First place with Food Chain at Mythic Games 4/5/2014

[chinEsE girl]

Do you know what the card Manipulate Fate does? Because you should.

This year has been a bit wacky for me in legacy. I spent 2013 playing Elves at just about every event I could, and I won a lot of matches with that deck. In turn, my winning from various events turned into all the random legacy staples I was missing. Once 2014 hit I was itching to play things that were a little different, slightly more obscure. I tried out a BW stoneblade list of my own design, and I also tried Omnishow with burning wish, but neither deck impressed me. While I was looking for something new to play, my friend Phil Stolze was brewing up his own sweet deck to play on MTGO that was built around Food Chain. It was showcased on the mothership here:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazin...aily/deck/1454

A short while after this post, Jonathan Job had a top 4 finish at the SCG open in LA with the same 75 (though he did have an Underground Sea for Deathrite). The sideboard was obviously a hot mess, but the main deck was real spicy. So for the April legacy tournament at Mythic Games, I put the list together and tried to make it a little less rough around the edges. The only real flaw in the main deck I found was that 5 mana dorks wasn’t enough. Hands with a turn 1 guy were awesome, while hands without one were often mediocre. Since the deck starts to take off at 3 mana, jumping past 2 was too important. I decided to add 2 more Deathrite Shamans, cutting a Wall of Blossoms and a Venser to make space. I also played 10 fetches, with an Underground Sea and a Bayou in order to use Deathrites black ability more frequently.

The major change I made to the list was with the sideboard. Stuff like Obstinate Baloth and Revoker seemed like trash, so I wanted other cards to take their place. I went ahead and played a full set of Ancestral Visions, which was something Phil suggested. Its purpose is to out card the BGx decks that want to Hymn you out of the game, and man it worked wonders all day. I also added an extra Cage to fight reanimator/elves, and replaced Null Rod with Pithing Needle so it had more versatility. The last change was adding a few copies of Flusterstorm to the board in order to fight against faster combo decks. In those matchups I side out a few Shardless Agents anyways, and I need some faster interaction in order to not be dead to my opponent’s action. All together, this was the 75 that I sleeved up for battle:

4 Noble Hierarch
3 Deathrite Shaman
1 Wall of Blossoms
4 Shardless Agent
2 Vendillion Clique
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Sylvan Library
4 Food Chain
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Underground Sea
1 Karakas
3 Island
2 Forest

2 Pithing Needle
4 Ancestral Visions
3 Submerge
2 Flusterstorm
3 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Misdirection

The tournament at Mythic Games had a total of 33 people, so it was 6 rounds and then cut to top 8.

Round 1 vs Chris w/ BUG Delver
Game 1 he keeps a pretty loose hand with Bayou, Thoughseize, and no other lands. After I get discarded on turn one, he misses land drops and doesn’t cast anything for a few turns. By the time he gets his second land I’m way ahead with a bunch of griffins I manipulated earlier. Game 2 his draw is much better, going Delver -> Daze my one drop -> natural flip -> Thoughtseize -> Hymn to tourach. One of the best opening sequences you can have with BUG delver. I was definitely on the back foot, but I had suspended 2 Ancestral Visions, so I just needed a way to survive and I could pull out of it. I got all the way down to 3 when I finally resolved a Visions, hitting my Venser which I used to bounce his Delver. That’s all the time I needed to resolve the other visions, cast Shardless -> Visions, and then run away with the game since I had drawn 9 extra cards.

Round 2 vs High Tide
Game 1 I can only put moderate pressure on my opponent, who plays basic island for the first 3 turns, signaling some type of High Tide combo. On his critical turn he has to cast 3 time spirals, and can’t find a kill condition while I keep getting Force of Will off of my spirals. He ends up passing the turn with a lost turn from a meditate, as well as a Pact of Negation trigger waiting to happen with only 4 lands in play, but sadly my pressure is not great and I can’t kill him in time before he goes off a second time. Game 2 my plan is much better, since I have a hand of mana, double Flusterstorm, and Clique. My faerie puts on the pressure while disrupting his hand, and the turn he goes off with Time Spiral I target is with six copies of Flusterstorm and he scoops. Game 3 I have a similar plan, playing Clique early and getting rid of a Time Spiral leaving him with a bunch of worse cards. My opponent makes a mistake in this game by miscounting my damage in play, and thought he had an extra turn to wait and go off. However, I had a Deathrite Shaman in play with a Clique getting buffed by two Noble Hierarchs, so I had lethal on my turn since he was at 9. He realized his mistake when he had to cast /turnabout to tap my creatures, but my Force of Will stopped those shenanigans.

