an extra life anyway, and can only do that net free cast of Hinder while I have recurring Sphinx to cycle...
Hmm, that would be true of Cascade only triggered from your hand, but I see no such proviso. So, when you cast Enigma Sphinx, you get a gazillion triggers of Possibility Storm, each of which casts Enighma Sphinx and triggers Cascade, which allows Hinder to be cast and therefore Ghostly Flicker, recycling Cabal Pit.
This may still be okay under your interpretation of the prevent damage rules, since then you would need to respond to each Alchemist's ability copy with a tapping of Cabal Pit, and all the Possibility Storm triggers go on the stack at the same time as the original Cascade trigger. But under SadisticMystic's interpretation, we can tap Cabal Pit any time after resolving the Alchemist ability, so this certainly goes infinite.
Even if that doesn't work, I'm very confident there is a solution that makes it so that no matter what I do, that Alchemist can only prevent 1 damage to me without paying a life to get there at all. So the real question is, does the rest of that thing I made seem to work out correctly? And if so, did I correctly assess the numbers?
This is a little different from my combo, in that I had 1 group of triggers from the casting the card and 3 groups of triggers from the recycle ability, so there is a split. In your combo, both groups of triggers come from casting the card and none from recycling the card, but I see no reason why this should stop the combo. So yes, it looks like this should go Ackermann, (I count 6 layers at the bottom and 2X-1 layers in the stack for 2X+5 layers total rather than 2X+8, but big hairy deal) so long as we make sure there are no infinites.
Switching Rings with Kurkesh is certainly a possibility, if you can select the right cards to be artifacts or nonartifacts.
This may still be okay under your interpretation of the prevent damage rules, since then you would need to respond to each Alchemist's ability copy with a tapping of Cabal Pit, and all the Possibility Storm triggers go on the stack at the same time as the original Cascade trigger. But under SadisticMystic's interpretation, we can tap Cabal Pit any time after resolving the Alchemist ability, so this certainly goes infinite.
Btw, you were right about multiple instances of damage prevention.
Hmm, that would be true of Cascade only triggered from your hand, but I see no such proviso. So, when you cast Enigma Sphinx, you get a gazillion triggers of Possibility Storm, each of which casts Enighma Sphinx and triggers Cascade, which allows Hinder to be cast and therefore Ghostly Flicker, recycling Cabal Pit.
Anyway, I was playing Ghostly Flicker quite deliberately as my untap mechanism to try and play around that ruling because it doesn't untap the permanent, it exiles it and brings it back. You choose the source of damage to prevent when you resolve the prevention ability. So if you double the Cho-Allim Alchemist ability and choose Cabal Pit both times, you'll prevent one damage from it tapping, then exile it with Ghostly Flicker, and when it comes back ready to deal a second damage, it isn't the same permanent you chose with the ability anymore so the damage won't be prevented.
Unfortunately, it still doesn't work anyway; I'm getting squeezed into an even narrower rules situation because the choice is made on resolution of the ability, not activation. It is still possible (in response to a placeholder Storm Crow casting) to cast Enigma Sphinx, stack it Bloodbond March under Cascade under Possibility Storm, Possibility Storm out the Sphinx, cascade into Hinder, put both back in the deck with Bloodbond March triggers on the stack, pay 2 and 1 life to draw both, discard the sphinx to the alchemist, pay 2 to copy the alchemist, choose the Pit with the copy of the ability, respond to the original alchemist ability by tapping Cabal Pit, gain 1 life, then respond again by casting Hinder from hand targeting Storm Crow, copying Hinder to Hinder itself, getting a ghostly flicker from the Eye, flicker the pit, then when it gets back to the alchemist ability, choose the newly entered Cabal Pit, activate the pit to gain 1 life, then Bloodbond March resurrects the sphinx, sac the sphinx to get it back into the library, pay 1 life and 2 to redraw both. At this point we have no net change in life, a layer of triggers made, and a tapped Cabal Pit. So we cast the Sphinx from hand and Hinder it to make the next layer, which plays Ghostly Flicker and flickers the pit, and from there the perfect loop of casting spells can be repeated.
So we still need to cut off the ability of Cho-Arrim Alchemist to double. So we replace Rings of Brighthearth with Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient and we add a single copy of Silverskin Armor. We can only equip at sorcery speed, so we can only loop if it involves copying the ability of only one creature that isn't natively an artifact. If we equip the Alchemist, we can prevent 2 damage, gain 2 life, and then have to pay 2 life to draw the cards back anyway so that we don't even get the intended stacked layers. If we equip Yawgmoth's Bargain, we can only ever prevent one damage with Cho-Arrim Alchemist, so the combo works as intended. If we equip Harabaz Druid, we go really obviously infinite with Voltaic Construct, so we're going to have to cut Voltaic Construct. We lose 3 layers off the total with that exchange, but it's certainly acceptable loss to preserve the other 40 million billion.
Side note, with this change, if it becomes less interference with future goals, the Cabal Pit can be replaced with Mortarpod, as it would also be a 1 damage effect that Kurkesh can't copy (the equipped germ has the ability, not the equipment) that can be reset with a Ghostly flicker. I don't know how that might help, but it's good to stay sanitized from as many mechanics as possible in case they help later. My regret with this so far is that my idea was incompatible with Spirit Guide/Cowardice shenanigans, since the next step in the evolution of maximum finite damage seems to be finding multiple "Ackerman combos" that can be safely embedded within one another.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Step 6: Cast one of the Untaps, targeting a Golem token. The Precursor Golems trigger. Let the first trigger resolve and use Grip of Chaos and Psychic Battle to redirect the untaps to Isochron Scepter.
Let the first copy resolve and use the floating mana to activate Isochron Scepter. Use all but RR of the generated mana to to flash some Haze of Rages with Buyback, getting you lots of Twinflames. Repeat this procedure until all copies have resolved, each time generating more mana.
Let the next Precursor Golem trigger resolve, giving you even more copies due to more golems present. Repeat the previous step until all copies have resolved and let the next Precursor Golem trigger give you yet more copies. Repeat this until you run out of triggers.
Step 7: Repeat step 6 19 more times. You have run out of Untap spells and cast Timetwister into Enter the Infinite, returning a Cranial Archive to the library. You can now repeat step 6 20 more times.
Step 8: You have run out of Untaps andTimetwister. Anything that can take the Twister back exiles itself, preventing the deck from going infinite. Use the Recycle spells for a total of 800 iterations of step 6. On the last Recycle, leave Black Lotus in your library. Also, don't forget to cast the non-imprinted Battle Hymn just before you Recycle or proceed to step 9. Also, you can cast a Haze of Rage without buyback each time you recycle
Step 9: The deck has run dry. You are no longer able to untap Isochron Scepter. Use whatever mana you have left to cast Haze of Rage with Buyback, then one final time without.
Spellweaver Helix is better off imprinting Haze of Rage + Timetwister, which is infinite as long as you keep drawing hands that can generate at least 2 mana.
Also, Two things:
1) I somehow overlooked that in step 4, a Twinflame already has resolved, giving you much more mana.
2) Grip of Chaos and Psychic Battle can be used to redirect Twinflames from vanilla golems to Precursors, making it far more potent.
