The red boxes at the beginning are a rendering error telling you that you can listen to the audio version of this video on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and Google Podcast. Links Below. Be sure to let us know what other topics (or even other wincons if you would like a part2 2) you would like to see discussed! *Table of Contents:* 1:40 - Demonic Consultation 7:35 - Flash Hulk 14:10 - Food Chain 20:55 - Kiki Jiki & Splinter Twin 27:50 - Worldgorger Dragon Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0WKOn0J1qT2L13gz5ByrjK Listen on Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-cedh/id1498990819 Listen on Google Podcast: www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vdW5kZXJzdGFuZGluZy1jZWRoLw%3D%3D
@@embermk6264 According to the Gatherer page for Torpor Orb it should stop a card's own EtB Trigger. From the first rules note for Torpor Orb: "Torpor Orb stops a creature’s own enters-the-battlefield triggered abilities as well as other triggered abilities that would trigger when a creature enters the battlefield."
Great video, I think Dramatic Scepter combo should be here as well. Especially since these can work with a whole plethora of commanders (more than food chain), is fairly commonly used as a back-up, since its own pieces are good in general and it's a budget option, so new players should be aware of this.
Thassas oracle and demonic consultation: well u can stop it by preventing enter the field triggers, or countering, or tax effects, or making the opponent draw before the oracle triggers. Flash hulk: well u can stop it by preventing enter the field triggers, or countering, or tax effects, or making the opponent draw before the oracle
If your playgroup is the kind that will force you to play out your combos, Gitrog probably isn't the best deck to pilot. However if they're okay with shortcutting loops after they've been demonstrated (and short-cutting loops is well within the rules of MTG), here's the basics. Gamestate Required: Gitrog and a free discard outlet in play. Dakmor Salvage in hand (OR) Dakmor Salvage in the graveyard and a land in hand. The basis of the combo is as follows: Step 1: Discard Dakmor Salvage/the land. // Gitrog's card draw trigger goes on the stack. Step 2: Dredge Dakmor Salvage instead of drawing. // If you dredge over 1 or more lands, another Gitrog draw trigger goes on the stack. Step 3: Repeat. Eventually you'll dredge over your Kozilek which will shuffle your graveyard back into your library allowing you to go on forever. What you'll end up with is "infinite" card draw triggers from dredging lands into your graveyard. While the number of triggers per reshuffle will vary depending on where Kozilek ends up in the library, this is a loop that you should be able to shortcut by saying "I want to repeat this until I have [an arbitrarily large number of] draw triggers on the stack." Once you've built up an arbitrarily large number of these triggers, continue with the following loop: Step 1: Resolve card draw triggers until you find Lotus Petal and/or Dark Ritual. Step 2: Cast Lotus Petal and/or Dark Ritual (and sac the Petal for mana) Step 3.a: If you have Kozilek in hand, discard it to reshuffle the Petal/Ritual back into your library. Step 3.b: If you didn't draw Kozilek, repeat the first section of the combo until you do which will shuffle the Petal/Ritual back into your library. Step 4: Repeat. This gives you infinite mana. You can shortcut this by saying "I want to repeat this until I've generated [arbitrarily large number of] [color(s)] mana." Then once you have infinite mana, you resolve enough card draw triggers to find whatever you want to end the game assuming you haven't already drawn it.
I literally just uploaded a video in which I said "I’ll probably make a video all about the different combos that are worth looking at in EDH and when I do I’ll link to it here" but, seeing as your video actually exists and mine doesn't, I'll definitely be linking to your video! Great video, thanks for making it :)
For the Kiki/Twin combo line something I’ve found out is that most of the bottom combo pieces have 1 power or deal 1 damage (gob sharpshooter), and something like a Soul Warden or a Auriok Champion can essentially counteract the 1 dmg pings/hits, resulting in 0 change in your life total. These are not exactly hate pieces but they are cards with effective interactions against this specific combo.
Plus, they can still do Food Chain activations in response, since it's a mana ability and gets around Split Second. Removing it just means they have to pick it back up with something like Noxious Revival.
@@nharviala jea true. But if you wanna go off you cant since casting a creature doesnt get around it. It at least interrupts them. And you can interact with something like revival
One of the hardest things for me to do in EDH is to close out games, so I would love to see another vid on the less played/powerful wincons. Great vid! I'm not a cEDH player but all the same this has given me lots to think about. :)
I believe this has been the ebst video ive ever seen related to magic. well worded, steady worded, well organized, well edited. awesome in every single regard. glad to subscribe and check out more. you and whomever else on the team rock and do good hard work on behalf of the magic community. always a pleasure.
Great informative video for people trying to get into and understand the format. Seems like you guys are doing a great deal to promote the format to people that are scared or confused by all the competitive plays. Btw with stifle and trickbind(or nimble obstructionist) you could also counter the wgd leaves the battlefield trigger so as to leave the permanents exiled. I really like nimble obstructionist because it’s almost like trickbind in the sense it’s really difficult to counter as it’s an ability not a cast but it also basically replaces itself for the extra mana.
