any better than, say, Doomsday at fighting through the inevitable hate?
I'd say it's very slightly worse against instant-based hate, but with a significantly better matchup against permanent-based hate. Thalia, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, Null Rod, Winter Orb, Gaddock Teeg etc. are much more impactful against DD than FCT. For spot-removal, FCT is only truly worried about counterspells and enchantment removal (and generic removal like bounce or Beast Within), which is only really in U, G, W. The combo dodges creature removal, and is unaffected by other permanent-type hate.
I don't think you necessarily need Grace to have protection; drawing a raw 25 with Naus usually lends you enough disruption to force the combo through. You could play AG + AN effectively here if you wanted to, though I don't think it's necessary.
Overall, the deck is very good at forcing the combo through removal. As a last resort, there's always Silence.
Hi MTGS, I'm a moderator over at reddit's CompetitiveEDH subreddit and I wanted to share a collaborative project I've been working on with user u/BigLupu.
The decklist also lives over at TappedOut if that's a more convienient way to look through the list.
Introduction
Food Chain Tazri (FCT) is a blistering-fast competitive combo deck that is resilient, efficient, and cutthroat. It can win on any turn of the game, averaging a turn 3 or 4 win if uncontested. It utilizes ramp, draw, tutors, interaction, and protection from 4 colors, and can extend to a 5-color shell if desired.
FCT is fairly resistant to many forms of stax and spot removal, while playing outs to effects it must remove and protective countermagic to force the combo through. The deck is very good at producing a win from an empty boardstate, needing approximately 4 mana or 3 mana and a creature 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.
Food Chain Tazri (FCT) is a new mutation of combo deck resembling Food Chain Prossh: its built to utilize Food Chain and either Eternal Scourge or Misthollow Griffin to generate infinite mana, cast General Tazri to search up an ally outlet for either lethal life loss or lethal mill. It is approximately as fast as Food Chain Prossh and Hermit Druid and slightly edging out UBx Storm, goldfishing between a turn 3 and turn 4 win in most games. This combo is very light on requirements, only needing 5-6 cards in your deck to facilitate this gameplan: 2-3 wincon allies, 2 cast-from-exile creatures, and Food Chain.
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 10 fetchlands, a selection of ABUR duals, and the best multicolor lands, hitting your color requirements is fairly easy.
The deck has a lot of interesting synergies, such as accruing incredible value by utilizing cards where exiling was designed as a penalty, such as 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 easy to cast while also cantripping.
Combo Execution
The combo has 3 components:
Food Chain
A cast-from-exile (CFE) creature (Eternal Scourge, Misthollow Griffin
An outlet (Kalastria Healer, Hagra Diabolist, Halimar Excavator)
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 General Tazri, fetch Kalastria Healer. Exile and recast Tazri infinitely for infinite life drain.
Simple, clean, and very light on slots required.
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 guarenteed 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. If all 3 ally outlets and Riftsweeper are exiled, it becomes very difficult to win the game.
There is around 45% chance to exile cast-from-exile without exiling all wincon allies 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 its under all 3 wincon allies, 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 Forsight/Extract with your Manipulate Fate together with your Misthollow and Scourge, so you wont end up drawing it later. Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation, Necropotence and Plunge Into Darkness to get Scourge exiled while doing something else.
Necropotence is a powerful engine in the deck, allowing you to dig, stabilize, and convieniently 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.
Riftsweeper shuffles a wincon ally (or Food Chain) into your deck if you exiled them by accident. Cast Tazri to fetch it back again for the win, so you dont necessarily have take your last wincon ally with Tainted Pact, as long as Riftsweeper is still in the deck.
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 may not seem like much, but this results into openers that often facilitate having 3 mana on the second turn, and free Eternal Scourges or Misthollow Griffs on your third turn when you are executing a combo with Food Chain. There hasnt previously been any marquee cEDH decks that have taken full advantage of both Noble Hierarch and Deathrite Shaman like this.
Having the maximum amount of 1 costing dorks and bunch of 1 CMC tutors leads to a very nice curve with over 30x 1 CMC spells. The deck has very painless Ad Nauseam, regularly drawing around 1 card per life spent. If you havent played a land yet, you can often win with a main phased Ad Nauseam, though usually do need have a dork on the field to start the Food Chain combo.
