Cascading Food Chain

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Primer RUG (Temur) Twin

stiefanu

Creature (25)

• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Collector Ouphe
• 1x Deceiver Exarch
• 1x Destiny Spinner
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Scourge
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Goblin Sharpshooter
• 1x Imperial Recruiter
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Misthollow Griffin
• 1x Orcish Lumberjack
• 1x Pestermite
• 1x Priest of Titania
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Somberwald Sage
• 1x Squee, the Immortal

Instant (9)

• 1x Beast Within
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Land (34)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 9x Forest
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 5x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (10)

• 1x Eldritch Evolution
• 1x Foresight
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Manipulate Fate
• 1x Nature's Lore
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Ruination
• 1x Skyshroud Claim
• 1x Wheel of Fortune
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Enchantment (14)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Food Chain
• 1x Guardian Project
• 1x Hall of Gemstone
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Rhystic StudyGC
• 1x Splinter Twin
• 1x Survival of the FittestGC
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Utopia Sprawl
• 1x Verity Circle
• 1x Wild Growth

Artifact (7)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome MoxGC
• 1x Cloudstone Curio
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox DiamondGC
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Sol Ring

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Maybeboard

Creature (4)

• 1x Ghostly Pilferer
• 1x Oakhame Adversary
• 1x Riftsweeper
• 1x Vexing Shusher

Instant (3)

• 1x Memory's Journey
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Extract
• 1x Regrowth

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Maelstrom Wanderer on its way to cEDH

Introduction

The main goal of this deck is to achieve combo by abusing Food Chain. This can be done either by using any CFE (Cast From Exile) creature or Maelstrom Wanderer itself. Once obtained infinite mana from Food Chain, we can cast any card in the deck in any order by using the cascade ability of Maelstrom Wanderer. Therefore we can perform one of the available combos.

The deck aims to get Food Chain in a "safe environment", mainly by using stax pieces to deny other player resources. This is necessary due to the cascade ability of Maelstrom Wanderer: we must completely avoid dead cascade triggers.

If we manage to get Food Chain, even without any CFE creature, the game is usually over. The double cascade of Maelstrom Wanderer allows us to dig a lot, until any of the three CFE creatures is found (or tutored).

Without Food Chain
Although it is more difficult, the deck can win without Food Chain by performing one of the other combos. Usually this will include Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker or Splinter Twin.

Food Chain and CFE creatures

Having not access to black and white, the only way to tutor for Food Chain is Drift of Phantasms. On the other hand, the CFE creatures can be exiled with Foresight, Manipulate Fate or, if we are lucky enough, with Chrome Mox and Gemstone Caverns.

Infinite mana can be obtained by:
- Eternal Scourge + Food Chain
- Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal
- Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin

Infinite Mana

Food Chain
- Eternal Scourge + Food Chain
- Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal
- Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin

Cloudstone Curio
- Cloudstone Curio + Dockside Extortionist + any X cmc creature - requires our opponents to have at least X+3 total artifacts/enchantments

The combos below require Maelstrom Wanderer on the battlefield.
- Bloom Tender + Cloudstone Curio + any 1cmc creature - generates infinite mana of two combinations (usually blue and red).
- Cloudstone Curio + Priest of Titania + any green 1cmc creature - requires to have at least 3 elves on the battlefield (all green 1cmc creatures generate mana). It usually generates only infinite green mana, expect if paired with Birds of Paradise or Arbor Elf.
- Bloom Tender + Cloudstone Curio + Priest of Titania - generate infinite mana if there are at least 4 elves on the battlefield.

The combos with Cloudstone Curio may seem junky, but they are very useful when both Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin combos are not available, and we need to combo in other ways. We will talk about this later. Moreover, Cloudstone Curio is very useful paired with ETB effects, such as Imperial Recruiter, Dockside Extortionist, Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage; it can also put Maelstrom Wanderer into our hand to cast it again, avoiding commander tax.

Win Conditions

Once got infinite mana, the first thing to do, if possible, is to get Dosan the Falling Leaf out. Then we can perform one of the combos below.

Kiki-Jiki and Splinter Twin
The well-kwown Kiki/Splinter combos are the main combos used to win. They can be pulled off regardless of a infinite mana combo.
- Deceiver Exarch + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- Bounding Krasis + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite
- Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin
- Bounding Krasis + Splinter Twin
- Pestermite + Splinter Twin

- Goblin Sharpshooter + Splinter Twin - This combo is niche, it avoids going through combat, but it needs a X/1 creature on the battlefield to start with the combo.
Essentially, let us call the original Goblin Sharpshooter Goblin1.
1. You make a copy of Goblin1 with Splinter Twin, let it be Goblin2;
2. Using Goblin2, you kill the X/1 creature on the battlefield, untapping both Goblin1 and Goblin2;
3. Using Goblin1, you make another copy, Goblin3;
4. Now, Goblin2 can deal damage to any target, while Goblin3 can kill itself, untapping the other two goblins. Repeat steps 3-4 to infinite damage.

