I decided to write a primer for Food Chain Elves (FCE) because as I have been testing and tweaking my list, I realized that FCE was far more powerful as a budget deck than I realized. I am a pretty firm believer at this point that a pretty competitive deck can be built utilizing Food Chain and our favorite little elves.
Well, we know that FCE isn't the only Elf combo deck on the block. Whether you feel this deck is on par with Combo Elves (using Glimpse of Nature) in terms of power level or not, I believe FCE actually has some advantages over running Combo Elves, including surprise factor and price as well as a number of other little strengths I will list in the "Why would I run this?" section below.
History:
Food Chain Elves surfaced as a deck many years ago and has seen some Legacy play on and off but never really anything definitive. From what I could find online, pre-2010 era FCE lists sometimes splashed white for Enlightened Tutor to increase consistency in finding Food Chain but were otherwise fairly inconsistent as they had a fair chance of fizzling.
Later builds of FCE eschewed the combo focus for mono-green lists that had a stronger aggro plan. They were less consistent to combo off; some games you'd win by aggroing and other games, if you drew into a Food Chain and had the right cards in hand, could end up with you exploding for a win. These builds were cheap and powerful enough to compete in local Legacy tournaments but still nothing too extraordinary.
Probably the first bone that FCE decks got thrown was Emrakul. Previously, FCE had to net you 23 mana to get in for the kill because most lists used Maga, Traitor to Mortals. With Emrakul, only 15 mana was needed and this decreased the chances of fizzling. Not to mention Maga was weak to counters; your opponent could simply save their FoW until you had dropped and exiled a chunk of your deck to Food Chain and then counter your win condition. This necessitated extra maindeck protection to be run to ensure this didn't happen. But of course this just made the maindeck a bit clunky.
But even Emrakul couldn't really save this deck from fading into relative obscurity. However, Avycyn Restored blessed Food Chain decks with a much needed new card... but not the card everyone thought Avycyn gave it. Interest in Food Chain briefly spiked again because everyone thought that Misthollow Griffin might be the secret to something really powerful. And so people whipped out their U/G Food Chain decks to try it out. The result was something decent but not great. To be honest, I'd rather be doing something that wins me the game flat out than trying to simply generate infinite mana.
Well, Food Chain Elves as a deck pretty much stayed in obscurity even with all the excitement over the Griffin. Everyone was interested in the U/G lists which are significantly different. What everyone missed as they tried to break Food Chain is Griselbrand.
Before Griselbrand, FCE decks relied primarily on Brass Herald and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to be the "middle man". These were the guys you'd fetch for when you didn't have enough mana for Emmy but needed to fetch up something that would allow you to keep comboing by refreshing your hand. But there were a couple problems with both. Kozilek draws only four cards and costs 10 mana. In my testing there were many times when I would need to fetch someone off of my Fierce Empath but didn't have enough elves to ramp up to ten mana before the fact. I'd be left to fizzle. Brass Herald was similarly weak. He cost only six mana but could sometimes net few solid draw elves to continue comboing.
Griselbrand offered extra consistency that the deck had never seen before. At eight mana he is much easier to cast than Kozilek. Even his four black color cost is not an issue as Fierce Empath can exile for four black. Finally, his draw 7 or draw 14 (if comboing off early enough and still sitting at a nice life total) ability just about ensures that you don't fizzle after you have cast him.
As I was playtesting, I began to realize that there might be a really powerful deck to be found here. I did some more work and came across an elf that I had never seen used in any of the FCE decks that I've ever found posted online--Elvish Harbinger. I imagine he got overlooked because he puts an elf on top of the library rather than in your hand. But I found as I tested him that this hardly mattered seeing as how the majority of the elves in the deck draw cards off the top. And what I found is that running a few Harbinger increased the consistency of the deck even further.
By running these two cards in the list, FCE was now much much more consistent at comboing off when it tried. Fizzling was next to nil and the consistency/redundancy of the engine tightened up the list and essentially freed up some slots in the deck that could be used for other cards without seeing a noticeable increase in fizzling percentage. Those slots got filled with Enlightened Tutor, a card that essentially doubles the chances of seeing an early game Food Chain.
These things served to create a new Food Chain deck that is very consistent at comboing off by turn three while still capable of utilizing a decent but not stellar aggro backup plan to alternately win through or stall until you can combo off.
Reasons why you should consider this deck:
1. It combos off on turn three with surprising consistency. This is faster than the majority of decks in the format with the exception of other combo decks like Reanimator, ANT, etc.
2. It dodges a lot of common combo hate. Grave hate, Leyline of Sanctity, Gaddock Teeg, Mindbreak Trap, etc.
3. It doesn't share some of the same weaknesses that Combo Elves does. Chalice and Trinisphere aren't as strong against FCE. Countertop isn't [I]as[/I] strong against us. At least we're not running practically only 1 CMC cards!
4. It utilizes Emrakul to his fullest. You hardcast him on turn three, taking an extra turn. This effectively makes you as fast as a turn two Show and Tell putting Emrakul into play. Except that your opponent doesn't get to take another turn before you swing.
5. You can actually play around hate like Karakas as well. I often combo off with 21 mana, dropping Emmy and two Elvish Archdruid (meaning I swing in for 21 damage on my extra turn). If they bounce Emmy with Karakas on the extra turn, we can simply tap the Archdruids for four mana, tap three of our lands, exile both Archdruids for a combined 8 mana and guess what? We've got 15 mana to recast Emmy and take another turn. Other times I combo off with both Emmy and Griselbrand in play. When they bounce Emmy, we simply need to swing with Grisel, gain 7 life, draw seven cards again, exile Grisel, play a couple more elves and tap our lands to easily reach 15 mana. Take that Karakas!
6. Creature removal doesn't hurt as badly as you think it would. You generally only need one creature on the field to go off and you can easily wait to cast it after Food Chain has hit. At this point your opponent can do almost nothing with there removal because you can simply exile your creature for mana in response. If they drop StP, etc, in response to you exiling your creature, you simply activate Food Chain again putting another exile for mana trigger on the stack. Again, mass removal really only hurts if you're going the aggro route and have no intention of comboing. A removed creature or two just means you have a couple more creatures to drop in their place. This deck has plenty of card advantage because most of the elves cantrip or have some way of putting more creatures into your hand when they hit the field.
7. Enlightened Tutor as a maindeck card lets you run a tutorable sideboard. This means you can tighten up the sideboard and have more answers to common threats.
8. It's fun to play. As you learn to play the deck, you discover a lot of little nuances to piloting the deck and in how you choose to combo off or aggro.
9. It's cheap to build. My list cost me roughly $160 to build, not including the sideboard. In the world of Legacy, this isn't bad. Since then, the price of the list has actually dropped closer to $130.
10. Surprise factor. I've run this in a couple tournaments and had many players either assume I'm just running "regular, aggro elves" or look at Food Chain quizzically when it is cast then become upset or shocked when they realize I'm using it to win that turn.
Articles and Threads:
Army of Ancients (This thread on The Source has some really good information and is pretty extensive)
Glimpse Elves (this article is on Glimpse Elves but since we are [I]fairly[/I] similar, some of the information is definitely still relevant)
This is my current list: Priced out at TCGPlayer.com using their 'cart optimizer' at $132 shipped on 9/13/12! Price checked it again on TCG Player on 9/16/12 at it was $115 shipped. Price checked on 9/20/12 and it was $129 shipped so that gives you an idea of the real world cost for this deck; what you would end up paying.
