We do just have four Smothering Tithes for the first Happily Ever After, but that is still more than enough to get well past 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 1 -> 7. Even without the couple of Heliod's Inteventions from that initial white mana, it should be no problem to get past 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 1 -> 7. Then the next 50 Happily Ever Afters increase the 1 to 51, and then Gadrack increases it to 52, so the final lower bound should be 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 52 -> 7.
Oh yes, I know. I was thinking that you were using an initial Happily Ever After to get started, but it looks like the latest version does not. But, in that case, shouldn't the final damage be more than 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 10 -> 52 -> 7? We get one for each of the 51 Happily Ever Afters that we can put into play, and one more for Gadrack.
Assuming the current deck does get to 52, we can still improve the start with Eerie Ultimatum putting a lot of cards into play for 7 life, I think.
Hi guys again! Wow, incredible job on the writeup, it looks great. Sorry that I've been busy for the past two weeks.
Even though I'm coming here a bit late, I think it should be possible to not waste a Happily Ever After in the beginning. Is Eerie Ultimatum safe? It costs 7 life to cast, and I can't think of anything that we can get that makes up for that. With that, we can get started by putting milling a bunch of cards, and bringing back all the permanents with Eerie Ultimatum.
Hmm, but can we go infinite with paying and gaining two life? We still need to kill off the mutated land, so that we can mutate onto the new land. This is easy enough with Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi, but if we use, say, Clan Guildmage, then we have to use a copy of Ritual of Soot to kill off the mutated land. We can get black mana by pinging Skull Prophet, but to get mana and complete the loop, we still need to resolve copies of Ritual of Soot and Gruesome Menagerie. So, at first glance, it doesn't appear to go infinite.
Sporeweb Weaver is an interesting idea, but if we only get 1 life for it, it would seem that we would have to go back to Usher to Safety and Shock.
Edit: Oh I see - we are still going to use lifelink, but with Sporeweb Weaver replacing one of the mutators. Got it.
Edit: While Sporeweb Weaver isn't really needed, it seems like it is more convenient than another mutator, since we have to draw and mutate the mutator. But, I guess with Light up the Stage exiling two cards, and Gemrazor having a cheap mutate cost, it doesn't really matter.
Wow, I didn't realize I'd been gone for almost a whole month. Sorry guys!
Hmm, so it looks there have been new infinites found. I don't know how to fix the latest one - there is Nissa, Who Shakes the World, which will cost us 5 life to play, so that more than counters the life we gain from the muatated Watery Grave. But, it also untaps the land, so we can untap our red mana land for profit. Too bad.
Hmmm, Leafkin Avenger would be very nice to have, but unfortunately it needs a Planeswalker in addition, and we can't exile either one until the end of the combo. So, Electrodominance would allow for an extra draw, provided of course we can still get started with it.
So, it seems like the non-creature cards that we can conceivably exile are:
Also, if we could somehow replace [c}Ritual of Soot[/c] with something that doesn't hit all CMC 3 or less creatures, then we could exile Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi, Duskfang Mentor, and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. But, I don't see anything that we can replace it with. If we could go down to 1 black mana per layer, then we could use say Call of the Death-Dweller and Eliminate. But, Kinnan makes Skull Prophet tap for two, and we are currently using Kinnan to bring back Maraleaf Pixie without bringing back Skull Prophet. So we would have to find another way to do that.
Unfortunately, opponent life is even more valuable than card draws, so we don't want to touch it early on.
I guess what we want to do is:
Get started and build as large a number we can using the life we have, without dipping into the higher resources.
Play a Happily Ever After with 3-4 Smothering Tithes on the battlefield, triggering the draw.
Resolve the draw with as many Tolarian Krakens on the battlefield as we can, letting the untaps build the number up higher. (We would like to have them all untap an animated red mana land, but we can use a little for other creatures if the need arises.)
Play Dance of the Manse, to finally get animated enchantments.
Use Cling to Dust to draw as many cards as we can. (probably 15-20?)
