MTG Salvation

This is Soulflayer deck I would like to build.Any idea and/or suggestions will be appreciated.I haven't thought about any sideboard options.

Tainted Wood is not Modern legal. Having only one blue-producing land seems a bit risky too, consider dropping to 2 Tombs and putting in a couple of Pools and another Grave.

Instead of Commune, why not [card]Taigam's Scheming[card]? It doesn't pull into your hand but it does let you choose exactly what you want to dump in your graveyard. It prevents you from flipping both your Decays or Countersqualls in one swoop.

Overall I like it a lot, it's tight and focused and you haven't been tricked into building some five-colour monstrosity with a bunch of unplayable creatures on the off chance you get to Delve them away to Soulflayer. I think the big question is the Wreaths; putting one on a Soulflayer seems like a win-more situation and I don't think any of the other creatures outside of Gladecover will stick around long enough to make a difference. Might be worth cutting those and putting in more removal or counters.

Actually I've been thinking a lot about Wreath of Geists.It could be better to sideboard it and add more removal and counter.Grisly Salvage is a must however I need 4 more graveyard filling spells and candidates are Commune with the Gods, Tracker's Instincts, Glimpse the Unthinkable, Taigam's Scheming, Forbidden Alchemy.I haven't decided which one is better.

After some playtests I decided that Rancor would be better to pump Soulflayer rather than Wreath of Geists.

Here's my take on a Soulflayer brew. I didn't think green added enough high quality creatures when compared to red, since red's creatures are good on their own and can also power out a meaty Soulflayer. Moreover, Faithless Looting with dredge is often enough to fill the graveyard pretty quick, and it works from the graveyard itself.
Losing hexproof sucks, but having haste almost 100 of the time is sweet, and making good use of Cadaver Imp (and Crypt Champion to revive it) means you can keep picking up dead Flayers.

Quote from Laredian »

In my opinion just giving Soulflayer flying and haste is not enough. If we go through the trouble to power it up, it has to be hard to kill, because a 4/4 body with flying and haste isn't that impressive.

So going for three colours might be a good idea, but I'd keep low cost creatures with good and preferably more than one ability like Vampire Nighthawk.

Giving Soulflayer hexproof and/or indestructible is crucial in my opinion, because even if it dodges bolt and abrupt decay, there is still a lot of removal floating around in modern.

I'm just thinking if we bring Soulflayer down on say turn 4, it has to give us a significant advantage.

But on the other hand, if it requires you to play sub-optimal creatures just to empower it, it's not doing your deck any good. A 4/4 flying haste (with potential for lifelink and doublestrike) for BB is pretty good by modern standards anyway, and you shouldn't be going through "trouble" to power it up - it should just come about as a consequence of playing the game.
I think the primary difference between the two decks is how they look at Soulflayer - yours is centered around making Soulflayer into a single hard-to-deal-with finisher, where as in mine, he's simply a synergistic another creature in an aggro deck, albeit a very powerful one.
That isn't to say your way of looking at it is bad, but you need to be aware of the fact that you aren't going to win off of a Gladecover Scout those times you don't draw/have to discard Soulflayer. You are effectively playing Ranger's Guile, except Guile be used at instant speed on any creature.

In any case, if you want to stick to three colors, or keep the hexproof, one thing you could try is going into a more controlling route - use Mulldrifter for flying, Sylvan Caryatid for hexproof, reduce the number of creatures you're playing, but add in Gifts Ungiven to find them, and replace them with removal/counters/card draw.

Since I have put Chromanticore in my soulflayer deck I have been doing amazing. Almost everything you want for soulflayer can be delved with just chromanticore. I also have Erobos for the indestructible and run copies of swiftfoot boots for hexproof

Hey guys, I've been trying a Black / Red varient of the deck. Here is what i've been testing, with moderate success. The deck is fast, but doesn't survive well late game once big things are being dropped.



Im playing the fast variant of the deck, hoping to dump 3 cards in the yard by turn 3 for a t3 soulflayer. Tainted strike has just been doing nothing, I prefer a simple aggro varient getting in with combat damage, seeing as with the elementals ill be chipping away at life totals in the early game. however, I don't like Prophetic Flamespeaker because he is really a do nothing card on his own. I want cards that I can play in case I don't draw soulflayer. Nighthawk is just an awesome card on its own so ill find room for that. Crypt Champion can reanimate almost anything for us.

Although the deck is aggro based, I still do like including Command and Inquisition, because they are simply catch-all type cards.

Haven't had much opportunity to play Darkblast, so i can't tell if its good. I tend to board it out often.

I will probably start testing out Liliana of the Veil.

Faithless Looting and Lightning Axe are such efficient delve enablers that i'm seriously thinking of just throwing in a single Chromanticore (despite what i said earlier about wanted cards that can do stuff alone). EDIT: as fun as that would be, all the relevant abilities chromanticore gives Soulflayer can be found on better stuff for the deck, so scratch that idea.

Any ideas for sideboard cards?

I just copied and pasted my above post from another thread, so i didn't get a chance to talk about the main idea. Soulflayer has great synergy with both the Elementals, and Looting and Axe are great discard engines, as is Liliana. But currently, I don't have many other good targets for Soulflayer. Vampire Nighthawk is a must, and i will try to find room for Gurmag Swiftwing. I might splash green for salvage and fauna shaman.