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New Member
you probably wanna run more than 4 mana guys, and less than 3 solemns, solemn is great, don't get me wrong, but it feels like he doesn't do enough most of the time. Arc Trail seems like its where you wanna be right now, while Dismember seems like it is not. It could be in the side board for infect if you would like though. I would replace it with more arctrails, or galvanic blasts or something. And wolf run is a different monster than valukut, not only are you afraid of their late game, you are afraid of them all the time since Ancient Grudge is a card. I personally run blue in my pods so I can board out pods and board in counterspells and just play control. perilous myrs should not be your plan for mirran crusaders cause you can just zap them, but if you feel you need them for phyrexian ones, thats a different story. also, I don't really see a side board plan for aggroe, I see hollowhenge, and thats actually not very good in my past experience with pod. if you run white, not only does timely come out faster, it also gains you more life. What are you having in mind with the Naturalize but not Ancient Grudge? The only playable enchantments I can think of off the top of my head are Angelic Destiny, and Tempered Steel. One you just just burn the target unless its geist, and the other you could just throw in more ancient grudges.
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Top-decker
 Originally Posted by The2ndSamurai
you probably wanna run more than 4 mana guys, and less than 3 solemns, solemn is great, don't get me wrong, but it feels like he doesn't do enough most of the time. Arc Trail seems like its where you wanna be right now, while Dismember seems like it is not. It could be in the side board for infect if you would like though. I would replace it with more arctrails, or galvanic blasts or something. And wolf run is a different monster than valukut, not only are you afraid of their late game, you are afraid of them all the time since Ancient Grudge is a card. I personally run blue in my pods so I can board out pods and board in counterspells and just play control. perilous myrs should not be your plan for mirran crusaders cause you can just zap them, but if you feel you need them for phyrexian ones, thats a different story. also, I don't really see a side board plan for aggroe, I see hollowhenge, and thats actually not very good in my past experience with pod. if you run white, not only does timely come out faster, it also gains you more life. What are you having in mind with the Naturalize but not Ancient Grudge? The only playable enchantments I can think of off the top of my head are Angelic Destiny, and Tempered Steel. One you just just burn the target unless its geist, and the other you could just throw in more ancient grudges.
I ran this at FNM to an abysmal 2-3 finish. It was very much a rock-paper-scissors sort of night. Midrange Pod beat Aggro, loses to Control.
Round 1 was against Haunted Humans, 2-0.
I just really decimated this match-up. He dealt 3 damage to me in both games and I just went over the top with a quick Sun Titan into Elesh Norn both games.
Round 2 was against UR Delver, 2-1.
Game one I decimated as above, he bluffed countermagic but never had any at the right time. A flipped Delver plus Stormblood Berserker had me on the ropes, but again Elesh Norn won the day. Game two he trounced me with Invisible Stalkers but the main issue was I somehow couldn't hit G mana for the life of me. Game three he had Delvers and Stalkers out but yet again Elesh Norn trumped anything he could do.
Rounds 3-5 were against Solar Flare, 1-2.
I am combining these all in one entry as each one played the same way. Game one I generally won because they weren't expecting a Birthing Pod deck and I snuck in some silly Pod activations early. Then they sideboarded in a ton of hate and I folded. I should have won at least one of those other games, if not two but I had some pretty bad misplays. Snapcaster Mage and Phantasmal Image are my banes. Snapcasting for a Doom Blade or Day of Judgment is just insane. Phantasmal Image meant that my best plays were usually left in my hand: I play Thrun they cast Image, I play Urabrask they cast Unburial Rites, I stare at Elesh Norn in my hand while the Image and Rites sit annoyingly in their graveyard.
I definitely need some graveyard hate to deal with this match-up. Playing it three times in the row was just a constant reminder of that.
As for the question about Naturalize vs Ancient Grudge. Essentially it is for Tempered Steel and Oblivion Ring. Additionally it can deal with Stony Silence should anyone sideboard that against me.
Dismember was boarded out in every match-up, so I will probably end up dropping that or just moving it to the sideboard permanently. Arc Trail was definitely a better play in each of my matches.
