Hi, Alec Wilson, designer of the Soulflayer - powder deck. Just thought I'd check out the thread and make a point or two.
1) Spirit guide + Looting is not the only way to get a turn 1 monster flayer. Turn 0 Caverns-Thought Scour + fetchlands can also enable a turn 1 flayer. 'Turn 1' here doesn't just mean a resolved flayer (that's trivial), but a flayer with a set of relevant keywords that can actually win a game.
I don't know the numbers, but the Serum Powder/Gemstone Caverns + Pull From Eternity seems like a horribly inconsistent combo with very little payoff. Even with a perfect hand, You aren't doing anything quickly. Turn 3 win is out the window. This really just looks like it wants to be the Gifts Ungiven list, which could be a viable plan, but is a completely different deck than the original intent of this thread. The original deck wanted to kill quickly with a hasty, double-striking Soulflayer. The Esper lists look like Unburial Gifts decks with a Soulflayer Plan B. Vengevine stays on the same line as the original, beating down with a hasted threat on turn 2, while also feeding Soulflayer if necessary.
2) The powder interaction is not an inconsistent combo, I assure you - mostly because it's not a combo at all but a neat synergy. Each of those cards is doing important work here alone, it just so happens you get a helpful interaction between each of them which improves your odds of it coming together:
a) Serum Powder is fantastic here, as you need to mulligan a lot, and Powder mulligans while taking things you don't really want to draw out of your deck. Serum Powder also ensures you get paid off for taking the draw by ramping past your opponent with Caverns, and it finds Leylines close to 100% of the time. The fact that sometimes it lays out a suite of cards to Pull is just gravy.
b) Caverns is one of only three broken turn-1 mana accelerators legal in modern, and it actually gives you 1 free additional mana before the game even starts if you play 1 mana instants. I am just as happy to be casting Thought Scour or Spoils of the Vault off my Caverns, and it's the reason you get to do so much so early. In the typical case of a turn-2 nut flayer, it's generated 3 mana more than you're supposed to have had access to.
c) Pull from Eternity lets you rebuy a key card that got delved, got powdered or got exiled to Caverns, or even a spell that got flashed back. It lets you sculpt your first soulflayer or set up your second.
Now, it just so happens that Pull is also a 1 mana instant, and it just so happens that if you powder or delve, it is functionally a tutor as well. Those are nice synergies, but each card is doing fine and important work in your opening hand with or without either of the other two.
3) If you're looking to win anything deep, obviously this experimental list is not what you are looking for. But then, I'm not convinced soulflayer is the card you're looking for at all in that case! This deck is just an experiment to see how far the card Soulflayer can be stretched. A turn 1-3 doublestrike flying haste hexproof lifelinker is surprisingly good in Modern, however, and I then just tuned it to be the best deck it can be at producing a broken, non-interactive soulflayer and winning the games it can win, which is mainly trolling burn, zoo and merfolk.
Hi, Alec Wilson, designer of the Soulflayer - powder deck. Just thought I'd check out the thread and make a point or two.
1) Spirit guide + Looting is not the only way to get a turn 1 monster flayer. Turn 0 Caverns-Thought Scour + fetchlands can also enable a turn 1 flayer. 'Turn 1' here doesn't just mean a resolved flayer (that's trivial), but a flayer with a set of relevant keywords that can actually win a game.
I don't know the numbers, but the Serum Powder/Gemstone Caverns + Pull From Eternity seems like a horribly inconsistent combo with very little payoff. Even with a perfect hand, You aren't doing anything quickly. Turn 3 win is out the window. This really just looks like it wants to be the Gifts Ungiven list, which could be a viable plan, but is a completely different deck than the original intent of this thread. The original deck wanted to kill quickly with a hasty, double-striking Soulflayer. The Esper lists look like Unburial Gifts decks with a Soulflayer Plan B. Vengevine stays on the same line as the original, beating down with a hasted threat on turn 2, while also feeding Soulflayer if necessary.
2) The powder interaction is not an inconsistent combo, I assure you - mostly because it's not a combo at all but a neat synergy. Each of those cards is doing important work here alone, it just so happens you get a helpful interaction between each of them which improves your odds of it coming together:
a) Serum Powder is fantastic here, as you need to mulligan a lot, and Powder mulligans while taking things you don't really want to draw out of your deck. Serum Powder also ensures you get paid off for taking the draw by ramping past your opponent with Caverns, and it finds Leylines close to 100% of the time. The fact that sometimes it lays out a suite of cards to Pull is just gravy.
b) Caverns is one of only three broken turn-1 mana accelerators legal in modern, and it actually gives you 1 free additional mana before the game even starts if you play 1 mana instants. I am just as happy to be casting Thought Scour or Spoils of the Vault off my Caverns, and it's the reason you get to do so much so early. In the typical case of a turn-2 nut flayer, it's generated 3 mana more than you're supposed to have had access to.
c) Pull from Eternity lets you rebuy a key card that got delved, got powdered or got exiled to Caverns, or even a spell that got flashed back. It lets you sculpt your first soulflayer or set up your second.
Now, it just so happens that Pull is also a 1 mana instant, and it just so happens that if you powder or delve, it is functionally a tutor as well. Those are nice synergies, but each card is doing fine and important work in your opening hand with or without either of the other two.
3) If you're looking to win anything deep, obviously this experimental list is not what you are looking for. But then, I'm not convinced soulflayer is the card you're looking for at all in that case! This deck is just an experiment to see how far the card Soulflayer can be stretched. A turn 1-3 doublestrike flying haste hexproof lifelinker is surprisingly good in Modern, however, and I then just tuned it to be the best deck it can be at producing a broken, non-interactive soulflayer and winning the games it can win, which is mainly trolling burn, zoo and merfolk.
