Just think that the latter wont die to lightning bolt, which to me makes more sense.
You really don't care about protecting it (no Splinter Twin) and a 2 power evasive guy is much better with Grand Architect pumping it than a 1 power ground dude.
I was finding serum visions to be a little underwhelming and Omenspeaker filled the role of being another two drop that fuels the birthing pod chain, fixes our draws.
Since then have remembered that Augury Owl is a card that may perform better the Omenspeaker, but need to test that out to.
I also found that I wanted some extra green sources in the deck to help pay for birthing pods cost. That and the fact my list only has 4 one drops, Temple of mystery helps provide that and comes in with the added bonus of fixing draws.
With so much scrying, the deck seems to run very smoothly, and am really enjoying equiping Batterskull to Myr Superion.
Yeah we seem to have separately arrived in a similar place. I have recently cut the Serum Visions and gone up to 2 Vedalken Shackles maindeck and been very happy with it. The fact that you also came to the same conclusion on your own is reassuring that it was the right choice.
The only nonland changes from my current list to yours is I have:
-2 Omenspeaker
+1 Spellskite
+1 Phantasmal Image
I think the Phantasmal Image is definitely awesome, and I don't think the 4th Spellskite I'm running is super necessary in the main, but it has been pretty nice.
How often has the Temple coming in tapped messed up your curve? I think it seems like a good option to have that provides a little extra draw filtering.
I personally would not run more than 3 Spellskite MD, its very good for us, but we still need to win and have lots of 0/4 makes me a little concerned (think I would have to 4th in the SB).
If you find a space in your MD, i recomend trying out either Omenspeaker or Augury Owl (Think this will be my prefered choice). Perhaps one could replace the 4th Spellskite?
Having that extra deck manipulation is good for this deck, and they are certainly 2 drops that I have no problem sacraficing to fuel Birthing Pod.
I was unable to test yesterday so can not comment on the temple yet. I also got it wrong saying I only had 4 one drops, when in fact it is 8!
With that in mind I am temnpted to drop the temple down to 2, but will test little more to confirm this.
The situation in which Phantasmal Image is most useful is as a 2 drop lord. After Podding into a Master of Waves, you want to be able to continually Pod into more lords to pump your team, and Phantasmal Image lets you turn a 1 drop into a lord (usually copying Master of Waves). It also randomly has other applications, but that one was the most crucial.
I agree about Spellskite, will be cutting the 4th for an Augury Owl. I originally had Augury Owl in the deck because I wanted a reasonable 2 drop to Pod into. However, after adding Myr Superion, it was generally outclassed as a Pod target. I still think it is pretty good in the deck, and they don't actually fill the same role like I thought. The difference between an artifact 2 drop and a blue 2 drop is actually a pretty big one, and I think the deck in its current form doesn't have enough blue 2 drops.
Somehow I feel we should be playing cryptic command MD. However the deck seems to run smoothly without it but a card that powerful always feels like it should be played.
Guess it's something worth keeping in mind? Should be able to test this Sunday with results against various decks.
It's hard to play Cryptic Command when your gameplan is tapping out every turn. While Grand Architect can sometimes help leave your mana open while you still do things, it seems way too narrow when you need your creature count to be abnormally high to make Birthing Pod, Grand Architect, and Chief Engineer work. The deck really doesn't need its incremental advantage, and Glen Elendra Archmage does a good job against decks you would want the counter ability for.
Looking through your deck I can see the more aggro side, however there is quite a few silver bullet cards.
One thing I have found playing this deck is that it is not really a tool box style deck. Its line of play is to really play a ramped Master of Waves on turn three with two lords out, creating a very fast clock and multiple threats that need to be dealt with.
I think with your list it will struggle a bit, because it seems like a weakend version of Merfolk, and not quite as linear as some of the other versions posted on here. It's direction is neither one nor the other.
I do really like the includsion of Molten Tail Masticore as an alternate win condition/creature removal.
Voidmage Prodigy is also another card I have though about. Hard counter on creatures are always good.
However what I have decided to do was take bGnomes idea, test it and tweak it from there. I really liked the strategy of the deck, and how it is aiming to produce a very fast clock on the opponent. I would recomend starting here and see what you like/dislike before making changes.
What is important is to test against the tier 1/tier 1.5 decks, because in any tournament it can be expected that we would face these alot.
If we can not comfortably win game one against 50-60% of the field, then having an off the radar home brew is not going to cut it in my hummble opinion.
I see your point. Ok, i'll try this core list first.
I agree that my list lacks the focus, but one of its pros is the possibility to inflict considerable amount of damage if the deck doesn't combo off (the turn three Architect-Pod-Pestermite-Master combo still happening; the merfolk is more like an alternate wincon).
