Graffdigger's cage only partly answers about 4 cards (approximately 3 finks + 1 redcap) and the overwhelming majority of pod decks pack an answer to cage in side or main or both.
wat. I suggest reading the card:
Creature cards can't enter the battlefield from graveyards or libraries.
The card completely cuts off Birthing Pod while it's on the battlefield and can only be answered by Reclamation Sage (unless they're also playing Qasali Pridemage, which a lot of lists are shying away from). Even then, they have to naturally draw their one of copy for it to work.
The card completely cuts off Birthing Pod while it's on the battlefield and can only be answered by Reclamation Sage (unless they're also playing Qasali Pridemage, which a lot of lists are shying away from). Even then, they have to naturally draw their one of copy for it to work.
True, true. But that's why a lot of decks will side 2-3. If they're using an Abrupt Decay to take care of your hate and leaving other threats untouched, you're usually in a fairly good spot.
The card completely cuts off Birthing Pod while it's on the battlefield and can only be answered by Reclamation Sage (unless they're also playing Qasali Pridemage, which a lot of lists are shying away from). Even then, they have to naturally draw their one of copy for it to work.
Oops, my bad. I'll add an 'Edit' to my previous post clarifying my error. After rereading the card, cage stops 4 cards in pod (birthing pod) and partially stops approximately 4 other cards (3 finks+ 1 redcap). That's solid pod hate.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
This conversation about pod is going crazy. So much talk, so much complaining about a single card. I admit Birthing Pod is a good card but it's not too strong or overpowered in fact itis not even close to being overpowered, neither the deck itself is. There are plenty of decks which have good game against pod, actually all combo decks have good game against it not to mention that it has terrible game against tron and scapeshift. There are many tools to fight it like Torpor Orb, Grafdigger's Cage, Anger of the Gods, Leonin Arbiter, any other artifact hate. Birthing Pod is absolutelly balanced and fine deck. All in all is just a creature based deck that wins throught combat damage dealt by creatures. What's more fair than that? And I am pretty sure if Tresure Cruise gets ban meta will shift back to pre Khans of Tarkir which means Twin and Tron will come back. That will decrease Pod popularity. Another thing is that Pod was doing very poorly before Siege Rhino era after TC release which is good sign that Birthing Pod is not problem but Siege Rhino is.
To sum it up: I don't think anything from Pod should be banned as there is no good reason enough for it (if anything needs to be banned still this should be Siege Rhino and definitely not Birthing Pod). And the last but definitely not least people should start complaining less and thinking how to beat Pod more.
I'm pretty late to the Pod-bashing party here, and I'm not even firmly in the "Ban Pod" camp, I'm much more in the "Pod should be on the Watchlist" camp. However, there are some fundamental issues with your arguments.
Siege Rhino is not the problem, and it's definitely NOT getting a ban. It's a solid creature that approximates the power level of Bloodbraid on average but doesn't represent the grossness of something like BBE into Liliana or Lingering Souls. It's above the curve from what we have access to, but not by much. In the end, it's just a 4/5 trampler with upsides that any Abzan deck will most likely enjoy.
Birthing Pod is a potentially colorless engine that can tutor for any number of effects, and often also represents a 3-for-1 in conjunction with Persist and/or Voice triggers. Yes, it has many restrictions and yes it requires a sacrificial lamb to Pod away, but it is still an insanely powerful engine that can tutor for almost any problem-solving effect you might want, given a turn or two.
I think Pod was and still is a fine pillar of the format, but it is dangerously close to becoming a stifling presence, just as its Jund cousin was 2-3 years ago. You can blame better creatures like Seige Rhino, but as stated above, WOTC is always going to print better creatures. The problem is the tutor. Just like with Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull. Batterskull is perfectly fair and playable in Modern, yet it's the card that officially "broke" Stoneforge. But if we banned Batterskull and still had Stoneforge, I can almost guarantee you she would still be busted, unless you also banned all the Swords and maybe a few other relevant equips. Again, it's the tutor that matter. Pod is a relatively inefficient and expensive tutor, but it's recurrable and can easily be built around. It just so happens that White/Green/Black are already strong as a midrange creature shell, and has a plethora of persist and recurrable creatures. All this factors into why Pod is good, but in the end it's still a tutor that can find any powerful creature that WOTC prints on color.