Solemn was primarily there to keep the chain moving from 3-5. My other 4 drops were Phyrexian Metamorph and Hero of Oxid Ridge. You can't always play the Metamorph well and Hero isn't something I liked to Pod away. Solemn was best for turning my Blade Splicer into an Archon of Justice and eventually a Titan. I tried only 2 Solemns but decided that that was too few Pod targets. Remember that with Sun Titan on the board you get a lot of 3-drops back to Pod again.
Last edited by jettjj; 01-09-2012 at 11:12 AM.
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New Member
don't bother yourself with graveyard hate. What I do with controlish matchups like solar flare is one thing. Recognize that you are the beatdown, and side accordingly. Bring in thruns, masticores, mimic vats, something that they can't deal with effectively. People who bother themselves with spellbombs basically get a Purify the Grave that cantrips and doesn't flashback. Solar flare is really not that scary, another angle you can attack from is mana denial since their mana base is kinda sketchy anyways, you can get your slimes and such.
Do you really have anything against letting Tempered Steel keep their tempered steels? You could klll 2 creatures, or one anthem. And while I agree that alot of the time you do in fact wanna hit that enchantment, it seems like a more narrow approach to sideboarding. I know Ancient Grudge is a more narrow card by itself, but it helps destroy more matchups. idk, if you feel more comfortable thats fine, but I've noticed I feel powerfull with a grudge in my hand, and not so much with Naturalize. And same with being on the other side of the card. Every time I get naturalized, I'm just like atleast it wasn't an Ancient Grudge.
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Top-decker
Haven't posted here in a while because I started playing other archetypes; Innistrad has been a blast and there aren't many decks that I absolutely hate playing other than Tempered Steel and mono-red, but after a little hiatus I've come back to ol' Birthing Pod and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. Here's what I've been playing lately with a positive match win percentage so far, but we are really only talking about 10 or so matches so take it with a grain of salt(  ).
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Avacyn's Pilgrim
3 Viridian Emissary
2 Phantasmal Image
1 Spellskite
4 Blade Splicer
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Skaab Ruinator
2 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Acidic Slime
1 Archon of Justice
1 Razor Hippogriff
1 Geist-Honored Monk
1 Sun Titan
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
4 Birthing Pod
2 Venser, the Sojourner
1 Garruk Relentless
8 Forest
4 Sunpetal Grove
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Island
2 Plains
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Elixir of Immortality
SB: 1 Trinket Mage
SB: 2 Sylvok Replica
SB: 1 Viridian Corrupter
SB: 1 Fiend Hunter
SB: 1 Tree of Redemption
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
SB: 1 Acidic Slime
SB: 1 Geist-Honored Monk
SB: 1 Brutalizer Exarch
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless
Easily, Skaab Ruinator is the least podded thing; if a pod has resolved and I'm podding a 2-cmc creature, I'm usually podding into a Blade Splicer or Fiend Hunter; Blade Splicer especially because I'm looking forward to podding that away and so forth. I have won games on the back of Skaab though so it hasn't been cut yet. Out of the sideboard Elixir of Immortality could easily be cut for either another spellbomb or another one-of creature. I've kept it in mostly for my love of endless podding. I tell myself elixir would be great for RDW, but really?
Naturalizes once in the sideboard for Stony Silence and Torpor Orb hate have come out. You will almost never see these cards anymore, so in have come more creature based solutions(Corrupter and Sylvok Replica).
Aggro has been especially prevalent in my own meta and I've decided to add 3 6-drops to further my endgames especially w/o pod, so Sunblast Angel has been a real winner, with a replacement Brutalizer Exarch in the sb if your opponent is light on creature threats.
Garruk is pretty nice; if he flips you're almost guaranteed either a win in a few turns when he ultimates or nice solution to the current board state via tutoring.
Geist-Honored Monk is a new addition as well. Upping the 5-cmc creatures to 4 total. This deck is a little high on 5 cmc cards with Venser, the Sojourner also occupying that space, but with all the mana dorks, emissaries, and sad robots higher cmc's aren't too hard to pay for. Monk has been pretty potent with Venser as well.
