[Deck] Dream Halls Combo

[Maveric78f]

2/3* Intuition (in place of 1 top, and 1 F/I) might be a good idea, at least for G1. Post SB, I'd prefer to side them out because of Extirpate and Surgical Extraction.

However, I'm not a big fan of removing Time Stretch from the SB. Because Intuition on Conflux would prevent us from storming efficiently. And I would also be afraid of my opponent playing land + Innocent Blood with back-up or several in 2 turns.

What would be Meltdown for ? I recall that you play F/I to deal with Trinisphere or Canonist. I cannot think of another really annoying spell (except chalice@2, but you can't BW under it anyway...). Eye of Nowhere is pretty useless since it's a sorcery and I don't think you'll have a lot of opportunity to play Eye + DH in the same turn. If your plan is to Eye + SnT, then it basically does nothing... (except for Meddling Mage, but once more, F/I and Firespout are more effective to deal with it)

[phazonmutant]

Maverick - I tested your build a bit and liked it, but I'm really not a fan of the control elements you're trying to do. I think you're underestimating the raw speed element - not very many decks are equipped to handle a t1-2 Progenitus, much less a Dream Halls kill. Lotus Petal and sol lands have been consistently good for me and somewhat make up for running only 19 lands when you have to hardcast Dream Halls. Top is absolutely slower than Ponder but does pretty much the same job.
My biggest concern, though, is that you play all these 2s! The biggest advantage of the Sneak and Show deck that David McDarby has been doing very well with is that it's completely immune to Spell Snare - a 4-of in half the decks. Intuition does the same job when you run 5-6 sol lands (although you do have to play around Surgical) except it can also tutor for DH or FoW in a pinch. The added consistency of the best card in your deck (S&T) also helps.

Why aren't you running Blood Moon in the board? Instead of a million BW targets, it seems like it would be better to get a card that absolutely locks out a RUG deck - the deck with the best chance of racing your plan B of Progenitus.

This is what I'm leaning towards:
4 Dream Halls
4 Conflux
3 Progenitus
1 False Cure
1 Beacon of Immortality
4 Show and Tell
4 Intuition
1 Preordain
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Lotus Petal
2 Spell Pierce
2 Daze
2 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
Sideboard:
2 Pyroblast
3 Blood Moon
1 Pyroclasm
4 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Shattering Spree
1 Misdirection
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Echoing Truth

This deck is aimed to be as fast as possible, which means (1) emphasizing S&T, (2) having a valid plan B (Progenitus), and (3) allowing me to set up quickly with disruption. (3) is trickiest because it means you want your combo to be compact enough that you're not drawing tons of redundant pieces instead of cantrips or interaction. That and defeating all the incidental lifegain in the format led me to the Beacon+Cure.

[Malacoda]

I have also been working with Dream Halls, but with a redless list. I could definitely consider adding red, however:

Lands
5 Island
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
3 Ancient Tomb
3 Flooded Strand
2 Scalding Tarn

Protection & Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Ponder
2 Thoughtseize
2 Preordain

Combo:
4 Show and Tell
4 Progenitus
4 Conflux
4 Dream Halls
4 Lim-Dûl's Vault
3 Lotus Petal
1 Beacon of Immortality
1 False Cure
1 Memory's Journey

SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 3 Deathmark
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 1 Chain of Vapor
SB: 1 Echoing Truth

Here's something I've noticed in testing: Force of Will is a very bad card for this deck. The nature of Dream Halls means that we need 2 cards in hand once we drop Halls. If we have a game like this:

T1: Land, Go
T2: Land, Cantrip, Go
T3: Show and Tell, Dream Halls, Force of Will exiling ______

then there is actually a fair chance of us not having enough cards to abuse Dream Halls with. For this reason, I've considered Spell Pierce (cool to see you using it main) and Daze, but both of these significantly slow the combo down, as Daze is obvious tempo loss and Spell Pierce requires an open blue before comboing. I do think the deck has real potential. Red is probably the way to go, but I don't think Blood Moon is really the right idea for the board. We aren't SneakShow.

[Water_Wizard]

I've been fooling around with this deck and playing some games with it on MTGO. I've been using the Cruel Ultimatum / Bogardan Hellkite after I read Drew Levin's article here: (it's deck #3) http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/l...s_History.html

I also built a UW Chant version and a mono-blue version with Pact of Negation.
The UW version had the added effect of Path to Exile from the board for problem creatures like Teeg and Canonist. However, the Chant effects added a mana, although they were sometimes helpful against Storm decks. The mono-blue version had a more consistent mana base (as would be expected with any one color deck) and the idea behind the Pacts was that I was going to win the turn I went off so I would never have to pay.