By itself this wouldn't be a problem, but Pod has probably had the most consistent winning record since long before KTK was even released. It's track record at GP's and other big events is very close to the same track record we saw out of Jund before BBE was axed, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I'm not pushing to ban Pod, but I'm very wary of it's place at the top of the food chain right now and in the future.
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MODERN RGB Jund BGR WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY RUGB Delver GURB
EDH UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR BBB Skithiryx Control BB
Yeah, Cage is definitely one of the best cards to have in an opener against Pod. If they got greedy and kept a hand to try and drop a Pod on turn 2, a cage can completely shut them off and leave them with a potentially bad hand. It hates the deck in general and can act as bait for artifact destruction or Abrupt Decays, leaving cards like Batterskull, various enchantments and Deceiver Exarch completely live.
It's a lot like having Torpor Orb against Twin. You drop it and watch as you lose a friend.
Delver is probably fine, but if there's anything likely to get a ban, it's Treasure Cruise. Don't think it's going to happen, though.
Unbans will happen to power up the decks that couldn't effectively play those cards, so AV for sure, and maybe BBE and GGT. Hopefully SotM for the same reasons.
This will help diversify the environment, while allowing some of the other predator strategies to come online as well. I don't think anything right now is so oppressive that it's pissing people off to the point of quitting Modern, and that's WotC's real concern.
The only reason I think it remains somewhat fair is that piloting the deck perfectly is very challenging
I've seen this said time and time again about Pod and I'm really starting to wonder why. There was probably a time when this was true back when the deck ran the Melira combo and Chord of Calling and its pilots had to know when to go for the combo versus when not to. That time has passed though. The current iterations of Pod are probably the closest thing the format has to a Standard midrange deck and manages to be successful for mostly the same reason those decks are: Wizards continues to print very, very good creatures and not much else. How hard is it really to pod out a Reclamation Sage when your opponent has a scary artifact or a Shriekmaw when they have a creature? No offense to any pod players, but it doesn't really take Stephen Hawking to figure those plays out. No one is baiting their opponent into a misplay when they're holding a potentially game-ending Chord of Calling, or forcing their opponent to lose to their own fear of the combo as you simply out-value them. Most pod games are won by tapping three mana for a Kitchen Finks, then four mana for a Seige Rhino and getting there against decks that can't deal with the lifegain. Can we please stop spreading this sort of misinformation?
While I do think that pod, like delver, should be on a watch list its just so hard to determine how to neuter pod. I would never want birthing pod banned its a poster child of modern and I rather like that. That leaves you in the weird spot where you have to make hate for a midrange tutor deck and I am just not sure how to do that outside of stuff like cage
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
I'm also on the ban Kitchen Finks train and have been so for a long time (I suggested a KF ban a few pages back and was flamed for it).
The people saying Pod is not oppressive have either never played against the deck or are Pod players themselves who don't want their pet deck to be weakened. Pod has been one of the top decks for years. The only reason why it has never taken over the meta as extremely as Delver did after Khans is probably that it's a much more expensive deck in terms of money.
Let me show you why Pod is oppressive:
Against Aggro: Kitchen Finks into Pod and gg.
Against Control: Play Pod and make all their counterspells dead cards. Or: Voice of Resurgence.
Against Combo: Combo of faster or kill the Twin creature with Abrupt Decay.
How, in the name if god, is such a deck not broken? I feel like Pod is on a similar power level as Affinity. The latter, though, is extremely easy to hate with cards like Shatterstorm, Hurkyls Recall etc. Now guess what: There's not a single card that can hose Pod on its own.
This deck, especially since the addition of Rhino, is simply an absurdity and the only thing that keeps its number of high finishes in check is the high money cost required to build the deck.
