I’m not following the attachment to bloodghast. Sure the deck has plenty of discard outlets so plenty of ways to resurrect it. But its p/t just seems too piddly to me for a deck that wins with haymakers, it doesn’t have any keywords for souping up Soulflayer, and you don’t want to be exiling it to reduce a delve cost anyway. I kinda feel like that slot would be better used to give our haymaker more hay (like Striped Riverwinder) rather than a little pesky pest.
I’m not following the attachment to bloodghast. Sure the deck has plenty of discard outlets so plenty of ways to resurrect it. But its p/t just seems too piddly to me for a deck that wins with haymakers, it doesn’t have any keywords for souping up Soulflayer, and you don’t want to be exiling it to reduce a delve cost anyway. I kinda feel like that slot would be better used to give our haymaker more hay (like Striped Riverwinder) rather than a little pesky pest.
In regard to this, our Zombie guy is actually one of our workarounds if an edict effect should get through.
Plus if we somehow got boardwipe or the Soulflayer beatdown plan didn't get through then we have a fallback plan by swinging with our 1/1s and 2/1s chipping away the last few drops of lifepoints.
Striped Riverwinder requires us to dip into a 4th/5th color too much, which is not what we want in this deck.
Ah, the version I'm working on still uses Chromanticore (it's still in this thread title even if it hasn't been seen in some recent decks), so I'm running a load of rainbow lands (City of Brass, Mana Confluence, Gemstone Mine)... blue's no harder on my deck than any other color.
This deck is too-reliant on the GY to win imho.
Having a back up plan of hardcasting (with the help of Birds/Caryatid) Samut, Chromanticore (or even bestowing a Thrun/Troll Ascetic) or beating down with a creature buffed by Rhonas seems like good thing to have.
This deck is too-reliant on the GY to win imho.
Having a back up plan of hardcasting (with the help of Birds/Caryatid) Samut, Chromanticore (or even bestowing a Thrun/Troll Ascetic) or beating down with a creature buffed by Rhonas seems like good thing to have.
Well to be fair, this deck IS reliant on the graveyard, because that is where it focus its strategy, just like any other combo decks. Take for example if you can remove tron lands from Tron based decks before they even go off, then they are pretty much screwed anyway.
1. If you're talking about hardcasting, then you're going to grind the long game already. Thats why you have Sylvan Caryatid in the main. However, a noteworthy consideration is that we can swap the a couple of drogskol reaver or zetalpa for creatures like hazoret or gifted aetherborn, in case we need to hardcast some stuff. Very often, you're discarding the drogskol and zetalpa to lotleth trolls or faithless anyway, so you pretty much don't hardcast them so often.
2. I think if we are playing prized amalgam then we might as well be playing dredge already. And it being a delayed trigger will leave your gy open for scoozes or relic/nihil spellbomb shenanigans.
3. I agree with gather the pack as grisly salvage 5 - 6. However faithless looting is a turn 1 play and can set you up for a turn 2 soulflayer potentially.
4. You're not playing a counter game with control decks. Playing counters does not help in advancing your strategy. At least Savage summoning can support your beatdown plan somewhat. But just like you, I'm thinking Savage Summoning is just too cute, and it can be replaced with other stuff in the Side.
I think moving forward Hazoret can be added into the maindeck, given how often you will end up with 1 card or less in hand by turn 3 or 4. Mutagenic Growth/Become Immense and Tainted Strike can even be included as some kind of suprise tech.
OK I jammed a few more games with this deck, and from what I can gather, our deck totally sucks vs control planeswalkers. We can fight through bloodmoon, but man getting spreading seas will totally screw our manabase. Moving forward I think we need to include some kind of discard/lock package such as pithing needle/Surgical Extraction/Inquisition of Kozilek/thoughtseize/Phyrexian Revoker in the sideboard to lock out problem planeswalkers or permanents that we cannot handle.
Gotta admit 20 lands feel like a lot given how low our curve actually is (look at how many 1 drops or 2 drops we can churn out), so the manabase is back to 19. You don't really need the white source that often as you are playing more in jund colors running the looting and what not. But if you raised your overall curve with the deck it may be correct to stick back to 20 lands.
Bloodghastis good if you're in the race, but if you got brick walled by scoozes or big creatures its basically worthless. I might be swapping him with Gifted Aetherborn/Vampire Nighthawk since deathtouch and lifelink are pretty relevant going for the grind. Plus if your meta is aggro/burn heavy you really need those lifegains to shore up those matches.
Hazoret is a brilliant card. Works well with our strategy since we are looking to discard cards anyway.
An inclusion of 1 Cairn Wanderer and 1 Whip of Erebos in the main is good for our Game 1 for more surprise factor, you can suddenly whip back a hasty Drogskol reaver, Hazoret, Zetapla, or your Chromanticores/Samut/accidentally discarded soulflayers to unsuspecting opponents.
If you're not running the Whip I guess you can use Gather the Pack as your 5th grisly salvage else you can stick with Commune with the Gods. Personally, I still don't like these 2 cards.
Moving forward, a more optimal list may look like this, with some variants:
In the maybeboards, Apostle's Blessing, Mutagenic Growth, Wear//Tear, Heroic Intervention or some other creatures(preferably lesser than 5cmc), Silumgar, the drifting Death can be considered for postboard games where we need to rely less on the graveyard.
Also, its entirely possible that you can swap out lingering souls into the sideboard, leaving your vampires and bloodghast in the main for a more aggressive Game 1
Some sub-optimal choices here because of budget and availability, like a mountain and Polluted Delta instead of Catacombs, but otherwise a solid list.
I agree that the deck is graveyard reliant, but the only card that really hurts this deck is Rest in Peace. Twice I played against a T1 relic, followed by T2 relic, on the draw. The thing with this deck, is all you need to do is resolve a Faithless Looting, discard a hexproof creature and a Chromemanticore or Zetalpa. After Faithless resolves, because you have priority, you can cast Soulflayer before they pop the relic. The same is true for Salvage, but not for Lotleth Troll. RiP decks were harder. One of my losses was to a GW Hatebears with RiP, Scooze, and big Thalia.
There is another, more optimized decklist, that I want to try out, inspired partly by the GP list.
I found Traverse to be a bad draw more than it was a good one. I liked the 8 hexproof guys with Striped Riverwinder, but I can't play 5 colors, so that's cut for the souls.
I wanted to try out a 2x Bloodbraid. This isn't the best Bloodbraid deck out there, but a T3 Elf into Souls or Troll Ascetic is still a powerful play, and can just get your opponent fairly much better. Sure sometimes you only hit Faithless Looting, but that's still advancing your gameplan. Bloodbraid also has haste for your Flayer.
In the flex slots in the sideboard I'll probably just be testing 1x Abrupt Decay, 1x Surgical, and 1x Blood Moon. Mostly because of availability of the cards I own, but I'll probably play around with the sideboard a bit more.
From what I've played, which isn't much I'll be honest, is to just get 'em game 1 (I only lost 1 game 1 in the tournament, and that was due to a T3 kill by an affinity played when I was on the draw), and then play a more fair G2. If they are a RiP deck, play fair looking for Golgari charm or Decay. If they are not a RiP deck, then play a slower gameplan, hoping to looting into Flayer with 2 creatures under it on T3. Then play more fair to close out the game.
A couple of considerations from the previous posts.
