Maxing Out

I'm an engineer. It's in my blood to break things (in the name of science, of course- I want to see how things work).  For a few weeks, I've been trying to 'break' Arena by seeing what kind of margin of victory I could obtain. For example, could I get to 10,000 life?

I needed a willing victim . . . enter 'Sparky,' the Arena Bot. Sparky was created to help people test their decks before taking them live.* Sparky randomly selects one of five mono-colored decks- none of them powerful- to face you. And Sparky never concedes.  Perfect.

The core of my first decks were Shrine cards, legendary enchantments which get more powerful when you have more of them on the battlefield. My first attempts were 'going wide'- trying to amass an overwhelming army through cards that kept spawning creatures (like Tendershoot Dryad, Resplendent Angel and March of the Multitudes).  I had mild success, but thought I could do better. That number of creatures slowed Arena to a crawl, and some Shrines enabled impressive card draw, forcing me to increase my deck size (up to 100-110 cards) so I wouldn't mill myself. It was fun, but not great.

Then Core 2021 came out. Core 2021 has an engine that fit my goals perfectly. Consider the following cards:

Light of Promise, combined with a deck full of life gain, is potent- made more so by Invigorating Surge.  I added some creatures that fit the bill:

And added some enchantments (or cards that liked them) for card draw, protection, and higher power:

To top it off, I made sure I had Midnight Clock to enable repeated use of Invigorating Surge and prevent milling myself:

I knew Sparky wouldn't concede, but I needed a way to force him to attack me, so I could block with my souped-up creature and gain mega-life (and hence mega-counters). Primal Might helped there:

Cool. As long as I survived the early game, these combos should take over. And they did!  To really go crazy on counters, I had to be fortunate enough to play all 4 copies of Invigorating Surge before Midnight Clock 'struck twelve' and reset my deck, but it works a fair amount of the time. Check out the series of screenshots below to watch Healer's Hawk get progressively more ridiculous.

Fun! And I did succeed in breaking Arena, in that I learned they allocate 30 bits to tracking creature counters. So I maxed out at 1,073,741,823 counters (that's 111111111111111111111111111111 in binary).  A Healer's Hawk that does one billion damage and gains one billion life . . . amazing.  Note that they must allocate more bits to the life total, as that was a higher value.

Here a decklist of one version I ran (a 90-card deck):

2 Honden of Seeing Winds (CHK) 69
5 Plains (IKO) 262
3 Island (IKO) 265
2 Honden of Cleansing Fire (CHK) 14
5 Forest (IKO) 274
1 Hallowed Fountain (RNA) 251
2 Temple Garden (GRN) 258
4 Healer's Hawk (GRN) 14
4 All That Glitters (ELD) 2
4 Opt (M21) 59
2 Primal Might (M21) 197
2 Sanctum of Tranquil Light (M21) 33
2 Setessan Champion (THB) 198
3 Temple of Enlightenment (THB) 246
2 Blossoming Sands (M21) 244
4 Life Goes On (M21) 192
4 Radiant Fountain (M21) 248
2 Sanctum of Calm Waters (M21) 68
2 Setessan Training (M21) 205
4 Midnight Clock (ELD) 54
4 Light of Promise (M21) 25
2 Temple of Mystery (M21) 254
2 Sanctum of Fruitful Harvest (M21) 203
4 Invigorating Surge (M21) 190
3 Temple of Plenty (THB) 248
2 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
2 Temple of Mystery (M20) 255
4 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1
4 Anointed Chorister (M21) 4
4 Karametra's Blessing (THB) 26

And here's another version; only 60 cards this time, eliminating the Shrines. Not as effective, but still funny:

5 Plains (IKO) 262
3 Island (IKO) 265
5 Forest (IKO) 274
1 Hallowed Fountain (RNA) 251
1 Temple Garden (GRN) 258
4 Healer's Hawk (GRN) 14
4 Opt (M21) 59
2 Primal Might (M21) 197
2 Temple of Enlightenment (THB) 246
4 All That Glitters (ELD) 2
4 Life Goes On (M21) 192
4 Midnight Clock (ELD) 54
4 Light of Promise (M21) 25
4 Invigorating Surge (M21) 190
1 Temple of Plenty (THB) 248
1 Breeding Pool (RNA) 246
1 Temple of Mystery (M20) 255
4 Alseid of Life's Bounty (THB) 1
4 Anointed Chorister (M21) 4
2 Setessan Champion (THB) 198

While an enjoyable experiment, I don't think the deck is viable- too many ways to remove the threats that make this deck tick.  But it's fun to max out- to break things.  Without breaking my computer's processor by creating thousands of creatures.

*to play against Sparky, select 'Bot match' on the play menu.