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Introduction

Underworld Dreams...my favorite card. It seems that most T1 players with the cards to do so have at least toyed with constructing this deck at one time or another. Even casual T1 players tend to love Dreams for its sheer "cool" value, and tendency to infuriate your opponents in multiplayer games.

Unfortunately, despite the kind of cult following Underworld Dreams has inspired, good, solid decklists are depressingly scarce, especially where pros are concerned. In fact, I don’t believe I have ever seen an Underworld Dreams deck crafted by the likes of Jon Finkle or Zvi.

Most likely, the reason for this lies in the fact that Dreams is really only a viable deck in T1, a format which is generally ignored...at least in the vogue world of internet magic. Be that as it may, I see no need for there to continue to be a drought of good Underworld Dreams decks available for those who choose to play such a deck.

Underworld Dreams was my pet project deck for over a year. I have never tested another deck so long or so thoroughly. Below is posted the most recent (never say "final" ) decklist, sideboard, and explanations of all the cards.

Some Background Information:

Before I post the decklist, however, I think I should write a bit about the theory behind the deck.

Underworld Dreams is a unique deck. A strange hybrid of Combo/Control, it is difficult to classify, and therefore can be confusing to play for the inexperienced. As a result, I have seen all manner of Underworld Dreams decks, using many different methods of kill.

I have seen Academy Rector Dreams, Intuition-Replenish Dreams, 5 color "Keeper-Dreams", Black/Red Aggro Burn Dreams, Black/Blue Counter Dreams, Green / Black Land Destruction Dreams with City of Solitude, Barbecue Dreams, Fried Dreams, Dreams soup, and more.

Most of these decks, despite how good they look on paper, are terrible. After much rigorous testing against and with almost all of these decktypes, I have come to the conclusion that the optimum Underworld Dreams deck should be kept at a core of two colors - Black and Blue, with a TINY splash of Red (Wheel of Fortune, Winds of Change) and / or Green (Regrowth, Fastbond). White is unnecessary.


The Decklists:

Below are listed some Underworld Dreams decklists. These include:

1.) My Ideal Decklist—Turbo Dreams
2.) A Powered Down Decklist—EconoDreams


I hope you find these useful in constructing your own Underworld Dreams deck given the card pool available to you.

First - My Ideal Decklist.

Believe me, I’ve had to give this one a lot of thought. I build this deck imagining I would have all the P9 at my disposal. Given the availability of a full compliment of P9, the deck should be able to go off very quickly and kill within a few turns, if played properly.

My Ideal Decklist is the following:

TurboDreams
Designed by John Sexton – 2001-2002.

Land

4 Underground Sea
4 Underground River
4 Gemstone Mine
4 City of Brass
2 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria

Artifact

4 Horn of Greed
1 Memory Jar
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Scroll Rack

Green

3 Exploration
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth

Black

4 Underworld Dreams
4 Dark Ritual
3 Duress
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor


Blue

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Timetwister
1 Time Spiral
1 Time Walk
1 Windfall
1 Tinker

Red

1 Wheel of Fortune

Sideboard:

4 Phyrexian Negator
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Red Elemental Blast
2 Chill
2 Misdirection
1 Tormod’s Crypt


A card to consider adding to this decklist might be Nostalgic Dreams from Torment. I haven't tested it, but I imagine it would be quite good. As for what to replace, thats up to you.


Card Choices and explanations:


As I said before, Dreams is kind of a mix between Combo and Control. It doesn’t give you that Dirty Combo Feeling, and yet it can go off in a single turn, doing upwards of 50 points of damage easily. The objective of the deck is to "go off," and go off quickly. Yet at the same time, the Dreams player needs to be careful and protect his resources and kill card. To this end...the cards:

The Turboland Engine – This deck is based around Zvi Mowshowitz’s famous Extended Turboland Engine, Exploration/Horn of Greed. I have to give Zvi credit—the exploration/horn engine is one of my favorite card combinations of all time. Due to the extremely fast nature of TurboDreams, it is not uncommon to draw an insane amount of cards through just a single horn.

· Fastbond – Plain and simple—GET THIS CARD INTO PLAY. Come hell or high water, this is the card you need to have on the table. Tutor for it first. Bait out counterspells with Dreams if you have to, just get Fastbond into play. The benefit it provides you in conjunction with the Draw 7s is immeasurable, often letting you cast 5 or 6 spells on the first turn if you get this in your initial draw.

