[Deck] Food Chain Combo

[grokh]

The problem with creatures like aethersnipe, fierce empath, griselbrand and emrakul is that they are useful only with food chain online (and some of them only if you go infinite): when you don't have food chain they are basically blank.

In order to avoid dead draws is better to play value creatures (strix, shardless, shaman, hydra, soul of the harvest) that can be casted even without food chain and have an impact on their own.

The strength of food chain is not that is a combo, but a midrange that can instantly win out of nowere.

Yes, that's something i forgot, if you don't play Fierce empath, you're not obliged to play Griselbrand and AEthersnipe which are useful only when Food chain online.

I agree Baleful strix/Shardless agent/Deathrite shaman are value creatures.

But without Food chain online, if you cast Genesis hydra, it'll be at X = :4: maximum (i don't think you'll have more than :6: manas often without Food chain) so you'll try to find a permanent with CCM max :4: into the top 4 cards of your library.

I'm afraid that without Food chain you'll cast some ridiculous Hydras sometimes for finding absolutely nothing.

But maybe is it because i've not tested a lot with the hydra, i hope i'm wrong

For Soul of the harvest, if it's for draw cards with creatures, i prefer play Primordial sage IMO

[movingtonewao]

when food chain isn't online we can play like a not-quite-shardless BUG deck with recurring griffins. DTT is another outlet (including DRS) to remove any errant griffins that fell into the graveyard somehow.

bringing in fierce empath and friends feels a bit win more with a food chain online, and does nothing to help shore us up when food chain isn't online.

[lincolnthree]

Hey All, I just wanted to post my experience. I also took a home-brewed Food Chain to GPNJ and had good success, (I went 6-3, no byes. I didn't day 2 because of my own mistakes. The deck ran well for the most part.) I didn't run into Jonathan, but that would have been fun. Reading his original post on the deck is what transformed my bad combo deck into an aggressive mid-range deck.

Here is the report: http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?28854-Shardless-Food-Chain-(Aggro-Combo)-6-3-GP-New-Jersey&p=850227#post850227

Here is my list:

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

As I said in the report. I would probably replace Lim Dul's Vault with Dig Through Time because it cleans up fallen or countered griffins and has good synergy there (also doesn't run into cascade), in addition to keeping up the pressure late game when the hand is worn down. I would like to go up to 4 strix, but I don't want to lose the Shardless Agents to make that happen - it drives way too much value. Tidespout Tyrant and Genesis Hydra are interesting, but I do fear for getting suck with a Hydra in hand with only 4 mana.

[lincolnthree]

The problem with creatures like aethersnipe, fierce empath, griselbrand and emrakul is that they are useful only with food chain online (and some of them only if you go infinite): when you don't have food chain they are basically blank.

I agree with you to some extent, but Empath also serves as a fantastic mainboard against Show and Tell. Two of my matches against S&T ended up stalling out my opponent by fetching Emrakul turn two, allowing me to beat them to death unhindered, also, if you DO have the chain set up, Empath enables you to get out a turn two win, and adds a pretty significant element of surprise (Resolve a Food Chain, search up Emrakul on 3 mana, and begin the chain). I do think Tidespout Tyrant is also good S&T insurance, but I'll have to see how it goes without as many empaths and see if I miss having them.

[tescrin]

I think Mistcutter Hydra seems reasonable. It's uncounterable, haste, takes advantage of going infinite, and isn't super dead.
Deathforge Shaman is an instant burn kill
Verdeloth the Ancient gives you an infinite number of 2/2s on the field. as will wolfbriar elemental

Any of the +1/+1 counter multi-kicker creatures will give you an infinite-size creature.

Most (or all) of these aren't much better than Emmy or Grisel (or just worse) but you could, for example, actually cast 2/2s sometimes when infinite size is unavailable.


I could also see Food Chain adopting a plan of Skyshroud Cutters and Delve-monkeys to cast Titans; maybe as a secondary ramp plan in Nic Fit or something; but now I'm just wasting your time :p.

[kingtk3]

Once in infinite mode any creature will do the job, though I always want a copy of tidespout tyrant because he can bounce any permanent that can prevent you from winning (ensnaring bridge, solitary confinement, ecc).

What is important, IMHO, is the value of the finisher outside infinite mode. Creatures like Mistcutter Hydra, Verdeloth, Griselbrand or deathforge shaman are barely useful if not totally uncastable (and Mistcutter Hydra can also be killed by abrupt decay, which is a nonbo for a finisher).

Genesis hydra puts into play another permanent (which cannot be countered) and can leave a remarkable body = flexible CC, instant value.

Soul of the harvest is a size that many deck cannot manage, has a reasonable CC (especially if you play 5-7 mana dorks) and if unchecked will win you the game because it puts you in "glimpse mode" = big size, incremental card advantage.

Those are, in my opinion, the type of creature we want to play in this deck (alongside a copy of tidespout and, maybe, an emrakul), because they are useful without food chain and are instant win in combo turn.

Since the printing of misthollow griffin the deck has gained a reliable beatdown plan (3/3 flyers are good in legacy, that's it) alongside infinite mana, so we should play creatures that can support this plan even without Food Chain for which we still lack a proper tutor, though dig through time has come to help.

The era of mulldrifter->aethersnipe->griselbrand_>...->emrakul has ended in the moment we began casting manipulate fate for 3 griffins.

PS: I can still see some arguments for fierce empath because it lets you play single copy of different finishers so you can adapt to opponent strategy, thus adding flexibility to the deck. But still, it's only a 1/1 for 3 which puts him in the "unuseful outside combo turn" category: personally I'd prefer having a fatty in his slot(s).

[MaximumC]

I've played this deck several times before, and I agree, the deck runs best when it is doing a BUG impression with the added advantage of unlimited Phantom Monsters and a combo finish. I completely agree with dumping the entire Fierce Empath package now that we have Genesis Hydra. Hydra does exactly what we wanted Empath to do, but better: not be a dead card pre-combo and allow us to find Emrakul post-combo.

Look at the power of Hydra, here. First off, yeah, it wins when you're comboing. That's fine. When you're not, it can be a large threat all by itself. Between Vault and Brainstorm, you will FREQUENTLY be able to stack your deck to make sure you get a powerful card -- uncounterable -- off of your Hydra. If you're forced to play it for value, that's fine, too. It sucks to eat it with Food Chain, but only marginally more than it sucks to eat an Empath.

It's a Finisher,
It's an Overmaster,
It's a Fattie,
It's -- GENESIS HYDRA!

[jedi_gof]

Also, in the face of counters from opp without protection you can occasionally brainstorm your food chain to top of library and get it into play uncounterable with the hydra, which is not an unimportant interaction.

Anyone heard when Jobs article will go live on scg? Looking forward to reading it :)

[nevilshute]

I think you are missing an important detail with Genesis Hydra vs Fierce Empath which is, that the Hydra puts Emrakul into play while the Empath lets you cast it, thus triggering the extra turn. This is super non-trivial. When we are comboing off, a non-trivial amount of the time we are dead if they get to untap. Either against Burn, an active Deathrite Shaman or the likes.

Also don't forget that Empath in hand with :g::u::u::3: lets us hard cast Griselbrand with no Griffins if we have a Food Chain in play.

That said, I am completely with you insofar as recognizing that Empath is the weakest card in the deck when there is no Food Chain in play. And having near-dead cards in your deck is a problem. I'm also not saying that I believe Empath is a better choice than Hydra, simply that it is important to remember that both cards have upsides and downsides and take all of these into account when analyzing which is best.

[grokh]

I think you are missing an important detail with Genesis Hydra vs Fierce Empath which is, that the Hydra puts Emrakul into play while the Empath lets you cast it, thus triggering the extra turn. This is super non-trivial. When we are comboing off, a non-trivial amount of the time we are dead if they get to untap. Either against Burn, an active Deathrite Shaman or the likes.

If you can put Emrakul into play with Genesis hydra, it means you have minimum 17 manas available (minimum 15 + :g::g:) so probably infinite mana right ?

So :
Step 1 : put Tidespout tyrant into play on the Genesis hydra trigger
Step 2 : cast Misthollow griffin -> bounce Genesis hydra (Tyrant trigger)
Step 3 : re-cast Genesis hydra for putting Emrakul, the aeons torn into play on its trigger
Step 4 : cast Misthollow griffin -> bounce Emrakul, the aeons torn (Tyrant trigger)
Step 5 : hardcast Emrakul, the aeons torn

And you'll get your additionnal turn !


Also don't forget that Empath in hand with :g::u::u::3: lets us hard cast Griselbrand with no Griffins if we have a Food Chain in play.

Let's analyse the different situations :

Case A : You haven't Food chain
1) You got Fierce empath

Fierce empath is useless in this situation it'll just remove a creature with CCM > :6: from library so you'll have X-1 cards for finding a Food chain (X = number of cards in library)

2) You got Genesis hydra
2) a) You've been able to put your Food chain in the top 2 cards with a BS

Just cast Hydra for X= 3 (3GG) and get your Food chain into play

2) b) You've not been able to setup the top of library

Just cast Hydra with X = maximum mana you can get, for getting the biggest chance to reveal a Food chain in the top X cards !

Case B : You got Food chain on the board !
1) You got Griffin too

As i explained just above, even with Hydra, you're able to HARDCAST Emrakul so equality !

2) You have no Griffin
2) a) You got Fierce empath

Also don't forget that Empath in hand with GUU3 lets us hard cast Griselbrand with no Griffins if we have a Food Chain in play. (we all now the trick, I won't explain it anymore)

2) b) You got Genesis hydra

Let's say we got GUU3 like with Empath (and suppose there is another G into the 3 colorless), we can cast a Hydra for X= 4 (4GG) and get a Griffin in the top 4 cards.

Conclusions :

When you have no Food chain into play, Hydra > Empath cos you can have it into play.
When you have Food chain into play and infinite mana, you can have Emrakul hardcasted in all cases !
When you have Food chain into play and no infinite mana, you can trick with Empath, and pray in the top 4 cards with Hydra (unless you setuped your top of library before)

[nevilshute]

Heya grokh.

Sure, I wasn't taking having Tidespout Tyrant in the deck into consideration. If you are playing with Tyrant then yes, it is effectively the same.

You make some good points in your analysis. I will need to try and play with the Hydra myself before I can pass judgment :smile:

[kingtk3]

And don't forget that to optimize the use of empath you need to play other "bad" cards like aethersnipe or Griselbrand (yes, as a former reanimator player it hurts my eyes to label Griselbrand as bad, but it is in this deck): we are not the fastest combo out there but we are surely the most robust, and playing bad cards makes us slower and less robust.

@grokh: surely our little talks have helped, now I want to try hydra over soul too ;)

[DireLemming]

I don't see the point in Emrakul, once you go infinite (which is more or less the only feasible way of getting it into play), you can't lose regardless: you can bounce all their permanents with Tyrant and use Clique to set their hand to be all lands. And if you play Jace (for instance instead of Emrakul), you can also set their next draw to be a land.

[resmaster]

I don't see the point in Emrakul, once you go infinite (which is more or less the only feasible way of getting it into play), you can't lose regardless: you can bounce all their permanents with Tyrant and use Clique to set their hand to be all lands. And if you play Jace (for instance instead of Emrakul), you can also set their next draw to be a land.

Or simply win the game with Purphoros, maybe?

[DireLemming]

Why? Aren't you just substituting one dead card for another?

[Seven_six]

Look at the finishers and let's see what they do:
Emrakul: can't do anything unless food chain and sufficient creatures or infinite.
Tidespout: can be pitched to FoW In a pinch. Hardly castable without food chain.
Purphros: easy to cast. Can pump weenies in a pinch. Does 2 damage each time a creature is played. Not useful with food chain unless infinite (con)

[resmaster]

I do not think we will be able to find a win condition that is also a useful card during the whole game.

For Emrakul or Tidespout Tyrant to be viable, we gotta have griffin on. And, if we do have the griffin, then purphoros is a "hard-to-remove" kill condition. And none of the three cards are non-dead cards midgame.

If one thinks this deck has slot issues and cannot waste space with win conditions that will not contribute in the middle of the game, maybe it's time to think about living wish once again.

[Seven_six]

I think purphoros does help the mid game beat down plan as each new body does damage and he can pump to get a little more damage through.

[jedi_gof]

I find it hard to see why purphoros is worth the splash to be honest. Had he been in other colors maybe he would be worth considering, but not if it requires a splash. He does basicly nothing sans foodchain.

[resmaster]

I find it hard to see why purphoros is worth the splash to be honest. Had he been in other colors maybe he would be worth considering, but not if it requires a splash. He does basicly nothing sans foodchain.

I do believe that the best version for this deck is BUG. I just mentioned Purphoros because I don´t think we have a better kill than Emrakul in these colors.

[DireLemming]

My point was we don't even need Emrakul. Hydras of arbitrary size with a hand full of counterspells against an empty board and a grip of lands is more than sufficient.

[kingtk3]

My point was we don't even need Emrakul. Hydras of arbitrary size with a hand full of counterspells against an empty board and a grip of lands is more than sufficient.

This.

Having in the deck tyrant plus hydra/soul of the harvest makes emrakul a win more, dead outside infinite mana card. I would like to lower the number of these cards as much as possible to make room for more castable spells.

[lincolnthree]

If you want an "instant kill" that is searchable with Empath, go for `Vela the Night Clad`, she costs 4UB, is actually cast-able in a reasonably long game, pitches to Force of Will, and provides intimidate for all creatures you control to break through a stand-off situation. Additionally, she provides life-loss rather than damage, so it cannot be prevented or redirected.

[movingtonewao]

If you want an "instant kill" that is searchable with Empath, go for `Vela the Night Clad`, she costs 4UB, is actually cast-able in a reasonably long game, pitches to Force of Will, and provides intimidate for all creatures you control to break through a stand-off situation. Additionally, she provides life-loss rather than damage, so it cannot be prevented or redirected.


we've talked about this. the problem is that in a long game she's removal bait, and could end up in a reverse blowout

[movingtonewao]

I received a FB message from Jonathan today. He ran the following list at GPNJ and will be writing a report for SCG to be posted in the next few days... keep your eyes open for it.

//Main Deck:
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig through Time
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

//Sideboard:
3 Duress
2 Disfigure
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Karakas

He mentioned a few things about the sideboard that he would do differently but I'm guessing he'll cover that in his report.

Enjoy!

has the article been posted? I wasn't able to locate it in SCG articles.

[NathanS2k]

Seems like this deck had some camera time again on SCG. Think it was the same list he was playing?

[Mapson]

Seems like this deck had some camera time again on SCG. Think it was the same list he was playing?

He had a jitte out in game two so he had to have made some changes...likely just to the sideboard though.

[ProBlue]

has the article been posted? I wasn't able to locate it in SCG articles.


He had a jitte out in game two so he had to have made some changes...likely just to the sideboard though.

I haven't seen it either. I messaged him briefly on FB after his GPNJ run and he sent me the list that was posted along with some changes he was likely to make to the Sideboard. I wasn't going to share them at the time because I was expecting them to be covered in the article he was going to write for SCG. Since the article never went up, I'll share what he said to me.

"The maindeck was spot on where I wanted it. The sideboard could use a little more tweaking I believe. What I know I'm going to do is change the Jace, the Mind Sculptor and the Toxic Deluge to two Umezawa's Jitte[/card]. I think it does all the same thing as the Deluge and the Jace was for the Countertop matchup. I played it twice on the weekend and the matchup was very easy with just [cards]Duress and Venser, Shaper Savant. I don't think it necessary. Two Umezawa's Jitte will dramatically improve the UR Delver match up. The other card I'm debating the necessity of is Karakas. Sneak and Show is very much on the decline and I'm wondering if it would just be better as a catchall like Golgari Charm." - Jonathon Job

Based on these notes, I would expect his Sideboard to look like this:

3 Duress
2 Disfigure
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
2 Leyline of the Void
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm

[metamet]

Oh hey guys. Glad to see my baby is still alive. <3

Keep up the good work.

[jedi_gof]

I will be running Jobs latest list with very few adjustments tomorrow.

I am trying sans Spaghetti monter in the deck, so far its not been missed.
Running an additional misdirection main in his spot as there are quite a lot Decays in my meta.

SB is very similar, but i dont have german leylines so will be running some alternative, also tinkering with some lifegain in the jitte slots like baloths or the like, which dubbleduties against black decks.

Will be posting a small report sometime before sunday.
Still on the fence regarding the hydra, either its awesome, or it is a serious miss. Contemplating agents are better in a non emmy list, but are not sure.

[nevilshute]

I will be running Jobs latest list with very few adjustments tomorrow.

I am trying sans Spaghetti monter in the deck, so far its not been missed.
Running an additional misdirection main in his spot as there are quite a lot Decays in my meta.

SB is very similar, but i dont have german leylines so will be running some alternative, also tinkering with some lifegain in the jitte slots like baloths or the like, which dubbleduties against black decks.

Will be posting a small report sometime before sunday.
Still on the fence regarding the hydra, either its awesome, or it is a serious miss. Contemplating agents are better in a non emmy list, but are not sure.

Heya Gof :smile:

I've had a chance to play around with the hydra but I'm not sure if I like it. It's only partly an improvement over Fierce Empath. The reason to run hydra over Empath is, that Empath is a really poor card when not comboing off. While this is mostly true, I think that you are spot on, in that the hydra also teeters between being good and being poor outside of comboing.

Pros about running Hydra:

- "Cascading" for value - i.e. hitting a deathrite or baleful strix and having a 3/3 or 4/4 body.

- Hitting a Food Chain

- Being a solid body on the ground in the late game

Cons about running Hydra:

- X being 1 or 2 is mostly futile imo. It's a poor play that we ideally shouldn't be making. Even X =3 is kinda so-so as the chance of wiffing is semi and 3/3 means bolt-vulnerablity. This means we need at least 5, but preferably 6 or more mana in order for Hydra to be good outside of the combo.

- It's CMC is always 2 while in play... this is a bigger issue than it might appear at first glance. With Food Chain and access to :g::2: in play, you can empath into --> Griffin into --> win. With Hydra, Food Chain only makes :u::u::u:. This has been an issue for me a non-trivial amount of time on mtgo and has postponed me winning as I've had to wait to hit another creature or a 4th land while staring at my resolved Food Chain, my 3 lands, and Griffin + Hydra in hand. But this issue is actually moot as you can't even run out your Hydra at non-infinite to get Griffin into play as, oops, there went your win con.

With Empath (and the Empath package I prefer to run 2x empath, 1x griselbrand, 1x aethersnipe) you get the following:

Pros about running empath:

- Being able to get Griselbrand into play with Food Chain but not Griffin (see primer).

- Being able to tutor for a blue card for Force of Will (Aethersnipe or Tyrant or whatever).

- Being able to tutor for a card to keep them from casting Show and Tell in Sneaky Show (Emrakul or Griselbrand - or even Aethersnipe).

- Being mostly superior when infinite - see example above about having access to :g::2: and food chain in play + griffin in hand / exiled.

Cons about running empath:

- It's a pretty bad card, objectively, to ever play out unless you are in a position to do something constructive with either: Griselbrand; Emrakul, or Aethersnipe. These positions include just winning or needing to bounce something (Phyrexian Revoker comes to mind) or, as mentioned hedge against Show and Tell.

- Your deck now has more mediocre cards. Outside of the empath --> snipe --> Griselbrand play, you don't really need Griselbrand for anything that Emrakul won't just do better (okay, so maybe there are corner cases, but you know what I mean). The same could possibly be said for Tidesput Tyrant, but at least he is blue. Aethersnipe is also much less needed after Abrupt Decay was printed, as we now have main deck answers to stuff like Revoker.

I'm not really sure what to conclude tbh. You could decide to run Empath but drop Aethersnipe and replace Griselbrand with Tyrant. You could also just go with Hydra. I'm not quite ready to give up on Hydra. Will test some more, but am so far not completely sold.

[jedi_gof]

Hey Martin

Thanks for your reply.
Regarging empaths:
Thing is, i find the main really tight at the moment, even with only 2 hydras. The empath requires 4ish slots, which is my main objection to it in addition to making us run additional dead cards.
I cut emmy to reduce number of dead cards. The tyrant has been amazing so far, and emmy almost never missed, compared to how ofter misdirection has saved the day.

Also in blue matchups, the ability to get the chain into play through the Hydra is quite important too.

Need to go now, will edit tonite... :D

[nevilshute]

Hey Martin

Thanks for your reply.
Regarging empaths:
Thing is, i find the main really tight at the moment, even with only 2 hydras. The empath requires 4ish slots, which is my main objection to it in addition to making us run additional dead cards.
I cut emmy to reduce number of dead cards. The tyrant has been amazing so far, and emmy almost never missed, compared to how ofter misdirection has saved the day.

Also in blue matchups, the ability to get the chain into play through the Hydra is quite important too.

Need to go now, will edit tonite... :D

True. And okay :smile:

Actually, the reason I wanted to reply to your post got lost in the first place hehe! Regarding the baloths, and in general, the need to address the UR (and other burn heavy MUs). I've tested 2x Obstinate Baloth out of the board, and against UR cruise it's just painfully slow and heavy handed. It's obviously pretty neat against Jund, but that isn't seeing a lot of play atm. But against decks that put our life total under as much pressure, as quickly, as UR cruise can do, it doesn't do the job. Haven't tried Jitte, but it seems like something to test.

[jedi_gof]

Hi again,

No doubt empath is strong. I just dont like too many do nothings without foodchain.
The options as are see them are
Empath package ~ 4/5 slots depending on configuration
Hydras ~ 2 slots
Shardless Agents ~ 3-4 slots

Each has its merits, and i havent played the deck enough to make conclusions as to what i find most suited. So far Hydras on intuition feels like the best fit but hopefully things will become clearer after some games.

Regarding answers to UR:
I would likely play chill before jitte vs UR, as if we can limit their spellcount in red i am less scared. Jitte seems infinately slow too, since we play few efficient beaters to equip it too... Also Rhox War Monk comes to mind if this indeed is a very poor matchup (requires a X/W dual somewhere to fetch, then we can easy cast it reliable w/ 5 dorks. Actually in my testing i have found that maybe a 3/2 split is better than 4/1 drs/noble.)

Other than that i dont have much intellingent atm to contribute with, but looking forward to bashing some face tomorrow with the griffins of doom:D

[jedi_gof]

A mini rapport from yestersday weekly Legacy tournament.

Played the following list

//Main Deck:
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig through Time
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
3 Misty Rainforest
3 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

//Sideboard:
1 Duress
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Thoughtseize
2 Notion Thief
1 Golgary Charm
2


Was very pleased with the main. Really enjoyed the extra misdirection, helped on numerous occasions.
I wound up sweeping the swiss 5-0.

The sideboard is partially a mess due to me not having received some of my german cards from MCM, but did the job reasonably well.


R1: Morten "Baronen" Hansen, RUG Delver

G1: We disrupt each other and though he both wastes and stifles i am not short on mana. I decay 1-2 threats, then i force his goyf on empty board, with no open mana to bait his pierce i saw on the delver trigger earlier. He bites, and next turn i am able to safely cast food chain and combo out the win from there.

G2: I win the war by his counters being more taxing for him than me and realatively safely combo out the win by again bouncing his entire board.
1:0, 2:0 in games

R2: Rene with some 4c NicFit Planeswalker brew.

G1: Basicaly he just ramps me with his explorers and i win comfortably through infy grif mana, hydra, tyrant
G2: Better draws from his side this time around, but some slight misplays on his side looks to be punished hard by me... He topdecks a deed, and since i dont have a FC on board he wipes 3 griffins, a clique and a drs on my leathal attack. Unfortunatly for him i slowly rebuild advantage og end up victiorious.

2-0; 4:0 in games

R3: Mass Staack on UR delver
G1: His swiftspear gets nowhere, as he is forced to attack for 1 the first 2 turns, he play a pyromancer expecting to get value through his counterheavy hand My AD ends that plan and though he manage to get me to around 8 life it never gets close and i end up bouncing his board-.
G2: He probes and sees 2x griffs and 2x misdirection meaning his burn is not doing a lot. A quick uneventful game end through combowin

3:0, 6:0 in games

R4: Frederik, UWR patriot delverblade
G1: He is not able to supply sufficient pressure, as my strixes do a lot of work. It ends rather quickly through the AirAttack after FC control is established.
G2: I grossly misplay a brainstorm in turn 2, shufling a land away that I needed to be sure to cast my spells. I end up losing to a daze on griff with FC out, at 5 life with FC out. Dang.
G3: I have it all, and it ends in a quick concession.
4:0, 8:1 in games

R5: Hans, on D&T
G1: he has mom, spirit, vial@2, port, plains. I have a DRS and 2 untapped lands. He desides to attack, so he can use mom+spirit to clear my DRS, but forgots AD. I chump, hus gives mom protection, i decay in response. Finally i can braintstorm, sees 2 foodchaind and a griff. Thats all she wrote and onto game 2.
G2: Mull a nolander, into nolander, into nolander, into nolander. Keep 4 nonlands with Fow, grif, DRS and BS. On my third turn i see my first land, play DRS, but he sandbagged his waste and played thaliea which i had to fow. he plows my DRS then and enter scoop phase. 1-1
G3: T1 DRS, T2 Foodchain and 2 turns later i get the concession. 2-1
5:0; 10-2 in games.

Summary: Board was ok, but need some work. Would not currently touch the main, very happy with current configuration, and seems strong in the meta. The surprise factor is very nice, but in a small local that edge is quickly eliminated.
Love the fact that we are a bug control with a included 7card combo that wins more or less on the spot!

Let me know if you have any questions, I had one of the best times playing in recent memory - this deck is hilariously good and when played in all german cards requires many gatherer look ups haha :)

[nevilshute]

Well, having been there to witness Jedi's incredible tear through our LGS yesterday, it was quite something!. Was awesome even if I did less well with my Jeskai combo deck :wink:

I think it's interesting to view the deck as basically BUG-control with a combo package of 10 or so cards. Like the 2 cliques, and even though I voiced my skepticism yesterday I do think 2x Misdirection is a valid call in a meta this infested with 1 mana red spells :smile:

[Rome]

Does anybody Thought about Hooting Mandrills in this Deck?

With him you can Chain Mandrills into Rune-Scarred Demon
Also he is searchable with Fierce Empath! I testet a few games with him, and the beatdown Plan works very well, if Food Chain is dead.

[jedi_gof]

I will try to make it to my LGS on thursday to retry the deck.

For now i am pretty confident that i will be running the same MD, and include some more removal and the vensers to the board.
The 2 missing cards from last time in the SB were pithing needles.

Has anyone tried out relic of Prog as sideboard option? It can neuter opposing DRS', help ensure griffs go to exile, as well as reduce velocity of opposing delve spells and shrink goyfs.
I know we play DRS' and 2 dtt, but dont feel the nonbo is too big of an obstacle compared to what it offers in recurring value/disruption that in a pinch can be cycled for value..

This is the current SB configuration i am planning on running, might change a few slots. Hope to repeat the 5-0 performance from last time ;-)

SB
1 Duress
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgary Charm
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

[jedi_gof]

Had an decent showing last night at the LGS, going 4-1 this time, making my combined record after 2 events with suboptimal SBs 9-1.
The guy who was loaning me several SB cards decided not to show, so had to make do with what I had at my disposal.
My main deck was unchanged, and SB was as follows:

1 Duress
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgary Charm
2 Pithing Needle
1 Jace, tms
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 I cant remember

A short writeup:
R1 : MUD
G1 : We exchange a few blows, but he forgemaster all his artifacts except for 3sphere for a sundering titan, in response tap my lands, and dig through time looking for land. I am left with 1 drs + 1 trop in play, with foodchain in hand and 3 griffs in exile... I wiff on land with dtt, and it takes 3 additional turns to find another land and in the end he gets there. Tough!
G2 : even worse as he rips 3x best card in a row, and even so, i just need to find any abrupt decay to win, which I fail to do, and a bitter 0-2 to open with. This feels like a heavily favored MU, so very dissappointed.
0-1, 0-2 in games

R2 : UW Griff homebrew
This is a mate who tried out a UW griff blade after our discussion last week regarding griffs as a wincon in UWR Golddigger.
G1 : Food chain makes for better griffs than his, especially when i have DRS to remove my griffs after combat
G2 : My Thief steals his brainstorm turn 5 or six, and from there its a formality. 2-0
1-1; 2-2 in games

R3: BUG Nicfit planeswalkers splash punishing fire control
This is pretty close to a walk over. Handle his deeds and dont get tyrant discarded and you basicly cannot lose. The fact that he draws nthing but lands more or less for to games makes it rather uneventful 2-0.
2-1; 4-2 in games

R4: Sylvan Plug variant
G1 : This one is in the bag until he rips a oneoff golgari charm to handle the chain, and from there he grinds me out.
G2 : A turn 4 kill with chan+griff+hydra into tyrant bounce
G3 : He gets cought in just playing the reactiv game and winds up slaughter games'ing and discardning a lot, but my team of 3x Drs, an Owl and clique just beats him down then. Weenie beats and 2-1
3-1; 6-3 in games

R5: D&T
G1 : he mulls to 5, and though its a great 5, i can clique away if needed his equipments, had decay and 3 griffs as well and he gets stuck on 2 lands, meaning he takes too long to develop his board and he dies to team take to the skies!
G2: Gready keep on his part, he had it all but a 1 lander. He never sees land # 2 before its too late, since i have a turn 3 or 4 combo kill.
4-1; 8-3 in games, good enogh to a first place tie, ending in a top 4 pricesplit.

Very happy with the main again. Convinced that for me it is very close to optimal configuration for the main. Never missed emmy again, though i am intending to add another beater to the board - and this could be emmy or another, as the jig is up and peole at my LGS now know i play only the one fatty.

Board was a mess. Really needed additional removal to bring in, but my disfigures' was included in the noshow.
Contemplating murderous cut as a 1-2 of in the board as a supplement or replacement to disfigure as it removes stuff like robots, goyfs etc more effeciently and double duties as griff remover if need be.

[jedi_gof]

Once more with feeling, tonight is another LGS legacy and my trusty weapon of choice for the moment remains Food Chain. So far 9-1 in 2 tourneys, so lets see how it goes tonite.

Running unaltered MB, though i am concidering a second tidespout as you are in trouble when opposing players learn you and your deck and find out he is you one MB fatty. Maybe in the SB.

SB tonight will be the following:
1 Duress
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Flusterstorm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgary Charm
2 Disfigure
1 Murderous Cut
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

Might cut 1 disfigure for +1 fatty.
Stay tuned

jedi

[Esper3k]

Hey guys,

I'm pretty new to the deck and really liked the idea of Genesis Hydra since it allows us to trim most of the extraneous cards (Emrakul, Griselbrand, etc.) that are terrible without Food Chain.

Does anyone have any tips on how to sideboard with the Genesis Hydra lists?

Also, does anyone know what the 2-of Leyline of the Void are for in Job's sideboard? My thought on Leylines has always been if you want them, you should play 4-of to maximize the chances of you seeing them in your opener. I'm not a fan of Leylines in general since I believe they lead you to keeping bad hands, but if you run them, I believe 4 is usually the correct number.

Thanks!

