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Thread: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

  1. #1641
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Already did that, made a list with a friend which is very well known for developing the deck here in the EU back in shaman days.

    Still a small sample size but felt really nice to play.

    UG Foodchain:

    Maindeck (60)
    3 Walking Ballista
    1 Birds of Paradise
    4 Noble Hierarch
    4 new ug strix
    1 Eternal Scourge
    1 Trinket Mage
    3 Misthollow Griffin
    4 Narset, Parter of Veils
    4 Brainstorm
    2 Ponder
    3 Manipulate Fate
    4 Force of Will
    2 Back to Basics
    4 Food Chain
    4 Misty Rainforest
    4 new fetch
    2 Snow-Covered Forest
    5 Snow-Covered Island
    1 Tropical Island
    2 Verdant Catacombs
    2 Windswept Heath

    Sideboard (15)
    2 Vendilion Clique
    1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    2 Flusterstorm
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Return to Nature
    2 new fow
    1 Relic of Progenitus
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Carpet of Flowers
    1 Sylvan Library



    Shared via TopDecked MTG

    https://www.topdecked.me/decks/35ca7...2-d612eeaaf872

  2. #1642

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    My list would be probably this:

    Maindeck (60)
    3 Walking Ballista
    1 Birds of Paradise
    4 Noble Hierarch
    4 Ice-Fang Coatl
    1 Eternal Scourge
    1 Trinket Mage
    4 Misthollow Griffin
    3 Narset, Parter of Veils
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Ponder
    3 Manipulate Fate
    4 Force of Will
    1 Force of Negation
    1 Relic of Progenitus
    4 Food Chain
    4 Misty Rainforest
    4 Prismatic Vista
    2 Snow-Covered Forest
    5 Snow-Covered Island
    2 Tropical Island
    2 Verdant Catacombs


    Sideboard (15)
    2 Vendilion Clique
    2 Flusterstorm
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Naturalize
    2 Force of Negate
    2 Back to Basics
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Carpet of Flowers
    1 Sylvan Library


    I think with 5/8 Force you need 4 griffin to make a real card advantage, Narset is good but i switch one copy for another ponder to be faster in early turns. Back to Basic in sideboard for me.
    Last edited by Nightrider; 05-24-2019 at 11:11 AM.

  3. #1643

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightrider View Post
    My list would be probably this:

    Maindeck (60)
    3 Walking Ballista
    1 Birds of Paradise
    4 Noble Hierarch
    4 Ice-Fang Coatl
    1 Eternal Scourge
    1 Trinket Mage
    4 Misthollow Griffin
    3 Narset, Parter of Veils
    4 Brainstorm
    3 Ponder
    3 Manipulate Fate
    4 Force of Will
    1 Force of Negate
    1 Relic of Progenitus
    4 Food Chain
    4 Misty Rainforest
    4 Prismatic Vista
    2 Snow-Covered Forest
    5 Snow-Covered Island
    2 Tropical Island
    2 Verdant Catacombs


    Sideboard (15)
    2 Vendilion Clique
    2 Flusterstorm
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Naturalize
    2 Force of Negate
    2 Back to Basics
    1 Umezawa's Jitte
    1 Carpet of Flowers
    1 Sylvan Library


    I think with 5/8 Force you need 4 griffin to make a real card advantage, Narset is good but i switch one copy for another ponder to be faster in early turns. Back to Basic in sideboard for me.
    I love these new U/G lists, I think it really has potential to be the new direction especially with Narset. Do you think there is a lot more value in Noble Hierarch over Birds? I've actually run the old BUG list with no mana ramp at all with pretty decent results.

  4. #1644
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Yeah those lists have potential.

    To the other UG list. I would not run 2 trops. You almost never fetch to trop. Specially with the new fetchland. Also tonopen with trop is weak. I dont agree on the 5th fow. I dont think we need 4 griffins. I dont like to open with them to be honest. There are more important slots. Also i see the new fow more as an sb card. Dont forget that it can be a bad topdeck.
    After playing some games i did already some small changes. Btb is more an sb card, unless you know the meta. I changed them for a second Trinket mage(for toolbox) and for a relic which is just relevant in some match where griffin eats a removal. So basically we play 3 relic.

