@crimhead: This is coming incredibly late, but it looks like your deck deals around 2^N damage where N will be several hundred. Each time you untap Doubling Cube and activate it, you will almost double your mana, and once you put 4 Doubling Cubes and 4 Copy Artifacts copying them into play, you will get 8 doublings for each new card. So you will get several hundred doublings in the end. Tolarian Academy and Candelabra of Tawnos will not be as good as getting more doublings, so they won't improve the deck.
Going back to our deck, I had an idea for saving a card. It's nothing new, it's the old idea with Gerrard's Verdict and Deep Reconnaissance. Previously I said it wouldn't work with Goblin Gardener, but now I think there may be a way to use it by using Rude Awakening to animate the Forest, and then using Goblin Gardener to bring it back to our hand, where we can discard it using Gerrard's Verdict. There is still the problem of getting both blue and black mana for the later stages; one thing we could do is use Merfolk for the second stage, using Tideshaper Mystic to turn our Forest into any possible basic land for mana of any color. The problem is this messes up the Goblin Bushwhacker ending, and we get something like:
and it looks like the ending only gets us F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(2) or thereabouts. I would like to replace Rude Awakening and Swarm Intelligence with Deconstruct and Precursor Golem, but we need Rude Awakening to animate the land, so that Goblin Gardener will bring it back to our hand. Anyone see a way to get an extra layer here?
Yeah, looks like we can't get Black Lotus out of the graveyard. So it's back to the last start. It looks like we can get six or seven layers worth of Consecrated Sphinxes on the fourth Words of Wisdom - perhaps a stage or more is possible, I don't know.
Knowing that Thornwood Falls allows us to cut Tropical Island except for the start gives me a little hope that we can find an improvement. But, I guess Tropical Island + Channel is pretty hard to match or beat in terms of number of cards needed.
That said, I like that you brought up the question "What's the highest damage in the first turn of a realistic game without infinite combos?"
Yeah, for this deck we are assuming that you draw a particular set of 7 cards, followed by a particular set of 4 cards, followed by 2 cards getting milled, followed by a particular set of 8 cards being drawn; after that I think you cannot fail if you do things right. That's not the only way the deck can get started, but the probability of this deck actually going off is probably one in quadrillions; a large number, but at least much smaller than the amounts of damage we have been talking about in this thread.
One may ask "What's the highest damage in the first turn of a realistic game without infinite combos?", but for the question to be precise, we have to define what "realistic" means exactly. Does it mean some cutoff in terms of the probability of success? If we set the minimum probability at, say, one in a million, then we could achieve that by getting started with a five card combo or less, or a slightly larger combo for which we have multiples. So, a deck which starts off with Black Lotus / Show and Tell / Omniscience / Enter the Infinite would suffice. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with are current deck, since being able to draw cards with a sorcery is too good. However, perhaps the we could have Enter the Infinite compatible with the megastage if we got rid of the additional stages. At the very least, we should certainly be able to get a hyperstage plus some additional stages, so we can still get an extremely large number with a probability of over one in a million.
Of course, one might argue that one in a million is still not "realistic". If we bump up to minimum probability to, say, 1%, then things become much harder. It seems to me at first glance that even constructing a deck that can draw all the cards with at least a 1% chance is a challenge. If we can't, then we have to fill the deck with much of the same type of cards so that we can guarantee a certain amount of damage, which will probably be quite low. The biggest problem though is actually calculating the chance of success, which will be a near impossible calculation most of the time. For that reason, we likely can't implement the 1% challenge - we won't know if a deck achieves the minimum probability.
With Un-Sets legal in Commander until January 15th, I'd like to point out that the Commander variant of this challenge is "solved" by a Turn 1 Infinity Elemental with Haste. It's Infinite Power, but it's NOT an Infinite Combo. The death glares I'm getting means there's going to be a rule change, don't they?
The official rules for the challenge are stated at http://www.soniccenter.org/sm/mtg/megacombo.html , with the key rule being that there must be a finite upper bound to the damage that can be achieved. As far as I know, this prevents all the loopholes that people have tried. (A good one is using a card that allows you to choose a number, then add cards that allow you to turn that number into damage - no infinite combo, but the damage can be as large as you want.)
But, it's amusing that Un-Sets are legal in Commander - I didn't expect that.
Sorry for the late reply. When you say that we should use one less Words of Wisdom for the setup, does that mean that we can get lots of Consecrated Sphinxes by the third Words of Wisdom? I don't see how to make that work. If, after the first Words of Wisdom, we draw and play Swarm Intelligence[/], but not Vedalken Orrery, then we will get the second and third Words of Wisdom before we are able to do anything with Consecrated Sphinx. If we do not play Swarm Intelligence, then we only get four more cards, and I don't see how to both get Words of Wisdom back and get lots of Consecrated Sphinxes before we draw more cards.
Iijil, I was wondering what you thought of the possibility of adding a hyperstage at the end rather than just stages. I posted some incomplete thoughts in a previous post. Do you think any of those ideas are worth pursuing, or do you have any ideas of your own?
The lands still come into play tapped, except for Breeding Pool, which can come in untapped if you pay 2 life. You can pay 2 life to get a green mana, but the cost is greater than what you receive, so no infinite.
But, I don't see any advantage to this switch. It might become better if we find a way to cut a land, or find a way to make Precursor Golem more effective than Swarm Intelligence.
The Gerrard's Verdict version also doesn't have access to blue mana, and I don't see a way to add it without adding another card, so it drops out of the tie.
Not a bad start. I feel though that using Swarm Intelligence on Words of Wisdom will allow us not to have to redraw as many cards, although I guess your start doesn't redraw that many. Instead of Deconstruct / Precursor Golem, a single Deconstruct on say Mox Emerald will get us 3 green mana, and that plus the mana from Channel should be enough, I think.
Ah, very good. I did figure out a way to save a card in the life gain section: add Gerrard's Verdict and Acorn Harvest, and then replace Chatter of the Squirrel with Deep Reconnaissance, which can bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield. But, then this doesn't work with Goblin Gardener, so unless we find a fix for that we don't save a card.
Thinking about the start: Currently, we can't use Replenish, since we don't have a white mana available. If we try to go back to Core Prowler and Calciform Pools, Primeval Titan will bring Calciform Pools back to the battlefield tapped, and we can't put an initial storage counter on it so that we can use Core Prowler to proliferate it. So, it looks like we add a Forest and just hardcast Omniscience, unless we find an alternate start.
