Yeah, Tibalt's emblem doesnt even let us cast something he got via kasmina, enigma sage's ult (like an X spell).
I understand why linked abilities work this way but it is kinda misleading.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper will put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping a Forest will generate a bunch of green mana
4 - Casting a creature spell will allow us to put a Forest onto the battlefield many times, thanks to Chulane, Teller of Tales
4 - Activating Steelbane Hydra will allow us to recycle Omen of the Forge, destroying our creature
5 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
6 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
7 - Casting an instant will create many copies
8 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
9 - Tapping a blue painland will generate a lot of blue mana
10 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
11 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life
13 - Casting Heliod's Intervention will create many copies
14 - An artifact can tap for a bunch of white mana
15 - Casting Mythos of Nethroi will create many copies of our artifact
16 - Tapping Skull Prophet will generate a lot of black mana
17 - A copy of Lorehold Command can give a lot of Skull Prophets haste
18 - Casting Lorehold Command will create a lot of copies
19 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Lorehold Command many times
20 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
21 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
22 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
23 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
24 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
We separate Skyway Sniper from Steelbane Hydra, by using Skyway Sniper to destroy Archon of Falling Stars and bringing back a saga enchantment that will die and go back to the graveyard. Steelbane Hydra goes higher up to destroy Omen of the Forge, which we can recycle to deal damage to creatures and recycle them to recycle our Forests via Chulane, Teller of Tales. So that gives us some extra mileage.
Unfortunately, to make this work, we need an artifact that can tap for white mana, but not black or red mana. (what a concept ) So here's hoping that more mana artifacts will come out. Another possibility is to use Zagoth Crystal to transition to black mana, and then have a creature tap for white mana - but we don't currently have a creature that taps for white mana but not red mana.
Keep on running into random holes in the stage frameworks I'm trying to find.
For example, Rewind is kinda similar to devious cover-up if you squint but only if we have a good come into play tapped land that sacrifices, oh we got a whole cycle of them, nice... But they can mostly only be activated at sorcery speed and the instant speed ones don't give us anything that the thaumabroom combo wouldn't do better.
Hmmm... for a stage, we don't need to necessarily do better than the thaumabroom combo, and we don't have to have the thaumabroom combo in the deck. (Although admittedly the combo is convenient for certain things)
What about Gates of Istfell? Its nonmana ability costs two blue, the same as Rewind, and gaining two life an drawing two cards could potentially be useful.
Edit: Actually, I think that can work. Let's say we have an easy way to recycle lands with draws - say we have a sacrifice outlet, and a way to put land cards from our graveyard into our library. If we have some Rewinds on the stack, and some number of Gates of Istfell, and a couple of blue mana lands that come into play tapped, we can resolve a Rewind to untap the two blue mana lands and a Gates of Istfell. We can get two blue mana from the lands. Then we sacrifice the two blue mana lands, and put those two lands along with a Gates of Istfell into the library. We sacrifice the Gates of Istfell (let's say we can get white mana on the cheap), and draw 4+ cards thanks to Teferi's Ageless Insight, including the two blue mana lands and a Gates of Istfell. We have some cheap way of putting those lands into play, and we profit some life. We do this for each Rewind on the stack, until we get to a Rewind followed by a Gates of Istfell activation below it. So now we can resolve the Rewind and Gates of Istfell without needing to spend any blue mana, so we profit two blue mana. We then resolve the next Rewind on the next layer below, so that we can untap a Gates of Istfell and two blue mana lands (so we go up to sfour mana), and spend two of our newly acquired two blue mana to activate the Gates of Istfell, but we don't resolve it. Then we cast Rewind with our remaining two blue mana, and get lots of copies, so we our back to where we started, except with a new top layer (presumably larger due to more copies... I guess we will have to make more copies of Sea Gate Stormcaller, and precast Teach By Example prior to casting the Rewind), and the next layer down being one copy less. So, this looks like a stage? Barring the rest of the setup, of course.
Hmm, that's kinda close, but runs into some problems like the Rewinds running out of targets, (all of the copy triggers only make one spell at a time) and gates of istfell being only one activation instead of several.
So we rewind Toski, bearer of secrets for the untap and to clear the stack of the real rewind and the other spell.
Then we need the other spell to put the Gates of Istfell back into play (gates can draw itself) Eureka moment can do that, but costs UG instead of UU...
I guess U=G isn't obviously a big problem, and we still need to turn the 2 life into the proper mana. Something like Murderous Rider can kill Maraleaf pixie for 2 life, allowing the pixie to be brought back with Back for more, though that does add another green to the cost...
We also have to be careful about consequences of reusing the Tibalt's trickery from the setup.
Edit: AFR previews are starting and these are our last new cards before rotation.
I haven't seen anything pop out to me yet, but fingers crossed.
Hmmm, I don't see any mana artifacts that would make the above 24-layer sequence work. But, I think I can get 22 by switching things up a bit. (One would think that we can get 22 by taking the 24-layer sequence, and removing the artifact part, but I couldn't find a way to make it connect; we need a creature that generates white mana, or else a black spell that gives the opponent a lot of life.)
We can match the current ending by attacking with many copies of Planar Ally, allowing us to venture into the dungeon many times. We can get a lot of abilities triggered from that, but the one we are focusing on is creating a Treasure token. (both Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Lost Mine of Phandelver have that; I guess LMoD is better since it has fewer rooms to go through) Each time we enter the Treasure token room, we trigger the ability many times thanks to Hama Pasha, Ruin Seeker. Then, each Treasure token taps for a lot of red mana. Then, we can replace Skull Prophet with Sculptor of Winter, and use Sculptor of Winter to untap a snow land that produces white.
