MTG Salvation

Hmm... with many Grand Warlord Radhas, her ability will trigger many times, but it will always trigger the same amount of times, since we can't change the number of creatures that attack. So it will be a multiplicative effect, and will take X to 3 -> 3 -> X^2 -> 3 roughly, and be about the same as a Mountain. Still, I guess Radha just requires one more card slot, so we might as well put her in in place of a Mountain. Since Radha is at the same level as tapping a Mountain, but slightly better, it's best to go into combat first, and then tap the Mountains with lots of Nikyas later.

Hmm, I think Huatli, Warrior Poet is safe to fetch with Golgari Findbroker. If so, I would rather just switch Kamahl's Druidic Vow for Grow from the Ashes straight up, rather than put in Tithebearer Giant and lose a Mountain.

Would there be anything to be gained by switching Finale of Devastation with Nature's Spiral? Radha gives our creatures haste already. I think we would still need Tragic Poet, but I was wondering if it could eliminate the need for Golgari Findbroker. Nature's Spiral will only work if we only have to ever cast it and immediately resolve it; if we have to cast it and leave it on the stack for a future Cleansing Nova, it won't be able to target properly.

Hmm yes, good point about Quasiduplicate. Perhaps our reshuffling is too easy. In what other ways can we reshuffle?

Something that has caught my eye is Citywatch Sphinx. If we use that, then we can't reshuffle by putting a creature into play anymore, only a creature-destroying Cleansing Nova will do it.

The main problem that I see, is that we will reshuffle our graveyard into our library, but we will need to have permanents in our graveyard to be fetched by Tragic Poet and Golgari Findbroker. I think having multiple Citywatch Sphinxes will fix the problem - the first Citywatch Sphinx will reveal Gaea's Blessing and shuffle our graveyard into our library, and the rest can put artifacts and enchantments into our graveyard. I think having two Sphinxes will be enough, we will just fetch our permanents over multiple creature destroying Cleansing Novas. Also, I think Spark Double is now safe, so we can use that as our second Sphinx, and also second copy of other creatures.

So, if that works, Spark Double and Quasiduplicate are now safe, and we can now make many Nikyas. I think then it's not worth it to try to boost our life gain with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and Oath of Teferi, the most powerful thing we can do now is to add more Mountains. Also, Huatli, Warrior Poet looks slightly superior to Ajani, Wise Counselor.

So we have:



So when we need more red mana, we can put a creature destroying Cleansing Nova on the stack, followed by Quasiduplicate and Bolt Bend. Then we play Nikya and Spark Double copying Nikya. The Bolt Bend redirects all the Quasiduplicate targets to the Spark Double, which we resolve, and then tap our Mountain for a gajillion mana. Then the Cleansing Nova resolves and we can cast again.

We can do that 29 times, so that should get us to about 3 -> 3 -> 31 -> 4. (Assuming that the abovev all works)

It would be nice to turn our lands into creatures and make a gajillion copies, but our only safe mass untapper seems to be Tenth District Veteran. Which we could use to untap lands a gajillion times, and we could use Grand Warlord Radha to save our mana between steps and phases - but, without the ability to activate our Planeswalker during combat, we won't be able to increase the number of Nikyas between Mountain tappings, not by much anyway. So Nikya + Tenth District Veteran will be a multiplicative effect, and it won't be as powerful as it looks. Even though TDV + Radha only uses up two cards, I think having two more Mountains is actually more valuable.

It would be nice to be able to use Response // Resurgence, but if we gain any benefit from attacking, it will probably go infinite since we can just destroy the attackers and repeat the process. It might be safe if the benefit comes from combat damage. So something like "when this creature deals combat damage, untap all lands (or creatures)" would be awesome, but I haven't run in to anything like that.

Oh right, that targeting thing that I keep forgetting about.

I'm pretty sure we can fix that by adding Bolt Bend. While we are resolving the stage, and after Cleansing Nova is cast for the last time before we need another Flood of Recollection to return it, we simply cast Bolt Bend to redirect the next Flood of Recollection to the Cleansing Nova in the graveyard, and it should all work out.

Hmm yeah, it looks like we can't have both Teferi and the Spark Double copies in the same deck. Either one will yield five life gains per land, but Teferi does so with fewer card slots, so he wins I believe.

I just noticed that we currently have no way to retrive Planeswalkers. I think Demonlord Belzenlok is good, we can retrieve nonland cards but at the cost of life. So we would only use that to retrieve our Planeswalkers.

So:



So we can put 28 lands into play, each one getting us five life gains. (Ajani can gain life once and the destroy himself; we can then twice retrieve Ajani and gain life twice, and then destroy him with Teferi.) Then in the end we can gain life four times, for 28*5 + 4 = 144 life gains. So about 3 -> 3 -> 146 -> 3, I believe.