After going a few rounds with the deck in Forge, I was impressed, but not with the Serum Powder/Gemstone Cavern + Pull From Eternity interaction, but rather with some of the options that going 5-color opens up to you. After 5 matches (3 Grixis Delver and 2 Soul Chamber) and more mulligans than I care to count, I decided to try a 5-Color list that cut the cutesy Pull From Eternity stuff. Here is the list I put together:
I put this deck through the same five rounds as the other list. From this deck, the manabase needs to be completely reworked and 4 Unburial Rites is too many. Spark Trooper, Mantis Rider and Drogskol Reaver were all-stars, Reaver doubly so when unburied. Thought Scour is almost as good as Faithless Looting as a Turn 1 play. Cutting back down to two Unburial Rites and two Grisly Salvage would open up spaces for more creatures, which the deck hungers for.
After going a few rounds with the deck in Forge, I was impressed, but not with the Serum Powder/Gemstone Cavern + Pull From Eternity interaction, but rather with some of the options that going 5-color opens up to you. After 5 matches (3 Grixis Delver and 2 Soul Chamber) and more mulligans than I care to count, I decided to try a 5-Color list that cut the cutesy Pull From Eternity stuff. Here is the list I put together:
I put this deck through the same five rounds as the other list. From this deck, the manabase needs to be completely reworked and 4 Unburial Rites is too many. Spark Trooper, Mantis Rider and Drogskol Reaver were all-stars, Reaver doubly so when unburied. Thought Scour is almost as good as Faithless Looting as a Turn 1 play. Cutting back down to two Unburial Rites and two Grisly Salvage would open up spaces for more creatures, which the deck hungers for.
I might be wrong, but in your case I think Tracker's Instincts would be better than Thought Scour since your decklist don't have turn 1 flayer package. It sucks that Tracker's Instincts isn't an instant spell but being able to dig top four cards of library twice is pretty awesome, not to mention the flashback cost is same as Faithless Looting. From my experience, paying 3 mana to draw two card saved me from losing countless times so I can't imagine this one being less useful. Talk about turn 1 flayer, have you considered Gemstone Caverns in your list? Not only can it give you chance to play turn 1 flayer, it allows turn 1 Grisly Salvage, Tracker's Instincts and turn 2 Faithless Looting/Tracker's Instincts flashback, which I think is relevant to find Soulflayer as quick as possible. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will help in case Gemstone Cavern wasn't in your opening hand since without luck counter Gemstone Caverns can only produce colorless mana.
I really like Aurelia in your list! ! never though about using her before.
Heres what I got so far. As I explained from my last post, Gemstone Caverns allows turn 1 Tracker's Instincts/Grisly Salvage which raised the chance of playing turn 2 Flayer by a lot. I like Simian Spirit Guide for similar purpose. The ramp spells help the side plan as well. Turn 2~3 Unburial Rites into Akroma or Drogskol can win us a game. It also allows turn 1~2 Geist of Saint Traft which can be a decent threat against opponent.
With 16 spells dedicated to finding Soulflayer, it is almost certain to draw Soulflayer atleast by turn 4. I mentioned about how much I like about Tracker's Instincts earlier but unfortunately you must take a creature card from the revealed 4 which means unlike Grisly Salvage, you have to take Drogkol, Akroma, Sigarda, and etc that you want it to be in graveyard sometimes. It helps if Simian Spirit Guide was one of the revealed 4 in that case.
Gemstone Caverns feels like a trap. It can theoretically power out a turn 1 Soulflayer, but it demands you go second in a deck that would much rather go first otherwise. It also puts you at card disadvantage if you use it, which you are already doing by playing Faithless Looting. Simian Spirit Guide is a similar trap. It is card disadvantage in a deck that doesn't maximize the upside. As for Tracker's Instincts, it is almost strictly worse than Grisly Salvage for our purposes. If we wanted more copies of that effect, I would probably go for Gather the Pack instead, as you don't have to take a creature if you don't want to, which we often don't, and digs one deeper on the first cast. For the most part I would rather just have more creatures. Also note Chromanticore is better fuel for Soulflayer than Sphinx of the Steel Wind and can be hardcast faster.
Gemstone Caverns feels like a trap. It can theoretically power out a turn 1 Soulflayer, but it demands you go second in a deck that would much rather go first otherwise. It also puts you at card disadvantage if you use it, which you are already doing by playing Faithless Looting. Simian Spirit Guide is a similar trap. It is card disadvantage in a deck that doesn't maximize the upside. As for Tracker's Instincts, it is almost strictly worse than Grisly Salvage for our purposes. If we wanted more copies of that effect, I would probably go for Gather the Pack instead, as you don't have to take a creature if you don't want to, which we often don't, and digs one deeper on the first cast. For the most part I would rather just have more creatures. Also note Chromanticore is better fuel for Soulflayer than Sphinx of the Steel Wind and can be hardcast faster.
Well, playing Soulflayer demands lots of card disadvantage and risks in reward for early super flayer so I think Gemstone Caverns is doing the right thing. Plus turn 1 Grisly Salvage/Lotleth Troll is pretty useful. I'd rather take out Simian Spirit Guide than Gemstone Caverns since SSG doesn't help cast salvage or troll. Yeah playing 4 Tracker's Instincts was probably bad idea, but I still like it since it has flashback so maybe 2 is ok. I kind of like Sphinx of the Steel Wind over Chromanticore since it stronger if you reanimate it with Unburial Rites but I agree it better fuel for flayer and it easier to cast.
