Havengul Lich seems waaaaayyyyy to slow, but I don't think it neccessary as a 4-of for what your trying to do.

Havengul Lich is a piece in an alternate combo that can happen as early as turn 3. It isn't slow.

Competitive combo decks run fewer combo pieces, and more tutors to find the right piece at the right time. This ups the decks consistency, without packing your deck full of dead draws. Would you rather draw a second havengul lich, or a tutor that can find your heartless summoning/myr moonvessel? Point being, as soon as you draw one of your combo pieces, all the rest of the playset become useless draws from then out. Hence why muddle the mixture is a worthy suggestion, as it will almost never be a dead draw to you. It would also be worth adding a singleton 2 mana win con to search up if needed, as an alternate to the altar.

Any reason you're running Laboratory Maniac as your counter to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, when Cranial Extraction gets the job done the same but can't die to removal?

or for that matter, could always run Leyline of the Void in place of lab maniac and Nihil Spellbomb

@RoarMasterTutors are fairly bad in Modern. Sure additional Havengul Liches are redundant, but they are a necessary combo piece for my second win-con. The only viable tutor I could run to search for it really is new Sidisi. The problem with Tutors is that you're paying at least 3 mana to get one card, spending that mana most times will just net you one card and you won't be able to use it until the next turn, and there's no guarantee that that's your last combo piece.

There's not many combo decks in Modern to begin with, but the few that are competitively viable are usually some variant of Storm (Ascendacy Storm) and just cycle through the deck to get the cards it needs or things like Twin (control/combo) or Titan Bloom (which is kind of hard to classify, but it doesn't run any tutors barring Primeval Titan for lands).

@Khaosknight Cranial Extraction is good, and it definitely gets the job done, but Laboratory Maniac pretty much allows me to keep going for my combo without having to pause to deal with the Emrakul on turn 4 and net no additional advantage that turn. Also if I have infinite draw that means I'll be guaranteed to draw Laboratory Maniac. Also if someone uses a kill spell in response to me drawing with no cards in my library I can also respond with a draw spell, won't happen very often, but it's definitely worth bringing up.

And Nihil Spellbomb is too good to pass up with Trinket Mages

Yeah, there is not a very large representation of combo in modern, mostly since preordain and friends were banned. Bloom Titan isn't really dedicated combo, and twin comes with a strong control suite to protect its combo.

Since your deck does not win by any means other than combining out, the fact that muddle the mixture might not find your last combo piece is a bit of a moot point since you cannot win without all your combo pieces. So although it may search up not the LAST combo piece, it is still finding you REQUIRED combo pieces. That and the fact that you are running heartless summoning meaning on turn 3 you can muddle the mixture for retriever say, you can cast retriever immediately for free. Basically in order to win, you must draw X specific cards, and muddle makes it so that you are basically running extra copies of each of your combo pieces, thus upping the reliability and consistency, since you simply cannot win otherwise.

Cycling through the deck is the sure fire way to make the deck the best it could be. Spending mana on a tutor leads to a turn not spent doing anything other than getting one card. Focusing on playing draw spells to reach certain engines (Haruspex death trigger chains) is much better.

Very early versions of the deck used to run Shred Memory and the speed the deck forfeited to not even consistently win was not worth it. The current version of the deck has been the most consistent by a long shot. The absolute biggest reason why tutors pretty much barring Summoner's Pact aren't run in Modern is that they're too expensive. Pod and GSZ were banned because they were essentially free tutors (pod less so, but still similar) and that's really the only power level where tutors outside of EDH work.

This deck focuses on cycling as much as it can and trying to generate as much card advantage as it can. Any pause in that to search for a card is too slow.

People don't run tutors in stuff other than EDH? Erm, wut? Not only do they see significant play in legacy, modern, vintage, and previously extended, but in many of these formats, all the best tutors are banned. Why are they banned? Because tutors are that good. Oh noes if you have to pay one more mana for a instant speed Demonic Tutor, which is basically what muddle could be for this deck.

I guess I disagree with your logic, and I guess reasonings behind said logic(tutors do see a lot of play), but if the deck is working well enough that you are happy with it, that is the important part. Optimized or not.

@RoarMaster Just to mention, Transmute can only be used at sorcery speed. So something like Muddle the Mixture means we have to spend all of turn 3 to simply find a Heartless Summoning, and that is assuming that we have three lands to use.

