Food Chain Combo

[kingtk3]

...
Did you have something to pitch? I almost always will Misdirect a Duress or Thoughtseize after turn 1, because it usually means they are trying to open a hole for something bad to happen. And paying two cards for their two cards is great when you get the best card in their hand out of the deal.
...

You cannot misdirect a duress since it says "target opponent".

[metamet]

You cannot misdirect a duress since it says "target opponent".

Yeah, this. I did misdirect some Cabal Therapies since it was worth me getting the information and preventing them from getting.

Best Misdirects and Diverts generally involved Bolt and one of their creatures. :)

[kingtk3]

I find nothing better than diverting touraches :)

[nevilshute]

Can't say how happy I am to see that this thread is still alive and that there are still people chaining :) After taking an extended break from this deck and picking up ANT I've recently had a chance to sit down with my Food Chain deck and look it over.

I've decided to revert back to the old UG version of this deck. Trying to make it less mid-rangey and more straight up combo. I've built a version with 5 Sol-lands, Intuition and a heavier counterpackage than I've previously tried running 4x force, 3x pierce and 2x misdirection. Haven't had a chance to take it by any tournaments yet though.

@metamet: how has Quirion Dryad been working out for you? I remember trying it out when I was first playing this deck and feeling like it somewhat underwhelmed me. It was occasionally nice as a sort of off-beat alternate win con, but as a beater I remember feeling like it was often too slow/vulnerable. I didn't, however, stick with it for a very long time, and as it was in an early shell of the deck that might have something to do with it :)

[germain]

Spellskite is good vs abrupt decay.

[grokh]

Ah ... i'll always remember when my opponent playing Jund, in the 2nd game, had Sylvan library on board, me having Food chain + Rest in peace.

He tried Abrupt decay on Food chain and i misdirected it on his Sylvan library LOL

[nevilshute]

Hey guys. Long time no Food Chain :)

I've been playing a bunch of ANT in the mean time but Food Chain was never far from my heart.

I've been thinking a lot about the deck lately and mean to put it together again and play it at my LGS soon. For the moment I'd like to not talk about the exact build but more on the deck's strengths and weaknesses over all and what they mean to how we play and how we sideboard. The strengths and weaknesses, of course, also influence deck design and if this opens up for new design space then awesome. But for the time being let's pretend we are playing with what I'd like to think of as a "stock list" looking something like:

Blue:
4x Force of Wil
2x Misdirection
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
3x Misthollow Griffin
3x Manipulate Fate
1x Aethersnipe
1x Intuition

Green:
4x Food Chain
3x Fierce Empath
2x Wall of Blossoms

Black:
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Duress
1x Griselbrand

Multi:
4x Deathrite Shamana

Colorless:
Emrakul, the Food Chains Torn

Lands:
2x Underground Sea
2x Tropical Island
1x Bayou
2x Island
1x Forest
1x Swamp
2x Ancient Tomb
4x Misty Rainforest
4x Polluted Delta
1x Verdant Catacombs

Now we might argue over Baleful Strix over Blossoms. How many Fates, the hand disruption over spell pierces, what secondary fatty besides Emmy etc, but let's assume that we are all playing some variation of this list.

Okay, so what is the deck? A combo deck is the obvious answer, but I think we can all agree that we lack the speed of many other combo decks. Combo decks are usually judged on three parameters: speed, consistency and means with which to protect it self. Where are we in terms of these three parameters?

Speed: Slower than most if not all of the tier 1 combo decks. Yes we can go off on turn two but this rarely happens. Even if you build your deck to have a better shot at this it will rarely happen.

Consistency: Less consistent than some if not all of the best combo decks out there. I think this is mainly down to us being dependent on Food Chain which we only have 4 copies of and, depending on the build, have few or no means to tutor up.

Protection: Well here I'd say we're equal to most if not all tier 1 combo decks. Running Griffins makes it very straight forward to run Force of Wills (and Misdirections imo). We also have the choice of running maindeck hand disruption. We can supplement this with extra protection in the board.

