Gifts is heavily used in U/X Tron, generally along side Mindslaver , Academy Ruins , Unburial Rites , Crucible of Worlds , Iona, Shield of Emeria , Wurmcoil Engine , other reanimation targets, etc. So long as you can take advantage of every possible outcome that your opponent picks, you're essentially tutoring for four cards (or less if you choose to pick less cards, which is certainly viable).

With the addition of Altar of the Brood , Gifts has become potentially extremely strong, given I have a new win-con in artifact form.

Basically my targets go like this.

Altar of the Brood , Myr Retriever , Golem's Heart , and Land/Gifts Ungiven /draw spell/anything else/or even nothing.

A retriever going into my graveyard is no big deal, I want at least one in there for my combo anyway. The only time this isn't beneficial is if I already have one in there.

If either the heart or altar is put into the yard I can get it back with the retriever. If the retriever or one of the other two are put in, then I still have one of the win-cons in my hand.

After all that happens, all I need to win is another Retriever once I cast the other components. (provided I have Heartless Summoning on the field)

Play testing and I've already found Havengul Lich to be absolutely amazing. The addition of 4 Perilous Myrs help, but they truly shine with the Grim Haruspex s on the field allowing me to get insane card advantage.

Just to be overly cruel about a given match-up or response, what if your opponent runs Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt (which is becoming increasingly common to handle delvers), or does something as simple as using Pithing Needle on either Altar of the Brood or Golem's Heart . I understand Gifts Ungiven can seem like a very powerful fetch card, but I've tried running it and from personal experience I can tell you that I've never managed to pull any set of 4 cards that are actually worth tutoring which won't end up kicking me in the pants with two of them gone. Gifts Ungiven has potential, but its hard to utilize it well, or even make it worth using at all against an intelligent opponent. Just my personal thoughts on the card. This is your deck, and you doubtless understand it better than I do, so perhaps you know how to make it work but to me... I just can't see Gifts Ungiven helping more than it hurts.

Grave hate is definitely where this deck will hurt the most. I'm currently not too focused on matchups as I am consistency, speed, and mechanics. Eventually I would like to make a sideboard for such inevitable matchups. It will most likely change the deck to move from combo to take advantage of HS to drop big/good creatures for cheaper. The Myr Superion s will definitely be in there, as will Solemn Simulacrum and Wurmcoil Engine . Siding in some control such as Remand would also be an option.

As for Pithing Needle, it only stops ACTIVATED abilities. Golem's Heart and Altar of the Brood are triggered abilities, so they're safe. The only cards that would be affected by it are Havengul Lich , Spellskite , and Grim Haruspex 's Morph ability (which is irrelevant).

There are indeed not many decks at all that can take true advantage of Gifts, but I can tell you with the targets I listed it is completely 100% true card advantage (assuming there's no circumstantial effects following it, such as someone countering my second retriever). That however doesn't mean it's going to make it in the deck, as it still needs to fit that speed aspect I'm looking for. On paper it works very well, and Gifts i probably one of the cards that requires it to work on paper before being used at all above all others. With the way I'd use it, there's no aspect that I can see where it can hurt me at all.

In place of Gifts Ungiven might i suggest Fabricate ? It's both faster and can be used to guarantee the attainment of any one combo component. Sorry for my fixation on getting rid of Gifts... In case it wasn't obvious yet I just really don't like the card.

Fabricate runs into the same problem that the Transmute cards run into. It's 3 mana to get me only one card. I had the same usability with Transmute but I was able to also get Heartless Summoning, though I'd be able to get the Altar with Fabricate (not that that really matters since Golem's Heart can serve as a win-con as well). Gifts gets me at the very least two cards I can use (through the graveyard) and up two four if I choose to put any in my hand. It also thins my deck more, pitches things for the Liches to use or for Dig Through Time to delve.

Like I said it's not a card that can fit in any deck, and it's definitely not for everyone. Currently with testing it I'm not liking it AS much because I often have a Retriever already in my graveyard, so I need to search for other things. However that isn't a bad thing since I searched for a Lich, a Haruspex, Dig Through Time, and a Gitaxian Probe. I assumed that my opponent would put the Lich and the Haruspex in the yard since I would be able to get really good advantage off them. In turn I was able to Gitaxian Probe to draw and play Dig Through Time for only 3 mana. following that up I had 3 Haruspexs on the field and was able to cycle through a ton of my deck by playing a Lich that I drew, casting the Retriever in my yard, drawing into 2 Perilous Myrs, each drawing me 3 cards, all until I drew into another Retriever which won me the game with the Altar I had on the field. And that's also without again casting the Retriever again from my yard with the leftover mana I had. All this taking place on turn 6, which I've found the deck to combo by.

I definitely understand the apprehension towards Gifts, but at the same time I'm not really seeing a specific reason NOT to run it.

Take a look at my heartless summoning deck Heartless Summoning

Infernal Tutor makes you only need one myr in starting hand

Infernal Tutor is pretty interesting actually, not sure why I haven't tried it yet.

