After playing Orvar, the All-Form for some months now I have really like the way it play.
Due my personal preference of playing without infinite combos I have excluded a few strong cards from this deck. What I found interesting was how easy it is to go infinite without even realizing it. I keep finding new combos within my build, resulting in me cutting cards to avoid the combos. I literally ran through the deck last night after realizing any instant that can untap a land will result in me going infinite. After cutting those instants I was convinced there was no more infinite combos. Lo and behold, lest than 24 hours later I found myself cutting another two cards ( Cackling Counterpart and Fated Infatuation ) to avoid infinity.
Here is a list of all the infinite combos I have found (most of the by accident): All these combos assume Orvar, the All-Form plus an Archaeomancer or redundant card in play and acces to multiple targetingn spells, eg. Moonlace.
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Sakashima of a Thousand Faces / Spark Double: Orvar cannot copy himself, and even if he could the legend rule would make sure only one Orvar would be in play anyway. This is probably a good thing because haveing two Orvar's goes infinite really fast. Sakashima or Spark Double does exactly that. With two Orvars and Archaeomancer (or another recursion creature) a trio of one mana targeting spells can be cycling indefinably. Eg: Cast Thermal Flux and Mind Bend targeting the island that was just tapped to cast it. This creates two new islands per targeting spell. Use one island to cast Moonlace on Archaemancer. This creates two Archaeomancers which will return the Thermal Flux and Mind Bend to hand. Use one to target the island and one to target archaemancer which again returns two instants. Infinate mana and infinate Archaeomancers.
I know it seems very convoluted and requires a lot of cards, but keep in mind that Archaeomancer is redundant with Salvager of Secrets, Shipwreck Dowser and Scrivener plus the targeting spells are incredibly redundant. I am running around 20. Some can only target creatures but for this combo to work, only one of the targeting spells need to be able to target a land.
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Twiddle and Scholar of the Ages: Twiddle is just another targeting spell, right? Well, sure, but it "Untaps" the target. Targeting an Island with Twiddle effectively produces two mana at the cost of one. One of the two mana cast Moonlace targeting Scholar of the Ages bringing back Twiddle and Thermal Flux. Twiddle will target Island again. Now the Thermal Flux can target Scholar of the Ages bringing back Moonlace and Twiddle. This creates infinite Scholar of the Ages (but not infinite mana).
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Gilded Lotus and Scholar of the Ages: With only a single Orvar I though I was pretty safe. Oh how naive I was. Targeting Gilded Lotus with Moonlace leaves two blue mana floating in the pool. One of these could be used to cast Mind Bend targeting Scholar of the Ages. This brings back Moonlace and Thermal Flux. There is still one mana left floating in the pool which the loop can be repeated. Tap Gilded Lotus to cast Moonlace targeting the lotus and Thermal Flux targeting the Scholar. This brings back both Moonlace and Mind Bend with another mana floating. This makes both infinite mana and infinite scholars. (Gilded lotus is redundant with High Tide, Caged Sun or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. With a single High Tide or Caged Sun it will only make infinite Scholars))
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Hidden Strings and Gilded Lotus: Okay. There seems to be a issue with Scholar of the Ages. However, there are still infinite combos to be found with only Archaeomancer. This combo case focuses on Hidden Strings. The issue here is that Hidden strings can "untap" and target two permanent at the same time. With a permanent that can tap for 3 or more, this will go infinite with an Archaeomancer and Moonlace. Tap Gilded Lotus (or Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Nyx Lotus) for 3 mana. Use two to cast Hidden Strings, untapping Archaeomancer and Gilded Lotus. The Archaeomancer returns Moonlace which can be cast for the third mana, targeting Archaeomancer, returning Hidden Strings. Repeat for infinite Archaeomancers.