Round 3 vs Chris w/ Junk
Game 1 I finally got to have some fun with food chain. After he spent his turns setting up with Knight of the Reliquary and Liliana of the Veil, I played a turn 4 food chain which went to work with some griffins to make a billion mana, and then I cast Emrakul. I also had a Karakas in play :). Game 2 I had to win the fair way, but it turns out a stream of 3/3 fliers can beat a bunch of ground creatures and a Liliana without too much fuss.

Round 4 vs Hank w/ Death & Taxes
Game 1 was pretty absurd. I cliqued away one revoker, but he drew into a second which he vialed into play when I had food chain on the stack. So unless I could draw one of my bounce creatures, I’d have to win the fair way. Only problem was he managed to fetch just about every equipment in his deck. I managed to actually hardcast Tidespout Tyrant for the full 8 mana, and had to find a few spells to bounce his mom, then revoker, then go off. I eventually weasel my way out of it when I get the couple of spells I need, and then proceed to bounce his entire board to his hand. Game 2 didn’t go as well, since he went Spirit of the Labyrinth (had a couple of Brainstorms stuck in my hand), into Revoker on Food Chain, into Ethersworn Canonist. This was my first time running into the dreaded hate bear force, and it wouldn’t be the last. He eventually found his Sword of Fire & Ice and I couldn’t come back. Game 3 was another long grindfest. I managed to get out to a pretty good board state, with several griffins in play against his Serra Avenger with a Jitte on it. I also had Sylvan Library helping me find more gas. Eventually he decides to cast Cataclysm, leaving him with Avenger + Jitte + land, and me with Library + Griffin + Shardless + land. Luckily for me, my Library showed me land, land, food chain, so I get the combo online just a few turns after the Cataclysm. Sadly, time ran out, and I couldn’t find a way to deal lethal damage in extra turns so we unintentionally drew.

Round 5 vs Phil w/ BURg
Phil was the only 4-0, but since I was 3-0-1, I had to play for my spot in the top 8. Game 1 I I’m behind to an early Young Pyromancer, but I have a line where I can set up food chain and then Tyrant his board away. I manage to do this at 2 life, so I have lethal on board and have him not draw bolt to kill me. He doesn’t and I take the first game. Game 2 I got delvered pretty hard. His turn 1 delver was backed up by Stilfe + Wasteland, so it took me a long time to reach 4 mana and start interacting with his Delver. Once I finally did get a Griffin in play to block, he had REB to get it out of the way and deal lethal. Game 3 I got to win the fair way. He had double Delver, but I got to assemble Deathrite + Griffin, so he would just end up trading a Delver away and on my turn I’d gain 2 life and recast my Griffin. He eventually found a bolt to stop my shenanigans, but by then it was too late and he succumbed to good old griffin beats.

Round 6 ID

Quarterfinals vs Chris w/ Junk, take 2
Rematch time. Game 1 I just slaughter him. His fair game plan couldn’t withstand Tyrant bouncing his board and Emrakul taking a million turns in a row. Game 2 is much worse for me. Chris’s cards disrupt me enough to have a large KotR take out my life points until I’m dead. Game 3 my fair beats plan comes through. Getting to cast Manipulate Fate on turn 2 just feels so awesome. Liliana + Abrupt Decay doesn’t have shit on three 3/3 fliers.

Semifinals vs Phil w/ BURg, take 2.
Another rematch. Game 1 I get to do lots of unfair things. Game 2 is a lot more grindy, since he has a ton of disruption but can’t find a threat. By the time he finds some Delvers, I have a Clique going to town on his life total. Phil proceeds to get super unlucky for his last 3 turns as he can’t find an instant or sorcery to flip the delvers and just dies to the Clique.

