Yeah, it's too bad that the same card that gives extra death triggers also gives lifelink.
But, I think I've found another way to add a layer.
So, we create copies of Dreadhorde Butcher, which deals damage to Imperial Ceratops on the opponent's side, which gains the opponent a bunch of life because of lots of Angels of Vitality under the opponent's control. This is the same number of layers as before, but the advantage is that it allows us to switch to Finale of Eternity, and thus to black mana rather than red. This allows us to bring back Nikya of the Old Ways.
So, how can we take advantage of Nikya of the Old Ways? Instead of untapping Mox Amber, we will use Casualties of War to destroy a Plains, which we will put back on the battlefield using Grow from the Ashes. Then we can tap it with many copies of Nikya on the battlefield, to gain a lot of white mana rather than just one. So that's another layer. We can also go back to the four step mana gaining process: First, we gain 204 black mana from Smothering Tithes; then we create a bunch of Sanctum of the Suns by exiling a bunch of cards; then we create a lot of Guildpact Informants, to get a lot of proliferates and bring back Drowned Catacomb a bunch of times; then we activate Teferi, Hero of Dominaria many times to untap Sanctum of the Sun and a Drowned Catacomb a bunch of times.
Hmm, there's several problems with that deck, (Bladebrand needs a target to draw a card, some involving casualties of war's other modes) but its probably fixable.
The only potential problem I see with the other modes of Casualties of War is the one that destroys planeswalkers. I suppose that goes infinite with our life-gaining planeswalkers, and also with Teferi, so we just have to remove those. (Losing Teferi hurts somewhat, but we are still well ahead of the previous deck.)
Ooh yes, killing a creature is a problem isn't it.
We can switch Gideon, the Oathsworn, and add Bolt Bend. We can kill the opponent in probably many ways, but adding Gravitic Punch should work. But, we need some way to destroy a land that can't destroy creatures. Bedeck // Bedazzle doesn't work because the other side can kill a creature. Spreading Rot costs us 2 life, which I don't know how to fix, hmm.
Edit: Okay, it would be nice if there was a way to recycle a land with a card draw. (like a black instant/sorcery that does that) In the meantime, I think I've found another way to add a layer.
So, we are still switching to black mana, but instead of Finale of Eternity, we use Syndicate Guildmage to kill off a planeswalker. The planeswalker that we kill will be Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. We can activate it's +2 ability, getting a gajillion copies with Repeated Reverberation; each copy can damage a gajillion Imperial Ceratopses controlled by the opponent; each Imperial Ceratops trigger will gain a gajillion life thanks to Angel of Vitality; and we can use Grasping Thrull and Angel of Vitality to gain a gajillion life for ourselves for each 2 life of the opponent. So that's four layers from black mana to life, as opposed to three layers from before. I still don't know how to recycle a land for a card draw, so we can't use that for an additional layer via Nikya; but, we can salvage 9 layers by using something equivalent to Hijack. I think Status // Statue should work; if we destroy Excavation Elephant and both artifacts, casting an Adventurous Impulse will get them all back, gaining us one white mana.
Spreading rot works, we are already spending life on Ionize a lot in the stage. We just lose efficiency, and have to save some small % of our life to lose to Spreading Rot.
Gravitic punch isnt worth a card slot, We can have the last wrath kill a giant Dreadhorde Butcher.
Edit: that's a really nice way to turn black mana into life. Excellent find.
I'm not sure Status//Statue is equivalent to hijack, the targeting and reshuffling makes it awkward.
Also at this point I think we need to give our opponent a Thorn Lieutenant so we can swap enough things over, Dowsing Dagger does not look like it will be enough plants.
Spreading Rot doesn't work below Ionize though, which is where I wanted it to be; I wanted Bladebrand to draw some black card that we could cast to destroy a land, and get a lot of white mana because of Nikya of the Old Ways.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Excavation Elephant
Resolve a Statue to destroy The Mending of Dominaria.
Sacrifice a Tragic Poet to retrieve TMoD, and recast it.
Reshuffle the deck.
Cast Gift of Growth for some mana.
Cast Adventurous Impulse, retrieving Excavation Elephant.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Mox Amber.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Manifold Key.
Recast Excavation Elephant with kicker.
Retrieve Mox Amber and Manifold Key.
Tap them to gain two white mana.
So we are back where we started, with one more white mana, and four Statues resolved. So we divide by four, which isn't too bad.
