MTG Salvation

The idea is to use Finale of Devastation or something similar to put them directly into play, so that we can't do anything that relies on creature casting.

I don't see any issues with the new stage at the moment.

We can of course add another Repudiate // Replicate or two to make the start easier.

For the layer sequences in the previous post, we can add Blood for Bones to draw creatures lots of times, and to be drawn by Honor the God-Pharoah lots of times, for another layer. The problem is that this requires black mana to be scarce, while Spreading Rot requires Mox Amber to produce black. So we still need a replacement for Spreading Rot, but now even an equal exchange from life to destroying/playing lands will be enough to get to 11 layers.

Is the growth that much faster? The old combo turned 2X white mana into 2X alternating groups, and therfore 2X layers, whereas it looks like the new combo turns 2X white mana into 3X layers. The difference between 2X and 3X will become unnoticeable once we start adding layers to the stage. So I don't think this improvement will affect the final estimate.

Some of those cards are interesting, although many would require a reordering of the layer sequence. For anything that deals damage or gains life, we would have to put those things below card draw, which means we need some way to transition from life gain into putting lands into play (assuming we keep the proliferate plan we currently have). Spreading Rot is a possibility, although that just converts 2 life into one land destruction, so it's not ideal. But let's see what we get, with say Sarkhan's Unsealing:

A couple of proliferates can animate our artifacts and gain us a lot of white mana, so that's layer 1.
Putting a land into play will get us a lot of proliferates, so that's layer 2.
Resolving a Spreading Rot will destroy a land while losing us 2 life, so that's still layer 2.
Tapping a Vampire Neonate will gain us a lot of life at the expense of the opponent's life, layer 3.
Damaging an Imperial Ceratops will gain the opponent a lot of life, layer 4.
Casting a large creature will damage a lot of the opponent's Imperial Ceratops, that's layer 5.
Casting Honor the God-Pharaoh will draw us a lot of large creatures, that's layer 6.

That's not too bad, but we will need a way to turn red mana into draws that gets us a couple of layers. I suppose we can go:

Activating Teferi, Hero of Dominaria will create a lot of copies via Repeated Reverberation, layer 7.
Casting Banefire will destroy Teferi, but we only get one activation out of it due to sorcery speed, layer 7.
Tapping a Sanctum of the Sun will generate a lot of red mana, layer 8.
Many activations of Teferi will untap a lot of Sanctum of the Suns, layer 9.

So this winds up one less.

Looking at Wakening Sun's Avatar:

Damaging an Imperial Ceratops will gain the opponent a lot of life, layer 4.
Destroying a Dreadhorde Butcher will damage an Imperial Ceratops, still at layer 4.
A Wakening the Avatar's ETB trigger will destroy a lot of Dreadhorde Butcher, layer 5.
Casting Wakening Sun's Avatar with a lot of Yaroks on the battlefield will create a lot of ETB triggers, layer 6.
Casting Honor the God-Pharoah will draw a lot of Wakening the Sun's Avatars, layer 7.
Activating Teferi, Hero of Dominaria will create a lot of copies via Repeated Reverberation, layer 8.
Casting Banefire will destroy Teferi, but we only get one activation out of it due to sorcery speed, layer 8.
Tapping a Sanctum of the Sun will generate a lot of red mana, layer 9.
Many activations of Teferi will untap a lot of Sanctum of the Suns, layer 10.

Can we get another layer? I'm thinking the 0 layers we get from Spreading Rot can be improved.

Interesting point about being able now to bounce and sacrifice creatures. I thought for a bit about how we could use that to extend the combo; the idea I had was to maybe replace Incubation // Incongruity with something that puts creatures onto the battlefield directly. Then we could have something that requires we cast the creature higher up, like a kicker effect for example. Looking at kicker cards, Ghitu Chronicler is interesting, fetching instants and sorceries for a red mana. I couldn't figure out how to make that worth more layers though. Krosan Druid gets us life, that would require us to reorder the layer chain. Excavation Elephant seems like to little of an effect now. And then of course the is Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep; I couldn't find a use for that either.

