MTG Salvation

How is a guy that just pumps other dudes and relies on you playing more dudes a good card? Like, what specific situations are you Podding into that guy/playing him and still having business in hand to get the pump advantage from?

I have not had a resolved Mindcensor do a thing vs. Scapeshift. It's folly to assume that they'll Shift and not have a Remand or something else to back it up. Also, the sacrifice is part of the resolution, so they can choose to lose no lands.

Magus of the Moon screws Tron, but Avalanche Riders does it too and it gets really cute with Restoration Angel.

Linvala is good vs. Twin and Pod, and when I say "good," I mean that it nearly wins the game against them on her lonesome. It's a stopper that really does merit playing main. The body is pretty decent on its own. At four mana, you can go turn 1 Birds, turn 2 Pod, turn 3 2-drop into Exarch into Linvala, so she isn't too hard to get out. I just wish there were more truly devastating cards like Linvala in Modern.

Birthing Pod is your best chance of winning. The games where you have it, you win a lot. The games where they have Stony Silence, you still Chord up a Sage/Pridemage and kill it and win. I'd rather bring in a second Sage against Stony Silence than board out Pod. There's little sense in trying to next-level people on dead cards.

Taking Kiki out: I do it now and then if they have Bolt, Helix and Electrolyze handy. Otherwise I don't remove it. They've got to have a really hateful deck to make me want to remove a copy. I keep two in against Burn because your best method of winning is still combo killing them, and copying a Kitchen Finks is still a brutal move.

I ran three Reclamation Sages (should have been 2 sage 1 mage) and it was stellar. Way better than Ancient Grudge.

Thalia is a huge do-nothing. If you want that effect, Eidolon is just a better stopper.

The best way of picking bullets for Pod decks is to remember that you might not ever get to tutor for them, so they better be game-breaking when you get them. Spellskite, Linvala, Pridemage, Archmage, Avalanche Riders all break the game open. Thalia, Mindcensor, etc., do not.

4-0 at FNM tonight. Played against Hatebears, BG Rock, Affinity and RUG Monsters (ported from Standard so irrelevant).

I had Keranos on the board. Never went to get it. I suppose it's there for UWR but it's so awfully slow anyway.

I had a Reveillark maindeck and I never wanted it or got value from it.

I won every single game from the combo.

I cut all the Coursers to go back to boring old Finks and that felt right.

I had a Cunning Sparkmage maindecked and an Izzet Staticaster on the board. Will go to just straight Staticasters, probably, but having a maindeck pinger is glorious. I killed a bunch of Thalias, soldier tokens and a Mirran Crusader with Restoration Angel.

I cut Pridemage and did one Restoration Sage main, two on the board. I realize only now that I was blank to Torpor Orb. Three Sages was amazing, though. Much better than Ancient Grudge tends to be.

I never board them out. They're fantastic every step of the way and they're one of the few ways you have to outright combo someone. If you're looking for easy cuts against burn, then a Kiki and a Linvala are usually perfectly save to side out.

The big benefit of the new lands is that you can run 7-8 ways of getting Forest. Blood Moon is enough of a thing that I'd like more than four ways to get my Forest. Figuring out that mix is a bit of a challenge, though. I think you can bump up to 5-6 Forest-fetching lands and still consistently access your mana. I know I'll be packing 1-2 Heath for the moment.

Let's be smart about this. The manabase is:

Forest
Plains

Forest + Plains
Forest + Island
Forest + Mountain

Plains + Island
Plains + Mountain

Mountain + Island

The current manabase fetches all of those up handily.

The only flaw in the current manabase is that it will not easily fetch up a Plains, since only Mesa will get it.

If you want to solve for getting that Plains, then the play is to swap out Misty Rainforest for Windswept Heath as a 4x. Misty will get Hallowed Fountain, Steam Vents and Breeding Pool - Heath will get all of the same except Steam Vents.

I'm actually not inclined to change any of my fetchlands yet. Eight sources for Forest and four for Plains is pretty good. It's hard to slot another one in completely without cutting off something like Steam Vents or Sacred Foundry inadvertently.

The least important land to search for is Mountain, since you've got four Groves and Stomping Grounds. That's why I'm not inclined to put Foothills in here instantly.

I searched and saw no mention of Reveillark in this thread. It occurs to me that it's worth looking at. It'll bring back Exarch and Kiki, for example. It also gets good value from Voice, Redcap, etc. Anyone have experience? I'll get to testing it.

Ninja edit: also obviously insane with Kiki-Jiki or Restoration Angel to get the triggers.

If you're looking for a Flametongue Kavu, the best (which is really bad) option is Volcano Hellion.

Hey, I'm looking for Modern podcasts to listen to! Do you know of shows that consistently talk about the format and also consistently publish? That last part has been kind of hard... a 6 month old podcast isn't exactly useful for playing today!

I'm on a podcast called The Modern Enthusiast and I'd love to find out some other shows, too. If you get a chance, please check out our cast and let me know what you think, by the way!