So where does that leave us? We come up short in two out of three parameters. Well it leaves us with a sometimes-viable beatdown plan with our griffins as well as the utility the Deathrite Shaman offers. This is not insignificant but at the same time it probably doesn't make up for being both slower and a little less consistent.

What can be done about this? Well we could try and work in a tutor for the Food Chain. We already have a disgustingly good tutor for our Griffins in Manipulate Fate, but Food Chain tutors are less obvious. Some (including myself) have tried fiddling around with Enlightened Tutor, but as it means splashing for white, a color that doesn't really offer us anything else relevant, it's not really where we want to be. I've tried most things, from Ancestral Knowledge to Plunge into Darkness and it's all been clumsy and underwhelming. I'm trying a singleton Intuition at the moment and am undecided on it. Other than that it seems we'll have to rely on cantrips to find our Food Chains.

I'd very much like an updated primer. I'd like to address how we do against different matchups to better hone in on where we might need to improve the deck.

I'm ready to accept that this deck won't ever be tier one. Probably not even tier 1,5. But I'd love to get it into tier 1,5-2 territory where we might see it a bit more often and where it might steal a tournament win here and there. I'm thinking it could end up belonging in the same mention as decks like 12-post and Hive Mind but I might be wrong.

I'll come back later and try to chip in with some matchup analyses or feedback on others' attempts at the same :)

[tsabo_tavoc]

How about the tutor choice from the primer? +3 Drift of Phantasms, +1 Misthollow Griffin, -1 Intuition, -1 Fierce Empath, -2 Wall of Blossoms

[DragoFireheart]

So is keeping Tarmogoyf a go or no go?

How about Jace? Or did the Griffin take his CMC slot?

EDIT: Could also run Glimpse of Nature and Laboratory maniac.

[nevilshute]

I went to a 35 person Bazaar of Moxen Trial at my LGS and ended up top-8ing which in itself was okay, but especially in the light of me having to leave when the last round commenced and therefor conceding without playing.

My list can be found here: http://mtgpulse.com/event/14323#202791 :)

It was on the same night as the weekly legacy tournament and the store had combined the two meaning the tournament was a 6-round swiss, standings.

Round one: I met a lands player which was a fairly decent match up for me I think. Won 2-0

Round two: met mono green infect and won 2-0. Was a very fast deck and needed both my hand disruption and force of wills to win game 1. Game 2 went smoother.

Round three: met a sort of homebrewed monoblue affinity deck. My opponent was given a game loss due to the judge discovering he had a banned card in his deck. It was replaced with a basic land and we started game 2 with me leading 1-0. I got mana screwed and needed to force both a tezzeret the seeker and a phyrexian metamorph. I got Wall of Blossoms down to act as a blocker and was eventually able to draw out of my screw and combo off. 2-0.

Round four: met ANT (the subsequent winner of the tournament) and lost 0-2. I made a bad play error in game 2 where I forgot to activate my Deathrite Shaman during EoT in a turn where my opponent had tanked for quite a while. It was especially problematic as I should and would have exiled his one tutor in the graveyard. I had to pass the turn and he drew another tutor and was able to go off and win. I'm not saying it was certain I would have won the game otherwise but things were looking decent as I had just resolved a griffin and had the now-active shaman with my opponent at 14 life.

Round five: met Maverick with Dark Depths / stage combo. Won 2-1. Not much to say about this really. My opponent is a really good player, but it felt very winnable.