It looks like two of The Antiquities War works out, as far as I can see. After a Purify Nova destroys both of the TAWs and both mana artifacts, we can tap and sacrifice two Tragic Poet to retrieve both TAWs from the graveyard (along with the other necessary enchantments). Then we can cast a Wrath Nova to destroy Citywatch Sphinx and get reshuffles, and we can play the two TAWs to fetch the two mana artifacts and play them, for two white mana. So that works out even. I don't see any benefit in resolving more than one Purify Nova at a time. If we have WPWW, we can resolve the Purify Nova, then the following Wrath Nova to destroy and refetch the two mana artifacts to gain two white mana. We then cast a Purify Nova, and resolve one of them to destroy our artifacts and TAWs again. Then we can use two white mana to cast a Wrath Nova, and the resulting reshuffling will allow us to gain two white mana, and we wind up even again. So it all works out, as far as I can tell.

For the Wayward Swordtooth problem, our solution was to switch out Adventurous Impulse for Vivien's Grizzly or Incubation // Incongruity, so that we have to have a draw to get Emergence Zone back into our hand.

I think it will work with two copies of The Antiquities War?

Having two copies means we get two white mana from going PW, but unlike with Excavation Elephant we can't get the artifacts back in the middle of a Purify Nova group, so there's no advantage to going PPW. So instead of WPPWWPPWWPPW... we just go WPWPWPW...

Hmm, it's going to be tough to be able to cast Omniscience after the second Emergency Powers, but to not be able to have enough mana to cast Omniscience after the first Emergency Powers after putting Nissa into play and getting a blue and four or five green mana - we'll still have five more cards after Nissa and before the second EP, more if we cast Precognition Field to gain access to the top of the library. It looks like it needs to be something like, we need two cards to get one blue mana... not sure how to make that work. (I was thinking something like Gyre Engineer and Torch Courier, but that costs us a blue for Gyre Engineer, so we don't gain any blue actually.)


Edit: So, going over the last four decks:

All of the decks basically have the same first 7 layers:

1 - A couple of proliferates animates our Manifold Key, allowing us to make many copies and get a lot of white mana.
2 - Each land we put into play triggers a lot of Evolution Sages and generates a lot of proliferates.
3 - Casting Tectonic Rift or Casualties of War allows us to destroy and retrieve a land many times.
4 - Casting Honor the God-Pharaoh or Bladebrand allows us to draw the land destroying card many times.
5 - Casting Gaea's Blessing and Ionize allows us to draw our card drawer many times at the cost of 2 life.
6 - Tapping Vampire Noenate allows us to gain many life thanks to Angel of Vitality, at the cost of 1 life of the opponent.
7 - Damaging an Imperial Ceratops controlled by the opponent forces him to gain a lot of life.

One of the decks had the idea of using Sarkhan, Dragonsoul to damage many Imperial Ceratopses controlled by the opponent many times. But, Sarkhan goes infinite with Casualties of War, so it looks like we have to give up the proliferate combo for this deck, dropping two layers down to 9.

One of the decks was about using Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood to deal damage to the Imperial Ceratops, then using Nissa, Who Shakes the World to get several layers turning Sanctum of the Sun into a creature, and creating many copies of it with Quasiduplicate. The problem with this deck was that we could use one Nissa activation to turn Sanctum of the Sun into a creature, and another to make it indestructible, so that we could keep Quasiduplicating forever. The only fix I can think of for this is to only be able to have one Nissa activation after the one we get in the beginning, so that we can make Sanctum of the Sun a creature, but we don't have another activation to turn it indestructible. So maybe one Nissa and one Spark Double, no Oath of Teferi or Raging Regisaur. This will get us 10 layers I think.

One of the decks was about using Banefire to damage Imperial Ceratops a bunch of times. Initially, I thought that this could get to 11 layers with the Old-Growths Dryad combo, but we haven't found a way to make that work out yet. So this is at 10 layers. But it is like 3 nests of 10 layers, so it's better than the Nissa deck at the moment.

