Halls in t1?

[serracollector]

I was reading a past article steven menendian had made on the top 50 decks of Legacy, and one I saw peeked my interest, a show and tell/dream halls deck using Conflux, Progenitus, and Cruel Ultimatum.  So I thought to myself, could this work in t1 since halls in no longer restricted in t1?  So I quickly made up a decklist, then tested a few games on MWS against some online random players.  So far the deck isn't half bad, but unfortunately not half as good as it could be.  So I need help, in making it faster, more resilient, and hopefully better all around.  So far this is my current decklist, and any thought/comments/help is much appreciated.

Mana(26)
1 academy
1 scalding tarn
2 polluted delta
2 misty rainforest
2 flooded strand
4 underground sea
3 island
1 swamp
10 ring/vault/lotus/petal/moxen/crypt

Draw/Search(14)
Ancestral
DemonT
VampT
MysticalT
Seal
Brainstorm
Ponder
3 Impulse
1 Ancestral Memories
3 Conflux

Fun Stuff(16)
4 x Show and tell
4 x Dream Halls
4 x Progenitus
3 x Cruel Ultimatum
1 x time walk

Protection(4)
4 x FoW

No sideboard yet either, so any help on that would be much appreciated. 

The premise is simple, get halls into play via a Show and Tell, and then Conflux into 3 ultimatums, and 1 conflux and 1 progenitus, then do the ultimatums to make them chuck hadn and lose life while u draw a way, then conflux for the time walk, and cast Prog, next turn swing for the win.

I will check back regularly for advice.  Thank you all.

[xouman]

I would play a Yagwmoth's will instead the 3rd ultimatum. Also 4 fows seem too few defence, what about pacts of negation or duress (preferably).

Also the deck has no plan against null rod, a fish deck should beat you for fun. Combo decks will be faster than you most of the time. Control decks won't let you play dream halls, and maybe show and tell lets them drop a big robot and kill faster.


The idea is ok, but I would drop some tutors in order to get duress or spell pierce

[AmbivalentDuck]

You can more easily cheat sorceries like Cruel Ultimatum using Spellweaver Helix.  The typical strategy is to use Cabal Therapy both to clear the way and to cheat your spell out with minimal cost.

[serracollector]

Oh trust me I understand how little defenses the deck has, but what to drop?  All the deck consists of is Combo pieces, and restricted cards, and what restricted cards should I drop?  AncestraL?  Tutors?  Time WalK?  Moxen?  I don't know how to make room for 4 duress or Seize.  Thats what I need help on, I know what could help the deck, but how to make it more defensive and still fast enough to get it off?

[honestabe]

Progenitus is legendary.  Start by cutting one or two of him

[xouman]

Progenitus is ok at 4, lots of times you will play it with show and tell. Maybe with so many tutors, 3 progenitus are better.

What about this combination?

26 mana sources (4 of them dark rituals)
9 counters/duress/bouncer
ancestral,will,time walk, twister
demonic, vampiric, consultation, mystical, merchant
4 conflux
2 ultimatum
3 progenitus
4 dream halls
3 show and tell


conflux and dream halls are the cards to have in hand, so you want 4 of each. Maybe you also want 4 show and tell, but it is easier to tutor.

With rituals is easy to play turn 2-3 dream halls (less need of show and tell), turn 1 show and tell... with duress/tgz (preferably tgz, in order to avoid nasty drops with show and tell).

[Lurker101]

There was an old thread on this when Conflux first came out: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=37098.0  I hate to be discouraging but after lots of testing and various tweaks it was found not to viable, although very fun. One of the ideas was to use mana drain as acceleration and added protection. You also want the deck to be as blue as possible (all the multicolored cards it uses are blue so that's fine) so that the deck has more consistency although it's really difficult to justify cutting black as it provides so much as far as tutoring goes. Anyway good luck with it. I love dream halls and the combo and would like to see it appear with some degree of success in Vintage. There have been a few top 8s with dream halls builds but they utilized Niv-Mizzet and lots of card drawing as the kill condition, if I remember right, the decklists are up on www.morphling.de .

[LotusHead]

I lost to a Vintage Dream Halls deck in a tourney.  Here's his list.

Bryan Hoyt: Dream Halls
4 Force of Will
3 Commandeer
1 Echoing Truth

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor

4 Mystic Remora
2 Impulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Ponder
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

4 Cruel Ultimatum
3 Dream Halls
2 Conflux
1 Inkwell Leviathan
1 Time Vault
1 Volatic Key

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 Tolarian Academy
3 Flooded Strand
3 Polluted Delta
5 Island
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard:
3 Sower of Temptation
1 Diabolic Edict
2 Spell Snare
2 Duress
2 Energy Flux
1 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Pithing Needle
1 Yixlid Jailer

Brian has to stretch his proxies out to the max (10 proxy metagame), so that might affect some card choices.

This was from back in like, September. Enjoy.