I am currently undecided on the rest of my sideboard and will discuss sideboard options in greater detail at a later date.
How to play: (to be completed)
The basics of this deck are fairly simple--drop a Food Chain and start chaining elves for mana until you can cast a win condition.
When looking at hands, you are generally looking for whatever will allow you to combo off reliably and as early as possible. Hands that have a quick ramp to three mana (ie, two lands and a Llanowar Elves), a Food Chain and a solid draw elf or two like Sylvan Messenger are the best. If you don't have Food Chain, a hand with an Enlightened Tutor, mana (with at least one dual colored land) and some draw elves is also a very solid hand.
This deck does mulligan well in my testing so don't be shy to go down to five if you really have to. You can still easily win off the back of a decent five card hand.
Once you have dropped Food Chain, play is relatively simple. You start by casting draw elves, exiling them for more mana and then casting more draw elves. Drop Harbinger Elves to tutor more elves, then play Sylvan Messenger or Elvish Visionary or other draw elf to draw the card you tutored for. Once you can generate 8 mana, drop a Fierce Empath to find Griselbrand. Exile Empath, specifically for four black mana and cast Griselbrand. Draw 7 cards, exile Grisel and continue comboing until you can search up Emmy for the win.
I always try to win the game during the extra turn that I take from a hardcast Emmy. However, Emmy only swings for 15 damage so it is important for us to continue comboing beyond 15 mana if we are able. Due to the sheer amount of draw and consistency with the deck, finding Emmy, two Archdruids and ramping to 21 mana is very possible. If you are able to afford the life, drawing 14 cards off of Griselbrand makes it almost impossible not to be able to do this.
The other line of play for comboing out is to play elves and reach a mana count beyond Griselbrand before you cast him. This way you can draw 7 or 14 and continue to combo off without exiling him. Ramp to Emmy and you now have both Emmy and Grisel swinging in on your extra turn.
As you are comboing it is very important to calculate if you can kill your opponent during your extra turn. If you cannot, ensure that you ramp to enough mana and keep enough elves in hand to drop as blockers when you pass to your opponent's last turn. When I played against a friend's Merfolk deck, things weren't looking so hot for me. He'd ramped quickly and had many Merfolk lords on the board all buffing each other to 5/5s. I was down to 9 life or so and managed to combo off without having to cast Griselbrand. I dropped Emmy, took an extra turn and swung in. Then I exiled him for Grisel and some elves to face off against the remaining attackers that weren't annihilated. My buddy turned his Merfolk sideways and thanks to Grisel's lifelink and my blockers, I had just 3 life to spare after his turn. He passed to me and I swung with Grisel for the win.
Different lines of play like that come up as you play against different decks and have to make choices based on the board state. I will continue adding to this as a guide to play this deck but for now this is it.[/I]
I think that Genesis Wave and Concordant Crossroads make a good combo finish in aggro elves that, for budgetary reasons, can't include Natural Order -> Progenitus.
If you're going to play Emrakul, it seems like you need Quirion Ranger and/or Wirewood Symbiote. I don't understand the eldrazi in the GW list without mana lords.
I think that Genesis Wave and Concordant Crossroads make a good combo finish in aggro elves that, for budgetary reasons, can't include Natural Order -> Progenitus.
If you're going to play Emrakul, it seems like you need Quirion Ranger and/or Wirewood Symbiote. I don't understand the eldrazi in the GW list without mana lords.
Umm... Food Chain. That's the combo aspect of the deck.
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"It's actually quite simple, but since you've only recently begun to walk upright, it may take some time to explain."
—Jace Beleren, to Garruk Wildspeaker
I think that Genesis Wave and Concordant Crossroads make a good combo finish in aggro elves that, for budgetary reasons, can't include Natural Order -> Progenitus.
If you're going to play Emrakul, it seems like you need Quirion Ranger and/or Wirewood Symbiote. I don't understand the eldrazi in the GW list without mana lords.
Neither Genesis Wave nor Concordant Crossroads are good win conditions for Food Chain Elves. The engine works by playing and then exiling your elves so most of the time when you combo off you are never dropping an army of elves. Also neither card can be played from the mana generated by Food Chain
When we combo off, we generally drop Emmy and two Elvish Archdruid so that we can swing for 21 on our extra turn. So, in a sense, we intend to win the "turn" we combo off. Natural Order into Progenitus doesn't do that and is a much slower win condition overall.
Quirion Ranger and Wirewood Symbiote are both awesome and may deserve a place here. I just need to do more play testing to see where they fit. I especially would like to run Symbiote.
Again, mana lords aren't especially necessary in the GW. I've goldfished well over 50 games and have an 80% + average turn three combo. If they counter food chain, you just play aggro elves until you grab another Food Chain. If they try to counter a creature like Griselbrand during your combo, that's not the end of the world either. As long as you play smart, you can still end the turn with elves on the field and a chance to combo off the next turn even. It wasn't too common that I'd actually try to hardcast Emmy off of mana elves in my older list even.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
Ah, I see where our thinking differs then. This is why running Food Chain as an exclusive engine is okay for you.
Wow. That's borderline insulting. I'd be careful if I were you.
Aside from that, have you read through the entire post and Madcat's reasoning behind card choices? If Food Chain doesn't work out for him, he goes aggro elves; if it does, he immediately combos into Emrakul and a couple elves for an insta-win.
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"It's actually quite simple, but since you've only recently begun to walk upright, it may take some time to explain."
—Jace Beleren, to Garruk Wildspeaker
This deck is really fast and not that expensive. If you can get gaea's herald (I had the one enchantment that can come into play when you start the game if it's in your hand, forgot the name) you are doing good.
The killer combo in this deck is getting Myojin of Night's Reach out. You remove the counter and all opponents discard their hands. once that's done you play your maga with as much mana as you want. When Maga comes out (XBBB) it comes iton play with X +1/+1 counters on it. When it comes into play, target player loses life equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it.
With my current setup I have a 10-25% of a kill on turn 3, and a 60-80% chance of a turn 4 kill.
This is by far my most reliable deck that I have ever used!
Hey thanks for sharing your deck list! There's a few things I don't like about your list but maybe if we put our two heads together we can improve Food Chain Elves as a viable deck.
With my set up I combo off on turn three 70% of the time and pretty much the rest of the time on turn four. Occasionally I hit a turn two kill as well.
Myojin of Night's Reach seems overkill to me because if they had some way of stopping your combo they would have done so before letting you get as far as being able to cast Night's Reach. It's nice that he discards their hand but you're going for the kill that turn.
I also don't like your kill condition because Maga, Traitor to Mortals requires more mana to kill and that means you have a higher chance of fizzling. Leyline of Sanctity also seems like a much more popular sideboard card than Fog and Sanctity will stop you cold until you do something about it. I'm looking at running double Emrakul so I can cast one, take an extra turn and swing then exile and cast the other, take another turn and finish it. The nice thing is this only requires me to reach 15 mana. Plus even if your opponent did save his counterspell for the end, Emmy is uncounterable.
Regal Force makes sense to me in an Elf Ball deck but not in a Food Chain deck because we usually only have one or two creatures out ever seeing as how we exile them to cast more. I can't see drawing much more than a card or two off Regal Force and he's much too expensive for that. I'd rather run Elvish Visionary and Co. for that.
I've thought about Deranged Hermit because he nets you so much mana but I've found that mana is almost never an issue for me. Drawing cards to keep going can be though. I think I'd I swap a few out for a single Brass Herald and some Llanowar Empaths.