· Exploration – Same as fastbond, but to a lesser extent. These help out a lot in the early game, and allow you to avoid killing yourself with Fastbond lategame. Get this in play as soon as possible too.

· Horn of Greed – God, I love this card. Fastbond/Horn of Greed is some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing magic. Be careful not to kill yourself, though. Getting one of these out on the first turn is an excellent play—I would prefer blowing a ritual on a Horn to on a Dreams first turn. Also, Lotus, Horn, Mox, Fastbond, Land, Land Land Draw Draw Draw Wheel Draw 7 Land Land Draw Draw Land Dreams is never a bad way to spend your first turn.

· Scroll Rack – This card is extremely abusive with all of the card drawing and fast mana this deck provides. Don’t have the winning Draw 7 in hand? Swap in your hand for a fresh one, which will almost certainly provide the winning card. Scroll rack is quite nice.


"Draw 7s" - These are your engine. They kill your opponent, refill your hand, and let you keep the madness going. Without a large number of these cards and a way to search them out effectively, this deck will fail...very quickly.

· Windfall - The weakest of the bunch, still a strong spell. On average, it nets about 4 cards, which often times leads you into something else you can do. When directly following another Draw 7, this card is devastating.

· Memory Jar - While expensive, the power of this card cannot be ignored. With the possibility to draw 7 new cards for zero mana (the turn after its played), this card is often the one that sets the ball rolling on the "big turn" during which you destroy your opponent. This card can be ritualed out but is most often fetched by Tinker killing a tapped mox.

· Wheel of Fortune - The only red card in the deck. It’s worth it. 7 cards, 7 damage for 3 mana is a wonderful bargain, and Wheel, too, often leads into another Draw 7. Although it destabilizes the mana base somewhat, it’s definitely worth it for the speed and versatility this cards offers the deck.

· Time Spiral - Ah...this card is a monster. Like Memory Jar, it is expensive to cast, but is a complete game breaker. If it resolves with Dreams on the table, it’s usually game. 7 Free cards and 7 damage to them are unbeatable. You can only use it once, but once is all it takes.

· Timetwister - Well, Time Spiral is unbeatable, except for Timetwister. Underworld Dreams simply cannot function to its full potential without this card. A 3 mana Draw 7 in your primary color that refreshes your entire deck. Hmm, that’s pretty good...maybe that’s why it costs $100. Its worth it. If you plan to play Dreams, get a Timetwister. They are the cheapest of the P9, and can often be had for under $100 on Ebay. If you plan to play Dreams competitively, you need this card. Get one.

Control: This is a Combo/Control deck, as I said. So, in order to get your Combo rolling, you need to be able to ensure it against those nasty T1 counter decks.

· Duress - The "pre-emptive" counter, this card is a fine first turn play if you have nothing else to do (which should be rare), but is often best saved until right before you play Fastbond, Dreams or a Draw 7. Make sure you are in the clear, and then have at them.


Kill - These cards are necessary to win the game.

· Underworld Dreams - Make them draw, they die.


Search and Recursion: Get what you need and use it. And reuse it. And reuse it.

· Vampiric Tutor – It’s a tutor…it gets you the card you want. Has good synergy with Draw 7s.

· Demonic Tutor – The original tutor is still my favorite. Any card to your hand, no questions asked.

· Yawgmoth's Will – Abusive enough as it is, this card really gets disgusting when you have a Dreams in play and your graveyard is packed with a Timewalk, Timetwister, and Wheel of Fortune. Ill let you do the math.

· Mystical Tutor – Gets you your kill cards. Almost better than Vampiric Tutor in this deck due to pitchability and no loss of life.

· Ancestral Recall – 3 cards for one mana…seems pretty good to me. Also, it may serve to bolt or deck your opponent in a pinch to win the game. I’ve used it for both.

Misc: All the other goodies that make the deck purr.


· Dark Ritual – First turn Dreams is pretty good in this deck. Don’t question using these to make a firs turn Horn of Greed, especially if you are able to play exploration or fastbond soon after.

· Moxen - This deck is all about speed. Luckily, 0 casting cost artifacts which produce mana generally speed you up.

· Black Lotus – Can function as a 5th Ritual, or get you RRR or UUU to cast one of the many 3cc Draw 7s in the deck. This card is extremely powerful in this deck.

· Time Walk – Sometimes all it takes with this deck is one more untap. This gives it to you, cheap.