I really enjoyed the content. Great explanations of the different combos. That being said, the phrase "that being said" is used a lot. Might be worth hitting that with a counterspell in the editing process. :)
Notion Thief will backfire against card-drawing commanders unless the Thief's controller has other answers available, as the Food Chain player can simply keep casting the commander until the Notion Thief player gets decked out.
I would love to see both of those new videos you mentioned at the end. I do have a personal request, discussing how to recover in a combo deck if your combo pieces are permanently removed, such as if I was playing Elsha Top, and my Sensei’s Divining Top gets exiled somehow, how could I recover?
Great breakdown! One thing I'll mention is that you can have creatures before food chain. It is an enchantment but the way you phrased it makes it sound like you need the chain first. You don't...
Stifle and Trickbind actually stop the WorldGorger combo as well. The trigger for Worldgorger leaving is also stifleable, which will leave them with nothing coming back and a Worldgorger in their graveyard. Honestly, for the utility that Stifle and Trickbind have, it's kind of surprising how rarely I see them in games.
A card that always messes up my Flash Hulk deck, Rest In Peace. My friend plays a very competitive Zur edh deck, and rest in peace completely negates the death/search effect of Hulk.
For the WGD combo I like to use lands as finishers. Sunscorched Desert to ping an opponent everytime it enters the battlefield or if you have a Silence type effect/tapped out opponents and an Eldrazi Titan in deck, Geier Reach Sanitarium to mill your opponents
Meddling Mage effects and Sanctum Prelate also stop a good number of these if you know what to name based on their commander. Nice video, very helpful to newer cedh players.
Not going to lie, I think my favorite part is the worldgorger counters. They try to play their combo and you basically exile their board. Pretty sure instant scooping and some laughs occur. I know if this happened in my playgroup everyone would be wide eyed and laughing
2:06 Thassa's Oracle allows the _MOST_ amount of interaction since it doesn't only fall prey to the usual counterspells but also to stifle effects, which neither of the other allow. Neither does it work when ETB disablers are present. It also straight up loses to any unsummon or removal type effect. It's not better because it allows the least amount of interaction. It's better because you don't have to draw a card.
Would that really work though? Say they choose to name a card that's not in their deck (Mountain in UB for example): * their library gets milled * you bounce Thassa's Oracle * the ETB would resolve for X = 0, which is still greater than or **equal** to the number of cards in the library (0) * they win the game still I could be wrong about it, but that's what computer logic tells me
A mono green commander that works with food chain is Titania. You also need command beacon. How it works is you sacrifice Titania to Food Chain, then bring her back to your hand with Command Beacon. You can then cast her with the mana floating like normal. When she enters the battle field you bring back Command Beacon from the graveyard and then do the steps all over again. It's not as good as some of the others that use other colours but it does work by itself. You either make all of the 5/3 elementals with some kind of haste enabler like Crossroads or Akroma's Memorial or you use the floating mana for multi-kick creatures like Wolf Brier Elemental or even 'just' cast big creatures like the eldrazis.
If you have any utility lands that cam be abused because of them coming into play untapped also works well with the Worldgorger combo. Shivan Gorge and Stensia Bloodhall are lands that gives you repeatable damage once you have the combo going.
Graveyard replacement effects also stop Flash Hulk (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, & Planar Void)- also, Hushbringer does stop Splinter Twin + Goblin Sharpshooter lines, since the untap trigger is turned off due to it being a "dies" trigger
@24:47 minor caveat I would say is that with base situation goblin A with twin, and B and C tokens, whichever sharpshooter you tap, tap it targetting itself. Note SS says target creature or player. Why this matters is you can stack infinite untaps on the other token, with an untapped sharpshooter. Thus if someone attempts to interfere, you can just as easily go off in response. It shouldn't get to this state, but you never know in edh if something thinks they're gonna "get ya"
Titania Protector of Argoth+ food chain+ command beacon for mono green food chain deck. I know it isn’t super cedh but it’s very strong. It’s my main deck! Lol would be cool to see other opinions on it!
Seems like stifle effects are really good right now, especially with the upside of stifling thassa's Oracle to just kill them. The problem I think, is that flash hulk can happen at basically any time, as well as having veil of summer and silence, which makes me lean towards torpor orb and tocatli honor guard effects
The problem with trickbind and stifle if you aren’t using them against the hulk trigger you’ll get blown out if they know you are on that tech and pile around it
Worldgorger dragon combo- make sure you are using something like kroxa as your commander , if you are using kroxa you have a source to dump all your mana into
Thank you for breaking down the combos, they were explained very well. But I couldn't help thinking i wish there were lesser known answers discussed for each color instead of just bringing up counterspells repeatedly (and a smattering of hatebears.) This just makes me think i should play blue or just expect to lose the game. For example, I noticed the humble Lightning Bolt kills many of those creature combo pieces, so maybe while its underpowered in general, it seems effective given this kind of meta.