[jedi_gof]

5-1'ed the small tourney on thursday. While the score was great, the sample was very unreliable as we were only 14 players, so played almost half the room.

r1: Bug delver.
G1: he wins the turn before i have combo kill, due to a timely topdecket cruise finding a decay.
G2: He keeps a onelander with drs which i have removal for, so a quick second game goes to me as i get too far ahead while he misses landdrops.
G3: this time i keep a onelander with drs, decay, brainstorm, brainstom, decay, misdirection and bayou. We both t1 drs, an he t2 decays mine, i misdirect to his but he has fow and since i never see land # 2 its gg quickly.

0-1, 1-2 in games

R2: Human bye
A crappy modern deck is bullied in 2 quick games.

1-1, 3-2 in games

R3: Monoblack brew
This semicookie deck would be good against many other decks, but he just have not enough gaz to keep up with all the birds that reccurs. Nothing worth noticing to report here, another quick 2-0.
2-1, 5-2 in games

R4: A "real" deck finally again, if you can call dredge a real deck.
G1: I am on the draw and he goes t1 led, gemstone, faithless, sack led proceed to scoophase.
G2: I have drs, cage, fow, 2 lands and some random more. quick beats and we go to g3.
G3: he mulls to 6, and I have the fow for his one draw spell. though i get kinda stuck on lands, dual drs and shortly thereafter both cage and relic joins the party and we conceedes.
3-1, 7-3 in games

R5: Hans on D&T
G1: I flood like a crazy and he therefore squeeze out a win. I saw 12 of the 20 lands to 8 spells. 0-1
G2: This time the MU plays out like most i have experienced, he is unable to present any relevant clock, and i can handle his disruption with decays and charms.
G3: This one is closer than g2, but a t2 food chain that he revoked finally gets online and an easy win follows. I like this MU if you can hit your land drops.
4-1, 9-4 in games

R6: Esper blade.
G1: I should have lost this game, if he had any experience in playing against food chain - i naurally drew all 4 misthollows for example... luckily he does not and makes a couple of key misplays that allows me to win(like using jit counters to kill a griff when i had DRS online)
G2: His miser waste screws me for long enough for him to take control via jace and get a steadt stream of disruption going.
G3: A relatively close game, but eventually i can food chain combo for the win by bouncing his entire board.
5-1, 11-5 in games.
In the rounds against real decks i went 3-1 in, with 2 "human byes, but a win is a win i guess.

Sideboard felt much better this time around. Dual venser could be overkill, but for now i think this configuration is fine.

total score so far after 3 lgs turneys:
14-2 and top 4'ed them all

[ProBlue]

Jedi - Can you speak to your sideboard plans for a few of the "real" decks you've played against?

I am more curious about what you side out in these given matches.

My LGS is hosting its first Legacy FNM on 1/16/15 and I'm planning to take my newly completed Food Chain deck up there for a spin :smile:

[jedi_gof]

@Pro blue: Sure thing. As mentioned, ive played 3 turneys so far, so not the most experieced yet regarding sideboarding plans.
Based on my latest SB:
1 Duress
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Flusterstorm
1 Thoughtseize
1 Notion Thief
1 Golgary Charm
2 Disfigure
1 Murderous Cut
1 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Venser, Shaper Savant

SB Plans:
Any (non moon) combo deck: -2/3 basic(keeping blue some times) since game is decided on early turns
Storm: +2 fluster, +1 tseize, +1 duress, +2 venser. - 3 basics, -2 misdirections, -1 hydra. One can argue to includ the cage as well if PF heavy build.
Dredge: +cage+relic+needle+fluster/thief or both, -2 misdiretion, 1 hydra, 2 basics
S&T: +thief+fluster+charm+tseize +duress+2 venser+ m cut, -2 lands(basics only if moon safe, othervise bayou+sea), -1/2 decay, -1 hydra, -1

EsperBlade:
+1 decay, +2 disfigure, +1 relic, +1 cut -2 basics(if wasteless esper) -1 hydra, -1fow

Thats all i have time for now, but the primer is still valid. Depending on hate, dilute your combo, decrease land count if playing +4 dorks and remove suboptimal main deck cards.

Enjoy, give a report on how you fare! :)

[LIKEABOSS]

Hey, a new card from FRF was spoiled today, it seems like it could fit in here, because in exile, it is essentially a off-color misthollow griffin with a great ability.

"Torrent Elemental"
4U
Creature - Elemental
Flying

Whenever Torrent Elemental attacks, tap all creatures defending player controls.

3[B/G][B/G]: Return Torrent Elemental from exile to the battlefield tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

Could see play here right?

link: http://www.mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/torrentelemental.html

[nevilshute]

Hey, a new card from FRF was spoiled today, it seems like it could fit in here, because in exile, it is essentially a off-color misthollow griffin with a great ability.

"Torrent Elemental"
4U
Creature - Elemental
Flying

Whenever Torrent Elemental attacks, tap all creatures defending player controls.

3[B/G][B/G]: Return Torrent Elemental from exile to the battlefield tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

Could see play here right?

link: http://www.mythicspoiler.com/frf/cards/torrentelemental.html

Sadly no. Its ability doesn't count towards the Food Chain clause of "only using the mana to cast creatures". So while it is sweet to see another creature being able to come back from exile it doesn't combo with Food Chain in the way that we want.

I played a Legacy Daily Event on mtgo earlier today and went 3-1.

Played:

UR-Delver (2-0)
MUD (0-2)
Jund (2-1)
UWR blade (2-1)

As things went I feel like I lost a matchup I should have won as MUD is actually pretty decent, but I mulled to 4 in game 1 and he went golem into revoker in game 2, sandwhiched by a Wasteland that locked me out. All the while I won 2 matchups I generally have issues with, in UR delver and Jund.

My list is like this:


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

4x Brainstorm
3x Ponder
3x Manipulate Fate
1x Divert
4x Force of Will
4x Misthollow Griffin
2x Dig Through Time
1x Tidespout Tyrant
1x Noble Hierarch
4x Food Chain
2x Genesis Hydra
4x Baleful Strix
4x Deathrite Shaman
3x Abrupt Decay


Sideboard:

2x Flusterstorm
2x Thoughtseize
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Meddling Mage
2x Zealous Persecution
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Pithing Needle
1x Umezawa's Jitte

The one of Divert badly needs to be a Misdirection, but I don't own any online and they cost $100 a piece... Ideally there'd be a second in the sideboard. I'd probably also play with one or two cliques if I owned any.

Still, I like the deck. The Digs are strong and the deck feels pretty well positioned atm. My sideboard - and in particular the white splash - reflects a desire to have a better matchup against storm which I consider to be a deck we are quite poorly positioned against. That storm is rife on mtgo online underscores the need.

I'd still like to be better set up against UR delver though.

Edit: One thing I will say is that it feels mindnumblingly stupid going off through Genesis Hydra online. There is no (as far as I can tell??) short cut so basically, once you have FC online and exile a griffin with a hydra in hand you have to manually exile the griffin X times where X is your number of cards in your library + 6 (4 to cast the griffin one last time and 2 for the GG).

It is a HUGE time sink and just feels so dumb.

[jedi_gof]

GJ Martin, agree with MUD should be one of our better Matchups, which it is annoying that one of my 2 losses so far has been to that deck as well! :D
I would never play MODO, especially since V4 is the top of their programming prowess!
But in no world would i play a infinite loop deck like this without a shortcut option to repeat undisrupted repetitions x times, no matter how fond i am of the deck!

Your list is approaching mine in the main. If you had access to the cliques and misdirections, what would you cut for it? I play 2 cliques+misdirection over your ponders and divert. I have been lacking a few ponders at some points, and dislike not fitting them in, but on the other hand the entire MB has performed very well so far and cant seem to see what to cut for 1-2 ponders.

Also, you find the splash worth it?
I have so far not found it necessary yet, but have not faced storm yet either. I feel that our manabase is fragile enough as it is and that a forth color is not where i want to go.
Also how has Jitte performed for you? I had it in the board, but it felt really lackluster to say the least. The removalspells have overperformed for me though, helps to buy time against most decks which is what we want. Against D&T and blade decks it is such a tempo gain to remove their threat in response to equip, which usually gives us enough buffertime to safely make it to a combo win.
Also clique shines against sfm, just let them gram bat/jit/sofai and clique it away

[Obould]

My LGS is hosting its first Legacy FNM on 1/16/15 and I'm planning to take my newly completed Food Chain deck up there for a spin :smile:

MY LGS is having a FNM Legacy too on that same date and I was planning to give my Food Chain a try :) In my last tournaments I have top'ed with food chain but with natural order (S&T-sb) build. Next I'm trying with this "new" build with hydra. Sadly I don't own cliques or underground seas (yet, maybe later this year when I have bought my 20 000€ car :P) so I have to mix it a little. Maybe with 2 birds of paradise instead of noble hierarch to compensate colors. I'm also willing to try 2 ancient tombs to get more value out of hydras.





I played a Legacy Daily Event on mtgo earlier today and went 3-1.



Grats for your good results! Is there any video clips from your matches in mtgo? It would be great to see how others manage to get through hard matches so I got more hope when facing them also :D

[Esper3k]

Thanks for the sideboard tips, guys!

How do you normally SB against the Delver decks? Do you ever find yourself taking out the Food Chain combo in any matchups and just turn into a grindy midrange deck?

[Esper3k]

So I gave the deck a spin today at one of our local tournaments and I was impressed by how surprisingly difficult it could be to play.

Here's the list I ran:

// Lands
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
2 [JGC] Polluted Delta
1 [PC2] Island (5)
1 [DDM] Forest (1)
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1a)
1 [A] Bayou
3 [B] Underground Sea
3 [R] Tropical Island

// Creatures
2 [M15] Genesis Hydra
4 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
4 [PC2] Baleful Strix
4 [RTR] Deathrite Shaman
2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
1 [DIS] Tidespout Tyrant
1 [A] Birds of Paradise
// Spells
3 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [MM] Food Chain
3 [IN] Manipulate Fate
2 [KTK] Dig Through Time
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [MM] Misdirection

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
SB: 1 [V13] Venser, Shaper Savant
SB: 3 [LOR] Thoughtseize
SB: 2 [ZEN] Disfigure
SB: 2 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 2 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 [GPX] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 [RTR] Golgari Charm

I also trimmed the Emrakul because I feel like it's best to minimize cards that are bad without FC/Griffin going. I also opted for a Birds of Paradise over the Noble Hierarch because I valued the ability to make black mana and chump block fliers (Delver) over the Exalted. I could be wrong though and would be willing to be convinced otherwise.

I thought the 2 Leyline of the Void in Job's board were odd, so I replaced them with Relics. Relics can come in vs the Tarmogoyf decks as well as mess with your opponents' DRS activations while providing another Exile outlet for dead Griffins.

Is Venser there just for SnT and Miracles? I left one in the board but couldn't think of too many times I wanted to have it.

Here's a short report (21 players):

Round 1 vs UWR Stoneblade

Game 1: I open with 2 lands and Manipulate Fate / Baleful Strix / Brainstorm and don't find more until I die to TNN beatdown.

-3 Abrupt Decay, +3 Thoughtseize (this was my first match ever with this deck, so I'm pretty certain it was wrong)

Game 2: We go back and forth and I eventually grind him out with Griffins and a Genesis Hydra for 5 (which misses Food Chain, of course)

0-0-1

Round 2 vs UB StifleNaught / Death's Shadow

Game 1: My opponent FoW's my T1 DRS, then on his turn, fetches a Watery Grave to Probe, then Thoughtseize me, putting himself to 12. I was impressed by his own damage to himself. I have a FoW + Griffin for his Stifle on his Dreadnaught, but his double Death's Shadow that quickly grow wreck me.

-1 Genesis Hydra, +1 Abrupt Decay

Game 2: I get a fast kill with Griffin swarm.

Game 3: I gum up the board with double Baleful Strix and trade with his big guys while my Griffins race in the air.

1-0-1

Round 3 vs BUG Delver

Game 1: It's a long and grindy game - just the way we like it! My double DRS superiority over his carries me through the game while keeping his TCing in check.

-2 FoW (is leaving in 2 Misdirection vs the BUG decks too cute?), -2 Vendilion Clique, -1 Genesis Hydra (my thoughts vs Delver decks is to trim some of the combo), +2 Disfigure, +1 Abrupt Decay, +2 Relic of Progenitus

Game 2: I get through an early Manipulate Fate and hard cast Griffins on turns 4, 5, 6 and swarm him down with fliers. Phantom Monsters are great at dodging AD and Disfigure!

2-0-1

Round 4 vs BUG Delver

Game 1: He opens with T1: DRS, T2: Delver x 2, T3: Tarmogoyf. I get wrecked.

SB: Same as above

Game 2: We both durdle for awhile. I get stuck on 2 lands + a fetch and he has double Stifle on my fetch to fight through my FoW. He Wastelands me a few times and I'm dead.

2-1-1

Round 5 vs RUG Delver

Game 1: He had just a T1 Delver, which I Abrupt Decay then grind him out with Griffins.

-2 Misdirection, +2 Relic of Progenitus (I didn't bring in the Disfigures because they only kill Delver and Clique can also ambush Mongeese)

Game 2: The game goes long, but I stall with Manipulate Fate -> Griffins chumping a 5/6 Tarmogoyf while my DRS eats the Griffin for recasting. I eventually Brainstorm into a Food Chain while he is out of cards and GriffinStorm takes over from there.

3-1-1

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on sideboarding! Do you guys ever find yourself in any situations where you board out the Hydras + Tidespout combo and just go for pure grindiness (with the minicombo of FC + Manipulate Fate)?

[jedi_gof]

A short report on a miserable 3-2 performance:

Round 1: D&T
Exited about the MU as I have played against Hans the last 3 times, and beating him everytime without breaking too much sweat. He is a pretty decent pilot but the MU is very favorable in my experience.
G1: 4 duals, 2 fow and a tyrant. Mull to 6 and 5 on no lands. 4 is keepable but not able to put up much fight against 1 for ones of a 7 card hand.
G2: Mull to 6, see a fine hand and proceed to draw 5 lands and 2 misdirections. It almost get there but lack a decent card or 2 to make it. Nice. flood.
Rough start and 0-1.

Round 2: Tin Fins
I played Jeppe a lot, and he has access to most legacy decks and switches it up a lot, and yesterday was no different as he packed tin fins
G1: Mull to 6 again due to a no lander... He is on the play and I dont know whats going on when he turn 2 wins by duress->reanimating etc from a scrub and swamp... did not see that one coming.
G2: Another mull to 6 on no lands. He sideboards into a Doomsday deck. I have 5 turns to draw at third land through 2 brainstorms, to lock him out with foodchain + a Notion Thief (since he has no answers to it. ) fail to do so and lose again. 0-2

Round 3: Bye

Round 4: Reanimatior
I feel on top throughout the game since it is a decent standard gamer swinging the deck in IRL legacy tourney for the first time.
Not much to note other than it is a decent MU if on the play and they dont t2 grieselbrand.
A quick set of games end in a 2-0 to me.

Round 5: Miracles
G1: Another mull due to no lands in opener, I am close to tilt at this point:) He has everything this game, and then it is had to beat them.
G2: He gets a jace online and establishes board control. I have a lot of gaz in hand though and since he fateseals instead of increasing his advantage i am able to make him counter the worng spells and combo off and bounce his board. Note: Wiffed on the hydra for x4.
G3: This time around I have the clear best hand and draws and win comfortable even though i twice wiffed on x4 hydras.

3-2 but in all a frustrating night. These come along once in a while, hopefully it is out of the sytem for next weeks LGS tourney and i cna play som 7 card magic games again.
Also marked first time a missed out on top4 with foodchain...

Total score so far, not counting byes:
16-4-0

-jedi

[ProBlue]

I'm playing in my local FNM tonight with the following list. Nothing too innovative, I dropped the Emrakul and 1 Clique for the second Misdirection and a Ponder. It will only be a short 4 round FNM with no cut to top 4 (this shop closes at 9pm sharp on Fridays :mad:). I'm not sure what the meta will look like as there hasn't been a Legacy tournament in the area for months. I'll post a "report" later this weekend hopefully.


//Main Deck:
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig through Time
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

//Sideboard:
3 Duress
2 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Pithing Needle
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
1 Abrupt Decay

[Obould]

Played 3-1 in a local FNM today.

R1: Vs. Stoneblade 2-0
G1: I played shaman turn 1 and manipulate turn 2. He didn't fow it and followed by playing stoneforge mystic finding batterskull. I tried food chain turn 3 with misdirection backup -> He double force of willed it. I played griffins the next two turns and shot with shaman. He played TNN. A couple of turn later I played food chain, took a lot of mana and played hydra finding tyrant.
G2: I played 3 shamans (2 got killed) and a griffin. Beat the crap out of him. He was at 2 lands and didn't drew more fast enough.

R2: vs. Miracles 0-1
G1: It was a really grindy game. I played threats and he answers them. He kept my griffins in leach. I had food chain online but not griffins. I had plenty of mana and if I would have drew emrakul I could have won the game. I cast both of my hydras at some point of the game with x=6 and x=7 netting me shaman and baleful strix + big monster. Unfortunately he was able to remove hydras before swinging.

R3: vs. Reanimator 2-1
G1: He tried to combo turn 1 but I force of willed it. He comboed again in turn 2. I played baleful strixes the next two turns. They bought me time but griselbrand drewing more gas was enough.
G2: Kept a one lander with shaman and relic of progenitus. He didn't combo turn 1 so I had more time. He didn't find answer to shaman and two turn later I started to draw more lands and played more hate. A couple of turns later played food chain, griffin and emrakul for he win.
G3: Kept a one lander again with cage, shaman, fow + griffin, manipulate fate. He didn't combo turn 1 and I played cage which he tried to force. He didn't drew removal for my different hate cards and started to draw lands trying to cast griselbrand. I was faster and comboed with griffin + hydra to tyrant bouncing his board.

R4: vs. Rw painter 2-1
G1: I didn't draw my combo and had to keep two mana open for his combo (abrupt decay). I was stuck on lands and he countered my spells when painter online naming blue. He beat me with 3 painter and simian spirit guide.
G2: He beat me to 4 life with koth. I stabilised with shaman + griffin. A couple of turns later I comboed with hydra finding tyrant and bouncing his board.
G3: He kept a one lander and I manipulate fated followed with food chain next turn. 4 griffins beated him.

EDIT:

My list:

1 forest
1 swamp
1 island
2 ancient tomb
3 tropical island
1 bayou
1 watery grave (didn't have ugsea with me)
4 misty rainforest
4 polluted delta
1 verdant catacombs
1 wooded foothills (don't have another verdant catacombs)

4 baleful strix
4 deathrite shaman
4 misthollow griffin
2 birds of paradise
2 genesis hydra
1 emrakul the aeons torn
1 tidespout tyrant

4 force of will
2 misdirection
4 food chain
4 brainstorm
3 manipulate fate
3 abrupt decay
2 dig through time

sideboard:
1 abrupt decay
1 krosan grip (for humility or extra decay for miracles)
2 Venser, shaper savant
2 relic of progenitus
2 grafdigger's cage
3 duress
1 shrivel (didn't find my golgari charm)
1 dead weight (didn't find my disfigure)

Sideboarding in games what I remember now:

R1: vs. Stoneblade with TNN
+ 2 Venser, -1 ancient tomb, -1 misdirection
Stoneblade isn't too fast and their disruption isn't too effective against us. Left 1 misdirection as a fow #5.

R2: vs. miracles
Round time ended just the turn he managed to kill me. I didn't scoop earlier because I had outs left in my deck.

R3: vs. reanimator
+3 duress, +2 relic of progenitus, + 2 grafdigger's cage, +2 venser, -2 ancient tomb, -2 misdirection, -2 dig through time, -3 abrupt decay
In this match up you don't have time to dig your hate, they have to be in your starting hand. Venser is great at bouncing their fatty to hand or against show and tell sideboard plan.

R4: vs. painter
+1 krosan grip, +1 abrupt decay, -2 misdirection
Painter tries to put nasty artifacts (ie. bridge) and enchantments (ie. moons) into play. There aren't many situations where you can misdirect their spells. They can win instantly so you have to keep abrupt decay/krosan grip mana open if they have cards in hand.


As a sidenote I have foiled all but the more expensive cards of my maindeck. Fows, shamans, fetches and abrupt decays are non-foils but others are foiled (from cards you can foil) :) Maybe I manage to foil my shamans this year..

[ProBlue]

I went 3-1 at FNM on Friday, this was the first Legacy event that have run since the rules change. There was only 15 people that showed up but the store said they would squeeze it into the rotation once a month. I played the 75 I posted a couple of posts back.

Round 1: Elves
G1: We both play turn 1 DRS, I Decay his and FoW a Nettle Sentential leaving him with nothing in play. He does a mini Glimpse getting a couple of dudes in play but I establish the combo with Tidespout for the win. My Decay & FoW win me this game.
G2: He starts this game with some beats while I build up a small team. I don't block because I have Food Chain, Charm & Tidespout in hand. I sac all my dudes to Food Chain and cast Charm nearly wiping his board. Tidespout gets there in 3 attacks.
2-0 / 1-0

Round 2: D&T
G1/G2: Both this games play out horribly with him playing double Mom, SFM with natural backup equipment. They end before I can combo or even establish. I don't know how this MU is suppose to play out because I feel like he got a nut draw and mine were both just ok.
0-2 / 1-1

Round 3: Jeskai Ascendancy Combo
G1: This game is a little slow and counter 3 different Ascendancy and he doesn't see any counters himself. I get 1 Griff and FC to attack for 3 and recast, I get there.
G2: He hardcasts all 4 Fatestitchers and keeps tapping me down until he finally get his combo and goes off. This deck is really awful to play against because of all of the triggers and how long it takes to resolve everything.
G3: This game develops a bit slow for both of us and we end up in turns (mostly due to game 2). I go ham and full combo on turn 3 of 5. I have to pass back to him because of no Emrakul but I swing for overkill on turn 5.
2-1 / 2-1

Round 4: UR Delver
G1: This game doesn't last a ton of turns but my opponent plays super slow. He burns and counters everything important on my side and gets there with Pyromancer + a ton of elementals.
G2: We trade a little bit and I decide to not counter a Sulfuric Vortex because I have a DRS & Strix and he doesn't have anything. This game was close but he decides to bolt me instead of my clock and he ends up dying to his own Vortex.
G3: We trade again at the start but he takes half of my health with a Price of Progress and we end up in turns. I am able to assemble the combo on my turn 2 and have to walk him through the steps. He takes his last turn and passes back to me still confused... I swing with EVERYTHING for the win :tongue:
2-1 / 3-1

I don't know what I would change if anything about my list. I am not very confident about sideboarding and don't exactly remember what I took out in what matches. Once I get more comfortable with that part I think I'll do much better with the deck.

[lincolnthree]

Death and Taxes is usually a favorable matchup for us because they don't have any Counter Magic. Just make sure you keep Abrupt Decay around to kill off Phyrexian Revokers. That's really the only card that can really mess us up. One strategy against D&T is just to side the combo out and bring more efficient creatures in. Bring in Meddling Mages, *cheap* artifact hate because all your non-creature spells will likely cost a ton, but resolve a manipulate Fate and you'll usually win this one since D&T has no way to deal with 3/3 flyers that they literally cannot kill without equipment on the board.

[Obould]

I went 3-1 at FNM on Friday, this was the first Legacy event that have run since the rules change. There was only 15 people that showed up but the store said they would squeeze it into the rotation once a month. I played the 75 I posted a couple of posts back.

Round 2: D&T
G1/G2: Both this games play out horribly with him playing double Mom, SFM with natural backup equipment. They end before I can combo or even establish. I don't know how this MU is suppose to play out because I feel like he got a nut draw and mine were both just ok.
0-2 / 1-1


Grats for your results! How was hydra doing? I found out that it is quite good. Extra wincon when comboing or good monster with usually extra guy, at least with ancient tombs.

I have played with three different builds against D&T and have never lost a match, maybe never even a game. I think you drew just badly. I assume your opponent played turn 1 mom, turn 2 mom, turn 3 SFM, and from turn 4 -7 beat with equipment. You had at least 6 to 7 turns to find your combo or somehow disrupt their game. Game 1 D&T is almost like goldfishing your deck with a clock. Sure they can remove your managuys or name food chain with revoker, but you have plenty of digging for decay and counters to fight through it. Sometimes you just drew badly like any other decks and lose. I remember well when playing with my merfolk against miracles, mulled to 4 with 2 lands, 2 lords and drew nuts and won early and easily :)

EDIT: From your list and sideboard I (my personal opinion, could be wrong) would side out 2 misdirection (StoP only target), 2 genesis hydra (may have containment priest) and 1 Force of will and side in 2 disfigure, 2 golgari charm, 1 abrupt decay. I think they side in at least canonists and priests (at least if you have comboed with hydra game 1).

[ProBlue]

Grats for your results! How was hydra doing? I found out that it is quite good. Extra wincon when comboing or good monster with usually extra guy, at least with ancient tombs.

I have played with three different builds against D&T and have never lost a match, maybe never even a game. I think you drew just badly. I assume your opponent played turn 1 mom, turn 2 mom, turn 3 SFM, and from turn 4 -7 beat with equipment. You had at least 6 to 7 turns to find your combo or somehow disrupt their game. Game 1 D&T is almost like goldfishing your deck with a clock. Sure they can remove your managuys or name food chain with revoker, but you have plenty of digging for decay and counters to fight through it. Sometimes you just drew badly like any other decks and lose. I remember well when playing with my merfolk against miracles, mulled to 4 with 2 lands, 2 lords and drew nuts and won early and easily :)

EDIT: From your list and sideboard I (my personal opinion, could be wrong) would side out 2 misdirection (StoP only target), 2 genesis hydra (may have containment priest) and 1 Force of will and side in 2 disfigure, 2 golgari charm, 1 abrupt decay. I think they side in at least canonists and priests (at least if you have comboed with hydra game 1).

Hydra has been amazing but TBH I'm new to the deck and this is the only version I've played with. I'm a Goblins player that is trying to find another way to attack the teir decks without joining them.

D&T put on a very fast unblockable/untargetable clock. One game Batterskull beat me up, the other it was a Mirran Crusader + SoFI. Thanks for the SB tips though, I'll take any help I can get. I'm really looking forward to the monthly FNM as I don't usually get to travel to events (wife/baby/job/life). I'll report back with my results as they come in. Thanks!

[kkoie]

So I have been looking at this deck for a bit, thinking it would be fun to play. So I sleeved up a list and tried it out at my LGS Legacy FNM. Here is the list that I ran:

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Vendilion Clique
4 Misthallow Griffin
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4 Brainstorm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Food Chain
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
2 Dig Through Time

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

Sideboard
2 Disfigure
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Swan Song
3 Thoughtseize
2 Golgari Charm
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

In hindsight, I probably didn't need two jace in the sideboard. I was thinking of cutting 1 for a Massacre.

My matches for the evening went like this:
Round 1 - new player playing a standard deck 2/0
Round 2 - TPS, lost 0/2. I mulliganed both games. Game 1 I had 2 brainstorms but could not draw into a counterspell. Game 2 I had a thoughtseize and force of will, but could not draw any black.
Round 3 - Omnitell, won 2/0. I was able to put a tyrant in play via show and tell game one (he had countered my initial force of will using a pact of negation), then used abrupt decay on my shaman to bounce his enchantment. Game 2 I had venser in hand when he cast show and tell.
Round 4 - Goblins. I was able to combo off game 1 and he kept a slow, controllish hand game 2, so I was able to kill him before he could establish a board position.

Any thoughts on changes I should make to the sideboard or main deck? I was worried about miracles so made sure I had 4 abrupt decay maindeck. I don't have a flusterstorm, so I subbed it with a Swan Song.

[dog_koko]

Emrakul is an awful topdeck, once you have the Tirespoud you don't need Emrakul

[Obould]

I think emrakul should be at least in sideboard. It is quite good against certain decks. It doesn't die to ie. stop or pyroblast and can't be countered (yes, some wait to counter the fatty if you have 2 griffins online + one card in hand). Lets say you have food chain online with griffin and one card in hand, would you rather have emrakul or tyrant? I play one copy of each in my main because then I can choose which one to play from hydra when comboing. Do you play more card draw instead of emrakul or what card is good when you are in top deck mode and dying?

[anwei]

Let's analyse the different situations :


I'm planning to pick this back up a bit, and was thinking through Genesis Hydra. Most lists here seem to have switched to it, but I'm not sure I'm convinced. Would love input from people who have been testing it.

Some posts, like this one excerpted here, have gone through the 3 scenarios, (1) Infinite food chain, (2) Noninfinite food chain, (3) No food chain. Looking at 2 Hydra + Tyrant + Emrakul vs. 2 Empath + Aethersnipe+Griselbrand+Emrakul, it seems like:
(1) Any of the 4 (non-Aethersnipe) creatures win the game when you're infinite. The available hate you have to beat can differ, but in most games, this position wins.
(2) Food chain without Griffin gives serious points to Empath for being able to reasonable cast Griselbrand and win. Playing a medium-sized Hydra is okay, but Empath is much better here.
(3) When in "normal mode" against a fair deck, Hydra gives you a number of reasonable options - setting up an uncounterable food chain, getting a 3/3 on the board, digging a bit, etc. Most of these don't seem very compelling, but it's not a dead topdeck at least. If you're on the defensive though, rushing out X=2 Hydra to jump in front of a Tarmogoyf isn't very exciting. If you have to chump, Empath at least fetches your wincon. Not the best purpose, but the Hydra use is pretty narrow.
(Etc.) The Hydra combo is a little more reliable through hate, as Tyrant isn't a legend (for Karaks), and the triggered ability can dodge counters (though that's pretty narrow). You also have half a fewer dead card (Aethersnipe).

Unless I'm missing something, Hydra has a few semi-narrow small advantages, and Empath has a semi-narrow HUGE advantage in winning the game (or at least casting Griselbrand) with Food Chain but no Griffin. Am I underestimating the usefulness of a 3/3 Hydra when you're in grindy mode?

[Obould]

I think people are using hydra because it saves you some slots that is a HUGE advantage. Also as you said you don't have as many bad cards without others. I have found out that hydra is better for me when I'm not using my natural order build with S&T sideboard, but I am also using 6 mana guys with 2 ancient tombs main (usually hydra is always 4 or bigger). Most of the time I didn't manage to get fierce-snipe-grisel semi-combo out and I usually pitched fierced snipe to fow. It was nice with S&T (omnisciense) in games 2 or 3 though but with that "new" commander bear showing up natural order and S&T is no longer as strong as it used to be.

Ps. Have people played legacy after bans, hows the meta and what would our match ups look like? Maybe some main deck or sideboard tips for popular decks.

[Esper3k]

Also, the other thing I think you're making a mistake on is weighting all three scenarios equally.

Going Food Chain Infinite, for example, is much less common than being forced to play fair, which is by far the most common scenario we find ourselves in.

Another plus to the Hydra I've liked quite a bit is in the Miracles matchup where you have time to cast a decent sized Hydra + the uncounterable trigger.

I cut Emrakul a long time ago and never looked back. To me, I want to have as few cards as possible that are terrible without Food Chain. I'm willing to allow my opponent 1 turn to kill me with no board and 1 land drop in order to not have the dead Emrakul draw.

[Obould]

Also, the other thing I think you're making a mistake on is weighting all three scenarios equally.

Going Food Chain Infinite, for example, is much less common than being forced to play fair, which is by far the most common scenario we find ourselves in.


Second that. Last time I was allowed to go full combo ~40% of games which is usually too good. Most of the time I'm playing beatdown with possibility to win almost instantly. Then my opponents have hard time deciding what hate to sideboard when not disrupting their own game too much.



