hmm, I think we need to keep another creature around: Without a nontoken Elf or Berserker Skemfar Avenger can't draw any cards, and we need that effect to turn the Toralf stage output into blue mana for the Octopus stage.
For further optimizations to the cycle we could probably always create Thaumaeidolons and just transform a few untapped thaumas into Cogwork Archivist. Then we can just fetch Skemfar Avenger with Gyruda when we want to trigger new Thaumamasters instead of using an entire "enter as anything" trigger for that.
Hmm, even mana enchantment creatures would almost certainly go infinite with Cogwork Archivist. My start should still be usable without them. I just used some Lampad of Death's Vigils after running out of Hateful Eidolons, but reusing the same enchantment creatures with Cogwork Archivist would obviously be better if it doesn't go infinite.
The Elvish Warmaster layer should fit right under the life siphoning layers. It changes the benefit of an enchantment creature sacrifice from squaring to exponentiation.
The problem is getting the Honor Troll into play. It has odd mana value and requires green to cast so it would need to come out of the Genesis Ultimatum. I don't think there is room in there. Do you have a plan for that?
Turn 2:
Draw (7 cards in hand, 52 cards in library)
Play Island.
Play Stonecoil Serpent with X=0.
Play Tibalt's Trickery counters Serpent, mills 1 card and casts Genesis Ultimatum. (4 cards in hand, 50 cards in library)
Ultimatum puts Xorn, Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded, Tyvar Kell, Woe Strider and Gyruda, Doom of Depths into play. (45 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Luminous Broodmoth into play. (41 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts another Gyruda into play. Legend rule kills the one with flying counter. (37 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy into play. (33 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts another Gyruda into play. Legend rule kills the one with flying counter. (29 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Protean Thaumaturge into play. (25 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Elvish Warmaster into play. (21 cards in library)
Activate Tyvar's 0 ablity to create an elf. Warmaster triggers to create another elf. Tap all 3 elves for mana. (6 black)
Play Palladium Myr and tap it for mana. (3 cards in hand, 3 black, 3 colorless)
Play Sorcerer's Broom. (2 cards in hand, 3 black, 1 colorless)
Play Skemfar Avenger and tap it for mana. (1 card in hand, 4 black)
Play Hateful Eidolon. Thaumaturge becomes a copy of Broom (0 cards in hand, 3 black)
Sacrifice Warmaster. Avenger triggers. Thaumabroom triggers. Pay for it. Broodmoth brings the warmaster back. Tap it for mana (19 life, 1 card in hand, 20 cards in library, 2 black, 2 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Play Duskwielder. Warmaster triggers. Tap the new elves for mana. (0 cards in hand, 5 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Broodmoth brings it back. Tap it for mana. Avenger triggers. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for them. (18 life, 1 card in hand, 19 cards in library, 1 black, 4 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Avenger triggers. (17 life, 2 cards in hand. 18 cards in library)
Sacrifice Palladium Myr. Broodmoth brings it back. Tap it for mana. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for one of them. (5 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Play Hateful Eidolon. 3 Thaumabrooms become copies of Warmaster. Tap one of them for mana. 1 Thaumabroom becomes a copy of Avenger. 1 stays a Thaumabroom (1 card in hand, 2 untapped Thaumawarmasters, 1 tapped Thaumawarmaster, 2 black, 1 Thaumaavenger, 1 Thaumabroom)
Play Duskwielder. 3 Thaumawarmasters trigger. Tap all the new elves for mana. (0 cards in hand, 9 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Thaumabroom triggers. Pay for it. 2 Avengers trigger. Broodmoth triggers and brings it Duskwielder back. Tap it for mana (15 life, 2 cards in hand. 16 cards in library. 2 Thaumabrooms, 8 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. 2 Avengers trigger. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for them. (13 life, 4 cards in hand, 14 cards in library. 4 Thaumabrooms, 2 black)
Play Hateful Eidolon. All untapped Thaumas become Palladium Myr and are tapped for mana. the tapped one becomes a Thaumabroom. (3 cards in hand, 1 black, 21 colorless, 7 tapped Thaumamyrs, 1 tapped Thaumabrooms)
Sacrifice 3 tapped Thaumamyrs, paying for all the Thaumabroom triggers (0 colorless, 1 tapped Thaumabroom, 7 untapped Thaumabrooms, 3 tapped Thaumamyrs)
Play Hateful Eidolon. the Thaumas become 4 tapped Thaumabrooms, 6 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Avenger. Tap the myrs and Avenger for mana (2 cards in hand, 2 black, 18 colorless, 11 tapped Thaumas)
Sacrifice 2 thaumamyrs to turn 18 colorless into 6 more Thaumabrooms (2 black, 0 colorless, 9 tapped Thaumas, 6 untapped Thaumas)
It's getting too complicated here to fully account for everything...