It looks like that deck falls under the charming category of "goes infinite on turn 2, but not on turn 1": I see no way to discard a Time Reversal or otherwise put it into the graveyard, except by hand size, and then there's no way of gaining priority in that cleanup step, or of dealing damage later in the same turn even if you could.
After Twinflame/Psychic Battle, there are four Precursors and eight vanilla tokens, so the first Battle Hymn gets 12 mana.
Get Helix down, then spend the first 10 mana on buyback Seething Anger.
First Helix Twinflame gets four Precursor triggers, resulting in 12, then 48, then 192, then 768 copies of the spell. Total after this is 1024 P, 2048 V.
Second Twinflame gets 1024 Precursor triggers, and each round of triggers quadruples the creature count. That's 4^1029 when it's all over.
Third copy is more than 4^4^1029, then fourth copy 4^4^4^1029, and so one. After 10 copies, you get 4^^11 plus a bit.
Only now is it best to use Scepter, tapping for 4^^11 mana. All but two of the mana can safely be used on Seething Anger/Twinflame, and that's 4^^(4^^11).
Twiddle now gets met with 4^^(4^^11) Precursor triggers, and the first one hands out roughly that same number of spell copies, all redirected to the stick. Each untap prepends a 4^^ to the beginning of the expression, making 4^^^(4^^(4^^11)). Then each round of Precursor triggers is powerful enough to prepend 4^^^ with 3 arrows instead of 2, so by the end of that you have 4^^^^(4^^(4^^11)), where the parenthetical expression at the top is pretty meaningless--it's certainly less than even 4^^^^2.
So a single untap generates 2 arrows, a Precursor trigger on an untap spell generates 3 arrows, and the untap card itself is worth 4. Playing all the untap cards in succession, then, would take you to 4^^^^31. You don't have anything that creates layers on top of this, but Selvala's Charge can indeed be played 53 times at first, and each time is worth 30 untap spells again, for 4^^^^1590. After the Time Spirals and Time Reversals, though, the opponent's library only goes back to 59 cards (remember, they can dump a basic land off your Show and Tell), so on the second to ninth times through you only get 52 copies of Selvala's Charge. That's another 14,070 untap spells, for a final figure of 4^^^^15,660.
You don't control the opponent's decisions, so as far as doing the most to obstruct your explicit turn 1 goal, they simply let you keep all 4 Devils, and then you can't hit with those until turn 2. Your turn-1 damage figure to the opponent is therefore just 1.
So we still need to cut off the ability of Cho-Arrim Alchemist to double. So we replace Rings of Brighthearth with Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient and we add a single copy of Silverskin Armor. We can only equip at sorcery speed, so we can only loop if it involves copying the ability of only one creature that isn't natively an artifact. If we equip the Alchemist, we can prevent 2 damage, gain 2 life, and then have to pay 2 life to draw the cards back anyway so that we don't even get the intended stacked layers. If we equip Yawgmoth's Bargain, we can only ever prevent one damage with Cho-Arrim Alchemist, so the combo works as intended. If we equip Harabaz Druid, we go really obviously infinite with Voltaic Construct, so we're going to have to cut Voltaic Construct. We lose 3 layers off the total with that exchange, but it's certainly acceptable loss to preserve the other 40 million billion.
Side note, with this change, if it becomes less interference with future goals, the Cabal Pit can be replaced with Mortarpod, as it would also be a 1 damage effect that Kurkesh can't copy (the equipped germ has the ability, not the equipment) that can be reset with a Ghostly flicker. I don't know how that might help, but it's good to stay sanitized from as many mechanics as possible in case they help later. My regret with this so far is that my idea was incompatible with Spirit Guide/Cowardice shenanigans, since the next step in the evolution of maximum finite damage seems to be finding multiple "Ackerman combos" that can be safely embedded within one another.
Okay, this looks like it works. You could also replace Yawgmoth's Bargain with Greed or Book of Rass, so that you have to pay two life to draw two cards. Then you can double up on Cho-Arrim Alchemist, since gaining two life is exactly what you want.
Get Helix down, then spend the first 10 mana on buyback Seething Anger.
First Helix Twinflame gets four Precursor triggers, resulting in 12, then 48, then 192, then 768 copies of the spell. Total after this is 1024 P, 2048 V.
Not quite, since the original target is not copied by the Precursor triggers. I think it will be 11, then 44, then 176, then 704, then 1 copy of the spell. So the total will be 939 P, 2817 V. Not enough to make a diference in the subsequent estimates of course.
So a single untap generates 2 arrows, a Precursor trigger on an untap spell generates 3 arrows, and the untap card itself is worth 4. Playing all the untap cards in succession, then, would take you to 4^^^^31. You don't have anything that creates layers on top of this, but Selvala's Charge can indeed be played 53 times at first, and each time is worth 30 untap spells again, for 4^^^^1590. After the Time Spirals and Time Reversals, though, the opponent's library only goes back to 59 cards (remember, they can dump a basic land off your Show and Tell), so on the second to ninth times through you only get 52 copies of Selvala's Charge. That's another 14,070 untap spells, for a final figure of 4^^^^15,660.
Each untap spell takes X to more than 4^^^^X, so after 30 untap cards that should be more than 4^^^^^31. 53 Selvala's Charges adds 1590 to the right number, taking the estimate to 4^^^^^1621. Then the eight Time Spirals and Time Reversals adds 12,720 to the right number for 4^^^^^14,341.
I was wondering whether imprinting an untap spell like Twiddle on the Isochron Scepter would tdo anything; you get an infinite combo of increasing untaps, but that doesn't contribute anything towards increasing the final damage, so it's technically legal according to our rules.
We assume that you get the benefit of all luck, like deck order and coin flips, but when the opponent is presented with a choice, it is assumed that the opponent chooses the options that result in the lowest final damage for us. So in this case, the opponent wouldn't choose to take 4 damage to sacrifice the Devils, and you would only deal 1 damage.
Okay, this looks like it works. You could also replace Yawgmoth's Bargain with Greed or Book of Rass, so that you have to pay two life to draw two cards. Then you can double up on Cho-Arrim Alchemist, since gaining two life is exactly what you want.
That might make things easier after all. I will have to keep that in mind.
My deck in my mind has evolved past the last time I posted, just nothing groundbreaking enough to be excited about. Mostly just cleaning up the things that come after Eye of the Storm to try and make another mega combo that can go Ackerman mode without casting anything that triggers Eye again. If I get rid of Harabaz Druid and instead go back to putting rituals into the Eye, I can get a large finite amount of mana and use that as the limiting factor going forward, which is fine because I'll still get plenty every time to float for the already used mana costs, and when I was forced to take out Voltaic Construct, I stopped having a mana spout anyway. I was also thinking of putting a creature targeting spell into Isochron Scepter and playing Triton Cavalry to bounce the Copy Enchantment. Maybe play Tel-jilad Stylus to get more use out of the Possibility Storm triggers from casting Copy Enchantment. Maybe my spell in Isochron Scepter is Twiddle to untap these things. I don't know yet, I still have to find the key piece that will let me gain a finite amount of mana to make the layers stack right. For a moment, I thought I could do nonsense with Kaleidostone, but that card draw clause makes that dangerous at best.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
One thing to keep in mind is that if Yawgmoth's Bargain doubles as the card you use to get off the ground, it's a lot harder to do that with Book of Rass because of the mana payment. You'd need an opening hand like Lotus-Show-Omniscience, Mana Echoes, Storm Herd for 400 mana, Rings of Brighthearth, Book of Rass, and then you have 18 cards and 364 mana to get something started with.