Another plus to the Hydra I've liked quite a bit is in the Miracles matchup where you have time to cast a decent sized Hydra + the uncounterable trigger.

This was also great when played against miracles last time. Unfortunately I managed to get hydras out too late when my opponent had SToP + snapcasters + jace online.



I cut Emrakul a long time ago and never looked back. To me, I want to have as few cards as possible that are terrible without Food Chain. I'm willing to allow my opponent 1 turn to kill me with no board and 1 land drop in order to not have the dead Emrakul draw.

I think this is meta and playgroup dependant. If they know you are only playing with tyrant, they save their removal and counters to it so you can't bounce their whole board. Maybe emrakul in sideboard if not in main?

[Plm]

Going Food Chain Infinite, for example, is much less common than being forced to play fair, [...] I cut Emrakul a long time ago and never looked back [...] I'm willing to allow my opponent 1 turn to kill me with no board and 1 land drop in order to not have the dead Emrakul draw.

Isn't the scenario you describe where tyrant bounce everything happening only when going Infinite ?

The vulnerability of tyrant worries me, also inconterabillity is nice in a win con but wurm and empath are counterable anyway.

Sans food chains, empath does close to nothing and wurm needs an awful lot of mana to be of any use so they're both meh. (post side it is another story as empath enable 1 of tombstalker for the man plan but it's fringe argument).

Anyway still undecided between the 2 empath 3 target plan and the much compact 2 wurm 1 kill plan.

I enjoyed the man plan from the side. Removing 3 chains, Emrakul, aethersnipe, putting in 4 goyf, 1 tombstalker. Thinking about nemesis...

The rest of the side board is at the moment : 3 flusterstorm, 2 duress, 1 krosan grip, 1 grafdigger's cage, 1 golgari charm, 1 surgical extraction, 1 relic of progenitus.

my main is :

4 Food Chain
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
1 AEthersnipe
2 Fierce Empath

4 Misthollow Griffin
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Brainstorm
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Thoughtseize
3 Baleful Strix
2 wall of blossom

4 Force of Will
2 Dig Through Time
1 Forest

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


The list is very mid rangy with decay, seize and strixes.
The wall of blossom are here for the potential turn 2 kill with the nuts and because they are easier to cast than the strix. Tar pit is a concession to the midrange plan.

[Obould]

Isn't the scenario you describe where tyrant bounce everything happening only when going Infinite ?

The vulnerability of tyrant worries me, also inconterabillity is nice in a win con but wurm and empath are counterable anyway.


You must see that even if hydra got countered you'll still get the triggered ability. For example when going infinite you'll get your wincon from hydra if your opponent doesn't have stifle or the like. Also tyrant can be pitched to fow or misdirection in a tight spot but then you lose your "infinite combo win con" if you are not using other fatty in your list.

[Plm]

Missed that aspect, so +1 for wurm :-)

Still undecided but the tightness of the wurm package is tempting, might need to use the slots for manadorks/lands if I want to be able to cast wurm sans food chain.

[Esper3k]

The scenario where you use Tyrant to bounce everything is indeed only when you go infinite. However, I'm talking about when people play Tyrant + Emrakul to immediately kill your opponent.

You gain the ability to immediately win (vs having to wait 1 turn where they get 1 land drop with no board) vs having 1 fewer dead card when you're not in infinite mana mode.

[kombatkiwi]

Has anyone considered playing Cabal Therapy in this deck?
It seems okay with the large number of free creatures (Strix and Griffins, as well as Empath, Shardless Agent, whatever version you're playing)

21 lands

4 Baleful Strix
4 DRS
4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
16

4 Force of Will
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Cabal Therapy
22

1 Spicy 1-of Dig Through Time / Misdirection / Tasigur / Murderous Cut / Intuition / Shrug

[anwei]

In the theme of the couple discard lists that have been on here (I'm inclined to take Thoughtseize over Cabal Therapy), has anyone tried other cuts in an even midrangier direction with, e.g., Goyfs? I know Delve guys (Tombstalker) have been talked about elsewhere for their chain usefulness, but a few Goyfs seems like it could put more teeth on the non-FC plan, draw out Decays, further occupy them with beating that half of your deck, etc.
From the general core lists, it seems like cutting the 4th (7th) Griffin, Misdirection, down to 0-1 Clique, 5th dork, and maybe 4th Strix are all pretty reasonable.

20 Land

4 DRS
3 Strix
3 Tarmogoyf
1 Clique

3 Griffin
2 Hydra
1 Tyrant
1 Emrakul

4 Food Chain
3 Manipulate Fate

4 Brainstorm
2 Dig through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Thoughtseize

[Esper3k]

Just a heads up, check out the SCG Houston 5k results when they go up, guys. *flex*

[lordofthepit]

Just a heads up, check out the SCG Houston 5k results when they go up, guys. *flex*

I assume that's you? Congrats!

[kombatkiwi]

1st Place at StarCityGames.com Premier IQ on 2/15/2015

4 Baleful Strix
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Vendilion Clique

Lands (20)
1 Forest
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs

Spells (22)
4 Food Chain
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
1 Dimir Charm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Manipulate Fate

Sideboard
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
3 Duress

[nevilshute]

Awesome Kiwi!

Many congratulations. How did the Dimir Charm perform? I'm running the 4th decay in that slot)

I've been playing a list very similar to yours lately. A thing I'd like to touch on though is how, lately, I've been getting punished by my basic lands. I've been running one of each and then the last few outings just a forest and an island. Running so many Bx spells (I run 4 strix and 4 decay) having an opening hand with a basic in it is usually not great. In fact, I only really find them good against the odd Blood Moon deck, and I don't think we should be building our deck with that deck in mind specifically.

So yeah I'm seriously considering cutting the basics and just going full retard on duals and fetches. I don't think playing 2 basics in a 3-color deck with a lot of dual colored spells will protect you against wastelands. Most of the time it will just make you worse against wastelands as having a basic and a dual out and wasted = cry.

What do ya'll think?

PS: going to have a look at updating the primer one of these days. Will probably be an ongoing process for while. The current primer is very combo centric and does not really encompass the grind part of the deck in a satisfactory way.

[kombatkiwi]

Oh I just copied the list from the SCG website, it's not mine
I agree that Dimir Charm seems pretty odd

WRT to basics I think Gerry T made a good argument against playing basics in his Shardless Bug primer last year (similar kind of 3-colour quite colour-intensive deck with DRS)


The Mana Base

Most people seem to take offense at my use of two Wasteland, one or two Creeping Tar Pit, and no basic land. I would prefer to not play Wasteland, but it's the best out to something like Maze of Ith, Creeping Tar Pit, and Grove of the Burnwillows. It's rare that I use my Wasteland aggressively, as your land in play is generally more important to you than theirs is for them. I basically use it to kill utility lands and that's it.

Creeping Tar Pit is a fine card, especially for fighting planeswalkers and control decks. If you want to play 23 land, I'd recommend a second Creeping Tar Pit, but as is, 22 land with Creeping Tar Pit is where I'm going to stay for now.

Some say that basic lands fight cards like Wasteland, Back to Basics, and Blood Moon, but that's not entirely true. If you have a two-lander against RUG Delver, you fetch a basic and a dual, and they Wasteland you, you are more mana screwed than if you had simply fetched two duals. If you fetched two basics, you'd be mana screwed even in the face of a Wasteland.

Against Blood Moon and Back to Basics, the same principle applies, as you don't have nearly enough basics to fight those cards. A reconfiguration of the deck could be used to fight those cards, but if you plan on playing Hymn to Tourach (and you should), then it's nearly impossible.

There is some merit to Swamp, Deathrite Shaman fighting those cards, but do you really need the Swamp in those scenarios?

A difference is that this deck isn't trying to play cards that cost BB but a similar line of thought probably applies

[litenkatt]

OK im gonna build this deck. It just looks too awesome.

However, looking at the list that won the SCG I don't quite understand how he actually wins. I guess by casting a huge genesis hydra, but why not just play an emrakul?

[kombatkiwi]

OK im gonna build this deck. It just looks too awesome.

However, looking at the list that won the SCG I don't quite understand how he actually wins. I guess by casting a huge genesis hydra, but why not just play an emrakul?

You cast a genesis hydra for X = 100 and go through your whole deck to find Tidespout Tyrant. You keep looping the Griffins in and out of exile to get Tyrant triggers to bounce all your opponent's permanents. You can use Tyrant triggers to rebuy the Hydra and find any permanent in your deck. If you're playing Vendilion Clique you can find that to leave your opponent with a hand full of lands in addition to having no permanents in play, and also clique yourself into drawing some Force of Wills to stop whatever your opponent can do with 1 land drop and 1 topdeck. With the list just posted (no Clique) you can still load up on Forces by drawing your deck through bouncing Baleful Strix a bunch of times.

If your opponent has a Swords to Plowshares or other instant speed removal in hand when your Tyrant resolves then it might be better to find an Emrakul with the Hydra, but if you put it into play with the trigger you don't get the extra turn and this doesn't disrupt the opponent at all, there are plenty of decks in legacy that can shrug at your 15/15 and just untap and kill you.

Even if your Tyrant is about to get Terminated then you can counter that with a Force or cast any instant in response to get a Tyrant trigger and bounce itself (you still have infinite mana so you can just replay it again).

If you play Emrakul AND Tyrant you can use Tyrant to bounce the Emrakul you found from the Hydra trigger and then replay it from your hand for the extra turn, but in the last few pages the thread kind of reached the consensus that this is overkill and isn't worth wasting a slot on an uncastable card.

There are a bunch of other possible kill cards/combinations but this "gets the job done" and only takes up 3 slots in the deck (2 Hydra 1 Tyrant). You could certainly argue that Hydra is crap without infinite mana and that you might as well have an Emrakul or something else in these slots, but I haven't played the deck much. I'm sure more experienced pilots can say how good the card is just casting it normally. In theory you can set up the top of your deck with Brainstorm and then cast it with X = 3 for uncounterable Food Chain, as well as just getting Strix or DRS for a value play.

Also even without the combo kill there are a lot of decks that can't realistically beat infinite recurring griffins

[nevilshute]

Moving from Emrakul to Tidepout Tyrant is bound to the decision to leave Fierce Empath behind in favor of Genesis Hydra. With Empath, we got to find Emrakul and cast him triggering the extra turn and in a very high percentage of the time meaning a win.

The problem with the Empath is just how bad of a card it is on its own. When you don't have a Food Chain out it just gets to sit in your hand until you do. A 1/1 for 3 is just horrible. The Hydra will sometimes just sit there as a dead card but even cast for X = 2 (not recommended most times) can be infinitely more valuable than the empath if you can hit a strix or deathrite. Even without hitting you still get a 2/2, 3/3 or 4/4 most of the time which your opponent can't just ignore.

Having moved to the hydra it means we no longer get the extra turn from emrakul and that means that both Emrakul and Tyrant both give your opponent another turn to live in. With that being the case it becomes a toss up over what is actually best once in play. Emrakul doesn't get hit by a swords to plowshares which is pretty big. But then Emrakul will get bounced by jace. Emrakul also doesn't handle stuff like Ensnaring Bridge.

More importantly, perhaps, is to look at which card is best (or, actually, worst) before we get them into play (aka, before we go infinite). Here, Emrakul is the loser in all but one situation, namely when getting milled by Grindstone. In all other cases (readies himself to be told about the cases he didn't consider), being 8 mana CMC and blue means Tyrant is leaps and bounds infront of his 15mana CMC, colorless cousin. Back when playing with Emrakul, there are few worse things to stare down in your opening hand than Emrakul, it often feels like an effective mull to six.

[yugular]

Nevilshute, did I just play against you in modo? I was playing Esper Thoptersword and lost 2-0.

Never played against this deck before and had to look how it's build. Great primer! Though I have questions. What are the cards that you are afraid after sideboarding?

[Obould]

Never played against this deck before and had to look how it's build. Great primer! Though I have questions. What are the cards that you are afraid after sideboarding?

Hello fellow finnish player! If I have to choose one card that I think is quite hard to deal with, it is Humility. Last time I had one Krosan grip in sideboard if I need to deal with that.

[Esper3k]

Yup, that was me that won it :)

To address a few questions:

So as you can tell, my list is almost exactly like Jonathan Job's list from GP New Jersey (1 card different in the maindeck, a few sideboard changes). He's generally regarded as the expert on this deck and being relatively new to the deck, I always believe it's best to follow experts until I've played the deck enough to get a more educated opinion on it.

Re: Dimir Charm - I always felt like the Emrakul was an overkill. The beauty of Genesis Hydra is that it allows you to minimize the cards that are terrible without going Food Chain infinite. With only 1 Tidespout Tyrant, you are now down to just 1 card that's bad. As kombatkiwi pointed out, once you've gone full combo, you can just repeatedly bounce Clique until they have only lands, then stack your own hand with Strixes. I'm willing to take the risk that my opponent can't win with no board / 1 land drop. In all fairness, I will say that I have actually lost before to a TNN when I was at 3 life, but I feel the benefit of not drawing a dead Emrakul has paid off more over the long term.

So back to Dimir Charm. I was experimenting with different cards in that 1 slot (Misdirection, Spell Pierce) and was looking for something to help with the combo matchup (fast combo can be difficult, in my experience). I've previously played Envelop in the sideboard of my BUG Delver lists and looked at Dimir Charm again and decided to give it a try (if you're playing this deck anyways, you've got to have a love for bad cards!). Dimir Charm has been pretty solid for me. The removal aspect kills almost anything small in Legacy with the sadly notable exception of an Insectile Aberration. Still, being able to kill a DRS, unflipped Delver, Dark Confidant, etc. is nothing to sneeze at. The Envelop mode gets a lot of play and does the most work for me, countering all the tutors of the Storm decks as well as countering Miracles (which can be a very tricky matchup). Sadly, you'll almost never get to use the third mode, so I can only say the card has been solid, not amazing. I could definitely see playing the 4th Abrupt Decay in the slot, which also frees up another spot in your sideboard.

Re: Basic Lands: At least for me, I'm sold on Basics. Blood Moon and Burn are real threats to BUG decks. Every single match vs Burn that I won, I would've handily lost without basics due to PoP just wrecking you. Generally vs burn, I will just try and get out all 3 basics (if I can - the list runs 10 fetches, so it's actually not as hard as you think), play a fetch land, then never play anymore lands the rest of the game until I absolutely have to. Vs Blood Moon, just fetching a basic Swamp or Forest (I actually hate the Forest the most in the deck) can often be enough since we have DRS/Hierarch/BoP. Even against the Wasteland decks, I find that getting a basic Island out is very strong since our cantrips and 2 mana spells just cost 1 blue mana. Get out the Swamp and now you can start cycling with Strixes and Manipulate Fate to look for more lands.

@litenkatt: The way I actually win most games is not full comboing (Hydra + Tyrant) out, but actually just grinding out opponents. I usually play the control role until I can try and resolve a Manipulate Fate. Doing a mini-combo with Food Chain to cast all your exiled Griffins then is usually too much for most decks to handle. Even without Food Chain, as long as you've stabilized the board, you can go onto the "cast a Griffin every turn" plan until your opponent dies.

[nevilshute]

Nevilshute, did I just play against you in modo? I was playing Esper Thoptersword and lost 2-0.

Never played against this deck before and had to look how it's build. Great primer! Though I have questions. What are the cards that you are afraid after sideboarding?

Heya Yug, yeah that was me :smile:

Would say that of specific cards to fear, like it was mentioned already, Humility is quite difficult to beat. Though with Food Chain up you can still exile and play your griffins from exile. So they need to be doing something else as well, but yeah, that card is hard to beat.

Other than that I'd say that, over all, delver decks with access to red can be quite the pain. Bolts are effective against us as are pyroblasts/red blasts. Pure tempo strategies with stifle/waste/daze can be problematic as well imo.

[yugular]

Heya Yug, yeah that was me :smile:

Thanks for the reply! The lines you took in the game showcased that you have played the deck and become a competent pilot. Unlike my terrible play with the deck that I have played less than 10 times. :)

[jedi_gof]

Grats on the win, well done mate!

Key to the current agreed upon list (minus a few tweeks) is to no longer consider us a combo deck as such, bug a bug control that gives up a few control elements to have that boom i win factor.
Turns out max 40% of the wins are from pure bounce wins, most often you just out grind or out value your opponents.
Many times you can stabilise quite easily against fair decks and draw out their answers until you assemble the combo or have the griffins online.

Agree that manadenial/tempo decks along with red decks can be trouble some, along with combo. So thats where the emphasis in our board must be.

I am like Nevilshute on the basics screw us more than they gain us at the moment, but the jury is still out on that call as i have only 1 tourney without basics under the belt and that went horrendously! Not due to lands but to my deck screwing me over :D

The deck is gaining enough traction unfortunately that the amount of free wins are diminishing drastically in our local meta. This has always been a key factor in the performances I think, because when you on average can collect 1 free win on opp. not understanding your deck or what to fight, your odds of top 4/8ing with a deck close to T1 drastically increases.

[Esper3k]

Grats on the win, well done mate!

Key to the current agreed upon list (minus a few tweeks) is to no longer consider us a combo deck as such, bug a bug control that gives up a few control elements to have that boom i win factor.
Turns out max 40% of the wins are from pure bounce wins, most often you just out grind or out value your opponents.
Many times you can stabilise quite easily against fair decks and draw out their answers until you assemble the combo or have the griffins online.

Agree that manadenial/tempo decks along with red decks can be trouble some, along with combo. So thats where the emphasis in our board must be.

I am like Nevilshute on the basics screw us more than they gain us at the moment, but the jury is still out on that call as i have only 1 tourney without basics under the belt and that went horrendously! Not due to lands but to my deck screwing me over :D

The deck is gaining enough traction unfortunately that the amount of free wins are diminishing drastically in our local meta. This has always been a key factor in the performances I think, because when you on average can collect 1 free win on opp. not understanding your deck or what to fight, your odds of top 4/8ing with a deck close to T1 drastically increases.

Thanks!

I agree with most of the above post (other than than the part about the basics, but I think that can be a meta call).

I think the correct way to view the deck is as a midrange/control deck first that has a combo kill option. Control/Combo, if you will.

RUG was my only loss in the Swiss and I just got RUG'd hard with no lube. It was brutal, heh.

I'm curious if this deck picks up steam/popularity, how things will go. I definitely picked up a few wins yesterday over my opponents not knowing how the deck worked (Pithing Needle on Food Chain? Snap let it resolve! StP Griffin? Sure thing!) before it was too late. We look very similar to Shardless BUG early on, so it can be deceptive (other BG decks tap out so don't have Abrupt Decay mana up thinking they're safe) and we kill them out of nowhere.

On the other hand, I think even if your opponent knows what you're on, it's still difficult to sideboard properly against the deck since things that are good against both gameplans (grinding you out vs comboing out) are rare.

[litenkatt]

Congrats Esper3k!

What other decks did you face during the swiss and top8? Is there any deck in particular that's very hard for us?

[Esper3k]

Congrats Esper3k!

What other decks did you face during the swiss and top8? Is there any deck in particular that's very hard for us?


I played against:

R1: Esper Stoneblade (with Lingering Souls - haven't faced that in a long time!). W 2-0
R2: Shardless BUG. W 2-0
R3: RUG Delver. L 0-2
R4: Burn. W 2-1
R5: BUG Delver (Looked like Jim Davis' list). W 2-1
R6: UG Cloudpost. W 2-0
R7: UWr Stoneblade. W 2-0
R8: ID

T8: UWR Delver. W 2-0
T4: Opponent conceded. We split in the T4 and my opponent didn't care about the points or plaque. This one would've been rough because he was on AnT.
T2: UWr Miracles. W 2-1

I'll have a tournament report up in a few days if anyone is interested in a more in depth recap.

I think Burn and fast combo are tough matchups. RUG Delver is also tougher than the other Delver decks because of how fast and disruptive they can be. Stifle + Wasteland + Daze + cheap removal + potentially fast clock = problem.

I consider other grindy or midrange decks as positive matchups for us. We have plenty of card advantage as well but we also have the combo kill option that they have to worry about.

[Holden1669]

Congrats on the great finish. I haven't played this deck in a few months. The last time was blue-green with Shardless but BUG does seem strong. I tried a BUG build over a year ago but I there was too much awkwardness (read: Fierce Empath) and prioritized combo over value. This makes me want to pick Food Chain back up again.

[Esper3k]

Congrats on the great finish. I haven't played this deck in a few months. The last time was blue-green with Shardless but BUG does seem strong. I tried a BUG build over a year ago but I there was too much awkwardness (read: Fierce Empath) and prioritized combo over value. This makes me want to pick Food Chain back up again.

Thanks! I had goldfished the deck years ago when it was still running Empath, Aethersnipe, etc but Genesis Hydra and Dig Through Time are two great additions that seem to allow the deck to streamline the combo and gain some serious card quality.

[ivanpei]

Congrats on the win! I find it infinitely hilarious that beating midrange decks with Misthollow Griffins is a thing! I would love making people rage that they are losing to a jank creature!

I'm extremely intrigued and may pick up this deck due to the lol factor. Great job and solid list. This deck bears some resemblance to Vengevine survival where you can either combo kill someone or grind them out with Vengevines. Of course Survival is a bloody 1 card combo while Misthollow, Food Chain and Hydra is a 3 card combo. The similarities are there though.

[Esper3k]

There is a particular lol/troll factor that you have to love when playing a deck like this. It was also particularly satisfying to actually do well with a terrible card that I love (I have a strange lust for Misthollow Griffin - you should see some of the other terrible brews I've tried with it).

What's funny is that Misthollow Griffin is actually a pretty sweet creature in Legacy once you can start casting it. Removalwise, it dodges Abrupt Decay and you just lol when it gets StP'd. You only have to worry about Lightning Bolt but you have a good number of ways to exile it out of your yard. I even played the 2 Relics in the board as ways to mess with Tarmogoyf / DRS decks + additional way to recur Griffins.

It's pretty amusing how if you can survive Tarmogoyfs, green Delver decks have a real problem dealing with you casting a Phantom Monster (or 3) every turn.

[nevilshute]

There is a particular lol/troll factor that you have to love when playing a deck like this. It was also particularly satisfying to actually do well with a terrible card that I love (I have a strange lust for Misthollow Griffin - you should see some of the other terrible brews I've tried with it).

What's funny is that Misthollow Griffin is actually a pretty sweet creature in Legacy once you can start casting it. Removalwise, it dodges Abrupt Decay and you just lol when it gets StP'd. You only have to worry about Lightning Bolt but you have a good number of ways to exile it out of your yard. I even played the 2 Relics in the board as ways to mess with Tarmogoyf / DRS decks + additional way to recur Griffins.

It's pretty amusing how if you can survive Tarmogoyfs, green Delver decks have a real problem dealing with you casting a Phantom Monster (or 3) every turn.

Totally echoes my sentiments. I think Misthollow Griffin is one of the biggest winners to go unnoticed as all the delve cards have hit us. Combined with Deathrite it makes for a somewhat more reliable way of recycling griffins out of the yard. It also means that if they counter a Dig that delved out a griffin they are still down a card.

By the way, after I loaded up on my 4th main deck decay as well as a 5th removal spell (currently playing - and liking - a singleton Murderous Cut) the BUG delver matchup has become a lot more managable. Not at all a walk in the park but I'd say 50/50 or there abouts. I bring in 2x Disfigure after board and prepare to get into deep grind-territory. Dig Through Time is a house in this matchup too.

[litenkatt]

Bought the cards I was missing just a moment ago, to build this deck. I don't expect to do well with the deck, but hopefully I'll be having fun. I've really grown tired of the delver decks that I usually play. And I like midrange decks alot, and this one even has a combo built in it. Can't ask for much more.

Oh and, somebody mind explaining exaclty what's going on in the food chain illustration?

[Esper3k]

I assume it's those worms bursting out of the corpse of someone ie, going up the food chain?

Dunno, old MTG are is weird...

[Echelon]

I assume it's those worms bursting out of the corpse of someone ie, going up the food chain?

Dunno, old MTG are is weird...

Insects consuming a corpse is exactly what the card entitles - a part of the natural food chain. The art could just have well depicted a bird eating one of the worms, a cat eating the bird and so on. In the case of the card the worms are eating the cat b/c it choked on the bird...

[Esper3k]

Tournament report is up!

http://mtgbazaar-teamz.blogspot.com/2015/02/scg-houston-february-15-2015-legacy.html

[anwei]

Sideboard reasoning super helpful.

Is boarding out hydras+tyrant for grinch matches common?

[Esper3k]

Sideboard reasoning super helpful.

Is boarding out hydras+tyrant for grinch matches common?

No idea but I've found that it generally works for me.

I tend to board it out in matchups where Food Chain can get dealt with more easily (ie, Delver matchups or decks with Abrupt Decay) so that I'm stuck with less dead cards in case Food Chain doesn't get online. If it does, flooding the board with Griffins usually overwhelms most decks.

[litenkatt]

No idea but I've found that it generally works for me.

I tend to board it out in matchups where Food Chain can get dealt with more easily (ie, Delver matchups or decks with Abrupt Decay) so that I'm stuck with less dead cards in case Food Chain doesn't get online. If it does, flooding the board with Griffins usually overwhelms most decks.

Great report! Appreciate it a lot.

Any changes you'd make to the deck?

[Esper3k]

Great report! Appreciate it a lot.

Any changes you'd make to the deck?

I'm pretty happy with the maindeck - I might keep experimenting with the Dimir Charm slot. Of course, I will keep tweaking the sideboard too but I was decently happy with all the cards in there.

One thing I do want to try that Joe Lossett actually suggested to me at the 5K was using Vela, the Night-Clad in the Tidespout Tyrant slot, which seemed super interesting to me.

The pros with Vela are that you get to instantly win as well as she's actually castable without Food Chain.

The cons that I could see are that you get shut down by Rule of Law / Canonist effects (with Tidespout you could conceivably bounce it the next turn and go off) as well as she can't protect herself the way Tidespout can (having an Instant in your hand protects him from removal).

[nevilshute]

You know what, I really think Vela is the right call with the current constellation of the deck. Winning on the same turn instead of having to ship the turn (albeit with your opponent without non-shroud/hextproof/TNN permanents) is a major advantage.

It's funny, it was tauted around a good while back, like a year or more, but was dismissed (at least by me). This was when Fierce Empath was a main stay of the deck.

If we hold Vela up against Tyrant when does Tyrant actually come up ahead? Only cases I can think of, off the top of my head, are (very far out) corner cases of your opponent having a Platinum Angel or a similar effect in play.

I'll definitely try switching from tyrant to vela

[jedi_gof]

Im not 100 percent Vela is better. Against E. Canonist/rule of law effects it is very poor. While this is only a problem post board, i am not positive it beats out the tyrant for me yet.
But am keeping an open mind, and let me know how testing of the Vela goes compared to tyrant.

Pros:
Wins on the spot
Easylier cast /lower CC

Cons:
Poor against rule of law effects.
Cant bounce various of the wall must answer cards
Worse card to have in play in a vacuum without FC engine online.
Cant save itself or other pieces by bouncing like the tyrant (if they are saving stp, you cant respond and bounce it)

The pros are very good indeed, but do they outweigh the negatives? Jurys out so try it and let us know :)

[nevilshute]

Im not 100 percent Vela is better. Against E. Canonist/rule of law effects it is very poor. While this is only a problem post board, i am not positive it beats out the tyrant for me yet.
But am keeping an open mind, and let me know how testing of the Vela goes compared to tyrant.

Pros:
Wins on the spot
Easylier cast /lower CC

Cons:
Poor against rule of law effects.
Cant bounce various of the wall must answer cards
Worse card to have in play in a vacuum without FC engine online.
Cant save itself or other pieces by bouncing like the tyrant (if they are saving stp, you cant respond and bounce it)

The pros are very good indeed, but do they outweigh the negatives? Jurys out so try it and let us know :)

Heya Chris. I agree with your overall assessment but would like to argue, that the "poor against Rule of Law effects" is close to irrelevant. If your opponent has a Rule of Law, Ethersworn Canonist or something similar and Vela is Tyrant then in the vast majority of cases we will be in the same situation: namely with our win con stuck in hand or in the library due to not being able to generate mana to cast it or cast hydra to find it. The situation where we are benefiting from Tyrant over Vela is after we have generated :u::u::u::5: to cast the Tyrant without casting any other spell that turn. Then pass the turn, not die or have Food Chain or Tyrant removed (okay, with an instant in hand and mana to cast it here we could save either) and then go nuts the following turn.

I think that is going to be relevant an exceptionally little amount time.

Saving the the tyrant with a brainstorm or some other instant spell from an StP is, to me, the biggest upside of Tyrant over Vela, but does that outweigh winning on the spot instead of passing the turn? I will test, but am fairly optimistic about Vela at this point.

[jedi_gof]

Heya Chris. I agree with your overall assessment but would like to argue, that the "poor against Rule of Law effects" is close to irrelevant. If your opponent has a Rule of Law, Ethersworn Canonist or something similar and Vela is Tyrant then in the vast majority of cases we will be in the same situation: namely with our win con stuck in hand or in the library due to not being able to generate mana to cast it or cast hydra to find it. The situation where we are benefiting from Tyrant over Vela is after we have generated :u::u::u::5: to cast the Tyrant without casting any other spell that turn. Then pass the turn, not die or have Food Chain or Tyrant removed (okay, with an instant in hand and mana to cast it here we could save either) and then go nuts the following turn.

I think that is going to be relevant an exceptionally little amount time.

Saving the the tyrant with a brainstorm or some other instant spell from an StP is, to me, the biggest upside of Tyrant over Vela, but does that outweigh winning on the spot instead of passing the turn? I will test, but am fairly optimistic about Vela at this point.

If you are stock against a rule of law effect but otherwise have you engine online, all you need are 3 colorless mana most likely as you can remove a for example an griff to cast it. So manawise I dont see the bottle neck neccesarily in the scenerio. Since we are talking post board games, I for example have relics, needles and null rods among my options. So in a nonzero amount of time against the canonist you can insta win by bouncing the board. Still a very specific situation, but still.

My point is, that if i can get 1 activation out of my win con, the tyrant wins by a large margin. But is that enough reason to persist with the higher cc solution? Donno yet.

[grokh]

Hi,

I played the deck again yesterday evening in a local tournament, finished at 2-2 :
Lose 1-2 against mono-R deck land destruction/blood moon/red titan etc ... (home-made deck of a friend)
Win 2-0 against Affinity
Win 2-1 against Dredge
Lose 0-2 against Miracles

I played Emrakul, the Aeons torn and Tidespout tyrant on the wincons.

And i'm arrived to some conclusions :

1) Emrakul, the Aeons torn is really too heavy to cast without Food chain, just a dead sleeve ...

2) Tidespout tyrant is very good, but having :5::u::u::u: without Food chain is just impossible too

So i think removing Emrakul, the aeons torn for including a Purphoros, god of the Forge as a wincon.

Why Purphoros, god of the Forge and not Vela the night-clad ?

Purphoros, god of the Forge is just :3::r:, it's easy to have :r: with Birds of paradise/Deathrite shaman or with the Food chain mana.

Vela the night-clad is :4::u::b: and it's too heavy to cast without Food chain and if you have Vela but not the Food chain + Misthollow griffin combo, it's just a 4/4 vanilla which will need to be protected from removals.