Finals vs Dan w/ Death & Taxes
Dan’s actually the owner of Mythic Games, and earlier in the day I purchased foil Misthollow Griffins from him, one of which was Russian foil. Now I got to beat him down with the cards he had sold to me :). Game 1 I do lots of unfair things, involving his whole board disappearing and me taking the next 10 billion turns. Game 2 he has the hate bear force to stop my combo, and then gets down Brimaz to finish me off before I can recover. Game 3 I felt like I was in good shape when I had my opening hand with 4 land, Manipulate Fate, Shardless, and Venser. Pretty easy 2-3-4 curve. Sadly for me, he had the hate bear force again, so I had to just cast one Griffin at a time due to his Canonist. While I was casting Griffins, he spent a few turns fetching Sword of Fire & Ice, then getting it in play and getting some beats in. In the end me being on the play made the difference, since I got to attack for lethal the turn before he would have killed me. To top it off, it was the Russian foil Misthollow Griffin that got to deal lethal damage :D

Winner winner chicken dinner!

So would I play this deck again in an event? Abso-fucking-lutely. The look on your opponents face when you cast Manipulate Fate is great, but it’s even better when those griffins end up winning you the game. The main reason I liked playing the deck is that it has a nice combo finish that can obliterate opponents from any position, but it can also win long, grindy games where your opponent just throws a bunch of disruption at you. There were a ton of games that I was barely able to win, but since I won all of my matches (and was going to win when I received my unintentional draw) I think it shows that this deck has a lot of potential. To wrap this up, I’ll list of couple of tidbits about the deck, including what direction I think it should go in.
• The fair deck matchups all felt great. Not a lot of decks are well equipped to deal with recurring 3/3 fliers. They’re especially good against Delver decks, which are based around tempo. They are also immune to Abrupt Decay and Swords to Plowshares is a joke.
• I really like the current creature configuration. Some decks are all about throwing a bunch of removal at your creatures until nothing’s left and then winning with one threat. The creatures in this deck are all mana dorks, value creatures, and a few combo finishers. You can just out value the removal decks until you take control of the board and proceed to win the game.
• The one glaring weakness for this deck is faster combos. Something like storm or reanimator would be pretty difficult to defeat. I had 3 cages and 2 Flusterstorms in the board, but that still might not be enough. In a more open meta you probably should have 3 Flusterstorms, and in a combo heavy one you’d definitely want 4.
• On that note, the sideboard still needs lots of work. The Visions were great, I will certainly be keeping them going forward. The submerges were garbage though, they did next to nothing for me all day. I also desperately needed something to handle permanents in play. A lot of people suggested Abrupt Decay as an option, and it doesn’t seem bad. It would require shaving some basics for more duals if you wanted to go that direction. For me personally I’m going to try some copies of Engineered Explosives and a Krosan Grip. EE deals with a ton of things, and I have only two CMC 2 cards in the deck at all. It’s also not dead if I hit it off Shardless, since EE for zero still kills things like flipped Delvers, tokens from Young Pyromancer, and germ tokens. I could even bounce it with Venser and recast it if I’m desperate. The Grip seems good against all of the equipment decks, as well as something like miracles that could play cards like Humility. Both cards are able to kill Revoker and Canonist when Mother of Runes is in play, which is also important.
• The fetches should be 4 Mistys, then however many Deltas and Catacombs you need. That way you can go turn 1 basic and turn 2 get the two colors you’re missing with any fetch.

Thanks for reading!

Eric English

[twndomn]

congrats., 6 rounds means your LGS has quite a legacy scene.

I'm still not convinced of Visions. For all the things you mentioned, Krosan Grip does seem the better way to go. I am willing to watch your matches, just to see your opponent's face when they see the Griffins for the first time.

[Koby]

Yes! This is awesome! Thanks for writing it up Eric.

[nedleeds]

Do you know what the card Manipulate Fate does? Because you should.

Yes. I do.

http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...l=1#post741019

there was resistance from posters in that thread and I just couldn't understand why ... the card does so many things in a Griffinchain deck. Nice report!

[ShiftyKapree]

Just to let you know man it's people like you who make me enjoy playing Legacy because you never know what deck you're going to see. Congrats on taking the tourney down. I don't play non-conventional decks but I always enjoy playing against them. It's like a breath of fresh air to the format.

[Ornament]

Nice report! I love the sweet tech of Force of Will and Misthollow Griffin!

[Holden1669]

I agree completely with both the two additional Deathrites and Ancestral in the board. I thought the Baloths were cute but they just didn't do enough most of the time in my experience. Congrats on the finish and thanks for the great report.