MTG Food Chain: Quick Reference

By: RandyYoumans

Marius Hausmann’s deck has been performing well in recent weeks. He won three tournaments using the new Walking Ballista MTG Food Chain build. It’s becoming more popular on Magic Online, too. I am certain it will soon replace Shardless U/G as the preferred midrange deck.

Walking Ballista makes difficult matchups much easier. The deck has featured Emrakul and Fierce Empath in past versions. Walking Ballista is always alive and does a great job clearing out the board of creatures as well as pressuring any opposing planeswalkers.

The new combo works as follows: First, you must resolve an MTG Food Chain. You can then cast Eternal Scourge or Misthollow Griffin, and then exile the MTG Food Chain and re-cast it until your mana is arbitrarily high. To finish them off, you can cast Walking Ballista.

This is a 3-card combination, but all the creatures are still relevant. You can also Manipulate Fate to get 1 Eternal Scourge, 2 Misthollow Griffins and 1 Eternal Scourge. This will allow you to easily access the other half of your combo while giving you a card advantage. Even if you don’t have Walking Ballista most Legacy decks will be unable to beat recurring three-dimensional 3/3s. You will also have MTG Food Chain, Manipulate Fate and three 3/3s with pseudo-vigilance. They can be exiled and recast post-combat. To avoid removal, you can exile them at any time.

The deck also features MTG Food Chain, which plays the most powerful creatures in Legacy: Deathrite, Baleful Strix and Leovold. Deathrite Shaman is a great choice for a deck that is mana-hungry. Baleful Strix can be used to purchase time to setup your combo. Leovold, a new addition to many B/U/G lists is an excellent way to disrupt your opponents and hide behind a flock Baleful Strix.

Abrupt Decay is a great catch-all and Manipulate Fate, essentially, is a 2-mana draw 4. The remaining spells are the Legacy blue staples of Brainstorm, Ponder and Force of Will. I encourage you to take a look at the deck if you have not felt the power of Force of Will exiling Misthollow Griff.

Sideboard guide

These are quick matchup guidelines. Most matchups fall within these three categories.Grindy matchups are powerful because they give you an additional angle of attack.You want to quickly combine decks such as Eldrazi and Burn.Decks such as Reanimator, where you can board the combo and take the control role

Miracles Mtg Food Chain

Miracles in Game 1 has very limited ways to interact with MTG Food Chain and Manipulate Fate, so you should be able to run them over with recurring dorks. Jace is their main way to victory. If you can stop them with Walking Ballista, you will be in good shape.