5c Dream Halls Combo

[malz77]

try it out and improve the list. the deck performed well in the past and with a look toward the top list nowadays, it should do so now (in theory). The deck needs some practice, so don't give up to early and take wise mulligans. Enjoy!

Combo:
Dream Halls
Conflux
All Suns´ Dawn

Winning with:
Grapeshot
Tendrils of Agony

Feeding Dream Halls:
Mind's Desire
Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Time Reversal
Fathom Trawl
Tidings
Concentrate
Timespiral
Myojin of Seeing Winds
Jace Ingenuity
Brilliant Ultimatum

Mana Acceleration:
Dimir Signet
Talisman of Progress
Mox Diamond
Mind Stone
Talisman of Dominance
Grim Monolith
Dark Ritual
Darksteel Ingot
Azorius Signet

Protect the Combo:
Abeyance
Orim's Chant
Thoughtseize
Silence
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
Duress
Mana Drain
Pact of Negation
Peek
Force of Will
Gitaxian Probe

Find the Combo:
Impulse
Insidious Dreams
Ponder
Idyllic Tutor
Lim-Dul's Vault
Diabolic Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Tainted Pact
Compulsive Research
Academy Rector
Brainspoil
Thirst for Knowledge
Fact or Fiction
Rhystic Tutor
Brainstorm
Senseis Divinig Top
Beseech the Queen
Deep Analysis
Intuition
Frantic Search
Preordain

Don't die to early:
Damnation
Propaganda
Wrath of God
Moment's Peace
Ghostly Prison

One more Chance:
Time Warp
Regrowth
Sins of the Past
Call to Mind

Land without the staples:
Phyrexian Tower (Academy Rector)
Ancient Spring
Sulfur Vent
Ancient Tomb
Irrigation Ditch

[pyyhttu]

Looks alright. All Sun's Dawn looks nice tech. Though I am not too sure about the effectiveness of Academy Rector and Phyrexian Tower in this deck.

I have similar, age old build documented here: http://iki.fi/~pyyhttu/magic/highlander/dreamhalls_UBw.txt

It hasn't been updated/tested lately and thus missing basically the latest unbannings (Wheel of Fortune) and some newer cards (Jace's Ingenuity, Time Reversal etc.)

Tabris ran some sort of a build here: http://www.magicplayer.org/forum/index.php?topic=668.msg6748#msg6748

Maybe he has some insights?

[Tabris]

I am a bit lazy right now. But I will post my list.

[Tiggupiru]

I was a bit bored and stuck at home babysitting, so thought I would give this a thorough treatment with documentation. Hope this is of some use.

First of all, I immediately noticed a number of things I would do differently from the get go, but I goldfished it a couple of times just to see how it felt like.

I started by removing the green and red cards cards, which didn't do much other than screw up your mana and makes you lose to wasteland when that is not necessary. I understand the idea of maximizing Conflux, but the upside is way better. Here are the modifications:

- lots of nonbasics
+ lots of basic lands

- Moment's Peace
- Regrowth
- Wheel of Fortune
- Grapeshot
- All Sun's Dawn
- Darksteel Ingot

+ Snapcaster Mage
+ Temporal Manipulation
+ Capture of Jingzhou
+ Mulldrifter
+ Gush
+ Sleight of Hand

Added the other two walks, because they are Turnabouts that cantrip. Casting things with mana is not so bad even if you have Dream Halls out. Threw in a Gush now that we have the islands to do it. Might not be the best since I just added a bunch of time walks, but only one way to find out, right?

Ingot seemed less good now that we have better mana. Sleight of Hand and other similar cantrips are pretty good in this deck. Late game they can be ditched to game ending spells, all the while when they dig the Halls faster.

---

In addition, instead of slowing people down, I try to be faster. Counterspells are quite okay though as they are universal solutions as well as very good to have even post Dream Halls. So the "slowing" - package stayed mostly as big as before.

- Damnation
- Propaganda
- Ghostly Prison
- Wrath of God
- Pact of Negation

+ Ancestral Vision
+ Jace, the Mind Sculptor
+ Jace Beleren
+ Counterspell
+ Cryptic Command

Pact of Negation had to go as I plan to chain draw spells into time walks and Pact does not go well with that plan.

Added a couple of planeswalkers who synergize quite beautifully with our Time Walks.

Ancestral Vision is blue. Funny how critical that part of the rules text is. =)

---

Lastly, before taking the deck to another test ride, I wanted to get rid of the worst tutors and color variance as the Dream Halls cares about the right colors. Tutors in a combo deck are usually very important, but a bit less here seeing that our game plan involves losing card advantage. This leads into too many situations where we cannot tutor into card drawing spells before our hand is empty.

