ah, ok, that makes sense. was just checking to be sure we were ordering things correctly. i still struggle comparing huge number to huge numbers so its not quite as intuitive for me a lot of the time. so i'm guess if we had to use up all the lands in combat we would need to save 1 profane flip for after? still allows the heavy front loading for maximum explosiveness and gives us a pay off at the end that justifies it.
abusing our opponents life total is still something i'm trying to do some stuff with. i'm thinking maybe purposely trying to give the stuff we donate them lifelink and then forcing them to block. this way we have a forced 1 time event that forces them to gain life, and it should be a substantial amount too. i haven't dug into it too much but it might have some potential if we don't give up too much combo value to pull it off.
i think fall/sphinx and 2 lands is probably better but we could try bedazzle w/ mending? if we upped to 4 lands to come back it should be a break even exchange but if we can up to 5+ lands the mending/bedazzle method should make more and we will also get extra reshuffles via mending reaching level 3 a bunch of times. it comes at the expense of profane flips, so just based on that i'm guessing its not worth it ...
We save two Sulfur Falls for after combat, since there is no need to bring back Fall of the Thran once we've retrieved our last Sulfur Falls. Saving a Profane Procession for after combat is a waste, since we get so much milage by using it before we attack.
Is there any way to force the opponent to block? Something like Master Warcraft, but legal in Standard? Note that the opponent is not required to save himself from death, he'll just let himself die and take less damage overall.
Adding more lands isn't worth it, since that reduces the number of creatures that we can exile and get those early land taps. So it's really a question between Bedeck // Bedazzle and Fall of the Thran. It looks to me like Fall of the Thran is better, since Bedazzle requires a draw to cast.
agree on not saving profane for after with how things work currently. was just musing on what it would require to justify waiting if ever.
also that list u posted goes very infinite if you wait until t4. so you play out t3 the same until u resolve omniscience, then instead of emergency powers right there u cast precognition field or thousand-year storm. then u start next turn and draw whichever u didn't play last turn and play it. then since u have all your mana untapped u cast a few instants and sorceries off the top making sure u save at least 1 green and 1 of any other color. then u cast blessing off the top with a storm count >2 and get to draw a least 2 cards. one being emergency powers and the other being disdainful stroke. so u now cast EP, get its copies and counter the original. one last thing to clear up is we do need to get flash at some point, but that's ok. this is turn 4 and we haven't played a land yet. we just wait till the EP copies have ended and the stack is clear and play emergence zone from hand as our land for turn. from here u can do all sorts of infinite's.
i think it has to be t3. anything later we just have too much mana or too many cards.
In that deck I posted, we can't actually cast Omniscience on turn 3, we don't have the mana without Gift of Growth.
While I do agree that we have to be very careful about our start, and even more so if we wait until turn 4, I disagree that it has to be turn 3. We just have to go over the possibilities very carefully. (whether we start on turn 3 or turn 4)
oops, just made an assumption on the list. yeah i'll look it over then. was messing with our current list already and alternative starts that looked to go infinite(haven't found any yet luckily), but it sorta gives me a head start on the new list
Thinking a bit more about Bedeck // Bedazzle versus Fall of the Thran, having to draw Bedazzle is not that big a deal, since we don't have to cast it until we start proliferating. So, for instance, it's not as big a deal as how many Sulfur Falls we can fetch.
Now, it looks like both Bedazzle and Fall of the Thran can fetch us two Sulfur Falls per two proliferates. But, Bedazzle has the advantage in that it can destroy our Teferi without having to spend a red mana, so we can actually use the last Sulfur Falls to build up our TYS count and then cast many Bedazzles to destroy Teferi many times, rather than having to trade red mana for a Teferi destruction on a one-for-one basis. So that's like a one land tap advantage, which is bigger than having to draw it.
But, as I'm typing this, I'm starting to wonder if we can do better than two Sulfer Falls per two proliferates with Fall of the Thran. Let's see:
Fall of the Thran and [c]The Mending of Dominaria trigger.
Resolve Fall of Thran first, bring back two Sulfur Falls, and use them.
Respond by tapping a Tragic Poet to bring back Fall of the Thran, destroying our lands.
Resolve TMoD trigger, bringing back Breeding Pool.
Result: 2 land taps, Breeding Pool on battlefield.
both FotT and TMoD trigger.
Respond by destroying our enchantments, then bringing them back.
Our lands are destroyed.
resolve one trigger, bring back Breeding Pool.
Resolve the other trigger, bring back our two Sulfur Falls.
Result: 6 land taps.
