But, I'm counting three extra cards (Tamanoa, Dingus Egg, and Ruin Ghost), assuming we start off with Merfolk Sovereign / Sea Scryer. Is there another card that we can cut? Three extra cards would be all right if we could still use Wheel of Fortune, but right now it looks like we need Reality Spasm + Genesis Wave + some other card to draw the rest of the deck. I think we could do it with the Worldfire deck, but I think in that deck we are not allowed mana stage transitions, if I recall correctly.
But, I don't think it quite works. The Reality Spasm copies will untap Arbiter of the Ideal one at a time, and to get the most of the combo we need to cast Worldpurge between untappings, so we have the old problem of losing our targets between resolutions.
EDIT: We can do even better if we save red mana and just use Swarm Intelligence:
That should get F_{w^3 + w12 + 5}(F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(N) for large N, assuming we have enough for the Genesis Wave start.
EDIT: So, we need to get blue and black mana early on, while not getting red mana. Perhaps Urborg Elf can help with that? Blue can transition to merfolk, ninjas, or creatures with morph; maybe not wizards or clerics since Wandering Mage is no good now. Black can transition to zombies, goblins, treefolk, and something else I can't remember. I only know how to get stages with merfolk, goblins, and zombies, and zombies are the only one I can see how to transition to the next stage (to goblins via Dralnu's Crusade), but that's not good enough since we're losing zombies from the later stages. Obviously, it would be great if we could have merfolk produce black, or goblins produce blue. Goblins can produce red, but I don't know how to get a stage out of any of the red targeting creatures (dwarves, barbarians, vampires, walls).
Hmm, that's really good. We start with 2 Dual Natures and 3 Grip of Chaoses. With the Grip of Chaoses we bounce Su-Chi once and destroy token copies twice, so we get 8 mana, and cast two Allays. The first Ally gets 3 Grip of Chaos triggers, so we bounce Copy Enchantment twice, the first increasing Dual Natures to 4, the increasing Grip of Chaoses to 6 and adding an Opalescence token. For the second Allay, we bounce Copy Enchantment five times, the first four increasing the number of Dual Natures to 64, the fifth adding 1 Dual Natures, 1 Opalescence, and 62 Grip of Chaoses, for 65 Dual Natures and 68 Grip of Chaoses. We replay the Precursor Golem, getting 65 Precursor Golem copies, and 132 more standard Golems, for a total of 202 Golems. We resolve the first Precursor Golem trigger, which creates 202 copies of Deconstruct, each one getting 67 Grip of Chaos triggers, for 202*68 = 13,736 Grip of Chaoses in total. We need one of them to bounce the original Su-Chi, which after replaying will get a huge number of token copies; the remaining 13,735 will destroy Su-Chi tokens, increasing our mana to 54,942 and allowing us to cast 18,314 Allays. With those Allays we increase our number of Dual Natures to more than 2^^18,317. We replay the original Precursor Golem, getting more than 2^^18,317 copies, and the final Precursor Golem trigger will take the number of Dual Natures to more than 2^^(2^^18,317). With Mirror of Fate, we should have no trouble setting up the Spellweaver Helix and Acorn Harvest sequence, and the next Deconstruct should get us to more than 2^^^(2^^(2^^18,317)) Dual Natures.
EDIT: Forgot that when we replay Su-Chi there will be many more Dual Natures in play. Didn't change the estimate too much.
EDIT: Currently, I'm also thinking about whether it's possible to save red mana for the end of the combo, while keeping the main combo at 35 cards. An attempt:
Nice - we could even be cheeky and cast Gerrard's Verdict on the opponent to gain 6 life! Although, I guess the opponent can shuffle all his cards into the library to avoid that.
The alternate start also means we could replace Forest, Gerrard's Verdict, and Acorn Harvest with Primeval Titan, Glimmerpost, and Radiant Fountain, if we were so inclined. But right now it looks like the original starting hand is better than the alternate one.
EDIT: Hmm, there is a problem. When we flashback Acorn Harvest, it goes to the exile zone, so we can't flashback it again. If we want to flashback a second Acorn Harvest, the problem is we still need three more Acorn Harvests to imprint Worldpurge, Gerrard's Verdict, and Deconstruct on the Spellweaver Helixes. So we don't have enough Acorn Harvests.
Mirror of Fate will fix that problem. But, I don't see a card to replace it with; March of the Machines was the only optional card we had, and it's no longer optional now that we multiple Spellweaver Helixes to trigger. Can we cast Genesis Wave with X equal to 14 or more? Unfortunately, that means we can't cast an early Allay. But we need to have Cowardice, and without Allay there is no way to get it off the battlefield, and it will then block Deconstruct from every having a legal target, so it won't generate any mana. Do you see a way around this?
Start with Allay and Deconstruct. Cast Genesis Wave with X=13. Reveal the ten cards mentioned before, along with Precursor Golem, Spellweaver Helix, and Perpetual Timepiece. We get a bunch of Dual Nature created tokens; have the Copy Enchantment token copy Grip of Chaos, so we have two Dual Natures and three Grip of Chaoses. Cast the first Allay with buyback, first increasing the number of Dual Natures to 4, then the number of Grip of Chaoses to 8. Bounce Cowardice and destroy the March of the Machines token. Replay Cowardice. Cast Deconstruct, getting two Precursor Golem triggers, 8 Grip of Chaos triggers, and some Cowardice triggers. With the 8 Grip of Chaos triggers and the Cowardice triggers we can bounce the original Precursor Golem 9 times; after each time we replay it, we generate another 10 standard Golem tokens. So after 8 replayings we have 84 standard Golem tokens. Play the second Allay; We can bounce Copy Enchantment 7 times, increasing the number of Dual Natures to 511, and adding another Grip of Chaos token. (I think we need to have at least two Grip of Choases, or we can't make progress with a buyback Allay.) Replay the original Precursor Golem, creating 511 Precursor Golem tokens and 1024 standard Golem tokens, for 1620 Golems in total. Resolve the first Precursor Golem trigger, getting 1620 copies of Deconstruct; we can destroy 1620 artifacts, generating 4860 mana, and incidentally bouncing the original Precursor Golem an inordinate number of times. (Any replayings of Precursor Golem before the final Allay won't have too much effect though.) We can cast 1620 buyback Allays, generating more than 2^^1622 Dual Natures and Grip of Chaoses. Play Precursor Golem again, and get more than 2^^1622 copies. Resolve the second Precursor Golem trigger, getting more than 2^^1622 copies of Deconstruct, allowing us to go to 2^^2^^1622. In the meantime we can bounce and replay Spellweaver Helix and Perpetual Timepiece, getting many copies; then we can bounce March of the Machines so we can use the Timepieces to mill Worldpurge and three Acorn Harvests. Two Spellweaver Helixes come onto the battlefield, and we imprint Acorn Harvest + Worldpurge and Acorn Harvest + Deconstruct.