Edit: So, I'm thinking it would be nice to save a color of mana to be used higher up. If we could save white, we could use Sanguine Sacrament to gain a lot of life, and if we could save red, we could use Banefire to destroy Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and gain life indirectly. We can't save white if we use Cleansing Nova, but maybe we could save red mana. The only tricky thing is Bolt Bend. But, I don't think we actually need red mana for Bolt Bend. We can use a copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve Bolt Bend from the graveyard. Then, after the final Cleansing Nova is put into the graveyard, we can cast Bolt Bend, counter it, and use two copies of Bolt Bend to redirect the next two copies of Flood of Recollection to target the Bolt Bend and Cleansing Nova now sitting in the graveyard. So we don't need red mana after all.

The other thing we have to worry about is, how to switch out from Gilded Lotus. It seems like Orzhov Locket is a reasonable choice, but we need two of them. I guess we can just go with Golgari Findbroker to retrieve them.

After that, it's just a matter of generating a lot of red mana. We can use the Smothering Tithe and Induced Amnesia to get around 200 mana; adding something that will make the opponent discard (like Burglar Rat) will allow us to make the opponent draw 53 times for maximum effect. Then, just adding Nikya and a bunch of Mountains to top it off. Finally, we can add Grand Warlord Radha, along with Quasiduplicate, to generate a whole bunch of red mana during the combat phase.

So we have:



With Smothering Tithe + Amnesia we can generate 53*4 = 212 red mana, then another 40 from the Mountains + Nikya. Each red mana can allow us to destroy Ajani and Teferi. So we can use Ajani and Teferi 253 times each; Ajani can life gain twice, and Teferi can tuck Ajani into the library to achieve another two life gains. So we get 1012 life gains, for 3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3. Then we can use Grand Warlord Radha to bump us up to 3 -> 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 1014 -> 3) -> 3.

It would be nice to use Quasiduplicate to make many copies of Nikya, or our lands. But, if Spark Double is unsafe, then the only way we can make many copies of Nikya is with Helm of the Host. But Helm of the Host triggers at the beginning of combat, which means the stack is cleared. So we can't use instants/sorceries on the stack to get rid of Nikya when we need to. Perhaps there is some creature that we can play to destroy Nikya?

The other option is to make many copies of our lands. In that case, we would need our lands to come in tapped, and we would need something to untap them. Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage is no good, because we can recycle Planeswalkers with Banefire. Wilderness Reclamation happens only at the end step, when it is too late to activate our Planeswalkers. Tenth District Veteran should work, but both Tenth District Veteran and Grand Warlord Radha trigger on attacking, so we won't be able to have one profit off of the other.

Oh, nice! That is an efficient use of white mana. So it does look like what you are thinking depends on using Tragic Poet - perhaps with Golgari Findbroker, the four white mana version might work as well. But for now, it looks like we have a working stage! (fingers crossed)

So, I believe that we can create stages using Flood of Recollection. The first time it retrieves Cleansing Nova from the graveyard, and we cast it for free as the top group of the stage. Then, when that group gets used up, we resolve the next copy of Flood of Recollection to retrieve it again from the graveyard, and cast it to represent the next group lower down. So each casting of Flood of Recollection can create a stage, taking X to 3 -> 3 -> X.

We can then cast Ionize to counter the original Flood of Recollection, costing us 2 life, and putting Flood of Recollection in the graveyard to be cast again later. So, each time we gain a lot of life, say with Ajani, Wise Counselor with the aid of Assure // Assemble, we take X to 3 -> 3 -> X -> 2.

So I'm thinking of something like:



So, each time we play a land, we can put two proliferate triggers on the stack, from Evolution Sage plus a Spark Double copy. Then, we can put two counters on Ajani, Wise Counselor and Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and one counter on four [c]Spark Double[c/]s copying Teferi, Hero of Dominaria. That allows Ajani to gain life once, and then each of the five Teferis can tuck Ajani into the library twice after gaining life twice, so each one can indirectly contribute to four life gains. So each time we play a land, we can get 21 life gains.

We have 25 lands remaining in the library, plus we can play and sacrifice Emergence Zone five times using Wayward Swordtooth and four Spark Double copies, so we can put lands into play 30 times, not including the opening. That gets us 21*30 = 630 life gains, and at the end we can use our six Planeswalkers for two life gains each (either directly or by tucking in Ajani once) for 642 life gains each. So we should wind up with more than 3 -> 3 -> 644 -> 3 at the end.

Hmm, how are we looping the stage with just two white mana back for Cleansing Nova?

I suppose Tragic Poet may be safe without an easy sacrifice outlet, but we do have to check if we can go infinite by having it on the battlefield when an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova is resolved, and using it to return Precognition Field or Path of Discovery. Probably not though.