Dudemichael, I feel like your most recent list is pretty much what you would want the deck to look like postboard against Zoo. The dangers of changing so many cards after testing a single (not common) matchup is that you lose focus of how the cards interact with the rest of the format. The reason I only run 2 Vedalken Shackles is because they aren't good in every matchup (because they are narrow and reactive), even though they are insane against Zoo. 3 maindeck Tidebinder Mage is another example where your list is clearly skewed against that single matchup, as against about half of the field that card is a bear that provides devotion.
That being said, I really like some of the ideas you are working with.
Tidebinder Mage is a sweet Pod target at the 2 drop slot (bingo!) that I could see even coming into the maindeck as a one-of against Pod/Zoo heavy metas. Will definitely put one in the board for now.
Bident of Thassa seems sweet (especially that it's an artifact), but I really have no concept of how the card performs in a real match setting. I look forward to hearing if it turns out to be win-more or awesome.
I have yet to really see Chief Engineer underperform, as more ways to play Pod+activate on turn 3 are huge. I can see the reasoning behind cutting the Myr Superions and a few Chief Engineers, but I haven't quite given up on them yet.
I think the deck could really benefit from splashing red. Red allows you play 1 or 2 of Kiki Jiki, Mirror Breaker so we can threaten combo (with Pestermite, and also allows you to sideboard Blood Moon for free wins.
A red "splash" for a triple red creature seems like an understatement. While I don't really like the idea of destroying the manabase, you bring up an interesting idea of a Kiki-combo focused build. The main attraction of this is that if you run a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and a Restoration Angel in the maindeck, your 2 drop+Grand Architect+Birthing Pod combo on turn 3 turns into a turn 3 win. This is done with the following chain:
This makes the deck significantly more fragile, but a reasonably consistent turn 3 win (often with Judge's Familiar or Spellskite backup) is certainly nothing to scoff at. The deck would have to be reworked a lot to make this idea work (more blue 2 drops, more deck manipulation), as it would be much much worse without Birthing Pod. Plus, in the current iteration of the deck, I find myself regularly dealing myself 6-8 damage with Birthing Pod, and adding a much more shock-heavy manabase means that you will kill yourself often. The look on your opponent's face after you going turn 2 Augury Owl turn 3 you lose has got to be priceless though.
This is just an idea that your comment brought to my attention, and I will not be pursuing it. However, it is certainly a possible variant to keep in mind if anyone is interested in exploring it.
One thing I have found playing this deck is that it is not really a tool box style deck. Its line of play is to really play a ramped Master of Waves on turn three with two lords out, creating a very fast clock and multiple threats that need to be dealt with.
Well put, and I agree wholeheartedly. There are pretty much 3 toolbox creatures in my maindeck, and all of them specifically look to advance the plan of Master of Waves+lords. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner protects your growing board from opposing removal, Sower of Temptation clears an opposing Tarmogoyf or similar that is preventing profitable attacks, and Glen Elendra Archmage either protects you from sweepers or opposing combo decks. The rest of the creatures in the deck are focused on your standard swarm+lord strategy, creating a very fast and hard to interact with clock.
I do really like the includsion of Molten Tail Masticore as an alternate win condition/creature removal.
I have tried the Masticore before, and I was not impressed (this was before Chief Engineer). I don't know if that changes anything, but I found I was really hard-pressed to ever want to Pod into it over Master of Waves, and if I was playing it from my hand I would almost always want a Batterskull instead.
So I tried something similar to this a when cheif engineer was spoiled, I wasn't running pod and was just trying to cast turn 3 batterskull or turn 4 wurmcoil, the deck sucked. I took bGnomes's origional build to my local LGS a few nights ago on a whim and to my surprise the deck is legit, I went 3-1 with it losing to jund/junk. I think the deck inherently suffers from consistency issues but if you're running hot it's really powerful.
I've been mucking around with the deck on mtgo for a while and this is where I've ended up:
The mulldrifter is for post pyroclasm/Anger of the gods when you're left with a lone master of waves to pod away, I've lost a few games with my opponent with nothing in hand/on board because the deck has no way to come back from a wrath without some traditional pod-chains. Wurmcoil should probably be another value creature but I can't resist the chance to pod into mulldrifter and then wurmcoil, plus the maindeck treasure mage lets me side in a mindslaver vs. control.
How often did you find that you were loosing after a board wipe?
I ask as I really like the idea of Poding into Mulldrifter with Master of Waves, but then it got me thinking would Reveillark be better? I know that white is not a colour we are playing, but a couple of hallowed fountains should be sufficient.
I also recomend some temple cards, these allow for some more consistancy.
