i would recommend fitting show and tell + progenitus in there. it will help sneak out your dream halls as well as just give you an alternate kill. then you can run a 1 of natural order just in case they get rid of your combo piece.
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i would recommend fitting show and tell + progenitus in there. it will help sneak out your dream halls as well as just give you an alternate kill. then you can run a 1 of natural order just in case they get rid of your combo piece.
I appreciate that Show and Tell and Progenitus are excellent, and Show and Tell gives me an alternate way to get Dream Halls into play. However, the strategy of this deck is different to that of the classic Dream Halls Combo. This deck is built to grind out the Dream Halls by hardcasting it. It's a bit of a different direction that I'm trying to take with the whole approach to getting out the combo.
Someone previously commented that the hardest thing is getting Dream Halls out on the board in the current meta, and I would agree with that. However, the grind strategy doesn't work if you run Show and Tell and Progenitus, because you then don't have the space to fit in the necessary control elements to grind with: Cabal Therapy, Gitaxian Probe, Repeal and the creatures. I've found the big reason this deck actually works sometimes is that Cabal Therapy is excellent at plowing through counters, and by turn 5 (at the earliest, and ideally) you will have cast a couple of creatures, drawn a couple of cards of them, maybe Repealed something to slow the opponent down, Cabal Therapied a couple of times and you will know what is in their hand and whether it is safe to go off, or whether you have to grind some more to find more protection.
If Show and Tell and Progenitus go in you lose that aspect, and you might as well play the standard build with 8 cantrips and no Cabal Therapy, Gitaxian Probe and creatures.
You also have an alternate (albeit slow) kill with Coiling Oracle and Clique/Witness beatdown. I've done it a couple of times, when control decks don't draw their Mishra's Factory.
I'm still not convinced that this grind approach is actually any better than the standard approach either, and would appreciate thoughts on the grind approach for the current meta.
The difficulty with any control build is that Jace will just do it better. He helps you maintain control through card dratw, and he is a more compact kill package, leaving you more room for control elements.
While that does not mean that Dream Halls should not run any control elements, these are mostly based around resolving the combo rather than shutting down another player for 5+ turns. By giving up Show & Tell, you are also giving up on one of the strengths of the deck, the difficulty of hating it out.
No, I think that a fast UR build is probably the best build for Halls these days. The obvious improvement would be reducing the size or complexity of the combo package so that more disruption and card filtering can be played. This is the attraction of Storm builds, although they come with their own weaknesses and design limitations. It is also why Hive Mind sees more play than Halls; a very similar deck, but with a much more redundancy.
Dream Halls will see more play when a better card to cheat into play with Dream Halls is printed.
-Silent Requiem
We now have Sorin's Vengeance in M12. Requiring only 2 casts of the kill card instead of chaining a long string to win. Spots could be freed up for other cards to flesh the deck out against hate and protect the combo.
The 2 card kill has been around a long while in the form of False Cure+Beacon and both can be found with Conflux unlike Sorin's Vengeance.Quote:
Originally Posted by MCulo
You could also play a 1 card kill with Pandemonium as long as you run 2 Progenitus. The point of running Cruel Ultimatum isn't just to combo kill; you have another card to cast off Dream Halls for when you don't have Conflux, and the card also happens to kill. It obviously isn't an ideal combo card, but it's more or less the second best thing to cast immediately after putting Dream Halls into play. This is obviously less of a concern in UR builds.
There are two great 2-card wins available (probably even more but these I have used): Beacon of Immortality + False Cure and Progenitus + Time Stretch. Any 3-card combos are worse than those in the maindeck.
Well, you could always add a third two card, fetchable with Conflux, combo to that list. The list would become:
False Cure + Beacon of Immortality
Instant speed combo that requires targetting the opponent.
Progenitus + Time Stretch
Instant speed combo that does not require targetting an opponent, but is foiled by Moat or Humility.
Magister Sphinx + Hidetsugu's Second Rite or Sorin's Vengeance
Sorcery speed combo that requires targetting the opponent.
I would still say that either not playing a "combo" kill and just using raw card advantage to win (using Cruel Ultimatum and Progenitus) or incorporating the combo kill with False Cure and Beacon of Immortality alongside Progenitus would be the way to go. The Time Stretch-kill is often a win-more and the Magister Sphinx combo's are, at sorcery speed with the same targetting requirements, inferior to the False Cure combo.
