I think that's worth an extra layer, because of how we chain the ETB triggers
2 Proliferates animate the key to make a bunch of white
Landfall makes a bunch of proliferates
Molderhulk returns many lands
Slinn Voda bounces molderhulk many times
Blood for bones returns Slinn Voda a lot
Every bankrupt in blood draws blood for bones.
Draw that repeatedly with Gaea's Blessing+Ionize lets us recast Gaea's Blessing.
Gain life with Angel of Vitality +Vampire Neonate.
Give them life with Angel of vitality + Ceratops trigger
Give them many Ceratops triggers with Sarkhan
Get a bunch of sarkhan activations with Repeated Reverberation
Use Dreadmalkin to sacrifice Sarkhan, using all the black we make with Sanctum of the sun.
Flip sanctum of the sun 15+ times.
I think we can sneak in Storm sculptor to bounce Slinn Voda, while not being bounced itself for another layer.
Edit: hmm no that doesn't quite work.
Here's a crazy idea: What if we have a Kaya's Ghostform for each of Citywatch Sphinx, Gyre Engineer, Tragic Poet, and Evolution Sage? Then we won't have any cheap way of returning those creatures to our hand or the battlefield, except by drawing or Blood for Bones or Cavalier of Night. So if at any point we resolve a Wrath Nova without putting a Kaya's Ghostform on one of those creatures, we lose them until the next Blood for Bones or Cavalier of Night.
Does that work, or is there some way to finagle using one of those Kaya's Ghostforms on Llanowar Scout?
I looked at the cavalier too, but the etb trigger is too good. We can sac a token sphinx to reshuffle and make more sphinxes and cavaliers.
As for that other idea, well we can make a bunch of mana and then skip using one on Gyre Engineer to keep Llanowar Scout + evo sage around through a wrath.
I'm not sure if that goes infinite, but seems like it probably does?
Kaya's Ghostform returning to hand might also be an issue, letting us switch which creatures we wrath too easily.
Even with only one, we don't need to keep it on the sphinx constantly like we do with Unholy Indenture.
For example we can go Llanowar scout + Ghostform, activate it and wrath in response, resolve one, sphinx+ghostform as usual for all the other wraths, then make evo sage+ghostform after the last one and resolve the Scout activation, make a bunch of proliferate triggers and white, and then wrath the evo sage back to hand.
Yeah, Cavalier of Night doesn't work. But I'm not following you on the other idea. If we resolve a Wrath Nova with Kaya's Ghostform on Llanowar Scout, then we won't have it on Citywatch Sphinx, and the Sphinx will go to the graveyard. Kaya's Ghostform doesn't bring creatures back to our hand, it returns them to the battlefield, so once we play a creature, we have to keep putting a Ghostform on it every Wrath Nova or it will go to the graveyard.
Edit: So, here's an initial decklist for the new Slinn Voda idea:
Oh I misread kaya's ghostform, thought it was like Demonic Vigor.
As for that list, its looking pretty good, though I think we want the less fishy Molderhulk instead of World shaper and Wayward Swordtooth (Lotus Field is needed to sac the Sanctum of the sun still)
oh and Teshar is a white legend, so we don't need gideon anymore.
Ah of course - and unlike with Teferi, losing Repeated Reverberation means losing a layer.
Hmm, what about Tibalt, Rakish Investigator? We can activate it to create a Devil token, then we can Replicate it, and have them deal damage to Imperial Ceratops. No, the Devil tokens can destroy Tibalt. Shoot.
Is there any chance we can get a Stony Strength-less start? One thing I noticed: if we go back to having two of The Antiquities War and no Mystic Forge, we could have multiple copies of Mox Amber, since it will be the TAW's that are limiting our artifacts. So we could start with say, Kykar, Wind's Fury, and get two mana per Mox Amber. Of course, without Mystic Forge, each Mox Amber will cost us a card slot.
In case we can't find a Stony Strength-less start, we could go with:
Unfortunately, both Blood for bones and Bankrupt in blood let us sacrifice Dreadhorde butcher, so we might have to go without spark double instead.
