J_kibbs: Feel free to post your deck! I guess ideally, we would have multiple threads, so we could have one thread with the gigastage deck, and another with J_kibbs decks maybe; but it's probably not a good idea to create too many threads for this challenge.
We can bounce the Changeling Hero via a Psychic Battle trigger. Then, we can do whatever preparations we need, such as tapping a bunch of Metallurgeon tokens to build up a ministage, and bouncing Vedalken Orrery and replaying it to get a Mirroworks trigger. Then, we can replay the Changeling Hero, and do the exile/sacrifice thing to exile Goblin Dark-Dwellers, then bring it back to the battlefield. So I think this is bad news, although I haven't made sure that we can do absolutely everything that we need to. But it seems that we can so long as we bring up enough Metallurgeon tokens, and it's worth it to expend those if we can get hyperstage creature tokens in return.
So yeah, it looks like Panharmonicon is a problem with bout the Changeling Hero and the Boggart Mob setups.
Well, the K'rrik version has one more stage, so we would like to use that one, if possible.
I think Panharmonicon has a problem with Changeling Hero. We can bounce Changeling Hero. Then, we can play and counter it, to get Bloodbond March triggers. We bring the Hero back to the battlefield, where it triggers multiple times thanks to Panharmonicon. We exile Goblin Dark-Dwellers with the first trigger. We sacrifice Changeling Hero with the second trigger. This brings the Dark-Dwellers back to the battlefield, where it triggers to cast our spells. Then Changeling Hero can be brought back to the battlefield with another Bloodbond March trigger.
This seems similar to the normal process, but the difference is that we can choose when to play the Changeling Hero, and subsequently trigger the ETB of Goblin Dark-Dwellers; this is different from the ETB triggering when we bounced Changeling Hero using a [c}Psychic Battle[/c] trigger. So we can prepare for the ETB trigger, doing things like putting a Mirrorworks trigger for Vedalken Orrery on the stack, for instance.
Or, the same number of stages as the old deck with Spider Spawning. I guess it is okay to use the same land for both Cenn's Enlistment and tapping for green mana? I don't see an obvious problem with that.
Yeah, Stakfish mentioned in his earlier description that it was important that Clockwork Gnomes have a different CMC than Millikan and Myr Welder, but then later he said that perhaps Millikin wasn't even needed, and could be replaced with something like Millstone. So perhaps it is okay; we have to investigate.
Hmm, switching back to Centaur Safeguard is problematic, since we need to have green mana if we use Acorn Harvest at that point, and we will also have white mana for Metallurgeon if we make that switch. That plus blue mana for Omniscience casting will allow us to use Engineered Explosives on Centaur Safeguard rather than cast Acorn Harvest, so that's no good.
We can fix things if we eliminate blue mana, and use Academy Rector and Misery Charm to recover the Omniscience. So we get:
Fieldmist Borderpost is interesting; we can solve the land problem by not being able to play or discard a land from our hand, or by simply not having a basic land. But, we are again presented with the problem of how we gain mana. I guess we can go to Allay again, and get a bunch of bouncings from a single cast. But, we would need several Psychic Battles to start gaining a profit, so startup might be difficult.
Yeah, we would have to take out Mana Vault. And I guess Sol Ring is out of the question too; we have to stick with one mana generating artifacts.
But, that leaves us with the problem with how we are supposed to generate mana in the first place. Could replacing Karn by March of the Machines help? If we replace Phantatog with Allay, it will cost us three mana to recycle March of the Machines. So three mana for Allay and one for Forerunner of Slaughter, which we want to match with four mana from artifacts. Mana Vault can generate four mana by itself with the help of Mirrorworks, so that plus a Keyrune is too much. Maybe a Sol Ring and two Azorius Keyrunes? Then bouncing all three will generate us four mana, but it will cost us four mana to do so. But with Metallurgeon tokens, we can bounce for free, so we will gain an advantage in mana that way.
A possibly cheaper possibility is to use Mana Echoes; then to generate mana, a Metallurgeon can just bounce itself. We can have just Forerunner of Slaughter and a single Azorius Keyrune. But, then we can't have creature typed colorless artifacts, so no Myr Welder or Millikin. I don't know if that is a dealbreaker.
Forerunner of Slaughter just targets colorless creatures, so just artifacts and itself. So it's just a way to target artifacts for mana, allowing us to recover after Child of Alara or Worldfire hits.
