Food and Fellowship precon upgrade guide

Eleven cards in the box care about the life you gain, and only one of them takes any from an opponent without a condition.

Frodo wants 3 life gained before he attacks. Sam makes a Food at the beginning of each of your combats and takes {1} off every Food ability, so one mana a turn gets there, and 14 other cards can make a Food as well. The deck is very good at gaining life. What it does with the life is the problem. Eleven cards pay out when you gain it: The Gaffer draws, Gwaihir makes a 3/3 flying Bird, Treebeard grows a Halfling or Treefolk, Dawn of Hope and Well of Lost Dreams draw. Only Sanguine Bond turns the life into an opponent's loss with no setup, at {3}{B}{B}. Gollum, Obsessed Stalker does it only to players he has already dealt combat damage to.

The box also has the thinnest black in the deck, 22 sources against 26 white and 29 green, and Sanguine Bond is the card that asks for two. So the fix is in three parts. Cheaper ways to cash life in (Vito, Archangel of Thune and Cruel Celebrant), one removal spell that leaves a Food behind, and two lands that move the mana toward black. Six swaps, listed under what goes out.

What are the best Food and Fellowship upgrades?

In buying order. Six cards, $44.75 at the cheapest released printing of each (that's a promo for one, and a masterpiece card for another).

1. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose ($9.15). {2}{B}. Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much. That's Sanguine Bond for two fewer mana and one fewer black pip, and a Food eaten with Sam out gains 3 and costs an opponent 3 for a single mana. Its second ability, {3}{B}{B}, gives your creatures lifelink for the turn, and every lifelink creature that connects is its own gain, so late in the game it triggers itself.
2. Archangel of Thune ($18.10). {3}{W}{W}, flying and lifelink, and whenever you gain life it puts a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Treebeard can only feed a Halfling or Treefolk. This one feeds every creature you control, tokens included, and it's the most expensive card on the list by $9. White double pips are the cost: with 25 white sources you have two by turn five about 82 percent of the time.
3. Cruel Celebrant ($0.76). {W}{B}. Whenever it or another creature or planeswalker you control dies, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1. The gain is a life-gain event, so it triggers Vito, Sanguine Bond and Archangel too. It also pays when Fumigate, Toxic Deluge or Dusk // Dawn clear your own board, because it triggers for each creature that dies with it.
4. Bake into a Pie ($0.18). {2}{B}{B} instant, destroy target creature, create a Food. It replaces Fell the Mighty and leaves 3 life behind it. The double black is the catch, because it's a second card in the deck that wants it.
5. Godless Shrine ($8.44) and Overgrown Tomb ($8.12). Two shocklands in place of Scattered Groves and Graypelt Refuge, both of which made only green and white. They're where the black comes from.

Cards I looked at and left out. Marauding Blight-Priest ($0.19) makes each opponent lose 1 whenever you gain life, whatever the amount, so it's a smaller Vito. If you want a fourth drain card, it's the one to buy. Heliod, Sun-Crowned costs $18.98 at its cheapest printing and puts one counter on one creature or enchantment per gain, which is less than Archangel for the same price. Vault of the Archangel ($1.02) makes only colourless mana in a three-colour deck. None of those three is a Game Changer, and neither is any card on the buying list.

Turning life gained into life lost

The arithmetic is short. A Food costs {2} to eat, and with Sam in play that's {1}. Eating it gains 3. Sanguine Bond turns those 3 into 3 lost by a target opponent. Add Vito and you have two triggers off the same gain, each with its own target, so the same {1} takes 6 across the table. Add Archangel and each of your creatures also gets a +1/+1 counter.

Two rulings shape how you'd use it. Life gained "for each" of something is one event, so Fumigate gains you a pile of life and triggers Vito once. A lifelink creature is the opposite: each one that deals combat damage is its own gain, so five lifelinkers connecting is five triggers. That's what Vito's second ability is for.

Gollum is the odd one. Each opponent he has dealt combat damage to loses life equal to everything you gained that turn, at your end step, and it counts the gain without subtracting life you lost. He has skulk, so he's hard to block, but the payoff only reaches players he has already hit. I'd treat him as a bonus.

Frodo's trigger, one mana a turn

Frodo says "if you gained 3 or more life this turn" on attack, and the check happens as attackers are declared. If you haven't gained it by then, the ability never triggers at all. Sam's Food appears at the beginning of combat, so the sequence is: Sam's trigger resolves, you pay {1} and sacrifice the Food, you gain 3, and then Frodo attacks. Frodo has vigilance, so he stays untapped to block.

The Ring tempts you once however much you gained. Each temptation makes you choose a creature, and Frodo only draws if he is your Ring-bearer and the Ring has tempted you at least twice. Choose him every time. The first attack tempts, and from the second, each Frodo attack draws a card, as long as you've gained 3 life that turn. Frodo's text doesn't care if you also lost life, so paying 2 life for a shockland earlier in the turn doesn't undo the gain.

What goes out, and a five-drop that stays

Great Oak Guardian costs {5}{G}, has flash and reach, and gives a player's creatures +2/+2 and untaps them when it enters. It's a combat trick on a six-mana body. Woodfall Primus costs eight and destroys a noncreature permanent when it enters and again if persist brings it back with a -1/-1 counter. That's strong, but it's the only eight-drop in the deck, and Anguished Unmaking exiles any nonland permanent for three mana. Fell the Mighty destroys every creature with power greater than a target creature's, so it needs a small target and it kills the big creatures Archangel and Treebeard build. Dusk // Dawn does the same job at a fixed power of 3, and its second half gets your small creatures back from the graveyard.