Round six: I knew from the start that I wouldn't be able to stay for the last round. When pairings were called I hoped that I was going to be paired against someone who, like myself, wasn't going to the BoM and would not need to win-and-in for the byes. At 4-1 a draw would be enough for both of us to end up in the regular money prizes. When I saw I was paired up against Thomas Enevoldsen (winner of Grand Prix Strasbourg and Death and Taxes aficionado) I knew he wasn't going to want to draw. I asked him anyway and he very politely said no. I told him he was getting the win then, as I had to leave and wished him good luck for the Bazaar :)

Had we played I'm not sure who would have won, but him being so proficient with his deck I'm putting him as the favourite. It's not the worst match up and I have stuff in the board like Golgari Charm and Abrupt Decay to counter his hatebears, but 4x Phyrexian Revoker mainboard makes game one hard. We have played twice before and our score is 1-1 on that account. As you can see he finished second due to me conceding.

In terms of my list I'm quite happy with it, but I saw a LOT of tempo decks there and have decided to go:

- 1 Misdirection
- 1 Duress

+2 Baleful Strix

To address this. When testing before the tournament the Lim-Dûl's Vault seemed very good, but I actually didn't get to cast it once during the tournament so I can't really say anything about it. Will keep it in for now :)

[grokh]

Hi,

I just played a tournament on Tuesday and i had some strange experience :

I haven't been comboing with Food chain during all the tournament (I mean i haven't had a Food chain loop until Emrakul, the Aeons torn), but won all games i won by attacking with a recursive Misthollow griffin. Recursive with Deathrite shaman or Food chain.

Attacking with unremovable 3/3 Fly is real powerful and that's why i'm now wondering is the core of the deck could be :
4 Food chain
4 Deathrite shaman
4 Misthollow griffin
4 Misdirection
4 Force of will

Nope ?

[grokh]

Hi,

Just wondered, has somebody tested Phantasmal image or has it been discussed here ?

[Holden1669]

Seeing Aluren do well at the last SCG Open made me want to try Food Chain again. So I threw a deck together with Thoughtseizes, Baleful Strix, and other cards that you can imagine and it felt clunky. After a little more thought I tried this and have won all five matches with the new build in the Tournament Practice room on MTGO (10-1 in games against Mono Red Sneak Show, Manaless Dredge, Oops All Spells, Miracles, and Enchantress). I mean, let's not get too excited about this random sampling against decks without countermagic (except Miracles) or anything. But the deck is fun and can win. And they certainly don't expect it.


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe

3 Coiling Oracle
1 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Food Chain
4 Fierce Empath

3 Misthollow Griffin

4 Force of Will

1 Aethersnipe
1 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

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

sideboard
1 Extractor Demon
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Swan Song
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Submerge


The reason why Coiling Oracle is better than Baleful Strix in this deck is that you want the potential to ramp your mana more than you want to keep the card drawn a secret. Also, while blocking and trading with a threat is awesome most of the time you actually can use the Oracle to speed up your combo once you have the Food Chain down. Even if you plan to keep the Strix around it's a magnet for all kinds of removal. Your opponent is more likely to ignore the Snake Elf Druid until it's too late.

The biggest issue, of course, is finding (and resolving) a Food Chain. You have a lot of cantrips but it may be good to try another Lim-Dul's Vault, Intuition, or Drift of Phantasms.

I would also love to get another Probe or Oracle in the deck but I'm not sure what to cut. Fierce Empath is great and either starts the Empath -> Aethersnipe bouncing Empath -> Empath again -> Griselbrand chain or just grabs Emrakul if you already have a Misthollow Griffin in hand, play, or exiled (perhaps with Force of Will for value).

In the sideboard, Extractor Demon is for matchups where they bring in Ensnaring Bridge or something like it. I boarded it in against Enchantress but didn't use it as he kept a hand with Choke and two Ethersworn Canonist (I Forced the Choke and just attacked with Griselbrand instead of Emrakul because of Canonist. Still worked). Swan Song seems generally good since we shouldn't care about an opposing 2/2 all that much. Though possibly Thoughtseize would be better (certainly against Abrupt Decay, which breaks our combo). I think the sideboard is weak against decks that attack with a lot of creatures (um, half the format?) but I'm not sure as I haven't played against one with this build yet. Probably the Submerge and definitely the Vendilion Clique can go. Actually, maybe those would be good matchups for Baleful Strix to come in. Or Tarmogoyf, maybe, to give us a better plan B.