I don't see any problems currently with the Razorfin Abolisher deck currently, although of course we should keep looking at it. Right now, it is at like F_{w^4 + w6 + 4}(50), I think.
For the Chalice of the Void deck, I believe the current solution is Sephara, Sky's Blade + Maze Glider + Mirrorwing Dragon + Hunting Pack? Except that that doesn't work with Centaur Safeguard, so we have to switch that out I guess. The best that I can think of is one of our K'rrik setups, although perhaps there is something better with this deck design. Anyway, if the K'rrik setups work we have something like:
which would get us about F_{w^4 + w6 + 1}(3) or thereabouts. We lose layers due to losing Thousand-Year Storm and Consecrated Sphinx, so it is a bit behind the Razorfin Abolisher deck at the moment.
Hmm, looking at the Soul Foundry deck again, it uses up only one Engineered Explosives in the megastage transition. I thought for a little while that perhaps we could use up another by the fact that sacrificing an Engineered Explosives leads to a Godtoucher token, and tapping a Godtoucher token leads to returning Engineered Explosives to our hand. So, I figured whenever that sequence ended, we would end up with either an unused Godtoucher token, or an unused Engineered Explosives. But, it looks like you can tap the last Godtoucher token to trigger Psychic Battle triggers, and we can leave those Psychic Battle triggers on the stack, to be used to bounce Boggart Mob later. We can then go to the megastage transition, and afterwards, we can have Engineered Explosives in our hand, and also Goblin Dark-Dwellers, if we use Smite the Monstrous.
So, I think we need to go to an Into Thin Air / Brace for Impact configuration. But, not only does this require us to add Copy Enchantment, we also need a way to target Wormfang Behemoth, so that we can create Bloodbond March triggers for it. The only thing I can think of is Krosan Groundshaker, to target it as a Beast. But, green mana is too expensive in our current setup. So, we would have to go back to the previous version with the Raven Guild Initiate block. So we have:
Extending the sweeper sequence and getting another transition would be awesome. Hmm, what would be the advantage of just destroying creatures? The only thing we really save by destroying creatures rather than nonland permanents is planeswalkers (since we can already access enchantments and artifacts). How can we utilize planeswalkers? They seem hard to make use of, due to their loyalty abilities being activated at sorcery speed. Teferi, Temporal Archmage can get an emblem that allows us to use loyalty abilities at instant speed; but it can also fetch cards from the library, so would be hard to put planeswalkers at a place other than the very top. (Maybe if we could only return, say, green permanents?) Another possibility is Interplanar Beacon, which can gain us 1 life every time we cast a planeswalker. Then we can have the transition destroy all nonlands permanents, including the planeswalkers, and we can return them to our hand somehow. Maybe it could work?
J_kibbs: Feel free to post your deck! I guess ideally, we would have multiple threads, so we could have one thread with the gigastage deck, and another with J_kibbs decks maybe; but it's probably not a good idea to create too many threads for this challenge.
So yeah, it looks like Panharmonicon is a problem with bout the Changeling Hero and the Boggart Mob setups.
I think Panharmonicon has a problem with Changeling Hero. We can bounce Changeling Hero. Then, we can play and counter it, to get Bloodbond March triggers. We bring the Hero back to the battlefield, where it triggers multiple times thanks to Panharmonicon. We exile Goblin Dark-Dwellers with the first trigger. We sacrifice Changeling Hero with the second trigger. This brings the Dark-Dwellers back to the battlefield, where it triggers to cast our spells. Then Changeling Hero can be brought back to the battlefield with another Bloodbond March trigger.
This seems similar to the normal process, but the difference is that we can choose when to play the Changeling Hero, and subsequently trigger the ETB of Goblin Dark-Dwellers; this is different from the ETB triggering when we bounced Changeling Hero using a [c}Psychic Battle[/c] trigger. So we can prepare for the ETB trigger, doing things like putting a Mirrorworks trigger for Vedalken Orrery on the stack, for instance.