So
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper will put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping a Forest will generate a bunch of green mana
4 - Casting a creature spell will allow us to put a Forest onto the battlefield many times, thanks to Chulane, Teller of Tales
4 - Activating Steelbane Hydra will allow us to recycle Omen of the Forge, destroying our creature
5 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
6 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
7 - Casting an instant will create many copies
8 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
9 - Tapping a blue painland will generate a lot of blue mana
10 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
11 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life
13 - Casting Heliod's Intervention will create many copies
14 - A snow land can tap for a bunch of white mana
15 - A copy of Lorehold Command can give a lot of copies of Sculptor of Winter haste
16 - Casting Lorehold Command will create a lot of copies
17 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Lorehold Command many times
18 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
19 - Tapping a Treasure token will generate a bunch of red mana
20 - Venturing into a room gets many copies thanks to Hama Pasha, Ruin Seeker
21 - Attacking with many copies of Planar Ally allows us to venture into the dungeon many times
22 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Now that the full set is out, and we still got nothing to enable flash, I'm looking for a stage anyway. We did still get some good cards and useful effects, (Venture seems pretty flexible and potentially even 'stageifyable') But there are still some glaring holes in our card pool.
Edit: Venture thoughts
using one of the ETB venture triggers (possibly with the thaumabroom combo), we can make a lot of treasures and use the end of dungeon of the mad mage to cast things from our library for free as long as we don't deck ourselves.
we need a good way to get cards back into the library for that, and while Epitaph golem is pretty good at it, we'd need to get the extra cards out of our hand too. well there's a dungeon for that in tomb of annihilation, but it would ping our opponent to death (especially through Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker). Unless we gained them life, say with whatever we cast from the dungeon of the mad mage.
This doesn't quite fit together the way I want, and it is pretty messy too. Venture might just need to be the last few layers.
Here's my thoughts about what a stage would even look like:
Assumption: this stage will occur on the stack similarly to all other known stages
-Consequence: we need to copy spells somehow
-Consequence: we'll need to be able to counter spells
Assunmption: the stage scales based on the number of copies of some permanent we have (as opposed to storm count)
-Consequence: we'll need an increasing number of enchantments, and/or creatures (and/or artifacts (and/or lands???)) to enable the stage.
Assumption: the stage is of one of the known 'types' we've used in the past with two interlocking pieces
-Consequence: looking for symmetric mana costs
As far as I can tell, we only have a few reasonable options to copy spells: Lithoform engine, sublime epiphany: too versatile probably breaks any stage Rowan, Scholar of sparks: difficult (impossible?) to increase the number of emblems in the middle of the stack Sea Gate Stormcaller: pretty good, only copies small instants/sorceries (tricky to get it to copy sorceries in the middle of the stack) Double major: seems to line up with sea gate stormcaller, worth exploring. Reflections of littjara : only copies creatures, but is very good at it, worth exploring. Volo, Guide to monsters: just worse than reflections in pretty much every way. Wizard's Spellbook: powerful but we can't get cards back from exile. Lutri the spellchaser: needs to be cast, and can copy low spells. Teach by example/Dual strike: cheap spells for sea gate stormcaller to chain into something bigger. Verazol, the Split current: only copies kicker spells
... and that's it.
Seems like there are two clear possible core engines: Reflections of littjara + flash creatures: This is easy to scale via thaumabroom, BUT our flash creature options are fairly poor, as are our flash enablers. Voracious greatshark is potentially useful at least
We can use one of the spells to counter the original octopus, and one to kick off thaumabroom making a bunch of sea gate stormcallers allowing us to cast a kicked Into the roil from hand and get many copies. and somehow drawing cards remakes the blue mana, and to counterspell it we need a mutate trigger?
I'm thinking a stack structure like:
-vadrok mutate trigger - cast some instants/sorceries for thaumabroom
octopus
octopus
octopus
octopus
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
-vadrok mutate trigger
octopus
octopus
octopus
octopus
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
...
Still some missing pieces but seems closer than we've gotten before.
Edit: I think I have it!
Using dirge bat instead, we have UU to draw a card and BB for mutate, and can remake the mana via unexpected windfall. Which can't draw itself, so it need to be put back with a mutate trigger of lore drakkis to be drawn with into the roil. saccing treasure also is another in to thaumabroom.
Mutate Dirge Bat 4 treasures (starting state)
get reflections triggers
resolve one, cancel the dirge bat, and put the windfall on top.
resolve another, blood beckoning the bat back in hand
kick into the roil get stormcaller triggers 2 treasures
resolve one, draw windfall
current stack (Reflections, Into the roil, Stormcaller)
RR...RRISS...SS
Mutate bat, 0 treasures
counter the into the roil, put it on top
counter the bat, return it to hand
cast windfall, draw into the roil 2 treasures (careful of decking, we need some dummy instants/sorceries to draw/discard)
back at the (starting state), but with two fewer treasures,
Transitions:
stack: SSRRR... X treasures
resolve down to the top S, putting into the roil + windfall on top
cast windfall, draw into the roil, X+2 treasures
Remutate Bat X treasures
stack: SRRRR....
stack: RRSSS X treasures
resolve top Ss
draw windfall+into the roil
cast windfall, X+2 treasures
resolve top R, putting windfall on top.
kick into the roil X treasures
stack: RISSS...
need to counter the real into the roil by remaking Rs above.
Edit: careful about getting the sea gate storm caller triggers eaten by blood beckoning, use omen of the dead instead? though that's a bit tricky timingwise.
