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Skogre
04-29-2012, 09:11 AM
This thread is intended for developing a decklist and discussing how to use Food Chain.

Here's my current decklist for a version using Misthollow Griffin (which was heavily influenced by Caleb Durward's own list and can be seen here (http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/legacy-weapon-all-the-worlds-a-thrun/)):

*Food Chain Griffin Combo*
Creature - 22
1 AEthersnipe
2 Coiling Oracle
2 Fierce Empath
2 Raven Familiar
2 Court Hussar
2 Drift of Phantasms
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Noble Hierarch

Enchantment - 4
4 Food Chain

Instant - 11
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
2 Spell Pierce

Sorcery - 3
1 Ponder
2 Living Wish

Artifact - 3
3 Chrome Mox

Land - 17
2 Forest
1 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
2 Windswept Heath
1 Savannah
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors

SB: 1 Misthollow Griffin
SB: 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 AEthersnipe
SB: 3 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Progenitus
SB: 4 Natural Order
SB: 3 Loaming Shaman

Card Choices:
Court Hussar and Raven Familiar - lets you dig into the deck with creatures that can be cast with Food Chain or fed to Food Chain once it is found.
AEthersnipe - intended to remove many problematic cards from the board. Target for Fierce Empath.
Fierce Empath - debatable addition. If AEthersnipe is removed, Fierce Empath could be removed, as well. Finds AEthersnipe and Emrakul.
Drift of Phantasms - most often used as a Transmute for Food Chain, a Court Hussar, or Raven Familiar.
Living Wish - allows a fourth Misthollow Griffin; a second Emrakul, the Aeons Torn; and a second Maga, Traitor to Mortals to be played in the Sideboard. Also allows a few toolbox cards to be played in the Sideboard, as well, such as Loaming Shaman, Gaddock Teeg, and AEthersnipe.
Chrome Mox - provides a little speed. Misthollow Griffin can be imprinted on the card and cast later. Please note that once the Misthollow Griffin is cast from exile, Chrome Mox can no longer tap for blue mana. This is usually not problematic, however, as you'll likely be comboing off at that point anyways.
Misdirection - a little added protection. Works well with Misthollow Griffin. Often functions like Force of Will in forcing through Food Chain or a piece of the combo insofar as you can change the target of a counterspell targeting one of your cards to the Misdirection, effectively countering it.
Coiling Oracle - awesome little creature. Provides ramp or card draw. Works well with Brainstorm. Can be fed to Food Chain. Was an all-star in the older Elf Food Chain versions of the deck. Less powerful, here, but still a fine choice.
Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors - a small bit of ramp.
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - the win condition of choice, given you'll be hard casting it.
Maga, Traitor to Mortals - secondary win condition. Gets around certain things that Emrakul cannot, like Ensnaring Bridge. Can be Stifled.

Some Cards to Consider:
Eternal Witness - a body that can recover a discarded card from the graveyard and be fed to the Food Chain.
Gaea's Herald - a little extra protection from counterspells. Seems unnecessary, but might be an option.
Intuition - apt at finding combo pieces at Instant speed. In this regard, Intuition has a leg up on Drift of Phantasm's Transmute. Can also find Misthollow Griffin. On the downside, it is not a creature.
Show and Tell - perhaps an excellent backup plan to maindeck or come out of the sideboard. Would require playing more Emrakuls maindeck and less Fierce Empath. Could be found with Drift of Phantasm's Transmute.
Natural Order - another backup plan coming out of the sideboard. The deck is already playing plenty of green creatures. Might not be a bad choice. Inferior to Show and Tell insofar as it is not a target for Drift of Phantasm's Transmute.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor - yet another backup plan that also provides added utility. Rarely needs to be justified and yet this deck may not be the place for him.
Man-O'-War - performs a function similar to AEthersnipe at a converted mana cost of 3. Thus, it is a legal target for Drift of Phantasms but not Fierce Empath. A version without Fierce Empath might value this card more. Note: this only targets creatures.
Mulldrifter - good card draw on a body. Its Evoke provides amazing value with Food Chain in play. Only downside is that it does not dig as deep as Raven Familiar or Court Hussar (albeit by only one card).
Ingot Chewer - removes an artifact. Seems inferior to AEthersnipe insofar as it only targets artifacts, is not blue, and cannot be searched with Fierce Empath.
Manipulate Fate and Foresight - allows you to search your library and exile Misthollow Griffin. Maybe too cute or narrow to really be good, as it can only find the Misthollow Griffin and not the Food Chain. Other obvious drawback is that they're sorceries.
Extract - functions as a tutor for Misthollow Griffin. Like Manipulate Fate and Foresight, this might be too narrow and is also, unfortunately, a sorcery.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir - allows the deck to go off at instant speed once the Food Chain is in play and provides protection for the combo.
Worldly Tutor - search your library for a creature card.
Eladamri's Call - search your library for a creature card at Instant speed. Requires a stronger commitment to white. Might not be too difficult to pull off with Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch. Might be worth doing because Enlightened Tutor is also white.
Enlightened Tutor - search your library for Food Chain or some other enchantment or artifact (possibly artifact creature) not yet considered.
Gaddock Teeg - Hinders combo and stops Force of Will.
Spoils of the Vault - you're usually naming Food Chain or Emrakul and hoping to exile a Misthollow Griffin in the process.
Plunge into Darkness - similar to Spoils of the Vault, but a little different. Hoping to hit a piece of your combo while exiling a Griffin. Less dangerous but requires a little more mana. Also allows you to sacrifice unwanted creatures, although this is a pretty rare occasion.
Tainted Pact - another card to fetch a combo piece or counterspell while exiling Misthollow Griffin in the process.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Mystic Snake
Sages of the Anima
Trygon Predator


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It has also been suggested that the Misthollow Griffin + Food Chain combo isn't the way to go, and that it would be more effective to rely on an Imperial Recruiter chain. Here's a list that I threw together, which was based off of Sedris' list, here (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23711-Food-Chain-Combo&p=639795&viewfull=1#post639795):

*Food Chain Recruiter*
Creature - 24
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Fierce Empath
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Court Hussar
2 Raven Familiar

Enchantment - 4
4 Food Chain

Instant - 12
4 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
1 Spell Snare
4 Brainstorm

Sorcery - 3
3 Ponder

Land - 17
1 Volcanic Island
4 Scalding Tarn
1 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
2 Tropical Island

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Christopher Piedra's Food Chain finished 42/147 at SCG Orlando May 20th, 2012. SCG Deck Tech: here (http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_food_chain_with_chri.html)


Creatures
1 AEthersnipe
4 Coiling Oracle
1 Drift of Phantasms
2 Elvish Visionary
3 Fauna Shaman
2 Fierce Empath
3 Llanowar Elves
1 Misthollow Griffin
2 Mulldrifter
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Quirion Ranger
3 Vengevine
3 Wirewood Symbiote

Enchantments
4 Food Chain

Instants
4 Brainstorm

Legendary Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Sorceries
2 Glimpse of Nature

Basic Lands
4 Forest
1 Island

Lands
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs

Legendary Lands
2 Gaea's Cradle

Sideboard:
3 Phyrexian Revoker
3 Faerie Macabre
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Vengevine
1 Viridian Shaman
3 Force of Will
2 Krosan Grip
1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress

prgmctan
04-29-2012, 11:35 AM
I like it a lot. Couple questions:
What is the AEthersnipe for?
Does Fierce Empath only grab Emrakul? Would it be better to just run more Emrakuls?

JPA
04-29-2012, 11:45 AM
That's how I would incorporate Food Chain in a Legacy deck:


4 Food Chain
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
3 Misdirection
2 Lotus Petal
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Fierce Empath

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2 Progenitus

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Boseiju, who shelters all


I like having a backup plan, that's why I chose Show and Tell. Eureka could also work.

Darkenslight
04-29-2012, 12:13 PM
That's how I would incorporate Food Chain in a Legacy deck:


4 Food Chain
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
3 Misdirection
2 Lotus Petal
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Fierce Empath

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2 Progenitus

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Boseiju, who shelters all


I like having a backup plan, that's why I chose Show and Tell. Eureka could also work.

Could Sneak Attack work as an alternative to SnT?

JPA
04-29-2012, 12:38 PM
Could Sneak Attack work as an alternative to SnT?

Well, if you want to build a Food Chain deck, Show and Tell should be your alternate win plan, because splashing for Blue doesn't hurt, but even helps you, since you get access to cantrips, counters and Intuition.

Furthermore a Fattie + Show and Tell means winning the game often enough, and the option of Misthollow Griffin + Food Chain is a cute alternative. So in this case, my suggested list is probably a Show and Tell deck with Food Chain as alternative. :P

And since we already have Sneak Show and Hive Mind as Show and Tell decks, probably a bad idea. xD

Nonex
04-29-2012, 01:36 PM
Could Sneak Attack work as an alternative to SnT?

Not only it does work as an alternative, it can essentially become a red Food Chain if you build the deck with that in mind. This is the list I've been playing for a while:

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Misty Rainforest
3 Taiga
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Gaea's Cradle
4 Forest
1 Mountain

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Noble Hierarch
1 Fauna Shaman
3 Elvish Visionary
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Fierce Empath
4 Bloodbraid Elf
1 Deranged Hermit
1 Krosan Tusker
2 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Food Chain
4 Sneak Attack
3 Sylvan Library

Skogre
04-29-2012, 03:12 PM
I like it a lot. Couple questions:
What is the AEthersnipe for?
Does Fierce Empath only grab Emrakul? Would it be better to just run more Emrakuls?

AEthersnipe can bounce Ensnaring Bridge and an opponent's Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to clear the way for your own. I'm guessing that there might be a number of situations in which something needs to be bounced, but nothing else immediately comes to mind.

Fierce Empath's only other target is AEthersnipe. If AEthersnipe was cut, so could the Fierce Empaths. My hope was also that somebody might know of some other sweet Fierce Empath targets, as well. Previously I had considered Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Myojin of Seeing Winds, Phyrexian Gargantua, and Griselbrand for card draw, but those seem unnecessary if you can just get Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play immediately.

Skogre
04-29-2012, 03:14 PM
That's how I would incorporate Food Chain in a Legacy deck:


4 Food Chain
4 Show and Tell
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Force of Will
4 Intuition
3 Misdirection
2 Lotus Petal
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Fierce Empath

3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2 Progenitus

4 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
4 Tropical Island
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
2 Forest
1 Boseiju, who shelters all


I like having a backup plan, that's why I chose Show and Tell. Eureka could also work.

Eureka could be great since you're in green anyways. My concern, though, would be casting Eureka, putting an Emrakul in play and then your opponent putting a Jace, the Mind Sculptor in play.

Technics
04-29-2012, 05:47 PM
Maga,Traitor to Mortals >>> Emrakul.

Just saying...

Ppa0
04-29-2012, 06:10 PM
This is my own list but maybe it can help you out some;

Creature (13)

1x Blazing Archon
1x Grozoth
1x Myojin of Life's Web
4x Fierce Empath
4x Scornful Egotist
1x Inkwell Leviathan
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria

Enchantment (8)

4x Food Chain
4x Defense of the Heart

Sorcery (4)

4x Ponder

Land (21)

2x Forest
4x Island
3x Forbidden Orchard
4x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Scalding Tarn

Instant (14)

2x Green Sun's Zenith
4x Force of Will
3x Spell Snare
2x Mana Leak
3x Spell Pierce

The whole point is getting Scornful Egotist and Grozoth with Fierce Empath, With Grozoth getting all of the 9 CC creatures and then dropping them all with Myojin of Life's Web at the same time .

Darkenslight
04-30-2012, 05:39 AM
AEthersnipe can bounce Ensnaring Bridge and an opponent's Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to clear the way for your own. I'm guessing that there might be a number of situations in which something needs to be bounced, but nothing else immediately comes to mind.

Fierce Empath's only other target is AEthersnipe. If AEthersnipe was cut, so could the Fierce Empaths. My hope was also that somebody might know of some other sweet Fierce Empath targets, as well. Previously I had considered Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Myojin of Seeing Winds, Phyrexian Gargantua, and Griselbrand for card draw, but those seem unnecessary if you can just get Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into play immediately.

Cloudthresher seems like a really strong card: evoke for 4, get 7 mana out of it? Actually, pretty much any Evoke card that does something relevant to the game-state: Ingot Chewer seems especially appropriate as a splash card - :r: for :6: of any color? Sign me UP!

Sedris
04-30-2012, 08:40 AM
What does Misthollowgriffin better than 4 Imperial Recruiter and 4 Phantasmal Image?

I mean, Food Chain + Griffin + Carddrawcreatures into Fattie/Fattie = Win

But Food Chain + Imperial Recruiter = Win

So why should anyone play a 3 card combo over a 2 card combo, when the only advantage is, that you don't need 4-8 slots more for the combo?

I won't play the 3 card combo over the 2 card combo, when the only aspects are less Slots, that you can pitch griffin into force and even then combo out and to be less affected by mindcensor.

Skogre
04-30-2012, 11:08 AM
What does Misthollowgriffin better than 4 Imperial Recruiter and 4 Phantasmal Image?

I mean, Food Chain + Griffin + Carddrawcreatures into Fattie/Fattie = Win

But Food Chain + Imperial Recruiter = Win

So why should anyone play a 3 card combo over a 2 card combo, when the only advantage is, that you don't need 4-8 slots more for the combo?

I won't play the 3 card combo over the 2 card combo, when the only aspects are less Slots, that you can pitch griffin into force and even then combo out and to be less affected by mindcensor.

4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Fierce Empath
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

I'm guessing the combo would go something like this:


With Food Chain in play: Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Fierce Empath --> Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

or


With Food Chain in play: cast Imperial Recruiter1 fetching Imperial Recruiter2; exile Imperial Recruiter1 (4 red mana), cast Imperial Recruiter2 (1 red mana) fetching Imperial Recruiter3; exile Imperial Recruiter2 (5 red mana), cast Imperial Recruiter3 (2 red mana) fetching Imperial Recruiter4; exile Imperial Recruiter3 (2 red mana, 4 blue mana), cast Imperial Recruiter4 (3 blue mana) fetching Phantasmal Image1; cast Phantasmal Image1 (1 blue mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Phatasmal Image2; exile Phantasmal Image1 (5 blue mana) cast Phantasmal Image2 (3 blue mana) copying Imperial recruiter fetching Phantasmal Image3; cast Phantasmal Image3 (1 blue mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Phantasmal Image4; exile Phantasmal Image2 (1 blue mana, 4 green mana), cast Phantasmal Image4 (3 green mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Fierce Empath; cast Fierce Empath (0 mana) fetching Emrakul, the Aeons Torn; exile Imperial Recruiter4 (4 mana), Phantasmal Image3 (8 mana), Phantasmal Image4 (12 mana), and Fierce Empath (16 mana); cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

It seems pretty good. What are some alternative routes or win conditions this could offer and would you care to offer a decklist?

One benefit to using Imperial Recruiter as a combo piece is that it, like Food Chain, has a CMC of 3, and can therefore be fetched using Drift of Phantasm's Transmute.

You could also have this Imperial Recruiter Food Chain package and one Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and one Pestermite, as well, as an additional win condition. That might be a little too greedy, though.

TsumiBand
04-30-2012, 11:30 AM
I believe the point of including and using Misthollow Griffin as a two-card combo is that you get to pitch them to Force and still use them to combo out, OR in the event of a catastrophic combo failure and your opponent has some random answer, you can grind them out with 3/3 fliers. With infinite mana in the question via Misthollow + Food Chain, using Imperial to get just enough mana to combo out seems academic.

Darkenslight
04-30-2012, 11:33 AM
Maga,Traitor to Mortals >>> Emrakul.

Just saying...

Play both? Stifle affects Maga, just so's you know. :)

Sedris
04-30-2012, 11:38 AM
4 Imperial Recruiter
4 Phantasmal Image
1 Fierce Empath
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

I'm guessing the combo would go something like this:

With Food Chain in play: Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Imperial Recruiter --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Phantasmal Image --> Fierce Empath --> Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

or

With Food Chain in play: cast Imperial Recruiter1 fetching Imperial Recruiter2; exile Imperial Recruiter1 (4 red mana), cast Imperial Recruiter2 (1 red mana) fetching Imperial Recruiter3; exile Imperial Recruiter2 (5 red mana), cast Imperial Recruiter3 (2 red mana) fetching Imperial Recruiter4; exile Imperial Recruiter3 (2 red mana, 4 blue mana), cast Imperial Recruiter4 (3 blue mana) fetching Phantasmal Image1; cast Phantasmal Image1 (1 blue mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Phatasmal Image2; exile Phantasmal Image1 (5 blue mana) cast Phantasmal Image2 (3 blue mana) copying Imperial recruiter fetching Phantasmal Image3; cast Phantasmal Image3 (1 blue mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Phantasmal Image4; exile Phantasmal Image2 (1 blue mana, 4 green mana), cast Phantasmal Image4 (3 green mana) copying Imperial Recruiter fetching Fierce Empath; cast Fierce Empath (0 mana) fetching Emrakul, the Aeons Torn; exile Imperial Recruiter4 (4 mana), Phantasmal Image3 (8 mana), Phantasmal Image4 (12 mana), and Fierce Empath (16 mana); cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.

It seems pretty good. What are some alternative routes or win conditions this could offer and would you care to offer a decklist?

One benefit to using Imperial Recruiter as a combo piece is that it, like Food Chain, has a CMC of 3, and can therefore be fetched using Drift of Phantasm's Transmute.

Yes, thats exactly how it works.

I tested it in such a list longer time ago:

Lands - 20
1 Forest
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
3 Taiga
3 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island

Creatures - 24
2 Birds of Paradise
3 Wall of Blossoms
4 Phantasmal Image
2 Raven Familiar
1 Man-o'-War
4 Imperial Recruiter
2 Fierce Empath
1 Eternal Witness
4 Mulldrifter
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Instants - 12
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Force of Will

Enchantments - 4
4 Food Chain

SB - 15
1 Red Elemental Blast
2 Spell Pierce
2 Krosan Grip
2 Pact of Negation
3 Show and Tell
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Ingot Chewer


The List was quite fun, but i think it is very suboptimal.

You see, there are many ways to build around:

Maybe you Play plan B maindeck with SNT, or you splash black for Cabal Therapy and Shriekmaw. Then you may play the Recruiter Combo AND Griffin maindeck with much more Creatures.

I think a good idea is to play 4 GSZ for having more value and more Ramp.

I think there are thousand list which are better than mine, but its not bad to think about playing recruiter + food chain combo > griffin + food chain combo.


With Drift of Phantasms in Deck you can search the Drift for Food Chain with Recruiter and vice versa. The only problem is, that you need Food Chain for both combos.

Koby
05-04-2012, 12:41 PM
Is there any room for Serum Powder in the deck to help mulligans and possibly setup the combo pieces? I'm intrigued by the prospect of UG Show and Chain lists. I'm going to try it out.

mordraid
05-05-2012, 08:22 AM
Is there any room for Serum Powder in the deck to help mulligans and possibly setup the combo pieces? I'm intrigued by the prospect of UG Show and Chain lists. I'm going to try it out.

I was thinking on something along the lines of serum powder and spoils of the vault. Soils of the vault let you search for the food chain at instant speed and will probably remove one griffin in the process.

mordraid
05-09-2012, 01:33 PM
I did some testing with food chain combo and it's been a lot of fun. Spoils of the vault is completly insane, even killing myself in the process !

Spoils of the vault exile cards until you find the one you named, so it can exile any of your win conditions in the process. I've decided to play as many win condition as possible without hurting the deck so much.

Here's my declist so far

Creatures:
4x misthollow griffin
4x noble hierarch
4x birds of paradise
3x raven familiar
2x fierce empath
2x mulldrifter
2x drift of phantasms
3x coiling oracle

Win condition:
1x emrakul, the eons torn
2x soul of the harvest
1x maga, traitor to mortals

Spells:
4x food chain
4x force of will
4x spoils of the vault

mana:
3x chrome mox
4x tropical island
4x misty rainforest
1x verdant catacombs
3x city of brass
2x city of traitors
1x ancient tomb
1x bayou


With four win conditions in the deck, all being tutorable via fierce empath or drift of phantasms, it's more than enough to find one fast.

Spoils of the vault for food chain will usually turns out in a 6-14 life loss, the average being about 9. Sadly, it kills me one game in practice, removing 30 cards ! before finding a single food chain !. It rarely happens, but it still can ! The benefits of having like 8 food chain at instant speed for one mana ! ( that can remove griffin in the process) is just too good to pass, trust me on this one.

Skogre
05-09-2012, 01:52 PM
This is the BUG version I've been playing around with:

Enchantment - 4
4 Food Chain

Instant - 17
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Spell Pierce
1 Plunge into Darkness
3 Spoils of the Vault
1 Misdirection
2 Tainted Pact

Sorcery - 2
2 Ponder

Creature - 20
4 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Noble Hierarch
3 Raven Familiar
4 Court Hussar
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Birds of Paradise

Land - 17
1 Forest
2 Island
3 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Underground Sea
1 Swamp
2 Polluted Delta
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou

I have this odd split of 3, 2, 1 on Spoils of the Vault, Tainted Pact, and Plunge Into Darkness simply to make Tainted Pact a little better. I'm not sure if it's worth it, though. I think my preference is towards Tainted Pact because there's no life loss, but it's a little less consistent and requires splitting cards as much as possible.

@mordraid; I see your list has 3 Raven Familiar and 0 Court Hussar. Why do you prefer the Familiar over the Hussar? With the Birds of Paradise and Noble Hierarch I've never had too much trouble finding a source of white mana. Furthermore, you can stack the two triggers in such a way that you can look at the top 3 cards and then exile the creature in response to the sacrifice trigger.

Maveric78f
05-10-2012, 07:48 AM
My version of it is (almost) monoU chalice-based, it could be adapted quite easily to the recruiter/image combo, but I think I still prefer digging creatures because they can find a lot of things (including the SB) besides the kill.

Mana 20
4 Chrome Mox
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
1 Island
4 Tropical Island
1 City of Traitors
4 Ancient Tomb

Combo 15
4 Show and Tell
3 Emrakul
4 Food Chain
4 Misthollow Griffin

Control 12
4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Chalice of the Void

Draw/Lib manip 13
4 Sea Gate Oracle
4 Raven Familiar
4 Mulldrifter
1 Griselbrand

Also I've read that Maga was better than Emrakul, I'd like to read why, because it looks really worse (counterable, stifleable, discardable, not SnTable, needs to target, 20+ manas to kill). I know it convenient you don't need an attack phase to win, but still... (please note also that with Griselbrand and 3*Emrakul, you still have an theoretical infinite-life kill)

Skogre
05-10-2012, 09:29 AM
Also I've read that Maga was better than Emrakul, I'd like to read why, because it looks really worse (counterable, stifleable, discardable, not SnTable, needs to target, 20+ manas to kill). I know it convenient you don't need an attack phase to win, but still... (please note also that with Griselbrand and 3*Emrakul, you still have an theoretical infinite-life kill)

I've heard that, as well, but don't see Maga being better than Emrakul either. The only reason that comes to mind would be if your opponent has something that prevents you from attacking, like Peacekeeper or Ensnaring Bridge; some instant speed non-colored spell answer; or your opponent has gained an absurd amount of life (and is able to recover from the annihilator). Aside from that, Emrakul just seems much better. It seems like you're far more likely to run into counterspells and Leyline of Sanctity before any of these bizarre situations would occur.

Greenpoe
05-10-2012, 09:39 AM
Court Hussar seems better than Sea Gate Oracle.

Maveric78f
05-10-2012, 09:58 AM
Court Hussar seems better than Sea Gate Oracle.
Not in my non-W list I think.


About Maga vs. Emrakul and cards preventing from attacking, they simply don't exist MD. Post-SB, you'll want to enter some bounce-creature anyway (I'm still not sure that the evoke guy is better than Venser, Shaper Savant or Riftwing Cloudstake).

Koby
05-10-2012, 12:02 PM
Also I've read that Maga was better than Emrakul, I'd like to read why, because it looks really worse (counterable, stifleable, discardable, not SnTable, needs to target, 20+ manas to kill). I know it convenient you don't need an attack phase to win, but still... (please note also that with Griselbrand and 3*Emrakul, you still have an theoretical infinite-life kill)

Maybe I'm not getting it, but how do you have an infinite life kill with the deck you listed?

TorpidNinja
05-10-2012, 12:11 PM
Maybe I'm not getting it, but how do you have an infinite life kill with the deck you listed?

I assume he's talking about repeatedly playing Emrakuls so the Legend rule triggers. When they both get shuffled back in the Library - with Griselbrand in play - you continue to earn extra turns and repeated attack steps without decking risk.

Koby
05-10-2012, 12:19 PM
I assume he's talking about repeatedly playing Emrakuls so the Legend rule triggers. When they both get shuffled back in the Library - with Griselbrand in play - you continue to earn extra turns and repeated attack steps without decking risk.

Except Food Chain exiles the creature, so you can't get those Emrakuls back.

TorpidNinja
05-10-2012, 12:22 PM
Except Food Chain exiles the creature, so you can't get those Emrakuls back.

You don't exile them. You get infinite mana, play them normally, and two in play means both go to GY.

