a work in progress sans-storm Dega variant of the popular Heartless Summoning + Myr Retriever + Myr Retriever
infinite combo engine utilizing Purphoros, God of the Forge as the primary win con via ETB triggers for direct damage along with Athreos, God of Passage for additional life loss.
Perilous Myr represents 4 damage, 2 of which can be directed at another target creature, and 3 life lost for a grand total FREE 7 point shot when both gods and Heartless Summoning are in play. same goes for Myr Sire minus the potential spot removal. any of the other myr count for at least 5 damage/life loss individually which is still pretty good, and if one of them happens to be a Myr Retriever and you've got any other myr in the graveyard at the time, there's another 5-7 on top of everything else. get two Myr Retrievers going and we go infinite. (still considering finding room for a couple Grapeshot just 'cause...) anyway, it's not entirely uncommon, even without card draw and dig spells to have the win online by turn 3.
honorable mentions to:
Wurmcoil Engine thrown in for good measure and it's own undeniable, albeit non-combo related synergies with other cards in this list.
Golem's Heart
because... lifegain, I guess? got it in here as a two of for now.
Spellskite is generally just good against stuff.
Night's Whisper for card draw
Magma Jet for direct damage / removal and scry 2
Cavern of Souls for... gods, mostly.
"pain" lands since they're relatively cheap and since the bulk of the deck is colorless anyway.
I had the idea for the core mechanisms of this deck when a friend who had just very recently started playing MTG discovered the card Heartless Summoning and commenced designing the worst mono black pseudo-ramp modern deck EVER (dude ran Inkmoth Nexus in it)... anyway. i thought I could do a little better.
anyway, decided to go with gods instead of boring old glass cannon Grapeshot storm for several reasons. 1: since the gods are creature spells when they're being cast, Heartless Summoning makes them cost (2) less to cast. 2: by naming "god" Cavern of Souls makes our gods uncounterable.3: all direct damage dealt by Purphoros, God of the Forge does not require us to "target" our opponent(s), thus cards that prevent us from targeting players such as Leyline of Sanctity are useless against us.4: they're freaking indestructible AND they're enchantments so very very few decks have main board answers for them once they resolve.
some playtesting remains in order to get this thing firing on all cylinders but it's coming along!
suggestions welcomed!!