I lost twice at my LGS to anger of the gods where my opponent had topdecked it facing letal and I went on to lose the game. The first time it was against UWR, I got in a few beats with master post-wipe but they cast a resto and had counter magic for any relevant spell I topdecked, the game ended with him on like 3 life. The seccond time it was vs jund, he cast anger of the gods after my turn 4 master with for bunch of tokens (4+ I think), he went on to jamm a bob and just traded 1-for-1 until he was able to pulse my pod and go on to win. We could write this off as a weakness of the deck but I like having outs and it's only at the cost of a single card slot.
if we added white it'd open up a whole heap of answers/value pod targets, we'd get access to: resto, finks, linvala, reveillark, ranger of eos, kataki, mindcensor, eidolon, fiend hunter, the UW god. I think that UW is well worth exploring but atleast initially I dont like it. It would really hurt our access to huge amounts of blue devotion (which is where we get out turn 3/4 kills from) and white creatures dont work very well with grand architect.
I've tried a pair of UG temple maindeck but I found that come-into-play-tapped lands are really bad in a deck that really wants to cast one of it's 8 1-drops on turn 1. I think the 4 sages smooth out our draws well enough and I have a augury owl maindeck which I pod into quite often if I'm just podding 1-drop into 3-drop, I don't feel the deck struggles with bad/inconsistent draws without the temples.
Not sure if anyone else is still playing this deck but have tested my current version more against GR Tron and Jund.
So far GR Tron is by far the worst match-up, notably Oblivion Stone just blows this deck apart!
Jund on the other hand is very favoruable, unless they have alot of discard in the early turns (which wrecks most decks to be fair).
Generally against Jund we are laying down the threats alot faster, and main deck Vedalken Shackles, Spellskite and Batterskull are really hard for them to deal with.
With regards to SB I am slowly getting there. Biggest issue at the moment is finding a collection of cards that help against Jund and Birthing Pod. I already have another Shackles in the Sideboard, and am tempting to bring in another Sower of Temptation (mainly for Birthing Bod).
Anyone had any thoughts?
I still play this deck occasionally!
I have found the Pod matchup to be pretty good actually, because it basically just ends up with you taking all their guys, especially in games 2 and 3. They really don't have much removal for Vedalken Shackles and Sower of Temptation (especially when backed by a Spellskite), so you basically get to get max value out of them.
I don't really like the second Sower against Jund (with red) because it dies to Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods. However I still like it against BG and BGw because they are generally a lot more reliant on Abrupt Decay.
I have yet to actually play the Tron matchup, but I'm not surprised it's tough. Do you play a Phyrexian Revoker in your sideboard? It seems like one of the best proactive answers to Oblivion Stone we have access to, but I'm not sure how impactful it actually is in practice.
I'm surprised you have been having trouble with UWR, because I have always found that to be one of the most favorable matchups. Spellskite alone is very hard for them to interact through, and Judge's Familiar makes it very hard for them to actually counter an early Pod. Later in the game, the fact that you play so many must-answer noncreature permanents means that they really can't counter all of them.
I already run a trinket mage package in my sideboard so it costs me 4 slots, which is a lot but it also gives us a gameplan against storm, tron, adnauseam and other combo decks that we struggle to interact with.
The combo is simple, we play grand architect with any blue 1-drop in play, which is a very common board-state for this deck, tap them both to cast birthing pod, with the remaining 1 mana we pod our 1-drop into pili-pala, pass turn (because pili-pala has summoning sickness, if they remove pili-pala on their turn we're probably just happy they didn't remove architect). On the following turn we make infinite mana then pod pili-pala into trinket mage getting expedition map, cast and crack map getting eye of ugin, play eye of ugin, find emrakul and cast him, hopefully for the win.
Which seems much better, memnarch is not un-castable without the combo, treasure mage can fetch a wurmcoil or battlesphere if you run them and pilipala can filter grand architect mana to cast blue creatures. I wonder if the combo is main-deckable?
I already run a trinket mage package in my sideboard so it costs me 4 slots, which is a lot but it also gives us a gameplan against storm, tron, adnauseam and other combo decks that we struggle to interact with.
The combo is simple, we play grand architect with any blue 1-drop in play, which is a very common board-state for this deck, tap them both to cast birthing pod, with the remaining 1 mana we pod our 1-drop into pili-pala, pass turn (because pili-pala has summoning sickness, if they remove pili-pala on their turn we're probably just happy they didn't remove architect). On the following turn we make infinite mana then pod pili-pala into trinket mage getting expedition map, cast and crack map getting eye of ugin, play eye of ugin, find emrakul and cast him, hopefully for the win.
Which seems much better, memnarch is not un-castable without the combo, treasure mage can fetch a wurmcoil or battlesphere if you run them and pilipala can filter grand architect mana to cast blue creatures. I wonder if the combo is main-deckable?
as a Pod deck I see no reason not to run 1 of pila pala if it produces results. 1 restoration angel and 1 kiki jiki either with no white/red or with white in the mana base and then you could play revilark is also solid. Two slots for potential turn 3 kills is worth IMO, would be much better if we had a brainstorm effect to shuffle away kiki if you draw him.
