I thought for a moment that Thieves' Auction could perhaps be used as a replacement for Cultural Exchange / Hunted Phantasm; we could cast it when we have an even number of nontoken permanents on the battlefield, so that the opponent would be forced to take the tapped land. Unfortunately, we could use it to gain life from lifegain lands. If there were a version that didn't exile the permanents first, that might work. Too bad Scrambleverse untaps the permanents.
EDIT: Hmm, Glorybringer seems like an ideal replacement for Five-Alarm Fire. I think we can get started with the following:
Play Black Lotus for green, Channel, Perpetual Timepiece (19 life). Tap the Timepiece to mill two cards (two instants/sorceries, not sure which ones yet), then exile it to shuffle Black Lotus into the library (17 life). Cycle Rebuild to draw Black Lotus (15 life), then play it for more green and cast Genesis Wave for 13 cards (2 life).
Resolve the ETB trigger for Primeval Titan, putting Radiant Fountain and Glimmerpost onto the battlefield tapped (5 life). Before letting any of the Dual Nature triggers resolve, cast Worldpurge. Bring Opalescence, Dual Nature, Copy Enchantment, Glorybringer, Spiritual Focus, and Omniscience back to our hand, along with Cultural Exchange. Shuffle the rest of the permanents into the deck. Resolve all the Dual Nature triggers; The Primeval Titan token triggers, bringing Radiant Fountain and Glimmerpost back onto the battlefield again (8 life). Have the Copy Enchantment token come in as a copy of Dual Nature. Repaly Opalescence. Replay Dual Nature, getting 3 more Dual Nature tokens for 6 total. Play Copy Enchantment, copying Dual Nature and getting 7 more token copies for 14 total. Play Glorybringer and Spiritual Focus, getting 16 copies of each. Cast Cultural Exchange, exchanging our Pain Magnfication token with one of the 10 Goblin tokens the opponent controls.
Start the combat phase, and attack with all 16 Glorybringers. All 16 of the Glorybringers trigger their damage ability. Resolve the first ability, and deal 4 damage to our Goblin token. This triggers the Repercussion and Justice tokens. Resolve the Justice ability first, dealing 4 damage to ourselves (4 life). This triggers Pain Magnification; we discard Omniscience. This triggers our 16 Spiritual Focuses, and we gain 32 life and draw 16 cards. I believe there should be no more problems from here; we can draw Mirror of Fate, and use it to put Perpetual Timepiece back in the library and we can draw it again. We can then use the Timepiece to shuffle Black Lotus and Genesis Wave back into our library, and redraw them. Not sure how best to use our 16 card draws, but certainly we will get a gazillion Dual Natures and Justices, so that when we resolve that Repercussion trigger we will get a lot of Justice triggers. With 15 more Glorybringer triggers to go, I believe this gets us to more than F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + 14 + 6} (15)) damage in the end.
EDIT: Hmm, I just noticed that Glorybringer only deals damage to an opponent's creature. I don't think this is a problem; Cultural Exchange is cheap enough so that in general, we can deal damage to an opponent creature, and then cast Cultural Exchange to exchange control of the creature so that we will be the ones to take damage. For the opening, we can just have the opponent take the damage from the first Repercussion, since he can take damage up to four times without dying. After that we will have tons of resources to be able to cast Cultural Exchange whenever we need to.
Hmm - I guess Soldevi Steam Beast has the same problem with donation. How about replacing Phelddagrif with Hunted Phantasm and Tamanoa? We could even add a layer by adding something like Keldon Marauders, but that would take us over the limit for the second deck; it does bring the first deck up to w^3 + w13 + 12 as well.
EDIT: Okay, here's another attempt at 14 stages: We will use Assault Formation + Ulvenwald Captive for a green mana stage, then use Guardian Zendikon + Island to create blue mana on top. We need to switch the hyperstage and megastage from green to red, and so we have the problem again of how we use a sorcery to gain red mana. I don't think Seismic Spike will work with this combo, as both Seismic Spike and Assault Formation will destroy our Island. So I will try to use Mana Geyser. We need to donate lands to the opponent, and Hunted Phantasm + Cultural Exchange seems like the most efficient way of doing so that we know of. Adding Swarm Intelligence seems to be at least as efficient as adding cards to allow us to have multiple tapped lands to donate.
Should get F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 6} (N)), if it all works out correctly.
EDIT: Spiteful Visions shouldn't be there. On the other hand, I'm missing a Forest for Goblin Clearcutter to sacrifice. I'd like to use Dryad Arbor, since we can get lots of Dual Nature copies, and Dryad Arbor could replace Swarm Intelligence. But, I think we can put a Guardian Zendikon on Dryad Arbor and destroy it with Assault Formation, which would allow us to imprint it on Mimic Vat and get a hasted Dryad Arbor, getting us a spare green mana. So that's no goood. There are a few Forests that usually come in tapped; Stomping Ground is no good since we can afford to pay the 2 life to have it come in untapped, and again Assault Formation can get us a token of it. Sheltered Thicket can be brought back to our hand via Worldpurge and recycled. So that leaves Cinder Glade; we can replace the Island with say Volcanic Island to avoid having enough basic lands for the Cinder Glade to come in untapped.
So replace Spiteful Visions and Island with Cinder Glade and Volcanic Island.
EDIT: We can add a layer back by replacing Reality Spasm with Herbal Poultice, which can lead into Genesis Wave for that extra layer. Back up to F_{w^3 + w14 + 6}(...).
EDIT: Bleh, we can't have Deconstruct in this deck, since it can generate green mana too easily. We can replace it with two Chancellor of the Tangles, removing Justice to make space. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to get started, but I don't know of a way yet.
EDIT: Hmm, we could start Black Lotus / Channel / Perpetual Timepiece / Tundra / Replenish to get Omniscience and some other enchantment (Opalescence maybe) onto the battlefield. This requires three new cards rather than five for the Genesis Wave start. But, Genesis Wave contributes to the layer sequence, so it is really four new cards, and it looks like we need at least one new card to draw enough cards for the combat phase to work properly. We could still come out ahead if we can do it with just one new card. But, Minds Aglow doesn't work, and Noggle Ransacker by itself doesn't seem to be enough - if we go Opalescence / Dual Nature / Noggle Ransacker, we get three more cards, and then we need Worldpurge to be able to replay Noggle Ransacker. So, no improvement yet.