So we can actually get 6 land taps per 4 proliferates, I think. So we're back to Fall of the Thran as the better option.
Yeah the turn 4 deck is a lot harder to verify the start isn't infinite. I haven't found it, but there might still be something.
I'm a bit worried about our combat damage step being overloaded, we make a bunch of hasty indestructible proliferators, at the beginning of combat, and making extras doesn't increase the number of proliferate triggers we get.
All of those happen at the combat damage step (or first strike damage?) which is also when both players gain a bunch of lifelink life.
Yeah, gaining life during the combat damage step is too late to be particularly effective. It's less effective than Grand Warlord Radha, which in turn seems to be less effective than just about anything that can improve our situation before we attack.
hmm repudiate//replicate might have promise if its's counter half isn't too good. i saves us from making a lot of blue mana. that doesn't seem like much but it really adds up over the course of all the castings we will be doing of it vs quasi over the course of the entire combo. this is less gyre engineer's we have to make/untap and more untaps/makes we can point at other things. even if it's just a marwyn that's a bunch more mana we make for our final banefire to the face.
hmmm, is running both sphinx and TMoD and option? sphinx is much more explosive with regards to storm i think. the early storm might be better than a stronger combat phase.
hmmm does repudiate countering the required sac'ing of the saga's cause a problem? in stage or combat?
also role reversal can be switcheroo, saves us a draw or a red mana per cast
also, do we need both thrull and spewer? i'm pretty sure we can only counter the entire thrull ability. its actually a problem if we can, as it just gains us a bunch of life without hurting our opponent.
While gaining a lot of life is nice, having to wait until our first land tap so that we can cast Banefire is too late. We want to gain as much life as possible before the first land tap, so that that land tap can get us as much red mana as possible.
Spear Spewer is worth it, even for gaining us just 1 life. That's still better than most of the other disposable creatures.
Hmm, that one life is worth an extra Ionize. Still seems inefficient. Whispering Snitch can get the full 38 life from our opponent's starting 20. But can't be used after that.
Note: If for some reason, we wanted to limit the opponent to having at most one creature of CMC 3 or less, we could switch Dowsing Dagger with Baffling End, and go back to Quasiduplicate. Actually no, we could keep using Switcheroo to give the opponent more and more creatures of CMC 4 or more, then later switch them out for a lot of creatures of CMC 3 or less. So that doesn't work.
Oh haha, very nice! It might be tricky to do that all before the first Ionize though, we need to check that out. It's nice that we have so many potential Citywatch Sphinxes and Teysa Karlovs, we will get a lot of reshuffles with even just one Wrath. Even if we can't make it work, we can get to 213 life after the first Ionize, so that's still pretty good.
I’m pretty sure snitch, thrull, and switcheroo go infinite. It’s all creature and only requires blue mana. We can make all of those things inside the stage. Gaining the life let’s us rebuild the stage and just again gain life inside of it. We might be able to use roll reversal but I don’t think it’s limited enough. A stage rebuild gives us draws and we can use those draws(or some of them anyway) to get RR in hand to avoid using red.
Combat was a good idea as it is a 1 time event, so it was self limiting. We need another way to limit us some how. Maybe forcing them to draw cards? They should have 51 left in their deck if we go off on the play t3. Might be a nice way to limit things.
Wait, we had to be careful. We can’t give them a way to discard. If we do that we can just donate a Sphinx, then kill it, and they are back to as high as 58 cards in deck. If they can’t discard tho forcing them to draw cards might be an option?
Edit: snitch might be ok after all. Thought it was each surveil not just the first. That’s a cool limiter ..... maybe we can abuse APNAP to just use snitch’s? Have theirs trigger first and then ours?
We want ours to trigger first, so that we can then trigger theirs and have them have all the life. Then we can use Grasping Thrull to gain all the life back on to our side.
Edit: So, unfortunately, I'm not having any luck on reaching the maximum life. The problems is that it looks like we need a Wrath Nova to get 19 Whispering Snitches on our side, and we will definitely need a Purify Nova to get 55 Whispering Snitches onto the opponent's side. The problem is, if we cast Wrath Nova first, I don't see how we can generate the white mana we need for the Purify Nova if we just draw one locket. If we cast Purify Nova first, we might be able to finagle a way to cast Wrath Nova later, but it doesn't look like we can get the TYS count up to 28 for the Purify Nova, which we need to destroy and refetch Dowsing Dagger enough times.
abusing our opponents life total is still something i'm trying to do some stuff with. i'm thinking maybe purposely trying to give the stuff we donate them lifelink and then forcing them to block. this way we have a forced 1 time event that forces them to gain life, and it should be a substantial amount too. i haven't dug into it too much but it might have some potential if we don't give up too much combo value to pull it off.
i think fall/sphinx and 2 lands is probably better but we could try bedazzle w/ mending? if we upped to 4 lands to come back it should be a break even exchange but if we can up to 5+ lands the mending/bedazzle method should make more and we will also get extra reshuffles via mending reaching level 3 a bunch of times. it comes at the expense of profane flips, so just based on that i'm guessing its not worth it ...