    I like to play 5 manadudes which are important otherwhise this deck is really slow. Also new narset is perfect. I basically want always t2 narset. So far i stay on 4.

  5. #1645

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Lookyloo View Post
    I love these new U/G lists, I think it really has potential to be the new direction especially with Narset. Do you think there is a lot more value in Noble Hierarch over Birds? I've actually run the old BUG list with no mana ramp at all with pretty decent results.
    Mana dorks are too important to combo off at T2 or T3.

    For UG lists hierarchs are better than birds because exalted triggers is cool, 4/4 flying creature is better than 3/3 :)

  6. #1646

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Pdingo View Post
    So basically we play 3 relic.
    How many blue spells do you run with 3 relics maindeck?

    Didn't you think about [card]scavenging ooze[/cards] instead of relics? It helps on chain and eat snapcaster targets for example.

    When i was on BUG version i played 1 relic and 1 ooze

  7. #1647

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    The new white knight is interesting. He fetches ballista and mana dork, beats for 3 then sacrifices to protect your combo turn. Also is a house versus storm and terminus. White is a nice color to splash when you already run hierarchs.

  8. #1648
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Nightrider View Post
    How many blue spells do you run with 3 relics maindeck?

    Didn't you think about [card]scavenging ooze[/cards] instead of relics? It helps on chain and eat snapcaster targets for example.

    When i was on BUG version i played 1 relic and 1 ooze

    I mean with 3 relic the toolbox of 2 trinket mage and 1 relic.

    Ooze is ok but slow and dies more than relic. Also the most important is the synergie with trinket mage. So i would not play him.

  9. #1649

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    I recently picked Food Chain up again after putting it down post ban. I ran into this list awhile ago that's also UG, and this guy took down a large-ish tournament with it.

    https://www.hareruyamtg.com/en/deck/231788/show/

    Aside from that, I'm still trying to figure out if I want to run birds or not. My first tournament saw them get bolted / plowed / pushed ever game I played them. It was sort of comical, except that I kept hands partially on using them as a mana source.

    Anyone have thoughts on just not running them?

    [QUOTE=Pdingo;1069696]Already did that, made a list with a friend which is very well known for developing the deck here in the EU back in shaman days.

    Still a small sample size but felt really nice to play.

    UG Foodchain:

  10. #1650
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo



    Format for new split cards from Throne of Eldraine, regular art on the left and alternate art on the right.

    This seems sort of huge for Food Chain. Assuming that we get some green/blue split cards with meaningful adventures to cast, the Misthollow Griffins and Eternal Scourge can be replaced with cards that are less dead outside of the combo but still able jump start the infinite mana with Food Chain.

  11. #1651
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Jesture View Post


    Format for new split cards from Throne of Eldraine, regular art on the left and alternate art on the right.

    This seems sort of huge for Food Chain. Assuming that we get some green/blue split cards with meaningful adventures to cast, the Misthollow Griffins and Eternal Scourge can be replaced with cards that are less dead outside of the combo but still able jump start the infinite mana with Food Chain.
    Pretty sure after reading it a few times, the cast from exile is only after resolving the Adventure, so there is no infinite combo to be had with these creatures
    Quote Originally Posted by GreatWhale View Post
    Gross, other formats. I puked in my mouth a little.

  12. #1652
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by PirateKing View Post
    Pretty sure after reading it a few times, the cast from exile is only after resolving the Adventure, so there is no infinite combo to be had with these creatures
    So I was thinking the same thing at first, but there's also no way to notate which cards were exiled from the adventure resolving and which cards were exiled via other means. It seems like a logistical nightmare for a player to cast the adventure half in the first few turns of the game, then half an hour later try and remember which cards were exiled via adventure and which cards were exiled in other ways.

