Feeding the Wolves and Trolls – Simic Food

Simic Food is one of the archetypes best positioned to take advantage of the card that is potentially the best in all of Throne of Eldraine – Oko, Thief of Crowns. It also has access to a ton of cards that just have power levels off the charts. We've talked a bit before about another Feasting Troll King deck that focused more on the Dredge/Hogaak-like aspect of the card, but this version is more of a hybrid with Simic Ramp elements that lets us play Castle Garenbrig to cast the 6-drop as well as fueling a massive Hydroid Krasis.

Simic Food Ramp Decklist

4 Arboreal Grazer
4 Gilded Goose
4 Once Upon a Time
2 Trail of Crumbs
2 Golden Egg
4 Hydroid Krasis
4 Oko, Thief of Crowns
4 Wicked Wolf
3 Nissa, Who Shakes the World
4 Feasting Troll King
4 Castle Garenbrig
4 Breeding Pool
4 Temple of Mystery
8 Forest (347)
5 Island (335)

Simic Food Ramp (Arena Formatted Decklist)

There are several ways to build your Simic decks these days, since there are so many powerful options, but packing the 1-2 punch of Gilded Goose into Oko is the best way to start. These two cards are both incredibly powerful on their own and even better together. Gilded Goose can get our gameplan started faster and contribute very relevant permanents in the late game, and Oko can do just about everything from controlling your opponent's board to increasing yours. When you are able to drop Oko on turn 2, you are often going to be so far ahead that you can just beat your opponent down with 3/3 creatures before they can really get in the game, and if it does go longer your 3-drop planeswalker has already given you a ton of value one way or another while the rest of your gameplan deploys.

Wicked Wolf deserves to be next in this card discussion, as it has proven to be one of the sleeper best cards in the set. It does a great impression at being a hybrid of Ravenous Chupacabra and Bristling Hydra. Our deck plays a ton of ways to create food, so the wolf is always able to provide key interaction (which Simic decks often lack) against their best creature while being an indestructible and growing threat against removal-based decks. The comparison to Bristling Hydra and the energy mechanic is interesting as well, as the food mechanic similarly leaves behind relevant resources whenever your opponent deals with the initial cards that produce them.

Anyone who's played Standard since Ravnica Allegiance was released knows the power level of Hydroid Krasis. Castle Garenbrig acts as a straight up Sol Ring/Ancient Tomb type land when our plan is to cast large green creatures, so Feasting Troll King fits in perfectly as a blending of the food and ramp strategies. While it could be awkward if our opponent just Teferi bounces or Oko-elks our 6-drop, the food we hoard simply by casting the 6-drop is going to be useful on its own. Against decks that have to rely on actual removal against our large creatures, we are happy to cash in some random food on an enormous win condition.

Trail of Crumbs and Golden Egg are the last little package to round out the food synergies. Both give us easy permanents to use with Wicked Wolf, Oko's +1 ability, etc at no cost. Trail of Crumbs has the highest upside as a card draw engine, though this deck is usually not short on things to do with its mana. However, the entire deck is permanents so it basically lets us cast Sleight of Hand every turn, sometimes multiple times. Golden Egg is not necessarily required, but it does increase our food count in draws where we don't have Oko while also smoothing out our draws in terms of mana and digging to relevant spells.

Once Upon a Time is probably going to make its way into most green decks for the remainder of time in any format that it is legal. In this deck it gives us more access to our nut-draw with turn 1 Gilded Goose, and otherwise we get a choice between a powerful interactive creature or whichever of our late-game creatures we are lacking.

Nissa, Who Shakes the World rounds out the threats in the deck, giving us even more access to hasty 3/3 creature threats. This list is running Arboreal Grazer as its ramp creature of choice due to its ability to fuel a turn 2 Oko, but Paradise Druid and Incubation Druid are still worth considering in these final slots if we want to further embrace the ramp aspect of the deck. Once small interaction worth noting with Nissa is that she makes it quite easy to cash in on a Once Upon a Time that was drawn after the first turn and could otherwise be a bit clunky.

That's the deck! This one is extremely powerful and fun (hmm…we seem to be saying this about a lot of decks from Throne of Eldraine…perhaps this is a good format), so we went ahead and made a video showcasing the deck on Arena!

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Michael Schuller

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