Card/Deck Devastating Dreams

FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor

This card checks a bunch of boxes for me. It discards stuff, it stunts development and it sweeps creatures. The problem is, I'm not sure if red decks actually want to do all three of these things at the same time? This is a recent addition and it was undrafted last time. Does anyone have any input on this card?
 
Konge

Konge

I don't have any experience with it; however, while I like that the damage/sac is variable, it hurts it a lot that the discard is random. That makes it far more likely that you need to have a more commanding board position before casting it than with wildfire, since you most likely -need- to win off the back of that. On the other hand, it's much cheaper which will allow you to drop a threat the same turn.

If you keep it in it will be very interesting to hear your experiences with it. How much do you support Big Red/Red control?
 
CML

CML

Contributor
can't see it working even if it were chosen discard, does legacy loam even run it any more?
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
I'm not sure if they need to, this thing almost certainly isn't killing tarmogoyph, and they'd probably just run firespout instead.

I see the merit, but the mana saved doesn't really help due to the random discard.
If you could play it on 6, floating 4 to play huntmaster afterward it'd be sweet, but as it stands you'll probably end up discarding him.

Not to mention the compounded problem of "do I have enough cards to discard?"
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
I looooove Devastating Dreams.

I agree that it doesn't look good, but the ability to control how it scales and costing only 2 mana makes it ridiculous. You can craft the game several turns in advance around resolving a (DEVASTATING /zachill) Dreams, and it's easy to weight it to your advantage.

It's also insane with planeswalkers (T4 Garruk Wildspeaker, Dev Dreams?!)
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Chris Taylor said:
I'm not sure if they need to, this thing almost certainly isn't killing tarmogoyph, and they'd probably just run firespout instead.

I see the merit, but the mana saved doesn't really help due to the random discard.
If you could play it on 6, floating 4 to play huntmaster afterward it'd be sweet, but as it stands you'll probably end up discarding him.

Not to mention the compounded problem of "do I have enough cards to discard?"
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good thing huh not killing your own giant threat!

Dom that is a convincing post, i'm gonna pick up a copy asap. thanks sir
 
Goldenpineapple

Goldenpineapple

Dom Harvey said:
It's also insane with planeswalkers (T4 Garruk Wildspeaker, Dev Dreams?!)
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I don't even know if this is an upside or a precaution anymore; I've seen too many games end at planeswalker + effect that blows up non-planeswalkers.

I'm ok with this effect, but very wary of the discard being an additional cost (my players love their remands). Locals have regarded wildfire and big brother destructive force with skepticism but they'll likely be more open to this.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
The thing about this card as opposed to wildfire (which I'm pretty much done with) is that the red decks that want to stunt mana development generally don't want to go to six mana. The ones that do go to six mana don't want to drop back down to 2 mana just to clear the board. The ones that do want to blow up lands usually are going it to back up their creatures on the board, which usually doesn't work well with the damage effect. I like the idea that Dom puts forward about crafting the board state to where Dev Dreams owns everything. I mean Kird Ape > Flinthoof (or some other animal) > Dev Dreams for 2 is a pretty dreamy scenario.

Like I usually do in this situation, I'll probably just keep it in and hope someone smarter finds a use for it.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
I don't even have Wildfire in my Cube, I think it's at once worse and more obnoxious than Armageddon
 
Jason Waddell

Jason Waddell

Administrator
Staff member
I kind of wonder if land destruction is one of the least interesting ways to power aggro in cubes. It can be effective, sure, but pretend we're designing Magic for the first time... Is it the best dynamic we can achieve?

More on topic, I don't think I would ever include this card in one of my cube decks. But I am perhaps a less adventurous deck builder than some.
 
anotak

anotak

land destruction being an unfun mechanic is directly tied to lands being an often unfun mechanic but i don't know a good solution to the second problem
 
Dom Harvey

Dom Harvey

Contributor
FlowerSunRain said:
I like the idea that Dom puts forward about crafting the board state to where Dev Dreams owns everything. I mean Kird Ape > Flinthoof (or some other animal) > Dev Dreams for 2 is a pretty dreamy scenario.
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This was a much underappreciated Extended deck ~5 years ago:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/deck_files/23644-workstation.mwDeck


The great thing about Dreams is that it has a sense of immediacy: whenever you play some random big guy, whether it's Tarmogoyf or Ashenmoor Gouger, there's always the threat that you can untap and sweep the board away. Its efficiency also increases the range of decks it can be played in - Devastating Dreams discarding Bloodghast is a solid play, but Bloodghast and Wildfire can't really go in the same deck. The random discard as an additional card can be awkward sometimes, but it actually creates a fun dynamic - you have to strike a balance between deploying threats to increase the effectiveness of Dreams and keeping them in hand to boost its size or maximize your chances of keeping a specific card around. This leads to it working well with cards that aren't on the radar as part of Wildfire strategies: Squadron Hawk, for instance, if you run that.
 
Jonas

Jonas

anotak said:
land destruction being an unfun mechanic is directly tied to lands being an often unfun mechanic but i don't know a good solution to the second problem
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You could always play Magic as you do in the Call of Cthulhu CCG. Put down cards from your hand on the table, showing only the color, in up to three piles, mark a pile when it is used, and refresh it in your untapfase. That is your mana base. Never flooded, never screwed, but what are you going to sacrifice? That might actually be a bit interesting to try out in Magic, anyone done it already?
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Jonas said:
You could always play Magic as you do in the Call of Cthulhu CCG. Put down cards from your hand on the table, showing only the color, in up to three piles, mark a pile when it is used, and refresh it in your untapfase. That is your mana base. Never flooded, never screwed, but what are you going to sacrifice? That might actually be a bit interesting to try out in Magic, anyone done it already?
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I think this idea both needs and deserves a lot of testing before an actual 'fun' game will result, that being said I'm 100% behind someone taking the initiative. This topic does come up during or after roughly 1/1000 games of Biblical flood or Jamesian screw, so maybe there's some litterature on it already?

The gist of my findings is that it's impossible to do in Constructed for the same reason that you can't do free mulligans on hands that satisfy certain conditions of unplayability -- Combo would just abuse it to the point where the game would be imbalanced. However, in Cube there are no such decks, and the mull-to-6-scry-1, mull-to-6, mull-to-5-scry-1 over mull to 6, mull to 5, mull to 4 has hugely improved the Cube experience, mulliganing is really bad (check out my comment on http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/tournament-report-gp-abq-top8/) but 'never having to mull' might wreck the dynamic too.

What I'm saying is that there's far too much going on here to resort to theorycrafting.

Jason Waddell said:
I kind of wonder if land destruction is one of the least interesting ways to power aggro in cubes. It can be effective, sure, but pretend we're designing Magic for the first time... Is it the best dynamic we can achieve?

More on topic, I don't think I would ever include this card in one of my cube decks. But I am perhaps a less adventurous deck builder than some.
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In all seriousness, when my Cube was having issues with control I tried all kinds of LD. Garbage like Zo-Zu the Punisher solidified his slot, while Thoughts of Ruin wasn't even the biggest sign of desperation. Now I don't even have Molten Rain or Plow Under (which we decided was necessary so Green could have a fighting chance against U strategies) -- anyway, it's all related to my slur on Erwin 720's in that a good way to win with aggro against "decks that do nothing until 4" is to make them take a turn off until they get to 4.
 
anotak

anotak

the problem with stapling on fixes onto magic's mana system is that everything is designed with it in mind, it doesn't lead to fun games if everyone can just turn cards in their hand into lands. despite me and everyone else wishing it were that easy to fix

unrelated: tangle wire
 
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