Hmm, I'm not seeing how we can take advantage of the second Deconstruct either. If we try to resolve Deconstruct first, then Worldpurge will be waiting on the stack; the only thing we will be left with after Worldpurge our triggers below that were created before Acorn Harvest, and those can't take advantage of the second Deconstruct. If we resolve Worldpurge first, Deconstruct will come up next before our restore progress triggers, so we won't get that far with the Deconstruct.
But, we still wind up with more than 2^^2^^1622 Sentry Oaks. Can we do better with the alternative starting hand?
EDIT: Whoops, I used up all my life on those first two Allays. Okay, so we don't get a starting Allay, and we have 2 Dual Natures and 3 Grip of Chaoses when we cast Deconstruct. (I think that's the better configuration.) We get four bounces, and for the first three replayings we get six standard Golems each time, so we have 22 before the final replaying. Then we cast our first Allay, getting us to eight Dual Natures. Replay Precursor Golem, and get 1 original Precursor Golem, 8 Precursor Golem tokens, and 22+18 standard Golem tokens, for 49 Golems total. So we can get 49 copies of Deconstruct from the first Precursor Golem trigger, and we can cast Allay 49 times, getting us to more than 2^^51 Dual Natures. So we wind up with more than 2^^2^^51 Sentry Oaks in the end.
Oh good - my first post has accurate numbers then, except we get one more Allay, for 2^2^2^49180 Sentry Oaks.
Now that you've pointed out that we don't need to keep a few cards, we don't need March of the Machines either. So we have a choice of getting another permanent. I don't see anything better though. Wormfang Behemoth can hide Allay, saving a card for Worldpurge, but March of the Machines has the same effect. Deconstruct and Precursor Golem could get us a lot of mana for Allay, but without Worldpurge I don't see how to refresh the number of Sentry Oaks.
Hmm, we can actually do a little better: The first time we bounce and replay Copy Enchantment, have it copy Dual Nature. We then get two Dual Nature triggers. Allay will destroy one of the tokens, but we wind up with one more Dual Nature token to start. Refiguring the numbers:
After replaying the enchantments, we have 16 Dual Natures and 18 Grip of Chaoses.
After the second Allay, we have 16*2^16 = 1048576 Dual Natures and 1048595 Grip of Chaoses.
After the third Allay, we have 1048576 * 2^1048593 = 2^1048613 Dual Natures and 2^1048613 + 2 Grip of Chaoses.
After the fourth Allay, we have 2^(2^1048613 + 1048616) Dual Natures.
Still, it would be nice to get another exponentiation, if we could postpone the first Allay until we had a few more Grip of Chaoses on the battlefield. Unfortunately, I don't know any other way to avoid having two many cards we need to keep after Worldpurge. We could do it if we could have the initial Copy Enchantment copy Opalescence, since then we could shuffle Opalescence into the library. Unfortunately, it looks like Genesis Wave puts all the permanent cards on the battlefield at the same time. If only it worked like Primal Surge!
Ah, that annoying rule where the opponent will cooperate to go infinite.
I guess Whispering Madness will go infinite as well - after some point, we will only draw as many cards as we discard, but we can draw Reality Spasm and discard lower cards, so that goes infinite.
Prosperity shouldn't go infinite, since it can't draw itself without something like Swarm Intelligence. But, I don't see how to get that one blue mana to cast it out of our opening hand. Any other card drawers out there that we would have to draw to reuse?
EDIT: Here are some ideas for saving the Gerrard's Verdict version. One is that we can possibly use Consecrated Sphinx / Noggle Ransacker in the layer sequence, and not necessarily at the end; we could continue with something that recycles cards from the graveyard. I don't know of a good card though.
Another is that we could possibly use the first combat phase to draw enough cards to get enough World at Wars to come out ahead.
Genesis Wave triggers the creation of token copies of all the creatures. Respond by casting Allay with buyback targeting the Copy Enchantment. Grip of Chaos and Cowardice trigger. Resolve the Cowardice trigger, bouncing Copy Enchantment back to our hand. Replay it and get a token copy trigger. Respond by casting Worldpurge, shuffling Omniscience, Vedalken Orrery, and March of the Machines back into the library, along with our starting permanents. The remaining cards go back to our hand. Resolve the Dual Nature trigger, getting a token copy of Dual Enchantment. Resolve the Grip of Chaos trigger, redirecting the target of Allay to Copy Enchantment. Resolve the Allay, destroying the Copy Enchantment and putting Allay back in our hand. The token copies are created; have the Copy Enchantment token copy Dual Nature. Replay Opalescence, Dual Nature (6 Dual Natures) Copy Enchantment (12 Dual Natures), Grip of Chaos, and Cowardice (14 copies of each).
The second Allay will get 14 Grip of Chaos triggers, allowing us to double the number of Dual Natures 12 times, for 49152, and then we create 49167 Grip of Chaoses. We bounce Cowardice and destroy the March of the Machines token.
The third Allay will get 49167 Grip of Chaos triggers. That will take us to more than 2^49180 Dual Natures and Grip of Chaoses. The fourth Allay will take us to more than 2^2^49180 Grip of Chaoses. We play Sylvan Echoes and Sentry Oak, getting more than 2^2^49180 copies of each.