Here's an updated version after several test plays.
Reason for cutting Thought Scour was because we don't get to choose what goes into graveyard. But I might bring it back again if I decide to cut Tracker's Instincts from the deck. Reason for adding Lotleth Troll was because there were several situation which discard outlet would of been useful. I added more Geist and Sphinx since this deck needed more creatures. Reason for increasing the number of fetchland was because there were several case which I only needed 1 more card to delve for turn 1 flayer.
I am trying to build soulflayer but my deck has a ton of the recent standards cards that came out like chromanticore mantis rider thassa vampire night hawk slvyian caraid and mist hollow griffin. I would like to use the spells grisly savalge, faithless looting and rancor I don't know what lands I wa not to use maybe pain lands and couple manlands. Any advice would help.
I am trying to build soulflayer but my deck has a ton of the recent standards cards that came out like chromanticore mantis rider thassa vampire night hawk slvyian caraid and mist hollow griffin. I would like to use the spells grisly savalge, faithless looting and rancor I don't know what lands I wa not to use maybe pain lands and couple manlands. Any advice would help.
I think the tier 1 ability for Soulflayer are Double strike, Haste and Hexproof. You should include at least 4 Double strike enablers, 4 Haste enablers, and 4 Hexproof enablers. Try to focus on those 3 ability and your deck should technically be fine. Useful tier 2 abilities are Flying, Lifelink and Trample.
For land choice, since it seems like your going to run 5 color, I recommend Mana Confluence and City of Brass. Fetch/Shockland would be the best but it up to you. I wouldn't recommend Manland or any land that comes into play tapped because this deck is all about using turn 1~3 effectively to invest on piling up the graveyard and finding Soulflayer.
Double strike is the single most important skill for Soulflayer to acquire, followed by Haste, evasion (Flying/Trample) and protection (Hexproof/Indestructible). Lifelink is nice, but not required and the rest are negligible. If you are looking for a card a card in Standard that works amazingly with Soulflayer, look no further than Aven Sunstriker. Double strike and evasion on one card is the reason we here like Prophetic Flamespeaker. Flamespeaker is better on its own as it is a source of card advantage, but as an unplayed uncommon currently in Standard, the Aven is dirt cheap to acquire. The cards you listed are all good, just remember what makes a good Soulflayer and you will be fine.
In addition to Faithless Looting and Grisly Salvage, other good fueling cards include Thought Scour, Gather the Pack, Commune with the Gods and Hunter's Instincts. Depending on how competitive versus budget friendly you want your deck to be would determine what kind of mana-base to build. Fetchlands help this deck go by fueling Soulflayer's Delve, making a Turn 2 Flayer possible, but at about $20 each for the cheap ones, they aren't nice on the wallet. Painlands are cheaper, but aren't very good in this deck, being slower, less consistent and often more painful than a Fetchland+Shockland base. For the 5-Color version, Mana Confluence/City of Brass work, but once again are slow and painful. Man-lands are even slower, and this deck really isn't interested in the late-game inevitability that man-lands provide.
edit: fastlands are also great from my experience but don't put too many.
Fastlands aren't really a budget option. Blackcleave Cliffs is currently $18.58 at tcgplayer mid and is the one you would want most. City of Brass/Mana Confluence are okay for 5-color versions and aren't terribly expensive. Painlands are pretty cheap and readily available, so if you are going 2 or 3 color, I would go with those.
Some changes I'm considering now is adding more Geist of Saint Traft in the mainboard since it was amazing against non-aggro deck. Also when I played against naya zoo I realized I can't beat an aggro deck without Soulflayer with lifelink and doublestrike, at the moment I'm considering adding more doublestrike enablers. Overall the most fulfilling moments were watching my opponents react as I chose to draw instead of playing first, playing soulflayer on turn 2 with bunch of abilites and playing turn 1 geist.
edit: since my meta is full of twin deck I'm considering adding Slaughter Pact in the sideboard.
You could probably drop the number of Sigarda and the number of Akroma to 2 each instead of 4. Especially as they are Legendary and you can't Unburial multiples. If you do that you free up a lot of spots in your deck for removal / counters.
Since you're running White I'd take 4 Path to Exile. That works against Deceiver Exarch and Wurmcoil against Tron. It works against basically everything (I say basically as it's pointless zapping a mana dork with it). The best Twin specific removal is Combust as it can't be countered.
Against Zoo and other hardcore aggro decks like Affinity Lightning Helix works well.
Thanks I will consider replacing Dismember with Path to Exile!
As for dropping the number of Sigarda and Akroma, I personally don't want to remove too much ability enablers since that makes Soulflayer worse in some scenario. So far I never had opportunity to cast Unburial Rites multiple of times in single game so the legendary rule shouldn't hurt too bad.
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I'm currently designing a deck revolving around Pyromancer Ascension for fun. Pyromancer Ascension has good synergy with Commune with the Gods since it can fill the graveyard with creature, instant, and sorcery spell and also look for itself or Soulflayer. Active Ascension can copy Commune with the Gods or Grisly Salvage which allows us to take up to 2 creature cards from the top 10 cards of library and dump the rest in the graveyard. It can also copy Unburial Rites which will reanimate 2 creatures from graveyard.
It may be janky but any thought or a card to recommend for this?
edit: This was a terrible idea it too slow, except I found out Gitaxian Probe was a good card even without Pyromancer Ascension, it might even replace Simian Spirit Guide or something else in the mainboard for my actual decklist.
