Prior to the release of Commander (2014 Edition), my favorite mono-black card that has seen print thus far in 2014 was probably Bitter Revelation. I was dropping that into all of my decks. I picked up a half-dozen foil ones now because I know I’ll want them madly down the road. And then Flesh Carver was released, and I had a new favorite mono-black card—a new obsession!

First of all, you have a strong 3-drop for Casual Land. In a lot of formats, particularly multiplayer (cough—Commander—cough), you have a tendency to play the big stuff. You have the time to build up and play these bigger creatures. And your 5-drop creature is likely to outclass your 3-drop. So the 5-drop makes the cut, and the metagame is more forgiving. But that can lead to uneven decks. A bad mana curve is a subtle way of losing. The Carver answers this issue because it is an incredibly strong 3-drop just generally.

The Flesh Carver works perfectly fine in a deck that is not designed to use it. For example, suppose you chump-block with some random dork that’s about to die. Just sacrifice it to the Carver to make it better. Perhaps someone has targeted your amazingly strong beater for removal. Just sacrifice it, and grow your Carver. You can use this as a way to build a beater while squeezing a little more value out of bad situations.

And the Carver is no slouch. As a creature with intimidate, making it a little bigger over time can turn it into a significant evasive threat. And since you dropped it to the table early, you’ve had more time to let it sit and grow.

Now, that’s the Carver on its own, in isolation from other decks. But no card is an island (except for an actual Island of course).

Where does the Carver stand up when you start looking for friends?

Consider a common theme of sacrifice in Rakdos. B/R has loved to sacrifice creatures for years. It was even a Draft theme in Magic 2014. We’ve had fun from Goblin Bombardment to Grave Pact causing a lot of pain.

Red loves dying things so much that it had a ton of cards to enable it or trigger off it (Furnace Celebration, Magmaw). This combos well with our good Rakdos combo.

Another classic combo is Golgari. Combine that Flesh Carver with cards like Deathreap Ritual or Foster to building your creature and hand base. Remember that the original Golgari guild in Ravnica was about sacrificing creatures, such as Saproling tokens, for stuff. It has a death-and-rebirth theme.

Green gives us token-making, such as with Awakening Zone and Sprout Swarm, that can fuel effects like a Flesh Carver. Consider stuff like Greater Good, Perilous Forays, Life's Legacy, Natural Order, and Mycoloth.

Golgari works, too.

And if Golgari and Rakdos both work with Flesh Carver and friends, Jund certainly has to, right? Right! It’s such a strong common theme of the colors that it was the central mechanic of the 2013 Power Hungry Commander deck.

It’s not just that either.

But Khans of Tarkir gave the wedge a ton of awesome synergetic stuff to use with Flesh Carver and its token stylings. Hardened Scales doubles the value of your sacrifices. Many of the creatures with outlast also help other creatures with a +1/+1 counter on them. You can give your Carver deathtouch, first strike, flying, trample, reach, and so forth.

Yay Abzan!

You can even reduce Abzan down to just Orzhov and run white and black and work with Flesh Carver. White has a lot of token-making, particularly of the Solider variety. From strong Planeswalkers (Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Sorin, Lord of Innistrad) to powerful spells (Lingering Souls and Decree of Justice), you can ramp up the bodies for sacrificing into the black dark fires of the nights.

Plus, with a creature base that includes stuff like Sun Titan, Reveillark, and Karmic Guide, you can easily build a death-and-rebirth sort of thing here to take advantage of your Carver friends!

So it looks like black’s Flesh Carver gets along with just about any color combination that doesn’t include blue. Right?

But what about Dimir? Is it as bad off as you might think?

Blue has lot of useful death triggers.

And you can expand past just Dimir as well. Let’s just take one example: Grixis.

Right now, you could build a Commander deck around, say, Marchesa, the Black Rose. And if you did, Flesh Carver would be an all-star addition!

So let’s build a pair of quick Flesh Carver decks that use some of the ideas mentioned here, and then you can decide for yourself if it’s the real deal!

Carving My Way Back to You ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (26)
• 2 Fallen Angel
• 2 Sadistic Hypnotist
• 4 Archon of Justice
• 4 Black Cat
• 4 Flesh Carver
• 4 Hallowed Spiritkeeper
• 4 Kitchen Finks
• 2 Solemn Simulacrum

• Spells (8)
• 2 Angelic Chorus
• 2 Attrition
• 2 Dark Prophecy
• 2 Dictate of Erebos

• Lands (26)
• 7 Plains
• 7 Swamp
• 4 Caves of Koilos
• 4 Orzhov Basilica
• 4 Orzhov Guildgate

Buy This Deck

With some fun death triggers and some fun cards, this deck can build up a potent Carver for the kill. Sacrifice cards with death triggers, such as Black Cat, Archon of Justice, and the Hallowed Spiritkeeper in order to wrest every last bit of value from your triggers.

Carve yourself some fun!

In a Flesh ? Casual | Abe Sargent

• Creatures (26)
• 2 Ogre Slumlord
• 2 Pawn of Ulamog
• 2 Phyrexian Plaguelord
• 2 Phytotitan
• 2 Reassembling Skeleton
• 4 Flesh Carver
• 4 Hooded Hydra
• 4 Quirion Elves
• 4 Reaper of the Wilds

• Spells (8)
• 2 Overrun
• 2 Deathreap Ritual
• 2 Grave Pact
• 2 Ashnod's Altar

• Lands (26)
• 8 Forest
• 8 Swamp
• 2 Grim Backwoods
• 4 Golgari Guildgate
• 4 Golgari Rot Farm

Buy This Deck

This Golgari-themed deck uses some fun death triggers, such as Deathreap Ritual’s and Ogre Slumlord’s. Sacrifice and grow, baby; sacrifice and grow!

Get your pound of flesh, folks!

Flesh Carver is an awesome card. I’m already sold. It just plays so smoothly, and it works so well with anything. Reanimation? Check. Counters? Check. Death triggers? Check. Sacrificing? Check. Token decks? Check.

Just a generally useful card for a lot of situations? Check.

The Carver is going to check a lot of deck-building needs from here on out. So what have you used Flesh Carver for? What great stories do you have with it?

This is the era of the Flesh Carver.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent