I'm working on building the control version of Gifts, and have also experienced Elesh Norn not being the automatic slam-dunk G1 that you need if you're in a position to go for an early Rites. I was thinking of trying Terastodon instead; you can sacrifice your lands and drop instant death on the table, you can Armageddon your opponent if they've stumbled on land and you happen to have a way to clean up the tokens in hand (Pulse, EE, etc.), eight mana isn't completely unreasonable to get up to once you've Loamed a couple of times. Any good?
You could go over to Junk, which overlaps a few cards and the manabase but plays nothing like Pod. The closest thing is Nic Fit, which is where I'm going to be spending a bunch more of my focus I guess. Godammit, Wizards.
Jesus, I think over an hour and a half of playing Bogles would be enough to make me want to quit the format. Gross.
Most of my experience with Slippery Bogle have also involved Rancor, so my view of the match is that you need stuff to cut them off fast; I'm still on max Chords, so hitting Spellskite and/or lucky Pontiffs before they've vomited out their hand tends to give a lot of time to get stable. Once they've gone full Voltron, though, maybe a guy like Fleshbag Marauder would be worth putting in the board, for the situations where Decay isn't enough. Let's even be really outlandish, you could try out Anowon, the Ruin Sage in that loose 5-drop slot; we can weather The Abyss, but I don't think there's that many other decks that can.
[1][B/W]: Warden of the First Tree becomes a Human Warrior with base power and toughness 3/3.
[2][B/W][B/W]: If Warden of the First Tree is a Warrior, it becomes a Human Spirit Warrior with trample and lifelink.
[3][B/W][B/W][B/W]: If Warden of the First Tree is a Spirit, put five +1/+1 counters on it.
1/1
Junk Figure of Destiny. Do we want a mana sink like this in the deck? It stays in Bolt range for a very long time, so I'm thinking the answer to that is no, but that is a huge punch in an initially very tiny package.
The elemental looks like an insane CA engine :
- every ETB creature is instant speed
I don't know if it fits to Pod or anywhere in the competitive pool, but it's a very sexy card on paper.
Actually it's a nonbo with ETB. They enter as generic 2/2s and when you flip them over the abilities don't trigger because they aren't entering. They're already there, ust turning face up. The creatures Pod plays get a lot worse when you can't get the ETB effect off them, especially against midrange matches where you are looking to grind off advantage with them. The free 2/2s are card advantage, but still seem awkward at best.
This needs to be highlighted. The elemental is garbage. You know how fun it is to play under Torpor Orb? You know how people have been playing two or even three Resto Angels to capitalise on the high concentration of EtB guys? I'm sure there's some other CA engine at 4-5 mana already printed that doesn't require as much investment of mana and/or topdeck babysitting to be useful.
About Qasali I agree with tempest but still have one question here. Let's say you're playing both (qasali + sage). Is that worth since it means you have two dead cards in your deck if come across a deck which doesn't run any artifact or enchantment. I have pretty stock list. I don't see other way than removing one of my restoration angel for sage but is that worth?
Little bit late, but if you don't see any artifacts or enchantments G1, you will see them G2 because people are going to have stuff in their sideboard for one of the big decks of the format. They're never dead cards once you think in terms of matches and not individual games. There are also enough decks that are reliant on artifacts/enchantments (Affinity, Tron, Twin, Bogles, B/W Tokens, enemy Pod decks, etc.) that having one card to counter hate and one to counter a key card is worthwhile. Generally, you have one main - Pridemage if you value the beatdown, Sage if you value preserving the Pod chain - and bring in the other against decks where you could use the Disenchant G1.
I think the first Rhino is better than Polukranos - they fill similar roles of being enormous for comparatively little mana, but Siege Rhino pulls you away from dangerously low life totals and has trample, both of which are quite important. But, I also think Polukranos is better than the second Rhino, and if you have room for two huge creatures then it's better to diversify. If the meta becomes like Standard and it's all Rhino stalemates (Rhino sieges...?), then I think it might be time to seriously consider giving Big Game Hunter a place in the sideboard.
Worship looks like spicy tech against Delver. Resolve it and they basically can't kill you; the deck is so dense with creatures that you'll never run out, and I think it's pretty rare for them to be running non-creature bounce. It also does stuff against Burn; probably has about the same effect as a hard-cast Leyline.
I notice the three Pod decks all run 3x MB Decay, two Pontiffs, and don't hold back on Finks and Rhinos. That seems to be the key to surviving in a field full of Treasure Cruise stupidity. With three(!) Pod lists and Jund of all things making the Top 8, maybe people will get the idea that the death of BGx has been greatly exaggerated.
