TurboSpaz Primer

[Aroxisis]

TurboSpaz- A Primer

History- unfortunately, although I have been playing this deck for a while, I am not exactly sure who was the originator behind it. I believe that I saw Nevyn post the decklist, although I could be entirely wrong. (Please feel free to correct me) Now this isn’t a very popular, or very heavily played archetype I will admit. Nor is it a cheap one as the P9 really helps this deck go off fast. This is the reason it isn’t heavily played: if a player has the P9 and want to play combo, they will most likely play Academy. However, for those souls who enjoy playing rogue decks or want to try something new, TurboSpaz is for you.
The deck as it stands now:

TurboSpaz v1.7 or Peaches en Regalia
// Combo1
        1 City of Solitude
        1 Ancestral Recall
// Combo 2
        1 Sickening Dreams
        1 Dream Halls
// Drawing
        1 Windfall
        1 Timetwister
        1 Time Spiral
// Search
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Sterling Grove
        4 Diabolic Intent
        4 Academy Rector
// Other
        1 Seal of Cleansing
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Time Walk
        1 Reclaim
        1 Regrowth
        1 Replenish
        1 Moat
        2 Gerrard's Wisdom
// Protection
        3 Misdirection
        4 Force of Will
// Mana
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Grim Monolith
        4 City of Brass
        3 Gemstone Mine
        4 Underground Sea
        4 Tundra
        1 Tropical Island
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Sol Ring

The basic premise of the deck is to get the Bargain out, draw into or tutor for the lone Dream Halls, then Gerrard’s Wisdom for a bunch of life, and then draw your entire deck out. You can wisdom again, recycle the library/Denying Wind them and the repeat. That’s how it used to be. However, if you are playing in a timed tournament, Denying Winding their entire library away isn’t usually the most efficient way to kill them if you want to play all three games in regulation time. This is why you have Sickening Dreams, after you are well ahead of them in life totals, you can just discard your hand (or library as the case may be) to kill them and survive yourself.