Bolt is useful (cEDH usually prefers swords to plowshares to be less conditional on toughness), but some things don't get stopped. Thassa's Oracle is a triggered ability so the creature being dead doesn't stop it since the wording is "less than or equal to your devotion to blue" this means that empty library and empty board is still a win. Many of the combos can go overtop your interaction by continuing in response to removal and letting your spell fizzle if it isn't in the same specific windows. The other issue is most of the decks using these combos do just play blue so they will try to answer your responses. Flash usually happens overtop of someone's Necromancy or Ad Nauseum or other Flash, or in response to the triggers from someone else's win attempt once everyone tapped out trying to stop it.
@@TheShmyt StP is hands down a better 1cmc removal, I'm just trying to figure out what fills that slot in Gruul. Pyroblast? I feel like I'm just in the corner of a room filled with people yelling "In response I...!" as I clutch my timmy cards and mumble "Nonblue decks are fun too"
@@jameslabbe4119 pyro and reb are pretty decent, there's also guttural response, but the best Gruul one I've seen for fighting on the stack is Vexing Shusher. It costs you no cards while blue has to keep throwing them out, only costs you one mana per counter spell you make useless and you can respond to any spell with it to back up someone else stopping a win.
Worldgorger can also win immediately without a mana sink, there’s Valakut and a Desert that can do direct damage with just re entering, there’s also impact tremors type effects; so if you have something of that already on the battlefield there’s no need to use something like that
as this video was more than a year ago...there are now two mono green commanders that works well with Food Chain and those are: Thrasta, Tempest's Roar Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
Don't notion thief an enemy who has food chain combo with uro unless you have a way to stop them from making you draw your entire library, notion thief is not a may ability
If you play flash hulk you can add grand abolisher to fetch with hulk. Makes it so that your opponents can't react after hulks death tigger have been resolved. just remember to add dread return so you can reanimate thassa's oracle after you mill your library .
Priority question: Opp casts Thassa's Oracle. It ETB's. In response to the trigger, they cast DC and exile their library. Now, I have Angel's Grace in hand. I could just cast it in response to the DC, but I'm just curious, could I let the DC resolve and THEN cast AG with Oracle's ETB still on the stack? In other words, after DC resolves, does priority pass around again before the Oracle trigger resolves?
Another big category of hate for Flash/Hulk is static graveyard exiling, like Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, or Anafenza the Foremost. Since these prevent 'dies' triggers, the Hulk won't fetch anything.
I am a bit surprised that the flash hulk pile of nomads, illusionist, grand abolisher and hapless researcher didn't come up. While this needs you to be playing both narcameba and dread return along side your lab man it does prevent most options that aren't already on board once the hulk death trigger goes through.
4 years late to this video and now that Flash is banned, the ThOracle is the 'boogieman', so to speak, given the lack of ways to truly STOP the combo entirely. Two things I feel should have been pointed out about dealing with ThOracle: 1. The only TRUE 'silver bullets' for this combo are Trickbind and Angel's Grace, as they preclude further interaction (counterspells) due to Split Second and effectively kills the ThOracle player as they go to draw a card on their next turn. Any effect which draws TARGET player at least one card works as well, however the number of playable cards that achieve this suffer from point 2. 2. Red and Green have no effective way to stop ThOracle. If your deck does not exist in one of the Esper colors, you have *very* few ways to halt the combo. Specifically Red has a *single* counterspell and Green has one or two ways to shuffle cards back into library (assuming there are any at this point in the game); even White needs to be running Angel's Grace/Silence or one of the 'no ETB pieces. Blue has a number of counterspells capable of stopping either spell OR the trigger while Black has a number of options to force another player to draw at instant speed. If you think you might run into this combo, you have to prepare by running some very specific cards while making sure that you can FIND those cards when needed, making it a very powerful combo overall with few actual interaction points.
My flash hulk combo goes like this: karmic guide, visera seer, search again for academy rector, phantasmal image, search again, (if it's not my turn a creature that sacrifices itself to.counter an instant unless the controller pays 1, + reveillark, then sac the angel.and the clone, then reveillark, reveillark triggers, return the angel and the clone, the angel brings back the hulk, the clone enters as a copy of the academy rector, then sac that copy of the rector, which gets exiled and I search for a leyline of anticipation to the battlefield, then sac the hulk and seach again), you search another creature that can counter an instant unless you pay 1 + sidisi. You exploit the original academy rector with sidisi, and bring an omniscience the battlefield and Enter the infinite to hand. Then you Cast Phage the Untouchable (you can also flash shimmer myr to flash vedalken orrery at this point) and then fractured identity to give each player a phage and they lose :D
Honestly I think the best support color for food chain is red just because squee is so much better then the other two options just because he can be cast from the graveyard incase he gets milled/discarded/countered
I would argue blue since it has effects that let you exile things from your deck to tutor up your CFE creature and grants more access to conbo protection with counterspells
I'm surprised that exile effects for hulk wasn't mentioned. I've messed some combos up from swords to plowshares or path to exile on a hulk! But the other methods are definitely more common
Most likely, the reason that wasn't mentioned is because it's exceptionally rare to have the opportunity to exile the Hulk with a Swords or similar when dealing with top-tier cEDH Flash Hulk decks. The way Flash works, the Hulk is put onto the battlefield and then dies all during the resolution of Flash. Players do not get priority until the Hulk is in the graveyard with its death trigger on the stack. In the very odd situation of a hard-cast Protean Hulk with no sac outlet, exiling it works, but that's not something that happens very often.