We cast Opalescence and Mirror of Fate.
We put Spellweaver Volute on Words of Wisdom, then cast Acorn Harvest to trigger it.
After Words of Wisdom gets exiled, we sacrifice Mirror of Fate to put Words of Wisdom back into the library.
We can now create however many copies of Swarm Intelligence that we want, so we can draw 4N cards after we cast Words of Wisdom. What we want is to be able to safely cast Worldpurge so that we can bring Consecrated Sphinx back to our hand. Or, it might be easier to bounce Consecrated Sphinx with something like Minion of Tevesh Szat, giving one haste through Goblin Bushwhacker. I will have to give it more thought.
EDIT: Heh, I just realized we would deck ourselves because of Mirror of Fate. So, some reworking is required.
Oh, poo. So, we need a card that brings lands form the library or graveyard onto the battlefield. With Deconstruct available, we don't need the lands to enter the battlefield tapped. Instants might be very good, since they might allow Show and Tell back in. But, I haven't found such a card - most cards that bring back lands only bring back basic lands.
Or, we could replace Goblin Gardener with say Goblin Fireslinger plus Reverse Damage, but that would require another card. On the plus side, that would free us from using lands to gain life, so we could theoretically replace the three cards we need to gain life with one or two. Unfortunately, Stormscape Battlemage doesn't work since it can target a nonblack creature for a black, and we need black mana by Nectar Faerie; we would have to radically change the stage sequence to make it work. Watcher of the Roost can gain two life, so if there is another card that can gain one life, that could work.
EDIT: So how do the Deconstruct and Show and Tell infinites work out now? The previous infinite loop described using Terashi's Grasp doesn't work anymore, since any mana we generate in the higher hyperstage gets wiped out by Worldpurge. So maybe Deconstruct is okay now.
With Show and Tell, I guess the loop goes:
Prepare for Acorn Harvest by putting Dual Nature triggers of Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery on the stack.
Flashback Acorn Harvest, triggering castings of Worldpurge, Show and Tell, and Retract.
Make the necessary preparations for Worldpurge, bouncing everything we can back to our hand and playing Wormfang Behemoth.
Resolve Worldpurge.
Resolve Show and Tell, putting Mox Emerald onto the battlefield and tapping it for a green mana.
Resolve Retract, pulling Mox Emerald back to our hand.
Resolve the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery.
Put our permanents back on the battlefield.
Resolve a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon to destroy a Dual Nature copy of Su-Chi, getting four colorless mana.
Play Vile Redeemer, getting lots of Eldrazi Scion tokens generating lots of colorless mana.
With all this mana we should be able to prepare for Worldpurge again no problem, and we can use the extra green mana to extend the lower hyperstage.
So, I don't see a way to bring back Show and Tell, unless we perhaps make casting an instant a requirement for the hyperstage transition.
Hmmm... we can deal with Show and Tell by adding one more card, but I don't know how to deal with replacing Deconstruct. Some of the alternate sorceries target a creature, which will go infinite. But, a sorcery that doesn't target a creature like Inner Fire will go infinite by putting it below Worldpurge.
Seismic Spike is interesting - it won't do anything if placed below Worldpurge, so that's not an infinite. It doesn't destroy enough lands to repay the Flash of Defiance by itself. But it also doesn't generate enough red mana for a hyperhyperstage. Adding Swarm Intelligence will allow it to generate enough life, so that's no good.
We could always go back to Fungal Sprouting and Utopia Mycon, but that uses up all colors, so we couldn't use the normal stage sequence; the Godtoucher-less version can get 12 stages, but uses a couple more cards. Probably the best possibility is to put in something that really is too expensive for the Deconstruct infinite. The "saving progress" section comes to mind first, but it could be anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that Worldpurge is a not-so-cheap way to bring permanents back to our hand. So we don't necessarily have to use lands to regain life. Stormscape Battlemage seems to be good, and could replace both lands and Titania, Protector of Argoth. However, this does mean that we can't continue with something that destroys lands like Goblin Gardener. Also, we can't have cheap black, so we have to find an alternative to Fungal Sprouting / Utopia Mycon. Still, perhaps this breathes some life back into the Worldpurge deck. I would still like to find some way to save Deconstruct.
EDIT: I guess now that lands are no longer being used, we can make use of Seismic Spike. Put in Dryad Arbor, and we can cast Seismic Spike on Dryad Arbor and all its Dual Nature copies, with the aid of Swarm Intelligence. However, we still need something to put Dryad Arbor onto the battlefield, like Walking Atlas. So we need four cards to generate lots of red mana, and by my count we are three cards behind the Worldfire deck after taking the loss of Show and Tell into account. (But not taking into account a fix for Goblin Gardener yet.)
EDIT: Better yet, we can cast Hunting Wilds to bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield tapped, and then untap it many times with Amulet of Vigor. We can then use Forest and Mox Emerald to cast Channel, then Black Lotus is enough to cast Omniscience. So this saves two cards. But we still need a 12-stage sequence that transitions into life.
EDIT: Well, I haven't yet found a way to complete the deck using Stormscape Battlemage. If we stick with life lands, we can use Rude Awakening to untap a Forest, coupled with Swarm Intelligence. Then, we don't want the Forest coming into play untapped, so we would like to replace Titania, Protector of Argoth with a version that brings lands onto the battlefield tapped. I didn't find such a version though, so I went with Patron of the Moon. This makes things trickier for Goblin Gardener, but we can flaskback an Acorn Harvest to cast Rude Awakening and instead turn lands into creatures, augmented by Swarm Intelligence. We then resolve the Rude Awakening copies one at a time, each time following it by destroying a Goblin Gardener token to bounce Radiant Fountain back to our hand.
Back to three layers behind the Worldfire version, although we can perhaps employ Swarm Intelligence to our advantage somehow. (I don't think it works with Reality Spasm though.)
EDIT: We could replace Forest with Gaea's Cradle to eliminate the need for Swarm Intelligence, but then we wouldn't have enough to start the deck off, and we would need another card. So that change doesn't help currently.
Gaea's Cradle could perhaps be used to restore progress, combined with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack, if we switched the main color from green to red. We would somehow need to obtain an untapped Gaea's Cradle after each hyperhyperstage transition, without allowing an infinite. I haven't figured out a way to make that work yet.