Meanwhile Pod is ruining Modern for all Aggro and Midrange players, Anvestral Visions and Golgari Grave Troll are rotting on the ban list. What the ****, Wizards, seriously!
pod is becoming more and more of a solid midrange deck with a potential combo. as better creatures are printed, this becomes an inevitability. its not even other creatures pod can combo with. its just other creatures that fit its game plan. you have basically a 2 card combo (with a tutor) that is nestled inside a midrange shell that's getting stronger with new creatures. it only reinforces my statement that midrange decks are hard to hate because they are multi faceted and have multiple ways of winnings.
that's why having a tempo deck be top dog is good. you can easily hate on tempo. it is much harder to hate on midrange decks (in modern).
There is only one tempo deck, and at least three different midrange decks in Modern. Your judgment is not fair enough IMO.
i am not sure what you mean. are you saying that because there is more than one midrange deck, you have to board for each one differently? whereas with UR delver, you only have to board against one tempo deck? sure. but that doesn't change my argument that its easier to hate on tempo than it is to hate on midrange.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
... Wizards continues to print very, very good creatures and not much else. ...
That's not a pod problem, that's a Wizards problem. Modern was turned into a 'turn creature sideways' format and every non-creature card that is printed with huge impact in the format (a la TC), is either the target of 'ban it' or turns into such a card that actually helps creature based decks (a la Delver) to become even stronger.
The banned list contains 4 creature cards. The rest are non-creature enablers (top, song, depths, eggs,shoal,...)
I've seen this said time and time again about Pod and I'm really starting to wonder why. There was probably a time when this was true back when the deck ran the Melira combo and Chord of Calling and its pilots had to know when to go for the combo versus when not to. That time has passed though. The current iterations of Pod are probably the closest thing the format has to a Standard midrange deck and manages to be successful for mostly the same reason those decks are: Wizards continues to print very, very good creatures and not much else. How hard is it really to pod out a Reclamation Sage when your opponent has a scary artifact or a Shriekmaw when they have a creature? No offense to any pod players, but it doesn't really take Stephen Hawking to figure those plays out. No one is baiting their opponent into a misplay when they're holding a potentially game-ending Chord of Calling, or forcing their opponent to lose to their own fear of the combo as you simply out-value them. Most pod games are won by tapping three mana for a Kitchen Finks, then four mana for a Seige Rhino and getting there against decks that can't deal with the lifegain. Can we please stop spreading this sort of misinformation?
I'm admittedly regurgitating what others have said, and it's by no means a defense of how powerful the deck is, but merely a reason it doesn't dominate as well as it could. Perhaps the logic is completely flawed and outdated.
I've never played Pod myself, though I really should borrow it from someone and get some games in for practice and to see how it ticks. That said, even the newer, more streamlined combo-less versions require some amount of playskill to master the deck. That's obviously true for almost every deck in the format, even Burn, but with Pod I think it's much more likely that you will punt yourself out of a matchup with one small mistake, since there are still so many decision trees you have to process. Sure, it's easy to fetch Reclamation Sage against Affinity, but it is less easy to sequence your plays in such a way that you can do that at an effective time while still maximizing value from the rest of your creatures. Again, I'm hardly a Pod expert, but the point is simply that it is a challenging deck to play perfectly, more so than others. The biggest difference is that you need to have your 75-card list memorized, and that involves more 1-ofs than any other deck in the format. Once you know what is in your deck and what you can find at any given point, you still have to pick the best play for the moment, which is a lot of data to process.
That said, however challenging it might be to play Pod compared with another deck has no bearing on how dangerous it is in the format. On this I agree. And as you noticed, my original point was that the deck is very close to being too powerful. You took my one statement out of context, it was simply part of my devil's advocate rebuttal. I wasn't spreading misinformation. Pod is probably the best deck in the format, especially in a post-Cruise ban vacuum.