There are some pretty over-the-top plays with this many one-ofs and plenty of ways to outplay an opponent. We don't run Ponder due to 1. Not enough shuffle effects (w/o pod that is, and if you have a pod you don't really want to be pondering) and 2. Not enough blue sources. Instead, we rely on a good curve, good mana, and a diverse threat-base to hopefully give us a good game even without Birthing Pod.
Strategically, you may notice that there are less one-ofs at lower cmcs when we expect not to have a Birthing Pod yet. At higher cmcs one-ofs become much more prevalent as the likelihood for tutoring has increased. I'm pretty certain that Blade Splicer is about the best thing to be doing on turn 2 (even better than pod, save that for turn 3 unless the threat of a counter is too strong) in standard. We run 4 unapologetic-ally, also realizing that Venser only needs to bounce a Splicer 1 or 2 times before he threatens to win outright with unblockable (also, see Geist-Honored Monk). Mana-wise we want G turn 1, WW turn 2-3 (for Fiend Hunter if you drew it, WW on turn 4-5-6 is much easier if you have any of the other WW creatures) if at all possible, and only need UU for Skaab Ruinator. We have two each of plains/island in case Viridian Emissary/Solemn Simulacrum need to tutor these for us.
If you're not decided on a list, try this! If you've been playing Birthing Pod for a while, please comment with suggestions/improvements.
Last edited by NaClMolecule; 01-10-2012 at 04:16 AM.
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Top-decker
Originally Posted by The2ndSamurai
don't bother yourself with graveyard hate. What I do with controlish matchups like solar flare is one thing. Recognize that you are the beatdown, and side accordingly. Bring in thruns, masticores, mimic vats, something that they can't deal with effectively. People who bother themselves with spellbombs basically get a Purify the Grave that cantrips and doesn't flashback. Solar flare is really not that scary, another angle you can attack from is mana denial since their mana base is kinda sketchy anyways, you can get your slimes and such.
Do you really have anything against letting Tempered Steel keep their tempered steels? You could klll 2 creatures, or one anthem. And while I agree that alot of the time you do in fact wanna hit that enchantment, it seems like a more narrow approach to sideboarding. I know Ancient Grudge is a more narrow card by itself, but it helps destroy more matchups. idk, if you feel more comfortable thats fine, but I've noticed I feel powerfull with a grudge in my hand, and not so much with Naturalize. And same with being on the other side of the card. Every time I get naturalized, I'm just like atleast it wasn't an Ancient Grudge.
I don't know about the Tempered Steel match... I haven't played against it since Scars standard. While Tempered whatevers are nasty, I would think the biggest issue would be a buffed Vault Skirge (never had the best game against flyers). So you are probably right that killing the Skirge with Ancient Grudge is generally more advantageous than killing the TS and leaving the Skirge. I remember losing to 4/6 Ornithopters more than once, so the Naturalize is probably based off that.
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New Member
@jettji -don't think of it as either killing Vault Skirge or Tempered Steel, but rather two skirges. If you try out the grudge, you probably won't look back.
@nacMolecule-
just some notes, Viridian Corrupter doesn't hit Torpor Orb.
If aggro is prevelent in your area, you generally want to decrease your 6 drop count. Get more things that will help you survive untill you can hit your game ender. Nothing worse than a starter of 2 lands, 2 slimes, wurmcoil, Sun Titan, and elesh norn.
Ponder is like the best card you could run ever. If I had a dime for everytime this shuffled away 3 do nothings, or found me a winning card, I would have some arbitrary number of dimes. Solemn emmisary and pod are ok shufflers. Don't worry about spellbombs, and probably don't worry about Trinket Mage packages period. elixer is fine vs red, parasite is ok vs illusions, but spellbomb is a Purify the Grave that cantrips and doesn't flash back. I have never seen a good player actually get beaten by this card....I could see it against dredge(assuming your not good enough to use Purify or Surgical Extraction, or you don't have the leylines.), but this is standard.