Is there any way to force the opponent to block? Something like Master Warcraft, but legal in Standard? Note that the opponent is not required to save himself from death, he'll just let himself die and take less damage overall.
Adding more lands isn't worth it, since that reduces the number of creatures that we can exile and get those early land taps. So it's really a question between Bedeck // Bedazzle and Fall of the Thran. It looks to me like Fall of the Thran is better, since Bedazzle requires a draw to cast.
also that list u posted goes very infinite if you wait until t4. so you play out t3 the same until u resolve omniscience, then instead of emergency powers right there u cast precognition field or thousand-year storm. then u start next turn and draw whichever u didn't play last turn and play it. then since u have all your mana untapped u cast a few instants and sorceries off the top making sure u save at least 1 green and 1 of any other color. then u cast blessing off the top with a storm count >2 and get to draw a least 2 cards. one being emergency powers and the other being disdainful stroke. so u now cast EP, get its copies and counter the original. one last thing to clear up is we do need to get flash at some point, but that's ok. this is turn 4 and we haven't played a land yet. we just wait till the EP copies have ended and the stack is clear and play emergence zone from hand as our land for turn. from here u can do all sorts of infinite's.
i think it has to be t3. anything later we just have too much mana or too many cards.
I think Ochran Assassin is the best as we can give them Sun crowned Raptors and trigger a ton of enrage triggers and make them gain even more life.
We can also make raptors for them after we declare attackers and use the Radha mana.
While I do agree that we have to be very careful about our start, and even more so if we wait until turn 4, I disagree that it has to be turn 3. We just have to go over the possibilities very carefully. (whether we start on turn 3 or turn 4)
Now, it looks like both Bedazzle and Fall of the Thran can fetch us two Sulfur Falls per two proliferates. But, Bedazzle has the advantage in that it can destroy our Teferi without having to spend a red mana, so we can actually use the last Sulfur Falls to build up our TYS count and then cast many Bedazzles to destroy Teferi many times, rather than having to trade red mana for a Teferi destruction on a one-for-one basis. So that's like a one land tap advantage, which is bigger than having to draw it.
But, as I'm typing this, I'm starting to wonder if we can do better than two Sulfer Falls per two proliferates with Fall of the Thran. Let's see:
Play Fall of the Thran, destroy lands.
first proliferate: bring back Breeding Pool.
second proliferate:
Fall of the Thran and [c]The Mending of Dominaria trigger.
Resolve Fall of Thran first, bring back two Sulfur Falls, and use them.
Respond by tapping a Tragic Poet to bring back Fall of the Thran, destroying our lands.
Resolve TMoD trigger, bringing back Breeding Pool.
Result: 2 land taps, Breeding Pool on battlefield.
third proliferate:
bring back two Sulfur Falls.
Result: 4 land taps.
fourth proliferate:
both FotT and TMoD trigger.
Respond by destroying our enchantments, then bringing them back.
Our lands are destroyed.
resolve one trigger, bring back Breeding Pool.
Resolve the other trigger, bring back our two Sulfur Falls.
Result: 6 land taps.
So we can actually get 6 land taps per 4 proliferates, I think. So we're back to Fall of the Thran as the better option.
I'm a bit worried about our combat damage step being overloaded, we make a bunch of hasty indestructible proliferators, at the beginning of combat, and making extras doesn't increase the number of proliferate triggers we get.
All of those happen at the combat damage step (or first strike damage?) which is also when both players gain a bunch of lifelink life.
A cute optimization: switching Quasiduplicate with Repudiate // Replicate allows us to counter Grasping Thrull's ability, so that we can gain the full 36 life.
I don't think there's a problem yet, but definitely something to be mindful of.
hmmm, is running both sphinx and TMoD and option? sphinx is much more explosive with regards to storm i think. the early storm might be better than a stronger combat phase.
Of course we can have both. It doesn't even eat a card slot as we don't need both novas anymore.