Play Lampad of Death's Vigil, get 5 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Avenger. Tap them. Sacrifice a tapped Thauma to turn the colorless mana into 5 new untapped Thaumabrooms. (2 black, 0 colorless, 14 tapped Thaumas, 5 untapped Thaumas, 1 card in hand)
Play Lampad of Death's Vigil. Get 3 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Thaumaavenger. tap them. Get 13 tapped Thaumaavengers. Keep 1 tapped Thaumabroom. Use Lampad's ability twice to steal some life, sacrificing thaumamyrs. Pay for the Thaumabroom triggers. (15 life, 0 cards in hand, 14 cards in library, 14 Thaumaavengers, 4 Thaumabrooms, 3 Thaumamyrs, 2 black, 1 colorless)
Sacrifice the original Avenger. 14 other Avengers trigger. Broodmoth triggers and brings it back. Tap it for mana (1 life, 14 cards in hand, 0 cards in library, 4 black, 1 colorless)
...
Play more black enchantment creatures, getting as many Thaumabrooms as possible.
When it comes time to sacrifice enchantment creatures without flying counters in response to sacrifice triggers we can have the fresh "enter as anything" triggers alternate between enchantments and elves to take advantage of copying Elvish Warmaster.
Elf enters -> X warmasters trigger, giving 2X mana -> 2/3X new untapped Thaumabrooms
enchantment enters -> 2/3X untapped Thaumabrooms become Paladium Myrs -> 2/3X new untapped Thaumabroons
enchantment enters -> 4/3X new tapped Thaumabrooms become warmasters.
So 3Y "enter as anything" trigger get us from X Warmasters to X*(4/3)^Y Warmasters.
That means sacrificing an enchantment creature without flying takes us roughly from X to 2^X
Sacrificing 14 would get us to 2^(2^(2^(...^(X)...))) ~ 2^^16 ?
Honestly I have no idea how many enchantment creatures would fit and what the optimal play is for mixing them with elves. Towards the end I was really just winging it. I think we still want to maximize enchantment creatures over elves.
I don't see an infinite with Cogwork Archivist using Gyruda, Doom of Depths. There might still be one. It seems very dangerous. But there is an infinite with Realmwalker once we have enough Kinnans to pay for alternating the Archivist with a mana creature.
There's a mistake in the start sequence from post #227
Name Elf for Realmwalker.
Activate Tyvar to create an Elf token.
Tap Realmwalker and Elf token for 4 mana.
Cast Duskwielder 4 times from the library, and tap them - 8 mana left.
Cast Skemfar Avenger from the library, and tap them - 8 mana left.
Cast Palldium Myr twice from hand, and tap them - 5 black, 3 colorless.
Cast Sorcerer's Broom from hand - 5 black, 1 colorless.
Cast Woe Strider from hand - 3 black.
