[Deck] Dream Halls [Archive]

Shanghi Knights

09-19-2009, 12:22 AM

I see what your doing here and i like the idea of the bringing in big spells like ultimatums so we can go T2 on t1.5. but the list you have there i can't see it cutting it. why not a shell that exercises stalling?

i think brilliant ultimatum might have a place here as well. same with fact of friction. or even out old friend gifts?

4 brainstorm
3 swords to plowshares
2 mystical tutor
2 vindicates

3 dreamhalls
4 standstill/ancestral vision
4 propoganda
1 humility/moat

2 academy rector
1 progenitus
1 iona

2 wrath of god
4 thoughtseize
1 catastrophe (not sure about it but looks good)

4 cruel ultimatum
3 brilliant ultimatum
1 conflux

2 diving top

4 underground sea
4 tundra
4 poluted delta
3 island
1 plains
4 ancient tomb
1 swamp

it goes for stalling the opponent over strait comboing.

theres no force of will but you might tweak that in. I'd almost rather just go for destroying stuff as they play it to eat up there counter spell if its that type of match up. Propoganda messes with them as they must destroy it, dream halls plus catastrophe for lands and your safe. i wanted to put more big land destruction spell in there but its late and there not coming to mind.

like the guy before said conflux. this would be great for gabbing the comboing spells.

with dream halls, progenitus is just a why not.

Iona isn't out yet but i wager she can shut just about anyone down once she hits the field.

perhaps even us sorin markov?

cruel ultimatum should do them in pretty well. not sure what would be a another good guarenteed finisher, which is why i kinda think sorin would be good after pounding them with cruel ultimatum. before a series cruel Ultimatums they should have weakened life total from fetches, thoughtseizes, forces, and the like, thus making me believe 2 to 3 cruels will do them in or at death's door.

maybe bitter blossom instead of markov would be lighter mana cost and more practical.

brilliant ultimatum is great because u don't know whats gunna flip and you can cast what ever you need for free any how like you want too with dream halls.

I can't tell if its better to standstill or visions but vision would be better to keep card flow coming once you get dream halls out. it really hinges on how were playing the deck.

academy rector is a must. we need our dream halls any why we can get it. if the opponent can't remove it from game it might do some of the weakening that might be needed encase you can't get victory by no being able to get enough cruels to go off.

wrath for killing rector or opposing creatures. maybe disk would have a place for pre-hall situations.

vindicate is necessary destruction as it is two colors and hey its freaken vindicate baby!

mystical tutor slot i'm not so sure about. might be better to put in fact or friction for combo piece hunting and futhering combo once halls is out.

top is always a necessity in the combo deck that has to build up its mana sources to go off. its not like were ritualing into crazy storm counts.

i might be forgetting something but i'll get back to that later i'm writing this half awake.

godryk

09-19-2009, 07:51 AM

Dream Halls loves Conflux and Cruel Ultimatum. It's beatiful how you can cast Cruel Ultimatum any number of times of the same creature (a pity Progenitus isn't able as the bastard shuffles into your library), like, for instance, an Inkwell Leviathan or a Hellkite Overlord.

HPB_Eggo

09-19-2009, 08:00 AM

Seems to me the easiest way to get this to work is to fit the combo into a Landstill shell and then focus on surviving until the 5th or 6th turn when you can cast Dream Halls and win on that turn. I'm not so sure about the rest of the deck, but something along these lines for the combo win seems pretty right to me...

4x Dream Halls
3x Conflux
3x Cruel Ultimatum

Going UBR would allow us to cast the Ultimatum without having Dream Halls in play, so I'm going to try to build it in those colors. Not exactly sure how it will turn out, but it should be interesting, at the very least.

Regardless of how the deck ends up, I think multiple Conflux is a must. It is, essentially, a Meditate that tutors instead of draws. And, of course, you're essentially guaranteed to chain Conflux into another Conflux. In the case of using Cruel Ultimatum as the win-condition, casting it multiple times isn't extremely important, but it does mean you can grab another counterspell if they simply wait for you to attempt to put your win-condition through.

Also, it is important that the deck is at least capable of winning the turn it casts Dream Halls. This means Progenitus and random uber-expensive Planeswalkers are probably out; even though I really want to find a deck where one can reliably cast and use Nicol Bolas, this probably isn't it. Cruel Ultimatum is a good choice, as you only need three to win in the vast majority of cases, they can all reliably cast in one turn if you're using Conflux, they don't rely on the storm mechanic, which is about to pick up some serious hate when Zendikar comes out, and it is in the right colors. I honestly can't think of a strictly better method of winning.

Pastorofmuppets

09-19-2009, 10:41 AM

or, if you want to have spells of all colors, Transguild Courier is a nice engine.

Tacosnape

09-19-2009, 10:52 AM

Instead, why not focus on -playing- spells of all colors?

For example, it's incredibly easy to get Progenitus out with this thing, and as mentioned, you can go infinite and pretty much play your whole deck if you start chaining Confluxes with other draw spells. Conflux can also grab almost any two card combo in existence (Pandeburst comes to mind) along with other copies of Conflux to play them, rendering draw chains somewhat weaker.

There's a ton of good kills here if you can resolve Dream Halls. The trick is finding the one that lets you do it for the least number of wasted deck slots.

Brushwagg

09-19-2009, 11:39 AM

There's a ton of good kills here if you can resolve Dream Halls. The trick is finding the one that lets you do it for the least number of wasted deck slots.

That is true. I based my list off this one.

1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
3 Commandeer
3 Dream Halls
1 Echoing Truth
4 Force of Will
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Intuition
4 Mana Drain
4 Meditate
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Misdirection
4 Mystic Remora
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
3 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 Fire / Ice
2 Flooded Strand
5 Island
3 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Volcanic Island

# 60

Sideboard:

2 Engineered Explosives
2 Fire / Ice
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pithing Needle
1 Pyroclasm
1 Rebuild
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Sower of Temptation

# 15

I know we lose the mana production, but I like the how the deck works. Maybe Niv-Mizzet is worth a look as a secondary kill.

I also think that Thoughtseize/Duress or Chant needs to be some where in the deck, either MD or SB to deal with pesky stuff like Krosan Grip.

deadlock

09-19-2009, 11:39 AM

Do you think its really necessary to play spells like Conflux to make the concept viable at all?

Also take into account that the "pitched" cards go to graveyard, but i dont know if there Flashback cardss that are powerful enough.

Playing that many spells of different colours makes you more likely to dont have smoething to pitch to DH. Therefore i would stay (mostly) blue.

Spells that come to my mind are:
-Ancestral Vision
-Fact or Fiction
maybe Counterspell, Flash Of Insight

Possible accel: Chrome Mox, Ancient Tomb, Show and Tell

Media314r8

09-19-2009, 12:15 PM

Unless you plan on playing something like countersquall or mishra's factory, how do you plan on winning with only 3 cruel ultimatums? It seems like you either want to play four, or something like nicol bolas and one or two, as nicol can win the game really fast and can destroy any pesky permanents that would keep you from winning with 4 ultimatums. (sphere of law, confinement, ect)

godryk

09-19-2009, 12:20 PM

Ancestral Visions and Show and Tell both seem like good options as they serve wether you have Dream Halls on table or not. visions is a decent turn-1 drop in a slow deck that can be played afterwards when you have Dream Halls, so considering this decks aims to get Dream Halls in game in the midgame or sooner, this makes AV in a better topdeck perfect to seek for your bombs.

Show and Tell allows faster Dream Halls (turns 1-2) and lets you put into play things like Progenitus in case you don't get Dream Halls.

I've being toying with this list based in Brushwagg's.

DREAM CONFLUX

4x Brainstorm
4x Ancestral Visions/Thirst for Knowledge/anything that deeps into your library.
3x Merchant Scroll/Mystical Tutor

4x Dream Halls
3x Cruel Ultimatum
1x Conflux
1x Progenitus
1x Empyreal Archangel

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
2x Commandeer
4x Thoughtseize

4x Chrome Mox

4x Ancient Tomb
4x Delta
4x Strand
4x Underground Sea
4x Island
1x Swamp

Anusien

09-19-2009, 12:21 PM

Media314r8

09-19-2009, 01:41 PM

If you have any other damage source in the deck, 3 Cruel Ultimatums should easily let you win. They're at 10 or so, with no hand while you have a full grip.

I posit that the tightest core of cards to win with Dream Halls:
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Sun's Dawn.

My point was: Is it worth it to play other winconditions in the deck when conflux can search for:
conflux x2
1x cruel
1x brainstorm/force
1x thoughtseize/swords (whichever splash)
pitch thoughtseize/swords to cast another con, get:
conflux x1
cruel x2
1x brainstorm/force
1x thoughtseize/swords
repeat until you have 4 cruels with tons of fodder and active forces/thoughseizes, and win on the spot, or use 2 cruels, 1 nicol bolas (once your opponent is hellbent, he should have no problem using his ultimate twice FTW, which allows you to run fewer CUs, and optionally fewer CON)

JeroenC

09-19-2009, 01:53 PM

2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Sun's Dawn.

2 Conflux
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Searing Wind

(Though more Conflux is always useful)

from Cairo

09-19-2009, 01:56 PM

Yea I'd been thinking of how 4 Conflux would work as Media mentions you can chain one to grab the others, as well as a couple Cruels and counter back up, then repeat. The only issue is it ends up taking up a bunch of deck space with cards that don't do anything w/o a Dream Halls. Versus running something like the Blue version where it's fuel cards are Ancestral Visions, Thirst for Knowledge and Fact or Fiction rather than Conflux, so they are totally playable to help dig for you're Dream Halls. Then once you're casting them for free you can just chain through your deck into w/e the win is.

I also noticed with the mention of Progenitus + Coalition Victory, wouldn't Progenitus + Time Stretch be better, since it doesn't require a Dual Land set up? I guess it doesn't guarantee a win against weird decks that gain a ton of life, if you're running Cruels too though, they should be within reach of two Progenitus swings after you've combo'd off.

lorddotm

09-19-2009, 02:25 PM

2 Conflux
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Searing Wind

(Though more Conflux is always useful)

This seems like the best non Tendrils win con.

The entire combo doesn't take up much space.

On a side note, Academy Rector and Diabolic Intent work extremely well together in a deck like this.

Brushwagg

09-19-2009, 03:31 PM

1x Niv-Mizzet

4x Brainstorm
4x Meditate
3x Cruel Ultimatum
3x Mystical Tutor

3x Dream Halls

4x Force of Will
4x Counterspell
4x Thoughtseize
3x Commandeer/Shackels/Threads/Echoing Truth
1x Recall

4x Chrome Mox
4x Ancient Tomb
2x City of Traitors
4x Delta
2x Strand
5x Island
3x Sea
2x Volcanic

godryk

09-19-2009, 04:12 PM

2 Conflux
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Searing Wind

(Though more Conflux is always useful)

IDK, all these spells are completely unplayable without Dream Halls, but I think that Cruel Ultimatum is better on his own, in case you can't get crazy with Conflux, as it's still the best card to play of Fream Halls. Probably the best option is the one Media suggested.

Pulp_Fiction

09-19-2009, 05:19 PM

Has anyone considered Enduring Ideal/Academy Rector plan? Everything looks very focused on Dream Halls which is cool, but the decks have no other outs and just play a bunch of cards it would REALLY suck to draw. Maybe even on Ideal but these decks look like the really need Academy Rector and Cabal Therapy in them.

MEATROCKET

09-19-2009, 05:21 PM

Grozoth + a bunch of cmc=9 spells. Four Searing Winds wins the game, but why do that when you can fill your hand with a bunch of other fun crap? :laugh:

gamegeek2

09-19-2009, 06:34 PM

I'm surprised by the lack of Saprazaan Skerry.

Anusien

09-19-2009, 08:00 PM

Some of those win condition stacks get awkward if the opponent can StP their own guy. That's why I shied away from Blazing Wind.

Here's my initial list, which I think addresses a lot of concerns people have about scooping if you don't find Dream Halls.

// Lands
3 Ancient Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Swamp
6 Island
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

// Creatures
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Sower of Temptation

// Spells
2 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Conflux
4 Dream Halls
4 Grim Tutor
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
4 Ponder
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 All Suns' Dawn
4 Brainstorm

Jade

09-19-2009, 09:06 PM

Anusien, your list looks quite good, this might be playable. I think it could use a tad more disruption / a few more counters, but this will be my starting point for some testing. Actually I already dismissed dream halls as a competitive strategy, but this looks like I'd have a good game against CounterTop and is therefore testworthy imo.

Jeff Kruchkow

09-19-2009, 09:32 PM

Jade

09-19-2009, 10:10 PM

4 Grim Tutor?? Really? Seems worse than other stuff without dark rit.

Actually thats awesome. you don't need to accelerate into it, because you'll get dream halls with it most of the time. if not, you play it with a dream halls in play and that means you'll get conflux with it (which is win obviously). 3 could be a better number, but it fits perfectly into the deck.

Mr.C

09-19-2009, 10:13 PM

Could Grim be replaced with Beseech the Queen? It's not exactly a card that everyone has...

from Cairo

09-19-2009, 10:54 PM

Could Grim be replaced with Beseech the Queen?

Not really since the upside to Grim is you can tutor on turn 3-4 (w/ 3-4 land in play) for a cmc 5 card, which clearly Beseech cannot do.

Brainspoil could work, as a 3cc tutor for cmc 5 cards cause it has Transmute. This allows you to to pull up Dream Halls or Force of Will. It obviously is weaker and less flexible because it cannot pull up Conflux or Tarmogoyf, or something else you may need, but it's closer to what you're looking for than Beseech the Queen is.

Diabolic Tutor is another option again, not as good as Grim Tutor, since it costs 1 more mana, but it still allows you to curve out with a 4cc tutor effect into a 5cc Dream Halls. It has the same flexibility as Grim of being able to tutor up anything in the deck.

I would play test those two if looking for a Grim Tutor substitute.

HPB_Eggo

09-20-2009, 07:08 AM

4x Polluted Delta
4x Flooded Strand
2x Tundra
2x Underground Sea
2x Volcanic Island
2x Island
1x Swamp
1x Plains
4x Mishra's Factory

4x Standstill
4x Force of Will
3x Counterspell
3x Spell Snare
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Firespout

2x Academy Rector
3x Sensei's Divining Top
3x Brainstorm

4x Dream Halls
3x Cruel Ultimatum
2x Conflux
1x Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

SB:
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Pyroblast
2x Academy Rector
2x Firespout
3x Relic of Progenitus
3x Engineered Plague
3x Counterbalance

The list I'm testing, for discussion purposes. Obviously quite different from the one proposed by Anusien in that I started with a Landstill list. It's been doing quite well for me, as it functionally mimics Landstill just long enough to drop Dream Halls, at which point it wins; it can be somewhat difficult to do so without Dream Halls, but the deck is very good at stalling the game to five lands, and the two Academy Rectors, three SDT, three Brainstorm, and 4 Standstill are, in most cases, very good at finding Dream Halls by that point as well. Just as importantly, the deck is also fully capable of stalling the game out to seven or eight lands, at which point it can actually cast that Cruel Ultimatum or Nicol Bolas that has been in your hand all game.

The SB is there either to board in certain cards that are really good against certain matchups, i.e. Firespout and Academy Rector, to beat Tribal with E. Plague, or to beat combo with Relic and Counterbalance. The blasts are there for Merfolk, where you would side out all 4 Standstill for 2 Firespout and both blasts, and, to a lesser degree, heavy control decks like Landstill.

godryk

09-20-2009, 07:54 AM

@HPB_Eggo: That's a nice list. After a few tests I've noticed that this deck wants to go controllish rather than being a straight-combo version (Chrome Mox, Tutors), which ends up being pretty weak if you don't assemble your combo pieces. I think the 4th Brainstorm is mandatory.

A aggro-controll shell like the posted by Anusien above could work, sounds nice in theory, as I found that the deck needs to drop something in the first few turns, and Tarmogoyf serves both as a wall and as a finisher, as we all know... but I don't know, I've tested it a bit and I felt I'd rather play Baseruption or something similar. However, the card I liked the most when briefly testing the list was Ponder, awesome coupled with Brainstorm to get your answers.

HPB_Eggo

09-20-2009, 09:28 AM

I think the 4th Brainstorm is mandatory.

I would absolutely love to be able to fit the fourth Brainstorm, and some number of Ponder. However, I'm really not sure at all what could be cut from the deck. As it is, the necessary pieces for the Dream Halls win takes up just enough space that it is difficult to fit all the control elements the deck needs.

Luckily, SDT helps make up for the lack of the fourth Brainstorm in most cases. The only case where I've really wanted Brainstorm instead of Top is when I've drawn into multiple Dream Halls and don't have a FoW to pitch them with. The eight fetches also help reduce the importance of Ponder, as they serve the same purpose of shuffling away cards you don't want, although, admittedly, Ponder is much better at it than fetches are.

A aggro-controll shell like the posted by Anusien above could work, sounds nice in theory, as I found that the deck needs to drop something in the first few turns, and Tarmogoyf serves both as a wall and as a finisher, as we all know

There's really two ways to go with the deck. You can go for a strong early-game with Dream Halls to end the game before you run out of gas, with the advantage being you can count on winning some games without Dream Halls. Then you can go for something like I have, where your first few turns are spent stalling out to the point where you can play Dream Halls and win.

I'm not sure which is better overall, but I know the first method is probably better against absurdly fast aggro, and the second method is definitely better against combo, and probably better against control decks as well.

Brushwagg

09-20-2009, 12:23 PM

I'm pretty sure Conflux is not needed. It depends on Dream Halls on Dream Halls. I think the deck really should limit the number of cards that depend on Dream Halls.

Also the deck needs some way of being able to take out your opponent's Krosan Grip. That really is the only form of enchantment hate that needs to be dealt with.

fallenphoenix

09-20-2009, 12:47 PM

Well, if you get Dreamhalls out you're still not loosing priority. So you can still cast that Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum in your hand, before they Grip.
Then, if they have Grip in response, you just have to tutor up another one as soon as Conflux resolves, plus 4 other cards. If they don't grip immediatly, things just get worse for them, because you can just chain another spell before they get priority.

But I agree that Grip is one of the more prevalent problems the deck has to answer. So are Teeg and Canonist, even Pridemage might hurt a bit.

Definitly one of the more "fun"-combos out there, but unless enchantment hate goes out of fashion, which (http://magiccards.info/tp/en/236.html) is (http://magiccards.info/dk/en/57.html) doubtful (http://magiccards.info/cs/en/31.html), I think the deck isn't going to cause much of an uproar.

Additionally, to add some real content:

You have got to keep in mind, that once Dreamhalls hits, your opponent has a bunch of pitch-spells to disrupt you.
The only good way to keep your opponent from using those cards excessively is to answer them before Dreamhalls etbf, via discard.
That allows for one of the most ridiculuos ways of getting enchantments into play while getting rid of your opponents hand:
Cabal Therapy + Academy Rector.
Add some discard and additional sac-outlets et voila.

"A rough draft"

2 Dream Halls
1 Form of the Dragon

4 Academy Rector

1 Progenitus
1 Maelstorm Archangel

3 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn

4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Duress
3 Thoughtseize

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm

3 Innocent Blood

3 Sac-Lands (Diamond Valley, High Market..)
17 Lands that produce some colored mana

Angel is there to get recursive Ultimatum, Progenitus as an alternate win-con and so is Form of the Dragon.

You can also bypass Gaddock Teeg with Rector, which is a nice sideeffect.

Thoughts?

Anusien

09-20-2009, 03:18 PM

The only way Dream Halls is playable is it doesn't pack to Counterbalance. Otherwise, you should just run Tendrils. Consequently you have to minimize your cards that cost 0-2. That's why I went for Ancient Tomb over Chrome Mox or Dark Ritual.

The whole goal of Dream Halls in my build is to go turn 3 Grim Tutor for Conflux/Dream Halls/Ancient Tomb, turn 4 Dream Halls and win. There are some games where the draws just don't come together and you end up in a BrassMan style Tarmogoyf game.

Here's the thing; if Dream Halls resolves, you basically only have to worry about actual copies of the card Counterspell they have in their hand. Any other disruption they would have used to stop Dream Halls from resolving (or it will wipe them out to cast). As long as you just never pass the turn with Dream Halls in play and them with cards in hand, you're fine. The biggest risk is probably that they respond to Conflux with Krosan Grip on Dream Halls, but you can always just tutor up another Dream Halls and go again.

einhorn303

09-20-2009, 08:01 PM

I've been leaning towards a simpler pure combo mono-U version that harkens back to the original "TurboZvi."

This was a T2 deck, so obviously now it can be improved. I am not an incredibly skilled deckbuilder or ProTour player, but the rough base version I've been working on so far is:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island

4 Ancient Tomb
3 Crystal Vein
3 Svyelunite Temple

4 Lotus Petal
1 Jeweled Amulet

4 Dream Halls

1 Serum Visions
4 Meditate
4 Pact of Negation
3 Concentrate
4 Dream Halls
4 Ponder
4 Opportunity
4 Brainstorm
2 Mana Severance
4 Tidings

1 Brain Freeze

As you can see, there are lots of obvious improvements (Sift/Inspiration -> Concentrate, Impulse -> Brainstorm/Ponder, Meditates tripled) which improve it. The play strategy is simple: accelerate into a 3rd turn Dream Halls, finding it via deep Ponder digging and Brainstorm/Fetchland abuse. Why might this style of deck be better than traditional Solidarity?

1. With Solidarity, you need a High Tide and a Reset to go off with. With TurboZvi, all you need is a Dream Halls. There's more redundancy. Although, you lose the ability to tutor with Mystical Tutor.
2. There's much less danger of fizzling out. 20% of the cards in your deck have the words "draw four cards" in the textbox. Chances are you'll draw a Mana Severence in your first 16 cards going off Dream Halls to thin all (dead) lands from your deck, and after that, it's nothing but smooth sailing. You should be able to draw and play every card in your deck you'd like to without issue. One could also put in two Gaea's Blessings, as in the original, for infinite deck go-throughs.
3. It's far easier to play than Solidarity. With Solidarity, going through an entire tournament can be a mentally taxing marathon that only the best could handle. TurboZvi is much simpler. You don't have to keep track of your manapool at all; while going off, the deck's only resource is cards in hand.
4. You are not beholden to High Tide, so you have way more options for acceleration. You can play lands that aren't Islands. With all the fetchlands, you could even splash via Volcanic Island to board in Red Elemental Blast's and Pyroblast's to protect your combo from counters (on the cheap) vs. decks with Blue.
5. If you don't play Storm kill and stick with the Cruel Ultimatum kill, it's immune to the new Zendikar blue anti-Storm trap. The deck plays one spell after another, letting each resolve one at a time...there shouldn't ever be more than one spell on the stack while going off.

To be more Stable, the deck could play as a combo-control that plays like MUC until it draws it's Dream Halls and then plays it. Although one wouldn't want to dilute the core of the combo engine too much.

Other options:

- Replace 1x maindeck Brain Freeze with Cunning Wish for a Brain Freeze in the sideboard.
- Splash black for Dark Ritual accel, Duress effects, and possibly Dark Tendrils as kill. I'm really liking the idea of the black splash.
- Use Conflux (x1) and Cruel Ultimatum (x4) as the kill. I like the idea of Conflux as a Concentrate that automatically gets three more Concentrates, but it might be less consistent than just plain Opportunity/Meditate/Tidings. Also, doesn't have the ability of hardcasting Concentrate to desperately dig for the Dream Halls. Also, if you take out the Brain Freeze and use that as your condition, it's easier to be locked out of the game with an opponent's "First turn, new Zendikar uncommon dual lands that give you 1 life, gg." Plus, if the last copy of Ultimatum is within the last five cards of your deck, it's an autodraw. The Conflux/Ultimatum engine could be used just for draw, though, and not as the only win condition. This might work well with the Black splash, giving those black cards a lesser chance of being stuck as junk while going off.
- Put in Street Wraith x4 for greater consistency. With the Ancient Tombs, things might be getting grim against extremely fast aggro.
- Return to High Tide accel, possibly supplemented by Lotus Petal and Jeweled Amulet, in order to use Back to Basics as a metagame card.
- Replace Force of Will with Pact of Negation.

Shanghi Knights

09-20-2009, 10:43 PM

i made some changes to my earlier build.

2 academy rector
3 vendilion clique
1 progenitus

4 cabal therapy
4 vindicate
4 ancestral vision
2 wrath of god

4 brainstorm
2 fact or fiction
2 enlightened tutor

1 humility
3 dream halls

4 cruel ultimatum
2 brilliant ultimatum

3 diving top
4 lotus pedal

4 underground sea
4 tundra
3 island
4 polluted delta
2 flooded strand
1 swamp
1 plains

I cut a few brilliant ultimatums I cut swords as well, it just seems better side being sided in. I upped the vindicates, i put in 2 facts for large card advantage before or into the dream hall comboing. I put vendilion clique in because it makes a nice discard effect and can get in for a little damage needed encase u can't pull off all 4 cruels. Second i put in cabal therapy to clear the way for comboing. plus academy rector or vendilion for flashing it back is nice.

the lotus pedals should speed up the mana race. (if any)

I'm sticking with ancestral vision as its nice either before dream halls is on the table or after dream halls hits.

I'm still up in the air on catastrophe, with the lotus pedals in the deck it actaully might be more plausible to running it for before dream halls lands. still not sure about it, it costs heavy but does do nice things my build wants to do.

I left progenitus in for alt kill.

Morningstar

09-22-2009, 06:22 AM

Nucklavee works wonders with Cruel Ultimatum.

You can pitch it to cast Ultimatum, then get it back with Ultimatum, cast it (with a blue instant preferably) to get back Ultimatum and a blue instant and then recast Ultimatum pitching the blue instant.

If you have a sacrifice outlet, like say, Cabal Therapy, you can get another Ultimatum out of it (or infinite Ultimatums with a permanent sacrifice outlet).

Shanghi Knights

09-22-2009, 11:56 PM

Nucklavee might be better in my brilliant ultimatum slot. Gunna need to consider that for testing too.

RogueMTG

09-23-2009, 12:24 PM

Has anyone given any thought to using Painter's Servant with Dream Halls? Pitching lands for spells seems awesome.

Brushwagg

09-23-2009, 07:32 PM

Has anyone given any thought to using Painter's Servant with Dream Halls? Pitching lands for spells seems awesome.

Seems interesting. You would have to squeeze in a Grindstone, for the a different combo win though.

Shanghi Knights

09-23-2009, 10:25 PM

only thing with painter servant out is he is a magnet for permanent hate, no guarantee he will survive to see dream halls come out alongside him. problem with puting a cheaper combo in along side a mana heavy combo like dream halls is you may often end up using the lighter mana combo more frequently then your in a position to think what's the point of this other combo i have in here?

Vacrix

09-24-2009, 01:17 AM

why did everyone drop einhorn303's build? clearly he is going in the right direction.
black splash sounds good but then you are losing the colored cards you want to keep going. when you wind up drawing into 4 black cards and can't keep going you are done. sticking to blue seems better but that doesnt mean you can't run other U/x cards for protection. pact of negation is pretty effective protection though i must say. force seems meh cause you only want to play it while you are going off and once dream halls comes down you are good. you might want to consider running a bounce spell in the MD like echoing truth so that you can avoid permanent based hate like true believer or something. seems unnecessary though. sensei's diving top seems to work nicely with fetch lands while you filter through your deck for dream halls but idk where to put them, there isnt much room.

this version is far more resistent to hate than the other versions being suggested.

Maveric78f

09-24-2009, 04:22 AM

Really ? It folds to discard and cannonist when the Ultimatum build, can take advantage on the board with a single resolved spell.

caenel

09-24-2009, 05:00 AM

I agree with Vacrix, I kind of like eunhorn's mono-U build.
The view of just looking at this deck like a combo deck to win on T3 looks kind of sexy. I just believe that it needs more counters to protect the combo (about 7 should be right with all the draw provided).

Here is my take on the deck (which is untested atm, but will be tested soon):

Mana:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Svyelunite Temple
3 Crystal Vein
4 Lotus Petal
23

The motor:
4 Dream Halls
27

Protection
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
34

In search of the motor:
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
41

When things kick into gear:
4 Meditate
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
52

In case of emergency:
2 Echoing Truth
54

Finish it off:
4 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Nucklavee
60

The main goal here would be to power out a Dream Halls as early as possible (prefferably by turn 3), backed up by protection spell (Pact or Force). Then just use your draw 4 spells to draw into more draw spells, Ultimatums and Nucklavee's. Then just Ultimatum the opponent to death.
Once a Dream Halls sticks and you can fire off a couple of draw spells, you should have all the Pacts and Forces you need to protect the Halls.

Warning: One little warning should be made. A clever opponent can try and kill you with your own Pact. If they try to counter the Dream Halls, you counter the counter with Pact and they let the Halls resolve, they can respond to your first draw spell with a Krosan Grip on the Halls. Better make sure you can manage the 5 mana for the Grip on the next turn or you'll be dead.

Card explanation:

4 Flooded Strand, 3 Polluted Delta:
7 fetchlands to make sure you can fetch one of the 3 islands in the deck. I think 7 is more than sufficient, since you won't be using more than 2 of them in any given game.

3 Island
We need something to fetch now, don't we.

4 Ancient Tomb, 3 Crystal Vein, 2 Svyelunite Temple
Acceleration, we need it if we want to ensure a turn 3 cast of Dream Halls. 4 Ancient Tomb are logical, the Crystal Veins I took from eunhorn's build. They can be 2 mana when needed, one guaranteed mana for sure. This spot might change to 3 City of Traitors, although without Crucible of Worlds, this might be a liability. The Svyelunite Temples in eunhorn's build seemed like a great idea to ensure UU for the Halls, but I think 2 is enough (because of the 3 Islands and 4 Petals already in there). Coming into play tapped really is a big disadvantage.

4 Lotus Petal
Acceleration and color fixing. This is a debatable spot too. I'm going to test this and Mox Diamond. The Diamond has the big advantage of staying in play (thus giving you mana to cast that second Halls if the first one gets blown up or paying for that Pact cost if needed). With 19 lands in the deck, it might be hard to reliable drop though, you do not want to throw away too many double mana lands this way. On the other hand, you have some excess fetchlands...

4 Dream Halls
Duh, the card that makes this deck tick. You want one on the first 3 turns, so 4 is a must.

4 Pact of Negation, 3 Force of Will
Protection for your Halls. And only for your Halls. Do not waste these on other spells, unless you really really really have to. Even Progenitus on the board does not matter if you can combo out next turn, keep it to protect the Halls.

4 Brainstorm, 3 Ponder
Early game digging for your Dream Halls. Together with an abundance of fetchlands, these become digging machines. They should find a Dream Halls early enough. Once you have the Halls, they become perfect pitch cards for your uber draw spells.

4 Meditate, 4 Opportunity, 3 Tidings
11 draw 4's should ensure that you can keep going when the Dream Halls hits the table. These coupled with Cruel Ultimatum draws enough cards to almost guarantee more card-draw after playing one.

2 Echoing Truth
I hate just having cards hit the table against which I just have to scoop. Enter Echoing Truth. Once you start drawing your entire deck, you should have no problem finding one of these to bounce that annoying True Believer or Solitary Confinement. And you will have one of your counters to make sure this one gets through.

4 Cruel Ultimatum
For me, this stays the best kill for this deck. It denies the opponent of possible anoying cards by making them discard, it can get rid of annoying critters on the field and it draws you cards to continue comboing. Chosen over Brainfreeze here because of the new storm hate that is coming in Zendikar.

2 Nucklavee
I hate it when the opponent gains 1 life and I cannot kill him anymore. You cannot go infinite in this deck with him, but he can ensure you have virtually 6 Cruel Ultimatums to cast, which should kill most opponents by the time this deck goes to combo mode. It doubles as draw, since it can return a draw-4 for you to keep on comboing.