Once more, I do not agree with that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hopo
First of all, most DH decks play Show and Tell and thus Progenitus. So that Time Stretch combo (or Pandemonium) is only a 1-card combo in this shell.
Second of all, combos can be more than 2-card but still valuable if their elements are not useless without DH in play. For a long time, I preferred Magister Sphinx + Hellkite*2 because all my combo elements were SnTable.
If you play Ur (which is still the best to my opinion), I would advise to play 4*Progenitus and 4*Burning Wish as your kills (plus 2/3*Conflux obviously). Burning Wish tutors for control cards, Show and Tell, Conflux and Time Stretch.
Time Stretch -combo is not win-more, it's just win. You don't even pass the turn. I wouldn't play 2 different combos in maindeck, though, if that's what you meant. Beacon-combo is the strongest in my opinion.
This is true in 4 Progenitus-decks, but what I had in mind was having the minimum amount of combo pieces and more efficient tutoring. A bit in a way like the Hivemind players are dropping Emrakul and going for the pure combo. This means 4 Show and Tell, 4 Dreamhalls, 3 Conflux, 1 Pact of Negation, 1 Beacon of Immortality and 1 False Cure. I always want to use the first Conflux to tutor the 2 combo cards, 2 Conflux to cast them and a Pact as a backup. You could replace the Pact with a 4th Conflux, but I find it calming to have a protection spell in case Dream Halls makes some otherwise dead countermagic suddenly live.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
I wouldn't count on single non-shroud-creatures winning that many people nowadays outside Reanimator, but otherwise it sure is a benefit to not need Dream Halls in play. I just try to go for the raw power of Dream Halls -> win immediately instead of just dropping probable finishers from Show and Tell. Progenitus is good if you take that route, though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Why I originally thought that Beacon-combo is superior to all, is that it is Krosan Grip proof, can be protected with Pact of Negation and doesn't care about life totals above 20. Nowadays I haven't seen too many Grips in tournaments, which may or may not change the determination of the best combo.
The only 3-card combo I have played in tournaments with is the Progenitus + Prismatic Omen + Coalition Victory, since it get's around all kinds of hate. It's still pretty crappy. Eventually, I always come back to 2-card combos just for decks efficiency's sake. My early combos were just cute but not too powerful, like Magister Sphinx + Progenitus, or 2 x Searing Wind. I also played counterspells of different colors to tutor along with Conflux. Eventually I settled in Time Stretch + Progenitus, then ditched that after finding out about Beacon + Cure.
I don't bite the Krosan Grip proof of the Beacon Combo, since you'd need False Cure, Beacon of immortality, and 2 Conflux in hand to win, which probably never happened. But I see what you mean : you play DH, you Conflux in resp the opponent grips DH, then you tutor another DH and the Beacon Combo in order to win next turn.
With the Time Stretch set-up, you can alternatively either play directly Progenitus off DH (if you know the opponent's hand) of play Conflux into DH/SnT/FoW + BW + 2*Progenitus + Conflux. The Conflux play is less effective but the possibility to directly put Progenitus into play is nice.
I personally like the 4*Progenitus MD kill in the Ur build because it's an important CA mechanism alongside with Conflux, because you probably do not need to rely on Time Stretch to win and you will never draw since you keep it in the SB. Even more importantly you will be able to use 2 Burning Wishes to get rid of annoying elements of your opponent.