[[Fanatical Firebrand]] seems really fun, but I don't think I ever want to draw this later in the game. I feel like maximizing life draws G2/3 is just too important if they have any interaction. Seems good, but I don't think the ceiling for this card is good enough to justify its low floor.
I think 4 Lingering Souls might be too much. I think 3 is a good spot, but that'll definitely require testing. Early on in the game, you don't want to play this card on its own. If you are you probably aren't winning because you aren't really helping your gameplan. The best thing is to Salvage, turning one of the milled cards into half a card. I don't see myself wanting to discard this card to Faithless, I can't to Troll, and don't see myself casting the first half unless it's late game.
Gather the pack seems great. If bloodbraid doesn't work out I will definitely play Gather instead.
I agree with KZGu1taR. Savage Summoning is way too cute, and I can imagine plenty of times where it just sits in your hand as you are dying. Prized Amalgam doesn't seem reliable enough to trigger with just Bloodghast. Plus it requires blue to cast from hand. As KZGu1taR said, I'd rather play dredge if I'll registering this card.
I like a 1 of Hazoret mainboard personally.
Mutagenic Growth, BI, and Tainted Strike don't seem to be what this deck wants. Nameless Inversion I could see as a fun-of, as it doubles as creature removal against stuff like hatebears. Sure the three aforementioned cards can be some surprise tech, but I think this whole deck is enough of a surprise. I guess less so now that it did good in a GP, but if we have a double-strike hexproof creature (also when pump is most effective; you can get too blown-out without hexproof; without double-strike BI is still +6/+6, but for the other two your really want double strike) then we are likely gonna win anyway, unless we are up against combo. I see this deck as a A+B, where A is flayer and B is the graveyard. If we have this we probably win. Adding a third element to this seems to clog the deck too much.
If you're not running the Whip you can use Gather the Pack as your 5th grisly salvage else you can stick with Commune with the Gods. Personally, I still don't like these 2 cards.
Any thought to Grapple with the Past as the fifth Grisly? Sure, it only digs 3 cards rather than 5, but it is instant compared to Gather/Commune being sorcery, and it can recover a thing from your grave that was already there (like if your opponent was able to destroy, counter, or force-discard your first Soulflayer) - you're not limited to picking from the new mulchings.
From what I've played, which isn't much I'll be honest, is to just get 'em game 1 (I only lost 1 game 1 in the tournament, and that was due to a T3 kill by an affinity played when I was on the draw), and then play a more fair G2. If they are a RiP deck, play fair looking for Golgari charm or Decay. If they are not a RiP deck, then play a slower gameplan, hoping to looting into Flayer with 2 creatures under it on T3. Then play more fair to close out the game.
Yea I find this is the line of play that the deck does most of the time. Surprise game 1 and then more of fair games in 2 & 3
A couple of considerations from the previous posts.
[[Fanatical Firebrand]] seems really fun, but I don't think I ever want to draw this later in the game. I feel like maximizing life draws G2/3 is just too important if they have any interaction. Seems good, but I don't think the ceiling for this card is good enough to justify its low floor.
I think 4 Lingering Souls might be too much. I think 3 is a good spot, but that'll definitely require testing. Early on in the game, you don't want to play this card on its own. If you are you probably aren't winning because you aren't really helping your gameplan. The best thing is to Salvage, turning one of the milled cards into half a card. I don't see myself wanting to discard this card to Faithless, I can't to Troll, and don't see myself casting the first half unless it's late game.
Regarding the Firebrand I agree it warrants more testing, sure you definitely don't want to draw this late game, but if your deck can't close the game by then you're pretty much in trouble already. I still think we need more 1 drops or 2 drops that can provide some kind of haste utility early game.
For Lingering Souls, you'll always want to discard them early as you're not looking for a white source to hardcast it from hand, I do agree 3 seem to be just fine, might even shave it to 2 depending.
Gather the pack seems great. If bloodbraid doesn't work out I will definitely play Gather instead.
How has bloodbraid work out so far for you? I understand the value you can generate from this but do you hit 4 mana sources by turn 4 often enough to cast it?
If you're not running the Whip you can use Gather the Pack as your 5th grisly salvage else you can stick with Commune with the Gods. Personally, I still don't like these 2 cards.
Any thought to Grapple with the Past as the fifth Grisly? Sure, it only digs 3 cards rather than 5, but it is instant compared to Gather/Commune being sorcery, and it can recover a thing from your grave that was already there (like if your opponent was able to destroy, counter, or force-discard your first Soulflayer) - you're not limited to picking from the new mulchings.
@Thatmarkguy Actually I haven't thought of this before! Getting back stuff from your graveyard seems like something this deck can also utilize. Certainly worth considering. I may try this out online for the next few games and see how it works out.
Mutagenic Growth, BI, and Tainted Strike don't seem to be what this deck wants. Nameless Inversion I could see as a fun-of, as it doubles as creature removal against stuff like hatebears. Sure the three aforementioned cards can be some surprise tech, but I think this whole deck is enough of a surprise. I guess less so now that it did good in a GP, but if we have a double-strike hexproof creature (also when pump is most effective; you can get too blown-out without hexproof; without double-strike BI is still +6/+6, but for the other two your really want double strike) then we are likely gonna win anyway, unless we are up against combo. I see this deck as a A+B, where A is flayer and B is the graveyard. If we have this we probably win. Adding a third element to this seems to clog the deck too much.
Yea, I think at least for this deck you need a combination of 5-6 creatures that gives you hexproof, 5-6 creatures that grants haste, 6-8 creatures that gives double strike, 7-8 creatures that gives evasion (flying) 5-6 creatures that gives indestructible, and 4-6 creatures that gives you lifelink to put you in the race in 1st matchup.
Speaking of flying + haste, how about a turn 1 Uktabi Drake??
I found Traverse to be a bad draw more than it was a good one. I liked the 8 hexproof guys with Striped Riverwinder, but I can't play 5 colors, so that's cut for the souls.
I wonder if Traverse the Ulvenwald is no longer necessary in Soulflayer deck now that Drogskol/Zetalpa replacing Chromanticore seems like the mainstream right now.
I wanted to try out a 2x Bloodbraid. This isn't the best Bloodbraid deck out there, but a T3 Elf into Souls or Troll Ascetic is still a powerful play, and can just get your opponent fairly much better. Sure sometimes you only hit Faithless Looting, but that's still advancing your gameplan. Bloodbraid also has haste for your Flayer.
I think BBE is a bit of gamble for this deck. Cascading into Loot, Grisly Salvage and Lotleth Troll is helpful with advancing plan A but cascading into Souls, Troll Ascetic and Sylvan only helps plan B. Although the card advantage is amazing, paying 4 mana and cascading into Souls is not our best gameplan unless opponent is playing GY hate but unfortunately we don't get to choose what to cascade into. Let me know if it worked for you though.
Mutagenic Growth, BI, and Tainted Strike don't seem to be what this deck wants. Nameless Inversion I could see as a fun-of, as it doubles as creature removal against stuff like hatebears. Sure the three aforementioned cards can be some surprise tech, but I think this whole deck is enough of a surprise. I guess less so now that it did good in a GP, but if we have a double-strike hexproof creature (also when pump is most effective; you can get too blown-out without hexproof; without double-strike BI is still +6/+6, but for the other two your really want double strike) then we are likely gonna win anyway, unless we are up against combo. I see this deck as a A+B, where A is flayer and B is the graveyard. If we have this we probably win. Adding a third element to this seems to clog the deck too much.
