The Dreamer in GG18

[INXVI]

Hey, so recently in 'The Wyrd Place' Facebook group, there was a tier list released, it will be subjective as tier lists usually are, but the one thing that caught my eye was the placement of The Dreamer. It seems like The Dreamer might not live up to his previous standards and I'm wondering why? I started playing Malifaux about a year and a month ago, and recently have started participating in tournaments, mainly favouring Lilith and now Collodi, I want to add The Dreamer to this trio, but is he competitively viable, or a situational drop? The fact that he can be suited up as a summoner means surely he should be able to complete a variety of schemes? Or are the resources required a struggle to bypass? I never played him pre-daydream nerf, but with him being my first and only summoning master to date, excluding Woe Pandora and Collodi's summoning action I've barely ever used, it can sometimes be a struggle.

With summoning still holding strong viability in GG18, does The Dreamer still remain in the higher tiers, or is he struggling? Maybe the other variants are more prominent now, or maybe I haven't played him enough, but I would really like to be able to drop him in a competitive meta, we aren't highly competitive as of right now, but we are beginning to go to different tournaments, and be able to at least put up a good fight. I really like his play style, managing waking is cool and I love Neverborn for the pushes and placements, so this just adds to that. 

I guess a way to summarise the above is, do you ever bring The Dreamer to an event, does he still hold a strong grip on GG18 like in previous years, or has he rapidly dropped, now overshadowed by our other masters?

The secondary reason to me playing him, is because I won the large mystery box at a local tournament and it was the translucent pink Dreamer crew

Hope this all made sense, thank you to anyone who replies.

[daniello_s]

I was thinking about diving into Dreamer's world myself so i started tinkering around him quite recently. Based on few games i played with borrowed crew and broken promises ups i see him as quite viable master who can adapt to every gg18 scheme and strategy.

His summoning is still powerful, he can nicely support his crew with Empty Night and in Ours you can field very hard hitting and highly mobile crew which after T1 Daydreams summoning is 10 model strong. 

I had small conversation about month ago about Stitched Together where people were complaining that this model needs substantial buff... range too small, walk too low, wounds not enough... They were talking about Stitched in Collodi's crew but when i noted that he is as he is due to summoning option in Dreamer's crew they still held their view and didn't want to notice i.e that Ca6 on summoning model with damage spread 3/4/7 would be a little too much if the range was buffed say to 8 or 10''.

I'm aware that Dreamer is not as powerful as Nicodem but i wouldn't trust any tier master ranking too much especially that one you mention above where Dreamer is lower than Lynch (or as Gremlin player i was laughing seeing Ophelia being higher than Zoraida).

My two cents anyway

[whodares]

My experience so far with The Dreamer is that he's lost quite a bit of his influence ever since he got errata'd. This doesn't mean he's bad or unviable, just that he's not the strongest master in the faction anymore. I'm following @daniello_s here, I agree that he is still very versatile and can be used in pretty much any strat or scheme IF you have the upgrades and models to bring.

His summoning pool is decent and holds answers to a lot of situations. He has decent support and his healing aura is still top notch, even when not played as summoner. His summoning is currently overshadowed by other masters such as Nicodem, but he's still the best at it in his own faction.

If you don't want to summon, you can still use several other playstyles such as Shooting Dreamer and Melee Dreamer. I don't really have experience with Shooting Dreamer, so I will refrain from commenting on that one. Melee Dreamer on the other hand is something I've tried out. Unfortunately I don't have the models to make it work, but it does add an entirely new dimension to how he operates and what crew you bring.

Melee Dreamer focusses more on swapping between Dreamer and Lord Chompy Bits in order to deal a decent amount of damage in a short timeframe. It also adds some more viability to his Emissary upgrade as barely anyone took that with him. Melee Dreamer can be very durable thanks to his defensive Trigger and can be allowed to fight in the frontline. Just don't keep him there too long and swap to Chompy, because Dreamer himself is obviously not a tank. Chompy can eat all the damage and you wouldn't care, because he's resummoned every Waking +4 anyways. Wounds don't stick on Chompy which is great.

 

 

Overall I'd say Dreamer is a very balanced master right now. He's not the strongest in his faction, but he certainly is the most versatile. He doesn't really have bad scheme pools unless you limit yourself to only a single Limited upgrade. Doing that would deny his greatest strength though and is not recommended.

[-Loki-]

The thing to remember about tier lists is the gap between top and bottom is mostly the amount of schemes and strategies they’re generally good at rather than outright power levels.

[INXVI]

Thanks for the replies, it does make a lot of sense that he has lost some strength but still holds up. I'm planning on putting Lilith and Collodi aside and running Dreamer in the next tournament or 2. The first few times I played him, it was Symbols with me choosing Breakthrough, he scores it pretty easy so I'm guessing I just need to experiment with schemes and figure out what type of build is best suited. 

