At this point, keeping up to date with Magic: The Gathering feels like a full-time job. Not only are we getting seven sets throughout 2026, but there’s also the insane backlog of cards to go through. With over 30,000 cards in MTG at this point, it’s no wonder that keeping track of everything can be such a struggle.
Unsurprisingly, with so much going on, it’s remarkably common for cards to end up being forgotten over time. This appears to be exactly what happened to the “Dreams” cycle from Torment. Despite offering some seriously compelling abilities, this bizarre seven-card cycle is barely played in Commander. Given the impressive utility on offer, this seems like a crying shame.
A Bad Start
Admittedly, while many of the cards in the Dreams cycle aren’t played enough, some are pretty dubious. Vengeful Dreams, for instance, is definitely held back by this cycle’s steep cost of discarding X cards. At best, outside of card draw shenanigans, you can exile seven attacking creatures with this card, at the cost of your hand.
Even if this saves you for a turn, discarding your entire hand to keep you alive for longer is incredibly dubious. In Commander, especially, another opponent could easily eliminate you on the next turn. The only slight upside is that the creatures Vengeful Dreams targets don’t have to be attacking you, allowing for politicking.
Even with this, it’s no wonder that Vengeful Dreams doesn’t see a lot of play in MTG Commander. While there are discard synergies that you can exploit, the rest of the cycle is significantly better.
Getting Better
Outside of acting as raw removal, Turbulent Dreams is better than Vengeful Dreams in almost every single way. While it is a sorcery, the freedom to choose targets that this card offers is an absolutely massive upside. Even bouncing things, rather than removing them, opens up tons of self-bounce synergies, expanding this card’s horizons.
Thanks to this utility, Turbulent Dreams is unsurprisingly more widely played within discard-focused decks. Not only do blue decks have a natural affinity for this mechanic, but they also love bounce effects. Getting to reuse your best enters effects is always powerful, especially when the downside is mitigated by Oskar, Rubbish Reclaimer.
If you are after removal, however, Sickening Dreams is more than capable of providing that. Offering a scaling board wipe and player damage too, this card can be surprisingly lethal at times. While you have to watch out for killing your own creatures, it’s easy enough to play around this.
Admittedly, Sickening Dreams does take some building around to make work, but the potential upside is huge. There’s even a spicy infinite combo using this card alongside Ad Nauseam and Angel’s Grace. With no threat of death, you can easily draw your entire deck before discarding it to Sickening Dreams, potentially one-shotting each opponent.
Perfectly Playable
Leaning into the reanimator space, Restless Dreams and Nostalgic Dreams feel very similar to one another. Both offering scaling recursion, each of these cards is useful at worst, since you can replace a dud card with something useful. Naturally, both of these cards are fantastic in reanimator strategies, especially Golgari lists that can run them both.
While these MTG cards are similar, Nostalgic Dreams is definitely worth the more intensive mana cost. Thanks to not being limited to just recurring creatures, this card has insane potential in a variety of decks. Naturally, it performs well in Reanimator, but Simic lists can equally utilize it incredibly well.
Recently, even Selesnya decks have been utilizing Nostalgic Dreams, thanks to Sergeant John Benton surging in popularity. For better or worse, the same interest spike hasn’t happened to Devastating Dreams, despite its impressive synergy. This is likely due to this land destruction card being symmetrical, but it’s very easy to break parity there.
Alongside Hearthhull, the Worldseed, Devastating Dreams is an absolute monster of an MTG card. Similarly, decks built around recurring lands, like Hazezon, Shaper of Sand or Lord Windgrace are natural homes for Devastating Dreams. Despite this, the card hardly sees any play in Commander, with fewer than 1,000 decks using it on EDHREC.
The Best of the Bunch
Out of the entire Dreams cycle from Torment, Insidious Dreams is easily the best of the bunch. This is the most played and most expensive Dreams card, and it’s very easy to see why. By letting you exchange the dead cards in your hands for exactly what you need in your deck, Insidious Dreams is a fantastic tutor.
Admittedly, Insidious Dreams is more expensive than most other tutors and is susceptible to topdeck disruption. If your opponents don’t have an answer to it, however, then you get exactly what you need, turn after turn. This can either set up a game-ending combo or give you the key pieces needed to end a game.
Currently, Insidious Dreams sees the most play alongside Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow. Together, this pair can form a uniquely slow combo, letting you burn opponents with massive tutored up threats. Alternatively, Gwenom, Remorseless can let you quickly draw all of your tutored cards, at the cost of your own life.
Mostly Budget Bombs
Altogether, while they do have a hefty cost thanks to their discard condition, the Dreams cycle from Torment has some insane utility. With this in mind, it’s remarkable that so many of the cards are so cheap. Vengeful, Sickening, Restless, and Devastating Dreams are all available for under $1.
While Turbulent and Nostalgic Dreams are a little more expensive, around $2, nothing comes close to Insidious Dreams. Currently, this MTG card is selling for $14 on average, so it’s hardly a budget pickup. That said, given the value it can provide in the right deck, it’s arguably still well worth that price.
Sadly, since Insidious Dreams is only played in around 7,200 Commander decks right now, it clearly doesn’t take much demand to outstrip supply. In theory, this could mean that the cycle’s other cards, outside of Sickening and Restless Dreams, could spike rather quickly. Whether or not that will happen, however, very much remains to be seen.
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