Looking at other ways to save and restore progress, we could use energy counters to pump up Bristling Hydra, and then take advantage of either the +1/+1 counters, or the large power/toughness of the Bristling Hydra. I don't see any use for +1/+1 counters on a random creature other than abilities that are too strong, like Korozda Gorgon or Ion Storm. Workhorse seems like a good use for +1/+1 counters, but it goes infinite with the current hyperstage setup, and also I don't know how to transfer counters without targeting a creature anyway. As for high power/toughness, I don't know - we could convert it to life or lots of creatures, but the former is off limits, and the latter we could get with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack with fewer cards.
Grand Architect seems like a good use for lots of creatures, if they are blue. I haven't found a way to come up with lots of blue creatures after Worldpurge though. If we can, we would also need an artifact with an ability that would restore progress.
Then there is Storm. Hunting Pack we already talked about, and there is also Sprouting Vines. We would need a way to put the basic land back into the library after we used it, which seems like it could require multiple cards. Or, perhaps we could find a use for discarding a land. Spitting Image seems like a good option, except that it targets a creature.
Anyway, I've been focusing pretty heavily on the saving progress section, when there may be other parts that can be improved.
EDIT: Ah, I believe I have found the card! Vile Redeemer can restore progress all by itself, by generating a colorless mana for every nontoken creature that has died this turn. (which will be mostly Metallurgeons)
I did remember the previous infinites in the Worldfire version with Terashi's Grasp and Show and Tell, but I am wondering if perhaps the need to save progress keeps those infinites from happening. In order to save progress, we need to cast Time and Tide twice, once to phase out Calciform Pools so that it doesn't get exiled, and another time to phase it back in so that we can make use of its counters. Terashi's Grasp went infinite because bouncing Metallurgeon to recast it and get more Bloodbond March triggers was enough, but that's not enough here. It looks like the same for Show and Tell; we can get an extra green mana by imprinting Show and Tell on Spellweaver Helix, but if we do so we can't cast Deconstruct to get more than that green mana, and we need to spend that green mana on Time and Tide. So, I'm thinking that neither of these actually go infinite.
Now, this does seem to make it harder to replace the current saving progress section, since we need it to be expensive enough to prevent the aforementioned infinities. Yeah, it looks like Mana Echoes goes infinite, and I don't see an obvious way to replace it if we are to use energy counters. Besides creating many tokens, we can also build a large creature with energy tokens, but I don't see a way to turn that into progress either.
Welcome back, CTNC! I'll look through your deck when I have some time.
Thinking of ways to shorten the "saving progress" section, I thought about using energy counters. Perhaps we can use Whirler Virtuoso to use energy counters to create tokens, then use Mana Echoes to turn that into colorless mana. Can we also use the same Whirler Virtuoso to create the energy counters in the first place? The problem is that, to save our current progress, we would need to cast Whirler Virtuoso after significant progress has been achieved, to get enough Dual Nature copies to matter. But, we need to have a Whirler Virtuoso on the battlefield to restore our progress. So I don't quite see how to make that work.
So, it looks like we need another card to save our progress. We could use a second Whirler Virtuoso to save our progress. (It's a shame this is necessary.) But then, that is a three card replacement for three cards, no improvement. I suppose it does free us from having to use Core Prowler / Calciform Pools; we could switch to say Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest, saving blue for later.
EDIT: In the Worldfire version, we couldn't make mana stages at the end, because we could use Evacuation to bring the original creature back to our hand, while leaving mana intact. In the Worldpurge version, we can't use Worldpurge to substitute for Evacuation, because Worldpurge clears the mana pools. So I believe mana stages are allowable again.
Hmm yes, Rebuild messes up discard and draw triggering. I think using triggered abilities to move cards into the opponent's library could be okay, so long as we can use say Words of Wisdom to make the opponent draw a card, then follow that up resolving the trigger to put that card back into the library. But that means Consecrated Sphinx is out. We could still do
I suppose we could save enchant creature auras, as well as draw/discard triggering, if we give up a card slot. That's a pretty steep price to pay though. Breath of Fury could be worth two layers, one for untapping bunches of creatures and one for having many of them. It could then link to something that gives the opponent life, although I don't see how to do that while gaining a layer. So we could go
But, not an improvement, since giving the opponent life only lets Breath of Fury work once because of the Worldfire problem; we need to improve the third card.
Concerning Patron of the Vein, the only cards I see that give the opponent creatures without doing it too cheaply are Sylvan Offering, Forbidden Orchard, and Fickle Efreet. Unfortunately, none of them are worth a layer, with Sylvan Offering not working because of the Worldfire problem. Of course, we know one way to put many creatures on the battlefield one at a time; put a nontoken creature on the battlefield, under an opponent's control. But, I don't know any way of doing that that isn't too cheap; all the ways seem to be ETB effects or go to the graveyard effects. In the old decks, we used Thieves' Auction to get the opponent copies of Gruul Ragebeast and Mitotic Slime. This could indeed put a nontoken creature under the opponent's control and generate lots of token copies; but Thieves' Auction is too cheap.
It may not work for Patron of the Vein, but for Bellowing Aegisaur we could replace Korozda Gorgon with something like Stone Giant, since if we give a Stone Giant +2/+2, it can target Minion of Tevesh Szat. But, that's not an improvement. Maybe if we could put a card like that into the stage sequence, like if we could fit in Old Man of the Sea somehow.
EDIT: I took a look at the Worldpurge version that we abandoned a while back, and it's not so bad:
It does seem like there is some room for improvement, particularly with the "saving progress" section of the deck, which I feel really should be able to be cut down. Also, we have red available for later, which might allow us to cut down on the stage sequence. I don't know if Izzet Guildmage can be used for any benefit.
A possible idea: start with Korozda Gorgon and Bellowing Aegisaur, to get two layers in a similar way to Archangel of Thune. However, it is more difficult to deal damage to many creatures than to just gain life. If we follow up with Magmaquake, then that is two layers with three cards, not quite good enough. No way to get Precursor Golem to add two layers, I don't think. Another possibility is to use Cave-In to deal damage to all creatures and players, and then use something like Alabaster Potion to heal the opponent. But, that is three layers with four cards.
Still, utilizing the life total of the opponent may be a possibility. Grollub may turn out to be useful.
EDIT: Looking again at how to save a card: It doesn't look like there are any obvious pairs of cards that can be combined anymore. It would be nice if there was a card that said "permanents are creatures", which could take care of both Opalescence and March of the Machines, but there doesn't seem to be such a card. No way I see to cut down on the number of Fountain of Youths. So perhaps shortening the stage sequence is the most likely possibility.
