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I think you should be running 1x Fierce Empath, 1x Emrakul, 1x Maga and 1x Imperial Recruiter. Recruiter can search for Maga, but it can also search for Empath, which then can search for Emrakul.Quote:
Originally Posted by nevilshute
I feel bad for your wallet though.
The other Empath targets are AEthersnipe and Griselbrand, though. So you want a few more of those available. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Awaclus
Food Chain + Imperial Recruiter & Phantasmal Image is another neat combo that we haven't talked much about, but it's pretty big and expensive. :X
Heya Awaclus,Quote:
Originally Posted by Awaclus
Aside from the $300 shaped hole in my wallet that recruiter would leave behind I have reservations about using him in this deck simply due to him requiring red mana to cast. This point is obviously not very relevant if we have a Food Chain on the table and is ready to go off. But if that were the case and "all" we had in our hand was an Imperial Recruiter, and that recruiter had replaced, say, a Fierce Empath then we're left with practically the same situation. Recruiter can only tutor for Maga, Empath can only tutor for Emrakul.
I know that Recruiter can also search for Empath, but if it's an Empath it is replacing then it becomes a moot point.
Looking forward to hearing how you did with the NO plan metamet :)
Unfortunately I didn't have much of a chance to use the sideboard last night, as I lost my first two matches and readily won my remaining.
Match one was against TES, which he took the first game on. I had the Food Chain on the top of the deck and was prepared to go off (having all other pieces), but he Tendrils me for 16 while I sat at 15.
Game two he hits heavy with Inquisitions and Therapys, running both of my counterspells out of my hand. Eek! Not much else I could've done there.
Match two was against D&T. Game one was close, but he swings in with Flickerwisps and an active Mom. Game two was pretty bonkers, as I go Trop > Hierarch, he plays Waste, Gut Shot my Hierarch (I force), then he wastes my Trip.
I draw, play a land, pass. He plays a land, Gut Shots again, killing the Hierarch. I draw a Tomb and can't play the Natural order in my hand. Then I never draw another green source.
I played against UR Delver and win. I then play against Enchantress and Terastadon his lands in game two. I Food Chain > Empathed for it, even though I had the NO in hand. :)
Overall, I ran bad and don't feel I got enough in to really judge how good it is. I am sort of wondering if we should just maindeck the NO... as it's pretty dang good. I like having eight cards to dig for instead of just four.
Something to think about.
I don't know. Here's my opinion (which we all know what those are like):
Ultimately I moved away from the NO sideboard plan because if I was going to play NO why not just play NO-rug. there's a pretty good deck build based around that. Why try to recreate it? I think we may be slowing the deck down or dilluting it somehow by trying to take pieces out to make room for the NO pieces. Plus, we lose sideboard room to respond to different things by using those slots for the NO plan. I think I'd rather just board answers than a whole new question.
I really like the deck. Still, I have yet to play the deck against someone, so there's that. :tongue:
It doesn't. Because it can search for Empath, when you're going off it's at least as good as Empath and sometimes better. It's worse than Empath only when you don't have Food Chain, and in that situation you don't even need the Empath unless the opponent has Needle or other AEthersnipe targets.Quote:
Originally Posted by nevilshute
Sounds like you had some rough luck there mate. Think we'll need some more time to fully assess the NO package. However, I have to say that I'm not the biggest fan of running NO maindeck. I'm worried that it will be too taxing and that it will mean the "heart" of our deck will suffer as we will need to remove key components. I like siding in NO, though, without removing Food Chain against certain match ups :)Quote:
Originally Posted by metamet
I know what you mean, but it's such a small difference. And coupled with the fact that he requires red mana I don't think it's very advisable. At $300 I'll never find out, but I'm not too bothered tbh.Quote:
Originally Posted by Awaclus
Does anyone have any news to report?
I've had some pretty bad runs my past 3 tournaments going 3-3 every time. I'm not sure exactly what's going wrong. The Natural Order plan is still something I like. I often side in 2 NO + Progenny, just to have the chance to do something unexpected. Only against decks that can side in revoker, canonist etc do I completely leave out Food Chain for game 2. I'm getting 2 Tarmogoyfs later next week so looking forward to trying them out in my SB since I've never had the chance to before.
