Casual Friday: Food Chain Griffins

I was typing up new cards spoiled to post when I saw that the entire DECKLISTS of commander 2013 were posted. I'll be posting a special edition of that with QSP sometime very soon.

Also as a side note, for the Rafiq of the Many deck, I changed up a card:
-1 Saffi Eriksdotter
+1 Snapcaster Mage

Anyway, on to our casual section! I decided that today's casual article should be based on the namesake of this blog. The combo that is in question is:

 You can cast misthollow griffin and then exile it to food chain, do it as many times as you want for infinite mana.

Although misthollow griffin is the premier card to do this with, there are other good cards to do this with. There is the famous food chain elves and food chain goblins that use this with cheap guys to dump their hand and swing fast.
However, let's look at other casual applications.

Food chain is extremely good with evoke creatures. Let's take a look at mulldrifter:

Now, for its evoke cost, it's essentially a divination. It's a great card, always been a staple during its standard years, extended years, and cube draft.
However, if you cast it for its evoke cost of 3, then with the evoke trigger on the stack, exile it to food chain, you essentally have done this:
Pay 3 mana, draw 2 cards, gain 6 mana of any color. This is insane. I would also work with the evoke card aethersnipe, which is just as insane.

Another good card to use food chain with is Burning Tree Emissary. Let's look at that card:

So with a food chain out, let's see. You pay 2 mana to make the 2/2, then exile it to food chain. You end up with 5 total mana, having only spent 2 mana. That's better than a seething song!

Finally, I tried to think of other ways to abuse Misthollow griffin.

Chrome mox is a great card because of imprint (sadly it's the only imprint card that is good with it) Let's take a look at it:

Play chrome mox, imprint misthollow griffin. Then you can cast misthollow griffin from exile still!!

Some other cards that you can use to exile misthollow griffin to gain something are:

Anyway, let's get some fun deck lists out there!

First, here's a more budget build using the ideas I have above:

//Lands
8 Forest
8 Island
4 Yavimaya Coast

//Spells
4 Beck/Call
4 Food Chain
2 Manipulate Fate
4 Preordain

//Creatures
4 Court Hussar
4 Misthollow Griffin
4 Mulldrifter
4 Raven Familiar
4 Wall of Roots
2 Worldspine Wurm
4 Æthersnipe

Manipulate fate can fetch the griffins and put them into exile, and worldspine wurm is your big guy that you can cast if you have the mana to do so. Court hussar and raven familiar let you set up your draws and then you exile them away before they go away due to echo costs or the sacrifice effect.
Beck is there because you can start comboing off, you play a creature, draw a card, and then exile the creature. If you draw into another creature, you can cast it and keep going.

As far as upgrading this deck, I would say that you would first want to upgrade the mana base with things like shocks, duals, fetches. Glimpse of nature is a direct upgrade (and about 5 times the cost) of beck//call. Finally, Worldspine Wurm should probably be changed to Emrakul. You also probably could start putting in stuff like Force of will and chrome mox.






Finally, here is a higher modified deck that I would consider tier 2 for legacy:


//Lands
2 Ancient Tomb
2 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Tropical Island
4 Verdant Catacombs

//Spells
3 Brainstorm
2 Daze
4 Food Chain
4 Force of Will
2 Ponder
4 Chrome Mox
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor




//Creatures

4 Coiling Oracle
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Griselbrand
3 Misthollow Griffin
2 Mulldrifter
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Wall of Roots
1 Æthersnipe

//Sideboard
SB: 3 Tinder Wall
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 4 Spell Pierce
SB: 1 Surgical Extraction
SB: 4 Pact of Negation
SB: 1 Krosan Grip