Deconstructing the Deck

TurboSpaz v1.7 or Peaches en Regalia

// Combo1
This is your last resort to killing them: Ancestraling them to death with City of Solitude out. However, this combo isn’t the main function of either card in the deck, its just an added bonus.
        1 City of Solitude
The City is also useful to have against control decks such as Keeper, OSE, or Mono-Blue. It is Rector-able so you can get it out early and go off at your leisure, without having to worry about their abilities to stop you, even if they get a fist full of counters from one of the Draw 7s.
        1 Ancestral Recall
   What can one say about this card that hasn’t been said already? It is the best card advantage ever printed, and likely to be the best ever printed until the entire R&D staff is run over by a bus. It is worth noting that once you get going on the combo, it can be pitched to FOW or Misdirection as the Bargain can supply you with all the cards you need.
// Combo 2
   This is usually your kill method, except under weird or extreme circumstances.
        1 Sickening Dreams
   This replaced Denying Wind as the kill card, and for good reason. Denying Winding their entire library out can take 5 minutes with the actual cards, and at least 10 minutes online. This can be a major problem in timed tournaments, where playing the third game to the end can be all the difference in the world. After using Gerrard’s Wisdom a few times with your entire library in you hand thanks to the Bargain, you will be far enough ahead of them in life that you will be able to discard enough cards to the Dreams to kill them, or at the very least, take a large chunk out of their life.
        1 Dream Halls
   This is the card that makes the entire deck tick. Only one copy of it is necessary because seeing it before you need it is a very bad thing, and you have many ways to draw into it/tutor for it. Once this hits the table, you should be able to combo them out.
// Drawing
        1 Windfall
   A definite boost for you in the early game, drop one of these once you have cleared your hand of anything useful and you’ll still probably make out better after it resolves (unless of course broken things happen and your opponent has no cards).
        1 Timetwister
   A key element once you have started to go out and both of your Wisdoms are in the graveyard. It can be used to put them both back in your deck, recycle your lotus, and keep the combo going. Remember that if you use Dreams without enough cards to kill them, to NOT discard this card.
        1 Time Spiral
   Many of the same things to say about this as the Twister, you will want to almost always play this card second because it will allow you for the maximum number of recursions through your library.
// Search
   Many of the same things to say about all the tutors; they stitch your deck together and help you find your combo pieces/any answer you may need. It is usually preferable to get Lotus (or Mana Vault if you already blew the Lotus) with any regular tutor you may have if you already have the Bargain in play, as it will help you get Dream Halls into play that turn and go off, then if you have both out, you should probably go for Wisdom (or a white card to pitch for Wisdom).
        1 Vampiric Tutor
   See above
        1 Mystical Tutor
   Usually used to fetch ancestral or recursion, however it will occasionally be used to fetch the Dreams to finish them off if they are very low on life.
        1 Demonic Tutor
   See above
        2 Sterling Grove
   Mostly used as protection for combo pieces that are already in play, but sometimes will fetch Dream Halls so you can Bargain it to your hand to be hardcasted.
        4 Diabolic Intent
   See above
        4 Academy Rector
   These guys are key to getting the combo out fast. With the first one, depending on the deck your opponent is playing, you may want to get Bargain to combo them out before the beats finish, or if you are low on life, Moat can stop most creature-based strategies cold so you can go off at your leisure. Use the next Rector to start the combo. Against anything packing counter magic City of Solitude can allow you to go off without fear of their being able to stop you midway through it, as well as makes your Draw-7s much stronger because their counter magic will be dead cards. Against other combo decks, you will want to get Bargain out and beat them to go off.
// Other
   Things that cannot be put into just one category…
        1 Seal of Cleansing
   This is your only defense against enchantments and artifacts that may give you trouble and disrupt your ability to go off i.e. Arcane Lab, Nether Void, and Ivory Mask. It is Rectorable so do not be afraid to get it if one of them is down so you can combo later.
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
   THE card that makes the deck tick. You will almost never hard cast it, it will usually be Rectored out, although it will occasionally be discarded and Replenished out. 6th edition Rules made it so you can’t draw your deck out the first time by going below 0 life during a turn, but after a Wisdom or two, you will easily be able to draw your entire deck as many times as you may need to kill them.
        1 Time Walk
   Early in the game, it accelerates your going off by a turn, giving them less of a chance to disrupt you. Used as part of the kill in some versions more casual versions that involve the brokenness of creatures such as Noble Panther or Mountain Goat.
        1 Reclaim
   A way to get the combo pieces that you had to discard in the early game back so they may be Rectored out, or drawn and hard cast. May also be pitched to Dream Halls to get the City of Solitude out.
        1 Regrowth
   When you absolutely, positively must have one of the cards in your graveyard back in your hand.
        1 Replenish
   Losing a key enchantment to the graveyard (either by discard or some other method) can hurt a lot. This is one way to get it back right into play. This is also an alternate way to get Bargain into play quickly, and sometimes as an added bonus, the Halls.
        1 Moat
   This card can shut down many creature decks single-handedly. Cold. If they don’t scoop automatically, you can combo them out long before they may be able to burn you out or their flyers to kill you. Against Stompy, some versions of Suicide, White Weenie, and Tinker this card will mean a concession from them. Stacker2, Sligh and other red-based decks only hope against this card is to burn you out.
        2 Gerrard's Wisdom
   Helps keep the combo going by feeding the Bargain. Don’t hesitate to use it in the early game however, if it will keep you alive for that extra turn or two against beatdown so you can combo them out. In other match ups this is just one of the combo pieces.
// Protection
   These pitch counters are pretty much standard in any deck that plays enough blue spells to support them. Remember, while Dream Halls is out, you don’t have to remove the card you pitch to either of these from the game. I can’t count how many times I have done that in the middle of a permission wars.
        3 Misdirection
        4 Force of Will
// Mana
   The current mana base allows for explosiveness in the early game, but does not clutter the deck while you are trying to go off. The 22 land or 0-cost artifact mana slots allows you to have very few no or 1 mana hands. The blue duals give the deck more consistency and longevity than Undiscovered Paradise or a 4th Gemstone Mine. The 7 5-color sources along with the Lotus and Moxen allow your sideboard to have the most powerful answers in any color.
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Grim Monolith
   A lot of key spells in your deck have high colorless mana requirements, and this helps ease them greatly; the damage Mana Vault deals you is negligible anyways because the game won’t last long enough either way for them to kill you.
        4 City of Brass
   A no brainer.
        3 Gemstone Mine
   In a deck that runs so many dual lands, it is unnecessary to run a full compliment of these.
        4 Underground Sea
        4 Tundra
        1 Tropical Island
        7 SoLoMoxen
   The rest are pretty self-explanatory.

Next section: sideboarding.

[Razor]

I will post the archived material that I have on Dream Halls decks in hopes of promoting further discussion and crediting creative and cool people.  Note the 'older' Denying Wind Dream Halls decklist below which is quite different than yours but not entirely estranged.  