The first two sets of Zendikar are highly influenced by Dungeons & Dragons - mechanics representing quests, adventuring parties, encountering traps, etc.. It's a world full of treasures and treasure-hunters. The last set, Rise of the Eldrazi, changes the tone and introduced the Lovecraftian world-consuming monsters, but the tone still isn't that much like Lovecraft's writing; it's more apocalyptic and epic than personal and spiraling into madness. More Lord of the Rings, except Sauron wins.
I too think that looking at Chord primarily as a way to get the last combo piece is short-sighted; there are a lot of hate creatures that make games very ugly if you land them early, and Chord can facilitate that better/more often than just Podding out of a Birds. I want to try Spirit of the Labyrinth against Burn, for example, because it if appears while a Cruise is on the stack then it will have more or less done everything it needs to do. (I don't imagine this would work against Delver, since they can protect their Cruises.)
these are the items I would like to comment further.
1.) With the high curve this is what I'm going to try out. But is there a way I can squeeze in sun titan? or is it a win more card?
-1 Chord of calling
-1 Entomber Exarch
+1 wall of roots
+1 sin collector
5.) I never thought I would put in thoughtseize against an aggro deck like merfolk? I think I need to read more about sideboarding using melira pod deck. Do you have a link where I can read sideboarding depending on match ups? It will really be helpful.
As much as I wish Sun Titan were viable, he's pretty win-more at the moment; if you can Pod up to your 5-drops, you should be in control of the game. If the meta swings back to more attrition wars Sun Titan bears reconsidering, but even when Jund was an absolute tyrant it was still a little excessive.
For bringing in discard against Merfolk, it's to take out their lords so they can't get a critical mass of large creatures. Double Lord of Atlantis and a Spreading Seas is very difficult to race and hard to stop without drawing just the right thing. As a general rule of thumb, sideboarding involves taking the combo out - you sometimes catch fair decks out based on the hate they board in, and it's rare that you can beat unfair decks to comboing off - and bringing in spot removal and/or discard and any relevant hatebears. Some matches you're taking out Chords if you can't reasonably expect to cast it for three or more (very fast aggro, decks with hard counters), but there's also the line of play where you Chord into a counterspell at your opponent's EoT to force them to either let you have it or tap out during your turn, so (as often is the case with Chord) there's a lot of personal preference in that decision. Some of the combo pieces double as hate cards in certain matches - Spellskite against Bogle, Viscera Seer against Living End, Melira obviously against Infect - so you leave those in. There's no comprehensive guide for sideboarding, none that's current anyway, but you get a feel for what works and what doesn't after you play a few matches out against the big decks.
It has been more than a year since I played pod. I also have been reading this thread and is really helpful remembering all interactions. Specially now that pod is using restoration angel.
I'm planning to play in the next big tourney in our place. In line with that I have a couple of questions hope you guys could help me.
1.) Seeing the list it has quite a high curve. is it okay to have that high curve for angel pod? This list has only 7 mana dorks (4 birds & 3 noble and no wall of roots)
2.) I'd like to put in sin collector in the main. Should I remove Entomber Exarch in place of sin collector?
3.) What is the right number for chord of calling? back then top decks only used 2 pieces? Tried the deck and its not that good to have chord on the start of the game. But maybe somebody can enlighten me why 3 should be the right number?
4.) What should we put in to SB to better our match against Tron decks? Is Fulminator mage good enough?
5.) Is Windborn muse any good in the 75? against decks that try to swarm like merfolk?
6.) Sometimes I get mana screwed when I get the single basic swamp in the early game. Would plains be better than swamp as there are more GW WW casting cost creatures.
7.) Usually I win game one but I'm having a hard time playing against Grafdigger's cage in game 2 and game 3. Should I up the number of abrupt decays in the side?
Also played games against Ur delver and it's not that bad match up. Seige Rhino is really good as we tend to go aggro than going for the combo kill
Let's see...
1) The curve isn't so bad; high would be more than three 5-drops/any 6-drops. Mostly you want the dorks for casting early Pods, as they don't tend to live long enough to help you with your 4/5-drops. Triple Voice, maindeck Decays, and Melira is plenty of action for the early game.
2) People have. Sin Collector is better against spell-heavy Delver, where Exarch is better in the attrition wars against various flavours of BGx, so Sin Collector should probably be the go-to as of now.
