Shardless Food Chain (Aggro/Combo) 6-3 @ GP New Jersey

[lincolnthree]

This post is coming hot off the presses after GP New Jersey. I’m a little tired, but still pretty happy and excited about how the deck and I did at our first major Magic event in 16 years. I was most pleased with the amount of fear the deck seemed to evoke in opponents who either hadn't ever played against it, or who were terrified of the aggro/combo style in general.

@seamonkeyman (my round 9 matchup) actually inspired me to do this write-up, so thanks to him, and thanks for the extremely fun and funny last round of a very long and exhausting tournament. My overall take away from the day is that Food Chain is an extremely competitive deck, and that my home-brewed version was actually very strong against today’s meta-game. Strixes and Abrupt Decays were crucial for keeping opponents’ threats at bay long enough to issue a beat down, or assemble the combo. The games I lost were out of my control due to bad luck, a bad matchup, and bad playing. I would have made day two if not for my blunder against Delver on round 8. It would have been another rough six rounds of day two, but I would have played all of them :) Here’s the deck, and here's what happened.

SHARDLESS FOOD GRIFFIN

// Creatures
2 Vendilion Clique
4 Shardless Agent
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Fierce Empath
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Baleful Strix
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Vela the Night-Clad

// Spells
2 Misdirection
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
3 Force of Will
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay

// Lands
3 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
2 Tropical Island
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
2 Snow-Covered Island
1 Snow-Covered Forest
3 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Bayou

//Sideboard
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Submerge
SB: 1 Spellskite
SB: 2 Obstinate Baloth
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 Meddling Mage
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Force of Will
SB: 1 Ethersworn Canonist

Round 1 - Odd u/r/w Delver/burn/discard

Game one, I played deathrite and he forced, pitching snapcaster. I took five damage total, mostly from my own fetch lands and one force of will on his delver. I swung with shardless agent until i got the combo assembled and killed him on turn 6. His deck seemed extremely weak.

Game two was a little more grind. he got an early monetary swiftspear, and went the burn route, eventually getting me to 7 life, but i beat him down with a meddling mage naming lightning bolt, and finally just a griffin beat for the win.

Round 2 - Show & Tell/12 Post

Game one - Started with Vela + Manipulate fate + Food Chain + Deathrite and force backup in hand, I decide to see what happens. My opponent plays a land, passes, I play land + death rite, pass , he proceeds to play ancient tomb and cast show-and-tell on turn 2. I immediately say “OK” and put a card face down. This draws out a heartwarming, “Uh oh”. He reveals Emrakul and I reveal Food Chain. (At which point he gives me an odd look and passes.) With two of my mana (and the free Food Chain, courtesy of my opponent), I manipulate fate, fetch griffins, tap death rite for mana, chain through a Shardless Agent, cast griffin, make infinite mana and sap him to death with Vela on turn two.

Game two, a bit grindier this time, I mull to six and started the game with fierce empath, mana acceleration, and force backup in hand. turn 2 i fetched Emrakul with empath ASAP, making sure to cut off the early Show and Tell. Turn 3 I played Vendilion Clique to find out that my opponent was actually playing 12-post. he had in hand (Crop rotation, fluster storm, Ponder, show and tell, and primeval titan x2) so I took his crop rotation to slow down the land fetch. He finally manages to cast the primeval titan a few turns later, but I had 6 turns to find the combo and finished him before he could ramp up and kill me.

Round 3 - Elves.

This was a fun match-up, mostly because my opponent thought I was playing Shardless BUG for the first 15 minutes of play. He had been slowly but surely beating me down. I countered his Natural Order, and Abrupt Decay killed a few ramp pieces, but by turn 7, he had me down to one life. I would die during his upkeep to deathrite shaman, but an earlier lim-duo’s vault had left me with Food Chain and death rite shaman on the table, Shardless Agent and Fierce Empath in Hand, and manipulate fate on top of my library. All I needed to do was tap death rite for blue, exile it for two blue, cascade into manipulate fate, exile shardless agent, then combo for the win, but what did I do? I proceeded to cast the empath first, ruining the entire plan… I am a bad magic player. I felt bad.

Games two and three went better, however. I regained my composure, played flawlessly for the combo win in game 2, and game three, murdered his two dryad arbors with a Golgari Charm, then finished off his Deathrites with two abrupt decays. He drew and passed until I combo’d dfor the win on turn 6 - brutal.

Round 4 - Dredge

There’s really not much to say here. Dredge sucks. I lost game one pretty solidly, drawing the combo but was left needing another turn to finish the job. Game two I brought in the Grafdigger’s cages, but drew my first hand of seven lands, then drew a hand with 6 lands and no cages, Then mulliganed to five with a swamp and death rite shaman, with combo pieces in hand. Stopping there, fearful to go to four cards on the play, I proceeded to miss land drops for 4 turns, and die without casting more than the shaman. Pitiful, but nothing I could do.

Round 5 - Menfolk

Again, I was brutalized here. Fish pretty much walked all over me both games, Lord, Lord, Phantasmal Image, Cursecatcher, Force of Will, Daze. He had it in game one, and I mulled to five and died on turn 4 in game two.

Round 6 - Sneak & Show

Game one was another hilarious matchup - have I mentioned that I love playing against Show and Tell? I started the game with Emrakul in hand, was quickly and conveniently Gitaxian Probed, began the shardless beatdown, and proceeded combo for the win the turn after taking one hit from a snuck-in Griselbrand. Fortunately she was already at 6 by the time Griselbrand came in to play, and she couldn't draw until after attacks - she opted not to draw. I think I had near lethal on board if she had, but it didn't matter since I combo'd for the win next turn. Lucky she didn't have emrakul here, or it would have been a very different story.

