Better Combos for my Prossh Combo Deck?

Commander Deck Help forum

Posted on April 2, 2019, 11:42 p.m. by bryanedds

I'm building a new deck caled Prossh Resilient Combo.

The concept of the deck is that I wanted to have really good win conditions that aren't overly reliant on having the commander stay on the field. Some combos involve Prossh, but many of the involved combo pieces combine in other ways. Also, because of the abundance of tutors, I'm able to put in one-off answers to bad board states. This way, no matter how the board state evolves (or devolves), I'm never locked out of the game for long.

However, I'm not sure if I've optimized the combos very well as, while I'm familiar with several Gruul combos, I have little familiarity with combos involving Black cards (I have very little experience as a Black player).

I'm hoping people can critique the existing combos and / or offer better alternatives (current combos are listed below). What I want are combos that are maximally effective to quickly win games.

Thank you all for your time!

bryanedds says... #2

For convenience, I'll go ahead and list the existing combos in this thread -

April 2, 2019 11:52 p.m.

Demarge says... #3

Goblin Bushwhacker a haste pump for all those tokens at the end of food chain combo that you can cast with food chain mana

April 3, 2019 12:27 a.m.

enpc says... #4

If you're looking to optimise the deck, the best piece of advice I can give you is that you have too many combos. The problem with having an overabundance of combos is that ineveitably you'll get yourself in situations where you have Aggravated Assault + Atarka, World Render , or some other mix of two pieces but from differnet combos that don't work together.

If you want to have a deck with a lot of combo options, you have to find one core theme to build around and make sure your pieces are interchangeable that way.

Now, onto the combos themselves. First off, Food Chain does not work the way you think it does. For one, food chain mana can only be used to cast creature spells. So that means no Exsanguinate . Also, you are actually exiling the creatures, not sacrificing them, so no Zulaport Cutthroat . The better option here would be Purphoros, God of the Forge as all he has to see is ETBs. The mass creature buff also works really nicely. As mentioned, Goblin Bushwhacker is another solid options for food chain, as is Impact Tremors .

For the other combos, A lot of them are pretty bad sorry. You've listed stuff which is quite expensive to play or isn't actually a combo. For example, Dragonlord Atarka + Grafted Exoskeleton is just dealing 5 infect damage to a creature. Sword of Feast and Famine + Bear Umbra just makes some mana. Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith makes infinite colurless mana, sure, but without an outlet for it, infinite mana means nothing. I get you have Exsanguinate , but a three card combo that does nothing with outer cards is bad here. Hellkite Charger + Savage Ventmaw doesn't work, you're one mana short each loop.

It's really important to actualyl see what the combos do and understand them before just adding a bunch to the deck.

Also, you need more ramp. You want to know how to make a deck faster? Lower the curve and add more ramp. Since your primary combo here is Food Chain , adding mana dorks will help immensly as you can eat them to kickstart your combo. Llanowar Elves , Elvish Mystic , Elves of Deep Shadow , Arbor Elf (you need to fix your mana base but this will give you lots of value once you do), Priest of Titania , Fyndhorn Elves , Wall of Roots , Birds of Paradise , etc.

You also need more card advantage in general. Having tutors is nice, but a) you need more of them, b) you need cheaper ones and c) you need more raw card advantage. Skullclamp , Painful Truths , Wheel of Fortune , even cards like Lifecrafter's Bestiary can be good. And the more you bring your curve down (seriously, 3.55 average CMC is really high), you can start takign advantage of cards like Ad Nauseam and Dark Confidant .

Yes, a lot of the cards I have recommended means you have to cut a bunch of big bomb cards. But that's how you make a deck faster and more consistent. A core win condition package surrounded by ramp and card advantage, with a bit of removal on the side. Filling your deck wit hBig, slow cards guarantees that you plays will be slow and not as impactful as you want.

April 3, 2019 6:13 a.m.

IMMG54 says... #5

Yeah, agreeing with above comment, another combo my friend runs in his food chain prossh is protean hulk with some way to cheat it out, but really you should just be focusing on food chain. If the deck is focused enough, it will be able to win that way regardless. I've been watching Playing with Power on YouTube where they do competitive commander, and their group has a high amount of interaction. It all depends on your meta, but I'd suggest a protean hulk pile in my opinion. That's always a flashy way to win if you can cheat it in

April 3, 2019 9:50 a.m.