    Somewhat relevant is that Karn, Scion of Urza reads "exiled with a ~ counter" which would have been the ideal templating for notating that a card was exiled by resolving the adventure. Because this clause isn't on the card I'm pretty certain we can just cast the creature half of the card regardless of how it was exiled.

    Edit: Seems I was mistaken. From the Throne of Eldraine Mechanics Article:

    "Now the fun part of going on an adventure: returning safely! If an exiled card you own is on an adventure, you can cast the creature. This could be the same turn in which you cast the Adventure or on a future turn. This works only if the Adventure spell resolves and the card remains in exile. If you cast the Adventure and it's countered, you're out of luck. Of course, you don't have to cast the Adventure at all. You could just cast Beanstalk Giant if you have need of smashing now or you don't want to risk Fertile Footsteps getting countered."

  13. #1653

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    GP Atlanta Tournament Report - 9/21/2019
    10-5 Record for 78th place and some cas$h

    ----------

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

    2 Birds of Paradise
    3 Baleful Strix
    2 Snapcaster Mage
    1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
    1 Spellseeker
    1 Eternal Scourge
    3 Misthollow Griffin
    1 Tombstalker
    1 Hydroid Krasis
    2 Walking Ballista

    4 Brainstorm
    3 Ponder
    1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
    3 Manipulate Fate
    3 Abrupt Decay
    1 Assassin's Trophy
    4 Food Chain
    4 Force of Will

    SB:
    2 Plague Engineer
    2 Spell Pierce
    2 Surgical Extraction
    2 Thoughtseize
    1 Duress
    1 Assassin's Trophy
    1 Grafdigger's Cage
    1 Marsh Casualties
    1 Pithing Needle
    1 Veil of Summer
    1 Vendilion Clique

    ----------

    Intro/Specific Card Choices:
    So I had spent the ~2 months leading up to GP Atlanta focusing on modern format due to some other events (glad I did because it paid off, and figured I knew my way around food chain enough at this point). Therefore, I had not gotten a chance to test non-BUG food chain lists really. I built bant and goldfished it thrice and was not overly impressed so I went with the legacy truth: play what you know... and that's how I chose BUG food chain instead of bant or UG, though I really want to try bant because of Teferi.

    The list I ended up on is pretty much what I've been playing for the past 3-4 months, with maybe a handful of changes. I tested bringing back the Trinket Mage/Relic package and a 2nd pithing needle to fight the WN6 RUG Delver decks on Friday's MCQ, but was no longer impessed with what that package used to do. I also had Narset in the Leovold/Narset slot, but figured Leovold was better in a WN6 world and increased spell pierce world. I actually completely forgot about using Carpet of Flowers to fight the expected delver decks and gladly would've played 1-2 in the SB... oops. Anyway, on to the games!

    ----------

    Round 1: BYE (Heavily Favored Matchup Probably), Won 2-0

    Good because I was feeling a bit sick to the stomach.

    Record: 1-0

    ----------

    Round 2: BYE (Heavily Favored Matchup I Think), Won 2-0

    Good because I was feeling a bit sick to the stomach still.

    Record: 2-0

    ----------

    Round 3: Jeskai Mentor (Favorable), Won 2-0

    Game 1: I lose the die roll, but manipulate fate just draws too many cards. He can't answer the food chain, while I decay his mentors. 3x 3/3 unkillable beats eventually deal with JTMS then my opponent.

    SB Out: 3x Strix, 2x BoP, 2x Ballista, 1x Verdant
    SB In: 1x Trophy, 2x TS, 2x Pierce, 2x Plague, 1x Needle

    Game 2: On the draw vs. a deck that shouldn't pressur my mana I can take a land out. More of the same as game 1 except now I don't have useless tribal birds. All mentors get decayed or trophied. 3/3 beats wins the game. Astrolabe is unimpressive overall.

