[Deck] Food Chain Combo

[JackaBo]

I like adding mana dork(s).
I also believe 2 MF can be alright, but then i'd like MF in the board. Against control it's one of the best cards.
Cutting finnishers. I guess cutting down to three makes sense, but i wouldnt want to go further than that.
Then there's food chain. The worst and best card in the deck. You dont want to cut it too?
I like the liliana tech as she can bring back a used Ballista to combo off in a pinch.

[theMonster]

Tried this last night at FNM, beating BUG Landstill, losing to Infect (mulled to 5 in game 3 and lost to Jitte + Blossoming Defense), then beating Jund NicFit and Grixis Delver:

4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Noble Hierarch
3 Baleful Strix
2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Eternal Scourge
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tombstalker
1 Trinket Mage
2 Walking Ballista

1 Relic of Progenitus

2 Fatal Push
1 Dismember
1 Abrupt Decay

4 Food Chain

4 Brainstorm
2 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Force of Will

4 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

// sideboard //

1 Pithing Needle
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Flusterstorm
1 Invasive Surgery
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Profit // Loss
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Garruk Relentless

Sideboard is untuned. Just wanted to test a few cards. The Hierarchs were great against Delver but horrible against the other three opponents - to be expected, especially against control. This deck is hungrier for than I gave it credit for, so perhaps the Hierarchs should've been Birds of Paradise. I was never short on , but one Wasteland could've made things ugly in a few spots. The exalted triggers got me a few extra points of damage, but they didn't sway the games in a meaningful way.

Deluge should probably be something else after adding the extra mana dorks - maybe a second Profit // Loss or even a Marsh Casualties. One Surgical is probably wrong in most metagames, but I didn't see any graveyard shenanigans last night. No idea if Garruk is any good - maybe it should be a Liliana, the Last Hope, but I don't want to push it too hard on the spells. Speaking of which, Tombstalker is the real deal. Card is gasoline in fair matchups. Not playing Library is almost certainly wrong, too. Next time I'll build a sideboard more than 5 minutes before the event.

[JackaBo]

Grats on the 3-1! Nice to see you brewing!
Lets talk about the list: basically you took away 2 ponder, one strix and one Ballista and replaced them with 3 hierarchs and a relic.
Not sure that this actually improves anything? Ponder helps you find lands when you need and avoid lands when you need. To me 4 ponder is non-negotiable. Also, even if Strix sometimes is bad, it's really nice the fair matchups. And in other matchups, at least it cantrips. It's also a good starting creature to combo from, as it's card disadvantage to bolt it. I dont know, but this is not the direction i think we should go when it comes to cuts.

That aside I must say i like your maindeck delve-guy and I'm curious on how relic performed. Although, if we want to not be clunky perhabs Angler is better?

[theMonster]

Grats on the 3-1! Nice to see you brewing!
Lets talk about the list: basically you took away 2 ponder, one strix and one Ballista and replaced them with 3 hierarchs and a relic.
Not sure that this actually improves anything? Ponder helps you find lands when you need and avoid lands when you need. To me 4 ponder is non-negotiable. Also, even if Strix sometimes is bad, it's really nice the fair matchups. And in other matchups, at least it cantrips. It's also a good starting creature to combo from, as it's card disadvantage to bolt it. I dont know, but this is not the direction i think we should go when it comes to cuts.

That aside I must say i like your maindeck delve-guy and I'm curious on how relic performed. Although, if we want to not be clunky perhabs Angler is better?

The goal with the Hierarchs (but probably Birds in the future) is to play our glut of 3-drops ahead of curve. Too often with this deck I can't deploy everything I want, and the extra dorks definitely helped with that. It opens up more blowouts in the form of Toxic Deluge/Terminus, yes, but it improves the Delver matchup - pick your poison. There's a lot more 1-for-1 removal around than sweepers, so I'm choosing to hedge here. I don't think 4 Ponders were ever the standard - many lists played 2-3, and Relic can replace itself in a pinch - but I've played 4 Ponders sometimes. If there's a way to sneak in a third Ponder, I'm all ears because the card is definitely good. But it's also tempo-negative, and extra dorks help improve your tempo, which is the way this deck loses in fair matchups.

