Silent Requiem
09-19-2009, 03:51 AM
Dream Halls never really had a shot in Legacy, moving straight to the banned list. Now, with it's long overdue unbanning, we have the chance to try and build on Dream Halls.
At first glance, it would seem that Dream Halls allows us to play super expensive spells for (essentially) five mana. Disregarding the fact that there are already better ways to get a single expensive spell into play (reanimator decks, etc), this also overlooks what Dream Halls really does: it eliminates the need for mana.
Mana, normally through lands, is the most important resource in the game. The rate at which mana can be generated constrains all competitive deck builds. Yet Dream Halls (which admittedly requires mana to cast) exchanges need for mana with the need for cards in hand. This means that if we (effectively) have an infinitely large hand, we can cast as many spells as we like, winning the game the turn we play Dream Halls.
Not having an infinite hand, we can try and duplicate this effect by drawing cards as a result of the cards we play. There are two ways that we could do this.
First, the cards we play could cause us to draw cards. Meditate would be an example, as would Conflux. We would chain these draw spells together until we could cast a lethal storm spell. In this way Dream Halls would function similarly to Ad Nauseum, though the deck would look very different. Perhaps we might call it Dream Tendrils.
Second, we might first put a mechanism in play that draws cards as we play spells. The enchantress engine springs to mind. Again, we would win on the turn we dropped Dream Halls (though we would not have to), by chaining enchantments together to play a lethal Hunting Pack with Concordant Crossroads in play. We might call this deck Enchanting Storm.
Now, I'm going to start playtesting one of these decks next week, and I would appreciate input from the community as to which has more promise.
With Dream Tendrils it would be harder to accelerate Halls into play, because you would have to rely on off colour accelerants (probably black) and it is not clear to me that this deck would have much of an advantage over ANT. Still, a Dark Ritual could put DH into play on turn three. The first two turn would presumably be used to disrupt the opponent.
However, Enchanting Storm could reasonably expect to go off (less disruption) on turn three just using land enchants like wild growth. These enchants then turn into draw spells after Dream Halls hits the table. Turn three would still have given us time to put an enchantress effect into play, but would not have given us the opportunity to disrupt anything.
Which of these decks is more promising?
-Silent Requiem
At first glance, it would seem that Dream Halls allows us to play super expensive spells for (essentially) five mana. Disregarding the fact that there are already better ways to get a single expensive spell into play (reanimator decks, etc), this also overlooks what Dream Halls really does: it eliminates the need for mana.
Mana, normally through lands, is the most important resource in the game. The rate at which mana can be generated constrains all competitive deck builds. Yet Dream Halls (which admittedly requires mana to cast) exchanges need for mana with the need for cards in hand. This means that if we (effectively) have an infinitely large hand, we can cast as many spells as we like, winning the game the turn we play Dream Halls.
Not having an infinite hand, we can try and duplicate this effect by drawing cards as a result of the cards we play. There are two ways that we could do this.
First, the cards we play could cause us to draw cards. Meditate would be an example, as would Conflux. We would chain these draw spells together until we could cast a lethal storm spell. In this way Dream Halls would function similarly to Ad Nauseum, though the deck would look very different. Perhaps we might call it Dream Tendrils.
Second, we might first put a mechanism in play that draws cards as we play spells. The enchantress engine springs to mind. Again, we would win on the turn we dropped Dream Halls (though we would not have to), by chaining enchantments together to play a lethal Hunting Pack with Concordant Crossroads in play. We might call this deck Enchanting Storm.
Now, I'm going to start playtesting one of these decks next week, and I would appreciate input from the community as to which has more promise.
With Dream Tendrils it would be harder to accelerate Halls into play, because you would have to rely on off colour accelerants (probably black) and it is not clear to me that this deck would have much of an advantage over ANT. Still, a Dark Ritual could put DH into play on turn three. The first two turn would presumably be used to disrupt the opponent.
However, Enchanting Storm could reasonably expect to go off (less disruption) on turn three just using land enchants like wild growth. These enchants then turn into draw spells after Dream Halls hits the table. Turn three would still have given us time to put an enchantress effect into play, but would not have given us the opportunity to disrupt anything.
Which of these decks is more promising?
-Silent Requiem