I am planning to run a few Nameless Inversion in my deck since I'm still using Traverse the Ulvenwald but no longer planning to play Chromanticore. Since I run 4 copies of Zetalpa and Drogskol, it should be a lot more useful as pump spell.
Quicksilver Amulet seems fine in the side for games are you expecting a ton of hate. Caryatid helps you cast and activate it, and you can start throwing out huge bodies every turn.
It's not perfect, but getting 4 mana is much easier than 7.
Red should be burn, Goblins, Dragons, draw/discard, and Standard-unplayable 5CMC cards with insane, lengthy effects that take 10 minutes to figure out what they do and another 20 to actually make their effects work on the field.
Any thought to Grapple with the Past as the fifth Grisly? Sure, it only digs 3 cards rather than 5, but it is instant compared to Gather/Commune being sorcery, and it can recover a thing from your grave that was already there (like if your opponent was able to destroy, counter, or force-discard your first Soulflayer) - you're not limited to picking from the new mulchings.
Grapple seems strong. Can play it in response to GY hate to get back a creature or something. Sometimes I want to Grisly and Flayer on T4, but only have 3 lands, and it's a possibility (but I'm no Frank Karsten, so idk what the odds are) to not hit a land on the Grisly. Grapple can guarantee to get a land if need be. Seems to have enough utility, but not sure if the utility outways the fact that it only mills 3. Will have to test, but I think it warrants a spot or 2. (As a side benefit, can counter a surgical if that's your opponents gameplan.)
Yea, I think at least for this deck you need a combination of 5-6 creatures that gives you hexproof, 5-6 creatures that grants haste, 6-8 creatures that gives double strike, 7-8 creatures that gives evasion (flying) 5-6 creatures that gives indestructible, and 4-6 creatures that gives you lifelink to put you in the race in 1st matchup.
I'm personally leaning closer to 7-8 hexproof. Just seems so important. Often I'd just win with a (chrome/zetalpa/samut)+hexproof Flayer. It's slower than also giving haste, but the only answers are a board wipe or blessed alliance pretty much, and with Zetalpa only Alliance + the Tron board wipes work. A 4/4 Flying, Vigilance, Doublestrike creature that can't be removed ends most games.
I think BBE is a bit of gamble for this deck. Cascading into Loot, Grisly Salvage and Lotleth Troll is helpful with advancing plan A but cascading into Souls, Troll Ascetic and Sylvan only helps plan B. Although the card advantage is amazing, paying 4 mana and cascading into Souls is not our best gameplan unless opponent is playing GY hate but unfortunately we don't get to choose what to cascade into. Let me know if it worked for you though.
I'll probably be testing BBE this weekend if I can get my hands on some copies. But since I can't register Gamble in modern, then this'll have to do.
To be more serious, BBE is a haste enabler for Flayer that seems potentially good if you get hated out enough to be forced to play fair. I'm not sure if I'd rather see a Hazoret, Samut, or BBE in my hand if I'm forced to play fair.
Many games have been won on a hardcast Samut. After I play Flayer, I often transition into playing fairly, and get enough mana to cast Samut. Sometimes I'm stuck on 3 or 4 lands, but BBE will still be easier to cast then Samut. If I can cast Samut, I should be fine casting BBE most games when I need to.
Quicksilver Amulet seems fine in the side for games are you expecting a ton of hate. Caryatid helps you cast and activate it, and you can start throwing out huge bodies every turn.
It's not perfect, but getting 4 mana is much easier than 7.
As long as we side in removal/disruption spells alongside with Quicksilver Amulet, it seems fine against a non-aggro match up.
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What do you guys think about a 1 of Conflagrate?
Sure we're not dredge, but it doubles as a discard outlet and a removal spell.
Also maybe a Gnaw to the Bone sideboard?
I'm probably trying to get too cute with the flashback, but hey, gotta experiment somewhere.
I played some more games, lose some more games, and tweaked the deck some more. This version by far is the most resilient one coming from me, and it won't fold if you didn't draw your soulflayers and have to grind the long game:
Now after comparing and testing with the version from GP Lyon, here's what I found so far: Drogskol Reaver is too gimmicky in this deck. You don't need more than 4 nigh-uncastable creatures so if you drew this in your hand you will feel bad. Spark Elemental while good if you're very aggresive, has the problem of not being able to sacrifice it at will, so if you draw this late and you don't have a haste creature in your graveyard to feed Flayer its harder to close out games. PLus you can't chump block with this card. Therefore I'm keeping the firebrands in place of this slot. Falkenrath Aristocrat is okay but I prefer Hazoret in its place. Lightning Axe has a problem of not being able to deal with indestructible creatures or anything beyond 5 toughness, so its utility is kind of limited. Plus if you dont have anything to discard it to its basically dead.
Here are some of the best performers I found in my list so far:
1.Grapple with the Past is seriously good compared to Gather the pack or Commune with the Gods. If you got to late game and there are creatures like discarded soulflayers or some fetchlands that you need to get back into your hand if you're stuck on 2 lands, this card is like your tutor. I've got to a game vs Jund where i'm recurring my Vampire nighthawk turn after turn to keep my opponent's tarmogoyf in check until I drew my flayers.
2. Vampire Nighthawk is a huge surprise. Don't underestimate how having a deathtouch lifelink creature on the board can stop an aggro opponent cold in their attacks. Plus having flying as another keyword is a huge boost to your flayers. Gifted Aetherborncan be considered over the Vampire if you decide to go with a lower cmc, but you have to judge how important is the flying keyword to you in this case.
3. Samut, Voice of Dissent I find that its a better replacement over Drogskol because of the double strike and haste mainly. If you manage to feed another hexproof or indestructible creature to flayer in addition to Samut, you are basically giving the opponent a lot of damage pressure. If you grind to 5cmc, you can even flash it in to a surprise opponent and mess with their ground combat.
After I moved Lingering Souls into the sideboard, I included Sigarda, Host of Heronsas an additional hexproof flying beater that can feed flayer in addition to grinding the slow matchups. Cairn Wanderer is another good card as your 5th flayer if you didn't draw it, since you're most likely going to have all your keyword creatures in the gy anyway.
A note on Whip of Erebos: You may or may not want to try this as a 1-of as giving all your creatures lifelink can be swingy, but there are some matchups where you don't want to draw into this. Its decent vs aggro/fair matchups, but in the face of control and combo you can't do anything with this.
Now about sideboard cards: I have not encountered any situations whereby I feel the need to play Surgical Extraction, as you don't have a good way of filling opponent's gy, unless you are playing the thoughtseizes and inquisiton. Fatal Push, while good, has a problem of not being able to deal with Indestructible creatures like Rhonas or Hazoret, and against Bedlam Reveler and other crits more than 5cmc it cannot do anything.
So for their replacement, Path to Exile/Dismember is worth considering over Fatal Push depending on your meta. I put Damnation in here because if you encounter Mardu Pyromancer type strategies where they flood the board with tokens and you are forced to go on the defensive, this will help you clear the board and buy you precious time. Plus, if you already have an indestructible creature on your side, that makes this a 1-sided boardwipe.
Sideboarding tips: There are times where siding out some number of zetalpa, grisly salvage, or even all of your bloodghasts is correct, ss you don't want to feed scoozes or rip too often. Oh and don't worry too much about relics and grafdigger cages. They can't do much to our deck.
Have not played against a mirror yet so not sure how this will shore up.
