Heartless Summoning is kind of a pet card of mine and one that I'm hellbent on trying to break. There are a number of combos that involve the card, the hard part is finding a shell that fits some of them. I believe the main strength of the deck I'm trying to develop is that by virtue of playing a deck which contains a few individual combos which share a card or two in common, there is a measure of built in redundancy; so, if you start to go for combo A and that path is thwarted, you can audible to combo B while still making use of a piece that you had acquired based on your initial line.
So, where do we start?
The combos:
Heartless Summoning + Myr Retriever x2 - Summoning allows you to play your Myr for free, it immediately dies upon entering the battlefield, which then provides a trigger to return your other Myr to hand. Rinse and repeat. This provides infinite storm/gravestorm count, enters the battlefield triggers, and dies/leaves the battlefield triggers. Obviously, this combination of 3 cards does not create a win in and of itself. You need something to take advantage of counts/triggers it provides. Grapeshot is the lowest cost option and most direct. Bitter Ordeal is another option that gets around some very niche cards that would stop Grapeshot (e.g. Urza's Armor, Angel's Grace, Worship + a creature with shroud/hexproof/protection from red, etc.). Falkenrath Noble is another potential win condition, albeit a fragile one, but it has an upside in being able to be dug for with Commune with the Gods.
Fecundity works well with Heartless Summoning. If you add it to the Summoning + Myr x2 combo, you get to draw your entire deck, at which point winning is essentially arbitrary. Fecundity also allows you to play some otherwise really weak creatures as chump blockers for value/draw as you dig for your combo pieces.
Heartless Summoning + Perilous Myr + Enduring Renewal = infinite colorless Shocks to your opponent's face. Note: Enduring Renewal is a bit awkward, as it's the most expensive mana cost in my initial list and it costs WW when we don't necessarily need white for anything else.
Enablers and value cards:
Myr Sire - free with Summoning and provides 2 cards with Fecundity. It can also be a source for 2 chump blocks.
Mogg War Marshal - provides 3 potential chump blocks and draws 3 cards for R with Summoning + Fecundity.
Myr Moonvessel - fits into the Summoning + Enduring Renewal combo to generate infinite mana, but I don't know if that's all that relevant.
Simian Spirit Guide - accelerates deployment of the combo pieces and provides a way to cast Grapeshot if you've tapped out to enable the "draw your library" combo.
Commune with the Gods - digs for combo pieces and can dump 1 of your 2 My Retrievers into the yard along the way.
Idyllic Tutor - a tutor for Summoning and Fecundity, but it's a bit expensive and is a color that we don't otherwise need.
Faithless Looting - a dig spell that is castable via Simian Spirit Guide, can put a Myr Retriever in the yard as well.
Gitaxian Probe - "free" dig that provides information.
Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek - disruption to that can be deployed turn 1 to protect the combo.
Noxious Revival - a "free" spell that allows us to get back a win condition if it was milled with a Commune or was countered/discarded.
Manamorphose - a mana filter/cantrip that allow Simian Spirit Guides to become any color of mana while comboing.
Spoils of the Vault - probably the cheapest way to find a combo piece, but it's risky, as you may exile your needed win condition. It's a more realistic option if we can stick to x4 of most cards.
Lands:
Given the nature of the combo with Fecundity, we want to run light on lands so as to avoid fizzling in the event that we have to just start chaining random creatures into draws looking to assemble the Retriever loop. We're also in 4 colors, so that makes a base including "5 color" lands along with a few fetches and some shocklands in the primary colors seem like a good place to start.
A rough list:
Heartless Combo
CREATURES
1 Falkenrath Noble
3 Mogg War Marshal
4 Myr Retriever
4 Myr Sire
2 Perilous Myr
3 Simian Spirit Guide
SPELLS
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Fecundity
4 Faithless Looting
1 Grapeshot
4 Heartless Summoning
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Enduring Renewal
1 Noxious Revival
LAND
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Mana Confluence
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
This is just a starting point. In order for the deck to be a serious consideration, it needs to be on par with other combo options available. While technically capable of winning turn 1 if on the draw, that requires a perfect 8 cards (land, Spirit Guide x3, Heartless, Retriever x2, Grapeshot). A turn 2-4 combo is much more realistic and there is some disruption available.