We declare the combat phase, and get more than 2^2^49180 triggers of Sentry Oak. The first will be enough to draw the rest of our deck, and we should wind up with more than F_{w^3 + w12 + 4} (F_{w^3 + w12 + 3}(2^2^49180) in the end.
So, how big a number can we make if we need Noggle Ransacker and Consecrated Sphinx? We can always go back to the previous version and get F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(50). Can we do better with the Gerrard's Verdict version? Trying to end with World at War looks like it keeps us below F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(2); if we try to end with Noggle Ransacker, we have an extra card, but we can't use Goblin Bushwhacker.
EDIT: What about Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune? I don't think we have a way of putting the opponent's land cards into play, so I think Wheel of Fortune should be okay.
Ah, true - so I guess we just take X to 2X each Allay? On the plus side, we can get more mana from Deconstruct by drawing Perpetual Timepiece and Mimic Vat, and destroying token copies of those as well as the Golems. We need one Perpetual Timepiece token to reshuffle cards into our library, but I think we can give up the other eleven, plus 20 Golems. So we can get 93 mana from Deconstruct, allowing us to cast 19 Allays prior to playing Black Lotus, which will generate 2^19 Dual Natures. We can use the original Mimic Vat to imprint Minion of Tevesh Szat, and I think we can use the same Mimic Vat to imprint the first Goblin Welder, at which point we can use Goblin Welder to bounce Mimic Vat, getting more token copies, and also bring Vedalken Orrery into play. So I think it should work out with just one Mimic Vat, and we can get nearly 2^19 Minion of Tevesh Szats.
EDIT: We can add two artifacts, by replacing Kithkin Mourncaller and Militia's Pride with Angelheart Vial and Ballista Charger. Clockwork Hydra would be a bit more convenient, but I don't think we can remove the +1/+1 counters after all the attacking Clockwork Hydras are removed from the battlefield because of Worldpurge, so I think we don't get the damage ability off. Ballista Charger should work just fine though. That should allow us to get two more Reality Spasms in, and take us to F_{w^3 + w12 + 1}^15 (F_{w^3 + w12}(2^20)) or thereabouts.
Are there any other replacements that can get us more Reality Spasms? Maybe a replacement for Cephalid Shrine?
EDIT: Chalice of the Void could fit the bill, but we need the spell counter card on the battlefield when we cast Minion of Tevesh Szat, so I guess we don't save a card this way.
Nice. We can get 60 mana from Deconstruct on the Golems without destroying the original Precursor Golem. I believe we need to draw 40 cards, so if we spend 12 life to get 12 mana from Channel, we end up with 32 mana left. We also need to exile Perpetual Timepiece to reshuffle cards into the library, and cycle Rebuild to get Minds Aglow back, so we have 28 left. We can cast Allay 8 times with buyback, getting our number of Dual Natures up to more than 2^^10. Then we can play Black Lotus, and bounce March of the Machines in response. So that should get us more than 3*2^^10 mana, and we should get more than 2^^10 Minion of Tevesh Szat tokens. Still not quite enough to get up to F_{w^3 + w12 + 2}(14), unfortunately - we wind up with F_{w^3 + w12 + 1}^13 (F_{w^3 + w12}(2^^10)).
Oh good. If I'm not mistaken, bouncing the original Precursor Golem allows the first Reality Spasm to be at full power, since we can get access to all cards I think. That should be enough to get F_{w^3 + w12 + 2}(14) before the first combat phase.
EDIT: Oh right, we won't have Vedalken Orrery before the first Reality Spasm, so we don't get Bloodbond March triggers for multiple creatures. So F_{w^3 + w12 + 2}(13) then.
Very nice! I count that we are 13 cards ahead, for a potential of 14 Reality Spasms if Mimic Vat, Reality Spasm and Black Lotus are the only instants/sorceries/artifacts that we still need to draw. I guess the idea for getting Vedalken Orrery is to cast Reality Spasm without the Orrery, generate a hasted Goblin Welder, and tap it to put the Vedalken Orrery into play while Precursor Golem triggers for the Reality Spasm are still on the stack. That looks like it should work.
By my previous post it looks like there is a maximum of 16 Reality Spasms we can get, unless I eliminated certain cards too quickly. The difference is that you draw Deconstruct and a second Minds Aglow. The Deconstruct is how you're getting all the mana, so that may not be replaceable. We can avoid drawing a second Minds Aglow by milling two Acorn Harvests, but that requires drawing a Spellweaver Helix. Unless... we might be able to draw enough from the original Minds Aglow to cast the first Reality Spasm? But that requires that we have Black Lotus shuffled back into the library, which requires we use Perpetual Timepiece early. And then Perpetual Timepiece won't be available until the second Minds Aglow. So I don't think we can save a card that way.
That leaves Deconstruct as the only available card savings; if we come up with an idea to postpone it, all the better. But in the meanwhile, 14 Reality Spasms is really good!
EDIT: My last argument wasn't quite right - it's possible to get Black Lotus back by shuffling it into the library and then cycling Rebuild to get it back. But, I don't think we can get everything we need with just 12 cards; I think we will need at least
EDIT: Hmmm, how do we handle Precursor Golem? If we destroy the original, then we need to draw it again, and our number of Reality Spasms goes down to 13. I suppose we could save one by playing Grip of Chaos and redirecting one target onto a Perpetual Timepiece token. (Saving another Precursor Golem would require 7 Perpetual Timepieces, so that doesn't work.) But then we have just one Precursor Golem left with no obvious way to bounce it. And if we cast Reality Spasm with no Vedalken Orrery, the one Precursor Golem won't do anything. So I think it is best to just let it die.
(We could also play Cowardice, but it looks like that hurts more than it helps without Vedalken Orrery.)
So the Deconstruct / Precursor Golem strategy for mana actually costs us two cards; of course, this might still be the best.