Also there aren't a lot of tutors in Modern. Expedition Map, Mystical Teachings, Treasure Mage, and Summoner's Pact are the only ones that are frequently used, and all of them have some benefit that is better than Transmuting (like being cheap, instant speed, 0 cost, or leaving behind a 2/2). Typically it's just better to draw a lot of cards instead of tutoring, since cards like Serum Visions are cheap and can help you dig for the cards you need. I run a slightly different version of this, and I can also say that draw power is more useful than tutoring. Transmute is simply too slow and telegraphs your plays to your opponent.

Maybe try a Noxious Revival in the board to get your summoning's back from a well timed Abrupt Decay or Thoughtseize.

@lemmingllama in defense of Muddle the Mixture, it's quite the stretch to say that it has no benefit other than transmuting. If on t3 you have a mixture in hand you can either:

a) fetch a much needed combo piece, literally the engine for the deck
b) fetch a different combo piece if needed
c) fetch a free 4/5 if you already have Heartless Summoning out
d) fetch a free shock in the form of Perilous Myr if you already have summoning out
e)counter an instant or sorcery spell.

One card can potentially do 5 things, all of which can be helpful to your game plan depending on the situation. That level of versatility makes it worth a full turn's mana in my mind, similar to how Cryptic Command is worth 4 mana because it can perform multiple useful tasks at once. Admittedly muddle is a "choose one" card, instead of "choose two", but if you build the deck in the right way, the text could effectively read: "Choose one: Counter target instant/sorcery, fetch target combo piece, or fetch target 2 cmc creature and play it instantly".

If we're serious about not including muddle because its too slow, then why on earth is Trinket Mage a 2 of, with 2 more in the board? All it can possibly do is fetch combo pieces and leave behind a 1/1 chump blocker (assuming you have heartless summoning out, otherwise you're casting it for 3 mana, and getting less value for that mana than a muddle), and it has the potential to be a dead draw if you already have the pieces you'd be fetching. At least with muddle, if you already have literally every other use for it in hand, you can still use it as a counter spell.

I run a variant of this deck, running 2 Muddle the Mixture mb in place of trinket mage, and 1 Myr Superion in place of 1 Grim Haruspex (although I'm thinking about swapping it to in place of 1 Sleight of Hand instead), and it does really well, and gives me lots of different lines to play.

@Khaosknight I'm not saying that the Muddle the Mixture plan is incorrect, I'm simply saying that more Serum Visions type cards are superior in any non-control matchup. Modern has too many popular combo and aggro decks right now, so speed is essential.

Also I don't agree with Trinket Mage as a four-of, I personally run two in my deck (1 main, 1 side), but I would cut them in an instant if a better two/three drop that has two colorless in it's casting cost was printed. Trinket Mage is here mainly as a way to tutor up hate to stop people from comboing if your combo doesn't work, or to grab an Altar of the Brood/Myr Moonvessel if you aren't infinite yet but have the Heartless Summoning/Grim Haruspex plan going. Also that gorgeous feeling of Perilous Myring your own Trinket Mage and drawing the card you need is divine.

Still, I'll run some playtests of your deck against mine, and I'll tag you on my deck with the write-ups of the games. I didn't see your deck on tappedout, so feel free to post it up so I can do this.

Heartless Combo

I didn't have a version of it on this site, just quickly made that. I also run 1x Halimar Depths, it almost never comes at a bad time when I draw it, either t1 get to arrange my first 3 draws, or in place of a useless land topdeck late game.

If you can make Muddle work then I'm all for it, transmute used to be my favorite part of the deck when I first created it. Back then I focused the deck around 2 drops and Transmute worked decently well, but it still felt fairly slow. If you play a control type build (how I originally planned to play the deck) I can see it working better. But with the current build that I have going it focuses on 1 drops. If you look across the board everything barring Havengul Liches (and Heartless Summoning) cost 1 or less mana after Heartless Summoning is down. Trinket Mages cost 1 mana and can tutor up one of two combo pieces, one of which can also be used as ramp or a draw spell for free. It also allows me to get in the sideboard package which has numerous applications.