I think the biggest weaknesses of the deck are that there isn't going to be a lot of wiggle room to sideboard and graveyard hate really puts the hurt on you. As such, it might be better to just work a Heartless Combo into another deck altogether, perhaps an artifact based deck that could play Myr Retriever for general value.
Thoughts? Is this even worth pursuing at this point in time?
Looks interesting, but I feel like you're not letting Fecundity do enough work on its own; sac outlets would let you use it to dig into a Heartless Summoning rather than having to assemble the whole thing.
It looks like there's also some confusion about whether you want to be a "fair" deck with a potential for a combo kill, or a pure combo deck. You dedicate a lot of cards to the combo, and then use 7 slots on Myr Sire and Mogg War Marshal, which are good but not broken with the combo out. I realize that they're dig with Fecundity, but only if you have to opportunity to block with them.
There are a lot of win conditions in here: Grapeshot, Falkenrath Noble, Perilous Myr. The last of these requires Enduring Renewal. I realize that redundancy is a thing, but they all require Summoning, so the redundancy is not "real", it's just a different point of failure. Also, Altar of the Brood is cheap, non-targeting and colorless.
I guess what I'm saying is that I feel like you have more slots open than you think.
You make some good points, cherub_daemon.
True, the problem is finding cheap sac outlets that don't die or become essentially worthless under a Heartless Summoning. The only things that come to mind are Nantuko Husk and Vampire Aristocrat, both of which are a little mediocre, but as base 2/2s, they don't just die when Summoning is on the table, yet can sac themselves. Perhaps some number of these is worthwhile.Originally Posted by cherub_daemon
Given that the creatures being played are really quite poor outside of their combo potential, I think it's probably best to lean more toward being pure combo. Adding a few of the aforementioned sac outlets helps cards like Myr Sire and Mogg War Marshal pull a little more weight. The idea behind these cards in the initial list is that they can just be bodies that chump block and buy you time to assemble the combo, but if you get Heartless + Fecundity online, they turn into 2 free cards/3 cards for R to help you dig into your Myr Retrievers (note that if you hit a single Retriever, you can return Myr Sire and replay it for 2 more cards to try to find the second Retriever).
Valid points. All of the combos require Hearltess Summoning. It'd be nice if this could be tooled to have a line that didn't require it, just for the sake of protection. As for Perilous Myr + Enduring Renewal, I don't really like that particular combo that much. Perilous Myr seems like a reasonable chump blocker, being able to trade with X/3s and being a free cast/card under Summoning + Fecundity. As such, I felt compelled to include the single Renewal, but it's probably worth strongly considering just removing Renewal from the list.
I really like this as an option. It provides a very different line at what seems like a low opportunity cost.
I guess actual testing is going to be the only way to figure out how much fat can be trimmed from the list (or if this is even close to being on track). I appreciate the feedback.
If you can get him out before the Summoning, Arcbound Ravager would fit right in. Greater Gargadon is also a thing. Non-infinite cards might also help you get going, like Altar's Reap and Reshape.
So, I think the list is still far from tuned, but I did put it together and play a few games. It seemed to show promise when the first game I played I went off on turn 4 after clearing the way with an Inquisition of Kozilek (turn 1: Faithless Looting putting Myr Retriever into the yard, turn 2: Heartless Summoning, turn 3: flashback Faithless Looting finding Falkenrath Noble, turn 4: IoK to clear the way, Noble for 1B, Myr Retriever = loop established).