    Record: 3-0

    ----------

    Round 4: RUGb Delver (50/50), Won 2-1

    Game 1: I win the die roll but mull to 6. Luckily being on the play vs. delver is great and I play around dazes and whatnot. I resolve manipulate fate and decay his threats. 3/3 fliers cheated with food chain win the race.

    SB Out: 2x BoP, 3x Food Chain, 2x Ballista
    SB In: 1x Trophy, 2x Plague, 1x Marsh, 2x Pierce, 1x Needle

    Game 2: On the draw now, BoP feels terrible as a WN6 means you can't even use it once. He is able to keep me off tempo and win with an unanswered early flipped delver. WN6 keeps me honest on mana just enough to be unable to stabilize. True Name is good too.

    SB Out: 2x Pierce, 1x Marsh
    SB In: 2x BoP, 1x Food Chain

    Game 3: On the play, I can afford to cast food chain and have birds to ramp, as they at least work once through a WN6. We trade resources early. I resolve a manipulate fate. Steady stream of 3/3 fliers beats TNN every day.

    Record: 4-0

    ----------

    Round 5: 4C Snow Pile (Favorable), Won 2-0

    Game 1: I lose the die roll, but the food chain value grind is too real, and I win the war of attrition despite dead tribal bird cards. It also helped a bit that my opponent mull'd to 6 on the play.

    SB Out: 2x BoP, 3x Strix, 2x Ballista, 1x Verdant
    SB In: 1x Trophy, 1x Needle, 1x Duress, 2x TS, 2x Pierce, 1x Veil

    Game 2: Same stuff as game 1 and boarding a land out on the draw, except no silly tribal bird cards. Again, also helped that my opponent mull'd to 6 again on the play.

    Record: 5-0

    ----------

    Round 6: ANT (Unfavorable), Lost 1-2

    Game 1: I lose the die roll and my opponent just goes T1 TS and cantrips next 2 turns. I suspect storm and assume I am dead. He goes for a 2nd discard spell, which I snapcaster brainstorm and do not find a 2nd force, so I force the discard and prays he does not go off, as brainstorm has set up a combo kill on the untap. He does go off, but makes a large number of goblins instead. Large size ballista is better, stealing game 1 is nice!

    SB Out: 2x BoP, 3x Strix, 3x Decay, 1x Trophy, 2x Food Chain
    SB In: 1x Duress, 2x TS, 1x Cage, 2x Surgical, 2x Plague, 2x Pierce, 1x Veil, 1x Clique

    Game 2: He has 2 discard spells for my 2 pieces of countermagic and then fires off an ad nauseum at 18 life. My chances of survival are close to 0%, which was the outcome.

    Game 3: I mull to 5 on the play and am sad. An early TS to take infernal tutor followed by extracting it buys me a decent amount of time, while snapcaster on TS on turn 3 applies pressure. However, brainstorm/ponder are too good for storm and he builds a natural tendrils kill while I am still trying to recover from my mulligan.

    Record: 5-1

    ----------

    Round 7: RUG Delver (50/50), Lost 0-2

    Game 1: I win the die roll, but mull to 6. I am punished by an early flipped delver + goyf. Big goyf gets abruptly decayed, but delver crosses the finish line.

    SB Out/In: Same as prior RUGb Delver

    Game 2: I am on the play and get to cast spells playing around daze. Unfortunately, I draw the force after he plays a T3 TNN. TNN slowly beats me down as I dig for answers and fail to find them. Gotta win the next one to advance to day 2.

    Record: 5-2

    ----------

    Round 8: RUG Delver (50/50), Won 2-0

    Game 1: I lose the die roll, but opponent mulls to 6. His hand is all threats (multiple delvers and goyfs) that do a beating, but then all get answered by blockers and decays. He has no removal or interaction with me, so I am able to mount a defense and my griffins win the race.

    SB Out/In: Same as prior

    Game 2: I am again on the draw and my opponent mulls to 6 again. I am able to stay above 10 life while manipulate fate'd griffins take over after answering his early threats. Beating delver to make day 2 does feel good.