I've been playing around with the idea of just dropping models like Nekima and Rider in with him, rather than looking at Serena dishing out Warped Reality, only taking her when I really need to.
I've been playing Collodi a lot recently so my ability to value pushes and healing will help when playing Dreamer.

The tier list threw me off a bit, which is why I wanted to ask, it makes more sense that it's scheme viability rather than master power in general, not it's down to figuring out what The Dreamer can do best and adding to his arsenal.

One thing I do want to try though is The Dreamer and 2 Illuminated, they could be given Warped Reality but it isn't compulsory, that way they can heal a tonne, do good damage and Dreamer can push them around and cause extra damage, bonus points if the target has brilliance on them. 

He probably only struggles with Ours, and he doesn't necessarily need to summon, I'll definitely try him some more as he can probably score a variety of schemes, now it's just figuring out what clicks

[daniello_s]

Illuminated are great with Dreamer but i don't think they need Warped Reality really. Between Armour, Regeneration and two sources of healing they should be really tough to be removed.

[Tendrepie]

Keeping in mind that I don't do tournament, seldom play against anything else than TT, and play Dreamer 9/10 games: I do feel that Summoning Dreamer is kind of hard mode for most of 2018 Strategy. Ie, in Ours, you kind of start behind on points because your upgrades are super expansive, if opponent focus on killing some of your core crew, it's hard to catch up (unless you have a gods hand, summon plenty and do a carnage). For ply, you are multiplying the offered targets. In symbol, whatever the build you take, you are kind of offering punish the weak on a silver plate... For these, I usually have more success with Cricket bat (growing up) and a tougher crew (Nekima, Hooded, sometime a warped Mature (for empty night) and tougher minions). That being said, some of the schemes are quite easy to score when you go Dream of pain like breakthrough and surround them, or even set up thanks to Lilitu. On entourage haven't failed so score 3 yet, whatever the build, since Dreamer is so mobile. Shooty dreamer I have no evidence how it would do since I have not used it in over a year and a half! 

 

[santaclaws01]

12 hours ago, daniello_s said:

Illuminated are great with Dreamer but i don't think they need Warped Reality really. Between Armour, Regeneration and two sources of healing they should be really tough to be removed.

Warped Reality is for having them be targets for Dreamer to pass off damage to, as the only things minions gain from being nightmares is that, counting for Surround By Nightmares, and being pushed by Daydreams.

[Domin]

17 hours ago, daniello_s said:

Illuminated are great with Dreamer but i don't think they need Warped Reality really. Between Armour, Regeneration and two sources of healing they should be really tough to be removed.

Warped reality is very useful for them, 'cause it opens the way to make an alpha-strike: two Illuminated and Beckoner are placed by FtS, then Beckoner lures Dreamer up to 14-16 inches so he can make charge, strike his best with a cricket bat and get Lord Chompy on first turn.

[Tendrepie]

On 5/26/2018 at 1:54 AM, Domin said:

Warped reality is very useful for them, 'cause it opens the way to make an alpha-strike: two Illuminated and Beckoner are placed by FtS, then Beckoner lures Dreamer up to 14-16 inches so he can make charge, strike his best with a cricket bat and get Lord Chompy on first turn.

You got more balls than me, for Chompy to get out you have to succeed on the 3 attacks (can summon for 4th waking) and need not to kill it's target to quick, or have more than one in range. I guess if you see something that has low def and high wound (Teddy or something with def 4) in opponent crew the risk might be worth the reward.  

Usually I prefer to play it safer. T1, raise waking to 2 by summoning crap and empty night (or move). T2 Chompy comes out easy and I still have flexibility to empty night if needed. Of course the slow way won't allow me to live the T2 dreams of Chompy-Dreamer-Chompy but well... could happen T3 in Christmas wonderland.

[Domin]

19 hours ago, Tendrepie said:

You got more balls than me, for Chompy to get out you have to succeed on the 3 attacks (can summon for 4th waking) and need not to kill it's target to quick, or have more than one in range. I guess if you see something that has low def and high wound (Teddy or something with def 4) in opponent crew the risk might be worth the reward.  

There is a way to insure your turning into Chompy on turn 1. It's Serena Bowman with thousand faces upgrade. Killing her (which can be combined with card-cycling engine) will give you an out-of-activation 1 ap action. So it's technically possible to summon 3 Daydreams and Alp, turn into Chompy on turn 1 and use good cards that you've saved on his attacks.

[Tendrepie]

12 hours ago, Domin said:

There is a way to insure your turning into Chompy on turn 1. It's Serena Bowman with thousand faces upgrade. Killing her (which can be combined with card-cycling engine) will give you an out-of-activation 1 ap action. So it's technically possible to summon 3 Daydreams and Alp, turn into Chompy on turn 1 and use good cards that you've saved on his attacks.