I thought about Ravager and Reshape. My first Heartless Summoning deck was a U/B Grand Architect prison/ramp deck, so the artifact options have been on my radar. That's still something I'm exploring, but it seems to be missing a piece or two. You can find the thread for that deck on here somewhere. I'm thinking about retooling it with Faerie Mechanist instead of Treasure Mage to play better with Lodestone Golem and move away from all the 6 cost bombs, possibly working in a Myr Retriever combo.
Anyway, back to the list at hand...
I did a little more thinking and browsing of Gatherer and stumbled upon a new card that might be a worthwhile inclusion: Grim Haruspex. It has the same CMC as Fecundity and is functionally very similar. It doesn't die to the -1/-1 from Heartless Summoning and adds some redundancy to the deck. The fact that it has morph isn't all that relevant, but in game one it only adds to the "What the heck is this person playing?" aspect of the list. The one issue I have with Haruspex is that it only draws a card when a nontoken creature dies, thus it doesn't synergize nearly as well as Fecundity with Myr Sire and Mogg War Marshal. That being said, maybe it doesn't matter. Perhaps we just run Haruspex and jam more cheap creatures that are free under Heartless Summoning. The issue there is that the options for creatures that cost 2 colorless or less is really limited, unless you're willing to play completely terrible bodies with no relevant abilities.
With respect to sac outlets, I did add 1 copy each of Nantuko Husk and Vampire Aristocrat to the deck. While there is application for these, I realized that their inclusion made me want to run a card with particular qualifications, and I believe the only available option is Ornithopter. The qualifications being that its total mana cost must be 0 and its toughness must be greater than 1. This allows a combo which does not include Heartless Summoning, namely Nantuko Husk or Vampire Aristocrat + Ornithopter + Enduring Renewal, which provides you the means of attacking with an infinitely large Husk/Vampire. It's a fairly weak combo, but it is an alternate line, and it makes the inclusion of Enduring Renewal (at least a single copy) more justifiable. The problem, of course, is you're now playing Ornithopter in a deck that isn't playing Cranial Plating.
Again, I think there is something here, but it's hard to decide whether the deck should be "all in" on the combos or if Heartless Summoning can be used as a value card in a shell that happens to include a combo. I think the list currently posed in this thread is more "all in." The base is B/G, but it's potentially a 3-5 color deck. My thoughts on a "value" shell are to move to U/B with a heavier artifact focus, whereby Myr Retriever could be played as a sort of colorless/free Reconstruction that has the potential to combo off if a second copy is found.
I've updated my list now that Magic Origins has been released. The swaps I made are as follows:
-3 Mogg War Marshal - Hangarback Walker functions similarly, but is free to cast and has no color requirements
-2 Myr Sire - Upgraded to Hangarback Walker
-1 Simian Spirit Guide - 2 copies has shown to be sufficient
+4 Hangarback Walker - Noted above, this is an upgrade to Myr Sire and Mogg War Marshal
+2 Grim Haruspex - Functions as Fecundity 5-6, though it doesn't draw when tokens die and is a mandatory trigger
Here's the full, updated list:
Heartless Combo
CREATURES
1 Falkenrath Noble
2 Grim Haruspex
4 Hangarback Walker
4 Myr Retriever
2 Myr Sire
2 Perilous Myr
2 Simian Spirit Guide
SPELLS
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Fecundity
4 Faithless Looting
1 Grapeshot
4 Heartless Summoning
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Enduring Renewal
1 Noxious Revival
LAND
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Mana Confluence
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Stomping Ground
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
Grapeshot or Falkenrath Noble are your primary kill mechanism. Enduring Renewal is there so you can loop Perilous Myr as an alternate kill (note that with Heartless Summoning, Fecundity/Grim Haruspex, and Enduring Renewal in play, you can loop a single Myr Retriever until you mill a Perilous Myr, which you can then return with Retriever and start looping for damage).
The deck is super fun, better than it looks, and is the type of deck that will likely gain more worthwhile cards over time. Warning: It's not a good choice for MTGO, as the combo takes a lot of time to run through.
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