Sacrifice Gyrudas a bunch of times to fetch Luminous Bloodmoth, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, Protean Thaumaturge, and Nyxborn Marauder from the graveyard.
tapping the elves and Myrs will give one less mana until Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is in play. The first Gyruda has to fetch Luminous Broodmoth in order to continue the chain after sacrificing. So Kinnan can only be in play after we have played Woe Strider.
Without Kinnan none of the creatures actually add mana, so I don't see a way to start without putting Woe Strider into play from Genesis Ultimatum. Realmwalker seems to be the only creature we can remove from that and still get started. Although it will be less efficient and cost more life to draw.
Cards in Library also seems to be a resource we need to track. I did a rough count of the cards milled/drawn/cast from top in #227 and came to ~70. Too much as there is nothing to refill the library. Gyruda, Doom of Depths milling 4 is the most costly there.
Could Cogwork Archivist or Epitaph Golem replace Quandrix Command to get one more creature? I'm not sure if the other modes are used anywhere, or if putting the cards to the bottom would be a problem.
start with a floating U and Island+Sea-Dasher Octopus+Toralf, God of Fury in the library.
1. spend U to create a bunch of draw triggers
2. draw Island and Octopus
3. put Island into play and tap for U
4. spend U to mutate the Octopus, getting a copy from Reflections of Littjara
5. resolve a mutate copy to get a bunch of Vadrok, Apex of Thunder triggers
6. Use Vadrok triggers to get Island into the library
7. Use Vadrok trigger to counter the original Octopus with Tibalt's Trickery.
8. Cast Toralf of the trickery, have it die to legend rule, draw a card from the Henge trigger: Island
9. put Island into play and tap for U
10. Use Vadrok triggers to get Island, Octopus and Toralf back into the library
We are back where we started with additional draw triggers and progress from spare Vadrok triggers.
Multiple stages in the standard card pool! Again! Impressive stuff!
I have finally caught up with this thread and think I understand enough to contribute a bit
As far as I can tell the stages work as intended, so that is great. (I'm looking at the The Ringhart Crest version from post #206)
I did notice one problem in the layers, though: Primal Might cannot be cast at instant speed while paying the mana cost, so we can't spend green on it. Worse, even when cast without paying the mana cost via Tibalt's trickery or Vadrok, Apex of Thunder it still lets two creatures fight. So it gets Toralf, God of Fury triggers without spending green, going infinite.
To keep the rest of the layers as they are we could replace it with Polukranos, Unchained + a way to get cheap black mana (Swamp?). That loses only the one layer from Sea Gate Stormcaller. Are there better options?
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For further optimizations to the cycle we could probably always create Thaumaeidolons and just transform a few untapped thaumas into Cogwork Archivist. Then we can just fetch Skemfar Avenger with Gyruda when we want to trigger new Thaumamasters instead of using an entire "enter as anything" trigger for that.
The Elvish Warmaster layer should fit right under the life siphoning layers. It changes the benefit of an enchantment creature sacrifice from squaring to exponentiation.
The problem is getting the Honor Troll into play. It has odd mana value and requires green to cast so it would need to come out of the Genesis Ultimatum. I don't think there is room in there. Do you have a plan for that?
Turn 1:
Tapped Land, go.
Turn 2:
Draw (7 cards in hand, 52 cards in library)
Play Island.
Play Stonecoil Serpent with X=0.
Play Tibalt's Trickery counters Serpent, mills 1 card and casts Genesis Ultimatum. (4 cards in hand, 50 cards in library)
Ultimatum puts Xorn, Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded, Tyvar Kell, Woe Strider and Gyruda, Doom of Depths into play. (45 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Luminous Broodmoth into play. (41 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts another Gyruda into play. Legend rule kills the one with flying counter. (37 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy into play. (33 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts another Gyruda into play. Legend rule kills the one with flying counter. (29 cards in library)
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Protean Thaumaturge into play. (25 cards in library)
Woe Strider sacrifices Gyruda. Broodmoth brings it back.