The obvious weakness is that three card second stage. If we could add another stage post-Everglove Courier, that might eliminate it. Iijil found one such sequence, but it turned out to be longer, as the Royal Assassin sequence was three cards, and losing Godtoucher meant only saving two cards in the pre-Everglove Courier part.
Some possible stages to add in: creatures with toughness 2 or less. The pairing of Phantasmal Mount followed by Old Man of the Sea seems to be very good; however, I was unable to make a stage sequence that doesn't lose at least a couple of stages somewhere else. For example, we can no longer have both Possessed Aven and Centaur Archer. Ending with Tsabo's Assassin and Blinding Drone doesn't seem to work out either, as it eliminates Frightshroud Courier and Dwarven Warriors. Actually trading two for two might be okay, but when we lose Dwarven Warriors we lose the transition to red, that I haven't been able to replace. Another idea was to try to stick Goblins in the sequence using Slingshot Goblin, but then it is hard to squeeze in Centaur Archer.
EDIT: I wonder if we could somehow put Consecrated Sphinx and/or Words of Wisdom into the layer sequence. Then, we would need to have something that can refill the opponent's library as the next step. Widespread Panic seems like a promising card, but I'm not sure where to go next. Preator's Grasp is a possibility, but it can only be cast about 60 times, so the end result is about as good as our previous three layer sequence that ended in Words of Wisdom.
EDIT: Another idea is to have our card drawer also cause us to discard a card, and then have discarding a card trigger something else. A possible sequence:
Unfortunately, our deck now has Facevaulter, which allows a much cheaper sacrifice. If we could redo the initial part of the stage sequence, that would allow Dragon Appeasement to be used again.
EDIT: It would be nice to use damage to ourselves to power up Angelheart Vial. If Megrim were red, then we could perhaps use Reality Spasm / Angelheart Vial / Justice / Megrim / Windfall. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a card that causes damage to ourselves when we or the opponent discard a card.
EDIT: If we could have Goblins somehow be able to produce blue mana but not black mana, then we could get a thirteenth stage. One possibility is if there were a version of Black Lotus that produced blue mana only, but as far as I know there isn't. Another possibility is to go to Wood Elves, and have Goblins recycle nonforest lands somehow. One way to do that would be to turn a land into a creature, so that it could be bounced using Evacuation, and put back on the battlefield using Show and Tell. Ignition Team has the right idea, but unfortunately it doesn't have to tap to use it.
EDIT: I'm liking the idea of using Goblin Burrows to target Goblins, and having the next stage down recycle Goblin Burrows somehow. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a good Merfolk or Thrull to recycle Goblin Burrows. There are a couple Merfolk that can explore to draw a land, but those are ETB effects, too cheap. There are also a couple of Merfolk that can turn lands into creatures, but again they don't require the creature to tap. We have a few Merfolk like Tideshaper Mystic that can turn Goblin Burrows into a basic land like a Forest, but it won't stay a Forest when it leaves the battlefield, so that doesn't help with Wood Elves. We could add Life and Limb to turn Forests into creatures, but that is a card slot we can't spare.
EDIT: Well, we can hook Elves into Goblin Burrows using Quirion Druid, which allows us to follow with Iijil's sequence for 13 stages:
EDIT: I feel like there should be a way to get a five card sequence ending in a card drawing card, but I haven't found a way yet. My latest idea was trying to trigger off a discard; the possible cards to use seem to be Pitchstone Wall, Megrim, Telekenetic Bonds, and Spirit Cairn. Confessor and Sangromancer cause a gain of life, which is mooted by that point; Spiritual Focus and Geth's Grimoire allows us to draw a card, which doesn't seem to be any better than just using Consecrated Sphinx.
Telekenetic Bonds seems to be the most versatile, but it also seems to have problems gaining layers. If we go
then not only does Sphinx's Disciple not get a layer, Telekenetic Bonds won't get a layer either, because of the problem of Worldfire destroying the things we want to untap. Reality Spasm / Angelheart Vial / Orcish Mine will get us one layer more, since we can trigger them all at the same time, but we still have Telekenetic Bonds not getting a layer. So, I don't know. Iijil, do you have any interesting ideas?
Going back to our deck, I had an idea for saving a card. It's nothing new, it's the old idea with Gerrard's Verdict and Deep Reconnaissance. Previously I said it wouldn't work with Goblin Gardener, but now I think there may be a way to use it by using Rude Awakening to animate the Forest, and then using Goblin Gardener to bring it back to our hand, where we can discard it using Gerrard's Verdict. There is still the problem of getting both blue and black mana for the later stages; one thing we could do is use Merfolk for the second stage, using Tideshaper Mystic to turn our Forest into any possible basic land for mana of any color. The problem is this messes up the Goblin Bushwhacker ending, and we get something like:
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 Goblin Wizard
39 Tideshaper Mystic
40 Merfolk Sovereign
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 Kithkin Mourncaller
56 Militia's Pride
57 World at War
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
and it looks like the ending only gets us F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(2) or thereabouts. I would like to replace Rude Awakening and Swarm Intelligence with Deconstruct and Precursor Golem, but we need Rude Awakening to animate the land, so that Goblin Gardener will bring it back to our hand. Anyone see a way to get an extra layer here?
EDIT: Ah, I think I have it:
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 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 Forest
36 Judge of Currents
37 Merfolk Sovereign
38 Aquatic Incursion
39 Goblin Welder
40 Mad Auntie
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 Kithkin Mourncaller
56 Militia's Pride
57 World at War
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
This should get us F_{w^3 + w12 + 5}(2).
Iijil, are there any problems with the above deck?
Knowing that Thornwood Falls allows us to cut Tropical Island except for the start gives me a little hope that we can find an improvement. But, I guess Tropical Island + Channel is pretty hard to match or beat in terms of number of cards needed.
Yeah, for this deck we are assuming that you draw a particular set of 7 cards, followed by a particular set of 4 cards, followed by 2 cards getting milled, followed by a particular set of 8 cards being drawn; after that I think you cannot fail if you do things right. That's not the only way the deck can get started, but the probability of this deck actually going off is probably one in quadrillions; a large number, but at least much smaller than the amounts of damage we have been talking about in this thread.