So, I'm thinking the two Cleansing Nova idea will actually work. But, I think we will need enough artifacts to produce four white mana. The idea is that we spend two white mana to cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all artifacts and enchantments. Then we cast a Cleansing Nova with the mode of destroying all creatures. If necessary, we resolve one to put our creatures into our graveyard. Next we cast Finale of Devastation. Finale can return whatever creatures it needs to, including Golgari Findbroker to bring back any other permanents that are necessary. When it brings back a creature, it can shuffle itself and, if necessary, Cleansing Nova back into the library. Then we need to resolve down to the next Cleansing Nova to put creatures back into our graveyard for Finale to retrieve them. So we gradually work through our Cleansing Novas. Once we go through all the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, for the last CN we choose not to retrieve Golgari Findbroker (or multiples if necessary). Then the artifact and enchantment destroying Cleansing Novas resolve. Then the Finale of Devastation copies from the next level down are next, and we can resolve enough to bring what we need to onto the battlefield, including our artifacts that can produce four white mana. So then we use that four white mana to cast our two Cleasning Novas, and we can rebuild our stage, except with fewer Finale of Devastations at the next level down. So I think this is operating correctly as a stage!

The thing that we have to worry about is, is there some way to create a loop where we can get our mana more than one time per two Cleansing Novas cast? I think not after examining it, since we need to get rid of our creatures for Finale of Devastation to work, each time we get rid of our enchantments. Now, Cleansing Nova does get copies, so we have to worry about just resolving one copy at a time to do what we need. But, I think we can't do that - if we resolve an enchantment destroying Cleansing Nova without a creature destroying Cleansing Nova, then any Finale of Devastations that are next on the stack won't do anything. So we have to resolve down to a group of creature destroying Cleansing Novas. But, we can't just resolve one and then respond with Finale of Devastation, since we don't have Precognition Field on the battlefield. So we have to resolve all of the creature destroying Cleansing Novas, and so we will have to recast Cleansing Nova the next time we want to get white mana back.

But, I think you are saying that I am wrong, and we are able to get by with just two white mana available for Cleansing Nova? Could you explain in more detail how that works?

Okay, so say we cast Deafening Clarion, costing us a red mana, and gaining us presumably a lot of copies via Thousand-Year Storm. We can play Mox Amber and Nikya, allowing us to get the red mana back. Then we resolve a Deafening Clarion to destroy Nikya. This frees us up to cast our spells, so we can cast Primevals' Glorious Rebirth, Finale of Devastation, and Rampage of the Clans, in that order. First, Rampage of the Clans resolves, destroying our Mox Amber along with our needed enchantments. Then, the copies of Finale of Devastation resolves; if we cast it with X at least 10, each time we can bring Tragic Poet back with haste, so that we can tap and sacrifice it to bring back an enchantment. So with three copies we can get Precognitive Field and Thousand-Year Storm, and Omniscience as well. Then we get to PGR, which brings back Nikya and Mox Amber, and we can tap Mox Amber for another red mana. Here's the thing though - as long as we have more copies of Deafening Clarion on the stack, we can just repeat this process. So one casting of Deafening Clarion can get us lots of red mana, so it appears to go infinite.


Edit: I think one of the reasons why this isn't working is that we have the abilities reversed - Deafening Clarion is what we are using to spend our red mana, but it is the spell that unlocks the state, rather than locking it.

What if we switched around to green mana somehow, and had Rampage of the Clans as our resource-spending spell? Well, then we couldn't use Finale of Destruction to get back Tragic Poet, in order to get our enchantments back. But, it is an interesting possibility. What Rampage of the Clans does is get rid of Precognitive Field, which could be another way to lock the state. We can't bring back Precognitive Field with an instant/sorcery until it is off the battlefield, and we can't cast an instant/sorcery with it off the battlefield. So we would have no choice but to resolve all the Rampage of the Clans until we got to an instant/sorcery below.

But, we have to be careful. If our method of retrieving Precognitive Field was to bring Tragic Poet onto the battlefield and haste it, then we could do so before we resolve Rampage of the Clans to get rid of our enchantments, and so our method to lock out instants/sorceries wouldn't work in that case.

Certainly food for thought though!


Edit: Okay, I think I have something which is close to working. Switch from Rampage of the Clans to Cleansing Nova, so that we can use white mana as our limited resource rather than green mana. Use Finale of Devastation to get our enchantments back, but rather than use Tragic Poet, use Golgari Findbroker, whose ability is an ETB ability, so we can't hold on to it like we can for Tragic Poet. We need a way to retrieve Golgari Findbroker multiple times - perhaps just a sacrifice outlet like Thallid Omnivore will do.

So, when we resolve Cleansing Nova, we get two white mana producing artifacts off the battlefield, as well as Precognitive Field, which locks the state. Then we can use Finale of Devastation to bring back our artifacts and Precognitive Field, which unlocks the state. So that seems to be working so far. The one issue seems to be: What's to prevent us from repeatedly casting Finale of Devastation? We supposedly are allowing Finale to somehow generate enough mana to recast it (say by shuffling Gift of Growth back into the library), and if we use Path of Discovery and Gaea's Blessing to reshuffle our instants/sorceries back into our library, then Finale can shuffle itself back in. So we can recast Finale without having to dip down into the stack further, which is a problem.