If we replace Manifold Key with Dowsing Dagger, we recycle Dowsing Dagger a bunch of times, and break even on white mana, so we can give the opponent a lot of Plant tokens as well without too much hassle.
You aren't back at the start, you have a bunch of fizzling statues on the stack and would need a bolt bend, which we would either need to cast with red mana or use a draw to cast for free.
Edit: Checking spoilers, we got a new narrow counterspell, Tale's End can only counter legendary spells.
Not sure where exactly this is better than disdainful stroke, but it is a nice new option.
And Gauntlets of light give us a way to give a creature W:untap. If we find a stage that isnt so sensitive to white mana this could be interesting.
Edit2: Looking at more weird loops, Blast zone+Blossom dryad+Martyr for the cause+Fall of the Thran. Looks kind of interesting. Blast Zone can't destroy the mox, so it doesn't make white, and it destroys all of the Martyrs at the same time. I think it currently goes infinite, though it might be dependent on how we reshuffle.
Oh, I forgot to add Bolt Bend. But, you are right, we can't cast Bolt Bend cheaply enough. Drawing it isn't good enough, because we need to retarget our Statues each time we retrieve our permanents. I think adding Catalyst Elemental will solve the problem. It seems like a lot to add a card just to make mana for Bolt Bend, but it does seem to save the layer.
That Blast Zone combo looks interesting, althogh Blossom Dryad can untap lands, so we couldn't have any lands beyond that combo.
Yeah adding 1 red+1/x statues =>1 white just for bolt bend kind of sucks, though we do get more castings of repeated reverberation. Runaway Steam-kin is probably a better source of red.
Hmm, which is better, Catalyst Elemental or Runaway Steam-Kin? Runaway Steam-Kin is potentially better in the above sequence, since three Steam-Kins could pay for all the Bolt Bends that we cast in the whole sequence, whereas we would keep needing to fetch or create more Catalyst Elementals. But, I could see Catalyst Elemental being better in the beginning, since it gives the red mana right away, whereas the Runaway Steam-Kins require we cast three red spells first, and we don't have many of them; we could cast Bolt Bend and Repeated Reverberation, but those cost red mana to start with. It looks like the only red creature we currently have is Angrath's Marauders.
Having a better start in the beginning generally overwhelms minor disadvantages later on.
Edit: looks like there's not much exciting in the rest of the m20 previews.
We have roughly 2000 cards legal in standard, and won't be getting more without losing Ixalan, M19, and Dominaria, which are bad, worse, and terrible to lose.
This is probably the three months where standard is the maximum it has ever been.
As for the Blast Zone combo, I haven't found a way to prevent it from going infinite, I think a 0 cmc millstone would work but we don't have it.
That's true, although you would have to go through the trouble of fetching/drawing Sphinx of the Guildpact and Sarkhan, so it might still wind up behind. I guess we have to actually go through the start to be sure.
Locking behind Samut seems to be the best thing to do, since it is a planeswalker; we can fetch creatures pretty easily. Citywatch Sphinx is the obvious card for the kill-to-reshuffle function (we're using Martyr for the Cause for something else), and there's not too many cards that have CMC 6 that we need though.
Fetching sphinx is easy with Adventurous Impulse and we have to actually draw all of our planeswalkers eventually anyway.
Well Citywatch Sphinx only works if there's something we need at 6. Otherwise blastzone can loop reshuffles forever by alternating killing Martyr and sphinx.
(Tragic poet, adventurous impulse and reduplicate to rebuild)
If Samut, tyrant smasher cost 6 instead of 4 we might have something...
Maybe we should look at other potentially useful 6 mana permanents to have around?
hmm the 6 mana permanents dry up really fast for this...
Edit: hmm blossom dryad isn't needed, we can kick it off with a wrath and then just proliferate the counters to where we want.
Edit2: Going through the current deck, Oath of teferi allows Sarkhan, Dragonsoul to kill itself after a + clearly going infinite. The Oath leaving maybe lets Spark double back in?
Also Vampire Neonate lets us drain more times than Grasping Thrull
Edit3: looking at the ending stage sequence I want to make sure I have it right:
Casting Statue makes X white mana at the cost of a card draw
Casting bladebrand draws Statue for X^X at the cost of a different card draw (bladebrand is stuck on the stack)
Casting Gaea's blessing drawing Bladebrand gives X^^X at the cost of 2 life from Ionize
Drainer+Angel of vitality gives X^^^X at the cost of our opponent's life
Angel+Role Reversal gives X^^^^X at the cost of one of our opponent's lifegain triggers Imperial Ceratops+Role reversal+Sarkhan, Dragonsoul gives X^^^^^X at the cost of a Sarkhan +
Repeated reverberation gives X^^^^^^X (X->X->6) at the cost of activating sarkhan.
