By Melissa DeTora
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Melissa is a former Magic pro player and strategy writer who is now working in R&D on the Play Design team.
I played a lot of Soulflayer-Chromanticore in Fate Reforged Standard and thought the deck was a blast to play, but I didn't think it had what it takes to compete in a Pro Tour. The deck has quite a few inconsistencies. Sometimes you draw too many Chromanticores with no way to get them into your graveyard. Sometimes you draw too many Soulflayers with nothing to delve away. Then there are times where you don't draw either, and just have a pile of creatures that don't really synergize with each other.
While I love the deck, I didn't expect to see it at Pro Tour Dragons of Tarkir last weekend. To my surprise, quite a few accomplished pro players chose to play the deck last weekend, including Hall of Famer Zvi Mowshowitz.
The basic idea of the deck is to use your self-mill spells like Satyr Wayfinder and Commune with the Gods to get a variety of creatures in your graveyard, including Chromanticore. Then you cast your Soulflayer for only two black mana, delving away your creatures with powerful abilities, thus making a Soulflayer with pretty much any keyword ability you can think of. Having played the deck, I can tell you that once you have a creature with flying, first strike, lifelink, trample, indestructible, and hexproof on the battlefield, it's pretty hard to lose.
This deck plays the Deathmist Raptor-Den Protector card advantage engine, which makes it much less vulnerable to control strategies. Before Dragons of Tarkir was released, controls decks were its biggest weakness. I'm happy that Dragons of Tarkir was able to give this deck a little boost and I'm looking forward to giving this new version a try.
Zvi Mowshowitz’s Chromantiflayer
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