Food Chain Sliver [FCS]
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Food Chain Sliver is an aggressive combo deck angled on speed, consistency, and resistance to disruption.
The primary idea is to use
Food Chain
and either
Eternal Scourge
,
Squee, the Immortal
or
Misthollow Griffin
to generate infinite mana, then cast, exile, and recast
The First Sliver
to cast your entire library. It layers with a combo between its exile tutors (
Demonic Consultation
) and
Laboratory Maniac
which gives the deck another axis to pivot around disruption or being disrupted.
It is built on a shell of mana-producing creatures that fuel its combos, backbreaking card advantage engines, and a plethora of tutors -- several of which find its entire combo via a single instant-speed spell. It has access to all five colors, yielding a powerful and flexible interaction and removal suite and the ability to evolve to the metagame it finds itself in. It is resistant to many forms of stax and spot removal, while playing outs to effects it must remove and protective countermagic to force the resolution of its combo.
Present are many powerful synergies, such as utilizing cards where exiling was designed as a penalty, e.g.
Necropotence
,
Demonic Consultation
,
Tainted Pact
,
Chrome Mox
,
Gemstone Caverns
, etc. The to-exile tutors, such as Manipulate Fate, are likewise extremely efficient at their function, being cheap to cast while also maintaining card parity.
Combo Execution
The combo has 3 components:
To execute the combo: cast
Food Chain
, exile your utility creatures for FC mana, cast
Eternal Scourge
, exile for mana. Repeat for infinite FC mana. Cast and exile
The First Sliver
until you've cascaded through your library.
From there, you have cascaded Laboratory Maniac into play, cascade Tainted Pact or Consultation to exile lands, and set up to draw a card. You can also Timetwister (or Memory's Journey) + Noxious Revival loop Extract to exile opposing decks or make infinite Swan Song swans.
Gameplan
The deck is very good at producing a win from an empty boardstate, needing approximately 3 mana and a creature (or excess mana) to pay for its win (FC + starting the chain). The deck is modular; it can be adapted to the context of a meta by slotting in powerful custom interaction to stifle opponents while reaching toward its own goals.
The rest of the deck is filled with support cards of various colors; there is plenty of room for tutors, mana sources, and interaction. Having access to 5 colors allows the deck to access the most efficient options from any color. With 9 fetchlands, a selection of ABUR duals, and the best multicolor lands, hitting your color requirements is very easy.
In mulligans, it's important to see a 1 drop creature and a path toward the combo in the form of tutor or draw. Mull aggressively for hands with an active plan.
Common gameplans:
Raw Combo
This is one of the more obvious patterns -- you have half the puzzle and some mana and just need to tutor the rest. Be careful not to get trapped into over-tunneling on these types of hands; they're often fast but risky and leave you scrambling to recover if you're disrupted. But if life gives you the nuts, don't be afraid to make peanut butter.
Ad Nauseam Rush
This is an attractive plan in scenarios where you've got fast mana rituals, a tutor, and are looking to rush out a win or slip between a light amount of stack-based disruption at instant speed. It also is a very attractive game plan against non-blue decks that levy permanent-removal in lieu of counterspells, as once Naus resolves, your combo will be very well-protected. The deck is quite capable of a main-phase Naus, but end-of-turn will always be more secure.
Necropotence Slam
Going for Necro in the early-mid is a strong strategy if you need to take a cycle or two to exhaust interaction and ramp a bit. All-in on Necro also has the ability to win games that are worn on interaction, but remember that your 7 cards needs to both survive the pass and combo. Typically in the early game, an initial Necro of ~15 is prudent for initial selection, with subsequent Necros being tailored to the tempo necessary to strongarm the rest of the players into submission and execute the combo. Later-game Necros will normally plan to only pass the turn cycle once, so dig deep.
Midrange Value / Control
Keeping hands that lean on incremental draw like
Mystic Remora
,
Sylvan Library
,
Dark Confidant
, etc. are strong when you're planning on going into the long game against control/stax decks. These pieces are innocuous enough to not draw countermagic early while setting you up to sculpt into a winning hand when an opportunity opens up.
Exile
The “Forbidden Tutors”
Demonic Consultation
or
Tainted Pact
(and to a lesser extent
Plunge into Darkness
) are incredibly powerful ways to set up wins, as they often exile a cast-from-exile creature as they find
Food Chain
. They are also instant speed, low cost, and tutor to hand. Top-of-library tutors are excellent with these, as you are guaranteed to exile them without ever needing to draw them,
However, this strength comes with some inherent risk. Demonic Consultation has approximately a 6.66% chance of exiling Food Chain from the top 6 cards of a 90 card library.
There is around 45% chance to exile cast-from-exile without exiling all wincon outlets in search of Food Chain. There is a 33.3% chance that Food Chain is on top both CFE creatures (thus missing them both) and a 25% chance that it’s under all 3 wincon outlets, so there is a 9/20 chance for the ideal outcome to occur with your Forbidden Tutor.
Manipulate Fate
,
Foresight
,
Extract
exile
Eternal Scourge
, allowing you to access a combo half as if it were in your hand. The exile 3 are very efficient because you can exile your
Foresight
/
Extract
with your
Manipulate Fate
together with your Misthollow and Scourge, so you won’t end up drawing it later.