- Insidious Dreams
- Beseech the Queen
- Yawgmoth's Bargain
- Sins of the Past

+ Mystical Teachings
+ Forbidden Alchemy
+ Flash of Insight
+ Esper Charm

Insidious Dreams isn't horrible, but in this deck, it really is. Discarding stuff is only good when you already have 10+ cards. Beseech had to leave as it can't find our Dream Halls quickly enough and it is hard to cast. Bargain is unreliable. Might draw you a ton of cards, but Dream Halls is symmetrical so it's very risky against red decks, despite them being tapped out.

Discarding flashback cards to cast Time Warp is really sweet. Esper Charm can turn bad white cards into a draw spell. It's very good pre-Dream Halls too. Might not be the best, but I'll give it a go.

---

After beating the goldfish slowly a few times, the deck seemed to have too little of high impact cards to really take advantage of DH. Seeing that I just removed a bunch of them, this shouldn't be much of a surprise. Let's change that.

+ Time Stretch
+ Careful Consideration
+ Ideas Unbound
+ Cruel Ultimatum
+ Relearn
+ Inquisition of Kozilek

- Brilliant Ultimatum
- Tendrils of Agony
- Silence
- Orim's Chant
- Abeyance
- Mind Stone

Time Stretch impacts. Period. Very synergistic with the rest of the deck as well. Careful Consideration digs deep and gets rid of the lands that clog up the hand. Ideas Unbound is there because it is cheap. Pure card/mana ratio should be enough reason for it.

Brilliant Ultimatum is a card that never can be cast manually and has the potential to miss. Switched it to Cruel Ultimatum that can be fetched up with Conflux as a red card. Cruel also gave us a nice alternative win condition, which means that we can get rid of Tendrils. Relearn went in to make Cruel-kill a possibility.

Took out the three white protective cards just because they were white. Very bad when you need to find anything to pitch for that Tidings. Inquisition of Kozilek is almost the same deal as any of the white ones while also being way easier to extract value out of during the combo stage.

Mind Stone was probably the weakest of the mana stones and I felt like the list had one too many.

---

The list still had some cards that felt like they never worked as they were intended to.

- Lim-Dul's Vault
- Dark Ritual
- Mind's Desire

+ Serum Visions
+ Trinket Mage
+ Visions of Beyond

Might seem kinda illogical to add Serum Visions instead of the Vault, but one mana is way better than two. This is important just before you play Halls or in the extra turns you take afterwards. Not having to pay life is also really relevant. I want to avoid situations where I assemble everything and suddenly I drop too low on life and they burn me out. Lim-Dul does however have a two-colored vault so it might come back later.

Dark Ritual was a black card and only semi-impressive. With the talismans and signets we are able to power out DH in reasonable amount of time anyway.

Trinket Mage chumps or trades while ensuring some top-quality action. It also provides the beats, which is perfectly relevant given the turns this deck takes after it gets it's engine going.

Desire was not very good with the new approach, so had to ditch it. Visions of Beyond is perfect for this deck. Later is really good and if drawn early, it replaces itself or pitches to Dream Halls.

---

Draw sevens are a liability. Drawing seven is obviously really good, but giving opponent access to seven fresh cards that can potentially ruin your day because of the stupid symmetricalness of the DH. I dropped Time Reversal for this reason. Twister was left in as it can make our deck to refill itself as well as providing sick amount of gas. Time Spiral is too good not to play. Untapping six is huge.

- Timetwister
- Peek

+ Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
+ Merchant Scroll

Jin-Gitaxias seems really, really good with 'walks plus he is tutorable with Mystical, so why not?

Peek was solid, but with the inclusion of Visions of Beyond, you probably cannot afford not to play Merchant Scroll.

---

The new list feels pretty good. The deck plays little differently, though. Usually you play Dream Halls then chain a bunch of card draws into a Time Warp or two. Then you either draw more of them or Relearn them. At some point you can deploy some beats, maybe tapping opposition down with Cryptic Command even, and shorten the clock with a Cruel Ultimatum or two. Teferi is an all-star when you need to start drawing sevens.

At this point, I took another look at the mana as the other part of the deck seems to be pretty well in place.

- Phyrexian Tower
- Irrigation Ditch
- Sulfur Vent
- Ancient Spring

+ Basic lands
+ Mistvein Borderpost
+ Fieldmist Borderpost

Finding the Tower AND Rector is pretty unlikely. Tutors can fetch up the Dream Halls directly without having to assemble this combo. Rector is still in, because it discourages of attacking. Invasion saclands were pretty decent, but felt like somewhat out of place. Entirely possible that we would put them back in at some point.