One thought I had was to use Helm of the host to make a non legendary token of Naban, then use Metemorphic Alteration to turn the token into something innately indestructible like Zetalpa, Primal Dawn to keep it around through the wraths. But that looks like it goes infinite with an animated artifact, bleh.
There might be something with Sephara, Sky's Blade also making the Sphinx indestructible so we couldn't reshuffle?
Ooh, that is interesting! We can kick Karn to the curb if necessary. We would only get maybe 10 -> 10 -> 5 -> 13 or something like that, but it's still better than what we can get from Finale of Eternity or Banefire.
Yeah, Smothering Tithe is not safe, since we can keep animating Treasure tokens, making noncreature copies, and then Citywide Burst will destroy the animated copies but not the nonanimated ones.
Without Mystic Forge the kykar into moxen into emergency powers#2 start looks like it can work without untappers. Though it is hard to prove it can't go infinite, it is not nearly as bad in that respect as some of the other double emergency powers starts.
Yeah, though I think we want to need all 7 of the cards in the first hand, instead of having an extra one. it looks like there might be room for something like TYS into Gaea's Blessing redrawing the moxes and making emergency powers able to be hit by Disdainful stroke. (that specific line doesnt have enough green, but something similar might not have that problem)
Hmm, I'm not sure how we would do that. 4 moxes is enough to get a second Emergency Powers, and I don't know what else at that point can give us mana. Anyways, we need to put a Legend into play with the first Addendum, or else we can't get any mana, so we would need to cast both Thousand-Year Storm and Emergency Powers with the remaining cards to go infinite, which seems pretty difficult.
yeah it does seem difficult, but Kykar mox mox mox TYS leaves us with R and 2 cards left, which is dangerously close to being able to go off. (if we had a green we could cast Gaea's Blessing and be off to the races)
It's close, and also not that close, since our cheapest green Legend is Samut, so we would need to cast Samut and Mox Amber to get green mana, so we are short on both mana and cards.
Edit: Hmm, here's an idea: Get rid of Pattern Matcher. Use Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Militia Bugler to fetch Gyre Engineer, Tragic Poet, Evolution Sage, and themselves. Use Kaya's Ghostform to return Citywatch Sphinx to the battlefield. Then we can use Blood for Bones to return Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep back to our hand, and we can cast Slinn Voda with kicker, and get a lot of ETB triggers. Each trigger can return World Shaper, allowing us to recast it and Replicate it many times for lots of copies each time.
Edit: Oh whoops, World Shaper is a Merfolk. Unfortunate coincidence. Are there other creatures we can use to recycle lands?
Edit: We can use Molderhulk instead.
2 Proliferates animate the key to make a bunch of white
Landfall makes a bunch of proliferates
Molderhulk returns many lands
Slinn Voda bounces molderhulk many times
Blood for bones returns Slinn Voda a lot
Every bankrupt in blood draws blood for bones.
Draw that repeatedly with Gaea's Blessing+Ionize lets us recast Gaea's Blessing.
Gain life with Angel of Vitality +Vampire Neonate.
Give them life with Angel of vitality + Ceratops trigger
Give them many Ceratops triggers with Sarkhan
Get a bunch of sarkhan activations with Repeated Reverberation
Use Dreadmalkin to sacrifice Sarkhan, using all the black we make with Sanctum of the sun.
Flip sanctum of the sun 15+ times.
I think we can sneak in Storm sculptor to bounce Slinn Voda, while not being bounced itself for another layer.
Edit: hmm no that doesn't quite work.
Here's a crazy idea: What if we have a Kaya's Ghostform for each of Citywatch Sphinx, Gyre Engineer, Tragic Poet, and Evolution Sage? Then we won't have any cheap way of returning those creatures to our hand or the battlefield, except by drawing or Blood for Bones or Cavalier of Night. So if at any point we resolve a Wrath Nova without putting a Kaya's Ghostform on one of those creatures, we lose them until the next Blood for Bones or Cavalier of Night.
Does that work, or is there some way to finagle using one of those Kaya's Ghostforms on Llanowar Scout?