Gyruda mills 4 cards and puts Elvish Warmaster into play. (21 cards in library)
Activate Tyvar's 0 ablity to create an elf. Warmaster triggers to create another elf. Tap all 3 elves for mana. (6 black)
Play Palladium Myr and tap it for mana. (3 cards in hand, 3 black, 3 colorless)
Play Sorcerer's Broom. (2 cards in hand, 3 black, 1 colorless)
Play Skemfar Avenger and tap it for mana. (1 card in hand, 4 black)
Play Hateful Eidolon. Thaumaturge becomes a copy of Broom (0 cards in hand, 3 black)
Sacrifice Warmaster. Avenger triggers. Thaumabroom triggers. Pay for it. Broodmoth brings the warmaster back. Tap it for mana (19 life, 1 card in hand, 20 cards in library, 2 black, 2 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Play Duskwielder. Warmaster triggers. Tap the new elves for mana. (0 cards in hand, 5 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Broodmoth brings it back. Tap it for mana. Avenger triggers. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for them. (18 life, 1 card in hand, 19 cards in library, 1 black, 4 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Avenger triggers. (17 life, 2 cards in hand. 18 cards in library)
Sacrifice Palladium Myr. Broodmoth brings it back. Tap it for mana. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for one of them. (5 untapped Thaumabrooms)
Play Hateful Eidolon. 3 Thaumabrooms become copies of Warmaster. Tap one of them for mana. 1 Thaumabroom becomes a copy of Avenger. 1 stays a Thaumabroom (1 card in hand, 2 untapped Thaumawarmasters, 1 tapped Thaumawarmaster, 2 black, 1 Thaumaavenger, 1 Thaumabroom)
Play Duskwielder. 3 Thaumawarmasters trigger. Tap all the new elves for mana. (0 cards in hand, 9 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. Thaumabroom triggers. Pay for it. 2 Avengers trigger. Broodmoth triggers and brings it Duskwielder back. Tap it for mana (15 life, 2 cards in hand. 16 cards in library. 2 Thaumabrooms, 8 black)
Sacrifice Duskwielder. 2 Avengers trigger. Thaumabrooms trigger. Pay for them. (13 life, 4 cards in hand, 14 cards in library. 4 Thaumabrooms, 2 black)
Play Hateful Eidolon. All untapped Thaumas become Palladium Myr and are tapped for mana. the tapped one becomes a Thaumabroom. (3 cards in hand, 1 black, 21 colorless, 7 tapped Thaumamyrs, 1 tapped Thaumabrooms)
Sacrifice 3 tapped Thaumamyrs, paying for all the Thaumabroom triggers (0 colorless, 1 tapped Thaumabroom, 7 untapped Thaumabrooms, 3 tapped Thaumamyrs)
Play Hateful Eidolon. the Thaumas become 4 tapped Thaumabrooms, 6 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Avenger. Tap the myrs and Avenger for mana (2 cards in hand, 2 black, 18 colorless, 11 tapped Thaumas)
Sacrifice 2 thaumamyrs to turn 18 colorless into 6 more Thaumabrooms (2 black, 0 colorless, 9 tapped Thaumas, 6 untapped Thaumas)
It's getting too complicated here to fully account for everything...
Play Lampad of Death's Vigil, get 5 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Avenger. Tap them. Sacrifice a tapped Thauma to turn the colorless mana into 5 new untapped Thaumabrooms. (2 black, 0 colorless, 14 tapped Thaumas, 5 untapped Thaumas, 1 card in hand)
Play Lampad of Death's Vigil. Get 3 untapped Thaumamyrs, 1 untapped Thaumaavenger. tap them. Get 13 tapped Thaumaavengers. Keep 1 tapped Thaumabroom. Use Lampad's ability twice to steal some life, sacrificing thaumamyrs. Pay for the Thaumabroom triggers. (15 life, 0 cards in hand, 14 cards in library, 14 Thaumaavengers, 4 Thaumabrooms, 3 Thaumamyrs, 2 black, 1 colorless)
Sacrifice the original Avenger. 14 other Avengers trigger. Broodmoth triggers and brings it back. Tap it for mana (1 life, 14 cards in hand, 0 cards in library, 4 black, 1 colorless)
...