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New Member
I want to talk about sideboarding in pod. I'm gonna show 3 random sideboards you can see in this forum, and tell you why I don't like them, then tell you what has been successful for me.
SB: 2 Nihil Spellbomb
SB: 1 Elixir of Immortality
SB: 1 Trinket Mage
SB: 2 Sylvok Replica
SB: 1 Viridian Corrupter
SB: 1 Fiend Hunter
SB: 1 Tree of Redemption
SB: 1 Thrun, the Last Troll
SB: 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
SB: 1 Acidic Slime
SB: 1 Geist-Honored Monk
SB: 1 Brutalizer Exarch
SB: 1 Garruk Relentless
This is basically just a bunch of one of tools to get with your pod. I will explain later why I don't like a bunch of one ofs as answers to other decks towards the end.
Trinket Mage packages are usually pretty meh. I can approve if its doing something proactive for your list mainboard. Like I see some of these illusion decks run Trinket Mage lifestaff main, and a couple other targets side, and that seems ok. but if your using an excuse like you have a pod to tutor up your tutor, seems a bit slow and you have to remember you only have so many sideboard slots. using more than one slot to get one thing accomplished should mean that this one thing you are trying to do is game winning.
Nihil Spellbomb should just not be in lists. It doesn't do enough against players who know what they are doing. Go look at the whats happening page on the magic website, you will notice all the daily even winners no matter what deck they play, don't have graveyard hate in a set where graveyard hate is mediocre, and the need for it isn't very strong.
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Morkrut Banshee
1 Spellskite
1 Viridian Corrupter
1 Sylvok Replica
1 Massacre Wurm
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Sever the Bloodline
Now the first problem I have with this sideboard is its 12 cards, not legal.
Its more one ofs for your pod to be a toolbox for.
spellbombs.
1 Elixir of Immortality
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Trinket Mage
1 Tree of Redemption
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Naturalize
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Memoricide
Trinket Mage package isn't really justified with the targets it has to get.
one ofs for your toolbox pod.
I do like the Surgical Extraction memoracide deal, seems like a decent choice against maybe wolfrun.
OK, so a big reason I don't like the whole lets bring in a bunch of targets that do different things and we will fetch them right when we need them plan(putting a bunch of one of creatures in your sideboard) is because the mentality behind that is that you will keep a pod in play, or you will have enough time to cast pod. Against something like wolf run, you should probably just be siding your pods out. A deck playing red and green, is sure to have artifact hate post sideboard, and getting one activation out of two pods and then getting them grudged seems like a bad deal. And its not just wolf run, every deck I'm looking at right now on the whats happening page, can bring in some sufficient answers to pod. The most important thing is to have a plan, and I don't know that pod is a reliable plan games 2 and 3.
So since pod will be more hated than a gay at a republican GOP, maybe we should have a different plan entirely. What I have been doing to a solid amount of success is a plan that I call foiling their plan. I basically become bant control instead of bant pod, but this could work for any color combination of pod. Against aggroe, I take out cards that are not so good against aggroe, a few pods, and bring in aggroe hate. Against wolf run, I bring in counterspells. Although against control I generally leave in pod, because U/B has nothing to stop it, and against control in general, I don't have enough to bring in to warrent taking pod out.
So here is a SB that I don't neccesarely use due to card availability, but something similar that I think would be pretty good.
4 Timely Reinforcements.
3 day of judgement
(this is your basic aggroe control. I know 3 days is alot when you have your own creatures, but some decks are so fast you can't settle for the probability of finding your day by turn 23 or whatever. If you run bug pod, maybe some Sorin's Thirst and black sun's or something. Or whatever your colors, I'm sure you can come up with something.)
4 Flashfreeze
2 dissapate
(this is for the ramp decks you play. Now I admit that Flashfreeze is narrow, and only good against WRR, but you will see this matchup enough to warent cards just for it, and Mana Leak isn't nescesarey anywhere else really, and doesn't do enough against ramp)
2 thrun
(yea, like I said, I don't side in much against control, its not very popular, and they generally have less answers for pod. Hopefully you run mimic vats too, cause those are like unstopable, I have literally won games with 3 land over the course of like 20 some turns discarding almost ever turn, because my opponent didn't have an answer for Mirran Crusader on a vat except chumping with snapcasters.)