I haven't tried the Beacon/False Cure kill yet, but it looks stronger for a few reasons.

So far, I'm 3-2 in my limited matches. I split 1-1 with mono-black pox (1-2, 2-0 games). 2 of my wins I went off quickly and 1 of them I was able to land a Dream Halls and then slowly build up 2 cards through discard with Conflux. Cruel Ultimatum has the added benefit of you drawing cards, so it gives you fuel to discard.

I also played a mono-white taxes deck and won all but 1 game. He really had no way to interact with me besides taxing me out with Thalia (worked 1 game combined with a quick start) or using Karakas/Exile a permanent guy (which was always too slow).

[AriLax]

Played this at the GP. The exact version was made by couple of MI guys (Will + James Heslip for those from the area). I barely missed D2, but James T64ed and another guy (Vivek) played a Hive Mind deck based on it b/c he didn't have Dream Halls cards and almost top 8'ed. Deck was very impressive and would have been more had we played more graveyard hate (6/10 losses I have data on were to Dredge/Reanimator). Article on it is going up Tuesday, but here's the list for now:

4 Dream Halls
4 Conflux
1 Beacon of Immortality
1 False Cure
4 Show and Tell
4 Progenitus
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
1 Echoing Truth
4 Intuition
4 Ponder
4 Brainstorm
3 Preordain
3 Scalding Tarn
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Flooded Strand
5 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ravenous Trap
1 Surgical Extraction
3 Dispel
2 Gigadrowse
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away

[Norm]

Ari, have you considered Memory's Journey?

[AriLax]

Ari, have you considered Memory's Journey?

It reminds me of the 2nd Tendrils in Storm. There are RARE cases it matters, but most of the time it's just a brick.

[Malakai]

Add this to the list of Pros:
Every time you cast Gigadrowse, you blow your opponent's mind.

[Dark Ritual]

Eh, gigadrowse is bad against fetchlands like Ari stated in his article. The card is absolutely hilarious, and you can make the stupidest references to pokemon when you play the card. Imagine tapping out then saying "GIGABLAST YOU!!!!!" on their end step, that would be epic (sort've.)

The beacon/cure kill condition is the best in all probability, sure it targets but conflux is basically super demonic tutor with dream halls active as in you can get 10 cards in hand so bounce is rather easy to fit in as a one of target, wipe away is the best option because the opponent can't do anything about it.

On memory's journey, I thought it odd that it wasn't included. It fights through surgical extraction pretty handily and makes it so discard doesn't wreck your combo, sure you can still just S&T progenitus in but I prefer to not have to attack twice unless you resolve a time stretch to beat down with ease. Are you allowed to flashback memory's journey by pitching a blue card though? Not sure on that one, but I'm guessing no would be the answer.

Overall, I decided to build this deck simply because I've always wanted to cast conflux in a legacy event.

On the cruel ultimatum kill, it takes up too many slots while beacon cure takes up the lowest amount of slots possible discounting just bashing them with progenitus until they die but that kill is significantly weaker unless you get turn 2 progenitus.

I do have a question about the manabase though, is 19 lands enough? I was goldfishing your list Ari and sometimes I just couldn't get above 2 lands despite casting a lot of cantrips although maybe it's just the shuffler on cockatrice being a piece of crap.

[ThomasDowd]

On the off chance they let your show and tell resolve (let's say they see your line) and you are down to conflux plus a card. and they counter that, do you just lose on the spot? or even 3 cards being force, conflux, colored card.

Basically if they know whats going on can you recover from having your conflux countered?

[AriLax]

On the off chance they let your show and tell resolve (let's say they see your line) and you are down to conflux plus a card. and they counter that, do you just lose on the spot? or even 3 cards being force, conflux, colored card.

Basically if they know whats going on can you recover from having your conflux countered?

Depends on their deck. High Tide? Yeah, fucking cold. UW? I mean, just dig for another Conflux and see what happens. I've actually won that exact game the one time it did happen.

Also, these are both scenarios of going off without disruption back. If you are doing that, you know what the deal is.


Edit: Also, turbo tournament report.

Rd 4: UR Delver
G1: He wins the roll, goes T1 Delver, T2 flip revealing Ponder, land, Goblin Guide, attack for 5, ship the turn. I die a horrible death when he has the afore-telegraphed Spell Pierce.
G2 + G3: He plays Grim Lavamancer on turn 1. I have a million turns to durdle around and eventually kill him.