    Record: 6-2

    ----------

    Round 9: RUG Infect (Favorable?), Lost 1-2

    Game 1: I lose the die roll, but answer the non-inkmoth threats. Unfortunately for me, inkmoth can count to 10 as well.

    SB Out: 4x Food Chain, 1x Krasis, 1x Scourge, 2x BoP, 1x Manipulate
    SB In: 2x Surgical, 2x TS, 1x Needle, 2x Plague, 1x Trophy, 1x Marsh, 1x Clique

    Game 2: Opponent mulls to 6. All of the threats were killed. Plague Engineer and walking ballista on X=2 are excellent in this matchup.

    Game 3: I mull to 6 on the draw so my mana ends up being suspect and I get WN6 waste'd out of the game and die to noble hierarch beats. I do think I make a mistake and thought I was going to lose the race and took a turn off attacking with tombstalker so it could block. Attacking might've won, but I played too afraid of pump spells to let nobles win the race. By not attacking, opponent crop rotated for inkmoth on end step and now I was forced to block it. He had enough pump to kill tombstalker, but it is not clear if he drew the pump or had it already and if his crop rotate line would've been different had I attacked and not given him a draw step. Pretty sure I still lose, but I think not attacking and playing afraid was a mistake.

    Record: 6-3, not the most exciting record going into Sunday... daed for top 8, but doing the math a 3-2-1 Sunday record should still cash, so that's nice.

    ----------

    Round 10: Jeskai Mentor (Favorable), Won 2-0

    Game 1: I win the die roll and win handily in this favored matchup. Glad to see this to start Sunday. Opponent seems aware of how the matchup goes and conceded pretty early in the game.

    SB Out/In: Same as prior

    Game 2: My opponent chooses to draw here, which I think is interesting. It may be correct to do so in the grindy attrition matchup, but delaying a turn on dropping mentor might be incorrect? Either way, my tribal bird synergy is gone post board, so I win the grind handily.

    Record: 7-3

    ----------

    Round 11: B/R Reanimator (50/50?), Won 2-1

    This opponent was stationed for military service and newish to legacy, but was enjoying the format; I thanked him for his service (and thank you to all reading who are serving or have served)!

    Game 1: I've been joking for about 8 rounds in a row prior about not having pre-game effects when we begin,

    except this time my opponent says "I do." He mulled to 6 on the play, but the deck is too good at what it

    does and I am unable to steal game 1.

    SB Out: 2x BoP, 2x Decay, 1x Krasis, 4x Food Chain, 1x Scourge, 1x Manipulate
    SB In: 1x Cage, 2x TS, 1x Duress, 2x Pierce, 2x Surgical, 1x Trophy, 1x Veil, 1x Clique

    Game 2: Opponent mulls to 5, but with the London mulligan this is still very scary for me. Grafdigger's

    cage is a pretty good card, and I think my opponent's only answer to it was hardcasting things. He goes and

    reaches for his board after this game.

    SB Out: 1x Ballista (don't need to cast this for X=0 to bypass chancellor as much on the play)
    SB In: 1x Food Chain

    Game 3: I mull to 6, while opponent mulls to 4. An early thoughtseize reveals chancellor and shenanigans plus 2 lands, so I take the shenanigans. He eventually uses shenanigans to deal with baleful strix "pressure" but a force prevents reanimation while I increase my clock enough before he can recover.

    Record: 8-3

    ----------

    Round 12: B/R Reanimator (50/50?), Won 2-0

    Game 1: Another pre-game effects chancellor opponent. However, this time I win the die roll and allow a brainstorm to eat the chancellor trigger. Opponent had unmasked himself and had no protection for my force. Food Chain + 3 Griffins steal victory despite his recovery to reanimate a griselbrand.