Perhaps using Junktroller, or multiple copies of Junktroller, could be a suitable alternative. Unfortunately, Junktroller is a creature, so we can just sacrifice it to Thallid Omnivore and bring it back with Finale of Devastation. Well, if Finale is our only haste-giving ability, then we would have to use Finale to bring Junktroller back directly, which means searching for Junktroller in the library. So we would have to tap a Junktroller to put a Junktroller into the library, which means we don't actually benefit from Junktroller. On the other hand, if we have some other haste-granting ability, then we can use Finale to bring back Golgari Findbroker, and use that to bring back Junktroller.

What if we make putting our creatures into our graveyard harder somehow? The ideal solution, I think, would be if we could cast Cleansing Nova to destroy all artifacts and enchantments, and have its copies destroy all creatures. Then we would have to resolve one copy of Cleansing Nova to put Golgari Findbroker (or multiple copies, if necessary) into our graveyard, which is exactly what we want to happen. Sadly, the rules don't allow us to do that (grrr...). What if we cast two Cleansing Novas, one to destroy creatures, and one to destroy artifacts and enchantments? That seems really dicey, but I'll think about it some more.

Tragic Poet looks like a good plan. Unfortunately, I think that Rampage of the Clans doesn't actually fix our problem. After copies of Deafening Clarion remove all our creatures from the battlefield, I see no reason why we can't cast all our spells and bring everything back, and get to tap Mox Amber for a red mana. The problem is, why can't we just repeat the process with more Deafening Clarion copies, and generate more red mana? Something has to allow it to happen the first time, but not the other times. So this is our biggest hurdle right now.

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to quite work out either. Suppose that we have a bunch of ]Deafening Clarion copies on the stack. Nikya of the Old Ways, Mox Amber, and Skilled Animator are in our graveyard. We can cast Finale of Devastation to get a bunch of copies, then cast Primevals' Glorious Rebirth on top of that. PGR resolves, we put Nikya and Mox Amber on the battlefield, and we can reshuffle PGR and FoD into our library. We can then tap Mox Amber for a red mana. We then resolve a Finale of Devastation to bring Skilled Animator on the battlefield. Then Deafening Clarion can destroy both Nikya and Mox Amber, as well as Skilled Animator, and I see no reason why we can't loop this for a while and get a bunch of red mana. Dang, this is hard!

Ooh, Nikya of the Old Ways and Mox Amber to tap for a red mana looks quite interesting!

So, first attempt: We use Deafening Clarion to destroy Nikya and allow us to cast spells again. Rampage of the Clans will destroy our Mox Amber, allowing us to recycle it. We will use Primevals' Glorious Rebirth to bring our legendaries back onto the battlefield. We will add Path of Discovery and Gaea's Blessing, so that Primevals' Glorious Rebirth can reshuffle our sorceries back into our library, so that we can cast them with Precognition Field or Experimental Frenzy. But PGR also locks the state, by putting Nikya back onto the battlefield.

So, let's say we have a large alternating stack of Deafening Clarion and Rampage of the Clans copies. The top group can be Clarion copies - we resolve a couple to destroy Nikya, freeing us up so that we can cast PGR. PGR brings Nikya back to the battlefield (along with presumably some ways to get mana), which allows us to shuffle Clarion and PGR into our library. We can now repeat this process while we still have Clarion copies. When our Clarion copies run out, we can resolve a Rampage of the Clans copy to destroy the Mox Amber, then cast Deafening Clarion again and getting a bunch of copies (so we need to hold a red mana in reserve, but I don't see that being a problem). Then we can cast PGR to bring back Nikya and Mox Amber, and tap the Mox Amber to restore the red mana that we just used. Then we can repeat the process.

When we run out of Rampage of the Clans copies, we need to recast it. We can cast PGR to shuffle it back into the library, but this puts Nikya back onto the battlefield. So we need to resolve a couple of Deafening Clarion copies on the stack below to get Nikya off the battlefield, so that we can recast Rampage of the Clans.

So, this seems to have at least the theoretical makings of a stage combo. One major problem is that Rampage of the clans destroys all artifacts and enchantments, including Omniscience and Precognitive Field. I guess we can do without Omniscience once we are set up, but losing Precognitive Field is a pain. Could we use Muldrotha? But that would allow us to cast Mox Amber and Nikya from the graveyard, which looks bad.