Game two, again I sided in the meddling mages. I forced a turn one Show and Tell, and hard cast a mage, naming Sneak Attack, on turn two. I didn’t play a single other spell in the game, and even though I was land-locked by a blood moon, I proceeded to beat for two damage each turn for the win. She needed to draw her “through the breach,” but whiffed for 9 turns and couldn’t deal with the mage.

Round 7 - Sneak & Show

Yet another hilarious matchup - I literally said to my opponent, “Really? Again?” … Quickly lost game one, taking a hit from a snuck in Griselbrand and sitting helpless as my opponent drew 7 for the win.

Game two was faster on my side, again I quickly resolved a Meddling mage on turn two, again naming Sneak Attack, and had the Force backup for his Pyroclasm. I proceeded to beat with the mage and Shardless agent for the win.

Game three was a similar outcome. This time I just went plain aggro, taking my opponent from 19-18-11-7-5-2-death. A proclaims had wiped me out mid game, but I quickly recovered, casting griffins and flying in for the kill, sans Food Chain, thanks to a happy cabal therapy.

Round 8 - A sad loss to U/R Delver for my third of the day

Game one was pretty straight forward. My opponent went the burn/aggro route as usual, actually forgot to kill me by forgetting to cast lightning bolt before attacking with his monetary swiftspear, and I combo’d for the kill on turn four, taking him from 16 to 0 instantly.

Game two was sad sad sauce. In short, I got cocky. I knew that UR delver doesn’t play wasteland, but I forgot that it DOES play Blood Moon. In short, I got caught with my pants down. 4 non-basics on field, with a swamp. OUCH. I sat there for 5 turns until I was dead, with the win rotting in my hand.

Game three I didn’t make the same mistake, but he couldn’t have drawn any better. Landing three treasure cruises, two ponders, and two brainstorms, always drawing the answer to my threat, there was no way I could catch up. The only highlight in this game was his swing for with a flipped Delver and a 1/2 swiftspear. I was at 5 life, and all I had on board was a Shardless Agent. Blocking the swiftspear, I politely swept away his delver with an abrupt decay. He reached for his mana, then pulled his hand away in horror. I think he was going for a hard-cast force of will, but didn’t realize that you can actually still cast a counterspell on Abrupt Decay, which would have saved his swiftspear. He didn’t cast the counterspy, and I wiped his board, leaving Sharless agent to beat for a few turns. Unfortunately, he finally drew two bolts and killed me, after cruising three times.

I was sad to lose this round, because I felt like I could have played better, and I felt like my opponent also played extremely poorly.

Round 9 - BUG Delver

Even though I was eliminated, I felt compelled to play more magic, and get a few more licks in. This time I faced off against a really intelligent and friendly opponent (seamonkeyman), who, like me, was playing round nine just to enjoy himself.

Game one, I wish I could say it were a fair fight, but I drew insanely powerful hands, having pretty much exactly what I needed to pull through each game. I didn’t ever get the combo off, due to some hand hate and bad luck, but I did have a solid beat-down plan that he couldn’t keep up with me playing a griffin every turn, and i out-raced him quickly after misdirecting his abrupt decay onto his own Tarmogoyf.

Game two was extremely close, a judge even issued a (stupid) warning because he and I had both mis-calculated the P&T of his Tarmogoyf, a consequence that had no bearing on the game since I was going to chump block no matter what. Seamonkeyman was issued the warning (despite my protest to the judge), and I finally took the game via beats after Submerging his next Goyf, allowing me to skip the block, and swing in the air for lethal on turn 5 of turns. Draws are bad!

Conclusions:

My current thoughts are to try replacing Vela with Tidespout tyrant, and to replace Lim-Dul’s Vault with Dig Through Time, which I think would make the deck a little more consistent overall, make sure my cascades land on more card advantage and supply more problem removal for tricky situations when people bring in hate from the sideboard (and making it easier to cascade into mine). I do like the “instant kill” that Vela provides, and she still pitches to Force of Will and costs two less than Tidespout, so I’m on the fence, but it’s probably something I’ll try in the future and see how it plays out. Tidespout does provide a nice engine for cascade, Baleful Strix, and a few other things in the deck, but I’m not really sure the synergy is there. Tyrant is good against Sneak & Show, but that matchup already seems pretty good as it stands.

I tend to think that ignoring your opponent is bad, which is why I main-deck three Abrupt Decay, three Force of Will, and two Misdirection (which handily protects Food Chain against Abrupt Decay, though not against Krosan Grip,) meaning I can interact constantly, picking out threads and diverting cheap-shots for extreme value.

Thanks for reading, and if you have any feedback on the deck, I would love to hear it!

[davelin]

Entertaining report!

[seamonkeyman]

Congrats on your finish from your Round 9 opponent!
6-3 is a great finish (with no byes!) playing a rouge deck of your own creation.
I'm no expert on how to build a Food Chain deck, but your list felt perfectly tuned to beat Delver decks. You didn't even combo off against me and I felt completely helpless to your never-ending supply of Griffins!

I'd recommend checking out and posting a link to your report in the general Food Chain thread: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/s...od-Chain-Combo

I'm sure some of those players would like to see your list and read your report. I see there is even a Day 2 list posted there which has a different take on the deck than yours. Food Chain Combo is alive and well!

Congrats again, it was great to meet and play against you.

[Daize]

Great read, I love combo decks like this. Keep it up!