This is my new build that I took to a PPTQ last weekend. I ended up going 4-1-1 with an ID into the top 8. My only loss in the swiss was to mono-red 1 drops. That deck is still giving me the most trouble. I didn't feel like I was in either game against it at all. Main deck searing blood is a killer against zombie tokens and satyr wayfinder. I may have been telegraphing my plays too much because my opponent knew when to play around drown in sorrow the one time I drew it in game 2. The 2 turns after I cleared his board, he went goblin rabblemaster, monastery swiftspear and I was back in a losing race.
I think, at least for my local meta, that my sideboard is getting close to right.
The drowns are usually good against aggro and tokens.
Downfall and stroke can both come in against most abzan builds, big green decks, and anything with Ugin or a lot of walkers.
Negate is good against most blue decks and crackling doom. Stain the Mind and Dead Drop are the most situational cards in the board.
Stain is mainly there for hard Flayer-tron answers like crackling doom, aetherspouts, ugin, the spirit dragon, whelming wave, etc.
Dead drop is there for heroic and the mirror (which I have yet to face).
One strategy that has seemed to work well is to side out Sidisi against black decks if my opponent saw her. She has helped me win many game 1s, but has been considerably worse in game 2 and 3. She is a ripe target for Bile Blight. (As are her tokens). If I can get my opponent to board into more cards that don't kill Soulflayer and Chromanticore, the decks A-plan becomes a little easier to do.
I experimented with Nyx Weaver in the spots of the Soul and Xenagod, and had a bit of success with it. Buying kill spells out of the GY feels really good, but the deck just performs better without it.
Soul of Innistrad has been good. Getting a binned Flayer back into your hand is great and I've found value in grabbing an extra Chromanticore in long games to bestow onto pretty much anything I've got. If I've got all the creatures I need, he's a source of deathtouch for my Flayer. It's better in game 1 when Sidisi is still in there, but good enough without her, so I usually leave him in. Might even go to 2 copies... Probably not.
Oh, and BTW, I lost in the round of 8 to turn 4 rhino, turn 5 rhino in game 1. Then turn 3 rhino, turn 4 rhino, turn 7 Ugin minus 6, turn 8 rhino game 2. Oh well.
Yes. I've been considering changing the 1 Xenagos, god of revels in my deck for a copy of keranos, god of storms. Xenagos' ability is exciting, but feels win-more. Keranos could be a big help in a grindy long game.
But...
I have found that indestructible is the strongest single ability to give Soulflayer in most cases. I definitely want to main deck at least 4 gods because of this. Instead of trying to get fancy with the red ones, 3 Pharikas and 1 Erebos might be the answer here. At least for me, as green and black make up all of the pips in the permanents I play outside of Sidisi and Silumgar. I am able to make Pharika into a creature a decent amount of the time she is out. She and Erebos have decently relevant abilities as well.
Tutor is obviously very powerful, but the inspired trigger on disciple of deceit seems too unreliable. If you could find a way to untap it reliably, you might have a nice trick.
I was playing against a Mardu deck and he thoughtseized me. To my surprise he chose the siege over soul flayer or chromanticores/caryatids in my hand. His reasoning was that as good as Crackling doom was, having to pay 5 for it is too much and makes his deck inefficient. Holy crap, Making it cost 5 just makes it that much harder to cast! I play 3 monastery's, I usually swap one out for SB'ing in but yeah. It just seems that much better now.
This doesn't work because crackling doom doesn't actually target anything. It remains the best card against us.
Nice! circle of flame seems like good tech. It would have helped last night a lot. I will have to change the mana up a bit for it. I don't think that will be too big of an issue. Also, I want to get rid of Xenagos for more card draw/selection. What do people think of a one-of treasure cruise vs dig through time vs (are you guys serious about?)taigam's scheming
I went 1-2, beating Mardu aggro/tokens (without crackling doom), and losing to mono-red aggro and red/white aggro.
The mardu matchup felt really easy. Turn 3 Sidisi into turn 4 Flayer-Tron won game 1. I got the flayer on turn 3 in game 2 and followed it up with a turn 4 Stain the mind, naming crackling doom(which wasn't there?) Then I learned how funny Goblin Rabblemaster looks against a big, vigilant life-linker.