Hmm, that's a very interesting interaction between Experimental Frenzy and Muldrotha, the Gravetide. How can we take advantage of it? Unfortunately, it looks like the previous combo of Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep plus Dire Fleet Hoarder plus a mass damager like Deafening Clarion still goes infinite, since we can run the loop with Experimental Frenzy off the battlefield to gain a lot of red mana, then spend three red mana to bring back Experimental Frenzy, cast Deafening Clarion from the library, and then destroy Expermental Frenzy again. So we need some other combination of cards.

For the other locks, could you give a brief description of how they could be used as locks?

Finale of Revelation looks like the safe version of Expansion // Explosion, although we wound up not needing it.

Bolas's Citadel could certainly be useful. I couldn't get it to work, because the only creature I could find that gained us life upon dying, Highland Game, gained us 2 life, whereas our mass damagers all cost 3 mana. Well, there's Teshar, which adds life equal to its toughness, but that could be who knows what with Gift of Growth.

Shoot, it looks like the stage combo doesn't work after all.

Let's say we have Dire Fleet Hoarder and Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep on the battlefield, Muldrotha, the Gravetide in our hand along with our mana producing creatures, and Deafening Clarion on the top of the library. We spend a red and some other mana to cast Deafening Clarion, creating a bunch of copies on the stack. We use a few to destroy Dire Fleet Hoarder and Slinn Voda; that gives us our red mana back. We play Muldrotha and Blossom Druid, and cast Gift of Growth from the library to give us plenty of mana to cast Slinn Voda from the graveyard. This gives us two ETB triggers. With the first, we bounce Muldrotha and Blossom Druid back to our hand. We replay them, and are able to cast Dire Fleet Hoarder from the graveyard. Then we resolve the second ETB trigger, and bounce our creatures (besides Slinn Voda) back to our hand. We replay Dire Fleet Hoarder, and now we are at our initial configuration. So we can keep resolving a few copies of Deafening Clarion to gain red mana, which is no good.

Looking at the stage recipe, the problem seems to be that, when we use rules 2 and 5 (using ability A to either create some of ability B, or create one of resource I, and lock the state), we don't lock the state immediately; we only lock the state after using Muldrotha to bring our creatures back. This allows us to use Deafening Clarion to destroy both Slinn Voda and Dire Fleet Hoarder. We then lock the state when we play Slinn Voda from the graveyard, but doing so allows us to immediately unlock the state and play Dire Fleet Hoarder. So that's the loophole I guess.

The above loop relies crucially on Naban, Dean of Iteration to allow us to bounce Muldrotha twice. Can it work without Naban? Unfortunately, I don't see how to create the stage without Slinn Voda triggering at least twice. When we are creating the stage, after putting a bunch of Deafening Clarion copies on the stack, we need to alternate that with at least one Slinn Voda ETB trigger. But after we play Slinn Voda, we lock the state, so we need another copy of Muldrotha to be able to play Slinn Voda again for the next ETB trigger we need to put on the stack. I don't know how to do that other than resolving the ETB trigger. But then there are no ETB triggers left, and so there is nothing to separate the groups of Deafening Clarion copies.

So, we need to fix this. Unfortunately, it does look like any instant/sorcery that we use as our other ability will also have only an indirect connection to locking the state, since Muldrotha is only locked when we play a permanent. So I don't see how to avoid the delay loophole. And we want to have an instant/sorcery so that at least one of our abilities can have arbitrarily many copies on the stack. I mentioned the problem with ETB abilities - to get lots of ETB abilities, we need to use Quasiduplicate or Replicate to create lots of creatures. But, if Quasiduplicate is too cheap, we can just Quasiduplicate to generate more ETB triggers, and if Quasiduplicate is too expensive, we won't get layers from our ETB abilities. It would be nice if we could make copies of Naban, without being able to make copies of our ETB creatures, but that doesn't seem possible.

The other possibility is to create lots of creatures with some triggered ability other than ETB. I'm not sure what we would use for this combo though - anyone have any ideas? Whatever we use, I'm worried that this will also have only an indirect connection to Muldrotha, since the abilities won't trigger on casting the creatures from the graveyard.

If we can't fix the above, then maybe Muldrotha isn't the way to go. What other things can we use to represent a locked/unlocked state? I'm wondering about Experimental Frenzy - the state could be whether Experimental Frenzy is on or off the battlefield. I'm not seeing how to make this work with our recipe though.

Hmm yes, we do seem to have a targeting problem. I guess I'm too used to having Psychic Battle around.

Bolt Bend would be great, if we could retrieve it. Same for Gates Ablaze, although we would have to find a way to spend mana on it.

I think it's time to look at Experimental Frenzy and Precognition Field.


Edit: Okay, here's another attempt. We use Precognition Field to cast Gates Ablaze, costing us a red mana. We also have Path of Discovery, so when a creature comes onto the battlefield we can draw Gaea's Blessing, put it in the graveyard, and then shuffle our graveyard into our library.