Have 19 combats dealing 1 damage each for many more card draws.
Cast Heliod's Intervention to give the opponent more life, and continue the combo.
Start playing more Happily Ever Afters.
Merfolk Secretkeeper is more of a hassle to be put into the graveyard, but that hassle can be done later at the cost of blue mana, so it may wind up being cheaper, since it costs just one life for four mills.
So, thinking about the start: We can't have a white mana land, so as far as I can see, we don't have an easy way to cast Dance of the Manse at the beginning. So, we have to play an early Happily Ever After. Of course we won't have an animated Smothering Tithe at that point, so ideally we would want to have 7 or 8 copies of Smothering Tithe and Mirrormade. (Certainly worth the deck space, since that is the most valuable thing we can have at this point)
Other than those cards, we want to generate as large a number as possible at the beginning. I don't see anything more valuable for the remaning cards other than life gain and spending as little life as possible. So we want to put in just enough to get started (while not spending too much), and then include a Cling to Dust and as many disposable creature cards as possible.
So, I was musing about a white mana stage for a bit, and I noticed that we could use Usher to Safety from Shepherd of the Flock to bounce Migratory Greathorn back to our hand, after we decoupled it from being mutated with Escape Protocol and a cycling card. Unfortunately, we would need to generate white mana and not life in that case, and I don't see a way to do that.
We could also pair Shepherd of the Flock with Shock, I think. (but not Escape Protocol with Crash Through)
Edit: Okay, if we take out Crash Through and add Shepherd of the Flock, then we don't have a way to draw cards anymore. So, we could perhaps do the following:
Layer 1: Activating Leafkin Avenger will gain a lot of life.
Layer 2: Tapping a red mana land will generate a lot of mana.
Layer 3: Drawing a card can untap a red mana land a lot of times thanks to Tolarian Kraken.
Layer 4: Dealing combat damage will draw a lot of cards thanks to Keeper of Fables.
Layer 5: Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life, allowing us to deal combat damage many times.
Layer 6: Making the opponent draw a card will generate a lot of Treasure tokens.
Layer 7: We can make the opponent draw a card a bunch of times.
Assuming the current deck does get to 52, we can still improve the start with Eerie Ultimatum putting a lot of cards into play for 7 life, I think.
Even though I'm coming here a bit late, I think it should be possible to not waste a Happily Ever After in the beginning. Is Eerie Ultimatum safe? It costs 7 life to cast, and I can't think of anything that we can get that makes up for that. With that, we can get started by putting milling a bunch of cards, and bringing back all the permanents with Eerie Ultimatum.
Sporeweb Weaver is an interesting idea, but if we only get 1 life for it, it would seem that we would have to go back to Usher to Safety and Shock.
Edit: Oh I see - we are still going to use lifelink, but with Sporeweb Weaver replacing one of the mutators. Got it.
Edit: While Sporeweb Weaver isn't really needed, it seems like it is more convenient than another mutator, since we have to draw and mutate the mutator. But, I guess with Light up the Stage exiling two cards, and Gemrazor having a cheap mutate cost, it doesn't really matter.
Hmm, so it looks there have been new infinites found. I don't know how to fix the latest one - there is Nissa, Who Shakes the World, which will cost us 5 life to play, so that more than counters the life we gain from the muatated Watery Grave. But, it also untaps the land, so we can untap our red mana land for profit. Too bad.
Ah yes, we can sacrifice the last Leyline of Abundance - so a potential 35 cards can be exiled. Exiling TYS is super-minimal since it comes after all the Happily Ever Afters, but yes we could do it. Gruesome Menagerie is certainly a possibility over Revival // Revenge, it depends whether we will have the green mana or not to use it. I guess maybe not. Also, Scholar of the Ages is a possibility over Shipwreck Dowser.
So, it seems like the non-creature cards that we can conceivably exile are:
Leyline of Abundance x2
Watery Grave x2
Ketria Triome
Bolas's Citadel (maybe tricky?)