Edit: that kinda doesn't work for the RRSSS transition, as we can make more biblioplex assistants without using a lower R, so I think we go infinite.
While Lore Drakkis putting the cards in hand eliminates the need to kick into the roil to actually draw things. (though it does make not decking to unexpected windfall a bit harder)
Seems to be a solid stage, but there's a big question of how quickly can we get this set up?
We can't use tibalt's trickery to cheat spells in, as it is incompatible with the combo. As are most ways to draw cards. Nyxbloom ancient is out too as treasures need to only tap for 1 each.
We can play mana dorks though as we don't need mass haste (can attack with a much of mutated vorinclexes to kill them)
But our options for mana dorks aren't fantastic, gilded goose is ok but will cut off life layers later.
Also our situation with dual lands is pretty unpleasant as well with only the snarls as untapped dual lands to get our colors.
Edit: hmm, it looks to me like a Tibalt's trickery deck is going to be able to go off turn 4, probably even turn 3, but it won't have this stage. (and there's the Minion of the mighty, infuriate, infuriate, Terror of Mount Velus 22 damage on turn 2, but that's not as interesting.)
Is it worth delaying 2-3 turns to include a stage? Or should I look for a stage that's compatible with trickery?
Ok, Things get a bit trickier with that, but I think there's a possibility due to some interaction that Trickery has with the combo:
1. It can't mutate creatures, so the mutator would still need to be cast from hand every time.
2. It can't target the triggers of things that copy/cast spells until those triggers resolve and actually make the copy.
3. It can kick spells like Into the roil and sea gate stormcaller.
4. A kicked Sea gate stormcaller trigger allows the trickery copies to target each other.
So the actions are something like:
Thaumabroom sea gate storm caller
Mutate Sea dasher
resolve to a Vadrok trigger
cast trickery on octopus
copy of trickery counters original trickery
Casts kicked sea gate storm caller
resolve to the next vadrok trigger
cast trickery on octopus
many sea gate storm caller triggers
first trigger actually counters octopus
other triggers will make copies that target each other
Thaumabroom sea gate storm callers
resolve a trickery, casts kicked into the roil.
many into the roil copies.
each copy draws octopus.
I think that this is close, but it definitely runs out of blue.
Edit: I think Midnight clock can provide the blue, as if it hits 12, it exiles itself and we can't get it back.
So, into the roil bounces it, discard it to Dream trawler, then recast it with vadrok trigger. (or reshuffle it with quandrix command to be cast off of a trickery, which requires two vadrok triggers, though they might be ones were were planning on doing anyway)
Does this work?
Edit: no it doesnt as vadrok can cast unkicked into the roil.
I guess maybe one of the pirsmari treasure cards work? elemental masterpiece gets discarded for red mana to make a treasure.
Edit: so its something like
UUUU floating
discard elemental masterpiece for a treasure
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections UUUUU
Mutate octopus UUUU
ORRRRRRRR
Top few Rs cast Quandrix commands to refill our library
next R casts trickery targeting octo, stormcaller makes trickery targeting trickery
ORRRRRTT
trickery counters trickery
casts+resolve kicked sea gate stormcaller
resolve to the next R->Vadrok trigger
R Cast trickery on octopus get a bunch of kicked stormcaller triggers making trickery copies that target trickery copies.
ORRRRTSSSSSSTT
thaumabroom stormcallers.
first trickeries counter octopus and real trickery
trickeries cast kicked into the roil UUU
many stormcaller triggers for into the roil
RRRSSSSSssssssssss
top ss draws octopus and elemental masterpiece
discard elemental masterpiece for a treasure
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections UUUU
Mutate octopus UUU
Seems close to working but looking at where the reshuffles happen, we might need two sea dasher octopus, and we need to get the real stormcaller back in the library.
Edit: meanwhile the start is something like:
forest Jaspera sentinel
mountain magda, Trickery tormod's crypt -> Ashiok, sculptor of fears milling vorinclex and drawing a card (this is slightly more handsize efficient than getting vorinclex immediately)
Ashiok reanimates vorinclex, trickery on crypt-> ? ,trickery on crypt -> Mordenkainen ult and do some other setup
t4: should be able to go off
A colorless card draw walker isn't safe:
UU
mutate U
bounce Ugin (unkicked into the roil)
reshuffle graveyard
do other profitable things with mutate triggers
recast Ugin
ult Ugin
make treasure UU
I think the blue ones are safe as casting them off of trickery would require us to get them into the graveyard, so we can just use like dead weight to get the real seagate storm caller back in the loop.
Looking at subsequent layers for this stage, it seems that there is not much room left. Treasure tokens moot all colors, we can cheaply draw, return any nonland permanent to our hand, and shuffle cards from our graveyard into our library, so not really any room in terms of restricting card usage. Also, I guess we can't have Ormar, Planar Ally.
What we do have is life, snow mana, and counters (probably +1/+1 counters). I don't think we have a way to kill creatures currently, so that is a possible trigger to use, among others.
Then we need to convert life into blue mana somehow. Sea Gate, Reborn will get us a blue mana for 3 life, provided we have a way to recycle the land. Tazeem Raptor and Chalune, Teller of Tales should work? It would also be nice to get an additional layer for blue mana; getting a lot of copies of Glittering Frost would do it, but I don't know how to do that.
We could also gain a lot of +1/+1 counters many times when we venture into a room, but the cards that remove +1/+1 counters also provide +1/+1 counters, so I don't see how to take advantage of this.