Otherwise, things are the same. I took out the Spark Doubles so that we can't duplicate Muldrotha anymore. So we have:




Edit: It looks like God-Eternal Rhonas isn't necessary anymore, since now we can cast Giant Growth and Gift of Growth cheaply for a zillion mana. Same for the Mirror Images of Blossom Dryad, although those don't hurt the final tally; I might just keep four copies for the hell of it. Also, I think Smothering Tithe is unnecessary as well. Each time we resolve a copy of Emergency Powers, we can draw Gates Ablaze and Dire Fleet Hoarder, so we can play and destroy the Hoarder and gain a red mana without having to spend one.

I'm also changing Gates Ablaze to Deafening Clarion; doesn't require a Gate, and requires fewer copies to destroy Slinn Voda.



This should deal around 3 -> 3 -> 34 -> 3 damage.


Edit: It looks like Teferi, Hero of Dominaria can help out a lot. Each time we proliferate twice, not only can we have Ajani activate his +2 and then destroy himself, Teferi can then activate his -3 twice, each time putting Ajani in the library, and destroy himself as well. Each time Ajani can activate his +2 twice before getting destroyed by Teferi, so we get 5 life gains per 2 proliferates. So that will take us up to 3 -> 3 -> 151 -> 3.

I don't believe we actually need both A and B to grow; just growing one will do. Yes, it will then grow slower than the other stage combos, with X red mana creating X stages rather than 2X stages, but that disadvantage will be overwhelmed by the number of times we iterate the stage combo.

Hmm yes, we don't actually have a way of getting Fight with Fire from the graveyard. So Spit Flame then, using one red mana to get it back? We can add another Arcane Adaptation to turn creatures into Dragons.

Good point about Gleaming Barrier. We can use Dire Fleet Hoarder instead.

Oops, I guess being able to deal a lot of damage in the end is kinda important! I don't want to waste cards though - is a Gravitic Punch from a pumped up Slinn Voda snazzy enough?




Edit: So, I think we can add some more life gains by doing more Planeswalker self-destruction shenanigans. Ajani, Wise Counselor and its Spark Double copies cannot kill themselves normally. However, with Evolution Sage, whenever a land enters the battlefield we can add two loyalty counters to Ajani and one to each of the Spark Doubles. Then, Each one can use the +2 ability to gain a lot of life, then use the -9 to destroy themselves. So we can get 5 life gains per land we can put in play, and then 10 more after we run out of lands.



I guess we don't really need Precognitive Perception, since we can just cast Emergency Powers with Thousand-Year Storm on the battlefield, and then one of the copies of Emergency Powers can draw Ionize to counter the original EP. And we don't really need Gravitic Punch since we can just attack with a ginormous Slinn Voda.

With 25 Mountains we can get 5*25 + 10 = 135 life gains, for about 3 -> 3 -> 137 -> 3 final damage.


Edit: Looking at it again, I don't have quite enough nonred mana to cast Slinn Voda from the graveyard. We need a third Dimir Locket, which requires a second Skilled Animator to animate it, and then we also need generic mana. God-Eternal Rhonas can pump Marwyn up to power 8, which is more than enough.



We lose 3 Mountains, down to 3 -> 3 -> 122 -> 3.


Edit: We can save a couple of cards by replacing the Dimir Lockets and Skilled Animators with 3 Blossom Dryads, so long as our lands can produce blue and black but not red. Also, we only need one Evolution Sage, thanks to Naban.



Back up to 3 -> 3 -> 132 -> 3.


Edit: Nope, we still need two Evolution Sages; Naban won't trigger on a land entering the battlefield.


Edit: Hmm, it looks like we can sacrifice Emergence Zone, put it back in the library using Emergency Powers without drawing it, then put it into play using Kamahl's Druidic Vow, and repeat the process. So that is a problem. We could replace Emergence Zone with Cherished Hatchling and another {c]Arcane Adaptation[/c], but Cherished Hatchling would give all our creatures the ability to fight other creatures, so for example we could bring Slinn Voda onto the battlefield and have it fight and kill Dire Fleet Hoarder. So that doesn't look safe. How do we deal with this?


Edit: So, we can avoid retrieving Emergence Zone by using, say, Grow from the Ashes rather than Kamahl's Druidic Vow. That gives us another problem though - we already played a land on turn 3, so we don't have a way of putting Emergence Zone on the battlefield to sacrifice it and give our spells flash. Wayward Swordtooth seems like the answer, allowing us to play an additional land, but only a limited number of times.

We can actually use our Spark Doubles as well, to allow us to play Emergence Zone up to five times. First, we have as many Spark Doubles as we need copy Wayward Swordtooth, then we play our Emergence Zone. This triggers our two Evolution Sages; while the triggers are still on the stack, we cast Spit Flame to destroy all our Spark Doubles, and run a ministage so that we can repeatedly cast Muldrotha and cast the Spark Doubles from our graveyard (if we haven't sacrificed Emergence Zone yet, we do so first). This may cost us a few red mana, that's fine. The Spark Doubles come back in as copies of Ajani, Wise Counselor, and we are ready to resolve our populate triggers.