Hi guys, I am currently looking into decks to try out for modern and I really like the sound of this one. It seems like it is quite fun to play! I'm not sure I can start investing in a new deck quite yet, but I will definitely try and build some sort of 5-color version of this deck.
Overall the most fulfilling moments were watching my opponents react as I chose to draw instead of playing first, playing soulflayer on turn 2 with bunch of abilites and playing turn 1 geist.
Do you feel that being on the draw and not hitting the Gemstone Caverns ever really hurt you? My calculations may be wrong, but even running 4 of them, you only have one in your opening hand 40% of the time, so 60% of the time, you are putting yourself at a tempo loss. I know it is more expensive, but is it worth it to play a ton more fetches (instead of the caverns) to ensure that there is something in the graveyard turn one for the extra delve?
Are there any results to mention with this build? Anything you would change about it? Is the manabase consistent? Do we just lose to Blood Moon (I guess that's the cost of playing 5-colors)?
How do you think this deck is positioned after the new bannings?
Sorry for the flood of questions, but this seems like a really fun deck so I'm really curious how it performs on a competitive level.
Do you feel that being on the draw and not hitting the Gemstone Caverns ever really hurt you? My calculations may be wrong, but even running 4 of them, you only have one in your opening hand 40% of the time, so 60% of the time, you are putting yourself at a tempo loss. I know it is more expensive, but is it worth it to play a ton more fetches (instead of the caverns) to ensure that there is something in the graveyard turn one for the extra delve?
Whether you want to play Gemstone Caverns or not is totally up to you. It understandable that you don't want to risk losing tempo. Reason why I'm running 4 Gemstone Caverns is to simply avoid getting land screwed, playing 5 color is risky business. Beside if there is 40% chance of having Gemstone Caverns in opening hand, it means I can be on "play" 40% of the times while having better mulligan advantage of being on draw the entire match. If your not playing Gemstone Caverns I would recommend playing fetchlands or Gemstone Mine.
Are there any results to mention with this build? Anything you would change about it? Is the manabase consistent? Do we just lose to Blood Moon (I guess that's the cost of playing 5-colors)?
I'm currently working on a new decklist which replaces Liliana of the Veil with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and some other minor changes. It not too impressive but my best result I had was this decklist, 3-2 at LGS.
Mana base is pretty stable, I wouldn't add more than 19 land. 3~4 Siminan Spirit Guide is must have in my opinion. This deck folds to Blood Moon. I was considering adding 3~4 Birds of Paradise but I couldn't find any space for it.
How do you think this deck is positioned after the new bannings?
It was a good news for us that Splinter Twin was banned. Now there are more opportunity for us to tap out and play Soulflayer or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy without having to worry about dying next turn. I'm still worried about Tron though.
This deck has a lot of weakness such as Blood Moon (as mentioned earlier) and Graveyard hate but it can be explosive and fun.
Thanks for the reply. I've been thinking for the past day about the deck and have a few more comments/questions.
1)I don't like just flat out losing to Blood Moon. We're practically just a GB deck splashing red for Faithless Looting and White for Unburial Rites. Throw in two swamps, a forest, and a plains in place of the caverns. We'd play a ton more fetches, but that would actually make our mana better since one of the downsides to the Caverns is that a lot of the time, it doesn't tap for any color (so it can't cast Grisly Salvage, Faithless Looting or even a Soulflayer).
2)For removal, we need 4 Abrupt Decay. That is one of the best cards in modern: 2 mana, uncounterable, destroy target nonland permanent. Insane. Path to Exile is nice, but if we have a beefy lifelinking soulflayer, I'm not too afraid of other creatures. Plus, Abrupt Decay hits Blood Moon off of floated mana
3)I was thinking that Spirit Guide might not be good in this deck because it doesn't cast Grisly Salvage or even Soulflayer, so it could be a dead draw some games. But it seems insane for a turn one Faithless Looting x2 or a turn 1 Gather the Pack. So it seems like the best or the worst card in the deck. Not sure if this a question, more of just a general comment...
I took your list and made some slight changes, according to these comments.
Still working on which set of fetches and duels would be best for this build. And I don't know about the sideoard, but obviously some ancient grudges and some disenchants like Ray of Revelation. Perhaps some general removal like Beast Within, or a Pyroclasm for a small creature match up. Maybe some alternate wincons like a 4 Unburial Rites and some big fatties to bring back with it. I like Savage Summoning in there too.
1)I don't like just flat out losing to Blood Moon. We're practically just a GB deck splashing red for Faithless Looting and White for Unburial Rites. Throw in two swamps, a forest, and a plains in place of the caverns. We'd play a ton more fetches, but that would actually make our mana better since one of the downsides to the Caverns is that a lot of the time, it doesn't tap for any color (so it can't cast Grisly Salvage, Faithless Looting or even a Soulflayer).
If we are adding basic lands I would choose 1~2 swamp and 1 forest. I don't think we need to worry about plains too much since white isn't used as often as black and green. Also black and green is enough to cast Abrupt Decay to destroy Blood Moon. I'm afraid adding too much basic land will cause mana screw. Adding Birds of Paradise is also an option.
2)For removal, we need 4 Abrupt Decay. That is one of the best cards in modern: 2 mana, uncounterable, destroy target nonland permanent. Insane. Path to Exile is nice, but if we have a beefy lifelinking soulflayer, I'm not too afraid of other creatures. Plus, Abrupt Decay hits Blood Moon off of floated mana
3)I was thinking that Spirit Guide might not be good in this deck because it doesn't cast Grisly Salvage or even Soulflayer, so it could be a dead draw some games. But it seems insane for a turn one Faithless Looting x2 or a turn 1 Gather the Pack. So it seems like the best or the worst card in the deck. Not sure if this a question, more of just a general comment...
