Food Chain Prossh (FCP) has been a long-standing front-runner when evaluating competitive fast-combo decks. It's fast, resilient, and has a good stax matchup, and a solid midrangy backup plan of Prossh beats. FCT has all of these elements (except the last) with subtle advantages in exile use and card options in U and W.
There are a lot of similarities regarding the speed and reliability of the combo, but there are as many differences as there are similarities. For example, while Imperial Recruiter is the best creature in Prossh, it’s not relevant enough to make the cut in Tazri. Prossh is a “Cradle deck”, while in Tazri it’s something you might end up running.
Sphere of Resistance
is an annoyance when you are playing Prossh, but a “must remove hatepiece” in Tazri.
FCP's combo similarly operates in three parts: Food Chain, CFE creature (Prossh himself) and an outlet like
Blood Artist
, Purphoros or
Genesis Hydra
. FCT replaces Prossh with Eternal Scourge or Misthollow and Blood Artist with Tazri.
What FCT has over FCP: runs massively fewer combo slots (doesn't need to run the 10+ outlets that prossh does), only needs to achieve 3 or 4 FC mana to Prossh’s 3RGB, runs blue cantrips and filtering, runs a better interaction suite with blue counters and white removal, has extra tutors in the blue tutors (including exile tutors) and Enlightened Tutor, uses the to-exile tutors much more efficiently, is less soft to board wipes and Elesh Norn, has extra duals and a fetchland. Tazri’s manadorks are both better and higher in quantity, gaining access to both Noble Hierarch and Avacyn’s Pilgrim. FCT's interaction suite is vastly superior to FCP's, with access to blue (often free) countermagic, bounce spells,
Silence
, and
Swords to Plowshares
.
What FCP has over FCT: having the value-engine in the Command Zone gives Prossh natural hand-independent power, Prossh slightly more consistent color-production in 3-color than 5-color, Prossh doesn't need to run Scourges and specialized tutors for it (at the opportunity cost of having many outlets), FCP dodges blue-hate, and Prossh has a very solid combat backup plan between casting Prossh and playing Purphoros. Unlike Tazri, Prossh can combo with Food Chain through a cost increasing effect like
Sphere of Resistance
or GAAIV. Prossh can also dodge several different hate pieces with the right draw, including Humility, Torpor Orb or Stranglehold, unlike Tazri.
When you compare elements like resiliency or goldfish speed, the decks match up quite evenly. With an average draw, both decks often attempt to win on turn 3 or 4, fairly often with a 1 costing protection spell to back them in their attempt.