Necropotence
is a powerful engine in the deck, allowing you to dig, stabilize, and conveniently exile a CFE creature without taking up hand space. A very worthy option if you have a tutor and nothing else going your way.
Chrome Mox
and Gemstone Cavern can exile a CFE from your opener, mitigating the card loss.
Force of Will
pitches
Misthollow Griffin
.
Plunge into Darkness
exiling a CFE turns it from a really big
Impulse
into a really big
Dig Through Time
.
Ramp & Curve
Mana dorks are the most efficient form of ramp for the deck, as they can be exiled to Food Chain for mana to cast a CFE, or even pitched from your hand while chaining.
With the deck being 5-color, you have access to every possible 1-drop mana-producing creature. This importantly results in openers that often facilitate having 3 mana on the second turn, and the ability to exile creatures from board and hand for "free" CFE creatures when you are executing a combo with Food Chain.
The deck plays cantrips like
Preordain
,
Ponder
,
Brainstorm
and
Gitaxian Probe
to dig in the early game and to get more use out of
Imperial Seal
,
Enlightened Tutor
,
Mystical Tutor
,
Vampiric Tutor
in the late game or after Ad Nauseam or Necropotence.
Disrupted?
While the deck is very reliant on Food Chain, getting your Chain countered is not the end of the world. The deck (depending on variation) runs
Yawgmoth's Will
,
Regrowth
,
Noxious Revival
and
Timetwister
, for lines to get back Food Chain. With the deck's tutor and dork density, it's often likely to win after resolving a Timetwister -- exiled CFE won't be shuffled back, leaving you in a decent position to recover and win.
If you've been disrupted and recursion lines seem out of reach, you can move toward assembling a combo of Laboratory Maniac,
Demonic Consultation
or
Tainted Pact
and a draw. Knowing when to pivot to this line is an important skill that comes with practice.
In a situation in which you are behind with a tutor and nothing else to do, tutoring Necropotence goes a long way to helping you recover. You can play to the speed you need, while also having a very convenient outlet to discard your Scourge, while accruing elements you need to attempt to win the game.
Stax
This deck has a versatile suite of responses to deal with the stax pieces that are typically the bane of fast-combo decks. The most threatening stax for this deck are
Rule of Law
effects,
Sphere of Resistance
effects.
Toxic Deluge
,
Nature's Claim
,
Chain of Vapor
, and
Cyclonic Rift
are your best answers to unfortunate boardstates.
Many common stax pieces are relatively easy to play around.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
and
Cursed Totem
only shut off dorks.
Winter Orb
isn't terribly impactful against low-land decks. The deck is unaffected by
Containment Priest
.
Rest in Peace
only shuts off possible Yawgmoth's Will lines and implores you to be more careful with Food Chain.
Trinisphere
and
Thorn of Amethyst
are painful to set up through, but don't stop the execution of the combo. It is important to note that cards like
Demonic Consultation
,
Tainted Pact
,
Plunge into Darkness
and
Lim-Dul's Vault
are unaffected by cards like
Aven Mindcensor
or
Stranglehold
. This deck plays around
Gaddock Teeg
essentially by default.
Humility
is able to be combo'd through completely.
Additionally, the deck is mostly unafraid of creature and artifact removal, as well as sorcery-speed interaction of most types, as it can generate wins from an empty boardstate without much effort. The most threatening interaction is instant speed enchantment removal and bounce.
This deck can also play some interesting hatebears of its own as an optional package. Flash hatebears like
Containment Priest
and
Aven Mindcensor
can be flashed in to reap their effects, sowing 3 or 4 mana on the next turn after untapping. Any harmful creature stax effect could be sacrificed to FC to lift the effect when we are ready to win, if such a need would arise.
In many matchups where you feel like you have to slog through too much resistance or you need to win versus strong hate pieces like
Eidolon of Rhetoric
, you can always go through
Ad Nauseam
. Resolving end step Nauseam when your opponents have you already counted you “out of the game” is great way to steal a victory.
Tips
If you are resolving a
Tainted Pact
in search of a CFE creature, remember to keep going until you either see your last wincon outlet or a protection spell like Force or Pact of Negation.
This deck is very green reliant between dorks and FC cost. It is very risky to keep a hand without a reliable green source. You strongly desire to see a tutor and a ramp piece in your opener.
A good rule of thumb is that if you resolve a
Necropotence
with 35+ life, it's usually strong to necro for approximately half your life total each turn. This gives you strong dig and acceleration while also having a safety net in case you are disrupted.
Plunge into Darkness
is best when cast for 10+, but be sure to weigh your need to trade life for card advantage afterward.
Ad Nauseam
should be cast with the intent to win shortly after. Stopping around 4 to 8 life is usually ideal so you have life to pay for tutors, Probe, mana, etc.
You can play
Silence
in an opponent’s upkeep, and then follow it up with an Ad Nauseam in their end step. People might be hesitant to counter an upkeep Silence.
Silence
is also an important tool when playing around
Abrupt Decay
.
