Love the deck but had a few questions. Do you find 28 lands to be enough after the mulligan changes? What do you usually want to see in your opening hand? Your usual/preferred route to victory? Thank you. +1

Showstopper as an alternate wincon alongside the cutthroat and Blood Artist?

yeaGO 28 lands has been fine after the mulligans, although burning a tutor to get my next land drop (or Sylvan Library to find my next land drop if I got to ramp on turn 1 as well) happens a little more often now. A solid opening hand has a tutor, a 1cmc ramp creature, and 2 lands for a turn 3 Food Chain, but that's by no means set in stone - sometimes we get a lot of ramp and the best thing to do is go for Ad Nauseam, or maybe theres a lot of disruption so we need to slowroll. Really it depends on the table, but that set of 4 is a solid goldfish start. My favorite way to win is Purphorous into Prossh beats into Zulaport Cutthroat for the game - but that only happens when Food Chain is answered. Genesis Hydra is our best wincon because it triggers on cast, not ETB, so it's very difficult to disrupt.

One important thing is I actually have 30 "land slots". I swapped out Llanowar Wastes and Grove of the Burnwillows for Sylvan Ranger and Gatecreeper Vine. This small change makes me a bit greedier overall, but gives me a much better time against mana denial decks by running an effective 6 basic lands - super useful versus Blood Moon! They're also often better then a 3rd or 4th land drop, because they make 3 mana off of Food Chain. Premulligans I had 29 land slots, and played Elvish Visionary and Sylvan Ranger (over Wall of Blossoms as the 2nd "cantripping" creature).

Gamernatic The problem with Showstopper is that it's a noncreature that costs 3 mana. Food Chain mana can only be used on creatures. My five wincons - Purphoros, Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist, Goblin Bushwhacker, and Reckless Bushwhacker - can all be cast off Food Chain mana. Which is very relevant - Often times I'll win with 3 mana available - Food Chain turns every creature into a Pyretic Ritual for creature mana. So turn 1 Land, Elf, turn 2 Land, Food Chain, exile the elf for 2 creature mana, use that mana to cast another creature for +1 mana, and repeat until you have cast Prossh, only works if you can use Food Chain mana on your wincon. Showstopper means you need 6 mana, in addition to the mana to cast Prossh, to go off.

Note that I don't count Goblin Bombardment as a wincon. I play it because it's a removal spell that has really strong synergy with Prossh. After that, it's a midrange card that I use to sac and recast Prossh when the food chain plan can't happen. And after that its a wincon.

Fantastic deck! I have a much more casual prossh, but it does well at a casual table. I'm working with a budget to do upgrades. Can you explain what you would switch out using your listed budget cards? Thanks!

With 10 elves in the deck (not counting the Spirit Guide), is Priest of Titania on your radar? As soon as you get 2 mana out of it, it seems like solid card. It gets a lot better if someone else is playing a deck with mana dorks, so it's certainly somewhat of a metagame choice.

Emzed I don't like 2CMC mana dorks in this deck. It's not a bad card and it gets a lot better with other elf decks, but slots are tight. Devoted Druid is another 2cmc option, but I would actually play Lotus Cobra before either of them - it's not as consistent as either Elf, but it has huge tempo turns where you play and crack a fetchland, plus it makes colored mana through Blood Moon, Cursed Totem, and so on. 2CMC is more for tech cards then consistency anyways - after 1cmc dorks and fast rocks we don't really need more ramp.

Thanks for the extensive answer. I certainly understand that space in a deck like this is very limited, so it makes sense to not rely on accelerators that don't curve nicely into the combo kill.
I got another question for you though. My own Prossh list is a little different from yours (my playgroup isn't full-on competitive), but one thing we both have in common: Big trouble beating Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Do you think ignoring that card is the best way to go? It is unlikely to land early, but Survival of the Fittest can make it happen, and then it's lights out. If you were to include answers to Elesh Norn, what would it be? Maybe Beast Within, Snuff Out, Slaughter Pact, Shriekmaw or Maelstrom Pulse? Something else?

I have Toxic Deluge to answer her, but if she resolves we're in a bad spot. Most decks aren't going to be casting her so your best option is probably Faerie Macabre to stop the reanimation.

