Birthing Pod is a creature now. My excitement knows no bounds.
This is absolutely my top card of the set. Better than anything in Guilds. Better than anything in M19. Best card to come out in a while. Now, I know my standards are entirely different than most people (I'm not really interested in the most powerful cards), but this is a magnificent win for me. I really hope this doesn't get expensive. I can't overstate my joy. This is really just the perfect Simic card for my cube.
Is anybody else interested in this? Am I totally alone?
Definitly testing it as I run a whole birthing pod archetype with double pod. This card is without a doubt, extremly sweet.
But, I doubt it'll be good enough for my cube, even in creature toolbox decks.. The vulnerability to sorcery removal for a 4 drop is a big downside. Especially because you need other creatures for it to be great.. and unlike birthing pod, a wrath can erase both your board AND the ability to pod, so over-commiting is a real danger.
However, there's random upsides, that offset that (a little) ,like it can be returned with revilark and fetched with recruiter.. Two cards that are highly sought after in birthing pod decks. It can be fetched with green's sun zenith.
I probably need it to be like 90% as good as pod in my format for it to last for a while and I strongly doubt that's the case.
Unless you really build your green section to support Birthing Pod, I think Pod is a mediocre cube card.
And this card is much worse than Birthing Pod, and it takes up a valuable Guild Slot that could go to a tempo / card advantage machine like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter instead.
If this was able to sacrifice itself it would be more appealing.
This helps Pod decks be more consistent if that's a thing for you; Pod was never good for us anyways. And this is slower, more fragile, and a lot harder to cast. If you love Pod in cube, this is a good card for you. But for me, it's not something I'm even remotely interested in.
This helps Pod decks be more consistent if that's a thing for you; Pod was never good for us anyways. And this is slower, more fragile, and a lot harder to cast. If you love Pod in cube, this is a good card for you. But for me, it's not something I'm even remotely interested in.
I noticed that you've had this card and Pod to your cube again. Can you elabore on why they are good and what purposes do they serve exactly in your environment? Is it just for Kiki-Jiki and Melira combos? We removed them recently and Vannifar and Pod are underperforming a little since then. I was wondering maybe if we are missing something else.
People like to draft the Pod deck, so I give them the tools to do so now that my cube has enough free slots to give up. It's not my favorite by any stretch. But 2 cards is a low cost to enable an entire deck for the folks that want to see it supported.
I thought about adding a couple of Pod support cards. Pod was always just OK for us, but there continue to be a lot of underwhelming bodies with good effects strapped to them (think Reclamation Sage, Recruiter type effects, etc), so I could see these slotting into decks. How is Vannifar working out for folks?
I thought about adding a couple of Pod support cards. Pod was always just OK for us, but there continue to be a lot of underwhelming bodies with good effects strapped to them (think Reclamation Sage, Recruiter type effects, etc), so I could see these slotting into decks. How is Vannifar working out for folks?
I took Birthing Pod out of my cube a while ago since the pivotal part of the chain (4-cmc) is very planeswalker heavy. Birthing Pod / Vannifar butt heads a lot with Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman for the creature selection engine slots in creature heavy decks, and Survival / Fauana Shaman are just so much better. I've been liking Fiend Artisan / Vivien, Monsters' Advocate much more than I've ever liked Birthing Pod / Prime Speaker Vannifar.
@steve_man can you share more about your experience w/ fiend artisan? It was one of the cards I was most excited about in the set but I just haven't seen it do anything yet. Where do you play it?
@steve_man can you share more about your experience w/ fiend artisan? It was one of the cards I was most excited about in the set but I just haven't seen it do anything yet. Where do you play it?
I treat any card that relies on a good amount of creatures like Survival of the Fittest: put it in a deck with lots of creatures (preferably 12 or more). Being able to cash in mana dorks / tokens for legitimate threats is really big game, plus it can be a threat on its own later in the game. And not having to worry about a cmc chain makes it a lot more preferable than Birthing Pod to me.