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MODERN RGB Jund BGR WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY RUGB Delver GURB
EDH UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR BBB Skithiryx Control BB
pod is becoming more and more of a solid midrange deck with a potential combo. as better creatures are printed, this becomes an inevitability. its not even other creatures pod can combo with. its just other creatures that fit its game plan. you have basically a 2 card combo (with a tutor) that is nestled inside a midrange shell that's getting stronger with new creatures. it only reinforces my statement that midrange decks are hard to hate because they are multi faceted and have multiple ways of winnings.
that's why having a tempo deck be top dog is good. you can easily hate on tempo. it is much harder to hate on midrange decks (in modern).
There is only one tempo deck, and at least three different midrange decks in Modern. Your judgment is not fair enough IMO.
i am not sure what you mean. are you saying that because there is more than one midrange deck, you have to board for each one differently? whereas with UR delver, you only have to board against one tempo deck? sure. but that doesn't change my argument that its easier to hate on tempo than it is to hate on midrange.
You get my point. SB against one deck is obviously easier than SB against three different decks. This is the reason getting into your conclusion. Hate on tempo is not always easier than hate on midrange IN GENERAL.
It's basically down to Wizards to print something that can be run in all or most decks that neuters Pod.
Print a 2/5 for 3 colorless (but not artifact) creature with the Grafdiggers Cage effect on it. That would be a good piece of hate (though not totally unbeatable).
While I do think that pod, like delver, should be on a watch list its just so hard to determine how to neuter pod. I would never want birthing pod banned its a poster child of modern and I rather like that. That leaves you in the weird spot where you have to make hate for a midrange tutor deck and I am just not sure how to do that outside of stuff like cage
It's basically down to Wizards to print something that can be run in all or most decks that neuters Pod. It would be awful if they banned Pod but almost pointless to ban any creatures that put Pod over the top (unless proven to be a problematic elsewhere too, like DRS) as Pod will eventually pick up another creature as a replacement in the next few sets. Pod is at a critical mass right now (if not already past that point), if Pod gets another good creature it'll end in a ban for the deck. The dilemma is will WotC ban all good creatures that fit into Pod, will they ban Pod itself or will they introduce strong hate cards that hurt the deck that can be run in most decks and isn't a solely SB card. To their credit, they have printed some strong cards against Pod in recent years but they're either far too easy for Pod to answer/play around or are easily answerable by them. Personally, I would prefer to see more tools printed to combat Pod but if we don't see that something will be banned in the future. Pods a great deck but it deserves its place on the Modern watchlist.
It baffles me why Containment Priest wasn't made Modern legal for example. Granted the card hoses a few other strategies too but still
but that doesn't change my argument that its easier to hate on tempo than it is to hate on midrange.
Hating on midrange is not difficult. Just like Midrange goes bigger than aggro decks they get beat by decks that go bigger than them. That's why RG Tron is so good against Pod and BG/x. They may play some of most efficient creatures but those will still never win in a straight-up fight against Wurmcoils or Karns or Eldrazi.
Historically speaking control decks prey on midrange too since they also go bigger. If you want a recent example look at Theros Standard and the Mono-Black versus UW/x Matchup. Mono-Black could definitely win but they were on a clock because they just could not beat the UW/x late game of Sphinx's Revelation/Ætherling/Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Elixir of Immortality.
Unfortunately there are just a few things working against the same thing happening in Modern. That's why Midrange is raining supreme in Modern.
Print a 2/5 for 3 colorless (but not artifact) creature with the Grafdiggers Cage effect on it. That would be a good piece of hate (though not totally unbeatable).
That card would be worse than graffdiggers cage and completely not maindeckable. Most decks aren't effected by cages ability, so you would end up just playing a 2/5 for three which isn't going to cut it in most matchups. Wizards needs to be more creative and design something more like scavenging ooze. It needs to be an efficient creature, with an efficient ability, that is interactive against many/most decks. Maybe something that counters activated abilities and (maybe) triggered abilities. Ideally, the creature would have 4 toughness and be a 4 drop as well, or be a 1-2 drop with decent power. The real danger is that if the creature is good enough, pod could just run it.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
That card would be worse than graffdiggers cage and completely not maindeckable. Most decks aren't effected by cages ability, so you would end up just playing a 2/5 for three which isn't going to cut it in most matchups. Wizards needs to be more creative and design something more like scavenging ooze. It needs to be an efficient creature, with an efficient ability, that is interactive against many/most decks. Maybe something that counters activated abilities and (maybe) triggered abilities. Ideally, the creature would have 4 toughness and be a 4 drop as well, or be a 1-2 drop with decent power. The real danger is that if the creature is good enough, pod could just run it.