What if you were to cast the tainted pact/consultation while thassa is on the stack, before she enters the battlefield? That way she still enters and etbs and any targeted removal will resolve, once she enters the bf and resolves her ability first...?
It’s weird but a really funny way to stop Kiki Jiki can be mesmeric orb and something like mandate of peace unless they have something like zulaport cutthroat and a sac outlet
This video is awesome! I really appreciate these videos. The only thing I'm confused about is: is the "worldgorger dragon" just an infinate Mana combo? If so why is it significant enough to talk about specifically? Is it just the easiest infinate Mana combo to assemble or is it just the most prevalent in the formant? Or is there something else about this combo I'm not understanding?
Corey R. WGD Can win without infinite mana, any desert that taps to ping an opponent or an altar of the brood, or say something like kroxa on the board. Anje falkenrath plays this because she can loot and then come back untapped until the player finds something like a comet storm to use the infinite mana for infinite damage.
The red boxes at the beginning are a rendering error telling you that you can listen to the audio version of this video on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and Google Podcast. Links Below. Be sure to let us know what other topics (or even other wincons if you would like a part2 2) you would like to see discussed!
*Table of Contents:*
1:40 - Demonic Consultation
7:35 - Flash Hulk
14:10 - Food Chain
20:55 - Kiki Jiki & Splinter Twin
27:50 - Worldgorger Dragon
Listen on Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/0WKOn0J1qT2L13gz5ByrjK
Listen on Apple Podcast: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/understanding-cedh/id1498990819
Listen on Google Podcast: www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5jYXB0aXZhdGUuZm0vdW5kZXJzdGFuZGluZy1jZWRoLw%3D%3D
@@embermk6264 According to the Gatherer page for Torpor Orb it should stop a card's own EtB Trigger.
From the first rules note for Torpor Orb: "Torpor Orb stops a creature’s own enters-the-battlefield triggered abilities as well as other triggered abilities that would trigger when a creature enters the battlefield."
Great video, I think Dramatic Scepter combo should be here as well. Especially since these can work with a whole plethora of commanders (more than food chain), is fairly commonly used as a back-up, since its own pieces are good in general and it's a budget option, so new players should be aware of this.
Cant wait for gitrog, thats a video all to it's self
@@lolimmune AllLllll
P@@TheNeoDaedalus
How demonic consultation was designed: It's a 1 mana Tutor with a downside
How it's used: 1 mana exil my library
Hermit Druid
Unless u go for foodchain
I have certainly used it as a tutor cuz sometimes thats a thing you gotta do.
Makes ya laugh how they've exploited 'crap' cards from the 90's 🤣
Most glorious way of stopping Kiki-Jiki/Splinter Twin combos (except the one involving Goblin Sharpshooter): Rakdos Charm. :D
So beautiful
Thank you for neatly explaining these common win-cons! I feel like I finally understand food chain!
Thassas oracle and demonic consultation: well u can stop it by preventing enter the field triggers, or countering, or tax effects, or making the opponent draw before the oracle triggers. Flash hulk: well u can stop it by preventing enter the field triggers, or countering, or tax effects, or making the opponent draw before the oracle
How to stop them: play blue. Just wanted to summarize it in case anyone didn't have time to watch. :p
Explain the gitrog for us so I know how to win with my deck every time I play cedh instead of hard casting my kozilek
If your playgroup is the kind that will force you to play out your combos, Gitrog probably isn't the best deck to pilot. However if they're okay with shortcutting loops after they've been demonstrated (and short-cutting loops is well within the rules of MTG), here's the basics.
Gamestate Required: Gitrog and a free discard outlet in play. Dakmor Salvage in hand (OR) Dakmor Salvage in the graveyard and a land in hand.
The basis of the combo is as follows:
Step 1: Discard Dakmor Salvage/the land.
// Gitrog's card draw trigger goes on the stack.
Step 2: Dredge Dakmor Salvage instead of drawing.
// If you dredge over 1 or more lands, another Gitrog draw trigger goes on the stack.
Step 3: Repeat.