Having not played the deck yet what is the devotion like for master of waves? If it is strong enough is thasa as a 1 of strong? she can be poded into and if you run red then U/R god is possible and a power house.
as a Pod deck I see no reason not to run 1 of pila pala if it produces results. 1 restoration angel and 1 kiki jiki either with no white/red or with white in the mana base and then you could play revilark is also solid. Two slots for potential turn 3 kills is worth IMO, would be much better if we had a brainstorm effect to shuffle away kiki if you draw him.
Having not played the deck yet what is the devotion like for master of waves? If it is strong enough is thasa as a 1 of strong? she can be poded into and if you run red then U/R god is possible and a power house.
The devotion plan is pretty good, Master usually produces 3-4 elementals and almost always represents a 1-2 turn clock, having protection from lightning bolt and abrupt is a strong upside. Having said that, I dont think thassa is very good, the scry 1 isn't really necessary once we have 3+ drops in play and if we ever make her a creature we're probably winning anyway. Her most useful mode is unblockable but I dont think that's worth having an otherwise dead card (can't be podded away, cant clone her if she's active, dead card onto an empty board). I ran her of a 1-of for a while and quickly moved her to the sideboard and even then I was only really siding her in vs. BGx decks, which is not a matchup I've been having trouble with.
We are far too aggressive for Keranos, we pay a lot life to pod and with grand architect we usually are able to close out games on turn 4-5 without disruption. We have usually died or have won by the time keranos is likely to be value (paying 5 mana for two lightning bolts is not where we want to be). I think wurmcoil engine or batterskull is probably better in matchups where we might want Keranos (being able to basically cast artifacts for free is a major selling point but they also represent a much better clock with similar resilience).
EDIT:
For reference this is the list I'm running right now:
Yeah BGx and other Pod decks seem to be our best matchups. Any matchup where Vedalken Shackles and Master of Waves are both individually insane are very good for us. The worst matchups seem to be the ones where the opponent either has copious amounts of sweepers or can combo quickly through a Spellskite or a Glen Elendra Archmage.
I actually really like the idea of running a Keranos, God of Storms in the sideboard against sweeper-heavy decks (such as UW control). The most common way for the opponent to deal with it is Celestial Purge, and there is next to no chance that is coming in against us. The decks that can REALLY blunt your early aggression are also generally the ones who have a very hard time with a resolved Keranos.
I think if I were to go for the Kiki combo version, I would run 1 Kiki and 2 Restos, as well as possibly a Reveillark, and I would cut a Breeding Pool and an Island for two Hallowed Fountains. I would also want to up the count of Augury Owls to get as many blue 2 drops as possible to more consistently be able to combo quickly. I think this would have to come at the expense of some number of Chief Engineer, Myr Superion, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, and perhaps non-tutorable cards like Vedalken Shackles or Batterskull. Also obviously the Pestermites would switch to Deceiver Exarchs. I actually really like how Restoration Angel gets a lot of value in the deck from things like Sage of Epityr and Augury Owl, making it very good on its own in addition to with the combo. Reveillark is also very good here by being able to return every single creature in the deck.
I actually really like the idea of running a Keranos, God of Storms in the sideboard against sweeper-heavy decks (such as UW control). The most common way for the opponent to deal with it is Celestial Purge, and there is next to no chance that is coming in against us. The decks that can REALLY blunt your early aggression are also generally the ones who have a very hard time with a resolved Keranos.
I think if I were to go for the Kiki combo version, I would run 1 Kiki and 2 Restos, as well as possibly a Reveillark, and I would cut a Breeding Pool and an Island for two Hallowed Fountains. I would also want to up the count of Augury Owls to get as many blue 2 drops as possible to more consistently be able to combo quickly. I think this would have to come at the expense of some number of Chief Engineer, Myr Superion, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, and perhaps non-tutorable cards like Vedalken Shackles or Batterskull. Also obviously the Pestermites would switch to Deceiver Exarchs. I actually really like how Restoration Angel gets a lot of value in the deck from things like Sage of Epityr and Augury Owl, making it very good on its own in addition to with the combo. Reveillark is also very good here by being able to return every single creature in the deck.
Most versions of UWR kicking around atm are Flash or Geist and they run either a single anger of the gods or no sweeper at all. I have found the matchup fine (roughtly 50-50), if they manage to keep us off pod+dude, or just keep our creature count low enough then we struggle but with maindeck kira and spellskite we certainly can just beat face and ignore their removal and they cant really beat our most explosive starts, after siding clique and glen elendra as pod targets the matchup gets better to the point where I dont think keranos is necessary, dont get me wrong, keranos is a good card but they have a lot of games where they can just untap and kill us with resto+colonade beats. I think that if your meta has a lot of people running the hard-control versions with 2-3 maindeck wraths then keranos might be necessary (it's a nightmare to begin with).
My problem with the Kiki+resto plan is we start playing an inconsistent build of kiki-pod, kiki-pod is incredibly efficient as setting up the combo, we arent. Resto is good in the midrange/beatdown plan though, we have few etbs and flickering master would be game ending.