Reason why I like Simian Spirit Guide is because occasionally with Gemstone Caverns you get 3 mana on first turn which can be used to cast either turn 1 soulflayer(Faithless Looting+Fetchland+Soulflayer), turn 1 Geist of Saint Traft, or turn 1 Liliana of the Veil. Also, Grisly Salvage and Loot on turn 1 is crazy. Again, you don't need to include Gemstone Caverns in your list since this doesn't happen very often anyways, but I would still recommend a few SSG to utilize your turn 1~2 effectively. But I've also seen decks that function alright without SSG so again the choice is up to you.
Still working on which set of fetches and duels would be best for this build. And I don't know about the sideoard, but obviously some ancient grudges and some disenchants like Ray of Revelation. Perhaps some general removal like Beast Within, or a Pyroclasm for a small creature match up. Maybe some alternate wincons like a 4 Unburial Rites and some big fatties to bring back with it. I like Savage Summoning in there too.
For your list I would recommend 4 Verdant Catacombs, 4 Marsh Flats and maybe 2 Windswept Heath if you decided to keep the plains. Sideboard is up to you but I like Worship against aggro since Soulflayer has hexproof most of the time and your opponent has no way to deal with it(since they wouldn't expect it), and Savage Summoning and Thoughtseize against control, rest is up to the meta.
Since you don't like Gemstone Caverns and losing to Blood Moon maybe you'll like these version..
Any updates about this deck? I am still planning on building a list similar to the one I posted, I'm just not sure when I can get the money to invest in it. Anyone have any results to discuss or cards to include?
Here are the modifications I made after playing several games on xmage for few days (sorry I've been playing different deck recently in LGS).
Before purchasing anything you should try it out on xmage or cockatrice or any other free mtg simulator and see if you like it.
Liliana wasn't as great in this deck. Although she was strong against control deck, Liliana itself doesn't provide Soulflayer any ability.
Problem with Akroma and Sphinx is it sucks to have them stuck in hand without discard outlet. I was actually getting really sick of Akroma and Sphinx, I even considered replacing them with Lightning Greaves.
I added Vengeful Pharaoh because there's been several situation where Soulflayer needed deathtouch in order to survive (for example blocking a 5/5 Endless One). Deathtouch combined with either first strike or double strike helps Soulflayer survive any combat. Plus, Vengeful Pharaoh itself is pretty good at stalling aggro deck.
Have anyone tried Taigam's Scheming? I saw someone play this in Protean Hulk combo and I think it would also work in Soulflayer deck. This card seems terrible at first glance but surprisingly it been a good utility tool and I like it a lot. I'm currently testing this card in this list.
1) Spirit guide + Looting is not the only way to get a turn 1 monster flayer. Turn 0 Caverns-Thought Scour + fetchlands can also enable a turn 1 flayer. 'Turn 1' here doesn't just mean a resolved flayer (that's trivial), but a flayer with a set of relevant keywords that can actually win a game.
2) The powder interaction is not an inconsistent combo, I assure you - mostly because it's not a combo at all but a neat synergy. Each of those cards is doing important work here alone, it just so happens you get a helpful interaction between each of them which improves your odds of it coming together:
a) Serum Powder is fantastic here, as you need to mulligan a lot, and Powder mulligans while taking things you don't really want to draw out of your deck. Serum Powder also ensures you get paid off for taking the draw by ramping past your opponent with Caverns, and it finds Leylines close to 100% of the time. The fact that sometimes it lays out a suite of cards to Pull is just gravy.
b) Caverns is one of only three broken turn-1 mana accelerators legal in modern, and it actually gives you 1 free additional mana before the game even starts if you play 1 mana instants. I am just as happy to be casting Thought Scour or Spoils of the Vault off my Caverns, and it's the reason you get to do so much so early. In the typical case of a turn-2 nut flayer, it's generated 3 mana more than you're supposed to have had access to.
c) Pull from Eternity lets you rebuy a key card that got delved, got powdered or got exiled to Caverns, or even a spell that got flashed back. It lets you sculpt your first soulflayer or set up your second.
Now, it just so happens that Pull is also a 1 mana instant, and it just so happens that if you powder or delve, it is functionally a tutor as well. Those are nice synergies, but each card is doing fine and important work in your opening hand with or without either of the other two.
3) If you're looking to win anything deep, obviously this experimental list is not what you are looking for. But then, I'm not convinced soulflayer is the card you're looking for at all in that case! This deck is just an experiment to see how far the card Soulflayer can be stretched. A turn 1-3 doublestrike flying haste hexproof lifelinker is surprisingly good in Modern, however, and I then just tuned it to be the best deck it can be at producing a broken, non-interactive soulflayer and winning the games it can win, which is mainly trolling burn, zoo and merfolk.
2 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
2 Cairn Wanderer
4 Drogskol Reaver
2 Geist of Saint Traft
3 Mantis Rider
3 Prophetic Flamespeaker
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons
4 Soulflayer
1 Spark Trooper
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Unburial Rites
4 Thought Scour
Land
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Flooded Strand
1 Godless Shrine
4 Mana Confluence
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
1 Watery Grave
1 Wooded Foothills
I put this deck through the same five rounds as the other list. From this deck, the manabase needs to be completely reworked and 4 Unburial Rites is too many. Spark Trooper, Mantis Rider and Drogskol Reaver were all-stars, Reaver doubly so when unburied. Thought Scour is almost as good as Faithless Looting as a Turn 1 play. Cutting back down to two Unburial Rites and two Grisly Salvage would open up spaces for more creatures, which the deck hungers for.