Round 5: TES
G1: He wins the die roll, I keep a cantrip based hand. I die on turn 3 through a Force of Will. Had him dead on my 3 :(.
G2: He tanks on 2, decides not to combo. He dies on my 3.
G3: He mulls to 4, I make a T0 Leyline. I land a Progenitus as he builds up a grip and he starts going off after the first hit. He does a bunch of stuff while I'm Silenced, but he was playing Bryant's 75. AKA had boarded in Pyroblast and not bounce, and had Pyroclasm over Virtue's Ruin. Scoreboard!

Round 6: Maverick
G1: I Force his T2 Knight and Show a 10/10. He puts in Mindcensor, untaps, and plays a 2nd Noble Hierarch and a Sword of Light and Shadow before bashing (13-20). I crash (13-10), he equips, plays Mystic for Sword of Fire and Ice, and crashes. I don't have the Echoing Truth and die.
G2: He goes Mom, Canonist off a mull to 6 and I Show on 3. I debate Prog vs. Dream Halls. I have the fear of Progging because of testing showing it was easy to lose with and the fact he gets first blood off Mom, so I Halls. I EOT Intuition for Conflux on his turn, he has Mindcensor and I get demolished. Made a large punt, didn't do race math. He basically needs an equip to race 10/10 in this case, was worried about extra turn from a Swords (called he was good enough to leave in 2 to race and he was) but math worked out fine.

Round 7: High Tide
G1: Make 10/10. 10/10 bash.
G2: Things go deep. He Surgicals my Dream Halls and I have to double Force pitching Shows to stop a combo through a Flusterstorm. He comboes before I find a Show.
G3: I keep Tomb, Bstorm, Ponder, Force, Dispel, Conflux, Halls on the play. I get punished for getting greedy. I figured I was around 55% to hit in time to be fine, which is better than a mull here. Maybe I'm wrong, IDK.

Round 8: UW Stoneforge
G1: I mull, which puts me off of going off with enough backup at any relevant time. I die. Might have pushed too early, but I'm unsure.
G2: He has no clock and blows some Brainstorms, I durdle and kill him.
G3: He tries to clock, but has no counters besides Spell Snares. I durdle and kill him.

Round 9: Dredge
G1: He wins the roll. I keep a T3 kill with cantrips in the Dark. He has T1 LED, Study, sac in reponse, hit another dredger on the dredge, hit a Looting. I die a horrible death.
G2: I keep Show, Halls, Conflux, Bstorm, 2 Lands, X on the play. He has the T1 again, Brainstorm misses on Force/Daze/Trap/Surgical/Tomb. His Thug dredge hits another dredger, but no Narcos or Lootings. I punt and stack Bstorm wrong and let him Therapy both my Halls next turn instead of hiding one and winning on 3.

[ThomasDowd]

Depends on their deck. High Tide? Yeah, fucking cold. UW? I mean, just dig for another Conflux and see what happens. I've actually won that exact game the one time it did happen.

Also, these are both scenarios of going off without disruption back. If you are doing that, you know what the deal is.

Fair enough. Just making sure I was thinking about it correctly, seems sweet with less dead cards than hive mind. (Slightly less protection but not really considering pact is like half of a card).
almost unloaded my show and tells since they were rotting in my reanimator sideboard. glad i could put them to some more use.

how relevant was damage off of tomb, would the 4th be that painful? I hate playing more than one city, but understand the split.

[AriLax]

Fair enough. Just making sure I was thinking about it correctly, seems sweet with less dead cards than hive mind. (Slightly less protection but not really considering pact is like half of a card).
almost unloaded my show and tells since they were rotting in my reanimator sideboard. glad i could put them to some more use.

how relevant was damage off of tomb, would the 4th be that painful? I hate playing more than one city, but understand the split.

The 4th Tomb probably isn't unreasonable. I would definitely advise against it if you expect Goblin Guides all over the place though.

[sixquestionmarks]

I'm wondering why no Lotus Petals? Is it because it's another non colored card that you can't pitch to conflux or are addtional cantrips just better? From what I found out when I played an older list of the deck and Petals always led to the "Oops I win" hands, but were usually miserable after turn 4.

[AriLax]

I'm wondering why no Lotus Petals? Is it because it's another non colored card that you can't pitch to conflux or are addtional cantrips just better? From what I found out when I played an older list of the deck and Petals always led to the "Oops I win" hands, but were usually miserable after turn 4.

I just like actual lands, but I debated about playing 1-2.