Also, in some meta, having abrupt decays in your main may be a good choice too.
Any thought to Grapple with the Past as the fifth Grisly? Sure, it only digs 3 cards rather than 5, but it is instant compared to Gather/Commune being sorcery, and it can recover a thing from your grave that was already there (like if your opponent was able to destroy, counter, or force-discard your first Soulflayer) - you're not limited to picking from the new mulchings.
I am currently testing Tracker's Instincts. It forces you to keep a creature card but it shouldn't be too bad if I had Lotleth Troll in play or have Faithless Looting in hand/graveyard so I can discard it next turn. Best thing about this card is that it lets you dig for 8 card single-handedly. Sometimes Grisly Salvage can whiff and there is nothing else to cast the next turn. In those scenario, it is better to have Tracker's Instinct in graveyard then nothing. Grapple with the Past seems bit unreliable but being able to choose land card is something Gather/Tracker is unable to do. I think it worth test playing!
What do you guys think about a 1 of Conflagrate?
Sure we're not dredge, but it doubles as a discard outlet and a removal spell.
Also maybe a Gnaw to the Bone sideboard?
I'm probably trying to get too cute with the flashback, but hey, gotta experiment somewhere.
Conflagrate seems really good if we had it in the graveyard early in the game while our hand is still full. It kind of similar to Nahiri's Wrath except Conflagrate has flashback so I think Conflagate is strictly better.
Depending on the metagame I think Gnaw to the Bone is a great card, especially against burn. Sometimes we don't draw Collective Brutality or Soulflayer doesn't have lifelink. I'm not sure about Conflagate but I can see Gnaw to the Bone being played.
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Spark Elemental while good if you're very aggresive, has the problem of not being able to sacrifice it at will, so if you draw this late and you don't have a haste creature in your graveyard to feed Flayer its harder to close out games. PLus you can't chump block with this card. Therefore I'm keeping the firebrands in place of this slot.
Here are some of the best performers I found in my list so far:
1.Grapple with the Past is seriously good compared to Gather the pack or Commune with the Gods. If you got to late game and there are creatures like discarded soulflayers or some fetchlands that you need to get back into your hand if you're stuck on 2 lands, this card is like your tutor. I've got to a game vs Jund where i'm recurring my Vampire nighthawk turn after turn to keep my opponent's tarmogoyf in check until I drew my flayers.
In some case using Grapple with the Past to recur Fanatical Firebrand sound useful too. Shooting down 2 mana dork sound fun. Talk about mana dorks, I've encountered quite a number of GR land destruction decks on magic online lately. Being able to recover destroyed land, especially basic land, sound useful!
3. Samut, Voice of Dissent I find that its a better replacement over Drogskol because of the double strike and haste mainly. If you manage to feed another hexproof or indestructible creature to flayer in addition to Samut, you are basically giving the opponent a lot of damage pressure. If you grind to 5cmc, you can even flash it in to a surprise opponent and mess with their ground combat.
I agree that Samut is better then Drogskol. Although Samut by itself is sort of unreliable since it lacks evasion, it shines against non-creature deck such as Ad Nauseam, Storm and Scapeshift. I've also had multiple games where I won thanks to hardcast Samut in grindy match up.
After I moved Lingering Souls into the sideboard, I included Sigarda, Host of Heronsas an additional hexproof flying beater that can feed flayer in addition to grinding the slow matchups. Cairn Wanderer is another good card as your 5th flayer if you didn't draw it, since you're most likely going to have all your keyword creatures in the gy anyway.
Although I am a big fan of Cairn Wanderer, I think it better to have third Samut or lingering souls in your deck. It probably better to have 4 spirit token in play for 5 mana compared to a 5 mana creature with no protection. I like Sigarda tho, having protection from Liliana of the Veil and All is Dust is great!
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Although I am a big fan of Cairn Wanderer, I think it better to have third Samut or lingering souls in your deck. It probably better to have 4 spirit token in play for 5 mana compared to a 5 mana creature with no protection. I like Sigarda tho, having protection from Liliana of the Veil and All is Dust is great!
Hehe I actually replaced the Lingering Souls with Vampire Nighthawk since they're in the 3cmc slot. But you do have a point. As for Cairn Wanderer, you're never gonna cast it with no creatures in your graveyard. But there have been games where i sided out Cairn Wanderer because Lingering Souls is more necessary there.
Oh btw, anybody thought of using Cavern of Souls instead of Savage summoning for the counter matchups?
This deck focuses on giving Soulflayer double strike and haste with additional beaters for faster clock. For this reason, I decided to run Flamewake Phoenix instead of Bloodghast. It doesn't recur as easily but it can actually give haste to soulflayer. Phoenix has good synergy with Lotleth Troll as well. Once Phoenix is in play, it is usually better beater compared to Bloodghast since it has evasion.
4 Fanatical Firebrand is still an experiment. I am primarily interested in it's interaction with Grapple with the Past against RG land destruction deck. Fanatic can get rid of mana dork while Grapple with the Past can recur Fanatic or recover land that was destroyed. The main target for Grapple is Soulflayer but in case flayer is not in graveyard there should be a variety of cards that can benefit from Grapple.
Ideally I don't want to play 8 uncastable creature (Drogskol and Zetalpa) but this deck has decently low mana curve which should cover it. Excluding Drogskol and Zetapla, every card in this deck is 3 mana and below. In this case I don't think there is reason I should replace Drogskol for Chromanticore or Samut. There is already plenty of haste creature for Soulflayer, and Chroma is as difficult to cast as Drogskol in my opinion.
Oh btw, anybody thought of using Cavern of Souls instead of Savage summoning for the counter matchups?
Few people here including me has been using Cavern of Souls for a while. I liked searching for Cavern with Traverse the Ulvenwald but in a list without Traverse, I'm not sure how useful it is.
I actually have thought of using flamewake phoenix instead of bloodghast due to budget difference. I do like that the bird has consistent haste and evasion, unlike bloodghast. I still dont like that drogskol reaver tho haha. Your list skews towards red a little more but overall seem pretty neat.
Would love to try a mirror match against your deck
I definitely like Flamewake Phoenix in this deck at lot more than Bloodghast. Bloodghast is only really good against edicts and sometimes good in the beatdown, but even then is a 2/1 that can't block.
Flamewake, although harder to recur, has evasion and always has haste, making beatdown a little better. It also have 2 abilities that can transfer over to a Flayer.
I think Flamewake Phoenix fills more roles than Bloodghast. It is better at the beatdown, always has haste (when compared to Bloodghasts sometimes), with only a moderately more difficult recursion, but I don't even think this is too much of a hindrance. If you don't have really anything going on expect maybe some souls tokens and a bunch of lands in hand, then I don't see Bloodghast really helping if it can't block and it gets outclassed by nearly every creature that's actually played.
My very first cut at this deck, in Standard at the time, ran Gurmag Swiftwing as its haste flying souper. First Strike, too. Mulching up a Swiftwing and a Sagu Mauler into a T3 flying haste first strike hexproof trample Soulflayer in Standard was good times.
Because we don't want to play too many uncastable creature we don't want to play Chromanticore anymore, then we lack our fifth card type which was enchantment. Since it seems like Fanatical Firebrand is working all right for many people, I thought it might be a good time to put a spotlight on Bomat Courier. Bomat only has single keyword (similar to Firebrand), but it the only keyword missing from both Zetalpa and Drogskol. As mentioned by Kingsclub in the past post, sacrificing Bomat while Traverse is on stack provides delirium and haste creature in the graveyard at same time. Also, being able to refill our hand by sacrificing Bomat can be a huge plus in some match up. We can perhaps play a few Grapple with the Past in case we dump Soulflayer in the graveyard with Bomat's ability. I'll post the deck list after testing the deck few more times.