It's worth keeping in mind that animated enchantments have no creature types (as long as you can avoid using Conspiracy or Xenograft), so their Mana Echoes triggers will produce no mana. This lets you hold on to a mechanism of "pay colorless mana: bounce enchantments", such as your former Isochron Scepter/Kiora's Dismissal/Voltaic Construct engine, or our Allay/Cowardice/Psychic Battle stack, and if it's all colorless mana then you don't have to run to something like Harabaz Druid that produces all colors at once and prevents you from doling out different colors in different steps.
Use one mana to cast Capsize with Buyback, targeting a golem. For each Precursor Golem trigger, Redirect all but the last 10 copies and the original onto Opalescence. The first of those bounces Opalescence, the othes fizzle. Those last 10 copies and the original bounce the other nontoken enchantments. Before the next Precursor Golem gets you fresh Capsizes, repeat steps 4 and 5 to re-cast those enchantments. Repeat this whole process until you run out of Precursor Golem triggers.
Repeat step 9 until you use up all but RRR of your mana.
Go back to Step 9 with one minor change. Let the triggers of Pyromancer Ascension resolve first and in groups of 12. The first copy bounces Opalescence (Bounce the original and the redundant copies are gone as well, yay!) and the others bounce the other original enchantments. Recast them as usual. Repeat this until you run out of Pyromancer Ascension triggers, then continue Steps 9 to 11 as usual.
Cast a Twiddle, targeting a golem. Redirect all copies made by Pyromancer Ascension and Precursor Golem to Isochron Scepter. For each time you untap the Scepter, utilize the mana as described in step 13. Repeat this until you run out of Twiddle Spells.
That deck goes infinite because Clever Impersonator can copy Isochron Scepter, so you have one Scepter that makes mana with Battle Hymn, and another that untaps itself and its duplicate with copies of Twiddle.
I believe I can add a third Ackermann stage to my deck, by using Skirge Familiar. With it you can discard a card to generate a black mana, so it can work just like the Spirit Guides, except that you don't need to use Mirror of Fate and Millikin to put it back in your graveyard. So first, we have to figure out what to use a black mana for. The only creature types that we can recycle with black mana that I am aware of are Treefolk and Zombies (other than Elves and Faeries, which we can't use if we want to use Elvish Sprit Guide higher up), and neither seems to recycle artifacts and enchantments. I can go with a color instead; it seems like White is the best option to cut off, which means we go with Possessed Nomad. Possessed Nomad requires seven cards in the graveyard to target white creatures; we can put for example Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Ghosthelm Courier, Mercenary Informer, Leyline of Anticipation, Omniscience, Grip of Chaos, and Psychic Battle in the graveyard, and use their token copies in their place. We can use Hair-Strung Koto and Reito Lantern to move cards into and out of the graveyard as necessary. I was wondering if the combo can still work without Reito Lantern, but I don't see how at the moment so I'm leaving it in for now.
The transition to Elvish Spirit Guide is easy enough, Llanowar Dead is perfect. Reforming the rest of the deck and removing white, I get:
I believe I can add a third Ackermann stage to my deck, by using Skirge Familiar. With it you can discard a card to generate a black mana, so it can work just like the Spirit Guides, except that you don't need to use Mirror of Fate and Millikin to put it back in your graveyard. So first, we have to figure out what to use a black mana for. The only creature types that we can recycle with black mana that I am aware of are Treefolk and Zombies (other than Elves and Faeries, which we can't use if we want to use Elvish Sprit Guide higher up), and neither seems to recycle artifacts and enchantments. I can go with a color instead; it seems like White is the best option to cut off, which means we go with Possessed Nomad. Possessed Nomad requires seven cards in the graveyard to target white creatures; we can put for example Ezuri, Renegade Leader, Ghosthelm Courier, Mercenary Informer, Leyline of Anticipation, Omniscience, Grip of Chaos, and Psychic Battle in the graveyard, and use their token copies in their place. We can use Hair-Strung Koto and Reito Lantern to move cards into and out of the graveyard as necessary. I was wondering if the combo can still work without Reito Lantern, but I don't see how at the moment so I'm leaving it in for now.
The transition to Elvish Spirit Guide is easy enough, Llanowar Dead is perfect. Reforming the rest of the deck and removing white, I get:
This will deal more than 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 2 -> 279 damage, if my calculations are correct.
A few things:
Devout Lightcaster can't go into that as it stands. After we activate Possessed Nomad, it's possible to manipulate the graveyard size by various means to put it back under 7, and at that point Nomad reverts to a white creature so its ability can be bounced around to slap Devout Lightcaster. Amazingly, they haven't given us a good, clean innate black card to fit that shape, and it's not the kind of card they same likely to print in the future, so tough luck there. Phyrexian Bloodstock could possibly do something, except that's wasting a "low" step on a card slot that's better off high.
Likewise, Reito Lantern isn't safe either. Show and Tell is being counted on for the excess land drops, and that invites the goldfish to play their own lands. Then Frontier Siege lets us fight those to kill, and if Reito Lantern can put those cards back into the deck, Words of Wisdom ceases to be limited by anything. Canal Dredger (what, haven't you ever wanted to use THAT card?) might serve as a way to get around this, assuming the tap cost and required haste isn't too onerous at such a low level.
How does anything take advantage of Bloodbond March now? Cephalid Shrine seems to have disappeared, as have all other sources of counterspells.
I was going to suggest Argivian Blacksmith over Devout Chaplain for the nominally easier cost, but then I saw Allay was gone too.
Did you calculate Everbark Shaman with some lost layers now that it's the only treefolk in the deck? The physical card will have to go back to the graveyard for each activation, so it can't be standing pat on a single Mimic Vat copy while that runs down to do its thing.
Instead of linking Goblin Burrows-Tidal Warrior-Seahunter, we could use Moggcatcher for the transition by itself. That frees up Empress Galina to slot into the appropriate point, and the generic land step could go elsewhere--if nothing else, as a basic plains below Dream Thrush. Better yet, if we want to do that, something like Embodiment of Spring is better than Dream Thrush, since the land gets the Mimic Vat layers that way, more than offsetting the loss of the target-redirection layers. Or even Plains (with Vat)-Terminal Moraine (without Vat)-Dream Thrush.
And why is it still Mana Crypt, source of constant babysitting? The two Spirit Guides mean we have enough starting leeway to go with the more cooperative Thran Dynamo as the sole colorless mana generator.
I just noticed my previous list has only 56 cards. That aside, this challenge is remarkably entertaining. My list has evolved another step:
I suppose I've gone a bit overboard with the time I've spent on this, but it's just an amazingly fun puzzle!