It would be more maindeckable than Cage, and it would be much better than cage. At 2/5 it blocks Rhino. At 2/5 it kills Finks. Add in the cage effect and Finks can never swing. It's a very well positioned card against Pod. Maybe it would still be sideboard only but I don't see that as the worst thing in the world, most silver bullets are sideboard material. The best way to beat Pod is to keep up on the board while stopping them from just going crazy with pod. A card like I just suggested would do that very very well.
Hmmm could anyone tell me why Second Sunrise is banned. Not saying it isn't broken or anything just not sure what specific instance lead to its banning.
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SonofaBith - Wizards was so excited about making the packaging for Modern Masters 2 recyclable, they decided to make most of the rares and all but 1 of the UC's recycle-bin ready too. Convenient!
Hmmm could anyone tell me why Second Sunrise is banned. Not saying it isn't broken or anything just not sure what specific instance lead to its banning.
Hmmm could anyone tell me why Second Sunrise is banned. Not saying it isn't broken or anything just not sure what specific instance lead to its banning.
Second Sunrise enabled Eggs which took up too much time in tournaments, or that was the reasoning given atleast. Eggs at the time of it's banning was the best deck in the format and violated the T4 rule pretty regularly. It would have seen a ban for non logistics reasons if things had continued.
Hmmm could anyone tell me why Second Sunrise is banned. Not saying it isn't broken or anything just not sure what specific instance lead to its banning.
Eggs players taking forever and a day to finish their rounds in GP San Diego.
I haven't read back but id like to put in my 2 cents on the bannings,please be critical and explain why if you disagree, and if you agree add to why you think this is.
Treasure cruise will get banned. Why? Because ponder is banned also preordain
Dig through time will not get banned why? Because it's amazingness isn't broken enough to warp the format and it's what slow blue decks needed.
Ascendancy will get banned why? Because wizards has a rule of consistent turn 3 wins and this card CAN break that rule
Pod is a hard one because on one hand it's fair and very interactive and then pod hits the board and the card advantage it provides is very close to ban worthy idk about this one what do you guys think?
I haven't read back but id like to put in my 2 cents on the bannings,please be critical and explain why if you disagree, and if you agree add to why you think this is.
Treasure cruise will get banned. Why? Because ponder is banned also preordain
Dig through time will not get banned why? Because it's amazingness isn't broken enough to warp the format and it's what slow blue decks needed.
Ascendancy will get banned why? Because wizards has a rule of consistent turn 3 wins and this card CAN break that rule
Pod is a hard one because on one hand it's fair and very interactive and then pod hits the board and the card advantage it provides is very close to ban worthy idk about this one what do you guys think?
On Treasure Cruise, just because Ponder and Preordain are banned isn't really a reason to ban Cruise. Your logic here is basically that good blue cards are banned.
Ascendency is only too fast in the 4 color version that uses Glittering Wish, they could address the problem by banning Wish while leaving the slower combo version of the deck in the format.
As far as Pod goes, some deck has to be the best and being the best isn't ban worthy on it's own. The deck doesn't do degenerate things, and it plays 30 creatures with very little removal. Most of what it does is turning sideways on the board these days. That's precisely what Wizards would like to see more of. I think it would be a very bad idea to ban Pod.
I haven't read back but id like to put in my 2 cents on the bannings,please be critical and explain why if you disagree, and if you agree add to why you think this is.
Treasure cruise will get banned. Why? Because ponder is banned also preordain
Dig through time will not get banned why? Because it's amazingness isn't broken enough to warp the format and it's what slow blue decks needed.