As for that other idea, well we can make a bunch of mana and then skip using one on Gyre Engineer to keep Llanowar Scout + evo sage around through a wrath.
I'm not sure if that goes infinite, but seems like it probably does?
Kaya's Ghostform returning to hand might also be an issue, letting us switch which creatures we wrath too easily.
Even with only one, we don't need to keep it on the sphinx constantly like we do with Unholy Indenture.
For example we can go Llanowar scout + Ghostform, activate it and wrath in response, resolve one, sphinx+ghostform as usual for all the other wraths, then make evo sage+ghostform after the last one and resolve the Scout activation, make a bunch of proliferate triggers and white, and then wrath the evo sage back to hand.
Edit: So, here's an initial decklist for the new Slinn Voda idea:
1 Leyline of Abundance
2 Leyline of Abundance
3 Breeding Pool
4 Llanowar Elves
5 Plains
6 Stony Strength
7 Stony Strength
8 Emergency Powers
9 Thousand-Year Storm
10 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
11 Mystic Forge
12 Karn, the Great Creator
13 Mox Amber
14 Manifold Key
15 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
16 Precognition Field
17 Omniscience
18 Emergence Zone
Stage Combo:
19 The Antiquities War
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Cleansing Nova
22 Disdainful Stroke
23 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
24 Militia Bugler
25 Gyre Engineer
26 Tragic Poet
27 Gaea's Blessing
28 Citywatch Sphinx
29 Kaya's Ghostform
30 Repudiate // Replicate
Proliferation:
31 Evolution Sage
Recycling Lands:
32 World Shaper
33 Lotus Field
Recycling World Shaper:
34 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
35 Naban, Dean of Iteration
36 Spark Double
37 Arcane Adaptation
Drawing:
38 Blood for Bones
39 Bankrupt in Blood
40 Ionize
Life Gain:
41 Sarkhan, Dragonsoul
42 Repeated Reverberation
43 Dreadmalkin
44 Imperial Ceratops
45 Angel of Vitality
46 Vampire Neonate
47 Dowsing Dagger
48 Switcheroo
49 Azor's Gateway
White Legend:
50 Gideon, the Oathsworn
Putting Emergence Zone into play:
51 Wayward Swordtooth
Disposable Cards:
52 Nexus of Fate
53 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
54 Repudiate // Replicate
55 Repudiate // Replicate
56 Rallying Roar
57 Rallying Roar
58 Rallying Roar
59 Thousand-Year Storm
60 Thousand-Year Storm
As for that list, its looking pretty good, though I think we want the less fishy Molderhulk instead of World shaper and Wayward Swordtooth (Lotus Field is needed to sac the Sanctum of the sun still)
oh and Teshar is a white legend, so we don't need gideon anymore.
Edit:
oh right, Spark double+Sarkhan+Repeated Reverberation goes infinite.
Hmm, what about Tibalt, Rakish Investigator? We can activate it to create a Devil token, then we can Replicate it, and have them deal damage to Imperial Ceratops. No, the Devil tokens can destroy Tibalt. Shoot.
Hmm... the next best thing is to replace Sarkhan, Dragonsoul with Finale of Eternity and Dreadhorde Butcher. Then, if possible, we could animate Rakdos Guildgate and Replicate a bunch of copies, which we could untap with Wilderness Reclamation et al. Of course, we need to get rid of Stony Strength for that to work.
Is there any chance we can get a Stony Strength-less start? One thing I noticed: if we go back to having two of The Antiquities War and no Mystic Forge, we could have multiple copies of Mox Amber, since it will be the TAW's that are limiting our artifacts. So we could start with say, Kykar, Wind's Fury, and get two mana per Mox Amber. Of course, without Mystic Forge, each Mox Amber will cost us a card slot.