Assuming there are no further problems, here's what I get. Redirecting the targets from Twinflame onto Doubling Season adds two layers, so casting Twinflame now takes X to 2^^^X. Capsize can do even better, but we have to modify Step 9: Redirect all the Capsize copies to bounce Copy Enchantment, except for the last one in each Precursor Golem trigger, which bounces Precursor Golem instead. Each time you bounce Copy Enchantment, you cast it again, and have all the Dual Nature triggers except the last make copies of Doubling Season, except the last one makes copies of Dual Nature. Each time you copy Doubling Season you get 2^X, each time you copy Dual Nature you get 2^^X; each Precursor Golem trigger gets 2^^^X, and each casting of Capsize gets 2^^^^X. Each copy of Battle Hymn is layer five, each casting of Battle Hymn with Pyromancer Ascensions is layer six, each Precursor Golem trigger on Infuse is layer seven, each casting of Infuse is layer eight, each casting of Learn From the Past is layer nine, and each Time Spiral et al is layer ten. Casting 20 exile spells generates a final damage of more than 2 -> 23 -> 11.
Devout Lightcaster can't go into that as it stands. After we activate Possessed Nomad, it's possible to manipulate the graveyard size by various means to put it back under 7, and at that point Nomad reverts to a white creature so its ability can be bounced around to slap Devout Lightcaster. Amazingly, they haven't given us a good, clean innate black card to fit that shape, and it's not the kind of card they same likely to print in the future, so tough luck there. Phyrexian Bloodstock could possibly do something, except that's wasting a "low" step on a card slot that's better off high.
Likewise, Reito Lantern isn't safe either. Show and Tell is being counted on for the excess land drops, and that invites the goldfish to play their own lands. Then Frontier Siege lets us fight those to kill, and if Reito Lantern can put those cards back into the deck, Words of Wisdom ceases to be limited by anything. Canal Dredger (what, haven't you ever wanted to use THAT card?) might serve as a way to get around this, assuming the tap cost and required haste isn't too onerous at such a low level.
How does anything take advantage of Bloodbond March now? Cephalid Shrine seems to have disappeared, as have all other sources of counterspells.
Did you calculate Everbark Shaman with some lost layers now that it's the only treefolk in the deck? The physical card will have to go back to the graveyard for each activation, so it can't be standing pat on a single Mimic Vat copy while that runs down to do its thing.
No, I calcuated Everbark Shaman at the full 13 layers. Hmm, if we have to do all the tappings of Mimic Vat before Everbark Shaman can be activated, I guess it is worth just 8 layers, same as Seedguide Ash.
Instead of linking Goblin Burrows-Tidal Warrior-Seahunter, we could use Moggcatcher for the transition by itself. That frees up Empress Galina to slot into the appropriate point, and the generic land step could go elsewhere--if nothing else, as a basic plains below Dream Thrush. Better yet, if we want to do that, something like Embodiment of Spring is better than Dream Thrush, since the land gets the Mimic Vat layers that way, more than offsetting the loss of the target-redirection layers. Or even Plains (with Vat)-Terminal Moraine (without Vat)-Dream Thrush.
Well, cutting Goblin Burrows / Tidal Warrior loses 24 layers, adding back Empress Galina adds back 15, so we're still down 9 layers. Plains / Embodiment of Spring is worth 12/8 instead of 17 for Dream Thrush, a gain of just 3; Plains / Silverglade Pathfinder is worth 12/12, which is 7 layers better, but we're still down. Plains / Terminal Moraine / Dream Thrush is 12/3/14 is 12 layers better for a net gain of 3, but that takes an extra card, and the best we can do is cut Mana Reflection for 3, a net change of zero layers.
But wait, I think Plains / Thawing Glaciers / Dream Thrush should be okay, which is four layers better.
And why is it still Mana Crypt, source of constant babysitting? The two Spirit Guides mean we have enough starting leeway to go with the more cooperative Thran Dynamo as the sole colorless mana generator.
Well, I figured that having Mana Crypt would prevent us from having to discard the Spirit Guides with no Bloodbond March triggers, requiring us to spend Words of Wisdom to draw them again. Even though making Mana Crypt requires more shenanigans, I don't think it is as expensive as needing another Words of Wisdom spell. So it's basically a choice between more complications / slightly higher damage versus less complications / slightly less damage. I lean towards the greater damage, but it doesn't matter to me much either way since the estimate is not affected.
I didn't look at anything that you guys have done so far (I was curious to see what the best I could come up with was, even though it probably sucks in comparison), so here is my like ~60 minute attempt to do stupid amounts of non-infinite damage and hopefully I haven't overlooked anything. The plan is to make as many tokens as you can possibly make, then make them indestructible, then use a Chain Reaction to bounce ridiculously multiplied damage off of a Boros Reckoner and redirect it to your opponent.
1) Lotus -> Show and Tell -> Omniscience -> Enter the Infinite (put Boros Charm on top of your deck; when you cast the first Praetor's Counsel you can recast ETI and put Lotus back on top)
2) Play doubling enchantments (Dictate, Furnace, Doubling, Parallel, Primal)
3) Play Mentor of Heros, ultimate 4x (go to 420 life)
4) Play Storm Herd / Caller of the Pride to make tokens = to your life total
5) Play Day of the Dragons / Hellion Eruption / Boros Reckoner / Deploy to the Front / Mogg Infestation / Boros Charm (dealing 4 damage) (in that order)
6) Play Praetor's Counsel and repeat step 3-5 4x.
7) On the 4th iteration of step 6, don't play Reckoner in the same spot, do like so: Hellion Eruption, Deploy to the Front / Mogg Infestation, then Reckoner (in that order)
8) Play All Sun's Dawn, returning Deploy / Infestation
8) Play Boros Charm, making all permanents indestructible
9) Play Chain Reaction, redirecting all damage to your opponent
10) ???
11) Profit
There is a problem with this combo. If you play a Boros Charm dealing 4 damage to the face, you will end up dealing 4^8 due to the 8 Furnace effects in play, which is enough to kill the opponent. However, I took the time to do the math, and theoretically, you can deal approximately 642891959654165*10^258 damage with that line of play. This is 6428919596541650000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 damage. Pretty sure it's enough to kill someone
4) Each Storm Herd / Caller of the Pride adds 420 creature tokens, which gets doubled 12 times for 420 * 2^12 tokens. End result: 420 * 2^15 tokens.
5) Each spell in this step doubles the number of creatures 12 times, except for Mogg Infestation which doubles it 13 times. All told there are 196 doublings, for 420 * 2^211.
6) You don't recycle Day of the Dragons, but you recycle the other 12 cards, which makes 148 doublings per Praetor's Counsel. End result: 420 * 2^803.
8) Playing another Deply / Infestation adds 25 doublings for 420 * 2^828.
9) Boros Reckoner takes 420 * 2^828 damage, which gets doubled 8 times for 420 * 2^836, then the redirect gets doubled 8 times for 420 * 2^844. Final damage: About 420 * 2^846.
Don't forget each Praetor's Counsel give the player access to 4 Mentor of Heroes which is an extra 400 life. After the fourth Praetor's Counsel, Ajanis will put the player to 2020 life, which generates even more tokens and, thus, more damage.