Eventually you'll dredge over your Kozilek which will shuffle your graveyard back into your library allowing you to go on forever. What you'll end up with is "infinite" card draw triggers from dredging lands into your graveyard. While the number of triggers per reshuffle will vary depending on where Kozilek ends up in the library, this is a loop that you should be able to shortcut by saying "I want to repeat this until I have [an arbitrarily large number of] draw triggers on the stack."
Once you've built up an arbitrarily large number of these triggers, continue with the following loop:
Step 1: Resolve card draw triggers until you find Lotus Petal and/or Dark Ritual.
Step 2: Cast Lotus Petal and/or Dark Ritual (and sac the Petal for mana)
Step 3.a: If you have Kozilek in hand, discard it to reshuffle the Petal/Ritual back into your library.
Step 3.b: If you didn't draw Kozilek, repeat the first section of the combo until you do which will shuffle the Petal/Ritual back into your library.
Step 4: Repeat.
This gives you infinite mana. You can shortcut this by saying "I want to repeat this until I've generated [arbitrarily large number of] [color(s)] mana."
Then once you have infinite mana, you resolve enough card draw triggers to find whatever you want to end the game assuming you haven't already drawn it.
Add in hushwing gryff and tocatli honor guard for more etb hate, etb hate seems really good right now!
Agreed
Finding this video 2 years later has got to be the coolest instance of awesome in the cEDH universe.
I literally just uploaded a video in which I said "I’ll probably make a video all about the different combos that are worth looking at in EDH and when I do I’ll link to it here" but, seeing as your video actually exists and mine doesn't, I'll definitely be linking to your video!
Great video, thanks for making it :)
For the Kiki/Twin combo line something I’ve found out is that most of the bottom combo pieces have 1 power or deal 1 damage (gob sharpshooter), and something like a Soul Warden or a Auriok Champion can essentially counteract the 1 dmg pings/hits, resulting in 0 change in your life total. These are not exactly hate pieces but they are cards with effective interactions against this specific combo.
Illness in the Ranks (Creature tokens get -1/-1) was used in Modern to fight Twin because it nullified both Deceiver Exarch and Pestermite tokens.
WhiteWizard42 That is also an effective way to stop the combat damage.
Against foodchain: try krosan grip. Its ligthly played so not that many will expect a splitsecond removal
I thought krosan grip was widely used, is it not?
@@goldilock4199 Not in cEDH. Three mana for interaction is a hefty price, it's rarely run.
Jake FitzSimons it’s 3 mana because it’s near impossible to interact with
Plus, they can still do Food Chain activations in response, since it's a mana ability and gets around Split Second. Removing it just means they have to pick it back up with something like Noxious Revival.
@@nharviala jea true. But if you wanna go off you cant since casting a creature doesnt get around it. It at least interrupts them. And you can interact with something like revival
One of the hardest things for me to do in EDH is to close out games, so I would love to see another vid on the less played/powerful wincons.
Great vid! I'm not a cEDH player but all the same this has given me lots to think about. :)
Great video. Can't wait for the second part to this ongoing series.
I believe this has been the ebst video ive ever seen related to magic. well worded, steady worded, well organized, well edited. awesome in every single regard. glad to subscribe and check out more. you and whomever else on the team rock and do good hard work on behalf of the magic community. always a pleasure.
This was my comment from the color pie primer! This is perfect! Thanks for listening to the fans :D
Please make more of this series! I just started getting into cedh and this video has been really helpful!
Hvis video is gold! As a noob to cedh, this helps me understand the combos and what cards are key pieces! Thank you so much and please moar of this!
you can use flash to pull out oracle making it an instant speed game, and it drops the mana specifics a little.
I can't wait for the Combo Video. I love the Gitrog Monster myself
Great informative video for people trying to get into and understand the format. Seems like you guys are doing a great deal to promote the format to people that are scared or confused by all the competitive plays. Btw with stifle and trickbind(or nimble obstructionist) you could also counter the wgd leaves the battlefield trigger so as to leave the permanents exiled. I really like nimble obstructionist because it’s almost like trickbind in the sense it’s really difficult to counter as it’s an ability not a cast but it also basically replaces itself for the extra mana.
Hyrax Tower Scout is a new Kiki Jiki/Spliter Twin target. My Grumgully deck has it and it always catches my opponents by surprise.
Ooo good one
I really enjoyed the content. Great explanations of the different combos. That being said, the phrase "that being said" is used a lot. Might be worth hitting that with a counterspell in the editing process. :)
Thanks for this video, super useful ❤️ I was very wary about the DC /TO combo, but I think I will use it now ❤️
Commander spellbook is amazing and so are you (both for your videos and letting me know it exists)! :)
I'd love to see some tier 2 or 3 combos in a future video. Anything spicy or off the beaten path would be fun to learn and try
Super informative, nicely edited! Awesome video
really nice, I liked the part about the interactions. can you also do this for stuff like adnas/Angels grace and dramatic/scepter? Keep going on!