Purphoros, god of the Forge, when on board, even without Food chain + Misthollow griffin is very hard to deal with cos it's a non-creature enchantment indestructible so he does'nt need to be protected and he can pump our Misthollow griffin if we have resolved a manipulate fate for the aggro griffin plan

[Esper3k]

You know what, I really think Vela is the right call with the current constellation of the deck. Winning on the same turn instead of having to ship the turn (albeit with your opponent without non-shroud/hextproof/TNN permanents) is a major advantage.

It's funny, it was tauted around a good while back, like a year or more, but was dismissed (at least by me). This was when Fierce Empath was a main stay of the deck.

If we hold Vela up against Tyrant when does Tyrant actually come up ahead? Only cases I can think of, off the top of my head, are (very far out) corner cases of your opponent having a Platinum Angel or a similar effect in play.

I'll definitely try switching from tyrant to vela

Thanks for bringing up the Platinum Angel / Emperion scenerio as well! I have been trying to think other situations where Vela is worse and that's one I missed (one good thing about drawing more attention to the deck is having more people involved and generating more discussion again).

For me, I think generally it comes down to mainly do the benefits of Vela actually being castable without Food Chain (6 vs 8 mana is huge) outweigh the benefits we gain from playing Tidespout (potentially getting around Rule of Law effects, protecting itself if you have an instant, bouncing problematic permanents like Platinum Angel / Emperion)?

In my experience, I've only run across the scenario where I died to a TNN when < 3 life once. Other Hexproof / Shroud guys don't really matter since if we've gone infinite, we minimally have Tidespout + a Griffin and they can block pretty much any non-TNN Hexproof / Shroud creatures in the format (let me know if I'm missing anything relevant!).

I'd definitely like to give Vela a try though and see how I feel about her but her 4UB cost is very attractive to me - winning on the spot is just an added bonus.

[Esper3k]

Oh, this pro for the Tidespout was just pointed out to me as well:

It's way better to drop off of Show & Tell than Vela is, especially if your opponent dropped an Emrakul or Sneak Attack (and didn't have the mana to activate it). This case might be the most relevant to me out of the Pros for it that we've talked about so far.

[nevilshute]

Oh, this pro for the Tidespout was just pointed out to me as well:

It's way better to drop off of Show & Tell than Vela is, especially if your opponent dropped an Emrakul or Sneak Attack (and didn't have the mana to activate it). This case might be the most relevant to me out of the Pros for it that we've talked about so far.

That is a good point. Seems like it would be relevant more often against Sneak and Show than against Omni, but in eiher case Vela is useless here.

Shroud/Hexproof might be moot, but TNN definitely isn't. I've definitely lost to my opponent having a TNN resolved and me being at 3 life.

[Esper3k]

That is a good point. Seems like it would be relevant more often against Sneak and Show than against Omni, but in eiher case Vela is useless here.

Shroud/Hexproof might be moot, but TNN definitely isn't. I've definitely lost to my opponent having a TNN resolved and me being at 3 life.

Even against Omnitell, if you have an instant in your hand, you can bounce Omniscience in response to whatever first spell they cast and just wreck them. Of course having Tidespout in your hand vs Show & Tell is a corner case again, but that's mainly what we're talking about in the Vela vs Tidespout discussion.

Vela's biggest selling point to me is what I think is probably the most common situation of drawing her and not having Food Chain active where you actually have a decent chance of being able to cast her (whereas you'll almost never cast Tidespout without Food Chain).

Yeah, I've died to the TNN / 3 life one before as well but it's only happened once so far, so it's been pretty much a corner case for me.

[kkoie]

That is a good point. Seems like it would be relevant more often against Sneak and Show than against Omni, but in eiher case Vela is useless here.


I did win a game a few weeks ago against omni tell, where my opponent cast show and tell, I attempted to force it, he countered my force with pact of negation. Show and Tell resolved, he put omnitell in play, I put Tyrant in play. With Enter the Infinite on the stack, I cast an abrupt decay targeting my deathrite shaman to bounce his omnitelll. He lost during his next upkeep because he didn't have enough mana in play to pay for pact of negation. Granted everything had to fall in place exactly as it did for this to turn in my favor, but Vela would've done nothing for me in this case.

[anwei]

2nding the notion that Purphoros is better than Vela. Dodging removal is a really big deal. It's a pretty serious upgrade to Tyrant in this regard.

Edit: There's also the option of including 2 Hydra, 1 Tyrant, and a (probably boarded) 4th slot, of better grindy value, that prevents something like the TNN issue or other corner cases. A single Kitchen Finks (or Obstinate Baaloth?) provides infinite life with full-combo, without being a dead draw in non-combo games. I could see boarding a single Finks for burn/aggro matches, then boarding it in for TNN/Progenitus?

[maCHOOga]

Tournament report is up!

http://mtgbazaar-teamz.blogspot.com/2015/02/scg-houston-february-15-2015-legacy.html

Thanks for the report. This is one of my two "Plan B" decks in Legacy and I was beginning to thought that it completely disappeared. You've encouraged me to sleeve it up again when I need a break from hard casting Eldrazi's w/o a Food chain in play. :-D

[Esper3k]

Edit: There's also the option of including 2 Hydra, 1 Tyrant, and a (probably boarded) 4th slot, of better grindy value, that prevents something like the TNN issue or other corner cases. A single Kitchen Finks (or Obstinate Baaloth?) provides infinite life with full-combo, without being a dead draw in non-combo games. I could see boarding a single Finks for burn/aggro matches, then boarding it in for TNN/Progenitus?

Yeah Finks and Baloth seem pretty sweet. Baloth is particularly interesting to me because it also is very good against the BUG decks. Plus, I think I have a Japanese foil one lying around here somewhere. We have standards to maintain :)

[Esper3k]

Thanks for the report. This is one of my two "Plan B" decks in Legacy and I was beginning to thought that it completely disappeared. You've encouraged me to sleeve it up again when I need a break from hard casting Eldrazi's w/o a Food chain in play. :-D

No problem! I think the deck really got a shot in the arm with Genesis Hydra and then Dig Through Time. How it continues to do in the future, who knows, but at least we're getting some discussion going again on it.

[nevilshute]

2nding the notion that Purphoros is better than Vela. Dodging removal is a really big deal. It's a pretty serious upgrade to Tyrant in this regard.

Edit: There's also the option of including 2 Hydra, 1 Tyrant, and a (probably boarded) 4th slot, of better grindy value, that prevents something like the TNN issue or other corner cases. A single Kitchen Finks (or Obstinate Baaloth?) provides infinite life with full-combo, without being a dead draw in non-combo games. I could see boarding a single Finks for burn/aggro matches, then boarding it in for TNN/Progenitus?

Not to be a nay sayer, but Purphoros isn't blue and also deals dmg whereas Vela makes opponents lose life. I can dig that dodging removal is a big deal though.

[jedi_gof]

I knew i forgot something in the pro/cons - the S&T factor.
For me that settles it for now, I will remain on the tyrant plan!
The upside of this plan is bigger in my opinion than what i have heard from Vela, and the red god which is not very good...

[grokh]

Not to be a nay sayer, but Purphoros isn't blue and also deals dmg whereas Vela makes opponents lose life. I can dig that dodging removal is a big deal though.

Just consider the following situations :

1) You got no Food chain on board and you got Manipulate fate and Purphoros, god of the Forge in hand

You can play Purphoros, God of the Forge, cos you know he'll stay on board forever, and he'll trick later when your Misthollow griffin will enter on battlefield, after playing Manipulate fate

If you played Vela the night-clad instead, you'll not play her cos she'll be exposed to removal and do absolutely nothing even if you play MF cos Vela the night-clad triggers when creatures leave the battlefield.

2) You got Food chain on board and the infini-Griffin combo, you play Vela the night-clad, opponent plays a Swords to plowshares on Vela in resp to your 1st Griffin ... :cry:

3) You got Purphoros, God of the Forge, Food chain, and Misthollow griffin, opponent plays Terminus, you can save Griffins and Purphoros, God of the Forge is STILL HERE, and Food chain will have saved Griffins. If you had a Vela the night-clad, you can do nothing.

If the main issue with Purphoros, God of the Forge is not being blue, you can try :

- Keranos, God of Storms which can be a good kill too and IS BLUE.

- Thassa, God of the Sea IS BLUE, cheap ( :2::u: ), is often a creature with Misthollow griffin providing devotion to :u:, and Scry 1 every turn.
It'll be a 5/5 Indestructible creature potentially unblockable and you can protect her by exiling Misthollow griffin with Food chain for reducing devotion to :u: and stop her being a creature so the removal fizzle !

Give me your advices on all of my points !

Thanks

[jedi_gof]

Problem is with all alternatives to tyrant imo so far:
If your chain of spells gets disrupted, your use is basically none of the triggers. Tyrant will get one good trigger, whereas deal 2 / lose 1 life is largely irrellevant compared to a bounce.

Regarding Keranos and Thassa - sorry they seem way worse than porphuros and vela.

[dog_koko]

Just consider the following situations :

1) You got no Food chain on board and you got Manipulate fate and Purphoros, god of the Forge in hand

You can play Purphoros, God of the Forge, cos you know he'll stay on board forever, and he'll trick later when your Misthollow griffin will enter on battlefield, after playing Manipulate fate

If you played Vela the night-clad instead, you'll not play her cos she'll be exposed to removal and do absolutely nothing even if you play MF cos Vela the night-clad triggers when creatures leave the battlefield.

2) You got Food chain on board and the infini-Griffin combo, you play Vela the night-clad, opponent plays a Swords to plowshares on Vela in resp to your 1st Griffin ... :cry:

3) You got Purphoros, God of the Forge, Food chain, and Misthollow griffin, opponent plays Terminus, you can save Griffins and Purphoros, God of the Forge is STILL HERE, and Food chain will have saved Griffins. If you had a Vela the night-clad, you can do nothing.

If the main issue with Purphoros, God of the Forge is not being blue, you can try :

- Keranos, God of Storms which can be a good kill too and IS BLUE.

- Thassa, God of the Sea IS BLUE, cheap ( :2::u: ), is often a creature with Misthollow griffin providing devotion to :u:, and Scry 1 every turn.
It'll be a 5/5 Indestructible creature potentially unblockable and you can protect her by exiling Misthollow griffin with Food chain for reducing devotion to :u: and stop her being a creature so the removal fizzle !

Give me your advices on all of my points !

Thanks

Purphoros, God of the Forge won't be there after a Terminus and he would be exiled by Swords to plowshares

[anwei]

Purphoros, God of the Forge won't be there after a Terminus and he would be exiled by Swords to plowshares

Not a creature unless you're packing more red cards..

[dog_koko]

Not a creature unless you're packing more red cards..

Uhm, not bad but I still prefer Tyrant :D

[grokh]

Problem is with all alternatives to tyrant imo so far:
If your chain of spells gets disrupted, your use is basically none of the triggers. Tyrant will get one good trigger, whereas deal 2 / lose 1 life is largely irrellevant compared to a bounce.

Regarding Keranos and Thassa - sorry they seem way worse than porphuros and vela.

If your opponent wants to disrupt your chain of spells he'll disrupt before you can go infinite so you'll be obliged to pay :5::u::u::u: for getting your Tidespout tyrant into play, and believe me without infinite mana from Food chain it's nearly impossible.

And in this case, if you got Purphoros, God of the Forge instead, it's way easier to get :3::r: than :5::u::u::u:

[Esper3k]

If your opponent wants to disrupt your chain of spells he'll disrupt before you can go infinite so you'll be obliged to pay :5::u::u::u: for getting your Tidespout tyrant into play, and believe me without infinite mana from Food chain it's nearly impossible.

And in this case, if you got Purphoros, God of the Forge instead, it's way easier to get :3::r: than :5::u::u::u:

My problem with Purphoros isn't that him being red requires us to play some red lands in the deck if you're playing the BUG version, which I'm not a fan of stretching the manabase further for. I agree he's better than Vela if you can get him down, but the red mana requirement alone is a non-starter for me (at least in the BUG version).

[jedi_gof]

If your opponent wants to disrupt your chain of spells he'll disrupt before you can go infinite so you'll be obliged to pay :5::u::u::u: for getting your Tidespout tyrant into play, and believe me without infinite mana from Food chain it's nearly impossible.

And in this case, if you got Purphoros, God of the Forge instead, it's way easier to get :3::r: than :5::u::u::u:

Food chain even without a griff will go along way towards your 8 mana. A strix for example + food chain is 3 of the 8, i doubt it is gonna be impossible to get to 5 from other ways. Not saying its optimal, but 5-6 dorks in the deck + foodchain = not mission impossible!

[cdalmost]

Just went 2-2 in a Legacy FNM.

1-0 vs. Miracles
2-0 vs. Replenish Enchantress
0-2 vs. Painter's Servant
2-1 vs. BUG Delver

I was playing a sub-optimal mana base with 6 non-Misty blue fetches because I own no Misty Rainforests nor Verdent Catacombs, and subbed an extra Bayou for a basic forest so that I could fetch more green with a Delta if needed.

Match 1 was a grind. He got Jace online but I had a Deathrite doing work draining some life and exiling a lone Griffin that got countered twice and blocked once by a Clique. That poor guy got StP-ed twice as well (my opponent groaned every time he had to do it). Eventually I was able to use Brainstorm and Hydra with X=3 to set up an uncounterable Food Chain, but didn't have a win-con, just the single Griffin. Jace went ultimate but he was at 7 and I had enough cards in my library née hand that the Deathrite would have got him, so he was forced to cast Terminus, after which I cast the three Griffin's he so helpfully exiled and I was able to attack for the win.

Match 2 was nothing exciting; Food Chain is the better combo deck, and Tyrant bounces Solitary Confinement. The only possible issue is avoiding double Sterling Grove, but that's easy with Decay and FoW.

Match 3 game one he was able to set up his combo before I had enough mana to bring the my combo online. Three lands and an active Deathrite with a Griffin and and 2 Hydras in hand is an awkward bottle neck: it's just shy of getting there. I confirmed with a judge that a 0/0 Griffin would die as a state-based action and could not be exiled with Food Chain, so I had to pass the turn for the loss. Game 2 I mis-sideboarded, taking out the Misdirections. First turn Duress revealed his combo plus Blood Moon, so I had to take the moon. I was able to drop a Pithing Needle naming Grindstone, but he drew very well, dropping 2 (!) more Blood Moons and a Painter's Servant (on blue), allowing him to Pyroblast my Pithing Needle and win. With my inferior mana base, and after siding out my relevant counter-magic, after a Blood Moon resolved I could not actually win because I did not have the basics to support Abrupt Decay.

Match 4 was very close. Game 1 I misdirected his turn 1 Thoughtsieze, exiling a Griffin, a.k.a. living the dream. I was able to resolve an early Deathrite which recurred the Griffin after it was countered, but I was still dying to Tarmogoyf attacks until I found a Food Chain with Dig Through Time and ended it with just enough mana (four lands plus an active Deathrite with Griffin in exile and Hydra in hand). Game 2 felt the same but he Maelstorm Pulsed my Deathrite the turn before I had enough mana to win. Wasteland is a problem. Game 3 he had a good draw and I did not.

Main:
4 Food Chain
4 Griffin
4 Deathrite
1 Bird of Paradise
3 Decay
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 DTT
2 Manipulate Fate
1 Clique
1 Tyrant
2 Hydra
1 Strix
4 Force
2 Misdirection

4 Trop
2 Sea
2 Bayou
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Delta
3 Tarn
3 Strand

Sideboard:
3 Duress
2 Engineered Plague
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic
2 Cage
2 Flusterstorm
1 Decay

The obvious improvements are in the lands: 4 Misty and 2 Verdant in place of the random blue fetches, and 1 Forest in place of 1 Bayou. One of each basic is enough to get you off the ground in most situations, without being a huge burden. I was never unhappy to see a DTT; I think 3 is the correct number. I had thought I wanted the Ponders to feed the DTT but half the time I would have preferred a Fate, so I should have run the 3rd Manipulate Fate in place of a Ponder, and probably should run more Strixes. The second Misdirection felt weak main so I may move it to the sideboard and bring back the 4th Decay since it is never a dead card in Legacy.

Regarding the Tyrant debate: remember, if you have Tyrant and Hydra on board with Food Chain and Griffin online then you can put any non-land permanent in your library into play. Which means if you have a Strix you can draw arbitrarily, if you have a Clique you can stack their hand, and if you're irrationally scared of losing on <3 life to a TNN you can side in a Finks and gain infinite life.

[fhayashi]

Match 4 was very close. Game 1 I misdirected his turn 1 Thoughtsieze, exiling a Griffin, a.k.a. living the dream.

Misdirect changes only the target. The legal play would be to retarget the spell to your opponent, who would reveal his hand, and choose a valid card to discard. You can't misdirect the chosen card, since it is not targetted.

[Valtrix]

Thoughtseize doesn't exile anyway. It was misdirection's alternate cost exiling the griffin that he was excited about, while getting value by forcing his opponent to discard a card (even of their own choosing this is still good).

[cdalmost]

Thoughtseize doesn't exile anyway. It was misdirection's alternate cost exiling the griffin that he was excited about, while getting value by forcing his opponent to discard a card (even of their own choosing this is still good).

This is correct. He ended up choosing his own Abrupt Decay, which is why my Deathrite hung around so long that game. And of course the Giffin was back in as soon I had the mana. So much value...

[nevilshute]

So I have been testing out Vela and I have to say it's hard to really make a call about which is best of her and Tyrant. In a vast majority of games they are effectively the same. I've yet to face the scenario where it had Vela and not Tyrant (opponent has a TNN and you are at 3 or less life; opponent is playing burn and you are at 3 or less life; can't think of any others) or the other way around where it had to be Tyrant (I feel this scenarios are more contrived but... your opponent has a spot removal for Tyrant and you have mana and an instant spell to cast it to save it).

I will definitely not be playing Purphoros as splashing red seems like too high a cost for too slim an upside.

Whether one perfers the non-combo advantages and disadvantages that Tyrant and Vela each offer, I think, is a question of personal preference/bias. I don't think the deck is significantly better in that respect.

In other news I have been trying out the 19 mana / 1 birds of paradise, 4 deathrite build. It is more or less as you'd imagine. Solid enough most of the time if slightly more suceptible to wastelands. I'm also running zero basics and have yet been punished.

Have yet to face blood moon but have faced burn a few times.

I'm still on the fence about this. If I go back to a few basics it will be either a swamp and or forest. No island, that's for sure as what I find to really get punished on, is when I have a hand with both strix and decay. Island is kind of mediocre in that scenario.

[Esper3k]

Regarding basics - for me, the one I've hated the most is the Forest, actually. With an Island and Swamp out, we can play all of our Manipulate Fates, Baleful Strixes, and Brainstorms, which gives us the best chance to find more lands and our green sources. On the other hand, black mana is the only one we don't need doubles of, but I disliked the Forest the most for myself.

[litenkatt]

Why does Pithing Needle stop all of Deathrite's ability (including the mana ability) but not Food Chain? Food Chain says remove a creature, then add mana. Dearhtire says remove a land from a gy, then add a mana. What's the difference?

Also I'm wondering how to sideboard against reanimator. Do you keep the combo in?

[Ace/Homebrew]

Why does Pithing Needle stop all of Deathrite's ability (including the mana ability) but not Food Chain? Food Chain says remove a creature, then add mana. Dearhtire says remove a land from a gy, then add a mana. What's the difference?
It has everything to do with the placement of the colon.

Food Chain
cost (exile creature): effect (add mana)

Deathrite Shaman
cost (tap): effect (exile a land, then if you did add mana)


To further clarify, Pithing Needle would not stop DRS's 'mana ability' if it were worded as follows.
Tap, exile target land from a graveyard: Add 1 mana of any color to your mana pool.

Edit - Meh! Thought I knew that one...
See correct explanations below. :tongue:

[grokh]

It has everything to do with the placement of the colon.

Food Chain
cost (exile creature): effect (add mana)

Deathrite Shaman
cost (tap): effect (exile a land, then if you did add mana)

Nope, this isn't the good explanation :

Deathrite shaman abilities are not mana abilities cos there is the word target in and a mana ability has no targets.

In the Food chain ability, it's written exile a creature you own, not exile target creature, so it's a mana ability.

If you check on this website : http://magiccards.info/rtr/en/213.html, the explanation is on the rule under :



10/1/2012: Because the first ability requires a target, it is not a mana ability. It uses the stack and can be responded to.


On the Purphoros, God of the forge debate, i wasn't speaking about replacing Tidespout tyrant by Purphoros, God of the forge.

I was speaking about replacing Emrakul, the aeons torn by Purphoros, God of the forge !

[nevilshute]

An ability is a mana ability if it meets all the following criteria:

1: it adds mana to your mana pool

2: it doesn't target

3: it isn't a loyalty ability.

Food Chain doesn't target anything, isn't a loyalty ability and adds mana, hence it is a mana ability.

Deathrite Shaman adds mana, isn't a loyalty ability, but it does target (targets a land), therefor it is NOT a mana ability.

[Esper3k]

Nevilshute is spot on.

Pithing Needle works to shut off DRS because DRS' ability is not actually a mana ability (for the reasons listed above). Food Chain -is- a mana ability so Pithing Needle doesn't shut it off (although Food Chain is a legal card to name with Pithing Needle).

[Esper3k]

I was speaking about replacing Emrakul, the aeons torn by Purphoros, God of the forge !

I think just 1 big target for Hydra is fine. I don't think we really need 2 targets to get for Hydra. I prefer to minimize the number of cards that are dead without Food Chain, personally.

[nevilshute]

I think just 1 big target for Hydra is fine. I don't think we really need 2 targets to get for Hydra. I prefer to minimize the number of cards that are dead without Food Chain, personally.

This, exactly. The direction the deck has taken where we are becoming less and less about needing to resolve the combo and more about playing fair magic while threatening to end the game on the spot, we really want to minimize the amount of cards that serve no purpose outside of the combo. This is why Emrakul should have no place in the deck (it has taken me a while, personally, to grasp this fully).

The best reason, imo, to argue for more than one combo finisher is to guard against getting our one win con stranded in hand and then discarded. But while that first of all won't happen very often, it second of all doesn't stop us from winning by a long shot. If we Food Chain and griffin(s) online we win in many situations on the back of that alone. If we also have a 1000/1000 Hydra that "cascades" into another value drop then it tips even more in our favor. Yes we can still lose from here, but I think the overall gain from not having as many bad opening hands and clunky draws outweigh the occasional frustration of losing a game where you would have won if your singleton fatty hadn't been discarded/pitched to FoW earlier in the game.

[Echelon]

You can always run something along the lines of Eternal Witness (non-land permanent that you can tutor with Hydra and cast with Food Chain-mana) in your sideboard to mimic ANT's ability to win from the graveyard.

Don't get me wrong, I've never piloted Food Chain before, but if you're concerned about getting your one win-con discarded, just Witness it back with your Hydra and you're good to go. It just takes up one slot of your SB.

[nevilshute]

You can always run something along the lines of Eternal Witness (non-land permanent that you can tutor with Hydra and cast with Food Chain-mana) in your sideboard to mimic ANT's ability to win from the graveyard.

Don't get me wrong, I've never piloted Food Chain before, but if you're concerned about getting your one win-con discarded, just Witness it back with your Hydra and you're good to go. It just takes up one slot of your SB.

I think my point was that we shouldn't be concerned about our one win-con getting discarded. It's going to happen very rarely. Anecdotedly I would add that it probably happens even more rarely than you might expect, seeing as if someone is discarding us they will - in my experience - often not choose our fatty-in-hand as it doesn't currently do anything. It is often perceived (and probably rightfully so) better to take that Brainstorm, Deathrite Shaman or whatever. The deck is still not common enough for the avarage opponent to know that we are only running one win-con.

But even if it should get sniped we can still win a comfortable amount of games from that point on.

My focus is on being effecient now. And while adding another win-con - either in the main deck or the sideboard - might seem innocuous in terms of opportunity cost I would really like to try and minimize the amount of chaff because that slot could probably be used better.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I just started testing this deck recently (and just ordered all of the missing pieces) and i have to say that its pretty beastly. After testing against a variety of decks--bug tempo, rug tempo, uwr blade, uwr miracles, infect, sneak show, omni, and dnt--it feels like the deck has a pretty reasonable matchup against the field. It feels like a midrange deck that has a "oops I win" button built in. I'm mostly curious what the worst matchups for the decks are. This is the list I've been playing around with:

4 Food Chain
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Sylvan Library
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig Through Time
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
SB: 2 Meddling Mage
SB: 2 Containment Priest
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Disfigure
SB: 1 Golgari Charm
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Karakas
SB: 1 Null Rod
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction

[jedi_gof]

I have recently tried out optimizing our DRS, DTT engine. I find that too often I am stuck unable to activate for ramp and/or to reliably casting the DTT early enough.
Therefor as a trial i have cut a clique, and added tasigur while also finding room for a pair of thought scours. Thought scours in this deck is actually working really well so far!
Often you are able to add griffs or lands in the yard for your drs, effectively drawing ½ a card per relevant card in your graveyard. In teamwork with brainstorm you get to bin the crap rather than shuffle it with ponder, while it is also a instant speed cantrip. It has its limitations, but early testing is really promising.

Also tasigur is an extra source of card advantage while also being a cheap threat with high cc - which in turn allows for some great work with food chain. I have resolved a turn 3 tyrant without a griffin.
I think this is a decent way to go. SB is a mess pt as i am in limbo whether white splash is needed or not.

4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
2 Thought Scour
4 Food Chain
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
2 Meddling Mage
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Darkblast
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Scrubland

[nevilshute]

Hope you will enjoy playing the deck :smile:

In terms of what matchups are worst I will have to say, that since I decided to join the "more grindy" bandwagon I'm really finding the deck so much more robust then I ever did when I was more focused on the combo strategy.

Historically the deck has had a hard time against storm combo. This is still true, especially game one where we play out a lot like a Shardless BUG deck, except we don't have Liliana and discard (at least most lists don't). Instead we have to hope that Deathrite Shaman and 4x Force of Will be enough. And most times it won't. Running Cliques also ups game 1 chances somewhat. If you expect storm combo in your meta I'd highly recommend splashing white for Meddling Mages (or other bears) out of the sideboard. I also bring in discard spells, Flusterstorms and a couple of pieces of graveyard hate. That really brings up the percentages and I feel that while storm is probably favored over 3 games, it's not a terrible matchup.

RUG delver feels like a pain. I mean proper RUG delver with Stifles. Even with Deathrite Shaman and Abrupt Decay that deck can still wreak havoc with its bolts, stifle/daze/waste package and the likes. I feel like this matchup should be better for us than what I keep experiencing. I think what we want here are removal and land heavy hands. Keeping a greedy 1 lander (or even a 2 lander is sometimes not good enough) with the hope that your deathrite will take you there is often times a one way ticket to losing.

Maverick is a deck I don't want to face. They have effective ways to mess with Food Chain in Qasali Pridemage and Green Sun's Zenith to tutor for him (as well as Abrupt Decay in some lists). I find it extremely hard to effectively compete with their plethora of effective/annoying/beefy creatures along side their Wastelands.

On the even-to-positive side of things I'd like to mention how much I love playing against Miracles these days. It was always a fine matchup. They will often have a hard time against our Griffins. Even with no Food Chain, Griffin(s) alone are such a threat to them and we have so many ways to get to our griffins. Terminus makes later drawn Manipulate Fates live. Deahtrite is great to suck a griffin out into exile again as is Dig Through Time. Decays for counterbalance. Genesis Hydra is also a great work-horse in this matchup. Sandbag a hydra and then, after they terminus your griffin and a deathrite, you can hydra for X= 4-5, hopefully hit a strix or deathrite and they are immidiately under pressure Again.

I also feel like Team America is a fine matchup now. It used to be really hard, but if you load up on removal you should be able to survive into the mid-to-late game and once you get griffins online they have a hard time dealing with that.

[jedi_gof]

I agree with the MU analysis Martin.

I would like to add that I find that Jund and Shardless Bug are rough matchups.
They mess with our hand, have great card advantage and MB decays and much disruption in general.
With great draws you just win, but have had quite some rough games against these decks, maybe I have a worse record than what should be in these match up :)

[jedi_gof]

In other news: http://www.scvopen.com/top-8-decklists-legacy-scvopen4/

Another solid finish by the chain, a shardless version won the SCV tourney.

[Esper3k]

I wonder if Jesper is on the Source? Interesting to see a more combo-focused Empath list doing well too.

I personally find fast combo, Burn, and RUG Delver to be the toughest decks for us to face due to either their speed (and our relative lack of disruption) or their own disruption.

I've actually found the Jund and Shardless BUG matchups to be favorable. I see the three decks (Jund, Shardless, Food Chain) as similar grindy midrange decks except that we have the option for a combo kill. Manipulate Fate is huge for us in the matchup since it's effectively a 4 for 1 that they can't even hand disrupt away once we have resolved one. Liliana's not very good against us either because of Baleful Strix and flocks of Griffins.

[.Ix]

Been goldfishing Esper3k's maindeck and it feels great. It seems like sideboarding can be really hard though. Do you guys usually remove the full combo against faster combo decks? I figure it's just too slow and we're probably better off playing the control game against them. What is Venser for? And how do you sideboard against Death and Taxes and RUG? I want to bring in so many things (Decay, Disfigure, Golgari Charm, and Jitte) but I can't decide what to remove.

[Holmen]

I'm Jesper and I'm on the thread.
I won the SCV Legacy with this list:

Main (60)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Island
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Fierce Empath
1 Tombstalker
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Sylvan Library

Sideboard (15)
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Engineered Plague
1 Extirpate

I met:
Merfolk 2-0
Merfolk 2-0
Rug 2-0
Omnitell 2-0
Elves 0-2
Goblins 2-1
Omnitell Draw

Top 8
Rug 2-1
Elves 2-1
Goblins 2-0

I have played the same list a couple of smaller tournaments before consistently going 3-1/4-0.
I play this deck as a stalling BUG control, not often revealing any of the combo pieces until going off. In my experience the Empath is good in a lot of matchups, and with Tombstalker you can play both him and the 5/5 flyer for 5 mana, getting around Liliana. In worst case he is fogging for 0 card and in best case he is the well needed 3drop for griffin. I won a lot of games going 50% combo, with 3 griffs and a Tombstalker. (semifogging with the griffins if needed) Against Show and Tell decks, getting Emrakul is a good was of saying "you need to take the other rout" to the opponent. The Tombas could be a Tasigur, but the Flying and non-legendary is great. The fringe "delving back your griffins"-is cool but never happened for me.

In my experience, the tempodecks are a blast to play against. I didn't board a single card against RUG and it felt great with the trinity of deathrite, strixes and abrupt. Against any Stoneforge deck i feel happy that they give me so much time to assemble the combo. (I will always try to combo the turn before I lose, never before if I don't have to)

The big problem matchups for me have been faster, more consitant combo decks and "flooding-the-table"-kind of decks like Elves. Omnitell is horrible and I need to focus more on the board against that. Same with elves.

Engineered Plague has been an all star for me, in combination with Abrupt you have an awesome match against Merfolk and Goblins. (I guess that is the same in theory against Elves)

The main feels solid to me, the board needs work. I love answers that hangs around, that is more my playstyle so I'm leaning to that.