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Millikin
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Wildfield Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Skull of Orm
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Myr Welder
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Smite the Monstrous
31 Child of Alara
32 Centaur Safeguard
33 Verdant Succession
34 Forerunner of Slaughter
35 Altar of the Lost
36 Spellweaver Helix
37 Worldfire
38 Cenn's Enlistment
39 Cenn's Enlistment
40 Cenn's Enlistment
41 Realm Seekers
42 Titania, Protector of Argoth
43 Multani's Decree
44 Bayou
45 Eureka
46 Mana Crypt
47 Elvish Spirit Guide
48 Grassland Crusader
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Havengul Runebinder
52 Ghosthelm Courier
53 Simian Spirit Guide
54 Goblin Kites
55 Old Man of the Sea
56 Sea Snidd
57 Reign of Chaos
58 Xathrid Gorgon
59 Reality Spasm
60 Reforge the Soul
Or, the same number of stages as the old deck with Spider Spawning. I guess it is okay to use the same land for both Cenn's Enlistment and tapping for green mana? I don't see an obvious problem with that.
Yeah, Stakfish mentioned in his earlier description that it was important that Clockwork Gnomes have a different CMC than Millikan and Myr Welder, but then later he said that perhaps Millikin wasn't even needed, and could be replaced with something like Millstone. So perhaps it is okay; we have to investigate.
The start indeed looks very hard.
We can fix things if we eliminate blue mana, and use Academy Rector and Misery Charm to recover the Omniscience. So we get:
[spoiler]
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Millikin
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Wildfield Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Skull of Orm
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Myr Welder
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Smite the Monstrous
31 Child of Alara
32 Centaur Safeguard
33 Verdant Succession
34 Forerunner of Slaughter
35 Academy Rector
36 Spellweaver Helix
37 Worldfire
38 Spider Spawning
39 Spider Spawning
40 Spider Spawning
41 Titania, Protector of Argoth
42 Multani's Decree
43 Scrubland
44 Mox Pearl
45 Misery Charm
46 Mana Crypt
47 Vastwood Animist
48 Grassland Crusader
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Havengul Runebinder
52 Ghosthelm Courier
53 Simian Spirit Guide
54 Goblin Kites
55 Old Man of the Sea
56 Sea Snidd
57 Reign of Chaos
58 Xathrid Gorgon
59 Reality Spasm
60 Reforge the Soul
Still seven stages, with no Consecrated Sphinx. Losing the efficient Elvish Spirit Guide / Everglove Courier / Grassland Crusader is somewhat costly, as is needing Academy Rector.
Sticking with K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, we can get maybe:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Millikin
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Fieldmist Borderpost
16 Amulet of Vigor
17 Skull of Orm
18 Metallurgeon
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Retract
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Cenn's Tactician
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Myr Welder
29 Moan of the Unhallowed
30 Collar the Culprit
31 Child of Alara
32 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
33 Aven Riftwatcher
34 Ramosian Commander
35 Forerunner of Slaughter
36 Spellweaver Helix
37 Worldfire
38 Acorn Harvest
39 Acorn Harvest
40 Acorn Harvest
41 Titania, Protector of Argoth
42 Multani's Decree
43 Bayou
44 Eureka
45 Mana Crypt
46 Elvish Spirit Guide
47 Everglove Courier
49 Western Paladin
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Havengul Runebinder
52 Ghosthelm Courier
53 Devout Chaplain
54 Royal Assassin
55 Simian Spirit Guide
56 Goblin Kites
57 Old Man of the Sea
58 Karplusan Yeti
59 Reality Spasm
60 Reforge the Soul
So eight stages, a little better. That's assuming the K'rrik transitions are okay in the Chalice of the Void deck, of course.
We actually don't need Vastwood Animist in the Chalice of the Void deck; Everglove Courier can just target Elvish Spirit Guide instead, I think. So we can also remove Consecrated Sphinx, and add a seventh stage back in.
Edit: Since we got rid of Verdant Succession in the Chalice of the Void deck, we can add Everglove Courier to the deck, adding another stage. We can then remove a two card stage (Ghosthelm Courier, say), and add Consecrated Sphinx back in.
Actually, I guess in the Soul Foundry deck, Godtoucher can bounce Wormfang Behemoth to create Bloodbond March triggers. So we don't need Krosan Groundshaker, and we can go back to the K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth versions, to save two cards. So we can have 5 stages, along with Consecrated Sphinx.
But, that leaves us with the problem with how we are supposed to generate mana in the first place. Could replacing Karn by March of the Machines help? If we replace Phantatog with Allay, it will cost us three mana to recycle March of the Machines. So three mana for Allay and one for Forerunner of Slaughter, which we want to match with four mana from artifacts. Mana Vault can generate four mana by itself with the help of Mirrorworks, so that plus a Keyrune is too much. Maybe a Sol Ring and two Azorius Keyrunes? Then bouncing all three will generate us four mana, but it will cost us four mana to do so. But with Metallurgeon tokens, we can bounce for free, so we will gain an advantage in mana that way.