Notion Thief will backfire against card-drawing commanders unless the Thief's controller has other answers available, as the Food Chain player can simply keep casting the commander until the Notion Thief player gets decked out.
I would love to see both of those new videos you mentioned at the end. I do have a personal request, discussing how to recover in a combo deck if your combo pieces are permanently removed, such as if I was playing Elsha Top, and my Sensei’s Divining Top gets exiled somehow, how could I recover?
These were great. Keen for more definitely. Specifically I'd be in to see Krarkashima lines gone over.
This video just taught me sooooo much, I appreciate it!
AWESOME video! Got me to sub. Love the educational content.
I want a part 2,3,4,5 just give me some good content like this
Great breakdown! One thing I'll mention is that you can have creatures before food chain. It is an enchantment but the way you phrased it makes it sound like you need the chain first. You don't...
Stifle and Trickbind actually stop the WorldGorger combo as well. The trigger for Worldgorger leaving is also stifleable, which will leave them with nothing coming back and a Worldgorger in their graveyard.
Honestly, for the utility that Stifle and Trickbind have, it's kind of surprising how rarely I see them in games.
Would love to see the commander specific episode you mentioned in the beginning of the video, I’d love your breakdown for it
A card that always messes up my Flash Hulk deck, Rest In Peace. My friend plays a very competitive Zur edh deck, and rest in peace completely negates the death/search effect of Hulk.
Instant speed board wipes / fogs also deter any combo that win from combat damage like Kiki Jiki.
Trick bind would be better used on the leaves play trigger of the worldgorger dragon. Works just like a removal spell.
Such a good idea for a video! Thanks dudes.
For the WGD combo I like to use lands as finishers. Sunscorched Desert to ping an opponent everytime it enters the battlefield or if you have a Silence type effect/tapped out opponents and an Eldrazi Titan in deck, Geier Reach Sanitarium to mill your opponents
Meddling Mage effects and Sanctum Prelate also stop a good number of these if you know what to name based on their commander. Nice video, very helpful to newer cedh players.
Not going to lie, I think my favorite part is the worldgorger counters. They try to play their combo and you basically exile their board. Pretty sure instant scooping and some laughs occur. I know if this happened in my playgroup everyone would be wide eyed and laughing
Nice video. Id like to see what Underworld Breach combos are win cons
2:06 Thassa's Oracle allows the _MOST_ amount of interaction since it doesn't only fall prey to the usual counterspells but also to stifle effects, which neither of the other allow. Neither does it work when ETB disablers are present. It also straight up loses to any unsummon or removal type effect.
It's not better because it allows the least amount of interaction. It's better because you don't have to draw a card.
Would that really work though? Say they choose to name a card that's not in their deck (Mountain in UB for example):
* their library gets milled
* you bounce Thassa's Oracle
* the ETB would resolve for X = 0, which is still greater than or **equal** to the number of cards in the library (0)
* they win the game still
I could be wrong about it, but that's what computer logic tells me
@@AbyssArray Pardon, you are correct. A recent ruling confirmed this.
It’s hard to believe how much hype Thassa’s Oracle is getting, it just came out!
Its what happens when unbalanced cards get printed
Really hoping for the next in this series!
A mono green commander that works with food chain is Titania. You also need command beacon. How it works is you sacrifice Titania to Food Chain, then bring her back to your hand with Command Beacon. You can then cast her with the mana floating like normal. When she enters the battle field you bring back Command Beacon from the graveyard and then do the steps all over again. It's not as good as some of the others that use other colours but it does work by itself. You either make all of the 5/3 elementals with some kind of haste enabler like Crossroads or Akroma's Memorial or you use the floating mana for multi-kick creatures like Wolf Brier Elemental or even 'just' cast big creatures like the eldrazis.
Who wouldn't want to be topped by Kiki-Jiki
Fantastic video! Thank you very much!
Just found another one last night when playing. Kykar, Wind's Fury + Sensei's Diving Top + Mystic Forge/Elsha.
Short answer: counterspells, stax pieces, and the occasional hate-bear that stops etbs
Mono colored win cons would be cool.
Maybe Worldgorger Dragon copy effect in red?
Need an updated version of this
If you have any utility lands that cam be abused because of them coming into play untapped also works well with the Worldgorger combo.
Shivan Gorge and Stensia Bloodhall are lands that gives you repeatable damage once you have the combo going.
Graveyard replacement effects also stop Flash Hulk (Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, & Planar Void)- also, Hushbringer does stop Splinter Twin + Goblin Sharpshooter lines, since the untap trigger is turned off due to it being a "dies" trigger
@24:47 minor caveat I would say is that with base situation goblin A with twin, and B and C tokens, whichever sharpshooter you tap, tap it targetting itself. Note SS says target creature or player. Why this matters is you can stack infinite untaps on the other token, with an untapped sharpshooter. Thus if someone attempts to interfere, you can just as easily go off in response. It shouldn't get to this state, but you never know in edh if something thinks they're gonna "get ya"
Hi there I just wanted you to know that “time stop” it’s a great way to stop combos too.
