Food Chain Combo

[metamet]

Seems like an interesting sideboard card against the likes of UW Miracles.

I will admit that I have Empathed for an AEthersnipe before so that I could pitch it to FOW when I needed to resolve my Food Chain. Sphinx being good for that is a plus. I'd say test it out and see if it's worth it, as I think you'd have a leg up against the grindier decks if you can build up card advantage... just don't let them miracle it to the bottom. -_-

I'm becoming reinterested in testing Living Wish again... but it seems slow, makes us susceptible to Snare and doesn't actually deal with any problems the deck consistently has. Hrm.

What we need is a good enchantment tutor to line out our current setup. Intuition in G1 (when there isn't GY hate) might be our best bet...

RE Wall of Roots: I tested Blossoms and was underwhelmed. Wall of Roots just feels more natural for me, and I always make use of the mana, especially when I need to bounce into my Food Chain or play around Daze. I found it more valuable than the cantrip of Blossoms.

[grokh]

Seems like an interesting sideboard card against the likes of
What we need is a good enchantment tutor to line out our current setup. Intuition in G1 (when there isn't GY hate) might be our best bet...

I'm running with 2 Ancestral knowledge for a while and it helps a lot finding our Food chain, it's very rare than your Food chain isn't in your top 10 cards and if it isn't you can exile lands from the top 10 cards for digging more ...

[millerd33]

Has anyone thought about playing some sort or Intuition/Living wish version?

Intuition can replace Manipulate Fate in the main deck not only fetching griffins but the foodchain as well. With living wish you can restart late game stalls if they counter your griffin's by getting ooze out of the board and removing the griffen's in yard from the game.

Wish also lets you play less copies of some of the creatures to open more room for protection.

Was thinking about picking this deck up and it looks like a lot of fun. What do you think about this as a possible way to go with the deck?

[nevilshute]

Has anyone thought about playing some sort or Intuition/Living wish version?

Intuition can replace Manipulate Fate in the main deck not only fetching griffins but the foodchain as well. With living wish you can restart late game stalls if they counter your griffin's by getting ooze out of the board and removing the griffen's in yard from the game.

Wish also lets you play less copies of some of the creatures to open more room for protection.

Was thinking about picking this deck up and it looks like a lot of fun. What do you think about this as a possible way to go with the deck?

I'd be extremely hesitant about dropping MF. I'll go so far as to say it is an absolute key card. Intuition would 9/10 times be used for Food Chain although we can also go get Emrakul and 2x Fierce Empath if we have the rest of our combo set up. My worry with Intuition is that it makes us very vulnurable if we aren't holding at least one counter card. If we intuition for 3x FC and they then either counter the one we try to cast or even worse cast a Surgical Extraction.

If I had any Intuitions lying around I'd be up for testing but I don't hehe.

[metamet]

I wouldn't cut Manipulate Fate, as the card far outperforms LW/Intuition as stand alone enablers.

As I mentioned in my last post, testing those two cards is something I'm interested in. I've always been a fan of Ooze as a way of reenabling our Griffins and having access to that maindeck would be nice.

My current list (from here: http://www.starcitygames.com/events/...with_tyle.html)

Maindeck:

Creatures
1 AEthersnipe
3 Fierce Empath
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Mulldrifter
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Wall of Roots

Enchantments
4 Food Chain
1 Sylvan Library

Instants
4 Brainstorm
3 Daze
4 Force of Will

Legendary Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
2 Vendilion Clique


Planeswalkers
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Sorceries
3 Manipulate Fate
3 Ponder

Basic Lands
2 Forest
2 Island

Lands
2 Ancient Tomb
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:

2 Pithing Needle
2 Gilded Drake
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Tarmogoyf
1 Flusterstorm
1 Krosan Grip
2 Spell Pierce
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction


What and where and why to cut, though...

[nevilshute]

@metamet:

I was recently going over my sideboard and I started to wonder why I really needed my 2x Pithing Needles. I've reached the conclusion that what really hurts me are two cards in particular cards and another card on occasion:

• Ethersworn Canonist
• Phyrexian Revoker
• Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Needle helps against none of them. Then I started thinking, what do I normally want to name with needle? Cards like Liliana of the Veil, Pernicious Deed and Aether Vial. While these cards can all be quite the nuisance they don't destroy us like the others I mentioned. I'm, of course, not saying it has to be one way or the other, but I have a hard time finding space for stuff. While there are obviously other good options to name (such as man-lands, Karakas and Mangara of Corondor but I ended up pulling out the needles.