Friend Artisan (leaving this autocorrect typo in because it's funny) is a really solid add in any midrange deck. Cashing in mana elves and tokens for bigger fare, or just making efficient use of mana.
right on - thanks! that's how I hoped it would play, I think midrange creature decks are just struggling in my cube in general, so may not be a problem w/ the friendly artisan
This card is pretty disgusting with Intruder Alarm - I was able to pod out my entire deck one game. But I eventually took intruder alarm cube as I'mt not really in love with the combo and wanted blue creature decks to focus a bit more on Parallax Tide/ Opposition, Inverter Combo, Flicker etc.
But in all seriousness:
1. Why not play Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman/ Fiend Artisan / Vivien, Monsters' Advocate/ Birthing Pod/ Vannifar/ Evolutionary Leap in the cube at the same time. I find having all these green creature support really helps the aristocrats/ Melira deck. I don't think we should be picking and choosing. The redundancy between these effects only makes this archetype even stronger.
2. Dies to removal isn't really a problem in these archetypes - these archetypes have way too many ETB value creatures that removal spells are often a loss when interacting with these decks. Sweepers are a different questions though ...
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Birthing Pod is a creature now. My excitement knows no bounds.
This is absolutely my top card of the set. Better than anything in Guilds. Better than anything in M19. Best card to come out in a while. Now, I know my standards are entirely different than most people (I'm not really interested in the most powerful cards), but this is a magnificent win for me. I really hope this doesn't get expensive. I can't overstate my joy. This is really just the perfect Simic card for my cube.
Is anybody else interested in this? Am I totally alone?
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But, I doubt it'll be good enough for my cube, even in creature toolbox decks.. The vulnerability to sorcery removal for a 4 drop is a big downside. Especially because you need other creatures for it to be great.. and unlike birthing pod, a wrath can erase both your board AND the ability to pod, so over-commiting is a real danger.
However, there's random upsides, that offset that (a little) ,like it can be returned with revilark and fetched with recruiter.. Two cards that are highly sought after in birthing pod decks. It can be fetched with green's sun zenith.
I probably need it to be like 90% as good as pod in my format for it to last for a while and I strongly doubt that's the case.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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- Can’t be played for 3 mana
- Can’t be used the turn you play it
- More vulnerable as a creature
- Blue is probably the worst color for Birthing Pod (and green is probably the second worst).
RIP Simic mythics for me in this set. Let’s hope Domri delivers. On another note, this looks like a spicy Commander.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
And this card is much worse than Birthing Pod, and it takes up a valuable Guild Slot that could go to a tempo / card advantage machine like Rashmi, Eternities Crafter instead.
If this was able to sacrifice itself it would be more appealing.
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1 - My playgroup loves pod, so I imagine they'll be excited by this.
2 - Simic is really weak, so I'm always open to testing a new Simic card.
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I noticed that you've had this card and Pod to your cube again. Can you elabore on why they are good and what purposes do they serve exactly in your environment? Is it just for Kiki-Jiki and Melira combos? We removed them recently and Vannifar and Pod are underperforming a little since then. I was wondering maybe if we are missing something else.
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My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
I took Birthing Pod out of my cube a while ago since the pivotal part of the chain (4-cmc) is very planeswalker heavy. Birthing Pod / Vannifar butt heads a lot with Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman for the creature selection engine slots in creature heavy decks, and Survival / Fauana Shaman are just so much better. I've been liking Fiend Artisan / Vivien, Monsters' Advocate much more than I've ever liked Birthing Pod / Prime Speaker Vannifar.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
I treat any card that relies on a good amount of creatures like Survival of the Fittest: put it in a deck with lots of creatures (preferably 12 or more). Being able to cash in mana dorks / tokens for legitimate threats is really big game, plus it can be a threat on its own later in the game. And not having to worry about a cmc chain makes it a lot more preferable than Birthing Pod to me.
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
But in all seriousness:
1. Why not play Survival of the Fittest / Fauna Shaman/ Fiend Artisan / Vivien, Monsters' Advocate/ Birthing Pod/ Vannifar/ Evolutionary Leap in the cube at the same time. I find having all these green creature support really helps the aristocrats/ Melira deck. I don't think we should be picking and choosing. The redundancy between these effects only makes this archetype even stronger.
2. Dies to removal isn't really a problem in these archetypes - these archetypes have way too many ETB value creatures that removal spells are often a loss when interacting with these decks. Sweepers are a different questions though ...
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i