21 lands including 5 2-mana lands
Cheaters : 7
4*DH
3*SnT
Combo : 7
3*Conflux
4*Progenitus
Tutors/manipulation : 11
4*Brainstorm
4*Burning Wish
3*Sensei's Divining Top
Control : 14
4*FoW
3/4*F/I
6/7 Spell Pierce + Mental Misstep + Spell Snare
Sideboard : 15
1*Conflux
1*Show and Tell
1*Time Stretch
1*Firespout
1*Reduce to Dreams
1*Temporal Fissure
1*Austere Command
4*Red Elemental Blast
4*TBD
Let's start with DH in play, Conflux and a pitching card in hand
Conflux pitching the card into Conflux + 2*Proge + BW + FoW
... Hand : Conflux + 2*Proge + BW + FoW
Conflux pitching Proge into Conflux + 2*Proge + BW + FoW
... Hand : Conflux + 3*Proge + 2*BW + 2*FoW
BW pitching Proge for Time Stretch
... Hand : Conflux + 2*Proge + 1*BW + 2*FoW + 1*Time Stretch
Conflux pitching Proge for 3*Proge + 1*BW + 1*F/I
... Hand : 4*Proge + 2*BW + 2*FoW + 1*Time Stretch + 1*F/I
BW pitching Proge for Temporal Fissure
BW pitching Proge for Conflux
Conflux pitching Proge for 3*Proge + 1*BW + 1*F/I
... Hand : 4*Proge + 1*BW + 2*FoW + 1*Time Stretch + 2*F/I + 1*Temporal Fissure
BW pitching Proge for Austere Command/Reduce to Dreams (really not necessary if opponent does not have more than 20 life)
Proge pitching Proge for playing it
Time Stretch pitching F/I
Temporal Fissure pitching F/I targeting opposing permanents + DH (12 storm)
... Hand : 1*Proge + 2*FoW + 1*Reduce to Dreams/Austere Command +1*DH
With this set-up, you dodge every permanent hate I can think about without having any useless cards MD besides Conflux and Progenitus. If you are afraid by infinite life totals, you can even keep one slot for Reverse the Sands in SB.
Guys, I'm going to have to ask you to desist any further discussion on DHalls, lest the deck starts top 8ing and they ban my SnTs. I mean, the SnT thread is already 15 pages long.:laugh:
What is your point?Quote:
Originally Posted by menace13
I'm sorry you must not be too quick on uptake. It was a joke as to how SnT will get banned if yet another deck(with me so far?, good) does well that plays SnT.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Apparently, your title should be "humor inept."Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
EDIT: I need to play this deck at some point, as I don't like Hive Mind. The question is, does this deck have the potential to be as good as Hive Mind?
I really did not get it. I did not know the "lest" word and I thought it was "less" mistyped short for "unless".
My title should be English inept maybe ;-)
About your question, it is more difficult to hate it, it plays less dead cards, and therefore can be played in a more controlish way, but in comparison with Hive Mind, we generally do not have the nuts of Pact of Negation (which is a good argument for playing an "instant win") and enchantment hate is more effective against DH too.
Then I am sorry and apologize. I am so used to a lot of posters here jumping down throats at every post that I have become a bit of a dick(even more so than norm). My bad and I was only joking about the SnT comment. Was all in jest.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maveric78f
Back on topic- I like the Insta win combos and Pact plays into it very well giving the deck 8 free counters.
In my experience, it's difficult to know it you can use your Pact, even more with SnT because Qasali, ORing and some other cards will ruin your day. But even with DH, a Krosan Grip played for free and you'll need another turn to play the DH you tutored with Conflux. The ability to play U pact (and to a lesser extent B pact) as a free universal counterspell is maybe what makes the difference.
Still, DH does not fold to Daze, Spell Pierce, Cursecatcher, stifle, ... They just do not face the same kind of hate.
Maveric, that list looks pretty sleek. I love having win conditions in the SB with this deck so there's no truly dead draws. Have you considered running some Intuition so you can search for Dream Halls and protection? One of the best parts of LDV was that it flexible - often I absolutely needed Dream Halls to win when Progenitus couldn't race, and sometimes I just wanted protection. Burning Wish lists are nice, but I feel the inability to tutor for Dream Halls hurts the deck in some match ups where you need Dream Halls to win.
I don't think the deck as constructed needs to run 4 Intuition, but maybe 2-3 as additional Dream Halls would be good.
Also, with Temporal Fissure and Austere Command, I'm not sure if Time Stretch is worth the sideboard slot. It seems like those two cards plus the handful of counters from Confluxes should handle almost any game state well enough to get 2 attacks in with Progenitus. There are probably some corner cases I'm not thinking of, but I'm not sure if that marginal benefit justifies the extra sideboard slot. I guess Time Stretch is an important out when some Confluxes have been discarded and Burning Wishes have been used. And, if you can generate that much storm every time, you could also just Tendrils them. Anyways, in particular, I was thinking that cards like Meltdown and Eye of Nowhere could be useful as utility cards before comboing off.