My question to you is: Do you often side in Pithing Needles? And also, when you do, how often do you feel like they make a difference? :)

My SB:

2x Surgical Extraction
2x Relic of Progenitus
2x Moment's Peace
2x Carpet of Flowers
2x Krosan Grip
2x Submerge
1x Gilded Drake
1x Wipe Away
1x Hurkyl's Recall

[metamet]

Hitting a Pridemage is one of the best things the Needle can get. I do, however, see your point regarding the other problem cards.

I tried the Carpet of Flowers and wasn't too crazy about it. I felt like I wanted to be doing other things against RUG Delver, but maybe that's not what it's there for. What do you usually bring it in against?

I'm also not yet convinced of Moment's Peace. While it's a two turn fog, it's a mana hog and doesn't seem like it can allow you to push ahead. Can you elaborate on how you've been using it?

[grokh]

Hi all,

Metamet, i agree with you, i definitely adopted my 3rd Fierce empath, it's more stable.

You're right, Qasali pridemage is a real threat for us, and the worth being it can be tutored with Green sun's zenith, so just for this reason, Pithing needle is needed.

I also use Pithing needle against S&T naming Sneak attack too !

@nevilshute
For other threats you mentionned : Ethersworn canonist and Phyrexian revoker, i'll underline 2 points :
1) Phyrexian revoker is never played in the SB tables, because Pithing needle has the same effect (players don't know a lot of dangerous activated mana abilities) and it's more safe because it's non-creature. The Phyrexian revoker can be out with a simple Swords to plowshare
2) If your opponent has an Ethersworn canonist on the board, if you cast a anti-creature/anti-artifact on it, he'll sure :
a) protect it with Mother of runes in response, your spell will fizzle
b) play a counterspell, as you're under canonist's effect, you can't respond, your spell is countered.
So, the only good solution is Krosan grip, he can't respond and there's no more Ethersworn canonist on the board !

I have to underline one very important point, i think you should replace your Daze/Spell pierce by some Misdirection
Why ?

Because Return to Ravnica has revealed Abrupt decay and it'll sure be played in Legacy. I may theorize it'll be play main deck in decks with the appropriate colors, because it can destroy lots lots of things in the format .
Our Food chain cost so if targetted by an Abrupt decay, your counterspell will become dead cards and you'll just lose games dumbly.
With Misdirection, you can retarget the spell on one of his permanents (or one of yours non Food chain !) and if he counter the Misdirection you can counter his counterspell

[nevilshute]

Hitting a Pridemage is one of the best things the Needle can get. I do, however, see your point regarding the other problem cards.

I tried the Carpet of Flowers and wasn't too crazy about it. I felt like I wanted to be doing other things against RUG Delver, but maybe that's not what it's there for. What do you usually bring it in against?

I'm also not yet convinced of Moment's Peace. While it's a two turn fog, it's a mana hog and doesn't seem like it can allow you to push ahead. Can you elaborate on how you've been using it?

I'd forgotten about the Pridemage. Of course Needle is massive against this. That aside I'm still not too sure about the needle. Regarding Carpet of Flowers: I like it against RUG Delver. They are quite trigger happy when it comes to Noble Hierarchs so I like to side 2 out and replace them with 2 carpets. RUG also having Wastelands means that they can really mana screw us. But basically against anyone play blue I like siding them in. It's also neat that you can play it during your first main phase and then have the ability trigger during your second main phase of the same turn. Having said all of this, I've only played with them for one tournament (my latest). And while they seemed decent the jury might still be out.

Regarding Moment's Peace they are just awesome most of the time. I completely crushed a Dredge player with my 2 Moment's Peace: I had 1 Misthollow Griffin and 1 Noble Hierarch on the board as well as a Wall of Blossoms. He was getting more and more set up having around 3 or 4 Zombie Tokens and a Putrid Imp in a play and Ichorid in his GY. I had a MP in hand and cast it when he swung with everything. I was fairly low, like 7 or 8 life I think and he was a little higher. At maybe 11 or so. He looked at it, looked at his board and shrugged and passed the turn. I then drew a card (can't remember what), and attacked him for 4 taking him down to 7 and passed the turn. He had dredge some more and his army was now large enough to alpha strike me to death. He swung with everything again and I flashbacked the MP. Then he passed the turn and I could tell that he was feeling fairly confident. His EOT I Brainstormed and saw my second Moment's Peace. I drew, swung for 4 taking him down to 3 and passed the turn. He then proceeded to attack with his whole army. He had the imp to block my Griffin at least once but he was so overconfident that he attacked with that aswell. I MP'd him again and won the game.