I doubt a one of Pili-Pala would kill the deck. You generate a bunch of mana off of the combo then pod Pili-Pala into a Treasure Mage to cast any artifact fatty you want and then some. It's not even that much of a set up.
I love this deck so much, seeing this tread makes me so happy to be a modern player!
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Commander: UBG Tasigur, the lab enabler UR Planeswalker Control UBRW Breya's personal box of combos BRW Vampire beats, by Dre 1 Karn, where all lands are command towers UBR Inalla's Venser lock UBRGW Atog Atog contraption tribal WUB Xur's second chance UGW Derivi, bird tribal R Brother's Yamazaki BRG Prosh, the scourge of multiplayer GW Capt. Sisay's Deck Dumping Service UB All Your Spells do Belong to Me UG Tapioca Pearl BG Meren's grinder
Secondly if we use Birthing Pod on a Kitchen Finks that has been stolen, do we keep the finks? I assume no to this one.
Yes the raptor will evolve because the architect has higher toughness.
If you stole the finks and you pod it your opponent gains back control sadly.
It wouldn't evolve actually. If its already a 1/2 the layer of blue creatures get +1/+1 will take effect before the triggered action resolves in which case the abiltiy will check again on resolution and see the 2/3 cloudfin raptor and do nothing.
1)Grand architect enters the battlefield and sees mister 1/2 raptor and knows he himself is a 1/3 so evolve triggers and goes on the stack
2)Upon entering the battlefield the layer effect of all other blue creatures get +1/+1 turns the raptor into a 2/3.
3)Evolve trigger resolves and see's architect doesnt have greater power or toughness after all and nothing happens.
Perhaps you are right R-Shig. I imagine the finally piece in the puzzle would be Memnarch, as seems the best artifact to find and win with.
That's actually a great idea since Pili-Pala can pod right into Memnarch.
Yeah I could actually see including Pili-Pala, Treasure Mage, and Memnarch in the deck as it is a pretty compact package, and most of the cards aren't embarassing on their own (expect Pili-Pala...). I'm not a huge fan of how the combo doesn't have "haste", but it seems like a reasonable option.
Yeah I could actually see including Pili-Pala, Treasure Mage, and Memnarch in the deck as it is a pretty compact package, and most of the cards aren't embarassing on their own (expect Pili-Pala...). I'm not a huge fan of how the combo doesn't have "haste", but it seems like a reasonable option.
Yeah, that's the biggest downside I've come accross, the lack of "I win on the spot".
I have found that most people seem to see pili-pala as the threatening card and tend to waste their removal on it (honestly, it tends to act as a free spellskite most of the time) but some of the players at my lgs arent particularly bright. I like the combo so far but I haven't really spent too much time testing it (other than a 2-2 performance at my local modern night).
The other downside with the memnarch combo is that if you end up loosing pila pila to birthing pod you do break the combo and may not still guarantee the win.
In my little testing thus far, it's not too much of an issue, we generate infinite mana, try to go for memnarch and if they counter/deal with it we just play out our hand. I mean, if we cant stick memnarch then the combo isn't going to be game-ending, or particularly good but I dont think there's any real way to add resilience besides either redundant pieces or running eternal witness/mry retriever which have both been pretty lackluster thus far. The combo probably isn't necessary, the deck at it's best is primarily on an aggro/beatdown plan but being able to win on the spot against unsuspecting/hellbent opponents gives us free wins, it's also a win condition that actually works when the combat step isn't going to cut it, which happens often enough in my experience.
I'm going to continue to run the combo but I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting it.
You really don't care about protecting it (no Splinter Twin) and a 2 power evasive guy is much better with Grand Architect pumping it than a 1 power ground dude.
Yeah we seem to have separately arrived in a similar place. I have recently cut the Serum Visions and gone up to 2 Vedalken Shackles maindeck and been very happy with it. The fact that you also came to the same conclusion on your own is reassuring that it was the right choice.
The only nonland changes from my current list to yours is I have:
-2 Omenspeaker
+1 Spellskite
+1 Phantasmal Image
I think the Phantasmal Image is definitely awesome, and I don't think the 4th Spellskite I'm running is super necessary in the main, but it has been pretty nice.
How often has the Temple coming in tapped messed up your curve? I think it seems like a good option to have that provides a little extra draw filtering.
The situation in which Phantasmal Image is most useful is as a 2 drop lord. After Podding into a Master of Waves, you want to be able to continually Pod into more lords to pump your team, and Phantasmal Image lets you turn a 1 drop into a lord (usually copying Master of Waves). It also randomly has other applications, but that one was the most crucial.
I agree about Spellskite, will be cutting the 4th for an Augury Owl. I originally had Augury Owl in the deck because I wanted a reasonable 2 drop to Pod into. However, after adding Myr Superion, it was generally outclassed as a Pod target. I still think it is pretty good in the deck, and they don't actually fill the same role like I thought. The difference between an artifact 2 drop and a blue 2 drop is actually a pretty big one, and I think the deck in its current form doesn't have enough blue 2 drops.