    SB Out/In: Same as prior

    Game 2: I have the surgical for the T2 sire of insanity, which also reveals to me that there are only 4 chancellor and 4 griselbrand left in the deck as threats, with 2 pyroblasts and no answer for cage. I dig for cage but am unsuccessful. However, snapcater on to flashback surgical deals with all the chancellors. I topdeck TS and know his hand from the prior surgical, which is 3 reanimation spells, lotus petal, and dark ritual while he only has bayou in play. No entombs or lootings were cast, so I decided to TS the petal to play around looting instead of entomb. The snapcaster swings to bring opponent down to 17 and I add a griffin. Of course, my opponent topdecks entomb and goes ritual into entomb into exhume for griselbrand. He pays 7 life to go to 10 to draw many cards. Luckily, my 1 mana open is a veil of summer as he attempts to TS my hand, so I can protect trophy. I topdeck a 2nd snapcaster mage, which should be game though I misplay a bit. I trophy the griselbrand and attack for 5 to bring opponent to 5. I pass turn, knowing the contents of his entire deck. I should've his upkeep flash in snapcaster to target my trophy so endstep trophy griselbrand again sets up lethal. Instead I forget and let him crack his fetch to get a red source, which he immediately casts faithless looting with allowing me to sigh relief of a pyroblast. He casts lotus petal and I wise up and respond to the cast with the snapcaster play to lock up the game.

    Record: 9-3

    ----------

    Round 13: RUG Delver (50/50), Lost 1-2

    Game 1: I win the die roll, but mull to 6 (ditching a 2 dual land, double decay, no cantrip or threat hand) in the blind. Turns out the hand would've been great with multiple decays, but my hand of manipulate fate races delver clock well so I win with 6 life left.

    SB Out/In: Same as prior

    Game 2: Being on the draw against delver is brutal. Double goyf is too much to handle.

    Game 3: Being on the play is great! Unless you mull to 5 and then misplay like I do in this game. Mull to 5 wasn't bad, but both brainstorms and both manipulate fates got countered. Luckily there was no early pressure other than WN6. Reflexively named Human instead of Wizard with plague engineer on unflipped delver. Then I don't attack plague engineer into a bigger goyf defending WN6 threatening emblem in 2 turns, which punishes me because I am forced to sac Leovold into goyf blocker to prevent WN6 from getting emblem. So 2 misplays there. I then proceed to get grinded out by a dreadhorde arcanist (non-Human Wizard) that is able to cast a bunch of ponders and brainstorms to eventually kill me with a TNN. Not naming Wizard and losing Leovold for no reason cost me the game there. Definitely the worst played game of the tournament here. But as the Director of the Thraben University told me after this match, Shake It Off! just like Tay Tay.

    Record: 9-4

    ----------

    Roud 14: Death & Taxes (Heavily Favored), Won 2-0

    Game 1: I win the die roll and my opponent mulls to 6. And he's on D&T, so a pretty quick and overwhelming victory here. However, my opponent had many pretty shadow signed cards, so we gladly chatted and oogled each other's signed cards... because signed cards are more powerful.

    SB Out: 4x Force, 1x Krasis
    SB In: 1x Needle, 2x Plague, 1x Clique, 1x Trophy/Marsh (I had trouble deciding so my opponent helped me by picking one randomly, it was the trophy)

    Game 2: Unfortunately, my opponent mulls to 6 again. However, he is able to start setting up a prison and slowly beat me down. Sanctum prelate on 2 nullified all my targeted removal while a revoked named food chain and thalia beat down through my non 3/3 blockers. I was able to resolve manipulate fate before the prelate came down, so finally got to 4 mana to start casting griffins. Opponent then threatened jitte. Luckily, BoP got in blocking duty after I found more lands. This turned on delirium, allowing for traverse to tutor plague engineer, which named Horror to turn on food chain and create the griffin flock. This would typcially win the game most likely, but a snapcaster flashed back traverse to find ballista for the quicker win. We decide to commerate the match by taking a picture of our crazy board state with all them signed cards!