Just my two cents. If you take any ideas at all from my list, consider Elvish Harbinger and Griselbrand. These guys increase the consistency and power of this deck so much it is nuts.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
So I have been working a lot more on my Food Chain Elves deck behind the scenes and I thought I'd present my most recent list. I really believe Food Chain Elves deserves more attention as a deck than it gets. It's about a $100 cheaper than regular combo elves and evil in its own right. The recent Griselbrand really does add a level of consistency and therefore power this deck never had in the past.
This list is easily the most refined of the ones I've posted here. I brought Archdruids back in because the mana they generate is so useful to the aggro plan. I swapped Elvish Champion from the sideboard for Priest of Titania as well. Considering so many of the elves in this deck are draw elves, the generate mana and swarm strategy seems to be more aggressive than simply running more +1/+1 lords.
Like policehq suggested, this also allows us an alternate plan for casting Emrakul.
I have had the chance to playtest this deck against several strong Legacy decks that my friends have. Here are my thoughts.
Quote from Matchups »
Against B/W Artifact Stoneblade -- I felt like I was generally just faster and more aggressive than the Stoneblade deck. I wasn't too worried about removal because I could just hold back elves in my hand until I was ready to combo off. If needed, I could aggro and stall as well. As I recall, I won most, if not all of my games against this deck. Hand hate could be a problem though.
Against U/W Stoneblade -- They had the counters to stop me from comboing but in this case, my aggro plan was generally aggressive enough that I could still pull out wins. I only played three games against this deck so I certainly don't feel like I can say firmly whether this is a good or bad matchup.
Against High Tide -- They only run Force of Will for counterspells and they aren't really faster than me. I felt like this was a decent match up for Elves. Post sideboard, Trinisphere seemed to really tip the game in our favor.
Against Merfolk -- This was a really tough match up. The problem is that they run enough disruption with Daze and FoW but also such an aggressive aggro plan (now moreso with Master of the Pearl Trident and Phantasmal Image) that it is difficult to win going with either the combo or aggro route. I had better luck keeping my combo in the main as opposed to siding it out for Priests, O-Rings and Trinispheres or any combination of those. Trinispheres aren't that effective, neither are O-Rings and I really thought the Priests would really help me get enough mana going to overrun Merfolk but that didn't seem to be the case.
Against Burn -- Cake. We are not only faster but post-sb Trinispheres are evil. Not to mention Leyline of Sanctity. I think it's overkill and as I have thought about my match ups, I realize Sanctity isn't really needed. I talk a little bit later about possible SB options to replace them.
Against Combo Elves (the established kind) -- I haven't playtested against it enough to say for certain but I think we've got the edge. I feel like I may be a pinch more consistent at getting turn three kills but also, turn two Trinisphere after sideboarding pretty much kills them.
Against Dredge -- I only played one game against it but theoretically we are almost as fast. Not to mention post sideboard Trinispheres with gravehate and Enlightened Tutor to find them should pretty much give them fits.
Against Reanimator, Sneak Show, Belcher, TES -- I haven't faced these yet but I imagine they aren't great matchups. They are simply faster than us and evil. Humility would be a helpful SB card against Sneak Show. Otherwise, you better hope you can get a hate card down quickly enough and pray it sticks to win.
Leyline of Sanctity could still be useful against decks that are faster than us because it starts in play when in our starting hand. However, it just doesn't seem to be necessary in many situations. I'm looking to swap it out and here are a few ideas I had:
Carpet of Flowers: Comes down quick and aids us in the aggro-swarm plan against blue decks. It could potentially be the edge we need against Merfolk. I personally know of two Merfolk decks that are played in my meta so I'm considering this one.
Choke: Again, this hurts blue decks but doesn't come down as early. Has an insanely high chance of drawing out Force, etc. But is three mana to make them ditch a Force worth it? Plus, I haven't playtested enough to tell whether Food Chain Elves is going to struggle against all blue filled decks or just Merfolk because of the fast clock it sets up.
Thorn of Amethyst: To deal with combo decks mainly. But also good against burn and potentially pure control. It still can't come down any earlier than Trinisphere (turn two).
Meekstone: To slow down really aggressive aggro decks. Again this would hurt Merfolk and hopefully give Maverick and Zoo a hard time since the majority of their creatures break three power. I have to be careful when I start dropping Archdruids though.
Silence/Orim's Chant: Something to protect my combo (if I keep it sided in after first game) and also slow my opponent down a turn (if I cast at the beginning of their turn) if I am going the aggro route.
I also can't decide on Priest of Titania. I'm wondering if it really improves my aggro game enough to warrant three slots in the side as I have felt that I can aggro pretty well without them.
Finally, I'm considering a second Emrakul in the main. My reasoning is this. Sometimes games turn into a bit of a grind and you don't have a chance to combo off until later in the game. In some of these situations, Emmy #1 isn't enough and even after swinging with him, your opponent still has enough left on the field to swing in on his turn and win. Two Emmys let's you do the following, however:
Combo off and find your two Emrakuls (with all the tutoring it's not that hard to do), ramping up to fifteen mana in the process. Cast the first Emrakul, take an extra turn and swing. Then exile him with Food Chain and cast the second Emrakul, take another turn, swing and win.
Well, I wanted to update with a quick tournament report. I took this to a local tourny and only narrowly missed out on top 4.
Match 1 - High Tide: Game one, I was able to race my friend's High Tide deck and comboed out before him. He didn't have a Force in hand. Game two, I sided in Trinispheres and was able to land one the turn before he said he had me. This pretty much crippled him and I ended up comboing with Trinisphere still on the field two turns later.
1-0
Match 2 - Maverick: The guy I'm playing against is a jerk and my friends and I dislike playing against him. Anyways, turn one I play a forest and Llanowar Elves and he literally throws his hands up in the air exclaims, "Yes, elves! This is a good match up." I pass to him and he does whatever and then passes to me. I proceed to drop Food Chain for a turn two combo. He was so unhappy he kept disputing the ruling of Food Chain, trying to tell me that I couldn't exile my Sylvan Messengers for extra mana and that I actually only had two mana at one point when I actually had seven.
As this is one of the first times I had played this deck competitively, I was still trying to learn how to sideboard. I figured he was bringing in artifact/enchantment hate so I sided out my Food Chains and combo to bring in Trinispheres and O-Rings hoping I can play aggro against him and just stall him out some with the Trinispheres. Bad idea. He rolls me that game because his deck is just better at playing aggro. I definitely learned in this tournament that it is really never a good idea to ever side out the Food Chains. If you're able to get one down, it's just ridiculous. So post-sb, they need to stay regardless of what you side in. Game three, I bring my combo back in and combo off on turn three.
2-0
Match 3 - ANT: I am not excited about this match because I know this player is a very skilled pilot. I win the roll and try to race him game one. I keep a hand that can go off turn three so long as I draw a one or two mana guy I can drop turn two. I don't get one and so am left casting a Food Chain with no creatures on the field on turn three. On his turn three, he comboes off. Even if I could have comboed, I actually would have lost that game because I later found that he was holding a Chain of Vapor in his hand. It's pretty evil that he actually main decks a couple of those. Second game, I bring in Trinispheres and decide to start. My starting hand has two mana between a land and llanowar guy and also two trinispheres. I need three mana and didn't wanna risk it so I mulled. I then proceeded to draw a one land, all creature hand. Sucks! I mull again and get a no land all creature hand. Well, at that point I was kicking myself for not keeping the first hand. I mull to four and have a decent hand but no Trinisphere or Food Chain. Lost that game.