Well, I do have some news to report but it isn't good. :cry:
I took the following list to my local weekly in an effort to actually play something that might be fun. The list (I think since my memory sucks and I don't have it in front of me right now):
Creatures: 19
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
3 Misthollow Griffin
3 Fierce Empath
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Wall of Blossoms
2 Wall of Roots
1 Aethersnipe
2 Mulldrifter
Spells: 18
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Daze
4 Ponder
3 Manipulate Fate
Enchantments: 5
4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library
Lands: 18
2 Ancient Tomb
1 Tropical Island
4 Island
3 Forest
3 Flooded Strand
1 Polluted Delta
3 Windswept Heath
1 Dryad Arbor
SB-
3 Misdirection
1 Daze
3 Surgical Extraction
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Progenitus
1 Terastodon
1 Gilded Drake
1 Desolation Angel
2 Moment's Peace
Now for the report -
Round 1 vs Guy playing U/B Helm/Leyline thing:
Game 1 - He wins the roll (as always) and leads with a Ponder I think. I lead with Fetch into Tropical Island, Birds of Paradise. He plays some funky card that lets him remove 3 cards from my deck, which I let resolve. He then strips my Force of Wills for some odd reason. Next turn I go Food Chain into Wall of Roots into Misthollow Griffin into Fierce Empath into Griselbrand into Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and he stares at my board in disbelief and scoops 'em up. I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it's suppose to go down.
I think I sb'ed the other Daze and the Misdirections.
Game 2 - He leads with Leyline of the Void and I'm thinking "Ok, what ever". I durdle around a bit not finding anything I really need. He eventually strips my hand apart with Cabal Therapys and then drops Helm of Obedience. I stare at it in total shock having only heard legends about it but never seen anyone actually play it and then scoop 'em up.
Game 3 - I run out a turn 1 Birds of Paradise. He plays a Cabal Therapy naming Daze and is saddened to see me holding the FoW he really wanted. I scuplt a bit, eventually pitching a Griffin to a FoW so it's where I want it anyway and then combo out into Emmy, to which he scoops 'em up.
1-0
Round 2 vs Dude playing Fish:
Game 1 - I'm not at all jazzed to see him win the roll and lead with turn 1 Aether Vial with me not having a FoW in hand. It's pretty much all down hill from there as he drops a Cavern of Souls on top of the Vial. I lose this one in short order.
Game 2 - Pretty much the exact same deal, but at least I got to play first.
1-1
Round 3 vs Yet another Dude playing Fish:
Game 1 - This seemed exactly like the last match. Oh yea, because it was.
Game 2 - I feel like I'm in some sort of wierd "Groundhog Day" ordeal. :frown:
1-2
I then dropped because there was an odd number of players and I'm sure I'd have gotten a bye for the last round anyway. Plus, my wife showed up and we went to Hooters for wings! Yay! In the end, I think this means I won because a girl showed up to the Magic Tourney and I left with her. :tongue: :cool:
So my thoughts:
I'm sure you will all say my list was sub-par, and you're probably right. But the list itself couldn't have been that bad. I had a couple games where it all worked right. Outside of those couple games, it just flopped big time. Against top tier decks, I really think it had no chance. I set out to play something that might be fun and different. While it was different, it totally failed to be any fun sitting there durdling while my opponent crushed me game after game after game. It was good that I was able to put it together for next to nothing because I'm not sure I'll be continuing down this road. I would have killed for some sort of Artifact removal in my board because it was THAT important all night. A freaking Naturalize would have changed EVERYTHING!!!!
I didn't play last week, but I did play the week before, going 2-1-1.
If I remember correctly, I lost against Death and Taxes, which continues to be a rough matchup for me. All the hate bears in the world, every game. :)
I drew the last round of the night, making back my entry fee money.
I forget what I won against, however... I believe it was Enchantress and Nic Fit, though. Nothing terribly exciting to report there, except I sided in Terry against Enchantress and FC'd into it (I had both combos prepped to go off, choosing to Empath for Terry over NO'ing it), blowing up his lands and locking him out of the game.
I'm not sure what else we can do with the deck at the moment. I'd like to let the metagame resettle, as Abrupt Decay may not look good for us. I'd like to see how common it is in my local meta.
I've been wanting to play Baleful Stix recently, so I've been attempting to brew some lists with that. Caleb took over SCG this weekend, but his list makes me nervous... hah.
Unfortunately, RtR didn't offer this deck anything. :/
Hi all,
I'm still testing Baleful strix and it seems better each time i test. Going by the air with a 2/2 or 3/3 exalted (I'm running 4 Noble hierarch) Fly Deathtouch creature is just awesome.