Sorry for the long spiel. But that was just one (admittedly very favourable) example of what it can do. I also always side it in against Maverick. I find that Maverick decks usually end up being "the beatdown" against us and it can buy us additional rounds. That's what the card does best imo. It gives us extra draws to find our combo piece. And with that in mind I rarely find that its mana cost is a problem because when I'm staring down the barrel of a gun I don't usually need my mana for anything other than going off so I can keep 3 mana open during my opponents turn.

Hi all,

Metamet, i agree with you, i definitely adopted my 3rd Fierce empath, it's more stable.

You're right, Qasali pridemage is a real threat for us, and the worth being it can be tutored with Green sun's zenith, so just for this reason, Pithing needle is needed.

I also use Pithing needle against S&T naming Sneak attack too !

@nevilshute
For other threats you mentionned : Ethersworn canonist and Phyrexian revoker, i'll underline 2 points :
1) Phyrexian revoker is never played in the SB tables, because Pithing needle has the same effect (players don't know a lot of dangerous activated mana abilities) and it's more safe because it's non-creature. The Phyrexian revoker can be out with a simple Swords to plowshare
2) If your opponent has an Ethersworn canonist on the board, if you cast a anti-creature/anti-artifact on it, he'll sure :
a) protect it with Mother of runes in response, your spell will fizzle
b) play a counterspell, as you're under canonist's effect, you can't respond, your spell is countered.
So, the only good solution is Krosan grip, he can't respond and there's no more Ethersworn canonist on the board !

I have to underline one very important point, i think you should replace your Daze/Spell pierce by some Misdirection
Why ?

Because Return to Ravnica has revealed Abrupt decay and it'll sure be played in Legacy. I may theorize it'll be play main deck in decks with the appropriate colors, because it can destroy lots lots of things in the format .
Our Food chain cost so if targetted by an Abrupt decay, your counterspell will become dead cards and you'll just lose games dumbly.
With Misdirection, you can retarget the spell on one of his permanents (or one of yours non Food chain !) and if he counter the Misdirection you can counter his counterspell

Death and Taxes frequently pack 3 Phyrexian Revokers in their main deck AND 3 Ethersword Canonists in their sideboard... we need to be able to answer that. I'm currently running 2x Krosan Grip and 1x Hurkyl's Recall (it gets rid of their Aether Vial too which is need in order for them to not just vial one of their creatures back down.

I think you're right about Misdirection becoming more of a card once Abrupt Decay hits. Still, I think I'll start by considering it for the sideboard. I've main decked Misdirection before and it has almost always been a let down. There are just too many decks where it's uses are too marginal.

[metamet]

What about white for Oblivion Ring? Helps our S&T matchup as well as being removal for problem creatures.

But Abrupt Decay may make this worse, but I don't imagine siding it in against Rock anyway. I can see Misdirection playing a bigger role in the future, too. For now I am hesitant to maindeck it as it's some card disadvantage.

[metamet]

Another route I've been thinking about taking this deck is with a SB of:

4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

And maybe 1 Terastadon or so.

We'd side out our Food Chains and go further in on resolving an NO rather than playing around their Enchantment hate.

We have enough hatebears and we can still keep the Griffin beats side plan, but this sort of feels like Dredge siding into Painter Servant.

Thoughts?

-- Also, I haven't played in two weeks. Been moving and elsewise busy. Next week!

[metamet]

So I thought about the NO plan a bit more and I think it's pretty solid. I would like to test it, of course, but I see it being a good way to sidestep potential hate. It also eliminates us having to put together a puzzle, thus being able to run out a Manipulate Fate and expect a counter. And be okay with it.

Here's the current sideboard I am toying with. Mind you, I haven't any real testing with it yet, just theory:

4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Gilded Drake
1 Flusterstorm
2 Spell Pierce
2 Submerge
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Scavenging Ooze


An easy sideboard plan against Food Chain hate (such as with Maverick or D&T), or even as a way of lessening the number of spells we need to resolve against UW Miracles:
+
4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus
2 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm

-
4 Food Chain
1 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul
2 Fierce Empath


Other cards worth considering with the NO sideboard would be Empyrial Archangel, Terastadon and that new 15/15, although I don't like how it's susceptible to Swords.