Cards I'm considering:
Trinisphere (Against Omnitell, locking their turn and comboing safely our next, and all Stormcombo)
More Grafdigger's Cage
More Engineered Plague
Hydroblast (burn is a beating) (Jitte felt meh and was never good in the intended matchups, won without it as it sat with a couple of unused counters as I comboed off)
Chalice of the Void
Vendilion Clique
Venser

Card's I'm probably dropping:
2 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Umezawa’s Jitte
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Extirpate

EDIT:
Esper3k - I agree with your Jund/Junk analysis. We love to trade card for card and then win with Griffin they can't handle with Abrupt. A lot of decks sideboard poorly against us as well, met a guy a week ago who took in a couple of Canonist, which is no problem since he made his deck worse and we still can cascade (oh yeah the artifact Agent) and gaining value on our turns.

[Esper3k]

Congrats on the win, Jesper, and thanks for the input!

Did you ever miss Dig Through Time at all?

[Holmen]

Thank you! A strange final against Rb goblins.

I have tried it a couple of times but I feel it is too clunky for this deck, with both drs and some expensive creatures. It is good but makes our starting hands much worse, and our late game is great already in my opinion. Ponder replaced it and felt perfect.

EDIT: Too clunky in my shardlessbuild, should be better in a more spellorientated list.

[somethingdotdotdot]

I'm curious why nobody has incorporated goyfs into the deck. It seems like a perfect fit given that the deck is trying to play the midrange game anyways. Its also another huge target that tends to draw abrupt decays when facing off vs BGx decks. He also helps versus some of the poorer matchups like rug/jund by being a unboltable wall that can stall their goyfs for a couple of turns. In combo matchups, he's a good way to increase the damage output. Thoughts?

[Echelon]

Try fitting them in a list and goldfishing that list a number of times rather than just suggesting it.

[nevilshute]

I'm curious why nobody has incorporated goyfs into the deck. It seems like a perfect fit given that the deck is trying to play the midrange game anyways. Its also another huge target that tends to draw abrupt decays when facing off vs BGx decks. He also helps versus some of the poorer matchups like rug/jund by being a unboltable wall that can stall their goyfs for a couple of turns. In combo matchups, he's a good way to increase the damage output. Thoughts?

Lists at the beginning of this deck's genesis (summer 2012) played Goyfs. Tyler Tyssedal had a camera match in an SCG-open with a list that had Goyfs coming out of the sideboard.

Back then, the deck was somewhat more of a combo deck than today and as such the goyf's felt like a poor fit to me. I've never tried though. It would be interesting to hear anyone with experience with this. I personally have a hard time seeing how to fit 4 goyfs in to the list I'm currently playing. Also, I think - in a sort of backwards way - that having access to Misthollow Griffin kind of fills up the same space as Goyf would. Or maybe not the same space, but it means we don't need a vanilla beater on the ground to force through damage or gum up the ground to prolong the game.

[somethingdotdotdot]

@ Echelon, I ask because there may have been some good reason that its not run that I do not know of. As for testing, I actually have put 4 in a list and tried it out. Its been less explosive than the original version, but stands up better to delver decks and can actually put them on the back foot since a goyf can race delver/drs.

As for cuts, I took out 1 clique, 1 misthollow, 1 birds of paradise, and 1 force of will (kept the misdirection over the 4th force, but that can be switched around). I haven't been missing the 4th misthollow or the clique too much because they are so high up on the curve for a deck with only 20 lands. I find that the goyfs are basically walls 5-8 in the deck that can reliably block opposing goyfs/germ tokens. In the previous version, if you didnt find a baleful, you had to toss bodies in front of large goyfs just to survive the onslaught (assuming the griffin chain wasn't online).

[Esper3k]

@Jesper: Did you ever consider something like Vela instead of Emrakul for your win condition? Vela gets fetched by Empath as well and wins on the spot and through things that shut Emrakul down (namely, Ensnaring Bridge).

[Holmen]

Vela night be good but I don't want to expose myself to Plowshares and the likes when I combo off. The extra turn has always been an autowin for me, and since I play 4 abrupt I can try to use them wisely. I have a very cautious playstyle, always preferring the safer option for better and for worse. Since I have played the deck a couple of years, I have found a build that suits me well. Also, I feel spot removal is more common than bridge effects. How do you feel about it - have you tried Vela successfully?

[deviant]

Tested jamming some goyfs into the deck in a daily, they were acceptable but not irreplaceable - as expected.

Faced omnitell 2-0, reanimator 2-0, rug delver 2-0 and miracles 2-1 so I got to enjoy a good ride and didn't have to slog through burn or such.
Miracles is, I feel, a very good mu for us - they really struggle to deal with griffins and I consider this a strong pull to this deck. Drs also remains to be awesome and this deck even abuses her slightly, sometimes.

I played the 2 empath 1 tasigur package and I like how it operates. I will keep that for now.
I won a whopping total of 0 games with the combo, and tend to let them force my FC unless I have the win in hand.

I grind most of my wins with dork beatdown, mostly misthollows from the draw 4 and I feel like this is a sound gameplan in most mu's - which I found a little surprising as I had not expected jamming 4 mana 3/3's to work out this well in modern legacy.

[jedi_gof]

Played the following to a 4-1 record at my LGS last night:


4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
2 Thought Scour
4 Food Chain
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Dimir Charm
1 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
1 Golgari Charm
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thoughtseize
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle


Tasigur and T.Scour really overperformed.

Thought Scour:
I tried this as the Cantrip of choice over ponders, and I was not dissapointed.
Between resetting the top after brainstorms as well as ponder, being instant speed was an added bonus.
Turning on DRS, DTTs and Tasigurs was really awesome, and will be testing these out the next few times I play the deck to see if last night was an indication on what to expect.

Tasigur:
While I only drew him once, he basically won that round for me. That the resolved on turn 2 and was online turn 3 did not hurt either :) He is a roadblock, that has a added bonus of removing griffs and a relevant bonus ability. He also serves as massive ramp via FC.


Short recap of rounds.

R1: Mirror (WTF? :D A good buddy who picked it up after seing Nevilshutes and my own endavours with the deck)
G1: I outdraw him and get the combo online rather fast. 1-0
G2: turn 2 tasigur means that our trading rescources with fows and misdirections leaves me on top and I eventually combo him out. 2-0
1-0, 2-0

R2: MUD
G1: I win dieroll and know what I am up against. Keep a hand which includes T1 DRS from fetched swamp, meaning my 2x decays kan take out moons and chalices, which it turns out was neccesary since he turn 2 moons. I spent my turn 2 playing FC and after removing his moon it is soon after done via Griff beat down. 2-0
G2: Again we end up in grind mode and he could have punished an overly aggressive pursuit of the the win on my part. Luckily he punts and forgemasters up a wurmcoil and boots it up and swing to gain some life against my otherwise leathal griffs. He just forgot FC was online and able to migate his lifegain. :O) 2-0
2-0, 4-0

R3: Omni
G1: He has lots of gaz and i flood. Not a great MU is really bad when flooded. 0-1
G2: This time i have enough permission and he concedes the turn before I combo out to preserve time for G3. 1-1
G3: Game 3 goes back and forth with some discard and counters on both sides, until a brainstorm bricks for a land for him. I can endstep clique and take a relevant card and i have now FC online along with 4 griffs. 2-1
3-0, 6-1

R4: Reanimator
G1: I rarely keep a 7 W/O DRS against reanimator (he played r3 next to me so knew what he was on) but had Fow, fow, drs, bstorm, griffin, land, scour.
He mulls to 6 and Turns out i have enough permission to via cantrips set up a turn 5 combo win. 1-0
G2: He has a turn 2 gris with force backup. 1-1
G3: I open on relic, drs, fow, decay, fow, and something. Needles to say that even though he needles my drs, this is rather quickly over. Only thing dragging it on is me being stuck on 2 lands far longer than what is desired in the MU. 2-1
4-0, 8-2

R5: Chalice Merfolks
Dont recall a whole lot from this round, but i end up losing 2-1 after 3 very close games. G3 I had 3 turns to find a FC for the win, but did not even through dual brainstorms and a hydra for 5 or 6.
4-1, 9-4 in games

In all a great evering, with me ending in second place, good for some 20ish EURs. (my breakers were insane, OP Wins% 76 :D )

Wouldnt change much MB, other than maybe squezing in an additional t.scour and just maybe a tasigur#2 or DTT#3.

Great deck is great. Sidenote: 3 man (Nevilshute, myself +1) on FC out of 23 players in out LGS :D

[nevilshute]

Well, like Jedi already mentioned we were 3... 3! Food Chain decks in our 23 person tournament :smile:

Played the following list to a 3-2 finish:

4x Food Chain
1x Birds of Paradise
2x Genesis Hydra
4x Force of Will
4x Misthollow Griffin
3x Manipulate Fate
4x Brainstorm
2x Ponder
2x Dig Through Time
4x Abrupt Decay
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Murderous Cut
1x Vela the Night-Clad
1x Misdirection
4x Baleful Strix

2x Bayou
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

2x Golgari Charm
3x Meddling Mage
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Umezawa's Jitte
3x Thoughtseize
2x Flusterstorm
2x Disfigure

Rnd 1: BUG Delver (2-1).

Feel good about this matchup but I mulligan to a passable but not great hand of six. I get overwhelmed by goyfs and can't keep up. Win game 2 as I'm in much better shape to grind out. Game 3 is a let down as my opponent mulligans into oblivion and finally keeps a 5-card no lander. No contest.

Rnd 2: Merfolk (0-2).

I don't like how this matchup feels. Packrats with island walk means it usually going to be a rough ride unless we can get the combo online. Game 1 is me playing catchup all game and never getting there. Game 2 is frustrating as I am finally able to do something on like turn 5 with my opponent having lethal the following turn. I have Food Chain in play and a Hydra in hand. My board is Deathrite, Birds of Paradise and 3 lands. I draw Vela the Night-Clad and decide to go for a Hydra for X = 7 (could have made X = 8 but wanted to play around Daze. My opponent was on 2 cards in hand). I completely whiff as I reveal 5 lands, a Murderous Cut and an Abrupt Decay. Sad panda.

Rnd 3: TES (2-1).

I put up a fight in game 1 with a Deathrite and 2 forces. Eventually my opponent gets to resolve Ad Nauseam at 11 life and gets there. I have a ton of stuff in my sideboard for this matchup. I get to catch him way off guard with Meddling Mage as he afterwards reveal he hadn't boarded to handle. Multiple Thoughtseizes help out. Game 3 I mulligan to 4 and get a hand of Thoughtseize, Deathrite and 2 lands. I narrowly in as my opponent doesn't get any action for some turns and I eventually have him at 11 again, with an active Deathrite and he resolves Ad Nauseam. He drops to 3 life and has the kill in front of him, or so I think, as I'm looking at enough to make exactly 6 mana and a Burning Wish. It turns out, however, that he boarded in his Tendrils so he has nothing relevant to get from his sideboard. He eventually gets a Massacre to kill my deathrite and strix. I'm holding a Griffin and draw a Meddling Mage and win in short order.

Rnd 4: Reanimator (2-0).

Against a good buddy who's been playing Reanimator for a long time. I end up drawing all 4 Abrupt Decays game 1 and am cursing myself but they actually end up winning me the game as I first get to decay an Animate Dead and then get to block Griselbrand with a birds of paradise and decay it before dmg and just get there. Game 2 is carnage. I resolve a Deathrite turn 2 as my opponent fiddles around with cantrips. He unmasks me and sees: 2x Force of Will, Misdirection, Flusterstorm, Baleful Strix, land. He promptly scoops.

Rnd 5: Omnitell (0-2).

I lose game 1 super tightly. I have lethal next turn, he has 3 cards in his graveyard, 4 untapped mana. I have 3 griffins, food chain and a deathrite. I have just attacked him dropping him to 9. I exile griffins 2nd main phase and casts one. He stops me and thinks. Eventually he forces the 3rd griffin. I get quite perplexed and am looking at the board thinking things over. Sadly I don't realize what's going on until RIGHT after I say okay. I look at his yard and as he puts Force there he has exactsies for Dig Through Time. I could have exiled a card with Deathrite in response, obviously. He does indeed Dig. Untaps. Cantrips into cantrip into cantrip into show and tell. I have nothing and he has omniscience and then emrakul... sad panda. Keep a questionable 1 lander for game 2. Has force and flusterstorm but no cantrip or mana dork. It ends up biting me as I don't get to develop my board at all and eventually he gets me with a combination of thoughtseize and countermagic himself to go off protected.

[Esper3k]

Vela night be good but I don't want to expose myself to Plowshares and the likes when I combo off. The extra turn has always been an autowin for me, and since I play 4 abrupt I can try to use them wisely. I have a very cautious playstyle, always preferring the safer option for better and for worse. Since I have played the deck a couple of years, I have found a build that suits me well. Also, I feel spot removal is more common than bridge effects. How do you feel about it - have you tried Vela successfully?

I haven't tried it out yet, but will probably do so sometime. I was just curious if you had any problems drawing Emrakul without Food Chain and having an uncastable card. I do like your Empath -> Tombstalker tech though for when you don't have Food Chain active.


Tested jamming some goyfs into the deck in a daily, they were acceptable but not irreplaceable - as expected.

Faced omnitell 2-0, reanimator 2-0, rug delver 2-0 and miracles 2-1 so I got to enjoy a good ride and didn't have to slog through burn or such.
Miracles is, I feel, a very good mu for us - they really struggle to deal with griffins and I consider this a strong pull to this deck. Drs also remains to be awesome and this deck even abuses her slightly, sometimes.

I played the 2 empath 1 tasigur package and I like how it operates. I will keep that for now.
I won a whopping total of 0 games with the combo, and tend to let them force my FC unless I have the win in hand.

I grind most of my wins with dork beatdown, mostly misthollows from the draw 4 and I feel like this is a sound gameplan in most mu's - which I found a little surprising as I had not expected jamming 4 mana 3/3's to work out this well in modern legacy.

It's actually pretty funny to me how resilient Griffins are to a lot of Legacy decks right now. I just think of it as a 4 mana Delver that doesn't die to Abrupt Decay, Disfigure and is hilarious vs StP.

[Esper3k]

I gave Jesper's list a spin this weekend and went 5-0-1 with it in one of our local Legacy tournaments and chopped in the T4.

I made 1 tweak to the maindeck, swapping the Tombstalker for a Necropolis Fiend (because I think Fiend is generally superior) and played the following sideboard:

1 Dimir Charm
2 Disfigure
1 Golgari Charm
2 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Vendilion Clique

In my continuing quest to shore up the Burn / Storm matchup, it was suggested to me to try Leyline of Sanctity out. I think it's potentially very powerful in theory because unlike other decks that don't have a combo kill, we just want to stall long enough to combo out. I inherently dislike Leylines because I think they're a trap (make you keep bad hand with them or you keep hands without them and draw them later) but I can't deny their effectiveness when you do open with one.

My matchups:

Round 1 vs UW Stoneblade: Shardless Agent + Strixes provide card advantage + pressure and I eventually combo out both games. (1-0)
Round 2 vs UG Cloudpost: I think this matchup is pretty favorable to us. We're the faster combo deck + we're more disruptive. What's not to love? Game 1 he SnT, which I let resolve because I have Emrakul in my hand. Game 2 we both durdle and I combo out and kill him. (2-0)
Round 3 vs UWR Delver: Game 1 he goes T1 Delver, which almost goes the distance, but a Shardless -> Sylvan Library allows me to find enough fliers to stop the Delver (even though I couldn't find an Abrupt Decay for the life of me). Game 2 he just doesn't have any pressure early on, which gives me plenty of time to grind him out. (3-0)
Round 4 vs Dark Maverick: Game 1: I grind him out with dudes and kill all his guys. Game 2, I mull to 5 and die with double Brainstorm in my hand when I can't find an answer to a Spirt of the Labyrinth. Game 3 he keeps a 1 lander and doesn't hit more lands while I grind him out.
Round 5: ID.
T8 vs UW Stoneblade (my R1 opponent): Game 1: We grind until he exhausts the cards in his hand and I combo out. Game 2: He gets like a 4 for 1 on me with Supreme Verdict (haven't seen that card in a long time!) and while I almost recover, Emrakul gets stuck in my hand and Jace grinds me out. Game 3: I grind him out then combo kill him.

So a few thoughts on Jesper's list vs the list I played:

- Shardless Agent + Baleful Strix in the same deck really makes for some insane card advantage. Sometimes you just Shardless into a Brainstorm but other times, you just get some nutty cascades (we all know this). Is this better than playing Vendilion Cliques though? I'm still not 100% certain. I think the Agents probably make you better vs the Delver / midrange decks while the Cliques are better vs combo and Miracles as well as being able to strip Abrupt Decays out of your opponents' hands. It did feel great playing spells for a few turns and having a full grip of cards though.
- Genesis Hydra vs Fierce Empath: Empath seemed just mediocre to me. I never really got to take advantage of Empath + Necropolis Fiend and there were some games where I'd have Empath in my hand with a bunch of mana on the board and just wish I could cast a big Hydra. However, if you want to Shardless, you can't really run Hydra.
- The 4th Mishollow Griffin: I definitely missed having the 4th Misthollow Griffin. There were times where I would draw Manipulate Fate + a Misthollow Griffin and having the 4th one would've made my Manipulate Fates just that much better, not to mention the times I had Food Chain but no Griffin. I think 4 is correct to maximize our chances of getting Griffin + Food Chain together (not to mention making our FoWs better).
- Ponder vs Dig Through Time: Ponders were great early on, but mid/late games, I missed DTT to reset my dead Griffins + dig deep for what I needed. Given that both lists only play 2 of their respective cards, I think the odds of seeing them early are much lower. I do think Ponder makes the tempo deck matchups even better though as it allows us to dig for land/answers early on.
- Golgari Charm: I did really miss the second Golgari Charm in my board, especially against the TNN decks. I'll have to see what I can cut to get back up to 2 in the board.

As always, I'd like to hear people's thoughts and opinions!

[DireLemming]

http://mythicspoiler.com/dtk/cards/sidisiundeadvizier.jpg

New toy, probably better than Hydra.

[EunB]

http://mythicspoiler.com/dtk/cards/sidisiundeadvizier.jpg

New toy, probably better than Hydra.

While cute, if you're comboing Hydra is also a "Demonic Tutor' and there are other uses for Hydra that are invaluable in my opinion through testing.

For example, brainstorming a FC to the top of your deck and Hydra'ing for 5 to get an uncounterable FC is quite strong. Also a lot of times I'll have mana dorks + FC out but no Griffin so I'll Hydra for 10+ (usually finding Griffin) and just beat them down with a 10/10.

Sidisi seems better as topdeck when you're missing a lot of pieces, but even then 5 mana is a lot. I think she is competing for the Tasigur slot as a one-of rather than Hydra, and my gut tells me Tas works better, but I will be testing both.

I played a list similar to Jedi Goyf's this weekend and went 2-1 (very small tourney).

4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
2 Ponder
4 Food Chain

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

Sideboard
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
2 Disfigure
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Golgari Charm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Umezawa's Jitte

Round 1: 2-0 vs Enchantress

g1 I FoW'd her presence, then combo'd off t4.
g2 I had another nut draw hand with t4 kill, but she had t2 Suppression Field which messed up my 4 fetchland hand -- we went draw-go for about 10 turns until I found a 2nd land to EOT decay her Field, crack my fetches, and kill her on my turn.

Round 2: 2-0 vs High Tide

g1 He sculpted, I t3 Cliqued him and took High Tide, then FoW'd Merchant Scroll. A few turns later I combo'd off.
g2 He played t1 Top, I FoW'd, he FoW back, I Misdirected, and then we started rebuilding. I had a sole DRS out that did probably 14 dmg throughout the next few turns. I then started casting Griffins and got there before he had time to rebuild, double Forcing a High Tide along the way.

Round 3: 1-2 vs Deathblade

g1 He cast a lot of cantrips and Jace brainstorms but couldn't find anything relevant before I Clique'd him (taking FoW) into a combo kill.
g2 He cantriped while I did the same, before casting a Tasigur as bait for his FoW. I had a Food Chain in hand that I could've cast but was waiting for a Griffin to show up -- this let him Thoughtseize me to get rid of it (how do you guys feel about this play? He had shown Council's Judgement and I was also fearing Abrupt Decay). He cast a Jace and started BStorming with a TNN out. I used the opportunity of him being tapped out to cast Golgari Charm -- this was a misplay as I forgot I had exiled Griffin's from a FoW and should've cast that to pressure Jace. I then got behind as he went double SFM getting Jitte+Skull and -1 Jace to Unsummon Griffin. I misplayed again by not decaying Jitte on his turn letting him pump his SFM to a 4/5 putting me to 3 before unsummoning my Griffin again. Jace was at 1 and I drew Strix, casting it and Griffin again -- Griff got FoW'd and Strix was -1'd leaving me dead to the Bskull attack.

I didn't really like the guy I was playing against (it's usually a very casual tournament and he was taking multiple minutes deciding his play/turns as if huge cash was on the line while being silent and disparaging in comments (stuff like, oh you only won because I drew nothing)) so I conceded g3 and hung out with the other guys there.

One thing I didn't like about the other lists was the lack of basics, and I have to say I really enjoyed having 4 basics. I didn't get mana screwed once and though it didn't matter vs the decks I played it felt good to have the ability to cast every card in the deck (and activate Tasigur) through Wastelands. My only concern was Genesis Hydra, but in testing the times I'd cast him the double G didn't matter b/c I had a lot of mana anyway or I was comboing.

I think Tasigur works really well in the deck -- though I never got to activate the ability, his body protects you before you can combo, and he's a good mid-sized threat that people will often take w/ discard, or FoW or similar, protecting your combo pieces. His Delve might interfere with the more "important" delve of DTT, but I think the two can coexist. His ramp via FC doesn't seem super valuable, but I can imagine circumstances with FC where getting a TST out or a huge Hydra into TST or similar would be game changers.

I didn't cast a single Dig Through Time so I can't comment on how good it is in the deck. I like the card, and want it to be good, but worry about the deck's ability to fill the graveyard considering we play to the board or the exile zone and are playing 4 DRS. In the games I played they were solely FoW fodder, which at the least means they weren't just dead in my hand.

Anyways, it's a fun deck with a lot of unique plays/lines and I'm looking forward to continuing to play it.

[Drake0525]

Hey everyone! I have most of Food Chain assembled, but I was hoping to get some feedback on the 60 before testing it at the LGS. It looks like a fun deck to play. I'm looking forward to trying it out! Thanks a lot guys!

4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Birds of Paradise
4x Baleful Strix
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Fierce Empath
4x Misthollow Griffin
1x Tasigur, The Golden Fang
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Food Chain
3x Manipulate Fate
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Dig Through Time
1x Sylvan Library

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

[EunB]

Hey everyone! I have most of Food Chain assembled, but I was hoping to get some feedback on the 60 before testing it at the LGS. It looks like a fun deck to play. I'm looking forward to trying it out! Thanks a lot guys!

4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Birds of Paradise
4x Baleful Strix
2x Vendilion Clique
2x Fierce Empath
4x Misthollow Griffin
1x Tasigur, The Golden Fang
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

4x Brainstorm
4x Force of Will
4x Food Chain
3x Manipulate Fate
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Dig Through Time
1x Sylvan Library

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

Looks pretty standard -- what advice are you looking for? I'd suggest going back and reading through the past few pages of this thread. Some lists are moving away from Emrakul / Fierce Empath and toward Genesis Hydra / Tidespout Tyrant but both versions have been putting up solid results.

[Drake0525]

Looks pretty standard -- what advice are you looking for? I'd suggest going back and reading through the past few pages of this thread. Some lists are moving away from Emrakul / Fierce Empath and toward Genesis Hydra / Tidespout Tyrant but both versions have been putting up solid results.
I have been following the thread actually, I've also read multiple primers and poured over decklists. I included the Fierce Empaths because I think they'll synergize a little better with Tasigur than Genesis Hydra. What I'm really worried about is the fact that my disruption package is only 6 spells, 4 Force of Will and 2 Vendilion Clique. Is that enough, or should I look into working additional spells into the build? Misdirection or Thoughtseize would be the next step, I think.

It may seem like a strange concern, but my local metagame is so riddled with permission and hand-attack that I have to run 13 disruption spells in my Reanimator deck.

[nevilshute]

I have been following the thread actually, I've also read multiple primers and poured over decklists. I included the Fierce Empaths because I think they'll synergize a little better with Tasigur than Genesis Hydra. What I'm really worried about is the fact that my disruption package is only 6 spells, 4 Force of Will and 2 Vendilion Clique. Is that enough, or should I look into working additional spells into the build? Misdirection or Thoughtseize would be the next step, I think.

It may seem like a strange concern, but my local metagame is so riddled with permission and hand-attack that I have to run 13 disruption spells in my Reanimator deck.

I'd say a singleton Misdirection is a good place to be with this deck seeing as the Griffins make so juicy pitchers upping the value of the card. I know Jedi was even running 2 at one point but that was in the old Cruise-meta where there was a lot more burn.

I've personally been happy with it as a singleton for a long time.

I've run 3 thoughtseize in the main a few times and have not liked it enough to stick with it. It obviously makes our combo matchup somewhat better but I can't see what I'm removing to fit them in that isn't weakening us against other strategies. You could argue that hand disruption also works nicely with our grindy plan, but I find it much better in that regard to play more cards that affect the board. Picking our fight on the board means that removal gets the nod over discard in my opinion. Also, the boost against Combo isn't enough to make a significant enough of a difference.

What this means is that we are underdogs against most combo strategies in game one. There are two reasons why I don't think it's worth it to try and significantly change this (and which has actually also led me to cut out Vendilion Cliques altogether). The first is, that our combo is much slower than theirs and as such we can't very well hope to race them that way. The other is that we simply don't have the means to field a relevant enough of a clock. Those two factors are intrinsically imbedded in the foundation of our deck and I can't see how we are to mitigate either.

To compensate for this I've decided to run multifaceted hate out of the board and rely on a combination of Meddling Mages, Thoughtseizes, Flusterstorms and graveyard hate to up my percentages. I'm quite pleased with how it's been playing out for me.

You mention that there's a lot of permission in your meta. Combo decks aside I don't think you should be worrying too much about getting stuff countered. Your removal is uncounterable (Abrupt Decay) and they can't be wasting all of their counterspells on all of your bit-parts such as deathrite shamans and baleful strix'. Them countering a Food Chain doesn't even have to that big of a deal for you as long as you can prolong the game to the point in which you can start to cast Griffins. After that you will put their removal and permission under immense pressure as your delve spells and deathrites will mean you can reccur the griffins. Manipulate Fate is often the crux here and the card over which to pick a fight.

[nevilshute]

http://mythicspoiler.com/dtk/cards/sidisiundeadvizier.jpg

New toy, probably better than Hydra.

Wouldn't be too hasty here. It's nice that it can tutor up a Food Chain or a piece of removal. It's pretty harsh that is going to cost os CMC5 no matter what. It's body is more relevant than a non-food chained hydra, but the fact that the hydra cheats stuff into play is huge. I don't know, not ruling it out or anything, but it doesn't seem like where we want to be at. The sacrifice-to-tutor is a bit clunky too.

[kingtk3]

...
- Genesis Hydra vs Fierce Empath: Empath seemed just mediocre to me. I never really got to take advantage of Empath + Necropolis Fiend and there were some games where I'd have Empath in my hand with a bunch of mana on the board and just wish I could cast a big Hydra. However, if you want to Shardless, you can't really run Hydra.
...
As always, I'd like to hear people's thoughts and opinions!


Hi Esper3k, if you'd like to play Shardless Agent but you feel Fierce Empath is underwhelming you can try Soul of the Harvest.
It has already been spoken of especially compared to genesis hydra:

with food chain and griffin you draw your deck until you get tyrant/emrakul/whatever then win, so it's the same as hydra
with food chain but no griffin you can chain creatures into others until you hit a griffin or manipulate fate then win from there. Maybe if you have enough creatures in play hydra is sligthly better because you can make it big enough to get a griffin, but it's not a given
without food chain Soul can generate enough card advantage to dominate the board until you win or hit the combo, while hydra (assuming a similar CC, so X = 4) can at most give you a permanent, though it would be not countered (but can be stiffled). I think in this scenario soul is better because it gives an incremental advantage
as a bonus, Soul has a reasonable body and trample which can be relevant in some fringe situations (like when you need to kill a planeswalker but opponet has chumpblockers). Hydra, however, gives you the line to brainstorm food chain on top of your library in order to put into play without giving opponent the possibility to counter it
However, if you want to play shardless agent Hydra is a nonbo, so in this version of the deck Soul is definitely better :)

Let me know if you'll test it and how do you'll like it: I'm not playing this deck at the moment but I still follw the thread because it's a deck I always loved, especially with shardless.

[Esper3k]

Hi Esper3k, if you'd like to play Shardless Agent but you feel Fierce Empath is underwhelming you can try Soul of the Harvest.
It has already been spoken of especially compared to genesis hydra:

with food chain and griffin you draw your deck until you get tyrant/emrakul/whatever then win, so it's the same as hydra
with food chain but no griffin you can chain creatures into others until you hit a griffin or manipulate fate then win from there. Maybe if you have enough creatures in play hydra is sligthly better because you can make it big enough to get a griffin, but it's not a given
without food chain Soul can generate enough card advantage to dominate the board until you win or hit the combo, while hydra (assuming a similar CC, so X = 4) can at most give you a permanent, though it would be not countered (but can be stiffled). I think in this scenario soul is better because it gives an incremental advantage
as a bonus, Soul has a reasonable body and trample which can be relevant in some fringe situations (like when you need to kill a planeswalker but opponet has chumpblockers). Hydra, however, gives you the line to brainstorm food chain on top of your library in order to put into play without giving opponent the possibility to counter it
However, if you want to play shardless agent Hydra is a nonbo, so in this version of the deck Soul is definitely better :)

Let me know if you'll test it and how do you'll like it: I'm not playing this deck at the moment but I still follw the thread because it's a deck I always loved, especially with shardless.

Interesting - thanks for the suggestion!

One thing I've really liked about Hydra is that it's been great in the Miracles matchup. Since we usually have plenty of time and if you cast a Hydra with X = 5, there's nothing in their deck that can CB it (plus you get that uncounterable triggered ability).

It's a tough decision for me right now if I like the card advantage of Shardless Agent more or if I like the disruption of Vendilion Clique more.

[kingtk3]

Interesting - thanks for the suggestion!

One thing I've really liked about Hydra is that it's been great in the Miracles matchup. Since we usually have plenty of time and if you cast a Hydra with X = 5, there's nothing in their deck that can CB it (plus you get that uncounterable triggered ability).

It's a tough decision for me right now if I like the card advantage of Shardless Agent more or if I like the disruption of Vendilion Clique more.

No prob, I'm happy to help :)

Regarding miracle: isn't it already a positive matchup? They play only 3~5 CC3 cards and only 2~3 CC4 cards, so our griffins, food chains, vendilions and agents are almost safe. Moreover we play decay for their counterbalances and griffin owns stp like a boss.

Do you found troubles with the matchup?


EDIT: I used to play a version with shardless AND vendilion, but without the fullset of strix. It's doable ;)

[cdalmost]

Went 3-1 in another 4 round Friday night legacy. Beat UWR delver, Deathblade, and Miracles, lost to MonoU Omnitell. All the wins were grindy but at no point did I ever feel very far behind. My list is the same as Jeffrey Chen's except for the following changes.