Darkenslight
05-10-2012, 12:27 PM
Here's a possible G/R/u list:

2 Wooded Foothills
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
4 Tropical Island
1 Taiga
1 Volcanic
1 Mountain
4 Forest
3 Island

4 Food Chain
4 Misthollow Griffin

4 Elvish Visionary
4 Multani's Acolyte
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Wistful Selkie
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Raven Familiar
2 Mulldrifter
2 Souls of the Harvest

1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals

SB:

4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ingot Chewer
4 Gaea's Herald
3 meta slot (creature preferred)

I know it would need improvementas a Gur list, but seems to be a solid theoretical list. It main weakness is that it lacks counterspells, which would probably be remedied by adding some number of Mystic Snake and Draining Whelk.

Koby
05-10-2012, 12:31 PM
You don't exile them. You get infinite mana, play them normally, and two in play means both go to GY.

Oh now that makes sense. This is why I asked :laugh:

Skogre
05-10-2012, 02:19 PM
Not in my non-W list I think.


About Maga vs. Emrakul and cards preventing from attacking, they simply don't exist MD. Post-SB, you'll want to enter some bounce-creature anyway (I'm still not sure that the evoke guy is better than Venser, Shaper Savant or Riftwing Cloudstake).

My preference is towards Court Hussar, even in decks that have no white source of mana because you can stack the triggers in such a way that you can look at the top three cards, choose a card, place the other two cards on the bottom of the library, and then respond to the sacrifice effect by exiling it to Food Chain. I can imagine situations in which you would prefer having the Sea Gate Oracle, but digging one card deeper seems worthwhile, and if it were not, I'd rather just play another Mulldrifter in lieu of the Sea Gate Oracle anyways.

Maveric78f
05-11-2012, 04:50 AM
My preference is towards Court Hussar, even in decks that have no white source of mana because you can stack the triggers in such a way that you can look at the top three cards, choose a card, place the other two cards on the bottom of the library, and then respond to the sacrifice effect by exiling it to Food Chain.
Choosing the mana colour has never been an issue at all since all my creatures are U (besides Grisel, but anyway, when I have 8 manas, I can afford to have UUUUBBBB blindly too).


I can imagine situations in which you would prefer having the Sea Gate Oracle, but digging one card deeper seems worthwhile, and if it were not, I'd rather just play another Mulldrifter in lieu of the Sea Gate Oracle anyways.
I don't know exactly what you mean, since I already play 4 Mulldrifters (so playing a 5th one seems too many to my knowledge of the magic rules). In a combo deck, I think that the most important is to optimise what happens before the combo. Once I've got the food chain in play, I consider I should win as soon as I have 3 manas to start playing creatures. A good way to achieve in the same turn is to keep a 3CC creature on the board before playing Food Chain the griffins. For the moment, I still think it's more important than digging 1 card deeper.

rufus
05-11-2012, 02:09 PM
It seems like using the Griffin turns things into a 3 card combo - Food Chain+Griffin+win card, when you can generate infinite mana (and attackers) using Food Chain+Imperial Recruiter ->... Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker+Pestermite.

Barring some other really clever tech, I can't see Griffin/Chain working well.

Green.Rocket
05-15-2012, 11:17 PM
Hello guys! I entered here to suggest Paradigm Shift (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Handlers/Image.ashx?multiverseid=4492&type=card). It works like a tutor for the Griffin, and could probably be also combined with Lab Maniac :tongue:

Maveric78f
05-16-2012, 02:48 AM
It seems like using the Griffin turns things into a 3 card combo - Food Chain+Griffin+win card, when you can generate infinite mana (and attackers) using Food Chain+Imperial Recruiter ->... Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker+Pestermite.

Barring some other really clever tech, I can't see Griffin/Chain working well.

The problem with the kiki-pestermite kill is that it loses to any creature removal and it does not work with show and tell (and thus, it loses to enchantment removal too). Nevertheless, we can imagine using the recruiter/image mana ramp to get to play Emrakul though, but it also fizzles to creature removal (kill recruiter in response of the first image), meaning that it must be supported by other creatures.

Darkenslight
05-16-2012, 05:09 AM
Could Furious Assault work? I mean, it's a way to get bthem down form 20 to 0 fairly quickly. I'll see if I can't get a list going.

Moondancerbb
05-19-2012, 12:16 AM
So i have been thinking on this for a while what about a list like this?

4 Food Chain
3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hirarch
4 Elvish Visionary
3 Court Hussar
2 Mulldrifter

4 Brainstorm
3 Force of Will
3 Spell Pierce
4 Ponder


3 Emerakul
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals

3 Show and tell


2 Island
1 forest

3 Ancient Tomb
2 City of Traitors
3 Tropical Islands
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Scalding Tarn


Its sort of a Hive mind shell with food chain combo in it. The only slots i am unsure about would be the mulldrifter's i am not sure i like them Maybe a couple of intuitions would be better. Any comments and criticism on the build is more then welcome.

luckymartyr
05-19-2012, 12:28 AM
why the banefire?

Moondancerbb
05-19-2012, 01:32 AM
Was thinking an alternate win especially if you ran with intuitions which my initial build had since your emerkal's could get surgical extracted.

evanmartyr
05-19-2012, 02:28 AM
Doesn't Food Chain restrict the mana gained from it to use on Creature spells only? Banefire would hit for very little in this deck.

Darkenslight
05-19-2012, 04:23 AM
Doesn't Food Chain restrict the mana gained from it to use on Creature spells only? Banefire would hit for very little in this deck.

Indeed: however, there are a number of X spells that fit the bill of OHKO for Food Chain decks, but one of them is Stifle-able and the other has a teeny-tiny backside (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121220).

Suneloon
05-19-2012, 05:19 AM
Indeed: however, there are a number of X spells that fit the bill of OHKO for Food Chain decks, but one of them is Stifle-able and the other has a teeny-tiny backside (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121220).

Going off, and then loosing to Gut Shoot, kinda sux... :)

Moondancerbb
05-19-2012, 09:09 AM
Doesn't Food Chain restrict the mana gained from it to use on Creature spells only? Banefire would hit for very little in this deck.

Your right i totally missed that restriction .

rufus
05-21-2012, 10:44 AM
Indeed: however, there are a number of X spells that fit the bill of OHKO for Food Chain decks, but one of them is Stifle-able and the other has a teeny-tiny backside (http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121220).

Neither of them are :x: spells, but it seems like Storm Entity and Deathforge Shaman could be better than Lightning Serpent.

Darkenslight
05-21-2012, 05:03 PM
Neither of them are :x: spells, but it seems like Storm Entity and Deathforge Shaman could be better than Lightning Serpent.

Okay, I didn't realise the Shaman existed, but do you think the ability on the Entity is better than the Trample all the time, or would it be sensible to play both as alternates?

Moondancerbb
05-21-2012, 05:54 PM
Problem with the entity is no evasion no trample. Do we know if we can spend food chain mana on a kicker? i would guess not

Kich867
05-21-2012, 06:08 PM
Problem with the entity is no evasion no trample. Do we know if we can spend food chain mana on a kicker? i would guess not

I don't know why you would say that, it explicitly says you can use the mana to cast creature spells.

A kicked creature spell is still a creature spell, it is a cost in addition to the normal casting cost to play the spell, it doesn't occur afterward.. Joraga Warcaller kicked twice is just a 5 mana creature spell as opposed to not kicking it at all, a 1 mana creature spell.

civet five
05-22-2012, 12:27 AM
SCG did a Deck Tech yesterday on Food Chain combo; he came in 42nd.

Decklist can be found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=46296. It looks a lot like Caleb Durward's decklist from the LW article. The exact creature base is slightly tweaked and a few cards cut to make room for 2 Glimpse of Natures, but is essentially the same deck. My initial reaction is that you have to have 4 Fauna Shaman, but I'm inclined to sleeve this up and give it a go.

Moondancerbb
05-22-2012, 12:46 AM
I don't know why you would say that, it explicitly says you can use the mana to cast creature spells.

A kicked creature spell is still a creature spell, it is a cost in addition to the normal casting cost to play the spell, it doesn't occur afterward.. Joraga Warcaller kicked twice is just a 5 mana creature spell as opposed to not kicking it at all, a 1 mana creature spell.

Sorry i am new to legacy i dont know every single interaction with every card that is in existence. My next question is probably a stupid one too. Maga, Traitor to Mortals the second effect of the life loss can be stifled, But can the first effect getting the +1/+1 counters?

rnightingale
05-22-2012, 02:31 AM
looks good in paper but it's underperforming.

all i can say is... This deck will NOT work. :rolleyes:

mordraid
05-22-2012, 10:03 AM
SCG did a Deck Tech yesterday on Food Chain combo; he came in 42nd.

Decklist can be found here: http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=46296. It looks a lot like Caleb Durward's decklist from the LW article. The exact creature base is slightly tweaked and a few cards cut to make room for 2 Glimpse of Natures, but is essentially the same deck. My initial reaction is that you have to have 3 Fauna Shaman, but I'm inclined to sleeve this up and give it a go.

The decklist that ranked 42nd isn't that good. It got only 1 misthollow griffin, which i think is a mistake. 2nd mistake is the lack of force of will. It allows great resilience and protection, also goes very well with misthollow griffin.

Glimpse of nature is good but can only serve to combo. Soul of the harvest, on the other hand, gives you a good body, a win condition and he's tutorable with fierce empath.

I've been tinkering a list recently that did pretty well. My only point of concern is the choice between spoils of the vault and lim-dul's vault. Spoils of the vault is simply awsome, but can kill you sometimes ! Lim-dul's vault let you search your entire deck for about 11 lifes, the downside is that cards goes on top, where spoils puts it in your hand for one black mana.

Here's my current list:

Creatures:
4x misthollow griffin
4x birds of paradise
4x noble hierarch
4x coiling oracle
3x court hussar
2x mulldrifter
2x fierce empath
2x drift of phantasms
1x maga, traitor to mortals
1x soul of the harvest
1x emrakul, the eons torn

Spells:
3x chrome mox
4x food chain
4x force of will
4x spoils of the vault - lim-dul's vault

Lands:
4x tropical island
4x misty rainforest
2x city of traitors
2x city of brass
2x gemstone mine
1x ancient tomb
1x verdant catacombs
1x bayou

rufus
05-22-2012, 10:21 AM
Sorry i am new to legacy i dont know every single interaction with every card that is in existence. My next question is probably a stupid one too. Maga, Traitor to Mortals the second effect of the life loss can be stifled, But can the first effect getting the +1/+1 counters?

If it's "when" or "at" it can usually be stifled. "Enters the battlefield with/as" cannot. (Maga's +1/+1 counters can't be stifled.)

cb4
05-24-2012, 08:55 AM
Here is my current list...

// Lands
1 [ARC] Island (1)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
4 [R] Tropical Island
1 [B] Savannah
2 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [ISD] Forest (1)

// Creatures
3 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
2 [RAV] Drift of Phantasms
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [LRW] AEthersnipe
1 [SOK] Maga, Traitor to Mortals
4 [M12] Birds of Paradise
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [ARE] Coiling Oracle
4 [DIS] Court Hussar
2 [SC] Fierce Empath
1 [ROE] Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

// Spells
3 [JGC] Living Wish
4 [MM] Food Chain
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
SB: 1 [RAV] Drift of Phantasms
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 1 [LRW] AEthersnipe
SB: 1 [TSP] Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 [WWK] Deathforge Shaman
SB: 1 [FD] Eternal Witness
SB: 2 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 [SOK] Kataki, War's Wage
SB: 1 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker

Are there any living wish targets I am missing? Harmonic sliver could go for sure. The others all seem useful. Deathforge could be a 2nd Maga. I would also like to fit a Gaddock Teeg.

Water_Wizard
05-24-2012, 08:33 PM
Are there any living wish targets I am missing? Harmonic sliver could go for sure. The others all seem useful. Deathforge could be a 2nd Maga. I would also like to fit a Gaddock Teeg.

Loaming Shaman? I would also add Teeg. How does Kozilek work out? I am a little confused why some decks run Kozilek, Maga, and Emrakul even the with Fierce Empath. Especially with Living Wish and 2 other kill conditions in your sideboard, we really don't need 5 kill conditions.

How are the 8 birds/nobles working out?

Can you find an exiled Misthollow with Living Wish? EDIT - No - Exiled cards are still in one of the game's zones.

cb4
05-24-2012, 08:50 PM
Kozilek has been ok when you are not infinite. Ten is much easier to reach than 15. That said, he is the spot I would switch if there was a card I really wanted main.

The eight dorks have been fine and I usually have here mana on turn two for chain or transmute. It is possible one more land and one less dork would be more stable vs decks with wastelands and creature kill. I have been facing lots of combo decks where the acceleration has helped.

I have seen a lot of people running loading shaman but I don't understand why. Vs dredge I want stuff I can use turn one, two, or three. Macabre is nice cuz you can wish for it and use it turn two or transmute and use it turn two. I guess shaman is nice cuz he leaves a body behind after his effect for chain fodder. Teeg seems like a good call for the last spot.

Water_Wizard
05-25-2012, 12:37 AM
The problem wishing for any 2cc is that you are looking at turn 3 before you can play it. If you are on the draw, this is most likely too late against a lot of the fast combo decks. With Teeg or Loaming Shaman, people want to run 3 so they can play them on turn 2. However, if you are going to Wish against a gy deck, you would most likely grab a Bog.

Shaman is also nice because you can clear their whole graveyard (FM only gives you 2), but you can also play FM at instant speed.

If you consolidate your win conditions, you can clear up a few slots in your md and sb. I think the SB should focus on two things: 1) Delaying decks that are faster and 2) Protecting the combo (or creating an alternate combo) from decks that can interact.

The first requires slowing down combo and dredge. The second requires protecting Food Chain from spells and abilities (through a card such as Sterling Grove) or running an alternative kill such as Natural Order or Show and Tell with Progenitus or Emrakul.

It depends on your meta how much you do of each, but I could see this deck doing very well sideboarding into a 2nd kill against decks like Maverick - I think it would be very hard to beat a resolved Qasali Pridemage.

Has anyone considered Griselbrand? While he is not an outright kill, he does refuel our hand, which most surely leads to a kill.

cb4
05-25-2012, 08:19 AM
Spellskite could be an answer to pridemage or artifact/enchantment removal.

cb4
05-25-2012, 08:48 AM
Revoker stops pridemage, even if pridemage resolves first. You name pridemage as revoker enters play, so they can't use pridemage on revoker in response.

I considered griselbrand as well. I chose kozilek because he can be hard cast and because you draw even if he is countered.

Water_Wizard
05-25-2012, 02:36 PM
Good call on Spellskite. Also helps gain a few turns as a blocker.

I like that you can draw with Kozilek without worrying about your life total. However, I'm not really worried about Kozilek being countered. The counter war should occur over the Food Chain entering play. Once Food Chain hits the board, I assume my monsters are clear.

cb4
05-25-2012, 06:19 PM
Good point. I may test soul of the harvest in kozi's spot. He would be much easier to hardcast than the other options. He draws your deck with misthollow combo.

cb4
05-28-2012, 12:35 PM
I do not think I need a creature in Kozilek's spot. I added a tundra instead to solidify the manabase and make it more versatile. Coiling oracle seems like the weakest card maindeck, but it does help fill the curve and is blue for FOW. Raven familiar might be better. Coiling oracle has been awkward with ancient tomb on more than one occasion.

Harmonic Sliver has been useful in the board and I believe has earned a spot. The cards I have not used as wish targets are Kataki and Canonist, but I haven't faced affinity or storm where they would be aces. here is my current list...


// Lands
4 [JGC] Windswept Heath
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Tropical Island
1 [B] Savannah
1 [B] Tundra
2 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [ISD] Forest (1)
1 [ARC] Island (1)

// Creatures
4 [M12] Birds of Paradise
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [ARE] Coiling Oracle
4 [DIS] Court Hussar
2 [SC] Fierce Empath
2 [RAV] Drift of Phantasms
3 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
1 [LRW] AEthersnipe
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [SOK] Maga, Traitor to Mortals

// Spells
3 [JGC] Living Wish
4 [MM] Food Chain
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [FD] Eternal Witness
SB: 1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 [WWK] Bojuka Bog
SB: 1 [ALA] Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 [MM] Misdirection
SB: 1 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
SB: 1 [RAV] Drift of Phantasms
SB: 2 [SHM] Faerie Macabre
SB: 1 [SOK] Kataki, War's Wage
SB: 1 [MBS] Phyrexian Revoker
SB: 1 [SOK] Maga, Traitor to Mortals
SB: 1 [TSP] Harmonic Sliver
SB: 1 [LRW] AEthersnipe

Water_Wizard
05-30-2012, 04:50 PM
Another solid sideboard with target is The Tabernacle at Pendrell Veil. It's very good against Affinity, Elves, Goblins, Tokens. No more Teeg? Might be worth it for match ups like MUD or other match ups that want to cast big things. I still think the sideboard is a little redundant with the main deck. I don't think we need both Emrakul and Maga in the board, probably Emrakul is enough.

Eternal Witness, while nice, may be too 'cute.' If we have 5 mana up, it would be very nice to Wish, cast, and then cast the (presumably) returned Food Chain the following turn. However, with fewer than 5 mana, Living Wish->Eternal->cast returned card is just too slow (3 turns). Thoughts?

I need to test with this deck. I view counterspells, followed by spot removal as our greatest threats in the current environment. Is Autumn's Veil worth a spot in the sideboard (primarily for counterspells, but also works against black targeted removal (although my primary concern is W removal)). Also, Spell Pierce might be worth it.

Against what decks are you play testing?

I consider playing Ponder over Living Wish (-3 Living Wish, -1 Land, +4 Ponder), which would effect the sideboard.

EDIT: To clarify on Teeg, I think he may be too slow against combo (assuming he will be found with the Living Wish package), but he has uses versus other decks.

What do you think about a GSZ package in this deck? It would be good to help build our mana base (turn 1 for Dryad Arbor, turn 2 for NH/BoP, Turn 3 for Oracle) and also allows us to run a toolbox package (Teeg, Pridemage, Eternal Witness, Vexing Shusher, Sylvan Safekeeper), but it is a dead draw once we start to go off. Thoughts?

cb4
05-30-2012, 06:32 PM
Tabernacle is a good idea I has not thought of. Witness has been nice for me in long games where I had wished more than once. I needed another aethersnipe in one game and had already wished for one. You may be right on only needing one win condition. I have wished for maga vs multiple ensnaring bridges. I have wished for emrakul with multiple creatures in play and food chain, but not infinite mana.

I don't know if I would want GSZ. I don't think there is room for a tutor package main and the creatures we really want to tutor aren't green. I would go eladamri's call if I wanted to that route.

I have been playing vs team America, nic fit, rug delver, and maverick.

Water_Wizard
05-30-2012, 06:58 PM
Sounds like you've been playing against a pretty good segment of the current top tier decks. How do we fare against UW Terminus?

Of the match ups you play, what are the percentages?
I imagine Team America would be the hardest.

cb4
05-30-2012, 10:16 PM
I am not doing big sample sizes of games and they are on mws, but none of the matchups felt horrible. I think the surprise factor of the deck has something to do with it. People are aware the combo exists, but I bet a lot of them put me on natural order bant or something game one.

Team america is the hardest of those matches. the discard isn't to bad with all the redundancy in our deck. The LD wasn't too bad either, but I was glad to have 8 mana dorks and basics to fetch. Stifle has a lot of targets in my deck between fetches, food chain, empath, etc. I played around daze and spell pierce, put on pressure with little guys, and was able to bounce tombstalker. This is the matchup where I was glad to be able to grab eternal witness from the board.

Water_Wizard
05-31-2012, 12:48 AM
Yes, I could see Eternal Witness being very helpful against an attrition war with BUG Control.

You make a very good point about the "surprise" factor. People most likely put us on NO Bant or Zero-Flashless Hulk, not Food Chain. Furthermore, even after people put us on Food Chain, the "unknown" factor makes it more likely they will misplay against us (Drew Levin's article didn't help this any). Do they focus on the combo? Do they bring in enchantment hate or counterspells or creature removal? If they focus too much on the Food Chain combo (with Krosan Grip or Spell Pierce), we can always switch into beatdown mode. A transformational sideboard could go even further in this direction, blanking Enchantment hate all together.

I think I am going to fit Sylvan Library somewhere in my 75 (probably 1 maindeck, 1 sb with a plan of bringing it in against slower/control decks and paying a few life to gain card advantage).

metamet
06-01-2012, 01:37 PM
I've been playing a Food Chain Griffin combo since a bit before GP Minneapolis. It's pretty fun to pilot and that's the main reason I continue to toy with it. I moneyed at a legacy event last night, beating RUG Delver, Maverick and a fun Grove/Rifter brew.

Here's my list (61), which I'll continue to do some tweaking to. I may write a full fledged article about it sometime soon, but who knows.

3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
2 Fierce Empath
2 Emrakul

4 Food Chain
2 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Show and Tell
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate
3 Worldly Tutor

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb


Manipulate Fate is probably the most fun card to play. Ever.

The Fierce Empath/Emrakul/Show & Tell numbers need to be tweaked a bit, bit I prefer to win without Show & Telling most matchups for the sake of fun. I was running 3 Emrakul, but I took one out for another Sylvan Library because that card is just bonkers.

I know that I do want another Fierce Empath target to grab, perhaps one that can take care of pesky permanents. Thoughts?

Thoughts? This isn't supposed to be the BEST WAY TO EMRAKUL OMG, because Sneak & Show already does that, but this has been pretty fun and consistent. I've thought about playing a higher creature count, similar to the other lists posted here, but I've honestly never tested them. I brewed this and have been having fun ever since.

cb4
06-01-2012, 02:09 PM
If you want an empath target that can deal with pesky permanents, aethersnipe is the droid you are looking for.

metamet
06-01-2012, 02:56 PM
If you want an empath target that can deal with pesky permanents, aethersnipe is the droid you are looking for.

Ah, you're absolutely right! For some reason I glossed over this card, even though it's in the other lists. :)

metamet
06-01-2012, 02:59 PM
And I think that Raven Familiar is definitely worth considering over the Libraries and some Ponders. Anywho, I'll do some more thinking on the deck without just posting it here. :)

I really enjoy the Manipulate Fates, though.

Water_Wizard
06-01-2012, 03:07 PM
Yes, Manipulate Fate seems very solid (I had to look it up :)). Love the synergy with Misthollow. Nice find!

Esper3k
06-01-2012, 03:20 PM
Is there any other use for Manipulate Fate other than to tutor for Griffins? Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything else...

metamet
06-01-2012, 03:38 PM
It can also pull out excess Manipulate Fates or any other dead draws later in the game, which isn't terrible since it cantrips.

I don't believe it's ever done anything, historically. :) So Griffin is the first time it's actually been helpful. It's basically a draw four and curves nicely into Food Chain. This is the reason no one ever counters it.

Here is the next variation that I'd like to do some testing with... Drift of Phantasms seems like a direct, uncounterable upgrade to Worldly tutor, especially since it can grab you Empaths, Show and Tells, Food Chains and a slew of other great cards:

3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Fierce Empath
2 Emrakul
1 Aethersnipe
2 Drift of Phantasms
1 Wall of Roots
2 Raven's Familiar

4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Show and Tell
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb

---

I do like the maindeck S&T's, since the card is too good not to play in the same deck as Emrakul. The numbers need a bit of adjusting, though... need to do some more actual testing to figure that out, though.

Esper3k
06-01-2012, 04:07 PM
Conversely, would it be better to cut the S&T for Misdirections / Chrome Moxes which are more abusive with the Griffin?

Water_Wizard
06-01-2012, 04:31 PM
I think +4 Coiling Oracle -1 Wall of Roots -3 Manipulate Fate (sorry, don't mean to kill your baby).

Oracle fits nicely in the curve, it works well with Brainstorm/Ponder, it is a blue card which can be pitched to FOW, and it is Food Chain fodder.

Alexeezay
06-01-2012, 04:47 PM
I think it's fine to play at least 1 Manipulate Fate. Drawing more of it is pretty bad because its only use is usually to exile Griffins. 2 might also be a good number.
I'm pretty excited to try out this deck in the near future!

obvious Sideboard suggestions: Spell Pierce & Flusterstorm

civet five
06-01-2012, 11:52 PM
Yes, Manipulate Fate seems very solid (I had to look it up :)). Love the synergy with Misthollow. Nice find!

Back in the day when Wake was DTB in Standard, Man-Fate was great for land-thinning, as well as the random up-the-storm-count-for-Beast-Attack finishing blows.

Now, its an incredible Misthollow tutor + still thins the deck.

I gotta be honest, I've been playing some games with the Vengevine list, and I know inside me that it isn't as good (too reliant on Fauna Shaman) but holy moly does it feel good to haste in a bunch of a Vengevines and beat someone senseless. I'm determined to find a way to make "Intuition for 3 Vengevines" a legitimate play.

metamet
06-05-2012, 11:57 AM
I've been underwhelmed with Coiling Oracle in testing... I swapped out a few cards to give it a whirl, and it usually either just cantrips or sometimes (but not always) gets you an extra land in play... And Wall of Roots always gives you extra mana, plus blocks Goyf and Mongeese all day.

Can someone convince me that Oracle is worth playing? :)

And Manipulate fate is too good not to run. I tried cutting it, but the deck then just losing consistency. Three is still the best number, as I almost always want to see at least one every game. Two is *okay*, but it means it's not always drawn... which is a huge bummer.

I try not to get too cute with the Griffin by running Mox and more Misdirections, as it's not always in my hand to make the mana accel with Mox worth it. Manipulate Fate seems to be the best and most reliable and consistent thing to do with Griffin, aside from occasionally having one in hand with Force of Will.