EDIT: Okay, the following is much better: Start with Black Lotus / Channel / Perpetual Timepiece. Tap the Timepiece to mill a couple of cards (perhaps the lifegain lands), and then exile it to shuffle Black Lotus back into the library. Cycle Rebuild to redraw Black Lotus, and sacrifice the Black Lotus for more green mana. Cast Genesis Wave for however many we need. The downside is that the Perpetual Timepiece is now in exile, and we can't redraw it until the next Genesis Wave, which won't happen until the first combat phase. Still, there should be enough to get a bunch of Dual Natures, and we can create at least one hasted token to attack with I should think. So we can drop the two Chancellor of the Tangles, and reinstate Justice and Repercussion. Damage goes back up to F_{w^3 + w14 + 7}(...).
I checked whether this start could improve the 60-card deck, but in that case, since we need to have Deconstruct, we might as well use it.
EDIT: Hmm, I'm having trouble with the start for this latest deck. Five-Alarm Fire is tough to use, since not only does it deal 5 damage to us, we need to create five hasted creatures to get it charged. I'm looking for alternatives, but haven't found a really good one. Anthem of Rakdos could work, if we have two of them in play when each Anthem of Rakdos trigger gets resolved, so that we deal 4 damage to ourselves. But I haven't quite figured out how to make it work.
Hmm, that's troublesome; so if we want any mana stages, it looks like the stage creature has to directly produce the mana.
There is another problem with the last deck I posted: Night Dealings can fetch Black Lotus at just the cost of black mana, and then the Black Lotus can produce red mana. So, it looks like we can't have both Night Dealings and Black Lotus, unless black mana is both incidental (i.e. can't fuel the combo by itself) and is more expensive than any mana that can fuel the combo by itself.
Some minor changes: We can have the original Copy Enchantment copy Psychic Battle whenever we need copies of Psychic Battles, so we get more than 2^2^523 Swarm Intelligences after the first Allay. I believe Deconstruct is actually four layers, so we get to more than 2^^^^(2^2^523) after Deconstruct.
EDIT: Getting back to the deck with sideboard - I would think that it should be possible to get 14 stages, given that the previous 13-stage deck still had red mana available. I haven't figured out a way yet though, as the obvious choice for the red mana stage would be Goblins, but we are using Goblins in the initial stages.
Uses all of green, blue, and black. The main two challenges: 1. How do we do the megastage with red mana? Which sorcery do we use? 2. How to handle the lands so that the Kavu mana works out properly. But, it looks promising.
But, we can't use our lands to pay for Vile Redeemer, it requires colorless mana. (We can't have Radiant Fountain of course, but that doesn't affect the start from my previous post.)
Wait - for one hyperstage transition, we can use a Su-Chi to get a lot of Vile Redeemer mana, and then we can use that mana to put a lot of Candelabra of Tawnos activations on the stack to keep untapping Sejiri Refuge and Kabira Crossroads. But then, if we stop using Su-Chis, then we gradually deplete our store of mana resetting our hyperstage each time, so we can't go infinite.
We unfortunately have to use Deconstruct to get started it looks like, and Swarm Intelligence doesn't produce quite as many Deconstructs as Precursor Golem. On the plus side, Allay is worth two layers thanks to Swarm Intelligence, and Deconstruct can be worth four.
If we draw Allay and Worldpurge, we can easily get four casts of Allay, just like before. Can we do better? We would like to imprint both Deconstruct and Worldpurge on Acorn Harvest, and then cast multiple Acorn Harvests; if we try to just cast a single Acorn Harvest, then the Worldpurge will interfere with us getting any progress with the Deconstruct. So it looks a little tricky. One problem is that we need multiple Perpetual Timepieces and Spellweaver Helixes, so we need to have March of the Machines, but we need to bounce it before we can use the Perpetual Timepieces.
If we use Mox Emerald as our artifact, we wind up with GGGG and 18 life, and can Genesis Wave for up to 18 cards. If we Candelabra of Tawnos as our artifact, and try to keep Mox Emerald in our hand, we wind up with GGG and 17 life, and can Genesis Wave for up to 16 cards.
assuming we use the Mox Emerald, that leaves us with G1 and 4 life after we use the Radiant Fountain. That means we are one mana short of being able to cast an initial Allay and still have enough life to flashback Acorn Harvest. So it doesn't seem to quite work out - unless there is a card that we can cut?
It can't be March of the Machines, since we need multiple Spellweaver Helixes to be able to trigger both Worldpurge and Deconstruct. We could do Swarm Intelligence, but that drops the number of layers of Deconstruct down to two, so I think this will be worse than casting four Allays with Swarm Intelligence. So maybe dropping Su-Chi and Horobi, Death's Wail is the best option.
Without those two cards we have G1 mana and 6 life. Okay, so we get all those permanents on the battlefield, and a bunch of Dual Nature triggers as well. We want to leave the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience, Vedalken Orrery, Sentry Oak, and Sylvan Echoes on the stack. Put the Spellweaver Helix token and SPellweaver Helix trigger up next. I think we can let the other triggers resolve, having the Copy Enchantment token copy Swarm Intelligence.
Cast Allay with buyback (G mana, 4 life), getting 3 Swarm Intelligence triggers, 2 Psychic Battle triggers, and Cowardice triggers. We can bounce Copy Enchantment, replaying it to get three more Psychic Battles, up to 5. The Psychic Battle triggers have to be used to bounce Cowardice and redirect to a disposable token (say March of the Machines), I believe. The first Swarm Intelligence trigger resolves and we get six bounces, bouncing Dual Nature five times (up to 64) and then Psychic Battle (up to 66). The second takes us up to 64*2^66 + 2 = 2^72 + 2 Psychic Battles. The last one takes us to more than 2^2^72 Dual Natures and Swarm Intelligences and a few Psychic Battles, and we can also bounce March of the Machines.