Leyline of Anticipation (maybe very tricky?)
Rhythm of the Wild
Dance of the Manse
25 extra cards
So 34 cards possible if we can make it work.
We could also exile Frilled Mystic, Shipwreck Dowser, Tolarian Kraken, and Keeper of Fables for some extra life.
Also, if we could somehow replace [c}Ritual of Soot[/c] with something that doesn't hit all CMC 3 or less creatures, then we could exile Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi, Duskfang Mentor, and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. But, I don't see anything that we can replace it with. If we could go down to 1 black mana per layer, then we could use say Call of the Death-Dweller and Eliminate. But, Kinnan makes Skull Prophet tap for two, and we are currently using Kinnan to bring back Maraleaf Pixie without bringing back Skull Prophet. So we would have to find another way to do that.
I guess what we want to do is:
Get started and build as large a number we can using the life we have, without dipping into the higher resources.
Play a Happily Ever After with 3-4 Smothering Tithes on the battlefield, triggering the draw.
Resolve the draw with as many Tolarian Krakens on the battlefield as we can, letting the untaps build the number up higher. (We would like to have them all untap an animated red mana land, but we can use a little for other creatures if the need arises.)
Play Dance of the Manse, to finally get animated enchantments.
Use Cling to Dust to draw as many cards as we can. (probably 15-20?)
Have 19 combats dealing 1 damage each for many more card draws.
Cast Heliod's Intervention to give the opponent more life, and continue the combo.
Start playing more Happily Ever Afters.
Edit: Oh I'm dumb, you meant Cling to Dust. Yeah, we want to draw as many cards as possible.
Merfolk Secretkeeper is more of a hassle to be put into the graveyard, but that hassle can be done later at the cost of blue mana, so it may wind up being cheaper, since it costs just one life for four mills.
Other than those cards, we want to generate as large a number as possible at the beginning. I don't see anything more valuable for the remaning cards other than life gain and spending as little life as possible. So we want to put in just enough to get started (while not spending too much), and then include a Cling to Dust and as many disposable creature cards as possible.
Current deck:
1 Leyline of abundance
2 Leyline of abundance
3 Leyline of abundance
4 Ketria Triome
5 Watery Grave
6 Skull Prophet
7 Watery Grave
8 Bolas's Citadel
engines:
9 Thousand-Year Storm
10 Leyline of anticipation
11 Rhythm of the Wild
12 Dance of the Manse
13 Maraleaf Pixie
14 Frilled Mystic
15 Shipwreck Dowser
16 Kinnan, Bonder prodigy
17 Quasiduplicate
18 Devious Cover-Up
19 Crushing Canopy
B stage
20 Ritual of Soot
21 Revival // Revenge
Life stage
22 Duskfang mentor
23 Porcuparrot
24 Migratory Greathorn
25 Shock
26 Shepherd of the Flock
27 Electrodominance
28 Nikya of the Old Ways
Card draw
29 Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi
30 Tolarian Kraken
31 Keeper of Fables
32 Response // Resurgence
Opponent Card Draw
33 Heliod's Intervention
34 Smothering Tithe
35 Happily Ever After
We could also pair Shepherd of the Flock with Shock, I think. (but not Escape Protocol with Crash Through)
Edit: Okay, if we take out Crash Through and add Shepherd of the Flock, then we don't have a way to draw cards anymore. So, we could perhaps do the following:
Layer 1: Activating Leafkin Avenger will gain a lot of life.
Layer 2: Tapping a red mana land will generate a lot of mana.
Layer 3: Drawing a card can untap a red mana land a lot of times thanks to Tolarian Kraken.
Layer 4: Dealing combat damage will draw a lot of cards thanks to Keeper of Fables.
Layer 5: Heliod's Intervention will gain the opponent a lot of life, allowing us to deal combat damage many times.
Layer 6: Making the opponent draw a card will generate a lot of Treasure tokens.
Layer 7: We can make the opponent draw a card a bunch of times.
How does this look?