If you wanted a removal spell Snuff Out and Beast Within are both good (although I'm partial to Dismember and Lightning Bolt). Shriekmaw is OK and has a cool interaction of casting it for its Evoke cost, and then exiling it to Food Chain for a huge mana surge. But I don't like 'cool interaction' on my removal spells - I want them to be as efficient as possible.

What's your take on Fire Covenant?

I've seen Food Chain Tazri decks that include it over Toxic Deluge for its speed, but I'm not sold (especially when my meta likes to trick out Avacyn or any of the eldrazi)

Why no Gamble? Sure its somewhat risky but the power is off the charts. I mean you run Demonic Consultation which feels way more risky.

"Feels way more risky"? Why not do the math?
Let's assume we Gamble with 2-5 other cards in hand. That puts the chance of discarding the card we searched for between 16% (5 other cards) and 33% (2 other cards) - and that's under the assumption that all the other cards are basically irrelevant or at least redundant. Sometimes you will have a much higher chance of Gamble malfunctioning when there are multiple essential pieces in hand that could be discarded.
In contrast, Demonic Consultation exiles the top 6 cards of a library that will typically contain between 80 and 90 cards. That means the chance of exiling the named card is roughly 7%. Of course, the game is actually lost in these 7% of the games, whereas a bad Gamble can be corrected by a Regrowth effect. Still, the chance of Demonic Consultation working and winning the game are clearly better.

I see what you are saying. I guess what I meant by "more risky" was that you can recover if gamble goes poorly but you are out of the game if consultation goes wrong. Theres also a chance of exiling all of your FC outlets. I have even exiled so many cards I decked myself before I could play the combo out in my hand so the 7% is really not accurate.

As for gamble, why make that assumption? Using gamble when you have a small hand full of relevant pieces is simply a poor play. It is best used when you have plenty of cards in hand (like turn 1 or 2) when you are way more likely to have 5-7 cards. Its also one of the best possible cards in hand after a big Ad Nauseam.

Also, I wasn't saying gamble was better than consultation. I was simply wondering why angelforge would pass up a 1 mana demonic tutor effect even with the chance it backfires in a color scheme that lacks as many enablers than some other fast combo decks like FC Tazri for instance.

EpicDermisFire Covenant is super strong and should be in my maybeboard (I use it to keep track of alternates). Toxic Deluge is a lot more forgiving on life total and wiping enemy elf decks is great, but Fire Covenant has the huge upside of sniping creatures instead of killing our own creatures. I'm not really sure I would say one is better than the other, but I fight a pretty good number of Elf decks so I think Deluge is better in my metagame. I can definitely see metas (or pods if you do sideboarding) where I'd want both.

I can rant about Gamble in FCP for hours, I've definitely thought about it a whole lot. R Demonic Tutor is super good, and I don't think that you are wrong if you play it in your own list. I don't play it because it's net -1 card in hand in a very resource-hungry deck, and it's a very bad topdeck for us in low/no card situations.

Lilbrudder Tagging you so you will see my above comment re: Gamble.

I've definitely exiled my deck to Demonic Consultation multiple times (and once recovered with a Riftsweeper!) but the difference really is that Demonic Consultation replaces itself and Gamble costs a card.

Currently dreaming of Contract from Below. We're definitely not the best deck for it but I'd love a Wheel for B.

angelforge: That explanation was very helpful. Thank you. What are your thoughts on Plunge into Darkness?

How often do you run into trouble casting Necropotence? While you have 30 black mana sources (counting Moxen and Elves), only Dark Ritual, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds can produce multiple black mana. So triple black doesn't seem like something you naturally achieve by turn 2 or 3 every game. Maybe i am just plain wrong about that, but i would really like to understand the card's value and reliability a little better.

Lilbrudder Plunge into Darkness is awesome, and I really like casting it. Getting to take one card out of the top 20 is great for finding that one piece you need, and doing it before untapping feels awesome. I don't think it's a 'core' card, but it's very powerful and I don't have any idea what I would cut it for - nothing really does what it does.

Emzed I don't really have problems casting it. Fetchland priority gets you GB lands first, and if you're going to need Necro online you should warp your fetches and sequencing to maximize BBB by turn 3. I can't remember the last time I set up a Necro line, though - normally there are better lines to tutor for, like Ad Nauseam, Smothering Abomination, or (rarely) Skullclamp. It's a broken card that definitely wins games when it resolves, but it is a little on the slow side. We use the card well and it's pretty broken so we run it in the 99 because this is Singleton Vintage, but it's not our ideal draw spell.