Titania Protector of Argoth+ food chain+ command beacon for mono green food chain deck. I know it isn’t super cedh but it’s very strong. It’s my main deck! Lol would be cool to see other opinions on it!
For consultation I like putting cards in the deck in response to the etb but after they exile the deck. Like memory's Journey.
I would love to see The Gitrog Monster combo lines explained. No one at my LGS plays him and I have always been confused as to how the deck wins.
Seems like stifle effects are really good right now, especially with the upside of stifling thassa's Oracle to just kill them. The problem I think, is that flash hulk can happen at basically any time, as well as having veil of summer and silence, which makes me lean towards torpor orb and tocatli honor guard effects
The problem with trickbind and stifle if you aren’t using them against the hulk trigger you’ll get blown out if they know you are on that tech and pile around it
Another combo with worldgorger dragon that doesnt require infinite mana is with altar of the brood or if kroxa is already in play
Also Gary, drain everybody and gain life too
You can do it turn 2 if your first land is the desert land that pings for 1 damage
Sunscorched desert, valakut molten pinnacle, shivan gorge are good ones that takes land slots and can be included in any deck that contains red.
Worldgorger dragon combo- make sure you are using something like kroxa as your commander , if you are using kroxa you have a source to dump all your mana into
Thank you for breaking down the combos, they were explained very well. But I couldn't help thinking i wish there were lesser known answers discussed for each color instead of just bringing up counterspells repeatedly (and a smattering of hatebears.) This just makes me think i should play blue or just expect to lose the game. For example, I noticed the humble Lightning Bolt kills many of those creature combo pieces, so maybe while its underpowered in general, it seems effective given this kind of meta.
Bolt is useful (cEDH usually prefers swords to plowshares to be less conditional on toughness), but some things don't get stopped.
Thassa's Oracle is a triggered ability so the creature being dead doesn't stop it since the wording is "less than or equal to your devotion to blue" this means that empty library and empty board is still a win. Many of the combos can go overtop your interaction by continuing in response to removal and letting your spell fizzle if it isn't in the same specific windows.
The other issue is most of the decks using these combos do just play blue so they will try to answer your responses. Flash usually happens overtop of someone's Necromancy or Ad Nauseum or other Flash, or in response to the triggers from someone else's win attempt once everyone tapped out trying to stop it.
@@TheShmyt StP is hands down a better 1cmc removal, I'm just trying to figure out what fills that slot in Gruul. Pyroblast? I feel like I'm just in the corner of a room filled with people yelling "In response I...!" as I clutch my timmy cards and mumble "Nonblue decks are fun too"
@@jameslabbe4119 pyro and reb are pretty decent, there's also guttural response, but the best Gruul one I've seen for fighting on the stack is Vexing Shusher. It costs you no cards while blue has to keep throwing them out, only costs you one mana per counter spell you make useless and you can respond to any spell with it to back up someone else stopping a win.
Worldgorger can also win immediately without a mana sink, there’s Valakut and a Desert that can do direct damage with just re entering, there’s also impact tremors type effects; so if you have something of that already on the battlefield there’s no need to use something like that
as this video was more than a year ago...there are now two mono green commanders that works well with Food Chain and those are:
Thrasta, Tempest's Roar
Aeve, Progenitor Ooze
Don't notion thief an enemy who has food chain combo with uro unless you have a way to stop them from making you draw your entire library, notion thief is not a may ability
If you play flash hulk you can add grand abolisher to fetch with hulk. Makes it so that your opponents can't react after hulks death tigger have been resolved. just remember to add dread return so you can reanimate thassa's oracle after you mill your library
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Nice video !
And yes please! more vids !
I play Crystal shard + emrakul the promised end as a win condition in my Sen Triplets deck which I recently mentioned in a video. But it's in german
I don't even play commander but I learned so much
Priority question: Opp casts Thassa's Oracle. It ETB's. In response to the trigger, they cast DC and exile their library. Now, I have Angel's Grace in hand. I could just cast it in response to the DC, but I'm just curious, could I let the DC resolve and THEN cast AG with Oracle's ETB still on the stack? In other words, after DC resolves, does priority pass around again before the Oracle trigger resolves?
hushwing prevents triggered abilities from creatures dying, not leaving the battlefield.
Another big category of hate for Flash/Hulk is static graveyard exiling, like Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, Samurai of the Pale Curtain, or Anafenza the Foremost. Since these prevent 'dies' triggers, the Hulk won't fetch anything.
a flash hulk instant reaction could be something like hallowed moonlight. like that's a really good card for whites interaction to this combo
Great video. Has this changed much since the banning of flash? Any new metas?