2-1
Match 4 - U/R Delver: Game one he explodes with two Goblin Guides and a Delver, lightning bolt and that red miracle card for five damage. I try to drop Food Chain but he Forces it. Lost game one. Game two, I side in Carpet of Flowers. He isn't doing much on the field all game. I burn him through his counters then combo for the win. Game three is grindy. He's not killing me quickly and I'm continually dropping elves that are trading with his guides or that he's just trying to kill. I drop a food chain early that, not surprisingly, is Forced. After that, I burn him through all his counters with Archdruids, etc. I'm literally drawing cards like a mad man and only need an Enlightened Tutor or one of my three other Food Chains. He is literally out of counters as he tries to Top several times to counter some of my other stuff. The only thing keeping him alive is a Grim Lavamancer that I can't do anything about. Finally, he burns me out after I had literally filtered through almost half of my deck, ready to combo off but just needing Food Chain. In that game, I feel like my deck just decided to hate me. Haha, but my other friend suggested afterwards that I should have sided in Trinispheres instead of Carpet of flowers to slow my opponent down. After thinking about it, I realized he was probably right.
2-2
Just needed to win that last game and I would have made it to top 4. Oh well, I was close!
Anyways, I also did a lot of updating to this thread and put together a primer for the deck. Been working on my sideboard a bit. I'm thinking of running this:
I tried Choke against my buddie's Merfolk deck and it did actually help me go 2-1 in one match. In our second match, he beat me 2-0, though. It still just seems to be a tough match.
Something I'm considering is dropping Brass Herald and Llanowar Empath from the maindeck because they seem to consistently be the least necessary cards for the combo. The deck has become so consistent that I rarely ever need to use Brass Herald like I used to before Griselbrand and Elvish Harbinger. So I am actually considering potentially running 3x Green Sun's Zenith in their place. Not %100 sure, though.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
So I signed up because I've been using foodchain for a while, but I saw your original deck build and decided to try it. I had been experimenting with Griselbrand and couldn't make it work until I tried some of your tricks. My BIGGEST issue at tournies has been Merfolk for many of the reasons you have described. Recently, I found the answer.
I found running two sideboard that City of Brass and Food Chain are consistent enough to be able to produce the Blue mana to pull them out. It is a pretty common blue hate sideboard and I was worried about the mana production, but it didn't turn out too badly for me at all and it caught my opponents off guard and had them holding counter spells waiting to hit Llawan. It turned out that a combination of Llawan and Carpet of Flowers is an excellent counter to blue in general for this deck.
First, welcome to MTG Salvation as a registered user. Thanks for sharing your thoughts as well!
Glad you are having good luck with Griselbrand now. I cannot say it enough how much I think he is the bomb for a deck like this. Honestly, in
all of my testing of this deck before I tried Griselbrand, I was not that impressed. I mean, it was powerful but not to the level I felt it needed to be at for competitive play.
That is actually a really good idea! Thanks for the suggestion. Don't forget that Elvish Harbinger also enables us to cast this card. Empress is like running additional Food Chains against Merfolk because if we get either to resolve we pretty much win. As far as I am concerned, you can never have too many "I win" cards in your deck. I've also considered main decking Silence/Orim's chant (or even Defense Grid). That kind of protection could help us get a Food Chain onto the field through FoW.
A buddy of mine has a copy of Llawan I can buy so I think I may give this a try. Something I have considered, though am not entirely fond of is running an additional set of rainbow lands in place of Brushland to broaden our sideboard options.
City of Brass is clearly the best so our other options aren't awesome. The best of the bunch are probably:
Tarnished Citadel: It's nice that we can tap for colorless without hurting ourselves, so we can avoid tapping for a color in most situations except when necessary. But seriously, 3 damage is ridiculous and I don't think we can afford to give up that much life.
Forbidden Orchard: This one forces us to give our opponent token creatures that are as big as most of our elves. That seems no bueno to me.
Gemstone Mine: This one has the most potential probably because we do have a lot of mana production in the deck and would probably only rely on this land heavily within the first couple turns. However, it's still a three time use land and that kind of sucks.
The question I'm asking myself is, if it is necessary to branch into other colors to strengthen our weak matchups, would the cost of a sub-par land actually be worth it? And also, what other non green/white cards would be worth considering for the SB or even maindeck? How fun would it be to shock the opponent by Thoughtsiezing them with an Elf deck? Those things could actually be a possibility. As it stands, though, green and white are the easiest for us to produce and the cost of consistency and stability may not be worth the added versatility.
I guess I'm saying something without really saying anything. I'm just vocalizing my thoughts on something before I've had the chance to think it through to its completion. I'll let you know as I test different ideas more.
Glad you are having good luck with Griselbrand now. I cannot say it enough how much I think he is the bomb for a deck like this. Honestly, in all of my testing of this deck before I tried Griselbrand, I was not that impressed. I mean, it was powerful but not to the level I felt it needed to be at for competitive play.
That is actually a really good idea! Thanks for the suggestion. Don't forget that Elvish Harbinger also enables us to cast this card. Empress is like running additional Food Chains against Merfolk because if we get either to resolve we pretty much win. As far as I am concerned, you can never have too many "I win" cards in your deck. I've also considered main decking silence/orim's chants. That kind of protection could help us get a Food Chain onto the field.
A buddy of mine has a copy of Llawan I can buy so I think I may give this a try. Something I have considered, though am not entirely fond of is running an additional set of rainbow lands in place of Brushland to broaden our sideboard options.
City of Brass is clearly the best so our other options aren't awesome. The best of the bunch are probably:
Tarnished Citadel: It's nice that we can tap for colorless without hurting ourselves, so we can avoid tapping for a color in most situations except when necessary. But seriously, 3 damage is ridiculous and I don't think we can afford to give up that much life.
Forbidden Orchard: This one forces us to give our opponent token creatures that are as big as most of our elves. That seems no bueno to me.
Gemstone Mine: This one has the most potential probably because we do have a lot of mana production in the deck and would probably only rely on this land heavily within the first couple turns. However, it's still a three time use land and that kind of sucks.
The question I'm asking myself is, if it is necessary to branch into other colors to strengthen our weak matchups, would the cost of a sub-par land actually be worth it? And also, what other non green/white cards would be worth considering for the SB or even maindeck? How fun would it be to shock the opponent by Thoughtsiezing them with an Elf deck? Those things could actually be a possibility. As it stands, though, green and white are the easiest for us and the cost of consistency and stability may not be worth the added versatility.
I guess I'm saying something without really saying anything. I'm just vocalizing my thoughts on something before I've had the chance to think it through to its completion.
What I can say with certainty is that I'm loving this deck and want to see it get even better. It is such a blast to pilot.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
I'd like to necro my own thread to share some updates I have about this deck. I did a price check on a modern Combo Elves deck today and it clocks in around $800 owing to the expense of Gaea's Cradle, Bayou (now that they splash for Deathrite Shaman), and other cards. Combo Elves really is not the budget deck that it used to be.
That being said, there are many players who simply won't ever be able to fork that kind of cash over for a combo elf deck and so I think this creates a greater need for a solid budget alternative. I introduced Food Chain Elves (FCE) as a solid alternative several months ago. I did reasonably well with it in tournaments compared to decks that are multiple times the cost of it.
