Pretty interesting idea. I'd be interested to hear about its play.

if you feel like you keep needing to dig for heartless you can use cards like Faithless Looting to help get through your deck faster. Tormenting Voice is another option but at 2 cmc, but at that point you're playing sign in blood which is probably better for you.

From my experience playing Heartless Summoning, I have to agree with aholder7. If you don't have Heartless in your opening hand or first two draws you're probably going to have a bad time. Faithless Looting makes that happen much more consistently. Discarding cards doesn't help you currently, but it would be neat to throw a Godless Shrine in here and a couple Unburial Rites. Even without though, FL does work for this deck.

@Draw_Wurm I.. I don't know what to say. You actually took the idea and got it to work out. I feel kinda proud about that!

Know whats better than dragons? Recently revived dragons with haste and imune to Path.

Go for Stormbreath Dragon and the gravetrio:

Faithless Looting, Lingering Souls and Unburial Rites.

Since splash for W is so easy, why not go for some Lingering Souls

White is a consistent suport color, giver you access to Path to Exile

Hi lemmingllama, aholder7, MindAblaze, jsansoldo. Thanks for all that feedback. Tweaked the numbers above Unburial Rites and Path to Exile + Faithless Looting are great shouts. I've left Lingering Souls on the bench just now but will have a play. Any thoughts on the dragon mix? Wondering if I should swap Stormbreath Dragon in for the Moltensteel Dragons or Thundermaw Hellkites.

TheRedGoat. It seems to tick along nicely. Certainly in the casual games. Not sure how it'll contend at an FNM with the proper decks of the format. +, you know, it's dragons which makes it cool by default. Cheers

I feel white has no business being in here. We already have very good removal in the form of Terminate and good hand disruption so Path to Exile is unnecessary. Generally we wont need the additional removal against most decks except for Splinter Twin because our threats are so cheap and menacing, and there is already tailor made Twin removal in red, Rending Volley. There is also just Dismember that is just as good usually.

Lingering Souls is an obvious non-bo with Heartless Summoning so that is another clear strike against white.

We are left with the only reason to splash white being Unburial rights. I think it probably looks good at first, but if you stop to think about it, it doesn't ever cost less due to the summoning, and we have to have something worth reanimating in our yard for it to do anything at all. I think more threats would be better in this card's place. Meaning all together there is simply no reason for a white splash whatsoever. It makes our deck's mana worse for no reason.

I think your best option from here is to play a full four Sign in Blood, and probably run Night's Whisper over Faithless Looting as well because the problem with looting is one of the fundamental theories of magic, card advantage. I know you said there is no real reason to have extra summonings in your hand, but even with that you aren't a deck that wants to play out of your graveyard, you are a deck that wants to jam discounted fatties into play every single turn from your hand. As such you really do not want to play a card that nets -1 cards after you cast it. I would much rather see the same two cards that looting does, except net +1 cards.

I would tend to agree that the dragons are cooler and seem to work better than the demons. I do think that Moltensteel Dragon is really bad though. you have to pay 4 life to make it mana efficient at all and with a summoning out you run the risk of paying 4 life for it on turn 3 just to watch it get Lightning Bolted. I think that Underworld Cerberus would be a great replacement here since your threats are much more potent then the opponents so returning them to your hand is great.

Why limit yourself to either demons or dragons? Play the best cards from both and throw in a couple of Wurmcoil Engines.

I agree 100% with awesomeragle for all points.

Isn't it just better to use Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood in a 2-color deck? I realize the deck hardly has trouble coming up with BB, but it's always a possibility when you're running 7 non-black sources. Not sure the slight possibility of casting it on your opponent is really worth it. What's your opinion on this?

awesomeragle just forgot Heartless not always come. What to do to holf off super aggro beaters? The format have many of those. Thats when Ligering Souls become a life savior. And do it twice.

Rites is a great spell. Since you plan on using Heartless Summoning, in a good game - and its for a good-instakill game you should tune a deck - you drop Heartless on turn 2, a Good 5 Mana Dragon at turn 3, Another Dragon for turn 4, and UMBURIAL RITES to get the dragon they killed or removed in game again. If they all have haste, BETTER. Rites is effectively your lategame dragon call.

Faithless is a masterpierce on this graveyard abuse scenario, with the right cards there, everything is good for you. In a non gravelove deck, obviously plain draw would be best.

Recursion is a must in Modern. It could be Rites, could be Kolaghan's Command, a great multi-use removal with grave recursion that combo more with Heartless Summoning.

About Path... well, you know Wurmcoil Engine? Ulamog? Path solve problems other spell cant at a cheaper price. It even can be used to path your about-to-die-stuff for ramp. Its a GREAT spell, and has prevalence in the format if you can have it. Your deck can have it.

But yes, I do agree Underworld Cerberus is a great pick. Its a kind-of-unblockable Massive-grave-hater. Goyf people will hate him.

Its just bad it eats itself when dead.

If you play Rites, you should have 4 loots

Hey awesomeragle, smackjack those are really good points re: white and the creatures. When I play tested the demons, the issue was that there was no real synergy between them so you weren't building anything cumulatively. Bloodgift Demon is possible as a Phyrexian Arena effect, but the lack of haste and etb effects meant Abyssal Persecutor et all were just early reduced flying fatties that were too easy for the opponent to dispose of or exile.

Why mainly dragons? Partly flavour, partly Cavern of Souls, partly the synergy. When I played last night without the Thundermaw Hellkites or Thunderbreak Regents, resolving Dragonlord Kolaghan, and Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury pretty much led to a win. Moltensteel Dragon is too weak when it resolves, and we don't need the life loss. Forcing it out early as a 3/3 also doesn't really achieve anything.

