Realmwalker lets us mutate sea dasher from the top, so we never need to draw it. It still costs U though so we need to draw the island to pay for it so I think its fine.
Being able to copy Kinnan earlier would be really nice, but there's not really a way to do that without spending blue or losing a creature slot (augmenter pugilist/echoing equation is close but would need UU (at which point we'd just mutate) or another tibalt's trickery at the very least (which requires either red, or mutating anyway).)
This seems like all works. We have to be a little careful due to all of the gyruda mills, but we can keep the quandrix command safe in our hand if we really need to, and be set.
Though I'm curious the lack of Circle of Dreams Druid? it seems like putting one of those into play instead of tyvar would make the mana situation a bit smoother, and would be an extra creature instead of a walker? (I haven't actually worked it out at all though...)
Sorry, I haven't had much time for this recently, but should have some time over the next few days. With rotation fast approaching, are there any changes we want to get in? Also what start did we end up on?
hmm, there might actually be something nice there, as gyruda doesn't give us mana as long as the enchantment creatures are all odd? possibly a colorless mana layer?
But a layer above the stages isn't very useful, and changing the start seems unlikely to be profitable in terms of creatures v noncreatures.
Huh I thought primal might was an instant, good catch. and did completely miss the x=0 case for it. Fresh eyes are helpful with this stuff.
That takes out the sea gate stormcaller, and potentially allows the The great henge version ahead again? as trickery would need to actually counter something to cast kinnan. I feel like there might still be a problem in there...
Because of retargeting issues, we only get to destroy all of our nontokens every toralf 2 damage trigger, so each one of those profits some blue. Effectively making the toralf stage one layer smaller but that's not a problem.
But sea gate stormcaller has the same problem as dual strike, allowing us to loop a legendary creature for great henge triggers, we even have an extra quandrix command mode to copy stormcaller with right before we cast trickery.
hmm, that's not exactly true, but since reflections of littjara doesn't let us change the targets, the octopus is still going to end up on a vadrok stack. (instead of say a kinnan or orvar) This is important because remaking a legendary vadrok stack is expensive.
If the octopus is not going on a stack of vadrox (vadrii? vadren?), then we don't get quandrix commands, or other spells.
edit: oh the mutate stack can be nonlegendary, and on a scaled herbalist, hmm that does look problematic.
so we mutate onto the herbalist,
make an orvar copy of it
put island into play
resolve reflections trigger 1
vadrok casts instants
-kill our land
-command kills kinnan, reshuffle island
resolve reflections trigger 2
-command reshuffles kinnan
-trickery casts kinnan (needs a target... Dual strike gives it itself.)
-draw island
resolve orginal octo
-command bounces octo
yeah this seems to go infinite, maybe cutting Dual Strike to make trickery need to counter something lower? Sea Gate stormcaller is also a problem though...
Yeah great catch on the orb of dragonkind/Kinnan interaction! I completely missed that, would have been worse than when we misread TYS two years ago.
As for primal might, that seems good, though working around the great henge seems tricky. I think gating all loops through quandrix command -> vadrok trigger -> octo -> blue spend is safe. I don't see any sorcery speed loopholes we can infinite through, even with a cheap creature like sorcerer's broom. Especially since we only get one draw per creature.
Aegar, the freezing flame looks like it almost works for transitioning, but can't actually generate blue because we can't cheaply trigger it between the reflections of littjara octopi.
That seems like it works, except woe strider can't sacrifice itself, which looks like it just loses us a green mana, but that kind of cascades through the rest of the line.
Unfortunately, we need to draw the island as otherwise we can just let the octopus resolve and bounce it with quandrix command, and avoid using draw triggers at all.
I'm leaning towards an enchantment creature over omen of the hunt because of the additional synergy with the broodmoth and sacrificing for free instead of 2G. but both of those effects end up being pretty negligible.
Yeah I've been chipping away at the writeup, focusing on the math and the stages that are unlikely to change much as the start/end gets optimized.
luminous broodmoth is a pretty nice way to optimize things. Koll, the forgemaster is another similar effect if we wanted to double up a bit via the arachnoform we are already playing, though its probably not worth it. (edit oops RTFC creature goes to hand not back in play)
As for omen of the hunt, its main use is being cast via a vadrok trigger, which is technically possible for an enchantment creature too, though it needs to get q commanded back in the library, then cast with tibalt's trickery. This kind of puts pressure on quandrix command as we also want to be reshuffling the island and octopus each time, and with the mill from trickery that nets -1 card from library each time. But Dual strike can let us get multiple q commands per vadrok trigger, so that seems fine. And we need dual strike for heliod's intervention anyway so we can't cut it.
Yeah it doesn't seem quite worth it to swap the stages.
I just don't really see room for improvements, there's no safe way to make more reflections, (all of the clones than can copy it also copy treasures) and two is enough.
optimizing the last few creatures really doesn't move the needle very much, especially after we make our first treasure.
Well there's really only room for tiny optimizations here.
Not that we don't have the deck space for it, but we just don't have many resources left to use.
Snow mana is always tempting but has never actually been better than other options.