There you have it, my take on the deck for now. I would try this deck in a Counterbalance heavy meta, just because most of your deck just laughs at Counterbalance (unless they put a Force of Will on top, of course). If the deck proves to be consistent, I'm pretty sure you could outrace aggro decks too, but you'll need a good mulligan strategy.
I have not thought of sideboarding option yet, but I can see Chalice of the Void being good in the aggro and storm combo matchup.

Thanks for staying with me the entire post :wink:
Comments and improvements are largely appreciated.

sephorusFR

09-24-2009, 08:05 AM

Why not playing a blue shell with Show&Tell, Ancestral Vision , lots of coutnerspell (8-10) and drawer liek FoF or Gifts and play a tight combo pack ?

Also, why no love for the blue mercadia 2x mana land ?

caenel

09-24-2009, 08:21 AM

Also, why no love for the blue mercadia 2x mana land ?
True, Saprazzan Skerry looks like it could topple Svyelunite Temple, I'll try 2 Skerry in testing.

Why not playing a blue shell with Show&Tell, Ancestral Vision , lots of coutnerspell (8-10) and drawer liek FoF or Gifts and play a tight combo pack ?
Easy answer here: I really would like to try to play this deck like a dedicated combo deck instead of a control deck (like Planeswalkers.dec) with a combo finish. Which one is stronger/more viable? I don't know, probably the control deck, since lesser tuned control decks normally win from lesser tuned combo decks, but I'd still like to give a pure combo version a shot.

HPB_Eggo

09-24-2009, 08:49 AM

Moczoc

09-24-2009, 11:03 AM

I don't have a complete list yet, but concerning alternate wins I would start with:

4 Dream Halls
4 Show & Tell
4 Progenitus
1 Pandemonium

the result is that you can drop Halls or Prog. with Show & Tell to win the game while 2 Prog. + Pandemonium is the normal kill with Dream Halls.

Nidd

09-24-2009, 11:14 AM

godryk

09-24-2009, 02:37 PM

I found the monoblue version too weak and kind of contradictory. I mean, they're going for a quicki win with all this acceleration and all this draw4's, but whith no tutors other than Brainstorm and Ponder you are going to either mulligan too agressively or fizzle too often. IDK.

I like the Moczoc package of Show and Tell, Dream Halls and Progenitus. I'm reconsidering Progenitus as it's a strong card that can end the game by himself most of time.

Maveric78f

09-24-2009, 06:29 PM

The problem with the progs is that they don't kill in the turn, meaning that you can't play pact anymore. And that's a big trouble!

I played the monoblue list (with no bounce MD but 1*ponder and 1*FoW in addition). I found it very strong. The Sb could the following one :

4*propaganda (to buy time against icho and aggro)
4*divert/misdi (to protect your spells against discard and heavy counterspells)
3*rushing river
2*echoing truth
2*rebuild (trinisphere is what hurts the most, but sometimes I wonder if annul would not be a good strategy in these MUs)

Brushwagg

09-24-2009, 09:48 PM

One little warning should be made. A clever opponent can try and kill you with your own Pact. If they try to counter the Dream Halls, you counter the counter with Pact and they let the Halls resolve, they can respond to your first draw spell with a Krosan Grip on the Halls. Better make sure you can manage the 5 mana for the Grip on the next turn or you'll be dead.

I'm not sure why you would just give in to Grip. It's really not that hard to include Thoughtseize/Duress or Chant.

I hope to get some testing in this weekend to see what works and what doesn't. I like the idea of Pact. It's a free counterspell, but only good for the turn your going off.

Vacrix

09-25-2009, 02:39 AM

My main problem with the mono-U build is that it it lacks any sort of alternate win, i.e. one that doesn't rely on Dream Halls. It also lacks any way to ensure the win when you cast Dream Halls; it's wholly possible you're thinking that Meditate in your get you into another draw spell and it doesn't. Conflux does not have that problem.

your protection doesnt protect you as well as in the mono-U version. think about this. you are casting dream halls to win and then conflux. either of those can be countered, and the opponent can play all his counters for like FoW. so all they have to do is save one 'force' for either piece and you are done, and you need to find 2 pieces to go off while mono-U needs 1, which makes you marginally slower. you dont have a back up win condition unless you resolve dream halls. dream halls IS your win condition. and it can be countered, vindicated, discarded, and destroyed just as it can in mono-U.
the reason that mono-U has better protection is that it just needs to protect dream halls coming down, after that its clear sailing unless you run into stifle, in which case you will have already drawn your entire deck and been able to counter stifle with a pact of negation. nobody is going to let dream halls fall and counter the draw spells. so this version just needs more protection. 7 counter magic looks like the right number.

Also, you need to drop Pact of Negation. I may not think mono-U is the way to go, but if it is, Pact of Negation certainly is not. Like I said, there is no guarantee you will win when you cast Dream Halls, so you need to play protection that doesn't make you lose.

how is there not a guarenteed win? if you resolve dream halls then you win. thats the idea. pact is only responsible for protecting you from getting your ass kicked by countermagic or enchantment removal. in game 1, not everyone is running chalice at 1, trinisphere, or krosan grip. so you lose to stax and stompy game 1. thats not a reason to drop pact. and when you draw 4 its pretty convient not having to pitch a card for FoW to counter the opponents spell.

Saprazzan Skerry fits in here brilliantly. you shouldnt need to use it more than twice anyway.

4 Cruel Ultimatum
For me, this stays the best kill for this deck. It denies the opponent of possible anoying cards by making them discard, it can get rid of annoying critters on the field and it draws you cards to continue comboing. Chosen over Brainfreeze here because of the new storm hate that is coming in Zendikar.

2 Nucklavee
I hate it when the opponent gains 1 life and I cannot kill him anymore. You cannot go infinite in this deck with him, but he can ensure you have virtually 6 Cruel Ultimatums to cast, which should kill most opponents by the time this deck goes to combo mode. It doubles as draw, since it can return a draw-4 for you to keep on comboing.

you are wasting space with 6 cards for your win con when you can just run 1 or 2 or 3. like:
1 win con:
1 brain freeze

2 win cons:
1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot (use with lotus petal)

or the probably the better way to go for 2 different win cons would be:

1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot
1 nucklavee (you can play this to get back brain freeze or discard it to play grapeshot)

for those of you who are concerned about 1 win con, that would solve the problem nicely.

another idea i had for a kill allows you to go infinite, but its weird and im not sure how to build it. you need this:

Paradigm Shift 1U
Sorcery
Exile all cards from your library. Then shuffle your graveyard into your library.

the idea would be that once you get a win con (cunning wish (for brain freeze), brain freeze, grapeshot, etc) in your grave along with some other draw spells, while you have dream halls out, you can play this, and then draw into whats in your grave, and as long as you have the right amount of stuff in your grave, and then play a draw4, you will draw infinitely and then win. its a roundabout way to do the same thing but it could be better under the right conditions.

another approach to this deck would be to run a 4 psychatog, and once you go off, you can either play them, which is extremely deadly with a decently sized grave, and then run wonder too so that you can discard it and then aggro can't block, and if you wind up drawing your entire deck you can instead use them as discard targets for tendrils. they pitch for both colors so they fit in nicely and if you are stuck and cant draw any more, than its not a bad drop, especially if you already have wonder in the grave and a huge grave. otherwise, they can just be pitch spells so you can keep drawing. black also allows for additional protection via discard, and a possible control like build which could run confidant + top + counterbalance (possibly a transformable sb)

EDIT:
Black splash allows more draw4 spells via Infernal Contract and Cruel Bargain.

Rico Suave

09-25-2009, 03:29 AM

Firstly, we need to establish the best win condition for Dream Halls. There are three goals to accomplish with our win condition; we want it to win without delay, we want it to be stable, and we want it to take up as little room as possible so we aren't swamped with cards that are useless outside of Dream Halls being in play.

To best accomplish those 3 ends, the best win conditions appear to be:

-2 Cruel Ultimatum
-2 Conflux
-1 All Suns' Dawn

This combo wins as soon as Dream Halls is in play assuming you have Conflux in hand. It will always win once Dream Halls is in play, in the sense you do not have to fear stalling out like you would face with a raw card drawing approach. Furthermore what separates these win conditions from the rest of the pack is how compact they are. You only have 5 dead cards and one could argue that All Suns' Dawn can be hard-cast with the same ease that Dream Halls can.

This means you can count on winning once Dream Halls is in play yet still have as many open slots in your deck as possible to make sure you actually get Dream Halls into play.

To support All Suns' Dawn there is a drawback because we have to run at least one other green card to pitch and cast it under Dream Halls.

The first natural response would be to run Tarmogoyf, however this deck is fast enough that it does not need blocking against aggro. In fact Tarmogoyf doesn't actually do anything the deck needs (disrupt, draw/search, accelerate) and thus its presence is questionable despite the card's power level.

There is another option in green however. Birds of Paradise are amazing in this deck and good enough in and of itself to warrant green even without the color requirement for All Suns' Dawn. Birds help accelerate your Dream Halls, they provide color fixing for any problematic cards (such as Grim Tutor), they help against land destruction or mana denial strategies, and they also enable the deck to run the most compact and stable win cards as previously mentioned. It is gravy that they set up All Suns' Dawn to allow us to streamline the combo.

Furthermore green offers a tremendous SB option in Xantid Swarm, and to a lesser degree excellent removal such as Pernicious Deed or good artifact/enchant spot removal.

On a different note the ultimate problem with lands as acceleration, with things such as Svyelunite Temple and Crystal Vein, is that they are just that - lands. They are limited by the one-land-per-turn rule at best, and are inconsistent or kill themselves off at worst. Some acceleration in your lands is good, thus making Ancient Tomb excellent, but having all your acceleration come from lands will lead to problems. Remember you still need to cast spells turns 2-4 before Dream Halls comes into play, and having lands that die off quickly or come into play tapped are going to limit your tempo and consequently slow your expected clock.

caenel

09-25-2009, 05:19 AM

Alright, having read all the comments and suggestions I have come up with a version I will be taking for a good spin. Be warned, I'm still believing in the mono-U combo version. Even more after reading Vacrix reply.

4 Cruel Ultimatum
For me, this stays the best kill for this deck. It denies the opponent of possible anoying cards by making them discard, it can get rid of annoying critters on the field and it draws you cards to continue comboing. Chosen over Brainfreeze here because of the new storm hate that is coming in Zendikar.

2 Nucklavee
I hate it when the opponent gains 1 life and I cannot kill him anymore. You cannot go infinite in this deck with him, but he can ensure you have virtually 6 Cruel Ultimatums to cast, which should kill most opponents by the time this deck goes to combo mode. It doubles as draw, since it can return a draw-4 for you to keep on comboing.
you are wasting space with 6 cards for your win con when you can just run 1 or 2 or 3. like:
1 win con:
1 brain freeze

2 win cons:
1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot (use with lotus petal)

or the probably the better way to go for 2 different win cons would be:

1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot
1 nucklavee (you can play this to get back brain freeze or discard it to play grapeshot)
I do however aggree with Vacrix that the actual kill should be a lot tighter (6 cards is too much, although one might argue that Cruel Ultimatum functions as a draw spell too).

Here is the list I'm testing atm:

Mana:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Saprazzan Skerry
3 City of Traitors
4 Lotus Petal
3 Chrome Mox
24

The motor:
4 Dream Halls
28

Protection:
3 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
35

In search of the motor:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
43

When things kick into gear:
4 Meditate
4 Opportunity
4 Tidings
55

In case of emergency:
1 Echoing Truth
56

Finish it off:
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Brainfreeze
1 Grapeshot
60

Alright, the changes:
-2 Polluted Delta

With only 3 lands to fetch and 4 Brainstorms for shuffle effects, I'm starting to believe that 7 fetchlands are overdoing it. 5 might be a more appropriate number. This leaves some space for additional acceleration.

+3 City of Traitors / -3 Crystal Vein

When played right, City at least nets you 4 mana (over 2 turns). Crystal Vein only adds 3 (over 2 turns). This might prove very important if you happen to have to recast a Dream Halls or pay the Pact of Negation upkeep (which should never happen, but you never know).

+3 Chrome Mox

On a different note the ultimate problem with lands as acceleration, with things such as Svyelunite Temple and Crystal Vein, is that they are just that - lands. They are limited by the one-land-per-turn rule at best, and are inconsistent or kill themselves off at worst. Some acceleration in your lands is good, thus making Ancient Tomb excellent, but having all your acceleration come from lands will lead to problems. Remember you still need to cast spells turns 2-4 before Dream Halls comes into play, and having lands that die off quickly or come into play tapped are going to limit your tempo and consequently slow your expected clock.
Completely true. Therefor the reduction in lands (-2 fetchland) and the addition of 3 Moxen. You have more than enough spells to imprint here, so this should not be a problem. With 7 non-land accelerants and 9 dual mana lands, a T3 Dream Halls should be a lot more realistic.

-1 Pact of Negation / +1 Force of Will

The logic of this choice took a while to hit me over the head. Why not play 4 Forces? These guys act the same under Dream Halls as without (with the minor difference of the lifeloss). Pact should only be needed to make sure Dream Halls sticks and while comboing under Dream Halls, Force can be used to stop that T2 Gaddok Teeg/Cannonist if needed

+1 Ponder

I opted to go for a full set of Brainstorm/Ponder to maximize my chances to find a Dream Halls. Adding one Ponder also adds one extra shuffle effect to compensate for the 2 lost ones from the fetchlands.

+1 Tidings

I also chose to play a full set of Tidings. With the loss of some Cruel Ultimatums, you lose some draw effects. I feel that 14-15 raw draw effects are needed to combo reliably. I dropped 2 draw-3's (Cruel Ultimatum) and added one draw-4 in the extra Tidings.

-2 Cruel Ultimatum / -2 Nucklavee / +1 Brainfreeze / +1 Grapeshot

A more compact kill. 1 Brainfreeze for the card-run kill and 1 Grapeshot for the damage kill. I kept 2 Cruel Ultimatum in the deck because it might sometimes be hard to cast 19 spells before that Grapeshot (if the opponent is still at 19, that is). 2 Cruel Ultimatums in the deck function as draw spells that make the required storm count for Grapeshot -10 (which is a big deal). I'm not that troubles about the new anti-storm trap from Zendikar anymore, because a) If you cast 2 x Cruel Ultimatum before storming, the trap will already be gone and b) you can just counter the trap card when it is played (right?). Also, the addition of 3 Chrome Moxen ups the cards that make a decent storm count for free.

I still kept one maindeck bounce spell to get rid of maindeck problems.
The sideboard presented by Maveric78f seems like a good starting point. It can be tuned further based on bad-matchup information.

4*propaganda (to buy time against icho and aggro)
4*divert/misdi (to protect your spells against discard and heavy counterspells)
3*rushing river
2*echoing truth
2*rebuild (trinisphere is what hurts the most, but sometimes I wonder if annul would not be a good strategy in these MUs)

There you have it. I'm open for comments once again.

Maveric78f

09-25-2009, 05:33 AM

Firstly, we need to establish the best win condition for Dream Halls.
QFT.

Package 1
4 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Nuklavee
Observations:
- deals up to 30 damage within the turn
- can finish the opponent by attacking.
- Ultimatums are not playable without Dream Halls
- Nuklavee is playable but expensive for a limited effect
- 6 cards
- can win under trinisphere
- limited dependency to grave hate

Package 2
-2 Cruel Ultimatum
-2 Conflux (what is the 2nd conflux for ?)
-1 All Suns' Dawn
Observations:
- deals up to 50 damage within the turn
- can't finish the opponent by attacking.
- all 5 cards are not playable without Dream Halls
- 5 cards
- can win under trinisphere
- high dependency to grave hate
- green cards needed in the deck or ASD may be too often a dead card even with DH in play.

Package 3(3a, 3b and 3c)
1 win con:
1 brain freeze

2 win cons:
1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot (use with lotus petal)

3 win cons:
1 brain freeze
1 grapeshot
1 nucklavee

Observations:
- Can I freeze enough? Probably. Can I grapeshot enough? Probably not.
- Cards are playable (but useless) without Dream Halls
- small number of cards (1, 2 or 3)
- can't win under trinisphere
- no dependency to grave hate
- trickbind, krosan grip makes our day

About the draw spells I'd like to consider:
- Careful Consideration (the discard part is not that much a problem since we often have a lot of lands filling our hands)
- Compulsive Research (in the same idea, but not being an instant and sometimes you want to keep your lands)
- Ancestral Vision (fights dicard quite handily and the draw part comes at the right moment if played on turn 1)

I'll try this version now:

// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
5 [MI] Island (1)
4 [BD] Svyelunite Temple
4 [TE] Lotus Petal

// Spells
4 [SH] Dream Halls

4 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm

4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
4 [AL] Force of Will

3 [9E] Tidings
4 [TE] Meditate
4 [TSP] Careful Consideration
4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision

1 [TSP] Grapeshot
1 [SC] Brain Freeze

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 3 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection

caenel

09-25-2009, 06:41 AM

I'll try this version now:

// Lands
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
5 [MI] Island (1)
4 [BD] Svyelunite Temple
4 [TE] Lotus Petal

// Spells
4 [SH] Dream Halls

4 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm

4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
4 [AL] Force of Will

3 [9E] Tidings
4 [TE] Meditate
4 [TSP] Careful Consideration
4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision

1 [TSP] Grapeshot
1 [SC] Brain Freeze

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 4 [TE] Propaganda
SB: 3 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection

Just a couple of quick thoughts (in my humble opinion):

- I'd certainly play Saprazzan Skerry over Svyelunite Temple. Skerry nets 4 mana over 2 turns, where the Temple only nets 3 over 2 turns, making Skerry a bit more explosive.

- As you said about the kills: Can you Grapeshot enough? Probably not. I'd say definitely not in your build. In mine, I play 3 extra 0 cost artifacts (Chrome Mox), making a higher storm count possible and 2 Cruel Ultimatum, effectively reducing the storm count needed by 10.

- I think your version has too little acceleration to enable a T3 Dream Halls. It's like Rico said before, you can only put one land into play each turn. Without the extra mana artifacts, you'd need a very defined set of lands to enter and stay in play for a couple of turns. With 7 artifact sources of mana, the type of lands needed becomes much wider.

- The draw suite. I firmly believe in the value of draw-4 for this deck, you really want to make 2 cards profit each time you cast a draw spell. With a draw-3, your net gain is only 1 card and you are not really digging deep. Your version only has 7 draw-4's, the rest is replaced with draw-3's (Ancestral Visions) or 'filters-draw' (Careful Consideration, you make a net gain of 2 and then discard that net gain, offering the total net card-gain of 0). The reason I find card gain that important is that you need extra cards in hand to fuel your next draw spell via Dream Halls. If you are not getting more cards than before, your hand will very soon be depleted. For the moment, I think a suit of 3 x 4 pure draw-4's (with some added draw-3's) is the way to go.

Just my thoughts, of course.

Rico Suave

09-25-2009, 07:10 AM

-2 Conflux (what is the 2nd conflux for ?)

The reason for the second Conflux is because it supplies the necessary green card to pitch to All Suns' Dawn. Otherwise the deck would be able to find All Suns' Dawn with the first Conflux, but then wouldn't necessarily have a green card to pitch.

To be more precise, the first Conflux finds the following:
W-Conflux
G-All Suns' Dawn
R-Cruel Ultimatum
B-random black card
U-random blue card

And the second Conflux finds the following:
G-Birds of Paradise
R-Cruel Ultimatum
B-random black card
U-random blue card

From there you cast the 2 Cruel Ultimatum, cast All Suns' Dawn with the BoP, and return 2 Conflux (green/white) and 2 Cruel Ultimatum (red/black) with it. From there you can easily overcome any sort of life-gain effect by using the 2 Conflux again to find some simple creature and more blue cards named Force of Will. Remember you just resolved 4 Cruel Ultimatum and have a dominating board position with several counters in hand, so even a Sower of Temptation will win by itself at that point.

As for your observations you do realize that a card like Tidings is just as dead before Dream Halls as Progenitus, right? I don't understand how you can include any spell that costs more than Dream Halls as anything but useless before going off. After all the point is to win as soon as the deck gets access to 5 mana.

Thus I fail to see how:
3 [9E] Tidings
1 [TSP] Grapeshot
1 [SC] Brain Freeze

...is anything but 5 dead cards. At least that deck you listed doesn't pack Opportunity in addition to pack on the dead card count.

Lastly Ancestral Vision is too slow. Even if you cast it turn 1, you aren't going to see anything until turn 5. The goal is to win turn 4, which I feel is the fundamental turn of this deck. It is also noticeably useless when digging through the deck trying to go off, further complicating the combo and adding more potential to just fizzle.

HPB_Eggo

09-25-2009, 07:47 AM

your protection doesnt protect you as well as in the mono-U version.

Actually, I'm pretty sure it does. Unlike the mono-U version, which I have tested to some degree, I routinely live to cast Dream Halls, which I think is pretty important.

you need to find 2 pieces to go off while mono-U needs 1, which makes you marginally slower.

Since obviously Dream Halls in mono-U decks has an extra line that reads "You win the game. Your opponent loses the game." You need the extra piece as well, and the fact is, what you're using as your extra piece is not nearly as powerful as what you could be using. I heard once that tutoring for five is better than drawing four, but maybe that's just me.

you dont have a back up win condition unless you resolve dream halls. dream halls IS your win condition. and it can be countered, vindicated, discarded, and destroyed just as it can in mono-U.

The list can and does hard cast Cruel Ultimatum and Nicol Bolas. It also has 4 Factories. I'd call that a win-condition, myself.

how is there not a guarenteed win? if you resolve dream halls then you win. thats the idea.

If you had read my post, you would realize that it is possible for your deck to fizzle, even given absolutely no disruption. For instance, you cast Dream Halls with Meditate, FoW, and two Brainstorm in hand; you then cast the Meditate, pitching a Brainstorm, and draw into three lands and a Chrome Mox. You just fizzled.

you are wasting space with 6 cards for your win con when you can just run 1 or 2 or 3. like:
1 win con:
1 brain freeze

And, obviously, casting Dream Halls followed by casting Brain Freeze wins you the game...

I think you forgot to include all four Meditate, all four Concentrate, etc., that you need for something like that to work at all.

Firstly, we need to establish the best win condition for Dream Halls.

Yes, yes we do. I rather like my own package with Nicol Bolas and only three Ultimatums, but it's obviously not as fast, and probably not as good. I just love taking the time to win with Bolas because it's awesome, and it's not difficult to win with anything after casting two or three Ultimatums. Even Mountain Goat.

- Ultimatums are not playable without Dream Halls

Of all the observations that Maveric made about the win-conditions, this is the only one I don't agree with. It is wholly possible to cast Cruel Ultimatum without Dream Halls, assuming you're not playing mono-U, which is one of the better reasons not to.

I think Nucklavee is better at recurring Ultimatums than All Sun's Dawn, because it can still swing in for the win if something goes horribly awry. It's also not green, so you don't have to have a Conflux to pitch to play it, which means you can still win even if you don't draw either Conflux.

Mystical_Jackass

09-25-2009, 11:37 AM

I wonder if dream halls could get out quicker with Attunement/Replenish/Standstill shennanigans.

Maveric78f

09-25-2009, 11:49 AM

- I'd certainly play Saprazzan Skerry over Svyelunite Temple. Skerry nets 4 mana over 2 turns, where the Temple only nets 3 over 2 turns, making Skerry a bit more explosive.
The thing is that I like to play the CIPT lands on my first turn. Actually, I want to spend 2 only once most of the time. But now I've come to a version with 8 fetches, 7 islands and 4 ancient tomb (and 4 petals of course). I'm not sure the deck needs that much speed.

- As you said about the kills: Can you Grapeshot enough? Probably not. I'd say definitely not in your build. In mine, I play 3 extra 0 cost artifacts (Chrome Mox), making a higher storm count possible and 2 Cruel Ultimatum, effectively reducing the storm count needed by 10.
I tried a bit in goldfish, I can, but it also happened quite often that I'd like to spend the grapeshot for playing draw spells but I could not. I will definitely replace it with another brain freeze (to beat discard and not fearing discarding it). Actually, I play 8 spells that make the opponent draw (4 careful considerations and 4 ancestral visions), so that progenitus/academy ruins are not really a problem.

- I think your version has too little acceleration to enable a T3 Dream Halls. It's like Rico said before, you can only put one land into play each turn. Without the extra mana artifacts, you'd need a very defined set of lands to enter and stay in play for a couple of turns. With 7 artifact sources of mana, the type of lands needed becomes much wider.
I'm not sure we need this acceleration.

- The draw suite. I firmly believe in the value of draw-4 for this deck, you really want to make 2 cards profit each time you cast a draw spell. With a draw-3, your net gain is only 1 card and you are not really digging deep. Your version only has 7 draw-4's, the rest is replaced with draw-3's (Ancestral Visions) or 'filters-draw' (Careful Consideration, you make a net gain of 2 and then discard that net gain, offering the total net card-gain of 0). The reason I find card gain that important is that you need extra cards in hand to fuel your next draw spell via Dream Halls. If you are not getting more cards than before, your hand will very soon be depleted. For the moment, I think a suit of 3 x 4 pure draw-4's (with some added draw-3's) is the way to go.
I'm loving Careful Consideration. I always have lands to discard. No matter if it does not do any CA with Dream Halls, it entertains the process and more importantly, it's very strong to find dream halls. About Ancestral Visions, I don't like it. It's often too slow, too often I could not play it turn 1 or it got countered too easily turn 5. And as you said, during combo, it's a bit mehh. But I really don't know how to replace it.

By the way, Rush For Knowledge is probably better that Opportunity, since it draw 5 with dream halls? How often did you play Opportunity without Dream Halls?

Jaynel

09-25-2009, 12:07 PM

By the way, Rush For Knowledge is probably better that Opportunity, since it draw 5 with dream halls? How often did you play Opportunity without Dream Halls?

So you want to get blown out by Krosan Grip even more?

Vacrix

09-25-2009, 10:34 PM

This combo wins as soon as Dream Halls is in play assuming you have Conflux in hand. It will always win once Dream Halls is in play, in the sense you do not have to fear stalling out like you would face with a raw card drawing approach. Furthermore what separates these win conditions from the rest of the pack is how compact they are. You only have 5 dead cards and one could argue that All Suns' Dawn can be hard-cast with the same ease that Dream Halls can.

you will not always win. you are taking up a shit ton of card space when you could be running just 1 storm spell. you are prone to twice the amount of discard, and twice the counter magic. say you drop dream halls. conflux can still be countered. Storm has the advantage of not being counterable except via stifle, chant, etc. so we are losing to different things, but you have 2 cards to resolve while I have 1. If you are sitting in your hand for the first 2 turns with a combo piece in hand and get it discarded while you are looking for the other piece, than it is clearly going to be much harder for you go off than I who is most likely still looking for the piece. The combo does not win as soon as dream halls hits play. on the contrary, as long as I have draw spells, I have inevitability. If you counter one of my draw spells then I only have to wait until I draw another or I may even have another in my hand. people know this. Nobody is going to counter the draw spells when they can counter dream halls. The difference is that you have more to protect in your hand by having that extra card and it wastes a lot of space.

I do however aggree with Vacrix that the actual kill should be a lot tighter (6 cards is too much, although one might argue that Cruel Ultimatum functions as a draw spell too).

I didn’t realize that cruel ultimatum was a draw spell and was blue. It could easily fit in then cause you aren’t hard casting any of these spells anyway and it opens up tendrils or even empty the warrens as a kill condition if we can work the list to draw enough to play those spells consistently.

I did quite a bit of research on this today, and these are the things I found that could easily fit be tweaked into mono-U

Cryptic command: pays for itself with the cantrip, can bounce a permanent while offering FoW like protection, and can tap all the opponents creatures randomly. Seems like a better choice than echoing truth unless we are playing echoing truth before going off in which case truth is better.

Flux: allows you to discard an accumulating amount of land to turn into draw spells.

Foresee: with scry 4, draw 2, drawing into 2 good cards is better than drawing into 4 lands.

Myojin of Seeing Winds: if you remove it while you have 2 land, dream halls, and itself it’s a draw 4 spell. it can only get better from there via lotus petals/chrome moxen etc. that is only though if your lands stay in play. we could play maybe 1.

Petals of Insight: if you have dream halls in play, the worst it could be is a draw 3 but in other situations for 1 extra card you have deck filtering until you find a draw 4/5 spell.

Pulse of the Grid: works as a filtering agent. You have to pitch a card to play it and then pitch a card that you draw but you can return it to your hand and draw 2. so you have to pitch a blue card and whatever else and you can filter through quite a bit of your deck until you find a draw 4 spell as long as you have fewer cards in hand than the opponent, in which case this is an out that you can save when you run out of draw spells. This could make the deck work really well. more relevant information: you can discard lands to it. as long as you have a blue card in hand, you can theoritically filter through the entire deck without playing anything else, but you would run into a lot of land, in which case this + mana severance would be game.

Temporal Cascade: a draw 7! Against aggro this is an amazing side in because you don’t give a dam if they draw 7 cards too cause if you are already going off, then they can’t do shit to you. Its also decent against just about any deck that can’t react with countermagic, stifle, krosan grip, etc. in fact, it might be run able either way, cause you are drawing a lot of protection too. drawing 7 into a few draw spells and possibly protection doesn’t really matter cause if they counter 1 draw spell of those 7 cards, you still have 5 of them left with a possible protection back up.
Thought Reflection: once this hits the board, you should win and draw your entire deck. Draw 4’s become draw 8’s and brainstorm becomes a draw 4.

Trade Secrets: another draw 4 with a down side against decks that can also draw but into reactive shit, much like temporal cascade.
Vanish into memory: again, a nice drop against the aggro player who is going to lose a 4/5 goyf while you draw 4 cards. Then again, it might be better as the “remove target creature that is pissing you off” spell ie. true believer, meddling mage, etc.

My conclusion is that thought reflection and pulse of the grid are the strongest things that can be included from this list. Petals of insight looks good and deserves testing, but there isn’t really much that could be taken out right now. Also, mana severance + pulse of the grid is game if you have dream halls out and fewer cards in your hand than the opponent. but then again so is thought reflection + dream halls. the question is which one works better? probably thought reflection.

Copy/pasting caenel’s list with my additions:

Mana:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Saprazzan Skerry
3 City of Traitors
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
23

The motor:
4 Dream Halls
27

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
34

In search of the motor:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
42

When things kick into gear:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
54

In case of emergency:
2 Pulse of the Gride
56

Finish it off:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Grapeshot
60

Completely true. Therefor the reduction in lands (-2 fetchland) and the addition of 3 Moxen. You have more than enough spells to imprint here, so this should not be a problem. With 7 non-land accelerants and 9 dual mana lands, a T3 Dream Halls should be a lot more realistic.

Not necessarily. You forget that 4 cards is enough to keep you going. You can’t afford to pitch a bunch of spells to chrome mox. You need to cast spells. You can’t afford to waste your blue spells on chrome mox. If you do than you will have nothing to pitch to play tidings/meditate/opportunity.

The logic of this choice took a while to hit me over the head. Why not play 4 Forces? These guys act the same under Dream Halls as without (with the minor difference of the lifeloss). Pact should only be needed to make sure Dream Halls sticks and while comboing under Dream Halls, Force can be used to stop that T2 Gaddok Teeg/Cannonist if needed

They do not act the same under dream halls. You cant pitch force to itself, you need another card. Pact doesn’t and therefore allows you to play protection without wasting blue cards. Blue cards are key, if you forget that then you will be fizzling a lot more often. I recognize that you want to stop teeg and canonist though. those are infrequently played MD though so you don’t have to compensate in game 1 by preparing for something that is rarely there.