-1 Dimir Charm
+1 Abrupt Decay

-2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Ponder

-1 Baleful Strix
+1 Tasigur

Our combo match is still weak and main deck Cliques do not do much for it, so I moved them to the sideboard in favour of Ponder to smooth out some otherwise questionable keeps. I noticed in Mr. Chen's tournament report that, in most matches, he would side in Decay game 2, so I took out the more situational Charm for it. I've been testing Tasigur in place of a Strix and been happy so far, for the following reasons: delve has great synergy with Griffin; he blocks Batterskulls just as well as Strix, and he can go the distance in matches where the opponent spent all their removal / counters on my combo pieces. I've found this main deck to be very good against all Delver, Stoneforge Mystic, and Miracles based decks.

SB:
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swan Song
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Misdirection
3 Duress
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Pithing Needle
2 Relic of Progenitus

The main things we lack against combo are disruption and a clock. Clique is both of these, so 3 might be appropriate. Duress comes in against all combo decks and against counter-heavy decks, and has been excellent every time it was cast.

Against Omnitell, G1 I had a fast combo win in my hand but he had counters for two food chains and a Manipulate Fate, and my Shamans didn't get there before Emrakul came down. G2 Swan Song was MVP. If you have multiple Swan Song in a counter battle, remember to let the counter targeting the first Song resolve (and then recounter the original spell with the second Song) so that they don't get an extra bird token. G3 I didn't have enough disruption. Sideboarding:

+2 Flusterstorm
+2 Swan Song
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Misdirection
+3 Duress

-3 Strix
-2 Decay
-2 Hydra
-1 Tyrant
-2 Food Chain (should have been the last 2 Decay)

[Holmen]

Esper3k: nice that you tried My list and good input. I've been working on the board after my win and will try the following:

1 venser, shaper savant (snt-decks, storm, fringe)
1 reclamation sage (snt-decks, all sfm-decks, fringe)
2 obstinate baloth (burn, liliana-decks)
2 duress (combo, burn)
2 engineered plague (tribal)
1 night of souls betrayal (tribal)
1 trinisphere (combo, burn)
1 thorn of amethyst (combo)
1 Null Rod (all sfm-decks, ant/tes)
1 relic of progenitus (reanimate, rug)
2 grafdiggers cage (reanimate, elves)

As you see my board is focused on combo and tribal decks, with no cards going nordbo with Shardless like flusterstorm.
Any thoughts? Omnitell is hard and Trinisphere seems like a fine broad inclusion.

[Lithium]

I'm reworking my current list online to go with the Genesis Hydra path instead of the midrange Shardless Agent list I was playing before taking a break due to the absolute saturation of burn and treasure cruise decks online. Looking at the most recent changes people are making the deck looks like it's making some great advances but I did have one question. Whats the best way to get the most out of Tasigur, the Golden Fang, i'm assuming its just delve everything you don't want returned and then activate. Sorry for sounding dumb just wondering if there was more to it then that.

[.Ix]

Went 3-1 in another 4 round Friday night legacy. Beat UWR delver, Deathblade, and Miracles, lost to MonoU Omnitell. All the wins were grindy but at no point did I ever feel very far behind. My list is the same as Jeffrey Chen's except for the following changes.

-1 Dimir Charm
+1 Abrupt Decay

-2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Ponder

-1 Baleful Strix
+1 Tasigur



I made these changes to Esper3k's list, but I kept the 2 Cliques in the main because a lot of people here play either midrange or combo, and I don't think Ponder is any better against those decks than Clique. I went 3-1 losing to Miracles, beating 2 Elves (LOL I know) and 1 Team Italia. Tasigur was REALLY strong, and the Strixes were quite awful in the games where I actually got to cast them. Short report:

R1 Elves

G1 I mull to 6, I win with a Clique and some Griffins
G2 I mull to 5 and keep a hand with 5 lands and a Jitte. I get destroyed T3 off a glimpse, no way I could have beat that hand with a 4-card hand.
G3 T1 Duress, T2 Jitte, T3 Tasigur, T4 attack equipped and he scoops.

R2 Team Italia

G1 He plays Bob and Grim early, keeps flipping more Bobs and no fetches. I trade my strixes for bobs and drop double Deathrite to Chain->Griffin->Tyrant through his Grim.
G2 He starts with a Grim again. I FOW+Griffin a Mother of Runes with Decay in hand. He wastelands me after I decay his Grim, and he has no action except for another Wasteland. I get Food Chain and Manipulate Fate out and cast griffins. He draws his mana a little too late.

R3 Miracles

G1 This game takes forever. I don't remember a lot, but I get to cast Tasigur, which he plows. I misplay by Decaying his top in response to a fetch. He has brainstorm to save it, and has counterbalance. I get locked out and Entreat takes the game.
G2 Interesting game. I remember getting 3 griffins and Tasigur out, then casting Venser on my Food Chain when he tries to Disenchant it. He later miracles Terminus, I activate Tasigur milling two lands. My graveyard is Food Chain, FOW, Dig, and Manipulate. He gives me Manipulate and I now had a blue card for the FOW I had in hand. Sweet. He manages to stay in the game through an Entreat but I decay THREE angels over two turns to kill him.
G3 I lost this game to a really early entreat when I had nothing in hand. The game went to time BEFORE Turn 0 was announced, but the judge missed the time and it was called one turn too late. I got killed on turn 5 of turns. :/

R4 Elves

G1 I clique away a NO on Turn 2. He only had a Symbiote and Heritage on the board. I decay the Symbiote and kill him with Clique+Deathrite with FOW + griffin in hand.
G2 He seizes my Golgari Charm away, but he somehow still has only Heritage Druid and Symbiote. I don't remember much about this game except for him trying to hardcast hoof into my FOW, and me later having 3 Griffin + clique + Deathrite on the table on the winning turn. I also casted Dig Through Time in response to several Shaman activations. That was pretty cool.


I absolutely love the deck. It's really fun to play. It's not clunky at all, unlike the version with the Empath and big dudes. Genesis Hydra is the nuts, and so is Tasigur. Tasigur gives the deck another really solid way to grind people out, so it might be worth running Thought Scour to enable him and Dig Through Time.

[nevilshute]

Just finished 3-1 in a Legacy DE on modo. Had 4 (well 3) rounds of incredibly fun and intense magic as I really had to work hard for each of my wins. Played the following list:


4x Food Chain
1x Birds of Paradise
2x Genesis Hydra
4x Force of Will
4x Misthollow Griffin
3x Manipulate Fate
4x Brainstorm
2x Thought Scour
2x Dig Through Time
3x Abrupt Decay
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Murderous Cut
1x Vela the Night-Clad
1x Vendilion Clique
4x Baleful Strix
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang

2x Bayou
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

2x Golgari Charm
3x Meddling Mage
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Abrupt Decay
2x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
2x Flusterstorm
2x Disfigure

A note on the list: Vendilion Clique would be Misdirection but, alas, it is still $100 to buy online and I am too cheap. I ran Divert in that spot for a while, but it was simply too poor, too often as we frequently get into the late game and have no way of mana denying them.

Round 1:

4-color mentorblade (Loss 0-2)
Didn't know I would be facing Monastery Mentor and I burned off two Decays on a Young Pyromancer and a Stoneforge. He then resolved Mentor on the following turn and it just utterly wrecked me as my hand was out of gas. Game two I, again, lost to a resolved mentor. I had removal for the first but not for the second. That card does not feel good to play against.

Round 2:

Shardless BUG (Win 2-1)
Don't remember this too well. Might have switched games 1 and 2. Think I won game 1 which was long and drawn out, he never saw an Ancestral Vision which could have swung the game in his favor for sure. Game 2 I lost to running goyfs after I had spent my removal on deathrites. Don' remember game 3 very much.

Round 3:

Canadian Thresh (Win 2-1)
Lose game 1 to my opponents having the nuts, sort of. Not sure if I should playeddifferently. I'm on the play and have a hand of: Fate, 2x brainstorm, 2x fetchland, thought scour and food chain. Don't know what I'm up against. I lead on fetchland, don't crack it. My plan is - depending on what my opponent does - to do something with my brainstorm on my 2nd turn. My opponent goes Volcanic, pass. I get the read that it's rug delver and so anticipate stifle. I draw for the turn, can't remember what, but nothing relevant, maybe another food chain. I play my 2nd fetchland and crack the first. He stifles. I crack the 2nd, get an underground sea and cast brainstorm. He dazes. I pass the turn. I draws, plays Wasteland and wastes my sea. I cry. Lose in short fashion.

Games 2 and 3 are kind of a blur as I slog my way through many a Pyroblast and several submerges. But in both of those games I manage to get into the lategame as I have a lot of removal and Baleful Strixes. Win both games, but really felt they were draining.

Round 4:

Miracles (2-0)
Game 1 goes for more than 30 mins but I finally win. Game 2 is over much faster but they both have the same conclusion, sort of. I have to fight my opponent resolving an early Jace. In the course of game 1 I cast all 3 Manipulate Fates and all 3 got 3 griffins as multiple Terminus' had been resolved. In game 1 my opponent finally finds an entreat. He doesn't have a top, though, so he entreats on his drawstep making 8 angels. I have griffins up and running and a food chain and vela in hand. I untap and win as he tapped out and so only had force as an out.

Game 2 is over much quicker but again I have to combo off facing lethal angels. This time is a bit more wobbly from my opponent. My opponent has jace, top, and 6 or 7 lands. Two cards in hand. It's my turn. I have a deathrite and a strix + four lands. I have 3 griffins in exile and hydra and food chain in hand. I tap 3 lands and cast food chain. Having had a big'ish counterwar earlier I feel reasonably comfortable that I can get to resolve my spells. I am, however, anticipating Terminus. I decide to exile the strix and cast 1 griffin. I then attack the jace with my lonely deathrite, keeping back the griffin. My opponent flips the top and I'm thinking over how this will play out as he will have his jace for another turn. Instead of Terminus, however, he flips Entreat and taps out (!). This allows for to combo off with hydra into Vela in my second mainphase and win without having to fear swords to plowhares or the likes.

Couple of notes:

Thought Scour was okay. I was sort of dreading playing with it, and it did come up once where I cast it and got punished a bit by dumping a land in the yard when I needed to draw one.

Tasigur didn't really get a chance to shine. I've tested with him quite a bit though and feel good about having him as a one-of.

Vela:Tyrant. Having Vela over Tyrant didn't make any different today.

[Holmen]

Played a small tournament (40 people) yesterday with my exact list + sideboard changes hoping to meet storm, burn, omnitell and elves to get some good training for a bygger event in a couple of weeks. Met... Goblins, bug control, dredge, and then another goblins in the finals (same guy i met in the scv finals, good player). Easy 4-0, 2-0 wins against all, except the last goblins where I lost one game to wastelands. The deck feels super solid in the midrange-meta, crushing bug with a full board and a full hand against hos zero cards, but I need more combotraining.

[nevilshute]

Played a small tournament (40 people) yesterday with my exact list + sideboard changes hoping to meet storm, burn, omnitell and elves to get some good training for a bygger event in a couple of weeks. Met... Goblins, bug control, dredge, and then another goblins in the finals (same guy i met in the scv finals, good player). Easy 4-0, 2-0 wins against all, except the last goblins where I lost one game to wastelands. The deck feels super solid in the midrange-meta, crushing bug with a full board and a full hand against hos zero cards, but I need more combotraining.

Had pretty much the opposite experience. I went 4-1 (to first place on breakers) in our LGS weekly. I faced:

Reanimator (2-0)
ANT ( 2-1)
Burn (2-1)
Elves (1-2)
Infect (2-1)

My sideboard paid dividends especially vs. storm. Burn was super tight and he was playing a sub-optimal list with only 2 Price of Progress. Also, during game 3 while the game was in the balance he kind of screwed himself over by deploying Sulfuric Vortex and the Eidolon when it wasn't totally clear it would be advantageous for him and me casting Food Chain and 2 griffins on the following turn. He died with lethal in hand he couldn't cast. I had a misdirection but I'm not totally sure that would have been enough.

The elves games were rough. Game 3 I got brainstormed locked twice. First time I get locked. I pass and draw 1 of the 2 known cards. I have the choice of making Deathrite Shaman and just passing - opening up Golgari Charm on the next turn, or casting another brainstorm to try and hit a land in the next 2 cards. I chose the latter and was again not able to hit a land. Died with Golgari Charm and Abrupt Decay in hand.

All in all the deck ran hot but I didn't get to face any true grindy decks. Infest was as close as I got. All my removal helped immensely.

[jedi_gof]

well done boys.
Are you still on thoughtscour list Martin? And still Vela over tyrant, or how did the list look like last night?
Also how are the Tasigur in your experience. I loved it, but due to ill kids havent had the chance to play for the last 2 weeks running.

[Holmen]

nevilshute: Good work beating ANT and burn! ANT is slightly better than TES for us to meet I think, since they are slower and we can match the combo-race better.

jedi_gof: I have only tried Tasigur in playtesting, and the 5/5 flying body on Tombas seems superior to me along with the Karakas-claus. In grindy games we seldom need Tasigur´s ability – against bug control I had a couple of guys out, 3 griffs in exile and 6 cards in hand. I had plenty to do with my mana :) I would like to see some reflection on the sideboard if anyone has time – would be good to have som input. My all star so far has been Engineered Plague. My board is Shardless-integrated, in other words: Duress > Flusterstorm, for example, so I can't miss with cascade. That argument is leaning me towards cards like Torn of Amethyst against storm.

[Esper3k]

Played at the SCG Fort Worth PIQ yesterday - finished 27th, so mediocre but still in the money.

Beat RUG, UW Stoneblade, MUD, Junk Maverick, Miracles. Lost to Elves and UB Death's Shadow. Drew with Miracles.

Here's the list I played:

// Lands
3 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
3 [JGC] Polluted Delta
2 [PC2] Island (5)
1 [DDM] Forest (1)
3 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
1 [ZEN] Swamp (1a)
2 [A] Bayou
2 [B] Underground Sea
3 [R] Tropical Island

// Creatures
2 [M15] Genesis Hydra
4 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
4 [PC2] Baleful Strix
4 [RTR] Deathrite Shaman
2 [MOR] Vendilion Clique
1 [DIS] Tidespout Tyrant

// Spells
3 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
4 [5E] Brainstorm
4 [MM] Food Chain
3 [IN] Manipulate Fate
1 [KTK] Dig Through Time
4 [AL] Force of Will
1 [MM] Misdirection
2 [MPR] Ponder
1 [FNM] Dimir Charm

// Sideboard
SB: 1 [RTR] Abrupt Decay
SB: 2 [ZEN] Disfigure
SB: 2 [DKA] Grafdigger's Cage
SB: 2 [GPX] Umezawa's Jitte
SB: 2 [RTR] Golgari Charm
SB: 1 [ALA] Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 [FNM] Duress
SB: 2 [M11] Obstinate Baloth

[TheoryCraft]

First time poster in this thread. Got some playtesting in this weekend against Team America using Jeffrey Chen's list (1st out of 143) with one alteration: +1 Tombstalker; -1 Vendilion Clique. I also tried the Ponders in place of the Dig Through Time at one point. Thoughts:

The Bad News:
* The deck's mana curve is extremely high, which can be problematic against mana denial strategies (Port, Wasteland, Stifle, Hymn to Tourach discarding lands). Keeping a hand with 1-2 lands seems risky unless you have at least 1 mana dork and/or Brainstorm effect, and even then I felt like getting to 3 and especially 4 lands/mana was difficult at times.
* Going off of the last point, the deck constantly feels mana-starved. If your opponent plays his/her own DRS you can get stuck at 2 or 3 mana when all you need is 1 more measly mana to combo out.
* A lot of the cards in the deck can be "dead cards" that do not interact well. A hand with creatures not named Misthollow Griffin with a Food Chain in hand does little other than try to stall to mid-game. Likewise, Genesis Hydra is not a great hardcast unless you have 6-7 mana on board (which essentially never happens) and even then you can get screwed like I did with terrible topdecks. Another card, Tidespout Tyrant, is a dead draw unless your opponent plays SnT or you manage to get the combo going. As posted above, Brainstorm can only do so much.
* With being mana-starved and having expensive CMC cards, it felt like there were multiple times where I could play one thing at best on my turn, and if it was countered I was S.O.L. and basically had a dead turn, which is a death sentence in Legacy. Unlike RUG/BUG/value decks that can spew out multiple 1-2 drop threats on a turn, we are relegated to dropping one thing per turn most of the time.
* It may not seem like that big of a deal, but Goyfs can be a big problem if you do not have Baleful Strix in play. Because our deck runs notable artifacts and enchantments, a Goyf is almost always at least a 5/6 if not a 6/7 or even 7/8.

The good news:
* The Misthollow Griffin recursion engine - even without Food Chain - is often enough to out-value your opponent and win games. Misthollow beats seem more common than combo'ing out.
* Even with the dead draws, there are decent value interactions involving Manipulate Fate/Misdirection/Force of Will and Misthollow Griffin. DRS and Delve cards work great with MG as well.
* Baleful Strix gives nice value as a midrange creature against grinder, goodstuff, and fair decks.

Miscellaneous Thoughts:
* I personally loved the addition of a singleton Tombstalker. It is probably a byproduct of the matchup, but to me Tombstalker is a good card for the deck because he (1) plays nicely with our strategy of Delving out the GY, and (2) is a nightmare for any non-white deck to deal with. He can be a game-winner when he hits the board.
* I don't know the solution for this but somehow I think the deck would benefit from a lower mana curve. I didn't get enough testing in one way or another, but I feel as though Ponder might be better for the deck than Dig Through Time (as long as you have at least 1-2 other delve cards, be it Tombie or whatnot). Being 1 cmc seems relevant. /shrug

Thoughts?

[dawgie]

Miscellaneous Thoughts:
* I personally loved the addition of a singleton Tombstalker. It is probably a byproduct of the matchup, but to me Tombstalker is a good card for the deck because he (1) plays nicely with our strategy of Delving out the GY, and (2) is a nightmare for any non-white deck to deal with. He can be a game-winner when he hits the board.
* I don't know the solution for this but somehow I think the deck would benefit from a lower mana curve. I didn't get enough testing in one way or another, but I feel as though Ponder might be better for the deck than Dig Through Time (as long as you have at least 1-2 other delve cards, be it Tombie or whatnot). Being 1 cmc seems relevant. /shrug

First time poster as well here in this thread but I felt the same thing with Dig Through Time vs Ponder.

From my playtesting and with the recent small tourney that I played with, I have found Dig Through Time to underperform andwas just usually FoW fodder or Brainstormed away. There were many times that I will get Dig Through Time early in the game and I am not able to use it because I can't Delve. With the light mana base that we have for such a mana-hungry deck, I will be fully switching DTTs with Ponder in my next playtest sessions. Ponder also makes it easier to keep one-land opening hands and I think it might be better with the combo matchup.

I haven't thought about the Thought Scour route though but most probably DTT will be better with Thought Scours rather than Ponder.

[Esper3k]

I still have been liking DTT, myself. Sure you can't cast it early game, but any time it resolves, it feels absolutely insane to me. I'm trying to fit 2 Ponder, 2 DTT into a list right now.

[DireLemming]

To all the people trying to fit Ponder: try Sylvan Library. It's awesome with Hydra, it allows you to win out of nowhere, it reads 0: draw 2 against (non-storm) combo and is randomly all star in grindier matches and against discard.

[nevilshute]

To all the people trying to fit Ponder: try Sylvan Library. It's awesome with Hydra, it allows you to win out of nowhere, it reads 0: draw 2 against (non-storm) combo and is randomly all star in grindier matches and against discard.

It's definitely a great card. Trying to fit in 3-4 delve cards I just find Ponder a better option.

[Esper3k]

I love Library, but I prefer Ponder to help with the Delver matchups where we need cheap, quick ways to find answers / lands.

[grokh]

Hi,

I'm actually testing a list with 4 Gemstone caverns, and this works pretty well, you never start but you're able to get a land on turn 0, so cast Brainstorm in resp to a discard, or cast Sylvan library on turn 1, or Food chain on turn 2.

As far as i'm testing, the card seems to be pretty good, not overkill.

In my actual list, it's real hard to cast my 1 Dig through time, i thought removing it for testing the new Torrent elemental.

I know i can't activate its ability with Food chain mana, but :
- he's :u:
- he flies
- it's a creature so it can be cast with Food chain mana for its :4::u: cost
- it's a 3/5 body so can block lots of creatures without dying
- he can be exiled by Food chain, Misdirection, Force of will, Gemstone caverns, Deathrite shaman and Tasigur, the golden fang
- its ability puts it directly on the battlefield, it can't be countered (this is more safe than replaying a Misthollow griffin from exile)
- if he's declared as an attacker, all creatures opponent controls are tapped, so no more Delver of secrets blocking !


But i agree he has lots of issues too :
- can't be put back from exile with Food chain mana
- back frome exile tapped and as sorcery

BUT, after having thought to all of that a lot, i think i found a solution, why not play some Prophet of Kruphix too ?
- she's :u:
- it gives flash to our creatures
- it untaps all our lands and creatures each untap step

So the prophet is a good card alone and it allows u to solve lots of issues Torrent elemental has !

Example of play :

You got Prophet of Kruphix on board. Opponent plays a key-card, you cast Force of will, by pitching Torrent elemental on it.
On your turn, you pay :3::bg::bg: for having Torrent elemental back on board tapped. End your turn.
Opponent's turn, at his untap step you untap all lands and creatures so you got your :3::bg::bg: back and your Torrent elemental is now untapped and ready for blocking. Note that your Deathrite shaman(s), will untap each turn too if you got some in play, so you'll be able to use the ability 2 times !

I'm testing this list :

1 Birds of Paradise
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Torrent elemental
4 Baleful Strix
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Prophet of Kruphix

1 Sylvan Library
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Misdirection
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate

1 Forest
1 Bayou
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Gemstone Caverns
1 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island

Sideboard

2 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Engineered Plague
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Duress
2 Thoughtseize

EDIT : After some tests this afternoon, the Prophet of Kruphix is just awesome, cos :
- you can full tap yourself without any risk cos you get all untapped when opponent's turn start
- you got HUGE amount of mana when Food chain in play, cos u get mana from Food chain + mana from your untapped lands so you can cast HUGE Genesis hydra with flash

[.Ix]

Man this deck is just a lot of fun. People have no idea how to play against it. I've found that people will try to beat it by stopping what they believe to be a linchpin card and just losing horribly once they go all in to stop it. It's awesome. I was testing last night and my opponent was playing miracles. I resolved an early Manipulate, then baited him into Forcing my Dig leaving him with no cards in hand. Next turn I Food Chain and win. In another game, I pitched a griffin to FOW. He shuffled away his top to Counterspell the Griffin next turn. I delved the Grifin to cast Dig while he was tapped out and found Food Chain and Hydra....

I'm very happy with what I consider to be the "core" of the deck. I'm running 1 Misdirection, 2 Clique, 2 Thought Scour, 2 Tasigur, 2 Strix, and 3 Decay right now and it's been doing well so far locally.

[nevilshute]

Hey fellow Food Chainers. I've started recording legacy content and releasing it on youtube. Have done a deck tech and one match so far with Food Chain. Will release some more matches as I can get them done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHdHl8TzrH0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k2SF0UxGGQ

Hope you enjoy :smile:

[nevilshute]

And a few more vids:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyd4Sdjy2tM&list=PLHk0w4Md8v4B_tWTGjdFrRGrz21gPe84J&index=3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_8iFeZtT-c&index=4&list=PLHk0w4Md8v4B_tWTGjdFrRGrz21gPe84J

[jedi_gof]

Good work Martin. I am yet to watch them all through, but in general I appreciate your english being really good and your thought process interesting to listen to.
I myself prefer live commentary as mistakes and why they are made shine through much more that way.
Only negative comment is that some of what I have seen could be going a bit faster, and obvious plays dont need elaborating too much. But two big thumbs up from here! :)


On the deck, I went 4-1-1(ID, played it out and won so basically 5-1) on the weekly tourney in Faraos Cigarer.
I tweaked the list a bit, and it felt greater then in a long time.
Compared to my latest list posted here I shaved a fetch, a Strix and a thought scour for 2 ponders and a bird.

List was as followed:

1 Birds of Paradise
3 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
1 Thought Scour
2 Ponder
4 Food Chain
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Island

Sideboard
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
1 Golgari Charm
2 Thoughtseize
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
1 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
2 Disfigure
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Misdirection

I wont write too much, other than the SB should have been tweaked more against combo, and less based on permenant removals. I played an won against Rug delver, UB omni, U Omni, D&T, then lost to Storm before taking down Belcher in fnal round which we played out for fun. Tyrant upside: Really, really good against S&T decks. Won g1 by keeping a tyrant + crap hand as I had seen he was UB omni. S&T, put in my tyrant, he put in omni. I had fow and countered his first play with omni, bouncing it. GGs :D

[Esper3k]

Yeah I'm still a fan of Tidespout as our go-to guy. He just seems to be great in the most number of different situations. Even against Storm, he gives us an out if they go for the EtW kill.

[lincolnthree]

Last night I went 3-1 (2-0 Storm, 2-0 Reanimator, 2-0 Esper Thopter, 1-2 RUG Delver) with the following list:

4 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tidespout Tyrant
2 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
2 Ponder
4 Food Chain
1 Thoughtseize
--------------------------
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Island
1 Forest
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
3 Verdant Catacombs
--------------------------
SB
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Duress
1 Dismember
1 Disfigure
2 Golgari Charm
2 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Thoughtseize
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay

The Delver matchup was by far the most interesting and challenging. I found myself a bit tight on mana the entire game, and probably would have loved to have Tasigur on field due to tight mana holding me back the entire game. I may try him in place of Thoughtsieze in maindeck, and move that Thoughtsieze into the board in place of Venser or Dismember, but I don't like having 0 answers to things like Lodestone Golem. The deck is really quite weak to MUD in this form, I think - good thing not many people play it...

[.Ix]

Yeah, definitely try 2 Tasigur and 2 Thought Scour in the main. They have been amazing for me, and I haven't missed the 2 Strix that I cut for the Tasigurs. I have been playtesting this deck for weeks now and Tasigur has been great. He exiles dead griffins, he is HUGE for one mana, he accelerates from B to 7 mana with Chain out, and he gives us cards for 4 mana. The cards are usually pretty crappy for the situation at hand, but typically when I'm activating Tasigur, the game is going to get really long anyway, and I can often find a use for the card later on, even if it is just putting it back to a Brainstorm.

Yesterday I was playing against Esperblade, and I managed to set up the following sequence: I cast Manipulate Fate, opponent FOWs, I FOW back pitching Griffin. It resolves and I get a ridiculous 2-for-6 against a grindy deck, putting all 4 griffins in exile. Feels good, man. I soon topdeck a Food Chain and he gets really really frustrated because he Thoughtseized the first one. This deck is so great for trolling. It looks like a steaming pile of jank and I often still wonder why I win games with it.

[movingtonewao]

Yeah, definitely try 2 Tasigur and 2 Thought Scour in the main. They have been amazing for me, and I haven't missed the 2 Strix that I cut for the Tasigurs. I have been playtesting this deck for weeks now and Tasigur has been great. He exiles dead griffins, he is HUGE for one mana, he accelerates from B to 7 mana with Chain out, and he gives us cards for 4 mana. The cards are usually pretty crappy for the situation at hand, but typically when I'm activating Tasigur, the game is going to get really long anyway, and I can often find a use for the card later on, even if it is just putting it back to a Brainstorm.

Yesterday I was playing against Esperblade, and I managed to set up the following sequence: I cast Manipulate Fate, opponent FOWs, I FOW back pitching Griffin. It resolves and I get a ridiculous 2-for-6 against a grindy deck, putting all 4 griffins in exile. Feels good, man. I soon topdeck a Food Chain and he gets really really frustrated because he Thoughtseized the first one. This deck is so great for trolling. It looks like a steaming pile of jank and I often still wonder why I win games with it.

could you share your list? I've been trying to decide what to cut for thought scours as well.

[.Ix]

This is what I've been running since last week.

4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Force of Will
2 Thought Scour
2 Dig Through Time
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

Just last night I tried a Taiga over the Forest to try two Slaughter Games in the sideboard, but nobody brought a deck I would want to hit with Slaughter Games. It's mostly for Omnitell, though, really.

[movingtonewao]

This is what I've been running since last week.

4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Birds of Paradise
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Force of Will
2 Thought Scour
2 Dig Through Time
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Polluted Delta
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Forest

Just last night I tried a Taiga over the Forest to try two Slaughter Games in the sideboard, but nobody brought a deck I would want to hit with Slaughter Games. It's mostly for Omnitell, though, really.


Hmm interesting. Between the 2 tasigurs, 2 dig through time and 4 deathrites do you find yourself in awkward situations without graveyard fuel?

[.Ix]

About Deathrite, that only really happens when the opponent isn't playing fetches. Hasnt happened to me against the usual legacy decks so far. Tasigur does give you graveyard fuel, though, so there's that. In the midgame, I am often happy to pay more mana for Tasigur or Dig anyway.

[movingtonewao]

About Deathrite, that only really happens when the opponent isn't playing fetches. Hasnt happened to me against the usual legacy decks so far. Tasigur does give you graveyard fuel, though, so there's that. In the midgame, I am often happy to pay more mana for Tasigur or Dig anyway.

Ah ok. I'd like to ask a question though, when sideboarding, which are the cards that you seem to cut first?

I'm trying to understand sideboarding for this deck, I'm assuming that baleful strixes, DTT, and abrupt decay tend to be the first to go (depending on matchups).

Are there any situations where we would actually take out food chains?

Would you share your sideboard if you don't mind?

[.Ix]

No problem. This is what I have right now, but take this with a grain of salt because some slots are experimental (Slaughter Games and EE)

1 Toxic Deluge
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Slaughter Games (1 Taiga main over the Forest)
3 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Abrupt Decay

If I'm up against grindy decks or midrange decks, I'll take out Tidespout and the Hydras for cards that will make my matchup better. Birds can also go if the opponent doesn't mess with the mana and if I don't really want to accelerate. Decay for Miracles or Blade decks that can't beat me without Jitte, and I also bring two Jitte of my own. For combo, I tend to take out the 2 Strix, 1 Manipulate, 2 DTT, and 3 Decay (depending on the combo deck) and bring in the anti-combo cards. Tasigur tends to enter the battlefield much earlier in combo games because of the lower curve (3 Duress 2 Fluster usually).

I don't think I'd want to take out Food Chain against any deck. Going full combo while holding FOW, Duress, Flusterstorm is pretty good against combo. There aren't many grindy decks that can beat 3-4 Griffins and a Chain either. A lot of people are really threatened by a Food Chain on the stack (usually because they don't have many ways to deal with an enchantment), and I think even getting it FOWed is absolutely fine for the deck's strategy of accumulating value.

I wanted to try the EE for random tribal decks that seem to show up a lot around here, and some very irritating tokens (Angels, Elementals, and Monks). Might also be good against Counterbalance, not that I should even worry about that with 4 Decay already in the deck. Slaughter Games should be game against Omnitell, and it could also help against Miracles by taking out the win conditions. Haven't actually cast either though!