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I recently spotted a couple of Soulflayer lists in my games where the deck's playstyle either skew towards a more grindy game or a straight out aggresive take. Here's my latest lists for reference:
I have been tinkering with Path to Exile in the sideboard for a while now, but I can't seem to justify its inclusion given how little white we have in our manabase.
Most notably one of my grindier versions do not play grisly salvage, instead replacing it with 4 grapple with the past. Reason being its less restrictive on your mana, and if your opponent decides to destroy or manipulate your lands when you only have non basics and 1 forest out, grapple will still help you dig towards what you need. since you already are discarding quite a lot, you won't really be needing the grisly salvage's extra number of cards it dig.
I also swapped the Godless Shrine out for Sacred Foundry because if you nab Godless on Turn 1, you can't play Faithless, and we dont have any black cards to cast on turn 1 anyways.
Phoenix is not very hard to trigger due to most of my games where I cast soulflayer on turn 3 or 4 i still have some red sources up to pay for its cost. Its also quite easy to trigger with lotleth troll discards.
PS: I managed to hardcast Sigarda, Host of Herons twice in a row against a monoblack list. Feel so good when opposing Gatekeepers and Phyrexian Obliterators were suddenly invalidated.
The aggro version has Flamewake Phoenix and Bloodghast in it(much like the B/R hollow one), in case you need to go the aggresive route in game 1 aside from casting your soulflayers. If you bust out a doublestriking soulflayer with 1 red mana up and a phoenix in your gy, you can get in for potentially 10 damage in that turn. This list has little lifelink in it so you may want to watch out for opposing aggro decks.
I realize we have very limited ways of dealing with tron, so I have Crumble to Dust in one of the sides.
If you're looking to add a 20th land in your games, I would suggest trying out Raging Ravine in addition to Cavern in case you flood out.
Still torn between Gifted Aetherborn and Vampire Nighthawk tho. Its so good to cast the Aetherborn on turn 2 facing down opposing aggression but Vampire has 3 relevant keywords on it so hurrmmmm....
A surprise thing I found is that almost nobody plays Kolaghan's Command in the sideboard. Why is that? It seem like a good include in our kind of deck. I've been thinking of replacing the Lingering Souls with this, as Lingering Souls doesn't seem to do too much in our strategy.
Tasigur also seem like a good sideboard option when we need some sort of advantage for grindy games.
Granted the Soulflayer strategy is still very weak in hyper aggresive and combos matchups if we can't close out by turn 4 or 5, as our deck interact very little turn 1 and turn 2 against opposing creatures and no good way to deal with huge bombs, so I think we need to find a way to shore up these weaknesses which will help push our deck's standing a little higher in this new modern meta.
In regard to this, our Zombie guy is actually one of our workarounds if an edict effect should get through.
Plus if we somehow got boardwipe or the Soulflayer beatdown plan didn't get through then we have a fallback plan by swinging with our 1/1s and 2/1s chipping away the last few drops of lifepoints.
Striped Riverwinder requires us to dip into a 4th/5th color too much, which is not what we want in this deck.
Having a back up plan of hardcasting (with the help of Birds/Caryatid) Samut, Chromanticore (or even bestowing a Thrun/Troll Ascetic) or beating down with a creature buffed by Rhonas seems like good thing to have.
As for the all-in GY version, since it is already running Bloodghast why not add Prized Amalgam over Lingering Souls ?
I've seen Commune with the Gods in some lists but without any enchantments in the deck Gather the Pack is pretty much strictly better.
It might even be better than Faithless Looting.
Savage Summoning is way too cute imho, there are other ways to beat counters like Guttural Response/Ricochet Trap.
Well to be fair, this deck IS reliant on the graveyard, because that is where it focus its strategy, just like any other combo decks. Take for example if you can remove tron lands from Tron based decks before they even go off, then they are pretty much screwed anyway.
1. If you're talking about hardcasting, then you're going to grind the long game already. Thats why you have Sylvan Caryatid in the main. However, a noteworthy consideration is that we can swap the a couple of drogskol reaver or zetalpa for creatures like hazoret or gifted aetherborn, in case we need to hardcast some stuff. Very often, you're discarding the drogskol and zetalpa to lotleth trolls or faithless anyway, so you pretty much don't hardcast them so often.
2. I think if we are playing prized amalgam then we might as well be playing dredge already. And it being a delayed trigger will leave your gy open for scoozes or relic/nihil spellbomb shenanigans.
3. I agree with gather the pack as grisly salvage 5 - 6. However faithless looting is a turn 1 play and can set you up for a turn 2 soulflayer potentially.
4. You're not playing a counter game with control decks. Playing counters does not help in advancing your strategy. At least Savage summoning can support your beatdown plan somewhat. But just like you, I'm thinking Savage Summoning is just too cute, and it can be replaced with other stuff in the Side.
I think moving forward Hazoret can be added into the maindeck, given how often you will end up with 1 card or less in hand by turn 3 or 4. Mutagenic Growth/Become Immense and Tainted Strike can even be included as some kind of suprise tech.
Gotta admit 20 lands feel like a lot given how low our curve actually is (look at how many 1 drops or 2 drops we can churn out), so the manabase is back to 19. You don't really need the white source that often as you are playing more in jund colors running the looting and what not. But if you raised your overall curve with the deck it may be correct to stick back to 20 lands.
Bloodghastis good if you're in the race, but if you got brick walled by scoozes or big creatures its basically worthless. I might be swapping him with Gifted Aetherborn/Vampire Nighthawk since deathtouch and lifelink are pretty relevant going for the grind. Plus if your meta is aggro/burn heavy you really need those lifegains to shore up those matches.
Hazoret is a brilliant card. Works well with our strategy since we are looking to discard cards anyway.
An inclusion of 1 Cairn Wanderer and 1 Whip of Erebos in the main is good for our Game 1 for more surprise factor, you can suddenly whip back a hasty Drogskol reaver, Hazoret, Zetapla, or your Chromanticores/Samut/accidentally discarded soulflayers to unsuspecting opponents.
If you're not running the Whip I guess you can use Gather the Pack as your 5th grisly salvage else you can stick with Commune with the Gods. Personally, I still don't like these 2 cards.
Moving forward, a more optimal list may look like this, with some variants:
Lands
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
Creatures
4 Bloodghast / Gifted Aetherborn / Vampire Nighthawk (MU dependent)
3 Drogskol Reaver
1 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Cairn Wanderer (or other stuff)
4 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Soulflayer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Lingering Souls
1 Whip of Erebos / Gather the Pack / Commune with the Gods
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Collective Brutality
3 Fatal Push
1 Blessed Alliance (shore up Bogles/infect/burn matches)
2 Pithing Needle (fight them Jaces and Gideons)
2 Surgical Extraction / Thoughtseize / Inquisition of Kozilek (shore up vs combo/problem permanents)
1 Tainted Strike (or the 4th Lingering Souls maybe)
In the maybeboards, Apostle's Blessing, Mutagenic Growth, Wear//Tear, Heroic Intervention or some other creatures(preferably lesser than 5cmc), Silumgar, the drifting Death can be considered for postboard games where we need to rely less on the graveyard.