By the way, Rush For Knowledge is probably better that Opportunity, since it draw 5 with dream halls? How often did you play Opportunity without Dream Halls?

Dam good point. its strictly better. especially if you have myojin out or thought reflection in which case its a draw 7 or 10, and that should be game.

Since obviously Dream Halls in mono-U decks has an extra line that reads "You win the game. Your opponent loses the game." You need the extra piece as well, and the fact is, what you're using as your extra piece is not nearly as powerful as what you could be using. I heard once that tutoring for five is better than drawing four, but maybe that's just me.

The difference is that you rely on that tutor for 5 to win. I do not rely on one spell to win after I play. as long as dream halls hits play, I have envitability. Once the draw engine starts it will keep going if this deck is built correctly. If SI can get a draw engine going with 8 draw spells than this can easily with 4 draw 5’s, 8 draw 4’s, filtering via ponder/brainstorm, and pulse. We just haven’t found the optimal build yet.

The list can and does hard cast Cruel Ultimatum and Nicol Bolas. It also has 4 Factories. I'd call that a win-condition, myself.

True, but nicol bolas is not an instant win. It cant give you inevitability. It can be removed, and cruel ultimatum doesn’t guarantee much except a bunch of tricks unless cast in groups or in the right situation.

If you had read my post, you would realize that it is possible for your deck to fizzle, even given absolutely no disruption. For instance, you cast Dream Halls with Meditate, FoW, and two Brainstorm in hand; you then cast the Meditate, pitching a Brainstorm, and draw into three lands and a Chrome Mox. You just fizzled.

First of all, im not saying its not possible. The idea is to gain speed by sacrificing a little consistency. That is the essence of combo. If you cast dream halls with meditate, force, and 2 brainstorm in hand, you are not going to cast meditate off a brainstorm; that is called a play mistake. You are going to play meditate off force into that shit, and then you pass the turn with 2 brainstorms in hand. and guess what, you are not hosed. You can keep fishing with those 2 brainstorms (most likely some of them were fetches so you can put what you don’t want on top and then shuffle with the fetch) until you can start going off successfully.

All things considered, I think we have a disagreement about this decks consistency. I play SI has my competitive choice so I might just be more used to playing combo. Right now the list is a bit shaky I admit, but its still in the works. Time and results will tell who is right here. Nothing personal, but I'm a combo fan so I'm going to be sticking to this build until it shows me that it doesn't work.

I'm going to test my build now, and post the results later tonight.

keys

09-26-2009, 01:00 AM

How do you reliably find Halls with no tutor?

You need that 4th FoW.

Rico Suave

09-26-2009, 02:04 AM

you will not always win. you are taking up a shit ton of card space when you could be running just 1 storm spell. you are prone to twice the amount of discard, and twice the counter magic. say you drop dream halls. conflux can still be countered. Storm has the advantage of not being counterable except via stifle, chant, etc. so we are losing to different things, but you have 2 cards to resolve while I have 1. If you are sitting in your hand for the first 2 turns with a combo piece in hand and get it discarded while you are looking for the other piece, than it is clearly going to be much harder for you go off than I who is most likely still looking for the piece. The combo does not win as soon as dream halls hits play. on the contrary, as long as I have draw spells, I have inevitability. If you counter one of my draw spells then I only have to wait until I draw another or I may even have another in my hand. people know this. Nobody is going to counter the draw spells when they can counter dream halls. The difference is that you have more to protect in your hand by having that extra card and it wastes a lot of space.

I don't understand, are you actually serious?

Look at the deck you posted:

Mana:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Saprazzan Skerry
3 City of Traitors
4 Lotus Petal
2 Chrome Mox
23

The motor:
4 Dream Halls
27

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
34

In search of the motor:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
42

When things kick into gear:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
54

In case of emergency:
2 Pulse of the Gride
56

Finish it off:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Grapeshot
60

You have no less than 16 dead cards before Dream Halls and then you have the balls to say that this deck is more resilient to discard, counter-magic, etc than a deck with only 5 dead cards and the other 11 slots spent on search/draw/protection?

I fail to see the logic.

Vacrix

09-26-2009, 03:54 AM

what do you mean do i have the balls.. mono-U has one piece. in my testing so far, once dream halls comes down you pretty much won. out of 30 games of testing today only 1 case i didn't have the draw spell in my hand to go off. (keep in mind i'm gold fishing right now) this doesn't roll over and die to discard. you can protect dream halls and such with brainstorm, ponder tricks by just avoiding keeping it vulnerable in your hand, while my recent addition of enlightened tutor makes it really convenient to play in response to discard. as for counter magic, quite often i have a piece of counter magic in hand. i mean 7 protection means you should have one every 8 cards out of 56, so its either in my opening hand or i draw into one (though this is not always the case). i'm not saying its impervious to countermagic, im saying it has a better matchup if dream halls actually hits play.

you have also made the assumption that dead cards are relevant and that those cards are actually dead. dead in which matchups? dead in the combo and aggro matchups because you need to beat those decks with speed. against control, you can easily cast these draw spells with your mana base. is that bad? hell no. control is not fast enough to take advantage of that situation. so you either fill your hand with counter magic to protect dreams halls, or you draw out their counter magic. so remind me why those cards are dead again? the aggro matchup we should win with speed going for the win turn 3 or turn 4. against control, you have these huge draw spells, and actually quite a few times, my lands have enabled me to pay the cost for pact of negation so its actually pretty decent against combo, depending upon when they go off, and considering we run islands/tundras, they are probably going to try to slow play, which gives us the advantage of comboing off while they are setting up and or playing our own counter magic to distrupt their combo.

and i changed my list:

Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
4 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
2 Island
3 Tundra
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 Enlightened Tutor
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
36

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
44

Draw:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Grapeshot
60

so far, whenever i go off, ive been able to continue the combo eventually into thought reflection + rush of knowledge which has always allowed me to draw the entire deck. i cut pulse because it was just not necessary. there was only one occasion that it saved my ass but a draw 4 would have accomplished the same thing. ive been consistently getting enlightened tutor, dream halls, or drawing with can trips. myojin has also always drawn for 4 or more in this build, and once it comes out as essentially a draw 4 it makes rush of knowledge a draw 10, and that usually seals the game. at this rate i don't really need the second win condition but just for the sake of not possibily having to discard it, it is a decent out.

Maveric78f

09-26-2009, 04:50 AM

Vacrix

09-26-2009, 12:32 PM

I would rather splash black for Lim-Dul's Vault than white for ET. And I insist on the fact that Careful Considerations is better than Opportunity, because you'll hardcast it very often before the big turn. For the kill, I'd prefer 2*wish than brainfreeze + grapeshot. Why play grapheshot exactly?

Edit:
I'll explain: it's blue, it searches for several lands before playing DH, it searches for dream halls, it searches for the best drawers stack.

Actually, now that I've mentionned it, I'm 100% sure it's a must play, before ponder maybe.

i can see a black version runnin reallly well actually, and then tendrils for the win instead. i was going to test it soon actually. do you have a list? as for careful consideration, it may help you serach for halls, but i havent had any trouble finding it so far with this build, so its largely unencessary, and while you are going off you have to pitch a card to it to either draw 4 and discard 3, essentially netting you 0, or draw 4 and discard 2 which nets you 1 card. so it really slows your process down alot (it nets your 0 or 1 because you have to pitch a card too so you are discarding a total of 3 or 4 cards.) i wouldnt want to run into that problem for the sake of playing it earlier. you definetly want ponder first. ive had occasions where i want ponder because it shuffles my deck, and then i continue going off and its going to be castable under more situations.

Nidd

09-26-2009, 12:47 PM

Hm, what is the general consensus on which direction to take? Control and then combo out, or fast combo? Combo with storm or by chaining Conflux into Cruel Ultimatum and Nucklavee?

Maveric78f

09-26-2009, 01:45 PM

Nidd: The density of draw spells has to be very high. The deck can't play control except with counterspells (only FoW actually in early game).

Vacrix: I thought about LDV when seeing your list with ET. It seems obvious to me that LDV is better for the reasons I've exposed. I would not play Tendrils though, because brainfreeze is better in every way in the storm builds. The biggest reason is that it can be pitched to play a draw spell.

From your list:
Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 LDV
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
37

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
45

Draw:
3 Rush of Knowledge
3 Careful Consideration
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
1 Thought Reflection (maybe I miss something but I don't get how it can be a win condition)
1 Brain Freeze
3 Cunning Wish

60

SB: (in construction)
1 LDV
1 Careful Consideration
1 Brain Freeze
1 Divert
1 Misdirection
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
1 Hibernation
1 Slaughter Pact
Traps ?

Absolutely untested...

Vacrix

09-26-2009, 05:17 PM

Vacrix: I thought about LDV when seeing your list with ET. It seems obvious to me that LDV is better for the reasons I've exposed. I would not play Tendrils though, because brainfreeze is better in every way in the storm builds. The biggest reason is that it can be pitched to play a draw spell.

well the idea behind running tendrils would be that you can play it by pitching a spare lim dul's vault once you draw your entire deck. there is a very low probability that you will have to play all of your vaults so you are going to have at least one to pitch to play tendrils. also, tendrils requires far fewer spells to be effective. i wasn't considering running it over brain freeze, but as the backup wincon. in a few gold fish games, i had to pitch brain freeze or i would not have been able to keep drawing.

Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 LDV
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
4 Force of Will
37

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
45

Draw:
3 Rush of Knowledge
3 Careful Consideration
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
1 Thought Reflection (maybe I miss something but I don't get how it can be a win condition)
1 Brain Freeze
3 Cunning Wish

SB: (in construction)
1 LDV
1 Careful Consideration
1 Brain Freeze
1 Divert
1 Misdirection
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
1 Hibernation
1 Slaughter Pact
Traps ?

thought reflection is a win con, cause once it comes down while going off while you have a draw spell, you are pretty much guarenteed to draw the rest of your deck. i prefer 2 but 1 may be the right number for all i know. i'm telling you man, careful considerations is not the way to go. think about which situations this will be good in. against aggro, sure you will want to find your piece, but if you have 4 mana (assuming you are not wasting lotus petals to use this) you are either on turn 2 with skerry + tomb, which is reasonable, but more likely turn 3 with 3 land. in which case you are goin to go off turn 4, which is not in your best interest against aggro. against control, you have a slower clock so you can just hard cast tidings, and such until you draw out control's counters or just draw your own to protect dream halls coming down. if you are going off with study it nets your 0 or 1 cards. thats really bad man. discarding lands isnt necessarily a good thing. quite a few times it looks like i was done, and i either played a ponder/brainstorm off a lotus petal to look at the top of my library, finding good shit like thought reflection, in which case i played it and then proceeded to draw the rest of my deck off of something like rush of knowledge (which draws you 14 cards). if i cant put those lands on top cause im discarding them, then i can't win.

idk how viable cunning wish is. ill test it though. i mean, if you could get a really good draw spell than that would be tight, but seriously cunning wish pitching one blue spell to get careful study, is still 0 or 1 net card draw and you need other cards in your hand to keep going (blue spells)

from your list, im going to test
-3 cunning wish
-3 careful study
-1 force (you need blue cards)

+1 Tendrils of Agony
+1 Thought Reflection
+1 Rush of Knowledge
+3 Oppurtunity
+1 Tidings

if this doesn't work then ill probably drop tendrils and try cunning wish. i think 2 wish would be the right number though.

Absolutely untested...

then do some testing and we can compare records. im going to play 20 games with my list. and keep track of how fast i won and how (BF or ToA).

and after this i test this build, i really want to test this card:
Ancestral Knowledge 1U
Enchantment
Cumulative upkeep 1
When Ancestral Knowledge enters the battlefield, look at the top ten cards of your library, then exile any number of them and put the rest back on top of your library in any order.
When Ancestral Knowledge leaves the battlefield, shuffle your library.

It could fit in here brilliantly. if we play it at the beginning while having enough lands to go off, then it could be amazing card filtering via find dream halls, then brainstorm to get it while getting rid of shit in your hand that you dont want or need, and if you already have enough lands to go off than you can exile those that are in that top 10 cards. also, if you play it while you are going off, then you can avoid running into land, while finding the draw spells you want to go off and it can be cast using spare lotus petals that you draw along the way. could even be a substitute for LDV if it works well enough. i mean, if you are going off turn 3/4/5 then you may not necessarily want to being playing LDV because that life loss could weigh in pretty significantly when aggro can win turns 3/4/5 pretty consistently.

EDIT:
I just play tested about 10 games, and only in one of those did i have the colored mana to play LDV. it hasnt been working the way i wanted it to. im going to test ancenstral knowledge instead and come back to lim dul's vault instead if knowledge doesnt work.

so the list right now is:

Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 Ancestral Knowledge
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
36

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
44

Draw:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Cunning Wish
60

SB:
1 Meditate
1 Brain Freeze
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Echoing Truth
1 Force of Will
4 Temporal Cascade
7 open slot

ebbitten

09-26-2009, 05:33 PM

Brushwagg

09-26-2009, 05:41 PM

Here's the list I've settled on for my testing.

// Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Volcanic Island

// Creatures
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
2 Sower of Temptation

// Spells
1 Mana Severance
4 Brainstorm
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Meditate
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Stream of Consciousness
3 Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Tombstalker
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 1 Duress

@Mana Severance: Gets rid of the land you don't want to draw when comboing.

@Stream: Seems good. Put 4 cards back into the library. I was looking at Recall but I don't think the mana will be open to use it.

@SB is incomplete. Not sure what is going to be needed. I'm pretty sure Pyro/REB will find a home as will Firespout.

Vacrix

09-26-2009, 06:22 PM

Personally I am definitely for testing careful consideration. As it has been pointed out it does not create massive card advantage. But it does seem like it would fit very nicely into the deck. Pre combo you can filter your draws so you can find dream halls asap. During combo discarding 2 cards shouldn't be that big of an issue because lands will be pretty much dead.

why does it fit nicely into this? you want card advantage. the cards right now do not even give massive advantage, you are netting only 3 cards from the draw 4s because you need to pitch one and it has to be blue. pre combo you can use other stuff to find it like enlightened tutor, lim-dul's vault, cantrips, ancestral knowledge, etc.

also, keep in mind that you are not discarding 2 cards. you are discarding 3. you need something to play it so it will only net you 2 cards if you discard a land, if you dont have land, it nets you nothing. you need cards in hand, its detrimental to the game plan. if you dont believe me, try test it and you will see what im talking about. btw this combo doesnt resolve automatically; you have to play it pretty carefully actually. frequently i ponder via extra blue mana or lotus petal while going off so that i can shuffle away land and such. just from some pre-testing testing ive found that ancestral knowledge (AK) is pretty dam good. while going off its a monster, in that i can remove land and insure that i can get to thought reflection and proceed to draw the entire deck. also, ive been able to pay the upkeep for it pretty successfully if i have ancient tomb out. you should only need it for 2 turns anyway. im going to start testing now. cunning wish has also been working well, but im going to test it as a 1 of for now. its possible that we could drop brainfreeze entirely from the MD because you can always tutor it up with cunning wish once you have drawn the whole deck.

Here's the list I've settled on for my testing.

// Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Volcanic Island

// Creatures
1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
2 Sower of Temptation

// Spells
1 Mana Severance
4 Brainstorm
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell
4 Meditate
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Stream of Consciousness
3 Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Engineered Plague
SB: 2 Tombstalker
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 1 Duress

@Mana Severance: Gets rid of the land you don't want to draw when comboing.

@Stream: Seems good. Put 4 cards back into the library. I was looking at Recall but I don't think the mana will be open to use it.

@SB is incomplete. Not sure what is going to be needed. I'm pretty sure Pyro/REB will find a home as will Firespout.

as for your list, mana severance seems like its worth testing, but if you are already going off, AK accomplishes the same job. you dont actually have to get rid of all your lands if you are at a stage where you can actually cast mana severance. cause if you can, you might as well stack your deck too and find thought reflection so you can draw everything. ill test both, but AK is also not dead in your hand if you draw it at the beginning of the game while mana severance is.

as for meditate, ive been considering it MD just because its great to cast at the end of control's turn to try to draw the counter spells so they tap out, and if they dont, you start your next turn with a huge hand, probably with enough shit to go off.

niv-mizzet, ive also considered. the only problem is that if you are drawing it to late, then its not going to work, and if you draw it too early, than you will wind up discarding it to get your motor running. its only good if you have a huge hand in the middle of going off, which is the case only so often.

stream is meh. if you draw your entire deck it allows you to go infinite, but is that just win more?

speaking of which, how does your deck win? clearly not through a huge amount of draw into storm; you are only play 4 draw 4's and 3 cruel ultimatums, which only deals 15 damage, unless you also draw niv mizzet or take control of something with sower. you need to rework that list man.

Mystical_Jackass

09-26-2009, 06:34 PM

I know this is sorta a different direction, everyone's got there own way.

But I was even thinking in like an Enchantress (G/U/w) deck would be amazing for it, because it not only gives amazing draw but protection (Karmic Justice/Parallax/Moat etc)

If anyone's interested I had a list I sorta threw together, looked sorta dope..

einhorn303

09-26-2009, 06:47 PM

ill test both, but AK is also not dead in your hand if you draw it at the beginning of the game while mana severance is.

Mana Severance isn't completely dead pre-Dream Halls. If you already have all the land/mana to play Dream Halls in your hand, but are still digging for the Halls, you can play Mana Severance to remove all lands and thin out ~33% of your deck deck for better draws/Brainstorms/Ponders. Assuming you're not too scared of Wastelands, that is.

Vacrix

09-26-2009, 07:03 PM

Mana Severance isn't completely dead pre-Dream Halls. If you already have all the land/mana to play Dream Halls in your hand, but are still digging for the Halls, you can play Mana Severance to remove all lands and thin out ~33% of your deck deck for better draws/Brainstorms/Ponders. Assuming you're not too scared of Wastelands, that is.

agreed, i didnt think of that. but wouldnt you rather be playing AK? it can get rid of lands, pacts of negation, force, lotus petals, anything you dont want, and mana serverance doesnt guarentee that you wont draw into pact, pact, brainfreeze, force.

Brushwagg

09-26-2009, 09:26 PM

you need to rework that list man.

Really? How much testing have you put in yet? I did say that the list was where I was going to start. Why don't you do some testing instead?

@Cruels: I might go up to 4 Cruels if testing proves I need it.

@Stream: I'm using this as something to put Cruels/Meditates back into the deck.

@Niv-Mizzet:It does Damage everytime I draw. So Cruel they take 8, Meditate they take 4, and Brainstroms they take 3. Not to mention it can draw a card.

@Mana Severance: AK is not same. The object is not to draw lands since they can't be pitched.

Shanghi Knights

09-26-2009, 11:29 PM

If your running stream have you thought about splashing black to add in doomsday then use stream for some sort of doomsday stack?

I mean with two streams and drawing cards with cruel a repeatable stack might be able to be engineered.

Maveric78f

09-27-2009, 05:25 AM

Maveric78f plays Rush of Knowledge from Hand
Maveric78f plays Ponder from Hand
Saproling now has 7 (+1) counters.
<Maveric78f> ^draw 10
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f puts Ponder to Graveyard from Play
Maveric78f puts Rush of Knowledge to Graveyard from Play
<Pappo> -.-"
Maveric78f plays Ponder from Hand
Maveric78f taps Lotus Petal
Maveric78f is looking top 3 cards of its Library...
Maveric78f stops looking its Library...
Maveric78f draws a card
Maveric78f puts Ponder to Graveyard from Play
Maveric78f puts Lotus Petal to Graveyard from Play
Saproling now has 8 (+1) counters.
<Pappo> ahahahahahahahahahahahhahahhaahahahahhhaahhhahaahahahah
Maveric78f plays Lotus Petal from Hand
Saproling now has 9 (+1) counters.
Maveric78f taps Lotus Petal
Maveric78f plays Brainstorm from Hand
<System> Player Lost
WTF meant that laugh before quitting?

Rico Suave

09-27-2009, 11:15 PM

what do you mean do i have the balls.. mono-U has one piece. in my testing so far, once dream halls comes down you pretty much won.

I wasn't contending that you would lose with Dream Halls out, in fact that is the crux of my argument:

We both accept that Dream Halls in play is effectively a win, yet you do not seem to realize that so many cards in your decklist are 100% ineffective unless Dream Halls is in play.

Cards like Rush of Knowledge are called "win more" cards and in case you are not familiar with the term, it means the card is 100% crap until you have already won.

Think about it.

GreenHornet

09-28-2009, 01:06 AM

I haven't seen it mentioned and if its terrible, dismiss it... But has anyone considered running Twincast?

Vacrix

09-28-2009, 02:17 AM

I wasn't contending that you would lose with Dream Halls out, in fact that is the crux of my argument:

We both accept that Dream Halls in play is effectively a win, yet you do not seem to realize that so many cards in your decklist are 100% ineffective unless Dream Halls is in play.

Cards like Rush of Knowledge are called "win more" cards and in case you are not familiar with the term, it means the card is 100% crap until you have already won.

Think about it.

What I'm saying is that dream halls in play is not effectively a win and that the best way to go about winning after it comes down is to play the mono-U. cards like rush are not win more; its how you draw into the entire deck, and i use it more frequently than you'd think to draw through the entire deck when another draw spell would not have done the same thing. ive considered cutting them but not past 2. they are dead in my hand until i go off, but everythin else is most definetly not in the control and aggro control matchups. they only things not castable for any effect are just rush. everything else i have casted to good effect if i dont have halls.

the reason i'm not playing conflux style win is because first of all im a combo player and i want to make this work. second, ive been having good results outside of gold fishing and this isn't even completely optimized yet. third, you dont win once dream halls comes out. im sure that you havent forgotten that the opponent can play all their spells for free too. if the opponent knows that you are playing dream halls.dec but with conflux, they know that they can let dream halls hit play, and just save their countermagic for your win condition because they benefit with dream halls in play. also, you have to search for 2 different pieces, which makes you significantly slower in that you will usually have to find at least one.

instead of arguing with theory, why dont we argue with results? ive played 7 sets total against a few decks, but im not done with testing. ill post all the results in about a weeks time. so far, its going really well.

Really? How much testing have you put in yet? I did say that the list was where I was going to start. Why don't you do some testing instead?

@Cruels: I might go up to 4 Cruels if testing proves I need it.

@Stream: I'm using this as something to put Cruels/Meditates back into the deck.

@Niv-Mizzet:It does Damage everytime I draw. So Cruel they take 8, Meditate they take 4, and Brainstroms they take 3. Not to mention it can draw a card.

@Mana Severance: AK is not same. The object is not to draw lands since they can't be pitched.

you can't win without niv-mizzet. cruels only deal 15 damage by themselves and you only have 7 draw 3/4 spells total which means you will not draw your entire deck. ive done enough testing to know that you are clearly runnin too few draw spells to draw into niv mizzet consistently, which means you will not win consistently once dream halls gets down. AK can remove more than land, while having the same mana cost, while being able to search for dream halls.

EDIT:

twincast is unnecessary. its dead unless you are going off in which case its just not needed. other spells accomplish the same job without being dead in the MD.

Rico Suave

09-28-2009, 04:19 AM

What I'm saying is that dream halls in play is not effectively a win and that the best way to go about winning after it comes down is to play the mono-U. cards like rush are not win more; its how you draw into the entire deck, and i use it more frequently than you'd think to draw through the entire deck when another draw spell would not have done the same thing. ive considered cutting them but not past 2. they are dead in my hand until i go off, but everythin else is most definetly not in the control and aggro control matchups. they only things not castable for any effect are just rush. everything else i have casted to good effect if i dont have halls.

the reason i'm not playing conflux style win is because first of all im a combo player and i want to make this work. second, ive been having good results outside of gold fishing and this isn't even completely optimized yet. third, you dont win once dream halls comes out. im sure that you havent forgotten that the opponent can play all their spells for free too. if the opponent knows that you are playing dream halls.dec but with conflux, they know that they can let dream halls hit play, and just save their countermagic for your win condition because they benefit with dream halls in play. also, you have to search for 2 different pieces, which makes you significantly slower in that you will usually have to find at least one.

instead of arguing with theory, why dont we argue with results? ive played 7 sets total against a few decks, but im not done with testing. ill post all the results in about a weeks time. so far, its going really well.

Maybe you should take some time to think about what I said, instead of going off on a lecture without understanding it.

I have hard cast Cruel Ultimatum and Conflux on more than one occasion in my deck, but that doesn't change the fact it's a bad card without Dream Halls in play. You would never ever dream of running jank like Opportunity, Rush for Knowledge, Tidings, and all the other 5+cc spells in Legacy unless it fueled the Dream Halls engine. That is because they are bad cards in their own right.

Yes it is possible to cast them, but that doesn't change the fact they are bad. The *entire point* is to minimize those bad cards and run better search, better draw, and better cards that help you when the deck is most vulnerable - before Dream Halls hits play. You absolutely need the good tempo/search cards on the first 2-3 turns and I'm sorry but Brainstorm and Ponder just don't cut it on their own.

Every single one of your arguments against the Conflux is incredibly weak.

1) "the reason i'm not playing conflux style win is because first of all im a combo player and i want to make this work."

Makes absolutely no sense.

2) "second, ive been having good results outside of gold fishing and this isn't even completely optimized yet."

The question isn't whether you have good results or not, but rather would your results be better if you were running a streamlined engine.

3) "third, you dont win once dream halls comes out. im sure that you havent forgotten that the opponent can play all their spells for free too. if the opponent knows that you are playing dream halls.dec but with conflux, they know that they can let dream halls hit play, and just save their countermagic for your win condition because they benefit with dream halls in play."

I run Xantid Swarm, so this is not an issue for me.

4) "also, you have to search for 2 different pieces, which makes you significantly slower in that you will usually have to find at least one."

Slower? No, the deck is still casting Dream Halls as soon as it hits 5 mana, so the speed is still the same. Maybe you don't understand that it's the acceleration into Dream Halls that determines the deck's speed - not what you do on the turns where you have 2-4 mana.

I just want you to take the blinders off for a second and acknowledge that a deck chock full of 20 or more cards that cost at least 5 mana is bad. Can you do that?

Maveric78f

09-28-2009, 07:19 AM

The problem Rico is that you never posted your list. I'd like to see what it looks like and more importantly how you manage to find Conflux. For many reasons I'd prefer to play the non-storm version because you can win against trinisphere (usually 1 ultimatum ever turn is enough to win). However, I fail to see how you reliably combo once DH is in play without drawers that are dead. (tiding/meditate are less dead cards than ultimatum though)

The build with cunning wish*2/3 (not dead), brain freeze*1 (dead), myojin*1 (dead), thought reflexion*1 (dead) plays only 3 dead cards, and post SB (or even pre-SB, tests will talk), if you don't fear meddling mage, you can remove the MD brain freeze. Rush of Knowledge is awful, I agree and I replaced it with meditate.

Anyway, whatever the build is, I'm 99% sure that LDV is huge in this deck. It fixes the mana base, it finds DH, it prepares the first draws. In the Conlux/Ultimatum build it would definitely be awesome too, ensuring to find either Conflux or Ultimatum.

Maveric78f

09-28-2009, 11:57 AM

I found a weakness of the conflux build : it scoops to extirpate.

Vacrix

09-28-2009, 12:49 PM

maybe you should take some time to think about what I said, instead of going off on a lecture without understanding it.

I have hard cast Cruel Ultimatum and Conflux on more than one occasion in my deck, but that doesn't change the fact it's a bad card without Dream Halls in play. You would never ever dream of running jank like Opportunity, Rush for Knowledge, Tidings, and all the other 5+cc spells in Legacy unless it fueled the Dream Halls engine. That is because they are bad cards in their own right.

Yes it is possible to cast them, but that doesn't change the fact they are bad. The *entire point* is to minimize those bad cards and run better search, better draw, and better cards that help you when the deck is most vulnerable - before Dream Halls hits play. You absolutely need the good tempo/search cards on the first 2-3 turns and I'm sorry but Brainstorm and Ponder just don't cut it on their own.

Every single one of your arguments against the Conflux is incredibly weak.

1) "the reason i'm not playing conflux style win is because first of all im a combo player and i want to make this work."

Makes absolutely no sense.

2) "second, ive been having good results outside of gold fishing and this isn't even completely optimized yet."

The question isn't whether you have good results or not, but rather would your results be better if you were running a streamlined engine.

3) "third, you dont win once dream halls comes out. im sure that you havent forgotten that the opponent can play all their spells for free too. if the opponent knows that you are playing dream halls.dec but with conflux, they know that they can let dream halls hit play, and just save their countermagic for your win condition because they benefit with dream halls in play."

I run Xantid Swarm, so this is not an issue for me.

4) "also, you have to search for 2 different pieces, which makes you significantly slower in that you will usually have to find at least one."

Slower? No, the deck is still casting Dream Halls as soon as it hits 5 mana, so the speed is still the same. Maybe you don't understand that it's the acceleration into Dream Halls that determines the deck's speed - not what you do on the turns where you have 2-4 mana.

I just want you to take the blinders off for a second and acknowledge that a deck chock full of 20 or more cards that cost at least 5 mana is bad. Can you do that?

tidings, oppurtunity, and meditate are not jank. against aggro control, casting those to draw out countermagic or make my hand big has been key to winning. they are not always dead against aggro either (though rush of knowledge is always dead). as far as brainstorm and ponder are concerned. wow. they do the job so well. i dont know what you are talking about. turn 1, island, ponder, turn 2, fetchland, shuffle away bad stuff, brainstorm. these usually find either dream halls or AK. mainly through shuffle tricks, and also playing AK and then either ponder or brainstorm into what you want, then shuffle away everything else and dont pay the upkeep.

lol yea i agree it makes no sense. by combo player, i meant storm combo player. i rushed through that. i want to make this deck into storm combo because i like storm combo and i am already comfortable playing it. some people aren't and call it inconsistent, like you, when really most people just dont have enough practice.

results are results. the question is do you have results or not. you have nothing to show, while i am compiling my evidence. the results are a clear indicator of which deck works better, and against what, and how. thats how you determine if your list is better than mine, not by comparing lists. when it comes down to it, we could talk theory all day, but the only way we would actually know if it works in the real world is to prove it. 3 things are possible. either one of us is right and one of us is wrong, or we are both wrong, or both right. both could be absolutely terrible and get raped by the meta or they could both be really good, or the results will show which is better.

ok, you run xantid swarm. throwing a bunch of cards into a deck as answers to different problems is not going to faciliate a 'streamlined engine'. you have to have an effective way to search for all of this. besides, there will always be things that are dead in the MD. the idea is to minimize the amount of of dead cards. there will always be matchups where xantid swarm is extremely dead. i am running a bunch of draw spells that are NOT dead in the aggro control matchups, and i will see once i get to playing control. so far i have won all my aggro control matchups, which goes to show that they are not dead, in fact they work quite well.

your deck will be slower though. i dont know what you are talking about. how will it be the same speed if not faster? you have to search for 2 different things. the chances of having 1 in your hand are only so high while searching for the other. more often than that you will have nothing in your hand and will have to search for both of your pieces. then you will have to play dream halls with protection and proceed to win with conflux. the advantage i have is very subtle. against discard, you will have alot of problems, as will i, but more so for you. you require both conflux and dream halls to win on the same turn, which happens to be of crucial importance against aggro and combo. while various sorts of aggro and combo can also be running discard, you are at an extreme disadvantage. if you have conflux in hand, and are searching for dream halls, then you cut down what you have to look for in half, but conflux is sitting in your hand, just waiting to get eaten by a duress. i dont have that problem. you get dream halls infrequently in your hand, and always try to keep it ontop of your library to avoid discard. you dont have the same luxury with 2 combo pieces. if you dont believe, me just test your list outside of goldfish and show me the results. im not going to believe you on theory.

i took my blinders off. these draw spells you loathe so much are not so bad. my deck's mana base can support them. quite a few times i have failed to go off against aggro control because of opposing counter magic, or i had to counter a qualsi pride mage against zoo with pact of negation, and of those times, most of them i have been able to play the mana cost for pact. a few times against zoo, i took advantage of turn 1 skerry, turn 2 tomb, petal, tidings into dream halls with some protection, and went off the next turn. these are not dead cards. try playing them before you name them as dead. in fact, meditate is not just good but amazing against control and aggro control.