There is a problem with this combo. If you play a Boros Charm dealing 4 damage to the face, you will end up dealing 4^8 due to the 8 Furnace effects in play, which is enough to kill the opponent. However, I took the time to do the math, and theoretically, you can deal approximately 642891959654165*10^258 damage with that line of play. This is 6428919596541650000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 damage. Pretty sure it's enough to kill someone
There is a bigger problem with that combo: After Boros Charm makes Reckoner indestructible, all you need is a single Furnace of Rath. Then Chain Reaction deals 1 damage (doubled to 2) to the Reckoner, which triggers and targets itself. Then it deals 2 damage (doubled to 4) to itself, targets itself again without any fear of dying to the quickly escalating damage, and that does not end well. For anyone.
There is a problem with this combo. If you play a Boros Charm dealing 4 damage to the face, you will end up dealing 4^8 due to the 8 Furnace effects in play, which is enough to kill the opponent. However, I took the time to do the math, and theoretically, you can deal approximately 642891959654165*10^258 damage with that line of play. This is 6428919596541650000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 damage. Pretty sure it's enough to kill someone
There is a bigger problem with that combo: After Boros Charm makes Reckoner indestructible, all you need is a single Furnace of Rath. Then Chain Reaction deals 1 damage (doubled to 2) to the Reckoner, which triggers and targets itself. Then it deals 2 damage (doubled to 4) to itself, targets itself again without any fear of dying to the quickly escalating damage, and that does not end well. For anyone.
But if you do that, then you are using Reckoner as a way to potentially deal infinite damage to the opponent. Then the combo isn't valid under the rules of this thread
Yes, and since that's one possible line of play with that deck, it trumps all other possible lines it's capable of. Their deck is flat-out invalid, until they change something about it such that the escalating damage loop ceases to be possible.
On second glance at the triple "arrow iteration" deck, the Moggcatcher substitution won't do after all, because it's red: the perils of having to cut off so much space so early.
Looking into it further, Canal Dredger doesn't look safe either. Nothing in the artifact/enchantment block can be allowed to get Bloodbond March triggers, or we could discard that a few times for more black mana, at a lower level than Devout Chaplain. Even more problematic is Sleeper Agent, which can be bounced from any arriving creature and then discarded again.
Is the Dredger/Reito Lantern function actually something we need at all? I don't see any obstacles in setup that require cards to get stuck in the grave, and once we get all the structure, anything that dies as a creature can go onto a Mimic Vat and be tucked back into the library from there. Any nonpermanent cards can be returned by Archaeomancer (although I'm not sure that will be able to stay in the deck after the Sleeper Agent revision--if it can, Wandering Mage fits over Ghosthelm Courier since we have no higher Clerics and no source of lifegain), and that leaves Elspeth who only has the one cameo responsibility early on and won't be going to the graveyard in any case.
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Yeah, I had that "dudoi, [facepalm]" moment while driving to family things. "Just target two different pyromancers, dummy." That can be fixed though. I haven't had too much chance to think of the best solution to that problem. I was thinking of finding a way to switch Rings to Kurkesh and make only what I want artifacts, but the easiest way is to jump into my as of yet unused lands category. Quick search of lands that hurt me, I've got tapping a Cabal Pit which is a mana ability so it can't be copied with Rings of Brighthearth, then stick a Ghostly Flicker in Eye of the Storm to untap the shrine each cycle. And then the only way to gain the second life is to copy the Alchemist ability, activate the Shrine, prevent the damage with the ability copy, then cast a spell to get a Ghostly Flicker before the original Alchemist ability resolves so that it can choose the Shrine after it reenters, but to cast a spell from hand again requires another 1 life paid to draw the card, so I end up not gaining an extra life anyway, and can only do that net free cast of Hinder while I have recurring Sphinx to cycle...
Even if that doesn't work, I'm very confident there is a solution that makes it so that no matter what I do, that Alchemist can only prevent 1 damage to me without paying a life to get there at all. So the real question is, does the rest of that thing I made seem to work out correctly? And if so, did I correctly assess the numbers?
Hmm, that would be true of Cascade only triggered from your hand, but I see no such proviso. So, when you cast Enigma Sphinx, you get a gazillion triggers of Possibility Storm, each of which casts Enighma Sphinx and triggers Cascade, which allows Hinder to be cast and therefore Ghostly Flicker, recycling Cabal Pit.
This may still be okay under your interpretation of the prevent damage rules, since then you would need to respond to each Alchemist's ability copy with a tapping of Cabal Pit, and all the Possibility Storm triggers go on the stack at the same time as the original Cascade trigger. But under SadisticMystic's interpretation, we can tap Cabal Pit any time after resolving the Alchemist ability, so this certainly goes infinite.
After some searching, the following thread supports SadisticMystic's position: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/magic-rulings-archives/279434-preventing-the-next-1-damage. The argument is that if you prevent the damage, than it's like it never happened. I can still see the argument that "the next time you would take damage" has still happened, but I'm willing to go along with what several people have said.
This is a little different from my combo, in that I had 1 group of triggers from the casting the card and 3 groups of triggers from the recycle ability, so there is a split. In your combo, both groups of triggers come from casting the card and none from recycling the card, but I see no reason why this should stop the combo. So yes, it looks like this should go Ackermann, (I count 6 layers at the bottom and 2X-1 layers in the stack for 2X+5 layers total rather than 2X+8, but big hairy deal) so long as we make sure there are no infinites.
Switching Rings with Kurkesh is certainly a possibility, if you can select the right cards to be artifacts or nonartifacts.
Oh, he was totally right, I was wrong. I probably should have mentioned that once I knew it rather than just moving on with my business. One sec...
Btw, you were right about multiple instances of damage prevention.
Anyway, I was playing Ghostly Flicker quite deliberately as my untap mechanism to try and play around that ruling because it doesn't untap the permanent, it exiles it and brings it back. You choose the source of damage to prevent when you resolve the prevention ability. So if you double the Cho-Allim Alchemist ability and choose Cabal Pit both times, you'll prevent one damage from it tapping, then exile it with Ghostly Flicker, and when it comes back ready to deal a second damage, it isn't the same permanent you chose with the ability anymore so the damage won't be prevented.
Unfortunately, it still doesn't work anyway; I'm getting squeezed into an even narrower rules situation because the choice is made on resolution of the ability, not activation. It is still possible (in response to a placeholder Storm Crow casting) to cast Enigma Sphinx, stack it Bloodbond March under Cascade under Possibility Storm, Possibility Storm out the Sphinx, cascade into Hinder, put both back in the deck with Bloodbond March triggers on the stack, pay 2 and 1 life to draw both, discard the sphinx to the alchemist, pay 2 to copy the alchemist, choose the Pit with the copy of the ability, respond to the original alchemist ability by tapping Cabal Pit, gain 1 life, then respond again by casting Hinder from hand targeting Storm Crow, copying Hinder to Hinder itself, getting a ghostly flicker from the Eye, flicker the pit, then when it gets back to the alchemist ability, choose the newly entered Cabal Pit, activate the pit to gain 1 life, then Bloodbond March resurrects the sphinx, sac the sphinx to get it back into the library, pay 1 life and 2 to redraw both. At this point we have no net change in life, a layer of triggers made, and a tapped Cabal Pit. So we cast the Sphinx from hand and Hinder it to make the next layer, which plays Ghostly Flicker and flickers the pit, and from there the perfect loop of casting spells can be repeated.