A possibly cheaper possibility is to use Mana Echoes; then to generate mana, a Metallurgeon can just bounce itself. We can have just Forerunner of Slaughter and a single Azorius Keyrune. But, then we can't have creature typed colorless artifacts, so no Myr Welder or Millikin. I don't know if that is a dealbreaker.
Forerunner of Slaughter just targets colorless creatures, so just artifacts and itself. So it's just a way to target artifacts for mana, allowing us to recover after Child of Alara or Worldfire hits.
For the Chalice of the Void deck, I believe the current solution is Sephara, Sky's Blade + Maze Glider + Mirrorwing Dragon + Hunting Pack? Except that that doesn't work with Centaur Safeguard, so we have to switch that out I guess. The best that I can think of is one of our K'rrik setups, although perhaps there is something better with this deck design. Anyway, if the K'rrik setups work we have something like:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Chalice of the Void
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Karn, Silver Golem
12 Millikin
13 Phantatog
14 Mirrorworks
15 Mana Vault
16 Simic Keyrune
17 Skull of Orm
18 Clockwork Gnomes
19 Goryo's Vengeance
20 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
21 Muzzio, Visionary Architect
22 Hurkyl's Recall
23 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
24 Changeling Hero
25 Anaba Ancestor
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Myr Welder
29 Moan of the Unhallowed
30 Collar the Culprit
31 Child of Alara
32 K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth
33 Aven Riftwatcher
34 Ramosian Commander
35 Sephara, Sky's Blade
36 Maze Glider
37 Spellweaver Helix
38 Worldfire
39 Spider Spawning
40 Spider Spawning
41 Spider Spawning
42 Titania, Protector of Argoth
43 Multani's Decree
44 Mirrorwing Dragon
45 Hunting Pack
46 Bayou
47 Eureka
48 Elvish Spirit Guide
50 Grassland Crusader
51 Western Paladin
52 Frightshroud Courier
53 Havengul Runebinder
54 Ghosthelm Courier
55 Simian Spirit Guide
56 Goblin Kites
57 Old Man of the Sea
58 Karplusan Yeti
59 Reality Spasm
60 Reforge the Soul
which would get us about F_{w^4 + w6 + 1}(3) or thereabouts. We lose layers due to losing Thousand-Year Storm and Consecrated Sphinx, so it is a bit behind the Razorfin Abolisher deck at the moment.
I was hopeful that something could be done with Forerunner of Slaughter, perhaps using that with Metallurgeon and Cenn's Tactician? But I would like to hear what Stakfish has to say about it.
So, I think we need to go to an Into Thin Air / Brace for Impact configuration. But, not only does this require us to add Copy Enchantment, we also need a way to target Wormfang Behemoth, so that we can create Bloodbond March triggers for it. The only thing I can think of is Krosan Groundshaker, to target it as a Beast. But, green mana is too expensive in our current setup. So, we would have to go back to the previous version with the Raven Guild Initiate block. So we have:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Soul Foundry
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 Mirrormade
12 Karn, Silver Golem
13 Perpetual Timepiece
14 Mimic Vat
15 Phantatog
16 Skull of Orm
17 Mana Crypt
18 Obelisk of Bant
19 Metallurgeon
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
23 Boggart Mob
24 Godtoucher
25 Wirewood Herald
26 Engineered Explosives
27 Salvaging Station
28 Copper Gnomes
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Into Thin Air
32 Brace for Impact
33 Child of Alara
34 Tireless Missionaries
35 Celestial Gatekeeper
36 Raven Guild Initiate
37 Backslide
38 Copy Enchantment
39 Spellweaver Helix
40 Worldfire
41 Acorn Harvest
42 Acorn Harvest
43 Acorn Harvest
44 Molderhulk
45 Divine Congregation
46 Wormfang Behemoth
47 Krosan Groundshaker
48 Forest
49 Eureka
50 Elvish Spirit Guide
52 Frightshroud Courier
53 Simian Spirit Guide
54 Goblin Kites
55 Old Man of the Sea
56 Karplusan Yeti
57 Reality Spasm
58 Thousand-Year Storm
59 Consecrated Sphinx
60 Words of Wisdom
Down to 4 stages at the end.