Play more black enchantment creatures, getting as many Thaumabrooms as possible.
When it comes time to sacrifice enchantment creatures without flying counters in response to sacrifice triggers we can have the fresh "enter as anything" triggers alternate between enchantments and elves to take advantage of copying Elvish Warmaster.
Elf enters -> X warmasters trigger, giving 2X mana -> 2/3X new untapped Thaumabrooms
enchantment enters -> 2/3X untapped Thaumabrooms become Paladium Myrs -> 2/3X new untapped Thaumabroons
enchantment enters -> 4/3X new tapped Thaumabrooms become warmasters.
So 3Y "enter as anything" trigger get us from X Warmasters to X*(4/3)^Y Warmasters.
That means sacrificing an enchantment creature without flying takes us roughly from X to 2^X
Sacrificing 14 would get us to 2^(2^(2^(...^(X)...))) ~ 2^^16 ?
Honestly I have no idea how many enchantment creatures would fit and what the optimal play is for mixing them with elves. Towards the end I was really just winging it. I think we still want to maximize enchantment creatures over elves.
TLDR: Elvish Warmaster gives the start an extra layer.
I don't see an infinite with Cogwork Archivist using Gyruda, Doom of Depths. There might still be one. It seems very dangerous. But there is an infinite with Realmwalker once we have enough Kinnans to pay for alternating the Archivist with a mana creature.
There's a mistake in the start sequence from post #227
tapping the elves and Myrs will give one less mana until Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy is in play. The first Gyruda has to fetch Luminous Broodmoth in order to continue the chain after sacrificing. So Kinnan can only be in play after we have played Woe Strider.
Without Kinnan none of the creatures actually add mana, so I don't see a way to start without putting Woe Strider into play from Genesis Ultimatum. Realmwalker seems to be the only creature we can remove from that and still get started. Although it will be less efficient and cost more life to draw.
Cards in Library also seems to be a resource we need to track. I did a rough count of the cards milled/drawn/cast from top in #227 and came to ~70. Too much as there is nothing to refill the library. Gyruda, Doom of Depths milling 4 is the most costly there.
start with a floating U and Island+Sea-Dasher Octopus+Toralf, God of Fury in the library.
1. spend U to create a bunch of draw triggers
2. draw Island and Octopus
3. put Island into play and tap for U
4. spend U to mutate the Octopus, getting a copy from Reflections of Littjara
5. resolve a mutate copy to get a bunch of Vadrok, Apex of Thunder triggers
6. Use Vadrok triggers to get Island into the library
7. Use Vadrok trigger to counter the original Octopus with Tibalt's Trickery.
8. Cast Toralf of the trickery, have it die to legend rule, draw a card from the Henge trigger: Island
9. put Island into play and tap for U
10. Use Vadrok triggers to get Island, Octopus and Toralf back into the library
We are back where we started with additional draw triggers and progress from spare Vadrok triggers.
I have finally caught up with this thread and think I understand enough to contribute a bit
As far as I can tell the stages work as intended, so that is great. (I'm looking at the The Ringhart Crest version from post #206)
I did notice one problem in the layers, though: Primal Might cannot be cast at instant speed while paying the mana cost, so we can't spend green on it. Worse, even when cast without paying the mana cost via Tibalt's trickery or Vadrok, Apex of Thunder it still lets two creatures fight. So it gets Toralf, God of Fury triggers without spending green, going infinite.
To keep the rest of the layers as they are we could replace it with Polukranos, Unchained + a way to get cheap black mana (Swamp?). That loses only the one layer from Sea Gate Stormcaller. Are there better options?