I found a weakness of the conflux build : it scoops to extirpate.

The problem Rico is that you never posted your list. I'd like to see what it looks like and more importantly how you manage to find Conflux. For many reasons I'd prefer to play the non-storm version because you can win against trinisphere (usually 1 ultimatum ever turn is enough to win). However, I fail to see how you reliably combo once DH is in play without drawers that are dead. (tiding/meditate are less dead cards than ultimatum though)

let see his list then. it might not scoop to extirpate for all we know. extirpate on dream halls completely ruins either version but extirpate on conflux might still have a back up win con of progenitus or something. i acknowledge that storm loses against sphere, but that is just game 1. i have not even began to test the board outside of cunning wish targets (which will be few). conflux might be a decent board-in versus stax and stompy but it would need testing.

Maveric78f

09-28-2009, 01:13 PM

Extirpate on Dream Halls kill is possible only if Dream Halls is in the grave before entering play (or after via krosan grip, but that's really marginal and we can't do anything about this).

I meant that he could not inflict 20 damage if the opponent has extirpate in hand. It's as simple as that.

However I tried a bit the following list:

// Lands (19 + 4 petal)
3 [ON] Flooded Strand
4 [TE] Ancient Tomb
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
3 [MI] Island (1)
4 [MM] Saprazzan Skerry
2 [R] Underground Sea
4 [TE] Lotus Petal

// Kill Package (all the other cards are played out from those 6)
1 [EVE] Nucklavee
1 [FD] All Suns' Dawn
2 [CFX] Conflux
2 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum

4 [SH] Dream Halls

// Set-up
4 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault

// Protection
4 [FUT] Pact of Negation
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Draw before and during big turn:
3 [9E] Tidings
4 [TSP] Careful Consideration

// Sideboard
SB: 2 [PS] Rushing River
SB: 2 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 2 [OD] Divert
SB: 3 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 2 [U] Blue Elemental Blast
SB: 2 [5E] Hydroblast

I've done something like 10 games against opponents with discard+manadenial (some kind of pox), counterspells (no counterbalance though) or a strong clock (zoo) and I've won all the matches (not all the games though). It happened only once that I could not finish after resolving DH but I've won anyway the turn after. Careful Consideration is really a MVP in this deck. Tidings is far inferior to it, but we don't have better. Meditate is too dangerous. Fact or Fiction could be a good replacer, but I don't like much the fact that we may have to put several usefull cards to the grave to keep what we need.

Conflux resolved = 99% win during the turn (extirpate, but anyway your opponent has an empty hand, no creatures -10 life and you should have Nuklavee in play).
Ultimatum resolved = 95% win, maybe later than this exact turn but win anyway.

Pact of Negation is obviously less strong than in the builds where you're almost sure to win within the turn once DH has been resolved, however I can't think of any better solution, because the card has to be blue (so no discard) and free (Daze is not efficient enough to replace it, we don't play enough islands to play Foil or Thwart).

The combo seems more compact in this build and it can win against Trinisphere or Rule of Law. It needs less cards in hand to ensure at least to take the advantage on the game, but these cards are rare and extirpate can really hurt the deck more easily. But actually, krosan grip hurts less: we play DH, then we play conflux, then in resp the opponent grips DH, then we can search for 5 cards including dream halls.

godryk

09-28-2009, 01:51 PM

Well, after reading this thread since its creation and watching the dispute between monoblue and Conflux-Ultimatum lists I've come up with some kind of hybrid

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal

4 Dream Halls
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Cunning Wish
3 Tidings
3 Rush of Knowledge
2 Careful Consideration

4 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
3 Duress

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Lim-Dul's Vault

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
SB: 1 [SC] Brain Freeze
SB: 1 [FUT] Pact of Negation
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 1 [UL] Opportunity
SB: 1 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
SB: 1 [WL] Firestorm
(...)

I don't know if it's better than the others, I find it difficult to come here and say I'm sure my list is better than the other ones posted before. I like the monoU approach because I found that once you resolve Dream Halls you have lots of cards to go from there to kill your opponent. When trying the Conflux-style lists I found that if you didn't get a Conflux online, you needed more time, I felt I needed more setup and it played too aggro-controllish to my taste.

Monoblue list is mucha funnier and straight-forward, just play Brainstorm/Ponder/Lim Dul Vault to get a Dream Halls, then in turn 3-4, after all your draw (including your turn card) and filtering you are pretty guaranteed to have a draw-4/draw-5 in hand to go off. With the help of Brainstorm, Ponder, fetchlands, Vault and Wish is pretty easy to chain all the spells to draw most of your deck. The nice thing is that in the process you play your Ultimatums and get your opponent to 3-5 lives. Firestorm is an interesting wincon if you find a Cunning Wish before your last Ultimatum (assuming you have wished for Ultimatum before).

The list needs tuning, I just bastardized a Vacrix list.

I like going monoblue and Pact is awesome, but Duress has proven useful in those first setup turns...

Vacrix

09-28-2009, 02:25 PM

hmm.. interesting list. i had health problems playing tomb and vault together against aggro and couldnt manage to stall off zoo with all my combined life loss so i dropped LDV. did you have the same problem in any of your games? zoo would come in fast and then drop all its burn at my face when i dropped dream halls (then again, he knew what i was playing) or i would have to force a pridemage which slowed me down and then the life loss built up pretty quickly.

also, i've been having some mana trouble (MWS is a bitch sometimes) running 18 land, 4 petal. AK improved my consistency alot though because it allowed me to find lands to continue setting up, while keeping dream halls out of discard range. ive been able to play through stifle on my fetchlands but only because i drew into more land.

are you just testing pre-board games or are you including postboard for games 2/3? because i have just been testing game 1 right now, and i figure i can work on the sideboard after i've optimized my list.

Pact of Negation is obviously less strong than in the builds where you're almost sure to win within the turn once DH has been resolved, however I can't think of any better solution, because the card has to be blue (so no discard) and free (Daze is not efficient enough to replace it, we don't play enough islands to play Foil or Thwart).

daze might be better for the aggro matchups so you can slow down their clock, but you lose a land so it might also slow you down. it could also be better for the combo matchups where they are going off faster than you are. and obviously its very dead against control, but aggro control its alright because they know you cant go off before turn 3 so you can slow them down with daze. but yea, pact is much better for protecting DH coming down. daze also protects your underground seas from wasteland, and if your opponent knows the build, he knows you only have 2.

I meant that he could not inflict 20 damage if the opponent has extirpate in hand. It's as simple as that.

wow, thats a really good point. it can dent the storm version too. if you extirpate on one of the draw spells, then i'm going to have a much harder time going off (though i dont know hard it would be to continue drawing)

if you just pointed out that conflux loses to extirpate, then why does your list use it?

also, why are you using careful consideration when you could use concentrate? discarding means you are going to have fewer cards in hand (you want cards to pitch to force, and you want to hold on to protection like pact, not have to discard it). i dont understand why the discarding lands is relevant. you want more cards in your hand. is digging one card deeper worth it? if digging deep is the case, then fact or fiction is a better choice. its also an instant so it can draw out countermagic at the end of your opponents turn and make them tap out, or you draw into what you need and possibly protection. seems to be a better choice than tidings at least. are you playing these draw spells to draw into conflux before you go off? i cant see why else they would be in there.

EDIT:

3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal

4 Dream Halls
3 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Cunning Wish
3 Tidings
3 Rush of Knowledge
2 Careful Consideration

4 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
3 Duress

4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Lim-Dul's Vault

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
SB: 1 [SC] Brain Freeze
SB: 1 [FUT] Pact of Negation
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild
SB: 1 [UL] Opportunity
SB: 1 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
SB: 1 [WL] Firestorm

woah, firestorm is badass. excellent choice as an alternate win con because in the storm version, you have no way to discard all the lands you have in your hand. perfect alternative win con.

as for your build, i like it but i think that you should run 4 ultimatum, just because you are using that as one of your draw spells, and if you are going to attempt to draw the whole deck (which you should because then you maximize your chances of winning) then you should run 4 so you dont even need cunning wish (i know you can wish for it but that will slow you down alot). i think you should take out rush of knowledge and put in meditate because your list can't really take advantage of rush (its just a draw 5 while my current version its a draw 5, 7, 10, 14, or 20) (and meditate would improve your control matchup alot). also, duress fits in nicely cause you can discard it to play ultimatum, or LDV for the win but wouldnt you rather have thoughtseize to slow down aggro's clock (or maybe you are worried about too much life loss via LDV, tomb, fetches)?

i like that duress can be used to pitch to play LDV or ultimatum, but you won't always have something to pitch it to. in order to maximize the chances of pitching it you should run more ultimatum MD.

Shanghi Knights

09-28-2009, 07:14 PM

woah, firestorm is badass. excellent choice as an alternate win con because in the storm version, you have no way to discard all the lands you have in your hand. perfect alternative win con.

.

I have to dis agree with this. last time i discarded a lot of lands to kill my opponent, it was just him and his goyf on the table and i was told the 20 cards i was discarding to firestorm was unplayable as i didn't have enough legal targets for firestorm. It really just doesn't seem like a win condition even after 3 ultimatums.

what does achieve a similar effect is flashing back conflagrate for 2 red and discard x, deal x damage to target player.

(sickening dreams and nefarious lich anyone?)

If i'm miss interpreting how your using this to win do correct me but, i'm just not seeing it as its targeting is a issue when casting it north of the number of viable targets on the table.

Rico Suave

09-28-2009, 08:45 PM

Vacrix: you are missing the point entirely.

Tell me, why does nobody play Meditate, Tidings, Rush for Knowledge, etc.? Why does *no other deck* play those cards (except for Meditate in High Tide).

The answer is because the cards are inherently worse than other options.

Stop saying "this card won me the game once" and realize you are making a cardinal sin of deckbuilding:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=3350

"The question is not whether you won.

The question is, would a better card have gotten you more wins?"

The problem Rico is that you never posted your list. I'd like to see what it looks like and more importantly how you manage to find Conflux. For many reasons I'd prefer to play the non-storm version because you can win against trinisphere (usually 1 ultimatum ever turn is enough to win). However, I fail to see how you reliably combo once DH is in play without drawers that are dead. (tiding/meditate are less dead cards than ultimatum though)

The build with cunning wish*2/3 (not dead), brain freeze*1 (dead), myojin*1 (dead), thought reflexion*1 (dead) plays only 3 dead cards, and post SB (or even pre-SB, tests will talk), if you don't fear meddling mage, you can remove the MD brain freeze. Rush of Knowledge is awful, I agree and I replaced it with meditate.

Anyway, whatever the build is, I'm 99% sure that LDV is huge in this deck. It fixes the mana base, it finds DH, it prepares the first draws. In the Conlux/Ultimatum build it would definitely be awesome too, ensuring to find either Conflux or Ultimatum.

I was using a decklist very close to what Anusien had posted earlier in this thread.

Any deck based on Dream Halls is going to have problems that will leave it as a tier 2 deck, or possibly tier 1.5 at best. These problems can best be illustrated with a direct comparison to Ad Nauseum.

Dream Halls is essentially a 5 mana spell (like Ad Nauseum) except it does not benefit from Rituals nor does it "win the game" by itself. At the very least when playing Dream Halls you need another card in hand and a spell to pitch on top of it. Ad Nauseum can win the game, however, even if you have no other cards in hand.

So essentially I stopped playing it and relegated it to a pet deck, but if memory serves this was the last list I was playing:

Mana (24)
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Petal

Combo (9)
4 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn

Protection (7)
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish

Search/Draw (20)
4 Night's Whisper
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Grim Tutor

SB:
1 Hunting Pack
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Krosan Grip
1 Extirpate
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Leyline of the Void

I found a weakness of the conflux build : it scoops to extirpate.

To address this point directly, many of the so-called problems associated with this deck can be remedied with a simple Cunning Wish -> Hunting Pack play. Basically all you *really* need to win is a single Conflux to resolve. Let them cast Extirpate on the first Cruel Ultimatum, you don't need it. Hell you can get the 2nd Conflux on the stack before your opponent has a chance to react to the 1st Conflux entering the graveyard.

If you wanted to really, really fine tune this deck you could fully remove the Cruel Ultimatums and All Suns' Dawn. 2 Conflux is enough by itself to get you plenty of storm and the necessary cards together to piece the C.Wish -> HP play with appropriate spells to pitch.

Just some food for thought. You have to realize, however, that you are essentially playing a 2 card combo that costs 5 mana all at once and still requires an extra on-color card in hand to discard.

Vacrix

09-28-2009, 11:05 PM

I have to dis agree with this. last time i discarded a lot of lands to kill my opponent, it was just him and his goyf on the table and i was told the 20 cards i was discarding to firestorm was unplayable as i didn't have enough legal targets for firestorm. It really just doesn't seem like a win condition even after 3 ultimatums.

what does achieve a similar effect is flashing back conflagrate for 2 red and discard x, deal x damage to target player.

(sickening dreams and nefarious lich anyone?)

If i'm miss interpreting how your using this to win do correct me but, i'm just not seeing it as its targeting is a issue when casting it north of the number of viable targets on the table.

yea i see how it doesnt work. dam. thats a little disappointing. at least it doesnt skew my results at all. i dont like dreams + lich. but i do like this:
Storm Entity + wonder. i mean if we really want an alternate win con for a storm version, this would be pretty cool. after you draw the entire deck, you will be able to protect it too, and even cunning wish for removal for any blockers. or instead of wonder we could play 1 temporal fissure to bounce all permanents so there wouldnt be any blockers. either way could be pretty legit.

the other idea is to run 1 careful consideration or psychatog in the MD, and then run conflagarate, discarding it with tog. so that you can discard all your lands for. tog could then be the back up win con as long as you keep some cards on top of your library.

what i think im actually going to do is this. put in 4 cruel ultimatum because it accomplishes what i want and more importantly, it can be pitched for blue, black or red. so i can run 1 tendrils in the MD along with 1 brain freeze and 1 cunning wish. then i can draw into ultimatum + tendrils, or just brain freeze, or cunning wish for brain freeze, or cunning wish for lightning storm + cruel ultimatum. thats 4 different win conditions via ultimatums, brainfreeze, tendrils, or lightning storm. might be overkill actually. i might not want ToA in the MD. ill test it with 2 win cons right now via brainfreeze and cunning wish for lightning storm, and 2 ultimatum in the MD.

Vacrix: you are missing the point entirely.

Tell me, why does nobody play Meditate, Tidings, Rush for Knowledge, etc.? Why does *no other deck* play those cards (except for Meditate in High Tide).

The answer is because the cards are inherently worse than other options.

Stop saying "this card won me the game once" and realize you are making a cardinal sin of deckbuilding:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/new...p?Article=3350

"The question is not whether you won.

The question is, would a better card have gotten you more wins?"

meditate is played in QSI too. not many other decks play dream halls either. does that make it bad? lots of decks dont run hymn to tourach or pox. does that make it bad? these cards didnt win me the game ONCE, but quite a few times. luck is a residue of design. you can use pretty shitty cards to build something amazing. in case you havent noticed, thats what you are doing too! cruel ultimatum is bad. in fact, its far more dead than tidings or meditate is. i can actually cast those before i get killed by mishra's factories. you are taking that guys article out of context. many times, ive played, turn 1 skerry, turn 2 tomb, lotus petal, tidings into turn 3 island dream halls, win. dont tell me its bad until you have played with it. people playing things doesn't make it good. results make a card good. results are just an indication of what people play, because people like to play cards that are clearly working for other people. guess what, the person with better results is usually the guy running better cards. im not talking about a few games, but very many games. that how you determine real results. not by gold fishing, not by talking, but by playing against various decks and compiling data about what works and what doesnt. stop talking theory and prove me wrong. i'm going to be testing against pretty much everything in the format.

I was using a decklist very close to what Anusien had posted earlier in this thread.

Any deck based on Dream Halls is going to have problems that will leave it as a tier 2 deck, or possibly tier 1.5 at best. These problems can best be illustrated with a direct comparison to Ad Nauseum.

Dream Halls is essentially a 5 mana spell (like Ad Nauseum) except it does not benefit from Rituals nor does it "win the game" by itself. At the very least when playing Dream Halls you need another card in hand and a spell to pitch on top of it. Ad Nauseum can win the game, however, even if you have no other cards in hand.

So essentially I stopped playing it and relegated it to a pet deck, but if memory serves this was the last list I was playing:

Mana (24)
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Petal

Combo (9)
4 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn

Protection (7)
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish

Search/Draw (20)
4 Night's Whisper
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Grim Tutor

SB:
1 Hunting Pack
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Krosan Grip
1 Extirpate
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Leyline of the Void

interesting list. i was thinking about going down the grim tutor route, but its really expensive. you dont really have that much protection. what is your avg speed? looks like you have an easy time finding everything. but its going to be more turn 4 and 5 wins than turn 2 and 3 wins only because you need both pieces. but your turn 2/3 win is well within range via BoP. im liking birds now. opens up alot of turn 2/3 possibilities for the storm build. green splash enables compost in the SB for lots of tricks vs. black storm/aggro/dredge etc.

you could also try regrowth to by pass the krosan grip problem. once it gets killed, you can get it back, then go off the following turn. its pretty slow though.

i think im going to run research and development in the board, and then run brain freeze, tendrils and cruel ultimatum in the board. if i do that, i can search for 4 cards via RnD, namely brain freeze, tendrils and ultimatum, and then i can pitch ultimatum to play tendrils or brain freeze. tha opens 2 wins via cunning wish, for just 4 cards in the board. lightning storm could also be fit into the board for a 3rd win con but that is just wasting space.

Shanghi Knights

09-29-2009, 12:09 AM

drawing a lot of cards to feed to dream halls is necessary but to draw so many just to storm out. I dunno looks like your taking it down a very complicated path. At the same time i can see where casting big spells is problematic in that if you can't clear there counter magic the big spells fail. plus being drawn before halls means your deck has a lot of possible dead draw. I have to champion big spell though because if the opponents hand is "discarded' or you silence them casting big spells should be enough to get the job done. I think risk of drawing dead draws is better than trying to draw over and over just for combo pieces and trying to generate a large storm count. Plus every card draw spell cast just draws half of its possibility as you need to pitch cards to dream halls.

I really think we need to explore a doomsday stack with dream halls in the combo versions. though it be hard to convince you as your working on mono blue builds.

2 stream
1 ancestral vision
1 brainfreeze
1 ponder

i'm thinking something like that could loop it needs work of course. (infact i think my maths off and that can't loop) But it should demonstrate my point.

if that idea of a doomsday stack doesn't work then just structure the deck with tops and helm of awakening for reducing the cost of dream halls to begin with and making tops cast for free so as to make a infinite storm count.

But not matter how you doomsday I think doomsday would shine in here as it seems you want to cut away the deck and get down to the nit and grit. plus it recurs anything already played and maybe needed again. I truly think with dream halls its worth considering.

(Just a side thought i had after posting this. I may dislike the mono blue builds dream halls but just a thought of why not pack 4 traumatize and just nuke there library to kingdom come crossed my mind. pack evacuation just encase any creatures might be on the board and you need to wait for them to draw out a last few cards.)

Rico Suave

09-29-2009, 12:53 AM

interesting list. i was thinking about going down the grim tutor route, but its really expensive. you dont really have that much protection. what is your avg speed? looks like you have an easy time finding everything. but its going to be more turn 4 and 5 wins than turn 2 and 3 wins only because you need both pieces. but your turn 2/3 win is well within range via BoP. im liking birds now. opens up alot of turn 2/3 possibilities for the storm build. green splash enables compost in the SB for lots of tricks vs. black storm/aggro/dredge etc.

The deck's speed is the same as a mono-U version, if not a hair faster because of Birds. The deck averages turn 4, and though it has turn 3 kills it also has turn 5 kills. It is a lot more consistent and reliable than a mono-U version though, and you won't find yourself randomly losing because you couldn't find Dream Halls (don't lie, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder is not enough).

Furthermore the search/draw is arguably too much. If you wanted you could cut some of those slots for, say, Duress. Then again I find that having such a large threshold of card manipulation lets me out-maneuver control and permission strategies in game 1 before moving on to Xantid Swarms post-board.

Either way the fundamental problem of the deck is that turn 4 isn't really fast enough. Any kind of disruption slows the deck down a full turn, which is pretty unacceptable. A single Wasteland will let beatdown decks outrace you on a good draw. The combo/control archetype does not have enough good acceleration to thrive in Legacy like it does in T1.

Vacrix

09-29-2009, 02:34 AM

i agree. dooms day is legit, but how will we cast it? also, i dont think your list works. i'd go for a list that FT uses with double top and such. not sure exactly how it runs. if your list works show me how cause im not sure what to do first.

helm of awakening is actually a really good idea. accelerates your chances of turn 3, not really turn 2. the turn 2 i have been getting has been turn 1 skerry, turn 2 tomb, petal, halls. taking out skerry eliminates the turn 2, and its been good in too many situations to pass up, namely turn 1 skerry, turn 2, island, AK, brainstorm, turn 3 tomb, halls. ill test helm, but it seems like running it is giving the opponent a huge advantage that you are only really taking advantage of via dream halls. it does create an infinite storm count with double top, but you are sacrificing a lot of non-blue card space for that.

EDIT:

The deck's speed is the same as a mono-U version, if not a hair faster because of Birds. The deck averages turn 4, and though it has turn 3 kills it also has turn 5 kills. It is a lot more consistent and reliable than a mono-U version though, and you won't find yourself randomly losing because you couldn't find Dream Halls (don't lie, 4 Brainstorm and 4 Ponder is not enough).

Furthermore the search/draw is arguably too much. If you wanted you could cut some of those slots for, say, Duress. Then again I find that having such a large threshold of card manipulation lets me out-maneuver control and permission strategies in game 1 before moving on to Xantid Swarms post-board.

Either way the fundamental problem of the deck is that turn 4 isn't really fast enough. Any kind of disruption slows the deck down a full turn, which is pretty unacceptable. A single Wasteland will let beatdown decks outrace you on a good draw. The combo/control archetype does not have enough good acceleration to thrive in Legacy like it does in T1.

your turn 2 is unlikely though, and i've had a few. i like birds alot. ill consider running it. i run AK which winds up being huge in finding dream halls. im might even cut something for another one. usually when i play it, i find a dream halls. of course there are the occasions when i dont, but then the shuffle + draw effects become pretty handy. i admit i sometimes randomly lose because i dont find dream halls, but thats because i havent figured out what the best mulligan is for this deck. the mull is key to playing combo. usually i start with 7 or 6 cards, but a few times ive won turn 4 with 4 cards and turn 3 with 5 cards so its not out of the decks reach. i just need to optimize the list. i havent had as many problems as i thought i would with control but then again im only testing preboarding matches right now to optimize the MD. its likely ill switch to U/G for birds and swarm in the MD. until then, im testing my list to find out what is not working. so far, the decks speed is a bit of a problem, and so is finding dream halls. other than that, i havent lost once i successfully go off and start the drawing. i just need to figure out what to cut. probably thought reflection, as it seems like win more if i have AK (AK just removes what i dont want so my draw spells are more effective) and then i can just find cunning wish for the win.

Hopo

09-29-2009, 04:54 AM

Listen to Rico, he's making a valid point: those expensive draw spells are absolutely terrible. With Conflux and ultimatums you just don't need useless, super-expensive draw spells. They are basically uncastable, and while Conflux and Cruel Ultimatum share the problem, it is simply superior. It draws you cards and makes a lot of other funky stuff.

You need cheap, castable draw/cantrips in order to ever cast Dream Halls. That is Brainstorms, Ponders etc. Nucklavee combo seems really effective, and I will thoroughly test it as soon as I get my missing cards.

Has anyone had any success with Academy Rector? My gut tells me that it would perhaps be the best engine to get Dream Halls going. Perilous Research and Cabal Therapy would be the draw and disruption of choice. Rector also gives a secondary win condition in Form of the Dragon.

Maveric78f

09-29-2009, 05:11 AM

Mana (24)
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Lotus Petal

Combo (9)
4 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn

Protection (7)
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish

Search/Draw (20)
4 Night's Whisper
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Lim-Dul's Vault
4 Grim Tutor

SB:
1 Hunting Pack
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Krosan Grip
1 Extirpate
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Leyline of the Void
Why play night's whisper over predict? I think that with grim tutor, LDV, fetches, you don't want another spell that makes you lose life. You probably like to play more black cards to play grim tutor during combo more easily, but I'm quite sure that blue cards are better in general.
I don't like the fact that you play only 16 lands with only 1 basic. Birds are too easy to kill to be counted as a relevant source of mana.
I don't like neither your inability to make card advantage pre-combo. And stop comparing your ability to pay ultimatum mana cost with our ability to pay tiding's mana cost.
Deed in SB is nice but how is it relevant when you play only 16 lands?
Don't you think that 12 cantrips + 11 tutors is a hell more than what you need? I found myself that 8 cantrips + 4 LDV + 7 card advantage spells are more than sufficient.
Aside from that, you play only 4 protection and not a single card that grant card advantage.

About extirpate you said:
To address this point directly, many of the so-called problems associated with this deck can be remedied with a simple Cunning Wish -> Hunting Pack play. Basically all you *really* need to win is a single Conflux to resolve. Let them cast Extirpate on the first Cruel Ultimatum, you don't need it. Hell you can get the 2nd Conflux on the stack before your opponent has a chance to react to the 1st Conflux entering the graveyard.
Ok, but finally I found that extirpate was not that much of an issue by itself (it is as soon as it is coupled with discard of course) because usually the game plan is:
* play Conflux#1 on the unplayable cards pile (1*conflux#2, 1*ASD, 2*Ultimatum, 1*Nucklavee)
* play Ultimatum#1 pitching Nucklavee that comes back to hand.
* play Ultimatum#2 pitching Nucklavee that comes back to hand. If the opponent extirpates Ultimatum in resp to this spell, then as the other one is on stack, I still win.
* play Nucklavee with 1 blue card drawn from the Ultimatums. It is the right moment to extirpate Ultimatum, but 2 problems : the opponent has already discarded 6 cards during this exact turn, meaning that he needed 7 cards in hand AND 1 black mana open. These conditions are difficult to gather. But even though we have the control of the game:
* play all I can to gather the more counterspells as I can, in order to protect Nucklavee during 2 or 3 turns

Moreover, the opponent would need to know very well the deck to play it right (always keep 7 cards in hand and B mana open). I would even slow him down a lot for an effect that is very random!

Just some food for thought. You have to realize, however, that you are essentially playing a 2 card combo that costs 5 mana all at once and still requires an extra on-color card in hand to discard.

Any deck based on Dream Halls is going to have problems that will leave it as a tier 2 deck, or possibly tier 1.5 at best. These problems can best be illustrated with a direct comparison to Ad Nauseum.
Well, I'm not that sure that you can compare combos like this. For instance, a lot of people think that krosan grip owns this deck, but that's completely wrong. You play conflux, the opponent plays grip, then you search for another dream halls (or FoW if you already have another copy of DH in hand). You just lose 1 turn and make a CA of -1(for DH)-2(for conflux)+1(the opponent's grip)+5(the cards searched with conflux)=+3, not that much game breaking IMO, not even mentionning that you have a full hand to combo and probably protect your combo on your next turn.
If you take the AN comparison, AN prevents you from playing what you'd like to play, FoW is a good exemple. AN also prevents you from winning consistently with less than 10 life and definitely with less than 5 life. If you consider the Angel's grace, AN combo, then you have a 6 manas and 2 cards combo which worse than DH which is basically a 1 card combo+a hand not too bad (you don't need conflux). Even more interesting, CB/chalice completely fuck up the AN plan, even if AN has resolved, it'll be difficult to win againt those cards. Wtih DH, you don't really care about chalice and counterbalance, once the set up is over. Not saying that DH > AN, just saying that the comparison is very complex.

If you take my list, discard (and land destruction) is probably the game plan that hurts the most my list because you can't use pact of negation as a preemptive tool. But after sideboard with misdirection and divert, I just can't lose. I feel that the deck is really good. Probably not tier1, because relying on a single card is always jank. But it can win tourneys as long as it is not well known.

Btw, I'll need more testings, but I feel that propaganda is not needed in SB finally because I can goldfish too fast for aggro decks (consistently turn 3 and turn4 at worst).

In experience sharing, I've also seen some people siding Leyline against me, first I thought it was stupid, then I realised that it was quite a good strategy too, but still Nucklavee usually can be protected long enough to win. Cunning Wish is still tempting to solve more efficiently all these reasons.

Maveric78f

09-29-2009, 05:23 AM

Has anyone had any success with Academy Rector? My gut tells me that it would perhaps be the best engine to get Dream Halls going. Perilous Research and Cabal Therapy would be the draw and disruption of choice. Rector also gives a secondary win condition in Form of the Dragon.

It looks interesting, but I'm not sure you have enough creatures or even permanents to sacrifice . Show us exactly what you mean.

Listen to Rico, he's making a valid point: those expensive draw spells are absolutely terrible. With Conflux and ultimatums you just don't need useless, super-expensive draw spells. They are basically uncastable, and while Conflux and Cruel Ultimatum share the problem, it is simply superior. It draws you cards and makes a lot of other funky stuff.
I'm also convinced that Rush of Knowledge (which is absolutely awful against grip), Myojin, Thought Reflection, Brainfreeze and Grapeshot are as dead cards without DH than the conflux package.
BUT Careful Consideration is really a card that I hardcast often. Tidings a bit less but I hardcast it 10% of the time. Sometimes against discard you finish with almost no card in hand these cards are your only chance to recover. Once I had only tidings remaining is hand. I play it. My opponent on his turn plays Hyppie. I play nothing on my turn. He attacks me on his turn and plays something irrelevant (like tombstalker). End of his turn, I play brainstorm then LDV. On my turn I win.

HPB_Eggo

09-29-2009, 09:12 AM

Hopo

09-29-2009, 11:25 AM

If there is a 3+ mana permanent needed in a blue deck, I would definitely add in a playset of Show and Tell. With 4 rectors and 2-4 Dream Halls, you should get one or another online reliably often. I will toss in a rough draft later today.

Volrath

09-29-2009, 11:39 AM

Isn't obliterate fellowed by a hard to remove wincon ala Bolas or Form of the dragon a great option?.

obliterating the board (uncounterable) followed by Bolas to keep there lands out of the way and shotting him of after several turns seems cool and a good way of winning

Maveric78f

09-29-2009, 11:49 AM

Did you notice that your opponent did not need any land anymore with Dream Halls in play?

Volrath

09-29-2009, 12:45 PM

If he is gonna pitch a card to play a creature that you can steal anyway, does it matter?

He is not going to gain more advantage of it than you are.

Darkenslight

09-29-2009, 02:04 PM

Where's the GUb list playing Lotus Cobra and siding in fat for the combo? Seems like a strong plan to me. I'll test a list and post later this week.