We could also go Moraug into Jorn into snow permanents, but I don't see how to get as many layers with that.
We can perhaps investigate how to free up more room with the stage - getting blue mana only rather than Treasure tokens would be really nice, is there some way to use lands in the stage?
Edit: Hmm, the way we currently get a blue mana is to draw an ELemental Masterpiece, discard it for a Treasure token, and shuffle it into the library with Quandrix Command. Would not the same thing work with an Island, using Chulane to put it into play, and an animated Waking the Trolls to destroy it?
Other than the herbalist requiring haste (via claim the firstborn?)I think that works to replace the Elemental masterpiece with island?
tap island UUUU
thaumabroom reflections = octopus
mutate UUU
first few vadrok triggers:
claim the herbalist
kill island + real stormcaller
reshuffle island + stormcaller
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections = merfolk
trickery targets octopus, trickery copy targets trickery
trickery casts kicked stormcaller
stormcallers resolve
trickery targets octopus
thaumabroom stormcallers
first trickery copies target octopus and real trickery
other copies will target each other.
trickeries cast kicked Into the Roil UU
Into the Roil draws island
herbalist puts island into play UUU
Into the Roil draws octopus
thaumabroom reflections = octopus
mutate octopus UU
Seems fine? this line does technically need a second copy of the octopus that might not be strictly necessary due to being cautious about ensuring trickery has a target, which can just be any other lower spell.
edit: we also need to be able to thaumabroom multiple times in the middle, which might be tricky?
That's just with one of the four other colors. The other colors are still hard to use, since we can generally cast spells for free; so it's looking like the Vintage deck, we need to use X spells or activated abilities. I supppose something like Adventure spells could also work, since they get exiled and we need to spend mana to cast them from exile. I guess I have to look through them.
One possibility is if we can switch out Scaled Herbalist for something that doesn't require haste. Then, we could use Kenrith, the Returned King to use red mana to give all creatures haste. We could then use say Murasa Rootgrazer to bounce and replay our Island many times. Just one more layer, although there may be a way to get more with haste.
Edit: As far as triggering Thaumabroom goes, maybe an enchantment of CMC 3 or less, which we can destroy cheaply? We can either have a cheap way to destroy enchantments directly, or use an aura and have a cheap way to destroy a creature or artifact.
Also the current 'best' thaumabroom mana source is The Bloodsky massacre which makes red so as for unused colors its just white black and green (and snow) There is a way to use colorless but it starts off much more inefficiently.
I was also over concerned with triggering thaumabroom, we don't need any other cards: we can reshuffle the original Bloodsky massacre and cast it off of one of the extra trickeries and then make unkicked stormcallers and reflections as needed.
Edit2: Hmm, bad news for the startup: Mordenkainen is not safe as they can kill themselves with the ult and then be cast with trickery. Allowing for a similar loop as with Ugin.
Hmm, that's too bad. So getting started is the biggest problem right now.
I guess we have a bit of a decision - it looks like we can get 20+ layers by turn 3, or we can get a stage, but it's gonna take at least turn 5 or 6? I do like getting that stage though.
I understand why linked abilities work this way but it is kinda misleading.
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper will put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping a Forest will generate a bunch of green mana
4 - Casting a creature spell will allow us to put a Forest onto the battlefield many times, thanks to Chulane, Teller of Tales
4 - Activating Steelbane Hydra will allow us to recycle Omen of the Forge, destroying our creature
5 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
6 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
7 - Casting an instant will create many copies
8 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
9 - Tapping a blue painland will generate a lot of blue mana
10 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
11 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life
13 - Casting Heliod's Intervention will create many copies
14 - An artifact can tap for a bunch of white mana
15 - Casting Mythos of Nethroi will create many copies of our artifact
16 - Tapping Skull Prophet will generate a lot of black mana
17 - A copy of Lorehold Command can give a lot of Skull Prophets haste
18 - Casting Lorehold Command will create a lot of copies
19 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Lorehold Command many times
20 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
21 - Tapping a snow land will generate a bunch of red mana
22 - Attacking with Jorn, God of Winter untaps a lot of snow lands
23 - We can attack with many Jorns each combat phase
24 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
We separate Skyway Sniper from Steelbane Hydra, by using Skyway Sniper to destroy Archon of Falling Stars and bringing back a saga enchantment that will die and go back to the graveyard. Steelbane Hydra goes higher up to destroy Omen of the Forge, which we can recycle to deal damage to creatures and recycle them to recycle our Forests via Chulane, Teller of Tales. So that gives us some extra mileage.
Unfortunately, to make this work, we need an artifact that can tap for white mana, but not black or red mana. (what a concept ) So here's hoping that more mana artifacts will come out. Another possibility is to use Zagoth Crystal to transition to black mana, and then have a creature tap for white mana - but we don't currently have a creature that taps for white mana but not red mana.
Keep on running into random holes in the stage frameworks I'm trying to find.
For example, Rewind is kinda similar to devious cover-up if you squint but only if we have a good come into play tapped land that sacrifices, oh we got a whole cycle of them, nice... But they can mostly only be activated at sorcery speed and the instant speed ones don't give us anything that the thaumabroom combo wouldn't do better.
What about Gates of Istfell? Its nonmana ability costs two blue, the same as Rewind, and gaining two life an drawing two cards could potentially be useful.