Show and Tell maindeck still seems strong, but only having two Emrakul makes it less good. I am hesitant to cut them, since having our only wincon be Food Chain seems hella risky, but maybe S&T could go down to one copy in order to allow Drift of Phantasms to have options. It is nice just opening up with Em, S&T, land, Ancient Tomb and just winning some games, though.

Anyone have thoughts?

cb4
06-05-2012, 04:19 PM
I can't convince you on coiling oracle and cut them myself. They just don't do enough. This deck isn't like food chain elves where you have a critical mass of cantriping creatures. I am currently testing without living wish to open up more room in the sb to be more controlling after board. Here is what I am currently playing...

4 misty rainforest
4 verdant catacombs
4 tropical island
2 ancient tomb
2 forest
2 island

4 noble hierarch
4 birds of paradise
4 mulldrifter
4 misthollow griffin
2 drift of phantasms
2 fierce empath
2 emrakul
1 maga
1 aethersnipe

4 force of will
4 brainstorm
4 food chain
2 manipulate fate
2 ponder
2 daze

SIDEBOARD
4 spell pierce
2 misdirection
3 tormod's crypt
2 faerie macabre
3 pithing needle
1 krosan grip

After board, I can swap out birds for spell pierces vs combo and control. I have loved manipulate fate as a two of. It feels a bit like like squadran hawk. I have liked mulldrifters better than court hussars.

metamet
06-05-2012, 05:43 PM
Interesting thought on the Mulldrifters over Raven's Familiar/Court. Is there any neat interaction with evoke and Food Chain?

And I like your rationality for the Coiling Oracles. They just seem underwhelming and typically feel like fall short of everything the deck is trying to do.

Have you tested Wall of Roots at all? It turns into a Griffin off of Food Chain and blocks many ground-based aggro decks.

Phoenix Ignition
06-05-2012, 05:57 PM
Is there any neat interaction with evoke and Food Chain?


Yes (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Evoke) specifically:
Playing a creature by paying its evoke cost will result in two comes-into-play abilities: The sacrifice ability from evoke, and whatever other ability the creature has. The creature's controller chooses in what order to put them on the stack. Both abilities can be responded to as normal. In fact, I've added a splash of black in my previous builds of food chain combo to add in Shriekmaw. It sometimes forces you to sac your own guy to food chain based off of the CitP ability, but much more frequently helps me a great deal.

I usually also run 1 target for Fierce Empath in case I already have Emrakul (Krosan Tusker is the best I've come up with, but would like something better than that).

Skogre
06-05-2012, 06:19 PM
Is there any other use for Manipulate Fate other than to tutor for Griffins? Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything else...


It can also pull out excess Manipulate Fates or any other dead draws later in the game, which isn't terrible since it cantrips.

I've removed anywhere between 1-3 Griffins with Manipulate Fate; usually 2. This deck does not want Misthollow Griffin to enter the graveyard from a counterspell. When playing against a deck with no counterspells, e.g., MUD, Goblins, ANT, TES, you can usually get away with only taking one Griffin and a couple of dead cards, but against other, decks, you may have to fight over resolving a Griffin. Also, you only need one Griffin to go off, so any extra ones are practically dead cards to begin with, so I'd never be too troubled about removing more than I think I'd need.

Skogre
06-05-2012, 06:21 PM
I usually also run 1 target for Fierce Empath in case I already have Emrakul (Krosan Tusker is the best I've come up with, but would like something better than that).

There's always AEthersnipe. ^_^

Darkenslight
06-06-2012, 04:25 AM
Yes (http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Evoke) specifically: In fact, I've added a splash of black in my previous builds of food chain combo to add in Shriekmaw. It sometimes forces you to sac your own guy to food chain based off of the CitP ability, but much more frequently helps me a great deal.

I usually also run 1 target for Fierce Empath in case I already have Emrakul (Krosan Tusker is the best I've come up with, but would like something better than that).

There's more than that: there's Cloudthresher, Conquering Manticore, Duplicant (which, I might add, keeps its CMC), Morselhoarder, Spitebellows, and Faultgrinder, just to name a few utility cards.

ETA: Manticore even boosts your Food Chain comedy by stealing a creature.

metamet
06-06-2012, 11:42 AM
There's more than that: there's Cloudthresher, Conquering Manticore, Duplicant (which, I might add, keeps its CMC), Morselhoarder, Spitebellows, and Faultgrinder, just to name a few utility cards.

ETA: Manticore even boosts your Food Chain comedy by stealing a creature.

Wow. I really want to play Duplicant now. :)

metamet
06-06-2012, 11:43 AM
I've removed anywhere between 1-3 Griffins with Manipulate Fate; usually 2. This deck does not want Misthollow Griffin to enter the graveyard from a counterspell. When playing against a deck with no counterspells, e.g., MUD, Goblins, ANT, TES, you can usually get away with only taking one Griffin and a couple of dead cards, but against other, decks, you may have to fight over resolving a Griffin. Also, you only need one Griffin to go off, so any extra ones are practically dead cards to begin with, so I'd never be too troubled about removing more than I think I'd need.

Removing 3 Griffins also gives you the alt win con of just swinging in with Griffins, which has won me a fair share of games.

Phoenix Ignition
06-06-2012, 01:02 PM
There's always AEthersnipe. ^_^


There's more than that: there's Cloudthresher, Conquering Manticore, Duplicant (which, I might add, keeps its CMC), Morselhoarder, Spitebellows, and Faultgrinder, just to name a few utility cards.

ETA: Manticore even boosts your Food Chain comedy by stealing a creature.

Sorry, I meant I haven't found any good ones that you should grab when you don't have Emrakul and you also don't have Food Chain. Without food chain my problem was the deck just turns into awkward bad aggro, which wins some games, but I liked Tusker because he'd at least give you some draw, a land, and hopefully a better chance of getting Food Chain back.

I should start testing the deck again though. I tried it last when emrakul was released and kept getting killed by well timed Krosan Grips (remember those days?!?). Now the deck has more going for it, with misthollow and just the lack of Enchantment hate in general.

cb4
06-06-2012, 06:38 PM
If you add black, you can tutor for rune-scarred demon to get food chain. Lots of mana though. The build I posted last has been testing very well. Primeval titan could be another target if you just want value and deck thinning.

The playset of spell pierces in the side has been worth the loss of living wish. Manipulate fate has remained strong as griffins 5 and 6 and a big source of card advantage. Feels alot like squadron hawk on steroids in this deck. Good find!

metamet
06-07-2012, 12:07 PM
Decided that Coiling Oracle isn't worth a slot. At best, it's a rampant growth, at worst it cantrips and sits around with a useless 1/1 body. I'd either play Wall of Roots of Wall of Blossoms in its place, as it gives us a bit more consistency and a body that can actually do something.

I still prefer Roots, as it allows the following play:

T1 land, Hierarch
T2 land, Food chain --> sack hierarch, play Roots --> sack Roots, play Griffin

Although not really all that impressive (and rarely applicable), it does allow for instances like that to happen.

I've been really pleased with Drift of Phantasms. 2 of right now. Considering going up... but likely not. :)

I went back to 3 Manipulate Fates. I want them every single game, and two just wasn't consistent enough. Drawing doubles of it, although not great, isn't as bad as you'd assume, seeing that they pull our the other Man Fates and cantrip.

Seriously. Shouldn't be overlooked, as it's essentially a draw-four for two.

Playing U/G is nice, as it makes the land incredibly consistent. Haven't considered splashing yet, but I'm hesitant to since the deck seems to do everything it needs so far.

Griffining into a hardcasted Aethersnape isn't too bad of a tempo beat path as well, especially if you don't have a way to play Em at the time. :)

Still fun and enjoyable to play. I have been rocking 4 Tarmogoyf in the side to help with aggro matchups, particularly RUG Delver. Been happy with them, especially since you can transform into a mediocre aggro deck after your opponent sides out their Snares and brings in enchantment removal. :)

metamet
06-08-2012, 02:38 PM
Played this last night at a local Legacy event again. Moneyed, losing only to Maverick and Ethersworn Cannonist. (Note: Transmuting is okay around Cannonist)

Got there one game with three Griffins and Food Chain fogging until I got Fierce Empath. Used Drift of Phantasms to block and buy enough time another game. And don't forget Wall of Roots has haste mana.


3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
3 Drift of Phantasms
2 Fierce Empath
2 Emrakul
1 Aethersnipe

4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Show and Tell
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb

Skogre
06-08-2012, 06:42 PM
Played this last night at a local Legacy event again. Moneyed, losing only to Maverick and Ethersworn Cannonist. (Note: Transmuting is okay around Cannonist)

Maybe a one of AEther Adept main deck or two side-board and bringing one in post-sideboard (assuming you'd be playing Living Wish, as well) would be a good idea versus decks with Ethersworn Canonist.

Aside from not being a creature (and therefore not fodder for Food Chain or a legal target for some spells, like Living Wish), Wipe Away seems like the superior option, as it can still be found by Transmuting a Drift of Phantasms.

Also, as nice as Manipulate Fate is, it's still not clear whether it's actually better than just running Intuition.

Koby
06-08-2012, 06:54 PM
Maybe a one of AEther Adept main deck or two side-board and bringing one in post-sideboard (assuming you'd be playing Living Wish, as well) would be a good idea versus decks with Ethersworn Canonist.

Aside from not being a creature (and therefore not fodder for Food Chain or a legal target for some spells, like Living Wish), Wipe Away seems like the superior option, as it can still be found by Transmuting a Drift of Phantasms.

Also, as nice as Manipulate Fate is, it's still not clear whether it's actually better than just running Intuition.

Stern Proctor

Water_Wizard
06-08-2012, 09:30 PM
Played this last night at a local Legacy event again. Moneyed...
I really like your list. It looks like it's coming together well. Congratulations.

cb4
06-09-2012, 12:24 AM
@skogre: The biggest advantage of manipulate fate over intuition is that it is a four for one for two mana. Intuition is a one for one for three mana, albeit at instant speed. Intuition is a tutor that really shines in decks where you want things in the grave. We do not want griffins in the grave. If there was a sorcery for 1U that read draw four cards, then every deck that could make blue mana would run it. In this deck, the first manipulate fate you cast basically reads draw four cards (with upside because it is getting a combo piece). It is almost never countered because the text on the card is pretty innoccuous and most people think you are just thinning your deck and cycling. The downside of manipulate fate is that it has diminishing returns and works best as a two of.

Skogre
06-10-2012, 01:07 AM
@skogre: The biggest advantage of manipulate fate over intuition is that it is a four for one for two mana. Intuition is a one for one for three mana, albeit at instant speed. Intuition is a tutor that really shines in decks where you want things in the grave. We do not want griffins in the grave. If there was a sorcery for 1U that read draw four cards, then every deck that could make blue mana would run it. In this deck, the first manipulate fate you cast basically reads draw four cards (with upside because it is getting a combo piece). It is almost never countered because the text on the card is pretty innoccuous and most people think you are just thinning your deck and cycling. The downside of manipulate fate is that it has diminishing returns and works best as a two of.

My biggest issue with Manipulate Fate is that it's very narrow. It gets Misthollow Griffin and thins the deck of dead cards. Intuition, however, can get a Misthollow Griffin; a Food Chain; an Emrakul, Maga, and Fierce Empath, or some other similar win-condition combination; or even Force of Will.

It's hard to weigh which this deck really wants more; a cheaper narrower tutor at Sorcery speed or a more expensive, wider tutor at instant speed.

Darkenslight
06-10-2012, 03:28 AM
Could Ancestral Knowledge be a usable card for filtering purposes? I'm thinking about the combined Exile-selection and rearrange clause. The CU on it is a pain, though.

cb4
06-10-2012, 04:57 PM
The point of maniplate fate is that it isn't just a tutor. It is big time card advantage. I have found that 6 copies of food chain (2 drifts) and misthollow (2 manipulates) have been the right amount to get those regularly with the 6 draw spells.

metamet
06-11-2012, 02:10 PM
I really like your list. It looks like it's coming together well. Congratulations.

Thank you! It's been a really fun pet deck. I got pretty tired of those top tiered decks that are either linear to pilot or plagued with endless mirror matches, and this one has found a happy line of being competitive, unexpected and fun. I'm sure I'll be tweaking it for a while, but the main deck is getting ever closer to feeling where it ought.

Regarding Intuition, although it's one of my favorite cards ever (Intiution for Raven's Crime, Worm Harvest and Loam being my favorite play), it doesn't fit well in this deck. Not only does is cost 3 over MF's 2, it also doesn't net you any card advantage. Unless your deck plays with the graveyard or runs a bunch of four-ofs you just sometimes need (see: Sneak & Show), it's not a great tutor. A bit too slow to curve and doesn't interact favorably with Griffin's.

While MF is narrow, we're playing a Griffin deck... which is why can get away with a narrow card. :) Rarely is it dead, and usually it sets us up for some bonkers while cantripping. Can't beat that.

@cb4

I have been running 7 Food Chains and 6 Griffins (4 Chain/3 Drifts, 3 Griffins/3 Fates) and I have been pretty happy with it. The 3 drifts are good if you have a handful of three drops you want to snag, such as Fierce Empath, Show and Tell or Food Chain. Sometimes I worry three is too much, but I have found that it's never bad to have the ability to get another Empath or Food Chain if things don't go as planned.

I'll play with the numbers more, as it seems you're happy with just the two Drifts. Are you running maindeck Show and Tells?

cb4
06-11-2012, 11:39 PM
I am not running any show and tells. My current list is on the previous page. Our manabases are identical. How have you been liking ancient tombs? Some games I love them and others, I hate them. I have been wanting to test alchemist's refuge, but haven't yet.

metamet
06-12-2012, 12:45 PM
Hmm. I really like Ancient Tomb. It can provide for some busted turn twos, which is nice. I don't think the flash land would help my build much, as it doesn't help a ton to go off on their turn over mine, plus it requires two additional mana.

How do you like Maga? I've found that Emrakul always seals the deal.

And what's your alt win condition if your Food Chains don't land? Have you gotten in for the beat down?

metamet
06-18-2012, 01:29 PM
Did well again last week, bringing my total prizes won to about $40 with this deck. Still very very fun. :)

Here's what I've tweaked it to now:

3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots
2 Drift of Phantasms
3 Mulldrifter
2 Fierce Empath
2 Emrakul
1 Aethersnipe

4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
1 Show and Tell
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb


Mulldrifter is really sick and ramps your mana up with Food Chain very fast. I've left in one S&T (to Drift for) but cut two for the Mulldrifters. I've also cut one Drift of Phantasms for another Mulldrifter.

I'm considering the likes of Duplicant and Myr Battlesphere as additional Fierce Empath targets. Sometimes you can't combo off for unlimited mana and just want something to save your life.

Duplicant also seems sick in the S&T matchups. Or maybe Guilded Drake belongs somewhere.

I want to find room for another Sylvan Library. Considering cutting a ponder.

Water_Wizard
06-18-2012, 07:56 PM
Thanks for posting your updated list.

What do you think about Tidespout Tyrant? It could possibly go in the Aethersnipe slot and could act as protection (in place of Duplicant/Myr Battlesphere). The downside is, you need to cast another spell with it, the upside is, you can use it multiple times.

With infinite mana, you could pull some Mulldrifter tricks with Tyrant in play and instants -> cast Mulldrifter for convoke, with sacrifice trigger on the stack, cast an instant, trigger Tyrant, bounce Mulldrifter. Probably too cute, but Tyrant could be an Aethersnipe replacement and offer some protection.

How's your sideboard strategy working out for you?

Darkenslight
06-19-2012, 04:42 AM
Thanks for posting your updated list.

What do you think about Tidespout Tyrant? It could possibly go in the Aethersnipe slot and could act as protection (in place of Duplicant/Myr Battlesphere). The downside is, you need to cast another spell with it, the upside is, you can use it multiple times.

With infinite mana, you could pull some Mulldrifter tricks with Tyrant in play and instants -> cast Mulldrifter for convoke, with sacrifice trigger on the stack, cast an instant, trigger Tyrant, bounce Mulldrifter. Probably too cute, but Tyrant could be an Aethersnipe replacement and offer some protection.

How's your sideboard strategy working out for you?

That's an interesdting thought: Tyrant +Mistohllow+FC=empty opponent's board. Now, if only you could make all your creatures have flash somehow...

metamet
06-19-2012, 11:55 AM
Tidespout Tyrant seems fun. :) Maybe a little clunky to assemble, but could definitely be a good time!

My SB has been near the following:

4 Tarmogoyf
4 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Krosan Grip
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Something else? Misdirections or BEBs.

I've been okaylie satisfied with it. Thinking some Blue Elemental Blasts would fit well. The Goyfs come in against RUG and other decks that have a fast clock. It blocks and can kill creatures, which helps us get to the point where we can win.

Spell Pierces come in for Dazes on the draw. Extraction is good, kind of want three, but maybe another source of GY hate is better.

K-Grip is alright. Haven't really needed it, but it's really really good against equipment and pesky enchantments.

VClique is great as disruption + clock.

~

Any thoughts on the SB? Open to improvements.

Water_Wizard
06-19-2012, 04:11 PM
I'm not sold on the Goyfs. I almost think additional Wall of Roots or Wall of Blossoms might be better. The 'average' Goyf in the RUG match-up is a 3/4 (land, instant, sorcery) or a 4/5 if a creature hits the yard. Either way, Wall of Roots can block that and a threshed Mongoose.

If you are flipping Spell Pierce for Daze, you could cut one for a Surgical Extraction (since you only run 3 Daze).

Autumn's Viel might be really good for this deck. It stops Counterspells and protects your creatures from black removal.

I think the Tidespout Tyrant / Misthollow / Food Chain combo has some merit. Tyrant is an Empath target, once you get Tidespout into play, you can bounce your opponent's entire board. Tidespout can protect himself if you hold any instant. For example, they target Tidespout (or any other creature you control) with a removal spell, you cast an instant and bounce that creature.

Water_Wizard
06-19-2012, 04:19 PM
Plaxmanta?

Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir?

You could also consider cards like

City of Solitude

or

Defense Grid

but they hurt your ability to use your counterspells, too.

metamet
06-19-2012, 05:48 PM
The thing about additional Wall of Roots is that they usually just get picked off by Bolt after you block once. Goyf, on the other hand, generally removes one of their creatures in the standoff. But I am up for playing with the slot, as I am sure there are other options worth testing.

What does Tidespout Tyrant offer that Emrakul doesn't? I can see a few times when infinite bouncing would be great, but the fact that you can counter it makes me weary.

The reason for an additional Empath target that isn't Emmy would be to actually be able to make use of it without infinite mana in those cases where you draw an Empath without having the Griffins set up or a Food Chain online.

Still, I love the idea of bouncing the board. :)

Water_Wizard
06-20-2012, 04:24 AM
The main idea behind Tidespout is to take care of trouble cards, namely Ensnaring Bridge. With the recent popularity of Sneak and Show, Ensnaring Bridge is starting to find it's way back into people's sideboards. Aethersnipe does the same thing, although only once. It's a corner case, but cards like Peacekeeper, Ethersworn Canonist, Karakas, and Ensnaring Bridge are all answered by Tidespout. Karakas isn't that big of a deal, assuming you're going infinite with Emrakul, you can keep taking free turns until Karakas is tapped.

metamet
06-22-2012, 12:36 PM
3-0-split again this week. Beat Dead Guy, Reanimator and BUG Control.

Changes I made before playing:

-1 Drift of Phantasms
+1 Fierce Empath

Some notable plays:

Got a Griffin Thoughtsiezed the turn before going off against Reanimator; used Surgical Extraction to remove the Griffin (and more!) from the graveyard in order to still combo
Played against a friend who knew my deck. He countered a Manipulate Fate and a Mulldrifter, which I thought was hilarious considering it was Legacy

Lessons learned:

Mulldrifter is sick. The ramp that comes from an active Food Chain and the evoke has won me a few games a turn earlier than I otherwise could have.
I may want more manadorks/Wall of Roots somehow, as the deck is super smooth when I can curve into landing a Food Chain and exploding that turn, rather than needing one or two more mana to cast a Griffin. Having creatures in play when the Chain hits is important to the deck exploding.
Surgical Extraction is REALLY good... against Reanimator. But it may also be great against decks that run counter spells, although I've rarely had my Griffin countered. Still, awesome slot.
Drift of Phantasms is just too slow. It won me a game once by fetching me a Food Chain, but I think the Drift would be better off as a second Sylvan Library
Same with Show and Tell... I feel like the deck should be playing 4x Show and Tell and 4x Emrakul to just outright win some games, but that throws off the consistency that my build currently has revolving around Food Chain. Chain is the more fun way of winning, to boot... Hrmph.


I still plan on playing the deck. Yay fun-meets-semicompetative

Moondancerbb
06-22-2012, 12:42 PM
Have you considered running some number of Griselbrands i am currently testing a version that runs 3 and 2 emmys. He is insane in the same way he is in sneak and show where you get him into play and then just draw 14 and finish your combo.

metamet
06-22-2012, 01:01 PM
It's worth considering, but it seems that any time I could fetch up a Griselbrand and cast it, I'd be just as likely to grab an Emrakul and cast that instead... but there is a decent difference between 8 mana and 15 if I'm not infinite...

Gris -- With Foodchain and no Griffins: Fierce Empath (4) + 4 Lands
Emmy -- With Foodchain and no Griffins: Fierce (4) + 4 Lands + Wall of Roots (4) + Noble (3)

The only downside is that it could get countered.

All of which assumes we don't go off that turn. However, we could do this neat trick with another creature besides Empath in play:

Food Chain: Play Empath, get Aethersnipe; Tap/Sack Wall of Roots or Noble Hierarch to evoke the Snipe, bounce Empath, Chain the Snipe (7 mana); replay the Empath (4 mana), get a Gris, Chain the Empath (8 mana), play the Gris; draw 7, win.

Hm. So that's a way of likely winning without infinite mana (ie: griffins) and a food chain, empath and mana dork. Might be worth playing with.

movingtonewao
06-24-2012, 04:16 AM
All of which assumes we don't go off that turn. However, we could do this neat trick with another creature besides Empath in play:

Food Chain: Play Empath, get Aethersnipe; Tap/Sack Wall of Roots or Noble Hierarch to evoke the Snipe, bounce Empath, Chain the Snipe (7 mana); replay the Empath (4 mana), get a Gris, Chain the Empath (8 mana), play the Gris; draw 7, win.

Hm. So that's a way of likely winning without infinite mana (ie: griffins) and a food chain, empath and mana dork. Might be worth playing with.

woah this is really neat. Did you come up with it yourself?

Darkenslight
06-24-2012, 06:31 AM
Is there any point at which you would use Kozilek over Griselbrand? Is Kozilek even a viable alternative?

metamet
06-25-2012, 01:44 PM
woah this is really neat. Did you come up with it yourself?

I realized it while responding to Moondancerbb's mentioning of Gris, so yeah, I suppose so! And thanks. :)

Kozilek doesn't offer too much to the deck. What Gris does after resolving is find the Empath or Griffen or, failing that, just lifelinks them to death and counters their spells. I'd prefer Gris or Emmy over Kozilek for those reasons.

Also, I've been testing a variant of my previous list, posted below:

3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Wall of Roots
3 Mulldrifter
3 Fierce Empath
1 Emrakul
1 Griselbrand
1 Aethersnipe

4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
1 Show and Tell
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb

Kind of want to nix the Show and Tell, as I feel we need more or less of them... but having a misers in there sometimes wins games. Might be better as a Ponder.

I upped the Wall count, as it's important to have a wall or a hierarch on the field prior to landing the Food Chain, as you can typically just win once that happens.

Most nut opener I've had: Land, Hierarch, Ancient Tomb, Empath, Food Chain, Griffin, FoW

Wins on turn two. Woo.

Moondancerbb
06-25-2012, 02:24 PM
What Kind of sideboard are you running and what do you feel are your bad matchups?

Water_Wizard
06-25-2012, 06:32 PM
Kind of want to nix the Show and Tell, as I feel we need more or less of them... but having a misers in there sometimes wins games. Might be better as a Ponder.


I agree.



Most nut opener I've had: Land, Hierarch, Ancient Tomb, Empath, Food Chain, Griffin, FoW

Wins on turn two. Woo.

Turn 2 protected, at that :) Nice!

metamet
06-28-2012, 12:21 PM
Played a smaller Leg tourney Tuesday, X-0'd. I plan on playing tonight again, possibly cutting the Show and Tell for a Sylvan Library, as I think S&T is just boring.

Current sideboard:
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Submerge
4 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extractions
1 Krosan Grip
2 Vendilion Clique

The Submerges have been awesome, as Quasali Pridemage can be an issue for the deck. I may want more...

The Pierces are obviously good, and can simply replace Daze in certain games on the draw.

Extractions are solid. Might want 3.

Haven't needed the K Grip recently, but Humility wrecks the deck.

V Cliques are all stars. I may want more, but they apply a clock and act as precaution before going off. If you suspect your opponent has disruption for your Food Chain (K Grip, for example), be sure to land the Clique the turn before and strip that card away.

The Goyfs have been good, but I am still not completely sold on them. Going into a the odd UB Beatdown can win games, and it's really good against RUG Delver and other sleigh/aggro decks, but I'm still open to tweaking it.

Bad matchups... erm, I don't quite know. Show and Tell and Dream Halls is kinda goofy, but we have ways of beating them (see: Emrakul, Aethersnipe, Gris) if they S&T. Maverick isn't too favorable, but it's not impossible to win--I'm about 50/50 against them, and the matchup becomes worse if they run that stupid flyer that stops you from searching. :) Karakas is fine, as you just recast the Emmy the next turn.