It's hard to play Cryptic Command when your gameplan is tapping out every turn. While Grand Architect can sometimes help leave your mana open while you still do things, it seems way too narrow when you need your creature count to be abnormally high to make Birthing Pod, Grand Architect, and Chief Engineer work. The deck really doesn't need its incremental advantage, and Glen Elendra Archmage does a good job against decks you would want the counter ability for.
I have come up with this list after reading this topic:
1 Triton Shorestalker
4 Master of Trident Pearl
4 Lord of Atlantis
1 Tidebinder Mage
1 Voidmage Prodify
1 Phantasmal Image
4 Grand Architect
1 Treasure Mage
1 Kira, Great Glss-Spinner
2 Perstermite
2 Master of Waves
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Molten-Tail Masticore
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Birthing Pod
1 Vedalken Shackles
4 Telling Time
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Breeding Pool
2 Hinterland Arbor
4 Mutavault
10 Island
I didn't tested it yet, but i think that this one will have a more aggressive beginning.
Any thoughts?
-3x Misty Rainforest
-3x Scalding Tarn
-4x Steam Vents
-1x Breeding Pool
-1x Forest
-1x Mountain
-2x Sulfur Falls
-7x Island
Is there much else that is worth splashing red for without taking too much away from the rest of the deck though?
I see your point. Ok, i'll try this core list first.
I agree that my list lacks the focus, but one of its pros is the possibility to inflict considerable amount of damage if the deck doesn't combo off (the turn three Architect-Pod-Pestermite-Master combo still happening; the merfolk is more like an alternate wincon).
Hey, and thanks for your reply
That being said, I really like some of the ideas you are working with.
Tidebinder Mage is a sweet Pod target at the 2 drop slot (bingo!) that I could see even coming into the maindeck as a one-of against Pod/Zoo heavy metas. Will definitely put one in the board for now.
Bident of Thassa seems sweet (especially that it's an artifact), but I really have no concept of how the card performs in a real match setting. I look forward to hearing if it turns out to be win-more or awesome.
I have yet to really see Chief Engineer underperform, as more ways to play Pod+activate on turn 3 are huge. I can see the reasoning behind cutting the Myr Superions and a few Chief Engineers, but I haven't quite given up on them yet.
A red "splash" for a triple red creature seems like an understatement. While I don't really like the idea of destroying the manabase, you bring up an interesting idea of a Kiki-combo focused build. The main attraction of this is that if you run a Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and a Restoration Angel in the maindeck, your 2 drop+Grand Architect+Birthing Pod combo on turn 3 turns into a turn 3 win. This is done with the following chain:
Turn 2: Blue 2 Drop
Turn 3: Grand Architect, tap both for 4 mana, play Birthing Pod and activate, saccing 2 drop. Get Deceiver Exarch, untap Birthing Pod, tap Deceiver Exarch for 2 mana, activate Pod, saccing Grand Architect (1 floating). Get Restoration Angel, blink Deceiver Exarch, untap Pod. Use last floating mana to activate Pod, saccing Restoration Angel for Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and win.
This makes the deck significantly more fragile, but a reasonably consistent turn 3 win (often with Judge's Familiar or Spellskite backup) is certainly nothing to scoff at. The deck would have to be reworked a lot to make this idea work (more blue 2 drops, more deck manipulation), as it would be much much worse without Birthing Pod. Plus, in the current iteration of the deck, I find myself regularly dealing myself 6-8 damage with Birthing Pod, and adding a much more shock-heavy manabase means that you will kill yourself often. The look on your opponent's face after you going turn 2 Augury Owl turn 3 you lose has got to be priceless though.
This is just an idea that your comment brought to my attention, and I will not be pursuing it. However, it is certainly a possible variant to keep in mind if anyone is interested in exploring it.
Well put, and I agree wholeheartedly. There are pretty much 3 toolbox creatures in my maindeck, and all of them specifically look to advance the plan of Master of Waves+lords. Kira, Great Glass-Spinner protects your growing board from opposing removal, Sower of Temptation clears an opposing Tarmogoyf or similar that is preventing profitable attacks, and Glen Elendra Archmage either protects you from sweepers or opposing combo decks. The rest of the creatures in the deck are focused on your standard swarm+lord strategy, creating a very fast and hard to interact with clock.
I have tried the Masticore before, and I was not impressed (this was before Chief Engineer). I don't know if that changes anything, but I found I was really hard-pressed to ever want to Pod into it over Master of Waves, and if I was playing it from my hand I would almost always want a Batterskull instead.
I've been mucking around with the deck on mtgo for a while and this is where I've ended up:
The mulldrifter is for post pyroclasm/Anger of the gods when you're left with a lone master of waves to pod away, I've lost a few games with my opponent with nothing in hand/on board because the deck has no way to come back from a wrath without some traditional pod-chains. Wurmcoil should probably be another value creature but I can't resist the chance to pod into mulldrifter and then wurmcoil, plus the maindeck treasure mage lets me side in a mindslaver vs. control.