One of the decks was about using Finale of Eternity to repeatedly destroy Dreadhorde Butcher, to deal damage to Imperial Ceratops when it died. So each Finale of Eternity takes X to X -> X -> X -> 8, same as Banefire; but with Finale of Eternity, we can use Nikya of the Old Ways to gain a lot of mana from each black mana land. So with some cards that can untap a lot of lands (Tenth District Veteran, Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, and four Wilderness Reclamations) we can get up to more than 2 -> 7 -> 8 -> 11, so this is the best at the moment, until we find another problem, fix, or improvement.


Edit: So, the Helm of the Host combo in the Finale of Eternity deck doesn't work because of Lena, Selfless Champion being able to make our animated artifacts indestructible, but it looks like Spark Double should work just fine.


Edit: Shoot, it looks like there is a problem with the Finale of Eternity deck as well. Bolas's Citadel can be used to sacrifice 10 permanents including Dreadhorde Butcher, at the cost of 10 of the opponent's life. This can allow the Butcher to damage an Imperial Ceratops controlled by the opponent, resulting in the opponent gaining a lot of life, so that goes infinite.

I see two possible solutions to this problem: One, we can eliminate switching Imperial Ceratops over to the opponent. This loses a layer straight up, so the damage goes down to 2 -> 7 -> 8 -> 10. Two, we can switch over to the Nissa startup. This is a problem, since Casualties of War can recycle Nissa too easily to gain mana from Rakdos Guildgate. So, we remove Rakdos Guildgate, and just get black mana from Smothering Tithe and Prying Blade. That should get us to about 10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> 237 -> 10) -> 10. That's not bad, but not as good as the Banefire deck. So it looks like the Banefire deck is now the best.


Edit: So, the Banefire deck looks like:



It looks like 24 cards are exilable, so we can do more than 10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> 261 -> 10) -> 10) -> 10 final damage.

Hmm yeah, the need to draw Brought Back makes that strategy seem unlikely to work out.

The Hieromancer's Cage idea is interesting - it looks like it works, so long as we have cheap red mana. (like we do in the Finale of Eternity deck.) Right now though, the only thing I know of that we need Leyline of Anticipation for is to have the Old-Growth Dryads strategy work, and of course for that we need scarce red mana. Still something to keep in mind, I guess.

I pondered getting a second Emergency Powers with the first, back when we weren't sure how even to get started with Emergency Powers, but I didn't think of a particularly good line. It looks like for the second Emergency Powers we have to have something in play that we don't have for the first, otherwise, if we can get going after the second EP, why couldn't we get going after the first? So we need to be able to play something - it probably can't be Thousand-Year Storm, since we can draw Disdainful Stroke and counter the original. So maybe Omniscience? Something that lets us just barely get Omniscience into play after six cards, and then we only have the second EP for the second. It's a possibility.

Hmm, Brought Back would have to be cast after every Purify Nova resolution, so it seems hard to make work with the white mana.

I will go over the various decks later - right now, it looks like the Nissa deck indeed doesn't work. So the next deck up is actually the Finale of Eternity deck from post # 566, getting a final damage of 2 -> 7 -> 8 -> 11.

Hmm, this is a shame. I'm still thinking there is some way to handle this, perhaps by finding some way to get the land off the battlefield other than Multani. Something like the second ability of Ravager Wurm would be good, except that it can't target basic lands. (and also the first ability of Ravager Wurm is too good) Is there some hope for doing control shenanigans to make Leyline of Anticipation work?

If not, we lose a layer, and the Nissa deck goes back down to 10 -> 10 -> 16 -> 11. Then, it looks like the Sarkhan deck is now the best, at 10 -> 10 -> 237 -> 11.


Edit: We can add Prying Blade to gain a lot of Treasure tokens during the combat step, to get back up to 10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> 237 -> 11) -> 11.


Edit: Aw, there's a problem - Casualties of War can kill Sarkhan, Dragonsoul. So, the next best deck is the Nissa deck using Tectonic Rift rather than Old-Growth Dryads, which should be at 10 -> 10 -> 16 -> 11.


Edit: Hmmm, I think that we can salvage the Old-Growth Dryads combo in the Banefire deck, by using Casualties of War. Casualties of War is no good in the Nissa deck since it can destroy Nissa, but the Banefire deck doesn't have planeswalkers in the main combo, so it looks like it is okay. That will keep the final damage at around 10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> (10 -> 10 -> 257 -> 11) -> 11) -> 11.