Also, its entirely possible that you can swap out lingering souls into the sideboard, leaving your vampires and bloodghast in the main for a more aggressive Game 1
4x Soulflayer
4x Chromanticore
3x Samut, Voice of Dissent
4x Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4x Sylvan Caryatid
1x Hazoret the Fervent
1x Keranos, God of Storms
4x Striped Riverwinder
16 Spells
4x Faithless Looting
4x Traverse the Ulvenwald
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Cathartic Reunion
4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x City of Brass
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Blood Crypt
1x Stomping Ground
1x Watery Grave
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Mountain
3x Ancient Grudge
3x Stubborn Denial
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Golgari Charm
Some sub-optimal choices here because of budget and availability, like a mountain and Polluted Delta instead of Catacombs, but otherwise a solid list.
I agree that the deck is graveyard reliant, but the only card that really hurts this deck is Rest in Peace. Twice I played against a T1 relic, followed by T2 relic, on the draw. The thing with this deck, is all you need to do is resolve a Faithless Looting, discard a hexproof creature and a Chromemanticore or Zetalpa. After Faithless resolves, because you have priority, you can cast Soulflayer before they pop the relic. The same is true for Salvage, but not for Lotleth Troll. RiP decks were harder. One of my losses was to a GW Hatebears with RiP, Scooze, and big Thalia.
There is another, more optimized decklist, that I want to try out, inspired partly by the GP list.
1x Falkenrath Aristocrat
4x Soulflayer
4x Chromanticore
3x Samut, Voice of Dissent
4x Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4x Sylvan Caryatid
1x Hazoret the Fervent
2x Bloodbraid Elf
4x Troll Ascetic
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Faithless Looting
3x Lingering Souls
4x Grisly Salvage
18 Land
4x Polluted Delta
4x Bloodstained Mire
3x City of Brass
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Blood Crypt
1x Stomping Ground
1x Godless Shrine
1x Swamp
1x Forest
3x Ancient Grudge
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Golgari Charm
3x Flex
I found Traverse to be a bad draw more than it was a good one. I liked the 8 hexproof guys with Striped Riverwinder, but I can't play 5 colors, so that's cut for the souls.
I wanted to try out a 2x Bloodbraid. This isn't the best Bloodbraid deck out there, but a T3 Elf into Souls or Troll Ascetic is still a powerful play, and can just get your opponent fairly much better. Sure sometimes you only hit Faithless Looting, but that's still advancing your gameplan. Bloodbraid also has haste for your Flayer.
In the flex slots in the sideboard I'll probably just be testing 1x Abrupt Decay, 1x Surgical, and 1x Blood Moon. Mostly because of availability of the cards I own, but I'll probably play around with the sideboard a bit more.
From what I've played, which isn't much I'll be honest, is to just get 'em game 1 (I only lost 1 game 1 in the tournament, and that was due to a T3 kill by an affinity played when I was on the draw), and then play a more fair G2. If they are a RiP deck, play fair looking for Golgari charm or Decay. If they are not a RiP deck, then play a slower gameplan, hoping to looting into Flayer with 2 creatures under it on T3. Then play more fair to close out the game.
A couple of considerations from the previous posts.
[[Fanatical Firebrand]] seems really fun, but I don't think I ever want to draw this later in the game. I feel like maximizing life draws G2/3 is just too important if they have any interaction. Seems good, but I don't think the ceiling for this card is good enough to justify its low floor.
I think 4 Lingering Souls might be too much. I think 3 is a good spot, but that'll definitely require testing. Early on in the game, you don't want to play this card on its own. If you are you probably aren't winning because you aren't really helping your gameplan. The best thing is to Salvage, turning one of the milled cards into half a card. I don't see myself wanting to discard this card to Faithless, I can't to Troll, and don't see myself casting the first half unless it's late game.
Gather the pack seems great. If bloodbraid doesn't work out I will definitely play Gather instead.
I agree with KZGu1taR. Savage Summoning is way too cute, and I can imagine plenty of times where it just sits in your hand as you are dying. Prized Amalgam doesn't seem reliable enough to trigger with just Bloodghast. Plus it requires blue to cast from hand. As KZGu1taR said, I'd rather play dredge if I'll registering this card.
I like a 1 of Hazoret mainboard personally.
Mutagenic Growth, BI, and Tainted Strike don't seem to be what this deck wants. Nameless Inversion I could see as a fun-of, as it doubles as creature removal against stuff like hatebears. Sure the three aforementioned cards can be some surprise tech, but I think this whole deck is enough of a surprise. I guess less so now that it did good in a GP, but if we have a double-strike hexproof creature (also when pump is most effective; you can get too blown-out without hexproof; without double-strike BI is still +6/+6, but for the other two your really want double strike) then we are likely gonna win anyway, unless we are up against combo. I see this deck as a A+B, where A is flayer and B is the graveyard. If we have this we probably win. Adding a third element to this seems to clog the deck too much.
Any thought to Grapple with the Past as the fifth Grisly? Sure, it only digs 3 cards rather than 5, but it is instant compared to Gather/Commune being sorcery, and it can recover a thing from your grave that was already there (like if your opponent was able to destroy, counter, or force-discard your first Soulflayer) - you're not limited to picking from the new mulchings.
Yea I find this is the line of play that the deck does most of the time. Surprise game 1 and then more of fair games in 2 & 3
Regarding the Firebrand I agree it warrants more testing, sure you definitely don't want to draw this late game, but if your deck can't close the game by then you're pretty much in trouble already. I still think we need more 1 drops or 2 drops that can provide some kind of haste utility early game.
For Lingering Souls, you'll always want to discard them early as you're not looking for a white source to hardcast it from hand, I do agree 3 seem to be just fine, might even shave it to 2 depending.
How has bloodbraid work out so far for you? I understand the value you can generate from this but do you hit 4 mana sources by turn 4 often enough to cast it?
@Thatmarkguy Actually I haven't thought of this before! Getting back stuff from your graveyard seems like something this deck can also utilize. Certainly worth considering. I may try this out online for the next few games and see how it works out.
Yea, I think at least for this deck you need a combination of 5-6 creatures that gives you hexproof, 5-6 creatures that grants haste, 6-8 creatures that gives double strike, 7-8 creatures that gives evasion (flying) 5-6 creatures that gives indestructible, and 4-6 creatures that gives you lifelink to put you in the race in 1st matchup.
Speaking of flying + haste, how about a turn 1 Uktabi Drake??
I wonder if Traverse the Ulvenwald is no longer necessary in Soulflayer deck now that Drogskol/Zetalpa replacing Chromanticore seems like the mainstream right now.
I think BBE is a bit of gamble for this deck. Cascading into Loot, Grisly Salvage and Lotleth Troll is helpful with advancing plan A but cascading into Souls, Troll Ascetic and Sylvan only helps plan B. Although the card advantage is amazing, paying 4 mana and cascading into Souls is not our best gameplan unless opponent is playing GY hate but unfortunately we don't get to choose what to cascade into. Let me know if it worked for you though.
I am planning to run a few Nameless Inversion in my deck since I'm still using Traverse the Ulvenwald but no longer planning to play Chromanticore. Since I run 4 copies of Zetalpa and Drogskol, it should be a lot more useful as pump spell.
It's not perfect, but getting 4 mana is much easier than 7.