[nevilshute]

Nice to see you playing the deck :) After a quick glance I'd like to ask why you aren't playing any Manipulate Fates? It's a pretty remarkable tutor + value. 4 Empaths also seem like one to many, but that could be a case of personal taste of couse :)

Seeing Aluren do well at the last SCG Open made me want to try Food Chain again. So I threw a deck together with Thoughtseizes, Baleful Strix, and other cards that you can imagine and it felt clunky. After a little more thought I tried this and have won all five matches with the new build in the Tournament Practice room on MTGO (10-1 in games against Mono Red Sneak Show, Manaless Dredge, Oops All Spells, Miracles, and Enchantress). I mean, let's not get too excited about this random sampling against decks without countermagic (except Miracles) or anything. But the deck is fun and can win. And they certainly don't expect it.


4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Gitaxian Probe

3 Coiling Oracle
1 Lim-Dul's Vault

4 Food Chain
4 Fierce Empath

3 Misthollow Griffin

4 Force of Will

1 Aethersnipe
1 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

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

sideboard
1 Extractor Demon
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Swan Song
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Submerge


The reason why Coiling Oracle is better than Baleful Strix in this deck is that you want the potential to ramp your mana more than you want to keep the card drawn a secret. Also, while blocking and trading with a threat is awesome most of the time you actually can use the Oracle to speed up your combo once you have the Food Chain down. Even if you plan to keep the Strix around it's a magnet for all kinds of removal. Your opponent is more likely to ignore the Snake Elf Druid until it's too late.

The biggest issue, of course, is finding (and resolving) a Food Chain. You have a lot of cantrips but it may be good to try another Lim-Dul's Vault, Intuition, or Drift of Phantasms.

I would also love to get another Probe or Oracle in the deck but I'm not sure what to cut. Fierce Empath is great and either starts the Empath -> Aethersnipe bouncing Empath -> Empath again -> Griselbrand chain or just grabs Emrakul if you already have a Misthollow Griffin in hand, play, or exiled (perhaps with Force of Will for value).

In the sideboard, Extractor Demon is for matchups where they bring in Ensnaring Bridge or something like it. I boarded it in against Enchantress but didn't use it as he kept a hand with Choke and two Ethersworn Canonist (I Forced the Choke and just attacked with Griselbrand instead of Emrakul because of Canonist. Still worked). Swan Song seems generally good since we shouldn't care about an opposing 2/2 all that much. Though possibly Thoughtseize would be better (certainly against Abrupt Decay, which breaks our combo). I think the sideboard is weak against decks that attack with a lot of creatures (um, half the format?) but I'm not sure as I haven't played against one with this build yet. Probably the Submerge and definitely the Vendilion Clique can go. Actually, maybe those would be good matchups for Baleful Strix to come in. Or Tarmogoyf, maybe, to give us a better plan B.

[Holden1669]

Nice to see you playing the deck :) After a quick glance I'd like to ask why you aren't playing any Manipulate Fates? It's a pretty remarkable tutor + value. 4 Empaths also seem like one to many, but that could be a case of personal taste of couse :)

Thanks for the input. Yeah, that's a good point. I had 2 Manipulate Fate (and 3 Empaths) in the earlier version of the deck and probably didn't test them enough before I dropped them. The reason that I dropped them is because it tutors for only one card (effectively) and I was more concerned with getting Food Chain. Or something.

On one hand, unless you have Emrakul it is better to have three 3/3 flyer that they can't get rid of than one 3/3 flyer that they can't get rid of. But on the other hand Fierce Empath goes to get Emrakul and at that point you'll be fine with just one Misthollow.

