MTG Salvation

On behalf of my friend Steely Dan (username DeathDiamond here on MTGSal), I'm posting a First Sliver Food Chain Decklist and a brief reason as to why cEDH Food Chain decks should switch to The First Sliver as their Commander of choice.

First, the list, which has been copied from ShaperSavant's TappedOut list which can be found here:



One of the biggest questions that seems to pop up in the Discord server is "Why use The First Sliver instead of the new Niv?" This thread is meant to address that question specifically and will be a general comparison of the different Commanders that have helmed 5CC Food Chain decks.

• First and foremost, The First Sliver generates card advantage all by itself, independent of any restrictions (but with a randomized clause due to the Cascade mechanic), outside of the Food Chain combo. This makes it superior to Tazri, who actually does almost nothing by herself besides find a win condition from the deck. It also makes it superior to the new Niv because there is no type of restriction on the type of card that you Cascade into, barring CMC considerations (obviously); The First Sliver will ALWAYS hit a card whereas with Niv-Mizzet Reborn you have to have a certain density of dual colored spells in the deck in order to consistently and always hit a card. This means that, by itself, The First Sliver is better in a vacuum than comparable 5CC Commanders.
• The most important reason that The First Sliver is now the preferred 5CC Food Chain Commander is because you no longer have to run ANY dead cards in order to actually win the game. For Tazri, you needed to run another Ally creature card in your deck that would be able to take advantage of Tazri continuously being cast. More often than not, this meant that you were required to run 3 different Allies in the deck that were entirely worthless outside of the combo line. The same case applies to Niv-Mizzet; there were a certain number of cards that you needed to run in the deck that were not beneficial to the deck's strategy as a whole. The First Sliver can utilize existing, ALREADY GOOD cards in the decklist and convert them into actual win conditions.
To elaborate on this point a bit more, there are 3 cards in the above decklist that you can recycle infinitely via The First Sliver's Cascade trigger: Regrowth, Timetwister, and Noxious Revival. By continuously casting at least these 3 cards you are able to create an infinite looping of every spell in your deck. This means that Extract, which is a tutor effect in this deck because it can find one of the Cast-From-Exile creature cards that are necessary for the Food Chain combo, turns into a win condition because you can cast it an infinite number of times and target each of your opponent's decks from the game. You can generate infinite mana via Lotus Petal that you can use to cast Swan Song as many times as you want and Swan the table to death. You can clear them of all of their permanents via Assassin's Trophy to make sure that your Alfred Hitchcock Flock kills the table. The First Sliver essentially turns valuable utility spells into Win Conditions by being able to recycle them repeatedly. This is THE most important distinction as to why The First Sliver is now The First amongst 5CC Food Chain decks.

• And because the Forbidden tutors are so useful in finding Food Chain, and potentially exiling a Cast-From-Exile creature, they double as win conditions by enabling Laboratory Maniac and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to win the game after a resolved draw trigger. By being able to take advantage of the Forbidden Tutors in this way, there are now 2 dedicated and highly effective Combo lines available to the deck that operate on different mechanics. These slots previously were taken up by the useless chaff that was necessary with Tazri and Niv-Mizzet to actually win the game, so you increase the power of the deck by opening up a totally different and equally powerful combo line. By diversifying the number of winning lines in the deck, your ability to consistently win regardless of the type of pressure/hate you face is massively increased.
• Additionally, by playing The First Sliver as your Commander, you are no longer vulnerable to Humility and Torpor Orb effects. This is very significant when playing in a Stax heavy meta, as there are now only two real weaknesses for the deck. Sphere of Resistance effects and Rule of Law effects are the only effects that shut down our combo lines cold and even then, we can still manually try to go for a Tainted Maniac line and try to win in response to someone casting a spell. By removing these weaknesses from the deck, Food Chain is now a very difficult strategy to effect from a Stax standpoint, increasing its efficacy at a general cEDH table.

So, TL;dr The First Sliver requires no dead cards in order to actually win, has better value as a card by itself, and reduces the weaknesses that previous Food Chain decks were exposed to. So, if you like playing Food Chain as your cEDH deck of choice, you should be playing The First Sliver as your Commander. Because who doesn't like winning with one of the most awesome creature types in all of MTG?

This list looks the same as shapersavant from tapped out decklist. I had this built as Tazri but am switching to the sliver. Way faster.

It is Shaper's list from TappedOut, hands down. I don't like Food Chain strategies (personally), so I don't really know the specifics/particulars of how to play this list. I mostly did this thread as a favor to my friend, since he wanted a quick way to answer the same questions on Discord with a link.

Food chain works and is fast. It’s my go to win deck.

I wholeheartedly agree, it's just not a strategy that gets me particularly excited to play a game personally.

It's really consistent and it attacks a game from two different angles with its strategy, which makes it an inherently powerful deck.

A little late, though I am only now deciding to get back into cEDH, but how different does the deck function without Timetwister? It is literally the only expensive card that doesn't have a decent alternative (and is out of my price range). Would it be better to go with other generals in that case or to not even play 5cFC? Thanks!