Syndicate Guildmage can kill Sarkhan for a black, Still X->X->6. Spark double+Nikya of the old ways+Azor's Gateway get us to X->X->7 Karn, the great creator gives us 20 or so Azor's gateway flips
It's true that we have to draw our planeswalkers anyway at some point, but having to draw them earlier rather than something that can advance the combo more could be costly. I do think we need to eventually check the start to decide which is better.
Casting Status // Statue gets us X white mana, allowing us to execute a stage and get X -> X -> X.
Casting Bladebrand can draws X Status // Statues, getting us to X -> X -> X -> 2.
Casting Gaea's Blessing gets us X Bladebrands at the cost of 2 life for Ionize, getting us to X -> X -> X -> 3. Vampire Neonate + Angel of Vitality gets us to X -> X -> X -> 4 at the cost of 1 of our opponent's life.
Angel + Role Reversal gets us to X -> X -> X -> 5 at the cost of one of our opponent's life gain triggers. Imperial Ceratops + Sarkhan, Dragonsoul gets us to X -> X -> X -> 6 at the cost of one of Sarkhan's loyalty abilities. Repeated Reverberation + Sarkhan gets us to X -> X -> X -> 7 at the cost of activating Sarkhan. Syndicate Guildmage kills Sarkhan for one black mana, still at X -> X -> X -> 7.
One tapping of a Sanctum of the Sun gets us X black mana, for X -> X -> X -> 8. Karn the Great Creator gets us 20+ Axor's Gateway flips for more than 3 -> 3 -> 20+ -> 9 final damage.
Edit: So, let's try to count how many big black mana gains we get. Looking at the deck in post #459, we can exile 22 cards (the last 20, along with Marwyn, the Nurturer and Karn, the Great Creator). But, we lose 2 exilable cards because we need to add in Bolt Bend and Catalyst Elemental / Runaway Steam-Kin. However, I think we can add several more. Adding Guildpact Informant for some proliferation, along with Fall of the Thran, allows us to recycle our Drowned Catacombs a bunch of times; but, we can't really make optimal use of black mana during the combat phase, since our combo relies on activating Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. Still, we can end the combat phase we two new and untapped Drowned Catacombs. And, if we add Grand Warlord Radha, we can exit the combat phase with the black mana from one or more Drowned Catacombs (although tapping multiple Drowned Catacombs during the combat phase doesn't count as multiple big mana gains, since we can't run our combo to increase our TYS count between land taps).
We could also add more black mana lands, but the additional tapping that we gain from them is counteracted by the fact that we can't exile them, so that we lose a Sanctum of the Sun for each one that we add. It would be nice if maybe we could double dip with our lands, by perhaps being able to play them, then getting fresh copies from proliferate. But, I don't see how we could put them into play cheaply without going infinite; unfortunately Wayward Swordtooth doesn't restrict us because of Replicate getting arbitrarily many copies. It might work if we make destroying lands very expensive, but I don't know how to do that; The First Eruption will damage Imperial Ceratops too cheaply.
Still, that's three more big mana gains, and we can also transform Dowsing Dagger, Hadana's Climb, and Path of Mettle during the combat phase for anothre three big mana gains. So that takes us up to 26, for a final damage of more than 2 -> 7 -> 28 -> 9.
Unfortunately, Radha only protects the red and green she makes in combat, so the combat step proliferate tricks aren't very good.
And Path of Mettle damages Excavation elephant and the Ceratops too easily.
Looking at the start, I think steam kin's counters can come just from recasting Thousand Year Storm after the first purify. (and we are probably adding another red card to give haste anyway)
Hmm, Torch Courier versus Samut, Tyrant Smasher seems like another decision that depends on exactly how the start works out. Samut doesn't require sacrificing copies to give haste, while Torch Courier doesn't need another draw at the start.
Oh right, Radha doesn't help. The proliferate combo is still worth it, since we get the two Drowned Catacombs back, at no real cost. But, we lose the mana gains I counted from the combat phase and Path of Mettle, reducing the final damage to 2 -> 7 -> 26 -> 9.
Torch Courier seems likely better, as many extra copies of replicate are going to be fairly useless anyway, 'just' netting us a reshuffle from citywatch sphinx. While a draw gets us a free Statue.