The deck plays cantrips like Sensei's Divining Top, Preordain, Ponder, Brainstorm and Gitaxian Probe to dig in the early game and to get more use out of Imperial Seal, Enlightened Tutor and Worldly Tutor in the late game. This helps against being stranded with useless tutors after Ad Nauseam. Of course, most of the time it's better to fire off your Nauseam in your lasts opponent's end step, preferably before your third or fourth turn.
Comparison to Food Chain Prossh
Food Chain Prossh (FCP) has been a long-standing front-runner when evaluating competitive fast-combo decks. It's fast, resilient, and has a good stax matchup, and a solid midrangy backup plan of Prossh beats. FCT has all of these elements (except the last) with subtle advantages in exile use and card options in U and W.
There are a lot of similarities regarding the speed and reliability of the combo, but there are as many differences as there are similarities. For example, while Imperial Recruiter is the best creature in Prossh, its not relevant enough to make the cut in Tazri. Prossh is a Cradle deck, while in Tazri its something you might end up running. Sphere of Resistance is an annoyance when you are playing Prossh, but a must remove hatepiece in Tazri.
FCP's combo similarly operates in three parts: Food Chain, CFE creature (Prossh himself) and an outlet like Blood Artist, Purphoros or Genesis Hydra. FCT replaces Prossh with Eternal Scourge or Misthollow and Blood Artist with Tazri.
What FCT has over FCP: runs massively fewer combo slots (doesn't need to run the 10+ outlets that prossh does), only needs to achieve 3 or 4 FC mana to Prosshs 3RGB, runs blue cantrips and filtering, runs a better interaction suite with blue counters and white removal, has extra tutors in the blue tutors (including exile tutors) and Enlightened Tutor, uses the to-exile tutors much more efficiently, is less soft to board wipes and Elesh Norn, has extra duals and a fetchland. Tazris manadorks are both better and higher in quantity, gaining access to both Noble Hierarch and Avacyns Pilgrim. FCT's interaction suite is vastly superior to FCP's, with access to blue (often free) countermagic, bounce spells, Silence, and Swords to Plowshares.
What FCP has over FCT: having the value-engine in the Command Zone gives Prossh natural hand-independent power, Prossh slightly more consistent color-production in 3-color than 5-color, Prossh doesn't need to run Scourges and specialized tutors for it (at the opportunity cost of having many outlets), FCP dodges blue-hate, and Prossh has a very solid combat backup plan between casting Prossh and playing Purphoros. Unlike Tazri, Prossh can combo with Food Chain through a cost increasing effect like Sphere of Resistance or GAAIV. Prossh can also dodge several different hate pieces with the right draw, including Humility, Torpor Orb or Stranglehold, unlike Tazri.
When you compare elements like resiliency or goldfish speed, the decks match up quite evenly. With an average draw, both decks often attempt to win on turn 3 or 4, fairly often with a 1 costing protection spell to back them in their attempt.
Playing from behind
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 decks 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.
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 building up the elements you need to attempt to win the game.
Fighting resistance
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, and Torpor Orb. 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. This deck plays around Gaddock Teeg essentially by default. Linvala, Keeper of Silence only shuts off dorks. Winter Orb isn't terribly impactful against low-land decks. Tazri 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. Its important to note that cards like Demonic Consultation, Tainted Pact, Plunge into Darkness and Lim-Dl's Vault are unaffected by cards like Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold.
Additionally, the deck is 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 theatening 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 Tazri is 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.
Aven Mindcensor and Containment Priest stand out as excellent meta-specific options to shut down strategies that have many answers to FCT's strategy, particularly Yisan and Karador.
Optional Packages
Red: We've opted to slim Tazri to a BUG shell with a light white splash for consistency, but there are a few red cards that can offer strong support: Orcish Lumberjack, Gamble, Wheel of Fortune, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Manamorphose, Simian Spirit Guide, Imperial Recruiter, Wear / Tear, Pyroclasm.
Additional dorks: This deck wants every 1-drop mana dork it can get its hands on. There are a few additional mana-generating creatures worth considering that fluctuate in and out of the build depending on the variation: Harabaz Druid, Wall of Roots, Bloom Tender, Orcish Lumberjack, Cloud of Faeries, Simian Spirit Guide, Devoted Druid.