[movingtonewao]

No problem. This is what I have right now, but take this with a grain of salt because some slots are experimental (Slaughter Games and EE)

1 Toxic Deluge
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Slaughter Games (1 Taiga main over the Forest)
3 Duress
2 Flusterstorm
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Abrupt Decay

If I'm up against grindy decks or midrange decks, I'll take out Tidespout and the Hydras for cards that will make my matchup better. Birds can also go if the opponent doesn't mess with the mana and if I don't really want to accelerate. Decay for Miracles or Blade decks that can't beat me without Jitte, and I also bring two Jitte of my own. For combo, I tend to take out the 2 Strix, 1 Manipulate, 2 DTT, and 3 Decay (depending on the combo deck) and bring in the anti-combo cards. Tasigur tends to enter the battlefield much earlier in combo games because of the lower curve (3 Duress 2 Fluster usually).

I don't think I'd want to take out Food Chain against any deck. Going full combo while holding FOW, Duress, Flusterstorm is pretty good against combo. There aren't many grindy decks that can beat 3-4 Griffins and a Chain either. A lot of people are really threatened by a Food Chain on the stack (usually because they don't have many ways to deal with an enchantment), and I think even getting it FOWed is absolutely fine for the deck's strategy of accumulating value.

I wanted to try the EE for random tribal decks that seem to show up a lot around here, and some very irritating tokens (Angels, Elementals, and Monks). Might also be good against Counterbalance, not that I should even worry about that with 4 Decay already in the deck. Slaughter Games should be game against Omnitell, and it could also help against Miracles by taking out the win conditions. Haven't actually cast either though!

Not sure how useful a singleton EE would be considering we don't have a way to tutor it up. Ever thought about relic/grafdigger's cage? Or is your meta not very heavy on graveyard decks.

[.Ix]

Not sure how useful a singleton EE would be considering we don't have a way to tutor it up. Ever thought about relic/grafdigger's cage? Or is your meta not very heavy on graveyard decks.

I already have 2 Cage. That has been enough so far considering I also board in Duress and Flusterstorm to go with the maindeck Deathrites. EE is just for redundancy, as another way to X-for-1 the opponent. Another Toxic Deluge could easily take its spot, but I wanted the option to deal with enchantments and artifacts. I'm really not sure if it's worth the sideboard slot, though.

[movingtonewao]

I already have 2 Cage. That has been enough so far considering I also board in Duress and Flusterstorm to go with the maindeck Deathrites. EE is just for redundancy, as another way to X-for-1 the opponent. Another Toxic Deluge could easily take its spot, but I wanted the option to deal with enchantments and artifacts. I'm really not sure if it's worth the sideboard slot, though.

Thanks for your replies :) It helps out a newbie to the deck like me. Do keep us updated if Slaughter Games turns out to be useful against the omnitell bandwagoners.

[.Ix]

No problem. Honestly, I'm quite new to the deck myself. I stopped playing it when i realized Fierce Empath wasn't doing it for me, and jumped back on the bandwagon when I saw the new builds and the SCG win. I will try to cast as many Slaughter Games as I can and report back.

[S1N1STER]

Finally got around to playing this deck last night for the 1st time, went 4-0 only dropping one game to enchantress where I just couldn't find a griffon to combo out. It was a fun deck, I prefer combo decks but it is nice to be able to play fair game too. I think all of my wins except for 1 game were from comboing out though

[kombatkiwi]

Would Green Sun's Zenith be a viable card? It has been suggested in the thread a couple of times but each time it is dismissed with "can't spend Food Chain Mana on it."

You still have the 2 Fierce Empaths so your density of creatures that win you the game off infinite mana hasn't changed, but if you have 4 lands and Griffin/Chain online then you can still harcast a GSZ for Empath and search for a wincon that way.

It also artificially inflates the manadork count while not diluting the deck, and is also useful in the midgame when the combo is not online by searching for either Scavenging Ooze or Fierce Empath -> Tombstalker/Tasigur

Example:

Lands (20)
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
3 Island
1 Dryad Arbor

Creatures (16)
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Fierce Empath
1 Tombstalker/Tasigur
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn/Vela

Other spells (24)
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Ponder/Misdirection/Whatever
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
4 Green Sun's Zenith

[lincolnthree]

The problem with GSZ is tempo. The only real tempo play you can use it for is to find a mana source that will ETB with summoning sickness, at which point, why not just run another mana source. Zenithing for Empath? I guess? But that sets you back a turn, Zenithing for Griffin? Yuck!

I think that the real strength of Food Chain is that it's a mid-rangey deck that puts legitimate pressure on the opponent and can win out of nowhere. GSZ is more all-in combo, but I feel that the tempo deficit isn't really worth the gains.

Half of my games I win by beating with griffins. My hardest matchups are against tempo decks like Esper Stoneblade, RUG delver or Grixis delver. Too much counter-magic/disruption, and the clock is too fast. GSZ could be useful, again, but it usually sets you a turn back, and gives them another turn to deal with your threats. That's why I like the Genesis Hydra package, because it is usually never dead. I'd rather have Hydra in hand with no griffin than have a GSZ (there are so many ways to get a griffin, like Manipulate Fate, or Brainstorm, Ponder), and it's also late game threat, and it's also combo tutoring.

[kombatkiwi]

The problem with GSZ is tempo. The only real tempo play you can use it for is to find a mana source that will ETB with summoning sickness, at which point, why not just run another mana source. Zenithing for Empath? I guess? But that sets you back a turn, Zenithing for Griffin? Yuck!

I think that the real strength of Food Chain is that it's a mid-rangey deck that puts legitimate pressure on the opponent and can win out of nowhere. GSZ is more all-in combo, but I feel that the tempo deficit isn't really worth the gains.

Half of my games I win by beating with griffins. My hardest matchups are against tempo decks like Esper Stoneblade, RUG delver or Grixis delver. Too much counter-magic/disruption, and the clock is too fast. GSZ could be useful, again, but it usually sets you a turn back, and gives them another turn to deal with your threats. That's why I like the Genesis Hydra package, because it is usually never dead. I'd rather have Hydra in hand with no griffin than have a GSZ (there are so many ways to get a griffin, like Manipulate Fate, or Brainstorm, Ponder), and it's also late game threat, and it's also combo tutoring.

The reason why you don't just play additional mana sources is because you don't want your deck to be full of mana elves/birds that are bad topdecks.
You can't even Zenith for Griffin because Griffin isn't green.
As I already explained, GSZ also functions as combo tutoring and a lategame threat.
I agree that GSZ is a 'slow' card in the sense that the price you pay for the increased utility is that it adds an additional G mana to the cost of whatever you are doing, and the Hydra Trigger is useful for getting midrange value or forcing a FC through counterspells, but the increased consistency seems like it could be worth it.

[lincolnthree]

Well, all I can say is play with it. I have my opinion, but obviously hard data would trump that ;) Try it out and see how it goes. It's an interesting idea. Let us know what happens.

[lincolnthree]

The reason why you don't just play additional mana sources is because you don't want your deck to be full of mana elves/birds that are bad topdecks.

Also, with the green creatures you have in your list, you can search up Ooze, Deathrite, Empath, and Arbor, and none of those really seem like game-changing late-game topdecks (maybe deathrite or ooze if there are lots of things in the GY that you want to eat up. Additionally, I suppose you could fetch Tasigur with Empath if you don't have the combo assembled, but again, that adds to the mana cost, and just drawing another empath would have been better.)

If you really want to tutor for an empath (the only combo piece that you can actually fetch with GSZ), then you probably also have griffin ready to go, and given that you (as you already mentioned earlier) can't spend food chain mana on Zenith, you're still potentially a turn back on the combo and would rather have just drawn an empath off the topdeck.

I can see some value in this, but as I said, need to see how it plays to see if it's really something that works. This is how things happen in magic. People try stuff and it works. I do also like that GSZ shuffles back for extra potential value if it resolves.

[Dziga Murnau]

Got interested in modern days Food Chain as a midrange built around card advantage grinder rather than focused on combo deck - and I've got two questions for active pilots of it: what matchups do you usually beat the face with Griffins and not combo? When there is no other way to win than fast combo out?
And main thing - is Food Chain really needed here to cut the way to victory or it slowly becomes just a winmore card?
The thing is that I want to incorporate Torrent Elementals in main to have uncounterable unblockable beaters, but they are nombo with Food Chain.

[.Ix]

Most of the time, I win by grinding people out with Griffins. I rarely even get the full combo with Tidespout/Hydra out. I only plan for the full combo if I know the opponent can't disrupt it, or if I'm racing a combo deck Game 1. I tend to value the Food Chain very highly, though, because it can just produce a massive clock out of nowhere. People like to fight counter wars over Food Chains, too. I've put many opponents in very awkward situations in which they get clocked real fast if it resolves, but they will end up with less cards and get clocked slowly anyway if they fight a counter war over it.

[nevilshute]

For me personally, I will board out some parts of the combo (including maybe 1 Food Chain) if I'm up against something like storm or reanimator. But that's because I've set up my sideboard to have a very strong game against them with meddling mages, discard and grave yard hate. So I will revert into a control deck and will aim to win through steady, if not very fast, pressure through deathrite activations and 1 or 2 beaters while just continually attacking their combo with flusterstorms and force, discard spells, grave interaction and hatebears. In that scenario I think it's wrong to try and race them.

Against midrange and control decks I generally don't like boarding out the Food Chain because it is just such a big threat. It might never lead to the full combo but it offers the promise of an instant death so your opponent will usually feel that they must deal with it at all costs. This can lead to strategic advantages for us. But also, if the card makes it into play then its synergies with the Griffins is just too good to pass on imo.

Regarding your first question: I don't think there are decks against which you will generally go for the combo and matchups where you won't.

[.Ix]

In that scenario I think it's wrong to try and race them.


I definitely agree with this. I would only try to race if I had no choice but to force the combo, which can happen Game 1 if the opener doesn't have much disruption. Sometimes I also board out Manipulate Fate, since I rarely want to cast it early in combo matches. How have you found the Meddling Mages in your sideboard? That might be way better than Slaughter Games, actually.

[movingtonewao]

@nevilshute

could you post your list? Its good to know what everyones been running with, since this thread is not the most active.

I'll try to attend the next monthly legacy with this deck and post a report.

[jedi_gof]

I attended the local Legacy LGS tourney last night, and went 5-0. Deck cooperated for the most part, but got there through some rough patches as well.

List I ran was the same MB as last page, but with a SB geared more towards disruption.

1 Birds of Paradise
3 Baleful Strix
4 Deathrite Shaman
2 Genesis Hydra
4 Misthollow Griffin
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Vendilion Clique
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Dig Through Time
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Misdirection
1 Thought Scour
2 Ponder
4 Food Chain
1 Bayou
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
3 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Verdant Catacombs
1 Island

Sideboard
1 Abrupt Decay
2 Flusterstorm
1 Golgari Charm
3 Thoughtseize
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Null Rod
2 Murderous Cut
2 Spell Pierce
1 Vendillion Clique
1 Relic of Progenitus


Round 1: Lands.
G1 He mulls to 5, and does essentially nothing before I combo out.
G2 He opens on mox, land, loam. Too bad for him I can go T1 relic. Exiled the loam and from there he did nothing much and easy 2-0
1-0, 2-0

Round 2:RG Combolands
G1: I manage to bait him into trying to limit my manabase, but can set up multiple DRS and foodchain lock him. 20/20 is worthless against recurring 3/3s.
G2: We both stabilize, but a poor brainstorm locked me ( played ponder / brainstorm in wrong order ) and since he was slighly ahead by then and would get even further ahead before I saw fresh cards I conceeded to have time for G3.
G3: I get to stick FC and a manipulate fate. He does make a 20/20 and get maze + stages , but too little too late and I grind his lifetotal down to where DRS can finish him turn 2 of ekstra turns.
2-0. 4-1

Round 3: Jund
Uneventful game, he mulled to 5 once, but he just got turn apart in 2 quick games.
3-, 6-1

Round 4: Elves
Game 1 I keep a 1 lander with DRS, Strix, M.fate, F.Chain, Fetch, Brainstorm, Force. I see no lands all game, but get there by playing muliple DRS, which in turn 6 could exile some lands from his GY and play the FC, griffs, hydre -> win
Game 2. He mulls to six, i thougtseize him and see 2x hoof, and take GSZ. from there not much happens on his side, and it ends quickly.
4-0, 8-1

Round 5: BUG
Tired, so cant remember much, however 3 close games end up in my favor, but conceeded as I had locked top spot already and it was against a good mate.
5-0, 10-2

Deck feels really good in this configuration, might change 1-2 SB slots but really satisfied with it overall!

[nevilshute]

@nevilshute

could you post your list? Its good to know what everyones been running with, since this thread is not the most active.

I'll try to attend the next monthly legacy with this deck and post a report.

My list:

4x Food Chain
4x Misthollow Griffin
2x Genesis Hydra
1x Tidespout Tyrant
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Baleful Strix
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Murderous Cut
1x Misdirection
4x Force of Will
3x Manipulate Fate
2x Dig Through Time
2x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
3x Meddling Mage
2x Flusterstrom
2x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Disfigure
2x Golgari Charm
1x Abrupt Decay

I'm not playing this deck at the moment, but will get back to it :smile:

[maCHOOga]

So how does this deck fare against OmniTell? My metagame is infested with it. I suspect it's not terrible with Meddling Mages, Flusterstorms and Discard.

[MGB]

So how does this deck fare against OmniTell? My metagame is infested with it. I suspect it's not terrible with Meddling Mages, Flusterstorms and Discard.

Better than 12Post? :smile:

[Esper3k]

Being a UB deck, we have a lot of options against combo. Omnitell is particularly susceptible to hand disruption, so make sure you're packing plenty of it in the board.

[Fox]

Seems like this deck also has some built-in resistance to Omnitell by simply allowing show and tell to resolve and drop a tidespout tyrant into play. At this point the only spell you really need to fight is cunning wish for wipe away.
Something to be careful of though is Ethersworn Canonist which really needs to be answered in Food Chain's sideboards. Since we're talking about omnitell, it's good to consider how other decks' sideboards will look for their matchup.

[Ancestral]

My list:

4x Food Chain
4x Misthollow Griffin
2x Genesis Hydra
1x Tidespout Tyrant
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Birds of Paradise
3x Baleful Strix
1x Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3x Abrupt Decay
1x Murderous Cut
1x Misdirection
4x Force of Will
3x Manipulate Fate
2x Dig Through Time
2x Ponder
4x Brainstorm
3x Underground Sea
3x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
1x Savannah
1x Swamp
4x Polluted Delta
4x Misty Rainforest
2x Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:
3x Meddling Mage
2x Flusterstrom
2x Thoughtseize
1x Duress
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Disfigure
2x Golgari Charm
1x Abrupt Decay

I'm not playing this deck at the moment, but will get back to it :smile:

hey there i played bug foodchain like a couple of years ago, and i 4-0d a tournament and i don´t know why i didnt continue to play it xD but thinking in play it again. i think it has a good matchup against miracles and can beat omni tell, so maybe its a good choice to consider for GP lille :p

that white splash is worth it tho?
and why 1 birds? i think we don´t have any mana issues no?

[lincolnthree]

and why 1 birds? i think we don´t have any mana issues no?

Birds seems OK if you really want the acceleration, but I find that it's generally a dead draw mid-late game. I usually want anything but birds.

[Ancestral]

Birds seems OK if you really want the acceleration, but I find that it's generally a dead draw mid-late game. I usually want anything but birds.

yeah thats why i only play shamans for speed up

[maCHOOga]

Birds seems OK if you really want the acceleration, but I find that it's generally a dead draw mid-late game. I usually want anything but birds.

I can see the need for a 5th accelerator. I opted for 1x noble hierarch over the birds, sure it doesn't produce black mana, but the exalted trigger is an appreciable clock in some games.

Also, late game, you can always cast manipulate fate and pull the low impact Bird of Paradise from the deck.

[Damaku]

https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Products/Singles/Magic+Origins/img/5e455ca155e3d6873ef0e18b14606abb/cards/Magic_Origins/elemental_bond.jpg

Do you think this might be playable?

[kingtk3]

https://www.magickartenmarkt.de/Products/Singles/Magic+Origins/img/5e455ca155e3d6873ef0e18b14606abb/cards/Magic_Origins/elemental_bond.jpg

Do you think this might be playable?

It's another CC3 enchantment which does nothing on it's own and cannot be casted with Food Chain mana.

If you want a draw effect try Soul of the Harvest: although it costs exactly double than elemental bond (which you should not struggle to much, since you have 4-5 mana dorks and can use FC mana), it has none of its weaknesses, it has a big body with trample and with FC + Griffin it lets you combo off.

In fact, some people use it instead of Genesis Hydra.

[movingtonewao]

yeah thats why i only play shamans for speed up

If you're playing this for Lille, do some playtesting :) I personally don't like the birds, and I like a 2nd tasigur in there because black goyf is awesome. Remember to pack some duress in the sideboard, and something that can answer a ethersworn canonist.

Good luck and when you're done please write a report for us!

[grokh]

An interesting spoiler :

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/71/852/635708061514420463.png

Is there something to build with that new toy ?

[meso94]

I don't think that this card would be add in the deck cause it can search only for a green creature and for its cost...but the time would show us if I'm wrong...
I have a question...what decklist do you play in those days?? Sooner I will post mine to ask for some help cause I'm relative new for this archetype

[grokh]

I'll give you the decklist i'll play for Grand Prix Lille by private message if you want !

[maCHOOga]

I'll give you the decklist i'll play for Grand Prix Lille by private message if you want !

grokh, I PM'ed you. I'm planning on playing food chain this weekend at the SCG legacy premier IQ. Interested in swapping decklists/ideas over PM?

[movingtonewao]

question: how do we beat omnitell?

[Barook]

An interesting spoiler :

http://media-dominaria.cursecdn.com/avatars/71/852/635708061514420463.png

Is there something to build with that new toy ?
It could be chained with Fierce Empath to generate alot of mana and hardcast Emrakul.

[HNana]

Hey guys, here with a bit of a tourney report. Food chain griffin (shardless version) is my main deck and by far my favorite in legacy. Thanks in advance for reading!
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/26-06-15-food-chain-griffin/
This is the deck I ran. Somewhat similar to the version I ran at the GP and went on to day 2 with (I had 1 less land and no meddling mages in the sideboard)

So in Osaka on Fridays, there's 2 tourneys for FNM, one at 5PM and one at 7:30. They're both max 3 rounds, so I can do one right after the other. Here's how my matches went.

Round 1 vs BUG Delver:
Game 1 I keep an opening hand with 2 strix, 3 land, DRS, and Shardless. I play DRS, he plays delver. He eventually gets two delvers out, used his removal to kill my strix, but I kept my life total up enough with a decay on one delver and eating dudes with DRS. I hardcast a griffin and my opponent stops attacking. I end up getting out 3 shardless, 2 misthollow, and a strix and my opponent just folds cause he couldnt deal with the griffins, all while DRS is eating his graveyard for damage. GAME WIN.
Game MVP: DRS, there wasn't a turn he didn't help me by either accelerating mana, gaining me life, or cause 2 lifeloss for my opponent.

Sideboard:
out: -4 fow
in: +2 pithing needle, +1 vendilion clique, +1 golgari charm
Against decks like bug delver, force of will is bad, so I just remove the 4 and try to find things to throw in it's spot. I side in 2 needles (for wasteland, lil, and anything else weird) A clique (can block delver), and a golgari charm (can regen my dudes from an abrupt decay or a battle with delvers/goyfs, and can -1/-1 and kill human delvers and bob)

Game 2 I drop a sylvan library 2nd turn, he hymns me getting dig through time and brainstorm. He plays lil and just +1s her for a few turns until I decay her. He then proceeds to do nothing for 3 turns while i assemble food chain, griffin, and a tidespout tyrant. I bounce all his lands back to his hand and he scoops. GAME WIN.
Game MVP: Sylvan library. I was able to find whatever I needed, and got a couple extra cards that were absolutely worth the 4 life. It's a very powerful card that I love having out.

1-0-0

Round 2 vs Black Pox/reanimator???
Game 1 My opponent is on mono black. he thoughtseizes me first turn and takes DRS. I ponder, get what I need. play a strix. He uses a dark rit and plays a phyrexian obliterator. Passes back to me, i dig a bit more with a brainstorm and will pretty much have the combo assembled the next turn, so I pass. He attacks with the obliterator, and then uses a dark rit again and plays a second one. I play food chain, exile strix for blue, play griffin, get infinite mana, play emrakul and he scoops. GAME WIN
Game MVP: Food Chain - the combo won me that game, and even if it didn't, i would have been able to block obliterators with griffins and exile before damage to save me from having to exile any permanents even if I didn't find emrakul or tidespout

I have no idea what my opponent's deck is, so I peg it as pox.

Sideboard:
out: -1 baleful strix
in: +1 vendilion clique

Game 2: My opponent mulls to 6 and plays a swamp and passes. I play a land into a DRS. He entombs at the end of my turn. He's apparently on reanimator and my grafdigger's cages are in my sideboard. He then dark rituals into hymn to tourach nailing 2 lands that I didn't need (drew too many) and then he passes without playing a land. I then proceed to just beat him down with shardless, and then get a DRS, which makes me much more comfortable because he won't be able to reanimate his dudes. He apparently draws an iona and an elesh norn, both of which do nothing in his hand. I beat him down and that's the end of that game. GAME WIN
Game MVP: Shardless Agent - Found DRS and beat down a lot while my opponent was sitting there unable to do anything.

2-0-0

Game 3 vs MUD
Mud is my least favorite deck to play against. I have a terrible win record against it, and I just cannot ever beat it, so I wasn't looking forward to this match.

Game 1: my opponent gets out a lodestone golem and i have no answer for it. GAME LOSS
Anti-MVP - Lodestone golem, I lose to that card alone way too much.

Sideboard:
out: -1 abrupt decay
-1 ponder
-1 sylvan library
-1 strix
-1 manipulate fate
-2 dig through time
in: +3 thoughtsieze
+2 pithing needle
+1 vendilion clique
+1 reclamation sage

I got rid of my "long run" cards because I lose fast or I can get control of the board and I'm fine.

Game 2:
My opponent gets out a platinum angel, two lodestone golem, and a chalice on 1 I end up being able to grind through it with food chain, into griffins, into tidespout, bouncing back everything to his hand and he scoops.
Game MVP: Tidespout Tyrant. The Lodestones were a pain, but him bouncing them back was way better than anything else I could have done. GAME WIN

Game 3:
I get one turn away from comboing and my opponent drops an ugin and kills my shardless, not giving me enough mana to combo. I can't deal with ugin and he just bolts my creatures with ugin each turn and -10s him and I scoop. GAME LOSS
Anti-MVP - Ugin. Way too hard to do anything about once he hits the board.

2-1-0

I'm really sad about losing to metalworker yet again, but there's not much else I could have done because there's too much disruption to what im doing in the form of chalice, trinisphere, and lodestone. Then there's things like sundering titan and ugin which are instant "you lose" pretty much. Anyways, on to tourney 2!

Round 1 vs elves:
Game 1: My opponent mulls to 6 and just plays weenie after weenie. He doesn't play a single glimpse, GSZ, natural order, craterhoof or anything. Just things like quiron ranger and whatnot. I get out DRSs and shardless agent. I keep myself alive long enough to get my combo going, and knowing that elves can't stop it in any way, i play food chain into griffin into emrakul. GAME WIN
Game MVP: DRS - kept me alive long enough from weenie beatdown to combo off.
Sideboard: I side in literally everything except the reclamation sage and just pick a buncha stuff to toss out fast so I don't waste too much time.
OUT: -4 Abrupt Decay
-4 baleful strix
-1 sylvan library
-2 dig through time
-1 manipulate fate
-1 ponder
-1 food chain
IN: +4 meddling mage
+3 thoughtseize
+2 grafdigger's cage
+2 pithing needle
+1 toxic deluge
+1 vendilion clique
+1 golgari charm

Game 2: I get out an early grafdigger's cage which locks up my opponent a bit. He gets out a few heritage druids, a nettle sentinel, and a wirewood symbiote. I end up forcing the elvish visionary to keep him locked down. I have 2 DRS, he attacks with nettle sentinel, and I block with a drs and let it die. He then uses symbiote to return heritage druid to his hand, plays it again to untap nettle sentinel. I play golgari charm and proceed to wipe his board. I then get out a needle and name quiron ranger. I play a thoughtseize and make him discard a glimpse, with him showing only a natural order and a glimpse of nature with no creatures in his hand. I play a meddling mage naming elvish visionary. He decays grafdigger's cage, so the next turn I play another meddling mage naming natural order (the only card i am 100% certain he has). I'm sitting on double FoW backup and just beat with meddling mages and he dies. GAME WIN
MVP: Grafdigger's cage - that stopped him from playing an early natural order that I wouldn't have been able to deal with.

1-0-0

Round 2 vs Omnishow:
Game 1: Opponent mulls to 6. I keep him at bay with DRS to stop him from digging though time. I attempt to play a food chain, my opponent spell pierces not realizing I had DRS up to take mana, so I pay for that, he then plays fow on it. He takes his turn, untaps and passes back. During my draw step, he plays cunning wish, getting a surgical extraction and tries to take the food chain but I just dig through time in response (which he should have known I would do cause he git probed my hand and saw it) I manipulate fate, and then the next turn I get food chain into griffin into emrakul. GAME WIN
MVP - Dig through time - saved me from losing my food chains and got me good cards on top of that!

Sideboard:
OUT: -4 Abrupt Decay
-4 Baleful Strix
IN: +4 meddling mage
+3 thoughtseize
+1 vendilion clique

Sideboard is pretty straightforward, meddling mage is the single best card vs omnishow so of course it comes down to whether I can get one in play.

Game 2: Opponent plays turn 3 show and tell into omniscience into emrakul and I had no disruption to stop it. GAME LOSS
Anti-MVP - show and tell

Game 3: This is a long grindy game. I have one land, a thoughtseize, a DRS, 2 meddling mages, emrakul and a ponder. I figure if I can get to 2 lands then I'm good. I get more lands, using DRS to make white for meddling mage, and had my opp fow one of them, and then cunning wish reb the other. The next turn, i untap and have exactly enough lands to play food chain, exile a land from my opp's graveyard for a color with DRS, exile DRS, and tap another land to play griffin into emrakul. My opponent's hand the turn I did that was show and tell, ancient tomb, omniscience, with emrakul on top. If I didn't win that turn I would have lost. Thankfully I played right and won. GAME WIN
Game MVP : Meddling mage, though we all knew that. That card gives omnishow so many issues

2-0-0
Omniscience was a really hard matchup and one of the main reasons i have 4 meddling mage sideboard (and the tundra mainboard for them). Combo decks these days are too good, and omniscience is especially all about the "show and tell" plan and generally doesnt lose against counter decks because of boseiju. I got lucky to win game 1 because post board is much better for food chain and sometimes I have no answer to stuff mainboard.


Match 3 vs Miracles:
It ends up being my friend who drew his previous round. He says he'll give me the win (so i go 3-0 and get a free pack) but that we'll play just to see what happens. We play this matchup at least once a week, usually at his place or a store or something. He goes down to 6, i have a killer hand with DRS, 2 decays, and other good stuff (shardless, strix, manipulate fate) He plays top 1st turn and counterbalance 2nd turn, i decay. He plays another CB again 3rd turn, i decay again. He gets pretty screwed on lands and misses a couple drops. I play food chain for the combo kill, he fow its, i fow back pitching griffin, he fow again and is left with 1 card in hand, 3 lands. He can't catch up and I just beat with griffins and shardless with drs backup. GAME WIN
MVP - Abrupt Decay - If I didn't have both those decays I would have lost to countertop lock for sure.

He just gives up there so we can go get food. I get a pack of MM15 for going 3-0 and open an overwhelming stampede which proves to be pretty underwhelming.

So I won 5/6 tourney matches. Thoughts? Opinions? Thanks.

[movingtonewao]

So I took part in the big tickets legacy side event at GP Singapore.

It was a 5 round Swiss REL Competitive event with no cut to top 8.

Decklist:
4 Food Chain
4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Noble Hierarch
3 Baleful Strix
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig Through Time
1 Ponder
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
4 Meddling Mage
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Golgari Charm
1 Null Rod
1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
1 Abrupt Decay

So a little about this list, I used to have Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm in my board, but decided to swop them out for the 4th Meddling Mage. I also wanted both Pithing Needle and Null Rod to stop Equipment and Top, and I wanted Night of Souls’ Betrayal to deal with unflipped delvers, mentor tokens, and young pyro + elemental tokens. Expecting a lot of miracles and omnitell, I had sylvan library in the mainboard, and also 2 maindeck vendilion clique because they are so awesome. Not sure if I got my manabase right, was going back and forth between the tundra and savannah before I went with savannah (in case I don’t have a mana dork out and need to cast meddling mage).

Now onto the games. I try to be as accurate as I can but my memory is a little hazy so if you're one of my opponents and notice something wrong please correct me.

Round 1: Kelvin Tan Choon Han with Merfolk (Win 2-0)

Didn’t notice this guy before so I chatted with him and found that he was from Malaysia. Has some pretty slick hair too.

Game 1:
He wins the roll, but starts with a mulligan. He landed the T1 vial off an island which pretty much gives away what he’s playing. Strangely enough. He choked on land though, and got stuck with just Island, Mutavault, and Aether Vial. So Mutavault beats down on me while Aether Vial ticks up to 3 and lands a Thassa. In the meantime I’m just developing my board with mana dorks and lands and sculpting my hand a little, careful to play around daze since I bet he has a bunch of those in hand seeing the lack of action on the field. He wastes my duals aggressively but with deathrite shaman and noble hierarch I wasn’t going to get mana screwed. He starts playing more creatures and beats me down to single digits. Eventually with a bunch of mana up I bait his force of will with a tasigur, which I don’t contest, and then force of will backup I go for the food chain. It resolves and I combo out by bouncing all of his permanents at 5 life.

Sideboard:
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Pithing Needle (for wasteland and mutavault, mainly wasteland)
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Abrupt Decay
-4 Force of Will (bad against vial decks)
-1 Food Chain

Game 2:
This was a long grindy game. He actually managed to land the beats much faster, but T1 Deathrite Shaman really did a lot of work (gaining life and shooting for damage). At one point It was a Lord of Atlantis facing down a Deathrite Shaman, he then cast a Phantasmal Image, and I responded by using Abrupt Decay on the Lord so he had no choice but to copy my DRS which was rather funny for me, not so for him since he doesn’t have the mana for the 2nd and 3rd abilities. He did Surgical Extraction my Underground Seas in the mid game (which was rather puzzling). He also made a key error when he attacked with his Master of the Pearl Trident thinking that it had Islandwalk but it only gives other merfolk Islandwalk, not itself. So my Baleful Strix traded with it. Time is called, and I assemble my griffins just in time to kill him before extra turns end.

Round 2: Muhamad Hilmi with RUG (Lose 0-2)

Quiet guy who doesn’t talk much.

Game 1:

I lose the roll, mulligan down to 5 because of no land and I was already mentally prepared to throw this away looking at how my library betrayed me. Anyway turns out he didn’t do much (meaning he has a hand full of reactive spells), until he cast a delver, which we fought a counter war over (he won). It flipped the next turn when he brainstormed to put a lightning bolt on top. Delver flipped and won.

Sideboard:
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
-4 Force of Will

Game 2:
I got hit by the mulligan virus again. He resolved a T1 mongoose and a T2 tarmogoyf while I didn’t see any of my 4 abrupt decays. He then stifled a fetch on my end, and then stifled my food chain when I was supposed to go off. I was at 8 life. He attacked with his mongoose and goyf down to 3 and showed me lightning bolt.