When you listed tap effects, maybe mentioning Kismet would have been good.
commenting on casually competitive vids until they come back. day one
I am a bit surprised that the flash hulk pile of nomads, illusionist, grand abolisher and hapless researcher didn't come up. While this needs you to be playing both narcameba and dread return along side your lab man it does prevent most options that aren't already on board once the hulk death trigger goes through.
For the Worldgorger combo I like to play Piranha Marsh to drain opponents out of the game
Splinter Twin will also work with Midnight Gaurd as well.
4 years late to this video and now that Flash is banned, the ThOracle is the 'boogieman', so to speak, given the lack of ways to truly STOP the combo entirely.
Two things I feel should have been pointed out about dealing with ThOracle:
1. The only TRUE 'silver bullets' for this combo are Trickbind and Angel's Grace, as they preclude further interaction (counterspells) due to Split Second and effectively kills the ThOracle player as they go to draw a card on their next turn. Any effect which draws TARGET player at least one card works as well, however the number of playable cards that achieve this suffer from point 2.
2. Red and Green have no effective way to stop ThOracle. If your deck does not exist in one of the Esper colors, you have *very* few ways to halt the combo. Specifically Red has a *single* counterspell and Green has one or two ways to shuffle cards back into library (assuming there are any at this point in the game); even White needs to be running Angel's Grace/Silence or one of the 'no ETB pieces. Blue has a number of counterspells capable of stopping either spell OR the trigger while Black has a number of options to force another player to draw at instant speed. If you think you might run into this combo, you have to prepare by running some very specific cards while making sure that you can FIND those cards when needed, making it a very powerful combo overall with few actual interaction points.
Rakdos charm. Play it for graveyard hate, and accidently hate on the kiki combo at the same time.
My flash hulk combo goes like this:
karmic guide, visera seer, search again for academy rector, phantasmal image, search again, (if it's not my turn a creature that sacrifices itself to.counter an instant unless the controller pays 1, + reveillark, then sac the angel.and the clone, then reveillark, reveillark triggers, return the angel and the clone, the angel brings back the hulk, the clone enters as a copy of the academy rector, then sac that copy of the rector, which gets exiled and I search for a leyline of anticipation to the battlefield, then sac the hulk and seach again), you search another creature that can counter an instant unless you pay 1 + sidisi. You exploit the original academy rector with sidisi, and bring an omniscience the battlefield and Enter the infinite to hand. Then you Cast Phage the Untouchable (you can also flash shimmer myr to flash vedalken orrery at this point) and then fractured identity to give each player a phage and they lose :D
That is a great combo, I love it
This is sick and Twisted.........
I love it
people never expect to lose this way in CEDH ahhaha
More of these vids please
Titania + Command Beacon + Food Chain allows for infinite elementals
I really like this series so far. Isochron scepter /dramatic reversal ? Any rings of brightheart combo ?
Stay tuned for part two!
Honestly I think the best support color for food chain is red just because squee is so much better then the other two options just because he can be cast from the graveyard incase he gets milled/discarded/countered
I would argue blue since it has effects that let you exile things from your deck to tutor up your CFE creature and grants more access to conbo protection with counterspells
I'm surprised that exile effects for hulk wasn't mentioned. I've messed some combos up from swords to plowshares or path to exile on a hulk! But the other methods are definitely more common
Most likely, the reason that wasn't mentioned is because it's exceptionally rare to have the opportunity to exile the Hulk with a Swords or similar when dealing with top-tier cEDH Flash Hulk decks. The way Flash works, the Hulk is put onto the battlefield and then dies all during the resolution of Flash. Players do not get priority until the Hulk is in the graveyard with its death trigger on the stack. In the very odd situation of a hard-cast Protean Hulk with no sac outlet, exiling it works, but that's not something that happens very often.
Would love an update to this!
6:02 dont the cards at 5:40 do this since you can stifle thassas after they play consultation or does it not work like that?
I used a praetors grasp to pull WGD out of my opponents deck and just left it in exile :)
Stifle when world gorger leave the battlefield trigger also works to take them out
What if you were to cast the tainted pact/consultation while thassa is on the stack, before she enters the battlefield? That way she still enters and etbs and any targeted removal will resolve, once she enters the bf and resolves her ability first...?
It’s weird but a really funny way to stop Kiki Jiki can be mesmeric orb and something like mandate of peace unless they have something like zulaport cutthroat and a sac outlet
This video is awesome! I really appreciate these videos. The only thing I'm confused about is: is the "worldgorger dragon" just an infinate Mana combo? If so why is it significant enough to talk about specifically? Is it just the easiest infinate Mana combo to assemble or is it just the most prevalent in the formant? Or is there something else about this combo I'm not understanding?
Corey R. WGD Can win without infinite mana, any desert that taps to ping an opponent or an altar of the brood, or say something like kroxa on the board. Anje falkenrath plays this because she can loot and then come back untapped until the player finds something like a comet storm to use the infinite mana for infinite damage.
The best counter to flash hulk was the ban hammer 👌.