Other win conditions
If we are able to get Food Chain engine online, but for some reasons we cannot perform any of the combos above, we can either disrupt what is forbidding us from doing so or perform the following combo.
With Cloudstone Curio
First, perform a Cloudstone Curio combo to obtain infinite mana (you need at least infinite green and blue mana). Then you can execute the Beast Within + Reality Shift loop, using Eternal Witness to bring them back, and Cloudstone Curio to return Eternal Witness back to your hand.

Single Card Discussion

Card Advantage

Mystic Remora is great both early and late game, it can draw an insane amount of cards if kept for some turns.
Rhystic Study, at its worst, is a one-sided Sphere of Resistance, and it is often the deciding factor for who will win. It either slows our opponents or nets us card advantage: if we are not getting a card off of it, we are instead setting our opponent back.
Sylvan Library, starting at 40 life, can be used to draw 3 cards a turn. We will be dead in 5 turns, but we will have dig three times more than normal. Finding a combo is not so hard..
Verity Circle, look at those little mana dorks you have. They provide us a card each time you tap them for mana.
Compost, one of the latest addition, to be tested.

Stax and Hate

My personal favourite part.

This is probably the most important section of the cards choice discussion. Having a commander with double cascade, disrupting others' plans (and protecting ours) can only be effective when using continuous effects, such as stax pieces. Solutions like counterspells are not recommend (with the exception of modular ones).

Artifact Hate
Collector Ouphe, Null Rod - speak for themselves. This deck relies most on mana produced by dorks, so it's worth playing both.
Manglehorn - not really a game changer, but it takes care of unwanted permanents... except for Torpor Orb. It works as both a stax and hate piece, I like it.

Land Hate
Having only 5 non-fetchland nonbasic lands, we run a nice package of land hate.
Magus of the Moon, Blood Moon, maybe the most impactful ones, since Magus can be easily tutored and they slow down any non-red deck.
Back to Basics can actually be very annoying, but it can be responded to more easily than Blood Moon.
Hall of Gemstone is sometimes a better Blood Moon, and it can protect our combo turns, by shutting off other colours. It is indeed a double-edged sword, since other players can take advantage of it.
Ruination. If it resolves, most players are mana-traveled to some turns before.

Protection

Other than stax pieces discussed above, we run few cards to protect the combos.
Dosan the Falling Leaf says it all, if played at the beginning of the combo turn, it's over. Sometimes is quite a dead card, even harmful, but it's really worth it.
Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast, two recent additions. They are effective against counterspells and problematic blue permanents (looking at you, Rhystic Study), having protection against the annoying blue player for R is crazy.
Recursion
Noxious Revival and Eternal Witness. Food Chain destroyed? No problem, we will try again. Food Chain exiled? That's the real problem.

Recent changes

July 16, 2020
-Bounding Krasis
-Dosan the Falling Leaf
-Manglehorn
-Compost
+Destiny Spinner
+Gilded Drake
+Gamble
+Guardian Project

May 20, 2020
-Temur Sabertooth - it's redundant, I'm leaving Cloudstone Curio in.
+Windfall

April 24, 2020
-Chord of Calling - hitting Chord with cascade is so bad, so I'm giving Wheel of Fortune a try.
-Forest
+Wheel of Fortune - I am dubious about this one. Usually I cast MW with little mana left, so if I cascade into it, my opponents would benefit more than me, and that could cost me the game. Timetwister would be a better choice, but it's excluded for budget reasons.
+Prismatic Vista

March 23, 2020
-Krosan Grip
+Reality Shift - it could be used in Reality Shift/Beast Within combo.

-Birthing Pod
-Preordain
+Pyroblast
+Red Elemental Blast - both to be tested. They can be used to protect our combos, to disrupt others' plans, and they should be not dead when cascading into them.

March 12, 2020
-Mana Vault
+Goblin Sharpshooter - can combo with Splinter Twin without going through combat, and it takes care of opponents' mana dorks.

March 07, 2020
-Forest
-Mountain
+Gemstone Caverns - faster starts, it could even exile a CFE creature.
+Mana Crypt

-Fact or Fiction
+Compost - it could help drawing lots of cards, and its CMC is lower.

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Have any idea on how to improve it? Share your thoughts, your comment is appreciated!

Top Ranked	Achieved #10 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #9 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Eternal Scourge + Food Chain Food Chain + Misthollow Griffin Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Pestermite Deceiver Exarch + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Bounding Krasis + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker Pestermite + Splinter Twin Deceiver Exarch + Splinter Twin Bounding Krasis + Splinter Twin Goblin Sharpshooter + Splinter Twin Beast Within + Reality Shift Food Chain + Squee, the Immortal Dockside Extortionist + Temur Sabertooth Cloudstone Curio + Dockside Extortionist
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 41 - 0 Rares 15 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.27
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Copy Clone, Manifest 2/2 C, Treasure