MTG Salvation

I love my Prossh, skyraider of kher deck, but as of late, my playgroup has been running things like extract, praetor's grasp, sadistic sacrament and bitter ordeal type cards and relying on just riftsweeper to get food chain back hasn't been cutting it for me. So fellow Prossh players, what do you guys do if food chain is truly out of the question? Just simply attacking with Prossh is what I've been doing and it works sometimes I guess but I want to really have a proper backup wincon if "Plan A" fails.

The point of this thread is to help decide what type of backup wincons to build it toward. I play IRL so I don't want to spend money until I'm happy with the direction its going toward and who better to ask then you guys . At the moment, I'm leaning toward making it a stormy version (ad nauseam into mana vault/mana crypt/sol ring/dark ritual/cabal ritual/etc etc into aetherflux reservoir. The problem I'm finding with a stormy build is I really want silence and grand abolisher if I'm going to do such things, but you know, Jund. This leads me to the other direction I'm considering taking it; Doing a really controlley backup wincon ala tainted strike, temur battle rage, psychotic fury and purphoros, god of the forge type shenanigans.

I guess I'm a little lost whether I should make it a storm backup or Voltron-control backup. What are your thoughts on this? Any alternate ideas even? Maybe there's a third option I'm not taking into consideration enough? Thanks in advance for any advice

If you are relying on food chain to win games yoj ahould change decks. It is like this one guy played Mike trike. You exile trike and his deck can no longer win.

I do rely on food chain and it does win many, many games, but for games where my opponent exiles it fully, I'd like to have a streamlined "Plan B", rather than just relying on general goodstuff and Prossh doing Prossh things. I still win many games when its gone, I'm just asking for advice on which direction to take the deck when thats the case. But yeah over reliance on a single card is just dumb without silence or grand abolisher like I said, hence me asking for advice.

Your main gameplan still technically works, though. Typically, you'd drop something like Blasting Station, Goblin Bombardment, Impact Tremors, or Purphoros, God of the Forge and then go infinite with Prossh and Food Chain.

When Prossh was originally spoiled, I planned a jund token deck that did basically the same thing, but I didn't remember Food Chain was a card. Just play tokens. Shared Animosity, Craterhoof Behemoth, In the Web of War, and similar for token based wins, your typical combo pieces, and typical token staples like Doubling Season and Parallel Lives.

Or I think you can still combo with a combination of Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar.

Earthcraft is probably the closest you can get to Food Chain in a combo Prossh deck; you don't net mana as fast as Food Chain so the number of times you can loop Prossh is limited by how many other mana sources you have available, but you are +1 each time you cast Prossh. You also need another separate (and preferably free) sac outlet in addition to Purphoros, God of the Forge or whatever your damage source of choice is going to be (like going with Goblin Bombardment for damage + sac outlet in one card). To make things go infinite, that sac outlet can be Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar (which Darkshrine accurately points out can also combo together with Prossh to get infinite Purph triggers). If you run all three, the combination of two of any of them go infinite and each one by itself can do a ton of damage without necessarily going infinite but it might be close enough.

Full disclosure: Some Prossh players eschew Earthcraft because it requires untapping basic lands so you need a basic Forest, Swamp and Mountain in play to go off (which can be difficult for some 3-color manabases).

The other options is to just go Kobold Smash with Garruk Wildspeaker, Craterhoof Behemoth, or if you are looking for the cheapest but narrowest option you can go with Beastmaster's Ascension.

I am loving this idea of ashnod's altar, phyrexian altar and earthcraft (combination of any of these 2 will suffice to make infinite etb and mana, just need an outlet really, which prossh has plenty of). Earthcraft's drawback of only being able to untap basic lands will definitely hurt, but between nature's lore, bloodstained mire, verdant catacombs, wooded foothills, crop rotation (if its the winning turn) and a few other goodies I'm sure I'll be able to prioritize a basic land when needed. I run tainted pact so my basic land count is only 6 (regular and snow-covered).

If you go earthcraft, pick up wild growth and utopia sprawl. Without earthcrath they are just haste elves that are slightly harder to kill (if they kill the land, then they wont be able to kill some of your other lands and it is generally ok). With earthcraft they provide that nice infinty you are looking for.

How competitive is your meta? I only ask because attacking with a huge Prossh is a solid Plan B. Between that and Vicious Shadows, I’ve lost plenty of games to Prossh.

When i decided to cut Food Chain and refrain from going infinite i basically had to come up with a fresh Plan A aka your Plan B.

Swinging for commander damage turned out to be very effective, especially if get to go for it instant speed.
Berserk, Fatal Frenzy, Kessig Wolf Run, Psychotic Fury, Rush of Blood, Temur Battle Rage and Uncaged Fury all work stellar with this. At least from my experience better than Xenagos, God of Revels which telegraphs your plan and capability.

Other than that i've been utilizing Aetherworks Marvel, Beastmaster Ascension, Burn at the Stake, Chandra's Ignition, Glistening Oil, Phyresis, Rite of Consumption, Tainted Strike the usual Purphoros, God of the Forge and Doubling Season effects as well as several haste enablers.

Overall i'd say the biggest advantage of commander damage things is you can opt for full redundancy, so exile effects won't hurt you too much.

Stax is always an option with Prossh. That's how I run mine. Are you running Bitter Ordeal? If not, you should.


Earthcraft & Squirrel Nest yourself a win. If your mana base supports it. Ruination is nice too depending on meta.


Stax: Possessed Portal, Descent into Madness, Smokestacks, Contamination.

Mana Web is nice against control if you're having an issue there as well. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth likes it.

Mana Echoes + Earthcraft seems like it would do the job?

I mean, the Prossh precon came with an infinite combo that didn't require Food Chain. Primal Vigor + Tooth and Claw + 2 creatures = infinite 3/1 creatures dying and ETBing. Stalking Vengeance turned that into infinite damage. That's with zero modifications to the precon.

And you don't need to go infinite to win, either. Prossh has omnombreathing, and makes his own token army. Smack people for commander damage. Or just throw kobolds at people with Goblin Bombardment, or burn them to death with Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge.

One of my favorite ways to kill people in my Prossh deck (although it only kills one person) is Burn at the Stake, simply because the image of a bunch of kobolds dancing around a planeswalker as they burn him alive is hilarious to me. It only takes 14 creatures to kill someone at 40 life, and usually by the time you've got a bunch of creatures and can cast BatS, somebody is much lower than 40.