MTG Salvation

If the top stage will only reach BB(f{omega}(X)), we basically lose a stage. But, then the f for the second stage will be faster growing than BB(X), so the second stage will be at least BB{omega}(X), and then the third stage will be at least BB{omega*2}(X), and so on. So we lose one omega, which is just fine.

Pull from Eternity does target, but here I believe the Bolt Bend strategy from before does actually work.

Well, in the top stage we get one or more BB computations, plus a bunch of layers that don't update to the output of the BB. The idea was that Gravitic Punch would get us that update, so the top stage would basically just be applying BB(x) and updating the TYS count to BB(x). Then, the second stage would work properly, since during each layer we would go up to the top stage many times to apply BB(x).

Hmm, the problem with relying on Recoup as an additional mana cost, is that Recoup can give a sorcery flashback multiple times, via multiple copies of Thousand-Year Storm. (even without Bolt Bend)

Hmm, I guess the problem for the previous decks is that Retract brings Vedalken Orrery back to our hand, so we can't make use of all the copies from Thousand-Year Storm. But getting the refresh from Gravitic Punch should be okay I think? Being that low just means that the top stage doesn't work as a stage of Busy Beaver applications, but all the lower stages should work as we intended them to.

Oh, good point.

I suppose Firecat Blitz is bad for the Thousand-Year Elixir version, since we can cast it from our hand to get hasted cats. It looks like all the RR flashback spells are bad. We still have the hasted deck I suppose. But, with needing extra cards for Cackling Counterpart and Firecat Blitz, it doesn't look like we get an advantage with Orvar.

I believe we can get storm conversion earlier. Casting Lingering Souls lets us cast Bolt Bend, which can retarget Energy Arcs onto the appropriate Stern Proctor. I don't see how to use this to retarget all the Energy Arcs in the top Energy Arc layer, but for all the Energy Arcs from the second layer on down, we can use Bolt Bends cast in the top layer to retarget them onto the right Stern Proctors. So that should be fine I think.

But, as jfb points out, Orvar, the All-Form + Artificial Evolution allows us to copy our Mountain very cheaply, which is no good. I would be nice if we could fix things so that only the land we bring back from the graveyard can be tapped, and all copies cannot be. One idea is as jfb suggests, to have token lands come in naturally tapped, but to have nontoken lands come in untapped. Another idea is to have whatever brings back the land untap it when it does. The only card I can think of is Animist's Awakening. So, if after a Worldfire we moved the land from exile into the library, and then put it back onto the battlefield with Animist's Awakening, it could work I suppose. But, that moots the Animist's Awakening part of the ending layers, so we will be behind compared to the previous best deck.

Oh right. I've often wanted ways for certain permanents to enter untapped, but I haven't found anything better than Amulet of Vigor, which unfortunately triggers a lot of untaps if we can have multiple copies of Amulet of Vigor.

Hmm, that seems like it could work! So that would save us a card - except, we were using Dual Nature to make many copies of Black Lotus very efficiently - just adding Drafna's Restoration and the useful Doubling Season allows us two layers of green mana per card draw. Can we get that in some other way?

Actually, can we replace Drake Familiar with Stern Proctor? That would allow us to drop [c}Retract[/c] I think. So we could save a card slot even if we keep Dual Nature.

So, we're looking at:



hopefully getting 9 layers.

Hmm, it doesn't look like Orvar, the All-Form goes super duper infinite in any obvious way. But, can it replace Soul Separator? I suppose the idea is to put triggers of Orvar on the stack for all the creatures that we need to have copies of, before we go into a hyperstage transition. But, our instants only target one creature at a time, so we would need to interrupt with Lingering Souls a couple of times to get all the triggers we need, which seems too expensive. Perhaps if we added an instant that could target multiple creatures. Hmm, but does this profit us at all?

Ooh, getting lands back would be very nice! Unfortunately, having Teferi, Temporal Archmage be able to both fetch cards from the library and untap permanents is somewhat costly - but if we can get another stage out of it, we should be ahead no matter what.

Note that a stage above the hyperstage isn't worth much either; it needs to be below the hyperstage to really count.

Still trying to think about different stage resources or different kinds of stages...

Yeah, a layer above the hyperstage isn't really worth anything. I was still interested to see how this developed, since it could possibly free up something that we could use to our advantage. Although admittedly, seeming to lose card draw is a rough start.

Hmm, but wouldn't that argument apply to the Dralnu's Crusade / Conspiracy example as well? Dralnu's Crusade applying first would still turn Goblins into Zombies, applying Conspiracy first would just cause there to be more Goblins.

Remember that changing how much work an effect performs does not change what it does, so there is no dependency here.

I have to say I don't follow that argument, with regard to the example.

That's interesting FortyTwo - could you explain what the dependency idea is in more detail? (I'm curious)

We probably have the room for another stage, if we had one to put in there. If we still use mana as the resource, we have the possibility of using snow mana, since there's more of it in Kaldheim. But, there still doesn't seem to be a lot of ways to use snow mana, nor ways to generate it. I don't know a way to spend snow mana to return a creature to our hand. In standard we had stages built from moving creatures from the graveyard to the battlefield and back, but Worldfire can get cards from the battlefield to the graveyard cheaper.

There is also the possibility of using green mana, but I didn't see a good way to bounce creatures with green mana either. Temur Sabertooth doesn't target, so it could bounce higher stage creatures. Kogla, the Titan Ape could be just what we are hoping for, except it fights when it enters the battlefield.

There's always the possibility of creating a different kind of stage, but my imagination has failed me here. Maybe something with Mutate could be helpful?