Aroxisis, since you actually posted at the bottom of this archived thread I figured you'd have noted (BeBe's comment)that Tir refined Dream Halls into the broken engine that we all love.  It is tres cool that you have been refining the Dream Halls concept at least all of this year!

A glimpse into Feb.2002 on bdominia:

-------------------------------------------------------
dream halls decklists

Beyond Dominia <http://www.bdominia.com/discus/messages/board-topics.shtml>: The Type One Magic Mill <http://www.bdominia.com/discus/messages/9/9.shtml>: dream halls decklists


By Arkadi Svidrigailov (Arkadi) <mailto:fritzie_d@hotmail.com> on Thursday, January 31, 2002 - 07:47 am:
Could someone supply me with a decklist of the deck that broke dream halls in type 1, since I'm quite curious about this. O, and if you're at it, I'd like to see the extended version as well.

Thanks a lot.

By CrazyCarlWinter <mailto:CrazyCarlWinter@stny.rr.com> on Thursday, January 31, 2002 - 10:49 am:
Dream Halls is banned in extended. For type 1, just think Time Spiral..... =\

By meh <javascript:alert('')> on Thursday, January 31, 2002 - 12:25 pm:
isn't abusing dream halls what tirx is all about?
check the archives, as tir doesn't seem to post here anymore.

By BeBe, the Redeemer (Bebe) <mailto:Paul_Shriar@amsinc.com> on Thursday, January 31, 2002 - 01:53 pm:
From the Rogue deck archives...


NAME: TurboSpaz – by Tir

//Combo1
1 Ancestral Recall
1 City of Solitude

//Combo 2
1 Denying Wind
1 Dream Halls

// Drawing
1 Timetwister
1 Time Spiral
1 Windfall

//Tutors
4 Academy Rector
4 Diabolic Intent
3 Sterling Grove
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

// //Utility
2 Gerrard's Wisdom
1 Replenish
1 Regrowth
1 Reclaim
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Moat
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Time Walk

//Control
4 Force of Will
3 Misdirection

//Mana
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra
3 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
1 Tropical Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus


Basically, sac a Rector for Bargain, keep drawing for the combo components, fuel your life with the Wisdoms. The first time you use Gerrard’s Wisdom, you get about 20-30 life off it,
and then, you will more than likely draw into the other one, and get 50-60 life from that,
to keep the recursion going. Two are really sufficient as a third bogs your hand down.

Kill 1

With the City of Solitude on the table you could win through ancestral recursion. Normally the problem with this strategy is the opponent draws into counters, but with the City it wont matter.
Denying wind is so expensive you probably can’t use them until you have the engine going. City of solitude is cheap and can be used anytime. If you cast it before you have the combo running it protects you from counters while you set up the combo. City of Solitude is always good, Denying Wind is only good when you have the engine up and running. Non-the-less, I love the Winds.

Kill 2
Bargain. When I get the combo going, I can draw more counterspells than
almost any deck.. I just like the screams the first time I use Denying Wind!
Once Dream Halls is out, start the
library rape with free casting Denying Winds.

Either way :
Repeat, thanks to TimeTwister/Spiral/Regrowth. Win.
Have fun!

The deck seems to be fragile but somehow Tir manages to play it very well. It is reminiscent Lich: it works once you understand the mechanism.
Magic is after all just a game. Have fun.

By Razor (Razor) <mailto:ray@webinmotion.net> on Sunday, February 24, 2002 - 10:10 am:
Dream Halls

This deck uses quick artifact mana to draw extra cards. It then will intuition for a dream halls and two replenish. Once dream halls hits the table, you pitch cards to draw more cards. You eventually will denying wind your opponent and then use fact or fiction or ancestral memories to put a gaea’s blessing into your graveyard from your library and the process starts again.

This is one of Squirrel's [2001] decklists:

1 Dream Halls
2 Replenish
4 Intuition
3 Fact of Fiction
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Denying Wind
4 Meditate
1 Mana Severence
1 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Crypt
4 Ancestral Memories
2 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Force of Will
4 Arcane Denial
4 Opportunity
4 Counterspell
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Undiscovered Paradise
6 Island

Razor

By oopsiforgotisuckatmagic <javascript:alert('')> on Sunday, February 24, 2002 - 12:43 pm:
omg are those arcane denial's in that list? rakso's gonna flip.