So we still need to cut off the ability of Cho-Arrim Alchemist to double. So we replace Rings of Brighthearth with Kurkesh, Onakke Ancient and we add a single copy of Silverskin Armor. We can only equip at sorcery speed, so we can only loop if it involves copying the ability of only one creature that isn't natively an artifact. If we equip the Alchemist, we can prevent 2 damage, gain 2 life, and then have to pay 2 life to draw the cards back anyway so that we don't even get the intended stacked layers. If we equip Yawgmoth's Bargain, we can only ever prevent one damage with Cho-Arrim Alchemist, so the combo works as intended. If we equip Harabaz Druid, we go really obviously infinite with Voltaic Construct, so we're going to have to cut Voltaic Construct. We lose 3 layers off the total with that exchange, but it's certainly acceptable loss to preserve the other 40 million billion.
Side note, with this change, if it becomes less interference with future goals, the Cabal Pit can be replaced with Mortarpod, as it would also be a 1 damage effect that Kurkesh can't copy (the equipped germ has the ability, not the equipment) that can be reset with a Ghostly flicker. I don't know how that might help, but it's good to stay sanitized from as many mechanics as possible in case they help later. My regret with this so far is that my idea was incompatible with Spirit Guide/Cowardice shenanigans, since the next step in the evolution of maximum finite damage seems to be finding multiple "Ackerman combos" that can be safely embedded within one another.
1 Black Lotus
1 Show and Tell
1 Omniscience
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Precursor Golem
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Battle Hymn
1 Twinflame
2 Haze of Rage
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Vedalken Orrery
Untaps
4 Twiddle
4 Burst of Energy
4 Word of Seizing
4 Infuse
4 Jolt
1 Timetwister
4 Cranial Archive
4 Praetor's Counsel
4 Sculpting Steel
4 Time Reversal
4 Time Spiral
Step 1: Black Lotus into Show and Tell into Omniscience into Enter the Infinite, returning a Cranial Archive to the library
Step 2: Precursor Golem, make copies with Twinflame and cast Isochron Scepter, imprintig a Battle Hymn
Step 3: Cast the first Haze of Rage and let it go to the graveyard. Cast Spellweaver Helix, imprinting Twinflame as well as the first Haze of Rage
Step 4: Cast the second Battle Hymn, adding RRR to your mana pool. Activate Isochron Scepter for a total of RRRR. Cast Haze of Rage with Buyback, getting you a Twinflame cast and RR floating.
Step 5: Out come Vedalken Orrery, Grip of Chaos and Psychic Battle
Step 6: Cast one of the Untaps, targeting a Golem token. The Precursor Golems trigger. Let the first trigger resolve and use Grip of Chaos and Psychic Battle to redirect the untaps to Isochron Scepter.
Let the first copy resolve and use the floating mana to activate Isochron Scepter. Use all but RR of the generated mana to to flash some Haze of Rages with Buyback, getting you lots of Twinflames. Repeat this procedure until all copies have resolved, each time generating more mana.
Let the next Precursor Golem trigger resolve, giving you even more copies due to more golems present. Repeat the previous step until all copies have resolved and let the next Precursor Golem trigger give you yet more copies. Repeat this until you run out of triggers.
Step 7: Repeat step 6 19 more times. You have run out of Untap spells and cast Timetwister into Enter the Infinite, returning a Cranial Archive to the library. You can now repeat step 6 20 more times.
Step 8: You have run out of Untaps and Timetwister. Anything that can take the Twister back exiles itself, preventing the deck from going infinite. Use the Recycle spells for a total of 800 iterations of step 6. On the last Recycle, leave Black Lotus in your library. Also, don't forget to cast the non-imprinted Battle Hymn just before you Recycle or proceed to step 9. Also, you can cast a Haze of Rage without buyback each time you recycle
Step 9: The deck has run dry. You are no longer able to untap Isochron Scepter. Use whatever mana you have left to cast Haze of Rage with Buyback, then one final time without.
Step 10: Swing for slightly lethal.
1 Black Lotus
1 Show and Tell
1 Omniscience
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Precursor Golem
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Battle Hymn
1 Twinflame
2 Seething Anger
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Memory Crystal
1 Selvala's Charge
Untaps
4 Twiddle
4 Burst of Energy
4 Word of Seizing
4 Infuse
4 Jolt
4 Dream's Grip
4 Psychic Puppetry
2 Emerald Charm
1 Elixir of Immortality
4 Time Reversal
4 Time Spiral
Changes:
- 1 Timetwister
- 2 Haze of Rage
- 4 Cranial Archive
- 4 Praetor's Counsel
- 4 Sculpting Steel
+ 1 Memory Crystal
+ 2 Seething Anger
+ 4 Psychic Puppetry
+ 4 Dream's Grip
+ 2 Emerald Charm
+ 1 Elixir of Immortality
+ 1 Selvala's Charge
This allows the Graveyard to be recycled 53 times via Elixir of Immortality into Selvala's Charge into Enter the Infinite until the opponent runs out of cards in his library. Adding Time Spiral and Time Reversal, which reset the opponent's Library we arrive at 30 untap spells x 53 reshuffles x 8 hard resets for a whooping total of 12720 iterations of step 6, where we also get twice as much Twinflames each time we activate Isochron Scepter due to Memory Crystal reducing Seething Anger's Buyback cost to 1.
Also, Two things:
1) I somehow overlooked that in step 4, a Twinflame already has resolved, giving you much more mana.
2) Grip of Chaos and Psychic Battle can be used to redirect Twinflames from vanilla golems to Precursors, making it far more potent.
After Twinflame/Psychic Battle, there are four Precursors and eight vanilla tokens, so the first Battle Hymn gets 12 mana.
Get Helix down, then spend the first 10 mana on buyback Seething Anger.
First Helix Twinflame gets four Precursor triggers, resulting in 12, then 48, then 192, then 768 copies of the spell. Total after this is 1024 P, 2048 V.
Second Twinflame gets 1024 Precursor triggers, and each round of triggers quadruples the creature count. That's 4^1029 when it's all over.
Third copy is more than 4^4^1029, then fourth copy 4^4^4^1029, and so one. After 10 copies, you get 4^^11 plus a bit.
Only now is it best to use Scepter, tapping for 4^^11 mana. All but two of the mana can safely be used on Seething Anger/Twinflame, and that's 4^^(4^^11).
Twiddle now gets met with 4^^(4^^11) Precursor triggers, and the first one hands out roughly that same number of spell copies, all redirected to the stick. Each untap prepends a 4^^ to the beginning of the expression, making 4^^^(4^^(4^^11)). Then each round of Precursor triggers is powerful enough to prepend 4^^^ with 3 arrows instead of 2, so by the end of that you have 4^^^^(4^^(4^^11)), where the parenthetical expression at the top is pretty meaningless--it's certainly less than even 4^^^^2.