I was pretty against tutors, but at two mana (even three is too much) it might be worth it. At the very least I could also tutor for another Myr that dies, either to get more damage through or another trigger for the Haruspex to go off. Or even another Serum Visions or Mulldrifter. I'll have to check it out. As it stands right now I'm not sure what I would take out for it. Any space that could be made would be for additional Mulldrifters.

Thanks for the suggestion

I have been watching your page now for a few days. I've been putting together a similar deck. How does Mirran Spy look? You might have to change up a few cards, but that would give an infinite untap also, for just 1 blue mana turn three. Staying with this deck's cards, Shimmer Myr seems like it would be good to have. If an opponent ever makes you draw your second retriever... GG

As for your land base, possibly add one or two, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth s, as it wouldn't matter if your opponent has all swamps.

my friend made a version of this deck for fun.add 1 urborg4x Darkslick Shores 3-4x River of Tears maybe more fetches to fuel delve?3 blue ones1 black one or something like thatif you fancy it. Sunken Ruins you can also check out u/b faeries manabasehttp://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=223&meta=51&f=MO

Mirran Spy is cool, but it would involve me adding a totally new combo to the deck, taking away from the existing ones or the draw engine, so I'd have to go against it.

Shimmer Myr is also cool, but doesn't really help me for combo. It might have a place in the sideboard, but it doesn't do much other than give me a surprise blocker/pseudo-haste.

Urborg should probably be in here yeah, couldn't remember why I didn't have it in. Darkslick Shores I think are just outclassed by Drowned Catacombs, which I don't need to run with the amount of fetches I have already. River of Tears and Sunken Ruins are much the same.

As far as what type of deck mine is most similar to, it would actually have to be U/R Storm. I looked up a land base for that and it used pain lands and stuff, so I thought that was weird. It also only ran 16 lands (which is reasonable), but I need to figure out if that's okay for my deck.

I might swap out your Perilous Myr s for Spellskite s to protect Heartless Summoning . Otherwise your deck feels extremely vulnerable to cards like Dispeller's Capsule , Aura of Silence , and control, as a control deck would only ever need to counter the heartless summoning in order to shut you down completely. I'm not sure how to improve the deck for a control matchup, unless you want to add some sort of graveyard retrieval card, but Spellskite should help ensure you can combo when necessary.

I can second DuTogira's comment above because going up against control, especially white control, would be torture, but isn't that what a sideboard is for? When he goes up against a control deck, he revamps his deck to play against control, by moving spellskite into the main?

The good part is that you don't need to worry about cards like Swords to Plowshares because the retrievers are instantly sent to your graveyard. The enchantments on the other hand are a different story. God forbid you get a Curse of Exhaustion on you or anything...

I made the Spellskite comment because most decks run some form of enchantment removal, so I believe it should be main-boarded. On top of that I think this deck needs 2 of them bare minimum, 4 would be ideal for a white control matchup. I'm not sure what card might fix this, but I was thinking blue control would be worst matchup for this deck. Maybe that's just me though.

Control is definitely the hardest matchup for me. I've yet to go against a counter-based control matchup. But discard + Surgical Extraction can literally beat me turn 1 before I even go.

Spellskite is a one of in the sideboard because it doesn't help the deck, it just protects it. I can outspeed things like Aura of Silence, so that's what I should focus on.

I think another win con is you could use Grim haruspex and the retriever loop to mill yourself with a Laboratory Maniac to win?

I second the addition of 1xLaboratory Maniac and suggest that it replace 1xPerilous Myr

I had a response to why I took it out, but you know, now that I realize it if I have a Haruspex on the field I'll probably run out of cards before my opponent. Though I could just play the additional Altars that I draw, I'll look into it to see if I really need to add it.

Perilous Myr is one hundred percent staying as a playset.

I've played your deck many times my friend. The combo is that once u get the infinite with haruspex out... You keep drawing til u get both an Altar of the Brood and another Heartless Summoning . Then you play the brood and your haruspexes die. GG

Yeah I've found that I can just play another altar and the milling out speeds the drawing. Also I can just play a Perilous Myr to kill the Haruspex if needed.

This deck looks awesome. I was thinking of Grim Haruspex with Myrs and Heartless Summoning too, but I had problems in making the combo consistent. The problem of this deck is that without Heartless Summoning you can't do much. You already have Dig Through Time and good one mana cantrips, but I'm not sure if you have enough to delve away for Dig Through Time, I think Thought Scour is good in this deck for that reason. It also puts Myr Retrievers in your graveyard so you can get your infinite loop off easier.Other than that I think you need a bit more disrupt. Thoughtsieze, Remand and the like.

Between all the fetch lands, gitaxian probe, and all of the creatures I can pitch to the graveyard, I have a pretty easy time casting Dig Through Time by turn 3. It's fairly rare for me to even have to use it (generally I can combo out so long as I can get a Haruspex and HS on the field).

Disrupt is definitely I thing, I used to mainboard Remand and was considering Thoughtsieze. The only problem with them is they take away from the speed and digging power of my deck (also I generally tap out every turn). The thing about a combo like this is I have to do my own thing with trying to care about my opponent as little as possible for the combo to work effectively. It's kinda crappy, but this deck is almost a one player game.