Rico Suave

09-29-2009, 04:33 PM

your turn 2 is unlikely though, and i've had a few. i like birds alot. ill consider running it. i run AK which winds up being huge in finding dream halls. im might even cut something for another one. usually when i play it, i find a dream halls. of course there are the occasions when i dont, but then the shuffle + draw effects become pretty handy. i admit i sometimes randomly lose because i dont find dream halls, but thats because i havent figured out what the best mulligan is for this deck. the mull is key to playing combo. usually i start with 7 or 6 cards, but a few times ive won turn 4 with 4 cards and turn 3 with 5 cards so its not out of the decks reach. i just need to optimize the list. i havent had as many problems as i thought i would with control but then again im only testing preboarding matches right now to optimize the MD. its likely ill switch to U/G for birds and swarm in the MD. until then, im testing my list to find out what is not working. so far, the decks speed is a bit of a problem, and so is finding dream halls. other than that, i havent lost once i successfully go off and start the drawing. i just need to figure out what to cut. probably thought reflection, as it seems like win more if i have AK (AK just removes what i dont want so my draw spells are more effective) and then i can just find cunning wish for the win.

This deck doesn't need to mull much at all. In fact mulliganing is really bad for this deck because it needs a critical mass of cards to go off, namely mana + Dream Halls + combo enabler + card to pitch.

What is unacceptable is being forced to mulligan because of your own card choices.

Listen to Rico, he's making a valid point: those expensive draw spells are absolutely terrible. With Conflux and ultimatums you just don't need useless, super-expensive draw spells. They are basically uncastable, and while Conflux and Cruel Ultimatum share the problem, it is simply superior. It draws you cards and makes a lot of other funky stuff.

You need cheap, castable draw/cantrips in order to ever cast Dream Halls. That is Brainstorms, Ponders etc. Nucklavee combo seems really effective, and I will thoroughly test it as soon as I get my missing cards.

Has anyone had any success with Academy Rector? My gut tells me that it would perhaps be the best engine to get Dream Halls going. Perilous Research and Cabal Therapy would be the draw and disruption of choice. Rector also gives a secondary win condition in Form of the Dragon.

Rector is, essentially, a 4 mana spell that finds a 5 mana spell. There's a bit of a fundamental problem with this.

If you have a Therapy in the graveyard then Rector is a giant Lotus Petal that speeds you up by a turn. If you don't have Therapy in the yard, you get to block 1 creature against aggro strategies that don't run StP or Exile (and god help you if they do run those or any kind of graveyard removal). Don't forget your Dream Halls hits play on their turn, so they get a chance to play out their spells too.

Ultimately though, you're tapping out to play a 4 mana spell, but you're essentially going to be playing that 5 mana spell next turn anyway.

The fact it forces you into akward positions by running Therapy (instead of Duress/Thoughtseize) and Perilous Research or Diabolic Intent is not too appealing. I mean we're not talking about searching out a restricted card like the old Rector decks of old did when finding Bargain, nor are we talking about a 2 card combo where both targets are an enchantment like Pandeburst.

Lastly it requires a white splash, which really doesn't bring anything except Rector and possibly Enlightened Tutor.

Why play night's whisper over predict? I think that with grim tutor, LDV, fetches, you don't want another spell that makes you lose life. You probably like to play more black cards to play grim tutor during combo more easily, but I'm quite sure that blue cards are better in general.
I don't like the fact that you play only 16 lands with only 1 basic. Birds are too easy to kill to be counted as a relevant source of mana.
I don't like neither your inability to make card advantage pre-combo. And stop comparing your ability to pay ultimatum mana cost with our ability to pay tiding's mana cost.
Deed in SB is nice but how is it relevant when you play only 16 lands?
Don't you think that 12 cantrips + 11 tutors is a hell more than what you need? I found myself that 8 cantrips + 4 LDV + 7 card advantage spells are more than sufficient.
Aside from that, you play only 4 protection and not a single card that grant card advantage.

I play Night's Whisper over Predict for 2 reasons:
1) There is no reliable way to get Predict to work. Ponder/Brainstorm aren't really enough, and the mana cost interferes with using it in combination with LDV.
2) I want to actually *draw* the cards I set up with Ponder/Brainstorm, not see them go into the graveyard.

The fact I like to cast Night's Whisper proactively on turn 2 is further incentive to run it and not a reactive Predict.

I also find it amusing that you attack Night's Whisper, then go on to say I don't run a single card that grants card advantage.

Also, Cunning Wish is beastly in this deck. It finds all sorts of removal in the SB to answer things that 4 Force don't get, and against counters I like to find Pact of Negation the turn before I cast Dream Halls. Due to the relatively low mana curve of the draw/search, once you hit the 3-4 mana mark and are preparing to drop Dream Halls next turn, I find that C.Wish -> Pact of Negation is infinitely better than running Pact of Negation maindeck, especially when you consider that you will never, ever cast Pact of Negation before you're in a position to cast Dream Halls.

I'm also convinced that Rush of Knowledge (which is absolutely awful against grip), Myojin, Thought Reflection, Brainfreeze and Grapeshot are as dead cards without DH than the conflux package.
BUT Careful Consideration is really a card that I hardcast often. Tidings a bit less but I hardcast it 10% of the time. Sometimes against discard you finish with almost no card in hand these cards are your only chance to recover. Once I had only tidings remaining is hand. I play it. My opponent on his turn plays Hyppie. I play nothing on my turn. He attacks me on his turn and plays something irrelevant (like tombstalker). End of his turn, I play brainstorm then LDV. On my turn I win.

I highlighted the important word.

I won a game with Sorrow's Path too....once.

I don't think most people in this thread are being honest about the deck. Sure you can hard-cast crap like Tidings, but in the end it's still crap. I don't know how else to say it.

Maveric78f

09-29-2009, 04:53 PM

I play Night's Whisper over Predict for 2 reasons:
1) There is no reliable way to get Predict to work. Ponder/Brainstorm aren't really enough, and the mana cost interferes with using it in combination with LDV.
You mean that LDV does not make predict work? 12 cards are not enough. You prefer to play a wrong-colour, not filtering and hurting card for absolutely no reason.
Btw, I don't understand how the mana cost interferes with using it with LDV. You have to explain me.

2) I want to actually *draw* the cards I set up with Ponder/Brainstorm, not see them go into the graveyard.
When you brainstorm, you actually want to keep your whole hand? Always? With LDV, you always want to draw all 5 cards?

The fact I like to cast Night's Whisper proactively on turn 2 is further incentive to run it and not a reactive Predict.
What do you mean by reactive?

I also find it amusing that you attack Night's Whisper, then go on to say I don't run a single card that grants card advantage.
I attack the cards, not the reason why it's in the deck. I don't pretend that it would be better to play, Misdirection or Enlightened Tutor for instance.

Also, Cunning Wish is beastly in this deck.
Of course it is. But it's also very slow. Play 12 tutors, and lose to danger of cool things. Needing to tutor all the pieces is not the way the deck is tje fastest. Moreover your tutor scheme deals you a lot of damages.

I highlighted the important word.

I won a game with Sorrow's Path too....once.

I don't think most people in this thread are being honest about the deck. Sure you can hard-cast crap like Tidings, but in the end it's still crap. I don't know how else to say it.
Sure you are honest. If you can't imagine how making a +3CA can be interesting. If you can cast DH, I can cast Tidings. That's as simple as that.

Rico Suave

09-29-2009, 06:41 PM

You mean that LDV does not make predict work? 12 cards are not enough. You prefer to play a wrong-colour, not filtering and hurting card for absolutely no reason.
Btw, I don't understand how the mana cost interferes with using it with LDV. You have to explain me.

Because it's better to untap and win after casting LDV than to waste time casting Predict.

The point of the search/draw is that as soon as you hit your 2nd turn you can Night's Whisper and draw. It's that simple. Predict does not do this.

Of course it is. But it's also very slow. Play 12 tutors, and lose to danger of cool things. Needing to tutor all the pieces is not the way the deck is tje fastest. Moreover your tutor scheme deals you a lot of damages.

You can tutor for pieces if you do not have them, but oftentimes you will have them which lets you tutor for either protection or acceleration.

Sure you are honest. If you can't imagine how making a +3CA can be interesting. If you can cast DH, I can cast Tidings. That's as simple as that.

Compare casting Dream Halls to casting Tidings.

Does Dream Halls win you the game? Yes.

Does Tidings do anything to affect the board state? No.

When you get 5 mana, you should be winning the game and not drawing cards. You don't have time to cast Tidings against aggro because you will lose next turn if you haven't done so already.

Maveric78f

09-29-2009, 08:25 PM

When you get 5 mana, you should be winning the game and not drawing cards. You don't have time to cast Tidings against aggro because you will lose next turn if you haven't done so already.
Who talked about playing tidings against aggro? That's incredibly stupid what you say. I say from the beginning, 8 cantrips + 4 tutors are more than enough to guarantee the win by turn 4 in goldfish. Against aggro, you goldfish. I simply don't lose life during that time (except for LDV). But you lose probably 5 life, you get your birds removed by a random anticreature and you get your sick manabase wasted. I just can't see how your MU against aggro would be better than mine.

You say that tidings is an awful card because nobody plays it. Actually, I wished I had a better card to play in this slot, but what about NW and GT?

Rico Suave

09-29-2009, 09:22 PM

Who talked about playing tidings against aggro? That's incredibly stupid what you say. I say from the beginning, 8 cantrips + 4 tutors are more than enough to guarantee the win by turn 4 in goldfish. Against aggro, you goldfish. I simply don't lose life during that time (except for LDV). But you lose probably 5 life, you get your birds removed by a random anticreature and you get your sick manabase wasted. I just can't see how your MU against aggro would be better than mine.

You say that tidings is an awful card because nobody plays it. Actually, I wished I had a better card to play in this slot, but what about NW and GT?

The point is that even cards like Night's Whisper and Grim Tutor, which deal damage to yourself, are better than a card like Tidings which you will never, ever cast. Regardless, if you are content with 4x Brainstorm/Ponder/LDV for search, then by all means stick with that and throw some Xantids or Duress maindeck.

The ultimate point a lot of people miss is this: the goal is to get 3UU and play Dream Halls. As a result anything that costs 5 or more mana does not help your goal. You do need some cards that cost 5 or more to actually win, but these are dead cards that do not help you get Dream Halls into play and the number of those cards needs to be minimal. Everything else should focus on your goal.

Tidings and pretty much all but one of the "draw 4" spells are those dead cards that need to be minimized.

As for Wasteland a single one will put any Dream Halls deck listed in this thread behind a full turn, which makes it slow enough that the aggro deck can outrace it. Yes, even the decks you posted suffer this problem.

Therefore, citing Wasteland is irrelevant. Rishadan Port, Stifle, and various other cards fulfill this role as well so don't tell me that playing 3 basic Islands is the ticket to win against mana disruption.

Birds die to anti-creature cards. If your opponent knows what you are playing they will probably use it on them. One could argue this would only clear the way for Xantid Swarm to stick. This goes double if you maindeck them.

The reason I like Night's Whisper is because it is raw card advantage. You could get by without Grim Tutor, especially if you factor that BB can be limiting at times. However Night's Whisper is good enough in and of itself that it's tough to argue not playing it. It is in conjunction with your Brainstorms/Ponders that make Night's Whisper so good, because the deck has a critical mass moment where it needs 5 mana, Dream Halls, a win condition, and a spell to pitch. This does not include any protection for the combo either. Brainstorm/Ponder will get you 1 of whatever you're looking for, but sometimes you're looking for 2 things (another mana source and a spell to pitch) and Night's Whisper accomplishes just that. At worst it gives you 2 things in hand so you have more options to throw back useless cards with Brainstorm. Last but not least, it is great to have if you mulliganed because it lets you climb back into the saddle and reach that critical mass moment earlier.

(EDIT - If you don't like Night's Whisper, fine, don't run it. Do yourself a favor and compare Careful Consideration to Night's Whisper before discounting it. Ultimately you spend 4 mana for the same card advantage that NW gains for 2 mana and 2 life.)

I'm not saying my decklist is the end-all, but what I am saying is a tight and streamlined combo win is far, far better than the overload on draw 4 spells approach due to how practically every draw 4 but one does not fit into the deck's goal. You have done well to cut a lot of the random crap but Tidings is a sore sight no matter how you try to justify it.

Vacrix

09-30-2009, 02:12 AM

The point is that even cards like Night's Whisper and Grim Tutor, which deal damage to yourself, are better than a card like Tidings which you will never, ever cast. Regardless, if you are content with 4x Brainstorm/Ponder/LDV for search, then by all means stick with that and throw some Xantids or Duress maindeck.

im sorry but you are straight up wrong. never ever cast? in several different games i have used it to WIN. against stax and burn i played it turn 2 via skerry, tomb petal, and won turn 3. against affinity i played it turn 3 and won turn 4 after forcing a cranial plating. stop saying shit is bad that you have never even tried to play. this deck can easily support a turn 3 tidings into a turn 4 win. i havent had far fewer problems with control then i've had with aggro and burn. because the deck doesnt go off consistently before aggro can over power you. if the opponent, like affinity, is relying on plating to do fast damage, then a FoW has proven to seal the game.

As for Wasteland a single one will put any Dream Halls deck listed in this thread behind a full turn, which makes it slow enough that the aggro deck can outrace it. Yes, even the decks you posted suffer this problem.

this has been a problem for me. stifle too. ideally, i drop my islands/fetches first vs. aggro to avoid this.

The reason I like Night's Whisper is because it is raw card advantage. You could get by without Grim Tutor, especially if you factor that BB can be limiting at times. However Night's Whisper is good enough in and of itself that it's tough to argue not playing it. It is in conjunction with your Brainstorms/Ponders that make Night's Whisper so good, because the deck has a critical mass moment where it needs 5 mana, Dream Halls, a win condition, and a spell to pitch. This does not include any protection for the combo either. Brainstorm/Ponder will get you 1 of whatever you're looking for, but sometimes you're looking for 2 things (another mana source and a spell to pitch) and Night's Whisper accomplishes just that. At worst it gives you 2 things in hand so you have more options to throw back useless cards with Brainstorm. Last but not least, it is great to have if you mulliganed because it lets you climb back into the saddle and reach that critical mass moment earlier.

im sorry... tough to argue not playing it? you want to deal your self more damage when aggro is already a problem. critical mass might be important for you, but ive had very few problems having critical mass to go off. maybe twice in 40 games of testing, and only once did i lose because of it.

I'm not saying my decklist is the end-all, but what I am saying is a tight and streamlined combo win is far, far better than the overload on draw 4 spells approach due to how practically every draw 4 but one does not fit into the deck's goal. You have done well to cut a lot of the random crap but Tidings is a sore sight no matter how you try to justify it.

these draw spells, with the exception of tidings was the reason for quite a few wins. tidings has allow me to draw into a win under 3sphere more than once. you have to define the decks goal before you assume mine is the same as yours. these spells draw counter magic. if they dont then you are drawing into protection or what you need to go off. against aggro, you are just gold fishing. against slower decks, you can refill your hand with just one of these which usually gives you enough to start searching effectively for DH again or just allows you to go off. stop bashing something because nobody else plays it.

Does Tidings do anything to affect the board state? No.

When you get 5 mana, you should be winning the game and not drawing cards. You don't have time to cast Tidings against aggro because you will lose next turn if you haven't done so already.

you are limiting the scope of tidings to aggro. this deck will be playing more than just aggro. its dam good in other matchups. why dont you site those more often?

you have 5 dead cards in the MD. just because the storm version has a few more doesnt make it indisputably worse. you are claiming that it is bad because the cards are dead. what if results show that dead cards are irrelevant? because im sure that they will. you just need to put some time into something that you clearly havent. my game 1 testing has been going far better than i expected, and ive been playing the same build i posted a while back.

instead of repeating yourself, show me some proof.

georgjorge

09-30-2009, 05:28 AM

Wasteland is a serious problem, so I think Saprazzan Skerry shouldn't be played. You can consistently get a fourth turn Dream Halls while avoiding Wasteland with 4 Tomb and 3 to 4 City of Traitors/Crystal Vein as you can actually play those the turn you cast Dream Halls. I've also tried Dark Ritual, but I think there are too many times where the deck isn't ready to go off by turn three (i.e. you haven't found Dream Halls or don't have enough card draw and blue cards in hand yet).

Also, a minor point on the combo - I think with 2 Conflux + 2 Ultimatum, the best card for the fifth slot is Bolas. It still can be cast and win you the game without a Conflux (as opposed to All Sun's Dawn), and it can still kill your opponent if he had a board of 4 or more creatures out (as opposed to Nucklavee). The only way your opponent could win after double Ultimatum + Bolas is by topdecking a Vindicate effect and still having three lands, or by having had more than 6 creatures out.

For reference, my testing list is

8 Fetchlands
7 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
1 Crystal Vein
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp

4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation

4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
4 Compulsive Research
4 Careful Consideration
3 Lim-Duls Vault

4 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

Maveric78f

09-30-2009, 05:44 AM

For having tested quite extensively both Storm and Conflux/Ultimatum versions in a monoU splash B for only LDV, I can say that the Conflux Ultimatum is better and I can give some arguments for it:
- with Conflux/Ultimatums, I have almost the same draw power as with the Storm version, it has in addition the "oups I win" factor with Conflux.
- it plays less dead cards (the 6 combo cards). It plays also less meh cards (tidings*3, which I'll test converting into FoF and/or Predict)
- it wins through Trinisphere or Rule of Law or Cannonist.
- it is resistent against krosan grip (krosan grip in resp to Conflux is just lolable)
- you don't have to reveal your whole list to make enough storm

I can't see any argument in favor of the storm version actually, except the coolness of drawing your whole library.

But playing the Conflux/Ultimatum combo does not justify to play as many tutors as Rico does, especially when these ones hurt so badly. Neither to splash another colour to play bad cards as birds or Xantid.

Maveric78f

09-30-2009, 06:08 AM

Vacrix

09-30-2009, 12:35 PM

i've been testing my same list, but i came up with a new one last night that probably accomplishes the same goal.

this is my current list (for the sake of continuing testing):
Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 Ancestral Knowledge
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
36

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
44

Draw:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Opportunity
3 Tidings
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Cunning Wish
60

it has 8 dead cards in the MD.

i'd like to change it to this:
Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 Ancestral Knowledge

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder

Draw:
4 Meditate
3 Foresee
4 Tidings

Win con:
4 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Cunning Wish

SB:
1 Brain freeze
1 Lightning Storm
1 Cryptic Command
1 Echoing Truth
1 Opportunity
1 Evacuation
9 open slot

the idea is the same, draw your whole deck to win. however, you dont necessarily have to here because ultimatum functions as a draw spell. i figured that if i upped the number of draw spells, then i could have fewer dead cards in the MD like thought reflection and myojin. instead, 4 ultimatum are the only dead cards. foresee is an amazing way to dig through the deck (6 cards deep is legit). meditate is good in the control matchup, and tidings is alright though i wish i could play something else. before i had a total of:
5 draw X's
7 draw 4's (opportunity/tidings)
for a grand total of 12 big draw spells. but 5 of them were dead in the MD if dream halls didnt come down. i figure, if i cut thought reflection and all the crap that makes me draw my entire deck, i can just draw it in a more straight forward way. now i have:
8 draw 4's
4 draw 3's
3 draw 2's (with scry 3)

for a grand total of 15. so i should draw 1 about every 4 cards. cunning wish can also search for opportunity if you are going off and can't find anything else. so cunning wish is kinda like a draw 2 in that respect. the only question i have is, do i have enough draw spells in the MD to go off successfully? if the other version goes off successfully, i have with 1 exception drawn the entire deck in all of my play testing, so its very consistent. im going to test this one a bit to see if it works the similarly.

the other idea i had was, if i dont run meditate, then if i run something like time stretch, does that mean that the storm carries over into the next turn (cause ive seen T1 players time walk and storm on their next turn). cause that would be dank. time stretch would be like a draw 2 but with untap phases. and if not time stretch, beacon of tomorrow keeps coming back into your deck. just figured i would throw that out there.

For having tested quite extensively both Storm and Conflux/Ultimatum versions in a monoU splash B for only LDV, I can say that the Conflux Ultimatum is better and I can give some arguments for it:
- with Conflux/Ultimatums, I have almost the same draw power as with the Storm version, it has in addition the "oups I win" factor with Conflux.
- it plays less dead cards (the 6 combo cards). It plays also less meh cards (tidings*3, which I'll test converting into FoF and/or Predict)
- it wins through Trinisphere or Rule of Law or Cannonist.
- it is resistent against krosan grip (krosan grip in resp to Conflux is just lolable)
- you don't have to reveal your whole list to make enough storm

I can't see any argument in favor of the storm version actually, except the coolness of drawing your whole library.

But playing the Conflux/Ultimatum combo does not justify to play as many tutors as Rico does, especially when these ones hurt so badly. Neither to splash another colour to play bad cards as birds or Xantid.

just to provide counter points with the new posted version:
- how do you have the same draw power? what list are you running?
- my new variant has 4 dead cards MD while conflux has at least 5.
- storm can play through 3sphere too. in fact, ive already been going 50/50 with stax in G1. ultimatum only makes those numbers better.
- you have the edge against grip, but which decks play grip? elves, which has a really fast clock, and maybe rock variants, which have discard for your pieces and maybe thresh which has countermagic.
- revealing your entire list has never been a problem for dredge or people who already know the standard builds for popular decks.

of course this list is untested. but it looks promising. im going to find out now if it works the same way i intended.

also, rules question on mystical teachings. if i pitch something, look for an instant like meditate. pitch something to play meditate. draw 4 cards, can i pitch a blue card to pay its flashback? because techinically im playing it from the graveyard, and its still blue, but for 5B.

Darkenslight

09-30-2009, 01:52 PM

No, you can't teachings from the graveyard by discarding a card. There is a big distinction between 'in your hand' and 'as though it were in your hand'.

It would be awesome if it worked that way.

Maveric78f

09-30-2009, 02:46 PM

No, you can't teachings from the graveyard by discarding a card. There is a big distinction between 'in your hand' and 'as though it were in your hand'.

It would be awesome if it worked that way.

I'm not convinced by your argumentation. Dream Halls does not say "in your hand" anywhere.

rufus

09-30-2009, 04:12 PM

I'm not convinced by your argumentation. Dream Halls does not say "in your hand" anywhere.

You can look at the rules on flashback which make it clear that it's an ability and not casting the spell directly.

I was looking at Retrace cards (which do work with Dream Halls) but it seems like it would be easier to recycle Eidolons with multicolor spells. Piles like:

Conflux ->
Izzet Chronarch
Spitting Image
Verdant Eidolon
Tendrils of Agony
Conflux

georgjorge

09-30-2009, 04:56 PM

georgjorge > I think that a setting with only 5 cards is dangerous because you'll have too many cases when you want to FoW using 1 of these cards. Also, the pb with Nicol Bolas is that it's neither green nor white and it's sensible to burn.

Nucklavee has a great synergy with Ultimatum and it's an alternative kill that was reliable in my testings. Cunning Wish is probably also a card you want for setting (draw spells), protection (misdirection), removal (slaughter pact, bounces) and alternative kill (Hunt Pack/Burn).

I see your points about Bolas, though Burn is only an issue if you have to steal a creature after two Ultimatums, otherwise it has basically 8 Loyalty. A for only five cards, you still can win with either one Conflux or one Ultimatum, the only card you can't afford to lose is Bolas.

In the end, I guess there is no perfect win condition - Nucklavee doesn't win if your opponent (like Zoo or Goblins) has too many creatures to kill them all with Ultimatum, Progenitus is liable to a topdecked Wrath/Edict or a Moat/Humility in play, and you outlined the disadvantages of Bolas. I still think Bolas is the least vulnerable, but it probably won't matter too much.

About the fragility of the mana base, you play 24 lands with 8 cantrips and 3 tutors. I mean, how is wasteland is threat? I used to play 19 lands + 4 petals and it's really enough, even against LandDestruciton+discard (well, that's the toughest MU, but I felt it was ok).

I'm not worried that I won't reach five mana eventually, but that Wasteland will set me back enough for them to kill me in the meantime (Goblins/Aggro Loam/Merfolk). But I can see the merit of playing something like 4 Skerry 4 Tomb 2-3 City and be able to cast second turn Wish/Intuition or Compulsive Research, and third turn Careful Considerations against some decks. I'll have to test against Aggro to see if I can still race them when they use Wasteland...in theory, only being able to go off on the fifth turn with minimal disruption to stop them doesn't seem such a good idea. As for Goblins, have you been testing against versions with Instigator ? I fear that with that + Lackey, BEBs and Forces might not be enough to slow them down, plus of course us playing a combo deck leaves little room for taking out cards. You seem to have more testing than I have though.

Rico Suave

09-30-2009, 06:15 PM

I'm not convinced by your argumentation. Dream Halls does not say "in your hand" anywhere.

It doesn't have to. Flashback isn't a spell in the first place, it is a static ability.

Dream Halls does *NOT* say that you can play abilities of cards.

In the end, I guess there is no perfect win condition - Nucklavee doesn't win if your opponent (like Zoo or Goblins) has too many creatures to kill them all with Ultimatum, Progenitus is liable to a topdecked Wrath/Edict or a Moat/Humility in play, and you outlined the disadvantages of Bolas. I still think Bolas is the least vulnerable, but it probably won't matter too much.

A lot of the deck's problems in terms of the win condition can be solved by C.Wish -> Hunting Pack.

Then again, this assumes you are running 2 Conflux so that you can pitch it as a green spell to cast the Hunting Pack.

I'm not worried that I won't reach five mana eventually, but that Wasteland will set me back enough for them to kill me in the meantime (Goblins/Aggro Loam/Merfolk). But I can see the merit of playing something like 4 Skerry 4 Tomb 2-3 City and be able to cast second turn Wish/Intuition or Compulsive Research, and third turn Careful Considerations against some decks. I'll have to test against Aggro to see if I can still race them when they use Wasteland...in theory, only being able to go off on the fifth turn with minimal disruption to stop them doesn't seem such a good idea. As for Goblins, have you been testing against versions with Instigator ? I fear that with that + Lackey, BEBs and Forces might not be enough to slow them down, plus of course us playing a combo deck leaves little room for taking out cards. You seem to have more testing than I have though.

One of the cards that crept into my head during testing against mana denial decks was Teferi's Response. 2-3 Teferi's Response could not only provide a safe buffer to keep your mana base undisturbed, but even draw you cards in the process. Against any sort of heavy black disruption deck, the card will counter a Sinkhole and undo a Hymn to Tourach all by itself.

Brushwagg

09-30-2009, 09:47 PM

Ok I've been doing a little testing here and there with this list.

// Lands
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Island
3 Underground Sea
2 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Volcanic Island

// Creatures
2 Sower of Temptation
2 Nucklavee

// Spells
1 Mana Severance
4 Brainstorm
4 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
3 Counterspell
4 Meditate
4 Chrome Mox
2 Mystical Tutor
2 Echoing Truth
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 Duress

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Echoing Truth
SB: 1 Duress
SB: 3 Propaganda
SB: 4 Pyroblast

Sb incomplete.

Thinks I found.

1.Having the chain of draw spells being broken mid combo sucks. I did see Nucklavee mentioned and gave it a try. I'm surpised I like it and it helps to keep the chain going.

2.I'm pretty sure Chrome Mox is out and in it's place is going to be another Mystical Tutor, LDV/Mana Severance/Conflux, and maybe 2x Cabal Threapy.

@Therapy: This would provide the deck with added protection and give the deck a way to sac the Nucklavee. There have been a few games where I wanted a way to kill it to bring it back with CU.

@Conflux: I'm not totally sold on this card. It's totally dead without Dreamhalls but it gets you 3x CU. So I guess it could be a 1 of at the most.

Maveric78f

10-01-2009, 10:11 AM

Vacrix

10-01-2009, 12:41 PM

I'm willing to challenge a bit the 4*pact of negation slot with other options:
- pact of negation:
...* pros: absolutely great for the big turn
...* cons: (almost) useless before the big turn, useless against split second and you need to win during the big turn and can't wait to attack with 10 4/4 with 4 FoWs and 3 other pacts in hand, would force you to play 1 stifle in SB.
...* conclusion: I'll test cards that are better before the big turn, even if they are weaker during. Will still deserve a place in SB (at least 1 slot as a tutor target).
- duress:
...* pros: nice against burn, against countermagic, against non-creature hate, can be played 1 turn before going off, deals with extirpate/krosan grip
...* cons: black spell (with dream halls and makes you fetch non-basic), does not help against aggro (but do we really need help against aggro?), does not deal with meddling mage and gaddock
...* conclusion: I'm really annoyed by the fact it can't deal with meddling mage or gaddock.
- spellsnare:
...* pros: protects against most of the harmful hate: hymn, meddling mage, counterbalance, gaddock, canonist (not that harmful actually), qasali, good also in anti-aggro/burn
...* cons: weak as a countermagic protection (does not hit FoW and costs U), remains a narrow counterspell
...* conclusion: really interesting option I'd want to test
- thoughtseize:
...* pros: the same as duress plus capable to deal with MM and gaddock
...* cons: black card and does 2 damages
...* conclusion: really interesting option I'd want to test
- daze:
...* pros: surprises, good as anti-LD
...* cons: not supported with LD, can be played arround, slows down the combo as well
...* conclusion: not good enought to be tested

By the way, I've tested the inclusion of cunning wish*3 and fact or fiction*2 instead of tidings*3, careful consideration*1 and LDV*1. The list now would look like this:

i agree. remove pact, and our aggro game should improve. i dont think daze is not good enough to be tested. while testing mono-U, i found that decks that used wasteland too early slowed their clock as well because they could not play any creatures. also, wasteland on my islands was not possible so against wasteland, i would just drop islands until i had to go off, in which case, i dropped tomb, and then won. however, when you splash black, you must run underground sea if you want to use LDV, in which case, wasteland hurts alot. especially under a crucible/waste lock. daze gives you land protection by bouncing it, or daze on stifle on a fetch, or something like that. and by slowing aggro down by targeting a key piece to his damage (cranial plating, pile driver, tribal forcemage, etc) he is also slowed down significantly. too many times i have forced a cranial plating and beat affinity, or i forced vial, and he didnt draw any lands. adding daze into the mix could give you that edge. i think it deserves testing.

One of the cards that crept into my head during testing against mana denial decks was Teferi's Response. 2-3 Teferi's Response could not only provide a safe buffer to keep your mana base undisturbed, but even draw you cards in the process. Against any sort of heavy black disruption deck, the card will counter a Sinkhole and undo a Hymn to Tourach all by itself.

definetly a good idea. this relies on your opponent being interactive with your lands though, so its a risky pick in the MD, but quite a few decks run waste, stifle, or sinkhole so its not always a dead card.

an idea i had, was to run reality ripple. its more versatile then teferi's response. you can phase out your own lands (phasing out skerry gets it back all its counters), or your opponents meddling mage, gaddock teeg, cannonist, or true believer. or you can phase out artifacts, like chalice at 0, 1 (1 hurts cause you cant play brainstorm/ponder), thorn of amysthest, 3sphere, smoke stack, etc. it pretty much deals with all your problems but momentarily. it protects against wasteland, which is key, resets skerry's counters, which is useful, while removing unwanted creatures or artifacts before you go off. also, its an instant so you can cunning wish for it. seems test worthy.

as for my testing, im not finished yet but here is what i have so far:

with the same mono-U storm build i posted a while back:

Dream Halls.dec
Mana:
2 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
4 Island
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal
22

Motor:
4 Dream Halls
3 Ancestral Knowledge
29

Protection:
4 Pact of Negation
3 Force of Will
36

Cantrips:
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
44

Draw:
4 Rush of Knowledge
4 Tidings
3 Meditate
1 Myojin of Seeing Winds
56

Win con:
2 Thought Reflection
1 Brainfreeze
1 Cunning Wish
60

SB:
1 Brain freeze
1 Echoing Truth
1 Rushing River
1 Meditate
11 open slot

i played 42 games total (only game 1) in sets. i tried to play 3 sets each but my opponent sometimes was just bored with the matchup and wanted to move on to playing with something else, so not all the sets are finished. either way, this should give you an idea of how the storm build plays.