SP3CTR3_chelts says... #6

Well I got part way in to typing a response but then decided to read the comments. I too agree with enpc. Significantly reducing the number of combos and bombs in favour of draw, tutor and ramp really speed up and improve a deck.

Although Zulaport Cutthroat does work but not in the obvious way. Rather than making lots of mana with food chain and prosh you make lots of tokens (or both) and then you sac all the tokens to prosh's ability causing these ones to die rather than be exiled.

April 3, 2019 11:10 a.m.

AKBZ says... #7

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/prossh-paper/ This is a competitive list of prossh. As you can see, it has a low curve with tons of tutors to find Food Chain . That is your deck. All the other combos are fluff. They are not needed, because Food Chain combo is by and large the best thing you can do. Things like Splinter Twin and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker are slower than Food Chain . Hence, this list does not play them. Been awhile since it has been updated, so the big things that need to be added are Walking Ballista , and Squee, Goblin Nabob . The reason for Walking Ballista is because Imperial Recruiter can find him, and infinite mana from Food Chain allows infinite pings. The reason for Squee, Goblin Nabob is because of the blowouts. As you play the deck and win, people will learn how to stop you. Examples include allowing you to cast your commander thirty times, then casting Krosan Grip to take out Food Chain . Then on there turn, casting something like Toxic Deluge and killing the board. Now, you are stuck with nowhere to go, because even if you get Food Chain back, you are not casting your commander again to generate infinite mana. Squee, Goblin Nabob prevents blowouts from happening. It also allows you to be faster than trying to get enough mana to get to your commander and Food Chain in the same turn, which is what you always want to do.

April 4, 2019 7:06 a.m.

bryanedds says... #8

Thanks everyone for you input! I have put some of it to use!

One caveat I'd like to specify is that I'm not trying to make the deck competitive, but rather able to have maximally flexible options to win. This is why I don't want to put too much emphasis on Prossh as my win condition.

April 5, 2019 9:37 p.m.

goodair says... #9

There are Prossh decks floating around that aren't foodchain based and are care more for tokens and things you do with them. I run this type of style but still agree that alot of the combos you mentioned are wayy too many and will make your deck very clunky without much cross synergy.

April 5, 2019 9:58 p.m.

bryanedds says... #10

goodair - did you post your Prossh token deck here? I'd love to see it!

April 5, 2019 10:12 p.m.

goodair says... #11

Junds of Fun (Prossh EDH)

April 5, 2019 10:29 p.m.

bryanedds says... #12

One combo I really like from your deck is Descent of the Dragons + Dragon Tempest . I'm a big Timmy at heart, and this is an awesome timbo (timmy combo)!

I've also never seen Ashling's Prerogative before - what an interesting card!

April 5, 2019 10:44 p.m.

bryanedds says... #13

I've revised down my combo list to the following -

I've also increased my ramp to literally half my deck (33 lands + 16 rocks = 49). I only have one tutorable card draw, Necropotence , but once it hits the boards it's all the card draw I need. Finally, I've added some more tutorable answers like -

I really miss the Life and Limb + Sporemound combo, but something had to give for all the additional ramp.

Please let me know if y'all feel like I've made any improvement.

Thanks!

April 8, 2019 7:20 p.m.

enpc says... #14

I would cut the following cards as they are just wasted space and either are inefficient, or they only combo with one other thing in the deck:

Zealous Conscripts , Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , Splinter Twin , Combat Celebrant , Sanguine Bond , Exquisite Blood , Helm of Obedience , Leyline of the Void , Helm of the Host , Godo, Bandit Warlord , Panharmonicon , Hammer of Nazahn , Basalt Monolith , Rings of Brighthearth

And add Tainted Strike and Purphoros, God of the Forge .

April 8, 2019 8:32 p.m.

bryanedds says... #15

I think the reason I can keep cards that only combo with one other card in the deck is because I have 10+ tutor cards. So while you would be somewhat correct in general not to run combos like that, I think that's only true if a deck isn't stacked with tutor cards like I have done.

Would you disagree with that line of reasoning?

I will have a look at Tainted Strike and Purphoros, God of the Forge , thanks!

April 9, 2019 1:59 p.m.

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