Maybeboard


The Food Chain Combo is an infinite mana combo that consists of two pieces.
Food Chain and a "cast from exile" (CFE) creature such as Misthollow Griffin , Eternal Scourge , or Squee, the Immortal .

The combo is executed by exiling a CFE creature with Food Chain and casting it again with the mana produced by it. Each iteration nets you +1 mana so you end up with functionally infinite mana with the caveat of only being able to spend it on creatures.

The payloads we spend our mana on are listed here in order of effectiveness:
1. Walking Ballista : Kills opponent immediately
2. Emrakul, the Aeons Torn : Gives an extra turn, attacks opponent for at least 15 and annihilates 6 permanents.
3. Tidespout Tyrant : Bounces all opponents permanents and allows you to reuse cast and etb triggers such as Baleful Strix , Eternal Witness , and/or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn .
4. Soul of the Harvest : Draw the entire deck and then cast one of the above payloads.

If we can't cast our payloads the next best thing is to cheat them into play with Show and Tell and Arcane Artisan . This limits our payloads to only Emrakul, the Aeons Torn and Tidespout Tyrant .
Note, with Show and Tell the opponent can cheat in something like Shriekmaw that can legally destroy Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . And with Arcane Artisan , creatures are best cheated in on the opponent's end step so that they can stay around for a turn even if Arcane Artisan is destroyed.
If every combo gets countered and/or destroyed, there are 30ish creatures in this deck and most of them cost less than 15 mana, so we midrange now boys. There are a couple of evasive threats in the deck and a handful of removal/interaction, so if the whole combo thing doesn't work out we aren't quite out of the game.
Misthollow Griffin can be exiled to Force of Will to mitigate the card disadvantage.
• Any CFE creature can also be exiled to Arcane Artisan for some bonus card advantage and cost reduction.
Deathrite Shaman and Scavenging Ooze can hit CFE creatures in your own graveyard for value.
Lotus Cobra is a busted piece of garbage and makes fetch lands produce up to 3 mana on the turn they are played.
Demonic Tutor : Finds literally anything
Vampiric Tutor : Finds literally anything (at instant speed)
Manipulate Fate , Foresight : Finds the CFE creatures and/or the other copy of itself
Tainted Pact , Demonic Consultation : In the process of finding a combo piece, these will (hopefully) exile a CFE creature in the process
Fauna Shaman : Finds any creature
Fierce Empath : Finds Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , Tidespout Tyrant , Soul of the Harvest , or Rune-Scarred Demon
Woodland Bellower : Finds Fierce Empath , Eternal Witness , Fauna Shaman
Worldly Tutor : Finds any creature
Spellseeker : Finds most tutors
Neoform and Eldritch Evolution : Usually finds some sort of 3-drop that finds another card.
Uncage the Menagerie :
Sometimes you just need to grab a mana dork for 1GG.
Usually grabs Fauna Shaman and pitches the other creature to it.
Could also get cantrip creatures like Balful Strix or Wall of Blossoms to clog up the board.
Snapcaster Mage also exists.
This is usually what Uncage should be cast for. The three creatures you get basically assemble the combo and let you tutor for a payload.
1. CFE creature: Squee, the Immortal or Eternal Scourge .
2. Way to find payload: Trinket Mage to find Walking Ballista , Fierce Empath to find the rest.
3. Way to find Food Chain : Ideally this is just to transmute Drift of Phantasms , if Drift is unavailable then Spellseeker can do.
If you have 6 mana the turn after you cast Uncage, you are able to win that turn. Otherwise it will take two turns after casting Uncage.
Sometimes you just wanna pay 4GG to put Misthollow Griffin into your hand. (No you don't, but hey, I'm not a cop.)
Laboratory Maniac is a viable win-con to include because of Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact (Though it is not in this list as my meta has approximately 200% more Lightning Bolt than necessary)
• Things like Farhaven Elf and Wood Elves both ramp you to cast your regular spells and get Food Chain mana later on.
Extract is a thing that exists.
• Red is a color that can provide some win-cons and tutors through Purphoros, God of the Forge and Imperial Recruiter so it could be considered. Purphoros, God of the Forge can even be cast off of Food Chain .
Genesis Hydra is an old win-con that was cut since more efficient things like Walking Ballista have been printed but could still pull some weight.
These are things I feel the need to justify

Inclusions

Uncage the Menagerie : It's slow and costs 5, but just gets the job done and I like the card.

Exclusions

Counterspell , Hymn to Tourach , Channel : With three color decks, double costs in the 2 drop slot are hard to justify as they are hard to cast, so these cards, while being good in this deck are (imho) too hard to reliably cast and lose their effectiveness as the game goes on. I have tried to eliminate double costs in the lower cmc slots with few exceptions like Vendilion Clique . This might change in the future though.

These are basically a collection of questions you should be asking yourself as the game goes on.
The ideal opener has 2-3 lands, a creature (ideally either a 2-drop or a 1-drop mana dork), either combo pieces or a way to find combo pieces, and some sort of interaction with the opponent or some sort of cantrip.
Setting up a boardstate and some sort of acceleration is probably the most important thing to do in the first few turns. The deck basically wants to count to six mana to execute the combo. Second most important thing is to establish how you are playing around the opponent's deck. Are they removing your creatures? Are they attacking your hand? Are they just straight up throwing red cards at your face? Figure out when creatures are safe to stay on the board and capitalize on that.
How the hell are you getting Food Chain into your hand? Do you have any tutors? Are your mana dorks alive? How many turns do you reasonably have before the opponent kills you? What sort of countermagic does your opponent have?
Is comboing out still viable? Should we start turning our creatures sideways? What is the opponent doing?

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 4 years
Card Score 9 / 10
Legality

This deck is Canadian Highlander legal.

Rarity (main - side)

12 - 0 Mythic Rares

55 - 0 Rares

11 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.39
Tokens Copy Clone, Morph 2/2 C
Folders Canadian Highlander, Highlander Shenanigans, Highlander
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