By Jack's Smirking Revenge (Aroxisis) <mailto:SpecVolrath@yahoo.com> on Thursday, February 28, 2002 - 08:49 pm:
with TurboSpaz I have found that often times its better to rector for Dream Halls to get you to "go off" or at least accelerate your deck significantly. However BBS seems to jsut own this deck, unless by some weird twist of fate you can get the city out.
-------------------------------------------------------

[Aroxisis]

Thanks for the history Razor, it will be added to the revised version of this primer.

[Aroxisis]

Does anyone have a decklist of the Dream Halls deck that lead to the Halls' banning in Standard and Extended? I would like to include it in the history section.

[Razor]

I am sorry, but I don't have one archived.

I wonder if someone like Stephen D'Angelo might remember what led to this card's restriction.

dangelo@crystalkeep.com

[BigChuck]

I thought I remember it being used to make academy that much more broken. I'm not 100% positive, but I know it was restricted around that general time, and it would see to fit the deck.

[Zherbus]

Yep, I was one of those dirty players too! It was made after they banned academy from standard.

Main Deck:
4 Counter Spell
3 Turnabout
4 Meditate
1 Attunement
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Time Spiral
4 Stroke of Genius
3 Mind Over Matter
4 Dream Halls
4 Mana Vault
18 Island
3 Ancient Tomb

Sideboard:
4 Hydroblast
4 Chill
1 Turnabout
3 Powersink
3 Capsize

[spin13]

There also happened to be a deck by the name of TurboZvi (of obvious origins) that was Mirage/Tempest Type 2.  The combo, while strong, was so difficult and time consuming to play that it never took off or dominated the format.  While it proved that Dream Halls was broken, it wasn't enough to deserve its banning until all the Saga cards came into effect.

Anyway, the combo worked something like this:  use all your resources (many sac lands, etc) to get Dream Halls into play.  Then pitch blue cards to Meditate and Inspiration to find Ancestral Memories, which should, in turn, find and trigger Gaea's Blessing.  After the deck has set up its hand enough to go off, it would Inspiration the opponent to death.  There were a few versions that used Black to be able to Lobotomy/Inspiration the opponent, using 5th Edition rules to stack them appropriatly.  It was able to run counter backup of Memory Lapse, but ran only those.  

I don't know an extact list, but you could check The Dojo on www.archive.org

 -Eric

[spin13]

Here are a few lists and tournament reports, curtesy of both Archive.org and Thedojo.com of some of the original Dream Halls combo decks:

http://web.archive.org/web....mbe.txt

http://web.archive.org/web....mwi.txt

I hope that helps explain what I was talking about, as well as some of the history.  Enjoy.

 -Eric

[Fastbond]

How about Mana Crypt in the Sterling Grove spot?

Are you going to post about the sideboard?

This deck needs more card drawing to feed Misdirection/Force Will until it can get the combo out.

[PaFl]

here is a decklist I have been messing around with:

// Combo
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Dream Halls
// Life Gain
        2 Gerrard's Wisdom
// Kill Condition
        1 Sickening Dreams
// Protection
        1 Abeyance
        4 Cabal Therapy
        4 Duress
// Fetch
        4 Diabolic Intent
        4 Academy Rector
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor
// Drawing
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Timetwister
        1 Time Spiral
        1 Windfall
// Utilities
        1 Time Walk
        1 Reclaim
        1 Regrowth
        1 Replenish
        1 Seal of Cleansing
// Mana
        4 City of Brass
        4 Underground Sea
        3 Tropical Island
        4 Tundra
        3 Gemstone Mine
        1 Mana Vault
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald

I found a bit of Tech that would seem to work pretty good:

Cabal Therapy B
Name a nonland card. Target player reveals his or her hand and discards from it all cards with that name. Flashback-Sacrifice a creature.

With this and Diabolic Intent, the Rectors are just that much better. Not to mention the obvious interaction with Duress. Just a thought.

[specialk]

hey there is a guy that usually plays a deck like PaFl's at Hairy T's and for the most opperates good

...and you wonder why you get warnings.

This sort of post is not acceptable even in the regular forum. This is an especially elite forum and there are rules to follow. You should read those rules.

"2. Reading and writing aren't mere ways of communicating - they're a pleasure, and should be treated as such. We come here for a game, and if a post is not pleasing to read, it should not exist.

Thus, we ask our posters to make an effort to write well, and, even more important, think before writing.

Before making a post, you should: Ask yourself what your thesis is, how you will defend it, and how you will write those ideas in an understandable way. We will happily delete "one-liners", posts too full of typos, and posts including statements such as "<3 smurphling", "I agree", or "Moat >>> Abyss."