As always, I'd like to hear everyone's thoughts. I worry that we may not have enough mana dorks to allow the NO to be as strong as we'd like right away. Perhaps a Dryad Arbor would be worth it, although a little clunky (however FCable!) in G1.

[TerribleTim68]

Sure would love to run this, it certainly looks more fun than the "top tier" stuff. Problem is, I don't have the money for a Jace, The Mind Sculptor or Noble Heirarch. My thought was to just use Birds of Paradise for the Heirarchs and drop the Jace, the Wallet Drainer all together for something else. any thoughts on that? Does it totaly wreck the deck or can I still make a go of it?

My meta is the typical stuff, some RUG Delver, Elf-Combo, High Tide, Miracle-Whip, Omni-Tell, Maverick type stuff with the occasional Dredge, MUD deck thrown in just to keep your sideboard plans messed up. Pretty much everything you'd expect to see at a SCG Open.

[Awaclus]

Other cards worth considering with the NO sideboard would be Empyrial Archangel, Terastadon and that new 15/15, although I don't like how it's susceptible to Swords.

Most people will probably side Swords out. Griffins and Emrakuls aren't very good targets for it.

[nevilshute]

Another route I've been thinking about taking this deck is with a SB of:

4 Natural Order
1 Progenitus

And maybe 1 Terastadon or so.

We'd side out our Food Chains and go further in on resolving an NO rather than playing around their Enchantment hate.

We have enough hatebears and we can still keep the Griffin beats side plan, but this sort of feels like Dredge siding into Painter Servant.

Thoughts?

-- Also, I haven't played in two weeks. Been moving and elsewise busy. Next week!

That's sounds like a fun and interesting plan. I'd be very interested to hear how it pans out :) My one hesitation about radical plan b's like this would be that it seems like it will end up being a sort of a gamble between each game in a round, for both players. Let's say you run this SB plan at a tournament, it's safe to say that there's a very real possibility that after a few rounds people will learn what your SB plan is up to. At that point they can plan for it. Then you need to decide whether or not to play the NO plan or keep the Food Chains.

Also, what happens when you lose game1. Do you side in your NO plan now? Let's say you do and win game2. What then for game 3? Those might be a trivial concerns though. With that said though, I'm finding myself really like it. Sounds good :)

Sure would love to run this, it certainly looks more fun than the "top tier" stuff. Problem is, I don't have the money for a Jace, The Mind Sculptor or Noble Heirarch. My thought was to just use Birds of Paradise for the Heirarchs and drop the Jace, the Wallet Drainer all together for something else. any thoughts on that? Does it totaly wreck the deck or can I still make a go of it?

My meta is the typical stuff, some RUG Delver, Elf-Combo, High Tide, Miracle-Whip, Omni-Tell, Maverick type stuff with the occasional Dredge, MUD deck thrown in just to keep your sideboard plans messed up. Pretty much everything you'd expect to see at a SCG Open.

I'd say the deck can work just fine without Jace. The Noble Hierarchs are significantly better than Birds of Paradise and I fear you'd suffer with no nobles. I started this deck, like you, with only owning birds. And as I started buying the nobles I could really feel the power of exalted. They have quickly become one of my favorite legacy staples.

[metamet]

Sure would love to run this, it certainly looks more fun than the "top tier" stuff. Problem is, I don't have the money for a Jace, The Mind Sculptor or Noble Heirarch. My thought was to just use Birds of Paradise for the Heirarchs and drop the Jace, the Wallet Drainer all together for something else. any thoughts on that? Does it totaly wreck the deck or can I still make a go of it?

My meta is the typical stuff, some RUG Delver, Elf-Combo, High Tide, Miracle-Whip, Omni-Tell, Maverick type stuff with the occasional Dredge, MUD deck thrown in just to keep your sideboard plans messed up. Pretty much everything you'd expect to see at a SCG Open.

I'd say run it. Go:

-1 Jace
-4 Hierarch

+1 Sylvan Library
+4 Birds of Paradise

Then I'd work on replacing the Birds with Hierarchs, as they are a direct upgrade. They do make a difference, but I'd say the deck is operable without them. :)

I think Grokh is still running mostly Birds, slowly replacing them with Hierarchs. As nevilshute said, too, it's okay to start with them.