We get to play Emergence Zone five times along with 23 Islands, for 28*5 + 10 life gains. Damage goes up to 3 -> 3 -> 152 -> 3.


Edit: We can replace two of our Blossom Dryads with Mirror Images, and then we can do the same trick; use the Mirror Images to copy Wayward Swordtooth if necessary when playing Emergence Zone, then destroy the Mirror Images and then go back to using them to copy Blossom Dryad. That allows us to play Emergence Zone two more times, upping the damage to 3 -> 3 -> 162 -> 3.

We could remove the second Evolution Sage, and use a Spark Double or Mirror Image to get a second copy, but I don't think the same trick will work; we need to have all our Mirror Images and Spark Doubles copying Wayward Swordtooth when we play Emergence Zone for the last time, and we need our Evolution Sages on the battlefield at that time for them to trigger.

Although, we can just have one Evolution Sage on the battlefield for that one time, and then we can populate the four Spark Doubles, and forget about recycling the original Ajani for that one land. So that will give us one more land play for 4 life gains, bumping us to 3 -> 3 -> 166 -> 3.

It would certainly be nice to be able to replicate the last stage combo! However, there is something that is really worrying me: we can just use Quasiduplicate on Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep or Raging Swordtooth to manufacture ETB triggers. So if Quasiduplicate is too cheap (like if Naru Meha is in the deck, and we can recycle her easily), then we can just use it rather than paying I to create many triggers of A or using a trigger of A to create many triggers of B. On the other hand, if Quasiduplicate is too expensive, then we don't get layers off of the triggers. So I don't know how to handle that. I guess it was really nice that Panharmonicon was an artifact, and we could create more with Cogwork Assembler.


Edit: So, here is a possibility:

Instead of triggered abilities, we can use instants/sorceries. For ability A, we can use Electrodominance. We can use Electrodominance to cast some spell that we otherwise wouldn't have mana for; that other spell would be ability B. The input resource is red mana (in groups of two). The output resource is our TYS count, which keeps building. For locking - once we cast Electrodominance it is out of our hand, so we could consider that as "locking" the state. Then, the spell that we cast with Electrodominance could be something that could fecth Electrodominance, and itself, back; something that draws cards for instance. So we have:

1. We can spend two red mana (and generic mana, which we can make cheap) to cast Electrodominance.

2. We can use a copy of Electrodominance to cast the other spell. This doesn't "lock the state", #1 does, but I think we can deviate a bit from the recipe, and it still could work; we should check on a case-by-case basis.

3. Each casting of a Electrodominance or the other spell increases the TYS count.

4. We can use a copy of the other spell to fetch Electrodominance and itself, unlocking the state.

The tricky part is #5: how do we, if the state is unlocked, use Electrodominance (or possibly the other spell) to create two red mana, and lock the state? I have no idea.


Edit: Okay, I think I know how to make a stage!

So, we keep Muldrotha, the Gravetide, which really is a very useful card for locking and unlocking the state. Also Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep, although I guess we just need a creature that can bounce other creatures. We won't use Quasiduplicate to make many copies of creatures, instead we just have Naban, Dean of Iteration increasing the number of Slinn Vodas to two. So we don't get layers from Slinn Voda, but that should be okay; it's enough to get layers from our other ability. For that, instead of Raging Swordtooth, we have Fight with Fire. (or some other burn spell, but preferably a sorcery) Fight with Fire will get many copies from Thousand-Year Storm, and each casting of Fight with Fire will increase the TYS count, so that is our output. Our input is the red mana we need to cast Fight with Fire. Note that since Muldrotha makes us cast things from the graveyard, it's okay for us to have Omniscience. So we have:

1. For a red mana (and some cheap generic mana) we can cast Fight with Fire from the graveyard, and get many copies.

2. When we resolve a couple of copies of Fight with Fire, we can destroy Slinn Voda, and use Muldrotha to cast it from the graveyard, getting a couple of ETB triggers. This locks the state, since we can no longer cast a creature from the graveyard.

3. Each time we cast Fight with Fire we increase the TYS count, which is our output.

4. We can resolve a Slinn Voda trigger to bounce all our creatures, then replay Muldrotha, unlocking the state.

5. We can use a copy of Fight with Fire to destroy Gleaming Barrier, gaining us a treasure token that we can tap for a red mana. We need to use Muldrotha to get Gleaming Barrier back however, so we can't keep gaining red mana with our copies of Fight with Fire.

So, I believe that should work as a stage!

So our deck so far is:



The problem now is: How do we gain a lot of red mana? We can't use Quasiduplicate, since we could make many copies of Gleaming Barrier, then later we can destroy them all with a single Fight with Fire cast, gaining lots of red mana with an investment of just one. Without Quasiduplicate or Replicate, we are really hampered in our ability to create lots of things. Lands that make red mana are also currently out, as Unwind will untap them for cheap. I guess Unwind can probably be replaced though.