If you simply agree or disagree, state why.
"

Consider this a warning and if you have a problem with that do not respond in this forum, but through PM to me.

-Zherbus

[Fastbond]

I've been playing this deck a lot.  It still needs a lot of improvements.  The main advantage this combo deck has over others is that it has creatures.  So the primary focus of the sideboard I think is the way to abuse that fact.

Sterling Grove needs to go.  Enchantress has a drawing engine to support the resources that this card depletes.  This deck doesn't.  This card should be a mana crypt.  Mana Crypt damage can lose you bargain draws.  However, Mana crypt is useful for getting Dream Halls out once you get Bargain.  Normally you'd need to draw into Lotus + Mox + Sol Ring with Mana Crypt you just need Lotus and Mana Crypt.  You also need a way to make your cards cost virtually less.  Yawgmoths' Bargain is a hundred times better than Sylvan Library but if they get Sylvan off first they'll be draws ahead of you and they'll get an answer to bargain before you can get it into play.  Mana Crypt can be good and it can be bad but sterling grove is never good so mana crypt is superior.

I don't like mystical and vampiric tutor in this deck.  Ideally, you'll use it to fetch timetwister.  However, this deck doesn't go off the turn it gets timetwister.  Most of the time you'll cast timetwister pass the turn and the aggro deck will win next turn.  It's also mana disadvantage.  Cards like crop rotation and Tinker are card disadvantage but they don't remove your ability to topdeck mana next turn.  Imagine crop rotating Gaea's Cardle into another Gaea's cardle.  Or using a tinkered mox and then drawing another mox off the jar anyways. Vampiric can also make you lose bargain draws.  In keeper for instance mystical and vampiric fetch two cards that can win the game Balance and Yawgmoth's Will.  Timetwister doesn't always win the game and won't stop the creature beating down on you next turn.  I also find that I am able to get any card I need off Diabolic Intent and Academy Rector.  Reclaim is also a sufficient anti-discard card to use to hide the card you need on the top of your library.

A good substitute for vampiric would balance.  Balance does buy you turns.  And it's cheap when you can't cast Academy Rector to get Moat.  It also kills Gorilla shamans and Dwarven Miners something that Moat doesn't do.   It does prevent you from losing to beatdown creatures next turn.

As for mystical one possibility is Yawgmoth's Will.  It can screw you over if you draw a bunch of cards off Bargain and then have to remove them from the game.  Even if it does lose you games it may be worth it if it wins you more games than mystical will.

As for the protection, you will draw into your enchantments sometimes.  And you will get first turn city of solitudes.  Against a deck like keeper this may be suicide.  They will still have a number of tools at their disposal aganst you including killing your land with wasteland and Gorilla Shaman and then mindtwisting away your hand.  you will be the deck with a handful of dead counters and they will have free reign to do a number of broken things.  Although, it was nice sometimes to misdirect burn to academy rectors too often I was forced to pitch cards I needed like Dream Halls.  The next best choice is duress.  Against sligh it's a healing salve protecting vital Bargain draws.  Against control decks it gets rid of counters.
It also gives this deck more first turn plays.  That leaves three more slots.   I'm still not sure what would be good here.

The kill condition isn't a part of the engine.  If you draw into it's like starting with six cards in your hand.  I thought about Gaea's Blessing, then you could infinitely recur ancestral recall to force them to draw out their library.  Then you could side in the oath engine.  The problem is that Gaea's Blessing isn't really all that useful before you get the combo out.  More often than not you have nothing useful in graveyard and it just serves as a useless cantrip.

As for the sideboard,  I think Oath of Druids is worth taking a look out.  This deck does have problems with aggro control.  If you can't get to four mana to play Academy Rector then if you have two you can play oath of druids to get it.  Getting crucial enchantments in the graveyard can be partially prevented be blessing and can even set up a replenish.  Als, most mono colored aggro decks tend to have a lot of hate.  Imagine turn 1 gorilla shaman turn 2 dwarven miner game two against sligh.  Aggro decks tend to have to much hate for multicolored decks to be ignored.