EDIT: Well, if we have to give up a card anyway for a second drawing of Precursor Golem, perhaps we can do better by drawing Vedalken Orrery instead. Then we can sacrifice all the Golems but the original Precursor Golem for mana, then play Cowardice and bounce the original Precursor Golem, then use all the mana to cast Allay many times and increase our number of enchantments drastically. Each time we cast Allay we take X Grip of Chaoses to more than 2^X Grip of Chaoses. With 3X mana we can therefore generate more than 2^^X Dual Natures. Thus each time we resolve a Precursor Golem trigger for Deconstruct, take X to more than 2^^X. We start with 60 mana, which gets us more than 2^^20 Dual Natures and 2^^20 Precursor Golems for the next trigger, or more than 2^^^3. So after 7 Precursor Golem triggers, we have more than 2^^^9 Dual Natures. We use the final Grip of Chaos triggers to bounce the original Precursor Golem, which we can play to get more than 2^^^9 Precursor Golems for the first Reality Spasm.
EDIT: Meh, I guess it would be better to just cast the first Reality Spasm without Precursor Golem or Vedalken Orrery. We can still get a hasted copy of Minion of Tevesh Szat, along with all the cards available except a few artifacts, and we can get those via Goblin Welder. So we can generate a lot more Dual Natures before the second Reality Spasm... which I guess is what you intended all along, heh.
I guess we should work it all out at some point though.
So, how many Reality Spasms can we cast before the first combat? We can access instants and sorceries from the graveyard, and nicely enough Goblin Welder can retrieve artifacts from the graveyard. I think that's it. We have 4 instants, 11 sorceries, and 10 artifacts, for a total of 24 cards, not including Reality Spasm. But, we have to draw Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, Channel, and Minds Aglow in the opening hand. Also, we need to draw Allay to buy it back. We need to draw Perpetual Timepiece to mill cards, and Mimic Vat in order to get a hasted Goblin Welder token. So we can avoid drawing at most 17 cards, for a maximum 18 possible castings of Reality Spasm. How close can we get?
I agree that we should use a lower bound; I definitely plan to highlight the lower bound when I write this up. I was just being casual in the previous post.
EDIT: In order to get a full effect Reality Spasm, we must have both Precursor Golem and Vedalken Orrery already on the battlefield. I suppose it is possible that we could recover both artifacts from the graveyard by casting an "early" Reality Spasm - it could get us a hasted Mad Auntie, and then with enough Bloodbond Marches we could get multiple hasted Goblin Welder tokens to fetch multiple artifacts.
In any case, we will need blue mana for the first Reality Spasm, which means we need to shuffle Black Lotus back into our library, as it is our only source of blue mana. That takes us down to at most 16, possibly 15 Reality Spasms. Also, we will need to exile a Perpetual Timepiece to shuffle the Black Lotus into the library, so if we don't want to lose it we need a token copy, meaning March of the Machines. But, we need to get rid of March of the Machines when we recast Black Lotus, so we need to cast Allay, and we want to buy it back. That means we need to spend an additional five mana, so we can draw at most seven cards with the initial Minds Aglow. To cast another Minds Aglow, we need to cast it via Spellweaver Helix - that requires another 3 life and a green mana, so I think we would need to do this after our first Reality Spasm, and have Reality Spasm get us a hasted Merfolk Sovereign along with the hasted Goblin Welders, so that we could get some life back. Otherwise, we would have to cut the seven card draw down to four, which is probably too little.
No, we can't postpone the second Minds Aglow, because we need it to retrieve the Black Lotus. So it looks like we want to draw an Acorn Harvest and a Spellweaver Helix in order to be able to cast the Minds Aglow. The alternative is that we use the seventh card in our opening hand for Perpetual Timepiece, and use it immmediately to reshuffle the Black Lotus into the library. But then we won't have Perpetual Timepiece available until the second Minds Aglow.
EDIT: Here's my first attempt to get started, but unfortunately it doesn't work.
Play Opalescence, then Dual Nature (1 token copy). Play Copy Enchantment and copy Dual Nature (3 token copies copying Dual Nature). Play Cowardice, Psychic Battle, and March of the Machines (6 token copies of each). Play Spellweaver Helix (6 token copies) and imprint an Acorn Harvest and Minds Aglow on one of them. Cast Black Lotus, then respond to the Dual Nature triggers by casting Allay. Allay triggers 7 Psychic Battles, and 8 Cowardices; use one of the Cowardices to bounce March of the Machines, and the other 7 to bounce Copy Enchantment. This generates 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 130 Dual Natures (have the last Copy Enchantment copy Dual Nature). Resolve the Dual Nature copies of Black Lotus, getting six.
Tap the six Black Loti for 15 blue mana and 3 green mana. Spend a blue mana, a green mana and 3 life to flashback Acorn Harvest, which triggers Spellweaver Helix to cast Minds Aglow. Spend up to 13 blue mana to draw up to 13 cards:
Play March of the Machines. We play Vedalken Orrery, Mirror of Fate, and Mimic Vat, getting 131 total copies of each. Next we play Precursor Golem, getting 131 total copies and 262 vanilla Golem tokens. Play Bloodbond March and then Goblin Welder, getting 131 triggers of Bloodbond March. Counter the Goblin Welder spell, and use the first Bloodbond March trigger to return it to the battlefield. Spend two blue mana plus one more mana to cast Reality Spasm, targeting the original Precursor Golem. Psychic Battle triggers, and we can redirect the target to March of the Machines. Both Cowardice and Horobi, Death's Wail trigger, and we resolve Cowardice first to bounce March of the Machines back to our hand. We also use Cowardice to bounce the original Precursor Golem, and replay it, getting 130 more Precursor Golems and 262 more vanilla Golem tokens. Next we resolve the first Precursor Golem trigger for Reality Spasm, getting 785 Reality Spasms, each targeting a different Golem. A whole bunch of Psychic Battles trigger, and we use the first one to change the target of a Reality Spasm from a Golem to Goblin Welder. This time we resolve Horobi, Death's Wail first, and put Goblin Welder in the graveyard. The Mimic Vats trigger, and use one of them to imprint the Goblin Welder, putting it in exile. Spend 3 mana and tap the Mimic Vat to create a Goblin Welder token. Then...