It probably depends on how much space there is in the 7 from Emergency Powers. Emergence Zone, Thousand Year Storm, and Precognition field are 100% locked in, leaving 4 spots for something like Mox, Key, The Mending, and Bladebrand?
Edit: Oops, we need to keep a white legend around for Mox Amber.
Edit: Star of extinction looks interesting compared to Fall of the thran.
We can still return the lands with proliferate and The Mending.
But this lets us get a few extra PW resets. Captain Lannery Storm can get us another good 1 shot influx of black mana Prying Blade too, though that is more annoying, and is the same scale as the Captain's New horizons lets the Breeding pool and the Emergence Zone tap for black.
Unfortunately, we can't take too much advantage of the black mana from Captain Lannery Storm or Prying Blade during the combat phase. We can take a little advantage, but we can already get black mana from extra proliferates during the combat phase.
But extra black in the combat phase is not when we can activate Sarkhan, dragonsoul. The treasures Lannery Storm provides can be saved for the main phase.
Saheeli's transform trick looks good, too bad its not as powerful as it looked with Primal Amulet. I'm pretty sure Saheeli doesn't cause problems with other cards becoming copies.
Is there a white legend we actually want to keep around? We aren't really using Teferi's end step untaps anymore. And while Teysa Karlov would be nice, black legends are off limits. Maybe a Gideon?
Ooh I see, we can keep the treasures until the main phase for Captain Lannery Storm. Cool, that should add another mana gain.
Hmm, we do need to keep a white legend around. It could be a planeswalker like Gideon or Huatli, the Sun's Heart - but perhaps it would help the start the most to take a white legendary creature. I didn't see any one that really stuck out as being helpful otherwise.
Okay, I just noticed something. The reason I initially chose to go with Azor's Gateway over Profane Procession was that the former provided a lot more black mana without Nikya, and then even with Nikya, it looked like we could get a couple more transforms with Azor's Gateway, and also we had a greater variety of cards we could pick as exilable cards. But, this no longer appears to be the case, now that Karn, the Great Creator prevents us from turning creatures indestructible. So now, I think we are better off with Profane Procession, and adding something like Lena, Selfless Champion, so that we can make copies of all our creatures and turn them indestructible.
So, by my count we have 27 exilable creatures, not counting Excavation Elephant, which we need to keep casting, and the two Squees. So that is 27 big mana gains, plus we can use Guildpact Informant and New Horizons to recycle our four lands and tap them for big mana, and we also get big mana from Dowsing Dagger and Captain Lannery Storm. So that should be 33 big mana gains in total, for more than 10 -> 10 -> 34 -> 9 damage in the end.
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Dreadhorde Butcher plus Teysa Karlov can send an extra death trigger at Citywatch sphinx to get another reshuffle.
And isn't impacted by purify novas killing The Mending to reshuffle.
But, I think I've found another way to add a layer.
So, we create copies of Dreadhorde Butcher, which deals damage to Imperial Ceratops on the opponent's side, which gains the opponent a bunch of life because of lots of Angels of Vitality under the opponent's control. This is the same number of layers as before, but the advantage is that it allows us to switch to Finale of Eternity, and thus to black mana rather than red. This allows us to bring back Nikya of the Old Ways.
So, how can we take advantage of Nikya of the Old Ways? Instead of untapping Mox Amber, we will use Casualties of War to destroy a Plains, which we will put back on the battlefield using Grow from the Ashes. Then we can tap it with many copies of Nikya on the battlefield, to gain a lot of white mana rather than just one. So that's another layer. We can also go back to the four step mana gaining process: First, we gain 204 black mana from Smothering Tithes; then we create a bunch of Sanctum of the Suns by exiling a bunch of cards; then we create a lot of Guildpact Informants, to get a lot of proliferates and bring back Drowned Catacomb a bunch of times; then we activate Teferi, Hero of Dominaria many times to untap Sanctum of the Sun and a Drowned Catacomb a bunch of times.