Oath of Ghouls is a cool way of recurring academy rectors if it gets countered but it can help your opponent if they get a morphling in their graveyard from a Fact or Fiction for example.  Genesis is an uncounterable way to recur academy rectors.  It's slow but you may be able to get it fast enough against keeper or mono-u.  The problem is that they can indirectly kill Genesis by attacking your mana base.  That's where Carpet of Flowers can come in.  The Keeper assault against combo will come in two forms: card denial(The 9 counters and Mindtwist) and mana denial(The 5 Wastelands and Gorilla Shaman).  You don't want to be fighting a war against both mana denial and card denial.  Carpet of Flowers makes your cards cost virtually less which is ver important and allows you to shrug off mana denial.  The mono-u game is also based on mana denial(4 Back to Basics and 4 Powder Keg).  You don't want to side in red elemental blasts and find yourself having to deal with Back to Basics rather than forcing your business spells through.  Carpet of Flowers makes their Mana Leaks less effective and shuts down the important mana denial part of their game.

Another issue is swords to plowshares.  Swords on Acadmey Rector hurts.  You really don't want to lose to parfait just because of it's four swords.  That's why duress can be good.  It can remove a swords if they don't have a counter but another solution to the plow would be nice.

[mezzir]

i'm currently testing a deck inspired by this and SweetPotatoPie (a deck created by a mtgnews deck building guild) that completely cuts blue
i haven't had time to test it sufficiently, but its looking pretty decent
the one main difference i've found is using fastbond and words of wisdom
and i use more sylvans and sterling groves so finding them usually isn't a problem
you just pay 1 to gain 4 life (draw 4) which is good card drawing in my book
i'll post a decklist if it doesn't turn out to be a flop

[Tir]

First off, I hate to say it, but the original premise is off...
It's not to win.  It's to be stylish, to make people go 'wtf is
that pile?!?'  And then you win.    

That, of course, is why there are some oddities in the deck,
as well as why Denying Winds CANNOT be taken out.  (Historic
note-  an early nickname for TurboSpaz was 'Broken Wind')

Here's the current version (one of them, at least):

//NAME: TurboSpaz 2.3
// //Combo!!!
        1 Denying Wind
        1 Dream Halls
// //Phat drawing
        1 Timetwister
        1 Wheel of Fortune
        1 Time Spiral
        1 Windfall
        1 Ancestral Recall
// //Tutors
        4 Academy Rector
        3 Diabolic Intent
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Mystical Tutor
// //Utility
        1 Balance
        1 The Abyss
        1 Replenish
        1 Regrowth
        1 Reclaim
        1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
        1 Seal of Cleansing
        1 Time Walk
        2 Gerrard's Wisdom
// //Control
        4 Force of Will
        2 Misdirection
        2 Orim's Chant
// //Mana
        4 Underground Sea
        4 Tundra
        3 Gemstone Mine
        4 City of Brass
        1 Volcanic Island
        1 Tropical Island
        1 Grim Monolith
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Black Lotus
Sideboard Essentials:
    Glaciers, City of Solitude, Negators, etc.  Massive style
points for winning off Underworld Dreams w/ Windfall.  That's
what sideboards are for, right?

History:

This deck was originally based around a toolbox-style
combo/control that allowed you to set up defenses (moat,
in outdated versions) and bargain up Tolarian Academy & Mind
Over Matter for the win, but just to freak people out (heh...
anyone remember WK the first time we tested it?) I threw in
Dream Halls & Denying Wind.  This proved to be far more fun,
and less wasteable, than Academy, and the deck quickly
removed now-useless cards such as Stroke, Mana Crypt, and
MoM.  Since you would now only Rector/Intent for Bargain
and Dream Halls, the creature control element was changed
to 2 cards that kill Rectors dead:  Abyss & Balance.  With the
emphasis on putting the key cards into play, Sterlings
dissapeared, and were replaced by cards that could find the
brute-force drawing.

After that, the deck is pretty much as you see here, thanks to
Cid, WK, and the rest of the good old BD crew.  Currently, I'm
trying to find a decent build with duresses to help even things
with control, though I haven't been posting.  Imagine, I
thought no one cared... ; )

A note on play:  You have to have the Dark One's own luck to win.  
Take chances.  It will reward you.  If you're going to lose,
at least try to go down in a massive fireball.  If you screw
yourself so you can't win, don't let on.  Do whatever you can
and make your opponent think that's what it's supposed to do.
Kill someone with Rector beatdown every once in a while.
Just have good old sadistic fun is what I'm saying, I guess.
But whatever you do, don't you dare take the Wind out.

  -Tir
    :b...

Btw, if any wonder the origins of the 1 Tropical Island and all
that, it's from an earlier build that contained 30 1-ofs, so I
could say it's half of my highlander deck.