However, the meta changed shortly after and new cards like Abrupt Decay hit the scene that really hurt FCE's ability to compete. Jund was not this deck's friend. Food Chain Elves relied to heavily on Food Chain to effectively combo off. Otherwise, you were left piloting a very sub-par aggro deck as an alternative.
In response to the meta, I quit piloting this deck. Then, as part of my time spent randomly brewing different ideas, I came up with the following list:
This was a new budget combo elves deck that eliminated a lot of the problems that Food Chain had. Comboing off relied mainly on mana elves combined with huge draw cards like Regal Force and Collective Unconscious to chain through the deck. It had a way better aggro plan than FCE and a resilient combo plan that could go off at any time and didn't lose to a key card being countered or destroyed. In other words, it had redundancy and resiliency that FCE lacked.
That said, it was also at least a full turn slower than FCE with a consistent turn 4/5 win. I pondered ways of increasing the speed while maintaining a budget price and the resiliency of the deck.
I wasn't having too much luck until I had a thought. What if I combined the FCE list with the Elf Bomb list to create a new hybrid combo deck? At first I practically tossed out the idea because each deck uses different elves and both combos seemed anti-synergistic. But being the curious, "try everything" deck builder that I am, I took on the challenged and set to work trying to mash the two together.
I created several lists that just didn't work. The cards often clashed with each other, creating inconsistencies. Most of the time, I saw no reasonable improvements over the Elf Bomb list and often it was a lot more fragile.
As I kept tweaking, however, it felt like I was getting to something that was a little better. Eventually I came up with this:
This deck is an obvious improvement over the old FCE list nearly every way and it I would argue that it has strong points over the Elf Bomb list as well. I'm not going to say this is the most optimal list yet, but it definitely is pretty strong. It effectively mashes the two decks together into what is a really fun and workable deck to pilot. Sometimes it can be a little complex to run but that's part of what makes it enjoyable.
Probably the easiest way to introduce this deck is to explain the reasons to run it over the old FCE and Elf Bomb.
Why run this over the old FCE list (on the primer)?
* The new list is mono-green and runs an additional land meaning it is far more resistant to Wasteland. It's also backed by more mana elves than the old list which just makes mana production far more stable.
* The new list is backed by a far stronger aggro plan than the old list. The addition of 8x Priests (plus GSG) plus a host of draw effects/cards means you can vomit elves onto the field very easily.
* The new list runs multiple win-conditions. Emrakul/Griselbrand is a reasonable win condition as is Joraga Warcaller/Lords plus elves. The old list truly relied on comboing out into Emrakul for the win.
* The new list drops white and therefore Enlightened Tutor, losing some flexibility of card choice but also boosting resiliency. E-Tutor is replaced by another (arguably stronger tutor for this deck), Green Sun's Zenith. GSG can tutor for literally every creature in the deck, including Emrakul because we also run Fierce Empath.
* Two mana engines to combo off of. It is reasonable to combo out with a Food Chain, saccing creatures to chain into Griselbrand and Emmy but also reasonable to combo out with Priest + Elves + Quirion Ranger. It's also feasible to combo out by using a combination of each. Thanks to this, having a Food Chain destroyed is not the end of the world for this deck.
Why run the new FCE over Elf Bomb?
* Elf Bomb usually wins around turn 4. It had the capability of winning on turn 3 but this was extremely rare. While the new FCE isn't as fast as the old one, it's still able to pull off turn 3 Emrakul's (which I consider a "turn 3" win) far more often than Elf Bomb can swing in and win on "turn 3". This is thanks to the explosiveness of Food Chain.
* Multiple win conditions. Elf Bomb relied on beating down with hasty elves whereas FCE has the alternative of winning with big flying spaghetti.
* Better tutoring. FCE has Fierce Empath in addition to GSG which means that grabbing the needed cards is not difficult.
* Two mana engines to combo off of. It is reasonable to combo out with a Food Chain, saccing creatures to chain into Griselbrand and Emmy but also reasonable to combo out with Priest + Elves + Quirion Ranger. It's also feasible to combo out by using a combination of each. If they are packing tons of removal for your Priests, you can drop a Food Chain and still reasonably combo out.
All of this said, I think the list is reasonably powerful for it's price of about $130 and believe it is capable enough to do well in a local meta. Not to mention, it's a blast to play!
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
YES...THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR REVIVING THIS. I started building the old list and tried something else that maybe worked more in the old list but is good to ask anyway. Did you try Deranged Hermit as a 1 or 2 of ? He lets you ramp from 5 to 10 and the tokens can be sacced to whatever colour you need.
Prontus, I'm glad you are interested in the deck! I'll be honest, I really don't like Deranged Hermit. I know others have used him in the past but I think there are better options than him. My last iteration of the old list ran a single Aethersnipe which ramps mana (cast him for his evoke cost then exile with Food Chain) and also can remove a problematic permanent.
With my old list, I almost never was lacking in the mana department. With the new list the same is true if not more so. I see very rare situations where we would want to tutor for Deranged Hermit to sac to FC over tutoring for one of our draw guys. To me, he's just not worth the slot.
HornedKavu, that is a mistake! I accidentally have Dryad Arbor listed twice. I'm only running one. So I'm actually running 61 cards. And it could probably easily be dropped to 60.
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Force of Will is kind of like duct tape. Stick it in a deck and it will fix all your problems.
What would a game of Magic between Harry Potter and Voldemort look like?
Food Chain Elves
Intro:
I decided to write a primer for Food Chain Elves (FCE) because as I have been testing and tweaking my list, I realized that FCE was far more powerful as a budget deck than I realized. I am a pretty firm believer at this point that a pretty competitive deck can be built utilizing Food Chain and our favorite little elves.
Well, we know that FCE isn't the only Elf combo deck on the block. Whether you feel this deck is on par with Combo Elves (using Glimpse of Nature) in terms of power level or not, I believe FCE actually has some advantages over running Combo Elves, including surprise factor and price as well as a number of other little strengths I will list in the "Why would I run this?" section below.
History:
Later builds of FCE eschewed the combo focus for mono-green lists that had a stronger aggro plan. They were less consistent to combo off; some games you'd win by aggroing and other games, if you drew into a Food Chain and had the right cards in hand, could end up with you exploding for a win. These builds were cheap and powerful enough to compete in local Legacy tournaments but still nothing too extraordinary.
Probably the first bone that FCE decks got thrown was Emrakul. Previously, FCE had to net you 23 mana to get in for the kill because most lists used Maga, Traitor to Mortals. With Emrakul, only 15 mana was needed and this decreased the chances of fizzling. Not to mention Maga was weak to counters; your opponent could simply save their FoW until you had dropped and exiled a chunk of your deck to Food Chain and then counter your win condition. This necessitated extra maindeck protection to be run to ensure this didn't happen. But of course this just made the maindeck a bit clunky.
But even Emrakul couldn't really save this deck from fading into relative obscurity. However, Avycyn Restored blessed Food Chain decks with a much needed new card... but not the card everyone thought Avycyn gave it. Interest in Food Chain briefly spiked again because everyone thought that Misthollow Griffin might be the secret to something really powerful. And so people whipped out their U/G Food Chain decks to try it out. The result was something decent but not great. To be honest, I'd rather be doing something that wins me the game flat out than trying to simply generate infinite mana.
Well, Food Chain Elves as a deck pretty much stayed in obscurity even with all the excitement over the Griffin. Everyone was interested in the U/G lists which are significantly different. What everyone missed as they tried to break Food Chain is Griselbrand.