3) "Right number" is highly subjective, especially since Chord is one of the cards that comes out on a regular basis G2&3. Generally speaking, Melira lists want more Chords than Angel ones, because the combo pieces are cheaper; some of the Angel-only lists drop the Chords entirely, but it's my feeling that unless you're replacing them with another card draw/advantage spell (like Abzan Charm) that it won't work out in the long run. More Chords means you can have better targeted hate pieces, like Eidolon of Rhetoric against Storm or Kataki against Affinity. Less Chords means you have more options when it comes to non-creature spells, because you're no so shackled to doing everything through Chord and Pod.
4) Fulminator is okay. Realm Razer is a bit better, but Razer is really only very strong against Tron while Fulminator can kill Celestial Colonnade in the UWr matches. GR Tron is such a horrible matchup that there's almost nothing you can do to salvage it, though, so generally the method of preparing for it is to just hope to avoid it and use those sideboard slots for other things.
5) Not... really. There's not enough decks that go wide in Modern for Propaganda-style effects to be that strong, and generally Orzhov Pontiff will do more work against the token-based ones. Merfolk can usually be contained with Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, and not letting them have Aether Vial for too long.
6) The Swamp is more to mitigate the lifeloss from Thoughtseize. With Windswept Heath instead of Misty Rainforest, most manabases should be able to support a Plains alongside the Swamp and 2-3 Forests.
7) Grafdigger's Cage is a sound hosing. Hope that you can make them discard it early, or that you can Chord for Pridemage/Reclamation Sage when they draw it. MOAR DECAY is also looking more and more to be the best catch-all solution to most things; I think it might be a good idea to just start with four Decays and work out the rest of the hate pieces from there.
That said, I do think Delver is beatable, or at least something can be done to get the match back to around 50%. The meta has just gone all stupid because buying into the #1 and #2 decks in Modern suddenly became radically cheaper, so there's a flood of those decks to fight through. It'll balance itself out eventually. Modern has an aggro deck that isn't Affinity, and a lot of people wanted that, and it has a legit tempo deck, and a lot of people wanted that, and Jund Goodstuff is no longer able to bully all the other decks through raw value, and a hell of a lot of people wanted that. Meanwhile, we're on the most flexible deck in the format: we'll adapt. I mean, it's not like we have to deal with Containment Priest (yet...).
Darkblast. Choke. Chalice of the Void at 1. Which are things you can put in Pod, but they're kind of at odds with the general plan of the deck. I could imagine a full set of Abrupt Decays and double Orzhov Pontiff being a headache.
The rest of the cards in the draft answer that question; in a vacuum, you can only say "it depends". A slow format with lots of creatures that don't enter combat favours Flesh to Dust. A format where you're often racing early with one or two creatures on either side favours Kill Shot. Unless one card is strictly better by the purest definition (ie. Lightning Bolt versus Shock), then there's going to be enough room to construct a scenario for both cards where each is the best option. There is no "default setting" for Limited.
Most of my experience with Slippery Bogle have also involved Rancor, so my view of the match is that you need stuff to cut them off fast; I'm still on max Chords, so hitting Spellskite and/or lucky Pontiffs before they've vomited out their hand tends to give a lot of time to get stable. Once they've gone full Voltron, though, maybe a guy like Fleshbag Marauder would be worth putting in the board, for the situations where Decay isn't enough. Let's even be really outlandish, you could try out Anowon, the Ruin Sage in that loose 5-drop slot; we can weather The Abyss, but I don't think there's that many other decks that can.
Junk Figure of Destiny. Do we want a mana sink like this in the deck? It stays in Bolt range for a very long time, so I'm thinking the answer to that is no, but that is a huge punch in an initially very tiny package.
This needs to be highlighted. The elemental is garbage. You know how fun it is to play under Torpor Orb? You know how people have been playing two or even three Resto Angels to capitalise on the high concentration of EtB guys? I'm sure there's some other CA engine at 4-5 mana already printed that doesn't require as much investment of mana and/or topdeck babysitting to be useful.
Little bit late, but if you don't see any artifacts or enchantments G1, you will see them G2 because people are going to have stuff in their sideboard for one of the big decks of the format. They're never dead cards once you think in terms of matches and not individual games. There are also enough decks that are reliant on artifacts/enchantments (Affinity, Tron, Twin, Bogles, B/W Tokens, enemy Pod decks, etc.) that having one card to counter hate and one to counter a key card is worthwhile. Generally, you have one main - Pridemage if you value the beatdown, Sage if you value preserving the Pod chain - and bring in the other against decks where you could use the Disenchant G1.