Zoo: 5-3 (60/40)
2-1
2-0
1-2

zoo was just a race. i played either a turn 3 or turn 4 or died right before going off. life loss came into play here pretty heavily, sometimes, the damage i dealt to myself enabled him to kill me.

Merfolk: 5-3 (60/40)
2-0
2-1
1-2

merfolk was a pretty comfortable matchup for me. one game that i lost, he had double force, double daze so yea despite my pact AND force, i couldnt play through it. another time he beat me in the race, and another time i drew dead. if merfolk is running the new shuffle creature for U, then it is a much easier game then playing against curse catcher.

Slivers (ugw): (60/40)
2-1

Slivers was a good matchup overall. im sure that if i got more information the percentages would be more like 70/30. usually he just had one protection spell if i had one. sometimes he had jank and tried to race me.

Dredge: (60/40)
2-0

force on his draw spell owned him both times. it didnt slow me down so i proceeded to a fast win both times. i had really good hands though.

Goblins (mono r): (60/40)
2-1

wasteland was a royal bitch. i forced his vial once and he didnt draw anymore land. other than that, it was just a race.

Burn: 4-2 (60/40)
2-0
0-2
2-0

most non-interactive game ever. usually he saved his fireblasts for the kill, so when i forced them, i saved my ass, and then proceeded to win. i got alot of turn 2's and 3's in this batch.

Affinity (SB cannonist): 4-1 (70/30)
2-1
2-0

affinity was by FAR the best matchup. the game i lost he had plating, which i forced, and he followed it up with master of etherium. had he only one piece then he could not have done enough damage to kill.

Geddon Stax: 4-4 (40/60)
2-0
1-2
1-2

stax was always such a weird game. sometimes i forced his trinisphere and then won. if he resolved trinisphere, then i would attempt to set up by playing out dream halls, and then finding cunning wish so i could bounce his sphere. sometimes he o-ringed my DH and then i had to find another. these were very long games. force was key here. also, meditate was pretty awesome if he had stax out, because then he would have to sack more permanents, while i didnt. also, tidings, was usually the draw that allowed me to win because i would draw into a full hand, play DH, then next turn wait until the end of his turn and cast cunning wish searching for rushing river. overall stax was by far the hardest. it was either really interesting, or really frustrating. chalice, at 0, 1, and 2 is not fun...

i know these are inaccurate at best, only because i dont have enough information, but i skewed the percentages a little to what i felt like the matchup was if i got more results. i didnt play against any control or discard which are going to be really hard matchups, but i will eventually. most likely those matchups will be 30/70 if not 20/80.

Maveric78f

10-01-2009, 12:51 PM

definetly a good idea. this relies on your opponent being interactive with your lands though, so its a risky pick in the MD, but quite a few decks run waste, stifle, or sinkhole so its not always a dead card.

You can't play Tefereri's Response against stifle. Stifle targets the ability, not the land.

Dr.AgOn

10-01-2009, 12:57 PM

@ Maverick78f

I like your list. I think Ancestral Vision would fit perfectly in there. It's a nice turn 1 drop.

Some things up for discussion:
1.) Has anyone tried Mystic Remora instead of Ponder or LDV?
2.) And what about the Magister Sphinx / Searing Wind wincon? I know it doesn't draw cards like Cruel Ultimatum does, but once you're playing your wincon you should need more cards anyway cause the games over.
3.) Why isn't anyone splashing green for Lotus Cobra?? Sooo fucking goood. Turn 1 Lotus Cobra with Mox or Petal, turn 2 play fetch, turn 3 play another fetch, activate both, and play Cruel Ultimatum!!!1 combined with Summoning pact post board, you could play a turn 1 or 2 Nicol Bolas or Maelstrom Archangel^^

Kagehisa

10-01-2009, 02:38 PM

here is a version used by Zvi in the Tempest block...

http://www.germagic.de/nda/deck.php?id=99

3 x Gaea's Blessing
1 x Inspiration
1 x Lobotomy
1 x Impulse
1 x Counterspell
4 x Memory Lapse
4 x Mana Severance
4 x Ancestral Memories
4 x Sift
4 x Meditate
4 x Intuition
4 x Dream Halls
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x Svyelunite Temple
4 x Crystal Vein
9 x Island

Ancestral memories works with Gaea's Blessing that you cannot cast... It works more or less like in a oath of druids deck... Remember that now we have better "drawer" or and even better mana accelerations or kill... or win condition (Inspiration was the kill...) and better counters... Note that Lobotomy can only be cast when Dream Halls is in play... or with a Lotus Petal or something...

Painter's servant better than Mana severance....?

Vacrix

10-01-2009, 02:55 PM

You can't play Tefereri's Response against stifle. Stifle targets the ability, not the land.

ah.. all the more reason to test reality ripple instead. i think the list should look something like this:

-4 pact
-4 force

+4 daze
+4 reality ripple

im going to test it in my storm build. it looks promising in improving the aggro matchup, even post board, but i will roll over and die to any countermagic. also, because ripple is so situational, im sure there is something else that i can run which i can phase out to my advantage. ideas off the top of my head were sage epityr (but thats really bad), and i wish i could target AK. the best thing to phase out would be something like cryptic annelid, but by the time i can phase it out, i should have already won.

other ideas for protection:
repeal (bounce your lands in response to wasteland, or slow down aggro, while drawing)
withdraw (dam good against aggro)

Some things up for discussion:
1.) Has anyone tried Mystic Remora instead of Ponder or LDV?
2.) And what about the Magister Sphinx / Searing Wind wincon? I know it doesn't draw cards like Cruel Ultimatum does, but once you're playing your wincon you should need more cards anyway cause the games over.
3.) Why isn't anyone splashing green for Lotus Cobra?? Sooo fucking goood. Turn 1 Lotus Cobra with Mox or Petal, turn 2 play fetch, turn 3 play another fetch, activate both, and play Cruel Ultimatum!!!1 combined with Summoning pact post board, you could play a turn 1 or 2 Nicol Bolas or Maelstrom Archangel^^

mystic remora doesnt free up your mana to play other shit. and it relies on the opponent playing spells. at best, against aggro you could draw 1, then 2, then 3, while you cant play anything else. its dam good against combo, but not so much against everything else. mediocre against aggro. it might be a nice side in though.
2. the game doesnt always end if you resolve DH. especially under trinisphere, meddling mage or vs. krosan grip.
3. more likely than not, against aggro and control, lotus cobra is going to draw the burn/removal in their hand that isnt going anywhere else. if you play it turn 2 then you can go off turn 3 if you have a fetch but you still have to find both pieces. the only advantage is if you run birds and lotus cobra instead of the risky mana base with tomb/city/skerry, then you get more stability and dont lose to wasteland but then you are going to lose to creature removal instead of land removal. its worth a shot but you are just losing to different things.

EDIT:

3 x Gaea's Blessing
1 x Inspiration
1 x Lobotomy
1 x Impulse
1 x Counterspell
4 x Memory Lapse
4 x Mana Severance
4 x Ancestral Memories
4 x Sift
4 x Meditate
4 x Intuition
4 x Dream Halls
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x Svyelunite Temple
4 x Crystal Vein
9 x Island

nice. i thought about ancestral + blessing but i didnt think it would work out. glad to hear its been played before.

changes to this list:
2 x cunning wish
2 x gaea's blessing
3 x Reality Ripple/Repeal
3 x Daze
4 x Ancestral Memories
1 x Mana Severance
4 x Ancestral Memories
4 x Tidings
4 x Meditate
4 x Brainstorm
4 x Ponder
4 x Dream Halls
4 x Lotus Petal
4 x Ancient Tomb
4 x Saprazzan Skerry
3 x flooded strand
3 x polluted delta
3 x Island

ill give it a go. ancestral looks pretty good. now that their are better drawers though, maybe just 2 blessing is necessary. its even castable with lotus petal in order to get back win conditions.

Xentra

10-01-2009, 04:22 PM

What do you guys think about this, more combo'ish list?

Dream Halls
___________

===== Lands (17) =====

3x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
2x Island
4x Ancient Tomb
3x Saprazzan Skerry
2x City of Traitors

===== Artifacts (6) =====

4x Lotus Petal
2x Chrome Mox

===== Creatures (1) =====

1x Progenitus

===== Enchantments (4) =====

4x Dream Halls

===== Protection (4) =====

4x Force of Will

===== Tutor (6) =====

3x Mystical Tutor
3x Cunning Wish

===== Cantrips / Draw =====

4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Meditate
2x Opportunity
3x Tidings

===== Spells (5) =====

4x Show and Tell
1x Mana Severance

With SB for brain freeze from cunning wish

Rico Suave

10-01-2009, 04:33 PM

As far as protection, anything that requires mana the turn you cast Dream Halls is bad. Dream Halls can't afford UU3 + other mana the turn it wants to win. This slows it down by a full turn.

As a result we can eliminate any counterspell that isn't free, as well as Chants/Abeyance/Silence.

Daze is entirely craptastic as well. Sure it is free, but honestly when you're on 5 mana it's pretty safe to assume your opponent can play a removal/counter and have an extra mana left over for Daze.

Thus, the only legitimate protection spells in this deck are "free" counters and proactive disruption that can be cast in earlier turns:
-Force of Will
-Duress/Thoughtseize (Thoughtseize is better, if only because it hits Teeg, Pridemage, M.Mage, and Magus)
-Pact of Negation
-Xantid Swarm

There are other cards, but they are either more expensive for the same effect or have other glaring weaknesses.

Pact of Negation suffers from being essentially useless until the turn you cast Dream Halls. Thus I feel having C.Wish maindeck and Pact of Negation in the SB is good, since you can C.Wish for Pact the turn before you drop Tomb and Dream Halls.

Worst case scenario is you have Pact maindeck and your opponent drops a Teeg or Pridemage that you can't counter. C.Wish for an answer is a lot better than Pact in these situations, not to mention being a hell of a lot better against Stax.

If you're looking to run 7-11 disruption slots, you're probably best off with the following cards:
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish
0-4 Thoughtseize

Since C.Wish also doubles as search/draw to help you goldfish, and is a far better topdeck than Thoughtseize, it gets the nod ahead of Thoughtseize - especially if you are interested in builds that don't splash black (not that a single basic Swamp is hard to include).

The most difficult and frustrating aspect of this deck however is not the disruption, or even the search/draw. It is the mana base. I have yet to see a list that provides a solid turn 3 kill because the deck's mana simply can't support that kind of consistency, and while the deck can technically outrace things like Goblins it will be hard pressed to do so on the draw with its average still being turn 4.

The mana base is the limiting factor of this deck.

Vacrix

10-01-2009, 05:24 PM

The mana base is the limiting factor of this deck.

ok. then why are you attacking daze? you can bounce your underground sea's in response to wasteland no? and you wont be casting daze to protect dreamhalls coming down. the idea is to play it against aggro to slow them down so you can win. daze on plating, pile driver, etc, something crucial to them dealing damage can go a long way. it seems to be a decent card especially if you are running underground sea.

Pact of Negation suffers from being essentially useless until the turn you cast Dream Halls. Thus I feel having C.Wish maindeck and Pact of Negation in the SB is good, since you can C.Wish for Pact the turn before you drop Tomb and Dream Halls.

that is the debate. pact vs. daze. do you want to slow aggro, or resolve DH against aggro control? i agree pact in the board sounds good, but unless you up the wish count its not going to happen too often.

in general im not liking thoughtseize because its just adding on more damage to you. LDV, fetches, tomb, and now thoughtseize. you are really giving aggro an easy time here. in my testing against aggro, with an relatively faster clock than conflux, i had a hard time with aggro, especially zoo, because of life loss, and the only thing giving me trouble was tomb and fetchlands.

i think that a white splash, which i suggest a while back, enables the possibility, of EOT cunning wish into chant/silence/abeyance while maintaining a search engine for DH via enlightened tutor. the other idea i had, was if we run DH as the MD strategy, we could then switch out maybe 13 cards from the SB to combat aggro, and then just try to race combo.
example:

SB:
1 Brain freeze
1 Rushing River
1 Meditate
1 Mana Short (vs. control)
1 Pact
4 Energy Field
4 Wheel of Sun and Moon
2 Luminarch Ascension

basic idea is, once energy field comes down, first of all, mono red has a hard time doing anything. also wheel comes down on you vs. aggro, or on the opponent vs. dredge, reanimator, breakfast, etc. it would improve the game massively against grave based decks while attempting to even the game vs. control. ideally, a new win condition would be needed to support it, and i suggest luminarch ascension to level the playing field. if you can resolve energy field, and then ascension, you will probably not have to deal with any creatures for at least 4 turns, in which case you can just make angels to block all the attackers. both combo pieces and the win con would be searchable via e tutor.

Phoenix Ignition

10-01-2009, 06:15 PM

ok. then why are you attacking daze? you can bounce your underground sea's in response to wasteland no?

No, you can't daze in response to a wasteland, unless you play a spell that you want to daze yourself. Honestly you have so many rules issues in your posts (Teferi's Response against stifle??) that I can't trust any of your 40 playtested games. There is no way that you have a positive matchup against everything that isn't white control.

I'm going to playtest this deck as Maveric has put it together, the only extra thing I see is that I think Ancestral Visions is way to good in this deck to not run. Also I might give Cryptic Command a try as it's good against aggro while leading up to the DH, and after DH it still can counter crap and cantrip.

Rico Suave

10-01-2009, 06:32 PM

ok. then why are you attacking daze? you can bounce your underground sea's in response to wasteland no? and you wont be casting daze to protect dreamhalls coming down. the idea is to play it against aggro to slow them down so you can win. daze on plating, pile driver, etc, something crucial to them dealing damage can go a long way. it seems to be a decent card especially if you are running underground sea.

No, you can't bounce a non-basic in response to Wasteland. Daze needs a legal target in order to play it and Wasteland is not a spell.

Using Daze against aggro is quite possibly the worst thing you can do. The only thing stopping you from winning is establishing UU3, and you are going to play a spell that delays that by a full turn? And you expect this to help you against aggro?

The lack of common sense is astounding. Even if you manage to slow them down by a full turn, which is unlikely enough, at best you gain nothing. Absolutely nothing.

I'm just not even going to bother responding to the rest of your post, or any further posts from you, as I have seen nothing but poorly thought out ideas. If you have an issue then PM me but it's frankly not worth my time.

Vacrix

10-01-2009, 11:39 PM

No, you can't daze in response to a wasteland, unless you play a spell that you want to daze yourself. Honestly you have so many rules issues in your posts (Teferi's Response against stifle??) that I can't trust any of your 40 playtested games. There is no way that you have a positive matchup against everything that isn't white control.

those aren't rules issues, they are questions. there is a difference. fine dont trust my games. thats your choice. see for yourself if the time i put into those games holds any water. keep in mind that these are positive matchups in game 1. i didnt play games 2 or 3 because im still working on a sideboard. and i didnt yet play against a lot of the matchups like landstill and discard that i would have completely gotten raped in the first game.

No, you can't bounce a non-basic in response to Wasteland. Daze needs a legal target in order to play it and Wasteland is not a spell.

ok. you have me there. i was thinking more along the lines of play pact of negation (you cant really use it in the aggro matchup anywa), daze in response, but if pact doesnt have a target then you cant daze pact.

The lack of common sense is astounding. Even if you manage to slow them down by a full turn, which is unlikely enough, at best you gain nothing. Absolutely nothing.

you arent slowing them down by a full turn; you are inhibiting them from dealing you heavy damage. like in the case against affinity. counter the master of etherium or cranial plating and they will take forever to kill you. in games where i didnt have force to counter plating, i lost (1 game). daze/force can make all the difference in the aggro matchup. by the way, mr. common sense, if you slow them down by a full turn, that is gaining something; time to find your combo pieces and obviously countering something that could deal you damage.

Maveric78f

10-02-2009, 04:27 AM

I'm just not even going to bother responding to the rest of your post, or any further posts from you, as I have seen nothing but poorly thought out ideas. If you have an issue then PM me but it's frankly not worth my time.
That was totally unnecessary. Do it, but don't tell it. I call it common sense too.

4 Energy Field
That was non sense too. You play only 4 non-land permanent MD which are enchantments and you want to play energy field in SB as a lock?

Ancestral Visions
I thought also at first sight, that it would be a good addition to the deck but I found out that AV was 1 turn too slow in the aggro MU where you often can and want to go off on your turn 3 or at least your turn 4, but for sure not on your turn 5 (when AV resolves if you suspended it on turn 1). In addition to that, it's absolutely dead after turn 1 and before combo (you don't even know if you want to suspend it or keep it in hand in order to use it when you finally have dream halls in play). It's also meh during combo since you'll spend 2 blue cards to play it and draw 3 cards which contain in average less than 2 blue cards (CA is counted in blue cards and digging during combo, that's why careful considerations is as good as tidings and fact or fiction is ok). There are a lot of things on which I'm not sure about this deck, but I'm 100% sure that AV is not the card draw we want, for having understood why it was so bad during my testings (experiment showed me the way to the theory).

Maveric78f

10-02-2009, 04:54 AM

Some things up for discussion:
1.) Has anyone tried Mystic Remora instead of Ponder or LDV?
2.) And what about the Magister Sphinx / Searing Wind wincon? I know it doesn't draw cards like Cruel Ultimatum does, but once you're playing your wincon you should need more cards anyway cause the games over.
3.) Why isn't anyone splashing green for Lotus Cobra?? Sooo fucking goood. Turn 1 Lotus Cobra with Mox or Petal, turn 2 play fetch, turn 3 play another fetch, activate both, and play Cruel Ultimatum!!!1 combined with Summoning pact post board, you could play a turn 1 or 2 Nicol Bolas or Maelstrom Archangel^^
1/ Mystic remora is not combo with ancient tomb, petal or Saprazzan Skerry and it's very bad as soon as your opponent as played a creature since he can stop playing and beat you up while you can't search for the combo elements. Even as a SB tech it seems too random to me. But I may be wrong.
2/ It would still need Conflux because you don't want to rely on your draw spells to draw your whole library. A setup like 2 conflux, 1 searing wind, 1 Magister Sphinx would work (conflux#1 searches for conflux#2, duress/seize, searing wind, pact of negation/FoW and Sphinx), with cunning wish to bounce your sphinx if it got trickbinded (even after you duressed the opponent). It saves 2 slots but the problems I can see is that you have only 2 cards that give you a strong advantage on the game (and probably the win) once dream halls resolved (against 4 before). I really don't know, it's seducing to be able to search for 2 combo protections at the same time and not to lose to life comboes.
3/ If I was splashing green and playing creatures I would give it a try instead of petals. But I really don't think that we don't want this splash. We don't need the protection of Xantid and I don't think that splashing for birds strengthen the mana base. A Maelstrom Archangel*4/Lotus Cobra*4/Dream Halls*4/Ultimatum*4 deck would be interesting though.

I'll retain the idea of changing for a more compact kill.

rufus

10-02-2009, 10:49 AM

For the conflux wincon how about Conflux ->

Nucklavee (Red)
Cruel Ultimatum (Black)
Dryad Arbor (Green)
Spitting Image (Blue)
Swift Silence (White)

Which should loop until you run out of opponent or cards in your deck.

Maveric78f

10-02-2009, 10:54 AM

I think I got it, but Dryad Arbor and Swift Silence are just junk.

But splitting image is a great idea (and it's green which is cool).
1/ play Conflux#1 and search for Conlux#2 (W), Splitting Image (G), Nucklavee (R), Cruel Ultimatum (B), Pact of Negation (U) (or duress if you can pay for it).
2/ play Cruel Ultimatum dicarding Nucklavee, draw 3, return Nucklavee to hand. Opponent discards 3.
3/ play Nucklavee discarding Conflux#2, return Cruel Ultimatum and a blue instant to hand (probably).
4/ play Cruel Ultimatum discarding the blue instant, draw 3. Opponent discards 3.
5/ play Splitting Image targetting Nucklavee, discarding 1 U-spell drawn off the 6 cards or the cards you had remaining in hand, or Pact of Negation if you did not use it until now, return Cruel Ultimatum and a blue instant to hand (probably).
6/ play Cruel Ultimatum discarding the blue instant, draw 3. Opponent discards 3.
7/ then you should be able to repeat this procedures several times (even without Dryad Arbor, and god knows what Swift Silence was here for?) and kill the opponent withing the turn.

rufus

10-02-2009, 12:28 PM

I think I got it, but Dryad Arbor and Swift Silence are just junk.
...

Dryad arbor is a creature and a land, even in the GY, so Cruel Ultimatum will return it to your hand. This guarantees that you have a land card in your hand to use when you want to recycle Spitting Image. (Dream Halls does work with Retrace.) So Dryad Arbor + U/G/Land card with spitting image in the GY allows casting off Retrace.

By the time you'll want to play it from the GY, you've drawn 9 cards,so it's quite likely that you'll have a blue or green card and a land in your hand, which puts the Arbor into win-more territory.

Maveric78f

10-02-2009, 01:17 PM

By the time you'll want to play it from the GY, you've drawn 9 cards,so it's quite likely that you'll have a blue or green card and a land in your hand, which puts the Arbor into win-more territory.

Definitely. I tested a bit and I really don't need it. Even 1 time, I thought I would not reach the 4th Ultimatum, I actually did (but blue cards were missing) and it provided me with 3 blue cards and I could make almost as many copies as I wanted. Even if I couldn't, I would have still resolved 3 times ultimatum, and had 2 Nucklavee into play. It was definitely enough.

The only issue I see in this new combo is that it gets really annoyed by Leyline but actually insted of tutoring for the stack I've given, I could tutor for :
U : wish
B : LDV
R : Crual Ultimatum
G : spitting image
W : conflux

Then play again conflux with LDV for LDV, a random blue card and Nucklavee. Then play wish on rushing river discarding the radnom blue card. Then play rushing river (and kicking if needed) discarding LDV. Then start the combo with cruel ultimatum.

Definitely a powerful setup. I even thought at one moment that it could make an infinite loop but spitting image is neither red nor instant. Too bad.

rufus

10-02-2009, 01:56 PM

Definitely a powerful setup. I even thought at one moment that it could make an infinite loop but spitting image is neither red nor instant. Too bad.

Hmm... infinity pile:
Conflux:
Sun and Moon Circle (G/W)
[green/white card] (G/W)
Conflux (B)
Nucklavee (R)
[blue card] (U)

Play Sun and Moon Circle (discard g/w card)
Play Nuklavee - discard Conflux (goes into library), retrieve other Conflux
Play Conflux discarding LDV -> Conflux (W), * (B), * (U), Cruel Ultimatum (R), * (G)
Play Cruel Ultimatum, play Conflux, rinse and repeat as necessary.

Especially with Conflux, you could also play Research and Development, though it's probably not as good as cunning wish.

Rico Suave

10-02-2009, 04:41 PM

The ideal win scenario would, ideally, contain as many Conflux as possible without breaching the rule of excess dead cards.

In other words, if I had 4 slots reserved for a win condition and I could win with 4 Conflux, I would do it.

I think I got it, but Dryad Arbor and Swift Silence are just junk.

But splitting image is a great idea (and it's green which is cool).
1/ play Conflux#1 and search for Conlux#2 (W), Splitting Image (G), Nucklavee (R), Cruel Ultimatum (B), Pact of Negation (U) (or duress if you can pay for it).
2/ play Cruel Ultimatum dicarding Nucklavee, draw 3, return Nucklavee to hand. Opponent discards 3.
3/ play Nucklavee discarding Conflux#2, return Cruel Ultimatum and a blue instant to hand (probably).
4/ play Cruel Ultimatum discarding the blue instant, draw 3. Opponent discards 3.
5/ play Splitting Image targetting Nucklavee, discarding 1 U-spell drawn off the 6 cards or the cards you had remaining in hand, or Pact of Negation if you did not use it until now, return Cruel Ultimatum and a blue instant to hand (probably).
6/ play Cruel Ultimatum discarding the blue instant, draw 3. Opponent discards 3.
7/ then you should be able to repeat this procedures several times (even without Dryad Arbor, and god knows what Swift Silence was here for?) and kill the opponent withing the turn.

Following with my previous line of thought, wouldn't it make sense to cut this:

2 Conflux
1 Nucklavee
1 Spitting Image
1 Cruel Ultimatum

In favor of this:

3 Conflux
1 Spitting Image
1 X

Where X is a creature that we can copy twice and will essentially win us the game?

Surely there is a creature out there that, assuming we copy it twice, it will straight up win the game for us.

Maveric78f

10-02-2009, 04:50 PM

1/ You need Cruel Ultimatum to make CA and repeat the Spitting Images.
2/ Cruel Ultimatum wins during the turn without been preventable.
3/ We have backup plans with Crual Ultimatum + Spitting Image as kills.
4/ Having X discarded makes you scoop (except if you keep Hunting Pack in SB, but I removed it as a side effect of the coolness of this new package).

Rico Suave

10-02-2009, 05:26 PM

Yea but how is this any better than:

2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn

?

You get a few 4/4's on the board afterwards? It seems strictly weaker if you can't get the Conflux in hand (Spitting Image and Nucklavee suck without Cruel Ultimatum), and there are some difficulties winning with a dead card that isn't Conflux - which was my point all along. What I'm getting at is there should be a way to win with 3-4 Conflux, maybe 1 other dead card tops, and that's it.

C.Wish -> Hunting Pack is fairly straight-forward, but we either need a way to leverage it into a win that turn (maybe a Time Stretch) or some other 2 card combo that involves an instant.

rufus

10-02-2009, 08:18 PM

The leanest package I can come up with is:

Conflux x4
Wheel of Sun and Moon x1
Cruel Ultimatum x1

Conflux ->
Wheel
Conflux 3x
Cruel Ultimatum

Play Wheel
Repeat { Cruel Ultimatum & Conflux }

Brushwagg

10-02-2009, 08:53 PM

Edited: I need to RTFC

@Nucklavee: I think it's fine. At the very least it brings you back only one draw spell. As far as Spitting Image goes, seems kind of meh. Also does Retrace work with Dream Halls?

rufus

10-02-2009, 09:06 PM

I'm not sure I totally like how the graveyard is being used. That opens the deck up to more hate. If your going to go this way then I think Abeyance needs to be looked at.

@Nucklavee: I think it's fine. At the very least it brings you back only one draw spell. As far as Spitting Image goes, seems kind of meh. Also does Retrace work with Dream Halls?

With wheel of sun and moon, the combo isn't gy dependent.

Brushwagg

10-02-2009, 09:13 PM

Oh.. my bad. Would help if I RTFC.

rufus

10-02-2009, 10:30 PM

Oh.. my bad. Would help if I RTFC.

No worries. Retrace does work with dream halls since you're paying the mana cost.

Maveric78f

10-03-2009, 04:03 AM

I have difficulties to follow the debates here.

@ Rico: how can you compare your combo with rufus's? I mean that rufus's make either infinite damage and yours only 20. Moreover yours scoops to tormod's crypt, extirpate any life gain, meaning you'll need to play pack in sb and to splash green to play pack (it has been a problem for using pack quite often with my Ub build).

@ Rufus: your loop does not make infinite damage because you have to draw off ultimatum, I don't like neither how you scoop to grip on wheel, particularly if it's in resp to ultimatum. But your package could be reduced to only 3 conflux.

According to me the best stack remains the conflux*2, spitting image, cruel ultimatum, nucklavee where any part except nucklavee ( and splitting image can still provide a kill even if it's not reliable anymore with the loss of the draw spell recursion) can be pitched to fow, any part can be discarded, it can either fetch for 2 protections, including duress or seize or fetch for a bounce before going off. I really can't see how the other packages can compete...

rufus

10-03-2009, 09:09 AM

@ Rufus: your loop does not make infinite damage because you have to draw off ultimatum, I don't like neither how you scoop to grip on wheel, particularly if it's in resp to ultimatum. But your package could be reduced to only 3 conflux.

You can dump cards from hand to library using dream halls to play them, and wheel will recycle the cards for you so you can keep repopulating the library, so you can avoid draw death.

If there's a concern about gripping the wheel mid-combo, you can add chant to the pile. I'd expect an opponent with grip to hit Dream Halls anyway. The Dream Halls/Conflux engine is so broken on its own, once it's on-line, you can get as much protection as you like.

Kagehisa

10-03-2009, 09:37 AM

About Krosan Grip...

Krosan Grip is more a SB card, right ? If yes... the solution for Krosan Grip should be in the SB, right ? So we are talking about the Game 2, right ? I think that there is an "expensive" solution...

If the opponent would cast Krosan Grip on Dream Halls, just cast another Dream Halls right after the first one by discarding a blue card and before the opponent cast his or her Krosan Grip that will hit only one of your Dream Halls; you have time since you still the active player. Of course, you will not have this second Dream Halls but you can play a copy of it...

I mean... You can cast Copy Enchantment ! XD XD XD YES SIR !!! IT WORKS !! XD

Conclusion ! If you are expecting Krosan Grip in Game 2, get your 4 Copy Enchantment from SB !! ( echoing truth is bad news... but you can counter it, right ?)

Brushwagg

10-03-2009, 10:49 AM

I mean... You can cast Copy Enchantment ! XD XD XD YES SIR !!! IT WORKS !! XD

Conclusion ! If you are expecting Krosan Grip in Game 2, get your 4 Copy Enchantment from SB !! ( echoing truth is bad news... but you can counter it, right ?)

Um why not just use discard? It's hard enough to get one Dream Halls in hand but to get 2 then have enough cards in hand to play another Dream Halls or Copy Enchantment and then combo out. Thats a pretty tall order.

I've been playing Duress and I'm starting to test Cabal Therapy. There better options because they can take Counters/Grips etc..

Rico Suave

10-03-2009, 06:41 PM

@ Rico: how can you compare your combo with rufus's? I mean that rufus's make either infinite damage and yours only 20. Moreover yours scoops to tormod's crypt, extirpate any life gain, meaning you'll need to play pack in sb and to splash green to play pack (it has been a problem for using pack quite often with my Ub build).

Just discard the Conflux to cast Pack.

Graveyard hate and life gain are irrelevant, and in fact I would go so far as to say if your opponent is playing either one they are helping you win.

The Dream Halls/Conflux engine is so broken on its own, once it's on-line, you can get as much protection as you like.

Which is precisely what I was getting at before. Conflux is what guarantees a win, not the other crap like Nucklavee. If you draw Nucklavee or Spitting Image you still need to search up something useful in order to win.

Cruel Ultimatum is, however, noteworthy in that it will drastically swing the game. While it may not straight up win like Conflux, it's not crap.

Maveric78f

10-04-2009, 03:04 AM

rufus

10-04-2009, 11:55 AM

Which is precisely what I was getting at before. Conflux is what guarantees a win, not the other crap like Nucklavee. If you draw Nucklavee or Spitting Image you still need to search up something useful in order to win.

Nucklavee and Spitting Image aren't terrible cards, but they're not as broken as Conflux. Nucklavee could, for example, be nice if you're trying to bootstrap the combo with Fact or Fiction.

Brushwagg

10-04-2009, 01:48 PM

Nucklavee and Spitting Image aren't terrible cards, but they're not as broken as Conflux. Nucklavee could, for example, be nice if you're trying to bootstrap the combo with Fact or Fiction.

I've done some pretty nutty things with Nuckalavee. It returns the CU and Meditate, sac to Therapy recast CU to bring back Nucklavee etc.. That's pretty much enough to put win the game or make it so your opponent really can't do anything to win in their extra turns if you don't end up winning.