· Tinker – Basically, Tinker gets you Memory Jar. You play Jar with Dreams on the table, you will have great difficulty losing. That’s enough reason to play it.
· Sol Ring – The mana-accelerator we all grew up on. Good stuff.


Land: The land in this deck is pretty self-explanatory.

· Library of Alexandria – With all the Draw 7s in this deck, this card should be the second Power card you go for. It is completely and utterly abusive.


Sideboard Card Choices:

Phyrexian Negator Go into beatdown mode vs. Monoblue. You are already sporting
rituals, and a first turn Negator can really throw anyone for a loop,
especially with counter backup.

Blue Elemental Blast Vs. Monored. Watchout for Fireblast and stuff with you letting them draw so many cards. They will rarely kill you, but it has been known to happen. Make sure it doesn’t with this.

Red Elemental Blast Vs. Monoblue.

Misdirection Vs. Burn and Discard

Tormod’s Crypt Vs. Combo, Graveyard recursion

Powered-down Decklist: EconoDreams
Now, obviously not everybody, and in fact very few people have access to the full P9, or any of the P9 for that matter. Even if you are unable or unwilling to pony up the cash or trade required to get these cards, you can still build a fun, competitive Underworld Dreams deck. Do note, though, that the deck still requires a great deal of dual lands. These could possibly be substituted with painlands if you have no access to duals, but I imagine this would significantly impair the deck’s performance. With this deck The first and second turn kills probably won’t happen, but third or fourth kills are not unreasonable. So, here is a reasonably inexpensive alternative to TurboDreams.
EconoDreams:

Land

4 Underground Sea
4 Badlands
4 City of Brass
4 Volcanic Island
4 Gemstone Mine

Artifact

1 Mox Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Black Vise
1 Memory Jar
1 Sol Ring

Black

4 Dark Ritual
4 Underworld Dreams
4 Duress
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Blue

3 Impulse
1 Morphling
1 Windfall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Spiral
1 Tinker

Red

4 Winds of Change
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Chain Lightning
1 Wheel of Fortune

Sideboard:

4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Red Elemental Blast
3 Powder Keg
2 Misdirection
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Morphling


To be honest, its very difficult to build a strong, competitive Underworld Dreams deck without P9. The difference that a Timetwister alone makes is phenomenal. Moxen and Black Lotus speed the deck up to ridiculous rates, and Ancestral and Timewalk can buy you the extra time or get you the extra cards you need to tip the scales in a game. As I said, it often only takes 1 turn with this deck to completely demolish your opponent.

That said, a cheaper version of Dreams is possible, but it is much slower, and less stable.
The removal of Timetwister eliminates the majority of your recursion, and therefore you have to be much more careful about the order in which you play your spells. Even so, this deck still has the potential to do massive amounts of damage through the 4 Winds of change, Wheel, Jar, Windfall, Spiral, and burn.

Tinker is still necessary to play in this deck because it gets you Jar. Jar gets you other things, and will often get the ball rolling on the final turn of the game – i.e., the turn in which you win.

And, since this deck has even less power, it needs more search. 3 Impulse are added to help you get your kill cards more quickly.

This powered-down version also includes Morphling, which can be another path to victory if your Dreams don’t quite do the trick, or you can’t get the combo off fast enough.
Other key cards in this powered-down decklist are:
Winds of Change: This card is very powerful in Underworld dreams, and can get the ball rolling on a win more cheaply than any other card. Although Winds have an inherent card disadvantage, it usually doesn’t matter all that much, as you will probably either get another winds or draw 7 if you cast it with several cards in your hand, and that is usually enough to finish your opponent.
Ligntning Bolt + Chain Lightning: Since this deck is far slower than its powered-up cousin, it is more vulnerable to creature-based strategies. Burn can help slow the bleeding long enough to


Now, even more importantly, cards that are not in the deck, and why:

I see many of the following cards either in or suggested to be in almost every single Underworld Dreams decklist I’ve ever seen posted online. It makes me sad, because, quite honestly, I have tested all of them, and they are bad.