I might be wrong, but in your case I think Tracker's Instincts would be better than Thought Scour since your decklist don't have turn 1 flayer package. It sucks that Tracker's Instincts isn't an instant spell but being able to dig top four cards of library twice is pretty awesome, not to mention the flashback cost is same as Faithless Looting. From my experience, paying 3 mana to draw two card saved me from losing countless times so I can't imagine this one being less useful. Talk about turn 1 flayer, have you considered Gemstone Caverns in your list? Not only can it give you chance to play turn 1 flayer, it allows turn 1 Grisly Salvage, Tracker's Instincts and turn 2 Faithless Looting/Tracker's Instincts flashback, which I think is relevant to find Soulflayer as quick as possible. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will help in case Gemstone Cavern wasn't in your opening hand since without luck counter Gemstone Caverns can only produce colorless mana.
I really like Aurelia in your list! ! never though about using her before.
4x Soulflayer
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Geist of Saint Traft
Spells x18
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Tracker's Instincts
4x Grisly Salvage
2x Unburial Rites
4x Gemstone Caverns
4x Mana Confluence
4x Polluted Delta
2x Blood Crypt
1x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of Lifeforce
4x Wear // Tear
2x Dismember
1x Unburial Rites
Heres what I got so far. As I explained from my last post, Gemstone Caverns allows turn 1 Tracker's Instincts/Grisly Salvage which raised the chance of playing turn 2 Flayer by a lot. I like Simian Spirit Guide for similar purpose. The ramp spells help the side plan as well. Turn 2~3 Unburial Rites into Akroma or Drogskol can win us a game. It also allows turn 1~2 Geist of Saint Traft which can be a decent threat against opponent.
With 16 spells dedicated to finding Soulflayer, it is almost certain to draw Soulflayer atleast by turn 4. I mentioned about how much I like about Tracker's Instincts earlier but unfortunately you must take a creature card from the revealed 4 which means unlike Grisly Salvage, you have to take Drogkol, Akroma, Sigarda, and etc that you want it to be in graveyard sometimes. It helps if Simian Spirit Guide was one of the revealed 4 in that case.
Well, playing Soulflayer demands lots of card disadvantage and risks in reward for early super flayer so I think Gemstone Caverns is doing the right thing. Plus turn 1 Grisly Salvage/Lotleth Troll is pretty useful. I'd rather take out Simian Spirit Guide than Gemstone Caverns since SSG doesn't help cast salvage or troll. Yeah playing 4 Tracker's Instincts was probably bad idea, but I still like it since it has flashback so maybe 2 is ok. I kind of like Sphinx of the Steel Wind over Chromanticore since it stronger if you reanimate it with Unburial Rites but I agree it better fuel for flayer and it easier to cast.
Here's an updated version after several test plays.
4x Soulflayer
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Sigarda, Host of Herons
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3x Lotleth Troll
Spells x12
4x Faithless Looting
4x Grisly Salvage
2x Tracker's Instincts
2x Unburial Rites
4x Gemstone Caverns
4x Mana Confluence
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Polluted Delta
2x Marsh Flats
1x Blood Crypt
1x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of Lifeforce
4x Wear // Tear
2x Dismember
1x Spellskite
Changes from previous list are
-4 Thought Scour
-2 Tracker's Instincts
-1 Blood Crypt
+3 Lotleth Troll
+2 Geist of Saint Traft
+2 Marsh Flats
Reason for cutting Thought Scour was because we don't get to choose what goes into graveyard. But I might bring it back again if I decide to cut Tracker's Instincts from the deck. Reason for adding Lotleth Troll was because there were several situation which discard outlet would of been useful. I added more Geist and Sphinx since this deck needed more creatures. Reason for increasing the number of fetchland was because there were several case which I only needed 1 more card to delve for turn 1 flayer.
I think the tier 1 ability for Soulflayer are Double strike, Haste and Hexproof. You should include at least 4 Double strike enablers, 4 Haste enablers, and 4 Hexproof enablers. Try to focus on those 3 ability and your deck should technically be fine. Useful tier 2 abilities are Flying, Lifelink and Trample.
From what you got, I would definitely consider Mantis Rider, Sylvan Caryatid, Vampire Nighthawk and maybe Chromanticore. You should get hold of some Double strike enablers like Prophetic Flamespeaker, and Viashino Slaughtermaster since they are good fuel for Soulflayer and they are amazing with Rancor. For pump spell I suggest Mutagenic Growth since it can protect Vampire Nighthawk and Mantis Rider from Lightning Bolt. I also recommend having 2~4 removal spells if you can find space for it. I suggest Lightning Axe, Kolaghan's Command and Slaughter Pact for removal spells.
For land choice, since it seems like your going to run 5 color, I recommend Mana Confluence and City of Brass. Fetch/Shockland would be the best but it up to you. I wouldn't recommend Manland or any land that comes into play tapped because this deck is all about using turn 1~3 effectively to invest on piling up the graveyard and finding Soulflayer.
Good luck!
In addition to Faithless Looting and Grisly Salvage, other good fueling cards include Thought Scour, Gather the Pack, Commune with the Gods and Hunter's Instincts. Depending on how competitive versus budget friendly you want your deck to be would determine what kind of mana-base to build. Fetchlands help this deck go by fueling Soulflayer's Delve, making a Turn 2 Flayer possible, but at about $20 each for the cheap ones, they aren't nice on the wallet. Painlands are cheaper, but aren't very good in this deck, being slower, less consistent and often more painful than a Fetchland+Shockland base. For the 5-Color version, Mana Confluence/City of Brass work, but once again are slow and painful. Man-lands are even slower, and this deck really isn't interested in the late-game inevitability that man-lands provide.