The deck is certainly worth playing, especially when you're looking to enjoy the game and the unique things you can do over playing Tier 1 lists. It does win games, and it's a blast to play! Sleeve it up and let is know your feedback.

nevilshute: I'll let you know how it goes. I certainly understand the goofiness of how and when to side them in... but it's an intriguing approach to keeping the surprises coming. I should be getting the NO's in the mail this week and hopefully I can play on Thursday.

Awaclus: You'd think so, but I've found that a lot of Maverick players leave them in and ping off my mana dorks. I agre that they're not worth keeping in, however. Hm.

[nevilshute]

@metamet:

I've been mulling your NO plan over since you wrote it and I'm liking it more and more. So much so that I'm in the process of aquiring a playset right now :)

My weekly tournament is tomorrow so I most likely will not have mine to play with by then so will have to wait till next week. Looking forward to hearing how you go on Thursday :)

Edit: Scratch that. Found out the guy I was buying the NOs from will be at the tournament tomorrow so I can get them in time to play with them. ChaCHING! :D

[Cybey]

Personally I really like the NO plan. One of the reasons why I'm not playing the Food Chain deck at the moment is because I would have to take my Protean Hulk deck apart for some of the cards. But now I will have another reason to do so, since I can still use my NOs :)

Just like TerribleTim, I don't currently own a Jace2, and didn't think it really would be a must-have for this deck. Fortunately I do own the Hierarchs.

What do you think I can use instead of Vendillion Cliques? I do not own those. Am watching them at the moment, but think it will be a while before I can get my hands on them.

I was also reading back a bit, where someone suggested to only play 2 Griffins instead of 3 and playing an extra Manipulate Fate. I was wondering if it would be an idea to play a Surgical Extraction mainboard, in case one of your griffins ends up in your graveyard for some reason.

[nevilshute]

Personally I really like the NO plan. One of the reasons why I'm not playing the Food Chain deck at the moment is because I would have to take my Protean Hulk deck apart for some of the cards. But now I will have another reason to do so, since I can still use my NOs :)

Just like TerribleTim, I don't currently own a Jace2, and didn't think it really would be a must-have for this deck. Fortunately I do own the Hierarchs.

What do you think I can use instead of Vendillion Cliques? I do not own those. Am watching them at the moment, but think it will be a while before I can get my hands on them.

I was also reading back a bit, where someone suggested to only play 2 Griffins instead of 3 and playing an extra Manipulate Fate. I was wondering if it would be an idea to play a Surgical Extraction mainboard, in case one of your griffins ends up in your graveyard for some reason.

I wouldn't like to go lower than 3 Griffins. Casting Manipulate Fate for 3 Griffins and then casting a Food Chain - with no win condition - is such an opressive play from your opponents perspective. Playing 2 is just on wrong side of underwhelming.

Surgical Extraction MB seems iffy. It's a dead card until one of your Griffins get countered - somthing you'll be playing around anyway - and you'll get tempted to extract some random card in your opponent's graveyard which a) is never as good as it seems and b) means you no longer have your extraction for your griffins.

I'd say try Gitaxian Probe until you get the cliques. It's obviously not as good although it being free is decidedly awesome. It means you can cast it for free on turn 2 before going off. It's a card I wish I could find room for but can't.

[metamet]

I am pretty ardant about a 3/3 split of Griffins and Manipulate Fates. I tested the two Griffins and didn't like it at all. Then I tested two Fates, and didn't like that either. I want a Manipulate Fate every single game, and drawing extras isn't a huge deal - pitch to FoW or just use it as a cantrip.

Sugrical Extraction is good in the side. I have saved a griffin from the GY before, but I wouldn't want it main.

Replacing Cliques... Hm. I'd say Probe is decent, but you really do want that extra body for Food Chain. I really like how Clique is flashable, so maybe something like Spellstutter Sprite? The problem is that you don't really care about a lot of 1CMC spells... What are some other flash creatures?

I'd say either that or another Mulldrifter and Wall of Roots.

Let us know how the NO plan works tonight nevilshute! I've been pretty pumped on it, as it looks like it'll solve the issues I had with the deck in some matchups. It single handedly solves our hatebears issue. :) Board wipes? PSH.