Tap the two Perpetual Timepieces to mill Worldpurge, two Acorn Harvests, and something else. Resolve the Spellweaver triggers to imprint both Worldpurge and Deconstruct. Cast Acorn Harvest from your hand, triggering Deconstruct and Worldpurge; cast the Deconstruct, but not the Worldpurge. Deconstruct gets more than 2^2^72 Swarm Intelligence copies. After we resolve the first and destroy the Perpetual Timepiece token, we get GGG mana. Play March of the Machines. After we resolve the second Swarm Intelligence trigger, we get a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers and Cowardice triggers. We can now start bouncing Perpetual Timepiece, getting a lot of tokens, then destroy one of the tokens to get GGG mana and another Allay. By the end we have cast more than 2^2^72 Allays to get more than 2^^^(2^2^72) Dual Natures. Save enough mana so that we can flashback Acorn Harvest, getting a copy of Worldpurge (and Deconstruct, but I don't think it does as much this time); but before that we play a Dual Nature and have more than 2^^^(2^2^72) copies of Dual Nature triggers on the stack. After Worldpurge, get our Dual Nature along with our Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery tokens. Play Sentry Oak and Sylvan Echoes, getting more than 2^^^(2^2^72) copies of each.
That seems pretty good; is there any way to get Su-Chi involved as well?
But I think this is not as good, since we lose Deconstruct. It does get us back to Psychic Battle though.
EDIT: I had a problem using "target land" cards to try to generate mana, because it looks like Worldpurge can do the same things that you can do with a target land. But, if we animate the land, then we can destroy it by targeting it, and then we can make a token copy via Mimic Vat. So, that becomes a possibility for generating mana for mana transitions.
But, the best I can currently do for a 13th stage is a three card stage, and then the animate land card adds a fourth. On the other hand, we need Genesis Wave + 2 other cards to start and draw all our cards, so the best I could do was 62 cards:
EDIT: Okay, I really think I have it this time: Replace Farrelite Priest with Candelabra of Tawnos, and have lands that produce white and blue mana and no other colors. So we have:
Shoot, I thought that I had it. Finding a creature that gives life shouldn't be so hard!
Okay, here's a Hail Mary: Use Bog-Strider Ash to gain life. Of course, we can gain life if we use Worldpurge to bounce Mad Auntie; but if we do so, we can't bring back at least one of the seven cards that we need to bring back, and it/they will go into the library. All of those seven cards are more expensive to bring back than Mad Auntie.
But shoot, then we can't bring back Bog-Strider Ash either, so we would need some way to preserve Bog-Strider Ash through Worldpurge. We actually need to bring back both Bog-Strider Ash and Mad Auntie to go infinite, so if there were six other cards that we need to bring back rather than seven, we would be good I think. Is there any way to manipulate how many cards we need to bring back with Worldpurge?
Hmm, right. The other possible problem with the infinite was that, the only progress that could survive the Worldpurge was the number of nontokens that have gone to the graveyard, and if we don't set up Calciform Pools with a counter (or create a hasted token of Metallurgeon using the lower hyperstage) then we can't ever pay a white mana to activate a Metallurgeon, so no more nontoken creatures get sent to the graveyard. But, I guess we can completely ignore the upper hyperstage, and do the trick with putting Dual Nature activations on the stack and just keep building them up as many times as we choose.
So, it looks like to make it work we need to make something necessary in the hyperstage transition require something other than colorless mana - we could have them require an artifact targeting, or maybe a white or blue mana. I think the things we use are Mirror of Fate, Perpetual Timepiece, and Allay, as well as play a bunch of artifacts and enchantments, and of course flashback the spell. Mirror of Fate doesn't have a lot of other options (maybe Pull From Eternity), and for Allay, we need to keep it just colorless mana so that we can restore progress. What about substituting in Izzet Guildmage and Broken Ambitions again?
The obvious problem here is, how do we get the original Black Lotus out of the graveyard. That is a puzzler, but perhaps not insurmountable. We just need a replacement card that can exile a card from the graveyard or shuffle it into the library. I haven't found one though; looking at replacements for Minion of Tevesh Szat, I didn't find any useful black creatures in the right power range. So no solution as of yet.
EDIT: If we can somehow go back from Deconstruct to Rude Awakening, then we have no way of targeting artifacts in the higher hyperstage, and there will be no way to bounce Perpetual Timepiece, Mirror of Fate, and Spellweaver Helix back to our hand to be hidden away by Wormfang Behemoth. I think that leaves us with too many cards on the battlefield for Worldpurge. But, we can't go back to Rude Awakening at the moment, since we need either Deconstruct or another green mana to get started.
EDIT: Oh bah, we can use Rebuild to bring the artifacts back to our hand.
EDIT: Ooh, I think I have it - Walking Atlas! Since it is a creature, we need to create a hasted token to use it, so we definitely need to use a Metallurgeon trigger in order to create one. By my figuring, we need to bring Horobi, Death's Wail, Wormfang Behemoth, Vile Redeemer, and Spellweaver Volute back to our hand using Worldpurge, so there is just enough room left for three lands. Are there any problems with this?
Hmmm - But, to recover the Calciform Pools, we need to mill it into our graveyard. So we need to use a Perpetual Timepiece. But, we can't play that Perpetual Timepiece with March of the Machines on the battlefield, because then we can't afford to pay for the Allay to bounce the March of the Machines. So we just have to play it and activate it to mill the Calciform Pools. Later, we will need to mill the other lands/instants/sorceries to restart the hyperstage, so we need to bounce the Perpetual Timepiece, requiring an targeting from a Metallurgeon.
Hmm, so we start Black Lotus / Channel / Precursor Golem / Deconstruct for 9 green mana / Genesis Wave for up to 18 permanents. But, it looks like in order to use Goblin Bushwhacker, we need Black Lotus, and the only ways to get Black Lotus are via Curse of Verbosity (or whatever our card drawer is) and Genesis Wave, and to get the latter we need Curse of Verbosity again. But to use Curse of Verbosity, we need a hasted creature, so we need Goblin Bushwhacker. Except, we do have Spectral Shepherd, so we could tap Underground Sea and destroy either Ruin Ghost or Anaba Ancestor, getting a hasted token copy possibly. So we do have a possibly avenue to attack.
EDIT: Yeah, we don't have a way to dish out damage. It would be nice if there were a version of Sentry Oak that drew cards.