I lost twice at my LGS to anger of the gods where my opponent had topdecked it facing letal and I went on to lose the game. The first time it was against UWR, I got in a few beats with master post-wipe but they cast a resto and had counter magic for any relevant spell I topdecked, the game ended with him on like 3 life. The seccond time it was vs jund, he cast anger of the gods after my turn 4 master with for bunch of tokens (4+ I think), he went on to jamm a bob and just traded 1-for-1 until he was able to pulse my pod and go on to win. We could write this off as a weakness of the deck but I like having outs and it's only at the cost of a single card slot.
if we added white it'd open up a whole heap of answers/value pod targets, we'd get access to: resto, finks, linvala, reveillark, ranger of eos, kataki, mindcensor, eidolon, fiend hunter, the UW god. I think that UW is well worth exploring but atleast initially I dont like it. It would really hurt our access to huge amounts of blue devotion (which is where we get out turn 3/4 kills from) and white creatures dont work very well with grand architect.
I've tried a pair of UG temple maindeck but I found that come-into-play-tapped lands are really bad in a deck that really wants to cast one of it's 8 1-drops on turn 1. I think the 4 sages smooth out our draws well enough and I have a augury owl maindeck which I pod into quite often if I'm just podding 1-drop into 3-drop, I don't feel the deck struggles with bad/inconsistent draws without the temples.
I still play this deck occasionally!
I have found the Pod matchup to be pretty good actually, because it basically just ends up with you taking all their guys, especially in games 2 and 3. They really don't have much removal for Vedalken Shackles and Sower of Temptation (especially when backed by a Spellskite), so you basically get to get max value out of them.
I don't really like the second Sower against Jund (with red) because it dies to Lightning Bolt and Anger of the Gods. However I still like it against BG and BGw because they are generally a lot more reliant on Abrupt Decay.
I have yet to actually play the Tron matchup, but I'm not surprised it's tough. Do you play a Phyrexian Revoker in your sideboard? It seems like one of the best proactive answers to Oblivion Stone we have access to, but I'm not sure how impactful it actually is in practice.
I'm surprised you have been having trouble with UWR, because I have always found that to be one of the most favorable matchups. Spellskite alone is very hard for them to interact through, and Judge's Familiar makes it very hard for them to actually counter an early Pod. Later in the game, the fact that you play so many must-answer noncreature permanents means that they really can't counter all of them.
We could start with something like:
I already run a trinket mage package in my sideboard so it costs me 4 slots, which is a lot but it also gives us a gameplan against storm, tron, adnauseam and other combo decks that we struggle to interact with.
The combo is simple, we play grand architect with any blue 1-drop in play, which is a very common board-state for this deck, tap them both to cast birthing pod, with the remaining 1 mana we pod our 1-drop into pili-pala, pass turn (because pili-pala has summoning sickness, if they remove pili-pala on their turn we're probably just happy they didn't remove architect). On the following turn we make infinite mana then pod pili-pala into trinket mage getting expedition map, cast and crack map getting eye of ugin, play eye of ugin, find emrakul and cast him, hopefully for the win.
EDIT:
Alternatively we could run:
Which seems much better, memnarch is not un-castable without the combo, treasure mage can fetch a wurmcoil or battlesphere if you run them and pilipala can filter grand architect mana to cast blue creatures. I wonder if the combo is main-deckable?
as a Pod deck I see no reason not to run 1 of pila pala if it produces results. 1 restoration angel and 1 kiki jiki either with no white/red or with white in the mana base and then you could play revilark is also solid. Two slots for potential turn 3 kills is worth IMO, would be much better if we had a brainstorm effect to shuffle away kiki if you draw him.
Having not played the deck yet what is the devotion like for master of waves? If it is strong enough is thasa as a 1 of strong? she can be poded into and if you run red then U/R god is possible and a power house.
The devotion plan is pretty good, Master usually produces 3-4 elementals and almost always represents a 1-2 turn clock, having protection from lightning bolt and abrupt is a strong upside. Having said that, I dont think thassa is very good, the scry 1 isn't really necessary once we have 3+ drops in play and if we ever make her a creature we're probably winning anyway. Her most useful mode is unblockable but I dont think that's worth having an otherwise dead card (can't be podded away, cant clone her if she's active, dead card onto an empty board). I ran her of a 1-of for a while and quickly moved her to the sideboard and even then I was only really siding her in vs. BGx decks, which is not a matchup I've been having trouble with.
We are far too aggressive for Keranos, we pay a lot life to pod and with grand architect we usually are able to close out games on turn 4-5 without disruption. We have usually died or have won by the time keranos is likely to be value (paying 5 mana for two lightning bolts is not where we want to be). I think wurmcoil engine or batterskull is probably better in matchups where we might want Keranos (being able to basically cast artifacts for free is a major selling point but they also represent a much better clock with similar resilience).
