Tortoise Format: Challenge #3

[Godder]

Celestial Prism costs 3 to play, and 2 to use, so 5 for each R, plus 6 to Capsize = 16 instead of 10, and 6 to Capsize the Lantern instead of 5... Nice! I prefer Iron Star as well - old school for life . I just used Dragon's Claw because it was easier to calculate (I'm lazy, sue me).

Calculations should look something like this:

Step One (62 turns)
Cast and activate Celestial Prism twice (16) + Test of Endurance (4) + cast Iron Star (2) + Celestial Prism (16) + Obliterate (8) + cast Reito Lantern (2) + activate Lantern 4 times (12) = 60 mana, + gain 1 life (21 life) - win condition in play.

Step Two (48 turns per cycle, 28 cycles required)
After that, cycle to gain one life requires 2 + 16 + 8 + 6 + 2 + 12 = 46 mana = 48 turns to generate.

Step Three (28 turns)
Final cycle only requires 2+16+8 = 26 mana (no need to save anything).

Summing up then, total turns required = 62 + 28 + 1344 = 1434. A solid improvement . An interesting variant to attempt is to replace Obliterate with Soulscour and Iron Star with Ivory Cup...

Another idea for a slow deck that doesn't use upkeep - Searing Touch (requires 100 mana) using Channel... I have no idea if it's viable or not, but if a suitably slow lifegain method can be found, or suitably slow filtering method, it could be an interesting exercise...

[ReAnimator]

My deck on the top of page 5 of this thread doesn't use upkeep at all (except to win with Test of E) and it clocks in at around 5000 turns.  However obliterate seems like a really abusable card if worked around properly. Maybe something like deathcloud or pox coulde be even worse though i dont know how that would work, maybe something that gained you and your opponent life and a non Test win condition. Something like having to cast an enchantment to gain life and having to destroy the enchantment by casting that tranquility with the alternate casting cost of your opp gaining 6 life (forgot the name) dont know just some idea in my head  

[Godder]

Your deck's win was actually 3846 turns, although that still trounces mine .

Obliterate is cool tech, however...  The problems with Pox and Death Cloud is that they take you too far backwards, and the further forward you are, the further back you end up.

Reverent Silence is the card you're looking for, but needs a forest in play to play the ACC. Desolation is a cool enchantment to force into play, but I can't think of many reasons to have to cast it, except maybe Serra's Sanctum. On the plus side of enchantments, Skull of Orm costs more than Reito Lantern to use (combine with Allay somehow?)...