I used Mana Confluence and they are pretty good!
edit: fastlands are also great from my experience but don't put too many.
4x Soulflayer
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Sigarda, Host of Herons
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Spells x17
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Grisly Salvage
3x Unburial Rites
2x Tracker's Instincts
4x Gemstone Caverns
4x Mana Confluence
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Polluted Delta
2x Marsh Flats
1x Blood Crypt
1x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of Lifeforce
4x Wear // Tear
2x Dismember
1x Spellskite
round 2 Hatebear 2-0
round 3 Naya Zoo 1-2
round 4 UR Storm 2-0
round 5 Jeskai Twin 0-2
Some changes I'm considering now is adding more Geist of Saint Traft in the mainboard since it was amazing against non-aggro deck. Also when I played against naya zoo I realized I can't beat an aggro deck without Soulflayer with lifelink and doublestrike, at the moment I'm considering adding more doublestrike enablers. Overall the most fulfilling moments were watching my opponents react as I chose to draw instead of playing first, playing soulflayer on turn 2 with bunch of abilites and playing turn 1 geist.
edit: since my meta is full of twin deck I'm considering adding Slaughter Pact in the sideboard.
You could probably drop the number of Sigarda and the number of Akroma to 2 each instead of 4. Especially as they are Legendary and you can't Unburial multiples. If you do that you free up a lot of spots in your deck for removal / counters.
Since you're running White I'd take 4 Path to Exile. That works against Deceiver Exarch and Wurmcoil against Tron. It works against basically everything (I say basically as it's pointless zapping a mana dork with it). The best Twin specific removal is Combust as it can't be countered.
Against Zoo and other hardcore aggro decks like Affinity Lightning Helix works well.
As for dropping the number of Sigarda and Akroma, I personally don't want to remove too much ability enablers since that makes Soulflayer worse in some scenario. So far I never had opportunity to cast Unburial Rites multiple of times in single game so the legendary rule shouldn't hurt too bad.
4x Soulflayer
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
2x Sigarda, Host of Herons
2x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Pyromancer Ascension
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Commune with the Gods
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Gitaxian Probe
2x Unburial Rites
It may be janky but any thought or a card to recommend for this?
edit: This was a terrible idea it too slow, except I found out Gitaxian Probe was a good card even without Pyromancer Ascension, it might even replace Simian Spirit Guide or something else in the mainboard for my actual decklist.
4x Soulflayer
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Sylvan Caryatid
3x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2x Geist of Saint Traft
Spells x17
4x Faithless Looting
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Liliana of the Veil
3x Unburial Rites
2x Thought Scour
4x Gemstone Caverns
4x Mana Confluence
4x Polluted Delta
2x Marsh Flats
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Thoughtseize
4x Savage Summoning
2x Ancient Grudge
2x Lightning Axe
1x Spellskite
2x Crumble to Dust
Do you feel that being on the draw and not hitting the Gemstone Caverns ever really hurt you? My calculations may be wrong, but even running 4 of them, you only have one in your opening hand 40% of the time, so 60% of the time, you are putting yourself at a tempo loss. I know it is more expensive, but is it worth it to play a ton more fetches (instead of the caverns) to ensure that there is something in the graveyard turn one for the extra delve?
Are there any results to mention with this build? Anything you would change about it? Is the manabase consistent? Do we just lose to Blood Moon (I guess that's the cost of playing 5-colors)?
How do you think this deck is positioned after the new bannings?
Sorry for the flood of questions, but this seems like a really fun deck so I'm really curious how it performs on a competitive level.
Whether you want to play Gemstone Caverns or not is totally up to you. It understandable that you don't want to risk losing tempo. Reason why I'm running 4 Gemstone Caverns is to simply avoid getting land screwed, playing 5 color is risky business. Beside if there is 40% chance of having Gemstone Caverns in opening hand, it means I can be on "play" 40% of the times while having better mulligan advantage of being on draw the entire match. If your not playing Gemstone Caverns I would recommend playing fetchlands or Gemstone Mine.
I'm currently working on a new decklist which replaces Liliana of the Veil with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy and some other minor changes. It not too impressive but my best result I had was this decklist, 3-2 at LGS.
4x Soulflayer
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Sigarda, Host of Herons
4x Simian Spirit Guide
2x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Spells x17
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Grisly Salvage
3x Unburial Rites
2x Tracker's Instincts
4x Gemstone Caverns
4x Mana Confluence
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4x Polluted Delta
2x Marsh Flats
1x Blood Crypt
1x Watery Grave
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Leyline of Lifeforce
4x Wear // Tear
2x Dismember
1x Spellskite
It was a good news for us that Splinter Twin was banned. Now there are more opportunity for us to tap out and play Soulflayer or Jace, Vryn's Prodigy without having to worry about dying next turn. I'm still worried about Tron though.
This deck has a lot of weakness such as Blood Moon (as mentioned earlier) and Graveyard hate but it can be explosive and fun.
1)I don't like just flat out losing to Blood Moon. We're practically just a GB deck splashing red for Faithless Looting and White for Unburial Rites. Throw in two swamps, a forest, and a plains in place of the caverns. We'd play a ton more fetches, but that would actually make our mana better since one of the downsides to the Caverns is that a lot of the time, it doesn't tap for any color (so it can't cast Grisly Salvage, Faithless Looting or even a Soulflayer).