Hmmm, there is a problem. We can use the hasted Goblin Welder token to bring back Black Lotus, but we only get one. If we put March of the Machines into play, we don't have a way to get rid of the March of the Machines before all the token copies of Black Lotus die as well. We can't respond with Reality Spasm, because we need to use Reality Spasm to get the hasted Goblin Welder in the first place. I don't think 3 mana is enough, and we can't reuse Goblin Welder until after the first Reality Spasm cast is exhausted. So, we don't have a working start yet.
But, I'm counting three extra cards (Tamanoa, Dingus Egg, and Ruin Ghost), assuming we start off with Merfolk Sovereign / Sea Scryer. Is there another card that we can cut? Three extra cards would be all right if we could still use Wheel of Fortune, but right now it looks like we need Reality Spasm + Genesis Wave + some other card to draw the rest of the deck. I think we could do it with the Worldfire deck, but I think in that deck we are not allowed mana stage transitions, if I recall correctly.
I remember we were able to gain life via Primeval Titan + Radiant Fountain + Goblin Gardener, can we do the same with Hurloon Shaman? That would cut out Tamanoa and Dingus Egg, and then we could definitely fit it all in, I think.
Goblin Bushwhacker
Arbiter of the Ideal
Reality Spasm
Consecrated Sphinx
Noggle Ransacker
But, I don't think it quite works. The Reality Spasm copies will untap Arbiter of the Ideal one at a time, and to get the most of the combo we need to cast Worldpurge between untappings, so we have the old problem of losing our targets between resolutions.
EDIT: We can do even better if we save red mana and just use Swarm Intelligence:
Goblin Bushwhacker
Genesis Wave
Sylven Echoes
Sentry Oak
World at War
That should get F_{w^3 + w12 + 5}(F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(N) for large N, assuming we have enough for the Genesis Wave start.
EDIT: So, we need to get blue and black mana early on, while not getting red mana. Perhaps Urborg Elf can help with that? Blue can transition to merfolk, ninjas, or creatures with morph; maybe not wizards or clerics since Wandering Mage is no good now. Black can transition to zombies, goblins, treefolk, and something else I can't remember. I only know how to get stages with merfolk, goblins, and zombies, and zombies are the only one I can see how to transition to the next stage (to goblins via Dralnu's Crusade), but that's not good enough since we're losing zombies from the later stages. Obviously, it would be great if we could have merfolk produce black, or goblins produce blue. Goblins can produce red, but I don't know how to get a stage out of any of the red targeting creatures (dwarves, barbarians, vampires, walls).
Reality Spasm
Toshiro Umezawa
Dark Salvation
Consecrated Sphinx
Noggle Ransacker
EDIT: Forgot that when we replay Su-Chi there will be many more Dual Natures in play. Didn't change the estimate too much.
EDIT: Currently, I'm also thinking about whether it's possible to save red mana for the end of the combo, while keeping the main combo at 35 cards. An attempt:
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
25 Vile Redeemer
26 Rude Awakening
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 Forest
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 Reality Spasm
55 Precursor Golem
56 Past in Flames
57 Consecrated Sphinx
58 Noggle Ransacker
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
This would get F_{w^3 + w12 + 5}(50), if it worked. Unfortunately, we're missing a way to generate blue mana for Ghosthelm Courier. We could try to get blue mana by replacing Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest with Core Prowler and Calciform Pools, but unfortunately we don't have a way to recycle the land after Worldpurge. We could try switching to Titania, Protector of Argoth / Thornwood Falls / Kabira Crossroads, but that lacks the green mana we need to get started. Same if we just switch the Forest to an Island. We did have a start without a Forest, but it required Genesis Wave and Deconstruct, which we can't quite fit in the above deck. So I haven't figured out how to make it work yet.
The alternate starting hand means that we don't need to have a Forest. Unfortunately, it has to be a basic land, so no Tolarian Academy or Gaea's Cradle. Can Island be used for any good purpose? I don't see any obvious way to untap it, so no Reality Spasm. I suppose we could pay for an Aquatic Incursion to try and gain more life. But that would require Island, Aquatic Incursion, Merfolk Sovereign, Judge of Currents, Mimic Vat, and Horobi, Death's Wail to complete. It would be worth it if we could start with enough Dual Natures to get a healthy dose of life and green mana.
The alternate start also means we could replace Forest, Gerrard's Verdict, and Acorn Harvest with Primeval Titan, Glimmerpost, and Radiant Fountain, if we were so inclined. But right now it looks like the original starting hand is better than the alternate one.
EDIT: Hmm, there is a problem. When we flashback Acorn Harvest, it goes to the exile zone, so we can't flashback it again. If we want to flashback a second Acorn Harvest, the problem is we still need three more Acorn Harvests to imprint Worldpurge, Gerrard's Verdict, and Deconstruct on the Spellweaver Helixes. So we don't have enough Acorn Harvests.
Mirror of Fate will fix that problem. But, I don't see a card to replace it with; March of the Machines was the only optional card we had, and it's no longer optional now that we multiple Spellweaver Helixes to trigger. Can we cast Genesis Wave with X equal to 14 or more? Unfortunately, that means we can't cast an early Allay. But we need to have Cowardice, and without Allay there is no way to get it off the battlefield, and it will then block Deconstruct from every having a legal target, so it won't generate any mana. Do you see a way around this?