Rico Suave

10-04-2009, 07:31 PM

Splitting image can be played and be useful pre-combo. Nucklavee too since it regrowth my dig spells (FoF, or Careful Considerations). During combo, the first is useless without Nucklavee but once more, the second returns a discarded conflux or simply a blue instant drawer. All in all I find them more useful than ultimatum. There is also the possibility to play a thrid conflux but it's really unnecessary.

Who are you trying to convince?

Nucklavee and Spitting Image are 99% useless outside the combo and even inside the combo they need other cards to be effective.

Why not just max out on Conflux so you can actually win? You know, instead of playing Dream Halls and going "well crap, all I have is a Spitting Image." Even Cruel Ultimatum is better than either of those cards because it doesn't need to combo with anything, it just demolishes the game state on its own.

I've done some pretty nutty things with Nuckalavee. It returns the CU and Meditate, sac to Therapy recast CU to bring back Nucklavee etc.. That's pretty much enough to put win the game or make it so your opponent really can't do anything to win in their extra turns if you don't end up winning.

The entire point is Nucklavee would have been crap in that situation if it weren't for Cruel Ultimatum, and the CU by itself would have probably been enough for you to win the game even without Nucklavee.

Then again by running Meditate and Therapy, I'd say you have enough situational and dead cards that Nucklavee is the last of your problems.

Brushwagg

10-04-2009, 08:58 PM

Then again by running Meditate and Therapy, I'd say you have enough situational and dead cards that Nucklavee is the last of your problems.

Care to explain this one? I use Meditate quite often outside the combo. Sure you give them an extra turn on like turn 2, big deal, I just drew 4 cards.

As for Therapy, it's dead? Again I don't see the logic here. It's coupled with Duress, and if you know what your opponent is playing name the card you don't want to deal with.

The deck really only needs 2x Conflux at the most.

Has anyone else tested lists? I just got done doing some testing aganist Landstill and won 4 out of 5 games. 3 of them were after the sideboarding (so the Wraths, and alot of the dead cards where out.)

Grollub

10-04-2009, 11:37 PM

Could someone please explain why a Dream Halls deck with more completely dead cards prior to landing the bomb than the original (TurboZvi only had 3-4 Blessings) is any better when they both win on turn 3-4?

Weakening a deck just to make it easier to play is not an excuse for a combo deck in my opinion...

Rico Suave

10-05-2009, 12:29 AM

Care to explain this one? I use Meditate quite often outside the combo. Sure you give them an extra turn on like turn 2, big deal, I just drew 4 cards.

As for Therapy, it's dead? Again I don't see the logic here. It's coupled with Duress, and if you know what your opponent is playing name the card you don't want to deal with.

The deck really only needs 2x Conflux at the most.

Has anyone else tested lists? I just got done doing some testing aganist Landstill and won 4 out of 5 games. 3 of them were after the sideboarding (so the Wraths, and alot of the dead cards where out.)

Meditate is deceptive. I'm not sure you realize just how good a turn is, and thus why Time Walk is one of the most powerful cards ever printed.

By skipping a turn you also pass up on your normal draw step. Thus, any card that draws 3 without sacrificing your next turn's draw lets you have just as many cards as a full Meditate.

By skipping a turn you lose all mana you would have access to during that turn. This means you spend 2U just to cast Meditate, but you also lose at least another 2U that you would otherwise get from untapping during a normal turn. Thus it makes Meditate a six or more mana investment.

Lastly, by skipping a turn you give up arguably the most important thing this deck could ever want - a land drop.

If you are casting Meditate and don't win that turn, it may as well read:
2U, instant
Draw 3
Return a land you control to your hand. Pay 2U during your next main phase or lose the game.

It is nice to have against a control deck that has no effective pressure on the board. However a lot of the control decks have morphed into ones packing Tarmogoyf and Confidant, thus making the turn-skip very frightening. I suppose you could also say it's nice against Smokestack or Tangle Wire.

In a format where winning or losing is often decided by turn 4, giving up a turn without winning as a direct result isn't something to blow off like you pretend, it is actually a pretty big deal.

As far as Therapy, there are at least 3 better disruption cards in Duress, Force, and Thoughtseize. There just isn't room for Therapy.

Could someone please explain why a Dream Halls deck with more completely dead cards prior to landing the bomb than the original (TurboZvi only had 3-4 Blessings) is any better when they both win on turn 3-4?

Weakening a deck just to make it easier to play is not an excuse for a combo deck in my opinion...

The main difference between the TurboZvi of old and the modern Dream Halls (at least the better ones) now is the TurboZvi list had a *LOT* of blue cards that cost 5+ that weren't named Dream Halls.

Some of the lists in this thread that pack 20 or more 5cc+ cards are hilariously bad. I don't know if they even realize why. Maybe they think they don't need a mana curve because they're running Dream Halls?

Obviously any of the streamlined versions run a lot less chaff and more cards that set up the kill smoothly. Having 5 useful cards in hand by turn 2 is a lot better than sitting on ridiculously expensive draw spells like the TurboZvi list would do.

That being said I do find it hilarious that the modern Dream Halls has essentially the same goldfish speed as the old TurboZvi which was Standard legal at the time (or at least I think it was).

Maveric78f

10-05-2009, 04:11 AM

Grollub

10-05-2009, 05:20 AM

The main difference between the TurboZvi of old and the modern Dream Halls (at least the better ones) now is the TurboZvi list had a *LOT* of blue cards that cost 5+ that weren't named Dream Halls.

Some of the lists in this thread that pack 20 or more 5cc+ cards are hilariously bad. I don't know if they even realize why. Maybe they think they don't need a mana curve because they're running Dream Halls?

Obviously any of the streamlined versions run a lot less chaff and more cards that set up the kill smoothly. Having 5 useful cards in hand by turn 2 is a lot better than sitting on ridiculously expensive draw spells like the TurboZvi list would do.

That being said I do find it hilarious that the modern Dream Halls has essentially the same goldfish speed as the old TurboZvi which was Standard legal at the time (or at least I think it was).

The old TurboZvi lists only ran 4 Ancestral Memories as a 5CC (or more) casting cost spell other than Dream Halls, and Memories resolved out of combo means you will win next turn - acceptable back in the day, probably not now. Stuffing the deck with draw/search/disruption like the old deck, instead of relying on resolving a Conflux (useless without Dream Halls) makes the deck alot more resilent and consistent.

I cannot help but wonder if treading down the old TurboZvi path would not be better, considering the two decks kill speed is the same; you win when you resolve Dream Halls, period. There has to be a way to not need Blessing recursion and still not pack the deck with a useless Conflux package.

Personally I think the ancient TurboZvi deck is better than the new Conflux powered lists, no offense meant just my honest opinion.

rufus

10-05-2009, 01:23 PM

I cannot help but wonder if treading down the old TurboZvi path would not be better, considering the two decks kill speed is the same; you win when you resolve Dream Halls, period. There has to be a way to not need Blessing recursion and still not pack the deck with a useless Conflux package.

Personally I think the ancient TurboZvi deck is better than the new Conflux powered lists, no offense meant just my honest opinion.

The TurboZvi decklist that I saw was dedicated combo with zero protection or disruption, and lots of non-basic land. Those seem like more fundamental and important distinction that the 5cc bit. Because it's slow and vulnerable to I would expect that list to lose to most of the Tier 1 decks in Legacy which are either faster or capable of crippling it with cards like 3-sphere, Grip, or FoW. (Notably, the list that I saw also featured more dead cards in blessing and flame wave than Maveric's Conflux lists do.)

Puzzle

10-05-2009, 03:15 PM

Long time no post...

Anyway, I opted, after getting different suggestions, for Show and Tell to make Dream Halls easier to cast and then Progenitus as "spare" and recurrent kill and finisher after 2-3 Conflux.
I'm happy with my levels of consistency (no wasted card, secondary kill), speed and protection but the tutoring could still be improved, Wasteland is a bitch and I tend to bleed cards a bit too quickly.
I have a love/hate relationship with Chrome Mox and I'm thinking of making room for more (stable) mana.
Any other suggestion ? Anything else than Cunning Wish ?

List :
Protection / Stall : 14
4 Thoughtseize
4 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Echoing Truth

Search : 8
4 Ancestral Visions
4 Lim-Dul's Vault

Combo(s) : 16
4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
2 Progenitus
3 Conflux
3 Cruel Ultimatum

Mana : 22
4 Chrome Mox
4 Underground Sea
4 City of Traitors
3 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Underground River
3 Gemstone Mine

Edit : I dislike Nucklavee and others because of sensitivity to graveyard hate and Stifle. Personal choice.

Grollub

10-05-2009, 04:08 PM

The TurboZvi decklist that I saw was dedicated combo with zero protection or disruption, and lots of non-basic land. Those seem like more fundamental and important distinction that the 5cc bit. Because it's slow and vulnerable to I would expect that list to lose to most of the Tier 1 decks in Legacy which are either faster or capable of crippling it with cards like 3-sphere, Grip, or FoW. (Notably, the list that I saw also featured more dead cards in blessing and flame wave than Maveric's Conflux lists do.)

TurboZvi only ran Ancient Tomb, Svyelunite Temple (Skerry is probably better now) and Crystal Vein, so only between 3 to 4 more than the new lists. It's easy to switch to more islands/fetchlands if you so please.

If you saw lists with Flame Wave you didn't saw good lists; or rather some people used "easier" kills than Inspiration/Lobotomy because they couldn't win within the time window or because they found it hard to pull off (heck, some even used Dream Cache to setup a controlled loop to limit the time needed to win), but it just goes to illustrate my point - Dream Halls kills when it hits, regardless of a weak kill condition, if you run enough draw/search - which you should anyway considering it is a combo deck - so why dillute the deck with cards that are just utterly useless without a Dream Halls in play. The Conflux engine is just a win-more package in my opinion.

EDIT: How come nobody is using Intuition (now much better with Skerry) to strengthen the turn 3 kill?

Rico Suave

10-05-2009, 05:49 PM

Rico, you're really close minded. You don't read people's arguments.

Your list, which is obviously better than the others plays a junk mana base, 1 card that is bad alone, and four cards useless without DH. You play almost no CA which makes your monoblack MU unwinnable. That might be a strategy, since heavy black decks are bad. But you also lose badly to tempo thresh or goblin with both have blasts for your birds and your ass and a high of mana disruption. I can't see how your aggro MU can be any better since you need often more than 5 life to start comboing. I can't see neither how your control MU can be better neither since you play only 4 protection spells MD (while I play 9).

To come back to the package, you need actually a sixth slot in SB. It's less a constraint than a MD slot but it's still one. As I said earlier, without a green splash build, because Conflux can't be pitched both for ASD and HuntingPack, it's sometimes an issue, against grave hate. Another point I raised is that you can't afford to pitch pitch any part of the package to FoW or even to have it discarded. All in all I'm quite sure that you use the plan B more than the plan A. The last argument I'll use is the fact that my pile allows me to tutor a high amount of disruption enabling to bounce an antiGY permanent or to discard preemptively extirpate or anything else. Your only argument is to say that I have 1 less spell enabling to take advantage on the game? Well, I play also 5 (3 careful considerations and 2 fact or fiction) diggers that help me to start the combo without conflux.

I did 20 games preside on the play against gob and I'm at 45% win. On the draw, I did only 10 games for the moment and it's even 5-5. I'll tell the ongoing of my tests.

I don't even play it anymore, so I don't really care if you attack that particular list.

The ultimate problem is that regardless of which Dream Halls deck you play, you're basically going to average 50% wins or so against any aggro deck that can goldfish turn 4 (like Goblins). Why? Because the two decks are essentially the same speed. At best you could say Dream Halls is a half turn faster than Goblins but that is not impressive. Dream Halls is still a full turn slower than Ad Nauseum and other combo decks.

TurboZvi only ran Ancient Tomb, Svyelunite Temple (Skerry is probably better now) and Crystal Vein, so only between 3 to 4 more than the new lists. It's easy to switch to more islands/fetchlands if you so please.

If you saw lists with Flame Wave you didn't saw good lists; or rather some people used "easier" kills than Inspiration/Lobotomy because they couldn't win within the time window or because they found it hard to pull off (heck, some even used Dream Cache to setup a controlled loop to limit the time needed to win), but it just goes to illustrate my point - Dream Halls kills when it hits, regardless of a weak kill condition, if you run enough draw/search - which you should anyway considering it is a combo deck - so why dillute the deck with cards that are just utterly useless without a Dream Halls in play. The Conflux engine is just a win-more package in my opinion.

EDIT: How come nobody is using Intuition (now much better with Skerry) to strengthen the turn 3 kill?

There are 2 philosophies:
1) Run a bunch of cards that are fairly bad without DH in play, but strong with DH in play (say, Ancestral Memories or Meditate)
2) Run a bunch of cards that are good without DH in play, but don't have a strong enough effect to warrant pitching a spell to cast them (say, Brainstorm or LDV)

Both of them are a lose-lose situation. If you go with #1, you will frequently have a problem getting Dream Halls into play before you die. If you go with #2, you need to run Conflux in order to get the oomph to win.

You could try to meld them together into one group if you wanted. Unfortunately without a full boatload of 15 or more draw-4 type cards, you will stall.

The biggest problem obviously is the deck's speed and neither of those philosophies will improve that. Dream Halls is essentially the same mana cost as Ad Nauseum only the deck doesn't have Rituals to cast it, nor can it support Chrome Mox because it needs so many cards in hand to win.

Brushwagg

10-05-2009, 09:35 PM

@Thoughtseize: It bacame Duress because I was losing too much with this and Ancient Tomb. Aagin if you know what your oppoent is playing, you know what you need to deal with.

@Rico: Since you seem to be very vocal in this thread let's see a deck list. You talk alot but I haven't seen you put up a list.

Grollub

10-06-2009, 02:50 AM

There are 2 philosophies:
1) Run a bunch of cards that are fairly bad without DH in play, but strong with DH in play (say, Ancestral Memories or Meditate)
2) Run a bunch of cards that are good without DH in play, but don't have a strong enough effect to warrant pitching a spell to cast them (say, Brainstorm or LDV)
Good point. I agree, both paths are flawed: it begs the question wether or not it's worth it to pursue the "regular" routes of abusing Dream Halls. In the current state it's a smidge faster than aggro, slower than combo and scoops if Dream Halls is blocked.

Going to fling something crazy out, so please bear with me as it's 100% untested and just an idea: could Dream Halls somehow be integrated with Replenish, it's a full turn faster, helps against control by doubling the "kill-card" and allows some of the cheaper digging spells.

The biggest problem obviously is the deck's speed and neither of those philosophies will improve that. Dream Halls is essentially the same mana cost as Ad Nauseum only the deck doesn't have Rituals to cast it, nor can it support Chrome Mox because it needs so many cards in hand to win.
I don't think it's fair to compare the two cards as Dream Halls is an engine and Ad Nauseum is fuel. But I agree the problem with Dream Halls is you cannot really speed it up - until they print a blue Spirit Guide.

@Puzzle: I like your list, I find it strangely intriguing, must be a blast to play.

Maveric78f

10-06-2009, 03:31 AM

Gob is definitely one of the worst MUs I could imagine, because it has a good clock and it can slow you down a lot with wastes and rishadans. I'm even surprised to have a 45% MU preboard, because a first turn lackey means essentially GG, as well as vial+2mana denial. The game is played on these factors. Against zoo, I've played it quite a lot too and it's far easier, the only annoyment is qasali which we can thoughtseize or spell snare or fow. And stop saying that Ad Nauseam is better than this deck because Ad Nauseam can't win against chalice, trini, cb, canonist, etc... And Ad Nauseam does not play FoW.

Hanni

10-06-2009, 03:47 AM

I figured I'd just chime in here, since I pretty much agree with Rico.

Turn 3 [goldfished] combos just aren't that strong anymore. You gain a little bit of resilience by playing combo spells outside of most Counterbalance and Chalice ranges, but you still fall victim to spells like Daze, FoW, Krosan Grip, and others, while being raced by most aggro when you don't go off on turn 3. R/G/w Naya Sligh, for example, currently has a turn 3 goldfish. Rather than being vulnerable to most anti-combo measures, R/G/w Naya Sligh pushes through and does the dirty. R/G/w Naya Sligh isn't even a combo deck. I fail to see how this deck is going to be competitive enough in today's metagame, when even ANT is having problems. Not trying to stifle innovation here, and while Dream Halls may be a fun card to fool around with, I don't see the benefits of going this route.

Also, Chant/Silence seems to be a better disruption package than FoW/Duress.

If you're looking for a resilient combo deck that can play through Counterbalance, Cannonist, etc (a turn 1 Chalice or Trini on the draw still causes problems), then (3c) R/b Belcher is for you. The difference is, rather than play cards with cc's that are out of Chalice/Counterbalance range, the deck simply races the opponent before those spells are castable (t1 Chalice or Trini on the draw being the exception). This forces the opponent to have t1 answers like FoW in hand, where your 8 protection spells in here may have a hard time dealing with the opponent's several disruption spells by the time t3 roles around. (3c) R/b Belcher also runs REB, which is just as good as your FoW's for combatting FoW's (and those can be cast t1 with the deck still combo'ing off). I'm not denying that you are just as resilient, if not a little more, than (3c) R/b Belcher against hate, but the fact that you do so at the expense of your aggro matchups seems silly and counterproductive. (3c) R/b Belcher hoses aggro while still being resilient to hate.

That's just my opinion though. I'm not trying to say stop innovating this, I just simply don't see the benefits for this in comparison to the other combo option(s) in the current metagame, particularly in comparison with (3c) R/b Belcher.

Rico Suave

10-06-2009, 04:09 PM

First of all, the "traditional" ways of going about Dream Halls have problems. They are a bit slow and suffer from mana denial effects like Waste or Port pretty hard. This isn't news to us, it's just stating the biggest problems of the deck.

There are alternative routes to get tricky or "cheese" the game. I see three main routes to go:
1) Show and Tell
2) Academy Rector
3) Replenish, in combination with discard effects like Attunement or Careful Study.

#1: Show and Tell does not do anything with Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum, only with DH or Progenitus. At best you need SnT+DH+Conflux+a spell to pitch, making it a 4 card combo. At worst your opponent will play a card off SnT that makes you lose the game. SnT tends to be very unreliable, and you might be better off with SnT+Progenitus as your main combo instead of Dream Halls, due to how complex the card requirements are to win that way.

#2: Rector was broken in T1 around 2003 with the printing of Cabal Therapy, which led to a deck that finds Bargain and just wins. Legacy does not have that option. Rector is essentially a 4 mana spell that accelerates Dream Halls by a turn (if you have the Therapy) and you still need a combo component in hand with a spell to pitch to it. It changes from a 2 card combo (Rector/Therapy) into a 4 card combo (Rector/Therapy/Conflux/X pitch spell). I don't think it's that good but it wouldn't hurt against swarm strategies.

#3: If playing a Replenish based deck, I have to wonder if it would be better just to go with Pandeburst. Replenishing a DH into play with Conflux in hand is a 2 card combo, as is Pandeburst, but the Pandeburst combo works better in that shell for various reasons (it can be hardcast, the combo works better with discard effects, etc).

If I were to play a Dream Halls deck I would explore the Academy Rector variants first. They do help against aggro, and while you are extremely vulnerable to graveyard hate and StP you do gain a tutor and a nice blocker. You also have the option of searching out things that aren't Dream Halls - the most notable being Form of the Dragon.

@Rico: Since you seem to be very vocal in this thread let's see a deck list. You talk alot but I haven't seen you put up a list.

I put up a list a few pages back, if you want to look. It was U/b/g with Birds and like 20 search/draw effects. If you wanted you could cut some of the tutor effects for disruption or w/e. It's a base skeleton of what I've been talking about this entire thread though, in that it has minimal dead cards and lots of set-up to make Dream Halls get into play ASAP with lots of consistency.

If you're looking for a standard U/b list, well, I just don't think they will cut it in the metagame. That being said here is a sample list:

Mana (25)
4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Saprazzan Skerry
4 Lotus Petal

Protection (10)
3 Thoughtseize
4 Force of Will
3 Cunning Wish

Combo (9)
4 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
2 Cruel Ultimatum
1 All Suns' Dawn / Nucklavee

Search/Draw (16)
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Night's Whisper / Impulse
4 Lim-Dul's Vault / Grim Tutor

SB:
1 Hunting Pack
1 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Tutor
12 Metgame/Wish targets

Puzzle

10-07-2009, 02:47 AM

#1: Show and Tell does not do anything with Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum, only with DH or Progenitus. At best you need SnT+DH+Conflux+a spell to pitch, making it a 4 card combo.
1. What do Rector and Replenish do with Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum ?

2. At best, you need :
- Rector (more expensive) + sac outlet (unsynergetic with the rest of the deck) + Conflux + spell to pitch, making it a 4-card combo by your own terms.
- Replenish (more expensive) + Intuition + Conflux + spell to pitch, making it a 4-card combo by your own terms.

Then, you don't have a back-up solution if you don't get these cards, which, by the way, take up more slots.

#1: Show and Tell does not do anything with Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum, only with DH or Progenitus. At best you need SnT+DH+Conflux+a spell to pitch, making it a 4 card combo. At worst your opponent will play a card off SnT that makes you lose the game. SnT tends to be very unreliable, and you might be better off with SnT+Progenitus as your main combo instead of Dream Halls, due to how complex the card requirements are to win that way.
Regarding the card that the opponent may play on Show and Tell :
1. Which deck and card do you have in mind and how competitive is it ?
2. Did you consider my Duress (for viewing) and Thoughtseize ?

I think you're missing the point with Progenitus : I don't focus on getting one combo in particular ; either will do for game 1. That makes chance of having an active combo early enough just much higher.

Show and Tell and Progenitus also have the advantage of being blue for all the pitching or imprinting (though Chrome Mox is quite discussable), making among other things the Dream Halls side easier to get started.
After the first, white cards suck if you don't have Conflux in hand.

Rico Suave

10-07-2009, 09:11 AM

1. What do Rector and Replenish do with Conflux or Cruel Ultimatum ?

They win. The Rector turns into Dream Halls, you know, and with Conflux it wins right on the spot.

I'm not sure you thought this through before asking it.

Regarding the card that the opponent may play on Show and Tell :
1. Which deck and card do you have in mind and how competitive is it ?
2. Did you consider my Duress (for viewing) and Thoughtseize ?

-Any other deck that uses Progenitus, like Natural Order / SnT decks.
-Enchantress decks can drop a Moat, Solitary Confinement, Worship, or something else equally ridiculous.
-A Siege-Gang Commander will kill you. Not because of SGC itself, but because of the 13 power Piledriver that you can't block.
-Any decks that still use Nevi.
-Stax decks can drop some ugly things.
-Dragon Stompy can drop a Pit Dragon and straight up race you because you helped them achieve Hellbent.

Let's take a simple approach for a second. Even something that has no serious permanents like Zoo can get you to an early 14 point life total before you cast SnT. Can you really afford to turn Prog sideways when you're facing down 9 power on the other side of the table? Remember they have all their mana to spend on burn because you helped them play all their creatures.

SnT is in effect against literally every deck - control, combo, and even aggro. Will it lose you the game most of the time? No. Will it lose you the game half the time? No. Will you lose matches in a tournament because of it? Yes.

I think you're missing the point with Progenitus : I don't focus on getting one combo in particular ; either will do for game 1. That makes chance of having an active combo early enough just much higher.

Show and Tell and Progenitus also have the advantage of being blue for all the pitching or imprinting (though Chrome Mox is quite discussable), making among other things the Dream Halls side easier to get started.
After the first, white cards suck if you don't have Conflux in hand.

Let me put this into perspective for you. Rector can win without any outside card. What does SnT do by itself? Hell what does it even do with one of the major combo components - Conflux/Cruel Ultimatum?

Puzzle

10-07-2009, 02:32 PM

They win. The Rector turns into Dream Halls, you know, and with Conflux it wins right on the spot.

I'm not sure you thought this through before asking it.You still need : 1 sac outlet, 1 Rector, 1 Conflux and 1 blue card. Same as your argument to reject SnT for being a "4-card combo", except that SnT also works with FoW, Misdirection, Progenitus turn 2 beats, Dream Halls to put into play and as DH fodder.

-Any other deck that uses Progenitus, like Natural Order / SnT decks. 1. How competitive are they right now ?
2. Duress + Thoughtseize + FoW gives a strong advantage against them.

-Enchantress decks can drop a Moat, Solitary Confinement, Worship, or something else equally ridiculous. Agreed. However, Enchantress has no clock and can easily be stop by Fow + the 8 1-mana discards. I just wouldn't rush into Progenitus (if I know I'm playing Enchantress, admittedly but again, the 8 1-mana discards help to identify that).

-A Siege-Gang Commander will kill you. Not because of SGC itself, but because of the 13 power Piledriver that you can't block.SnT comes online on turn 2 with what I'm testing.
Your example is correct if Gobs didn't get Thoughtseized, Piledriver didn't get FoW'd, and had both Piledriver + SGC in the first 8 cards and either was on the play or had Wasteland as well.
I accept that risk.

-Any decks that still use Nevi. How many do ?

-Stax decks can drop some ugly things.Agreed.

-Dragon Stompy can drop a Pit Dragon and straight up race you because you helped them achieve Hellbent.Given my mana base, that would be the last of my concerns vs Dragon Stompy. It's a pretty bad matchup anyway.

Let's take a simple approach for a second. Even something that has no serious permanents like Zoo can get you to an early 14 point life total before you cast SnT. Can you really afford to turn Prog sideways when you're facing down 9 power on the other side of the table? Remember they have all their mana to spend on burn because you helped them play all their creatures.And how is a 4-drop like Rector, which comes 1-2 turns later at best, better in this situation ?

SnT is in effect against literally every deck - control, combo, and even aggro. Will it lose you the game most of the time? No. Will it lose you the game half the time? No. Will you lose matches in a tournament because of it? Yes.Agreed.

Let me put this into perspective for you. Rector can win without any outside card. What does SnT do by itself? Hell what does it even do with one of the major combo components - Conflux/Cruel Ultimatum?I'm sorry. I just fail to see how Rector is different.
I just can't think of why an opponent would attack into a Rector without lethal damage on the table and by the time Rector enters play, it is likely to be lethal damage that you face, as you explained with your Zoo example earlier.
I don't see the win from Rector without a sac outlet, Conflux and extra blue card in hand that you see. I don't think that a single 4-drop will stop an aggro deck as a single blocker won't stop lethal damage by itself if it comes that late.

Rico Suave

10-07-2009, 03:48 PM

I'm going to pretend you're actually being serious.

Outside of Lim-Dul's Vault, the deck has absolutely nothing before turn 5. No Brainstorm, no Ponder, no Top, no draw, no other search, no way to tutor, nothing. You have no way to assemble any combination of cards with the exception of LDV. Essentially if you don't naturally draw the combo, you lose.

Do you know what this means? I'll put it into mathematical percentages for you:

You have a 15% chance of naturally drawing SnT + Progenitus by turn 3.

You have a 10% chance of naturally drawing SnT + DH + Conflux by turn 3.

You have a greater than 50% chance of drawing SnT by turn 3.

Do you understand that Show and Tell is literally useless in the deck half the times you draw it? Honestly why do I even need to compare it to anything let alone a better engine?

I'm honestly wondering if you even played the list you posted.

Peter_Rotten

10-10-2009, 09:17 AM

Maveric78f

10-12-2009, 07:24 AM

elof

10-12-2009, 08:40 AM

Do you have the list he played?

Maveric78f

10-12-2009, 09:55 AM

Do you have the list he played?

I'm quite sure he doesn't want it public right now (French Legacy cup this WE).

Puzzle

10-12-2009, 11:39 AM

A post here, just to say that a friend of mine made 2nd on 38 (5-1 record) with an almost mono-U dream halls deck with mystical MD that can mainly search for show and tell (which is quite like a dark ritual here) or Conflux. His kill was the Nucklavee/Spitting Image package plus 1 Progenitus. His list was far from definitive and he'd still like to change more than 5 MD slots and 10 SB slots.

Our metagame in Paris is quite competitive with more than 20 players with a good level.

To my knowledge, it's the first dream halls attempt in a legacy tourney.

According to me, this is the proof that the concept is competitive and that very few decks can compete against.

Edit: His only loss was against gob although he had the perfect start hand on g3: show'n'tell, dream halls, conflux, petal, ancient tomb and 2 other lands. But he'll never draw any coloured card.Lotus Petal is probably an improvement on my Chrome Mox but I suspect Simian Spirit Guide is even preferable, as the G3 you mentioned underlines.

Going mostly blue presents the advantage of Brainstorm and keeping a reasonable mana base. However, LDV still is worth the effort to push black imo.
I'd also try to keep Duress/Thoughtseize but there may be better alternative to keep the deck more blue.

What leaves me a bit more doubtful is Mystical Tutor : it fetches Conflux and SnT but doesn't help to get Dream Halls. It is also card disadvantage and in my experience, the hand tends to empty itself a bit quickly.
Maybe your friend didn't play LDV ? It could also be due to my Chrome Moxen that I get that feeling.

I agree that the concept is competitive but I wouldn't go as far as saying that very few decks can compete against it, though.

To go back on my own list, I've stuck to black and being Stifle-and-grave-hate-proof, although Brainstorm may turn out to be worth it later. I've also now gone for Rhystic Tutor as addition to LDV and dropped 2 Duress.
In the light of Maverick's post, I'll temporarily settle for :

List :
Protection / Stall : 12
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Echoing Truth

Search : 7
3 Rhystic Tutor
4 Lim-Dul's Vault

Combo(s) : 16
4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
2 Progenitus
3 Conflux
3 Cruel Ultimatum

Mana : 25
3 Dark Ritual
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 City of Traitors
4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
4 Gemstone Mine
1 City of Brass
2 Saprazzan Skerry

The addition of Dark Ritual is a bit of a bet, I'll admit, and they may need to turn into lands but once DH hits plays, the latter are not so needed anyway.

I still don't like my mana base's sensitivity to Moon but at least it's Stifle-proof. Wasteland recursion also remains an issue but I count on the deck's speed (hence Dark Ritual) to avoid that partly.
The only way to avoid that, I'm afraid, is to go mostly-blue, which I'm not ready to do yet.

Phoenix Ignition

10-12-2009, 11:54 AM

I really don't like Dark Ritual here. Turning one of your colored manas into black mana means you need to have 3 color-producing mana in play for it to work well. It is slower but I would use Lotus Petal over this, as it gives you additional outs to moon effects.

Also, why would you pick SSG over Lotus Petal? Lotus cracks for a blue or black, which everything you play requires, while SSG just gets you by Daze in a SURPRISE! style.

It just seems like Lotus Petal is a lot better since it can help you play every spell you have, around wasteland and other mana-hate, while top decking a SSG is going to be pretty awful when you have only colorless-producing lands.

Jeff Kruchkow

10-12-2009, 12:07 PM

Rhystic Tutor is a bad idea. It MIGHT win you one game and after that its just getting them to keep 2 lands open. Even with rituals, youd be better off with grim tutor so that you have a non conditional tutor

Puzzle

10-12-2009, 01:34 PM

I take the point about Lotus Petal. I clearly didn't give it enough thought and focused unduely on the risk of colour-screw in cards in hand after playing Dream Halls.

Regarding Rhystic Tutor :
- it's not guaranteed at all that I'll get one every game.
- if opponents choose to double-wasteland themselves just in case I have it, it's not such a bad thing. While they do that, they're not doing anything else.
I don't think keeping two mana open all the time is a good play for an opponent.

elof

10-12-2009, 02:11 PM

I'm quite sure he doesn't want it public right now (French Legacy cup this WE).

Diffinetly understandable. Please ask him to post it here later or send me a PM if that is possible. I really like this deck but I havn't found a list I'm happy with yet.

rufus

10-12-2009, 02:45 PM

Regarding Rhystic Tutor :
- it's not guaranteed at all that I'll get one every game.
- if opponents choose to double-wasteland themselves just in case I have it, it's not such a bad thing. While they do that, they're not doing anything else.