So we have:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Drowned Catacomb
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 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Naban, Dean of Iteration
23 Arcane Adaptation
24 Tragic Poet
25 The Mending of Dominaria
26 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana:
27 Plains
28 Casualties of War
29 Grow from the Ashes
30 Nikya of the Old Ways
31 Spark Double
Drawing:
32 Bladebrand
33 Ionize
Life Gain:
34 Finale of Eternity
35 Imperial Ceratops
36 Dreadhorde Butcher
37 Angel of Vitality
38 Dowsing Dagger
39 Role Reversal
40 Grasping Thrull
Untapping:
41 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Proliferating:
42 Guildpact Informant
43 Gideon Blackblade
44 Azor's Gateway
Returning from Exile:
45 Karn, the Great Creator
46 Sphinx of the Guildpact
Early Black Mana:
47 Smothering Tithe
48 Smothering Tithe
49 Smothering Tithe
50 Smothering Tithe
51 Unmoored Ego
Early Life Gain:
52 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
53 Ajani, Wise Counselor
54 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
55 Oath of Teferi
56 Repeated Reverberation
57 Ajani, the Great-Hearted
58 Ajani, Inspiring Leader
59 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
60 Revival // Revenge
The only potential problem I see with the other modes of Casualties of War is the one that destroys planeswalkers. I suppose that goes infinite with our life-gaining planeswalkers, and also with Teferi, so we just have to remove those. (Losing Teferi hurts somewhat, but we are still well ahead of the previous deck.)
"If you don't hit your adversaries wile they're down, they might get up again." --Whipkeeper
"Victory favors neither the righteous nor the wicked. It favors the prepared." -- Lay of the Land
We also need to use any other gideon if we are allowing for an animated artifact, we can't let the key be made indestructible.
Targeting is another issue, if nothing is indestructible we have to be very careful with how we use our targets. (Bolt bend?)
Also, how are we killing? I guess a big Dreadhorde butcher?
Edit: as for spoilers, The new precognition field for artifacts Mystic Forge looks interesting, but not very useful for our deck.
Ooh yes, killing a creature is a problem isn't it.
We can switch Gideon, the Oathsworn, and add Bolt Bend. We can kill the opponent in probably many ways, but adding Gravitic Punch should work. But, we need some way to destroy a land that can't destroy creatures. Bedeck // Bedazzle doesn't work because the other side can kill a creature. Spreading Rot costs us 2 life, which I don't know how to fix, hmm.
Edit: Okay, it would be nice if there was a way to recycle a land with a card draw. (like a black instant/sorcery that does that) In the meantime, I think I've found another way to add a layer.
So, we are still switching to black mana, but instead of Finale of Eternity, we use Syndicate Guildmage to kill off a planeswalker. The planeswalker that we kill will be Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. We can activate it's +2 ability, getting a gajillion copies with Repeated Reverberation; each copy can damage a gajillion Imperial Ceratopses controlled by the opponent; each Imperial Ceratops trigger will gain a gajillion life thanks to Angel of Vitality; and we can use Grasping Thrull and Angel of Vitality to gain a gajillion life for ourselves for each 2 life of the opponent. So that's four layers from black mana to life, as opposed to three layers from before. I still don't know how to recycle a land for a card draw, so we can't use that for an additional layer via Nikya; but, we can salvage 9 layers by using something equivalent to Hijack. I think Status // Statue should work; if we destroy Excavation Elephant and both artifacts, casting an Adventurous Impulse will get them all back, gaining us one white mana.
So, we have:
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Drowned Catacomb
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 Finale of Devastation
Stage Combo:
17 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Naban, Dean of Iteration
23 Arcane Adaptation
24 Tragic Poet
25 The Mending of Dominaria
26 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana:
27 Status // Statue
Drawing:
28 Bladebrand
29 Ionize
Life Gain:
30 Syndicate Guildmage
31 Sarkhan, Dragonsoul
32 Repeated Reverberation
33 Imperial Ceratops
34 Angel of Vitality
35 Dowsing Dagger
36 Switcheroo
37 Grasping Thrull
Land Transforming:
38 Azor's Gateway
Returning from Exile:
39 Karn, the Great Creator
40 Sphinx of the Guildpact
Early Black Mana:
41 Smothering Tithe
42 Smothering Tithe
43 Smothering Tithe
44 Smothering Tithe
45 Unmoored Ego
46 Angrath's Marauders
47 Huatli, the Sun's Heart
48 Ajani, Wise Counselor
49 Ajani, Strength of the Pride
50 Oath of Teferi
51 Ajani, the Great-Hearted
52 Ajani, Inspiring Leader
53 Dovin, Grand Arbiter
54 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
55 Bond of Discipline
Whatever:
56 Citywatch Sphinx
57 Replicate // Repudiate
58 Replicate // Repudiate
59 Replicate // Repudiate
60 Quasiduplicate
Gravitic punch isnt worth a card slot, We can have the last wrath kill a giant Dreadhorde Butcher.