Before Griselbrand, FCE decks relied primarily on Brass Herald and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to be the "middle man". These were the guys you'd fetch for when you didn't have enough mana for Emmy but needed to fetch up something that would allow you to keep comboing by refreshing your hand. But there were a couple problems with both. Kozilek draws only four cards and costs 10 mana. In my testing there were many times when I would need to fetch someone off of my Fierce Empath but didn't have enough elves to ramp up to ten mana before the fact. I'd be left to fizzle. Brass Herald was similarly weak. He cost only six mana but could sometimes net few solid draw elves to continue comboing.
Griselbrand offered extra consistency that the deck had never seen before. At eight mana he is much easier to cast than Kozilek. Even his four black color cost is not an issue as Fierce Empath can exile for four black. Finally, his draw 7 or draw 14 (if comboing off early enough and still sitting at a nice life total) ability just about ensures that you don't fizzle after you have cast him.
As I was playtesting, I began to realize that there might be a really powerful deck to be found here. I did some more work and came across an elf that I had never seen used in any of the FCE decks that I've ever found posted online--Elvish Harbinger. I imagine he got overlooked because he puts an elf on top of the library rather than in your hand. But I found as I tested him that this hardly mattered seeing as how the majority of the elves in the deck draw cards off the top. And what I found is that running a few Harbinger increased the consistency of the deck even further.
By running these two cards in the list, FCE was now much much more consistent at comboing off when it tried. Fizzling was next to nil and the consistency/redundancy of the engine tightened up the list and essentially freed up some slots in the deck that could be used for other cards without seeing a noticeable increase in fizzling percentage. Those slots got filled with Enlightened Tutor, a card that essentially doubles the chances of seeing an early game Food Chain.
These things served to create a new Food Chain deck that is very consistent at comboing off by turn three while still capable of utilizing a decent but not stellar aggro backup plan to alternately win through or stall until you can combo off.
Reasons why you should consider this deck:
Articles and Threads:
Army of Ancients (This thread on The Source has some really good information and is pretty extensive)
Glimpse Elves (this article is on Glimpse Elves but since we are [I]fairly[/I] similar, some of the information is definitely still relevant)
This is my current list: Priced out at TCGPlayer.com using their 'cart optimizer' at $132 shipped on 9/13/12! Price checked it again on TCG Player on 9/16/12 at it was $115 shipped. Price checked on 9/20/12 and it was $129 shipped so that gives you an idea of the real world cost for this deck; what you would end up paying.
1x Brass Herald
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Elvish Harbinger
4x Elvish Visionary
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Fierce Empath
4x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Griselbrand
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Llanowar Empath
3x Multani's Acolyte
4x Sylvan Messenger
4x Brushland
3x City of Brass
5x Forest
4x Razorverge Thicket
1x Tree of Tales
Instant (4)
4x Enlightened Tutor
Enchantment (4)
4x Food Chain
1x Thorn of Amethyst
1x Tormod's Crypt
3x Trinisphere
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
1x Grafdigger's Cage
I am currently undecided on the rest of my sideboard and will discuss sideboard options in greater detail at a later date.
How to play: (to be completed)
When looking at hands, you are generally looking for whatever will allow you to combo off reliably and as early as possible. Hands that have a quick ramp to three mana (ie, two lands and a Llanowar Elves), a Food Chain and a solid draw elf or two like Sylvan Messenger are the best. If you don't have Food Chain, a hand with an Enlightened Tutor, mana (with at least one dual colored land) and some draw elves is also a very solid hand.
This deck does mulligan well in my testing so don't be shy to go down to five if you really have to. You can still easily win off the back of a decent five card hand.
Once you have dropped Food Chain, play is relatively simple. You start by casting draw elves, exiling them for more mana and then casting more draw elves. Drop Harbinger Elves to tutor more elves, then play Sylvan Messenger or Elvish Visionary or other draw elf to draw the card you tutored for. Once you can generate 8 mana, drop a Fierce Empath to find Griselbrand. Exile Empath, specifically for four black mana and cast Griselbrand. Draw 7 cards, exile Grisel and continue comboing until you can search up Emmy for the win.
I always try to win the game during the extra turn that I take from a hardcast Emmy. However, Emmy only swings for 15 damage so it is important for us to continue comboing beyond 15 mana if we are able. Due to the sheer amount of draw and consistency with the deck, finding Emmy, two Archdruids and ramping to 21 mana is very possible. If you are able to afford the life, drawing 14 cards off of Griselbrand makes it almost impossible not to be able to do this.
The other line of play for comboing out is to play elves and reach a mana count beyond Griselbrand before you cast him. This way you can draw 7 or 14 and continue to combo off without exiling him. Ramp to Emmy and you now have both Emmy and Grisel swinging in on your extra turn.
As you are comboing it is very important to calculate if you can kill your opponent during your extra turn. If you cannot, ensure that you ramp to enough mana and keep enough elves in hand to drop as blockers when you pass to your opponent's last turn. When I played against a friend's Merfolk deck, things weren't looking so hot for me. He'd ramped quickly and had many Merfolk lords on the board all buffing each other to 5/5s. I was down to 9 life or so and managed to combo off without having to cast Griselbrand. I dropped Emmy, took an extra turn and swung in. Then I exiled him for Grisel and some elves to face off against the remaining attackers that weren't annihilated. My buddy turned his Merfolk sideways and thanks to Grisel's lifelink and my blockers, I had just 3 life to spare after his turn. He passed to me and I swung with Grisel for the win.
Different lines of play like that come up as you play against different decks and have to make choices based on the board state. I will continue adding to this as a guide to play this deck but for now this is it.[/I]
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
If you're going to play Emrakul, it seems like you need Quirion Ranger and/or Wirewood Symbiote. I don't understand the eldrazi in the GW list without mana lords.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=496372
Umm... Food Chain. That's the combo aspect of the deck.
—Jace Beleren, to Garruk Wildspeaker
Neither Genesis Wave nor Concordant Crossroads are good win conditions for Food Chain Elves. The engine works by playing and then exiling your elves so most of the time when you combo off you are never dropping an army of elves. Also neither card can be played from the mana generated by Food Chain
When we combo off, we generally drop Emmy and two Elvish Archdruid so that we can swing for 21 on our extra turn. So, in a sense, we intend to win the "turn" we combo off. Natural Order into Progenitus doesn't do that and is a much slower win condition overall.
Quirion Ranger and Wirewood Symbiote are both awesome and may deserve a place here. I just need to do more play testing to see where they fit. I especially would like to run Symbiote.
Again, mana lords aren't especially necessary in the GW. I've goldfished well over 50 games and have an 80% + average turn three combo. If they counter food chain, you just play aggro elves until you grab another Food Chain. If they try to counter a creature like Griselbrand during your combo, that's not the end of the world either. As long as you play smart, you can still end the turn with elves on the field and a chance to combo off the next turn even. It wasn't too common that I'd actually try to hardcast Emmy off of mana elves in my older list even.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
Ah, I see where our thinking differs then. This is why running Food Chain as an exclusive engine is okay for you.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=496372
Wow. That's borderline insulting. I'd be careful if I were you.
Aside from that, have you read through the entire post and Madcat's reasoning behind card choices? If Food Chain doesn't work out for him, he goes aggro elves; if it does, he immediately combos into Emrakul and a couple elves for an insta-win.