Teferi’s Puzzle Box – I see this card suggested more than any other for Underworld Dreams decks, and, it seems, it is also the worst. There are several reasons I dislike this card. First of all, it costs 4 mana, must be cast on your turn, and yields you absolutely NO immediate advantage. Unless your opponent’s hand is full of 6 or 7 cards, the damage it inflicts is also negligible, making this card an even bigger waste—ant that is assuming that you have a Dreams in play. By the same token, if your opponent’s hand IS full, they will be drawing a lot of cards, and taking a lot of damage – for one turn. In those cards they draw, they are most likely going to draw a land, and one or two spells they can cast, emptying their hand and putting pressure on you and decreasing their hand size. All the while, you can do nothing about it because you had to tap out to cast the Box.

Another aspect about this card I severely dislike is that it takes away your control of the game. You never know what you are going to draw, and you may lose several valuable game-ending cards to the Puzzle Box, only to have them replaced by lands or other sub-optimal cards.
This card does not belong in a seriously competitive Underworld Dreams deck.

Howling Mine – While less bad than Teferi’s Puzzle Box, this card is still a sub-optimal choice for this deck. Ideally, you want to cast it early, and you may have to tap out to do so. Admittedly, it can be easily cast with mana from a Drain, it is still not worth it. The extra card you give your opponent each turn is NOT worth the extra damage point they suffer. Most people don’t mind trading life points for extra cards. I think there is a card called “Necropotence,” or something like that, that gives a similar effect. I seem to remember it being powerful. Why give your opponent a Necropotence-like effect? Chances are the extra card they draw each turn will be a threat or an answer to your threats. It is not a good deal.

Anvil of Bogardin – Same deal as above, except this time you have to discard too. Forget it.

Megrim – I see people suggest this card over and over again, but, to me, its absolutely pointless. There are basically 3 cards in this deck that make your opponent discard enough cards for Megrim to be worthwhile - Mind Twist, Wheel of Fortune, and Memory Jar. Of those 3, usually only from Memory Jar will Megrim be fatal, and that’s if you have a Dreams in play as well. Don’t waste your time with this one.

Chains of Mephistopheles – This is another wasted slot. It’ll get both you and your opponent down to no cards in hand if you cast a single Draw 7. No cards in hand is not where a control deck wants to be. Not to mention the fact that, after this hits, they won’t be drawing any more cards. Extremely worthless.

Prosperity – This card is a sorcery, and it lets your opponent draw lots of cards. Unless you can kill them with this, which is rare, you tap yourself out to give your opponent a new hand. To make matters worse, you are tapped out, so you cant use those cards you just drew. Definitely not worth it.

Braingeyser – Generally, this card suffers from the same drawbacks as prosperity. I found in testing that I never once wanted to cast this on my opponent, but instead used it to refill my own hand. Even so, in order to get the kind of card advantage that you want from something like this, it became necessary to tap out or nearly so do.

Stroke of Genius – Same as Braingeyser. Its expensive, and as nice as it sounds, you are probably never going to kill your opponent with this. More likely, you will draw a couple cards with it, wishing it were something else.

Arcane Denial – I see Arcane Denial suggested a lot, and I can see why. Counter a spell, draw an extra card, and shock them all at once, right? Well, not always. As with Howling Mine, those two cards they draw are generally more of a threat than the 2 points of damage are worth. I playtested these for a long time, and eventually replaced them with Duress. Its cheaper, its better, and they don’t get to draw cards.

Fork – I’ve tried this card as well, but I found RR just way too difficult to reliably pull off. When you can get it, its wonderful, but how often will that be? To Fork a Winds of Change will cost you RRR....Wheel 2RRR, etc. Those are very difficult mana requirements unless you have a Lotus out. Occasionally spectacular, usually worthless. Decks like this need consistency, not situational cards.

Necropotence - This seems like it would be awfully good in here, helping you get your combo cards and whatnot, but the truth is, you really don’t need it. There is plenty of other card drawing in this deck, and Cities of Brass, Painlands, and Weenies usually take you down a fair amount before you win the game. Why kill yourself even faster?


I believe those are the most prominent “no-no” cards that come to mind.


How to play Underworld Dreams:


Now that you have the logic behind the card choices and decklists, I think its time to provide what I feel is the correct way to play Underworld Dreams. A skeletal outline of the basic order in which to play your spells is the following:

Play Underworld Dreams / Fastbond
Cast Wheel of Fortune / Windfall, or get Memory Jar into play as soon as possible
Timetwister
Time Spiral
Recast all the other draw 7s.