    Record: 10-4, which should lock me for prizes

    ----------

    Round 15: U/R Delver (Unfavorable), Lost 1-2

    We discuss whether it makes sense to draw or not, but the math was too hard to really ascertain. However, we do agree to split prizes and played out the match. Turns out, if we had drawn, we both would've top 64'd. The GP prize structure is annoying in that it makes these scenarios occur. I did truly appreciate Tales of Adventure's Eternal Extravaganza payouts in the past, where top 8 was advertised prizes and then everyone who didn't top 8 was based on record instead of standings. Made so much sense as tiebreakers feel so meh.

    Game 1: I win the die roll, but U/R delver is a bit lower to the ground than RUG and am unable to take advantage of being on the play. I also did not play around stifle (it was T2 in the blind after T1 delta pass), which was all the tempo that was needed to put me way behind.

    SB Out: 4x Food Chain, 2x Ballista, 1x Krasis
    SB In: 1x Trophy, 2x Plague, 1x Marsh, 2x Pierce, 1x Needle

    Game 2: Clunky food chains come out against lowest to ground delver deck. T1 island ponder into T2 forest BoP with spell pierce for the bolt gives me insane mana advantage. From there, killing everything and playing griffins was elementary, as I win with more than 10 life.

    Game 3: Being on the draw with an awkwardish mana hand set me up for getting delver'd. The trophy in my hand got countered when a decay would've killed the single delver threat, which did all the damage needed. The hand was a close keep/mulligan but I was trapped into keeping by a brainstorm that ended up being a horrible brainstorm.

    Record: 10-5, good for 78th place and cash money

    ----------

    Post-Tournament Thoughts:

    I completely forgot about carpet of flowers, and would've liked 1-2 in the SB, cutting spell pierce for the first copy. If I wanted the 2nd copy, duress/trophy/clique would've been next up to get cut. Otherwise, I was pretty happy with the overall card choices in the deck.

    I have been able to play Leon's Bant list this week and found the two decks to be drastically different in playstyle. I'm not sure which is better right now, but both have their merits. I will definitely be testing a bunch to figure out what build/colors of food chain to bring to Eternal Weekend in November.

    Thanks for reading,
    Cosmo

  14. #1654
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    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by cosmosis View Post
    GP Atlanta Tournament Report - 9/21/2019
    10-5 Record for 78th place and some cas$h
    Hey Cosmo, thanks for taking the time to write the report. Have a few questions for you:

    1) How do you feel about Food Chain's place in the current meta game? I know the deck has traditionally been favored against most fair strategies, but I was wondering if that still holds true against this new RUG Delver strategy that's been turbo charged with the last few sets.

    2) On a related note, how have the Birds of Paradise been for you? I noticed Leon's Bant version wasn't playing any Hierarchs, which I was sort of unusual as they're great for powering spells through soft permission and jump starting Food Chain lines later on in the game. Just curious to hear if you think the upside they provide is worth the downside they have against Wrenn and Six, which I noticed you ran into a few times.

  15. #1655

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Cosmo, why does he Graffdigers Cage a Relic of Progenitus?
    Spellseeker or Trinket Mage?
    Spell Pierce o Flusterstrm?
    Isn't it little to play only 2 Ballista?
    Last edited by jimytuning; 10-02-2019 at 06:54 PM.

  16. #1656

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Quote Originally Posted by Jesture View Post
    Hey Cosmo, thanks for taking the time to write the report. Have a few questions for you:

    1) How do you feel about Food Chain's place in the current meta game? I know the deck has traditionally been favored against most fair strategies, but I was wondering if that still holds true against this new RUG Delver strategy that's been turbo charged with the last few sets.

    2) On a related note, how have the Birds of Paradise been for you? I noticed Leon's Bant version wasn't playing any Hierarchs, which I was sort of unusual as they're great for powering spells through soft permission and jump starting Food Chain lines later on in the game. Just curious to hear if you think the upside they provide is worth the downside they have against Wrenn and Six, which I noticed you ran into a few times.
    Thanks, hope you enjoyed the report!