Strix, even in fair matchups, just sits there. I'm viewing the Tombstalker as a pseudo fourth Strix that can actually kill the opponent. Strix gets removed, and then they just attack. Yes, you 2-for-1, but if it's at the expense of dying with lots of cards in hand, I'm not interested. Regarding needing 4 Strix to start the chain, now you have mana dorks that can start the chain. Since they tap for a mana, it's a wash compared to Strix.

Cutting the fourth combo piece never bothered me. I still combo-killed opponents, and the "half-combo" is generally enough to win.

Relic was amazing. It always is. They Bolt your guy, you get it back. It also stops opponents from Deathrite-ing your graveyard. In unfair matchups, it's another out to Reanimator and Storm in game 1.

Not saying this list is a finished product, but I saw what it could do in the Delver matchup, and I definitely think I gained percentage points.

[Kaono]

Not sure about cutting any number of Food Chain. With 4x ponder/brainstorm (which I agree should be non-negotiable) we could theoretically still find it if we only had 3. But we also can use the cantrips to make sure we don't find more than we need. FC most often eats discard/counter magic/decays etc so I'm keeping it at 4 for that reason.

Going back to delve spells seems just ok. They were better when they could help us cast Emrakul. I miss the days of Dig Through Time, haha.

How's Scavenging Ooze been lately?

A thought I had the other day -- since we switched to Ballista kill our deck CMC is much lower. Any thoughts about adding Dark Confidant somewhere in the main/sb?

[JackaBo]

Kaono: Yeah i feel like if we cut a Ballista maybe we could cut a food chain too? This deck is all about the griffins anyway, right?
Monster: Dont get me wrong i like you adds mostly but unsure about the cuts. My experiment will start with -1 Ballista, -1 griffin for relic and a BOP.

[theMonster]

Kaono: Yeah i feel like if we cut a Ballista maybe we could cut a food chain too? This deck is all about the griffins anyway, right?
Monster: Dont get me wrong i like you adds mostly but unsure about the cuts. My experiment will start with -1 Ballista, -1 griffin for relic and a BOP.

No hostility here, JackaBo. I'm just explaining my choices in the effort to arrive at a good list. I think these discussions are super helpful, and I'm always willing to be wrong. I definitely agree, I want to find at least a third Ponder, which might just be at the expense of one mana dork.

[dull]

A pre-Ballista build of Food Chain has top 8'd the SCG Legacy Classic, decklist here

[JackaBo]

That's crazy. Here we are trying to pile some clunky cards out if the deck then this abomination of a a three-drop-fest comes 6:th. Where were the delvers?
EDIT: Thanks for sharing, dull
EDIT2: Of course, Monster, i like where this is going.

[Kaono]

Yeah that guy posts a lot on the FC Facebook group. Shardless puts in a lot of work. Cascading into flusterstorm postboard sounds awful.

I am intrigued by the Hostage Takers in the SB. I'm not sure if it's any better than something like Murderous Cut, but there is interesting synergy with it and Food Chain (you can exile the Hostage Taker to Food Chain to pay for the stolen creature). I suppose it's very good vs Eldrazi being able to snipe their fatties and chalices. It can also steal Jittes.

[Holmen]

Yeah, I tried the shardless build again for an 3-0-1 and first place yesterday, in an Uppsala tournament.
I've never been happy with ballista, since shardless is the perfect 3-drop to combo off and empath is sweet with the angler or Tasigur. Shardless was great, grinding out czeck pile and grixis control, where ballista does "nothing". Works good when comboing, since you can plow through lot of cards, and works good when not comboing, even going through canonists. :)

EDIT: Against combo, shardless goes out so you don''t cascade into counterspells!