The third round was the most competitive of the 3. I lost 2-0, but I was in both games. Again, the deck just felt too slow. I got a hexproof, flying flayer in game 1 and a hexproof, indestructible flayer game 2, but the lack of lifelink along with my opponents endless chump blockers allowed him to burn me out at the end of each game.
It was the control matchup that I was the most worried about with this deck, but now I see that a fast aggro deck can get under us real quick also. What are some changes I can make to deal with early red threats? Maybe some MD bile blight? Hopefully I will see more variety tomorrow at FNM.
Has anyone considered running Boon Satyr in this list? I was looking at Joe Page's list and thinking about running it in place of the 3 Singing Bell Strikes. It has 4 power(to draw off of temur ascendancy), it is an enchantment(to draw off of eidolon of blossoms), it's a 3-drop(where all we have is courser of kruphix) and has 2 green pips. Seems to me like a pretty good fit that I haven't heard suggested yet.
I've been obsessing over putting together a competitive simic deck for a couple weeks now. I was playing a mono-green ramp deck, and started playtesting with different color splashes to shore up some weak spots. The R/G build that has become somewhat common is definitely a beast, but for me, prophet of kruphix is the reason to go blue.
Like you, I had the wurm in there because it's a huge threat that can be cheated out with Garruk. It is also realistic to hard-cast with a ramp-focused deck. I have since taken it out because it is usually unnecessary and can be an early-game dead card. Here is where I am right now, and I'm loving it.
Aven Mindcensor
Reanimate
Craterhoof Behemoth
Goblin Guide
Marsh Flats
Will NOT be in the set:
Pithing Needle
Young Pyromancer
Thoughtseize
Abrupt Decay
Deathrite Shaman
4x opulent palace
2x temple of malady
1x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
3x forest
1x island
2x swamp
3x llanowar wastes
1x mana confluence
1x mountain
1 plains
3 evolving wilds
1 yavimaya coast
Creatures (25)
4x chromanticore
3x sylvan caryatid
1x xenagos, god of revels
1x erebos, god of the dead
2x pharika, god of affliction
4x satyr wayfinder
3x sidisi, brood tyrant
2x silumgar, the drifting death
4x soulflayer
1 soul of innistrad
2x hero's downfall
3x murderous cut
3x sultai charm
4x commune with the gods
3x disdainful stroke
3x drown in sorrow
2x hero's downfall
3x negate
2x stain the mind
2x dead drop
This is my new build that I took to a PPTQ last weekend. I ended up going 4-1-1 with an ID into the top 8. My only loss in the swiss was to mono-red 1 drops. That deck is still giving me the most trouble. I didn't feel like I was in either game against it at all. Main deck searing blood is a killer against zombie tokens and satyr wayfinder. I may have been telegraphing my plays too much because my opponent knew when to play around drown in sorrow the one time I drew it in game 2. The 2 turns after I cleared his board, he went goblin rabblemaster, monastery swiftspear and I was back in a losing race.
I think, at least for my local meta, that my sideboard is getting close to right.
The drowns are usually good against aggro and tokens.
Downfall and stroke can both come in against most abzan builds, big green decks, and anything with Ugin or a lot of walkers.
Negate is good against most blue decks and crackling doom.
Stain the Mind and Dead Drop are the most situational cards in the board.
Stain is mainly there for hard Flayer-tron answers like crackling doom, aetherspouts, ugin, the spirit dragon, whelming wave, etc.
Dead drop is there for heroic and the mirror (which I have yet to face).
One strategy that has seemed to work well is to side out Sidisi against black decks if my opponent saw her. She has helped me win many game 1s, but has been considerably worse in game 2 and 3. She is a ripe target for Bile Blight. (As are her tokens). If I can get my opponent to board into more cards that don't kill Soulflayer and Chromanticore, the decks A-plan becomes a little easier to do.
I experimented with Nyx Weaver in the spots of the Soul and Xenagod, and had a bit of success with it. Buying kill spells out of the GY feels really good, but the deck just performs better without it.