I notice the three Pod decks all run 3x MB Decay, two Pontiffs, and don't hold back on Finks and Rhinos. That seems to be the key to surviving in a field full of Treasure Cruise stupidity. With three(!) Pod lists and Jund of all things making the Top 8, maybe people will get the idea that the death of BGx has been greatly exaggerated.
As much as I wish Sun Titan were viable, he's pretty win-more at the moment; if you can Pod up to your 5-drops, you should be in control of the game. If the meta swings back to more attrition wars Sun Titan bears reconsidering, but even when Jund was an absolute tyrant it was still a little excessive.
For bringing in discard against Merfolk, it's to take out their lords so they can't get a critical mass of large creatures. Double Lord of Atlantis and a Spreading Seas is very difficult to race and hard to stop without drawing just the right thing. As a general rule of thumb, sideboarding involves taking the combo out - you sometimes catch fair decks out based on the hate they board in, and it's rare that you can beat unfair decks to comboing off - and bringing in spot removal and/or discard and any relevant hatebears. Some matches you're taking out Chords if you can't reasonably expect to cast it for three or more (very fast aggro, decks with hard counters), but there's also the line of play where you Chord into a counterspell at your opponent's EoT to force them to either let you have it or tap out during your turn, so (as often is the case with Chord) there's a lot of personal preference in that decision. Some of the combo pieces double as hate cards in certain matches - Spellskite against Bogle, Viscera Seer against Living End, Melira obviously against Infect - so you leave those in. There's no comprehensive guide for sideboarding, none that's current anyway, but you get a feel for what works and what doesn't after you play a few matches out against the big decks.
Let's see...
1) The curve isn't so bad; high would be more than three 5-drops/any 6-drops. Mostly you want the dorks for casting early Pods, as they don't tend to live long enough to help you with your 4/5-drops. Triple Voice, maindeck Decays, and Melira is plenty of action for the early game.
2) People have. Sin Collector is better against spell-heavy Delver, where Exarch is better in the attrition wars against various flavours of BGx, so Sin Collector should probably be the go-to as of now.
3) "Right number" is highly subjective, especially since Chord is one of the cards that comes out on a regular basis G2&3. Generally speaking, Melira lists want more Chords than Angel ones, because the combo pieces are cheaper; some of the Angel-only lists drop the Chords entirely, but it's my feeling that unless you're replacing them with another card draw/advantage spell (like Abzan Charm) that it won't work out in the long run. More Chords means you can have better targeted hate pieces, like Eidolon of Rhetoric against Storm or Kataki against Affinity. Less Chords means you have more options when it comes to non-creature spells, because you're no so shackled to doing everything through Chord and Pod.
4) Fulminator is okay. Realm Razer is a bit better, but Razer is really only very strong against Tron while Fulminator can kill Celestial Colonnade in the UWr matches. GR Tron is such a horrible matchup that there's almost nothing you can do to salvage it, though, so generally the method of preparing for it is to just hope to avoid it and use those sideboard slots for other things.
5) Not... really. There's not enough decks that go wide in Modern for Propaganda-style effects to be that strong, and generally Orzhov Pontiff will do more work against the token-based ones. Merfolk can usually be contained with Thoughtseize and Abrupt Decay, and not letting them have Aether Vial for too long.
6) The Swamp is more to mitigate the lifeloss from Thoughtseize. With Windswept Heath instead of Misty Rainforest, most manabases should be able to support a Plains alongside the Swamp and 2-3 Forests.
7) Grafdigger's Cage is a sound hosing. Hope that you can make them discard it early, or that you can Chord for Pridemage/Reclamation Sage when they draw it. MOAR DECAY is also looking more and more to be the best catch-all solution to most things; I think it might be a good idea to just start with four Decays and work out the rest of the hate pieces from there.
If you can't beat 'em...
That said, I do think Delver is beatable, or at least something can be done to get the match back to around 50%. The meta has just gone all stupid because buying into the #1 and #2 decks in Modern suddenly became radically cheaper, so there's a flood of those decks to fight through. It'll balance itself out eventually. Modern has an aggro deck that isn't Affinity, and a lot of people wanted that, and it has a legit tempo deck, and a lot of people wanted that, and Jund Goodstuff is no longer able to bully all the other decks through raw value, and a hell of a lot of people wanted that. Meanwhile, we're on the most flexible deck in the format: we'll adapt. I mean, it's not like we have to deal with Containment Priest (yet...).