That's crazy. Here we are trying to pile some clunky cards out if the deck then this abomination of a a three-drop-fest comes 6:th. Where were the delvers?
EDIT: Thanks for sharing, dull
EDIT2: Of course, Monster, i like where this is going.

[JackaBo]

Back to shardless then!
But holmen did you face delver, and if yes how did that mu feel? There's alot of delver @ DL st the moment.

Edit so
-4 Ballista
-4 ponder
For
+1 Emmy
+1 Delve guy
+2 Empath
+3 Agents
+1 Land
??

Edit2
Or you could just be playing 4 hymn and permanent based hate in the board (Grafdigger, relic, null rod) and just embrace the tap-out mentality.

[Holmen]

Delver has always been a good matchup imo with strixes, basics and multiple abrupt decays. We win by playing smart, fetching the right land on the right time.
I board in Fatal Pushes and Relics. Shardless gets boarded out against most fast decks, but are good against tempo with counters due to cascade.

I always play 20 lands and board out one forest or swamp against 0 wasteland decks.

+4 Agents! I'm playing just 3 Abrupts MD due to Agents.

Back to shardless then!
But holmen did you face delver, and if yes how did that mu feel? There's alot of delver @ DL st the moment.

Edit so
-4 Ballista
-4 ponder
For
+1 Emmy
+1 Delve guy
+2 Empath
+3 Agents
+1 Land
??

Edit2
Or you could just be playing 4 hymn and permanent based hate in the board (Grafdigger, relic, null rod) and just embrace the tap-out mentality.

[Kaono]

If Ballista does "nothing" then Empath/Emrakul do...? Ballista singlehandedly made this a DTB for the short time it and SDT miracles coexisted and flipped the favorability MU with D&T. It allows us to win instantly on the combo turn and win through cards like Ensnaring Bridge. It can snipe planeswalkers, burn out opponents, machine gun creatures, win races with lifelink creatures and so much more.

I don't think the shardless build is bad, there's a reason all of us were playing this deck before ballista came around. Hell, I t8'd tournaments with genesis hydras and tidespout tyrants because the deck at its core is strong. But, I don't see a future where the best version of the deck isn't playing some number of ballista, even though right now many of us have trimmed them.

[JackaBo]

As much as I agree with the potential power of Ballista: it's a combo finnisher that isn't bad without the rest of the combo, it's usefulness is highly meta dependet. That is it's a lot of x/1s. I have however felt that versus fair decks with a lot of removal it can be hard to have a creature online to start combo'ing from. Agent fills that role very well, and agent and Ballista don't match well together. My biggest issue with agent is it's implications for which cards are playable.

[somethingdotdotdot]

As much as I agree with the potential power of Ballista: it's a combo finnisher that isn't bad without the rest of the combo, it's usefulness is highly meta dependet. That is it's a lot of x/1s. I have however felt that versus fair decks with a lot of removal it can be hard to have a creature online to start combo'ing from. Agent fills that role very well, and agent and Ballista don't match well together. My biggest issue with agent is it's implications for which cards are playable.

Well one way you could mitigate the shardless-ballista issue is to tweak the trinket mage-ballista split. It may mean the deck becomes more of a toolbox-y deck with some more 1-drop artifacts to search for, but it might not be a bad thing.

I'd love to see shardless->visions find a place in this shell as well.

[Holmen]

Yes indeed - A LOT :)

This deck had dtb potential a long time before ballista IMO, since it crushed the old miracles deck. I think the dtb section hade more to do with tourney results than the eventual power upgrade of ballista.

In grindy matchups, i've won countless games by going empath into tasigur/angler/tombastalker, which makes empath a big threat on it's own, creating two bodies against the veil and also delving back griffins. Against fast decks like elves, empath makes the need of going inf obsolete as Elesh Norn is easy to cast. (I have her in sideboard)

Empath is strong on it's own, I see the only dead piece as Emrakul in that build.

I don't mean ballista is bad either, just that I never liked the clunkiness of the build after I made that switch. Moving back, I feel the deck operates much more smoothly.