Soul of Innistrad has been good. Getting a binned Flayer back into your hand is great and I've found value in grabbing an extra Chromanticore in long games to bestow onto pretty much anything I've got. If I've got all the creatures I need, he's a source of deathtouch for my Flayer. It's better in game 1 when Sidisi is still in there, but good enough without her, so I usually leave him in. Might even go to 2 copies... Probably not.
Oh, and BTW, I lost in the round of 8 to turn 4 rhino, turn 5 rhino in game 1. Then turn 3 rhino, turn 4 rhino, turn 7 Ugin minus 6, turn 8 rhino game 2. Oh well.
But...
I have found that indestructible is the strongest single ability to give Soulflayer in most cases. I definitely want to main deck at least 4 gods because of this. Instead of trying to get fancy with the red ones, 3 Pharikas and 1 Erebos might be the answer here. At least for me, as green and black make up all of the pips in the permanents I play outside of Sidisi and Silumgar. I am able to make Pharika into a creature a decent amount of the time she is out. She and Erebos have decently relevant abilities as well.
Tutor is obviously very powerful, but the inspired trigger on disciple of deceit seems too unreliable. If you could find a way to untap it reliably, you might have a nice trick.
This doesn't work because crackling doom doesn't actually target anything. It remains the best card against us.
4x opulent palace
1x bloodstained mire
1x polluted delta
3x temple of malady
1x temple of mystery
1x urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
3x forest
1x island
2x swamp
3x llanowar wastes
2x mana confluence
1x mountain
4x chromanticore
4x sylvan caryatid
1x xenagos, god of revels
1x erebos, god of the dead
2x pharika, god of affliction
4x satyr wayfinder
2x sidisi, brood tyrant
2x silumgar, the drifting death
4x soulflayer
Spells (13)
3x hero's downfall
2x murderous cut
4x sultai charm
4x commune with the gods
4x disdainful stroke
3x drown in sorrow
1x hero's downfall
2x negate
2x stain the mind
3x thoughtseize
I went 1-2, beating Mardu aggro/tokens (without crackling doom), and losing to mono-red aggro and red/white aggro.
The mardu matchup felt really easy. Turn 3 Sidisi into turn 4 Flayer-Tron won game 1. I got the flayer on turn 3 in game 2 and followed it up with a turn 4 Stain the mind, naming crackling doom(which wasn't there?) Then I learned how funny Goblin Rabblemaster looks against a big, vigilant life-linker.
In the second round, game 1 was over when I went tapland, tapland, tapland on the draw. Probably a bad keep, but I didn't know I was facing foundry street denizens, monastery swiftspears, dragon mantles and titan's strengths. I brought in drown in sorrow for game 2, but was still wayyyy too slow to compete.
The third round was the most competitive of the 3. I lost 2-0, but I was in both games. Again, the deck just felt too slow. I got a hexproof, flying flayer in game 1 and a hexproof, indestructible flayer game 2, but the lack of lifelink along with my opponents endless chump blockers allowed him to burn me out at the end of each game.
It was the control matchup that I was the most worried about with this deck, but now I see that a fast aggro deck can get under us real quick also. What are some changes I can make to deal with early red threats? Maybe some MD bile blight? Hopefully I will see more variety tomorrow at FNM.
Like you, I had the wurm in there because it's a huge threat that can be cheated out with Garruk. It is also realistic to hard-cast with a ramp-focused deck. I have since taken it out because it is usually unnecessary and can be an early-game dead card. Here is where I am right now, and I'm loving it.
4x Courser of Kruphix
4x Elvish Mystic
4x Kalonian Hydra
3x Kiora's Follower
3x Polukranos, World Eater
4x Progenitor Mimic
3x Prophet of Kruphix
3x Sylvan Caryatid
3x Sylvan Primordial
4x Breeding Pool
10x Forest
2x Island
4x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2x Temple of Mystery
Instant (4)
4x Cyclonic Rift
Planeswalker (3)
3x Garruk, Caller of Beasts
2x Arbor Colossus
3x Fade into Antiquity
4x Mistcutter Hydra
1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
2x Pithing Needle
3x Simic Charm