—Jace Beleren, to Garruk Wildspeaker
4 Fyndhorn Elves
4 Birchlore Rangers
4 Llanowar Elves
4 priest of Titania
2 Gaea's Herald
4 Food Chain
4 Fierce Empath
4 Sylvan messenger
4 Deranged Hermit
4 Regal Force
1 Myojin of Night's Reach
2 maga, Traitor to Mortals
16 Forest
The killer combo in this deck is getting Myojin of Night's Reach out. You remove the counter and all opponents discard their hands. once that's done you play your maga with as much mana as you want. When Maga comes out (XBBB) it comes iton play with X +1/+1 counters on it. When it comes into play, target player loses life equal to the number of +1/+1 counters on it.
With my current setup I have a 10-25% of a kill on turn 3, and a 60-80% chance of a turn 4 kill.
This is by far my most reliable deck that I have ever used!
Even if you don't want to copy my deck fully, you should use the Deranged Hermit + Regal Force + Myojin of Night's Reach + Maga, Traitor to Mortals
here is also the primer that I made a hile back, please check it out:
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=236256
WUGGaea's BlessingGUW
GFood Chain ElvesG
RLegacy GoblinsR
WBAngelBW
UStasisU
RBurnR
WBGFalse CureGBW
BMono Black Token DeckB
WBGSaproling Token DeckGBW
WURThopterRUW
GElf Token DeckG
WUBird Soldier DeckUW
BZombiesB
RkoboldsR
GSquirrelG
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.
With my set up I combo off on turn three 70% of the time and pretty much the rest of the time on turn four. Occasionally I hit a turn two kill as well.
Myojin of Night's Reach seems overkill to me because if they had some way of stopping your combo they would have done so before letting you get as far as being able to cast Night's Reach. It's nice that he discards their hand but you're going for the kill that turn.
I also don't like your kill condition because Maga, Traitor to Mortals requires more mana to kill and that means you have a higher chance of fizzling. Leyline of Sanctity also seems like a much more popular sideboard card than Fog and Sanctity will stop you cold until you do something about it. I'm looking at running double Emrakul so I can cast one, take an extra turn and swing then exile and cast the other, take another turn and finish it. The nice thing is this only requires me to reach 15 mana. Plus even if your opponent did save his counterspell for the end, Emmy is uncounterable.
Regal Force makes sense to me in an Elf Ball deck but not in a Food Chain deck because we usually only have one or two creatures out ever seeing as how we exile them to cast more. I can't see drawing much more than a card or two off Regal Force and he's much too expensive for that. I'd rather run Elvish Visionary and Co. for that.
I've thought about Deranged Hermit because he nets you so much mana but I've found that mana is almost never an issue for me. Drawing cards to keep going can be though. I think I'd I swap a few out for a single Brass Herald and some Llanowar Empaths.
Just my two cents. If you take any ideas at all from my list, consider Elvish Harbinger and Griselbrand. These guys increase the consistency and power of this deck so much it is nuts.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
1x Brass Herald
4x Elvish Archdruid
3x Elvish Harbinger
4x Elvish Visionary
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Fierce Empath
4x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Griselbrand
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Llanowar Empath
3x Multani's Acolyte
4x Sylvan Messenger
4x Brushland
3x City of Brass
5x Forest
4x Razorverge Thicket
1x Tree of Tales
Instant (4)
4x Enlightened Tutor
Enchantment (4)
4x Food Chain
1x Tormod's Crypt
4x Trinisphere
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
2x Oblivion Ring
3x Leyline of Sanctity
3x Priest of Titania
This list is easily the most refined of the ones I've posted here. I brought Archdruids back in because the mana they generate is so useful to the aggro plan. I swapped Elvish Champion from the sideboard for Priest of Titania as well. Considering so many of the elves in this deck are draw elves, the generate mana and swarm strategy seems to be more aggressive than simply running more +1/+1 lords.
Like policehq suggested, this also allows us an alternate plan for casting Emrakul.
I have had the chance to playtest this deck against several strong Legacy decks that my friends have. Here are my thoughts.
Leyline of Sanctity could still be useful against decks that are faster than us because it starts in play when in our starting hand. However, it just doesn't seem to be necessary in many situations. I'm looking to swap it out and here are a few ideas I had:
Carpet of Flowers: Comes down quick and aids us in the aggro-swarm plan against blue decks. It could potentially be the edge we need against Merfolk. I personally know of two Merfolk decks that are played in my meta so I'm considering this one.
Choke: Again, this hurts blue decks but doesn't come down as early. Has an insanely high chance of drawing out Force, etc. But is three mana to make them ditch a Force worth it? Plus, I haven't playtested enough to tell whether Food Chain Elves is going to struggle against all blue filled decks or just Merfolk because of the fast clock it sets up.
Thorn of Amethyst: To deal with combo decks mainly. But also good against burn and potentially pure control. It still can't come down any earlier than Trinisphere (turn two).
Meekstone: To slow down really aggressive aggro decks. Again this would hurt Merfolk and hopefully give Maverick and Zoo a hard time since the majority of their creatures break three power. I have to be careful when I start dropping Archdruids though.
Silence/Orim's Chant: Something to protect my combo (if I keep it sided in after first game) and also slow my opponent down a turn (if I cast at the beginning of their turn) if I am going the aggro route.
I also can't decide on Priest of Titania. I'm wondering if it really improves my aggro game enough to warrant three slots in the side as I have felt that I can aggro pretty well without them.
Finally, I'm considering a second Emrakul in the main. My reasoning is this. Sometimes games turn into a bit of a grind and you don't have a chance to combo off until later in the game. In some of these situations, Emmy #1 isn't enough and even after swinging with him, your opponent still has enough left on the field to swing in on his turn and win. Two Emmys let's you do the following, however:
Combo off and find your two Emrakuls (with all the tutoring it's not that hard to do), ramping up to fifteen mana in the process. Cast the first Emrakul, take an extra turn and swing. Then exile him with Food Chain and cast the second Emrakul, take another turn, swing and win.
Thoughts?
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
Just needed to win that last game and I would have made it to top 4. Oh well, I was close!
Anyways, I also did a lot of updating to this thread and put together a primer for the deck. Been working on my sideboard a bit. I'm thinking of running this:
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Pithing Needle
3x Trinisphere
3x Choke
1x Wheel of Sun and Moon
4x Silence
1x Grafdigger's Cage
I tried Choke against my buddie's Merfolk deck and it did actually help me go 2-1 in one match. In our second match, he beat me 2-0, though. It still just seems to be a tough match.
Something I'm considering is dropping Brass Herald and Llanowar Empath from the maindeck because they seem to consistently be the least necessary cards for the combo. The deck has become so consistent that I rarely ever need to use Brass Herald like I used to before Griselbrand and Elvish Harbinger. So I am actually considering potentially running 3x Green Sun's Zenith in their place. Not %100 sure, though.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
Llawan, Cephalid Empress
I found running two sideboard that City of Brass and Food Chain are consistent enough to be able to produce the Blue mana to pull them out. It is a pretty common blue hate sideboard and I was worried about the mana production, but it didn't turn out too badly for me at all and it caught my opponents off guard and had them holding counter spells waiting to hit Llawan. It turned out that a combination of Llawan and Carpet of Flowers is an excellent counter to blue in general for this deck.
Glad you are having good luck with Griselbrand now. I cannot say it enough how much I think he is the bomb for a deck like this. Honestly, in
all of my testing of this deck before I tried Griselbrand, I was not that impressed. I mean, it was powerful but not to the level I felt it needed to be at for competitive play.