It almost can be another way to kill and your opponent will sure crack his Qasali pridemage on it if he has one, letting you safe for Food chain
For the black mana i run 1 Bayou + 2 birds, FC can produce black for Strix too... Good ?
I've cut the Aethersnipe for a 3rd Strix.
Do i need a 4th one, I'd cut 1 Fierce empath I think ?
----- Warning, long post ahead ---------
Been tweaking this deck for the last two weeks for a tournament this weekend.
Yesterday I went 3-1 at the weekly tuesday tournament and went well in testing with friends. This is my list so far:
4 Food chain
3 Misthollow griffin
3 Fierce empath
3 Manipulate fate
1 emrakul, the aeons torn
1 wurmcoil engine
4 Deathrite shaman
4 Baleful strix
3 Shardless agent
1 Coiling oracle
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Force of will
3 Cabal therapy
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground sea
1 Bayou
3 Tropical island
4 Polluted delta
3 Misty rainforest
4 Verdant catacombs
SB:
4 Abrupt decay
3 Relic of progenitus
2 Darkblast
2 Null rod
1 Cabal therapy
1 Spell pierce
2 Mindbreak trap
Observations:
The best cards in the deck are Deathrite shaman, Baleful strix and Abrupt decay. Particularly the shaman has proved to be sick. blocking lackeys, exiling stuff and regrowing griffins while never failing to play the role of a Birds of paradise. Also him over birds makes it so that Fire//ice and forked bolt are not blowouts against us.
Only 3 Therapy because we are looking to grind out games and multiple therapies can be really bad against agressive decks. 4th in the board. The deck needs one (exactly one) auxiliary target for the empaths. This card is very seldomly played by foodchain mana and should therefore be a 6-drop. I've liked Wurmcoil over Grave titan due to the fact that if wurmcoil resolves against rug (which it actually does) you literally can't lose. It's bad against swords but by the time you play it you should have saved a therapy flashback to clear that out of control players' hands. I've not tested against maverick yet so I'm not 100% on Wurmcoil yet.
Shardless agents are almost always good and increases the virtual density of sideboard solutions. Against RUG where you side in 4 decay and 3 relic, the agents really get you to a good lategame by cascading into SB cards or a strix.
Originally the list had Gitaxian probes instead of ponders. While good with therapy probe is so much worse than ponder that it's just not worth it. The lifeloss is really relevant too.
Stuff I need help with:
The 2 mindbreak traps in the board feel really random but I can't think of what else to put in there. Anyone who had some sideboard cards that worked out well in specific matchups?
The one-off coiling orcle is a bit lame. I like the idea of an eighth two-drop but there might be something better?
What do people usually exile with the second/third Manip fate ?
Other than that I'm pretty sure this is the way to go...
I like the BUG shell with Deathrite Shaman. I'm waiting for the rest of my playset to arrive in the mail, but I plan on playing around with them.
- For excess Manipulate Fates, grab other Manipulate Fates or non-blue cards that won't pitch to FoW.
- Vendilion Clique has been fantastic, as is Jace, the Mind Sculptor as an alt wincon if you want to go in that direction.
- Misdirection is another solid SB card, especially when facing opposing Abrupt Decays.
- Wall or Roots or Wall of Blossoms are stronger replacements for Coiling Oracle, especially given your mana base.
Keep us updated! I am not playing legacy this week, but Shardless Agent has been on my tinkering list recently, and I've had a lot of fun with it alongside Strix.
Hi metamet,
After having been testing Baleful strix on a 28-players tournament, i'm arrived to the conclusion than it doesn't justify a :b: splash.
This is a real good card, but it's better in other decks like Iron wings/UB Bridgewalkers.
Having only a Food chain plan has really been a weakness to me.
I'm know building on a Natural order B plan with 4 Natural order + 1 Progenitus and like you know I've always loved Skyshroud cutter, think i'm gonna include it for this reasons :
1) He can accelerate your Food chain plan, with :5: manas on turn 2
2) It's a free green creature, allows you to go on Natural order even without a green creature on board !