That was my logic, anyway, but I'd like to test with two Manipulate Fate and 3 Fierce Empath. I'm not sure what additional card to cut, though. The Lim-Dul's Vault is definitely a possibility but that card can save your ass and get exactly what you need. Any suggestions?

Edit: I have dropped the Cliques and Submerge from the board and added 4 Baleful Strix. So far these seem better.

[grokh]

Hi,

I think i found a new combo with the deck, in the new Commander 2013 product :
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher !

So,what does he allows us to do ?

- You get 6 0/1 Kobolds tokens when you cast it, it means even if it's countered you'll get 6 0/1 Kobolds tokens, so you'll be able in worst case, to generate one mana of each color you'll need !!
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is just AWESOME cos the effect is WHEN YOU CAST IT; i had misread the card and thought it was when he enters the battlefield, at the beginning
- In the other case, if it's not countered, you'll be able to ramp for 7 manas of one color, by exiling Prossh, Skyraider of Kher plus 6 manas of every color needed, so a total of 13 manas, and this is a Huge ramp into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or into every card you could have in hand at this moment, even if the card is dual-colored as Coiling oracle or Baleful strix
- Why casting Prossh, Skyraider of Kher if you have the Grffin ? Depends on the board, if your opponent has 2 Tarmogoyf and you just have a Misthollow griffin,but nothing in hand for comboing off, you'll still lose life from the 2nd Tarmogoyf cos having just 1Misthollow griffin. If you cast Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, you'll have the Prosh + 6 0/1 for blocking/ 6 0/1, depends if it has been countered or not
- Casting Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, a problem ? Just need to have some mana in pool, if you play Baleful strix, the excedent of mana will be reinvested into it, same for Imperial recruiter and the excedent of mana if you play it. And if you're not playing both cards, the excedent of mana will be used as colorless parts of your spells.

Just waiting for your opinions now !!

[nevilshute]

Hey Grokh,

Nice to see you're still brewin'. I have to say, though, that I think Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is wrong for this deck. So what does he do for us when he enters the battlefield? Nothing. At all. Why would we care about having a bomb that let's us cast Emrakul? If we have Emrakul in hand already we just cast him without Prossh and win. If we don't have Emrakul but Prossh then I'd rather have Prossh be either a Fierce Empath or Griselbrand.

I haven't played this deck for a while and probably won't for the next month or so, but I hope to play it soon after that :) How did your big tournament go? :)

[ryO!]

FYI here's a little bonus.
497 players "rogue" deck winning it.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=12104

hope you like it kudos for the winner & the nice list

[Holden1669]

FYI here's a little bonus.
497 players "rogue" deck winning it.

http://www.thecouncil.es/tcdecks/deck.php?id=12104

hope you like it kudos for the winner & the nice list

That is very interesting. I have liked playing black for discard, strix, and lim-dul's vault in my list but I was much too dependent on finding, resolving, and protecting Food Chain. I like the diversified threats with Natural Order plan a lot. The only thing that strikes me as kind of weird are the four basic islands with the six green mana guys and the two Progenitus. But I can't criticise. Looks awesome. I'm excited to try it out.

I wonder when the Show and Tell package comes in. Whether it's to keep people off balance or if there are specific matchups.

[grokh]

That is very interesting. I have liked playing black for discard, strix, and lim-dul's vault in my list but I was much too dependent on finding, resolving, and protecting Food Chain. I like the diversified threats with Natural Order plan a lot. The only thing that strikes me as kind of weird are the four basic islands with the six green mana guys and the two Progenitus. But I can't criticise. Looks awesome. I'm excited to try it out.

I wonder when the Show and Tell package comes in. Whether it's to keep people off balance or if there are specific matchups.

Hi,

I think the Show and tell package comes in for having a transformal sideboard-plan, on game 2, you become a Show and Tell/Omniscience deck, so your opponent has sideboarded only dead cards.

I'm working on a Food chain + Aluren plan on my side, i'll post a list soon