2)For removal, we need 4 Abrupt Decay. That is one of the best cards in modern: 2 mana, uncounterable, destroy target nonland permanent. Insane. Path to Exile is nice, but if we have a beefy lifelinking soulflayer, I'm not too afraid of other creatures. Plus, Abrupt Decay hits Blood Moon off of floated mana
3)I was thinking that Spirit Guide might not be good in this deck because it doesn't cast Grisly Salvage or even Soulflayer, so it could be a dead draw some games. But it seems insane for a turn one Faithless Looting x2 or a turn 1 Gather the Pack. So it seems like the best or the worst card in the deck. Not sure if this a question, more of just a general comment...
I took your list and made some slight changes, according to these comments.
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Forest
10 Fetches
4 Dual Lands
4 Soulflayer
3 Simian Spirit Guide
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Akroma, Angel of wrath
4 Drogskol Reaver
3 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4 Faithless Looting
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Gather the Pack
Other (7)
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Unburial Rites
Still working on which set of fetches and duels would be best for this build. And I don't know about the sideoard, but obviously some ancient grudges and some disenchants like Ray of Revelation. Perhaps some general removal like Beast Within, or a Pyroclasm for a small creature match up. Maybe some alternate wincons like a 4 Unburial Rites and some big fatties to bring back with it. I like Savage Summoning in there too.
Yes I like Abrupt Decay too It gets rid of other problems like Scavenging Ooze, and Rest in Peace. Another favorite removal spell of mine is Lightning Axe.
Reason why I like Simian Spirit Guide is because occasionally with Gemstone Caverns you get 3 mana on first turn which can be used to cast either turn 1 soulflayer(Faithless Looting+Fetchland+Soulflayer), turn 1 Geist of Saint Traft, or turn 1 Liliana of the Veil. Also, Grisly Salvage and Loot on turn 1 is crazy. Again, you don't need to include Gemstone Caverns in your list since this doesn't happen very often anyways, but I would still recommend a few SSG to utilize your turn 1~2 effectively. But I've also seen decks that function alright without SSG so again the choice is up to you.
For your list I would recommend 4 Verdant Catacombs, 4 Marsh Flats and maybe 2 Windswept Heath if you decided to keep the plains. Sideboard is up to you but I like Worship against aggro since Soulflayer has hexproof most of the time and your opponent has no way to deal with it(since they wouldn't expect it), and Savage Summoning and Thoughtseize against control, rest is up to the meta.
Since you don't like Gemstone Caverns and losing to Blood Moon maybe you'll like these version..
4x Soulflayer
4x Vengevine
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Viashino Slaughtermaster
4x Sylvan Caryatid
4x Vault Skirge
4x Spark Elemental
4x Uktabi Drake
Spells x8
4x Faithless Looting
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Blood Crypt
2x Overgrown Tomb
1x Stomping Ground
1x Swamp
1x Forest
4x Thoughtseize
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Maelstrom Pulse
1x Spellskite
2x Faerie Macabre
1x Darkblast
4x Soulflayer
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Viashino Slaughtermaster
4x Prophetic Flamespeaker
4x Vampire Nighthawk
2x Falkenrath Aristocrat
4x Flamewake Phoenix
3x Ghor-Clan Rampager
Spells x10
4x Faithless Looting
4x Grisly Salvage
2x Lightning Axe
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
4x Blackcleave Cliffs
2x Blood Crypt
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Stomping Ground
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Thoughtseize
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Fulminator Mage
2x Faerie Macabre
2x Ancient Grudge
4x Soulflayer
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
4x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Geist of Saint Traft
3x Vengeful Pharaoh
Spells x15
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Grisly Salvage
3x Unburial Rites
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
4x Marsh Flats
2x Swamp
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
3x Thoughtseize
2x Savage Summoning
4x Wear // Tear
2x Lightning Axe
1x Spellskite
3x Worship
Here are the modifications I made after playing several games on xmage for few days (sorry I've been playing different deck recently in LGS).
Before purchasing anything you should try it out on xmage or cockatrice or any other free mtg simulator and see if you like it.
Some major changes I made were
+2 Thought Scour
+3 Vengeful Pharaoh
-4 Liliana of the Veil
-1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
Liliana wasn't as great in this deck. Although she was strong against control deck, Liliana itself doesn't provide Soulflayer any ability.
Problem with Akroma and Sphinx is it sucks to have them stuck in hand without discard outlet. I was actually getting really sick of Akroma and Sphinx, I even considered replacing them with Lightning Greaves.
I added Vengeful Pharaoh because there's been several situation where Soulflayer needed deathtouch in order to survive (for example blocking a 5/5 Endless One). Deathtouch combined with either first strike or double strike helps Soulflayer survive any combat. Plus, Vengeful Pharaoh itself is pretty good at stalling aggro deck.
I added 4 Wear // Tear in the sideboard so we wont lose against Blood Moon
4x Soulflayer
4x Drogskol Reaver
4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
2x Sphinx of the Steel Wind
3x Simian Spirit Guide
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Geist of Saint Traft
1x Vengeful Pharaoh
Spells x18
4x Faithless Looting
4x Thought Scour
4x Grisly Salvage
3x Taigam's Scheming
3x Unburial Rites
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Polluted Delta
4x Marsh Flats
2x Swamp
1x Watery Grave
1x Blood Crypt
1x Godless Shrine
1x Overgrown Tomb
3x Thoughtseize
2x Savage Summoning
4x Wear // Tear
2x Lightning Axe
1x Spellskite
3x Worship
EDIT: This guy seems bugged on MTGO?! Its not gaining abilities when I delve the creatures anymore.
Spirits