I wish there a way to tutor for the Food Chain that wasn't Drift of Phantasms (tooo sloowww) or another color. Hrmph.

Moondancerbb
06-28-2012, 01:08 PM
This is the list i have been running Strongly considering cutting a Grisel I bolded my changes the Trops are down to 3 simply because i don't have my 4th yet. Been considering running a tundra and a couple of enlightened tutor and then running a partial tutor board.

3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Wall of Roots
3 Mulldrifter
3 Fierce Empath
1 Emrakul
3 Griselbrand
1 Aethersnipe

4 Food Chain

4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
3 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
2 Island
2 Forest
2 Ancient Tomb

metamet
06-28-2012, 01:29 PM
The extra fetch (> the Trop) may be a good idea, as shuffle effects are worthwhile.

If you try -2 Gris, +2 Sylvan Library we'll be sitting at nearly a mirror list, sans the land difference. I have been a huge fan of the Library, as it allows the deck to really shape the defense it needs to go off.

Although we can explode on T2-4 consistently, going longer in the game and shaping a hand that can't be beat is a solid strategy.

Moondancerbb
06-28-2012, 01:37 PM
Will have to test libraries For my build i was thinking of a sideboard that looks like this, i think currently we have a strong chance to win game one as most combo decks do but after the hate we need to adjust our plan.

4 Show and Tell
2 Submerge
4 Spell Pierce
2 Surgical Extractions
1 Emrykul, Aeons Torn
2 City Of Traitors

Working on an alternate version of the deck with enlightened tutor but still needs a lot of work for the package and not hurting our main combo.

metamet
06-28-2012, 05:15 PM
I could see justifying a white splash for e tutor if there were an enchantment or artifact that would help us either get manipulate fate or a griffin, as having a tutor for half the combo can be really dead if we already have it in hand.

Anything available?

Zoda123
06-29-2012, 11:02 AM
Hi there, I´m running c4b version with living wishes and appropriate SB package, but I think as L. wish is a very good card at the other hand it eats a whole SB(12 cards in my case). I tried to figure out something that should help assemble the combo like the Wish and i have a few candidates in Sylvan Library(because metamet had a success with it) and Ancestrall Knowledge..
Has anyone tried the Ancestrall? In theory you have a good chance to hit griffin, and then get stuff you need to combo, if you miss anything you can thin your deck by removing useless nobles, birds, lands and so on. Cons are, you need a time because if you have a combo piece in your 10 cards you have to wait to the next draw (if you haven´t any draw spell) and of course you have to pay comulative upkeep. So maybe the Wish is just best option we have.
I should mention that, I´m running less combo dependent version due to 3x Opposition plan and more creatures. I like opp. if hits the table it buys you time to get combo or if your chain gets extirpated you have another strong win condition with griffins and so on..

Thanks to metamet to finding such a gem like manipulate fate, I really like it.

civet five
06-29-2012, 12:01 PM
I could see justifying a white splash for e tutor if there were an enchantment or artifact that would help us either get manipulate fate or a griffin, as having a tutor for half the combo can be really dead if we already have it in hand.

Anything available?

Two decks on the council to look at.

Splash for white for Eladamri's Call, with Grand Abolisher, Peacekeeper and Teeg: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8514&iddeck=62054.
This guy also has a build from a week or two earlier that runs Worldly Tutor instead of E. Call, so he clearly likes having the creature tutor: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8502&iddeck=61983

Splash for white for Enlightened Tutor (2 only), plus Wall of Omens and also ran an Iona main deck: http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=8512&iddeck=62041

Viridia
06-29-2012, 05:47 PM
Hej,

i've been thinking about this deck for a while, and i actually quite like the Bant colored version with 2 Tutors and especially the 8 walls plan + Summoning Traps in the Sideboard.
I dislike his choice of not running any cantrips and FoW in de maindeck tho, so i might try and come up with something in between :)

metamet
06-29-2012, 06:08 PM
Guys. Sad news. I didn't money last night. :( Although I did on Tuesday at a different tourney, this ends my five tournament streak. Shucks. :)

Lost to a friend's Bant list. G1 he wasteland, wasteland, stifled me out of the game, despite having the combo in my hand and a Food Chain on the board. Second game he put the right amount of pressure on and countered the right cards, which earned him the game.

Beat Maverick in a pretty fun match. I ended up getting there with the beats, then landing a Food Chain and Emrakuling, despite not going infi. Played Alluren and raced to the finish, disrupting the playing of their enchantment. We play counterspells, he played discard.

Lost the final round to RUG Delver. Of the 6 or so matches I've played against RUG Delver, this was the first loss, which I am completely okay with. He double Pyroblasted me, which isn't too great for Griffin in the midst of going off with counter backup. :)

Anywho, I did cut the S&T for Library. I like Library and I feel like an idiot when I have an active Library and a billion fetches but can't find anything, haha.

I did win a few games with the Empath > Aethersnipe > Griselbrand plan, which was fun. Definitely sticking with that.

I have three Submerge and three Goyf in the side. Goyf is intergral to the RUG matchup and they never expect it. Submerge is super good everywhere, especially against Pridemage and Knight.

So, around Ancestral Knowledge... I think looking at the top 10 cards can be good, but it's really aggressive and is really a one hit ordeal. I do like the interaction with the Griffin, but I have a hunch that you'd want that cumulative mana for the card you want to draw in order to win... but it's worth considering! I could do some testing and report back.

RE: White splash... I wish E Tutor weren't so limited. :( I'd like to hear some people's feedback about testing with it, but I'm not sold on the card disadvantage and the reliance upon another color quite yet.

I think I'd favor Living Wish over Eladamri's Call, but, then again, I'm not playing Living Wish as it is. I tried Worldy Tutor and just felt it was too limited. I also don't like the idea of hoping a Tutor goes off in addition to playing and resolving the spell it gets, but I could definitely see its utility... Grah! Might test it. :)

Big lessons learned recently:

Don't worry about the speed at which you go off, as you'll win the "turn" it happens. It's worth passing and taking the extra turn if it means you get to play around Daze or Spell Pierce. This is one reason why Sylvan Library is so powerful: it helps us shape out hand in the meantime and build up a solid defense.
Slowing down RUG Delver's clock is super important unless you have the nuts hand. If you can slow their clock and bait their counter spells (here's looking at you, Mulldrifer), then you can win. This is why Goyf fits the sideboard.
Bring in VCliques if you suspect KGrips. Be patient and play the Clique the turn before you want to land the Chain, and the Clique will let you combo off with the Griffin and ensure that the path is clear.
Hold onto your Submerges until the turn you're either going to lose or you're going to win. Use them on the card that is stopping you or about to kill you.
Siding out a Griffin G2/G3 isn't a bad idea, unless you plan on going the beatdown path. Manipulate Fateing for two Griffins and a non-blue card fakely tells your opponent that you have one in hand. :)
Use excess M. Fates to grab green cards or lands, unless you need them. Remember you can pitch the Fates to Force. Plus, they shuffle and draw you a card.
If you're trying to go off, have a Griffin in hand one removed from the game, and are suspecting either counter spells or discard, playing the one from your hand first seems like a bad play, but it's better for your Griffin to stay exiled than to go to the graveyard.
Resolving a Griselbrand usually results in a scoop. But the day's not over yet! You can usually play an Emrakul after the Gris is out, if they let you play any longer. :)


That's all!

cb4
06-29-2012, 06:30 PM
Intuition is the only card in blue or green that can tutor for food chain and griffin.

I dropped the living wish package to make more sb space. I have not regretted that decision. Having acces to four spell pierces is amazing in so many matchups. My current list hasn't changed since I posted it a page or two back.

It is somewhat like what metamet is running. I run birds instead of wall of roots to increase the chances of playing a 3 drop on turn 2 (chain, drift, or drifter). It can still win on turn two with the nut draw. I run one maga and it has one me one game that I wouldn't have won with emmy. I am considering cutting it and a bird or drifter for two sylvan libraries.

Zoda123
07-04-2012, 06:19 AM
Hi, has anyone thought about Natural order plan on the game 2 or 3?
If they bring some krosan grips and extirpate efects/pithing needles and so on. We can side out: 4x Chain,2x Emrakul,1x Griselbrand, 2/3x Fierce Empath. Side in: 4x NO, 1x Progenit and something you like(V.Clique,Tarmogoyf,Spell Pierce...) or just diverse our threats and keep 3x Chain,1x Emrak,1x Empath + have NO plan.
It´s very simillar to reanimators plan against grave hate I think.

By the way, i´ve tested on MWS and I had problem with burn, they are too fast and if we need a bit of time to assemble combo pieces(reads as: if you don´t have combo in hand + FoW) they burn us to death. I really wanted Iona here, but in other matches I think Griselbrand is far more better, so what to do?
Only cards I´ve figured out are Essence Warden(infinite life with griff and chain, maybe it´s too cute and fragile) or Leyline of Vitality (also helps against jitte a bit, oh I hate jitte. On the other hand it takes 4 SB slots)

Ad Ancestrall Knowledge: I tried it and I think it´s not optimal in our deck. The cummulative upkeep is something I really don´t like. I like Sylvan library in that slot.

Z.

Esper3k
07-04-2012, 10:59 AM
Just curious, but have you considered something like Relic of Progenitus main?

It would re-exile your Griffins if they go to the yard while also doubling as maindeck yard hate against all those Reanimator decks running around these days. At worst, it cycles?

Suneloon
07-05-2012, 05:10 AM
It also has marginal use as an answer to Surgical Extraction on your other pieces (Food Chain etc.): They surgical your Food Chain, you resp by tapping Relic and rfg'ing Food Chain..

metamet
07-05-2012, 10:41 AM
The Relic tech sounds fun. Not sure if it's main, but definitely something to consider! Always like utility cards, and the fact that it doubles for Griffin's helps, essentially giving us infinite Griffins.

The Natty Order plan from the SB is something to consider. I had thought about it, but it's a lot to devote to hating out enchantment hate... but it might also put us on a quicker clock than they were expecting. Would Progenitus be out main Natty Order target, or would it be worthwhile to consider something like Terastadon?

I'm tossing around the idea of including some number of BoPs, perhaps replacing some number of Wall of Roots, but there are up and downsides to each. BoP gets blown out by Forked Bolt, but is a little bit quicker and more aggressive, while the Wall helps hold off aggro decks, which is surprisingly relevant.

Someone named Wes Dawson ran this list this past weekend: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_food_chain_with_wes_.html

Not sure how he did. The build feels a bit too slow and counter heavy, but the Sower is fun. I ran a few in my side for a while but wasn't too happy with them, preferring VClique in the end.

It's nice to Manipulate Fate getting some love, though. :)

metamet
07-05-2012, 10:48 AM
Oh! And Re: Burn--

Bring in Daze, maybe Misdirection, and keep a hand that will win you the game quicker. Side out mana dorks, fetch basics, counter Fireblasts and the bigger spells. Consider bringing in Goyfs to up the clock in case the combo doesn't happen. They also double by blocking their little guys.

I've played burn once or twice. While not a favorable matchup, it's completely winable. I played BUG for a long time, and this performs way better against Burn than does a committed control deck. We have a clock and can put the heat on them.

gkraigher
07-06-2012, 11:39 AM
Is Ancestral Knowledge any good in this deck.

Meekstone is a great card against RUG decks and doesn't affect your side of the board. Pretty good Sideboard tech against one of the best decks.

metamet
07-06-2012, 05:43 PM
Haven't tested Ancestral Knowledge yet, but I fear it'd be a bit too slow. And it risks costing you a card. Test it out!

And Meekstone seems fine, but I haven't had that big of a struggle against RUG Delver, to be honest. I think Meekstone would be alright, even if you're just trying to bait their counterspells.

My biggest issue so far has actually been Sneak & Show... because the S&S player simply skips playing S&T and lands a Sneak Attack to win the game. KGrip might be the only out here, or racing them. But they have a ton of counters.

Went 3-1 last night, losing to Sneak & Show. I VCliqued to kill his clique. He knew I had a Gris and an Emmy in hand and revealed three S&T, an Emrakul and two Gris. I (sillily) picked the Emmy, which drew him into his Sneak Attack. Ugh. Silly move.

Quantum
07-06-2012, 06:04 PM
The Relic tech sounds fun. Not sure if it's main, but definitely something to consider! Always like utility cards, and the fact that it doubles for Griffin's helps, essentially giving us infinite Griffins.

The Natty Order plan from the SB is something to consider. I had thought about it, but it's a lot to devote to hating out enchantment hate... but it might also put us on a quicker clock than they were expecting. Would Progenitus be out main Natty Order target, or would it be worthwhile to consider something like Terastadon?

I'm tossing around the idea of including some number of BoPs, perhaps replacing some number of Wall of Roots, but there are up and downsides to each. BoP gets blown out by Forked Bolt, but is a little bit quicker and more aggressive, while the Wall helps hold off aggro decks, which is surprisingly relevant.

Someone named Wes Dawson ran this list this past weekend: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/coverage/deck_tech_food_chain_with_wes_.html

Not sure how he did. The build feels a bit too slow and counter heavy, but the Sower is fun. I ran a few in my side for a while but wasn't too happy with them, preferring VClique in the end.

It's nice to Manipulate Fate getting some love, though. :)

He beat me in Round 5 with us both at 3-1-1; pretty sure he finished 5-2-1. I played Death and Taxes, so I didn't have much disruption besides Phyrexian Revokers; game one, he straight rolled me, as I had no clue what was going on. Game two he double Echoing Truthed me, targeting both Revoker and Pithing Needle when I had him at 8. Sower was good when I only had one threat down a couple of times.

metamet
07-24-2012, 11:27 AM
Haven't played sanctioned in the last two weeks. Will this Thursday.

I did swap the two Sylvan Libraries out for Jace, the Mind Sculptors. They've been good in testing and can pitch to FoW, can bounce that pesky Pridemage and dig like none other. So far pretty happy with it, especially since I was encountering some turn two anxiety when I had that and Wall of Roots. Now the choice is clear. :)

Last night, when testing against Ian Ellis and his Rock list, I had a turn two win. Pretty nuts hand. Went like this:

T1 Forest, Hierarch
T2 Island, Food Chain; Chain Hierarch into Wall of Roots; Chain Roots into Misthollow; play the Fierce Empath; Cast Emmy: WIN

Pretty nuts, but still a fun story (for me). :)

I am also in the midst of writing an article on the deck, which I may publish here soon.

metamet
07-25-2012, 11:13 AM
Annnnd the article I wrote: Legacy Griffins: Food Chain, Manipulate Fate and Fun (http://www.quietspeculation.com/2012/07/legacy-griffins-food-chain-manipulate-fate-and-fun/)

Feedback would be fun and appreciated. :) I worry I didn't say much of value, though. haha.

Skogre
07-26-2012, 07:20 AM
Annnnd the article I wrote: Legacy Griffins: Food Chain, Manipulate Fate and Fun (http://www.quietspeculation.com/2012/07/legacy-griffins-food-chain-manipulate-fate-and-fun/)

Feedback would be fun and appreciated. :) I worry I didn't say much of value, though. haha.

I, too, have been a fan of Surgical Extraction in lieu of Loaming Shaman lately (although I'm still running one in the sideboard as a target for Living Wish). Obviously, it's great when you're able to target your own Misthollow Griffin. I've also been able to target a Food Chain in my graveyard in response to an opponent casting Surgical Extraction targeting it. Thus, removing that one copy from the game, countering their Surgical Extraction, and keeping the other Food Chains in the deck.

Nice article.

Mirrislegend
07-26-2012, 10:18 AM
Manipulate Fate just knocked my socks off. Suddenly this deck seems very viable. Anyone have any tips to someone who's considering picking up the deck?

Also, has anyone considered a Show and Tell SB?

My concept so far:

4 Hierarch
4 Wall of Roots
3 Griffin
2 Mulldrifter
3 Fierce Empath
2 Emrakul
1 Gristlebrand

4 Food Chain

4 FoW
3 Daze
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate

19 Land
3 Ancient Tomb
2 Trop
4 Misty
10 other lands

SB:
4 Show and Tell
1 Flusterstorm
4 Surgical Extraction
3 Submerge
1 Emrakul
2 Gristlebrand

Cybey
07-26-2012, 10:23 AM
Is Noble Hierarch really that much better in this deck than Birds of Paradise? Since when you attack with an Emrakul, it does not matter that much I guess with an Annihilator 6 and 15 damage.

I don't currently own Hierarch and do have BoPs ;)

metamet
07-26-2012, 11:40 AM
@Mirrislegend:

I'd recommend starting with my list and modifying it to your testing likes, which it looks like you may have already done.

The AEthersnipe is a must main deck, especially considering the goofy things you can do to sneak in Gris. It's also important when stopping any opposing permanents, like hate bears.

Here's the link: http://www.quietspeculation.com/2012/07/legacy-griffins-food-chain-manipulate-fate-and-fun/

And I used to run S&T main, but removed them. Thought about putting them in the side, but the deck works better when you have a more catered sideboard, especially since you'd also have to include more copies of your cheated fatties to make the S&Ts worth it.

@Cybey:

The exalted sometimes does matter, especially when you're setting the clock with just a single Griffin in the air. If you don't own them, I think you could sub in BoPs and be okay. Just keep track of how many times you wish you'd have exalted and report back to us. :)

nevilshute
07-26-2012, 04:45 PM
Hey there,

Just discovered this board. Been doing some posting at mtg.salvation.

I've been in love with this deck since I first saw the Food Chain + Griffin combo.

I've been doing some testing. Here is a post I made earlier today at another forum:


"For the second Tuesday in a row I brought a version of this deck to my local store's legacy tournament. Just to be clear, these tournaments are DCI-sanctioned and there is an entry-fee and a prize structure, so this is a genuine tournament scene, even if there are only around 40-45 players

I ended up going 3-3 again, but this time, having made significant changes, I felt that the deck performed much better. After the first four rounds I was 3-1 up and my last two games were very close games that I lost 2-1 on both occasions.

Here follows first the deck list and then what I learned:

Deck
Main deck:
Creatures:
4x Misthollow Griffin
4x Noble Hierarch
3x Birds of Paradise
2x Mulldrifter
2x Wall of Blossoms
2x Maga, Traitor of Mortals
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Raven Familiar
1x Coiling Oracle

Instants:
4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
3x Daze
1x Misdirection
2x Worldly Tutor

Sorceries:
2x Manipulate Fate
2x Ponder

Enchantments:
4x Food Chain

Lands
4x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
4x Forest
4x Island

Sideboard:
3x Tormod's Crypt
3x Pithing Needle
3x Moment's Peace
2x Krosan Grip
2x Echoing Truth
2x Cursed Totem

What I found to be true for most match ups is that FoodGriffin is very good in game 1. I only lost one of my game 1s and that was against a Show and Tell + Omniscience deck that just ramped over me in both games. Every other match up I won game 1.

What really caused a lot of problems in games 2 and 3, was Food Chain hate. I will go through the hate cards that caused me the most problems now and devide them into two categories: Main deck and sideboard.

Main deck haters:
Liliana of the Veil
Quasali Pridemage
Pernicious Deed
Mangara of Corondor

The reasons that these four cards pose problems for FoodGriffin are pretty selfexplanitory. The good thing about them is Pithing Needle shuts them all down. One lesson learned for me is to run four Pithing Needles in my SB from now on instead of the three I've been running so far. Other than that we have to rely on our counter magic and since decks playing those four cards are prone to not run counter magic themselves it should be possible to negate them.

Sideboard hate:
Oblivion Ring
Phyrexian Revoker
Ethersworn Canonist

Now these cards I found to be much more pesky and hard to deal with. As you can see from the sideboard I ran I didn't have that much of an answer to them (the only answers being 2x Krosan Grip and 2x Echoing Truth). I've been going over things again and again to try and come up with solutions to these cards. A good thing about them is, they usually only target Food Chain. Because of our many chump blockers (Wall of Blossoms, mana creatures etc) we can still set up our game plan, in some cases even bring in Food Chain even if it's been named by the Revoker or if they have a Canonist on the board, and then wait till we have an answer. I found Moment's Peace to be REALLY effective. People did not see it coming and it allowed me a lot of extra rounds to draw into what I needed or to swing with a Misthollow Griffin with two Noble Hierarcs on the board.

The best solution I've come up with is to bring in three or four Hurkyl's Recall in my SB. Both the canonist and revoker are artifact creatures. They will replace the Cursed Totems that were a long shot to begin with and that I found to be quite unfitting for the deck.

With the Hurkyl's Recall, my plan is to bide my time getting my board filled with creatures (drawing into what I need in the process) to block as well as delaying death with two or three sided-in Moment's Peace'. Then once I'm ready I will play a recall in my opponent's end step. This will bounce those pesky artifact creatures as well as the Æther Vials that they are usually accompanied with. Then on my turn, of course, I need to be able to go off.

The Oblivion Ring seems to be less of a problem due to it costing more mana and not having the synergy with Æther Vial. But I will keep my two Krosan Grip in the SB I think.

Other lessons learned are that cantrip creatures really is the way to go. As you can see I didn't run with that many: 2x Wall of Blossoms, 2x Mulldrifter, 1x Raven Familiar and 1x Coiling Oracle. This will be changed to look like: 2x Wall of Blossoms 3x Mulldrifter, 2x Raven Familiar and 2x Coiling Oracle. I've yet to completely decide what will go out except I know I'm going to lose the two Ponder. I'm hesitant to pull out the two Worldly Tutors as twice at the tournament I won by going tutor for Maga, Traitor of Mortals and then Brainstorm in the same turn which is such a sweet move.

Anyway, sorry for the long read, I hope others will comment and also will keep contributing with their own experiences. I really love playing this deck. I love being able to go off on turn 2/3 but I also love that it has a game plan that stretches beyong the first few rounds. "

metamet
07-26-2012, 04:50 PM
Hey there,

Just discovered this board. Been doing some posting at mtg.salvation.

I've been in love with this deck since I first saw the Food Chain + Griffin combo.

I've been doing some testing. Here is a post I made earlier today at another forum:

Thanks for sharing! I have found that Fierce Empath allows the deck to grab your fatties and turn into Griffins.

AEthersnipe also takes care of the problem cards you listed. You can grab it with Empath and evoke it. Just gotta be a bit more patient. :)

And how are you liking the Worldly Tutors? I used to run a few (page 3 or 4 of this thread I think), but decided to pull them for some more consistency with Fierce Empath and Manipulate Fate.

Glad to have you on the thread!

Skogre
07-26-2012, 05:03 PM
Thanks for sharing! I have found that Fierce Empath allows the deck to grab your fatties and turn into Griffins.

AEthersnipe also takes care of the problem cards you listed. You can grab it with Empath and evoke it. Just gotta be a bit more patient. :)

And how are you liking the Worldly Tutors? I used to run a few (page 3 or 4 of this thread I think), but decided to pull them for some more consistency with Fierce Empath and Manipulate Fate.

Glad to have you on the thread!

One issue I had with Worldly Tutor and even Enlightened Tutor was RUG Delver opponents hitting it with Thought Scour (which has happened a couple of times - not too often). Of course, you can play around things like this by leaving Brainstorm mana up.

nevilshute
07-26-2012, 05:09 PM
Thanks for sharing! I have found that Fierce Empath allows the deck to grab your fatties and turn into Griffins.

AEthersnipe also takes care of the problem cards you listed. You can grab it with Empath and evoke it. Just gotta be a bit more patient. :)

And how are you liking the Worldly Tutors? I used to run a few (page 3 or 4 of this thread I think), but decided to pull them for some more consistency with Fierce Empath and Manipulate Fate.

Glad to have you on the thread!

Cheers mate :)

Reason I've not tried Empath/Æthersnipe as of yet is mainly that I only run 1 Emrakul. If I'm not looking to bounce anything then Æthersnipe seems to slow me down because it doesn't draw any cards. With no Æthersnipe then Fierce Empath just doesn't make much sense with only 1 target in Emrakul. At least, that is my reasoning.

In terms of the Worldly Tutor then it's funny. I started out this project thinking 4 was a must. That, of course, turned out to be way too many. With 2 I sometimes side out 1 which, I suppose, doesn't bode well. I still don't feel like giving up on it though, and like I wrote, I tutor-brainstorm-won a couple of games which kind of rekindled my appreciation for the card.

What's your take on the Hurkyl's Recall idea? I got locked down against a sliver deck that sided in heavily against me. He had 2 Phyrexian Revokers, 1 Canonist and 2 Æther Vials on the board. I know 1 game shouldn't factor in THAT heavily, but it did feel quite crippling. And I've run into Ethersworn Canonists before. Æther Vials too have really messed up my game on other occasions.

Also, like I wrote, based on the six rounds of legacy I played the other night, Moment's Peace seemed like an excellent SB card, as it buys several extra turns to draw into what we need. I ran with 3 in my SB but only sided in 2 which makes me think 2 is a better number for the SB.

I'll be going to another tournament on Saturday with a more expensive entry fee and prize package so think I'll get a chance to really test the mettle of the deck then :)

Really pleased to have found this thread and your article as well. We need to come up with a deck name!

metamet
07-26-2012, 05:29 PM
The AEthersnipe/Griselbrand/Emrakul package is totally worth running three Fierce Empaths in my build. I didn't run Maga because Emmy was just better, and the trick with Empath/Snipe/Gris has won me a few games I would've been left in the cold on. Consider giving that a whirl. :)

Running the Snipe/Jace/counter suite has helped me survive, but man... two Revokers and the Canonist? That's pretty rough. Hopefully I never hit that. :) As such, I haven't had a big enough issue with the hate bears as to justify the Recalls.