Ascendancy will get banned why? Because wizards has a rule of consistent turn 3 wins and this card CAN break that rule
Pod is a hard one because on one hand it's fair and very interactive and then pod hits the board and the card advantage it provides is very close to ban worthy idk about this one what do you guys think?
On Treasure Cruise, just because Ponder and Preordain are banned isn't really a reason to ban Cruise. Your logic here is basically that good blue cards are banned.
Ascendency is only too fast in the 4 color version that uses Glittering Wish, they could address the problem by banning Wish while leaving the slower combo version of the deck in the format.
As far as Pod goes, some deck has to be the best and being the best isn't ban worthy on it's own. The deck doesn't do degenerate things, and it plays 30 creatures with very little removal. Most of what it does is turning sideways on the board these days. That's precisely what Wizards would like to see more of. I think it would be a very bad idea to ban Pod.
I don't think the four color version is even really tier 1. The regular UWR controlling version is far more dangerous.
wat. I suggest reading the card:
The card completely cuts off Birthing Pod while it's on the battlefield and can only be answered by Reclamation Sage (unless they're also playing Qasali Pridemage, which a lot of lists are shying away from). Even then, they have to naturally draw their one of copy for it to work.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Well they do play Abrupt Decays too to be fair.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Oops, my bad. I'll add an 'Edit' to my previous post clarifying my error. After rereading the card, cage stops 4 cards in pod (birthing pod) and partially stops approximately 4 other cards (3 finks+ 1 redcap). That's solid pod hate.
- Manite
I'm pretty late to the Pod-bashing party here, and I'm not even firmly in the "Ban Pod" camp, I'm much more in the "Pod should be on the Watchlist" camp. However, there are some fundamental issues with your arguments.
Siege Rhino is not the problem, and it's definitely NOT getting a ban. It's a solid creature that approximates the power level of Bloodbraid on average but doesn't represent the grossness of something like BBE into Liliana or Lingering Souls. It's above the curve from what we have access to, but not by much. In the end, it's just a 4/5 trampler with upsides that any Abzan deck will most likely enjoy.
Birthing Pod is a potentially colorless engine that can tutor for any number of effects, and often also represents a 3-for-1 in conjunction with Persist and/or Voice triggers. Yes, it has many restrictions and yes it requires a sacrificial lamb to Pod away, but it is still an insanely powerful engine that can tutor for almost any problem-solving effect you might want, given a turn or two.
I think Pod was and still is a fine pillar of the format, but it is dangerously close to becoming a stifling presence, just as its Jund cousin was 2-3 years ago. You can blame better creatures like Seige Rhino, but as stated above, WOTC is always going to print better creatures. The problem is the tutor. Just like with Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull. Batterskull is perfectly fair and playable in Modern, yet it's the card that officially "broke" Stoneforge. But if we banned Batterskull and still had Stoneforge, I can almost guarantee you she would still be busted, unless you also banned all the Swords and maybe a few other relevant equips. Again, it's the tutor that matter. Pod is a relatively inefficient and expensive tutor, but it's recurrable and can easily be built around. It just so happens that White/Green/Black are already strong as a midrange creature shell, and has a plethora of persist and recurrable creatures. All this factors into why Pod is good, but in the end it's still a tutor that can find any powerful creature that WOTC prints on color.
By itself this wouldn't be a problem, but Pod has probably had the most consistent winning record since long before KTK was even released. It's track record at GP's and other big events is very close to the same track record we saw out of Jund before BBE was axed, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I'm not pushing to ban Pod, but I'm very wary of it's place at the top of the food chain right now and in the future.
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
It's a lot like having Torpor Orb against Twin. You drop it and watch as you lose a friend.
URW Control
WBG Abzan
GRW Burn
EDH
GR Rosheen Meanderer
Junk is fine.
Delver is probably fine, but if there's anything likely to get a ban, it's Treasure Cruise. Don't think it's going to happen, though.
Unbans will happen to power up the decks that couldn't effectively play those cards, so AV for sure, and maybe BBE and GGT. Hopefully SotM for the same reasons.