Stax: This deck plays around and through stax fairly well, and has the incredible advantage of being able to sacrifice creature-based stax not only for Food Chain mana, but to end the effect that would prevent it from executing the combo. We ultimately removed the stax to focus on speed, but a few stand out as worthy of considering if they disrupt your opponents well enough: Containment Priest, Aven Mindcensor, Gaddock Teeg, Linvala, Kataki, War's Wage, Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Allies: The two allies worth considering are Harabaz Druid for additional tutorable ramp and Seagate Loremaster for tutorable gas. We found these not quite efficient enough to include, but remain on the radar as options.
Creature-heavy: As the number of utility/stax creatures increases, certain elements of each package becomes more attactive. Gaea's Cradle becomes a strong option when you have 25+ creatures. Imperial Recruiter is an excellent toolbox card when there are non-dork utility creatures you wish to choose from.
Tutors: There are many tutors that can be used if you have additional slots or some of the expensive ($) black tutors are out of financial reach. These have floated in and out of the build/radar: Grim Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Idyllic Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, Altar of Bone, Gamble, Dimir Machinations, Divining Witch.
Lands: Depending on your iteration of the deck, you may want to adjust your land base. Adding red prompts you to reconfigure the land base accordingly with the appropriate duals. You may wish to consider adding Volcanic Island or Taiga to turn on narrow fetches like Arid Mesa for additional colors. You may wish to play some of the painlands like Underground River, Llanowar Wastes, Yavimaya Coast for color redundancy. A staxxier shell may want Temple Garden. If facing sever non-basic hate, a basic Forest in your deck can be a godsend.
Casting Tazri
It's in the nature of cEDH that occasionally things just refuse to go your way. You can cast your commander when you want some extra help from your Command Zone. Here are few cases when you want to cast your commander without having infinite mana:
You want to have a wincon creature before you exile bunch of cards with Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation in search of FC or CFE creature. This is usually done when you think there isnt much you can lose to, or when you just happen to have tons of mana. This line works better if you already have Food Chain out.
You need a blue card for your FoW, so you tutor up Halimar Excavator.
You have a mana-intensive line in mind like: Transmute Drift of Phantasms, play Manipulate Fate, play Food Chain and you want do it on the same turn, so you get Harabaz Druid in case you run it.
Kalastria Healer provides 1 or 2 life either to survive or for a line that requires paying life.
You have Food Chain, but no cast-from-exile creature, and you need to ping someone to death from a low life total; you find Hagra Diabolist, recur Tazri, find Kalastria Healer, recur Tazri, it adds up to decent amount as Diabolist pings X where X is the number of allies you control every time an ally enters the battlefield. Costs a lot of mana, but it can do work.
Tiny Tazri 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 ally 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.
Wordly Tutor and Eladamri's Call can be converted to a tutor for Food Chain in the form of Drift of Phantasms, since its a 3 mana creature with Transmute cost of 1UU. Drift is mostly used as a turn 2 Grim Tutor for you missing piece after playing a dork on turn 1.
We've found 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 opponents upkeep, and then follow it up with an Ad Nauseam in their end step. People might be hesitant to counter an upkeep Silence.
Halimar Excavator and Tazri play around Elesh Norn.
Conclusion
Food Chain Tazri stands out as a powerful and resilient new combo deck. It has emerged as one of (if not the) fastest deck in EDH while able to voraciously fight through interaction.
It's a similar deck if you are used to playing Storm, Sharuum or Prossh, and you want to try something new without going too far from your comfort zone. The puzzle-solving mentality is one of the reason why Tazri is an fun and attractive pick.
Tazri would like us to thank her grandpappy u/tw0handt0uch for inspiration.
In our opinion, FCT stands very well in the current metagame, and we hope to see others play and improve the deck in the games to come. In our testing, our focus was on speed and quality of openers, so other variants of the deck are largely open for exploration.
I'd say it's very slightly worse against instant-based hate, but with a significantly better matchup against permanent-based hate. Thalia, Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, Null Rod, Winter Orb, Gaddock Teeg etc. are much more impactful against DD than FCT. For spot-removal, FCT is only truly worried about counterspells and enchantment removal (and generic removal like bounce or Beast Within), which is only really in U, G, W. The combo dodges creature removal, and is unaffected by other permanent-type hate.
I don't think you necessarily need Grace to have protection; drawing a raw 25 with Naus usually lends you enough disruption to force the combo through. You could play AG + AN effectively here if you wanted to, though I don't think it's necessary.
Overall, the deck is very good at forcing the combo through removal. As a last resort, there's always Silence.