Have you thought about Spell Snares or Echoing Truth? They seem like they'd be good in other matchups as well.

nevilshute
07-26-2012, 05:45 PM
I think I'm going to take it easy and maybe roll with 2 Hurkyl and 2 Echoing Truth (or maybe Wipe Away).

Maybe it's just that I'm too tired of playing Griselbrand because I've been playing Reanimator for a month prior to giving Food Chain a go, but I like the fact that my win conditions pretty much kill when they enter. I know that technically that isn't the case with Emrakul but I don't think I've cast him once without my opponent scooping.

I can see the synergy in what you're suggestion though, and I might have a go at that depending on how my own build manages in the coming weeks :)

metamet
07-26-2012, 06:01 PM
I think I'm going to take it easy and maybe roll with 2 Hurkyl and 2 Echoing Truth (or maybe Wipe Away).

Maybe it's just that I'm too tired of playing Griselbrand because I've been playing Reanimator for a month prior to giving Food Chain a go, but I like the fact that my win conditions pretty much kill when they enter. I know that technically that isn't the case with Emrakul but I don't think I've cast him once without my opponent scooping.

I can see the synergy in what you're suggestion though, and I might have a go at that depending on how my own build manages in the coming weeks :)

Definitely understand. :) In all honesty, I usually land a Gris and then just draw 14, snagging a Griffin and a Fierce Empath, then play Emmy anyway. Haha.

kwis
07-26-2012, 10:38 PM
Is it worth trying to make a build that can abuse serum powder so you don't actually have to keep the griffin in your hand and you can thin out some of the fluff in your deck?

nevilshute
07-27-2012, 03:43 AM
I've never played with Serum Powder, but it seems a little indiscriminate. I mean the only card you'd really want to have exiled from a starting hand is the Griffin, right? Maybe I just don't understand the card well enough, but it's not something I plan to test.

Right now I'm trying to fine-tune my deck for a tournament tomorrow and I'm having a hard time using my sideboard. Mainly because I want to side in too many things hehe. Is there ever a time where one would side in 4 Pithing Needles? I know there are plenty of very nasty activated abilities out there like Pernicious Deed, Liliana of the Veil, Mangara of Corondor and Quasali Pridemage not to mention Æther Vial, but having 4 needles just seems like a lot.

Cybey
07-27-2012, 03:46 AM
Right now I'm trying to fine-tune my deck for a tournament tomorrow and I'm having a hard time using my sideboard. Mainly because I want to side in too many things hehe. Is there ever a time where one would side in 4 Pithing Needles? I know there are plenty of very nasty activated abilities out there like Pernicious Deed, Liliana of the Veil, Mangara of Corondor and Quasali Pridemage not to mention Æther Vial, but having 4 needles just seems like a lot.

Usually when I run Pithing Needle in my SB I run 3 tops, because I rarely want to find it twice, especially with a counter package. When you run 4, you also of course have to board out 4 cards, and making it a lot more likely to find the card several times. This experience relies on different decks than Food Chain though.

nevilshute
07-27-2012, 04:09 AM
Usually when I run Pithing Needle in my SB I run 3 tops, because I rarely want to find it twice, especially with a counter package. When you run 4, you also of course have to board out 4 cards, and making it a lot more likely to find the card several times. This experience relies on different decks than Food Chain though.

Yeah. The more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards 3 and not 4. The thing is, stuff like Æther Vial can really be a problem and Æther Vial always comes in 4s. I've had a couple of unlucky games where my opponent has had 2 Æther Vials in his starting hand (or top draw) and I didn't get any of my needles and could only counter once... then I'm stuck with having "wasted" a force of will and him still getting the vial into play.

But that probably isn't a good enough reason to go overboard and run 4. And yes, it is a problem having to side things out. Right now I usually side out my Dazes and Misdirection (unless the match up is really there). That frees up 3 spots. Then I'll usually side out 1 mana guy. That leaves 4 slots. Lets say I want 2 Moment's Peace in, then I need to side out 1 more card to fit in 3 needles. I might just side out 1 Griffin, though I'm not happy about it. Let's say that I also wanted to side in 2 bounce spells for good measure... then it starts to really break up the synergy of the deck, because then I'm stuck having to side out cantrip creatures.

bruizar
07-27-2012, 04:46 AM
Can anyone explain to me what this deck does without Food Chain out?

Cybey
07-27-2012, 05:03 AM
nevilshute, wouldn't it be an idea to replace 1 Forest and 1 Island with Ancient Tombs? Having one of those in your opening hand could really ramp up the speed of the deck I think. Since Food Chain is our main combo card, we should really try to be a bit faster.

On a totally unrelated note, can't we squeeze in a Griffin Canyon somewhere? ;)

grokh
07-27-2012, 05:24 AM
Hi metamet,

I just saw your list, i tested Soul of the harvest but finally it's just some draw-more ... :mad:

I agree with you when you say Coiling oracle is just a bad Elvish visionary or a weak Wall of blossoms BUT you need cantrip creatures at :2: CCM, I run Wall of blossoms so i have the choice between Elvish Visionary/Coiling oracle and the fact is Coiling Oracle is blue for pitching on FoW.

On your list, you seem to be very dependant on Fierce empath, without empath, you'll never be able to draw enough into an Emrakul/Griselbrand, you pack no cantrip creatures to draw unless Mulldrifter.

For me, the good way for Food chain.deck is :
Combo pieces
4 Food chain
4 Misthollow Griffin : infinite mana with Food chain and is free on FoW/Misdirection
Some tutors (without Food chain, the deck won't do anything) :
1 or 2 Drift of phantasms because :
- only tutor which cannot be countered (activated ability)
- a 0/5 Fly Defender if you need to block a 3/2 Fly Delver each turn or Tarmogoyf
1 or 2 Fierce empath to get the 1 Emrakul in the deck
Cantrip creatures (need to chain a lot of creatures to find an Emrakul/Fierce empath to get Emrakul) :
4 Wall of blossoms : 0/4, good blocker, the best :2: CCM cantrip creature
4 Coiling oracle/Elvish visionary , depends on your number of blue cards
4 Mulldrifter, draw 2 cards, makes a lot of mana with evoke ability
4 Raven familiar, filters your library
Counterspells to ensure Food chain on board :
4 Brainstorm : helps to find a Food chain or find another FoW for winning counter battle when you try to place Food chain
4 FoW
2 Misdirection, dunno if needed maybe 4 FoW are enough ?
Acceleration :
4 Birds of paradise : permits Food chain on T2, then exiling birds into Wall of blossoms/Elvish visionary/Coiling oracle to launch the Chain
I really liked your idea about Wall of roots, but i'm afraid it'll make some times the chain fizzle because it does nothing when comes into play ...
Kill
1 Emrakul : hardcasted = GG
1 Griselbrand : 7/7 Fly Lifelink, helps against all aggro decks, protect himself by drawing 7, helps to find Emrakul

I can't find the interest about playing Manipulate fate, is it only for exiling 3 Griffins and ensure infinite mana on Food chain ? If that's the point and you really want to benefit of infinite mana you need to run lot of creatures and less counterspells.

Here's a list :
4 Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Mulldrifter
4 Wall of Blossoms
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Raven Familiar
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Coiling Oracle
2 Fierce Empath
1 AEthersnipe
2 Manipulate fate
SB: 1 Eternal Witness
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 2 Man-o'-War
SB: 3 Viridian Shaman
SB: 3 Dispel
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Fierce Empath
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 1 Misdirection

It runs no Misdirection, only 4 FoW, i have 28 blue cards for FoW, dunno if it's enough ?
If 24 blue cards is enough for 4 FoW, i can replace Coiling oracle by Elvish visionary

nevilshute
07-27-2012, 06:06 AM
I can't find the interest about playing Manipulate fate, is it only for exiling 3 Griffins and ensure infinite mana on Food chain ? If that's the point and you really want to benefit of infinite mana you need to run lot of creatures and less counterspells.


Hey Grokh.

Just on this point, the way I think of it is: It says 1U: remove 3 cards from the game and draw a card. But since we can cast Griffins from exile, it may aswell say "1U: search your library for 3 Misthollow Griffins and put them into your hand. Draw a card"... that's a lot of value for 2 CMC.

I know it's a little bit of a cheat to look at it that way as of course there are situations where you'd prefer to have to griffins in your hand and not in the exile zone, notably to pitch to FoW or Misdirection. Even so, I really like it. It can park 2 or 3 Griffins in the exile zone very fast (I usually pick up 2 griffins and my other copy of Manipulate Fate as to not draw it again), and from there you can cast 1 or even 2 just to swing for some damage until you get Food Chain running. Just leave 1 out there in exile in case your opponent has an answer.

grokh
07-27-2012, 06:21 AM
Yep, you're right that's why i've decided to put 2 Manipulate fate in the list i just posted !

EDIT : Just saw Griffin canyon idea, dunno if it was a joke, but including that could permit to have our griffin 4/4 for blocking, so we won't be obliged to exile him after blocking Delver/Vendilion clique ...

Cybey
07-27-2012, 09:05 AM
Yep, you're right that's why i've decided to put 2 Manipulate fate in the list i just posted !

EDIT : Just saw Griffin canyon idea, dunno if it was a joke, but including that could permit to have our griffin 4/4 for blocking, so we won't be obliged to exile him after blocking Delver/Vendilion clique ...
It was a bit of a joke, but I was also considering it for this exact reason. Maybe we could run 2xAncient Tomb and 2xGriffin Canyon.

Maybe a landbase of:
3x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs
1x Scalding Tarn
2x Ancient Tomb
2x Griffin Canyon
2x Island
2x Forest

metamet
07-27-2012, 12:05 PM
Hi metamet,
I agree with you when you say Coiling oracle is just a bad Elvish visionary or a weak Wall of blossoms BUT you need cantrip creatures at :2: CCM, I run Wall of blossoms so i have the choice between Elvish Visionary/Coiling oracle and the fact is Coiling Oracle is blue for pitching on FoW.


Hey Grokh!

For cantrips, I run 4 Brainstorm, 3 Ponder, 3 Mulldrifter (which is actually +1), 3 Manipulate Fate (which also finds our combo piece), 3 Fierce Empath (which also finds our other combo piece) and 2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor. When I was running cantripping creatures, I rarely felt that they did anything more than just replace themselves and provide an expensive body on the field. I have been happier running more ramp (Wall or Roots) in addition to the other cantrips and tutors.

The only card I don't have a reliable way of finding is Food Chain, but we usually dig for it. I ran some Drift of Phantasms for a bit, but I felt they were too slow and easily disruptable, especially if the opponent played discard or Clique.

I could see running more two drops, but I don't know what I would want to cut from my list. It feels pretty tight as is, and the ramp from the Wall of Roots has definitely been worth it.



On your list, you seem to be very dependant on Fierce empath, without empath, you'll never be able to draw enough into an Emrakul/Griselbrand, you pack no cantrip creatures to draw unless Mulldrifter.


As I mentioned before, I have quite a few cantrips that help the deck dig. Consider the Empath a cantrip that gets exactly what we want from the selection of three fatties. :) I have rarely had a problem finding the fatty when needed, and Empath acts as fatties 4-7 in addition to other cantrips.

It's also worth noting that you can curve into winning on the spot with a resolved Food Chain and a Griffin somewhere if the only creature you play is Empath. You Empath for Emmy, remove it for Griffin, win. It's happened for me on a few occasions.

I will say that sometimes I wish I could draw more cards. Not often, but enough to make me consider finding room for some more two drop cantrips, likely in the form of Wall of Blossoms > Coiling Oracle, especially since the reveal can be crippling. While I really like Jace (which acts as an alt wincon some games), perhaps his slot should be up for debate... I have a hard time trimming any cards as is.

metamet
07-27-2012, 12:08 PM
Even so, I really like it. It can park 2 or 3 Griffins in the exile zone very fast (I usually pick up 2 griffins and my other copy of Manipulate Fate as to not draw it again), and from there you can cast 1 or even 2 just to swing for some damage until you get Food Chain running. Just leave 1 out there in exile in case your opponent has an answer.

This is how I look at Manipulate Fate as well. :) Sometimes I grab two and another Fate just to make them wonder if I have the FoW + Griffin in hand, and sometimes I side out one Griffin in game two and do the same thing. I really like Manipulate Fate, as it smooths the deck out a TON. It sets up a piece of our combo while cantripping. Can't beat that.

metamet
07-27-2012, 12:12 PM
Oh, just as an update: I went 3-1 last night, losing to Jason Ford playing High Tide.

I got game one against him. Game two he went off and I forgot/didn't realize that High Tide affected ALL islands, pitching my Force to another Force, both of which I could have hardcasted with all the active High Tides, costing me the game, which he mentioned that after the match.

I also played against Enchantress, UB Delver and TES, 2-0'ing all three matches. The UB Delver games were down to the wire, as I was able to win the turn after he resolved a Stifled Dreadnought both games.

MaximumC
07-27-2012, 01:30 PM
Hey all. I'm working on a Vintage version of this deck, but it has alot in common with the Legacy build, since I'm mostly unpowered. You can take a look here: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=44356

Obviously, some issues are not portable between formats. Wall of Roots, for example, is probably far more valuable in a format like Legacy where aggro is prevalent. Spell Pierce may not be as valuable without having to stop early wins with Tinker. Misdirection loses a lot of value if you are not trying to steal your opponent's Ancestral. Still, I have been building the deck in a very different direction from what you people are doing, and I think it's worth discussing.

The one card I've come across as a very real option -- that I havn't seen people discuss as a wincon with Griffin -- is Omnath. He goes infinite when you combo out, and he's pretty sexy with all your mana dorks until you do. Any one tried him out?

nevilshute
07-28-2012, 10:09 AM
Well, just got back from being completely destroyed 0-4 at a tournament. Mind you I'm still new to legacy, but still this was a major disappointment.

I lost first to Maverick. I won the same match up last week so not terribly concerned. The deck can beat Maverick but can obviously also lose. I then lost to reanimator. I ran 4 Tormod's Crypt as my SB hate and will be changing those to Surgical Extraction which has more synergy with griffins. As it was, I lost twice to Iona naming blue effectively leaving me dead in the water.

Third game I lost to Merfolk. Was my first time playing against this deck which might have something to do with it. Fourth game I lost to the same slivers deck that got me last time. I played WAY too haphazardly in g2 having lost g1. I allowed him to play first a Phyrexian Revoker and then an Ethersworn Canonist when I could have countered both because I was sitting with a Hurkyl's Recall in hand. I didn't factor in the Canonists ability and so when I was finally ready to go off I end-of-his-turn Hurkyl's Recall'd only for him to Spell Pierce it, and leaving my 2 Force of Wills dead in my hand due to the 1-spell-per-turn effect.

I'm going to try the Empath/Æthersnipe/Griselbrand formula next week and see how I do. Can only be an improvement.

Skogre
07-30-2012, 07:40 AM
After playing in a small local tournament this last weekend, I changed my list up to the following:

4 Food Chain
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 AEthersnipe
2 Intuition
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Fierce Empath
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Daze
2 Ancient Tomb
5 Island
1 Forest
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Griselbrand
2 Wall of Roots
3 Mulldrifter
1 Living Wish
SB: 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
SB: 1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Gilded Drake
SB: 1 Acidic Slime
SB: 1 Misthollow Griffin
SB: 1 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

What I actually played was very similar with three or four cards having been changed.

The Acidic Slime or some other form of land destruction in the sideboard is going to be a must. The biggest lesson learned was that this deck needs to have an answer to Karakas. Wasteland in the maindeck might be better (and then possibly Life from the Loam in the sideboard?) if Living Wish is to be cut. Or Faultgrinder, which is a potential Fierce Empath target, in the sideboard and either a Taiga or Volcanic Island in the mainboard to support it. Or, if being awesome is your cup of tea (you are in the Food Chain thread, after all), perhaps try: Goblin Settler, Ogre Arsonist, or Ravaging Horde.

Also, I was really pleased with how the creatures blocked. Wall of Roots was great and Mulldrifter and Misthollow Griffins did a good amount of work, too.

rufus
07-30-2012, 08:17 AM
The Acidic Slime or some other form of land destruction in the sideboard is going to be a must. The biggest lesson learned was that this deck needs to have an answer to Karakas. ...

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre might fit better since it's also a must-answer card, and Fierce Empath can fetch it.

nevilshute
07-30-2012, 08:24 AM
After playing in a small local tournament this last weekend, I changed my list up to the following:

4 Food Chain
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 AEthersnipe
2 Intuition
2 Gitaxian Probe
3 Fierce Empath
4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Daze
2 Ancient Tomb
5 Island
1 Forest
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Force of Will
4 Noble Hierarch
1 Griselbrand
2 Wall of Roots
3 Mulldrifter
1 Living Wish
SB: 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
SB: 1 Llawan, Cephalid Empress
SB: 3 Surgical Extraction
SB: 3 Spell Pierce
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Gilded Drake
SB: 1 Acidic Slime
SB: 1 Misthollow Griffin
SB: 1 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

What I actually played was very similar with three or four cards having been changed.

The Acidic Slime or some other form of land destruction in the sideboard is going to be a must. The biggest lesson learned was that this deck needs to have an answer to Karakas. Wasteland in the maindeck might be better (and then possibly Life from the Loam in the sideboard?) if Living Wish is to be cut. Or Faultgrinder, which is a potential Fierce Empath target, in the sideboard and either a Taiga or Volcanic Island in the mainboard to support it. Or, if being awesome is your cup of tea (you are in the Food Chain thread, after all), perhaps try: Goblin Settler, Ogre Arsonist, or Ravaging Horde.

Also, I was really pleased with how the creatures blocked. Wall of Roots was great and Mulldrifter and Misthollow Griffins did a good amount of work, too.

Heya Skogre. Nice to get some more experiences here. How did you do at your tourney?

One comment on you thoughts for the need for an answer to Karakas. I don't understand why you're that worried about it. Is it because Karakas bounces your legends? Or is it due to Mangara of Corondor etc being bounced? Because (unless I've misread your list) you only have Emrakul and Griselbrand that Karakas can hit.

Griselbrand: If you get Griselbrand into play going infinite then Karakas doesn't matter as you can just recast him once he gets bounced. If not and your opponent has a Karaks on the board then the following happens: He activates it. You respond by activating Griselbrand drawing 7 cards. If you don't get what you need (1 Misthollow Griffin and 1 Empath or Emrakul) you can draw another 7. That's 14 cards that need to find you 1 Griffin and preferably 1 more card. That's quite likely to happen. I can see that it's a problem if you this plays out late in the game with you on a low life total but by then you'll hopefully have gone infinite.

Emrakul: If you get Emrakul into play then 9/10 times it's from going infinite. In that case you will win regardless of Karakas as you are getting an extra turn from casting him from your hand. Since you went off you have infinite mana in your pool so you can even just cast him right away once more and your opponent is sitting with a tapped Karakas. Take your first of two extra turns and attack with Emmy -> win.

I'd be hard pressed to find space for land destruction in my deck list. Am I missing something about Karakas? :)

Skogre
07-30-2012, 05:02 PM
I finished 2-1-1.

Round 1: Maverick - lost in 3.
In game one, I had a strong draw and was able to combo out easily through a Thalia, which does very little to this deck. In game two, I took a mulligan to five and was unable to beat his aggressive board, which included a Qasali Pridemage. In game three, my opponent was able to establish a Mother of Runes, two Qasali Pridemage, a Karakas, and a Scryb Ranger on the battlefield. Basically, I was unable to do anything to this. After playing the match, I feel like you have to counter the Pridemage and Green Sun's Zenith for two to win. The rest of the deck is not terribly problematic. Even Karakas bouncing Griselbrand or Emrakul is okay, so long as they don't have a strong board position yet.

Round 2: Mono-black Aggro/Pox - won in 3.
Lost game one after my opponent won the dice roll and was able to turn one Inquisition of Kozilek my Food Chain and turn two Hymn to Tourach me. In game 2, I was able to Force of Will an Inquisition of Kozilek and Daze a Hymn on the Following turn after playing Food Chain on my second turn. Game three was a bit more interesting. My opponent had an Abyssal Persecutor in play while I had a Griselbrand. Over a few turns, my life would jump between -6 and +4: never high enough to activate Griselbrand's ability. I landed a Jace, prevented my opponent drawing a sacrifice effect, and eventually beat him to death with Griselbrand and Misthollow Griffins. One of the best aspects of Misthollow Griffin in the deck is its resiliency to removal and combat damage with a Food Chain in play. They also gain a pseudo-vigilance by attacking and then recasting in the second main-phase.

Round 3: Robots - won in 2.
I was able to counter my opponent's Cranial Platings and Etched Champions while effectively blocking with Wall of Roots, Mulldrifter, and Misthollow Griffin, which were great because they were able to block Signal Pests and Inkmoth Nexuses.

Round 4: Charbelcher - intentional draw.
My opponent and I wanted to get out early and so we split.

Skogre
07-30-2012, 05:08 PM
One comment on you thoughts for the need for an answer to Karakas. I don't understand why you're that worried about it. Is it because Karakas bounces your legends? Or is it due to Mangara of Corondor etc being bounced? Because (unless I've misread your list) you only have Emrakul and Griselbrand that Karakas can hit.

I'd be hard pressed to find space for land destruction in my deck list. Am I missing something about Karakas? :)

It's not all that problematic. I was, admittedly, overstating how aggravating it was for me. If you cast the Emrakul, it'll bounce it and then you'll just cast it again the next turn and take another turn, so, yes, it's not that troublesome in this scenario. Where it became problematic was when my opponent had a strong board presence and I needed to have Griselbrand as a blocker to stabilize.

With that being said, I don't think it would be too problematic to switch out Acidic Slime for AEthersnipe in the sideboard (again, assuming you're running Living Wish), as it seems strictly better. If you're not playing Living Wish, it seems far less plausible, given it is not a legal Fierce Empath target.

metamet
07-31-2012, 01:24 PM
Skorge,

How have you been liking the Intuitions and Gitaxian Probes?

One thing I see people try and cram into the deck is a lot of cantripping creatures, such as Wall of Blossoms and Raven Familiar... neither of which I have been a big fan of. My issue with Raven is that it's usually just a worse 3CMC Ponder, which is why I went for Jace at that point. Since I run Wall of Roots (>Blossoms/Oracle), getting to four mana isn't hard.

I have thought about maybe 1-2 BoPs, as sometimes I'd like to have a creature on board to start chaining with Food Chain, but I don't see them filling that roll...

So far I have stuck with the list found in my article, even after some more testing. I have thought about Living Wish, but it feels a little slow, and even GSZ, which I don't think there are enough targets for... even if jamming in some other one ofs.

On the topic of Karakas - I have NEVER had an issue with Karakas. I just keep running out Emrakuls. If it's a Gris, then I just draw into the Emmy/Empath in response.

The times when there are a ton of hate bears on the field can be crushing, though. The JTMS has helped me with that, alongside the AEthersnipe. Beyond that, I don't have much for answers there... that's why I run 3 Submerge in the side, as hate bears are usually found in Maverick.

Anyone have any sweet revelations? There's also this thread on the topic of my article, with some discussion: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24308-Legacy-Griffins-Food-Chain-Manipulate-Fate-and-Fun

grokh
07-31-2012, 04:40 PM
Re metamet,

If i summarize, our deck needs :
1) to get a Food chain
2) to get a Fierce empath/Emrakul
3) to kill fast

If you don't put enough creatures in your deck, you'll expose you to fizzle because you won't be always able to chain creatures into Fierce empath/Emrakul.

You absolutely need to satisfy at the 1) condition because without Food chain you're almost ensured to lose.

For tutoring, you need Drift of phantasms, because it's an activated ability, hard to counter. I think Ponder is needed because Drift doesn't have any other interest than tutoring Food chain, it's like a dead creature in hand if you get it during the Chain so you can play maximum 2 Drifts I think. And 2 slots are not enough for tutor because without Food chain, the deck does'nt do anything.

For the 2) condition, you need to dig into your deck to find Fierce empath/Emrakul, Raven familiar/Court hussar can help, Court hussar is bad because without Griffin you won't have W to keep it on board if needed

Raven familiar can put your Ponder/BS ... non-creatures spells on bottom of your library during the creatures chain

For the 3) condition If you add to much mana dorks : Noble hierarch/Wall of roots, you'll expose to fizzle because getting a mana dork during chain combo has no utility

Problems i had with Wall of roots is, without a Food chain on board it does'nt serve to anything

It's the same with counterspells : Daze/FoW, getting it during combo has no utility and you expose you to fizzle

So, I'm arrived to that list :

4 Island
6 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Misthollow Griffin
4 Mulldrifter
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Drift of Phantasms
1 AEthersnipe
2 Manipulate Fate
4 Raven Familiar
4 Wall of Roots
2 Ponder
2 Fierce Empath
SB: 1 Eternal Witness
SB: 1 Sower of Temptation
SB: 1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
SB: 2 Man-o'-War
SB: 3 Viridian Shaman
SB: 3 Dispel
SB: 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
SB: 1 Fierce Empath
SB: 1 Forest
SB: 1 Misdirection

I got :
2 Drift + 2 Ponder to ensure having Food chain : TUTOR
4 Mulldrifter + 4 Raven familiar + 2 Fierce empath : DIG, CHAINING
4 Birds + 4 Wall of roots : HAVING MANA TO KILL FAST
3 Griffin + 2 Manipulate fate : BENEFIT OF INFINITE MANA COMBO
1 Aethersnipe : WIN IF NO INFINITE MANA

And ... I'm just arrived to almost the same list than yours metamet :eek:

Skogre
08-01-2012, 01:12 AM
How have you been liking the Intuitions and Gitaxian Probes?