Often times your opponent will be dead long before you get halfway down this list – but you may find yourself wanting to keep going anyway, just to “see how much I can do in one turn.”
If you have multiple Dreams in play, it gets even more ridiculous. I’ve done over 100 points of damage in a single turn, easily

There are as many different ways to play Underworld Dreams as there are builds of the deck. It can be confusing what to tutor for, when to cast it, and what to hold your counters for against your opponents.

As you know by now, Underworld Dreams is as much aggressive as it is control. There are a lot of mind games involved in playing this deck, and it can be very stressful to decide what to play at any given time. So, I will provide some general tips for when the best times to use key cards are:

Duress – While a great first turn play, sometimes these are best saved until you have something you need to force through. It largely depends on what kind of deck you are playing against.
Suppose your opening hand contains an Underground Sea, Dark Ritual, Underworld Dreams, Duress, and other stuff. Its very tempting to lay that first turn Dreams, and often times that is the correct play. Against control, however, it may be more beneficial to consider the rest of your hand before deciding. If you have a Force of Will to back up your 1st turn Dreams vs. Control, you should be fine. If you don’t, I would recommend Duressing, and going from there. The sooner Dreams comes out the better, but 3rd turn is better than a countered first turn dreams.

Mystical Tutor - This is a tricky one. Mystical tutor can be used to solve many problems in the deck, from finding the Dark Ritual you need to play Dreams within the first 3 turns, to grabbing that last big spell you need to end the game. The most common mistake with this card is to blindly grab Ancestral Recall or Timetwister. While this is not a “bad” thing to do, it is not always the most beneficial. If you have a Dreams in play, depending on the number of cards in your and your opponents, hand, you should almost always get either Windfall or Wheel of Fortune, depending. If you are low on cards and your opponent has a bunch, Windfall. If its more even, Wheel. Often, your mana may not be able to support Wheel when you need it, so go with Windfall. Timetwister is great, but if you use it to early, you run the risk of not being able to re-draw your other killer spells. Trust me – Wheel of Fortune into a Timetwister is MUCH better than a Timetwister into a Wheel of Fortune.

Timetwister – As I was saying above, Timetwister should usually only be played when you have other Draw 7s in the graveyard. You want to get them back and increase the likelihood that you will be able to use them again.

Time Spiral – As with Timetwister, you generally want to use this one later in the game. The fact that it untaps your lands as well should be an even bigger benefit when your deck is thinned of lands and such, and your Draw 7’s – even Timetwister if you can manage it, are back in your deck after having been used. Use this after Timetwister and Wheel if possible.

Memory Jar – Memory Jar can be an absolute beast in this deck. However, it can also screw you up royally if you use it at the wrong time. Ideally, you want to get the jar into play as fast as possible AFTER you have a dreams in play. If you are having trouble getting a Dreams, and you have Jar available, go ahead and use it to dig, but I would recommend holding out as long as you can. The biggest temptation with this card is to use it right after you cast it for a quick 7 damage. That’s fine, if you can kill them with it, or if you have a lot of spare mana, but usually, it is best to wait a turn until you are COMPLETELY untapped to use the Jar. Instead of 7 damage, you can often inflict 20 or more in a single turn once you draw 7 off the Jar with freshly untapped mana. Resist temptation, and be smart about the Jar. It will win you games if you play it correctly.


Analysis of Opening Draws:

An ideal (not perfect, but good) hand for this deck would be roughly as follows:

Underground Sea
City of Brass
Dark Ritual
Underworld Dreams
Mana Drain
Wheel of Fortune / Windfall / Timetwister
Force of Will

With this hand, you could safely play a first turn Dreams backed by FoW. If it gets through uncountered, you are all set to Drain their 2nd turn spell to fuel Wheel of Fortune. With the wheel, you should draw into more land, and possibly some mana acceleration. It just keeps going from there.

A hand you may want to Mulligan would look like this:

Badlands
Stripmine
Dark Ritual
Underworld Dreams
Duress
Exploration
Memory Jar


This may look alright – first turn Dreams is very desirable, after all. And, since you have an Impulse, it looks like you may be able to draw yourself into more mana. Plus, you have the Duress to grab their counterspell if you have to. This is a pretty tempting hand for the brave. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t. I would recommend mulliganing this hand in a tournament. For casual play, keep it and see how things pan out. I just don’t like taking the chance that you will get that first turn dreams, then run out of steam, or get land screwed, and die defenseless.