I played to a 4-0 victory at the LGS today with a pretty stock list. I ended up trimming Resto #4 and Finks #2 for two Courser of Kruphix. I never Podded for them but they were very good when I drew them. They are not spectacular but just general good role-players. This deck has few creatures that can actually punish an opponent for attacking. That is, they can swing into Wall of Roots with no downside or swing into Kitchen Finks to shrink it, but they can't really profit on a swing into an untapped Courser.

I also maindecked a Cunning Sparkmage and that guy did a little bit of work. I probably would cut it for a third Courser and move it to the board.

Quote from Archanz »

i don't play phatasmal image and i don't miss it ^^ also, i have a question regarding izzet staticaster, i think is 100% better than fiend hunter, so i'd play it over him...BUT i dont really like blue and messed mana in this deck (i play only glen elendra and 1x exarch in my kiki) so i play fiend hunter over him. But i'm wonder if Cunning Sparkmage would be better than him, what do you think about it? (don't tell me play staticaster, i know it's better than those 2, but i have to choose one, fiend hunter o cunning sparkmage)

I have gotten a lot of use out of Cunning Sparkmage. It is very good in the mirror and Melira match, since you can avoid killing your own guys. I've had the 1 toughness matter sometimes - it can't kill a Lavamancer and live, for example. And I've also faced down two Delver of Secrets pre-flip before, which was a nail-biter. But all in all, I like Sparkmage a whole lot more than I like Staticaster. That you can avoid killing your own guys is a pretty big deal.

Those lists are bad, that article is bad. Reasons:

-Against Twin, he's boarding out Staticaster but keeping Murderous Redcap in. Why you want a 2RR non-flash dude over a 1UR "blocks Exarch, kills Vendilion, Snapcaster and Pestermite" guy who flashes in is bizarre.

-The Scavenging Ooze + Voice of Resurgence plan is very good when you need to play fair. His only 2cc cards are Phantasmal Image, Spellskite and Lotus Cobra and none of those really help your plan. At least Voice shuts off counters and makes a dude, Wall of Roots accelerates mana and Scavenging Ooze becomes a giant problem lategame.

-He's cutting Coursers against Twin while still running eight 1-drop mana guys. He's relying on Tracker's Instincts, a sorcery, to get him there against Twin. Meanwhile, Courser is a 2/4 that has a respectable filtering ability.

-Nobody runs Fiend Hunter because it is no good. It doesn't do anything because it eats bolts and Paths.

-No Avalanche Riders on the board is a tremendous oversight.

-One Gavony Township is one too many or one too few.

-He's got no actual testing results - nothing to hang his hat on. Just "I tuned this into the list you see."

All those criticisms aside, I really do like Courser. It might be a really decent swap for at least one Kitchen Finks.

Tips on beating UWR, which is a very challenging matchup:

-Don't try to combo off from the beginning of the game. They'll be able to shred you with removal and you'll lose to attrition.

-Turn 2 Pod is very, very hard for UWR to manage - their strategy becomes "kill every creature ASAP."

-Remember the play of Podding Birds into Voice of Resurgence, then podding Voice into Eternal Witness to get your Voice back. That way, you end up with a few more guys.

-They often try things in your endstep, tapping out for Snapcaster Mage flashing something. You can use this time to sneak Restoration Angel through.

-Beware that they can use Cryptic Command to counter your creature and bounce your Birthing Pod in the same instant, and that really hurts.

-Glen Elendra Archmage is a beating against them. Sticking Archmage is a much better plan than attempting a combo kill.

-Prioritize hands that have actual lands in them over mana dudes. Your Noble Hierarchs will be Electrolyzed, so don't rely on them.

The deck I linked to doesn't play Splinter Twin. And look, I'm not being a tireless advocate for that Sea Gate Oracle deck, so let's clear that up right off the bat.

An intelligent player should be lining up what the two decks can do, and lining up the Sea Gate deck vs a regular Kiki Pod deck. So you're going to ask whether you want to:

Play Remands over creatures

Play Splinter Twin and Deceiver Exarch together, both of which require the other to be good - or - play an array of creatures that might be the wrong thing at the wrong time (like drawing Spellskite against Affinity or Linvala against Burn)

Play clunkers like Deceiver Exarch that can also combo or play Kitchen Finks, which is better outside of combo but also often powerless

Play Remand or Voice of Resurgence or Wall of Omens, comparing all three decks

Play Cryptic plus Snapcaster or play Birthing Pod plus an array of searchable, good hate cards

Remember that the same arguments apply to Twin - why would you want to play UWR when you can play UR, why would you play Tarmogoyf when you can be straight UR, why would you put Kiki-Jiki into a general UWR Tempo deck, etc.

I don't have definitive answers on any of this. All I can say is that it's the height of foolishness to dismiss a deck that comes in 1st and 2nd in two recent Modern Premier events. That's arch armchair-general behavior.