That sounds very convincing, thanks for the fast response. I guess now i should just play with the card myself some to get a better understanding.

Any thoughts on Walking Ballista? It's a win con that can also serve as interaction against cards like Aven Mindcensor, Hermit Druid, Phyrexian Revoker etc. Having cmc zero isn't great with Food Chain, but being more than "just a win con" should be worth something, right?
Also, Hope of Ghirapur offers an effect similar to Xantid Swarm. While it's a big downside that you have to connect and sac it to use its ability, it can be a timewalk against some decks. Being an artifact with an activated ability is probably another significant disadvantage when it comes to Null Rod etc. What's your opinion on this one?

I would put beastmaster ascension into the deck. It is so insanely powerful. I use it in a very bad saskia deck and that thing is a win con by itself

EmzedWalking Ballista used as removal is expensive, and then can't be used as a wincon for Prossh (can't put counters on it with Food Chain mana). It's certainly a viable wincon but I don't think it's as good as one of the 5 hard wincons in the deck, and it's not nearly as good at attritioning as Goblin Bombardment is.

Hope is pretty good but having to connect is a huge downside against decks like Zur and Jeleva. It lasts longer which is pretty relevant and stopping an enemy combo for a turn cycle is actually not terrible, so I want to get one to try. But I think Xantid Swarm will be better overall. I've been thinking about dropping the Swarm anyways.

warthog177 Beastmaster Ascension is a good card, but it is not appropriate for my metagame.

I'm also thinking about dropping Sylvan Ranger for Gemstone Caverns

So if I'm correct the ideal play line goes something like:
1. land, dork
2. land, tutor for Food Chain
3. land, Cast Food Chain, tap and sac dork for a total of 3 mana, then continue casting ad exiling creatures till you have six mana, cast prossh, generate infinite mana, cast win-con.

now, assuming we start with 7 cards (max 1 mull) and don't use Tol tutors (Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal by turn 3 we will have drawn 10 cardsquick math (-3 lands, -1 dork, -1 Food Chain) after casting Food Chain we will have 5 cards left over, 1 of which needs to be a win-con and 3 of which need to serve as rituals so, we have 1 card of wiggle room (0 if we had to mull to 6 or used a tol tutor)

For that reason it is usually a good idea to put in creatures that net more than 1 mana, you already run a few (Sylvan Ranger, Gatecreeper Vine) but I would like to know why you are not running:
Beastcaller Savant, as a 2 drop it can cure no-3rd-land issues and if you do have the third land it changes your need for 3 critters to get 6 mana to 2. Fringe Benefit: if you have Green Sun's Zenith you can cast for x = 2, grab Beast Caller for a net gain of 1, allowing Zenith to work outside of fetching Dryad Arbor and late-game wincons.
Dash Cards, there are a slew of these, most of them have no additional value but I for one like Vaultbreaker, cast, go to attack step, filter, and sac for 5, could win the game (fails ith the bushwhakers though)
Evoke cards, Same as above, I think Ingot Chewer and Shriekmaw are worth while, both have additional value and both sac for enough to cast Prossh on their own, great targets for hands with multiple tutors. Note you said above that you didn't like Shriekmaw because it wasn't an efficient kill spell, don't think of it as a kill spell that ramps, think of it as ramp that kills.
Dosan the Falling Leaf, you run City of Solitude, But Dosan is tuturable via Green Sun's Zenith and, in a pinch can be sacced to Food-Chain. Double Green seems like a moot point since you yourself said color priority is GBR.

Angleforge, I have had a semi-competitive deck that needed an upgrade. Thank you for providing such a great resource and answering questions.

It looks from your list that your opponents lean heavily on counterspells. It appears that you have answers (Defense Grid, Pyroblast, City of Solitude, ect) for that threat. You have only two removal spells (Abrupt Decay and Nature's Claim). It would seem that this deck relies on being the fastest. Do you ever consider adding any more removal? If so, what card(s) would you cut and what would you add?

What creature do you usually search for with Summoner's Pact, Green Sun's Zenith, and Goblin Matron?