Minor optimization might be to hit the Mage's attendant instead of Avalanche caller in the start, and then just spend 2 mana to cast avalanche caller when we want to animate the swamp.
Edit: actually no blue is more expensive than white
Edit: got started on the doc Deedlit shared via DMs
So unless we find an improvement to the start that prepares the Jin we can't have the flash emblem ready for the first Thieves' Tools cast. With the 35 treasures we get from the first Tools copy in that case we can still get access to most of our deck after spending 8 of them. But as far as I can tell none of the stages work without flash for Skyclave Shade and Spara's Adjudicators. The best I can find are 4 layers.
- Each of 27 treasure casts Tibalt's Trickery with X counterable spells on the stack. (And gets enough TT copies to counter them)
- Countering 1 of those spells casts Bloody Betrayal, and all copies untap an original creature to get X green mana
- Each green mana casts For the Family on the animated swamp, getting copies for X black mana.
- 3 black mana can cast Vanquish the Weak to double our Orvar, the All-Form count (our refresh the utility creatures as needed)
So I think we get 2^^^^29 treasures from the original Tools once we resolve that.
(There is only one layer from TT because we need flash for Sea Gate Stormcaller to cast it with kicker to get the double copy creation. Using TT to cast it would be too expensive)
There's a lot of overhead costs in this combo, as we start off pretty inefficient with needing a bunch of spells to counter and with a need to get more of our utility creatures fairly often. But we do get much better as the combo goes.
Edit: im close to getting an early frog line to work (though without arlinn) and it seems at least possible to get Jin instead of Orvar from exile 5, but from there its difficult to make nonlegendary Orvars.
Edit: ok so here's my line
TT mills 3
exile 1: invoke
exile 4: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT (+TT)
TT counters TT for lorehold command (haste and draw) TT mills 3
TTS->vorinclex (hasty)+ avalanche caller (no haste)
tap non xorns for GGG
spend 2 for adjudicators on xorn, tap xorn for U
GU floating
Exile 5: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT+bloody betrayal
Betrayal makes U through Xorn
TT counters TTS for Jin cast double major to make a nonlegendary copy
TTS gets mind sorcerer, returning double major
exile 6: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT+bloody betrayal+croaking counterpart (+2 jin copies of CC)
CC makes 2 frog-Jins
bloody betrayal make a G
TT makes Orvar, cast double major get Jin copies, -> orvar+3 friends
TTS -> mage's attendant or something
...
But from here we are at basically no resources need a bit more to actually combo off,
(also, very minor note: we need to counter all of our Vanquish the weaks as first day of class and Arlinn and Sigarda's summons push all of our fresh creatures too big so we can't be killing off the small number we made in the setup, so its at least 4 mana per doubling once we are in the main combo)
Minor optimization might be to hit the Mage's attendant instead of Avalanche caller in the start, and then just spend 2 mana to cast avalanche caller when we want to animate the swamp.
Edit: actually no blue is more expensive than white
Edit: got started on the doc Deedlit shared via DMs
So unless we find an improvement to the start that prepares the Jin we can't have the flash emblem ready for the first Thieves' Tools cast. With the 35 treasures we get from the first Tools copy in that case we can still get access to most of our deck after spending 8 of them. But as far as I can tell none of the stages work without flash for Skyclave Shade and Spara's Adjudicators. The best I can find are 4 layers.
- Each of 27 treasure casts Tibalt's Trickery with X counterable spells on the stack. (And gets enough TT copies to counter them)
- Countering 1 of those spells casts Bloody Betrayal, and all copies untap an original creature to get X green mana
- Each green mana casts For the Family on the animated swamp, getting copies for X black mana.
- 3 black mana can cast Vanquish the Weak to double our Orvar, the All-Form count (our refresh the utility creatures as needed)
So I think we get 2^^^^29 treasures from the original Tools once we resolve that.
(There is only one layer from TT because we need flash for Sea Gate Stormcaller to cast it with kicker to get the double copy creation. Using TT to cast it would be too expensive)
There's a lot of overhead costs in this combo, as we start off pretty inefficient with needing a bunch of spells to counter and with a need to get more of our utility creatures fairly often. But we do get much better as the combo goes.
Edit: im close to getting an early frog line to work (though without arlinn) and it seems at least possible to get Jin instead of Orvar from exile 5, but from there its difficult to make nonlegendary Orvars.
Edit: ok so here's my line
TT mills 3
exile 1: invoke
exile 2: invoke+TTS
TTS->Ashaya
exile 3: invoke+TTS+TTS
2xTTS->Xorn + Sea gate (note: TTS gives +1/+1 counters)
exile 4: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT (+TT)
TT counters TT for lorehold command (haste and draw) TT mills 3
TTS->vorinclex (hasty)+ avalanche caller (no haste)
tap non xorns for GGG
spend 2 for adjudicators on xorn, tap xorn for U
GU floating
Exile 5: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT+bloody betrayal
Betrayal makes U through Xorn
TT counters TTS for Jin cast double major to make a nonlegendary copy
TTS gets mind sorcerer, returning double major
exile 6: invoke+TTS+TTS+TT+bloody betrayal+croaking counterpart (+2 jin copies of CC)
CC makes 2 frog-Jins
bloody betrayal make a G
TT makes Orvar, cast double major get Jin copies, -> orvar+3 friends
TTS -> mage's attendant or something
...
But from here we are at basically no resources need a bit more to actually combo off,
(also, very minor note: we need to counter all of our Vanquish the weaks as first day of class and Arlinn and Sigarda's summons push all of our fresh creatures too big so we can't be killing off the small number we made in the setup, so its at least 4 mana per doubling once we are in the main combo)