Articles

Insidious Dreams (Rare)
Cost: 3B
Instant

As an additional cost to play Insidious Dreams, discard X cards from your hand. Search your library for X cards. Then shuffle your library and put those cards on top of it in any order.

"Chainer dreams of ultimate knowledge."

Expansion: Torment

Danesh Jogia
Email: daneshj@optushome.com.au
Forums Nic: omegaideal

Firstly, let me say this is awful in Type 1 and Extended. I cannot for the life of me see how this can be any good in those powerful and varied formats. If T1 wasn't so broken, it may have been groovy with windfall but I can pretty much guarantee that Insidious Dreams will lose you the game in T1 and 1.X. So now that that is out of the way, let me get on with where it may be useable.

Limited

If you have a bomb that will pretty much guarantee the win, you're often happy enough to throw away 3 cards to get it Just make sure they don't Predict :/.

But you know, I'd quite often rather have a decent man simply because you may not have a bomb. Consider that it comes in the Torment pack though, so you know if you've peeled Aboshan or Cabal Patriarch in the two packs before. Or, in Sealed, well you obviously know what you have there. So only play it if you have something worth chucking away 3 cards for because when you come down to a top-decking challenge it is often quantity that wins the day, not quality.

T2 Constructed

Is this comparable to Diabolic Tutor? Does it achieve the same purpose? It does if you do it for just 1. However, it may be possible to set up a "Go infinite" combo using this very quickly. Alternatively, you can use it to set up a very nuts Ensnaring Bridge, which in the current format is very good with no cards in hand.

Against red/green you could Dreams for all 4 Bridges, cast them all and they can only beat you through burn, which hopefully, with Death Grasps/Corrupts you can overcome. Then just wait for them to deck themselves via Compost or something similar.

OB Constructed

I gotta admit, I haven't been testing this format a great deal (B/G Mirari flashback and mono U Cephalids, out of interest) so I haven't thought about where abouts it could really be used. Off the top of my head I can't really see it doing anything. I'd say stick with Diabolic Tutor for OBC, the instants aren't really good enough to bother saving your mana for during your opponents turn anyway

Worth: $3 or $4.

Danesh

Adrian Rimmer
Email: atgr@ozemail.com.au
Forums Nic: Adrian Rimmer

After being defeated in PTQ Nice by Turn 4 Insidious Dreams, Turn 5 Gurzigost, I have new found respect for a card I first passed off as trashy card disadvantage.

Limited

Insidious Dreams is great if you have a Gurzigost, or something along the lines of Aboshan or Cabal Patriach, otherwise, unless you have severe way to abuse it, it should be left in your sideboard.

Constructed

This could work in a G/B deck, although I have no decklist cards I would definitely put into the deck would be Insidious Dreams, Gurzigost, Basking Rootwalla, Wild Mongrel, Chainers Edict etc etc.

Price $8

Adrian

Away to find your bomb to be sure - how many times have won (or been beaten) by 1 card? Iridescant Angel, Laquatas Champion & Cultural Exchage are just a few to be sure. Late game in ensures you don't draw land which often makes the difference. If your deck can win - this card will win it for you. The only time you wouldn't play this card is if your deck is "solid", with no standouts. A good manacurve will be lost by playing this card as you lose at least 2 cards and a turn to cast it. I've had this card twice in sealed, and has failed to make the cut both times.

In constructed however, I'll be honest - I can't see it getting played in constructed. There are too many better search engines such as Diabolic Tutor (Card Adv) and Tainted Pact (Cost & Instant). The only real gain madnees could hope for would be rootwallas as the rest would be happening at about turn 4. Personally I'd much prefer the green Nostalgic Dreams which is like Recall (Which was banned at one point), except cheaper to cast.

As for value - in with $1 rares...

Regards,
Dan

Dan Turner
Email: daimyodan@yahoo.co.uk
Forums Nic: RECOIL

Insidious Dreams is the latest in a long line of tutors cards. It differs from the past tutors due to the fact you can stack several spells on top of your library rather than just one. Sounds good but the catch is you have to discard a card in hand for each card you want on top of your library. This discard is an additional cost to cast the spell making it an attractive counterspell target.

For limited play this card is great in sealed if you open bombs such as Cabal Patriarch, Aboshan, etc in your Odyssey starter. The only other situation where I would play this is in a deck with few removal spells - but lets face it if you are playing Insidious Dreams then you should have a bagload of black removal to choose from.

The same principle applies to draft. If you draft black bombs (Patriarch, Laquatus' Champion, Mutilate, etc) then this would make a solid pick in Torment. I still would not draft this card early as there is a good chance that it would go around the table.

In regards to constructed play I can't really see this card getting much use in extended as there are better tutor spells out there.

For type 2 this could realistically go into any black based control deck but it would be competing for slots with other search type cards like Fact or Fiction. I think this could work well with Brainstorm but it requires nearly a full hand for it to work effectively - cast Brainstorm in response Insidious Dreams for 3, pitch 3 cards resolve Brainstorm draw 3 good cards put 2 cards back on top of your library.

This could also work in a Battle of Wits deck as these decks tend to play a few tutors anyway. The fact you can stack multiple spells on top of your library really helps as you can tutor for all of your Battle of Wits and win the game outright.

For OBC I can see this card being used in mono black control decks with cards such as Mutilate, Chainer's Edict, Braids etc. It may be competing with Skeletal Scrying as it is a bit faster and you get the cards straight away rather than on top of your library.

Value - I see this card going for around $5.