Start with Allay and Deconstruct. Cast Genesis Wave with X=13. Reveal the ten cards mentioned before, along with Precursor Golem, Spellweaver Helix, and Perpetual Timepiece. We get a bunch of Dual Nature created tokens; have the Copy Enchantment token copy Grip of Chaos, so we have two Dual Natures and three Grip of Chaoses. Cast the first Allay with buyback, first increasing the number of Dual Natures to 4, then the number of Grip of Chaoses to 8. Bounce Cowardice and destroy the March of the Machines token. Replay Cowardice. Cast Deconstruct, getting two Precursor Golem triggers, 8 Grip of Chaos triggers, and some Cowardice triggers. With the 8 Grip of Chaos triggers and the Cowardice triggers we can bounce the original Precursor Golem 9 times; after each time we replay it, we generate another 10 standard Golem tokens. So after 8 replayings we have 84 standard Golem tokens. Play the second Allay; We can bounce Copy Enchantment 7 times, increasing the number of Dual Natures to 511, and adding another Grip of Chaos token. (I think we need to have at least two Grip of Choases, or we can't make progress with a buyback Allay.) Replay the original Precursor Golem, creating 511 Precursor Golem tokens and 1024 standard Golem tokens, for 1620 Golems in total. Resolve the first Precursor Golem trigger, getting 1620 copies of Deconstruct; we can destroy 1620 artifacts, generating 4860 mana, and incidentally bouncing the original Precursor Golem an inordinate number of times. (Any replayings of Precursor Golem before the final Allay won't have too much effect though.) We can cast 1620 buyback Allays, generating more than 2^^1622 Dual Natures and Grip of Chaoses. Play Precursor Golem again, and get more than 2^^1622 copies. Resolve the second Precursor Golem trigger, getting more than 2^^1622 copies of Deconstruct, allowing us to go to 2^^2^^1622. In the meantime we can bounce and replay Spellweaver Helix and Perpetual Timepiece, getting many copies; then we can bounce March of the Machines so we can use the Timepieces to mill Worldpurge and three Acorn Harvests. Two Spellweaver Helixes come onto the battlefield, and we imprint Acorn Harvest + Worldpurge and Acorn Harvest + Deconstruct.
Hmm, I'm not seeing how we can take advantage of the second Deconstruct either. If we try to resolve Deconstruct first, then Worldpurge will be waiting on the stack; the only thing we will be left with after Worldpurge our triggers below that were created before Acorn Harvest, and those can't take advantage of the second Deconstruct. If we resolve Worldpurge first, Deconstruct will come up next before our restore progress triggers, so we won't get that far with the Deconstruct.
But, we still wind up with more than 2^^2^^1622 Sentry Oaks. Can we do better with the alternative starting hand?
EDIT: Whoops, I used up all my life on those first two Allays. Okay, so we don't get a starting Allay, and we have 2 Dual Natures and 3 Grip of Chaoses when we cast Deconstruct. (I think that's the better configuration.) We get four bounces, and for the first three replayings we get six standard Golems each time, so we have 22 before the final replaying. Then we cast our first Allay, getting us to eight Dual Natures. Replay Precursor Golem, and get 1 original Precursor Golem, 8 Precursor Golem tokens, and 22+18 standard Golem tokens, for 49 Golems total. So we can get 49 copies of Deconstruct from the first Precursor Golem trigger, and we can cast Allay 49 times, getting us to more than 2^^51 Dual Natures. So we wind up with more than 2^^2^^51 Sentry Oaks in the end.
Now that you've pointed out that we don't need to keep a few cards, we don't need March of the Machines either. So we have a choice of getting another permanent. I don't see anything better though. Wormfang Behemoth can hide Allay, saving a card for Worldpurge, but March of the Machines has the same effect. Deconstruct and Precursor Golem could get us a lot of mana for Allay, but without Worldpurge I don't see how to refresh the number of Sentry Oaks.
After replaying the enchantments, we have 16 Dual Natures and 18 Grip of Chaoses.
After the second Allay, we have 16*2^16 = 1048576 Dual Natures and 1048595 Grip of Chaoses.
After the third Allay, we have 1048576 * 2^1048593 = 2^1048613 Dual Natures and 2^1048613 + 2 Grip of Chaoses.
After the fourth Allay, we have 2^(2^1048613 + 1048616) Dual Natures.
Still, it would be nice to get another exponentiation, if we could postpone the first Allay until we had a few more Grip of Chaoses on the battlefield. Unfortunately, I don't know any other way to avoid having two many cards we need to keep after Worldpurge. We could do it if we could have the initial Copy Enchantment copy Opalescence, since then we could shuffle Opalescence into the library. Unfortunately, it looks like Genesis Wave puts all the permanent cards on the battlefield at the same time. If only it worked like Primal Surge!
I guess Whispering Madness will go infinite as well - after some point, we will only draw as many cards as we discard, but we can draw Reality Spasm and discard lower cards, so that goes infinite.
Prosperity shouldn't go infinite, since it can't draw itself without something like Swarm Intelligence. But, I don't see how to get that one blue mana to cast it out of our opening hand. Any other card drawers out there that we would have to draw to reuse?
EDIT: Here are some ideas for saving the Gerrard's Verdict version. One is that we can possibly use Consecrated Sphinx / Noggle Ransacker in the layer sequence, and not necessarily at the end; we could continue with something that recycles cards from the graveyard. I don't know of a good card though.
Another is that we could possibly use the first combat phase to draw enough cards to get enough World at Wars to come out ahead.
How about:
Black Lotus
Mox Emerald
Forest
Channel
Genesis Wave for up to 19 cards.
Then we have 19 permanents plus two other cards to get started with. That should be enough I think. What would be the best two other cards to use?
EDIT: So, we draw those five cards, plus Allay and Worldpurge. Cast Genesis Wave with X=10, revealing Opalescence, Dual Nature, March of the Machines, Vedalken Orrery, Omniscience, Copy Enchantment, Grip of Chaos, Cowardice, Sylvan Echoes, and Sentry Oak.
Genesis Wave triggers the creation of token copies of all the creatures. Respond by casting Allay with buyback targeting the Copy Enchantment. Grip of Chaos and Cowardice trigger. Resolve the Cowardice trigger, bouncing Copy Enchantment back to our hand. Replay it and get a token copy trigger. Respond by casting Worldpurge, shuffling Omniscience, Vedalken Orrery, and March of the Machines back into the library, along with our starting permanents. The remaining cards go back to our hand. Resolve the Dual Nature trigger, getting a token copy of Dual Enchantment. Resolve the Grip of Chaos trigger, redirecting the target of Allay to Copy Enchantment. Resolve the Allay, destroying the Copy Enchantment and putting Allay back in our hand. The token copies are created; have the Copy Enchantment token copy Dual Nature. Replay Opalescence, Dual Nature (6 Dual Natures) Copy Enchantment (12 Dual Natures), Grip of Chaos, and Cowardice (14 copies of each).