A big thing with the deck is that it runs very little lands, so even getting to 3 mana on turn 3 can be rare. Focusing on a very tight curve is the key to the deck retaining efficiency. If you go for a control type build (maining Remands, Thoughtseizes, etc.) I could see Muddle being pretty decent (the Sorcery speed hits it hard though still).

I really tried for tutors to work, and I tried out a ton in a bunch of different ways. The only one to be decent was Spoils of the Vault, but it was way too risky to play and was actually often a dead card in my hand.

New Sidisi might have a place in the deck (just super stoked for her all around since she's awesome) since she provides multiple uses other than just being a tutor. I don't think I'll put her in my current build, but it would definitely be cool to see people use her in more of a midrange build (if someone made a Gifts deck with her and it worked well I would be in awe) or something.

@EldestDragonHighlander

I really like Noxious Revival, and it actually might be put in the sideboard, so thanks. The biggest thing though is other than being recursion it doesn't net me much card advantage in the rest of the deck. The best application I can see for it is to use it on a Mulldrifter or something, but in the end that only nets you like one extra card. If Dig Through Time ever gets unbanned (Wizards please) then I could see it being used to fuel delve really well with things like Thought Scour and also casting things like Tasigur really cheaply.

I might actually try something like that out separate from this deck so thanks for the inspiration.

lemmingllama let's add to that list of tutor that have seen play in modern over the years. Off the top of my head we have chord of calling, birthing pod(now banned), gift sun given, primevil Titan, scapeshift, tree folk harbinger, flamekin harbinger, stone forge mystic((now banned), and mystical teachings. I'm sure there are a bunch more I'm not thinking of, but all of those have seen play in top 8 ranking modern decks.

Yeah so I was a little wrong about the amount of tutors that were played in Modern, but you can still see like pretty much all of the really good ones instant win/near instant win you the game. Gifts just sets you up to deal with anything, Scapeshift is instant win, stoneforge might as well have been instant win, Primeval Titan is the main engine of the deck and pretty much sets you up for anything.

All those tutors are awesome sure, but trying to make Transmute into them just isn't going to happen.

@lemmingllama

Totally go for Court Hussar if you want an alternative for Trinket Mage, it's on par with Mulldrifter.

Muddle has made top 8 decks a number of times too, from storm, pilli palla, to merfolk strangely enough. But as I said it's your call obviously :)

@RoarMaster There are tutors. However, I bet there are more card draw cards that have been used than tutors that have been used. Also the only ones that see significant play (as in an integral piece of a tier 1 deck) were Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling, Summoner's Pact, Primeval Titan, Expedition Map, and Scapeshift. Lots of tutors, but less than normal. Also most of these are used in decks that have significant amounts of mana, only Pod doesn't fit that category and pod was just cheap value instead.

@Quail I have been thinking of using it, in testing it did decently. Really just that I like having it retrieve sideboard cards, so I'm thinking of making the switch as soon as I get a Venser, Shaper Savant for my sideboard.

Also Mulldrifter is a little better in my opinion, since it blocks fliers if you decide to hardcast it. Also more cards can be better than card selection.

Yeah it's a really hard choice to choose between the two, I might go back to Mulldrifters if I find the strict card advantage is better than the dig. There's not too much difference in the long run though.

lemmingllama yeah, fairly obviously card draw is used more than tutors, because most decks are not combo and this do not need specific cards to win, they just need cards, and hopefully to filter out the junk at the same time. All the tutors you mentioned above are used in combo decks, because combo needs specific cards. Combo likes tutors, control and aggro just like card advantage, for different but fairly obvious reasons. There are very few combo decks in any format that do not run tutors.

But hey, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Yes tutors are very good. Middle The Mixture is decent, and probably playable in a control version of the deck, but in this build it doesn't cut it.

Trinket Mage is the best tutor this deck can take advantage of currently, and it's a little sub-par. I don't really see anything that could be printed that would be balanced enough to beat it out and be a good fit for the deck. This deck is pretty niche, so you gotta take the whole deck into consideration.

what does this deck do against graveyard hate? Doesn't seem like there is much in the way of artifact/enchantment removal in the sb. As it is now, a single Rest in Peace seems like it might as well be a scoop

Considering the graveyard is our Achilles heel, it seems like you'd want something like Cyclonic Rift in the sb, which is incidentally a 2 drop and fetchable with muddle.