One of my favorite creatures from Theros block is of course Chromanticore! So why not try to use him in a modern deck? Don't be fooled, while the deck's win condition is technically Soulflayer, the real MVP here is Chromanticore.
So how does the deck play? Well this is a dredge variant that wants specific creatures in the graveyard,
Lightning Runner
, Chromanticore, and occasionally Sylvan Caryadtid. This is done through discard by Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, and Lotleth Troll. They can also be milled via Stinkweed Imp and Grisly Salvage. The win condition for the deck is of course Soulflayer, which can be found with Grisly Salvage and Traverse the Ulvenwald. One of the advantages to this deck is it has a surprising amount of draw power due to the nature of the looting effects and the selective self mill.
In terms of consistency, this deck varies, sometimes you manage to get an early Soulflayer, others games he just might not appear at all. Traverse the Ulvenwald does help with this a lot, however delirium can be difficult to pull off from time to time, thankfully the MVP Chromanticore counts as an Enchantment, and Creature (at least I think he does, correct me if I am wrong)!
We are also fortunate in this deck because we are in Jund! Arguably one of the best color(s) for removal options. In this deck, I only use Abrupt Decay in the main board to handle a wide variety of issues, but there is plenty of room in the side board to deal with whatever is the biggest problem in your meta.
In terms of what are Soulflayer can do, the best combination I could come up with is Chromanticore,
Lightning Runner
, and Sylvan Caryatid. This gives us a 2-mana 4/4 with Flying, Double Strike, Vigilance, Trample, Lifelink, Haste, and Hexproof. While Hexproof is good, I don't feel it is super necessary, the only card in this list that grants it is Sylvan Caryatid, and it may be more useful as ramp. Soulflayer by itself avoides: Abrupt Decay, Lightning Bolt, and Fatal Push, it also does NOT die to Doom Blade. However, Path to Exile is still a problem.
By far the biggest problem for the deck is Control. Soulflayer getting countered is the worst thing that can happen, as you have to exile the cards when you cast him (you don't "have" to, but a 6-mana vanilla 4/4 is pretty bad), and it is difficult, not impossible, to build back up a decent graveyard after the first Soulflayer.
This isn't meant to be a hyper competitive Modern deck, but if you are looking to have fun, and mix it up a bit in terms of strategy, and play with the second best creature of all time (Strom Crow is still number one) than give this deck a try! Plus the deck without buying lands is only about $50.
As always if you have any suggestions, please leave a comment. (Not Vengevine, if it goes that route, the deck starts turning into a straight dredge/reanimater deck)