I like Intuition because it's an instant speed tutor for Food Chain or any other spell you may need: e.g., Force of Will, Daze, Fierce Empath, Misthollow Griffin. It's almost always good.

Drift of Phantasms is good, too, but I prefer Intuition's flexibility. Perhaps the greatest reason to go with Drift of Phantasms over Intuition is that it cannot be countered by normal means (with the major exception being Stifle). On the downside, Drift of Phantasms has to be played at Sorcery speed and has very few targets. Also, the fact that it cannot be countered by normal means does not change the fact that if your opponent had a counterspell in turn that they won't just counter the Food Chain or Fierce Empath you just fetched.

So, long story short, I prefer Intuition.

I'm not sold on Gitaxian Probe yet. Information is always nice and it's like playing with 1 less card in the deck. It might be better as another Intuition or Wall of Roots or something else.

grokh
08-01-2012, 04:33 AM
I like Intuition because it's an instant speed tutor for Food Chain or any other spell you may need: e.g., Force of Will, Daze, Fierce Empath, Misthollow Griffin. It's almost always good.

Drift of Phantasms is good, too, but I prefer Intuition's flexibility. Perhaps the greatest reason to go with Drift of Phantasms over Intuition is that it cannot be countered by normal means (with the major exception being Stifle). On the downside, Drift of Phantasms has to be played at Sorcery speed and has very few targets. Also, the fact that it cannot be countered by normal means does not change the fact that if your opponent had a counterspell in turn that they won't just counter the Food Chain or Fierce Empath you just fetched.

So, long story short, I prefer Intuition.

I'm not sold on Gitaxian Probe yet. Information is always nice and it's like playing with 1 less card in the deck. It might be better as another Intuition or Wall of Roots or something else.

I just see one reason to play Drift of phantasms over Intuition :
If you cast your Intuition by targetting 3 Food chain, it resolves, you got 1 Food chain in hand plus 2 Food chain in graveyard. Then you cast Food Chain, he counters, you have now 3 Food chain in your graveyard.

With a Drift you would have just lost 1 Food chain.

On the Drift of phantasms targets, it has a lot :
You can target Food chain, Fierce empath, Raven familiar, Show and tell if you run a B-plan S&T ...

nevilshute
08-01-2012, 05:44 AM
Hi guys,

After a couple of disappointing legacy nights with this deck I'm still tinkering with it. My latest idea, that I'm going to experiment with tonight, is to splash white and run 2 Enlightened Tutors. I really think this deck needs a tutor for Food Chain. I see some of you have been running with either Intuition or Drift of Phantasms as your "tutor" of choice. I don't presently own any Intuitions and the Drift just seems too slow (even though it is nice that it can't be countered).

So why Enlightened Tutor? Well, if it had been green or blue I think most decks would auto include a couple of copies of this card. Being white it threatens to disturb what is otherwise a solid mana base. I do, however, believe it will possible to make it work. Up until now this has been my mana base:

4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
4x Tropical Island
3x Island
3x Forest
2x Ancient Tomb

What I intend to do is replace 1 Tropical Island and 1 Island each with a Tundra. Those 2 Tundras along with my 4 mana dorks provide 6 white mana sources for 2 white cards.

I will have to see a) if this is going to cause significant mana problems in terms of having white mana when needed and b) how more vulnurable I'm going to be to Wastelands.

Okay, with that said I'd like to touch on what match ups pose problems and which pose less problems. I think this, and other threads focus a lot on the deck as a closed system and on goldfishing. We need to flesh out which decks cause us the most problems and what we can do to combat them :)

The match ups I have experience with:

Maverick:
Seems like a match up that can go either way, maybe with a slight advantage to Maverick. Swords to Plowshares shouldn't be too great of a problem, but with that said I've lost to a Maverick player swording my Noble Hierarch on the turn before I was about to go off effectively leading to me losing the game a couple of turns later. Of their hatebears Qasali Pridemage is by far the most troublesome but it seems to be their only answer to our combo. A Pithing Needle stops it, but missing out on that it can be tough having counter magic for both the Pridemage and Green Sun's Zenith.

Reanimator:
Being the volatile deck that it is it can always blow up and beat you with a turn 2 Iona or Griselbrand on the board. This match up seems heavily draw dependant and we stand a decent chance after sideboarding.

Storm:
Played against a storm deck yesterday for the first time and it did not go well. With Cabal Therapy, Duress and Gitaxian Probe even a hand with 2 Force of Wills + pitches is beaten. I don't own any Flusterstorm so wasn't able to side that in. Sided in 4x Surgical Extraction which should work well, but their hand disuption messed me up there as well. Would love to hear some tips from other people here.

Death and Taxes:
This seems a bit tough as do any deck that runs Æther Vials. Mangara of Corondor needs to be countered but this is impossible with the vial out, so really requires a needle. They can also run Ethersworn Canonist in their SB which really blows us up. I run 2x Wipe Away in my SB to answer this.

I can write some more match up experiences, but will leave it for now.

Skogre
08-01-2012, 07:05 AM
Maverick:
Seems like a match up that can go either way, maybe with a slight advantage to Maverick. Swords to Plowshares shouldn't be too great of a problem, but with that said I've lost to a Maverick player swording my Noble Hierarch on the turn before I was about to go off effectively leading to me losing the game a couple of turns later. Of their hatebears Qasali Pridemage is by far the most troublesome but it seems to be their only answer to our combo. A Pithing Needle stops it, but missing out on that it can be tough having counter magic for both the Pridemage and Green Sun's Zenith.


I'm pretty sure that Pithing Needle does not stop the combo. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Food Chain's activated ability is a mana ability and can therefore continue to be activated. With that being said, if your opponent states "Food Chain" after resolving a Pithing Needle, do not alert him or her and only call a judge when you begin to combo out. Similarly, casting Stifle and attempting to target Food Chain or it's activated ability is illegal because mana sources are never actually placed on the stack. Furthermore, the Scourge version of the card explicitly states that mana sources cannot be countered (the judge promo does not, but how often do you see those?). Thus, if you activate Food Chain and your opponent casts Stifle, call a judge and expect them to bring the game back to its previous game-state where the opponent will have his or her Stifle in hand.

Again, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

For reference:

605.1a An activated ability is a mana ability if it meets three criteria: it doesn't have a target, it could put mana into a player's mana pool when it resolves, and it's not a loyalty ability.

605.3b An activated mana ability doesn't go on the stack, so it can't be targeted, countered, or otherwise responded to. Rather, it resolves immediately after it is activated.

Skogre
08-01-2012, 07:13 AM
Death and Taxes:
This seems a bit tough as do any deck that runs Æther Vials. Mangara of Corondor needs to be countered but this is impossible with the vial out, so really requires a needle. They can also run Ethersworn Canonist in their SB which really blows us up. I run 2x Wipe Away in my SB to answer this.

I was thinking about this the other day. My initial thought was to include something in the sideboard that functions like an Infest, which is what a lot of decks play to deal with hate bears. The two cards that jump to mind for me are the recently printed Massacre Wurm and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite; both of which are legal Fierce Empath targets.

Any ideas or suggestions?

grokh
08-01-2012, 07:24 AM
I'm pretty sure that Pithing Needle does not stop the combo. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Food Chain's activated ability is a mana ability and can therefore continue to be activated. With that being said, if your opponent states "Food Chain" after resolving a Pithing Needle, do not alert him or her and only call a judge when you begin to combo out. Similarly, casting Stifle and attempting to target Food Chain or it's activated ability is illegal because mana sources are never actually placed on the stack. Furthermore, the Scourge version of the card explicitly states that mana sources cannot be countered (the judge promo does not, but how often do you see those?). Thus, if you activate Food Chain and your opponent casts Stifle, call a judge and expect them to bring the game back to its previous game-state where the opponent will have his or her Stifle in hand.

Again, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

For reference:

Yep, you can be sure at 100% of that, Pithing Needle and Stifle don't do anything on Food chain because it's a mana ability. That's how I won a lot of games, my opponent sided in Pithing Needle and named Food chain, just say "ok" and combo for the win.

Food chain being a mana ability allows you to respond to Split second ability, it's written in the ability's text.

I think your ideas for the sideboard seem pretty good, especially Elesh Norn because it'll have an effect during all the rest of the game and not the wurm and it'll help your creatures too, attacking by the air with 5/5 Griffins or 3/4 Ravens, 4/4 Mulldrifters can be pretty amazing too ^^

nevilshute
08-01-2012, 07:34 AM
I'm pretty sure that Pithing Needle does not stop the combo. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but Food Chain's activated ability is a mana ability and can therefore continue to be activated. With that being said, if your opponent states "Food Chain" after resolving a Pithing Needle, do not alert him or her and only call a judge when you begin to combo out. Similarly, casting Stifle and attempting to target Food Chain or it's activated ability is illegal because mana sources are never actually placed on the stack. Furthermore, the Scourge version of the card explicitly states that mana sources cannot be countered (the judge promo does not, but how often do you see those?). Thus, if you activate Food Chain and your opponent casts Stifle, call a judge and expect them to bring the game back to its previous game-state where the opponent will have his or her Stifle in hand.

Again, if I'm wrong, please correct me.

For reference:

Hey Skogre. When I mentinoned Pithing Needle it was actually on our side. To stop the Pridemage :)

I like the Elesh Norn idea. I might try that. It doesn't change the fact that we need a Food Chain on the board for it to happen. Infest doesn't but we don't have the mana for that.

metamet
08-01-2012, 11:29 AM
The issue I find with most Empath targets that can fix the board (such as Elesh Norn) is that we typically need to be able to utilize Food Chain to make it happen... which may not be possible unless we're preemptive.

That's why AEthersnipe is there, as we can fetch it with Empath and then evoke it.

I'll keep brainstorming ideas for answers to these hatebears... I haven't played D&T yet, so Mangara hasn't been a problem. For Maverick, the Submerges and Jaces have been working just fine, alongside just being patient and minding their clock. You typically have a handful of turns before they get close to killing you.

A good lesson for this deck is: even though we can win within the first few turns, it's more important to clear the path in the later game than try and rush out fallible win. We can wait til we're at 2 life in order to take the game. Sculpt the hand. :)

grokh
08-01-2012, 11:45 AM
The issue I find with most Empath targets that can fix the board (such as Elesh Norn) is that we typically need to be able to utilize Food Chain to make it happen... which may not be possible unless we're preemptive.

That's why AEthersnipe is there, as we can fetch it with Empath and then evoke it.

I'll keep brainstorming ideas for answers to these hatebears... I haven't played D&T yet, so Mangara hasn't been a problem. For Maverick, the Submerges and Jaces have been working just fine, alongside just being patient and minding their clock. You typically have a handful of turns before they get close to killing you.

A good lesson for this deck is: even though we can win within the first few turns, it's more important to clear the path in the later game than try and rush out fallible win. We can wait til we're at 2 life in order to take the game. Sculpt the hand. :)

I agree with you metamet but if you increase the number of Empath-targets in the sideboard it means creatures with :6: or more CCM. That does mean that these are creatures uncastable without Food chain on board (I think to Elesh norn, how will you find :w: :w: without Food chain ?).

So you will increase your Food chain-dependency so you absolutely need to be able to get a Food chain and to have it on board without being countered.

For another Empath-target i thought to Cloudthresher, it permits to clean the board against Tempo Zoo by killing Delvers or against Esperblade by killing Lingering souls tokens. It has Flash, and it's a body : 7/7 Reach.

What do you think about Cloudthresher ?

I thought to Hornet queen or Deranged hermit to generate a huge amount of tokens too

Skogre
08-01-2012, 06:48 PM
Hey Skogre. When I mentinoned Pithing Needle it was actually on our side. To stop the Pridemage :)

Sorry about that. My reading comprehension skills seem to be pretty low in the early morning.

nevilshute
08-02-2012, 04:58 AM
Sorry about that. My reading comprehension skills seem to be pretty low in the early morning.

Hehe, I know the feeling :p

On another note I had a chance to test a slightly new deck list while playing with some friends.

My deck looked like this:

Creatures:
4x Misthollow Griffin
1x Emrakul, the Aeons torn
1x Griselbrand
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals
2x Fierce Empath
1x Aethersnipe
3x Mulldrifter
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Raven Familiar
2x Wall of Roots

Enchantments:
4x Food Chain
1x Sylvan Library

Instants:
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Misdirection
4x Brainstorm
2x Enlightened Tutor

Sorceries:
2x Manipulate Fate

Lands:
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb
3x Forest
2x Island

Sideboard:
3x Pithing Needle
4x Spell Pierce
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Moment's Peace
2x Wipe Away

As you can see I opted to splash for white in order to run 2x Enlightened Tutor. Concerns about my mana never materialized which was great. The tutors seemed okay. On a couple of occasions they got me my Food Chain and on a couple of other occasions they worked as shuffling tools while I had a Sylvan Library on the board. I will keep these in the deck.

I'm feeling more comfortable with this version of the deck. One thing, however, that I can't quite figure out is whether to keep in the 2x Wall of Roots and the 1 Raven Familiar. What I would like is to have some Ponders again. On occasion, the Raven Familiar has been very nice, but much often I end up using him with no Food Chain on the table simply because I need to dig for three cards. And in those cases I'd much rather just have a Ponder.

The Wall of Roots is a bit more ambiguous. On one occasion last night they worked the treat making me go off in turn-2. But, many other times I drew them when I had no Food Chain on the board or in hand and no particular need for a blocker. Again, here it would be more beneficial (I think) to get a cantrip. The Ponders also help shuffle the deck with the Sylvan.

So, to sum up I think I will take out these three creatures and put back in 3x Ponder.

Now, to the match up I had yesterday. I should say that it was just 5 friends playing, but we all play competitive legacy and as such had brought our decks. We had also shopped for a prize for the winner. For these reasons I think the results are worth mentioning.

Mono-Black Pox:
This seemed to be a fairly decent match up. Maybe slightly favourable for us. My Misdirections worked like a charm here and counter magic in general was very effective. The pox-player also didn't have an answer for Food Chain which meant that if I could drop a Food Chain on the board in turn 2 or 3 it often didn't matter if he then got me almost-locked down the following turn. He killed too slowly which meant I was able to get Griffins in to exile and that would normally win me the game even with no kill-shot card.

U/B Control:
Did well against this deck although it had the potential to be problematic because it ran with a lot of counter magic. The Standstill/Mishra's Factory was a bit of a hassle. Again, there was no real hate for the Food Chain which meant that once on the board I could just bide my time until I had the counter magic to protect going off.

BG Creature deck (don't know what it's called):
This deck played hand disruption and then Dark Confidants and Tarmogoyfs as well as some other creatures (Hypnotic Specter, Scavenging Ooze among others). I lost but made some silly SB decisions and we only played the one best-of-three. I'd like to try against it again as I think I could succeed. My losses came rather swiftly as a result of a resolved Dark Confidant in game 1. The only creature removal I run in main deck is the one Aethersnipe which I didn't get. He ended up just overwhelming me through all his extra draws. G2 I lost from heavy t1 hand disruption. He went Dark Ritual into an Inquisition of Kozilek and a Hymn to Tourach. I had kept a promising hand with no counter magic and was duly punished.

grokh
08-02-2012, 05:29 AM
Hehe, I know the feeling :p

On another note I had a chance to test a slightly new deck list while playing with some friends.

My deck looked like this:

Creatures:
4x Misthollow Griffin
1x Emrakul, the Aeons torn
1x Griselbrand
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals
2x Fierce Empath
1x Aethersnipe
3x Mulldrifter
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Raven Familiar
2x Wall of Roots

Enchantments:
4x Food Chain
1x Sylvan Library

Instants:
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Misdirection
4x Brainstorm
2x Enlightened Tutor

Sorceries:
2x Manipulate Fate

Lands:
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb
3x Forest
2x Island

Sideboard:
3x Pithing Needle
4x Spell Pierce
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Moment's Peace
2x Wipe Away

As you can see I opted to splash for white in order to run 2x Enlightened Tutor. Concerns about my mana never materialized which was great. The tutors seemed okay. On a couple of occasions they got me my Food Chain and on a couple of other occasions they worked as shuffling tools while I had a Sylvan Library on the board. I will keep these in the deck.

I'm feeling more comfortable with this version of the deck. One thing, however, that I can't quite figure out is whether to keep in the 2x Wall of Roots and the 1 Raven Familiar. What I would like is to have some Ponders again. On occasion, the Raven Familiar has been very nice, but much often I end up using him with no Food Chain on the table simply because I need to dig for three cards. And in those cases I'd much rather just have a Ponder.

The Wall of Roots is a bit more ambiguous. On one occasion last night they worked the treat making me go off in turn-2. But, many other times I drew them when I had no Food Chain on the board or in hand and no particular need for a blocker. Again, here it would be more beneficial (I think) to get a cantrip. The Ponders also help shuffle the deck with the Sylvan.

So, to sum up I think I will take out these three creatures and put back in 3x Ponder.



So, if i understand well what you said, you're gonna cut 2 Wall of roots + 1 Raven familiar ?

I think it's a mistake to cut Raven familiar. Why ?
Raven familiar digs your deck, he will help you most of the time :
1) Finding a Food chain if you haven't one
2) Dig your deck during the chain (when you're using Food chain for chaining creatures) for finding Fierce empath/Emrakul to the victory
3) Put on bottom Ponder/Brainstorm/Lands etc ... all non-creatures spells you don't want to see during the chain because you won't have a lot of untapped mana
4) he will block Flying creatures if you have no Food chain, you'll never play Mulldrifter for its mana cost so he'll be sacrificed after arriving most of the time

I'm gonna test Palinchron too because it permits to untap our lands, and benefit of infinite mana for casting Brainstorm/Ponder/FoW during the chain too

nevilshute
08-02-2012, 07:36 AM
So, if i understand well what you said, you're gonna cut 2 Wall of roots + 1 Raven familiar ?

I think it's a mistake to cut Raven familiar. Why ?
Raven familiar digs your deck, he will help you most of the time :
1) Finding a Food chain if you haven't one
2) Dig your deck during the chain (when you're using Food chain for chaining creatures) for finding Fierce empath/Emrakul to the victory
3) Put on bottom Ponder/Brainstorm/Lands etc ... all non-creatures spells you don't want to see during the chain because you won't have a lot of untapped mana
4) he will block Flying creatures if you have no Food chain, you'll never play Mulldrifter for its mana cost so he'll be sacrificed after arriving most of the time

I'm gonna test Palinchron too because it permits to untap our lands, and benefit of infinite mana for casting Brainstorm/Ponder/FoW during the chain too


Number 2, as I've highlightened, is probably the only one of your points that I think makes Raven Familiar better than Ponder. Without Food Chain on the table then in a majority of situations I'd prefer a Ponder simply for it being 1CMC compared to Raven's 3CMC. Of course you are right in number 4 in that there are occasions where it's nice to have a blocker during your opponents next turn. But my experiences play testing is that these situations are few and rarely of significance. It's even more rare that I'd actually pay the echo to keep him in play.

Anyway, I guess it comes down to personal preference. And I'm not totally decided yet :)

nevilshute
08-08-2012, 06:10 AM
Just thought I'd weigh in with another tournament. Was a 50-man tourney and I ended up going a mediocre 3-3. However, after the first three rounds I was sitting pretty at 3-0 so to crash and lose thrice in a row was obviously disappointing.

I won against: random weird deck; Esperblade; Nic Fit.

I lost against: Birthing Pod/Kiki-jiki and 2x Maverick.

The good thing is that my deck feels much smoother now. It's more stable and I see fewer poor starting hands. Having splashed white to get two Enlightened Tutor seems like the right call too as the deck was really struggling at times with no way to tutor up Food Chain.

Now, Maverick really seems to have a stranglehold on me. So far I've met Maverick five times in a tournament setting (with various versions of my deck) and I'm currently 1-4... I really struggle to handle their speed and their hatebears.

For this reason I'm very seriously considering putting four Swords to Plowshares into my sideboard. Then siding out 2x Misdirection and 2x Daze against Maverick (and other decks that run a lot of creatures).

I'm, of course, a little worried about my mana base, but as it is right now the two tutors have not been a problem at all. I will swap one Forest for one Savannah.

What do you guys think about using StP? I mean, ideally a board sweeper would probably be the best solution against Maverick but I just don't know what sweeper would work because of my own board status. I could run a Wrath of God or two in the side board. But aside from wiping all my mana dorks, I'm sure the mana cost will be an issue at WW.

This is my decklist (with the Sword to Plowshares changes)

Creatures:
4x Misthollow Griffin
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
2x Fierce Empath
2x Mulldrifter
1x Aethersnipe
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Griselbrand
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals

Instants:
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Misdirection
4x Brainstorm
2x Enlightened Tutor

Sorceries:
3x Ponder
2x Manipulate Fate

Enchantment:
4x Food Chain
1x Sylvan Library

Planeswalkers:
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands:
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Savannah
2x Island
2x Forest
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb

Sideboard:
4x Surgical Extraction
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Xantid Swarm
2x Wipe Away
2x Pithing Needle

So that's it. I'm already looking forward to trying the deck out again and am confident I will get better results as I become more experienced in playing the deck.

Does anyone else have any fresh experiences or ideas? :)

Nelis
08-08-2012, 06:17 AM
What is the use of Manipulate Faith?

Cybey
08-08-2012, 06:27 AM
What is the use of Manipulate Faith?
You could read back of course, but Manipulate Fate basically lets you search for your Misthollow Griffins. You cast and remove 2 griffins and the other manipulate fate (since you don't want to draw it a second time). This basically lets your draw 2 useful cards (2x Griffin) and lets you draw another card from your (now slightly thinned out) deck.

Nelis
08-08-2012, 06:49 AM
I've skipped through a couple of pages but not all of them. Anyhow, I wasn't paying attention anyway because i never really registered Misthollow Griffin. Thanx for the reply.

nevilshute
08-08-2012, 08:18 AM
I've skipped through a couple of pages but not all of them. Anyhow, I wasn't paying attention anyway because i never really registered Misthollow Griffin. Thanx for the reply.

Heya Nelis. The Griffin is a key card in this combo (which, by now I'm sure you've gathered). Manipulate Fate essentially becomes a "draw 4 cards for 2 mana" if you remove three Griffins which makes it great value.

It's true like Cybey mentions that you, at times, go for 2x Griffin plus your second MF. Lately I've begun to simply remove 3 Griffins as it offers you a better chance of winning without going off.

If you don't have a Food Chain in play then it's safest to always leave 1 Griffin in exile to protect it. If you've "tutored" up three Griffins with MF you can leave one out there and play the other two. 2x 3/3 flying isn't a bad board presence.

grokh
08-08-2012, 01:27 PM
Just thought I'd weigh in with another tournament. Was a 50-man tourney and I ended up going a mediocre 3-3. However, after the first three rounds I was sitting pretty at 3-0 so to crash and lose thrice in a row was obviously disappointing.

I won against: random weird deck; Esperblade; Nic Fit.

I lost against: Birthing Pod/Kiki-jiki and 2x Maverick.

The good thing is that my deck feels much smoother now. It's more stable and I see fewer poor starting hands. Having splashed white to get two Enlightened Tutor seems like the right call too as the deck was really struggling at times with no way to tutor up Food Chain.

Now, Maverick really seems to have a stranglehold on me. So far I've met Maverick five times in a tournament setting (with various versions of my deck) and I'm currently 1-4... I really struggle to handle their speed and their hatebears.

For this reason I'm very seriously considering putting four Swords to Plowshares into my sideboard. Then siding out 2x Misdirection and 2x Daze against Maverick (and other decks that run a lot of creatures).

I'm, of course, a little worried about my mana base, but as it is right now the two tutors have not been a problem at all. I will swap one Forest for one Savannah.

What do you guys think about using StP? I mean, ideally a board sweeper would probably be the best solution against Maverick but I just don't know what sweeper would work because of my own board status. I could run a Wrath of God or two in the side board. But aside from wiping all my mana dorks, I'm sure the mana cost will be an issue at WW.

This is my decklist (with the Sword to Plowshares changes)

Creatures:
4x Misthollow Griffin
3x Noble Hierarch
1x Birds of Paradise
2x Fierce Empath
2x Mulldrifter
1x Aethersnipe
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Griselbrand
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals

Instants:
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
2x Misdirection
4x Brainstorm
2x Enlightened Tutor

Sorceries:
3x Ponder
2x Manipulate Fate

Enchantment:
4x Food Chain
1x Sylvan Library

Planeswalkers:
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Lands:
3x Tropical Island
2x Tundra
1x Savannah
2x Island
2x Forest
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb

Sideboard:
4x Surgical Extraction
4x Swords to Plowshares
3x Xantid Swarm
2x Wipe Away
2x Pithing Needle

So that's it. I'm already looking forward to trying the deck out again and am confident I will get better results as I become more experienced in playing the deck.

Does anyone else have any fresh experiences or ideas? :)

Hi nevilshute,

I think the :w: splash for Enlightened tutor is a must-have for always having your Food chain

I just wonder if 4 Force of will + 2 Misdirection + 3 Daze isn't too much counterspells ... ?
Problems are : Misdirection is often used for counter a counterspell so it's not a "real" counterspell and Daze works only if your opponent is full tap so not a "real" counterspell too. Maybe cut Daze or Misdirection for entering some Raven familiar for :
- more creatures spells -> reduces your chances to fizzle during chain
- filter your deck, you take only the best card in the 3 ones, the 2 others are out.
- possible attack by the air when infinite mana, there is some games i win just by attacking with Mulldrifter/Raven familiar/Misthollow Griffin

Maybe should you try to have a 3rd Fierce empath, you have reduced the number of creatures for manipulating/drawing library a lot so you'll often find your Empath on topdeck when chaining. Do not forget during the chain, if no mana open BS/Ponder are dead cards.

mordraid
08-08-2012, 01:46 PM
Wouldn't sterling grove be worth it over enlightened tutor ? it serves the same purpose while being able to protect food chain at the same time.

