How are we hitting the opponent without killing them? They get set to 1 by worldfire as well.
Edit: oh and Yarok isn't safe with Arcbond anyway.
arcbond yarok and 2 others, the others do a looping computation, and then after an arbitrary amount of time, resolve the yarok trigger first. ending the loop via deathtouch and gaining an arbitrary amount of life to lifelink.
But isn't this exactly the point where we could be down a life? we're just about to put a bunch on the stack with starlight right?
As for the Mana Echoes/Coat of arms/March of the machines issue, I missed that we need to be able to keep casting invulnerability to not die to arclight. Possibly we could replace coat of arms with Sliver legions but it seems difficult to keep those alive as they only have one type, adding General's Enforcer or Phantasmal Form or similar doesn't save slots over just adding darksteel forge to keep coat of arms alive.
Their output creatures will still have damage and we can kill/remake them fresh with Artificial Evolution.
To be more specific, we set the machine up to produce BB(x) Beebles, and an unused output that takes beebles to giants
then when we are done with computation, we can replay our enchantments and artificial evolution some undamaged beebles to the correct types for the next iteration and that causes a chain reaction to make BB(x) giants, which we get mana for thanks to still having Desolation Giant.
Hmm, can we maybe somehow replace Acorn Harvest with Spitting Image?
That way we can retrace it, and interleave TYS/Spellweaver Volute triggers so that we get an orrery on time.
yeah that does seem to be a problem, letting you get the mana back ahead of schedule could be dangerous. I havent proven it to myself either way but it does seem dangerous.
Then once we retract, we can flash in the Masterwork as an Orrery and be back where we want to be.
It gets a little more interesting after a Desolation Giant, it looks like we can pretty much do the same thing as we dont lose enchantments, but because march of the machines was still in play (to kill our Goblin Boom Keg) Bludgeon brawl can't make their orrery an equipment, so the Masterwork has nothing to copy.
Ok, then what if we give them a copy of bludgeon brawl and the giant kills our animated march of the machines? That way they would have an equipment orrery to copy, so it looks like we can gain flash in a computation, however, we'd also lose Sigarda's Aid and therefore be unable to actually flash in the Masterwork, so it seems safe.
On the other hand, just switching to Leyline of anticipation is really close to working, as we need the Coat of Arms to stay alive, which means that the March needs to be removed, which looks like we need to have all our enchantments animated for so we'd lose flash as intended. But instead we can flash in drake familiar to bounce the march and save the coat of arms that way.
Also, for both versions, rather than filling slots with artifact creatures, maybe just use less life each cycle? Golgari Keyrune/Acorn Harvest -> k'rrik /Lingering souls?
Well I was thinking of maybe some way to flicker enchantments instead of bouncing them, but it looks like everything that also hits artifacts and/or creatures, which is troublesome with phyrexian metamorph.
Another thought is using a normal clone, but the same loop still exists, but can make blue mana!
as for other odd copy/clone effects, Volatile Chimera seems potentially interesting, if really awkward to set up, (probably with something like necrotic ooze?).
Well with two copies of the metamorph, its even easier: one can be the enchantment and the other can copy the drake familiar, bounce the first one and die to the trigger, only to get returned with bloodbond march. No pull from eternity needed.
There's not really a replacement for phyrexian metamorph that I can see.
Edit: I think the Master thief+prophet of kruphix line almost saves it (stealing flash from the opponent after retract), though then we'd probably be over on blue creatures. (and kinda low on artifact creatures)
hmm
but we don't have a good way to retrigger Master Thief as needed.
edit:
Maybe an alternate for drake familiar? Shame leonin relic-warder can hit artifacts too and go infinite with metamorph.
So the opening hand would be something like
Black Lotus, show and tell, omniscience
Mana echoes, doubling season, acorn harvest make 12 mana (4*3)
Thrasios draw golgari keyrune and tys
Flashback acorn harvest. (making 4*7+4*11+4*15=132 mana) (can almost also draw recoup and save 3 life...)
Draw the rest of the deck. (well 33 cards, but those will make more mana with mana echoes)
Ok, so looks like the line with X artifact creatures is:
Cast + counter + bloodbond march our artifact creatures into play
spend 3 life to bounce them with retract
discard them to Nihilistic Glee to gain X life
resolve to the first one of the last group of bloodbond marches to get them all in play again.
spend 3 life to bounce them all.
discard the one with march triggers waiting to gain a life and use the trigger to return it.
end up back at the start with 2 fewer of the bottom trigger.
X=5 makes 3+3=5+1
we do need cephalid shrine to get the counters at the right time..
ooh, then if the extra artifact was cmc 0 (ornithopter?) we can maybe use Stolen by the fae x=0 instead of starlight for lifegain in the transition.
edit: no that doesnt work because we only get one per transition as we can't resolve two worldfires in a row.
Edit: oh and Yarok isn't safe with Arcbond anyway.
arcbond yarok and 2 others, the others do a looping computation, and then after an arbitrary amount of time, resolve the yarok trigger first. ending the loop via deathtouch and gaining an arbitrary amount of life to lifelink.
As for the Mana Echoes/Coat of arms/March of the machines issue, I missed that we need to be able to keep casting invulnerability to not die to arclight. Possibly we could replace coat of arms with Sliver legions but it seems difficult to keep those alive as they only have one type, adding General's Enforcer or Phantasmal Form or similar doesn't save slots over just adding darksteel forge to keep coat of arms alive.