Hithlain Rope fetches a tapped basic for {1} or draws a card for {2}, and each time the player on your right takes control of it. Every use hands an opponent a land fetch or a card draw of their own. Then the two green-white lands, Scattered Groves and Graypelt Refuge, for the shocklands.

Call for Unity stays, and it's the card I'd have expected to cut. It costs {3}{W}{W}, and its revolt trigger needs a permanent you controlled to have left the battlefield this turn. Tokens count, and so does a sacrifice to a cost. Eating a Food is that, and Sam hands you one every combat. Each counter makes every creature you control bigger. Sanguine Bond stays for being the one unconditional drain. Rosie Cotton puts a counter on another creature whenever you create a token, and a Food is a token. Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit makes a Halfling for each Food in chapter III, and Field-Tested Frying Pan makes a Food and a Halfling the moment it enters. Generous Ent and Orchard Strider cost six but cycle for {1} and {1}{G}, so early on they're lands.

Black is the short colour

The box has 38 lands, 16 of them basic, and five enter tapped no matter what: Scattered Groves, Graypelt Refuge, Path of Ancestry, Sandsteppe Citadel and Scoured Barrens. Eight more are conditional. After the swaps it's three always tapped and ten conditional, because a shockland enters tapped only if you don't pay 2 life.

Colour sources move like this. Black goes from 22 to 24, white from 26 to 25 and green from 29 to 28. A black one-pip spell by turn two on the play goes from 87.7 percent to 90.1, and the number of black spells it covers rises from 15 to 18 with Vito, Celebrant and Bake into a Pie. White drops to 91.2 percent for one pip and 82.4 for the two that Archangel, Call for Unity, Dusk // Dawn and Fumigate all ask for. Green slips to 93.8 for one pip, and the cards that need two green fall from three to two with Woodfall Primus gone.

The double black is not fixed. Bake into a Pie and Sanguine Bond both want it, and with 24 sources you have two black by turn four about 75 percent of the time, against the 90 the calculator treats as reliable. Bake is an instant, so you can hold it until the mana is there. If that bothers you, Orzhov Signet at $0.33 makes {W}{B} for {1} and is a source of both.

Both shocklands have basic land types. That turns on Isolated Chapel, Woodland Cemetery and Sunpetal Grove, and they count as cards to reveal for Fortified Village, Necroblossom Snarl and Shineshadow Snarl. Scattered Groves had types too, so nothing is lost on that side. Graypelt Refuge gained 1 life as it entered, and Scoured Barrens still does. A point of life on a land drop never reaches Frodo's 3 alone, so I didn't keep a tapped land for it.

Path of Ancestry looks like a cut and stays. It always enters tapped, and what you get for that is any of the three colours plus a scry 1 whenever its mana pays for a Halfling, a Scout or a Peasant, because the check runs against both commanders. Fifteen of the 33 creatures are Halflings, the commanders among them, so the scry comes up often.

Buy the shocklands last. Star Trek reprints both on 13 November 2026.

What the swaps do to the curve

Average mana value falls from 3.28 to 3.17. The eight-drop is gone, six-drops go from four to three, four-drops rise from seven to eight with Bake into a Pie, three-drops from 19 to 20 with Vito, and five-drops stay at seven because Archangel replaces Fell the Mighty. Creatures go from 33 to 34.

The upgraded decklist

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FAQ

Does the Food plan still work if Sam is removed?

Mostly, yes. Fourteen other cards in the 98 can make a Food (Tireless Provisioner can choose a Treasure instead), and a Food's own ability gains 3 life for {2}. What Sam adds is a Food at the beginning of each of your combats and a {1} discount on every Food ability. Without him, Frodo's trigger costs two mana a turn instead of one.

How do I get Frodo's trigger on the turn he attacks?

Gain 3 life before attackers are declared. With Sam out, his Food arrives at the beginning of combat, and {1}, tap, sacrifice gains the 3 right then. Frodo's ability checks life gained this turn when he attacks, so losing life earlier in the turn doesn't matter. The Ring tempts you once however much you gained, and from the second temptation on Frodo draws a card if he is your Ring-bearer, so choose him each time.

Is Sanguine Bond enough to win off life gain?

On its own it's slow. It costs {3}{B}{B}, and with the box's 22 black sources you have two black by turn five about 76 percent of the time. Beside Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose it changes size: each life-gain event triggers both, so one Food eaten for {1} with Sam out takes 3 from one opponent and 3 from another, or 6 from one.

How much does upgrading Food and Fellowship cost?

$44.75 for all six swaps, at the cheapest released printing of each card. Archangel of Thune is $18.10 of that. If you stop after Vito, Cruel Celebrant and Bake into a Pie, you've spent $10.09 and have the drain and the removal, but not the mana fix.

Should I wait for the Star Trek shocklands?

If you can. Star Trek reprints all ten shocklands on 13 November 2026, including Godless Shrine and Overgrown Tomb, so today's prices may move. They're last in the buying order anyway. Orzhov Signet ($0.33) is a stopgap source of black and white at {1}, tapped for both.

Do Frodo and Sam's commander damage add together?

No. The two commanders are tracked separately, so a player has to take 21 from Frodo or 21 from Sam. That's one more reason this list wins by making opponents lose life rather than by attacking with the pair.