Zoda123
08-08-2012, 04:43 PM
Hi nevilshute,

I think the :w: splash for Enlightened tutor is a must-have for always having your Food chain

I just wonder if 4 Force of will + 2 Misdirection + 3 Daze isn't too much counterspells ... ?
Problems are : Misdirection is often used for counter a counterspell so it's not a "real" counterspell and Daze works only if your opponent is full tap so not a "real" counterspell too. Maybe cut Daze or Misdirection for entering some Raven familiar for :
- more creatures spells -> reduces your chances to fizzle during chain
- filter your deck, you take only the best card in the 3 ones, the 2 others are out.
- possible attack by the air when infinite mana, there is some games i win just by attacking with Mulldrifter/Raven familiar/Misthollow Griffin

Maybe should you try to have a 3rd Fierce empath, you have reduced the number of creatures for manipulating/drawing library a lot so you'll often find your Empath on topdeck when chaining. Do not forget during the chain, if no mana open BS/Ponder are dead cards.


In UGw version you can play Court Hussar as well.

nevilshute
08-09-2012, 07:17 AM
Wouldn't sterling grove be worth it over enlightened tutor ? it serves the same purpose while being able to protect food chain at the same time.

While Sterling Grove is a decent shout out I just don't think it's worth it. If you concede that the main objective is to tutor up Food Chain, then Enlightened Tutor is way better at 1 mana vs 3 mana. Giving Food Chain shroud is obviously awesome, but you'd need two Sterling Grove in that case.


Hi nevilshute,

I think the :w: splash for Enlightened tutor is a must-have for always having your Food chain

I just wonder if 4 Force of will + 2 Misdirection + 3 Daze isn't too much counterspells ... ?
Problems are : Misdirection is often used for counter a counterspell so it's not a "real" counterspell and Daze works only if your opponent is full tap so not a "real" counterspell too. Maybe cut Daze or Misdirection for entering some Raven familiar for :
- more creatures spells -> reduces your chances to fizzle during chain
- filter your deck, you take only the best card in the 3 ones, the 2 others are out.
- possible attack by the air when infinite mana, there is some games i win just by attacking with Mulldrifter/Raven familiar/Misthollow Griffin

Maybe should you try to have a 3rd Fierce empath, you have reduced the number of creatures for manipulating/drawing library a lot so you'll often find your Empath on topdeck when chaining. Do not forget during the chain, if no mana open BS/Ponder are dead cards.

Heya Grokh. Regarding Daze and Misdirection it is a tough decision. I have tested the deck with just four Force of Will as the only counter spells and that just isn't enough imo. There are a lot of match ups where you want to side out the Misdirections for game 2 and 3. Daze gets sided out too though less frequently than Misdirection.

Ultimately I'm happy with my choices as I feel I have a lot of ways to get to my combo as it is and it then becomes a question of being able to protect it.


In UGw version you can play Court Hussar as well.

I've played with both Raven Familiar and Coiling Oracle and found them just not good enough. It goes back to the debate of Ponder vs creature cantrips. As sweet as it is casting a Raven Familiar when you have a Food Chain on the table, you really don't want to be casting it when you haven't got the Food Chain on the table. My logic for chosing Ponder is that ultimately, if you have Food Chain on the table and a Ponder you should be able to win even without the extra mana you'd be able to generate with a Raven Familiar or Court Hussar. I know that isn't always the case, but testing the deck a lot has left me with the feeling that it's the right decision.

Edit: Btw. I'm planning on running one Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite in my sideboard in my continuous struggle against Maverick. Hoping it will be good :)

rufus
08-09-2012, 01:07 PM
Has anyone looked at Ancestral Knowledge? It's got a decent chance of topdecking the Food Chain as well as RFGing the Griffin.

nevilshute
08-09-2012, 02:50 PM
Has anyone looked at Ancestral Knowledge? It's got a decent chance of topdecking the Food Chain as well as RFGing the Griffin.

That is actually a very real card here. I've just ordered two. I'll definitely test them out :)

grokh
08-09-2012, 03:24 PM
Hi nevilshute,

I think you can't really compare Raven familiar to Ponder.

I explain my purpose :

Ponder let you see 3 cards on top, some cases :
A) 3 bad cards : you shuffle and random draw
B) 1 good card + 2 bad ones : you put the good one on top, the 2 bad ones just after, draw the good one
C) 2 good cards + 1 bad one : you put the better one on top, the good one just after, then the bad one, and draw the best card
D) 3 good cards : you put the 3 in order to get the best one, then 2nd best one then last

Raven familiar :
A) 3 bad cards : take the much appreciable, 2 bad cards on bottom
B) 1 good card + 2 bad ones : take the good card, 2 bad cards on bottom, you won't see them again
C) 2 good cards + 1 bad one : take the best card, 2 others on bottom
D) 3 good cards : take the best one

In cases A), B) and C) Raven > Ponder cos the bad cards are OUT, you won't see them in next turns !

In a Raven/Mulldrifter version, the good card will always be another Raven or a Mulldrifter which will help finding another Raven or another Mulldrifter to chain until an Empath in Emrakul/Griselbrand and go for the win !

Ponder = reordering and Raven = selecting

Dunno if i was clear enough ?

nevilshute
08-09-2012, 03:58 PM
Hi nevilshute,

I think you can't really compare Raven familiar to Ponder.

I explain my purpose :

Ponder let you see 3 cards on top, some cases :
A) 3 bad cards : you shuffle and random draw
B) 1 good card + 2 bad ones : you put the good one on top, the 2 bad ones just after, draw the good one
C) 2 good cards + 1 bad one : you put the better one on top, the good one just after, then the bad one, and draw the best card
D) 3 good cards : you put the 3 in order to get the best one, then 2nd best one then last

Raven familiar :
A) 3 bad cards : take the much appreciable, 2 bad cards on bottom
B) 1 good card + 2 bad ones : take the good card, 2 bad cards on bottom, you won't see them again
C) 2 good cards + 1 bad one : take the best card, 2 others on bottom
D) 3 good cards : take the best one

In cases A), B) and C) Raven > Ponder cos the bad cards are OUT, you won't see them in next turns !

In a Raven/Mulldrifter version, the good card will always be another Raven or a Mulldrifter which will help finding another Raven or another Mulldrifter to chain until an Empath in Emrakul/Griselbrand and go for the win !

Dunno if i was clear enough ?

Heya Grokh. I understand you. Allow me to comment though. First of all, even if we can agree that in 'a', 'b' and 'c' the Raven effect > Ponder effect that doesn't mean Raven Familiar > Ponder. Ponder = 1CMC, Raven Familiar = 3CMC.

With that said, I don't agree that 'c' is automatically better with Raven. I've cast Raven before to see 2 cards that I needed - in one case a Food Chain and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I had a Griffin in exile. I chose the Food Chain, but didn't have a way of tutoring for a win card. Of course it was nice to get the Food Chain. But with a Ponder I would have been able to draw Emrakul to win on the next turn.

For me it's rather simple, like I said: Food Chain on the board = Raven Familiar (most of the time) better than Ponder. With Food Chain NOT on the board = Ponder (most of the time) better.

grokh
08-09-2012, 04:20 PM
With that said, I don't agree that 'c' is automatically better with Raven. I've cast Raven before to see 2 cards that I needed - in one case a Food Chain and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I had a Griffin in exile. I chose the Food Chain, but didn't have a way of tutoring for a win card. Of course it was nice to get the Food Chain. But with a Ponder I would have been able to draw Emrakul to win on the next turn.


In this situation, you took Food chain then Emrakul on bottom. This is not a bad play, i think we're now sure at 100% we MUST play Fierce empath in minimum 2, maybe 3 slots. You just need to find an Empath then.

I'm actually on this list :

4 Island
6 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Misthollow Griffin
3 Mulldrifter
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 AEthersnipe
2 Manipulate Fate
3 Raven Familiar
3 Wall of Roots
2 Ponder
2 Fierce Empath
2 Daze
1 Sylvan Library
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals


I've kept a 1-slot Drift of phantasms for following reasons :
- Tutor directly Food chain even if it's very slow
- Can tutor a Fierce empath, can be useful sometimes
- It's a 0/5 Defender Fly, it helps blocking if situation is hard with Delvers on board.

I definitively adopted Sylvan library cos it's really good card too.

I've got no :w: splash cos i haven't Tundra/Savannah so i don't test :w: for the moment

Skogre
08-09-2012, 09:39 PM
I kind of dislike Enlightened and Sterling Grove because you have to play around Thought Scour and Predict in RUG Delver decks.

In my opinion, Ancestral Knowledge is a little too cute.

vennie
08-10-2012, 04:54 AM
I definatly hope you meant ancestrall knowledge instead of recall.
Everyone should know recall is banned in Legacy (not without good reason).

Cybey
08-10-2012, 06:19 AM
I really would like to find a spot for 1 or 2 Xantid Swarms in this deck somewhere. Perhaps it is more of a sideboard card, but it might make our lives a bit easier.

The problem with Ancestral Knowledge is that it first is 2CMC, and then, if you want to get the first card in your next turn, you have to pay an additional 1 in your upkeep. Of course if this gives you your Food Chain that is fine and you can of course still use it to remove your griffins and (assuming you found your griffins) also your Manipulate Fates. However, we should consider the extra manacost in the upkeep.

I am however definitely going to give Ancestral Knowledge a try!

Awaclus
08-10-2012, 08:03 AM
The problem with Ancestral Knowledge is that it first is 2CMC, and then, if you want to get the first card in your next turn, you have to pay an additional 1 in your upkeep. Of course if this gives you your Food Chain that is fine and you can of course still use it to remove your griffins and (assuming you found your griffins) also your Manipulate Fates. However, we should consider the extra manacost in the upkeep.

I am however definitely going to give Ancestral Knowledge a try!
If it's fine when you get the Food Chain, then it's pretty much always fine. Just exile the cards you don't need and leave the upkeep cost unpaid.

grokh
08-10-2012, 02:11 PM
Yep , Ancestral knowledge seems really sexy, it permits to get a Food chain AND exiling Misthollow griffin.

If I calculate :
T1 : Forest -> Birds of paradise
T2 : Land -> Knowledge, finding Food chain + exiling Misthollow griffin
T3 : Upkeep, pay :1: then Land -> Play Food chain
T4 : Not paying upkeep for Knowledge -> Can get 3 manas by exiling Birds + 3 Lands in play, can cast Griffin and go on

It seems slow ... but very helpful

rufus
08-10-2012, 02:37 PM
...
T2 : Land -> Knowledge, finding Food chain + exiling Misthollow griffin
...

I'm not sure Ancestral Knowledge is a strong card, but 2 lands plus BoP means there's an extra mana to cast a Brainstrorm or Ponder to pull the Food Chain Immediately.

grokh
08-10-2012, 03:37 PM
I'm not sure Ancestral Knowledge is a strong card, but 2 lands plus BoP means there's an extra mana to cast a Brainstrorm or Ponder to pull the Food Chain Immediately.

Ah yes, exact so you can Ponder/Brainstorm on T2 and directly get your Food chain from top of library on your hand, I haven't seen that !

But, I think if I had to play Ancestral knowledge, it would be instead of Ponder, in my list.

Seems really much powerful now !

mordraid
08-10-2012, 04:33 PM
If i calculate correctly, ancestral knowledge cost you 3 mana to operate over 2 turns. Why not just play intuition instead ?

grokh
08-10-2012, 04:45 PM
If i calculate correctly, ancestral knowledge cost you 3 mana to operate over 2 turns. Why not just play intuition instead ?

With Ancestral knowledge you can exile some cards in the top 10 of your library and put the rest back as you want, it'll allow you to directly exile Griffin AND put Food chain on top.

You're not obliged to pay cumulative upkeep, you can cast a Brainstorm or Ponder for drawing your Food chain on top

Darkenslight
08-12-2012, 12:02 PM
With Ancestral knowledge you can exile some cards in the top 10 of your library and put the rest back as you want, it'll allow you to directly exile Griffin AND put Food chain on top.

You're not obliged to pay cumulative upkeep, you can cast a Brainstorm or Ponder for drawing your Food chain on top

Hell, if you know your opponent is playing Thought Scour, you can put it third from top to dodge the Scour.

rufus
08-13-2012, 12:08 AM
You're not obliged to pay cumulative upkeep, you can cast a Brainstorm or Ponder for drawing your Food chain on top

Or even play Gitaxian Probe/Street Wraith for the draw.

metamet
08-13-2012, 08:21 PM
Hey guys,

I've been out this past week and haven't had a chance to play much Legacy. I'll be heading to GenCon this weekend, so I'm sure I'll play some Legacy there. :)

One thing I'm toying with (albeit hesitantly) is Baleful Stix.

-1 Verdant Cat, -1 Forest; +2 Underground Sea
-3 Wall of Roots, +3 Baleful Stix

Is it good? NO idea. Haven't tested it. But it is a cute way to cantrip, have a flyer, and kill a creature to keep surviving.

Not sure if it's worth it, as it's comparable to Coiling Oracle in some ways, but the deathtouch and flying is incredibly appealing with so many Delvers and other creature based decks. It sort of stops a KotR flat.

grokh
08-14-2012, 05:54 AM
Or even play Gitaxian Probe/Street Wraith for the draw.

Hi,

In this case Gitaxian Probe>Street Wraith because :
- it's :u:, pitch on Force of will
- you'll see your opponent's hand

@metamet
Wall of roots was initially in your list for :
-defend
-make lots of mana with its ability

??

If so, Skyshroud cutter is better in the same role :
- he's 2/2, he can defend a little
- he make lots of mana, more than Wall of roots
Wall : - :2:, +:4:
Cutter : -:0:,+:5:

Ancestral knowledge seems not bad after some tests, but it's not a real tutor, it'll show you only the top 10 cards of your library, not search into your library for something, sometimes you won't get a Food chain with it. I think a :w: splash for Enlightened tutor is the best.

Cybey
08-14-2012, 07:24 AM
grokh, I think you're making a miscalculation there. Wall of Roots is superior to Skyshroud Cutter.

Skyshroud: :0: (cast), +:5: (Food Chain it)
Wall of Roots: -:2: (cast), +:4: (ability x 4), +:3: (Food Chain it)

They net you the same amount of mana, but the wall won't let your opponent gain 5 life and does not need to be used all at once...

I agree that Ancestral Knowledge is not a perfect tutor, but will let you remove griffins from your deck. Don't underestimate 10 cards though.

7 in hand, at least 1 draw before you can cast (when you're on the play even 2 draws), possibly a fetchland which already makes 9 or 10 cards less in your deck. So looking at the top 10 already shows you 20% of the cards left in the deck. When playing 4 Food Chains, this gives you a pretty decent chance to find it (assuming you don't already have one in hand) or at least gives you an opportunity to find a second Ancestral Knowledge.

I do realize it's not perfect though.

grokh
08-14-2012, 12:22 PM
grokh, I think you're making a miscalculation there. Wall of Roots is superior to Skyshroud Cutter.

Skyshroud: :0: (cast), +:5: (Food Chain it)
Wall of Roots: -:2: (cast), +:4: (ability x 4), +:3: (Food Chain it)

They net you the same amount of mana, but the wall won't let your opponent gain 5 life and does not need to be used all at once...

I agree that Ancestral Knowledge is not a perfect tutor, but will let you remove griffins from your deck. Don't underestimate 10 cards though.

7 in hand, at least 1 draw before you can cast (when you're on the play even 2 draws), possibly a fetchland which already makes 9 or 10 cards less in your deck. So looking at the top 10 already shows you 20% of the cards left in the deck. When playing 4 Food Chains, this gives you a pretty decent chance to find it (assuming you don't already have one in hand) or at least gives you an opportunity to find a second Ancestral Knowledge.

I do realize it's not perfect though.
Nope, you can't use Wall of Roots ability 4 times in a same turn, it's written "Activate this ability only once each turn". So in a same turn, you can get only - :2: (cast), +:1: (ability *1), +:3: (Food Chain)

Cybey
08-14-2012, 04:23 PM
Nope, you can't use Wall of Roots ability 4 times in a same turn, it's written "Activate this ability only once each turn". So in a same turn, you can get only - :2: (cast), +:1: (ability *1), +:3: (Food Chain)

You're entirely right. My apologies. I tend to forget that with Wall of Roots somehow...

Darkenslight
08-15-2012, 04:44 AM
Nope, you can't use Wall of Roots ability 4 times in a same turn, it's written "Activate this ability only once each turn". So in a same turn, you can get only - :2: (cast), +:1: (ability *1), +:3: (Food Chain)

I think that the thing to consider is mana consistency, which the Cutter doesn't do without Food Chain on the board. I mean, sure, potentially getting that turn 2 Emrakul on the play sounds nice. But it iincreases the variance and the opportunity to mulligan to oblivion. Roots doesn't do that. I think it's a meta call.

metamet
08-16-2012, 04:21 PM
Baleful Strix wasn't worth the splash, so back to UG shell we are.

I have been thinking about some Intuitions in the side. It may be a card we'd want to bring in over counter spells if we're not facing a counterspell/discard/gy hate deck. But, then again, we're already pretty stacked in favor of winning those matches.

I'm wishing we had another way of finding Food Chain to up the consistency, but maybe the card draw and manipulation we currently have is what we have to live with.

If we had a larger enchantment package, etutor would be justifiable. As it sits, however, it doesn't seem worth it for that card alone. Plus, the card loss of etutor has never been appealing to me.

Are there any enchantments or artifacts that would fit well into this deck and compliment the strategy? Duplicant comes to mind.

mistercakes
08-16-2012, 10:28 PM
it's not the best suggestion, but you could try academy rector. it's bad vs swords to plowshares, but great otherwise.

Darkenslight
08-17-2012, 01:58 PM
it's not the best suggestion, but you could try academy rector. it's bad vs swords to plowshares, but great otherwise.

Why would you ever consider Rector without sac outlets? That's a whole different deck. And as for artifacts/enchantments to search for, there's...not that much, really. A couple of artifacts that may be useful are Platinum Angel and Platinum Emperion.

nevilshute
08-17-2012, 03:05 PM
Baleful Strix wasn't worth the splash, so back to UG shell we are.

I have been thinking about some Intuitions in the side. It may be a card we'd want to bring in over counter spells if we're not facing a counterspell/discard/gy hate deck. But, then again, we're already pretty stacked in favor of winning those matches.

I'm wishing we had another way of finding Food Chain to up the consistency, but maybe the card draw and manipulation we currently have is what we have to live with.

If we had a larger enchantment package, etutor would be justifiable. As it sits, however, it doesn't seem worth it for that card alone. Plus, the card loss of etutor has never been appealing to me.

Are there any enchantments or artifacts that would fit well into this deck and compliment the strategy? Duplicant comes to mind.

Hey Metamet. Nice to see you posting again :)

I've been having some medium-to-poor results as of late. I've been running Enlightened Tutor for a while now, but am currently considering dropping it (and white) altogether. My feeling is we need a way to tutor for Food Chain, but the consequences for our mana base plus the relative slow nature of Enlightened Tutor just makes it fall a little short of good enough.

Right now I'm testing Ancestral Knowledge as a replacement. I've only been playing against my friend who has a competitve Maverick deck, so all of my experiences with AK is against him. Now first of all, I generally struggle against Maverick. After SB he's packing 2x Krosan Grip and 2x Ethersworn Canonist as well as 2x main deck Qasali Pridemage.

Anyway. The Ancestral Knowledge feels slightly underwhelming in the same way that Enlightened Tutor, but with it being blue it seems the better choice.

This brings me on to what you're mentioning about Intuition. I don't own any so I can't try them out in tournament, but if you decide to do so I would love a report on how it works out. The way I see it, there are obvious pros and cons. The pros being it being a tutor at instant speed. Also, with the CMC being 3 we can always cast it end-of-opponent's-turn and then cast Food Chain the next turn AND get our draw which ET doesn't allow for.

With that being said, I think it might make us need more counter magic as you do NOT want to risk putting 3 Food Chain into the GY. Casting an Intuition against any deck playing either counter magic OR a Disenchant varient therefor seems to call for at least 1 counter back-up.

Anyway, for the time being I'll stick with AK as I don't want to splash the cash on 2 or 3 [cash]Intuition[/cards]s right at this point in time.

I'll post my deck list here. Would you mind posting the deck list (and SB) that has been working the best for you Metamet? :)

Cheers.

My deck:

Main deck:

Creatures:
3x Misthollow Griffin
2x Mulldrifter
2x Fierce Empath
2x Wall of Blossoms
3x Noble Hierarch
2x Birds of Paradise
1x Aethersnipe
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Griselbrand

Enchantments:
4x Food Chain
2x Sylvan Library
2x Ancestral Knowledge

Instants:
4x Force of Will
2x Spell Pierce
4x Brainstorm

Sorceries:
3x Ponder
2x Manipulate Fate

Planeswalkers:
1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sideboard:

2x Wipe Away
4x Submerge
4x Surgical Extraction
2x Pithing Needle
3x Moment's Peace

grokh
08-17-2012, 07:22 PM
Why would you ever consider Rector without sac outlets? That's a whole different deck. And as for artifacts/enchantments to search for, there's...not that much, really. A couple of artifacts that may be useful are Platinum Angel and Platinum Emperion.

Hi, i think you can't use Platinum Emperion in this deck because you pack Griselbrand and if you have it on the board, you won't be able to pay 7 life for drawing 7 cards.

But Platinum Angel seems possible, and he flies , emperion doesn't fly

@nevilshute
I'm impressed we have almost the same list now :


Lands :

2 Island
4 Forest
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
4 Tropical Island
2 Ancient tomb

Creatures :

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Misthollow Griffin
3 Mulldrifter
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 AEthersnipe
3 Raven Familiar
3 Wall of Roots
2 Fierce Empath
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals

Enchantments :

4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library
2 Ancestral Knowledge

Instants :

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Manipulate Fate
2 Misdirection

Sideboard :
SB: 1 Tormod's Crypt -> Dredge/Reanimator
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus -> Dredge/Reanimator
SB: 1 Shriekmaw -> Meddling mage on Food chain
SB: 1 Gilded Drake -> Show and tell
SB: 3 Spell Pierce -> ANT/TES
SB: 2 Pithing Needle -> Qasali pridemage/Sneak attack
SB: 2 Hibernation -> Elfball
SB: 2 Krosan grip -> Ethersworn canonist/Counterbalance
SB: 1 Cloudthresher -> Random slot to change :)

nevilshute
08-20-2012, 01:09 PM
Just had a thought: Does anyone have any experiences using Vendilion Clique?

@Grokh,

yeah, almost the same hehe.

metamet
08-20-2012, 04:41 PM
Went 2-2 at Gen Con's Legacy Champs, losing R1 against turn two Show and Tells. I then beat Affinity and Infect. I then lost to a good Maverick player who runner runner runnered me out of the game. He was always a half a turn ahead of my comboing off. :)

My current list:

Main deck:
Creatures:
3x Misthollow Griffin
3x Mulldrifter
3x Fierce Empath
2x Wall of Roots
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Aethersnipe
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Griselbrand

Enchantments/Artifacts:
4x Food Chain
1x Sensei's Divining Top

Instants:
4x Force of Will
3x Daze
4x Brainstorm

Sorceries:
3x Ponder
3x Manipulate Fate

Planeswalkers:
2x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Land:
4x Tropical Island
2x Island
2x Forest
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Verdant Catacomb
2x Ancient Tomb

Sideboard:

2x Submerge
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Vendilion Clique
1x Echoing Truth
1x Krosan Grip
3x Tarmogoyf
3x Spell Pierce
1x Flusterstorm

grokh
08-20-2012, 08:52 PM
Hi,

I just thought why not adding a :b: splash.

It would permits to have : Spoils of the vault for tutorizing Food chain and exile soms Griffins plus replace Wall of blossoms by Baleful strix which is really stronger (Flying + Deathtouch)

nevilshute
08-21-2012, 06:44 AM
Hey Grokh,

I don't like multicoloured two-drops such as Baleful Strix and Coiling Oracle. Yes, once played they are often better than Wall of Blossoms, but the fact that they don't fit into your chain due to needing two different mana colors is annoying.

I like the idea of splashing black, mostly for some Duress/Thoughtseize/Inquisition of Kozilek, but the damage you are causing your mana base makes me unsure whether or not it's worth it. Am going to try some Vendilion Clique's instead :)

metamet
08-21-2012, 05:07 PM
Ooo! Spoils of Vault... I like this idea. It does mess up our mana base a bit, and sort of makes us want to run Birds over Hierarchs (which might not be worth it, to be honest), but I like the cute interaction with Griffin.

The only issue is exiling your win condition, Emrakul. And that is a HUGE issue.

grokh
08-21-2012, 06:33 PM
Ooo! Spoils of Vault... I like this idea. It does mess up our mana base a bit, and sort of makes us want to run Birds over Hierarchs (which might not be worth it, to be honest), but I like the cute interaction with Griffin.

The only issue is exiling your win condition, Emrakul. And that is a HUGE issue.