IF dnt and infect are the two tier one decks, I will run 4 ballista main. :)

If Ballista does "nothing" then Empath/Emrakul do...? Ballista singlehandedly made this a DTB for the short time it and SDT miracles coexisted and flipped the favorability MU with D&T. It allows us to win instantly on the combo turn and win through cards like Ensnaring Bridge. It can snipe planeswalkers, burn out opponents, machine gun creatures, win races with lifelink creatures and so much more.

I don't think the shardless build is bad, there's a reason all of us were playing this deck before ballista came around. Hell, I t8'd tournaments with genesis hydras and tidespout tyrants because the deck at its core is strong. But, I don't see a future where the best version of the deck isn't playing some number of ballista, even though right now many of us have trimmed them.

[Jesture]

As much as I agree with the potential power of Ballista: it's a combo finnisher that isn't bad without the rest of the combo, it's usefulness is highly meta dependet. That is it's a lot of x/1s. I have however felt that versus fair decks with a lot of removal it can be hard to have a creature online to start combo'ing from. Agent fills that role very well, and agent and Ballista don't match well together. My biggest issue with agent is it's implications for which cards are playable.

So here's a thought.

The weeks before Aether Revolt was spoiled, I was toying around with a version of Shardless Food Chain that played 3x Living Wish not only as a means to tutor up silver bullets (Tabernacle, Karakas, Faerie Macabre), but also as a way to avoid running clunky win condition cards (Emrakul, Tidespout Tyrant, Fierce Empath) in the main deck. Haven't played the deck at all since Ballista was spoiled, but if you're interested in testing a more traditional win condition with no Ballistas main deck, that might be the best way to do it.

List would be similar to the one that top 8'd the recent classic, -2 Fierce Empath, -1 Emrakul, +3 Living Wish. Sideboard would look something like this:

1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Walking Ballista
1x Karakas
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
2x Faerie Macabre
1x Mesmeric Fiend (has great synergy with Food Chain)
1x Elvish Spirit Guide (In case you cascade into Wish and just need a way to accelerate the combo)
1x Eternal Scourge/Misthollow Griffin (Combo piece to jump start the Food Chain)
1x Minister of Pain

2x Mindbreak Trap
1x Relic of Progenitus
2x Collective Brutality/Thoughtseize

[Kaono]

Living Wish is super spicy, I like it. I'm a huge sucker for toolboxes. Unless we cascade into it off of Agent though, it's not likely we can use it to go off right away.

Keep in mind adding all these multi-colored creatures also make it harder to chain, since we can't chain a sole strix into shardless.

Given the glut of 3-drops we're thinking about jamming, the mana dorks seem more relevant than ever. On the downside, non-DRS dorks stink to cascade into so it doesn't seem great to play too many.

If I was to use wish I'd want to go up on non-combo targets so a midgame wish is just as impactful as a combo one. Stuff like scooze, goyf, etc.

[theMonster]

Been looking at old Food Chain lists for ideas, and I was wondering if anyone's messed with any of the following cards recently:

- Lim-Dûl's Vault: Cheap way to find whichever combo piece(s) you need. Card disadvantage, yes, but if you win the game, who cares, right? Plus you accrue value elsewhere with your Strix and Fates.

- Misdirection: Situational Force #5, counter for removal, etc. I've played one of these in the past and found that I never had it when I needed it or had it stuck in hand with no target, but maybe things are different now.

- Sylvan Library: Haven't seen many of these lately 'cuz I figure you have enough value already from your other cards, and it's bad against Leovold. But it's kind of a threat in itself.

Also, speaking of Leovold, how have people felt about him recently? Am I the only one who thinks he's good but a touch overrated? Against Delver, he matches up poorly against all their threats and just dies to everything. Sure, you 2-for-1, but if you're gonna die, does it matter? Sometimes he's lights out, of course, but is he untouchable in the maindeck? Not quite ready to cut him or anything, but I just wanted to gauge people's experiences with him lately.

Thanks, y'all.