One may ask "What's the highest damage in the first turn of a realistic game without infinite combos?", but for the question to be precise, we have to define what "realistic" means exactly. Does it mean some cutoff in terms of the probability of success? If we set the minimum probability at, say, one in a million, then we could achieve that by getting started with a five card combo or less, or a slightly larger combo for which we have multiples. So, a deck which starts off with Black Lotus / Show and Tell / Omniscience / Enter the Infinite would suffice. Unfortunately, this doesn't work with are current deck, since being able to draw cards with a sorcery is too good. However, perhaps the we could have Enter the Infinite compatible with the megastage if we got rid of the additional stages. At the very least, we should certainly be able to get a hyperstage plus some additional stages, so we can still get an extremely large number with a probability of over one in a million.
Of course, one might argue that one in a million is still not "realistic". If we bump up to minimum probability to, say, 1%, then things become much harder. It seems to me at first glance that even constructing a deck that can draw all the cards with at least a 1% chance is a challenge. If we can't, then we have to fill the deck with much of the same type of cards so that we can guarantee a certain amount of damage, which will probably be quite low. The biggest problem though is actually calculating the chance of success, which will be a near impossible calculation most of the time. For that reason, we likely can't implement the 1% challenge - we won't know if a deck achieves the minimum probability.
The official rules for the challenge are stated at http://www.soniccenter.org/sm/mtg/megacombo.html , with the key rule being that there must be a finite upper bound to the damage that can be achieved. As far as I know, this prevents all the loopholes that people have tried. (A good one is using a card that allows you to choose a number, then add cards that allow you to turn that number into damage - no infinite combo, but the damage can be as large as you want.)
But, it's amusing that Un-Sets are legal in Commander - I didn't expect that.
Black Lotus
Channel
Sands of Delirium
Kabira Crossroads
Rude Awakening
Replenish
Words of Wisdom / Selvala's Enforcer
The question of course is, does this give us a better start? We would have to get going by the fourth Words of Wisdom or earlier.
Iijil, I was wondering what you thought of the possibility of adding a hyperstage at the end rather than just stages. I posted some incomplete thoughts in a previous post. Do you think any of those ideas are worth pursuing, or do you have any ideas of your own?
I think we can still save Deconstruct by replacing
Rude Awakening
Tropical Island
Glimmerpost
Radiant Fountaing
Primeval Titan
with
Deconstruct
Breeding Pool
Blossoming Sands
Kabira Crossroads
Titania, Protector of Argoth
The lands still come into play tapped, except for Breeding Pool, which can come in untapped if you pay 2 life. You can pay 2 life to get a green mana, but the cost is greater than what you receive, so no infinite.
But, I don't see any advantage to this switch. It might become better if we find a way to cut a land, or find a way to make Precursor Golem more effective than Swarm Intelligence.
The Gerrard's Verdict version also doesn't have access to blue mana, and I don't see a way to add it without adding another card, so it drops out of the tie.
Thinking about the start: Currently, we can't use Replenish, since we don't have a white mana available. If we try to go back to Core Prowler and Calciform Pools, Primeval Titan will bring Calciform Pools back to the battlefield tapped, and we can't put an initial storage counter on it so that we can use Core Prowler to proliferate it. So, it looks like we add a Forest and just hardcast Omniscience, unless we find an alternate start.
So the start perhaps goes:
Black Lotus
Forest
Mox Emerald
Channel
Omniscience
Consecrated Sphinx
Words of Wisdom
This allows us to draw four cards. We can draw perhaps
Spellweaver Volute
Acorn Harvest
Opalescence
Mirror of Fate
We cast Opalescence and Mirror of Fate.
We put Spellweaver Volute on Words of Wisdom, then cast Acorn Harvest to trigger it.
After Words of Wisdom gets exiled, we sacrifice Mirror of Fate to put Words of Wisdom back into the library.
Draw:
Words of Wisdom
Dual Nature
Swarm Intelligence
Copy Enchantment
We can now create however many copies of Swarm Intelligence that we want, so we can draw 4N cards after we cast Words of Wisdom. What we want is to be able to safely cast Worldpurge so that we can bring Consecrated Sphinx back to our hand. Or, it might be easier to bounce Consecrated Sphinx with something like Minion of Tevesh Szat, giving one haste through Goblin Bushwhacker. I will have to give it more thought.
EDIT: Heh, I just realized we would deck ourselves because of Mirror of Fate. So, some reworking is required.
Or, we could replace Goblin Gardener with say Goblin Fireslinger plus Reverse Damage, but that would require another card. On the plus side, that would free us from using lands to gain life, so we could theoretically replace the three cards we need to gain life with one or two. Unfortunately, Stormscape Battlemage doesn't work since it can target a nonblack creature for a black, and we need black mana by Nectar Faerie; we would have to radically change the stage sequence to make it work. Watcher of the Roost can gain two life, so if there is another card that can gain one life, that could work.
EDIT: We could perhaps use a Forest and Dark Heart of the Wood, if there is a card we can use that can bring a Forest back to the battlefield once, but only once per Acorn Harvest. Unfortunately, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Primeval Titan, and Wood Elves are all no good thanks to all the Dual Nature copies they get. We could use a sorcery like Explosive Vegetation, but that requires another Acorn Harvest, and we can't spare the card slot, unless we can save a card in Goblin stage somehow.
EDIT: We could use Gerrard's Verdict to discard Drownyard Temple, but then we need another Acorn Harvest again, and we have another tie in terms of card slots.
EDIT: So how do the Deconstruct and Show and Tell infinites work out now? The previous infinite loop described using Terashi's Grasp doesn't work anymore, since any mana we generate in the higher hyperstage gets wiped out by Worldpurge. So maybe Deconstruct is okay now.
With Show and Tell, I guess the loop goes:
Prepare for Acorn Harvest by putting Dual Nature triggers of Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery on the stack.
Flashback Acorn Harvest, triggering castings of Worldpurge, Show and Tell, and Retract.
Make the necessary preparations for Worldpurge, bouncing everything we can back to our hand and playing Wormfang Behemoth.
Resolve Worldpurge.
Resolve Show and Tell, putting Mox Emerald onto the battlefield and tapping it for a green mana.
Resolve Retract, pulling Mox Emerald back to our hand.
Resolve the Dual Nature triggers for Omniscience and Vedalken Orrery.
Put our permanents back on the battlefield.
Resolve a Psychic Battle trigger for Metallurgeon to destroy a Dual Nature copy of Su-Chi, getting four colorless mana.