To be more specific, we set the machine up to produce BB(x) Beebles, and an unused output that takes beebles to giants
then when we are done with computation, we can replay our enchantments and artificial evolution some undamaged beebles to the correct types for the next iteration and that causes a chain reaction to make BB(x) giants, which we get mana for thanks to still having Desolation Giant.
Hmm, can we maybe somehow replace Acorn Harvest with Spitting Image?
That way we can retrace it, and interleave TYS/Spellweaver Volute triggers so that we get an orrery on time.
managing green and the land with life seems tricky but doable. (talisman of resilience+Skull of Ramos+cartographer?) ((Swapping Invulnerability out for imps' taunt))
Not sure if it'd net us card slots or not in the end, but seems possible.
Edit:
Also, we don't need mana echoes during computation. we can just get the mana after.
yeah that does seem to be a problem, letting you get the mana back ahead of schedule could be dangerous. I havent proven it to myself either way but it does seem dangerous.
So cut one and add 2xBump in the night or Satyr's Cunning or reduce // rubble?
(Satyr's Cunning seems the most optimal of those?)
Of course being a 3 card combo, each with no other utility, does use more deck slots than we'd like, I havent found a better option.
The thought behind the Bludgeon Brawl+Masterwork of Ingenuity+Sigarda's aid package is to give the opponent an orrery, bounce our march of the machines, and make it an equipment with the brawl.
Then once we retract, we can flash in the Masterwork as an Orrery and be back where we want to be.
It gets a little more interesting after a Desolation Giant, it looks like we can pretty much do the same thing as we dont lose enchantments, but because march of the machines was still in play (to kill our Goblin Boom Keg) Bludgeon brawl can't make their orrery an equipment, so the Masterwork has nothing to copy.
Ok, then what if we give them a copy of bludgeon brawl and the giant kills our animated march of the machines? That way they would have an equipment orrery to copy, so it looks like we can gain flash in a computation, however, we'd also lose Sigarda's Aid and therefore be unable to actually flash in the Masterwork, so it seems safe.
On the other hand, just switching to Leyline of anticipation is really close to working, as we need the Coat of Arms to stay alive, which means that the March needs to be removed, which looks like we need to have all our enchantments animated for so we'd lose flash as intended. But instead we can flash in drake familiar to bounce the march and save the coat of arms that way.
Also, for both versions, rather than filling slots with artifact creatures, maybe just use less life each cycle? Golgari Keyrune/Acorn Harvest -> k'rrik /Lingering souls?
Another thought is using a normal clone, but the same loop still exists, but can make blue mana!
as for other odd copy/clone effects, Volatile Chimera seems potentially interesting, if really awkward to set up, (probably with something like necrotic ooze?).
Mizzium Transreliquat/Mirage mirror and similar can unfortunately be activated by our opponent.
Hilariously, Duplication Device could probably be made to work, if there was a legal way to assemble it.
Sculpting steel is close, but we still can't flash it in properly.
Bludgeon Brawl+Masterwork of Ingenuity+Sigarda's aid?
There's not really a replacement for phyrexian metamorph that I can see.
Edit: I think the Master thief+prophet of kruphix line almost saves it (stealing flash from the opponent after retract), though then we'd probably be over on blue creatures. (and kinda low on artifact creatures)
hmm
but we don't have a good way to retrigger Master Thief as needed.
edit:
Maybe an alternate for drake familiar? Shame leonin relic-warder can hit artifacts too and go infinite with metamorph.
My starting line can also be improved to not cost us life:
So the opening hand would be something like
Black Lotus, show and tell, omniscience
Mana echoes, doubling season, acorn harvest make 12 mana (4*3)
Thrasios draw golgari keyrune and recoup
Recoup, acorn harvest make 28 mana.
From here there's a lot of options to draw with 7 cards, but probably something like vedalken orrery, starfield of nyx, march of the machines, dual nature, panharmonicon, drake familiar, and either phyrexian metamorph or copy enchantment, should give more than enough.
Hmm,
Do we even need copy enchantment? Its only uniquely used to copy Spellweaver Volute, phyrexian metamorph can copy animated enchantments.
...
uh oh...
we can use drake familiar to bounce phyrexian metamorph, without using retract. This creates easy infinite discard fodder and therefore infinite life.
Black Lotus, show and tell, omniscience
Mana echoes, doubling season, acorn harvest make 12 mana (4*3)
Thrasios draw golgari keyrune and tys
Flashback acorn harvest. (making 4*7+4*11+4*15=132 mana) (can almost also draw recoup and save 3 life...)
Draw the rest of the deck. (well 33 cards, but those will make more mana with mana echoes)
Cast + counter + bloodbond march our artifact creatures into play
spend 3 life to bounce them with retract
discard them to Nihilistic Glee to gain X life
resolve to the first one of the last group of bloodbond marches to get them all in play again.
spend 3 life to bounce them all.
discard the one with march triggers waiting to gain a life and use the trigger to return it.
end up back at the start with 2 fewer of the bottom trigger.
X=5 makes 3+3=5+1
we do need cephalid shrine to get the counters at the right time..
looks like we only have 3 needed artifact creatures (phyrexian metamorph, platinum emperion, aegis automaton) and would like precursor golem and Arcanist's owl.