If Emrakul is exiled by Spoils of the vault you can still win by the air with your Griffins and Griselbrand nope ?

But i think another problem with Spoils of the vault is if you cast it on T1 to get your Food chain, you can also lose a lot of life with it and be really vulnerable very early in the game !

nevilshute
08-22-2012, 03:50 AM
The more I play, the more convinced I get of keeping the deck two-colored. I just went 5-1 at a tournament last night which was awesome. I've posted a break down of my matches on salvation but will copy it into here:


I went:

2-0 vs Dead Guy Ale
2-1 vs Dredge
2-0 vs U/B control
1-2 vs Shardless BUG
2-0 vs Death and Taxes
2-1 vs U/W control/Stoneforge

It seems there are two main tendencies for our deck archetype, those being either cantrip-creature heavy versions or cantrip-creature light versions. As you can see I play a deck that is light on cantrip-creatures playing only 2x Mulldrifter and 2x Wall of Blossoms

Here's my decklist:

3x Misthollow Griffin
3x Noble Hierarch
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Mulldrifter
2x Wall of Blossoms
2x Fierce Empath
1x Aethersnipe
1x Griselbrand
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Maga, Traitor to Mortals

4x Force of Will
4x Brainstorm
2x Spell Pierce
1x Misdirection

3x Ponder
2x Manipulate Fate

4x Food Chain
2x Sylvan Library
1x Ancestral Knowledge

1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

4x Tropical Island
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Flooded Strand
2x Ancient Tomb
3x Island
3x Forest

Sideboard:
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Tormod's Crypt
3x Moment's Peace
2x Submerge
2x Pithing Needle
2x Xantid Swarm
2x Krosan Grip

Thoughts on the deck:

Think I'm going to lose Ancestral Knowledge, I drew into it on a couple of a occasions and the game state just never seemed favorable for it. Think I'll also lose the one Misdirection. Will try to replace those two cards with two Vendilion Clique, and see how they do.

The matches:

Vs Dead Guy Ale (2-0):
Game one, he was on the play but didn't really get any hand/land disruption going. I was allowed to unhindered go off on turn four having just Force of Will'd an Elspeth, Knight-Errant. Game two I got three Griffins into exile on turn two with Manipulate Fate, I passed the turn holding two Food Chains in hand. He played a Pithing Needle naming Food Chain. I informed him that Food Chain's ability counts as a mana source. He scooped.

Vs Dredge (2-1):
I lost game one, but not to him going off on turn two or three. He ended up beating me on turn five or six with a rather underwhelming board of one Putrid Imp and three or four Zombie Tokens. What had gotten me were three Cabal Therapy one of which was flashbacked in the first four turns. Game two I got a little lucky. I didn't go off, but neither did he really. He had sided in 4x Painter's Servant/Grindstone. He got a Grindstone on the board first. Then he dredged a Painter's Servant which I promptly removed with Surgical Extraction. At a pivotal point I had one exalted Griffin attacking him each turn but he had one Imp, 3 tokens and an Ichorid beating me down. Over the following four turns I drew two Moment's Peace which afforded me victory. Last game I think he was getting crap cards and I was getting all business and went off on turn three or four.

Vs U/B Control (2-0):
This was a very good friend of mines deck and we both knew the other person's deck very well. The match-up favoured me 55-45 or there about and I won it in two close games. In game two I sided in Pithing Needle and got one on the table naming Mishra's Factory which slowed his game down even more. Game one I won without going off, game two I went off.

Vs Shardless BUG (1-2 LOST):
Game one I kept a hand with no Force of Will. He was on the play. By the time his third turn was over he had Hymn to Tourach'd me twice. He then Goyf'd to victory. Game two I actually mulled to five but somehow managed to win exiling a Griffin to Force of Will getting down a Food Chain on turn two and drawing into Fierce Empath on turn three. Game three I got a great opening hand consisting of FoW, Misdirection Griffin, 1 land (dual), hierarch, Brainstorm, Manipulate fate. Sadly it was not very close. He went: land, go, I went land, Noble Hierarch go, he went land, Goyf go. I drew and didn't get another land prompting me to use Hierarch to Brainstorm. I got an Ancient Tomb and played it. I then played Manipulate Fate drawing into a Fierce Empath which meant I was holding 1x Force, 1x Misdirection, 1x Griffin a Fierce Empath and nother green card (could have been another hierarch, I don't remember). I passed the turn and he drew, played a Wasteland. He then Ghastly Demised my Hierarch. I responded with Misdirection pitching Griffin and naming Goyf as the new target. He Force of Will'd it, and then used Wasteland on my dual leaving me with only Ancient Tomb in play. I didn't get another land for 3 turns and was effectively dead.

Vs Death and Taxes (2-0):
Went off in both game one and two. Both times I was one turn away from losing so left that table feeling pretty lucky. He never got his Mangara of Corondor/Karakas but put me under plenty of pressure with Mother of Runes, Serra Avenger and Stonforge Mystic.

Vs U/W control/Stoneforge (2-1):
I lost game one to a jitte equipped Stoneforge Mystic and plenty of counter magic. Game 2 he scooped when I got three Griffins in play with Food Chain (but no win con) on turn four. Game three was awesome. By turn four we had both emptied our hands of counter magic (I had exiled one griffin to a Force). He had countered a Food Chain and had one Snapcaster Mage on the table. His hand was empty. I was holding nothing of value and had a Wall of Blossoms as my only non-land permanent (had maybe 3 lands in play). He draws into another Snapcaster, plays it, flashbacks a Brainstorm, brainstorms into a Surgical Extraction and surgically extracts my Food Chain. I thought it was over. Next turn I draw a Xantid Swarm and play it. My wall is blocking one of his Snapcasters so I'm only taking 2 a turn. Next turn I draw a Manipulate Fate, I swing with the swarm and then play my fate getting my last two Griffins into exile. I draw a land off Fate. Next turn, play the land, attack with swarm, play a griffin. Continued to do this until he died. He drew nothing of value and I ended up setting pretty with a Force of Will and a Ponder in hand. I couldn't believe it as this guy had gone 5-0 before meeting me and especially with his Surgical Extraction move in game three.

I'm trying not to get carried away as I know 6 match-ups is hardly a big sample size, but man did it feel good to go 5-1!

Well, that's it fellow Griffinchainers. Feel free to comment :)

metamet
08-22-2012, 10:45 AM
Thanks for the report! And I agree with your adjustments. VClique is a great card and definitely worth trying out. I've always been happy with it post board, as you can EOT Clique followed by a cleared Food Chain, remove the Clique to win.

One question/suggestion: Why the Maga? Seems unnecessary, since Emmy outright wins and cannot be countered. I'd rather see that slot be another early drop.

kwis
08-22-2012, 10:57 AM
Maga would be useful against things like Ensnaring bridge.

It can probably also buy you time if you had foodchain but not mist-hollow.

nevilshute
08-22-2012, 11:00 AM
Thanks for the report! And I agree with your adjustments. VClique is a great card and definitely worth trying out. I've always been happy with it post board, as you can EOT Clique followed by a cleared Food Chain, remove the Clique to win.

One question/suggestion: Why the Maga? Seems unnecessary, since Emmy outright wins and cannot be countered. I'd rather see that slot be another early drop.

Well first of all I don't presently own more than one Emrakul. If I did I won't rule out switching out Maga. It sucks that you can't Empath for Maga, I know, but I like having an out that instant kill for those rare occasions where Emrakul doesn't win it for you. It is rare, I know, but it's nice to have the option.

An example: I was playing a friend's mono black deck. He had Bitterblossom on the board with seven five tokens and like 3 or 4 lands. I was at 1 life. With this game state, I lose even after going off with Emrakul.

Anyway, you are probably right in questioning the inclusion of Maga, but it's not completely unwarranted :)

Btw metamet: have you ever playtested any of the other creatures some people have suggested as game winners? I forget the name but for instance that one that enters the game with a counter which can be removed in order to draw a card for each permanent or others like that one?

grokh
08-22-2012, 11:10 AM
Hi,

Why Vendilion clique ? I can't see the interest ...

I think we must'nt cut Ancestral knowledge, it's the best tutor for having your Food chain if you play :g: :u:, you haven't anything better.

Drawing an Ancestral knowledge when not needed ? Just play Raven familiar to put it in bottom of your library !
You also can exile 2 Ancestral knowledge + 1 Misthollow griffin on Manipulate fate if needed !

Misdirection do really magic plays, on Hymn to tourach, Lightning bolt, Ghastly demise etc ... plus are a nice counterspell for counterspells !
You'll sure side em out in the G2, but it's really needed sometimes !

@nevilshute
I agree with you, Maga can save some games and is really useful sometimes !

For the creature you forgot the name, is it Myojin of seeing winds ?

metamet
08-22-2012, 12:08 PM
I have never needed a win condition beyond Emrakul. I either swing it with Birds for damage, or go infinite and extra turn + destroy them. I only run one Emrakul, but I do run three Empaths to get my fatty when need be. I could see Maga in the side, but I don't envision many times when I'd rather have her over Emmy. :)

VClique is great because you can do it EOT and strip their hand of the removal, such as KGrip or Nature's Claim. Then you can Chain it away to start winning. It's a little expensive, but the hand disruption is very valuable. Not only that, it's another flyer. :)

grokh
08-22-2012, 08:08 PM
I have never needed a win condition beyond Emrakul. I either swing it with Birds for damage, or go infinite and extra turn + destroy them. I only run one Emrakul, but I do run three Empaths to get my fatty when need be. I could see Maga in the side, but I don't envision many times when I'd rather have her over Emmy. :)

VClique is great because you can do it EOT and strip their hand of the removal, such as KGrip or Nature's Claim. Then you can Chain it away to start winning. It's a little expensive, but the hand disruption is very valuable. Not only that, it's another flyer. :)

For VClique , for me it's better to ensure Food chain won't be countered, but if you play VClique in this way, why wouldn't they counter the Clique if they have some counterspells ??

Removing a KGrip/Nature's claim ? If it was played in the Legacy sideboards why not :laugh:

It allows too to remove a land from your hand for getting something better !

But it's a flyer !

I just did a tournament this evening, i finished 6th on 15 players with the deck at 2-2 with this list :
(I have only 1 Sylvan library, no Noble hierarch and only 2 Verdant catacombs)

3 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Mulldrifter
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 AEthersnipe
2 Manipulate Fate
3 Raven Familiar
2 Fierce Empath
1 Sylvan Library
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
2 Ancestral Knowledge
2 Verdant Catacombs
2 Misdirection
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Forest
2 Wall of Roots


Sideboard

1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Shriekmaw
1 Gilded Drake
3 Spell Pierce
2 Pithing Needle
3 Hibernation
2 Krosan Grip


Round 1 - Goblins
G1 : WIn by comboing
G2 : He killed me before comboing
G3 : I was going for comboing when i draw a Mogg war marshal, WTF ??? I never played this card, it was certainly a proxy i forgot to remove, i've been authorized to replace it by a basic Forest after the game but if i had draw a Forest instead of this shit, i could have finished comboing and killed him. I needed a Forest and couldn't comboing and lost really stupidly :mad:

Round 2 - Rock
G1 : Win by comboing with Maga
G2 : I put 2 Pithing needle on Maze of Ith and Liliana of the veil but he HtT me my only Island of the game on turn 2 and i've never seen another one, he played with Sensei's divining top all the game and killed me
G3 : I played a Pithing needle on Sensei's divining top on T1 then Manipulate fate into 3 Misthollow griffin on T2, then 3/3 Flying Griffin killed him !

Round 3 - Burn
G1 : win easily
G2 : same as G1

Round 4 : Tempo thresh
G1 : he killed me by countering all i had with Spell pierce, Daze, Force of will and killed me with a 3/2 Flying Delver, could'nt do anything
G2 : i early comboted, and killed him with Emrakul
G3 : same as G1

Bilan :
I think that
1) Noble hierarch >> Wall of roots
2) I drew really too much basic useless lands (never the good color :cry:), i need to add 2 Verdant catacombs
3) Wall of blossoms sucks, he can't block Flying Delvers, Tarmogoyf just crush him, he's too weak, I think i'm gonna try to replace it by 2 Vendilion clique
4) Dunno if the 1 slot AEthersnipe is needed, he seemed pretty useless to me ...
5) 1 Sylvan library is really not enough, i haven't seen it during all the tournament, need to find another one

Cybey
08-23-2012, 04:09 AM
To have another out in the infinite mana loop, we could also use something like Genesis Wave, but you have to be very careful not to deck yourself...

grokh
08-23-2012, 04:36 AM
To have another out in the infinite mana loop, we could also use something like Genesis Wave, but you have to be very careful not to deck yourself...

No, you can't cast Genesis Wave with infinite mana of Food chain. The mana from Food chain can be used only for casting creatures spells

nevilshute
08-23-2012, 05:39 AM
I have never needed a win condition beyond Emrakul. I either swing it with Birds for damage, or go infinite and extra turn + destroy them. I only run one Emrakul, but I do run three Empaths to get my fatty when need be. I could see Maga in the side, but I don't envision many times when I'd rather have her over Emmy. :)

VClique is great because you can do it EOT and strip their hand of the removal, such as KGrip or Nature's Claim. Then you can Chain it away to start winning. It's a little expensive, but the hand disruption is very valuable. Not only that, it's another flyer. :)

I agree that for all intents and purposes Emrakul, the Aeons Torn gets the job done. I have however tried one or two occasions where going off with Emmy still would have lost me the game. Played a guy that had Abyssal Persecutor down plus another creature with life link that had him sitting at 30+ life. I was at negative 15 or so and he was just sitting there trying to top deck a way to kill his own Persecutor. I had Emmy in hand and a Food Chain on the board and then I drew a Griffin. I got all excited for a second but then realised that attacking with Emmy would mean he would annihalate his Persecutor effectively killing me. I sighed and cast Emmy anyway taking my extra turn and top decking Maga, Traitor to Mortals :) True story.

It is very, very seldom that Emmy can't do the job, but like someone else mentioned Ensnaring Bridge and other random sideboard cards can mess up Emmy.

@Grokh:

Seems like you had an okay tournament. A few comments: You should definitely play Noble Hierarch as you yourself suggest. Being a one drop it is a MUCH better mana accelerator than Wall of Roots. Basically, Wall of Roots gets down on turn 2 with you being tapped out and can make you 1 green mana. Hierarch gets down in turn 1 meaning on turn 2 you can produce 3 mana. There's no debate in my mind. Plus the Exalted ability is SO nice. It can be the difference between winning and losing if you happen to not go off. I find that maybe 1/4 of my wins come from not going off. And a Griffin swinging for 4 or 5 per turn speeds up your win by 1-3 rounds compared to it attacking for just 3.

With that said, I run 2 Wall of Blossoms and am having some good results with it. They are my only 2-drop and it seems our deck must have a 2-drop creature in order to be able to a) go off more smoothly with less mana and b) be able to go off on turn 2. Also, they are a nice blocker against many small'ish critters.

It's interesting to hear about your experiences with the RUG Delver/Threshold deck. A friend of mine plays one of the latest lists of that deck and so I've had plenty of chances to test against it. It is a really good deck and their clock makes it tough for us, but it is definitely beatable. One thing I've learned while playing against my friend is to be exceptionally careful not to get mana screwed. Don't ever crack a fetch with him having a blue mana open to Stifle if you can help it. Protect your Noble Hierarchs and Birds of Paradise if you can spare the counter magic. Don't keep a hand if your only land is a dual land. Always fetch for basics. With that said they can still hurt us with their many counter spells. My sideboard has some good answers to them in Moment's Peace, Xantid Swarm, Submerge and Carpet of Flowers.

grokh
08-23-2012, 06:13 AM
I agree that for all intents and purposes Emrakul, the Aeons Torn gets the job done. I have however tried one or two occasions where going off with Emmy still would have lost me the game. Played a guy that had Abyssal Persecutor down plus another creature with life link that had him sitting at 30+ life. I was at negative 15 or so and he was just sitting there trying to top deck a way to kill his own Persecutor. I had Emmy in hand and a Food Chain on the board and then I drew a Griffin. I got all excited for a second but then realised that attacking with Emmy would mean he would annihalate his Persecutor effectively killing me. I sighed and cast Emmy anyway taking my extra turn and top decking Maga, Traitor to Mortals :) True story.

It is very, very seldom that Emmy can't do the job, but like someone else mentioned Ensnaring Bridge and other random sideboard cards can mess up Emmy.

@Grokh:

Seems like you had an okay tournament. A few comments: You should definitely play Noble Hierarch as you yourself suggest. Being a one drop it is a MUCH better mana accelerator than Wall of Roots. Basically, Wall of Roots gets down on turn 2 with you being tapped out and can make you 1 green mana. Hierarch gets down in turn 1 meaning on turn 2 you can produce 3 mana. There's no debate in my mind. Plus the Exalted ability is SO nice. It can be the difference between winning and losing if you happen to not go off. I find that maybe 1/4 of my wins come from not going off. And a Griffin swinging for 4 or 5 per turn speeds up your win by 1-3 rounds compared to it attacking for just 3.

With that said, I run 2 Wall of Blossoms and am having some good results with it. They are my only 2-drop and it seems our deck must have a 2-drop creature in order to be able to a) go off more smoothly with less mana and b) be able to go off on turn 2. Also, they are a nice blocker against many small'ish critters.

It's interesting to hear about your experiences with the RUG Delver/Threshold deck. A friend of mine plays one of the latest lists of that deck and so I've had plenty of chances to test against it. It is a really good deck and their clock makes it tough for us, but it is definitely beatable. One thing I've learned while playing against my friend is to be exceptionally careful not to get mana screwed. Don't ever crack a fetch with him having a blue mana open to Stifle if you can help it. Protect your Noble Hierarchs and Birds of Paradise if you can spare the counter magic. Don't keep a hand if your only land is a dual land. Always fetch for basics. With that said they can still hurt us with their many counter spells. My sideboard has some good answers to them in Moment's Peace, Xantid Swarm, Submerge and Carpet of Flowers.

The problem i saw with Wall of blossoms yesterday evening is i can't block anything with it. Tarmogoyf is often 4/5, Delver often flies, against Tempo Thresh, when i block Mongoose he Bolt the Wall of blossoms in response ...

I think he's too weak, and i can't pitch it on FoW, that's the problem

nevilshute
08-23-2012, 07:01 AM
The problem i saw with Wall of blossoms yesterday evening is i can't block anything with it. Tarmogoyf is often 4/5, Delver often flies, against Tempo Thresh, when i block Mongoose he Bolt the Wall of blossoms in response ...

I think he's too weak, and i can't pitch it on FoW, that's the problem

Him not being blue is definitely a problem. But there are no good 2-drop cantrip creature alternatives. If you go with Coiling Oracle (who btw can block even less) you can't go off turn 2 due to needing 2 different colours of mana (unless you have an Ancient Tomb of course.

I think Wall of Blossoms is one of those cards that can frustrate as often as it can be good, but all in all it is the best solution imo. He blocks Snapcaster Mage, Dark Confidant and man-lands like a champion :)

metamet
08-23-2012, 10:20 AM
I'd like to do some testing replacing my Wall of Roots with Wall of Blossoms. Do you think the extra card is worth more than the acceleration?

nevilshute
08-23-2012, 10:54 AM
I'd like to do some testing replacing my Wall of Roots with Wall of Blossoms. Do you think the extra card is worth more than the acceleration?

In short, yes. Granted I only played with Roots for a few days but it just seemed underwhelming to get that 1 extra mana. Problem is, of course, both cards have the annoying ability to come off as underwhelming, but I think in the long run, the card advantage outshines 1 extra green mana per turn.

Let's say that most of the time late in the game 1 extra card certainly is better than 1 extra mana, so we're left with having either in your hand early on. What can roots give you? Well if you're mana screwed beyond two lands (or land/hierarch) then it's certainly nice. But if you're not mana screwed then one of its best plays is to get a hierarch into play on turn two (it's basically the only thing we can drop for 1 green). Is that good? Well sure, but not great. It will also allow us to go off on turn two without a CMC3 creature card in hand if we "only" have a Griffin but then we need Emmy or another win con on hand. If we have Fierce Empath as well then the extra mana is insignificant.

I'm not saying roots is terrible, it certainly isn't, but I like the extra card more :)

grokh
08-23-2012, 05:08 PM
Re all,

I have currently this list :http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?300374

I'd like to free 2 slot to enter 2 Vendilion clique.

I thought about doing :
A) -1 Raven familiar -1 AEthersnipe
B) -1 Raven familiar -1 Maga, traitor to mortals
C) -2 Wall of blossoms
D) -1 AEthersnipe -1 Maga, traitor to mortals

Which choice seems the best for you ?

metamet
08-23-2012, 05:42 PM
Re all,

I have currently this list :http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?300374

I'd like to free 2 slot to enter 2 Vendilion clique.

I thought about doing :
A) -1 Raven familiar -1 AEthersnipe
B) -1 Raven familiar -1 Maga, traitor to mortals
C) -2 Wall of blossoms
D) -1 AEthersnipe -1 Maga, traitor to mortals

Which choice seems the best for you ?


Go with B. Move Maga to the side if you want access to it. It's a natural draw anyway, so it's going to make very little difference to your game.

Keep the Snipe and the Walls. Remove the Raven and the Maga.

grokh
08-23-2012, 07:34 PM
Go with B. Move Maga to the side if you want access to it. It's a natural draw anyway, so it's going to make very little difference to your game.

Keep the Snipe and the Walls. Remove the Raven and the Maga.

What do you mean by "It's a natural draw anyway" ??
You're underlining the fact i can't tutor it and need to topdeck it ?

metamet
08-24-2012, 01:14 PM
What do you mean by "It's a natural draw anyway" ??
You're underlining the fact i can't tutor it and need to topdeck it ?

Yeah. AEthersnipe can be Fierce Empathed for, whereas you need to naturally draw/cantrip into Maga. AEthersnipe also serve a lot utility around protecting the combo and ensuring it can go off.

rufus
08-24-2012, 01:38 PM
Yeah. AEthersnipe can be Fierce Empathed for, whereas you need to naturally draw/cantrip into Maga. AEthersnipe also serve a lot utility around protecting the combo and ensuring it can go off.

Theoretically, you can Empath into Rune-Scarred Demon and then pull whatever body you want out of the library, though that's slightly more mana intensive.

Darkenslight
08-24-2012, 02:54 PM
Theoretically, you can Empath into Rune-Scarred Demon and then pull whatever body you want out of the library, though that's slightly more mana intensive.

And yet, if you're going infinite (and even when it's not, you can still follow the Gris chain to cast Rune, then use Rune to cast Gris).

mordraid
08-24-2012, 04:23 PM
Yeah. AEthersnipe can be Fierce Empathed for, whereas you need to naturally draw/cantrip into Maga. AEthersnipe also serve a lot utility around protecting the combo and ensuring it can go off.

Maga can be tutored with drift of phantasm. and the transmute cost can be played with food chain mana.

metamet
08-24-2012, 04:50 PM
Maga can be tutored with drift of phantasm. and the transmute cost can be played with food chain mana.

Unfortunately Transmute is an activated ability and thus cannot be used with Food Chain mana. :(

grokh
08-26-2012, 07:03 AM
Hi,

I just found a creature with very good potential for the deck i think :
Fathom seer

It's a Gush-creature !

You play it with Morph as a 2/2 for :3:, then it's like a Gush for turning it face up.

You have to remember that Morph is a static ability, it's not affected by Stifle -> He can't Stifle the bounce 2 lands ability
(The triggered ability of drawing 2 cards can be Stifled, but it's the same about all cantrip creatures in our deck)

It allows us some nice plays like :
- avoid a Wasteland on a Tropical island plus drawing 2 cards for :0:
- draw 2 cards for :0: for getting a counterspell
- take 2 manas from 2 Islands, then put an Island bounced into play, :3: + 2 cards drawn for :0:
- if blocked at 3 lands for casting a Misthollow griffin, you can take 2 manas from 2 Islands, bounce them then putting an Island into play for 1 more mana + your 3rd mana from 3rd land -> 4 manas with 3 lands -> Griffin FTW
- respond to a Krosan grip on Food chain by turning it faced up (morph is a static ability, can go in resp to Split second), drawing another Food chain for next turn
- respond to a spell by bouncing 2 Islands, then up to 3 manas opened (2 from bounced islands + 1 from island back in play), at least 1 mana open if the 2 Islands where tapped, then Brainstorm to see up to 5 cards (2 from Fathom + 3 from Brainstorm)

And the more useful, he's a creature, you can draw 2 cards for :0: during the Food chain combo !

What do you think of it, isn't a Gush-creature not very sexy in our deck ?

metamet
08-27-2012, 10:05 AM
It's an interesting card to think about, but it seems that Mulldrifter is simply better in most cases... hm. The Gushability of returning and brainstorming away lands is fun, though.

I've been thinking about Gilded Drake and Sower of Temptation.

Anyone know if Food Chain can take advantage of the Gilded Drake trigger? Or does it invalidate the exchange?

Nonex
08-27-2012, 10:10 AM
Both creatures must be in play for the exchange to occur. You can always benefit from getting a creature with higher cmc than Drake, though.

metamet
08-27-2012, 10:14 AM
Ah, I see the Drake's errata:


"When Gilded Drake enters the battlefield, exchange control of Gilded Drake and up to one target creature an opponent controls. If you don't make an exchange, sacrifice Gilded Drake. This ability can't be countered except by spells and abilities. (This effect lasts indefinitely.)"

Playing Drake then bouncing the Drake back to our own hand seems cute, though. AEthersnipe and Jace. :)