INTRO:
I want to build a deck around Heartless Summoning + 2x Myr Retreiver. This is what I have so far. Most of the maybe cards I have played around with, but this is what I currently have. I do not expect this to be some amazing deck, I just want to win sometimes against ok decks. Any suggestions are appreciated, though explanations for them as well as what card to replace are appreciated.
Edit: With some of my recent changes, I tested it against some people at my LGS and it was keeping up ok with some meta decks. Still loses most match ups against meta decks, but it does snag a game every once in awhile, so I'm happy. Does just fine against other more casual modern decks.
Current card explanations:
MAINBOARD:
-Altar of the Brood: This is the current win condition. Playing myr retrievers repeatedly mills the opponent out when this is out on the field. It only costs 1 colorless mana, so I think it is perfect win condition, plus it is an artifact, so it can be retrieved by myr retriever if necessary. This means the deck is a mill deck.
-Ancient Stirrings: This is a 1 mana look through the next 5 cards. It can hit 3/4 pieces required for the combo, and it can get lands (which is good because we only run 14 lands). It also is our second most needed color as all our best non-creature removal is green as well (Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay)
-Arcum's Astrolabe: Amazing! That is what this card is. Amazing. It allows us to filter mana, draw a card, and put an artifact onto the field that can then be sacrificed for goblin engineer. The mna fixing from it allows us to run a variety of tools from different colors and not worry about having the right color mana always. It can also be a hit from ancient stirrings if none of the other cards it finds are useful, letting us draw an additional 1 and dig even deeper into our deck to seek out that combo or an answer.
-Assassin's Trophy: Why is this the removal I chose? One word: Leyline of the Void. This deck folds itself to leyline of the void since the combo doesn't work anymore. Hence, one assassin's trophy in the main board, and 2 in the sideboard. I want to consider putting in another in the sideboard instead of either an abrupt decay or fatal push, but I'm not sure as I have not gotten to test this deck against the likes of humans yet, or other creature heavy decks where fatal push is strictly better.
-Fatal Push: Kill creature. No more to be said.
-Goblin Engineer: This card, like ancient stirrings can get us 3/4 pieces to our combo, and it can tutor them from the entire deck. But it puts them in the graveyard. If this is a second retriever we are tutoring, it doesn't matter since the combo works with one retriever in hand and one in the graveyard, but if we are looking for a altar, we will have to use either the goblin's ability (which cannot be done the same turn unless we have at least one astrolabe out since we only run one blood crypt as the only red land) or use a myr to retrieve it. Generally this isn't a problem, but hitting any more than one of these goblins in a game is awful, so I only put one in. As it is the only red card, it is pretty high up on the "potential cuts" list, yet I do find that it is very helpful many times and the mana fixing is usually sufficient to accommodate it.
EDIT: This card is better than I originally thought. Pulling a card from the graveyard proved more manageable then I originally thought it would be, and there is a lot of interesting interaction with this card in the mid game. With the amount of disruption this deck typically lays out, we get to mid game often, and this card really shines then. Considering running a 3rd copy even at this point.
-Infernal Tutor: This is a card I struggle to decide just how good it is. On the plus side, it is a tutor. On the downside, unless I have either 1 retriever in my hand, no cards in hand, or some other card like a different tutor in my hand that I want extra copies of; it is useless. When I do need a myr, this is by far the best tutor for it. When I don't, it usually feels like a dead card till I empty my hand.
EDIT:After more intense testing, this card would lose me way too many games by getting stuck in my hand. I cut it completely in favor of goblin engineer and mausoleum secrets.
-Inquisition of Kozilek: The best hand disruption without killing ourselves. I have considered running more hand disruption (thoughtseize or duress) but with more it feels like the combo seeking capabilities of the deck start hurting. If you think otherwise, or if I should remove or replace these for something, let me know.
-Pull From Eternity: With all the graveyard hate out there, this card can work wonders. With it we can put a myr back in the graveyard if it was exiled to restart the combo. This card came to mind at first because of the use of 4x Spoils of the Vault in other versions of this deck. If spoils of the vault went over a combo piece like a myr, you could use this to pull it out of exile and into the graveyard, essentially getting two pieces of the combo from one "tutor" This is also the primary reason I am running regrowth, in case I need to get a heartless summoning out of the graveyard/exile. If more spoils of the vault were to be put back, I would consider running an extra copy of this.
-Regrowth: Heartless Summoning is difficult to bring back in any other way form the graveyard. If somebody has a better way to bring a 2 CMC black enchantment back form the grave, please let me know. I don't want to go in double color symbols unless they are black though, since the deck only really supports one mana of any color.There are also other cards in the deck that can put a combo piece in the graveyard, such as stitcher's supplier, goblin engineer, and pull from eternity.
-Scheming Symmetry: This tutor is amazing in this deck, but you have to be careful with it. The ideal situation is to have two mana on board and a altar of the brood in hand. You then cast scheming symmetry, then play altar of the brood, play your land in hand (milling the opponents card they tutor), and then maybe playing an astrolabe to draw the card, or spoils from the vault to draw the card. In general with altar of the brood to mill the opponents card, you can usually use this spell safely, though it can be dangerous if your opponent runs artifact removal.