So a single untap generates 2 arrows, a Precursor trigger on an untap spell generates 3 arrows, and the untap card itself is worth 4. Playing all the untap cards in succession, then, would take you to 4^^^^31. You don't have anything that creates layers on top of this, but Selvala's Charge can indeed be played 53 times at first, and each time is worth 30 untap spells again, for 4^^^^1590. After the Time Spirals and Time Reversals, though, the opponent's library only goes back to 59 cards (remember, they can dump a basic land off your Show and Tell), so on the second to ninth times through you only get 52 copies of Selvala's Charge. That's another 14,070 untap spells, for a final figure of 4^^^^15,660.
Okay, this looks like it works. You could also replace Yawgmoth's Bargain with Greed or Book of Rass, so that you have to pay two life to draw two cards. Then you can double up on Cho-Arrim Alchemist, since gaining two life is exactly what you want.
Not quite, since the original target is not copied by the Precursor triggers. I think it will be 11, then 44, then 176, then 704, then 1 copy of the spell. So the total will be 939 P, 2817 V. Not enough to make a diference in the subsequent estimates of course.
Each untap spell takes X to more than 4^^^^X, so after 30 untap cards that should be more than 4^^^^^31. 53 Selvala's Charges adds 1590 to the right number, taking the estimate to 4^^^^^1621. Then the eight Time Spirals and Time Reversals adds 12,720 to the right number for 4^^^^^14,341.
I was wondering whether imprinting an untap spell like Twiddle on the Isochron Scepter would tdo anything; you get an infinite combo of increasing untaps, but that doesn't contribute anything towards increasing the final damage, so it's technically legal according to our rules.
We assume that you get the benefit of all luck, like deck order and coin flips, but when the opponent is presented with a choice, it is assumed that the opponent chooses the options that result in the lowest final damage for us. So in this case, the opponent wouldn't choose to take 4 damage to sacrifice the Devils, and you would only deal 1 damage.
That might make things easier after all. I will have to keep that in mind.
My deck in my mind has evolved past the last time I posted, just nothing groundbreaking enough to be excited about. Mostly just cleaning up the things that come after Eye of the Storm to try and make another mega combo that can go Ackerman mode without casting anything that triggers Eye again. If I get rid of Harabaz Druid and instead go back to putting rituals into the Eye, I can get a large finite amount of mana and use that as the limiting factor going forward, which is fine because I'll still get plenty every time to float for the already used mana costs, and when I was forced to take out Voltaic Construct, I stopped having a mana spout anyway. I was also thinking of putting a creature targeting spell into Isochron Scepter and playing Triton Cavalry to bounce the Copy Enchantment. Maybe play Tel-jilad Stylus to get more use out of the Possibility Storm triggers from casting Copy Enchantment. Maybe my spell in Isochron Scepter is Twiddle to untap these things. I don't know yet, I still have to find the key piece that will let me gain a finite amount of mana to make the layers stack right. For a moment, I thought I could do nonsense with Kaleidostone, but that card draw clause makes that dangerous at best.
It's worth keeping in mind that animated enchantments have no creature types (as long as you can avoid using Conspiracy or Xenograft), so their Mana Echoes triggers will produce no mana. This lets you hold on to a mechanism of "pay colorless mana: bounce enchantments", such as your former Isochron Scepter/Kiora's Dismissal/Voltaic Construct engine, or our Allay/Cowardice/Psychic Battle stack, and if it's all colorless mana then you don't have to run to something like Harabaz Druid that produces all colors at once and prevents you from doling out different colors in different steps.
1 Black Lotus
1 Show and Tell
1 Omniscience
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Precursor Golem
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Battle Hymn
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Spellweaver Helix
1 Twinflame
2 Seething Anger
Enchantments
1 Opalescence
1 Doubling Season
1 Dual Nature
4 Copy Enchantment
4 Clever Impersonator
1 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Jolt
4 Infuse
4 Dream's Grip
4 Burst of Energy
4 Twiddle
3 Word of Seizing
1 Capsize
Recyclers
1 Learn from the Past
4 Time Spiral
4 Time Reversal
EDIT: Somehow, linking Learn from the Past doesn't work, so here's the oracle text:
Instant
Target player shuffles his or her graveyard into his or her library.
Draw a card.
The transition to Elvish Spirit Guide is easy enough, Llanowar Dead is perfect. Reforming the rest of the deck and removing white, I get:
1 Skirge Familiar
1 Possessed Nomad
1 Llanowar Dead
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Zhur-Taa Druid
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Show and Tell
1 Archaeomancer
1 Ghosthelm Courier
1 Tropical Island
1 Everbark Shaman
1 Boggart Loggers
1 Goblin Burrows
1 Tidal Warrior
1 Seahunter
1 Cateran Enforcer
1 Cateran Slaver
1 Cateran Overlord
1 Mercenary Informer
1 Dream Thrush
1 Driver of the Dead
1 Baron Sengir
1 Willow Satyr
1 King Crab
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Noxious Dragon
1 Shadowborn Demon
1 Minion of Leshrac
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Five-Alarm Fire
1 Mimic Vat
1 Mirror of Fate
1 Dual Nature
1 Frontier Siege
1 Guilty Conscience
1 Rite of Passage
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Cowardice
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Omniscience
1 March of the Machines
1 Nature's Revolt
1 Opalescence
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Elvish Pioneer
1 Mana Reflection
1 Mana Crypt
1 Hair-Strung Koto
1 Sleeper Agent
1 Armament of Nyx
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Reito Lantern
This will deal more than 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 2 -> 279 damage, if my calculations are correct.
1 Black Lotus
1 Show and Tell
1 Omniscience
1 Enter the Infinite
1 Precursor Golem
1 Isochron Scepter
2 Battle Hymn
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Spellweaver Helix
1 Twinflame
2 Seething Anger
Enchantments
1 Opalescence
1 Doubling Season
1 Dual Nature
4 Copy Enchantment
4 Clever Impersonator
1 Pyromancer Ascension
4 Jolt
4 Infuse
3 Word of Seizing
1 Capsize
Recyclers
1 Learn from the Past
4 All Suns' Dawn
4 Praetor's Counsel
4 Ill-Gotten Gains
4 Time Spiral
4 Time Reversal
- 4 Twiddle
- 4 Burst of Energy
- 4 Dream's Grip
+ 4 Ill-Gotten Gains
+ 4 All Suns' Dawn
+ 4 Praetor's Counsel
Further Copies of Isochron Scepter are now doomed to starve.
A few things:
Devout Lightcaster can't go into that as it stands. After we activate Possessed Nomad, it's possible to manipulate the graveyard size by various means to put it back under 7, and at that point Nomad reverts to a white creature so its ability can be bounced around to slap Devout Lightcaster. Amazingly, they haven't given us a good, clean innate black card to fit that shape, and it's not the kind of card they same likely to print in the future, so tough luck there. Phyrexian Bloodstock could possibly do something, except that's wasting a "low" step on a card slot that's better off high.
Likewise, Reito Lantern isn't safe either. Show and Tell is being counted on for the excess land drops, and that invites the goldfish to play their own lands. Then Frontier Siege lets us fight those to kill, and if Reito Lantern can put those cards back into the deck, Words of Wisdom ceases to be limited by anything. Canal Dredger (what, haven't you ever wanted to use THAT card?) might serve as a way to get around this, assuming the tap cost and required haste isn't too onerous at such a low level.