So we have a stage, but not yet an obvious way to beat Graham's number.


Edit: So here is a possible deck to start off:



So, we start off with our traditional opening to cast Omniscience. Next is Emergency Powers, drawing seven cards. We play Thousand-Year Storm, then recast Giant Growth and Gift of Growth so that we can tap Marwyn for hundreds of mana. Next comes Precognitive Perception, which gets five copies so we draw 18 cards. That allows us to get our entire deck except for our 25 Mountains and a few Legendary permanents. We use Kamahl's Druidic Vow to put those remaining cards into play.

With Nikya of the Old Ways, and copies from our 4 Spark Doubles and 4 Mirror Images, we can tap each of our Mountains for 10 red mana. So we can start off with 250 red mana. We then cast Slinn Voda to bounce all of our Nikyas back to our hand, and proceed with our combo.

The real action comes in the end step though. Our 4 Wilderness Reclamations trigger allowing us to untap our 25 Mountains and 2 Sulfur Falls 4 times each. We replay our Nikyas and copiers to tap each land 4 times for 10 mana each time, generating 1080 red mana. We can then proceed with our combo again. Our final number is roughly 3 -> (3 -> 3 -> 250) -> 1080 then. This beats the best Vintage layer deck, but still quite a ways from Graham's number.


Edit: An improvement:



So, instead of Mountains, we will use Sanctum of the Sun to gain lots of red mana. We will first start off with 44 red mana, from 22 Mountains aided by Nikya of the Old Ways. After finishing the stage combo, we will then cast Sanguine Sacrament to gain a lot of life. We can exile Llanowar Elves, Marwyn the Nurturer], Nikya of the Old Ways, and two random cards with different CMCs to transform Azor's Gateway into Sanctum of the Sun. We can then tap it to gain a huge amount of red mana, then do the combo again. We can activate Teferi, Hero of Dominaria twice with Oath of Teferi, then repeat that four more times with our four Spark Doubles. God-Eternal Rhonas can keep being reshuffled into our library to avoid drawing out. Also we have four Wilderness Reclamations to untap lands as well. So at the beginning of our end step, we get 14 different untap triggers, and each time we can tap Sanctum for a lot of red mana, run the stage combo again, and cast Sanguine Sacrament to gain oodles of more life. Each tapping of Sanctum of the Sun takes us from X to about 3 -> 3 -> X, and we start out with more than 3 -> 3 -> 2 -> 2 thanks to our initial 44 red mana, so we wind up with more than 3 -> 3 -> 16 -> 2 in the end.


Edit: Heh, I forgot about FortyTwo's combo of Smothering Tithe plus Emergency Powers, that's a powerful combo. We can only cast Emergency Powers up to four times normally, but if we use Ionize, we can turn life into more casts of Emergency Powers. Then it is all about gaining as much life as possible. So we can go with:



The Interplanar Beacons and all the Planeswalkers are just there to gain us some initial life before we do the really big life gaining; it should take us to 176 life at the start. Then, after we use 174 life on Ionize, we start using Ajani, Wise Counselor and our Spark Double copies, allowing us to gain a great deal of life. (Assure / Assemble gets us our creature tokens to gain a lot of life via Ajani.) Each use of Ionize takes X to about 3 -> 3 -> X, so each gaining of a lot of life takes X to about 3 -> 3 -> X -> 2. We start out at about 3 -> 3 -> 87 -> 2, which is more than 3 -> 3 -> 2 -> 3, and we can gain lots of life 10 times, so we wind up with more than 3 -> 3 -> 12 -> 3 final damage.

That takes us beyond Graham's number, and beyond Stakfish's previous deck as well!

Thanks for the encouragement, Patashu0! I've also been intereted in large numbers for quite a while; among other things, I've posted articles explaining some superstrong ordinal collapsing functions (see the "Ordinal Notations I-VI" entries at the Googology Wiki) that can be used to define some humongous numbers.

We do have some decks that *may* be working, (except for an issue I've found recently, that has a fix) but we really need to analyze them carefully to make sure that they do work. I definitely need Stakfish to look over them carefully as well, so perhaps when he is more available, we can move this forward.

Right now, I am also working on the writeup of the megastage (w^3) deck. It may become obselete, but since we're not sure when that will happen, I think it's a good idea to write up the older deck. The deck that I am using is:



The only changes from over a year ago is that Swarm Intelligence is replaced with the stronger Thousand-Year Storm. Thousand-Year Storm removes the need to use Vile Redeemer to repopulate our board after a board wipe, so we can use that spot to add a layer at the end. Floating-Dream Zubera seems like the best choice, taking the final damage to about f_{w^3 + w13 + 5}(122).