Now if you want, going back to the pod plan is doable in game 3 when they don't know what your doing, but in my experience, people just leave their artifact hate in cause they think you didn't see it game 2. You wouldn't believe how many people tell me they saw all 6 or their answers to pod, and where waiting for me to play it but I never did. I think rendering 6 of their cards useless is a good thing to do.
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Top-decker
I appreciate your thoughts The2ndSamurai. My logic with one-ofs in the sideboard is because I'm usually just replacing certain cmc creatures directly with ones that are more relevant. In this way I can make sure I'm not messing up my carefully constructed curve. As a made-up example, against mono-red I may try: -Fiend Hunter +Corrupter -solemn -phyrexian metamorph +tree of redemption +Thrun, the last Troll -Archon of justice +Geist-Honored Monk -Venser +Garruk. And now your hate exists along every cmc. And so on and so forth. It's not very easy to take 4-ofs and just stick them in your toolbox deck without wrecking synergy. And adding spells over creatures seems like bad juju for what this deck is supposed to be doing. Even without pod we've added 5 more cards we wouldn't mind drawing naturally and just playing because they will give us better odds of winning. And because we haven't messed with the curve too much we can still expect a 3 drop turn 2, 4 drop turn 3, etc.
I agree that the Trinket Mage toolbox is the weakest part of the sideboard and is usually the most awkward thing to try to fit in after game one. However, Nihil Spellbombs are awesome for what they do; I'm not sure why you hate them, though graveyard hate may be a moot point I do like blanking Snapcasters or just getting rid of a ton of flashback cards; it's pure CA. And, unlike Purify the Grave and Surgical Extraction, they are recurrable in this deck!
Though the entire package could be cut pretty happily.
Ponder, I'll still do without for now. It hasn't impressed me at all, and my mana has been pretty awesome without having to worry about splashing even more blue. Believe me, before innistrad I was all over Ponder. Loved them, keep the card I wanted and shuffle the rest away...awesome. Now I see a card I want and two duds, I'm in a pretty awkward situation. And paying 1 mana to shuffle and cantrip is likely no more valuable to me than just playing a Gitaxian Probe and hoping I cantrip to something worthwhile. I'd rather be spending my mana playing beat-down with awesome 2-for-1's and and random value critters. I don't think Ponder is bad, but it's not what I want to be doing currently.
I will mention that I've never sided out Birthing Pod to blank artifact hate. On one occasion I fought through 3 Ancient grudges to land a Birthing Pod, letting my opponent go to town on golem tokens, Spellskite, solemn, metamorph, and wurmcoil tokens until a pod can be safely resolved. The plan in these situations usually is just to beat down; your opponent can't Threaten to kill you with artifact hate, but you have 30ish creatures that would love to see him in the red zone. He will have to pull the trigger on the artifact destruction and then you will land a Birthing Pod and go to value-town. I don't disagree about siding out pods, but I'm playing them on the principle that this is a Birthing Pod deck and podding is exactly what I intend to do.
Last edited by NaClMolecule; 01-10-2012 at 01:56 PM.
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Card Flipper
Rock Pod!
4 Pod
2 Vat
2 O-ring
2 Garruk (Relentless)
1 Unburial Rites
4 Birds
2 Pilgrim
3 Emissary
1 Spellskite
3 Phyrexian Rager
1 Fiend Hunter
1 Tree of Redemption
1 Solemn
1 Bloodline Keeper
2 Metamorph
2 Slime
1 Archon
1 Grave Titan
1 Sun Titan
1 Wurmcoil
1 Elesh Norn
Land (24):
1 Buried Ruin
1 Island
4 Woodland Cemetery
3 Razorverge Thicket
2 Sunpetal Grove
5 Forest
4 Plains
4 Swamp
SB:
2 Doom Blade
3 Timely
2 Day
2 Memoricide
1 Thrun
2 Spellskite
1 Daybreak Ranger
1 Mountain
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