Edit: Actually, I think that can work. Let's say we have an easy way to recycle lands with draws - say we have a sacrifice outlet, and a way to put land cards from our graveyard into our library. If we have some Rewinds on the stack, and some number of Gates of Istfell, and a couple of blue mana lands that come into play tapped, we can resolve a Rewind to untap the two blue mana lands and a Gates of Istfell. We can get two blue mana from the lands. Then we sacrifice the two blue mana lands, and put those two lands along with a Gates of Istfell into the library. We sacrifice the Gates of Istfell (let's say we can get white mana on the cheap), and draw 4+ cards thanks to Teferi's Ageless Insight, including the two blue mana lands and a Gates of Istfell. We have some cheap way of putting those lands into play, and we profit some life. We do this for each Rewind on the stack, until we get to a Rewind followed by a Gates of Istfell activation below it. So now we can resolve the Rewind and Gates of Istfell without needing to spend any blue mana, so we profit two blue mana. We then resolve the next Rewind on the next layer below, so that we can untap a Gates of Istfell and two blue mana lands (so we go up to sfour mana), and spend two of our newly acquired two blue mana to activate the Gates of Istfell, but we don't resolve it. Then we cast Rewind with our remaining two blue mana, and get lots of copies, so we our back to where we started, except with a new top layer (presumably larger due to more copies... I guess we will have to make more copies of Sea Gate Stormcaller, and precast Teach By Example prior to casting the Rewind), and the next layer down being one copy less. So, this looks like a stage? Barring the rest of the setup, of course.
If we have Show of confidence as a counterable storm spell, maybe.
Also we cant have the mana come from lands, as we could just resolve 2+ rewinds in a row tapping the lands inbetween and be up mana.
Then we need the other spell to put the Gates of Istfell back into play (gates can draw itself) Eureka moment can do that, but costs UG instead of UU...
I guess U=G isn't obviously a big problem, and we still need to turn the 2 life into the proper mana. Something like Murderous Rider can kill Maraleaf pixie for 2 life, allowing the pixie to be brought back with Back for more, though that does add another green to the cost...
We also have to be careful about consequences of reusing the Tibalt's trickery from the setup.
Edit: AFR previews are starting and these are our last new cards before rotation.
I haven't seen anything pop out to me yet, but fingers crossed.
At the very least circle of dreams druid is probably worth a layer or two.
We can match the current ending by attacking with many copies of Planar Ally, allowing us to venture into the dungeon many times. We can get a lot of abilities triggered from that, but the one we are focusing on is creating a Treasure token. (both Dungeon of the Mad Mage and Lost Mine of Phandelver have that; I guess LMoD is better since it has fewer rooms to go through) Each time we enter the Treasure token room, we trigger the ability many times thanks to Hama Pasha, Ruin Seeker. Then, each Treasure token taps for a lot of red mana. Then, we can replace Skull Prophet with Sculptor of Winter, and use Sculptor of Winter to untap a snow land that produces white.
So
0 - Sacrificing a creature allows us to double our Thaumabrooms
1 - Resolving a contellation trigger allows us to turn many Thaumaturges into sacrifice creatures
2 - Activating Skyway Sniper will put an enchantment into play
3 - Tapping a Forest will generate a bunch of green mana
4 - Casting a creature spell will allow us to put a Forest onto the battlefield many times, thanks to Chulane, Teller of Tales
4 - Activating Steelbane Hydra will allow us to recycle Omen of the Forge, destroying our creature
5 - A Karok Wrangler trigger can put many +1/+1 counters on Steelbane Hydra
6 - Copying an instant can put many Karok Wrangler triggers on the stack
7 - Casting an instant will create many copies
8 - Casting Once and Future will bring the above instant back many times
9 - Tapping a blue painland will generate a lot of blue mana
10 - Resolving a Chandra's Incinerator trigger will gain us a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll
11 - Dealing the opponent damage will trigger many copies of Chandra's Incinerator
12 - A copy of Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life
13 - Casting Heliod's Intervention will create many copies
14 - A snow land can tap for a bunch of white mana
15 - A copy of Lorehold Command can give a lot of copies of Sculptor of Winter haste
16 - Casting Lorehold Command will create a lot of copies
17 - Casting Tibalt's Trickery will allow us to cast Lorehold Command many times
18 - We can put many copies of spells below the initial Tibalt's Trickery
19 - Tapping a Treasure token will generate a bunch of red mana
20 - Venturing into a room gets many copies thanks to Hama Pasha, Ruin Seeker
21 - Attacking with many copies of Planar Ally allows us to venture into the dungeon many times
22 - We can get a lot of combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Once the full spoiler is out I'm gonna try to find a stage again. It feels like we have to have one available somehow.
(I think there was something that needed a manland which might work now?)
Edit: Venture thoughts
using one of the ETB venture triggers (possibly with the thaumabroom combo), we can make a lot of treasures and use the end of dungeon of the mad mage to cast things from our library for free as long as we don't deck ourselves.
we need a good way to get cards back into the library for that, and while Epitaph golem is pretty good at it, we'd need to get the extra cards out of our hand too. well there's a dungeon for that in tomb of annihilation, but it would ping our opponent to death (especially through Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker). Unless we gained them life, say with whatever we cast from the dungeon of the mad mage.
This doesn't quite fit together the way I want, and it is pretty messy too. Venture might just need to be the last few layers.
Here's my thoughts about what a stage would even look like:
Assumption: this stage will occur on the stack similarly to all other known stages
-Consequence: we need to copy spells somehow
-Consequence: we'll need to be able to counter spells
Assunmption: the stage scales based on the number of copies of some permanent we have (as opposed to storm count)
-Consequence: we'll need an increasing number of enchantments, and/or creatures (and/or artifacts (and/or lands???)) to enable the stage.