In case we can't find a Stony Strength-less start, we could go with:
1 Leyline of Abundance
2 Leyline of Abundance
3 Breeding Pool
4 Llanowar Elves
5 Plains
6 Stony Strength
7 Stony Strength
8 Emergency Powers
9 Thousand-Year Storm
10 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
11 Mystic Forge
12 Karn, the Great Creator
13 Mox Amber
14 Manifold Key
15 Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
16 Precognition Field
17 Omniscience
18 Emergence Zone
Stage Combo:
19 The Antiquities War
20 Cleansing Nova
21 Cleansing Nova
22 Disdainful Stroke
23 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
24 Militia Bugler
25 Gyre Engineer
26 Tragic Poet
27 Gaea's Blessing
28 Citywatch Sphinx
29 Kaya's Ghostform
30 Repudiate // Replicate
Proliferation:
31 Evolution Sage
Recycling Lands:
32 Molderhulk
33 Lotus Field
Recycling World Shaper:
34 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
35 Naban, Dean of Iteration
36 Spark Double
37 Arcane Adaptation
Drawing:
38 Blood for Bones
39 Bankrupt in Blood
40 Ionize
Life Gain:
41 Finale of Eternity
42 Doublecast
43 Dreadhorde Butcher
44 Imperial Ceratops
45 Angel of Vitality
46 Vampire Neonate
47 Dowsing Dagger
48 Switcheroo
49 Azor's Gateway
More Black Mana:
50 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Disposable Cards:
51 Nexus of Fate
52 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
53 Repudiate // Replicate
54 Repudiate // Replicate
55 Rallying Roar
56 Rallying Roar
57 Rallying Roar
58 Thousand-Year Storm
59 Thousand-Year Storm
60 Thousand-Year Storm
One thought I had was to use Helm of the host to make a non legendary token of Naban, then use Metemorphic Alteration to turn the token into something innately indestructible like Zetalpa, Primal Dawn to keep it around through the wraths. But that looks like it goes infinite with an animated artifact, bleh.
There might be something with Sephara, Sky's Blade also making the Sphinx indestructible so we couldn't reshuffle?
It would be very nice if we could use Helm of the Host to keep around a nonlegendary token of Naban, Dean of Iteration; then we could go back to using Sarkhan. But, if we used Metamorphic Alteration to change the token to another creature (like Sephara, Sky's Blade), how would we change the token back to a nonlegendary Naban?
Edit: Oh I see, we would remove the enchantment. Hmm, but I don't see how we would make it work with Sephara.
Karn can animate key to a 1/1 as well, which might be a problem with this plan?
Squee, the Immortal can be returned from exile without Karn, but other than that we lose 4 cards forever each time we flip Azor's Gateway.
Edit:
Actually, Squee might not be safe with the gateway, letting us spend red and a wrath to draw a card.
Smothering tithe's treasure tokens arent safe still right?
A starting deck:
1 Leyline of Abundance
2 Leyline of Abundance
3 Breeding Pool
4 Llanowar Elves
5 Plains
6 Stony Strength
7 Stony Strength
8 Emergency Powers
9 Kykar, Wind's Fury
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
12 Mystic Forge
13 Mox Amber
14 Manifold Key
15 Precognition Field
16 Omniscience
17 Emergence Zone
Stage Combo:
18 The Antiquities War
19 Cleansing Nova
20 Citywide Burst
21 Disdainful Stroke
22 Gyre Engineer
23 Tragic Poet
24 Gaea's Blessing
25 Citywatch Sphinx
26 Kaya's Ghostform
27 Repudiate // Replicate
Proliferation:
28 Evolution Sage
Recycling Lands:
29 Molderhulk
30 Lotus Field
Recycling World Shaper:
31 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
32 Naban, Dean of Iteration
33 Helm of the Host
34 Arcane Adaptation
Drawing:
35 Blood for Bones
36 Bankrupt in Blood
37 Ionize
Life Gain:
38 Sarkhan, Dragonsoul
39 Repeated Reverberation
40 Dreadmalkin
41 Imperial Ceratops
42 Angel of Vitality
43 Vampire Neonate
44 Dowsing Dagger
45 Switcheroo
46 Azor's Gateway
White Legend:
47 Gideon, the Oathsworn
Disposable Cards:
48 Nexus of Fate
49 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
50 Repudiate // Replicate
51 Repudiate // Replicate
52 Repudiate // Replicate
53 Act of Treason
54 Rallying Roar
55 Rallying Roar
56 Rallying Roar
57 Rallying Roar
58 Thousand-Year Storm
59 Thousand-Year Storm
60 Thousand-Year Storm
1 Leyline of Abundance
2 Leyline of Abundance
3 Breeding Pool
4 Llanowar Elves
5 Plains
6 Stony Strength
7 Stony Strength
8 Kykar, Wind's Fury
9 Emergence Zone
10 Naban, Dean of Iteration
11 Gideon, the Oathsworn
12 Nexus of Fate
13 Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
14 Repudiate // Replicate
15 Repudiate // Replicate
16 Repudiate // Replicate
17 Act of Treason
18 Rallying Roar
19 Rallying Roar
20 Rallying Roar
21 Rallying Roar
22 Thousand-Year Storm
23 Thousand-Year Storm
24 Thousand-Year Storm
Shoot, 24 exilable cards, one short of 5 Sanctum of the Suns.