Play Vile Redeemer, getting lots of Eldrazi Scion tokens generating lots of colorless mana.
With all this mana we should be able to prepare for Worldpurge again no problem, and we can use the extra green mana to extend the lower hyperstage.
So, I don't see a way to bring back Show and Tell, unless we perhaps make casting an instant a requirement for the hyperstage transition.
Seismic Spike is interesting - it won't do anything if placed below Worldpurge, so that's not an infinite. It doesn't destroy enough lands to repay the Flash of Defiance by itself. But it also doesn't generate enough red mana for a hyperhyperstage. Adding Swarm Intelligence will allow it to generate enough life, so that's no good.
We could always go back to Fungal Sprouting and Utopia Mycon, but that uses up all colors, so we couldn't use the normal stage sequence; the Godtoucher-less version can get 12 stages, but uses a couple more cards. Probably the best possibility is to put in something that really is too expensive for the Deconstruct infinite. The "saving progress" section comes to mind first, but it could be anything.
EDIT: It occurs to me that Worldpurge is a not-so-cheap way to bring permanents back to our hand. So we don't necessarily have to use lands to regain life. Stormscape Battlemage seems to be good, and could replace both lands and Titania, Protector of Argoth. However, this does mean that we can't continue with something that destroys lands like Goblin Gardener. Also, we can't have cheap black, so we have to find an alternative to Fungal Sprouting / Utopia Mycon. Still, perhaps this breathes some life back into the Worldpurge deck. I would still like to find some way to save Deconstruct.
EDIT: I guess now that lands are no longer being used, we can make use of Seismic Spike. Put in Dryad Arbor, and we can cast Seismic Spike on Dryad Arbor and all its Dual Nature copies, with the aid of Swarm Intelligence. However, we still need something to put Dryad Arbor onto the battlefield, like Walking Atlas. So we need four cards to generate lots of red mana, and by my count we are three cards behind the Worldfire deck after taking the loss of Show and Tell into account. (But not taking into account a fix for Goblin Gardener yet.)
EDIT: Better yet, we can cast Hunting Wilds to bring a Forest from the library to the battlefield tapped, and then untap it many times with Amulet of Vigor. We can then use Forest and Mox Emerald to cast Channel, then Black Lotus is enough to cast Omniscience. So this saves two cards. But we still need a 12-stage sequence that transitions into life.
EDIT: Well, I haven't yet found a way to complete the deck using Stormscape Battlemage. If we stick with life lands, we can use Rude Awakening to untap a Forest, coupled with Swarm Intelligence. Then, we don't want the Forest coming into play untapped, so we would like to replace Titania, Protector of Argoth with a version that brings lands onto the battlefield tapped. I didn't find such a version though, so I went with Patron of the Moon. This makes things trickier for Goblin Gardener, but we can flaskback an Acorn Harvest to cast Rude Awakening and instead turn lands into creatures, augmented by Swarm Intelligence. We then resolve the Rude Awakening copies one at a time, each time following it by destroying a Goblin Gardener token to bounce Radiant Fountain back to our hand.
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 Calciform Pools
17 Core Prowler
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Shimmer
26 Sealock Monster
27 Time and Tide
28 Rude Awakening
29 Swarm Intelligence
30 Worldpurge
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Patron of the Moon
36 Glimmerpost
37 Radiant Fountain
38 Forest
39 Goblin Gardener
40 Mad Auntie
41 Facevaulter
42 Basal Thrull
43 Thrull Champion
45 Everglove Courier
46 Nectar Faerie
47 Ghosthelm Courier
48 Possessed Aven
49 Centaur Archer
50 Maze Glider
51 Possessed Centaur
52 Eastern Paladin
53 Frightshroud Courier
54 Dwarven Warriors
55 Possessed Barbarian
56 Minion of Tevesh Szat
57 Reality Spasm
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
Back to three layers behind the Worldfire version, although we can perhaps employ Swarm Intelligence to our advantage somehow. (I don't think it works with Reality Spasm though.)
EDIT: We could replace Forest with Gaea's Cradle to eliminate the need for Swarm Intelligence, but then we wouldn't have enough to start the deck off, and we would need another card. So that change doesn't help currently.
Gaea's Cradle could perhaps be used to restore progress, combined with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack, if we switched the main color from green to red. We would somehow need to obtain an untapped Gaea's Cradle after each hyperhyperstage transition, without allowing an infinite. I haven't figured out a way to make that work yet.
Looking at other ways to save and restore progress, we could use energy counters to pump up Bristling Hydra, and then take advantage of either the +1/+1 counters, or the large power/toughness of the Bristling Hydra. I don't see any use for +1/+1 counters on a random creature other than abilities that are too strong, like Korozda Gorgon or Ion Storm. Workhorse seems like a good use for +1/+1 counters, but it goes infinite with the current hyperstage setup, and also I don't know how to transfer counters without targeting a creature anyway. As for high power/toughness, I don't know - we could convert it to life or lots of creatures, but the former is off limits, and the latter we could get with Whirler Virtuoso or Hunting Pack with fewer cards.
Grand Architect seems like a good use for lots of creatures, if they are blue. I haven't found a way to come up with lots of blue creatures after Worldpurge though. If we can, we would also need an artifact with an ability that would restore progress.
Then there is Storm. Hunting Pack we already talked about, and there is also Sprouting Vines. We would need a way to put the basic land back into the library after we used it, which seems like it could require multiple cards. Or, perhaps we could find a use for discarding a land. Spitting Image seems like a good option, except that it targets a creature.
Anyway, I've been focusing pretty heavily on the saving progress section, when there may be other parts that can be improved.
EDIT: Ah, I believe I have found the card! Vile Redeemer can restore progress all by itself, by generating a colorless mana for every nontoken creature that has died this turn. (which will be mostly Metallurgeons)
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 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 Patron of the Moon
34 Glimmerpost
35 Radiant Fountain
36 Forest
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 Indomitable Creativity
57 Consecrated Sphinx
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Channel
60 Black Lotus
That should get us up to roughly F_{w^3 + w12 + 4}(N), where N ~ 50.
There still appear to be avenues of improvement, like possibly making Deconstruct safe, or finding something that can gain 3 life with one card.