Assumption: the stage is of one of the known 'types' we've used in the past with two interlocking pieces
-Consequence: looking for symmetric mana costs
As far as I can tell, we only have a few reasonable options to copy spells:
Lithoform engine, sublime epiphany: too versatile probably breaks any stage
Rowan, Scholar of sparks: difficult (impossible?) to increase the number of emblems in the middle of the stack
Sea Gate Stormcaller: pretty good, only copies small instants/sorceries (tricky to get it to copy sorceries in the middle of the stack)
Double major: seems to line up with sea gate stormcaller, worth exploring.
Reflections of littjara : only copies creatures, but is very good at it, worth exploring.
Volo, Guide to monsters: just worse than reflections in pretty much every way.
Wizard's Spellbook: powerful but we can't get cards back from exile.
Lutri the spellchaser: needs to be cast, and can copy low spells.
Teach by example/Dual strike: cheap spells for sea gate stormcaller to chain into something bigger.
Verazol, the Split current: only copies kicker spells
... and that's it.
Seems like there are two clear possible core engines:
Reflections of littjara + flash creatures: This is easy to scale via thaumabroom, BUT our flash creature options are fairly poor, as are our flash enablers. Voracious greatshark is potentially useful at least
Sea Gate Stormcaller + double major/teach by example + X: this seems the most promising, BUT it still needs to actually scale somehow, we don't have Doubling season or similar.
Maybe we can mix the two engines together? Though we'd still need to flash in the merfolk somehow to trigger reflections.
Edit: oh right, only one half needs to scale properly. There might be something with that.
Also missed Vadrok, apex of thunder as a flash enabler, which is looking a lot better than the other options we have.
edit2:
ok with Vadrok, apex of thunder we can trigger it a bunch with sea-dasher octopus copied with reflections of littjara.
We can use one of the spells to counter the original octopus, and one to kick off thaumabroom making a bunch of sea gate stormcallers allowing us to cast a kicked Into the roil from hand and get many copies. and somehow drawing cards remakes the blue mana, and to counterspell it we need a mutate trigger?
I'm thinking a stack structure like:
-vadrok mutate trigger - cast some instants/sorceries for thaumabroom
octopus
octopus
octopus
octopus
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
-vadrok mutate trigger
octopus
octopus
octopus
octopus
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
sea gate stormcaller trigger for into the roil
...
Still some missing pieces but seems closer than we've gotten before.
Edit: I think I have it!
Using dirge bat instead, we have UU to draw a card and BB for mutate, and can remake the mana via unexpected windfall. Which can't draw itself, so it need to be put back with a mutate trigger of lore drakkis to be drawn with into the roil. saccing treasure also is another in to thaumabroom.
Buildup:
setup
6 treasures
cancel, blood beckoning, unexpected windfall in yard,
thaumabroom combo with reflections of littjara on bat, sea gate stormcaller, Vadrok, apex of thunder+lore drakkis in play
Dirge Bat+Into the roil in hand.
Mutate Dirge Bat 4 treasures (starting state)
get reflections triggers
resolve one, cancel the dirge bat, and put the windfall on top.
resolve another, blood beckoning the bat back in hand
kick into the roil get stormcaller triggers 2 treasures
resolve one, draw windfall
current stack (Reflections, Into the roil, Stormcaller)
RR...RRISS...SS
Mutate bat, 0 treasures
counter the into the roil, put it on top
counter the bat, return it to hand
cast windfall, draw into the roil 2 treasures (careful of decking, we need some dummy instants/sorceries to draw/discard)
back at the (starting state), but with two fewer treasures,
Transitions:
stack: SSRRR... X treasures
resolve down to the top S, putting into the roil + windfall on top
cast windfall, draw into the roil, X+2 treasures
Remutate Bat X treasures
stack: SRRRR....
stack: RRSSS X treasures
resolve top Ss
draw windfall+into the roil
cast windfall, X+2 treasures
resolve top R, putting windfall on top.
kick into the roil X treasures
stack: RISSS...
need to counter the real into the roil by remaking Rs above.
Did I miss anything?
As for sorcerer's broom mana, we cant use nyxbloom ancient, but there are still other good options:
forsaken monument animated via The blackstaff of waterdeep which can't animate treasure tokens making crawling barrens tap for lots of colorless mana without general haste.
Red is already needed to cast unexpected windfall, so The Bloodsky Massacre+Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider? (unless that goes infinite with thaumabroom already?)
Ardent electromancer looks like it barely works, and seems to be slot efficient, but we need the other types.
If neither of those work then tuktuk rubblefort + circle of dreams druid+ some red source I guess.
There's not a lot of point saving other colors as the stage treasures can tap for anything anyway.
Edit: careful about getting the sea gate storm caller triggers eaten by blood beckoning, use omen of the dead instead? though that's a bit tricky timingwise.
Edit: that kinda doesn't work for the RRSSS transition, as we can make more biblioplex assistants without using a lower R, so I think we go infinite.
While Lore Drakkis putting the cards in hand eliminates the need to kick into the roil to actually draw things. (though it does make not decking to unexpected windfall a bit harder)
Other mutate cards dont seem particularly helpful.
However, the cmc<4 noncreature spells are useful:
fungal rebirth drawing Mystic sanctuary then put it into play with scaled herbalist and back in the yard via Roiling regrowth
A bit convoluted, but I think that patches the problem.
Any other issues? Or do we have a stage?