That is actually a really good idea! Thanks for the suggestion. Don't forget that Elvish Harbinger also enables us to cast this card. Empress is like running additional Food Chains against Merfolk because if we get either to resolve we pretty much win. As far as I am concerned, you can never have too many "I win" cards in your deck. I've also considered main decking Silence/Orim's chant (or even Defense Grid). That kind of protection could help us get a Food Chain onto the field through FoW.
A buddy of mine has a copy of Llawan I can buy so I think I may give this a try. Something I have considered, though am not entirely fond of is running an additional set of rainbow lands in place of Brushland to broaden our sideboard options.
City of Brass is clearly the best so our other options aren't awesome. The best of the bunch are probably:
Tarnished Citadel: It's nice that we can tap for colorless without hurting ourselves, so we can avoid tapping for a color in most situations except when necessary. But seriously, 3 damage is ridiculous and I don't think we can afford to give up that much life.
Forbidden Orchard: This one forces us to give our opponent token creatures that are as big as most of our elves. That seems no bueno to me.
Gemstone Mine: This one has the most potential probably because we do have a lot of mana production in the deck and would probably only rely on this land heavily within the first couple turns. However, it's still a three time use land and that kind of sucks.
The question I'm asking myself is, if it is necessary to branch into other colors to strengthen our weak matchups, would the cost of a sub-par land actually be worth it? And also, what other non green/white cards would be worth considering for the SB or even maindeck? How fun would it be to shock the opponent by Thoughtsiezing them with an Elf deck? Those things could actually be a possibility. As it stands, though, green and white are the easiest for us to produce and the cost of consistency and stability may not be worth the added versatility.
I guess I'm saying something without really saying anything. I'm just vocalizing my thoughts on something before I've had the chance to think it through to its completion. I'll let you know as I test different ideas more.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
That is actually a really good idea! Thanks for the suggestion. Don't forget that Elvish Harbinger also enables us to cast this card. Empress is like running additional Food Chains against Merfolk because if we get either to resolve we pretty much win. As far as I am concerned, you can never have too many "I win" cards in your deck. I've also considered main decking silence/orim's chants. That kind of protection could help us get a Food Chain onto the field.
A buddy of mine has a copy of Llawan I can buy so I think I may give this a try. Something I have considered, though am not entirely fond of is running an additional set of rainbow lands in place of Brushland to broaden our sideboard options.
City of Brass is clearly the best so our other options aren't awesome. The best of the bunch are probably:
Tarnished Citadel: It's nice that we can tap for colorless without hurting ourselves, so we can avoid tapping for a color in most situations except when necessary. But seriously, 3 damage is ridiculous and I don't think we can afford to give up that much life.
Forbidden Orchard: This one forces us to give our opponent token creatures that are as big as most of our elves. That seems no bueno to me.
Gemstone Mine: This one has the most potential probably because we do have a lot of mana production in the deck and would probably only rely on this land heavily within the first couple turns. However, it's still a three time use land and that kind of sucks.
The question I'm asking myself is, if it is necessary to branch into other colors to strengthen our weak matchups, would the cost of a sub-par land actually be worth it? And also, what other non green/white cards would be worth considering for the SB or even maindeck? How fun would it be to shock the opponent by Thoughtsiezing them with an Elf deck? Those things could actually be a possibility. As it stands, though, green and white are the easiest for us and the cost of consistency and stability may not be worth the added versatility.
I guess I'm saying something without really saying anything. I'm just vocalizing my thoughts on something before I've had the chance to think it through to its completion.
What I can say with certainty is that I'm loving this deck and want to see it get even better. It is such a blast to pilot.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
That being said, there are many players who simply won't ever be able to fork that kind of cash over for a combo elf deck and so I think this creates a greater need for a solid budget alternative. I introduced Food Chain Elves (FCE) as a solid alternative several months ago. I did reasonably well with it in tournaments compared to decks that are multiple times the cost of it.
However, the meta changed shortly after and new cards like Abrupt Decay hit the scene that really hurt FCE's ability to compete. Jund was not this deck's friend. Food Chain Elves relied to heavily on Food Chain to effectively combo off. Otherwise, you were left piloting a very sub-par aggro deck as an alternative.
In response to the meta, I quit piloting this deck. Then, as part of my time spent randomly brewing different ideas, I came up with the following list:
2x Arbor Elf
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Elvish Archdruid
2x Elvish Champion
4x Fyndhorn Elves
2x Joraga Warcaller
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Priest of Titania
3x Quirion Ranger
2x Regal Force
1x Viridian Zealot
1x Wirewood Symbiote
3x Collective Unconscious
4x Green Sun's Zenith
3x Lead the Stampede
Land (20)
1x Dryad Arbor
17x Forest
2x Wirewood Lodge
2x Concordant Crossroads
This was a new budget combo elves deck that eliminated a lot of the problems that Food Chain had. Comboing off relied mainly on mana elves combined with huge draw cards like Regal Force and Collective Unconscious to chain through the deck. It had a way better aggro plan than FCE and a resilient combo plan that could go off at any time and didn't lose to a key card being countered or destroyed. In other words, it had redundancy and resiliency that FCE lacked.
That said, it was also at least a full turn slower than FCE with a consistent turn 4/5 win. I pondered ways of increasing the speed while maintaining a budget price and the resiliency of the deck.
I wasn't having too much luck until I had a thought. What if I combined the FCE list with the Elf Bomb list to create a new hybrid combo deck? At first I practically tossed out the idea because each deck uses different elves and both combos seemed anti-synergistic. But being the curious, "try everything" deck builder that I am, I took on the challenged and set to work trying to mash the two together.
I created several lists that just didn't work. The cards often clashed with each other, creating inconsistencies. Most of the time, I saw no reasonable improvements over the Elf Bomb list and often it was a lot more fragile.
As I kept tweaking, however, it felt like I was getting to something that was a little better. Eventually I came up with this:
2x Arbor Elf
1x Brass Herald
1x Dryad Arbor
4x Elvish Archdruid
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3x Fierce Empath
4x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Griselbrand
2x Joraga Warcaller
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Priest of Titania
3x Quirion Ranger
2x Regal Force
1x Collective Unconscious
4x Green Sun's Zenith
2x Lead the Stampede
Land (20)
1x Dryad Arbor
17x Forest
2x Wirewood Lodge
3x Food Chain
This deck is an obvious improvement over the old FCE list nearly every way and it I would argue that it has strong points over the Elf Bomb list as well. I'm not going to say this is the most optimal list yet, but it definitely is pretty strong. It effectively mashes the two decks together into what is a really fun and workable deck to pilot. Sometimes it can be a little complex to run but that's part of what makes it enjoyable.
Probably the easiest way to introduce this deck is to explain the reasons to run it over the old FCE and Elf Bomb.
All of this said, I think the list is reasonably powerful for it's price of about $130 and believe it is capable enough to do well in a local meta. Not to mention, it's a blast to play!
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB
Are you playing 62 cards or it's just a mistake? Thanks!
With my old list, I almost never was lacking in the mana department. With the new list the same is true if not more so. I see very rare situations where we would want to tutor for Deranged Hermit to sac to FC over tutoring for one of our draw guys. To me, he's just not worth the slot.
HornedKavu, that is a mistake! I accidentally have Dryad Arbor listed twice. I'm only running one. So I'm actually running 61 cards. And it could probably easily be dropped to 60.
BGSpanish InquisitionGB
GFood Chain ElvesG
WUAngry BirdsUW
BUThe Four Horsemen (RIP)UB