Borderposts are ETB-tapped lands that pitch to Dream Halls. Seemed pretty good.

Here is how the deck looks like now. Too lazy to sort them out into groups: http://pastebin.com/JSUkdyDR


Questions, comments and whatever bugs your mind is welcome. I am especially interested if you follow another path when building/tweaking decks and what are your reasons for doing so.

[malz77]

wow! what a rapid evolution. now it's a differnt deck and an interessting approach. I deffinetly have to try out some of your choices. Borderpost for example is a great advancement...

Nevertheless I'm more convinced of maximizing Conflux. The fact that a resolved Conflux with getting All Suns' Dawn means game over for the opp, is the way I want to go.

[Tiggupiru]

I hear you. The real difference in our game plan is All Sun's Dawn. Conflux being Demonic Tutor for four cards is enough to win the game, so both our lists should just win after resolved Conflux pretty easily.

Noticed that one land should probably be cut. Took out the Drowned Catacomb and replaced it with a Vendilion Clique that beats, trades and protects. Wanted to add this way sooner, but didn't know what to take out.

So, my current list is:

- Drowned Catacomb
+ Vendilion Clique

[MarcMagic]

I play Dreamhalls Combo for quite some time (probably will post my list if I ever typed it) and I think it's all about speed and consistency. I played it UBw most of the time but for the moment I splashed Regrowth, All Sun's Dawn and Praetor's Counsel in green and Naya + Crosis's Charm for red. I did this because playing all 5 Borderposts is just nuts and its fun how this deck interacts with all these goldcards although I really think its _better_ to stay UBw.

For Conflux it should be no problem to stay 3-color because you always can fetch for Progenitus and Cruel Ultimatum (or BR Borderpost/Crosis's Charm). I'm a big fan of Crosis's Charm because of its pitchability and its effect for saving Dream Halls, bouncing back Myojin etc pp.

One thing I don't like is the part about extra turns. I cut all (even Time Stretch) Timewalk engines because most of the time they acted as "draw two" spell. Maybe it's just because I want to combo asap and use tons of sac-lands and try to win the turn I play Dream Halls (white supports this play with silence/chant/abeyance etc). I sadly did not play for months because there are no HL players around here anymore but before it was important to combo asap because every deck had answers in form of good creatures + 100 tutors (any enchantment removal, stuff like geddock teek etc pp).

If I got enough time I'll post my list the next days and try to update it as well. I think Dreamhalls can work differently but for me playing/building straight-forward combo did the best job so far.

[malz77]

Phyrexian Tower and Rector: If the Rector is in play I would never tutor the Dream Halls directly. It's much harder to disrupt the Effects of Tower and Rector, than avoid someone from casting the Halls. So if Rector is in Phyrexian Tower is it as well (for me). Additional the two mana generated this way were always helpful.

@ Tiggupiru: What are the four cards you are going for with Conflux (in an ideal scenario)?

[Tiggupiru]

Being green certainly has it's perks. I am just all about consistency and losing when you have a powerful blue card in your hand with just black cards to pitch it is annoying. All Sun's Dawn and Praetor's Council are very attractive cards, though.

Extra turns are there to get you a win condition that is not completely dead. In this case the creatures that draw cards. I don't get the mana boost from the saclands, but in return I have kill cards that are perfectly castable before the Halls. If there is a better way to kill while staying mostly blue, I am all ears.

I cut the Phyrexian Tower mostly because of the inconsistency. It provides colorless for most of the time, but your arguments are sound. Could throw it back in at some point. Especially considering that you can squeeze some extra value out of Cruel Ultimatum with the Tower. 

@ Tiggupiru: What are the four cards you are going for with Conflux (in an ideal scenario)?

It's not exact science, but assuming I am left with zero non-land cards in hand and nothing relevant in the 'yard, one pile I would consider is:

Red - Cruel Ultimatum
White - Esper Charm
Blue - Myojin of Seeing Winds
Black - Mistvein Borderpost

Pitch Myojin to cast Ultimatum. Draw three and get the Myojin back. Pitch Borderpost to cast Myojin and presumably draw enough to win the game. It's not guaranteed win, but if drawing ~10 doesn't do that in like 95% of cases, the deck is not optimal enough. In my experience, you don't lose the game if you get to draw cards off Myojin.

If you have draw a lot before casting Conflux as your last non-land, it's worth thinking about getting Time Spiral to reset the deck.