"This Flayer ain't fooling around"

"Whats up flayer?"

"This Flayer ain't fooling around"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

     In the middle of an interesting EDH game my friend Archie suddenly remembered a card that he would be adding to his Grixis Control - Reanimator Deck. The card was Flayer of the Hatebound.

     Which lead me to this joke. What did Flayer Husk say to Flayer of the Hatebound when they first saw each other in a bar? He said, "Whats up Flayer?"

Pause....

     If you have now stopped laughing or thinking of how corny that joke was I would like to begin harping about this particular Trash Rare Card. In standard because of his huge casting cost and the existence of very fast creatures he was doomed to the pile of cards that would merely rot until a suitable combo would be found to make them playable. In EDH though and with the abundance of cards that jump out of the graveyard he becomes an instant King.

     He is a 1 Red Mana and 5 Generic mana  creature at 4/2 power toughness. He has the Undying Mechanic which makes him a 5/3 when he comes back from the grave. He also has the great ability of having creatures deal damage to players according to their power when they come back from the grave. Very Innistrad in a sense where the graveyard just seems like one stop on your way to somewhere else.

     Now because of the recent release of the Sorin Vs. Tibalt Duel Decks 2 great mechanics come in mind for this card and that is the Unearth and Undying Mechanic. Flayer of the Hatebound is also a Necromancers delight as dealing direct damage before a creature smashes your opponents face is highly desirable.

Unearth  - allows you to cast creatures from your graveyard for a mana cost , reap that creatures come into play abilities and have them deal damage because they have haste. You exile them at the end of the turn but hey they already served their purpose twice so it wont be much of a loss. With the Flayer in play the added dimension of direct damage is added into this already rewarding turn of events. On a Grixis deck its not so hard to imagine having a Krederekt Leviathan deal 6 damage before returning all Non-Land permanents.

Undying  - allows creatures to come back from the grave stronger with +1/+1 counters on them. There is an abundance of them in Red and Black which is the color that Flayer is more at home with.

Reanimation - Any method of reanimation either by spells of creature abilities will trigger the Flayers ability and deal tons of damage and since Reanimation seldomly tries to cheat in small creatures then expect massive damage with each reanimation that would occur. My friend Archie for example dreams of having an It that betrays come into play and deal 11 damage in one go. With the Flayer in play any reanimation target becomes a big mass of Red damage that brings your opponents closer to the end.

     I on the other hand thought of a more salivating play from this same vein of thought. The moment my friend mentioned it I had this really insane combo in mind that could end a players life total in one move.

With a Flayer of the Hatebound already in play...

Cast Torrent of Souls Reanimating Bladewing the Risen which Reanimates a Dragon Tyrant and Brings a Bladewings Thrull back into play.

Damage Calculation: 4+6+3= 13 Damage as these creatures come into play.

They all gain haste and +2/0 as Red mana was used in Torrent of Souls and they all attack with the Flayer. Assuming there are no available blockers.

Damage Calculation: 6+ 16 + 5 + 6 = 33 Damage + 13 Damage from the Flayers ability is a whopping 46 points of Damage!!! And this is assuming that they have not had any damage dealt to them at any point earlier in the game(which would be impossible with a red deck). 46 points of damage. The final push to end one player.

     Its amazing how a lot of combinations and potential win conditions like this go unnoticed for months on  end. Well it takes the right environment and the right insane mind to see it after all. So in the mean time there is a lot of exploitation to explore with this card. Keep on burning.