I'm not sure how "it's not guaranteed at all that I'll get one every game." is something in a card's favor. You should be striving to fill the deck with cards that you want to see every game, and in most situations.

A significant number of decks will leave some mana open during your main phase as a matter of normal play. Notably decks featuring SDT/Brainstorm engines, or landstill, and Rhystic Tutor is a relatively weak top-deck.

I'm not going to tell you what cards to play, but it seems that something like Intuition is going to outperform Rhystic Tutor in almost all situations.

Brushwagg

10-12-2009, 07:51 PM

I like seeing bigger tournament results and a final list still hasn't be agreed on.

@Chrome Mox: I played it for a while and found it to not be all that great. It reqiures 2 cards and most of the time you don't want to pitch the card to it anyway.

johanessen

10-15-2009, 07:35 AM

What is your plan against an extirpated Dream Halls? I got totally fucked.

List:

Lands
10 Islands
2 Mountain
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Crystal Vein

Protection:
4 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Fire/Ice
2 Propaganda

Cantrips:
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Brainstorm
4 Impulse

Combo:
4 Dream Halls
3 Conflux
3 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Nucklavee
2 Meditate

Sideboard
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Blood Moon
3 Pyroblast
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Misdirection

The idea is to sculpt our hand using brainstorms, fetchalnds, Impusles and top. It is important to use Force of Will only when necessary (remember with DH we don't need to loose the life for pay alterrative cost since we can play it through DH). I'd like to add Fact or Fiction but i can't find space for that. It would be nice to have a 4cc for CB.

I found that a resolved permanent like Meddling Mage, Stolary Confinement, etc could hurt us so added couple of bouncers. Also, Stacks mu is one of the hardest

Blood Moon or Back to Basics? I play propaganda, but i fear pyroblasts.
Thoughts?

PD: Tip: Opponents can use DH so be careful

Shanghi Knights

10-15-2009, 04:25 PM

@ johanessen

what match up exerpated your dream halls?

for stax maybe go the route of setting sibeboard space for annul. 1 trinisphere and were practically locked out. plus theres threat of that from DS as well so its not just stax but some of the stompy variants.

has anyone tried ill gotten gains in any builds of this deck so far? I want to use it in this deck, but the idea of them getting counter magic or anti enchantment spells hangs over its possible benefits.

johanessen

10-15-2009, 05:33 PM

I replaced maindeck propagandas for chain of vapor.
Also changed almost all the sideboard, now looks like that:

4 Pyroblast
3 Firespout
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Magus of the Moon
2 Sower of Temptation

Both mages are there instead of Blood Moon and Vedalken Shackles because i suppose people side out their swords/smothers/whatever so i can abuse of that. Sowers helps alot with Qasali Pridemages

Brushwagg

10-15-2009, 07:57 PM

What is your plan against an extirpated Dream Halls? I got totally fucked.

Don't let it happen? Was your Opponent playing MBC?

PD: Tip: Opponents can use DH so be careful

I'm pretty sure we know that. That's why we try to win the turn we drop Dream Halls.

I do like your list I have questions.

1. How good is Counterbalance in this deck?

2. Have you given Mystical Tutor a try?

3. If you were to give Mystical a try would you drop your Conflux down to 2x?

4. How come your not playing 4x CU?

for stax maybe go the route of setting sibeboard space for annul. 1 trinisphere and were practically locked out.

That's why I run Echoing Truth.

Shanghi Knights

10-15-2009, 08:52 PM

chain of vapor, at first thought that seems like a great way to get extra cards for pitching to dream halls in addition to getting rid of opposing permanents.

But to use it to benefit hand size for comboing out, your deck would need to be dropping various permanents before combo. I'm gunna go back to the drawing board with chain of vapor for combo advantage in mind.

Brushwagg

10-15-2009, 09:15 PM

Chain could be good with Nucklavee. Bounce it to replay or discard to play CU. Hmm... I'm going to have to think on this one.

Shanghi Knights

10-15-2009, 09:25 PM

its certainly another way to use him for a repeat of cruel. So far I have been killing him with cabal therapies I pitched to play cruels. then getting him back with cruel, hoping i draw into a means to cast him again. (stalled out a few times)

Brushwagg

10-16-2009, 08:13 AM

@Shanghai: Could you post your list please? I also use Cabal Therapy liked it, but I have limited testing.

johanessen

10-16-2009, 08:16 AM

1. How good is Counterbalance in this deck?
Counterbalance is here for three reasons:
1.-Playing Top, is a way to abuse that card.
2.-Helps against combo and burn, hard pairings
3.-People use their DE effects on that so we can cast DH with no fear.

2. Have you given Mystical Tutor a try?
We will need an extra card by the time we play DH, i'm affraid of card disadvantadge

4. How come your not playing 4x CU?
Being Nucklavee recurrable they're not needed. In fact, playing Chain of Vapor we only need one to combo out. But I'd play two or three CU in case you need to remove one to pay fow cost, or it gets discarded. But never four, it's a dead card without DH (unless you play the Urb build)

If you fear stifle decks, what do you guys think about Recoup? One of the Beneffits of playing Nucklavee and Fire/Ice is they are multicolour and this is very interesting for DH. So I'm not sure about that

rufus

10-16-2009, 10:58 AM

If you fear stifle decks, what do you guys think about Recoup? One of the Beneffits of playing Nucklavee and Fire/Ice is they are multicolour and this is very interesting for DH. So I'm not sure about that

Recoup is a poor choice because you can't use Dream Halls to pay flashback costs. If you want to do something like that, you're probably better off using Sins of the Past which is in-color for UB decks, or some kind of recursion like Izzet Chronarch.

johanessen

10-16-2009, 11:31 AM

Recoup is a poor choice because you can't use Dream Halls to pay flashback costs. If you want to do something like that, you're probably better off using Sins of the Past which is in-color for UB decks, or some kind of recursion like Izzet Chronarch.

Sins of the Past isn't in-color for my list, and regarding Izzet Chronarch, Nucklavee is far better.

I also brainstormed to change red for black. Black has better control (duress, damnation, innocent blood), better card-draw/search engine (phyrexian arena, grim tutor) and even acceleration (dark ritual, cabal ritual). But when comboing out I don't know what cards I'd use. I'm searching for cards that have recursion (Grim Discovery? Sadly Yawgmoth's Will is banned :p) but here is the main problem. Also, red offers better sideboarding plans: moon effects are devastating and pyroblasts are incredible.

Shanghi Knights

10-16-2009, 06:38 PM

I'm still working on the idea of putting in chain of vapor.

3 Vendilion clique
3 academy rectors
2 nucklavee
2 majister sphinx

4 cabal therapy
4 cruel ultimatum
3 ancestral vision

4 brainstorm
4 Impulse
3 mystical tutor
2 meditate
2 pact of negation

3 dream halls
1 form of the dragon

3 engineered explosives

4 ancient tombs
4 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
3 tundra
3 underground sea
3 island
1 swamp

I may drop the explosives for chain of vapor, so far there just in there to get rid various problems, which chain could perform just as well.

Majister works as a cruel ultimatum if used before the real thing.

vendilion is good for combo preparation as well as reducing the life total so you can combo 1 less ultimatum

Form of the dragon is for heavy aggro, though its a dead draw. But given i'm using the academy rector I liked the look of it in the deck.

But thats the jist of what i've been working on since my last posted list.

Brushwagg

10-18-2009, 07:51 PM

Ok so I took the following list to a small local and took second with a record of 2-1. My lose was to Mono-Red Sligh. Very fast deck and I didn't draw really anything to slow him down with. Dropped Dream Halls game 1 at 4 life and with Cu on the stack he cast Fireblast (he had 3 in hand). I beat 2 land Belcher and Spring Tide, by playing control till I could combo out. The discard was good.

// Lands
3 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Crystal Vein
4 Island
3 Volcanic Island

// Creatures
2 Nucklavee

// Spells
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
2 Echoing Truth
1 Chain of Vapor
3 Dream Halls
3 Mystical Tutor
2 Conflux
4 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Cabal Therapy
4 Duress
2 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Meditate

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Firespout
SB: 2 Shattering Spree
SB: 2 Sower of Temptation
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 4 Pyroblast

@Flux: Didn't need all day. I was thinking if I drew a ton lands but didn't. This is probably going to become another Lim-Dul's Vault. -1 Flux +1 Lim-Duls Vault list is fixed.

@CoV: Not sure on it. Didn't see it once more testing is needed.

@Conflux: I was not sold till I played it. Getting 3x CU and Conflux was really good. It's staying.

Replaced City of Traitors with Crystal Vein and it's alot better.

I've also been looking at Burning Wish. Not sure how to fit it in without totally redoing the deck, but my thinking is it becomes the card you need. I'm not sure if it will work out but it could be worth a look.

johanessen

10-19-2009, 07:12 AM

I dropped the two CoV for Echoing Truth. Chain of Vapor sucks when they bounce your DH. :(

With one copy of Echoing, Nucklavee and cruel ultimatum you can go infinite loop, but be sure you aren't removing it with Fow.

Maveric78f

10-19-2009, 07:15 AM

With Echoing, Nucklavee and one copy of cruel ultimatum you can go infinite loop, but be sure you aren't removing it with Fow.
Explain?
How can you draw an inifinite amount of cards?

Brushwagg

10-19-2009, 07:59 PM

Play an inifinite deck :) ?

@Maveric78f: How did your freind end up doing this weekend? Can you post he list he used for the 38 person tournament please?

I've been thinking of how to handel the fast aggro decks. Is Propaganda and bounce enough? I was looking at life gain but couldn't find anything that would be useful at all.

Shanghi Knights

10-19-2009, 08:09 PM

I Been trying to draw stuff up to drop for CoV to bounce back to my hand so i could build up hand size for dream hauling but as i try and come up with blue permanents other than counterbalance, nothing super relevant to the deck over all is coming up. (I had hoped it work like the vintage play- mox bounce then tendrils) (but to no avail, i'm only seeing better plays of other cards) especially in the case of interacting with Nucklavee.

Has anyone tried that version with Grozoth and Searing wind?

Brushwagg

10-19-2009, 09:27 PM

I just looked up the deck it tries to use a different kill. It also looks like it's a deck he just through up there. Not a tournament top 8.

@CoV:I was mainly using it for Nucklavee and opponent's troublesome stuff. Not using on opponent's stuff when Dream Halls is out though.

TheBirdMan

10-19-2009, 10:11 PM

Grozoth goes and gets all 4 searing wind and you can use each other to cast them.

Brushwagg

10-19-2009, 10:44 PM

Wow that was a Brain fart. Edited

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 03:29 AM

@Maveric78f: How did your freind end up doing this weekend? Can you post he list he used for the 38 person tournament please?

Finally, nobody played dream halls this WE. His list was awful. He admits that he had a lot of luck during this tourney.

// Lands
5 [UNH] Island
2 [A] Underground Sea
2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
1 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [EX] City of Traitors
2 [MM] Saprazzan Skerry
2 [ON] Polluted Delta
2 [ON] Flooded Strand

// Creatures
1 [CFX] Progenitus
1 [ALA] Empyrial Archangel
1 [EVE] Nucklavee

// Spells
3 [US] Show and Tell
3 [TSP] Careful Consideration
1 [FUT] Pact of Negation
1 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
2 [JU] Cunning Wish
2 [LRW] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm
2 [V09] Mystical Tutor
1 [EVE] Spitting Image
2 [CFX] Conflux
4 [SH] Dream Halls
1 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
4 [AL] Force of Will
4 [V09] Lotus Petal

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 1 [DS] Echoing Truth
SB: 1 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 1 [FUT] Slaughter Pact
SB: 2 [FUT] Pact of Negation
SB: 2 [CFX] Progenitus
SB: 2 [ALA] Empyrial Archangel
SB: 1 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
SB: 1 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
SB: 1 [SC] Hunting Pack
SB: 1 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
SB: 1 [TE] Ancient Tomb

Right now, we kind of agree on this list:

// Lands
4 [ON] Flooded Strand
2 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [EX] City of Traitors
4 [ON] Polluted Delta
5 [MI] Island (1)
2 [R] Underground Sea
1 [P2] Swamp (3)

// Creatures
1 [EVE] Nucklavee

// Spells
4 [SH] Dream Halls
2 [M10] Ponder
4 [CST] Brainstorm
4 [TE] Lotus Petal
4 [AL] Force of Will (basically an answer to anything but wasteland, its shortcoming is that it makes card disadvantage)
2 [AL] Lim-Dul's Vault
2 [CFX] Conflux
1 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
3 [IN] Fact or Fiction (forces the opponent to counterspell before the big turn)
3 [LRW] Thoughtseize (the problem of this card is the fact that it empties your hand, even if there is nothing relevant to discard but besides that it protects very well the combo)
2 [DIS] Spell Snare (good against all the annoying precombo spells: small pox, hymn, gaddock, meddling, cannonist, counterbalance, chalice but useless during the big turn)
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top (very good against mana denial and discard)
1 [US] Show and Tell (acts like a dark ritual on steroids, the risk is to see qasali, oblivion ring, harmonic sliver enter the battlefield on the opposite side)
2 [6E] Mystical Tutor
1 [PY] Rhystic Tutor (if I play it once (or just reveal it), I usually SB it out)
1 [LRW] Cryptic Command (still an experimental slot, Stand/Deliver or Rushing River might be better)

// Sideboard (still largely experimental)
SB: 2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce (useful against a lot of stuff from heavy control to combo)
SB: 3 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus (gives more time to combo against a lot of decks, and fights discard)
SB: 4 [7E] Engineered Plague (plan B against tribal and gives a lot of time to combo too)
SB: 1 [UL] Rebuild (Stax and Affinity)
SB: 2 [OD] Divert (discard, mana denial)
SB: 1 [FUT] Pact of Negation (against heavy control and tempo decks)
SB: 1 [SH] Evacuation (against Mother of rune)
SB: 1 [CFX] Progenitus (kill#2)

We also have a Ur build for fire/ice and burning wish and a UGB list for Cobra, Veteran Explorer, thoughtseize, cabal therapy, deed, ...

Also, I'm sorry to say that, but I feel that the last posted lists are weaker than what was posted 2 weeks ago.

Playing less than 4 Dream Halls is complete nonsense.

Playing Combo package of 8 cards that are useless precombo is also very strange when you could have a 4-cards package (+ a bounce) for a kill less sensible to discard.

Playing 15 control cards is also the best way to get beaten to death by tarmo, burn or gobs.

My list goldfishes at turn 3 or 4 at worse. It does not care of grip if my opponent can't kill me on the next turn. It does not care of extirpate at all, nor stifle or trickbind.

johanessen

10-20-2009, 08:11 AM

Explain?
How can you draw an inifinite amount of cards?

You need to deal 20 damage to opponent, and this is possible with Dream Halls in play, Cruel Ultimatum, Nucklavee, and any bouncer (not chain of vapor because they'll bounce your DH). Supposing you have/will draw one colored card during the process (being CU draw3, bouncer-draw (cryptic command), had another card in hand when comboing, etc.) The easiest way is to combo through Conflux (I play 3 copies) and only one copy of CU, Nucklavee and bouncer.

Brushwagg

10-20-2009, 08:26 AM

They can only bounce your Dream Halls if you target something on your opponent's side. It only effects the player that had something bounced.

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 08:55 AM

You need to deal 20 damage to opponent, and this is possible with Dream Halls in play, Cruel Ultimatum, Nucklavee, and any bouncer (not chain of vapor because they'll bounce your DH). Supposing you have/will draw one colored card during the process (being CU draw3, bouncer-draw (cryptic command), had another card in hand when comboing, etc.) The easiest way is to combo through Conflux (I play 3 copies) and only one copy of CU, Nucklavee and bouncer.

I know that. I just contest the infinite part. Since, you'll empty your deck. And see my list, that's the combo I use (but with Cryptic Command, because it's very efficient against counterbalance and it can do a lot of things precombo).

rufus

10-20-2009, 10:43 AM

johanessen

10-20-2009, 11:12 AM

Isn't Intuition better?

You can go to 3 Dream Halls when needed or 2xCU and 1 Nucklavee. If they give you Nucklavee you can get Intuiton from graveyard when casting Nucklavee and search 2xBouncers and another Nucklavee.

I know with DH in play Gifts is strickly better, but the fact Intuitions lets you search for the three Dream Halls (tutor effect at instant speed) is very important here

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 11:20 AM

Notably, you can combo out on gifts:
Dream Halls in play + Gifts Ungiven->
Chain of Vapor/Cryptic Command/Other bounce
Cruel Ultimatum
Nucklavee
Conflux (or Body Double)

So any list that runs the Nucklavee/bounce/ultimatum loop should probably be running 4 Gifts Ungiven before running a second Conflux. A Dream Hall/Gifts Ungiven approach may also feature fewer dead cards, and does allow Mono-U.

What happens if you remain with Conflux and the bounce in hand? How do you regrowth either Cruel Ultimatum or Nucklavee

With Body Double it works but it looks very sensitive to extirpate. It's a pity because playing no conflux would be great (and Body Double is less a dead card).

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 11:22 AM

johanessen

10-20-2009, 11:29 AM

Usually I don't have had problems in that aspect, since all you do is draw, play land and go, or cantrips/top. Only spend counters in cards that won't let you win when you have the combo, or fire on confidants, etc.
Also, that's why i chosed to play 2xMeditate.

rufus

10-20-2009, 12:50 PM

What happens if you remain with Conflux and the bounce in hand? How do you regrowth either Cruel Ultimatum or Nucklavee.

I guess you'll have to have an extra combo enabler (Body Double, Nucklavee, or Cruel Ultimatum in your deck). Even so, the combo really isn't going to be more Extirpate-sensitive considering that Extirpating Cruel Ultimatum will shut it regardless.

You can go to 3 Dream Halls when needed or 2xCU and 1 Nucklavee. If they give you Nucklavee you can get Intuiton from graveyard when casting Nucklavee and search 2xBouncers and another Nucklavee.

I know with DH in play Gifts is strickly better, but the fact Intuitions lets you search for the three Dream Halls (tutor effect at instant speed) is very important here

I was suggesting Gifts as an alternative to Conflux, not as an alternative to Intution.

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 01:22 PM

I guess you'll have to have an extra combo enabler (Body Double, Nucklavee, or Cruel Ultimatum in your deck). Even so, the combo really isn't going to be more Extirpate-sensitive considering that Extirpating Cruel Ultimatum will shut it regardless.

Nope at all.

Look at my list. Now my targets for conflux :

Conflux#1 discarding a random card targets :
thoughtseize (B), Nucklavee (R), random blue card (U), Conflux#.

Conflux#2 discarding the random blue card to target :
Cruel Ultimatum (R), a random black card (B), the bounce (U).

Discard the random black card to play thoughtseize. If you find 2 extirpates in a hand of more than 5 cards, then you're fucked up, but that's unlucky. Anyway, you'll empty his hand draw 3, gain 5, make him lose 5, etc...

rufus

10-20-2009, 01:26 PM

By extra combo enabler - I meant with the gifts stack.

Logan

10-20-2009, 01:40 PM

Hi
Here there is my current list, I’ve tried to make it monoU except for the ultimatums. I’m looking for new ideas because I have some doubts about diminishing returns, I’m considering to change them by Ancestral Visions or even Compulsive Research.
Here we go:
4 Ancient tomb
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
10 Island
4 Force of will
4 Brainstorm
4 Meditate
4 Impulse
4 Dream Halls
4 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Remand
4 Diminishing Returns
3 Show and tell
1 Rushig River
1 Echoing truth
1 Inkwell Leviathan

I don’t have a fixed sideboard yet, but my idea was more or less like that
4 Propaganda
4 Bebs
3 Relic of progenitus
3 Trickbind
1 Open slot

What do you think about that?

johanessen

10-20-2009, 01:54 PM

Nope at all.

Look at my list. Now my targets for conflux :

Conflux#1 discarding a random card targets :
thoughtseize (B), Nucklavee (R), random blue card (U), Conflux#.

Conflux#2 discarding the random blue card to target :
Cruel Ultimatum (R), a random black card (B), the bounce (U).

Discard the random black card to play thoughtseize. If you find 2 extirpates in a hand of more than 5 cards, then you're fucked up, but that's unlucky. Anyway, you'll empty his hand draw 3, gain 5, make him lose 5, etc...

Yeah, that's a nice option against extirpate.
Is there any possibility to use Gifts as a Conflux replace and still have a chance against extirpate? I prefer Gifts because it's playable without Dream Halls, but I think Conflux is needed here.

So all we need once we have Dream Halls in play is:
2xConflux
2xNucklavee
1xCruel Ultimatum
1xBouncer

Being only 5 cards that are totally (or generally) useless without Dream Halls.

Maveric78f

10-20-2009, 02:33 PM

I think that Gift can be safely played MD and replaced with 2*Conflux post SB.

Shanghi Knights

10-20-2009, 07:29 PM

EDIT- I been miss reading Grozoth for some time, when i originally mentioned him asking if anyone tried it, I was under the impression he worked like protean hulk and only fetched any number of cards equaling up to a total casting cost of 9. I see now that that was wrong. Its any number of cards costing 9. Thus you can rip up a several searing winds or a massive dragon storm and storm into bogardan hellkites. beyond the searing winds it just not practical. But for good measure put in a majister sphinx encase they like to gain life. I'm altering my build to go this route, the card base is just that much more practical than nucklavee and cruel ultimatum recursion.

I don't entirely understand why were fretting over extirpate, one cruel or pre combo discard should take care of the problem. Only deck i see running them is pox or landstill wishing for it.

Brushwagg

10-20-2009, 10:19 PM

Conflux#1 discarding a random card targets :
thoughtseize (B), Nucklavee (R), random blue card (U), Conflux#.

Conflux#2 discarding the random blue card to target :
Cruel Ultimatum (R), a random black card (B), the bounce (U).

I have a question here. For Conflux wouldn't going 3x CU and Conflux just work better?

@Grozoth build: It needs some work also. There is no way of getting Searing Wind back if needed. Chrome Mox could proabaly become Lotus Petal.

Shanghi Knights

10-20-2009, 11:01 PM

guess you could nucklavee it back but no way to definitely be in a situation where you could recast it, less the deck was running some blue red instant like fire and ice. Still no solid way to get it back but having a 9/9 wall on the table that can lose defender looks kinda cool.

To solve it why not a show and tell build running majister sphinx along with the grozoth searing wind package. Such a build would definitely improve the math of making an instance of needing to play more than 1/2 searing winds less likely to occur. Majister sphinx is there as just extra insurance the combo can succeed as well as a back up plan if something happens (heaven forbid) to Dream halls.

To boot run discard with such a build is the best way I see it. As in Cabal therapy Grozoth.

Shai tan teh reaper

10-20-2009, 11:19 PM

I i just wanted to say ive read all the pages and the comboish versions r very cool. but for a wail now (about a month before halls was unbanned actually) i've been working on a very much control version with pretty good success. i know it's a totally different type of deck then the combo here but i figured i'd throw it out anyway, there's still many similarities. mayb you can give me some ideas r find something in my control versions for the combo versions \\.

22 lands
4 Scalding Tarn
3 Flooded Strand
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tundra
1 Arid Mesa
1 plateau
2 Mountain
2 Plains
7 Island

1 Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
1 Nucklavee
1 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
3 Burning Wish
4 Path to Exile
2 Fire/Ice
2 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Dream Halls
2 Cryptic Command
4 Counterspell
3 Meditate
3 Spell Snare

SB

1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Replenish
3 Meddling Mage
1 Wrath of God
1 Show and Tell
1 Call the Skybreaker
2 firespout
1 Ancestral Vision
1 Morningtide
1 Solemn Offering
2 Circle of Protection: Red

Maveric78f

10-21-2009, 03:27 AM

The Grozoth kill is awful, Searing Wind gets discarded or extirpated if resp to the first, a STP in response puts you equally in a big trouble, it takes a lot of room in the MD.

I have a question here. For Conflux wouldn't going 3x CU and Conflux just work better?
No, because Conflux is the card that makes you win. Cruel Ultimatum in hand is just taking advantage on the game. And because the package needs only 4 cards to work. And it's resistent to any kind of disruption (any part of the package discarded, extirpate, krosan grip, trickbind, 1 permanent being a problem). This resilience is the reason why I don't go with Gift Ungiven.

Brushwagg

10-21-2009, 11:42 AM

I got thinking after my post, that the better Conflux pile is 2x CU, 1x Nucklavee, 1x Conflux. Pitch Nucklavee to cast CU twice and pitch random drawn card for Conflux to win.

Xentra

10-21-2009, 12:07 PM

Do you guys think twincast is good in this deck?

regards

Maveric78f

10-21-2009, 12:19 PM

I got thinking after my post, that the better Conflux pile is 2x CU, 1x Nucklavee, 1x Conflux. Pitch Nucklavee to cast CU twice and pitch random drawn card for Conflux to win.

How do you win by casting Conflux a second time?

Brushwagg

10-21-2009, 07:26 PM

By getting the other 2 CUs in the deck. I'm going off my build that plays 4 CU.

Shanghi Knights

10-21-2009, 08:10 PM

True extirpate derails it but i prefer its simplicity, and brute force over complicated Nucklavee recursion. I'm going to make pact of negation+discard a priority when comboing. The biggest down fall is how it doesn't seal them out of the game like Cruel can with the creature sacking and the discarding

This what i built so far. Hybriding what i described in my prior post between Grozoth kill and sphinx Bp. .

4 Grozoth
2 majister sphinx

4 searing wind
4 cabal therapy
4 show and tell
3 thoughtseize
4 ponder

4 dream hall

4 brainstorm
3 pact of negation
3 lim duls vault.

3 divining top

4 ancient tomb
4 polluted delta
1 flooded strand
4 island
1 swamp
2 tundra
3 underground sea

sb
4 swords
4 annul
3 pithing needle
4 slots still in the works.

Maveric78f

10-22-2009, 02:31 AM

True extirpate derails it but i prefer its simplicity, and brute force over complicated Nucklavee recursion. I'm going to make pact of negation+discard a priority when comboing. The biggest down fall is how it doesn't seal them out of the game like Cruel can with the creature sacking and the discarding
Omg, how is Nucklavee recursion complicated? You always do the same stacks. It's not as doomsday where you have to change stack at every game because it depends on mana and on tops and your hand. If you want more cards with the Oups I win effect, then you can play 4*conflux with the same Nucklavee+CU+Bounce package. Actually I'm starting to consider it.

Shanghi Knights

10-22-2009, 11:09 AM

Omg, how is Nucklavee recursion complicated? You always do the same stacks. It's not as doomsday where you have to change stack at every game because it depends on mana and on tops and your hand. If you want more cards with the Oups I win effect, then you can play 4*conflux with the same Nucklavee+CU+Bounce package. Actually I'm starting to consider it.

I'll yield to the observation that perhaps calling it "complicated" is an over statement, but stacked side bay side one is far easier to process than the other.

When i said "making discarding a priority", I look back on it that does sound kinda silly to even be mentioned.:laugh:

anonymos

10-22-2009, 07:51 PM

So I was messing around with Dream Halls for a dumb thing a local store is using, when I stumbled onto something. I found a 3 card pile to use that can get past any amount of life gain and gets you some serious bragging rights for a tournament.

1 Progenitus
1 Prismatic Omen
1 Coalition Victory

You can toss Progenitus to cast P. Omen and Conflux again to be able to drop Progenitus and win. No attacking necessary.

Brushwagg

10-22-2009, 09:45 PM

You can toss Progenitus to cast P. Omen and Conflux again to be able to drop Progenitus and win. No attacking necessary.

Not a bad Conflux pile. What does the rest of the list look like?

@Attacking: The lists in the thread don't attack to win. We're using Cruel Ultimatum or Searing Wind as the win con.

anonymos

10-22-2009, 11:14 PM

The rest of my list is amazingly ugly. I put it together at about 2 in the morning just going through boxes looking for stuff that looked fun to play. I like mystical tutor and intuition so far, but the rest of it is really ugly. Once I get a little bit more of the ugly knocked off I'll post it.

dr.knockers

10-23-2009, 05:57 AM

How about this?

4 Dream Halls
2 Progenitus
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Anger
1 Putrid Imp
3 Conflux
2 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Daze
4 Thoughtseize
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Counterbalance

4 Ancient Tomb
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
3 Flooded Strand
3 City of Traitors
3 Island

Protective, good finish and not to slow. Ok, you wont be able to go off till about turn 4-5, but the turns before you can really get board advantage. Maybe petal/ ritual could make the deck faster but also less protective. Also 1 or 2 orim's chant can be nice. The countertop curve is hidious btw, need to be cut.

johanessen

10-23-2009, 09:16 AM

Why you need Pimp if you can cast Progenitus by discarding the Anger?

Maveric78f

10-23-2009, 09:22 AM

You definitely need show and tell if you go this route.

And playing Mountains is a good tech with Anger. I'd like that people give more than a 5 minutes reflexions before posting llists here. It looks like the bazaar or misconceptions here.

Forbiddian

10-23-2009, 09:55 PM

Puzzle

10-24-2009, 05:30 AM

Question:

Is there a way to do this without the dependency on the graveyard?

The deck seems really cool and all, but I'm not sure it's worth saving a few slots with Intuition/Gifts Ungiven if it requires you to use the graveyard.

The reason to play this over ANT is resistance to disruption, but you give that all up if you let opponents shove their anti-Ichorid hate at you as well. Or, put another way: Why would you play this over Cephalid Breakfast? Or for novelty, Entomb+Hulk.

I think any win condition would need to dodge Crypt, Relic, and Leyline, even if it costs a few more cards.

Magister Sphinx + Searing Wind + Conflux I think is the best win-con. I haven't really done optimizations, but it looks a lot better than versions running Cruel Ultimatum (which doesn't guarantee a win if you have to start with it). One Cruel should probably be run to prevent Thoughtseizing on the Sphinx from costing you the game.

Example:
Conflux into:

2x Conflux
Ancestral Vision
Lim-Dul's Vault
Magister Sphinx

Conflux into:
1x Conflux
Junk Blue
Lim-Dul's Vault
Searing Wind
Cruel Ultimatum

Keep using the Vaults to cast Ancestral Visions or Confluxes to fill your hand. Make them discard their whole hand, fill your own hand with countermagic and crap, then Sphinx + Searing Wind them.

No graveyard dependency and a microscopic win con (three cards) at the cost of having to run Conflux instead of Intuition or Gifts Ungiven.I don't quite understand how 1 CU helps if Magister Sphinx got discarded.
I tried the "draw" strategy before with Ancestral Visions. The problem is that you actually end up using two cards to draw three, one of which is likely a land. It just fizzles too often, though Visions on turn 1 often gives a great advantage. It anyway doesn't reduce the number of Conflux you want to run.

Re. the kill, Progenitus + Prismatic Omen + Coalition Victory as mentioned above seems the best so far to me, though I'd increase the Progenitus quantity. It's immune to graveyard hate and Stifle and take a minimal amount of slots while leaving an alternate kill possibility.

The weak point indeed remains the tutoring. Intuition forces you to play all 4 Conflux, though it's not that bad a drawback. The Extirpate risk is, imo, minimal : not many decks play it and a good discard package can take care of it. The real problem against decks using Extirpate is that they are typically heavy on discard themselves and that hurts a deck like DH badly to begin with.
On the topic of tutoring, one thing I don't like and that seems to be everywhere is Mystical Tutor. I don't see many cases where it can be better that Conflux. If it's to tutor into vault into DH, then that's costing two cards and two turns, which will rarely be good enough. Let alone if you don't play LDV. Otherwise, the fact that it doesn't put the card into your hand is just too much of a drawback imo.