Round 3: Zheng Jin He with Omnitell (Draw 1-1)

Game 1:
He started by sculpting his hand and I knew roughly what I was up against upon seeing ponder, preordain and the like. I wasn’t really drawing well and had a couple Abrupt Decay sit in my hand doing nothing. I did myself no favour when I for some stupid reason did not want to cast a Dig Through Time on my own main phase when I had 4 lands a deathrite and 3 nonland in graveyard when he had a land in his graveyard. I got punished because he untapped and cast his own Dig Through Time while I realized I left mana up for nothing. He showed in the Omniscience and played Dig Through Time for free grabbing Cunning Wish and Emrakul and I just scooped.

Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Manipulate Fate
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Thoughtseize

Game 2:
I landed an early Meddling Mage which resolves, and I name Show and Tell. This causes him some trouble while I build up a board presence including the singleton Sylvan Library which did work. Unfortunately I couldn’t force through more pressure and this game turned out to be a grind. He Gitaxian Probes a couple times so he knows my hand packs permission, I just pressure him and eventually go for half combo with 4 Misthollow Griffins but no Tidespout Tyrant or hydra. He eventually overwhelms my permission and gets a lightning bolt through to deal with my mage, and casts a show and tell for Emrakul. I beat him down to 1 life after his Emrakul chumps one of my griffin. He attacks with Emrakul and I have like 11 permanents to choose from to sacrifice and I can chump with a griffin so my win was never in doubt.

Game 3:
At this point we barely had 4 minutes left. I had an amazing hand with 2 Meddling Mage, 2 Vendilion Clique, FOW and 2 lands. No way he was beating this hand of mine. I land a Meddling Mage and sandbag the other, I beatdown with it until he’s at 14. He Lightning Bolts it and I let it resolve, then play the 2nd one. Time was called, and neither of us could win in 5 turns. The head judge was there and this was competitive REL so I didn’t dare to offer to roll a die.

Round 4: Ricky Kee with Death and Taxes (win 2-0)

Another guy from the Malaysian contingent.

Game 1:
This turned out to be rather grindy. I have 2 Fows in my hand and 2 Griffins so I’m sitting pretty. He goes for a T2 Jitte which I think for a bit before allowing it to resolve. I Force of will the T3 Stoneforge Mystic and the T4 Serra Avenger to keep his board clear. He doesn’t have much to do, but what he did have was a flurry of wasteland to keep me down on land and a couple of rishadan port to really be annoying. He also had a Karakas. And then he had a Mangara, while I had a Tasigur, a Baleful Strix and Misthollow Griffin. He doesn’t seem to like my Tasigur and played a Revoker on Tasigur. He gets to use the Mangara trick once on my Tasigur and I FOW the Mangara when he attempts to replay it. I land a Food Chain but he plays Phyrexian Revoker naming Food Chain. I Abrupt Decay the Revoker on Food Chain and then go off with half combo via a Manipulate Fate. I have no idea why he doesn’t Karakas away my Tasigur nor equip Jitte and swing. Well, a win is a win.

Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
-1 Food Chain
-1 Manipulate Fate
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Null Rod
+1 Golgari Charm

Game 2:
He opens with T1 Mother of Runes. I open with T1 Deathrite fetch. He plays Stoneforge on T2. I get my Food Chain into play via Deathrite eating a fetch. T3 I Manipulate Fate for Griffins while he does something that I FOW (can’t remember) and T4 I go off full combo.

Round 5: Hirotaka Hamada with this spicy 4c mentor brew (as the Japanese brew) (Win 2-0)

Spoke to this guy before the game and practiced a little of my rudimentary Japanese with him. Learnt that he’s a Tokyo native who works for Fujitsu and was posted to Singapore. Pretty sweet.

Game 1:
We both start with a mulligan. I open with Underground Sea, Deathrite Shaman. He…does the same thing. We both laugh a little. I stopped the symmetry when I Abrupt Decay his DRS on T2 and he follows up with a Tarmogoyf. I dropped DRS No.2 and a Baleful Strix and my position is pretty good. It goes downhill for him from here. 2 DRS means the graveyards are always nearly empty, and to add insult to injury, I delved maximum for Tasigur, bringing his Tarmogoyf to a 0/1 (the goyf was never bigger than 2/3 to start with). He tries Monastery Mentor and I FOW it. I eventually get a griffin and he gets a DRS to stick, but is eventually forced to chump with goyf to the goyf wannabe (tasigur). He lost soon after.

Sideboard:
-2 Force of Will
-1 Food Chain
-1 Manipulate Fate
+1 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Toxic Deluge

Game 2:
This was almost like game 1. We both opened with DRS again! No goyf from him this time though (after that harrowing ordeal in G1 he actually sided them out as I found out later), but a Monastery Mentor, which gets 1 token before I Abrupt Decay it. He abrupt decays my goyf and played a DRS. I sweep his board playing Toxic Deluge for 2. Eventually we both play a DRS each, and I follow up with baleful strix. I Manipulate Fate and that resolves, but Food Chain is met with FOW. I topdeck another Food Chain, and it gets abrupt decayed. He plays Meddling Mage naming Food Chain. I think this was the big mistake he made that cost him the match. I proceed to cast my griffins 1 by 1 from the exile zone and beat him down the “fairdeck” way.

In the end I finished 12th out of 51 with a record of 3-1-1

The payout was as follows:
15 Match Points – 1000 Prize Ticket
13-14 Match Points – 700 Prize Ticket
12 Match Points – 400 Prize Ticket
10-11 Match Points – 230 Prize Ticket
9 Match Points – 60 prize Ticket

So I got 230 Prize Tickets.

The prizes available were:
KTK/FRF/DTK Booster - 10 Tickets
KTK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 300 Tickets
3 KTK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 850 Tickets
6 KRK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 1600 Tickets
FTV Annihilation - 100 Tickets
DD: Elspeth v Kiora - 100 Tickets
Uncut Sheet DTK Uncommon - 600 Tickets
Uncut Sheet DTK Rare - 1200 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Common - 1000 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Uncommon - 1600 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Rare - 3000 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Mythic - 4000 Tickets
DTK Foil Set (2 Available) - 1000 Tickets
DTK Set (4 available) - 400 Tickets
MM2015 Set (2 available) - 2000 Tickets
MM2015 Foil Set - 4000 Tickets
SDCC 2013 Black Planeswalker Set with Garruk Axe - 3000 Tickets
Oversized Griselbrand - 400 Tickets
Oversized Mox Opal - 600 Tickets
Canvas Griselbrand - 300 Tickets
Canvas Mox Opal - 300 Tickets
GP Singapore T shirt - 100 Tickets
Ravnica/Onslaught?Conflux/Eventide Booster - 50 Tickets
Shards of Alara/Time Spiral Booster - 40 Tickets
Return to Ravnica Booster - 30 Tickets

I was thinking what to spend my tickets on, but in the end word got round there was a guy buying tickets at 40 cents each as he wanted the foil uncut sheet of MM2015 mythics, so I sold my 230 tickets to him for $92. I paid $25 for the event so its a pretty good return I guess! What would YOU guys have gotten if you were me?

Back on topic: Was my sideboarding OK? I'm still learning with this deck, but the lack of activity on the forum is a little unnerving. I felt like I was on my own trying to tune this deck up, and no one really had much experience with it to offer decent advice. Most just say "oh its a bad Shardless deck" haha.

[awry]

So I took part in the big tickets legacy side event at GP Singapore.

It was a 5 round Swiss REL Competitive event with no cut to top 8.

Decklist:
4 Food Chain
4 Misthollow Griffin
2 Genesis Hydra
1 Tidespout Tyrant
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Noble Hierarch
3 Baleful Strix
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Abrupt Decay
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig Through Time
1 Ponder
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Savannah
1 Island
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Verdant Catacombs
Sideboard
4 Meddling Mage
3 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Golgari Charm
1 Null Rod
1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
1 Abrupt Decay

So a little about this list, I used to have Spell Pierce and Flusterstorm in my board, but decided to swop them out for the 4th Meddling Mage. I also wanted both Pithing Needle and Null Rod to stop Equipment and Top, and I wanted Night of Souls’ Betrayal to deal with unflipped delvers, mentor tokens, and young pyro + elemental tokens. Expecting a lot of miracles and omnitell, I had sylvan library in the mainboard, and also 2 maindeck vendilion clique because they are so awesome. Not sure if I got my manabase right, was going back and forth between the tundra and savannah before I went with savannah (in case I don’t have a mana dork out and need to cast meddling mage).

Now onto the games. I try to be as accurate as I can but my memory is a little hazy so if you're one of my opponents and notice something wrong please correct me.

Round 1: Kelvin Tan Choon Han with Merfolk (Win 2-0)

Didn’t notice this guy before so I chatted with him and found that he was from Malaysia. Has some pretty slick hair too.

Game 1:
He wins the roll, but starts with a mulligan. He landed the T1 vial off an island which pretty much gives away what he’s playing. Strangely enough. He choked on land though, and got stuck with just Island, Mutavault, and Aether Vial. So Mutavault beats down on me while Aether Vial ticks up to 3 and lands a Thassa. In the meantime I’m just developing my board with mana dorks and lands and sculpting my hand a little, careful to play around daze since I bet he has a bunch of those in hand seeing the lack of action on the field. He wastes my duals aggressively but with deathrite shaman and noble hierarch I wasn’t going to get mana screwed. He starts playing more creatures and beats me down to single digits. Eventually with a bunch of mana up I bait his force of will with a tasigur, which I don’t contest, and then force of will backup I go for the food chain. It resolves and I combo out by bouncing all of his permanents at 5 life.

Sideboard:
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Pithing Needle (for wasteland and mutavault, mainly wasteland)
+1 Thoughtseize
+1 Abrupt Decay
-4 Force of Will (bad against vial decks)
-1 Food Chain

Game 2:
This was a long grindy game. He actually managed to land the beats much faster, but T1 Deathrite Shaman really did a lot of work (gaining life and shooting for damage). At one point It was a Lord of Atlantis facing down a Deathrite Shaman, he then cast a Phantasmal Image, and I responded by using Abrupt Decay on the Lord so he had no choice but to copy my DRS which was rather funny for me, not so for him since he doesn’t have the mana for the 2nd and 3rd abilities. He did Surgical Extraction my Underground Seas in the mid game (which was rather puzzling). He also made a key error when he attacked with his Master of the Pearl Trident thinking that it had Islandwalk but it only gives other merfolk Islandwalk, not itself. So my Baleful Strix traded with it. Time is called, and I assemble my griffins just in time to kill him before extra turns end.

Round 2: Muhamad Hilmi with RUG (Lose 0-2)

Quiet guy who doesn’t talk much.

Game 1:

I lose the roll, mulligan down to 5 because of no land and I was already mentally prepared to throw this away looking at how my library betrayed me. Anyway turns out he didn’t do much (meaning he has a hand full of reactive spells), until he cast a delver, which we fought a counter war over (he won). It flipped the next turn when he brainstormed to put a lightning bolt on top. Delver flipped and won.

Sideboard:
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Night of Souls’ Betrayal
-4 Force of Will

Game 2:
I got hit by the mulligan virus again. He resolved a T1 mongoose and a T2 tarmogoyf while I didn’t see any of my 4 abrupt decays. He then stifled a fetch on my end, and then stifled my food chain when I was supposed to go off. I was at 8 life. He attacked with his mongoose and goyf down to 3 and showed me lightning bolt.

Round 3: Zheng Jin He with Omnitell (Draw 1-1)

Game 1:
He started by sculpting his hand and I knew roughly what I was up against upon seeing ponder, preordain and the like. I wasn’t really drawing well and had a couple Abrupt Decay sit in my hand doing nothing. I did myself no favour when I for some stupid reason did not want to cast a Dig Through Time on my own main phase when I had 4 lands a deathrite and 3 nonland in graveyard when he had a land in his graveyard. I got punished because he untapped and cast his own Dig Through Time while I realized I left mana up for nothing. He showed in the Omniscience and played Dig Through Time for free grabbing Cunning Wish and Emrakul and I just scooped.

Sideboard:
-3 Abrupt Decay
-3 Baleful Strix
-1 Manipulate Fate
+4 Meddling Mage
+3 Thoughtseize

Game 2:
I landed an early Meddling Mage which resolves, and I name Show and Tell. This causes him some trouble while I build up a board presence including the singleton Sylvan Library which did work. Unfortunately I couldn’t force through more pressure and this game turned out to be a grind. He Gitaxian Probes a couple times so he knows my hand packs permission, I just pressure him and eventually go for half combo with 4 Misthollow Griffins but no Tidespout Tyrant or hydra. He eventually overwhelms my permission and gets a lightning bolt through to deal with my mage, and casts a show and tell for Emrakul. I beat him down to 1 life after his Emrakul chumps one of my griffin. He attacks with Emrakul and I have like 11 permanents to choose from to sacrifice and I can chump with a griffin so my win was never in doubt.

Game 3:
At this point we barely had 4 minutes left. I had an amazing hand with 2 Meddling Mage, 2 Vendilion Clique, FOW and 2 lands. No way he was beating this hand of mine. I land a Meddling Mage and sandbag the other, I beatdown with it until he’s at 14. He Lightning Bolts it and I let it resolve, then play the 2nd one. Time was called, and neither of us could win in 5 turns. The head judge was there and this was competitive REL so I didn’t dare to offer to roll a die.

Round 4: Ricky Kee with Death and Taxes (win 2-0)

Another guy from the Malaysian contingent.

Game 1:
This turned out to be rather grindy. I have 2 Fows in my hand and 2 Griffins so I’m sitting pretty. He goes for a T2 Jitte which I think for a bit before allowing it to resolve. I Force of will the T3 Stoneforge Mystic and the T4 Serra Avenger to keep his board clear. He doesn’t have much to do, but what he did have was a flurry of wasteland to keep me down on land and a couple of rishadan port to really be annoying. He also had a Karakas. And then he had a Mangara, while I had a Tasigur, a Baleful Strix and Misthollow Griffin. He doesn’t seem to like my Tasigur and played a Revoker on Tasigur. He gets to use the Mangara trick once on my Tasigur and I FOW the Mangara when he attempts to replay it. I land a Food Chain but he plays Phyrexian Revoker naming Food Chain. I Abrupt Decay the Revoker on Food Chain and then go off with half combo via a Manipulate Fate. I have no idea why he doesn’t Karakas away my Tasigur nor equip Jitte and swing. Well, a win is a win.

Sideboard:
-4 Force of Will
-1 Food Chain
-1 Manipulate Fate
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Toxic Deluge
+1 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Null Rod
+1 Golgari Charm

Game 2:
He opens with T1 Mother of Runes. I open with T1 Deathrite fetch. He plays Stoneforge on T2. I get my Food Chain into play via Deathrite eating a fetch. T3 I Manipulate Fate for Griffins while he does something that I FOW (can’t remember) and T4 I go off full combo.

Round 5: Hirotaka Hamada with this spicy 4c mentor brew (as the Japanese brew) (Win 2-0)

Spoke to this guy before the game and practiced a little of my rudimentary Japanese with him. Learnt that he’s a Tokyo native who works for Fujitsu and was posted to Singapore. Pretty sweet.

Game 1:
We both start with a mulligan. I open with Underground Sea, Deathrite Shaman. He…does the same thing. We both laugh a little. I stopped the symmetry when I Abrupt Decay his DRS on T2 and he follows up with a Tarmogoyf. I dropped DRS No.2 and a Baleful Strix and my position is pretty good. It goes downhill for him from here. 2 DRS means the graveyards are always nearly empty, and to add insult to injury, I delved maximum for Tasigur, bringing his Tarmogoyf to a 0/1 (the goyf was never bigger than 2/3 to start with). He tries Monastery Mentor and I FOW it. I eventually get a griffin and he gets a DRS to stick, but is eventually forced to chump with goyf to the goyf wannabe (tasigur). He lost soon after.

Sideboard:
-2 Force of Will
-1 Food Chain
-1 Manipulate Fate
+1 Night of Soul’s Betrayal
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Golgari Charm
+1 Toxic Deluge

Game 2:
This was almost like game 1. We both opened with DRS again! No goyf from him this time though (after that harrowing ordeal in G1 he actually sided them out as I found out later), but a Monastery Mentor, which gets 1 token before I Abrupt Decay it. He abrupt decays my goyf and played a DRS. I sweep his board playing Toxic Deluge for 2. Eventually we both play a DRS each, and I follow up with baleful strix. I Manipulate Fate and that resolves, but Food Chain is met with FOW. I topdeck another Food Chain, and it gets abrupt decayed. He plays Meddling Mage naming Food Chain. I think this was the big mistake he made that cost him the match. I proceed to cast my griffins 1 by 1 from the exile zone and beat him down the “fairdeck” way.

In the end I finished 12th out of 51 with a record of 3-1-1

The payout was as follows:
15 Match Points – 1000 Prize Ticket
13-14 Match Points – 700 Prize Ticket
12 Match Points – 400 Prize Ticket
10-11 Match Points – 230 Prize Ticket
9 Match Points – 60 prize Ticket

So I got 230 Prize Tickets.

The prizes available were:
KTK/FRF/DTK Booster - 10 Tickets
KTK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 300 Tickets
3 KTK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 850 Tickets
6 KRK/FRF/DTK Booster Box - 1600 Tickets
FTV Annihilation - 100 Tickets
DD: Elspeth v Kiora - 100 Tickets
Uncut Sheet DTK Uncommon - 600 Tickets
Uncut Sheet DTK Rare - 1200 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Common - 1000 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Uncommon - 1600 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Rare - 3000 Tickets
Uncut Sheet MM2015 Mythic - 4000 Tickets
DTK Foil Set (2 Available) - 1000 Tickets
DTK Set (4 available) - 400 Tickets
MM2015 Set (2 available) - 2000 Tickets
MM2015 Foil Set - 4000 Tickets
SDCC 2013 Black Planeswalker Set with Garruk Axe - 3000 Tickets
Oversized Griselbrand - 400 Tickets
Oversized Mox Opal - 600 Tickets
Canvas Griselbrand - 300 Tickets
Canvas Mox Opal - 300 Tickets
GP Singapore T shirt - 100 Tickets
Ravnica/Onslaught?Conflux/Eventide Booster - 50 Tickets
Shards of Alara/Time Spiral Booster - 40 Tickets
Return to Ravnica Booster - 30 Tickets

I was thinking what to spend my tickets on, but in the end word got round there was a guy buying tickets at 40 cents each as he wanted the foil uncut sheet of MM2015 mythics, so I sold my 230 tickets to him for $92. I paid $25 for the event so its a pretty good return I guess! What would YOU guys have gotten if you were me?

Back on topic: Was my sideboarding OK? I'm still learning with this deck, but the lack of activity on the forum is a little unnerving. I felt like I was on my own trying to tune this deck up, and no one really had much experience with it to offer decent advice. Most just say "oh its a bad Shardless deck" haha.

Nice report man! Are you the one with the altered baleful strix and cool tokens? I was the other Foodchain player. I'm gonna write a short writeup after this but i wanted to say something regarding your matchup with the RUG player. He shouldn't have been able to stifle your Foodchain. It's a mana ability. Also, what did you mean "He abrupt decays my goyf and played a DRS." in game 2 against the mentor deck?

[awry]

Hi Everyone. Longtime forum lurker and type 1.5 player here. Taken a few long breaks and started again a few months ago after a four year hiatus. I usually play about once a week at a local legacy event in Singapore and my current deck of choice is FC Griffins which despite not being tier 1, is a pretty good deck and a blast to play.

Previously I was playing almost the same list as the one that won the SCG open, differences being in some sideboard cards (Grafdiggers became Surgicals as I do not own the former). I went 3-0(Dnt, Miracles, Stoneblade) and ID-ed the 4th with a friend first time out. Second week was quite bad, going 1-3, winning UR delver and losing against donate combo as well as 2 merfolk decks which made me realize some of the shortcomings of the original list.

I made some changes of my own and am quite happy with my current list going 3-1 (Winning Merfolk, Omnitell, Miracles and losing to the mirror) comfortably the following week as well as 3-1-ID (Winning Affinity, Belcher and losing to Burn. ID-ing with a friend who was playing Lands but played it out winning it.) in the Singapore GP side event.

My current list is as follows,

4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Foodchain Griffin
3 Baleful Strix
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Tasigur the Golden Fang
1 Fierce Empath
1 Vela the Night-clad
1 Noble Hierarch

4 Foodchain

4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Ponder
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
2 Dig Through Time

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

Sideboard

2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Tormod's Crypt
2 Flusterstorm
4 Thoughtseize
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Umezawa's Jitte
2 Disfigure

Some reasons for my choices:

1. As a win-con I personally really hate Emrakul. It is an uncastable card that does not pitch to FOW and does not win you the game on the spot if an ensnaring bridge is in play. I would rather go Vela or Tidespout. The bad things about latter are its casting cost, that it doesn't win on the spot either and the accompanying hydras aren't really good on their own. Always felt awkward to have two hydras in your hand, only 4 or 5 mana in play and no combo out etc. Or worse, casting a hydra, which in itself is a desperation move, and getting then getting abrupt decayed.

I like Vela the most due to her being castable(Have done it once), pitches to FOW(I have needed to do this a couple of times before or lose the game) and winning the game right there when you have the combo assembled. Tasigur is there as an alternative empath-searchable quality creature that is cheap to cast and which you may want early if you do not have the combo going. Other choices for this slot were Gurmag Angler and Tombstalker but I preferred the lower casting cost as well as the ability which is really good should a game go long and grindy. Fierce empath acts as a second copy of these two cards which also happens to sacrifice for 4 mana.

2. I went up to 4 Abrupt Decays mainboard as it was never a card that I was not happy to see and most of the time was boarding in the 4th from the original list. Did not make sense to me to not just go up to 4.

3. I was quite on the fence about the singleton Ponder, thinking if it should be a Sylvan Library instead. But I decided on having a cantrip that would give me an immediate effect when casting it. Ponder added to delve, pitches to FOW and most importantly, could let me look at 3 cards immediately and draw one. This is a personal choice though. Sylvan library is really good as well especially against the mirror (I practically lost to this card and Tasigur) as well as control where the life loss does not matter.

4. Hierarch has never been fantastic but never really bad. And a fifth manadork is necessary in my opinion. The exalted trigger has mattered a couple of times but never in any game-winning or devastating way. However, mana-wise, I never missed Birds of paradise, and so have stuck to hierarch just based on the small extra value it provides during combat with a lone creature.

5. This may sound blasphemous but Golgari charm just isn't enough for me. I have had the card in my hand staring down at 2/2s, equipped creatures or just fatties, and feeling damn silly. I know I am giving up my only way out against enchantments that cost more than 3 but I am fine with that. I might put 1 back in in future but we will see how it goes.

6. Combo is a really bad matchup for this deck. I want a full set of 1 mana discard spells in my deck to go with the 2 Flusterstorms(Which have been absolutely fantastic for me).

Changes I am thinking of making are maybe adding 3 Wastelands in somewhere as well as the switch from ponder to library. Also maybe splashing white for meddling mages like some people have done. All, some, or none of the above.

Matchups which I feel are good for this deck are Miracles, Lands, any kind of Stoneblade. Despite having a good record against combo like Storm and Omnitell, I feel it is by far the worst matchup for this deck. Also, burn. 50/50 matchups would be Aggro, DnT as well as the mirror (DRS being the most important card here in my opinion).

My sideboarding plans(these change somewhat at times depending on what I have seen during games) are below:

Omnitell:
In: 4 Seize, 2 Fluster
Out : 1 Decay, 3 Strix, 1 Dig, 1 Tasigur (4 Decay, 1 Strix, 1 Dig if it's game 3 and they did not board in pyromancers)

Belcher (and ANT)
In: 4 Seize, 2 Fluster, 2 Deluge, (2 Disfigure for ANT)
Out: 1 Tasigur, 1 Dig, 1 Hierarch, 2 Abrupt Decay, 3 Strix ( 1 Dig and 1 Forest against ANT)

Merfolk/Goblins
In: 2 Deluge, 2 Jitte, 2 Disfigure
Out: 1 Empath, 1 Vela, 1 Tasigur, 1 Misdirection, 1 Dig, 1 Forest

Miracles
In: 2 Flusterstorm
Out: 1 Forest, 1 Strix

DnT:
In: 2 Deluge, 2 Jitte, 2 Disfigure
Out: 1 Hierarch, 1 Dig, 1 Tasigur, 1 Vela, 1 Empath, 1 Strix

Mirror(My gameplan here is to be proactive, keeping the board clear and not race to combo off. Lost the only mirror I played so i am probably wrong.):
In: 4 Seize, 2 Jitte, 2 Disfigure, 2 Deluge
Out: 4 FOW, 1 Ponder,1 Dig, 1 Forest, 1 Hierarch, 1 Vela, 1 Empath

BUG/Shardless:
In: 2 Disfigure, 2 Relic
Out: 4 FOW

RUG (Untested)
In: 2 Disfigure, 2 Relic
Out: 1 Misdirection, 1 Empath, 1 Vela, 1 Tasigur

Stoneblade:
In: 2 Jitte, 2 Deluge
Out: 1 Hierarch, 1 Vela, 1 Empath, 1 Tasigur

Burn:
In: 2 Jitte, 2 Fluster, 2 Disfigure
Out: 1 Forest, 2 Dig, 1 Tasigur, 2 Clique

Lands;
In: 2 Relic, 1 Crypt
Out: 1 Tasigur, 1 Misdirection, 1 Abrupt

I have the tendency to take out the combo pieces for most matches for games 2 and 3 which might be wrong. Also the forest and hierarch against decks I think do not have wasteland.

Any pointers and opinions would be much appreciated especially for sideboarding. I really do hope more people take up this deck to play coz it really is a good deck and not just "cute".

Thanks!

[movingtonewao]

Ah crap I did not realize stifle on fC doesn't work :( well I will remember for life now! And it was the DRS that he abrupt decayed I think, there's a bit of a word mix up there for sure. Yup I'm the one with the baleful strix and tokens.

Sent you a PM. Contact me! We can work together to make people notice this deck more (but first you should buy some food chains so that you'll benefit when the price spikes)

[Holmen]

I've played this deck with small modification in 2 tournaments lately after the win i SCV Stockholm:

4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Underground Sea
3 Tropical Island
2 Bayou
1 Forest
1 Swamp
2 Island
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Fierce Empath
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Food Chain
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Manipulate Fate
1 Sylvan Library
1 Murderous Cut

SB
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Extirpate
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Engineered Plague
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Trinisphere
1 Null Rod
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Pithing Needle

First tournament was around 40 people (6 rounds swiss and top 8), lost in the finals to Omnitell.
Second tournament was around 50 people (6 rounds swiss and top 8), lost in the semifinals to Omnitell.

Different Omniplayers and cities but same result :)

Cards I'm probabluy cutting is:
Cabal Therapy
Tidespout Tyrant (it's mostly for MUD and omni)

The rest has been a perfect configuration for me.

Any thought on the list?

[rancOr_]

@ Holmen
Impressive results, congrats !

I think your maindeck configuration is really good.
About the sideboard: I'm not sure u need 4 gy hate slots (2 grafdigger's cage/1 cabal therapy/ 1relic of progenitus); so I'd cut either a cage or extirpate.
If you cut the 2 cabal therapies and the tidespout (which I agree isn't necessary in the sb) u can make room for 4 Meddling Mages.
I really like them in the sideboard here. MD u can go -1Bayou +1Tundra/Savannah. They will help a lot vs any of the combo decks obviously(including Elves).

Greetings-

[Holmen]

Thanks! I miswrote, lost in the semis one of them, not the quarters :)
Extirpate is great against lands/p-fire, which is also important. Cage is for elves but can surely be cut. I will def try meddling mage, have never gone that rout. Good tip!

[Poron]

It could be chained with Fierce Empath to generate alot of mana and hardcast Emrakul.

it makes Terastodon easily in.

mana dork + Fierce Empath in the battlefield.
Fierce into Woodland.

Sac Empath and dork = minimum 6 mana for Woodland.

Woodland in to 2nd Empath
Empath into Terastodon

Sac Woodland into Terastodon.

Can be very useful and everthing is tutorable with Summoner's Pact

[philharmonika]

what do u think about jesper holms list? do u think it´s a deck that can beat miracles and omni and is good in the current meta... i´m struggeling if i play this, deathblade or jund at my next event.

reature [19]

4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
1 Tombstalker
2 Fierce Empath
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Instant [12]

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm

Sorcery [5]

3 Manipulate Fate
2 Ponder

Enchantment [5]

1 Sylvan Library
4 Food Chain

Land [19]

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

Sideboard

1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Engineered Plague
1 Extirpate
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Thoughtseize

cheers

[movingtonewao]

maindeck is ok, but you need to change the sideboard to suit your needs. Also, you want to think about whether you want tombstalker there.

[philharmonika]

Do u think Tasigure is better? Or should it be a compete other card? Perhaps a 20th land ? Fels like 19 are not much.

[Holmen]

Hi! I've changed the list slightly since then, look at my post a couple of entries back. Miracles is easy in my opinion, but abrupt as only removal has been proven weak to meddling mage and Lodestone Golem. Im up to 20 lands to improve our cantrips (not needing to dig for lands as much).

My current list has given me a 2-place and a 3-place the last two "larger" tournaments. Omnitell is the big problem, the rest of the meta has felt ok. Especially in a more tempo/midrange crowd. Both my losses have been to omni. I feel the combination of trinisphere, extirpate at thoughtseize is good, but still somewhat lacking.

4 strixes is too much and tasigur is a good replacement for tombstalker.

Watch out for elves, maverick and mud, as they are all tough.


what do u think about jesper holms list? do u think it´s a deck that can beat miracles and omni and is good in the current meta... i´m struggeling if i play this, deathblade or jund at my next event.

reature [19]

4 Baleful Strix
4 Shardless Agent
1 Tombstalker
2 Fierce Empath
4 Deathrite Shaman
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Instant [12]

4 Abrupt Decay
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm

Sorcery [5]

3 Manipulate Fate
2 Ponder

Enchantment [5]

1 Sylvan Library
4 Food Chain

Land [19]

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

Sideboard

1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Obstinate Baloth
1 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Engineered Plague
1 Extirpate
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Toxic Deluge
2 Thoughtseize

cheers

[philharmonika]

thx !

nice hint !

cheers

[mnomelli]

Hello I recently bought into this deck and I've been loving it, but I was just hoping I could get some tips from people that have played a lot more legacy than I have. I run a very stock list, except that I have Soul of the Harvest instead of genesis hydra in the main. Thanks for all of your responses.

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[Thorhammer]

Hello I recently bought into this deck and I've been loving it, but I was just hoping I could get some tips from people that have played a lot more legacy than I have. I run a very stock list, except that I have Soul of the Harvest instead of genesis hydra in the main. Thanks for all of your responses.

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The best way to play the deck in my opinion is to play it like a midrange deck such as shardless BUG that happens to have a combo finish. The combo itself is rather slow and takes multiple cards to actually win so it is best to play like you would a normal grindy midrange deck and then pull the "oops I win" card. Manipulate fate into flock of griffins will often be enough. Also know all the tricks with griffins such as exiling them and recasting them to give them vigilance or "indestructibility". Remember to exile them from your yard with deathrite shaman and dig through time or whatever delve spells you decide to play.