Edit: Shoot, there's a problem with this deck as well. Casualties of War can destroy a creature, which didn't seem to bad at first, since it is the same price to cast as a Cleansing Nova. But, the problem is that it can destroy a Citywatch Sphinx without destroying our animated Manifold Key or Mox Amber, so we can keep spending two black to reshuffle, and the Replicate our animated mana artifact again to get lots of white and black. We could make black expensive by not having any black legends, but then the land combo is reliant on Casualties of War, so we might as well go back to the Tectonic Rift version and get 10 layers.

So it's back to the Nissa deck with Tectonic Rift again.


Edit: We can improve the deck, by adding Ugin, the Ineffable. We can play four Nissa + Spark Doubles, then play and activate Ugin to destroy them all. Then we can play three Nissa + Spark Double, then play a Spark Double copying Ugin to destroy those. Then we can play two Nissas, then two again. So we can play and activate Nissa 11 times, getting us 22 activations in all. Then we can play Raging Regisaur, and destroy them all to do the whole thing again. So we can get 44 activations total, getting us to more than 10 -> 10 -> 44 -> 11 damage in the end.

Unfortunately, putting Emergence Zone into play will still activate our Evolution Sages, so it looks like Elvish Rejuvenator and Arboreal Grazer are too cheap. That's a good point though, we don't need to have it come in untapped.

Yeah, that does look infinite. It really is a pain to have to be able to put Emergence Zone into play. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we can switch to Leyline of Anticipation, since we will get stuck after a Purify Nova. (Unless there is some spell that would put an enchantment or a permanent into play?) Otherwise, we have to get rid if either Wayward Swordtooth or Multani. My guess is that Multani is the one to replace, but I don't know with what.

Yup, that was actually my plan with Sanctum of the Sun. Using two loyalty abilities for the first batch of Sanctum of the Suns is not a big deal. Once we have our batch of nonlegendary Sanctum of the Sun tokens, we can just animate one of them and copy it directly.

Oops, yeah I forgot to include a basic land. It looks like we can either start with Temple Garden and Island, or Breeding Pool and Plains to have a basic land from the beginning. Breeding Pool and Plains is perhaps better, so that we get a little more mana by having Nissa and Gift of Growth untap Breeding Pool.

For the final damage, we can add Gravitic Punch; we can cast a couple of Gift of Growths on some creature before casting the Gravitic Punch.

We can add Raging Regisaur to destroy Nissa and all the Spark Double copies during combat, then play them all again. So that can add another 8 activations, increasing the final damage to 10 -> 10 -> 16 -> 12.

Yeah, waiting until turn 3 just to increase the final damage by a little isn't worth it.

Hmm, I'm not sure how to make profitable use of Gravedigger.

I was thinking for a bit about using Crafty Cutpurse to assist with putting Old-Growth Dryads under the opponent's control, maybe using Quasiduplicate while he has the original. But, if we can't continue the combo without retoggling the Cutpurse, then we can only put in one Old-Growth Dryads at a time before we have to resolve another Role Reversal, same as before. If we give ourselves enough Tragic Poets so that we can continue without getting Quasiduplicate copies, then I think we go infinite. So this doesn't seem to work out.


Edit: I have an idea for an improvement, but I'm missing something. The idea is, instead of Nissa animating Sanctum of the Sun, it animates some land that can produce red mana, but not black mana. Then, we can use Dreadmalkin to sacrifice Nissa repeatedly, and then we can use say Treasure tokens from Smothering Tithe and Prying Blade to generate the black mana.

What I'm missing is, how do we get red mana lands for Nissa, without being able to obtain mana directly from the red mana lands too easily? Shocklands are not expensive enough. Tapped lands would require untapping; we can add Jace, Ingenious Mind-Mage, but that just gets us one layer. Sanctum of the Sun worked very well, because we were limited in how many times we could put it on the battlefield; but the only transforming land that makes red mana but not black is Spitfire Bastion, and we can't put Vance's Blasting Cannons on the battlefield quickly enough. (Unless we put it into play with Emergency Powers, but that is almost certainly a dead end) So I can't find the proper red mana land for this plan.