Updated deck list:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Sulfur Falls
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Sulfur Falls
6 Giant Growth
7 Gift of Growth
8 Omniscience
9 Emergency Powers
10 Emergence Zone
11 Thousand-Year Storm
12 Precognition Field
13 Adventurous Impulse
14 Gyre Engineer
15 Repudiate // Replicate
16 Torch Courier
Stage Combo:
17 Orzhov Locket
18 Orzhov Locket
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Naban, Dean of Iteration
23 Arcane Adaptation
24 Spark Double
Rebuild and reshuffle:
25 Tragic Poet
26 Citywatch Sphinx
27 The Mending of Dominaria
28 Gaea's Blessing
29 Ionize
Life Gain:
30 Banefire
31 Sun-Crowned Hunters
32 Gideon Blackblade
33 Angrath's Marauders
Red Mana Part 3:
34 Nikya of the Old Ways
35 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Red Mana Part 2:
36 Fall of the Thran
37 Guildpact Informant
38 Dowsing Dagger
39 Switcheroo
Red Mana Part 1:
40 Profane Procession
41 Squee, the Immortal
42 Squee, the Immortal
43 Lena, Selfless Champion
44 Whispering Snitch
45 Grasping Thrull
46 Teysa Karlov
47 Citywatch Sphinx
48 Citywatch Sphinx
49 Citywatch Sphinx
50 Tragic Poet
51 Tragic Poet
52 Tragic Poet
53 Torch Courier
54 Spark Double
55 Spark Double
56 Spark Double
57 Mirror Image
58 Mirror Image
59 Mirror Image
60 Mirror Image
And Role Reversal should be Switcheroo
Hmm, we can force our opponent to gain life from our Banefires instead, though they would just hit our face instead of Teferi.
With Shalai, Voice of Plenty we can force them to hit a gifted Teferi. (Needs Role Reversal though)
Then we can use Grasping Thrull to gain twice as much life as they have.
Edit: Oh Torch Courier is there, my bad
Spear Spewer is just worse than Grasping Thrull though.
also role reversal can be switcheroo, saves us a draw or a red mana per cast
also, do we need both thrull and spewer? i'm pretty sure we can only counter the entire thrull ability. its actually a problem if we can, as it just gains us a bunch of life without hurting our opponent.
While gaining a lot of life is nice, having to wait until our first land tap so that we can cast Banefire is too late. We want to gain as much life as possible before the first land tap, so that that land tap can get us as much red mana as possible.
Spear Spewer is worth it, even for gaining us just 1 life. That's still better than most of the other disposable creatures.
Too bad Slimefoot, the stowaway is infinite.
Note: If for some reason, we wanted to limit the opponent to having at most one creature of CMC 3 or less, we could switch Dowsing Dagger with Baffling End, and go back to Quasiduplicate. Actually no, we could keep using Switcheroo to give the opponent more and more creatures of CMC 4 or more, then later switch them out for a lot of creatures of CMC 3 or less. So that doesn't work.
We can donate a sphynx, wrath, and then donate 55 lifelinking snitches to drain our life to 1, putting them at 55*2+1=111
Then we can Grasping Thrull all that life back putting us at 221.
(Assuming this can all be done before the first Ionize)
Combat was a good idea as it is a 1 time event, so it was self limiting. We need another way to limit us some how. Maybe forcing them to draw cards? They should have 51 left in their deck if we go off on the play t3. Might be a nice way to limit things.
Wait, we had to be careful. We can’t give them a way to discard. If we do that we can just donate a Sphinx, then kill it, and they are back to as high as 58 cards in deck. If they can’t discard tho forcing them to draw cards might be an option?
Edit: snitch might be ok after all. Thought it was each surveil not just the first. That’s a cool limiter ..... maybe we can abuse APNAP to just use snitch’s? Have theirs trigger first and then ours?
Edit: So, unfortunately, I'm not having any luck on reaching the maximum life. The problems is that it looks like we need a Wrath Nova to get 19 Whispering Snitches on our side, and we will definitely need a Purify Nova to get 55 Whispering Snitches onto the opponent's side. The problem is, if we cast Wrath Nova first, I don't see how we can generate the white mana we need for the Purify Nova if we just draw one locket. If we cast Purify Nova first, we might be able to finagle a way to cast Wrath Nova later, but it doesn't look like we can get the TYS count up to 28 for the Purify Nova, which we need to destroy and refetch Dowsing Dagger enough times.
We could try drawing two lockets, but what do we give up? It looks like we need Emergence Zone, Precognition Field, Thousand-Year Storm, Cleansing Nova, and Ionize. We could maybe give up The Mending of Dominaria - but without that, we don't get any reshuffling before the first surveil, so I didn't find a way to get us up to 19 Whispering Snitches by then.
Is there any good alternative to Dowsing Dagger?