Edit: that's a really nice way to turn black mana into life. Excellent find.
I'm not sure Status//Statue is equivalent to hijack, the targeting and reshuffling makes it awkward.
Also at this point I think we need to give our opponent a Thorn Lieutenant so we can swap enough things over, Dowsing Dagger does not look like it will be enough plants.
Edit: After thinking about it, I think you can indeed get a lot of white mana with Status // Statue. Say we start with The Mending of Dominaria, Excavation Elephant, Mox Amber, and Manifold Key on the battlefield, a bunch of Tragic Poets on the battlefield from a recent Replicate, and at least one white mana. Also Naban, Dean of Iteration and Arcane Adaptation, naming Wizards, are on the battlefield. Cast Statue, getting a lot of TYS copies.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Excavation Elephant
Resolve a Statue to destroy The Mending of Dominaria.
Sacrifice a Tragic Poet to retrieve TMoD, and recast it.
Reshuffle the deck.
Cast Gift of Growth for some mana.
Cast Adventurous Impulse, retrieving Excavation Elephant.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Mox Amber.
Resolve a Statue to destroy Manifold Key.
Recast Excavation Elephant with kicker.
Retrieve Mox Amber and Manifold Key.
Tap them to gain two white mana.
So we are back where we started, with one more white mana, and four Statues resolved. So we divide by four, which isn't too bad.
If we replace Manifold Key with Dowsing Dagger, we recycle Dowsing Dagger a bunch of times, and break even on white mana, so we can give the opponent a lot of Plant tokens as well without too much hassle.
You aren't back at the start, you have a bunch of fizzling statues on the stack and would need a bolt bend, which we would either need to cast with red mana or use a draw to cast for free.
Edit: Checking spoilers, we got a new narrow counterspell, Tale's End can only counter legendary spells.
Not sure where exactly this is better than disdainful stroke, but it is a nice new option.
And Gauntlets of light give us a way to give a creature W:untap. If we find a stage that isnt so sensitive to white mana this could be interesting.
Edit2: Looking at more weird loops, Blast zone+Blossom dryad+Martyr for the cause+Fall of the Thran. Looks kind of interesting. Blast Zone can't destroy the mox, so it doesn't make white, and it destroys all of the Martyrs at the same time. I think it currently goes infinite, though it might be dependent on how we reshuffle.
That Blast Zone combo looks interesting, althogh Blossom Dryad can untap lands, so we couldn't have any lands beyond that combo.
Having a better start in the beginning generally overwhelms minor disadvantages later on.
Edit: looks like there's not much exciting in the rest of the m20 previews.
We have roughly 2000 cards legal in standard, and won't be getting more without losing Ixalan, M19, and Dominaria, which are bad, worse, and terrible to lose.
This is probably the three months where standard is the maximum it has ever been.
As for the Blast Zone combo, I haven't found a way to prevent it from going infinite, I think a 0 cmc millstone would work but we don't have it.
Edit2: could we lock haste behind Samut, Tyrant smasher and need to use a nova to kill some reshuffling 4? (or Goblin warchief / Regisaur Alpha with Arcane adaptation?)
Locking behind Samut seems to be the best thing to do, since it is a planeswalker; we can fetch creatures pretty easily. Citywatch Sphinx is the obvious card for the kill-to-reshuffle function (we're using Martyr for the Cause for something else), and there's not too many cards that have CMC 6 that we need though.
Well Citywatch Sphinx only works if there's something we need at 6. Otherwise blastzone can loop reshuffles forever by alternating killing Martyr and sphinx.
(Tragic poet, adventurous impulse and reduplicate to rebuild)
If Samut, tyrant smasher cost 6 instead of 4 we might have something...
Maybe we should look at other potentially useful 6 mana permanents to have around?
Thousand-year storm is easy to get back with poet
Gravewaker, (maybe, though it cant replace adventurous impulse as we still need a way to cast the elephant)
Lich's Mastery, Bolas's Citadel (no)
muldrotha, the gravetide (no)
hmm the 6 mana permanents dry up really fast for this...
Edit: hmm blossom dryad isn't needed, we can kick it off with a wrath and then just proliferate the counters to where we want.
Edit2: Going through the current deck, Oath of teferi allows Sarkhan, Dragonsoul to kill itself after a + clearly going infinite. The Oath leaving maybe lets Spark double back in?