Grapple seems strong. Can play it in response to GY hate to get back a creature or something. Sometimes I want to Grisly and Flayer on T4, but only have 3 lands, and it's a possibility (but I'm no Frank Karsten, so idk what the odds are) to not hit a land on the Grisly. Grapple can guarantee to get a land if need be. Seems to have enough utility, but not sure if the utility outways the fact that it only mills 3. Will have to test, but I think it warrants a spot or 2. (As a side benefit, can counter a surgical if that's your opponents gameplan.)
I'm personally leaning closer to 7-8 hexproof. Just seems so important. Often I'd just win with a (chrome/zetalpa/samut)+hexproof Flayer. It's slower than also giving haste, but the only answers are a board wipe or blessed alliance pretty much, and with Zetalpa only Alliance + the Tron board wipes work. A 4/4 Flying, Vigilance, Doublestrike creature that can't be removed ends most games.
Lol, I want to play this card more for the reaction of my opponent when I play this T1 G1.
I'll probably be testing BBE this weekend if I can get my hands on some copies. But since I can't register Gamble in modern, then this'll have to do.
To be more serious, BBE is a haste enabler for Flayer that seems potentially good if you get hated out enough to be forced to play fair. I'm not sure if I'd rather see a Hazoret, Samut, or BBE in my hand if I'm forced to play fair.
Many games have been won on a hardcast Samut. After I play Flayer, I often transition into playing fairly, and get enough mana to cast Samut. Sometimes I'm stuck on 3 or 4 lands, but BBE will still be easier to cast then Samut. If I can cast Samut, I should be fine casting BBE most games when I need to.
As long as we side in removal/disruption spells alongside with Quicksilver Amulet, it seems fine against a non-aggro match up.
Sure we're not dredge, but it doubles as a discard outlet and a removal spell.
Also maybe a Gnaw to the Bone sideboard?
I'm probably trying to get too cute with the flashback, but hey, gotta experiment somewhere.
Lands
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
Creatures
4 Bloodghast
2 Samut, Voice of Dissent
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Hazoret the Fervent
1 Cairn Wanderer
3 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Soulflayer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grisly Salvage
2 Grapple with the Past
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fatal Push
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Pithing Needle
2 Damnation
3 Lingering Souls
Maybeboard
1 Drogskol Reaver (for lols)
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Cavern of Souls (main deck for counter matchup)
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent (3rd copy)
3 thoughtseize
2 Path to Exile
2 Dismember
2 Timely Reinforcements
3 Vault Skirge
3 Gifted Aetherborn
3 Uktabi Drake (for lols)
Now after comparing and testing with the version from GP Lyon, here's what I found so far:
Drogskol Reaver is too gimmicky in this deck. You don't need more than 4 nigh-uncastable creatures so if you drew this in your hand you will feel bad.
Spark Elemental while good if you're very aggresive, has the problem of not being able to sacrifice it at will, so if you draw this late and you don't have a haste creature in your graveyard to feed Flayer its harder to close out games. PLus you can't chump block with this card. Therefore I'm keeping the firebrands in place of this slot.
Falkenrath Aristocrat is okay but I prefer Hazoret in its place.
Lightning Axe has a problem of not being able to deal with indestructible creatures or anything beyond 5 toughness, so its utility is kind of limited. Plus if you dont have anything to discard it to its basically dead.
Here are some of the best performers I found in my list so far:
1.Grapple with the Past is seriously good compared to Gather the pack or Commune with the Gods. If you got to late game and there are creatures like discarded soulflayers or some fetchlands that you need to get back into your hand if you're stuck on 2 lands, this card is like your tutor. I've got to a game vs Jund where i'm recurring my Vampire nighthawk turn after turn to keep my opponent's tarmogoyf in check until I drew my flayers.
2. Vampire Nighthawk is a huge surprise. Don't underestimate how having a deathtouch lifelink creature on the board can stop an aggro opponent cold in their attacks. Plus having flying as another keyword is a huge boost to your flayers. Gifted Aetherborncan be considered over the Vampire if you decide to go with a lower cmc, but you have to judge how important is the flying keyword to you in this case.
3. Samut, Voice of Dissent I find that its a better replacement over Drogskol because of the double strike and haste mainly. If you manage to feed another hexproof or indestructible creature to flayer in addition to Samut, you are basically giving the opponent a lot of damage pressure. If you grind to 5cmc, you can even flash it in to a surprise opponent and mess with their ground combat.
After I moved Lingering Souls into the sideboard, I included Sigarda, Host of Heronsas an additional hexproof flying beater that can feed flayer in addition to grinding the slow matchups. Cairn Wanderer is another good card as your 5th flayer if you didn't draw it, since you're most likely going to have all your keyword creatures in the gy anyway.
A note on Whip of Erebos: You may or may not want to try this as a 1-of as giving all your creatures lifelink can be swingy, but there are some matchups where you don't want to draw into this. Its decent vs aggro/fair matchups, but in the face of control and combo you can't do anything with this.
Now about sideboard cards: I have not encountered any situations whereby I feel the need to play Surgical Extraction, as you don't have a good way of filling opponent's gy, unless you are playing the thoughtseizes and inquisiton. Fatal Push, while good, has a problem of not being able to deal with Indestructible creatures like Rhonas or Hazoret, and against Bedlam Reveler and other crits more than 5cmc it cannot do anything.
So for their replacement, Path to Exile/Dismember is worth considering over Fatal Push depending on your meta. I put Damnation in here because if you encounter Mardu Pyromancer type strategies where they flood the board with tokens and you are forced to go on the defensive, this will help you clear the board and buy you precious time. Plus, if you already have an indestructible creature on your side, that makes this a 1-sided boardwipe.
Blessed Alliance, Ancient Grudge, Abrupt Decay, Collective Brutality, Pithing Needle are all over performers in their function against respective matchups. However I'm not sure about each of their optimal numbers yet. You may want to experiment with them.
Sideboarding tips: There are times where siding out some number of zetalpa, grisly salvage, or even all of your bloodghasts is correct, ss you don't want to feed scoozes or rip too often. Oh and don't worry too much about relics and grafdigger cages. They can't do much to our deck.
Have not played against a mirror yet so not sure how this will shore up.
Also, in some meta, having abrupt decays in your main may be a good choice too.
I am currently testing Tracker's Instincts. It forces you to keep a creature card but it shouldn't be too bad if I had Lotleth Troll in play or have Faithless Looting in hand/graveyard so I can discard it next turn. Best thing about this card is that it lets you dig for 8 card single-handedly. Sometimes Grisly Salvage can whiff and there is nothing else to cast the next turn. In those scenario, it is better to have Tracker's Instinct in graveyard then nothing.
Grapple with the Past seems bit unreliable but being able to choose land card is something Gather/Tracker is unable to do. I think it worth test playing!
Conflagrate seems really good if we had it in the graveyard early in the game while our hand is still full. It kind of similar to Nahiri's Wrath except Conflagrate has flashback so I think Conflagate is strictly better.
Depending on the metagame I think Gnaw to the Bone is a great card, especially against burn. Sometimes we don't draw Collective Brutality or Soulflayer doesn't have lifelink. I'm not sure about Conflagate but I can see Gnaw to the Bone being played.
In some case using Grapple with the Past to recur Fanatical Firebrand sound useful too. Shooting down 2 mana dork sound fun. Talk about mana dorks, I've encountered quite a number of GR land destruction decks on magic online lately. Being able to recover destroyed land, especially basic land, sound useful!