The second Allay will get 14 Grip of Chaos triggers, allowing us to double the number of Dual Natures 12 times, for 49152, and then we create 49167 Grip of Chaoses. We bounce Cowardice and destroy the March of the Machines token.
The third Allay will get 49167 Grip of Chaos triggers. That will take us to more than 2^49180 Dual Natures and Grip of Chaoses. The fourth Allay will take us to more than 2^2^49180 Grip of Chaoses. We play Sylvan Echoes and Sentry Oak, getting more than 2^2^49180 copies of each.
We declare the combat phase, and get more than 2^2^49180 triggers of Sentry Oak. The first will be enough to draw the rest of our deck, and we should wind up with more than F_{w^3 + w12 + 4} (F_{w^3 + w12 + 3}(2^2^49180) in the end.
So, how big a number can we make if we need Noggle Ransacker and Consecrated Sphinx? We can always go back to the previous version and get F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(50). Can we do better with the Gerrard's Verdict version? Trying to end with World at War looks like it keeps us below F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(2); if we try to end with Noggle Ransacker, we have an extra card, but we can't use Goblin Bushwhacker.
EDIT: What about Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune? I don't think we have a way of putting the opponent's land cards into play, so I think Wheel of Fortune should be okay.
EDIT: We can add two artifacts, by replacing Kithkin Mourncaller and Militia's Pride with Angelheart Vial and Ballista Charger. Clockwork Hydra would be a bit more convenient, but I don't think we can remove the +1/+1 counters after all the attacking Clockwork Hydras are removed from the battlefield because of Worldpurge, so I think we don't get the damage ability off. Ballista Charger should work just fine though. That should allow us to get two more Reality Spasms in, and take us to F_{w^3 + w12 + 1}^15 (F_{w^3 + w12}(2^20)) or thereabouts.
Are there any other replacements that can get us more Reality Spasms? Maybe a replacement for Cephalid Shrine?
EDIT: Chalice of the Void could fit the bill, but we need the spell counter card on the battlefield when we cast Minion of Tevesh Szat, so I guess we don't save a card this way.
EDIT: Oh right, we won't have Vedalken Orrery before the first Reality Spasm, so we don't get Bloodbond March triggers for multiple creatures. So F_{w^3 + w12 + 2}(13) then.
By my previous post it looks like there is a maximum of 16 Reality Spasms we can get, unless I eliminated certain cards too quickly. The difference is that you draw Deconstruct and a second Minds Aglow. The Deconstruct is how you're getting all the mana, so that may not be replaceable. We can avoid drawing a second Minds Aglow by milling two Acorn Harvests, but that requires drawing a Spellweaver Helix. Unless... we might be able to draw enough from the original Minds Aglow to cast the first Reality Spasm? But that requires that we have Black Lotus shuffled back into the library, which requires we use Perpetual Timepiece early. And then Perpetual Timepiece won't be available until the second Minds Aglow. So I don't think we can save a card that way.
That leaves Deconstruct as the only available card savings; if we come up with an idea to postpone it, all the better. But in the meanwhile, 14 Reality Spasms is really good!
EDIT: My last argument wasn't quite right - it's possible to get Black Lotus back by shuffling it into the library and then cycling Rebuild to get it back. But, I don't think we can get everything we need with just 12 cards; I think we will need at least
Reality Spasm
Goblin Welder
Bloodbond March
Cephalid Shrine
Horobi, Death's Wail
Precursor Golem
Perpetual Timepiece
Allay
March of the Machines
Mimic Vat
Rebuild
Dual Nature
Deconstruct
which is 13 cards already.
EDIT: Hmmm, how do we handle Precursor Golem? If we destroy the original, then we need to draw it again, and our number of Reality Spasms goes down to 13. I suppose we could save one by playing Grip of Chaos and redirecting one target onto a Perpetual Timepiece token. (Saving another Precursor Golem would require 7 Perpetual Timepieces, so that doesn't work.) But then we have just one Precursor Golem left with no obvious way to bounce it. And if we cast Reality Spasm with no Vedalken Orrery, the one Precursor Golem won't do anything. So I think it is best to just let it die.
(We could also play Cowardice, but it looks like that hurts more than it helps without Vedalken Orrery.)
So the Deconstruct / Precursor Golem strategy for mana actually costs us two cards; of course, this might still be the best.
EDIT: Well, if we have to give up a card anyway for a second drawing of Precursor Golem, perhaps we can do better by drawing Vedalken Orrery instead. Then we can sacrifice all the Golems but the original Precursor Golem for mana, then play Cowardice and bounce the original Precursor Golem, then use all the mana to cast Allay many times and increase our number of enchantments drastically. Each time we cast Allay we take X Grip of Chaoses to more than 2^X Grip of Chaoses. With 3X mana we can therefore generate more than 2^^X Dual Natures. Thus each time we resolve a Precursor Golem trigger for Deconstruct, take X to more than 2^^X. We start with 60 mana, which gets us more than 2^^20 Dual Natures and 2^^20 Precursor Golems for the next trigger, or more than 2^^^3. So after 7 Precursor Golem triggers, we have more than 2^^^9 Dual Natures. We use the final Grip of Chaos triggers to bounce the original Precursor Golem, which we can play to get more than 2^^^9 Precursor Golems for the first Reality Spasm.
EDIT: Meh, I guess it would be better to just cast the first Reality Spasm without Precursor Golem or Vedalken Orrery. We can still get a hasted copy of Minion of Tevesh Szat, along with all the cards available except a few artifacts, and we can get those via Goblin Welder. So we can generate a lot more Dual Natures before the second Reality Spasm... which I guess is what you intended all along, heh.
I guess we should work it all out at some point though.