I'm on this list for now :
http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?300374
// NAME : Food chain
// CREATOR : grokh (magic-ville.com)
// FORMAT : Legacy
1 [FUT] Dryad Arbor
1 [UNH] Forest
2 [TE] Ancient Tomb
2 [UNH] Island
4 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest
4 [R] Tropical Island
4 [ZEN] Verdant Catacombs
1 [ROE] Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 [AVR] Griselbrand
1 [CFX] Progenitus
2 [M12] Birds of Paradise
2 [CMD] Mulldrifter
2 [NE] Skyshroud Cutter
3 [CMD] Fierce Empath
3 [AVR] Misthollow Griffin
4 [CFX] Noble Hierarch
4 [MM] Food Chain
2 [MM] Misdirection
4 [CMD] Brainstorm
4 [AL] Force of Will
2 [IN] Manipulate Fate
3 [M12] Ponder
4 [PT] Natural Order
Still hesitating with 2 Mulldrifter / 2 Raven familiar / 1 Mulldrifter + 1 Raven familiar ... ?
Do you think there is enough :u: cards for Force of will, enough :g: creatures for Natural order ?
Thanks for the comment. I will swap the one coiling oracle I had in my list for either a wall of roots or sylvan library. I considered misdirection previously but with the UBg version you already have therapy which can sort of deal with decay.
I also found the card that I will run instead of wurmcoil: consecrated sphinx.
Playing only him and emrakul, as cards being dead on starting hand (and him sometimes even pitched to FoW) keeps the annoying unintended muligans to a minimum.
I will also probably run vendilion clique instead of the mindbreak traps I had in my board. I realize now that it's probably actually a better card against storm, while also being good against instants that answer food chain. Nice tip!
I'll let u know how I'll do this weekend (~50-11 ppl tournament for a mox)
Having read this entire thread now I almost feel like these are different decks. The UBg list i run usually wins after quite a lot of grinding, so that's where the focus lies with cards like strix and shaman. In fact I only win around half of the games with emrakul. the other half is through playing food-chain + 3 griffins or just winning without food chain (usually sitting behind strixes and disruption shooting the to death with shamen).
On the other hand this deck almost never gets the quick (t3-4) food chain wins that the UG version can do. As a combo player that makes me kinda sad =/
Played a tournament with a UBg version of this deck last weekend. 1st prize was a NM Mox sapphire so I was pretty excited to test this deck in a real tournament. fewer people than expected showed up though, so we only played 5r swiss.
R1 vs Merfolk
Island-> vial and I put him on merfolk. He has little gas other than a pair of 2/1s that I can actually block. He plays two standstill which I break but he doesn't find any lords. In short, his deck failed put enough pressure on and when I played food chain I could pay for the spell pierce he held.
In g2 he I did a neat play that is important in this deck. When facing wasteland you want to fetch basic swamp to cast your Deathrite shaman. Next turn you can sac a fetchland, respond by getting a blue mana and brainstorm in response to your own fetch. Lost the game eventually because he had both lord of atlantis and lord of pearl trident and I had island in play.
G3 I buy some time with abrupt decay and force the combo through with cabal therapy.
1-0
R2 UR nivmagus elemental aggro
I won the first game but it was close. His price of progress would've gotten there if I had fetched the wrong land.
In g2 I play a ponder as if it was a brainstorm. Cards intermixed with my hand so I recieved a gameloss. In game three i get a ton of time to do whatever I want. I Empath for consecrated sphinx and play it which is enough.
2-0
R3 Spiral tide
My opponent is a good player but I manage to win the round 2-1. I comboed out pretty quickly the first game paired with a force of will for disruption. G2 I was destroyed by 3 timespirals and 7 high tides. G3 he stumbled on landdrops for two turns at 2 lands. Spiral tide does not want to miss landdrops. Iwin.
R4 and R5 ID
Quarterfinals RUG
He starts on the play and puts a delver into play. After that he plays cautiously and keeps mana up for counterspell the whole game. After trading for his disruption I have a Shardless agent in play and four mana when I'm forced to try and play food chain. He has two dazes. I had exiled griffins and empath in hand to his 5 permanents =(
In the last game I was punished for the kinda greedy manabase. On r3 I had two fetches in play and I donät draw a third land. He has U up but I felt I had to play into his stifle since I held two strixes and a relic of progenitus. He stifles. I play relic and cycle it next turn. Meanwhile he has a delver beating me down. I find the mana and cantrip like crazy playing two strix and ponders. He has bolts for my strix and I dont draw a single abrupt decay which would've stopped his only threat.
I was pretty bummed out to have lost after going so smoothly through the swiss but I got to draft (side-event) so I soon forgot about the loss. Also the guy I lost to is a really good friend so it was ok.
I think this deck is good and without having tested the ug version I think the strix should be worth the splash. It takes a certain type of player to enjoy playing cards like cabal therapy so I understand that people prefer straight up UG version. At the end of the day I think abrupt decay is the card that pushes the black version over the edge. The card is really good as it can beat both t1 delver and t2 counterbalance.