Slaughter the Strong also has CMC 3, unfortunately.
Edit: Dang, Single Combat would seem to fit the bill, except for that second sentence. Time Wipe doesn't seem to help.
And that's also the end of cards that kill Sphinx and animated artifacts at the same time.
Single combat lets us save an animated artifact anyway.
Something along the lines of:
4x leylines
Emergency powers 0 floating
Addendum Kykar
mox 2
mox 4
mox 6
mox 8
Emergency powers
Addendum TYS
Looks ugly but maybe workable?
Edit: oops Leyline can pump Lena's power enough to make the animated artifact indestructable.
4x leylines
Emergency powers 0 floating
Addendum Kykar
mox UR
mox UURR
mox UUURRR
mox WUUURRRR
Emergency powers, UR
Addendum TYS, UR, 6 cards
mox UURR, 5 cards
mox UUURRR, 4 cards
Samut, Tyrant Smasher, UUR, 3 cards
mox GUURR, 2 cards
Gyre Engineer, GGGGGUUR mana, 1 cards
Precognition Field, GGURR mana, 0 cards
L - Replicate - 15G,3U,3R
and I think we're okay from there on?
If this works, here's the prospective deck:
1 Leyline of Abundance
2 Leyline of Abundance
3 Leyline of Abundance
4 Leyline of Abundance
5 Breeding Pool
6 Llanowar Elves
7 Plains
8 Emergency Powers
9 Kykar, Wind's Fury
10 Thousand-Year Storm
11 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
12 Mox Amber
13 Mox Amber
14 Mox Amber
15 Mox Amber
16 Manifold Key
17 Precognition Field
18 Omniscience
19 Emergence Zone
Stage Combo:
20 The Antiquities War
21 The Antiquities War
22 Cleansing Nova
23 Cleansing Nova
24 Disdainful Stroke
25 Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
26 Militia Bugler
27 Gyre Engineer
28 Tragic Poet
29 Gaea's Blessing
30 Citywatch Sphinx
31 Kaya's Ghostform
32 Repudiate // Replicate
Proliferation:
33 Evolution Sage
Recycling Lands:
34 Molderhulk
Recycling World Shaper:
35 Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep
36 Naban, Dean of Iteration
37 Spark Double
38 Arcane Adaptation
Drawing:
39 Aid the Fallen
40 Bladebrand
41 Ionize
Life Gain:
42 Finale of Eternity
43 Doublecast
44 Dreadhorde Butcher
45 Imperial Ceratops
46 Angel of Vitality
47 Vampire Neonate
48 Dowsing Dagger
49 Switcheroo
50 Rakdos Guildgate
51 Nikya of the Old Ways
Untapping Lands:
52 Tenth District Veteran
53 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
54 Wilderness Reclamation
55 Wilderness Reclamation
56 Wilderness Reclamation
57 Wilderness Reclamation
Extra Cards:
58 Nexus of Fate
59 Repudiate // Replicate
60 Repudiate // Replicate