Black mana is the most glaring omission, but the options to use it are pretty terrible. I guess as long as we're targeting ourselves for the life, Erebos's intervention can get cast more?
Edit: another thought to throw out there is possibly swapping the stages? It doesn't look like it works, but might be worth some thoughts.
Canyon Jerboa looks unnecessary as we have Quandrix command with a second mode free already, we only get +2/+2 per cast but we do cast it a lot in the U stage.
Other than that, things look solid, Though I do wonder if we need all 4 Gyrudas, and if they should therefore be more enchantment creatures?
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Hmm, yeah I think that start can skip the Quandrix command? We don't strictly need the bounce mode.
Being able to copy Kinnan earlier would be really nice, but there's not really a way to do that without spending blue or losing a creature slot (augmenter pugilist/echoing equation is close but would need UU (at which point we'd just mutate) or another tibalt's trickery at the very least (which requires either red, or mutating anyway).)
This seems like all works. We have to be a little careful due to all of the gyruda mills, but we can keep the quandrix command safe in our hand if we really need to, and be set.
Though I'm curious the lack of Circle of Dreams Druid? it seems like putting one of those into play instead of tyvar would make the mana situation a bit smoother, and would be an extra creature instead of a walker? (I haven't actually worked it out at all though...)
But a layer above the stages isn't very useful, and changing the start seems unlikely to be profitable in terms of creatures v noncreatures.
That takes out the sea gate stormcaller, and potentially allows the The great henge version ahead again? as trickery would need to actually counter something to cast kinnan. I feel like there might still be a problem in there...
But sea gate stormcaller has the same problem as dual strike, allowing us to loop a legendary creature for great henge triggers, we even have an extra quandrix command mode to copy stormcaller with right before we cast trickery.
Ringheart crest looks like it works though.
If the octopus is not going on a stack of vadrox (vadrii? vadren?), then we don't get quandrix commands, or other spells.
edit: oh the mutate stack can be nonlegendary, and on a scaled herbalist, hmm that does look problematic.
so we mutate onto the herbalist,
make an orvar copy of it
put island into play
resolve reflections trigger 1
vadrok casts instants
-kill our land
-command kills kinnan, reshuffle island
resolve reflections trigger 2
-command reshuffles kinnan
-trickery casts kinnan (needs a target... Dual strike gives it itself.)
-draw island
resolve orginal octo
-command bounces octo
yeah this seems to go infinite, maybe cutting Dual Strike to make trickery need to counter something lower? Sea Gate stormcaller is also a problem though...
As for primal might, that seems good, though working around the great henge seems tricky. I think gating all loops through quandrix command -> vadrok trigger -> octo -> blue spend is safe. I don't see any sorcery speed loopholes we can infinite through, even with a cheap creature like sorcerer's broom. Especially since we only get one draw per creature.
Aegar, the freezing flame looks like it almost works for transitioning, but can't actually generate blue because we can't cheaply trigger it between the reflections of littjara octopi.
Birgi would be a pretty good mana engine but Harnfel, Horn of Bounty seems dangerous.
Ardent electromancer seems inefficient, but technically works, once we have a full party (we actually already do: Vault Robber, Duskfang Mentor, Kargan Intimidator, and a bunch of wizards, not to mention arachnoform) and doesn't require haste.
It's still pretty inefficient as needing to etb as an electromancer is more expensive and only profits one mana, slowing us down a lot in the start.
I think that leaves us with palladium myr + kinnan?
I'm leaning towards an enchantment creature over omen of the hunt because of the additional synergy with the broodmoth and sacrificing for free instead of 2G. but both of those effects end up being pretty negligible.
luminous broodmoth is a pretty nice way to optimize things. Koll, the forgemaster is another similar effect if we wanted to double up a bit via the arachnoform we are already playing, though its probably not worth it. (edit oops RTFC creature goes to hand not back in play)
As for omen of the hunt, its main use is being cast via a vadrok trigger, which is technically possible for an enchantment creature too, though it needs to get q commanded back in the library, then cast with tibalt's trickery. This kind of puts pressure on quandrix command as we also want to be reshuffling the island and octopus each time, and with the mill from trickery that nets -1 card from library each time. But Dual strike can let us get multiple q commands per vadrok trigger, so that seems fine. And we need dual strike for heliod's intervention anyway so we can't cut it.
I just don't really see room for improvements, there's no safe way to make more reflections, (all of the clones than can copy it also copy treasures) and two is enough.
optimizing the last few creatures really doesn't move the needle very much, especially after we make our first treasure.
Not that we don't have the deck space for it, but we just don't have many resources left to use.
Snow mana is always tempting but has never actually been better than other options.
Black mana is the most glaring omission, but the options to use it are pretty terrible. I guess as long as we're targeting ourselves for the life, Erebos's intervention can get cast more?
Edit: another thought to throw out there is possibly swapping the stages? It doesn't look like it works, but might be worth some thoughts.
Other than that, things look solid, Though I do wonder if we need all 4 Gyrudas, and if they should therefore be more enchantment creatures?