I agree that Samut is better then Drogskol. Although Samut by itself is sort of unreliable since it lacks evasion, it shines against non-creature deck such as Ad Nauseam, Storm and Scapeshift. I've also had multiple games where I won thanks to hardcast Samut in grindy match up.
Although I am a big fan of Cairn Wanderer, I think it better to have third Samut or lingering souls in your deck. It probably better to have 4 spirit token in play for 5 mana compared to a 5 mana creature with no protection. I like Sigarda tho, having protection from Liliana of the Veil and All is Dust is great!
Hehe I actually replaced the Lingering Souls with Vampire Nighthawk since they're in the 3cmc slot. But you do have a point. As for Cairn Wanderer, you're never gonna cast it with no creatures in your graveyard. But there have been games where i sided out Cairn Wanderer because Lingering Souls is more necessary there.
Oh btw, anybody thought of using Cavern of Souls instead of Savage summoning for the counter matchups?
4x Soulflayer
4x Sylvan Caryatid
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Fanatical Firebrand
3x Flamewake Phoenix
4x Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4x Drogskol Reaver
other spell x14
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
2x Grapple with the Past
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Bloodstained Mire
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Cavern of Souls
2x Mana Confluence
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Blood Crypt
1x Stomping Ground
1x Godless Shrine
1x Swamp
1x Forest
4x Thoughtseize
2x Collective Brutality
4x Ancient Grudge
2x Nihil Spellbomb
2x Arupt Decay
1x Golgari Charm
This deck focuses on giving Soulflayer double strike and haste with additional beaters for faster clock. For this reason, I decided to run Flamewake Phoenix instead of Bloodghast. It doesn't recur as easily but it can actually give haste to soulflayer. Phoenix has good synergy with Lotleth Troll as well. Once Phoenix is in play, it is usually better beater compared to Bloodghast since it has evasion.
4 Fanatical Firebrand is still an experiment. I am primarily interested in it's interaction with Grapple with the Past against RG land destruction deck. Fanatic can get rid of mana dork while Grapple with the Past can recur Fanatic or recover land that was destroyed. The main target for Grapple is Soulflayer but in case flayer is not in graveyard there should be a variety of cards that can benefit from Grapple.
Ideally I don't want to play 8 uncastable creature (Drogskol and Zetalpa) but this deck has decently low mana curve which should cover it. Excluding Drogskol and Zetapla, every card in this deck is 3 mana and below. In this case I don't think there is reason I should replace Drogskol for Chromanticore or Samut. There is already plenty of haste creature for Soulflayer, and Chroma is as difficult to cast as Drogskol in my opinion.
Any advice is welcome!
Few people here including me has been using Cavern of Souls for a while. I liked searching for Cavern with Traverse the Ulvenwald but in a list without Traverse, I'm not sure how useful it is.
Would love to try a mirror match against your deck
Flamewake, although harder to recur, has evasion and always has haste, making beatdown a little better. It also have 2 abilities that can transfer over to a Flayer.
I think Flamewake Phoenix fills more roles than Bloodghast. It is better at the beatdown, always has haste (when compared to Bloodghasts sometimes), with only a moderately more difficult recursion, but I don't even think this is too much of a hindrance. If you don't have really anything going on expect maybe some souls tokens and a bunch of lands in hand, then I don't see Bloodghast really helping if it can't block and it gets outclassed by nearly every creature that's actually played.
Because we don't want to play too many uncastable creature we don't want to play Chromanticore anymore, then we lack our fifth card type which was enchantment. Since it seems like Fanatical Firebrand is working all right for many people, I thought it might be a good time to put a spotlight on Bomat Courier. Bomat only has single keyword (similar to Firebrand), but it the only keyword missing from both Zetalpa and Drogskol. As mentioned by Kingsclub in the past post, sacrificing Bomat while Traverse is on stack provides delirium and haste creature in the graveyard at same time. Also, being able to refill our hand by sacrificing Bomat can be a huge plus in some match up. We can perhaps play a few Grapple with the Past in case we dump Soulflayer in the graveyard with Bomat's ability. I'll post the deck list after testing the deck few more times.
Lands
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
Creatures
3 Flamewake Phoenix
2 Samut, Voice of Dissent
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Gifted Aetherborn
1 Hazoret the Fervent
3 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Soulflayer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grapple with the Past
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Lingering Souls
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fatal Push/Dismember
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Pithing Needle
2 Damnation
2 Surgical Extraction
I have been tinkering with Path to Exile in the sideboard for a while now, but I can't seem to justify its inclusion given how little white we have in our manabase.
Most notably one of my grindier versions do not play grisly salvage, instead replacing it with 4 grapple with the past. Reason being its less restrictive on your mana, and if your opponent decides to destroy or manipulate your lands when you only have non basics and 1 forest out, grapple will still help you dig towards what you need. since you already are discarding quite a lot, you won't really be needing the grisly salvage's extra number of cards it dig.
I also swapped the Godless Shrine out for Sacred Foundry because if you nab Godless on Turn 1, you can't play Faithless, and we dont have any black cards to cast on turn 1 anyways.
Phoenix is not very hard to trigger due to most of my games where I cast soulflayer on turn 3 or 4 i still have some red sources up to pay for its cost. Its also quite easy to trigger with lotleth troll discards.
PS: I managed to hardcast Sigarda, Host of Herons twice in a row against a monoblack list. Feel so good when opposing Gatekeepers and Phyrexian Obliterators were suddenly invalidated.
A slightly different version below:
Lands
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Stomping Ground
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Blooming Marsh
2 Swamp
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Bloodghast
3 Samut, Voice of Dissent
3 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Hazoret the Fervent
3 Fanatical Firebrand
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Soulflayer
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Zetalpa, Primal Dawn
Non-Creature Spells
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grisly Salvage
2 Grapple with the Past
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Collective Brutality
2 Fatal Push
1 Blessed Alliance
2 Pithing Needle
2 Damnation
2 Surgical Extraction
The aggro version has Flamewake Phoenix and Bloodghast in it(much like the B/R hollow one), in case you need to go the aggresive route in game 1 aside from casting your soulflayers. If you bust out a doublestriking soulflayer with 1 red mana up and a phoenix in your gy, you can get in for potentially 10 damage in that turn. This list has little lifelink in it so you may want to watch out for opposing aggro decks.
I realize we have very limited ways of dealing with tron, so I have Crumble to Dust in one of the sides.
If you're looking to add a 20th land in your games, I would suggest trying out Raging Ravine in addition to Cavern in case you flood out.
Still torn between Gifted Aetherborn and Vampire Nighthawk tho. Its so good to cast the Aetherborn on turn 2 facing down opposing aggression but Vampire has 3 relevant keywords on it so hurrmmmm....
A surprise thing I found is that almost nobody plays Kolaghan's Command in the sideboard. Why is that? It seem like a good include in our kind of deck. I've been thinking of replacing the Lingering Souls with this, as Lingering Souls doesn't seem to do too much in our strategy.
Tasigur also seem like a good sideboard option when we need some sort of advantage for grindy games.
Granted the Soulflayer strategy is still very weak in hyper aggresive and combos matchups if we can't close out by turn 4 or 5, as our deck interact very little turn 1 and turn 2 against opposing creatures and no good way to deal with huge bombs, so I think we need to find a way to shore up these weaknesses which will help push our deck's standing a little higher in this new modern meta.