EDIT: In the meanwhile, I thought a bit about the deck with sideboard again. We should be able to get 14 stages without too much work:
EDIT: We could potentially do better than Noggle Ransacker, if we could end with Goblin Bushwhacker + Genesis Wave + a card that can draw more cards than Noggle Ransacker. It would have to be limited of course, and the only limited events that come to mind are combat and dealing damage to the opponent. What about Goblin Bushwhacker + Genesis Wave + Curse of Verbosity? We do have the problem of trying to get the Black Lotus out of our graveyard though.
I thought for a moment that Thieves' Auction could perhaps be used as a replacement for Cultural Exchange / Hunted Phantasm; we could cast it when we have an even number of nontoken permanents on the battlefield, so that the opponent would be forced to take the tapped land. Unfortunately, we could use it to gain life from lifegain lands. If there were a version that didn't exile the permanents first, that might work. Too bad Scrambleverse untaps the permanents.
EDIT: Hmm, Glorybringer seems like an ideal replacement for Five-Alarm Fire. I think we can get started with the following:
Opening hand
Black Lotus
Channel
Perpetual TImepiece
Rebuild
Genesis Wave
Worldpurge
Cultural Exchange
Play Black Lotus for green, Channel, Perpetual Timepiece (19 life). Tap the Timepiece to mill two cards (two instants/sorceries, not sure which ones yet), then exile it to shuffle Black Lotus into the library (17 life). Cycle Rebuild to draw Black Lotus (15 life), then play it for more green and cast Genesis Wave for 13 cards (2 life).
We reveal and put onto the battlefield:
Vedalken Orrery
Omniscience
Opalescence
Dual Nature
Copy Enchantment
Glorybringer
Repercussion
Justice
Pain Magnification
Hunted Phantasm
Spiritual Focus
Primeval Titan
March of the Machines
Resolve the ETB trigger for Primeval Titan, putting Radiant Fountain and Glimmerpost onto the battlefield tapped (5 life). Before letting any of the Dual Nature triggers resolve, cast Worldpurge. Bring Opalescence, Dual Nature, Copy Enchantment, Glorybringer, Spiritual Focus, and Omniscience back to our hand, along with Cultural Exchange. Shuffle the rest of the permanents into the deck. Resolve all the Dual Nature triggers; The Primeval Titan token triggers, bringing Radiant Fountain and Glimmerpost back onto the battlefield again (8 life). Have the Copy Enchantment token come in as a copy of Dual Nature. Repaly Opalescence. Replay Dual Nature, getting 3 more Dual Nature tokens for 6 total. Play Copy Enchantment, copying Dual Nature and getting 7 more token copies for 14 total. Play Glorybringer and Spiritual Focus, getting 16 copies of each. Cast Cultural Exchange, exchanging our Pain Magnfication token with one of the 10 Goblin tokens the opponent controls.
Start the combat phase, and attack with all 16 Glorybringers. All 16 of the Glorybringers trigger their damage ability. Resolve the first ability, and deal 4 damage to our Goblin token. This triggers the Repercussion and Justice tokens. Resolve the Justice ability first, dealing 4 damage to ourselves (4 life). This triggers Pain Magnification; we discard Omniscience. This triggers our 16 Spiritual Focuses, and we gain 32 life and draw 16 cards. I believe there should be no more problems from here; we can draw Mirror of Fate, and use it to put Perpetual Timepiece back in the library and we can draw it again. We can then use the Timepiece to shuffle Black Lotus and Genesis Wave back into our library, and redraw them. Not sure how best to use our 16 card draws, but certainly we will get a gazillion Dual Natures and Justices, so that when we resolve that Repercussion trigger we will get a lot of Justice triggers. With 15 more Glorybringer triggers to go, I believe this gets us to more than F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + 14 + 6} (15)) damage in the end.
EDIT: Hmm, I just noticed that Glorybringer only deals damage to an opponent's creature. I don't think this is a problem; Cultural Exchange is cheap enough so that in general, we can deal damage to an opponent creature, and then cast Cultural Exchange to exchange control of the creature so that we will be the ones to take damage. For the opening, we can just have the opponent take the damage from the first Repercussion, since he can take damage up to four times without dying. After that we will have tons of resources to be able to cast Cultural Exchange whenever we need to.
EDIT: Okay, here's another attempt at 14 stages: We will use Assault Formation + Ulvenwald Captive for a green mana stage, then use Guardian Zendikon + Island to create blue mana on top. We need to switch the hyperstage and megastage from green to red, and so we have the problem again of how we use a sorcery to gain red mana. I don't think Seismic Spike will work with this combo, as both Seismic Spike and Assault Formation will destroy our Island. So I will try to use Mana Geyser. We need to donate lands to the opponent, and Hunted Phantasm + Cultural Exchange seems like the most efficient way of doing so that we know of. Adding Swarm Intelligence seems to be at least as efficient as adding cards to allow us to have multiple tapped lands to donate.
So we have:
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Hunted Phantasm
28 Cultural Exchange
29 Guardian Zendikon
30 Swarm Intelligence
31 Worldpurge
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Flash of Defiance
34 Flash of Defiance
35 Spellweaver Helix
36 Primeval Titan
37 Glimmerpost
38 Radiant Fountain
39 Judge of Currents
40 Merfolk Sovereign
41 Aquatic Incursion
42 Island
43 Ulvenwald Captive
44 Assault Formation
45 Goblin Clearcutter
46 Mad Auntie
47 Facevaulter
48 Basal Thrull
49 Thrull Champion
50 Godtoucher
51 Everglove Courier
53 Ghosthelm Courier
54 Possessed Aven
55 Centaur Archer
56 Maze Glider
57 Possessed Centaur
58 Eastern Paladin
59 Frightshroud Courier
60 Dwarven Warriors
61 Possessed Barbarian
62 Minion of Tevesh Szat
53 Reality Spasm
64 Spiteful Visions
65 Spiritual Focus
66 Pain Magnification
67 Justice
68 Repercussion
69 Five-Alarm Fire
70 World at War
71 Black Lotus
72 Channel
73 Deconstruct
74 Genesis Wave
75 Living Wish
Should get F_{w^3 + w14 + 7} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 6} (N)), if it all works out correctly.