I would not change the deck much but I would probably play at least three basics since I missed the forest in one match.
This threads needs more activity. Please post reports if you play this deck in tournaments. I think it might be really good
Thanks for the report! Mind posting your final decklist and sideboard?
How have you been liking Shardless Agent? I ran it for a little bit but found that I want the Daze/Pierce over the cascade, but Cabal Therapy changes the value there. Have you cascaded into Manipulate Fate yet?
I am definitely a proponent of at least three basics in this deck, especially if you're running three colors. This allows you work around a waste lock and still cast your Food Chain for the win.
Have you missed AEthersnipe as an Empath target? Its ramp and bounce ability has won me a fair number of games, which makes me hesitant to cut it.
I plan on playing this week, likely this deck. What turn have you been winning on lately?
Hey there,
I've been taking a break from the Food Chain deck but am delighted to see that others are still playing it. Recently I've started to tinker with the deck again however. Gottfrid: I love that you've brought on Consecrated Sphinx. I've wanted to do that for a while. How is it working out?
I've decided to bring in Progenitus and 2 Natural Order main deck which I'm liking so far. Yesterday I decided to splash white and bring some Swords to Plowshares in place of Daze to a tournament at my LGS. I had an absolutely rotten run of luck and got beaten thoroughly by Dredge, Reanimator, Bug Delver, Death and Taxes and BG Pox. I won't bother going into details on the defeats. Needless to say, I'm considering changing things up a bit and I like the splash for black. It will require switching Noble Hierarchs for Birds of Paradise which I've really struggled to come to terms with but have now accepted.
I'm curious to learn how important you find Baleful Strix? I personally don't like having my 2-drops being 2-colored as it hinders you going off on turn 2 (baring a Sol-land).
I'm looking to buy some Deathrite Shamans and Abrupt Decays. Will report back with more info.
The list I played (in the report).
4 Food Chain
3 Manipulate Fate
3 Misthollow Griffin
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Fierce Empath
1 Consecrated Sphinx
4 Baleful Strix
3 Shardless agent
1 Sylvan Library
4 Brainstorm
3 Ponder
4 Force of Will
3 Cabal Therapy
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
3 Tropical Island
3 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
4 Verdant catacombs
SB was:
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Null Rod
2 Darkblast
1 Cabal Therapy
2 Vendilion Clique
1 Spell Pierce
I would change one tropical for a basic forest and maybe increase the land count to 20 by cutting one shardless agent. The SB is also extremely meta dependent but I think abrupt decay should be in the SB if not in the main.
The sylvan Library was always good and will stay in.
On the Aethersnipe issue I have never encountered the situation where the combo (playing Emmy with inf mana) does not get there. I realize that cards like Ensnaring bridge nad phyrexian revoker naming Food Chain exist but I choose not to care.
In this list I have cut Griselbrand for Consecrated Sphinx as auxiliary empath target. That means that I have nothing to do with the ramp from an evoked aethersnipe anyway. I realize that griselbrand is much more powerful than Sphinx but I reason that if you are only going to play him with food chain mana anyway, why not just play the fourth empath or emrakul.
I play him because of two reasons. I want to actually cast him and win games (which happens, and he's pretty sick when not answered). And I want to tutor for a FoW-pitchable card when I have multiples of Empath, or when I have shaman action going and just want to stop whatever play my opponent has next.
On Shardless Agent: Yes, I have actually played Shardless with only Empath in hand, no foodchain or griffins. I cascaded into manipulate fate, exiled three griffins, shuffled and drew food chain. Usually though, he's just a way to provide card value in the form of redundant creatures that trade up / pitch to food Chain.
I totally agree on UG or UB costed creatures. They make you either choose the grindier route that plays strixes but is slower, or the quicker Sol-land powered version where these creatures do not fit due to the mana constraints. In those decks mulldrifter or raven familiar is probably better in the cantrip-creature slot.
Not sure which is the better way to go here.
The average winning turn is very very dependent on matchup. against RUG your average winning turn is definately after t10. When it's important to be as fast as possible (elves, burn etc) you usually goldfish turn 5 or so ( but you probably Fow and/or therapy at least once in the meantime).
How often did you use the flashback ability of Cabal Therapy? I am wondering if Thoughtseize is a stronger card, especially going in blind on protecting an upcoming combo.