That sound like a more reliable plan than trying to bat stuff 

[Domin]

The exact plan will depend from tons of circumstances: terrain placement, deploy flips, hand drawn and so on)

[INXVI]

I had a game on Saturday, running 5 AP Dreamer, which was a lot of fun. The Dreamer having so much AP makes him feel like he can do a lot, even if you give out Fast to a model then summon a daydream for example, he still has 1 AP and a Shot Expert and Melee Expert. I love the trigger on his bat, it just allows him to get in there, and if things don't go your way, he can get out of there and drop a nightmare in there to tie models up, or help beaters get into position. Plus, there is the added ability to drop Chompy in 1 turn, as discussed above. I managed to pull it off, (however it was turn 3) but it did eat my hand, I still managed to drop one model in the process, then Chompy cleaned up the Swine Cursed nearby. The Nightmare Illuminated were good, it didn't help that one got RJ'd on damage and insta-killed, but the other tanked a couple of hits from the Dreamer, then proceeded to heal back up to full and kill a model for Dig Their Graves, I'll probably experiment a bit to see just how useful it is, or if The Dreamer doesn't need protecting to that extent.

Onto tomorrow, I'm having another game, running Summoning Dreamer. The pool is Public Executions, but I'm going to run him anyway, so I can focus upon placement and resources, these are essential anyway, but I have a tendency to struggle with card efficiency with The Dreamer at the moment. I'm going to try out the Card Cycling list, at first I saw it and thought nothing of it, but I really like the idea now, and might as well give it a shot. My thought process is, before killing Serena, a Daydream sacrifices itself to give the Dreamer a mask, he then proceeds to do a 1 ap action, using the mask to summon a Stitched Together or something, then another daydream goes, sacrifices itself and then the dreamer goes and summons again, regardless of the suit in hand. Sure that is 2 daydreams lost turn 1, but it means the crew is less hungry for masks, and the card cycling now allows for a random 9 or 10 to be used by the Dreamer, if no masks are available. The Dreamer could then summon 2 daydreams for example, or another model if a mask is in hand, and throw out Chompy turn 1. The only issue then, is the lack of healing for the summons, but Chompy can always activate before the summons and bring The Dreamer back into play, that way he is no waking and allows for a nice healing of 3. But then again, my focus is summoning Stitched Together, I used to use them a lot with Collodi and high risk, high reward is good fun, so summoning, say 3 of them with the Dreamer, potentially leading to 4 ap a turn (summoned without slow, heal up then damaged down to reactivate) could be devastating, so I'm looking forward to trying it.

[raderk]

Current dreamer is bottom tier.

Summoning is the weakest - between amount of alpha strikes (and ways to threat things out range) his Df 4 Wd 6 will not last. Having just 6 cards wont help either since youre losing resources when using Df Trigger and losing resources when you summon, and his main offensive weapon are stitched together whom require high cards to be useful. Therefore summoning dreamer wont last long in a attrition war due to the absurdly high amount of resources he needs and likeliness of him getting killed. And paying like 11 ss to just get your summoning tools on table is insane. Goddamn insane.

Cricket is much more useful, yet still weak. I want to say that this version of Dreamer is viable since boy is my first malifaux main but his trick to increase waking after damaging kills him sadly. Theres too much that can happen and screw your combo of 4 atacks to get chompy and then youre left out to be killed. Ml 6 without any built in positives wont help either and absurd amount of highly damaging casting action makes his incorporeal obsolete.

So main reasons why Dreamer is weak is that while he stays where he was before everything else made huge step forward. Incorporeal doesnt mean as much as it did years ago etc.

But that was strictly competetive tournament opinion. If youre not hard bent on winning and domination you can stil have a lot of fun, its just explanation why dreamer is bottom tier. His abilites may seem strong, but they wont last in 2018 compared to powerhouses.

[Math Mathonwy]

On 5/25/2018 at 1:59 PM, daniello_s said:

I had small conversation about month ago about Stitched Together where people were complaining that this model needs substantial buff... range to small, walk to low, wounds not enough... They were talking about Stitched in Collodi's crew but when i noted that he is as he is due to summoning option in Dreamer's crew they still held their view and didn't want to notuce i.e that Ca6 on summoning model with damage spread 3/4/7 would be a little too much if the range was buffed say to 8 or 10''.

[INXVI]

Stitched are pretty insane, especially with The Dreamer, as if you drop them onto their HtK and can't finish them off, they can heal back up from reactivating within 6. They caused anarchy in my game last Monday, summoned 3 turn 1, pushed them up with Daydreams and caused a tonne of damage.

To be fair though, I must have casted at least 10 times and didn't fail once, my drawing and card cycling luck was incredible.

[Sybarite]

Stitched need a buff? Woah!