EDIT: Spiteful Visions shouldn't be there. On the other hand, I'm missing a Forest for Goblin Clearcutter to sacrifice. I'd like to use Dryad Arbor, since we can get lots of Dual Nature copies, and Dryad Arbor could replace Swarm Intelligence. But, I think we can put a Guardian Zendikon on Dryad Arbor and destroy it with Assault Formation, which would allow us to imprint it on Mimic Vat and get a hasted Dryad Arbor, getting us a spare green mana. So that's no goood. There are a few Forests that usually come in tapped; Stomping Ground is no good since we can afford to pay the 2 life to have it come in untapped, and again Assault Formation can get us a token of it. Sheltered Thicket can be brought back to our hand via Worldpurge and recycled. So that leaves Cinder Glade; we can replace the Island with say Volcanic Island to avoid having enough basic lands for the Cinder Glade to come in untapped.
So replace Spiteful Visions and Island with Cinder Glade and Volcanic Island.
EDIT: I guess we need to cast both Cultural Exchange and Mana Geyser in each megastage transition, so we need another Flash of Defiance. So remove Repercussion. Our damage goes down to F_{w^3 + w14 + 5}(...).
EDIT: We can add a layer back by replacing Reality Spasm with Herbal Poultice, which can lead into Genesis Wave for that extra layer. Back up to F_{w^3 + w14 + 6}(...).
EDIT: Bleh, we can't have Deconstruct in this deck, since it can generate green mana too easily. We can replace it with two Chancellor of the Tangles, removing Justice to make space. I'm sure there's a more efficient way to get started, but I don't know of a way yet.
EDIT: Hmm, we could start Black Lotus / Channel / Perpetual Timepiece / Tundra / Replenish to get Omniscience and some other enchantment (Opalescence maybe) onto the battlefield. This requires three new cards rather than five for the Genesis Wave start. But, Genesis Wave contributes to the layer sequence, so it is really four new cards, and it looks like we need at least one new card to draw enough cards for the combat phase to work properly. We could still come out ahead if we can do it with just one new card. But, Minds Aglow doesn't work, and Noggle Ransacker by itself doesn't seem to be enough - if we go Opalescence / Dual Nature / Noggle Ransacker, we get three more cards, and then we need Worldpurge to be able to replay Noggle Ransacker. So, no improvement yet.
EDIT: Okay, the following is much better: Start with Black Lotus / Channel / Perpetual Timepiece. Tap the Timepiece to mill a couple of cards (perhaps the lifegain lands), and then exile it to shuffle Black Lotus back into the library. Cycle Rebuild to redraw Black Lotus, and sacrifice the Black Lotus for more green mana. Cast Genesis Wave for however many we need. The downside is that the Perpetual Timepiece is now in exile, and we can't redraw it until the next Genesis Wave, which won't happen until the first combat phase. Still, there should be enough to get a bunch of Dual Natures, and we can create at least one hasted token to attack with I should think. So we can drop the two Chancellor of the Tangles, and reinstate Justice and Repercussion. Damage goes back up to F_{w^3 + w14 + 7}(...).
I checked whether this start could improve the 60-card deck, but in that case, since we need to have Deconstruct, we might as well use it.
EDIT: Hmm, I'm having trouble with the start for this latest deck. Five-Alarm Fire is tough to use, since not only does it deal 5 damage to us, we need to create five hasted creatures to get it charged. I'm looking for alternatives, but haven't found a really good one. Anthem of Rakdos could work, if we have two of them in play when each Anthem of Rakdos trigger gets resolved, so that we deal 4 damage to ourselves. But I haven't quite figured out how to make it work.
So, the deck is now:
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Bump in the Night
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Ruby
24 Wormfang Behemoth
25 Vile Redeemer
27 Hunted Phantasm
28 Cultural Exchange
29 Guardian Zendikon
30 Swarm Intelligence
31 Worldpurge
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Flash of Defiance
34 Flash of Defiance
35 Flash of Defiance
36 Spellweaver Helix
37 Primeval Titan
38 Glimmerpost
39 Radiant Fountain
40 Judge of Currents
41 Merfolk Sovereign
42 Aquatic Incursion
43 Volcanic Island
44 Ulvenwald Captive
45 Assault Formation
46 Cinder Glade
47 Goblin Clearcutter
48 Mad Auntie
49 Facevaulter
50 Basal Thrull
51 Thrull Champion
53 Everglove Courier
54 Nectar Faerie
55 Ghosthelm Courier
56 Possessed Aven
57 Centaur Archer
58 Maze Glider
59 Possessed Centaur
60 Eastern Paladin
61 Frightshroud Courier
62 Dwarven Warriors
63 Possessed Barbarian
64 Minion of Tevesh Szat
65 Herbal Poultice
66 Genesis Wave
67 Spiritual Focus
68 Pain Magnification
69 Justice
70 Repercussion
71 Anthem of Rakdos
72 World at War
73 Black Lotus
74 Channel
75 Living Wish
Iijil, what do you think of the latest deck? If it works, do you have any ideas for how to get started?
There is another problem with the last deck I posted: Night Dealings can fetch Black Lotus at just the cost of black mana, and then the Black Lotus can produce red mana. So, it looks like we can't have both Night Dealings and Black Lotus, unless black mana is both incidental (i.e. can't fuel the combo by itself) and is more expensive than any mana that can fuel the combo by itself.
I think we can fix the deck by replacing Night Dealings with Angelheart Vial:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
26 Deconstruct
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Natural Affinity
40 Goblin Gardener
41 Mad Auntie
42 Facevaulter
43 Basal Thrull
44 Thrull Champion
45 Godtoucher
46 Everglove Courier
47 Nectar Faerie
48 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Centaur Archer
51 Maze Glider
52 Possessed Centaur
53 Eastern Paladin
54 Frightshroud Courier
55 Dwarven Warriors
56 Possessed Barbarian
57 Minion of Tevesh Szat
58 Goblin Bushwhacker
59 Genesis Wave
60 Angelheart Vial
61 Justice
62 Repercussion
63 Keldon Megaliths
64 Telekinetic Bonds
65 Pain Magnification
66 Five-Alarm Fire
67 World at War
68 Winding Constrictor
69 Phelddagrif
70 Cultural Exchange
71 Channel
72 Black Lotus
Final damage: F_{w^3 + w13 + 11} (F_{w^3 + w13 + 10} (N))
EDIT: I guess it would be better to save Night Dealings by getting rid of Black Lotus. We can replace it with two Elvish Spirit Guides for the start, and get rid of Goblin Bushwhacker in favor of Reality Spasm.