So, how many Reality Spasms can we cast before the first combat? We can access instants and sorceries from the graveyard, and nicely enough Goblin Welder can retrieve artifacts from the graveyard. I think that's it. We have 4 instants, 11 sorceries, and 10 artifacts, for a total of 24 cards, not including Reality Spasm. But, we have to draw Black Lotus, Mox Emerald, Channel, and Minds Aglow in the opening hand. Also, we need to draw Allay to buy it back. We need to draw Perpetual Timepiece to mill cards, and Mimic Vat in order to get a hasted Goblin Welder token. So we can avoid drawing at most 17 cards, for a maximum 18 possible castings of Reality Spasm. How close can we get?
I agree that we should use a lower bound; I definitely plan to highlight the lower bound when I write this up. I was just being casual in the previous post.
EDIT: In order to get a full effect Reality Spasm, we must have both Precursor Golem and Vedalken Orrery already on the battlefield. I suppose it is possible that we could recover both artifacts from the graveyard by casting an "early" Reality Spasm - it could get us a hasted Mad Auntie, and then with enough Bloodbond Marches we could get multiple hasted Goblin Welder tokens to fetch multiple artifacts.
In any case, we will need blue mana for the first Reality Spasm, which means we need to shuffle Black Lotus back into our library, as it is our only source of blue mana. That takes us down to at most 16, possibly 15 Reality Spasms. Also, we will need to exile a Perpetual Timepiece to shuffle the Black Lotus into the library, so if we don't want to lose it we need a token copy, meaning March of the Machines. But, we need to get rid of March of the Machines when we recast Black Lotus, so we need to cast Allay, and we want to buy it back. That means we need to spend an additional five mana, so we can draw at most seven cards with the initial Minds Aglow. To cast another Minds Aglow, we need to cast it via Spellweaver Helix - that requires another 3 life and a green mana, so I think we would need to do this after our first Reality Spasm, and have Reality Spasm get us a hasted Merfolk Sovereign along with the hasted Goblin Welders, so that we could get some life back. Otherwise, we would have to cut the seven card draw down to four, which is probably too little.
No, we can't postpone the second Minds Aglow, because we need it to retrieve the Black Lotus. So it looks like we want to draw an Acorn Harvest and a Spellweaver Helix in order to be able to cast the Minds Aglow. The alternative is that we use the seventh card in our opening hand for Perpetual Timepiece, and use it immmediately to reshuffle the Black Lotus into the library. But then we won't have Perpetual Timepiece available until the second Minds Aglow.
EDIT: Here's my first attempt to get started, but unfortunately it doesn't work.
Opening hand:
Black Lotus
Mox Emerald
Forest
Channel
Omniscience
Minds Aglow
Perpetual Timepiece
Play Perpetual Timepiece, tap it to mill two Acorn Harvests, and pay 2 mana and exile it to shuffle Black Lotus back into the library.
Cast Minds Aglow, draw 9 cards:
Black Lotus
Spellweaver Helix
Dual Nature
Opalescence
March of the Machines
Allay
Cowardice
Psychic Battle
Copy Enchantment
Play Opalescence, then Dual Nature (1 token copy). Play Copy Enchantment and copy Dual Nature (3 token copies copying Dual Nature). Play Cowardice, Psychic Battle, and March of the Machines (6 token copies of each). Play Spellweaver Helix (6 token copies) and imprint an Acorn Harvest and Minds Aglow on one of them. Cast Black Lotus, then respond to the Dual Nature triggers by casting Allay. Allay triggers 7 Psychic Battles, and 8 Cowardices; use one of the Cowardices to bounce March of the Machines, and the other 7 to bounce Copy Enchantment. This generates 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, and 130 Dual Natures (have the last Copy Enchantment copy Dual Nature). Resolve the Dual Nature copies of Black Lotus, getting six.
Tap the six Black Loti for 15 blue mana and 3 green mana. Spend a blue mana, a green mana and 3 life to flashback Acorn Harvest, which triggers Spellweaver Helix to cast Minds Aglow. Spend up to 13 blue mana to draw up to 13 cards:
Reality Spasm
Precursor Golem
Vedalken Orrery
Mimic Vat
Horobi, Death's Wail
Goblin Welder
Bloodbond March
Cephalid Shrine
Mirror of Fate
some other cards perhaps
Play March of the Machines. We play Vedalken Orrery, Mirror of Fate, and Mimic Vat, getting 131 total copies of each. Next we play Precursor Golem, getting 131 total copies and 262 vanilla Golem tokens. Play Bloodbond March and then Goblin Welder, getting 131 triggers of Bloodbond March. Counter the Goblin Welder spell, and use the first Bloodbond March trigger to return it to the battlefield. Spend two blue mana plus one more mana to cast Reality Spasm, targeting the original Precursor Golem. Psychic Battle triggers, and we can redirect the target to March of the Machines. Both Cowardice and Horobi, Death's Wail trigger, and we resolve Cowardice first to bounce March of the Machines back to our hand. We also use Cowardice to bounce the original Precursor Golem, and replay it, getting 130 more Precursor Golems and 262 more vanilla Golem tokens. Next we resolve the first Precursor Golem trigger for Reality Spasm, getting 785 Reality Spasms, each targeting a different Golem. A whole bunch of Psychic Battles trigger, and we use the first one to change the target of a Reality Spasm from a Golem to Goblin Welder. This time we resolve Horobi, Death's Wail first, and put Goblin Welder in the graveyard. The Mimic Vats trigger, and use one of them to imprint the Goblin Welder, putting it in exile. Spend 3 mana and tap the Mimic Vat to create a Goblin Welder token. Then...
Hmmm, there is a problem. We can use the hasted Goblin Welder token to bring back Black Lotus, but we only get one. If we put March of the Machines into play, we don't have a way to get rid of the March of the Machines before all the token copies of Black Lotus die as well. We can't respond with Reality Spasm, because we need to use Reality Spasm to get the hasted Goblin Welder in the first place. I don't think 3 mana is enough, and we can't reuse Goblin Welder until after the first Reality Spasm cast is exhausted. So, we don't have a working start yet.