Also Vampire Neonate lets us drain more times than Grasping Thrull
Edit3: looking at the ending stage sequence I want to make sure I have it right:
Casting Statue makes X white mana at the cost of a card draw
Casting bladebrand draws Statue for X^X at the cost of a different card draw (bladebrand is stuck on the stack)
Casting Gaea's blessing drawing Bladebrand gives X^^X at the cost of 2 life from Ionize
Drainer+Angel of vitality gives X^^^X at the cost of our opponent's life
Angel+Role Reversal gives X^^^^X at the cost of one of our opponent's lifegain triggers
Imperial Ceratops+Role reversal+Sarkhan, Dragonsoul gives X^^^^^X at the cost of a Sarkhan +
Repeated reverberation gives X^^^^^^X (X->X->6) at the cost of activating sarkhan.
Syndicate Guildmage can kill Sarkhan for a black, Still X->X->6.
Spark double+Nikya of the old ways+Azor's Gateway get us to X->X->7
Karn, the great creator gives us 20 or so Azor's gateway flips
You're right, Oath of Teferi doesn't work with Sarkhan Dragonsoul, and anyways we would rather have Spark Double and Nikya of the Old Ways.
Good call on Vampire Neonate.
So the ending layers look like this:
Casting Status // Statue gets us X white mana, allowing us to execute a stage and get X -> X -> X.
Casting Bladebrand can draws X Status // Statues, getting us to X -> X -> X -> 2.
Casting Gaea's Blessing gets us X Bladebrands at the cost of 2 life for Ionize, getting us to X -> X -> X -> 3.
Vampire Neonate + Angel of Vitality gets us to X -> X -> X -> 4 at the cost of 1 of our opponent's life.
Angel + Role Reversal gets us to X -> X -> X -> 5 at the cost of one of our opponent's life gain triggers.
Imperial Ceratops + Sarkhan, Dragonsoul gets us to X -> X -> X -> 6 at the cost of one of Sarkhan's loyalty abilities.
Repeated Reverberation + Sarkhan gets us to X -> X -> X -> 7 at the cost of activating Sarkhan.
Syndicate Guildmage kills Sarkhan for one black mana, still at X -> X -> X -> 7.
One tapping of a Sanctum of the Sun gets us X black mana, for X -> X -> X -> 8.
Karn the Great Creator gets us 20+ Axor's Gateway flips for more than 3 -> 3 -> 20+ -> 9 final damage.
Edit: So, let's try to count how many big black mana gains we get. Looking at the deck in post #459, we can exile 22 cards (the last 20, along with Marwyn, the Nurturer and Karn, the Great Creator). But, we lose 2 exilable cards because we need to add in Bolt Bend and Catalyst Elemental / Runaway Steam-Kin. However, I think we can add several more. Adding Guildpact Informant for some proliferation, along with Fall of the Thran, allows us to recycle our Drowned Catacombs a bunch of times; but, we can't really make optimal use of black mana during the combat phase, since our combo relies on activating Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. Still, we can end the combat phase we two new and untapped Drowned Catacombs. And, if we add Grand Warlord Radha, we can exit the combat phase with the black mana from one or more Drowned Catacombs (although tapping multiple Drowned Catacombs during the combat phase doesn't count as multiple big mana gains, since we can't run our combo to increase our TYS count between land taps).
We could also add more black mana lands, but the additional tapping that we gain from them is counteracted by the fact that we can't exile them, so that we lose a Sanctum of the Sun for each one that we add. It would be nice if maybe we could double dip with our lands, by perhaps being able to play them, then getting fresh copies from proliferate. But, I don't see how we could put them into play cheaply without going infinite; unfortunately Wayward Swordtooth doesn't restrict us because of Replicate getting arbitrarily many copies. It might work if we make destroying lands very expensive, but I don't know how to do that; The First Eruption will damage Imperial Ceratops too cheaply.
Still, that's three more big mana gains, and we can also transform Dowsing Dagger, Hadana's Climb, and Path of Mettle during the combat phase for anothre three big mana gains. So that takes us up to 26, for a final damage of more than 2 -> 7 -> 28 -> 9.
With Spark Double coming back in again, Finale is back out, and we need haste again. Torch Courier? Samut, Tyrant smasher?
Unfortunately, Radha only protects the red and green she makes in combat, so the combat step proliferate tricks aren't very good.
And Path of Mettle damages Excavation elephant and the Ceratops too easily.