Now, this does seem to make it harder to replace the current saving progress section, since we need it to be expensive enough to prevent the aforementioned infinities. Yeah, it looks like Mana Echoes goes infinite, and I don't see an obvious way to replace it if we are to use energy counters. Besides creating many tokens, we can also build a large creature with energy tokens, but I don't see a way to turn that into progress either.
Thinking of ways to shorten the "saving progress" section, I thought about using energy counters. Perhaps we can use Whirler Virtuoso to use energy counters to create tokens, then use Mana Echoes to turn that into colorless mana. Can we also use the same Whirler Virtuoso to create the energy counters in the first place? The problem is that, to save our current progress, we would need to cast Whirler Virtuoso after significant progress has been achieved, to get enough Dual Nature copies to matter. But, we need to have a Whirler Virtuoso on the battlefield to restore our progress. So I don't quite see how to make that work.
So, it looks like we need another card to save our progress. We could use a second Whirler Virtuoso to save our progress. (It's a shame this is necessary.) But then, that is a three card replacement for three cards, no improvement. I suppose it does free us from having to use Core Prowler / Calciform Pools; we could switch to say Su-Chi and Farrelite Priest, saving blue for later.
EDIT: In the Worldfire version, we couldn't make mana stages at the end, because we could use Evacuation to bring the original creature back to our hand, while leaving mana intact. In the Worldpurge version, we can't use Worldpurge to substitute for Evacuation, because Worldpurge clears the mana pools. So I believe mana stages are allowable again.
So, we can do something like:
2 Mad Auntie
3 Dralnu's Crusade
4 Boneknitter
5 Llanowar Dead
6 Everglove Courier
8 Ghosthelm Courier
9 Possessed Aven
10 Centaur Archer
11 Maze Glider
12 Paragon of Eternal Wilds
14 Royal Assassin
15 Paragon of Open Graves
16 Lightbringer
17 Dwarven Warriors
18 Karplusan Yeti
Still 18 cards for 12 stages though.
Reality Spasm
Precursor Golem
Selvala's Enforcer
Widespread Panic
Praetor's Grasp
if we wanted.
I suppose we could save enchant creature auras, as well as draw/discard triggering, if we give up a card slot. That's a pretty steep price to pay though. Breath of Fury could be worth two layers, one for untapping bunches of creatures and one for having many of them. It could then link to something that gives the opponent life, although I don't see how to do that while gaining a layer. So we could go
Curse of Bounty
Breath of Fury
Alabaster Potion
Selvala's Enforcer
But, not an improvement, since giving the opponent life only lets Breath of Fury work once because of the Worldfire problem; we need to improve the third card.
Concerning Patron of the Vein, the only cards I see that give the opponent creatures without doing it too cheaply are Sylvan Offering, Forbidden Orchard, and Fickle Efreet. Unfortunately, none of them are worth a layer, with Sylvan Offering not working because of the Worldfire problem. Of course, we know one way to put many creatures on the battlefield one at a time; put a nontoken creature on the battlefield, under an opponent's control. But, I don't know any way of doing that that isn't too cheap; all the ways seem to be ETB effects or go to the graveyard effects. In the old decks, we used Thieves' Auction to get the opponent copies of Gruul Ragebeast and Mitotic Slime. This could indeed put a nontoken creature under the opponent's control and generate lots of token copies; but Thieves' Auction is too cheap.
It may not work for Patron of the Vein, but for Bellowing Aegisaur we could replace Korozda Gorgon with something like Stone Giant, since if we give a Stone Giant +2/+2, it can target Minion of Tevesh Szat. But, that's not an improvement. Maybe if we could put a card like that into the stage sequence, like if we could fit in Old Man of the Sea somehow.
EDIT: I took a look at the Worldpurge version that we abandoned a while back, and it's not so bad:
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 Calciform Pools
17 Core Prowler
18 Metallurgeon
19 Chatter of the Squirrel
20 Battle Cry
21 Rebuild
22 Spellweaver Volute
23 Mox Emerald
25 Shimmer
26 Sealock Monster
27 Time and Tide
28 Deconstruct
29 Precursor Golem
30 Worldpurge
31 Acorn Harvest
32 Acorn Harvest
33 Acorn Harvest
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Titania, Protector of Argoth
36 Glimmerpost
37 Radiant Fountain
38 Goblin Gardener
39 Mad Auntie
40 Facevaulter
41 Basal Thrull
42 Thrull Champion
43 Godtoucher
44 Everglove Courier
46 Ghosthelm Courier
47 Possessed Aven
48 Centaur Archer
49 Maze Glider
50 Possessed Centaur
51 Eastern Paladin
52 Frightshroud Courier
53 Dwarven Warriors
54 Possessed Barbarian
55 Minion of Tevesh Szat
56 Reality Spasm
57 Consecrated Sphinx
58 Words of Wisdom
59 Show and Tell
60 Black Lotus
If that works, then if we could save one more card, we could improve on the Worldfire deck by ending with
Goblin Bushwacker
Black Lotus
Indomitable Creativity
Precursor Golem
Consecrated Sphinx
Words of Wisdom
It does seem like there is some room for improvement, particularly with the "saving progress" section of the deck, which I feel really should be able to be cut down. Also, we have red available for later, which might allow us to cut down on the stage sequence. I don't know if Izzet Guildmage can be used for any benefit.
Still, utilizing the life total of the opponent may be a possibility. Grollub may turn out to be useful.
EDIT: Looking again at how to save a card: It doesn't look like there are any obvious pairs of cards that can be combined anymore. It would be nice if there was a card that said "permanents are creatures", which could take care of both Opalescence and March of the Machines, but there doesn't seem to be such a card. No way I see to cut down on the number of Fountain of Youths. So perhaps shortening the stage sequence is the most likely possibility.
The obvious weakness is that three card second stage. If we could add another stage post-Everglove Courier, that might eliminate it. Iijil found one such sequence, but it turned out to be longer, as the Royal Assassin sequence was three cards, and losing Godtoucher meant only saving two cards in the pre-Everglove Courier part.
Some possible stages to add in: creatures with toughness 2 or less. The pairing of Phantasmal Mount followed by Old Man of the Sea seems to be very good; however, I was unable to make a stage sequence that doesn't lose at least a couple of stages somewhere else. For example, we can no longer have both Possessed Aven and Centaur Archer. Ending with Tsabo's Assassin and Blinding Drone doesn't seem to work out either, as it eliminates Frightshroud Courier and Dwarven Warriors. Actually trading two for two might be okay, but when we lose Dwarven Warriors we lose the transition to red, that I haven't been able to replace. Another idea was to try to stick Goblins in the sequence using Slingshot Goblin, but then it is hard to squeeze in Centaur Archer.