This will help diversify the environment, while allowing some of the other predator strategies to come online as well. I don't think anything right now is so oppressive that it's pissing people off to the point of quitting Modern, and that's WotC's real concern.
I've seen this said time and time again about Pod and I'm really starting to wonder why. There was probably a time when this was true back when the deck ran the Melira combo and Chord of Calling and its pilots had to know when to go for the combo versus when not to. That time has passed though. The current iterations of Pod are probably the closest thing the format has to a Standard midrange deck and manages to be successful for mostly the same reason those decks are: Wizards continues to print very, very good creatures and not much else. How hard is it really to pod out a Reclamation Sage when your opponent has a scary artifact or a Shriekmaw when they have a creature? No offense to any pod players, but it doesn't really take Stephen Hawking to figure those plays out. No one is baiting their opponent into a misplay when they're holding a potentially game-ending Chord of Calling, or forcing their opponent to lose to their own fear of the combo as you simply out-value them. Most pod games are won by tapping three mana for a Kitchen Finks, then four mana for a Seige Rhino and getting there against decks that can't deal with the lifegain. Can we please stop spreading this sort of misinformation?
'78 CB750F, '09 CBR600RR
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
RUGAnimar, Soul of Elements EDH
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH
The people saying Pod is not oppressive have either never played against the deck or are Pod players themselves who don't want their pet deck to be weakened. Pod has been one of the top decks for years. The only reason why it has never taken over the meta as extremely as Delver did after Khans is probably that it's a much more expensive deck in terms of money.
Let me show you why Pod is oppressive:
Against Aggro: Kitchen Finks into Pod and gg.
Against Control: Play Pod and make all their counterspells dead cards. Or: Voice of Resurgence.
Against Combo: Combo of faster or kill the Twin creature with Abrupt Decay.
How, in the name if god, is such a deck not broken? I feel like Pod is on a similar power level as Affinity. The latter, though, is extremely easy to hate with cards like Shatterstorm, Hurkyls Recall etc. Now guess what: There's not a single card that can hose Pod on its own.
This deck, especially since the addition of Rhino, is simply an absurdity and the only thing that keeps its number of high finishes in check is the high money cost required to build the deck.
Meanwhile Pod is ruining Modern for all Aggro and Midrange players, Anvestral Visions and Golgari Grave Troll are rotting on the ban list. What the ****, Wizards, seriously!
i am not sure what you mean. are you saying that because there is more than one midrange deck, you have to board for each one differently? whereas with UR delver, you only have to board against one tempo deck? sure. but that doesn't change my argument that its easier to hate on tempo than it is to hate on midrange.
That's not a pod problem, that's a Wizards problem. Modern was turned into a 'turn creature sideways' format and every non-creature card that is printed with huge impact in the format (a la TC), is either the target of 'ban it' or turns into such a card that actually helps creature based decks (a la Delver) to become even stronger.
The banned list contains 4 creature cards. The rest are non-creature enablers (top, song, depths, eggs,shoal,...)
I'm admittedly regurgitating what others have said, and it's by no means a defense of how powerful the deck is, but merely a reason it doesn't dominate as well as it could. Perhaps the logic is completely flawed and outdated.
I've never played Pod myself, though I really should borrow it from someone and get some games in for practice and to see how it ticks. That said, even the newer, more streamlined combo-less versions require some amount of playskill to master the deck. That's obviously true for almost every deck in the format, even Burn, but with Pod I think it's much more likely that you will punt yourself out of a matchup with one small mistake, since there are still so many decision trees you have to process. Sure, it's easy to fetch Reclamation Sage against Affinity, but it is less easy to sequence your plays in such a way that you can do that at an effective time while still maximizing value from the rest of your creatures. Again, I'm hardly a Pod expert, but the point is simply that it is a challenging deck to play perfectly, more so than others. The biggest difference is that you need to have your 75-card list memorized, and that involves more 1-ofs than any other deck in the format. Once you know what is in your deck and what you can find at any given point, you still have to pick the best play for the moment, which is a lot of data to process.