[leegoo]

Did you try out Pact of Negation? From looking at the list, (and I admit I've done no more than shuffle it up once or twice) the lack of PoN is the only thing that gives me pause in saying this is just a much cleaner/better hive mind deck. Like in HM, you don't care about the next turn, you want to win pretty fast, and on your combo turn you'd rather PoN than Force if possible.

Daze is certainly fine looking, but there is something to be said about having 8 free hard counters when you are trying to push through.

[LegacyStudent]

Have you considered running Research // Development and moving the kill to the SB? It adds another step to the combo, but it cuts the MD wincon slots down to a single card.

[StRAy_PunK]

I played in the gp last weekend with dream halls. I did not take great notes but I figured id share.
R1. against U-R delver (Rob)
G1.
he has a clock but not too fast, around turn 5 I cast show and tell with plenty of back up and win.
G2.
He comes out very fast and has two fow
G3.
he mulligans twice, I turn 3 thoughtseize see nothing turn 4 win

1-0-0
R2. against U-R delver (ben)
G1.
I keep a bad hand for no real reason still do not know what didn't make me throw it back. I lose without doing anything
G2.
I turn 4 show and tell he looks distressed since he did not know what deck I was on and the game ends.
G3.
I try to push dream halls threw twice this game with backup and he had enough fow and reb blast to stop me.

1-1-0
R3. against U-W-G midrange (scott)
G1.
I keep a solid hand, but never hit 3lands, just sit and filter forever and die.
G2.
I turn 3 him with thoughtsieze clearing the way turn 2
G3.
He keeps a hand that is trash. Like two non-blue lands a scavenging ooze and a bunch of 3drop dudes. I thoughtseize him turn1 to push threw turn2 burning wish, i see a bunch of nothing and pass. Turn 2 I play burning wish he fow. Turn 4 i play thought seize again to clear the way for intution, see 3drop dudes + elspeth then pass (I missed a land drop). Turn 5 i play intution he fow. so my hand is now something like nucklavee, cruel, dream halls x2. I sit on 3 lands and die. :(

1-2-0
R4. Affinity (leon)
This guy was new to legacy are magic idk, he made a lot of mistakes and this is an easy mu, I win 2-0 in about 12min.

2-2-0
R5. 12 post (Weston)
this mu is a joke for dreamhalls, he has no clock and no counters. 2-0

3-2-0
R6. Affinity (kristenia)
G1. was actually close she plays her whole hand basicly T1 then starts g blasting me. I win turn 3-4 at 4 life.
G2. this game was close as well she again is on the play and has 6dmg on the field for he swing next turn. I again win turn 3-4 at 4 life

4-2-0
R7. Enchantress (jhon)
G1. he plays a bunch of irrelevant cards and i kill him turn 4.
G2. he mulligans twice and i Mull once as well. he starts with a leyline in play. he turn 2 puts a sterling grove into play, turn3 he puts a sterling grove into play, turn 4 he plays another leyline,turn 5 another leyline, turn 6 to enchantress effects, and turn 7 a solitary confinement with 3 groves still in play, i scoop shortly after. this game did not have me feeling good lol.
G3. he mulls 3 times to try to hit leyline. he does. i turn 3 show and tell in dream halls and kill him.

5-2-0
R8. Spiral tide (caleb)
G1. i play show and tell turn 3 since he is tapped out as he scrolled for high tide and played candles. he lets show and tell resolve. I play cruel, he plays fow I play fow he discards a card to play meditate with no hand. hits blue card to pitch to play cunning wish and then a blue card to pitch to play the disrupt he wished for. I pass he land pass. i do nothing for next to turns he draws high tide then timespiral next two turns :S
G2. I play dream halls on turn 3-4. I play cruel he plays fow i play fow he plays fow and im out of cards and pass. he goes off. with 9-12 storm he plays timespiral. I am tapped out but draw, cruel, brainstorm?, niv-mizzet, reb, reb, fow, ponder?. I stop him by pitching ponder to fow, cruel to reb and niv to reb. I go for turn with brainstorm in hand and nothing else. I rip cruel off the top (felt good). I cruel him pitching brainstorm. I cruel into land land land boom. I take first free turn since he meditated twice. i draw dreamhalls then discard it to play the niv i pitched to reb and got back with cruel. Take second free turn draw land and swing with niv. he goes he has been shut down by 3 counters and cruel so his hand is not in happy spot and he passes. I top deck sensie's top play it and spin it, see another top i put it on top then tap the top in play to draw it and put it on top, I use the absured amount of lands I have to do this 9ish times and he dies to niv from it. This happened when we had allready timed so we did not get a game 3. I give him the win since I got the feeling that he would not do the same for me and I figured I might as well give him the chance to day two since he was an ok opponent.
So I drop :(.