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Fated Infatuation and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: When the targeting spells themselves creates a token in addition to the Orvar trigger, the scenario becomes very similar to the cases with Scholar of the Ages. Instead of having one creature bringing back two cards, here on card will make two archaeomancer which will each bring back a card. An example of this is Fated Infatuation. This will only become an infinite loop if a single permanent can produce 4 mana (3 to cast Fated Infatuation and 1 more to cast a second targeting spell). This is where Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx comes into play. A devotion of 7 is required for the loop to work. Activate Nykthos, float 7 mana. Cast Moonlace targeting Nykthos to get a copy, sacrifice the original which is tapped. Cast Fated Infatuation targeting Archaeomancer. This creates two Archaeomancer which will bring back Moonlace and Mind Bend. Cast Mind Bend targeting archaeomancer to bring back Fated Infatuation. Use the final two mana to activate the Nykthos token and repeat the loop. This creates infinite archaeomancers, and infinite mana as the loop creates more archaeomacers which will increase the devotion. It might actually be possible to start the loop with devotion 5, or even less depending on how much mana is avaibale outside the loop.
Fated Infatuation is redundant with Quasiduplicate, Cackling Counterpart or Essence Flux. With Essence Flux a Gilded Lotus is enough to go infinite.
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Timestream Navigator and Essence Flux: Copying Timestream Navigator seems very powerful. It goes infinite with an archaeomancer and just one of the following, Scholar of the Ages, Cackling Counterpart, Fated Infatuation, Quasiduplicate or Essence Flux. I will use Essence Flux in the explanation. Cast Moonlace on Timestream Navigator to get a copy. Activate the original Timestream Navigator. Cast Essence Flux targeting archaemancer to bring back both Moonlace and Thermal Flux. Next turn. Cast Moonlace on Timestream Navigator and Thermal Flux on archaemancer to bring back Essence Flux. Activate Timestream Navigator and repeat for infinite turns.
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Mind Games/Clockspinning/Whim of Volrath + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: Assuming a devotion of 7 (or more) Nykthos will produce 7 mana at the cost of 2 (+5). For 4 mana (or 3 in the case off Whim of Volrath) Nykthos can be copied with a puybacked speel. Sacrifice the original Nykthos to the legend rule and produce another +5 mana with the new Nykthos. This loop creates infinite mana. With an Archaeomancer this mana can be spend to keep buybacking the targeting spell, but this time we create infinite Archaeomancers and recur any number card in our graveyard, any number of times and casts them infinite times
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Mystic Sanctuary + Twiddle: The different pieces in this combo is are a bid less flexible. With Orvar and Archaeomancer (or another redundant creature) use Twiddle to target Mystic Sanctuary. This will create +1 mana and allow us to put an instant on top of the deck. This needs to be a one mana targeting spell that draw a card, eg. Cerulean Wisps / Twisted Image. Put Cerulean Wisps on top then cast Twisted Image targeting the Archaeomancer. Use the etb to get back Twiddle and draw a card, which is the Cerulean Wisps. Repeat for infinite mana and infinite Archaeomancer.
The take away message is that a synergy can be either card positive (Eg. Copying Scholar of the Ages brings back two cards at the cost of only one) or mana positive (Eg. Copying Gilded Lotus with one mana spells which leaves two mana floating) but if a combination of cards does both at the same time (combining the two exaples) its goes infinite.
Really wanted to run Nyx Lotus, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Gilded Lotus which are all great for mono colored decks and making multiple Gilded Lotuses is a loot of value. To avoid going infinite with these cards I am avoiding all cards that can create multiple recursion triggers: Scholar of the Ages, Cackling Counterpart, Fated Infatuation, Quasiduplicate, Essence Flux.
Conclusion: In essence some cards will result in mana positive loop and some will result in card positive loops. Either one on its own will be powerful, but not infinite. Below is listed the cards in either category. To avoid infinite combos, my list only includes the "mana positive" cards.
The cards on these lists could be swapped around a little. Eg. By cutting Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, all the close spells, Fated Infatuation, Quasiduplicate and Cackling Counterpart does not go infinite anymore. Only Nykthos enables the combo with these cards.
Mana positive cards: Gilded Lotus, Nyx Lotus, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Timestream Navigator, Caged Sun, Twiddle, High Tide, Peregrine Drake, Palinchron, Great Whale.
Card positive cards: Scholar of the Ages, Essence Flux, Hidden Strings, Fated Infatuation, Quasiduplicate, Cackling Counterpart, Panharmonicon, Mind Games, Clockspinning, Whim of Volrath, Strionic Resonator, Mystic Sanctuary.