So current shell is something like:
2 Sorcerer's Broom
3 The Bloodsky Massacre
4 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
5 Vadrok, Apex of Thunder
6 Dirge Bat
7 Reflections of Littjara
8 Cancel
9 Blood Beckoning
11 Into the Roil
13 Unexpected Windfall
14 Fungal Rebirth
15 Scaled Herbalist
16 Roiling Regrowth
17 Mystic Sanctuary
18 Island
19 Island
20 Island
21 oh and a haste source
Not sure on what turn we can get setup by, but since tibalt's trickery is out, probably not before turn ~5?
Edit: darn Mystic sanctuary is a blue source so the blue mana doesn't work, it needs to enter untapped to get its trigger...
Quandrix command looks like it works to get cards back in our library. and is a lot simpler than the above line.
edit:
So we have:
2 Sorcerer's Broom
3 The Bloodsky Massacre
4 Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider
6 Dirge Bat
7 Reflections of Littjara
8 Cancel
9 Blood Beckoning
11 Into the Roil
13 Unexpected Windfall
14 Quandrix command
Seems to be a solid stage, but there's a big question of how quickly can we get this set up?
We can't use tibalt's trickery to cheat spells in, as it is incompatible with the combo. As are most ways to draw cards.
Nyxbloom ancient is out too as treasures need to only tap for 1 each.
We can play mana dorks though as we don't need mass haste (can attack with a much of mutated vorinclexes to kill them)
But our options for mana dorks aren't fantastic, gilded goose is ok but will cut off life layers later.
Also our situation with dual lands is pretty unpleasant as well with only the snarls as untapped dual lands to get our colors.
So, something like:
t1: forest goose
t2: forest circle of dreams druid
t3: lotus cobra, island, emergent sequence (island), nyx lotus
t4: Vorinclex, Mordenkainen -> ult with GGG floating and a land drop.
(quandrix command saves us from decking)
And I'm not even sure if we get to go off turn 5 from that start, so this is probably a turn 6 line.
Edit: hmm, no that line doesnt work as lotus cobra+animated land gives us U/B from thaumabroom.
Edit: we probably want to avoid goose anyway so let's try something else:
t1: forest Jaspera sentinel
t2: mountain magda, brazen outlaw, In search of greatness
t3: Circle of dreams druid for free, nyx lotus
t4: some free 5 drop(Vivien, Monsters' Advocate?), Vorinclex, Mordenkainen with some green still floating (depends on what the 5 drop is)
Seems more likely to be able to go off turn 5.
Edit: hmm, it looks to me like a Tibalt's trickery deck is going to be able to go off turn 4, probably even turn 3, but it won't have this stage. (and there's the Minion of the mighty, infuriate, infuriate, Terror of Mount Velus 22 damage on turn 2, but that's not as interesting.)
Is it worth delaying 2-3 turns to include a stage? Or should I look for a stage that's compatible with trickery?
Yeah, I think looking for a stage that allows for Tibalt's Trickery is the way to go now.
1. It can't mutate creatures, so the mutator would still need to be cast from hand every time.
2. It can't target the triggers of things that copy/cast spells until those triggers resolve and actually make the copy.
3. It can kick spells like Into the roil and sea gate stormcaller.
4. A kicked Sea gate stormcaller trigger allows the trickery copies to target each other.
So the actions are something like:
Thaumabroom sea gate storm caller
Mutate Sea dasher
resolve to a Vadrok trigger
cast trickery on octopus
copy of trickery counters original trickery
Casts kicked sea gate storm caller
resolve to the next vadrok trigger
cast trickery on octopus
many sea gate storm caller triggers
first trigger actually counters octopus
other triggers will make copies that target each other
Thaumabroom sea gate storm callers
resolve a trickery, casts kicked into the roil.
many into the roil copies.
each copy draws octopus.
I think that this is close, but it definitely runs out of blue.
Edit: I think Midnight clock can provide the blue, as if it hits 12, it exiles itself and we can't get it back.
So, into the roil bounces it, discard it to Dream trawler, then recast it with vadrok trigger. (or reshuffle it with quandrix command to be cast off of a trickery, which requires two vadrok triggers, though they might be ones were were planning on doing anyway)
Does this work?
Edit: no it doesnt as vadrok can cast unkicked into the roil.
I guess maybe one of the pirsmari treasure cards work? elemental masterpiece gets discarded for red mana to make a treasure.
Edit: so its something like
UUUU floating
discard elemental masterpiece for a treasure
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections UUUUU
Mutate octopus UUUU
ORRRRRRRR
Top few Rs cast Quandrix commands to refill our library
next R casts trickery targeting octo, stormcaller makes trickery targeting trickery
ORRRRRTT
trickery counters trickery
casts+resolve kicked sea gate stormcaller
resolve to the next R->Vadrok trigger
R Cast trickery on octopus get a bunch of kicked stormcaller triggers making trickery copies that target trickery copies.
ORRRRTSSSSSSTT
thaumabroom stormcallers.
first trickeries counter octopus and real trickery
trickeries cast kicked into the roil UUU
many stormcaller triggers for into the roil
RRRSSSSSssssssssss
top ss draws octopus and elemental masterpiece
discard elemental masterpiece for a treasure
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections UUUU
Mutate octopus UUU
Seems close to working but looking at where the reshuffles happen, we might need two sea dasher octopus, and we need to get the real stormcaller back in the library.