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
26 Deconstruct
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Natural Affinity
40 Goblin Gardener
41 Mad Auntie
42 Facevaulter
43 Basal Thrull
44 Thrull Champion
45 Godtoucher
46 Everglove Courier
47 Nectar Faerie
48 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Centaur Archer
51 Maze Glider
52 Possessed Centaur
53 Eastern Paladin
54 Frightshroud Courier
55 Dwarven Warriors
56 Possessed Barbarian
57 Minion of Tevesh Szat
58 Reality Spasm
59 Genesis Wave
60 Night Dealings
61 Justice
62 Repercussion
63 Spiteful Visions
64 Spiritual Focus
65 Pain Magnification
66 Five-Alarm Fire
67 World at War
68 Winding Constrictor
69 Phelddagrif
70 Cultural Exchange
71 Channel
72 Elvish Spirit Guide
73 Elvish Spirit Guide
Final damage: F_{w^3 + w13 + 12} (F_{w^3 + w13 + 11} (N))
We can save the last layer by finding another way to come up with red mana for Goblin Bushwhacker.
Some minor changes: We can have the original Copy Enchantment copy Psychic Battle whenever we need copies of Psychic Battles, so we get more than 2^2^523 Swarm Intelligences after the first Allay. I believe Deconstruct is actually four layers, so we get to more than 2^^^^(2^2^523) after Deconstruct.
EDIT: Getting back to the deck with sideboard - I would think that it should be possible to get 14 stages, given that the previous 13-stage deck still had red mana available. I haven't figured out a way yet though, as the obvious choice for the red mana stage would be Goblins, but we are using Goblins in the initial stages.
Other options for red mana stages: Contested Cliffs, with a way to recycle land, and Sea Snidd. Somewhat easier: Grotag Siege-Runner, and Sylvan Caryatid. In neither case have I figured out good transitions though; Spinal Villain might be good for the first if Sea Snidd wasn't blue.
Another possible 14-stage sequence:
2 Merfolk Sovereign
3 Aquatic Incursion
4 Tundra Kavu
5 Kavu Recluse
7 Goblin Clearcutter
8 Mad Auntie
10 Basal Thrull
11 Thrull Champion
Uses all of green, blue, and black. The main two challenges: 1. How do we do the megastage with red mana? Which sorcery do we use? 2. How to handle the lands so that the Kavu mana works out properly. But, it looks promising.
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Deconstruct
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Forest
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Urborg Elf
40 Everglove Courier
41 Nectar Faerie
42 Ghosthelm Courier
43 Possessed Aven
44 Centaur Archer
45 Maze Glider
47 Liberated Dwarf
48 Krark-Clan Stoker
49 Mad Auntie
50 Dralnu's Crusade
51 Frightshroud Courier
52 Embalmer's Tools
53 Devout Chaplain
54 Royal Assassin
55 Paragon of Open Graves
56 Lightbringer
57 Dwarven Warriors
58 Karplusan Yeti
59 Reality Spasm
60 Consecrated Sphinx
61 Noggle Ransacker
62 Channel
63 Black Lotus
It's a 23-card stage sequence though, as opposed to the two 22-card sequences we already have.
Making another attempt at a deck with sideboard:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
26 Deconstruct
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Nature's Revolt
40 Goblin Gardener
41 Mad Auntie
42 Facevaulter
43 Basal Thrull
44 Thrull Champion
45 Godtoucher
46 Everglove Courier
47 Nectar Faerie
48 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Centaur Archer
51 Maze Glider
52 Possessed Centaur
53 Eastern Paladin
54 Frightshroud Courier
55 Dwarven Warriors
56 Possessed Barbarian
57 Minion of Tevesh Szat
58 Goblin Bushwhacker
59 Genesis Wave
60 Night Dealings
61 Justice
62 Repercussion
63 Spiteful Visions
64 Spiritual Focus
65 Pain Magnification
66 Five-Alarm Fire
67 World at War
68 Winding Constrictor
69 Phelddagrif
70 Cultural Exchange
71 Channel
72 Black Lotus
Final damage: F_{w^3 + w13 + 13} (F_{w^3 + w13 + 12}(N))
EDIT: Iijil, what do you think about the start? Is the 2^^^(2^2^72) correct/improvable?
We unfortunately have to use Deconstruct to get started it looks like, and Swarm Intelligence doesn't produce quite as many Deconstructs as Precursor Golem. On the plus side, Allay is worth two layers thanks to Swarm Intelligence, and Deconstruct can be worth four.
If we draw Allay and Worldpurge, we can easily get four casts of Allay, just like before. Can we do better? We would like to imprint both Deconstruct and Worldpurge on Acorn Harvest, and then cast multiple Acorn Harvests; if we try to just cast a single Acorn Harvest, then the Worldpurge will interfere with us getting any progress with the Deconstruct. So it looks a little tricky. One problem is that we need multiple Perpetual Timepieces and Spellweaver Helixes, so we need to have March of the Machines, but we need to bounce it before we can use the Perpetual Timepieces.
EDIT: So, we can start with
Black Lotus
Channel
some artifact
Deconstruct
Genesis Wave
Allay
some spell
If we use Mox Emerald as our artifact, we wind up with GGGG and 18 life, and can Genesis Wave for up to 18 cards. If we Candelabra of Tawnos as our artifact, and try to keep Mox Emerald in our hand, we wind up with GGG and 17 life, and can Genesis Wave for up to 16 cards.
What we would like to draw:
1 Opalescence
2 Dual Nature
3 Vedalken Orrery
4 Omniscience
5 Copy Enchantment
6 Psychic Battle
7 Cowardice
8 Sylvan Echoes
9 Sentry Oak
10 March of the Machines
11 Spellweaver Helix
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Swarm Intelligence
14 Su-Chi
15 Horobi, Death's Wail
16 Radiant Fountain
assuming we use the Mox Emerald, that leaves us with G1 and 4 life after we use the Radiant Fountain. That means we are one mana short of being able to cast an initial Allay and still have enough life to flashback Acorn Harvest. So it doesn't seem to quite work out - unless there is a card that we can cut?