Generally, “Keep” hands will contain at least 2 lands, possibly a Mox or Sol Ring, a card drawer corresponding to the color of mana you are holding, be it Impulse, a tutor, or a draw 7, and some aggressive card – either a Duress, Underworld Dreams, etc.

As you become more familiar with the deck, you will be able to tell what hands to keep and what not to. You will become better at guessing probabilities of drawing a ritual, the right kind of mana, a tutor or draw 7 that you need, and the deck will run smoother for you. In the beginning, stick to the safer hands, or try to play through the really lousy ones. You will learn either way, but you might lose a lot if you aren’t careful. But hey, that’s why we playtest!


Some Matchup Information:

Vs. Monoblue, or other Heavy Permission Decks (keeper):

This can be a very tough or fairly easy matchup, largely depending on your initial draw. In this matchup, it is important to mulligan aggressively to make sure you get your Dreams out ASAP with counter backup. 1st turn Duress is good—you really need to force out Fastbond or Exploration to get lots of land to overwhelm them. Once your Dreams hits play, there usually isn’t much they can. Often, the card drawing engines of these control decks ends up killing them for you. If you can sneak by one draw 7, that’s usually all it takes – IF You can get a dreams out. If you cant…well, keep trying, and try to get that Morphling out as well.

You probably want to SB in Factories and Negators to speed this matchup a bit and increase your odds.


Vs. Sligh / Burn / Stupid Red

Again, this can be very tough or quite easy. After sideboarding, Chills make things a LOT easier. Don’t worry so much about the quick Dreams in this matchup. Go for Zuran Orb, Morphling, and then Dreams. I hear filling up a Burn Deck’s hand with 7 new cards isn’t the greatest idea.

Vs. Stompy /Zoo/ Critters

Try to get your Abyss out and protect it. You will probably need to SB in Kegs, and might have to hunt for the Z-orb, but generally you can pretty much ignore what they are doing, and just try to get your combo setup. Play Dreams, protect it, and try to go off in one turn. Its not a good idea to play your Draw 7 spells spaced out – they will get more creatures and most likely overrun you.

Vs. Discard / Land Destruction / MonoBlack / Nether Void.

This is a very difficult matchup. An untimely Hymn can really throw you off track, but since they have no counters, if you manage to pull off a Draw 7 you should be fine. Abyss shuts down Hyppies and Negators if they have them. Watch out for Wastelands and Ports in Nether Void decks. They can be serious trouble. If you get a decent hand with some Duress and countermagic, as well as 2-3 good lands, you should be fine. Just don’t let them get the jump on you. If you can Drain into a MindTwist, that can buy you some nice time to get setup and kill them in one shot.

Vs. White Weenie

You shouldn’t have much problem with this matchup. Pro-black creatures won’t die to Abyss, but you should be able to kill them before they kill you. Watch out for Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing and Armageddon / Cataclysm. If you counter those, you should be fine.
Powder kegs and Mishra’s Factories help this matchup after Sideboarding.


Vs. Deck Parfait

Parfait is pretty slow compared to Dreams. Aura of Silence is a real pain, but it can usually be countered before they can play it. This isn’t a difficult matchup. My friend has a Parfait deck and I have tested against it several times. Dreams very rarely loses to Parfait.


That should be most of the archetypes you will face…if I forgot anything major, let me know and I will add a section for it.


Underworld Dreams is an incredibly fun deck to play. It is a lot of fun to constantly shuffle up your deck and draw lots of new cards each game. The deck can be very solid, or it can be terrible, depending on how you play it and how you construct it. Hopefully this Primer will get you started on the right foot in constructing an Underworld Dreams deck in the proper vein. Remember, this is like a slow combo deck, and should aim to kill your opponent in one or two turns, even if those turns aren’t the first two turns. Try to “go off” all in one shot – don’t give them a chance to use all those cards you are making them draw. If they are tapped out, and you Wheel, Twister, Windfall, they basically get to look at a lot of their cards while they are dying. It takes a lot of practice to master the timing of this deck, knowing what to bait out counterspells with, when to Duress, when to Counter, when to cast that Timetwister. Once you master the deck, you may never want to put it down - it is seriously that fun to play.

If you have any questions, comments, or want to give me some advice or an earful, I would love to hear from anyone interested in Underworld Dreams decks. Contact me for some playtesting or strategy talk.

- John Sexton (Slim) – Self-proclaimed Underworld Dreams Guru.
- ICQ: 6146369
- AIM: SlimDGoon
- Email – e***a@h***h.edu