That said, however challenging it might be to play Pod compared with another deck has no bearing on how dangerous it is in the format. On this I agree. And as you noticed, my original point was that the deck is very close to being too powerful. You took my one statement out of context, it was simply part of my devil's advocate rebuttal. I wasn't spreading misinformation. Pod is probably the best deck in the format, especially in a post-Cruise ban vacuum.
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
You get my point. SB against one deck is obviously easier than SB against three different decks. This is the reason getting into your conclusion. Hate on tempo is not always easier than hate on midrange IN GENERAL.
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
Print a 2/5 for 3 colorless (but not artifact) creature with the Grafdiggers Cage effect on it. That would be a good piece of hate (though not totally unbeatable).
It baffles me why Containment Priest wasn't made Modern legal for example. Granted the card hoses a few other strategies too but still
Hating on midrange is not difficult. Just like Midrange goes bigger than aggro decks they get beat by decks that go bigger than them. That's why RG Tron is so good against Pod and BG/x. They may play some of most efficient creatures but those will still never win in a straight-up fight against Wurmcoils or Karns or Eldrazi.
Historically speaking control decks prey on midrange too since they also go bigger. If you want a recent example look at Theros Standard and the Mono-Black versus UW/x Matchup. Mono-Black could definitely win but they were on a clock because they just could not beat the UW/x late game of Sphinx's Revelation/Ætherling/Elspeth, Sun's Champion/Elixir of Immortality.
Unfortunately there are just a few things working against the same thing happening in Modern. That's why Midrange is raining supreme in Modern.
That card would be worse than graffdiggers cage and completely not maindeckable. Most decks aren't effected by cages ability, so you would end up just playing a 2/5 for three which isn't going to cut it in most matchups. Wizards needs to be more creative and design something more like scavenging ooze. It needs to be an efficient creature, with an efficient ability, that is interactive against many/most decks. Maybe something that counters activated abilities and (maybe) triggered abilities. Ideally, the creature would have 4 toughness and be a 4 drop as well, or be a 1-2 drop with decent power. The real danger is that if the creature is good enough, pod could just run it.
- Manite
It would be more maindeckable than Cage, and it would be much better than cage. At 2/5 it blocks Rhino. At 2/5 it kills Finks. Add in the cage effect and Finks can never swing. It's a very well positioned card against Pod. Maybe it would still be sideboard only but I don't see that as the worst thing in the world, most silver bullets are sideboard material. The best way to beat Pod is to keep up on the board while stopping them from just going crazy with pod. A card like I just suggested would do that very very well.
GW Rhys the Redeemed EDH
RUGAnimar, Soul of Elements EDH
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death EDH
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/244b2
Second Sunrise enabled Eggs which took up too much time in tournaments, or that was the reasoning given atleast. Eggs at the time of it's banning was the best deck in the format and violated the T4 rule pretty regularly. It would have seen a ban for non logistics reasons if things had continued.
Eggs players taking forever and a day to finish their rounds in GP San Diego.
Treasure cruise will get banned. Why? Because ponder is banned also preordain
Dig through time will not get banned why? Because it's amazingness isn't broken enough to warp the format and it's what slow blue decks needed.
Ascendancy will get banned why? Because wizards has a rule of consistent turn 3 wins and this card CAN break that rule
Pod is a hard one because on one hand it's fair and very interactive and then pod hits the board and the card advantage it provides is very close to ban worthy idk about this one what do you guys think?
decks playing:
none
On Treasure Cruise, just because Ponder and Preordain are banned isn't really a reason to ban Cruise. Your logic here is basically that good blue cards are banned.
Ascendency is only too fast in the 4 color version that uses Glittering Wish, they could address the problem by banning Wish while leaving the slower combo version of the deck in the format.
As far as Pod goes, some deck has to be the best and being the best isn't ban worthy on it's own. The deck doesn't do degenerate things, and it plays 30 creatures with very little removal. Most of what it does is turning sideways on the board these days. That's precisely what Wizards would like to see more of. I think it would be a very bad idea to ban Pod.
I don't think the four color version is even really tier 1. The regular UWR controlling version is far more dangerous.