Looking at the start, I think steam kin's counters can come just from recasting Thousand Year Storm after the first purify. (and we are probably adding another red card to give haste anyway)
Oh right, Radha doesn't help. The proliferate combo is still worth it, since we get the two Drowned Catacombs back, at no real cost. But, we lose the mana gains I counted from the combat phase and Path of Mettle, reducing the final damage to 2 -> 7 -> 26 -> 9.
It probably depends on how much space there is in the 7 from Emergency Powers. Emergence Zone, Thousand Year Storm, and Precognition field are 100% locked in, leaving 4 spots for something like Mox, Key, The Mending, and Bladebrand?
Edit: Oops, we need to keep a white legend around for Mox Amber.
Edit: Star of extinction looks interesting compared to Fall of the thran.
We can still return the lands with proliferate and The Mending.
But this lets us get a few extra PW resets.
Captain Lannery Storm can get us another good 1 shot influx of black mana
Prying Blade too, though that is more annoying, and is the same scale as the Captain's
New horizons lets the Breeding pool and the Emergence Zone tap for black.
Star of Extinction could be good.
New Horizons is an excellent idea, we get two more big mana gains from Breeding Pool and Emergence Zone, taking the damage up to 2 -> 7 -> 28 -> 9.
I think Saheeli, Sublime Artificer allows us to do the transforming trick, turning Azor's Gateway into a copy of Dowsing Dagger and gaining another Sanctum of the Sun. So that should take us to 2 -> 7 -> 29 -> 9.
Saheeli's transform trick looks good, too bad its not as powerful as it looked with Primal Amulet. I'm pretty sure Saheeli doesn't cause problems with other cards becoming copies.
Is there a white legend we actually want to keep around? We aren't really using Teferi's end step untaps anymore. And while Teysa Karlov would be nice, black legends are off limits. Maybe a Gideon?
Hmm, we do need to keep a white legend around. It could be a planeswalker like Gideon or Huatli, the Sun's Heart - but perhaps it would help the start the most to take a white legendary creature. I didn't see any one that really stuck out as being helpful otherwise.
Okay, I just noticed something. The reason I initially chose to go with Azor's Gateway over Profane Procession was that the former provided a lot more black mana without Nikya, and then even with Nikya, it looked like we could get a couple more transforms with Azor's Gateway, and also we had a greater variety of cards we could pick as exilable cards. But, this no longer appears to be the case, now that Karn, the Great Creator prevents us from turning creatures indestructible. So now, I think we are better off with Profane Procession, and adding something like Lena, Selfless Champion, so that we can make copies of all our creatures and turn them indestructible.
1 Breeding Pool
2 Llanowar Elves
3 Drowned Catacomb
4 Marwyn, the Nurturer
5 Drowned Catacomb
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 Mox Amber
18 Manifold Key
19 Excavation Elephant
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Naban, Dean of Iteration
23 Arcane Adaptation
24 Tragic Poet
25 The Mending of Dominaria
26 Gaea's Blessing
White Mana:
27 Status // Statue
28 Bolt Bend
29 Runaway Steam-Kin
Drawing:
30 Bladebrand
31 Ionize
Life Gain:
32 Syndicate Guildmage
33 Sarkhan, Dragonsoul
34 Repeated Reverberation
35 Imperial Ceratops
36 Angel of Vitality
37 Dowsing Dagger
38 Switcheroo
39 Vampire Neonate
Land Transforming:
40 Profane Procession
41 Star of Extinction
42 Nikya of the Old Ways
43 Spark Double
44 Squee, the Immortal
45 Squee, the Immortal
Proliferating:
46 Guildpact Informant
47 New Horizons
Treasures:
48 Captain Lannery Storm
Indestructible:
49 Lena, Selfless Champion
Disposable Creatures:
50 Whispering Snitch
51 Citywatch Sphinx
52 Citywatch Sphinx
53 Citywatch Sphinx
54 Spark Double
55 Spark Double
56 Spark Double
57 Mirror Image
58 Mirror Image
59 Mirror Image
60 Mirror Image
So, by my count we have 27 exilable creatures, not counting Excavation Elephant, which we need to keep casting, and the two Squees. So that is 27 big mana gains, plus we can use Guildpact Informant and New Horizons to recycle our four lands and tap them for big mana, and we also get big mana from Dowsing Dagger and Captain Lannery Storm. So that should be 33 big mana gains in total, for more than 10 -> 10 -> 34 -> 9 damage in the end.