Because I had only a few tokens I subbed in Mogis, God of Slaughter last night which was fun. Particularly when you resolve a few dragons and it becomes a creature. Consistently you could get it out for BR and it takes the attention away from Heartless Summoning.

Inferno Titan and Wurmcoil Engine were ones I was looking at but love the Underworld Cerberus flavor!

Grave Titan is a bomb.. Thats 10 power potentially for 2-4 mana and it just keeps giving you value.

smackjack you are probably right. I think that rights should be cut though.

jsansoldo You are joking about Lingering Souls right? This deck does not need that effect, and when you draw it after you have a Heartless Summoning out then you just drew a do nothing card. They do not interact well together, and the deck has plenty of removal and discard to just never need the tokens.

As for Path to Exile you are correct it can deal with resolved threats differently than other removal spells. But I think this deck can handle an opposing Wurmcoil Engine without a path. Also the only deck that runs any version of Ulamog is tron, and they usually run Emrakul, the Aeons Torn over him anyway, rendering path unusable along with the rest of the removal.

Lastly the strongest reason to run white, Unburial Rites, doesn't even work well with the deck as a whole. I would much rather have additional threats, or have cheap draw spells. This deck only runs 22 lands! getting to 5 lands on turn 5 is going to be difficult. So actually casting the silly spell is already difficult. Secondly the darn thing will never be better than an additional threat in hand because ALL of the threats this deck has, as long as there is a Heartless out, are more mana efficient that rites! Do you use unburial rites to revive a Tarmogoyf? No of course not that is not the best use of your mana. Same for this deck. And if you say it is worth it because you can flash it back (thus, generating card advantage) I will say that running cheap draw spells will generate the same amount of advantage at 1/5th of the cost.

My verdict: Path is unnecessary. Souls does not work well in the deck. Rites is a trap that looks good at first but really holds the deck back.

As for Wurmcoil Engine in the deck, It would be very good and would help your burn match up a lot. I know it isn't a dragon but its probably correct to play anyway. If you don't want to run it its probably not a big deal though because other than burn it wont help in too many other matches lol.

I think you should include both demons and dragons. Having a two color manabase can definitely support it, and some of the demons you had were just bonkers. I'd also recommend adding green for lotus cobras. That MAY sound redundant with your enchantment, but then you're guaranteed to have at least one of them, which would improve the consistency of the deck. I would keep the four drop demons in your deck, the abyssal one and desecration, plus thundermaw, and wurmcoil engine.

Just coming back to this deck, to see a major change. It looks like a better build. As for the discussion in the comments, I'm on the no-white side of the field. You don't need it, as many people have already said. I think the Thunderbreak Regent is a far better drop then the Moltensteel Dragon in almost every case.

well the deck has changed a bit since i first looked at it. i have to agree the white splash seems a bit weak. if you are doing it, you might as well have some big monster that white offers you such as Butcher of the Horde, Iroas, God of Victory, baneslayer (if you have enough white splash to justify double white), or Zurgo Helmsmasher or something. or you could just drop the white to keep the consistancy and efficency that two color decks offer.

if you do choose to splash the white you have the above options to add in for creature base, there is also the added option of cards like Lightning Helix which works as both removal and stabilization against aggro decks. if you keep white, then Sign in Blood should really be Night's Whisper because it will be hard to hit the double black in every scenario that you'd want to use it in.

if you choose to oust the white, you can replace the 2 path and 3 rites for another command, as well as 2 more faithless and another Sign in Blood or two.

ultimately the choice of colors is up to you.

hope you do well.

I want to clarify my point. I said Godless Shrine would be good because I was thinking at most two Unburial Rites so you could make use of any creatures you're forced to discard with the Faithless Lootings that I feel are necessary. In modern casting Sign in Blood will put you behind, plain and simple. Looting improves your card quality tremendously, so while its not generating card advantage it's helping provide you with the card you need when you need it.

I don't think this deck needs white otherwise. Lingering souls is a nonbo with Heartless and if you don't have that card out you're probably losing. Path to Exile is arguably the best removal spell in the format, and I have a hard time arguing against it, but I think your bolts mop up weenies fairly well and after that your guys will just be bigger. It's just nice to have cheaper answers to EOT Deceiver Exarchs.

Again, I was just suggesting a way to get more value out of a card that I feel is vital to the deck. Better than Night's Whisper or SiB.

Hi all. Updated build above. Have removed the White splash for the moment. Might have to tweak final numbers, but this feels fairly solid. Thanks for all the feedback. Really great discussion!

Couple of alternatives to Wurmcoil Engine would be great to get people's thoughts on.

Grave Titan as smackjack mentioned. Normally love it, not sure if it loses value here by only producing 1/1 zombies

Massacre Wurm. Potential token hoser?

I was thinking Kokusho, the Evening Star because of the dragon synergy and lifegain.

At the minute I've stuck Underworld Cerberus in as a 2 of.

Rakdos, Lord of Riots possible turn 4 6/6 flying trampler who makes everything else cheap as fuq

Hey Clueless123 thanks for the suggestion. Problem with Rakdos, Lord of Riots is that Heartless Summoning doesn't power it out. So maybe better for another deck.

I'm currently looking at Hellkite Tyrant as a possible addition for the affinity matchup

Ok, this deck looks great, and i love dragons- the 4-6 mana aggro is a spot that I feel could really hit hard in modern, and dragons are a fun way to do it, however there are two cards I'm shocked (shocked!) aren't in here. One is Pentad Prism, the other, Simian Spirit Guide. They help fill in that awkward gap when an opponent pops your heartless,and you need to power out that first dragon faster/drop a terminate from nowhere. Other than that, etb damage from dragons is always nice. You should also consider Shriekmaw for that reduced-cost evoke.