Edit: meanwhile the start is something like:
forest Jaspera sentinel
mountain magda, Trickery tormod's crypt -> Ashiok, sculptor of fears milling vorinclex and drawing a card (this is slightly more handsize efficient than getting vorinclex immediately)
Ashiok reanimates vorinclex, trickery on crypt-> ? ,trickery on crypt -> Mordenkainen ult and do some other setup
t4: should be able to go off
UU
mutate U
bounce Ugin (unkicked into the roil)
reshuffle graveyard
do other profitable things with mutate triggers
recast Ugin
ult Ugin
make treasure UU
I think the blue ones are safe as casting them off of trickery would require us to get them into the graveyard, so we can just use like dead weight to get the real seagate storm caller back in the loop.
What we do have is life, snow mana, and counters (probably +1/+1 counters). I don't think we have a way to kill creatures currently, so that is a possible trigger to use, among others.
One possibility is:
Layer 1: whenever a Pest from Sedgemoor Witch dies, we can gain a lot of life thanks to Honor Troll.
Layer 2: Whenever we enter Oubliette from Tomb of Annihilation, it triggers many times thanks to Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker.
Layer 3: Whwenever we attack, we can venture into the dungeon many times thanks to Planar Ally.
Layer 4: We get many combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum.
Then we need to convert life into blue mana somehow. Sea Gate, Reborn will get us a blue mana for 3 life, provided we have a way to recycle the land. Tazeem Raptor and Chalune, Teller of Tales should work? It would also be nice to get an additional layer for blue mana; getting a lot of copies of Glittering Frost would do it, but I don't know how to do that.
We could also gain a lot of +1/+1 counters many times when we venture into a room, but the cards that remove +1/+1 counters also provide +1/+1 counters, so I don't see how to take advantage of this.
We could also go Moraug into Jorn into snow permanents, but I don't see how to get as many layers with that.
We can perhaps investigate how to free up more room with the stage - getting blue mana only rather than Treasure tokens would be really nice, is there some way to use lands in the stage?
Edit: Hmm, the way we currently get a blue mana is to draw an ELemental Masterpiece, discard it for a Treasure token, and shuffle it into the library with Quandrix Command. Would not the same thing work with an Island, using Chulane to put it into play, and an animated Waking the Trolls to destroy it?
but maybe scaled herbalist could work? Walking the trolls gets the land back into play too though (vorinclex), so the options are really just like Redcap melee and Earth cult elemental?
Other than the herbalist requiring haste (via claim the firstborn?)I think that works to replace the Elemental masterpiece with island?
tap island UUUU
thaumabroom reflections = octopus
mutate UUU
first few vadrok triggers:
claim the herbalist
kill island + real stormcaller
reshuffle island + stormcaller
thaumabroom stormcaller + reflections = merfolk
trickery targets octopus, trickery copy targets trickery
trickery casts kicked stormcaller
stormcallers resolve
trickery targets octopus
thaumabroom stormcallers
first trickery copies target octopus and real trickery
other copies will target each other.
trickeries cast kicked Into the Roil UU
Into the Roil draws island
herbalist puts island into play UUU
Into the Roil draws octopus
thaumabroom reflections = octopus
mutate octopus UU
Seems fine? this line does technically need a second copy of the octopus that might not be strictly necessary due to being cautious about ensuring trickery has a target, which can just be any other lower spell.
edit: we also need to be able to thaumabroom multiple times in the middle, which might be tricky?
Layer 1: Each lifelinked Chandra's Incinerator trigger gains us a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll.
Layer 2: Dealing damage to the opponent can trigger a lot of Chandra's Incinerators.
Layer 3: A copy of Heliod's Intervention can gain the opponent a lot of life, thanks to Honor Troll.
Layer 4: Casting Heliod's Intervention gets many copies using Teach By Example.
Layer 5: Creating a Treasure token turns into many tokens thanks to Academy Manufacturer.
Layer 6: Venturing into the dungeon creates many triggers thanks to Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker.
Layer 7: Attacking allows us to venture many times thanks to Planar Ally.
Layer 8: We can get many combat phases thanks to Moraug, Fury of Akoum.
That's just with one of the four other colors. The other colors are still hard to use, since we can generally cast spells for free; so it's looking like the Vintage deck, we need to use X spells or activated abilities. I supppose something like Adventure spells could also work, since they get exiled and we need to spend mana to cast them from exile. I guess I have to look through them.
One possibility is if we can switch out Scaled Herbalist for something that doesn't require haste. Then, we could use Kenrith, the Returned King to use red mana to give all creatures haste. We could then use say Murasa Rootgrazer to bounce and replay our Island many times. Just one more layer, although there may be a way to get more with haste.
Edit: As far as triggering Thaumabroom goes, maybe an enchantment of CMC 3 or less, which we can destroy cheaply? We can either have a cheap way to destroy enchantments directly, or use an aura and have a cheap way to destroy a creature or artifact.
Also the current 'best' thaumabroom mana source is The Bloodsky massacre which makes red so as for unused colors its just white black and green (and snow) There is a way to use colorless but it starts off much more inefficiently.
I was also over concerned with triggering thaumabroom, we don't need any other cards: we can reshuffle the original Bloodsky massacre and cast it off of one of the extra trickeries and then make unkicked stormcallers and reflections as needed.
Edit: also Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy (+Kargan Intimidator) should be worth a layer as it doesn't affect lands
Edit2: Hmm, bad news for the startup: Mordenkainen is not safe as they can kill themselves with the ult and then be cast with trickery. Allowing for a similar loop as with Ugin.
I guess we have a bit of a decision - it looks like we can get 20+ layers by turn 3, or we can get a stage, but it's gonna take at least turn 5 or 6? I do like getting that stage though.
Edit: Perhaps Chandra, Heart of Fire? It does allow us to cast Tibalt's Trickery a bunch of times, so it might not be safe.