EDIT: We can save lands for later by replacing Titania, Protector of Argoth with Wood Elves. The problem is that typically, abilities of lands don't get you a layer. Otherwise, Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind or Mirrorpool would be interesting.
EDIT: I wonder if we could somehow put Consecrated Sphinx and/or Words of Wisdom into the layer sequence. Then, we would need to have something that can refill the opponent's library as the next step. Widespread Panic seems like a promising card, but I'm not sure where to go next. Preator's Grasp is a possibility, but it can only be cast about 60 times, so the end result is about as good as our previous three layer sequence that ended in Words of Wisdom.
EDIT: Another idea is to have our card drawer also cause us to discard a card, and then have discarding a card trigger something else. A possible sequence:
Reality Spasm
Precursor Golem
Dragon Appeasement
Pitchstone Wall
Windfall
Unfortunately, our deck now has Facevaulter, which allows a much cheaper sacrifice. If we could redo the initial part of the stage sequence, that would allow Dragon Appeasement to be used again.
EDIT: It would be nice to use damage to ourselves to power up Angelheart Vial. If Megrim were red, then we could perhaps use Reality Spasm / Angelheart Vial / Justice / Megrim / Windfall. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a card that causes damage to ourselves when we or the opponent discard a card.
EDIT: If we could have Goblins somehow be able to produce blue mana but not black mana, then we could get a thirteenth stage. One possibility is if there were a version of Black Lotus that produced blue mana only, but as far as I know there isn't. Another possibility is to go to Wood Elves, and have Goblins recycle nonforest lands somehow. One way to do that would be to turn a land into a creature, so that it could be bounced using Evacuation, and put back on the battlefield using Show and Tell. Ignition Team has the right idea, but unfortunately it doesn't have to tap to use it.
EDIT: I'm liking the idea of using Goblin Burrows to target Goblins, and having the next stage down recycle Goblin Burrows somehow. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a good Merfolk or Thrull to recycle Goblin Burrows. There are a couple Merfolk that can explore to draw a land, but those are ETB effects, too cheap. There are also a couple of Merfolk that can turn lands into creatures, but again they don't require the creature to tap. We have a few Merfolk like Tideshaper Mystic that can turn Goblin Burrows into a basic land like a Forest, but it won't stay a Forest when it leaves the battlefield, so that doesn't help with Wood Elves. We could add Life and Limb to turn Forests into creatures, but that is a card slot we can't spare.
EDIT: Well, we can hook Elves into Goblin Burrows using Quirion Druid, which allows us to follow with Iijil's sequence for 13 stages:
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 Drake Familiar
13 Perpetual Timepiece
14 Dual Nature
15 Copy Enchantment
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Copper Myr
19 Metallurgeon
20 Acorn Harvest
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
24 Fountain of Youth
25 Fountain of Youth
26 Fountain of Youth
28 Wormfang Behemoth
29 Divine Congregation
30 Worldfire
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Flash of Defiance
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Wood Elves
36 Taiga
37 Hurloon Shaman
38 Anaba Ancestor
39 Spectral Shepherd
40 Goblin Welder
41 Mad Auntie
42 Goblin Burrows
43 Quirion Druid
44 Everglove Courier
45 Nectar Faerie
46 Ghosthelm Courier
47 Possessed Aven
49 Maze Glider
50 Possessed Centaur
51 Eastern Paladin
52 Frightshroud Courier
53 Embalmer's Tools
54 Devout Chaplain
55 Royal Assassin
56 Paragon of Open Graves
57 Lightbringer
58 Dwarven Warriors
59 Karplusan Yeti
60 Reality Spasm
61 Selvala's Enforcer
62 Show and Tell
63 Black Lotus
Of course, we are 3 cards over, so this probably will only be useful for the sideboard version. I don't see any savings for 12 stages.
EDIT: Actually, it's better to stick with Godtoucher and make Tideshaper Mystic work using Omen of Fire:
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 Drake Familiar
13 Perpetual Timepiece
14 Dual Nature
15 Copy Enchantment
16 Allay
17 Tooth of Ramos
18 Copper Myr
19 Metallurgeon
20 Acorn Harvest
21 Battle Cry
22 Retract
23 Spellweaver Volute
24 Fountain of Youth
25 Fountain of Youth
26 Fountain of Youth
28 Wormfang Behemoth
29 Harmony of Nature
30 Worldfire
31 Flash of Defiance
32 Flash of Defiance
33 Flash of Defiance
34 Spellweaver Helix
35 Wood Elves
36 Taiga
37 Hurloon Shaman
38 Anaba Ancestor
39 Spectral Shepherd
40 Goblin Welder
41 Mad Auntie
42 Goblin Burrows
43 Omen of Fire
44 Tideshaper Mystic
45 Merfolk Sovereign
46 Godtoucher
47 Everglove Courier
49 Ghosthelm Courier
50 Possessed Aven
51 Centaur Archer
52 Maze Glider
53 Possessed Centaur
54 Eastern Paladin
55 Frightshroud Courier
56 Dwarven Warriors
57 Possessed Barbarian
58 Minion of Tevesh Szat
59 Reality Spasm
60 Selvala's Enforcer
61 Show and Tell
62 Black Lotus
EDIT: I feel like there should be a way to get a five card sequence ending in a card drawing card, but I haven't found a way yet. My latest idea was trying to trigger off a discard; the possible cards to use seem to be Pitchstone Wall, Megrim, Telekenetic Bonds, and Spirit Cairn. Confessor and Sangromancer cause a gain of life, which is mooted by that point; Spiritual Focus and Geth's Grimoire allows us to draw a card, which doesn't seem to be any better than just using Consecrated Sphinx.
Telekenetic Bonds seems to be the most versatile, but it also seems to have problems gaining layers. If we go
Reality Spasm
Precursor Golem
Sphinx's Disciple
Telekenetic Bonds
Windfall
then not only does Sphinx's Disciple not get a layer, Telekenetic Bonds won't get a layer either, because of the problem of Worldfire destroying the things we want to untap. Reality Spasm / Angelheart Vial / Orcish Mine will get us one layer more, since we can trigger them all at the same time, but we still have Telekenetic Bonds not getting a layer. So, I don't know. Iijil, do you have any interesting ideas?