Over all the deck played fine there is still some improvements I'am going to toy with and I need to go back to basic magic school and learn to mulligan :S.

If you are curious this was my list. (with slightly different sideboard I did not have my traps on me... so pro)
[/deck]

// Lands
3 [ON] Polluted Delta
4 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn
2 [R] Volcanic Island
2 [R] Underground Sea
1 [R] Badlands
3 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [A] Island (2)
1 [A] Swamp (2)
1 [A] Mountain (2)

// Creatures
1 [EVE] Nucklavee
1 [GP] Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind

// Spells
4 [MM] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [ZEN] Spell Pierce
4 [SH] Dream Halls
4 [ALA] Cruel Ultimatum
3 [US] Show and Tell
4 [JU] Burning Wish
1 [LRW] Cryptic Command
2 [AP] Fire/Ice
4 [LRW] Thoughtseize
3 [TE] Intuition
3 [CHK] Sensei's Divining Top
1 [EX] Mind Over Matter

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [US] Show and Tell
SB: 2 [A] Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 [PT] Cruel Tutor
SB: 1 [CFX] Conflux
SB: 1 [PT] Virtue's Ruin
SB: 1 [CHK] Eye of Nowhere
SB: 2 [TSP] Wipe Away
SB: 1 [US] Meltdown
SB: 1 [RAV] Compulsive Research
SB: 1 [PT] Pyroclasm
SB: 3 [ZEN] Ravenous Trap
[/deck]

[Cacks]

Apologies in advance for a post that is somewhat a stream of conciousness.

Is this not an alternative possible kill (which also does not mind if one of your kill cards is discarded at some point)?

4 conflux
2 progentius
2 gaea's blessing
1 brainfreeze/cunning wish (for brainfreeze)/another spell like fire/ice

Cutting out some early steps where you might conflux to gather FoW into hand etc, so assuming you have a conflux or two in the 'yard, the main loop is:

Conflux for: conflux, progenitus, progenitus, gaea's blessing, [any card]

discard progenitus (goes back into the deck, obv) to gaea's blessing back any confluxes in the 'yard (and incidentally draw a card).

discard progenitus, conflux for conflux, progenitus, progenitus, gaea's blessing, [a card] again. You now have one conflux and one blessing in the 'yard, and the infinite loop starts.

gaea's blessing again, returning conflux, blessing and any other card you want to your library. You now have one more card in hand (and some storm built) and again one conflux and one blessing in the 'yard.

conflux again for conflux, progenitus, progenitus, gaea's blessing, [a card] to repeat the loop ad nauseum.

Finally brain freeze for a lot (possibly with a cunning wish thrown in to get it out of your sideboard); or for the fire/ice kill cast infinite 'fires' by recycling it from your graveyard.

This only needs 9 cards in theory, although if you ever intend on having the flexibility of casting cunning wish for value, as opposed to at the end of the combo, you need two, since it is removed from the game and you need a 'spare'. I've not worked it through, but I suspect that for a fire/ice kill (or the like) you will need a second fire/ice or 3rd progenitus to provide the red mana to cast fire during the loop - I presume that blue will not do it, despite the rule oddities surrounding split cards! In either case you are back up to 10 cards.

The advantage is that you replace clunky cards (progenitus, beacon of immortality etc) for cards which are much more useful outside of the combo turn (fire ice, wish, blessing). Of course if you have a show and tell in hand, the protection from everything hydra suddenly looks awfully good in comparison!

Anyway, I do not for a moment suggest that this is the stone cold killer, indeed it may be cr@p, but I just thought I'd toss it out there.

[hofzge]

I'd much rather make the combo itself a bit more resilitent. It is really important that once you pull off the combo you have some protection, but also that the moment of pulling it off is at the latest on turn 4.

Here is what I would suggest:

4 Show and Tell
4 Dream Halls
4 Conflux
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
2 Preordain
4 Intuition
1 Beacon Of Immortality
1 False Cure
4 Force of Will
3 Pact of Negation
4 Progenitus
2 Lotus Petal
5 Island
3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Flooded Strand
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Scalding Tarn
SB: 3 Dispel
SB: 2 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Wipe Away
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Leyline of Sanctity


Also I think the Pacts of Negation are better for the dack as you can seldomly return an island and be happy about it. I also added the Leylines of Sanctity, as discard is very hard with the already steep requirements of pitching cards that Dream Halls brings. That's also why I don't like the Force of Will, but as often it is a necessary evil.

The changes make the deck look more like a monocolor Hive Mind deck - I don't know if that if good or not.