Recur it with Riftsweeper.
by u/Biglupu and u/ShaperSavant
Hi MTGS, I'm a moderator over at reddit's CompetitiveEDH subreddit and I wanted to share a collaborative project I've been working on with user u/BigLupu.
The decklist also lives over at TappedOut if that's a more convienient way to look through the list.
Introduction
Food Chain Tazri (FCT) is a blistering-fast competitive combo deck that is resilient, efficient, and cutthroat. It can win on any turn of the game, averaging a turn 3 or 4 win if uncontested. It utilizes ramp, draw, tutors, interaction, and protection from 4 colors, and can extend to a 5-color shell if desired.
FCT is fairly resistant to many forms of stax and spot removal, while playing outs to effects it must remove and protective countermagic to force the combo through. The deck is very good at producing a win from an empty boardstate, needing approximately 4 mana or 3 mana and a creature 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.
Decklist
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Bayou
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Breeding Pool
1x City of Brass
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Forbidden Orchard
1x Gemstone Caverns
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Mana Confluence
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Polluted Delta
1x Savannah
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Tarnished Citadel
1x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Yavimaya Coast
Enchantment (5)
1x Carpet of Flowers
1x Food Chain
1x Mystic Remora
1x Necropotence
1x Sylvan Library
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Brainstorm
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dark Ritual
1x Demonic Consultation
1x Dispel
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Enlightened Tutor
1x Flusterstorm
1x Force of Will
1x Lim-Dul's Vault
1x Mana Drain
1x Mental Misstep
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Nature's Claim
1x Noxious Revival
1x Pact of Negation
1x Plunge into Darkness
1x Silence
1x Spell Pierce
1x Swan Song
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Tainted Pact
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Worldly Tutor
Sorcery (12)
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Extract
1x Foresight
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Imperial Seal
1x Manipulate Fate
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Regrowth
1x Timetwister
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Yawgmoth's Will
1x Arbor Elf
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Boreal Druid
1x Dark Confidant
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Drift of Phantasms
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Elvish Spirit Guide
1x Eternal Scourge
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Hagra Diabolist
1x Halimar Excavator
1x Kalastria Healer
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Misthollow Griffin
1x Noble Hierarch
1x Riftsweeper
1x Wall of Roots
Artifact (6)
1x Chrome Mox
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mox Diamond
1x Sol Ring
Gameplan
Food Chain Tazri (FCT) is a new mutation of combo deck resembling Food Chain Prossh: its built to utilize Food Chain and either Eternal Scourge or Misthollow Griffin to generate infinite mana, cast General Tazri to search up an ally outlet for either lethal life loss or lethal mill. It is approximately as fast as Food Chain Prossh and Hermit Druid and slightly edging out UBx Storm, goldfishing between a turn 3 and turn 4 win in most games. This combo is very light on requirements, only needing 5-6 cards in your deck to facilitate this gameplan: 2-3 wincon allies, 2 cast-from-exile creatures, and Food Chain.
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 10 fetchlands, a selection of ABUR duals, and the best multicolor lands, hitting your color requirements is fairly easy.
The deck has a lot of interesting synergies, such as accruing incredible value by utilizing cards where exiling was designed as a penalty, such as 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 easy to cast while also cantripping.
Combo Execution
The combo has 3 components:
- Food Chain
- A cast-from-exile (CFE) creature (Eternal Scourge, Misthollow Griffin
- An outlet (Kalastria Healer, Hagra Diabolist, Halimar Excavator)
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 General Tazri, fetch Kalastria Healer. Exile and recast Tazri infinitely for infinite life drain.Simple, clean, and very light on slots required.
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 guarenteed 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. If all 3 ally outlets and Riftsweeper are exiled, it becomes very difficult to win the game.
There is around 45% chance to exile cast-from-exile without exiling all wincon allies 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 its under all 3 wincon allies, 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 Forsight/Extract with your Manipulate Fate together with your Misthollow and Scourge, so you wont end up drawing it later. Tainted Pact, Demonic Consultation, Necropotence and Plunge Into Darkness to get Scourge exiled while doing something else.
Necropotence is a powerful engine in the deck, allowing you to dig, stabilize, and convieniently 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.
Riftsweeper shuffles a wincon ally (or Food Chain) into your deck if you exiled them by accident. Cast Tazri to fetch it back again for the win, so you dont necessarily have take your last wincon ally with Tainted Pact, as long as Riftsweeper is still in the deck.