-Spoils of the Vault: This card is ... ok. Its great if you like gambling any chance of winning on whether or not your combo piece is within the top third of your deck. Generally, I avoid using this card, but it can be good at times, and assuming you don't die, it does assure you to get the card you wanted. I have considered running Angel's Grace with this card, but that felt too convoluted. This is another top card for replacement, but it can be oh so good at 1 mana and instant in many situations.
EDIT:The suicide was happening too often from this card. Commune with the gods was just much better.
-Stitcher's Supplier: This is great, it goes through cards and puts a body on the field for blocking, and costs only 1 mana. We are happy to see a myr get binned with this, as having 1 myr in hand and 1 myr in graveyard is perfectly fine for initiating the combo. Altar of the brood is less ideal but our myrs can salvage it if we have the rest of the combo (though we need to start with both myrs in hand then). The biggest issue is if Heartless Summoning gets hit by this, but that is why we are running Regrowth. 3/4 our combo doesn't mind getting hit by this, so I say with the added value of putting a body on the board, this card greatly helps. Also these die when heartless summoning is put down, which digs into our deck once again in case the aren't looking to die anytime soon by blocking.
-Surgical Extraction: This card helps get rid of problems from opponents, and is also a counter to opponents surgical extraction, as we can target the same card as the opponent in our own graveyard and exile only the one that is in the graveyard, effectively countering our opponents surgical extraction. This is better in some match ups, so 1 main, 2 side seems pretty good balance. Also having some kind of graveyard hate mainboard really helps when you are playing a mill deck which only helps graveyard decks most of the time. Also, gets rid of eldrazi titans. Sure they will trigger once, but on top of that trigger, we surgical all of them out of the game, leaving us to infinitely mill our opponents at sorcery speed.
-Unearth: This card is great for only 1 purpose, resetting the combo. If somebody counters our second myr, it doesn't retrieve the first one. This is problematic, but unearth easily solves this for 1 mana. It also is black. It also can be cycled to draw a card (useful after a scheming symmetry). Seems pretty good to me, but any more might start clogging the hand up.
EDIT: I still this this card has potential, but its a little more narrow in use than commune with the gods. Maybe worth having in the sideboard, but I doubt it so I cut it.
-Workshop assistant: Alternate myr, in case we get ours surgically extracted.
-Commune with the Gods: This card was an awesome find for me, and I'm still trying to figure out what to cut for a 4th copy of it in the deck. This allows us to get 3/4 of our pieces, but better yet, it allows us to throw retrievers in the graveyard while grabbing heartless summoning to hand. Also getting back an altar is easier than heartless summoning, since either goblin engineer or myr retriever can get and altar back, while the only way to salvage a heartless summoning is with regrowth. This card also digs 5 cards instead of ancient stirrings 4, while being able to grab the most difficult piece (heartless summoning).
-Mausoleum Secrets: This card is one I am testing atm. It is only good for finding heartless summoning, and otherwise we need to grab either interaction, a tutor, or a stitcher's supplier. It does feel easier to use than infernal tutor though, and is a little more budget friendly (not like it makes much a difference with 3 surgical extractions in the deck though).
SIDEBOARD
-Abrupt Decay: Works well as removal for things like chalice of the void since it can't be countered.
-Assassin's Trophy: Anti-Leyline of the Void and any other problem fixer.
-Force of Despair: Good against explosive decks, and works on cards with protections. Might be better to remove one and run a plague engineer? Not sure.
-Grim Haruspex: This card is good for finding the altar of the brood when you have the rest of the combo, since you use it to dig for the altar by repeating the myr loop to trigger it, but it just feels sub par most of the time. High up on the "to be replaced" list as well.
EDIT: While this card was good in some situations, those situations were rare and spread thin. Usually a dead card. Replaced it with life gain card for burn decks.
-Leyline of the Void: Graveyard hate supreme. Instead of helping graveyard decks, lets just exile all their cards.
-Tormod's Crypt: More graveyard hate. Also an artifact for goblin engineer.
-Plunge into Darkness: Still testing this one, but it seems like it can be good against burn. It can either tutor for us and lose us life, or sac stitchers/myr retriever and gain life. Weather the storm might be better though.
MAYBEBOARD
-Angels Grace: Synergy with Spoils of the Vault.
-Archive Trap: Synergy with Scheming Symmetry.
-Dead of Winter: Symmetry with snow lands and arcum's astrolabes. We don't play creatures we care about till we have the whole combo anyway, so it never hurts us while removing all of our opponent's lower toughness creatures.
-Myr Moonvessel: Can be used to generate 1 free mana after heartless summoning is out, but that is only useful for playing a altar, which almost never was useful.
-Nature's CLaim: Cheaper removal for leyline of the void, but... it's useless in almost every other situation, where as Assassin's Trophy can remove other threats as well.
-Ravenous Trap: Another graveyard hate option, but it just didn't feel right. I'd have to be able to test against more graveyard decks to see if it works better than leyline/tormods/surgical.
-Satyr Wayfinder: If this could grab any of our combo pieces, it would be perfect. But instead, it can only grab lands. It does put the other stuff in the grave, but just doesn't feel up to par. Plus it isn't our main color (black).
-Serum Powder: Synergy with Pull from Eternity
-Veil of Summer: Good against counter spells + blue/black decks. Overall ... meh?
CONCLUSION
So far, the deck is a ton of fun, but loses every match. Hoping to hear some potential upgrades so that I can hit maybe 15% win rate? Still fun though, feels like a big game of hide and seek with my deck. Hope you enjoy trying it out as well.