EDIT:
For reference this is the list I'm running right now:
Yeah BGx and other Pod decks seem to be our best matchups. Any matchup where Vedalken Shackles and Master of Waves are both individually insane are very good for us. The worst matchups seem to be the ones where the opponent either has copious amounts of sweepers or can combo quickly through a Spellskite or a Glen Elendra Archmage.
I actually really like the idea of running a Keranos, God of Storms in the sideboard against sweeper-heavy decks (such as UW control). The most common way for the opponent to deal with it is Celestial Purge, and there is next to no chance that is coming in against us. The decks that can REALLY blunt your early aggression are also generally the ones who have a very hard time with a resolved Keranos.
I think if I were to go for the Kiki combo version, I would run 1 Kiki and 2 Restos, as well as possibly a Reveillark, and I would cut a Breeding Pool and an Island for two Hallowed Fountains. I would also want to up the count of Augury Owls to get as many blue 2 drops as possible to more consistently be able to combo quickly. I think this would have to come at the expense of some number of Chief Engineer, Myr Superion, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, and perhaps non-tutorable cards like Vedalken Shackles or Batterskull. Also obviously the Pestermites would switch to Deceiver Exarchs. I actually really like how Restoration Angel gets a lot of value in the deck from things like Sage of Epityr and Augury Owl, making it very good on its own in addition to with the combo. Reveillark is also very good here by being able to return every single creature in the deck.
Most versions of UWR kicking around atm are Flash or Geist and they run either a single anger of the gods or no sweeper at all. I have found the matchup fine (roughtly 50-50), if they manage to keep us off pod+dude, or just keep our creature count low enough then we struggle but with maindeck kira and spellskite we certainly can just beat face and ignore their removal and they cant really beat our most explosive starts, after siding clique and glen elendra as pod targets the matchup gets better to the point where I dont think keranos is necessary, dont get me wrong, keranos is a good card but they have a lot of games where they can just untap and kill us with resto+colonade beats. I think that if your meta has a lot of people running the hard-control versions with 2-3 maindeck wraths then keranos might be necessary (it's a nightmare to begin with).
My problem with the Kiki+resto plan is we start playing an inconsistent build of kiki-pod, kiki-pod is incredibly efficient as setting up the combo, we arent. Resto is good in the midrange/beatdown plan though, we have few etbs and flickering master would be game ending.
UBG Tasigur, the lab enabler UR Planeswalker Control
UBRW Breya's personal box of combos BRW Vampire beats, by Dre
1 Karn, where all lands are command towers UBR Inalla's Venser lock
UBRGW Atog Atog contraption tribal WUB Xur's second chance
UGW Derivi, bird tribal R Brother's Yamazaki
BRG Prosh, the scourge of multiplayer GW Capt. Sisay's Deck Dumping Service
UB All Your Spells do Belong to Me UG Tapioca Pearl
BG Meren's grinder
It wouldn't evolve actually. If its already a 1/2 the layer of blue creatures get +1/+1 will take effect before the triggered action resolves in which case the abiltiy will check again on resolution and see the 2/3 cloudfin raptor and do nothing.
1)Grand architect enters the battlefield and sees mister 1/2 raptor and knows he himself is a 1/3 so evolve triggers and goes on the stack
2)Upon entering the battlefield the layer effect of all other blue creatures get +1/+1 turns the raptor into a 2/3.
3)Evolve trigger resolves and see's architect doesnt have greater power or toughness after all and nothing happens.
Yeah I could actually see including Pili-Pala, Treasure Mage, and Memnarch in the deck as it is a pretty compact package, and most of the cards aren't embarassing on their own (expect Pili-Pala...). I'm not a huge fan of how the combo doesn't have "haste", but it seems like a reasonable option.
Yeah, that's the biggest downside I've come accross, the lack of "I win on the spot".
I have found that most people seem to see pili-pala as the threatening card and tend to waste their removal on it (honestly, it tends to act as a free spellskite most of the time) but some of the players at my lgs arent particularly bright. I like the combo so far but I haven't really spent too much time testing it (other than a 2-2 performance at my local modern night).
In my little testing thus far, it's not too much of an issue, we generate infinite mana, try to go for memnarch and if they counter/deal with it we just play out our hand. I mean, if we cant stick memnarch then the combo isn't going to be game-ending, or particularly good but I dont think there's any real way to add resilience besides either redundant pieces or running eternal witness/mry retriever which have both been pretty lackluster thus far. The combo probably isn't necessary, the deck at it's best is primarily on an aggro/beatdown plan but being able to win on the spot against unsuspecting/hellbent opponents gives us free wins, it's also a win condition that actually works when the combat step isn't going to cut it, which happens often enough in my experience.
I'm going to continue to run the combo but I wouldn't fault anyone for cutting it.
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