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 may not seem like much, but this results into openers that often facilitate having 3 mana on the second turn, and free Eternal Scourges or Misthollow Griffs on your third turn when you are executing a combo with Food Chain. There hasnt previously been any marquee cEDH decks that have taken full advantage of both Noble Hierarch and Deathrite Shaman like this.
Having the maximum amount of 1 costing dorks and bunch of 1 CMC tutors leads to a very nice curve with over 30x 1 CMC spells. The deck has very painless Ad Nauseam, regularly drawing around 1 card per life spent. If you havent played a land yet, you can often win with a main phased Ad Nauseam, though usually do need have a dork on the field to start the Food Chain combo.
The deck plays cantrips like Sensei's Divining Top, Preordain, Ponder, Brainstorm and Gitaxian Probe to dig in the early game and to get more use out of Imperial Seal, Enlightened Tutor and Worldly Tutor in the late game. This helps against being stranded with useless tutors after Ad Nauseam. Of course, most of the time it's better to fire off your Nauseam in your lasts opponent's end step, preferably before your third or fourth turn.
Comparison to Food Chain Prossh
Food Chain Prossh (FCP) has been a long-standing front-runner when evaluating competitive fast-combo decks. It's fast, resilient, and has a good stax matchup, and a solid midrangy backup plan of Prossh beats. FCT has all of these elements (except the last) with subtle advantages in exile use and card options in U and W.
There are a lot of similarities regarding the speed and reliability of the combo, but there are as many differences as there are similarities. For example, while Imperial Recruiter is the best creature in Prossh, its not relevant enough to make the cut in Tazri. Prossh is a Cradle deck, while in Tazri its something you might end up running. Sphere of Resistance is an annoyance when you are playing Prossh, but a must remove hatepiece in Tazri.
FCP's combo similarly operates in three parts: Food Chain, CFE creature (Prossh himself) and an outlet like Blood Artist, Purphoros or Genesis Hydra. FCT replaces Prossh with Eternal Scourge or Misthollow and Blood Artist with Tazri.
What FCT has over FCP: runs massively fewer combo slots (doesn't need to run the 10+ outlets that prossh does), only needs to achieve 3 or 4 FC mana to Prosshs 3RGB, runs blue cantrips and filtering, runs a better interaction suite with blue counters and white removal, has extra tutors in the blue tutors (including exile tutors) and Enlightened Tutor, uses the to-exile tutors much more efficiently, is less soft to board wipes and Elesh Norn, has extra duals and a fetchland. Tazris manadorks are both better and higher in quantity, gaining access to both Noble Hierarch and Avacyns Pilgrim. FCT's interaction suite is vastly superior to FCP's, with access to blue (often free) countermagic, bounce spells, Silence, and Swords to Plowshares.
What FCP has over FCT: having the value-engine in the Command Zone gives Prossh natural hand-independent power, Prossh slightly more consistent color-production in 3-color than 5-color, Prossh doesn't need to run Scourges and specialized tutors for it (at the opportunity cost of having many outlets), FCP dodges blue-hate, and Prossh has a very solid combat backup plan between casting Prossh and playing Purphoros. Unlike Tazri, Prossh can combo with Food Chain through a cost increasing effect like Sphere of Resistance or GAAIV. Prossh can also dodge several different hate pieces with the right draw, including Humility, Torpor Orb or Stranglehold, unlike Tazri.
When you compare elements like resiliency or goldfish speed, the decks match up quite evenly. With an average draw, both decks often attempt to win on turn 3 or 4, fairly often with a 1 costing protection spell to back them in their attempt.
Playing from behind
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 decks 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.
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 building up the elements you need to attempt to win the game.
Fighting resistance
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, and Torpor Orb. 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. This deck plays around Gaddock Teeg essentially by default. Linvala, Keeper of Silence only shuts off dorks. Winter Orb isn't terribly impactful against low-land decks. Tazri 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. Its important to note that cards like Demonic Consultation, Tainted Pact, Plunge into Darkness and Lim-Dl's Vault are unaffected by cards like Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold.
Additionally, the deck is 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 theatening 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 Tazri is 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.
Aven Mindcensor and Containment Priest stand out as excellent meta-specific options to shut down strategies that have many answers to FCT's strategy, particularly Yisan and Karador.