It can't be March of the Machines, since we need multiple Spellweaver Helixes to be able to trigger both Worldpurge and Deconstruct. We could do Swarm Intelligence, but that drops the number of layers of Deconstruct down to two, so I think this will be worse than casting four Allays with Swarm Intelligence. So maybe dropping Su-Chi and Horobi, Death's Wail is the best option.
Without those two cards we have G1 mana and 6 life. Okay, so we get all those permanents on the battlefield, and a bunch of Dual Nature triggers as well. We want to leave the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience, Vedalken Orrery, Sentry Oak, and Sylvan Echoes on the stack. Put the Spellweaver Helix token and SPellweaver Helix trigger up next. I think we can let the other triggers resolve, having the Copy Enchantment token copy Swarm Intelligence.
Cast Allay with buyback (G mana, 4 life), getting 3 Swarm Intelligence triggers, 2 Psychic Battle triggers, and Cowardice triggers. We can bounce Copy Enchantment, replaying it to get three more Psychic Battles, up to 5. The Psychic Battle triggers have to be used to bounce Cowardice and redirect to a disposable token (say March of the Machines), I believe. The first Swarm Intelligence trigger resolves and we get six bounces, bouncing Dual Nature five times (up to 64) and then Psychic Battle (up to 66). The second takes us up to 64*2^66 + 2 = 2^72 + 2 Psychic Battles. The last one takes us to more than 2^2^72 Dual Natures and Swarm Intelligences and a few Psychic Battles, and we can also bounce March of the Machines.
Tap the two Perpetual Timepieces to mill Worldpurge, two Acorn Harvests, and something else. Resolve the Spellweaver triggers to imprint both Worldpurge and Deconstruct. Cast Acorn Harvest from your hand, triggering Deconstruct and Worldpurge; cast the Deconstruct, but not the Worldpurge. Deconstruct gets more than 2^2^72 Swarm Intelligence copies. After we resolve the first and destroy the Perpetual Timepiece token, we get GGG mana. Play March of the Machines. After we resolve the second Swarm Intelligence trigger, we get a bunch of Psychic Battle triggers and Cowardice triggers. We can now start bouncing Perpetual Timepiece, getting a lot of tokens, then destroy one of the tokens to get GGG mana and another Allay. By the end we have cast more than 2^2^72 Allays to get more than 2^^^(2^2^72) Dual Natures. Save enough mana so that we can flashback Acorn Harvest, getting a copy of Worldpurge (and Deconstruct, but I don't think it does as much this time); but before that we play a Dual Nature and have more than 2^^^(2^2^72) copies of Dual Nature triggers on the stack. After Worldpurge, get our Dual Nature along with our Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery tokens. Play Sentry Oak and Sylvan Echoes, getting more than 2^^^(2^2^72) copies of each.
That seems pretty good; is there any way to get Su-Chi involved as well?
I thought about having Blood-Chin Fanatic bounce Tidal Warrior to have an entry of black into Merfolk, but the best sequence I could think of was
Judge of Currents
Tidal Warrior
Aquatic Incursion
Blood-Chin Fanatic
Basal Thrull
Thrull Champion
which requires one extra card.
If we give up on getting that extra layer, is there a way to create a Goblin Bushwhacker deck that can still start out Black Lotus / Mox Emerald / Forest / Channel / Genesis Wave? I can manage a deck without the Forest, but I don't think going Black Lotus / Channel / {c]Precursor Golem[/c] / Deconstruct / Genesis Wave is as good a start.
Well, we can go:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Rude Awakening
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Primeval Titan
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Tropical Island
37 Goblin Gardener
38 Mad Auntie
39 Facevaulter
40 Basal Thrull
41 Thrull Champion
42 Godtoucher
43 Everglove Courier
45 Ghosthelm Courier
46 Possessed Aven
47 Centaur Archer
48 Maze Glider
49 Possessed Centaur
50 Eastern Paladin
51 Frightshroud Courier
52 Dwarven Warriors
53 Possessed Barbarian
54 Minion of Tevesh Szat
55 Goblin Bushwhacker
56 Genesis Wave
57 Curse of Verbosity
58 World at War
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
But I think this is not as good, since we lose Deconstruct. It does get us back to Psychic Battle though.
EDIT: I had a problem using "target land" cards to try to generate mana, because it looks like Worldpurge can do the same things that you can do with a target land. But, if we animate the land, then we can destroy it by targeting it, and then we can make a token copy via Mimic Vat. So, that becomes a possibility for generating mana for mana transitions.
But, the best I can currently do for a 13th stage is a three card stage, and then the animate land card adds a fourth. On the other hand, we need Genesis Wave + 2 other cards to start and draw all our cards, so the best I could do was 62 cards:
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Deep Reconnaissance
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Deconstruct
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Gerrard's Verdict
35 Island
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Nature's Revolt
40 Goblin Gardener
41 Mad Auntie
42 Facevaulter
43 Basal Thrull
44 Thrull Champion
46 Everglove Courier
47 Nectar Faerie
48 Ghosthelm Courier
49 Possessed Aven
50 Centaur Archer
51 Maze Glider
52 Possessed Centaur
53 Eastern Paladin
54 Frightshroud Courier
55 Dwarven Warriors
56 Possessed Barbarian
57 Minion of Tevesh Szat
58 Reality Spasm
59 Noggle Ransacker
60 Genesis Wave
61 Channel
62 Black Lotus
EDIT: Okay, I really think I have it this time: Replace Farrelite Priest with Candelabra of Tawnos, and have lands that produce white and blue mana and no other colors. So we have:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Candelabra of Tawnos
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Deconstruct
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Walking Atlas
34 Sejiri Refuge
35 Kabira Crossroads
36 Goblin Gardener
37 Mad Auntie
38 Facevaulter
39 Basal Thrull
40 Thrull Champion
41 Godtoucher
42 Everglove Courier
43 Nectar Faerie
45 Possessed Aven
46 Centaur Archer
47 Maze Glider
48 Possessed Centaur
49 Eastern Paladin
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Dwarven Warriors
52 Possessed Barbarian
53 Minion of Tevesh Szat
54 Goblin Bushwhacker
55 Genesis Wave
56 Sylvan Echoes
57 Sentry Oak
58 World at War
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
This should get us up to F_{w^3 + w12 + 5}.
