Eternal formats are interesting because sometimes the most innocuous cards from new sets help to completely re-imagine existing shells. One deck that is particularly well-situated given the powerful creatures we see set after set is Food Chain. This deck thrives on a combination of cheap utility and disruption creatures as well as a powerful high-end, and every couple of sets we see a spike in Food Chain appearances because of some interesting new technology. Let’s take a look at what Aether Revolt has to offer:

Food Chain- Legacy | SHUFFLERPWNED, 5-0 Legacy League

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Noble Hierarch
• 2 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
• 2 Trinket Mage
• 2 Walking Ballista
• 4 Baleful Strix
• 4 Deathrite Shaman
• 4 Misthollow Griffin

• Instants (12)
• 4 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Brainstorm
• 4 Force of Will

• Sorceries (2)
• 2 Manipulate Fate

• Enchantments (5)
• 1 Sylvan Library
• 4 Food Chain

• Artifacts (2)
• 1 Engineered Explosives
• 1 Relic of Progenitus

• Lands (20)
• 1 Forest
• 1 Swamp
• 2 Island
• 2 Bayou
• 2 Tropical Island
• 2 Underground Sea
• 2 Verdant Catacombs
• 4 Misty Rainforest
• 4 Polluted Delta

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Chalice of the Void
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
• 1 Pithing Needle
• 1 Tormod's Crypt
• 2 Carpet of Flowers
• 2 Fatal Push
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 2 Golgari Charm
• 2 Mindbreak Trap

Buy This Deck

This deck’s combo is to utilize Force of Will and Manipulate Fate to exile Misthollow Griffins, which can be looped with Food Chain to generate infinite mana of whatever colors are necessary. Once you achieve infinite mana, any number of win conditions are reasonable, though most Legacy builds have largely focused on Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. Emrakul is usually good enough, particularly given that you can tutor for it with Fierce Empath, which also costs exactly enough to cast the first Misthollow Griffin off of Food Chain. Other builds have opted for Maga, Traitor to Mortals in order to end the game immediately, but you have to struggle more in order to be able to consistently have access to Maga.

Walking Ballista is an elegant solution to this problem. It’s a reasonable creature to cast on its own, giving you the ability to shoot down small creatures like Delver of Secrets and Noble Hierarch. It also allows you to play Trinket Mage over Fierce Empath as a way to both make the combo more consistent and give you access to maindeck hate cards like Relic of Progenitus, Engineered Explosives, and Pithing Needle. Lastly, Walking Ballista still allows you to win the game on the turn you cast it, since you can generate infinite mana and ping your opponent to death without passing the turn.

Future sets will only make this deck better as we keep getting more efficient value creatures and better ways to make the combo more compact or robust. Is this the last missing piece that Food Chain was missing in order to break onto the competitive scene?