How does anything take advantage of Bloodbond March now? Cephalid Shrine seems to have disappeared, as have all other sources of counterspells.
I was going to suggest Argivian Blacksmith over Devout Chaplain for the nominally easier cost, but then I saw Allay was gone too.
Did you calculate Everbark Shaman with some lost layers now that it's the only treefolk in the deck? The physical card will have to go back to the graveyard for each activation, so it can't be standing pat on a single Mimic Vat copy while that runs down to do its thing.
Instead of linking Goblin Burrows-Tidal Warrior-Seahunter, we could use Moggcatcher for the transition by itself. That frees up Empress Galina to slot into the appropriate point, and the generic land step could go elsewhere--if nothing else, as a basic plains below Dream Thrush. Better yet, if we want to do that, something like Embodiment of Spring is better than Dream Thrush, since the land gets the Mimic Vat layers that way, more than offsetting the loss of the target-redirection layers. Or even Plains (with Vat)-Terminal Moraine (without Vat)-Dream Thrush.
And why is it still Mana Crypt, source of constant babysitting? The two Spirit Guides mean we have enough starting leeway to go with the more cooperative Thran Dynamo as the sole colorless mana generator.
Not quite. Ill-Gotten Gains serves as a vector to discard Time Spiral, so Spellweaver Helix can imprint that.
I suppose I've gone a bit overboard with the time I've spent on this, but it's just an amazingly fun puzzle!
Assuming there are no further problems, here's what I get. Redirecting the targets from Twinflame onto Doubling Season adds two layers, so casting Twinflame now takes X to 2^^^X. Capsize can do even better, but we have to modify Step 9: Redirect all the Capsize copies to bounce Copy Enchantment, except for the last one in each Precursor Golem trigger, which bounces Precursor Golem instead. Each time you bounce Copy Enchantment, you cast it again, and have all the Dual Nature triggers except the last make copies of Doubling Season, except the last one makes copies of Dual Nature. Each time you copy Doubling Season you get 2^X, each time you copy Dual Nature you get 2^^X; each Precursor Golem trigger gets 2^^^X, and each casting of Capsize gets 2^^^^X. Each copy of Battle Hymn is layer five, each casting of Battle Hymn with Pyromancer Ascensions is layer six, each Precursor Golem trigger on Infuse is layer seven, each casting of Infuse is layer eight, each casting of Learn From the Past is layer nine, and each Time Spiral et al is layer ten. Casting 20 exile spells generates a final damage of more than 2 -> 23 -> 11.
All good points! I guess Cephalid Shrine can just go into the slot left by Devout Lightcaster.
No, I calcuated Everbark Shaman at the full 13 layers. Hmm, if we have to do all the tappings of Mimic Vat before Everbark Shaman can be activated, I guess it is worth just 8 layers, same as Seedguide Ash.
Well, cutting Goblin Burrows / Tidal Warrior loses 24 layers, adding back Empress Galina adds back 15, so we're still down 9 layers. Plains / Embodiment of Spring is worth 12/8 instead of 17 for Dream Thrush, a gain of just 3; Plains / Silverglade Pathfinder is worth 12/12, which is 7 layers better, but we're still down. Plains / Terminal Moraine / Dream Thrush is 12/3/14 is 12 layers better for a net gain of 3, but that takes an extra card, and the best we can do is cut Mana Reflection for 3, a net change of zero layers.
But wait, I think Plains / Thawing Glaciers / Dream Thrush should be okay, which is four layers better.
So, current deck:
1 Skirge Familiar
1 Possessed Nomad
1 Llanowar Dead
1 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Zhur-Taa Druid
1 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Paragon of Fierce Defiance
1 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Show and Tell
1 Archaeomancer
1 Ghosthelm Courier
1 Tropical Island
1 Everbark Shaman
1 Boggart Loggers
1 Moggcatcher
1 Cateran Enforcer
1 Cateran Slaver
1 Cateran Overlord
1 Mercenary Informer
1 Plains
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Dream Thrush
1 Driver of the Dead
1 Baron Sengir
1 Empress Galina
1 Willow Satyr
1 King Crab
1 Stronghold Assassin
1 Noxious Dragon
1 Shadowborn Demon
1 Minion of Leshrac
1 Five-Alarm Fire
1 Mimic Vat
1 Mirror of Fate
1 Dual Nature
1 Frontier Siege
1 Guilty Conscience
1 Rite of Passage
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Psychic Battle
1 Cowardice
1 Leyline of Anticipation
1 Omniscience
1 March of the Machines
1 Nature's Revolt
1 Opalescence
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Elvish Pioneer
1 Mana Crypt
1 Hair-Strung Koto
1 Sleeper Agent
1 Armament of Nyx
1 Words of Wisdom
1 Canal Dredger
1 Cephalid Shrine
Damage: 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 2 -> 269
Well, I figured that having Mana Crypt would prevent us from having to discard the Spirit Guides with no Bloodbond March triggers, requiring us to spend Words of Wisdom to draw them again. Even though making Mana Crypt requires more shenanigans, I don't think it is as expensive as needing another Words of Wisdom spell. So it's basically a choice between more complications / slightly higher damage versus less complications / slightly less damage. I lean towards the greater damage, but it doesn't matter to me much either way since the estimate is not affected.
There is a problem with this combo. If you play a Boros Charm dealing 4 damage to the face, you will end up dealing 4^8 due to the 8 Furnace effects in play, which is enough to kill the opponent. However, I took the time to do the math, and theoretically, you can deal approximately 642891959654165*10^258 damage with that line of play. This is 6428919596541650000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 damage. Pretty sure it's enough to kill someone
Don't forget each Praetor's Counsel give the player access to 4 Mentor of Heroes which is an extra 400 life. After the fourth Praetor's Counsel, Ajanis will put the player to 2020 life, which generates even more tokens and, thus, more damage.
There is a bigger problem with that combo: After Boros Charm makes Reckoner indestructible, all you need is a single Furnace of Rath. Then Chain Reaction deals 1 damage (doubled to 2) to the Reckoner, which triggers and targets itself. Then it deals 2 damage (doubled to 4) to itself, targets itself again without any fear of dying to the quickly escalating damage, and that does not end well. For anyone.
But if you do that, then you are using Reckoner as a way to potentially deal infinite damage to the opponent. Then the combo isn't valid under the rules of this thread
Looking into it further, Canal Dredger doesn't look safe either. Nothing in the artifact/enchantment block can be allowed to get Bloodbond March triggers, or we could discard that a few times for more black mana, at a lower level than Devout Chaplain. Even more problematic is Sleeper Agent, which can be bounced from any arriving creature and then discarded again.
Is the Dredger/Reito Lantern function actually something we need at all? I don't see any obstacles in setup that require cards to get stuck in the grave, and once we get all the structure, anything that dies as a creature can go onto a Mimic Vat and be tucked back into the library from there. Any nonpermanent cards can be returned by Archaeomancer (although I'm not sure that will be able to stay in the deck after the Sleeper Agent revision--if it can, Wandering Mage fits over Ghosthelm Courier since we have no higher Clerics and no source of lifegain), and that leaves Elspeth who only has the one cameo responsibility early on and won't be going to the graveyard in any case.