    1. I honestly don't know. I will almost always play food chain because it is my pet deck and I have a ton of fun playing it, win or lose. The highest it every got in the meta was tier 1.5 when counter-top miracles was tier 1/tier 0 and FC just beat up on it so easily. I'd say it will always be a tier 2-2.5 sometimes tier 3 deck that can win games in the hands of a pilot who knows his/her build and what role it plays in matchups and how to approach things. We are still favored vs. fair strategies. Still unfavored vs. combo generally. Still about 50/50 vs. delver. Different versions of food chain will swing percentages a bit for each of those (though I don't think its more than 10-20% of swing). I think I mentioned it in the report, but I should've played carpet of flowers in SB, it is insane against all delver variants (I forgot about the card to be honest). Bant also seems to have the best RUG delver matchup of the variants, due to Rest In Peace specifically being insane vs. goyf and wren and 6. But all food chain variants can beat delver decks, just depends on delver popularity and how many SB slots you want to devote.

    2. Birds of Paradise is still fine (in BUG). I'm on 2 copies because it can be a durdly top deck, but it has utility of blocking marit lage and winning delver matchups. On the play it is fine to keep vs. WN6 decks. On the draw, board it out. Birds is still an insane mana dork that also is worth 3 mana with food chain. I think if Bant were to run mana dorks, I'd still go with birds over nierarch for marit lage reasons. Bant doesn't necessary need it as much because the mana is cleaner (no decay or trophy) and they have more 2 and 3 drops, whereas BUG runs more noncreature spells. Could try utopia sprawl vs WN6 but not being worth 3 mana is not as good and not being able to change mana colors is bad.


    Quote Originally Posted by jimytuning View Post
    Cosmo, why does he Graffdigers Cage a Relic of Progenitus?
    Spellseeker or Trinket Mage?
    Spell Pierce o Flusterstrm?
    Isn't it little to play only 2 Ballista?
    1. Grafdigger's cage is a nail in the coffin against a lot of decks, such as reanimator (relic needing to hold up 1 mana is often way too slow), elves, GSZ decks, storm. Relic is more functional as a maindeck card, as a sideboard hate piece it is not good enough. I tested trinket mage + relic package on Friday in MCQ and was not impressed like I was with it maybe 1 year ago.

    2. Spellseeker is insane. I think it is a core piece of all food chain decks as a 1-of. Yes it is slow and clunky but is also a body to start the chain. We play 3 Manipulates because the 2nd copy is so bad. Spellseeker is a 4th effective copy that also gets you decay or trophy or SB hate cards like surgical; also can just become a ponder or brainstorm in a pinch. Trinket Mage is only good if you have utility targets for it (No, ballista doesn't count), so without a maindeck relic easy no to trinket mage - it is fine for SB hate pieces only if you already have mainboard utility, because SB hate pieces too slow if you need to go through trinket mage first.

    3. This is always a meta call. Flusterstorm is the stronger answer, but spell pierce is the more varied answer. Spell pierce answers walkers (which is always tough for this deck). It's a wren and 6 and walker world and not as much a instant/sorcery world right now, so spell pierce got the nod.

    4. No, 2 ballista is fine. BUG is not a combo deck. It is a midrange/value/control deck first that can also combo. It's the slowest of the food chain variants to combo. Ballista doubles as a slow removal spell. This deck does effectively play more ballistae than appears though.... Deck effectively has about 7 ballistae for comboing. The 2 actual ballista, 1 hydroid krasis, 1 traverse, 1 spellseeker to find traverse, 2 snapcaster to flashback traverse. Yes some of those last ones are convoluted lines, but ones I take often enough (I was on 1 snapcaster for a while and bumped it up to 2 for this utility).

  17. #1657

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    Anyone having success with Once upon a time. Finding anyone of your combo pieces except for food chain turn 1 consistently for 0 mana seems good.

  18. #1658

  19. #1659

    Re: [Deck] Food Chain Combo

    5-0ed a league with bant food chain :)

    https://www.twitch.tv/videos/622690813

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