Optional Packages
Red: We've opted to slim Tazri to a BUG shell with a light white splash for consistency, but there are a few red cards that can offer strong support: Orcish Lumberjack, Gamble, Wheel of Fortune, Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Manamorphose, Simian Spirit Guide, Imperial Recruiter, Wear / Tear, Pyroclasm.
Additional dorks: This deck wants every 1-drop mana dork it can get its hands on. There are a few additional mana-generating creatures worth considering that fluctuate in and out of the build depending on the variation: Harabaz Druid, Wall of Roots, Bloom Tender, Orcish Lumberjack, Cloud of Faeries, Simian Spirit Guide, Devoted Druid.
Stax: This deck plays around and through stax fairly well, and has the incredible advantage of being able to sacrifice creature-based stax not only for Food Chain mana, but to end the effect that would prevent it from executing the combo. We ultimately removed the stax to focus on speed, but a few stand out as worthy of considering if they disrupt your opponents well enough: Containment Priest, Aven Mindcensor, Gaddock Teeg, Linvala, Kataki, War's Wage, Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Allies: The two allies worth considering are Harabaz Druid for additional tutorable ramp and Seagate Loremaster for tutorable gas. We found these not quite efficient enough to include, but remain on the radar as options.
Creature-heavy: As the number of utility/stax creatures increases, certain elements of each package becomes more attactive. Gaea's Cradle becomes a strong option when you have 25+ creatures. Imperial Recruiter is an excellent toolbox card when there are non-dork utility creatures you wish to choose from.
Tutors: There are many tutors that can be used if you have additional slots or some of the expensive ($) black tutors are out of financial reach. These have floated in and out of the build/radar: Grim Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Idyllic Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, Altar of Bone, Gamble, Dimir Machinations, Divining Witch.
Lands: Depending on your iteration of the deck, you may want to adjust your land base. Adding red prompts you to reconfigure the land base accordingly with the appropriate duals. You may wish to consider adding Volcanic Island or Taiga to turn on narrow fetches like Arid Mesa for additional colors. You may wish to play some of the painlands like Underground River, Llanowar Wastes, Yavimaya Coast for color redundancy. A staxxier shell may want Temple Garden. If facing sever non-basic hate, a basic Forest in your deck can be a godsend.
Casting Tazri
It's in the nature of cEDH that occasionally things just refuse to go your way. You can cast your commander when you want some extra help from your Command Zone. Here are few cases when you want to cast your commander without having infinite mana:
You want to have a wincon creature before you exile bunch of cards with Tainted Pact/Demonic Consultation in search of FC or CFE creature. This is usually done when you think there isnt much you can lose to, or when you just happen to have tons of mana. This line works better if you already have Food Chain out.
You need a blue card for your FoW, so you tutor up Halimar Excavator.
You have a mana-intensive line in mind like: Transmute Drift of Phantasms, play Manipulate Fate, play Food Chain and you want do it on the same turn, so you get Harabaz Druid in case you run it.
Kalastria Healer provides 1 or 2 life either to survive or for a line that requires paying life.
You have Food Chain, but no cast-from-exile creature, and you need to ping someone to death from a low life total; you find Hagra Diabolist, recur Tazri, find Kalastria Healer, recur Tazri, it adds up to decent amount as Diabolist pings X where X is the number of allies you control every time an ally enters the battlefield. Costs a lot of mana, but it can do work.
Tiny Tazri 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 ally 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.
Wordly Tutor and Eladamri's Call can be converted to a tutor for Food Chain in the form of Drift of Phantasms, since its a 3 mana creature with Transmute cost of 1UU. Drift is mostly used as a turn 2 Grim Tutor for you missing piece after playing a dork on turn 1.
We've found 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 opponents upkeep, and then follow it up with an Ad Nauseam in their end step. People might be hesitant to counter an upkeep Silence.
Halimar Excavator and Tazri play around Elesh Norn.
Conclusion
Food Chain Tazri stands out as a powerful and resilient new combo deck. It has emerged as one of (if not the) fastest deck in EDH while able to voraciously fight through interaction.
It's a similar deck if you are used to playing Storm, Sharuum or Prossh, and you want to try something new without going too far from your comfort zone. The puzzle-solving mentality is one of the reason why Tazri is an fun and attractive pick.
Tazri would like us to thank her grandpappy u/tw0handt0uch for inspiration.
In our opinion, FCT stands very well in the current metagame, and we hope to see others play and improve the deck in the games to come. In our testing, our focus was on speed and quality of openers, so other variants of the deck are largely open for exploration.