What do you think?
Okay, here's a Hail Mary: Use Bog-Strider Ash to gain life. Of course, we can gain life if we use Worldpurge to bounce Mad Auntie; but if we do so, we can't bring back at least one of the seven cards that we need to bring back, and it/they will go into the library. All of those seven cards are more expensive to bring back than Mad Auntie.
But shoot, then we can't bring back Bog-Strider Ash either, so we would need some way to preserve Bog-Strider Ash through Worldpurge. We actually need to bring back both Bog-Strider Ash and Mad Auntie to go infinite, so if there were six other cards that we need to bring back rather than seven, we would be good I think. Is there any way to manipulate how many cards we need to bring back with Worldpurge?
So, it looks like to make it work we need to make something necessary in the hyperstage transition require something other than colorless mana - we could have them require an artifact targeting, or maybe a white or blue mana. I think the things we use are Mirror of Fate, Perpetual Timepiece, and Allay, as well as play a bunch of artifacts and enchantments, and of course flashback the spell. Mirror of Fate doesn't have a lot of other options (maybe Pull From Eternity), and for Allay, we need to keep it just colorless mana so that we can restore progress. What about substituting in Izzet Guildmage and Broken Ambitions again?
The obvious problem here is, how do we get the original Black Lotus out of the graveyard. That is a puzzler, but perhaps not insurmountable. We just need a replacement card that can exile a card from the graveyard or shuffle it into the library. I haven't found one though; looking at replacements for Minion of Tevesh Szat, I didn't find any useful black creatures in the right power range. So no solution as of yet.
EDIT: If we can somehow go back from Deconstruct to Rude Awakening, then we have no way of targeting artifacts in the higher hyperstage, and there will be no way to bounce Perpetual Timepiece, Mirror of Fate, and Spellweaver Helix back to our hand to be hidden away by Wormfang Behemoth. I think that leaves us with too many cards on the battlefield for Worldpurge. But, we can't go back to Rude Awakening at the moment, since we need either Deconstruct or another green mana to get started.
EDIT: Oh bah, we can use Rebuild to bring the artifacts back to our hand.
EDIT: Ooh, I think I have it - Walking Atlas! Since it is a creature, we need to create a hasted token to use it, so we definitely need to use a Metallurgeon trigger in order to create one. By my figuring, we need to bring Horobi, Death's Wail, Wormfang Behemoth, Vile Redeemer, and Spellweaver Volute back to our hand using Worldpurge, so there is just enough room left for three lands. Are there any problems with this?
Does that save it?
Scaling back a bit, what about:
2 Psychic Battle
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Core Prowler
17 Calciform Pools
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Deconstruct
27 Swarm Intelligence
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Spellweaver Helix
33 Titania, Protector of Argoth
34 Thornwood Falls
35 Kabira Crossroads
36 Goblin Gardener
37 Mad Auntie
38 Facevaulter
39 Basal Thrull
40 Thrull Champion
41 Godtoucher
42 Everglove Courier
43 Nectar Faerie
45 Possessed Aven
46 Centaur Archer
47 Maze Glider
48 Possessed Centaur
49 Eastern Paladin
50 Frightshroud Courier
51 Dwarven Warriors
52 Possessed Barbarian
53 Minion of Tevesh Szat
54 Goblin Bushwhacker
55 Genesis Wave
56 Sylvan Echoes
57 Sentry Oak
58 World at War
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
EDIT: Yeah, we don't have a way to dish out damage. It would be nice if there were a version of Sentry Oak that drew cards.
EDIT: In the meanwhile, I thought a bit about the deck with sideboard again. We should be able to get 14 stages without too much work:
2 Grip of Chaos
3 Cowardice
4 Horobi, Death's Wail
5 Bloodbond March
6 Cephalid Shrine
7 Mimic Vat
8 Omniscience
9 Vedalken Orrery
10 Mirror of Fate
11 March of the Machines
12 Perpetual Timepiece
13 Dual Nature
14 Copy Enchantment
15 Allay
16 Su-Chi
17 Farrelite Priest
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
24 Wormfang Behemoth
26 Deconstruct
27 Precursor Golem
28 Worldpurge
29 Acorn Harvest
30 Acorn Harvest
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Primeval Titan
33 Spellweaver Helix
34 Radiant Fountain
35 Glimmerpost
36 Hurloon Shaman
37 Anaba Ancestor
38 Ruin Ghost
39 Underground Sea
40 Spectral Shepherd
41 Sea Scryer
42 Merfolk Sovereign
43 Godtoucher
44 Everglove Courier
45 Nectar Faerie
46 Ghosthelm Courier
47 Possessed Aven
48 Centaur Archer
49 Maze Glider
51 Liberated Dwarf
52 Krark-Clan Stoker
53 Flamestick Courier
54 Possessed Barbarian
55 Devout Chaplain
56 Royal Assassin
57 Tsabo's Assassin
58 Blinding Drone
59 Reality Spasm
60 Night Dealings
61 Justice
62 Repercussion
63 Spiteful Visions
64 Spiritual Focus
65 Pain Magnification
66 Five-Alarm Fire
67 World at War
68 Winding Constrictor
69 Phelddagrif
70 Cultural Exchange
71 Genesis Wave
72 Channel
73 Black Lotus
That seems to get F_{w^3 + w14 + 12} (F_{w^3 + w14 + 11}(X)) for large X, assuming it works, with an extra card to help with the start.
Hmm, we can switch from Mad Auntie / Goblin Welder to Merfolk Sovereign / Sea Scryer, and then switch from Glimmerpost to Jungle Hollow to get our black mana. That saves red for the end, so we could use Goblin Bushwhacker at the end. Which one is better, Reality Spasm or Goblin Bushwhacker? It looks pretty close.
EDIT: We could potentially do better than Noggle Ransacker, if we could end with Goblin Bushwhacker + Genesis Wave + a card that can draw more cards than Noggle Ransacker. It would have to be limited of course, and the only limited events that come to mind are combat and dealing damage to the opponent. What about Goblin Bushwhacker + Genesis Wave + Curse of Verbosity? We do have the problem of trying to get the Black Lotus out of our graveyard though.