MTG Salvation

After dissolving my Akiri, Line-Slinger and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus, I had a new slot for a competitive deck. I'm not a fan of cEDH games but I do need cEDH decks to bully out pubstompers at my LGS. When I stumbled across the Blood Pod list, it sold me immediately with 'Turn dudes sideways in cEDH' and that is what made me dissolve Akiri Kraum and try these two ladies instead.

First change: Grand Warlord is some serious burst of mana, especially if I'm operating under a Contamination or Winter Orb. She has Haste, which effectively makers her cost 3 and it is another body to Pod to grab Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.

I don't have enough duals to use Arbor Elf's untap Forest well, so I put in an Elvish Mystic instead. Once the manabase gets upgraded, I can see this Elf making a comeback.

Cinder Glade ETBT frequently with only 10 Basics, Spire Garden doesn't. Sucks that I lose its typing, but that's even more of a reason to cut Arbor Elf.

Had a long game the other night, so got some testing done but also made changes afterwards: I felt like I needed another 4 drop that help me go Infinite with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. When one of my opponents muttered about having to play around a Resto Angel, I thought to myself 'Why aren't I running that'? It's evasive, so it makes it more likely to get draws off of Tymna the Weaver's trigger. It can be played as a protection piece, or blink one of my answers.

Root Maze and Rule of Law are added as more Stax pieces that should stall out my opponents.

Diabolic Intent was thrown in due to its price bottoming out and how blase this deck is about throwing away Creatures. Especially if they're Tana, the Bloodsower's Saprolings. A spare Demonic is good.

I cut Dance of the Dead because of its poor lines with Kiki and Karmic Guide. I can't use Karmic Guide to chain into Felidar Guardian with Dance and Kiki coming into play tapped defeats a lot of the purposes.

Damping Sphere and Winter Orb are ineffective Stax pieces, hence replacing them with Root Maze and Rule of Law.

Reclamation Sage was chosen for my last cut because I couldn't see a weaker card to cut. Manglehorn may not hit Enchantments but I like that he is a Stax piece, I'm also finding a lot of Artifacts and Enchantments are better to dealt with with Instant Speed Interaction.

I will say this, I love playing this deck as Ruric Thar, the Unbowed makes my opponents flip out. I never could think of a deck that would play 6 drops, much less than Thar.

Deathrite Shaman?

Tutors?

Quote from umtiger »

Deathrite Shaman?

Tutors?

I was looking for my copy, gave up and bought one for the most recent change.

Instead of Tutors, which I am mostly priced out at this point, I decided to go with more Stax elements. Magus of the Moon and Blood Moon hit me far more than my opponents, so they both got the axe. Glowrider and Thalia slow my opponents development as I am way more into Creatures than they are.

I hated the two cards Oblation gave my opponents, so I'll take the life loss and increased difficulty in casting Anguished Unmaking.

Kataki is to punish all of those Artifact heavy decks, so it made sense to axe an Artifact for him.

A great many of Beast Within's targets would be Artifacts or Enchantments, so I am swapping it out for Aura of Silence for its Taxing properties.

Deathrite is an unreliable mana dork, but I like his utility more than Boreal Druid's.

Rakdos Charm has good utility, but I mostly have used it to nix Artifacts and been annoyed when it couldn't hit Enchantments. Caustic Caterpillar goes in to hit those targets and provide a body for value.

Ethersworn Canonist is very similar to Rule of Law but is a body, so that's why I swapped them.

Blind Obedience gives me reach and gains me life, but it doesn't give as much of a slowdown as Loxodon Gatekeeper does.

Phyrexian Revoker shuts down one problem Activation, Linvala hits them all.

I'm mostly concerned with how my average CMC trends with this update. I'll have to see if I have enough Stax to punish the board out.

I'm glad that you've posted this list. It's the premier Stax list at the current moment and I've modeled my Kaalia list off of it somewhat.

I would recommend keeping Phyrexian Revoker. Because he can hit mana sources of noncreature permanents, such as Food Chain or Teferi, Temporal Archmage, he's worth his inclusion. Especially since he's so easy to find via Birthing Pod, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and Survival of the Fittest.

Otherwise, I think that the changes you've proposed are all really solid options. Be careful that you don't go cut too many mana dorks, since that's the advantage that G brings to the table.

On that note, have you considered Bloom Tender? It's pretty easy to maximize her mana production with the decklist configuration in its present case.

Another card to consider that many other lists are utilizing is Dark Confidant. It's a creature that draws more cards, which has great synergy with Tymna and the main deck strategy. I've noticed that this deck can look a little starved for card advantage in order to keep the Stax and Hatebears flowing, so I'm a fan of the Confidant's inclusion.

Quote from benjameenbear »

I'm glad that you've posted this list. It's the premier Stax list at the current moment and I've modeled my Kaalia list off of it somewhat.

I would recommend keeping Phyrexian Revoker. Because he can hit mana sources of noncreature permanents, such as Food Chain or Teferi, Temporal Archmage, he's worth his inclusion. Especially since he's so easy to find via Birthing Pod, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and Survival of the Fittest.

Otherwise, I think that the changes you've proposed are all really solid options. Be careful that you don't go cut too many mana dorks, since that's the advantage that G brings to the table.

On that note, have you considered Bloom Tender? It's pretty easy to maximize her mana production with the decklist configuration in its present case.

Another card to consider that many other lists are utilizing is Dark Confidant. It's a creature that draws more cards, which has great synergy with Tymna and the main deck strategy. I've noticed that this deck can look a little starved for card advantage in order to keep the Stax and Hatebears flowing, so I'm a fan of the Confidant's inclusion.

I can't find my Survival of the Fittest, so while I'm not panicking yet, I am annoyed I can't jam it into this deck. I'll keep the Phyrexian Revoker in mind if I need more silver bullets.

I don't have that much money to fling about; a lot of the more expensive stuff is either inherited or through a massive trade. Bloom Tender would be amazing, but it's out of my price range. Hence the lack of Dark Confidant or other Tutors.

I also rarely play cEDH, I mostly do when I need to bully out Pubstompers. A lot of people in my meta prefer to play Casual, which is why most of decks are in that realm. Occasionally we get some ******** who thinks he's hot ***** because his Maelstrom Wanderer, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Teferi, Temporal Archmage managed to Solo a pod with derpy Casual decks. That's when I go pick up a cEDH deck to show them why Pubstomp is no fun; after two or three games, they usually leave and then we can go back to derping with Casual. All they needed to do was ask what power level people were playing at, or being OK with swapping to a lower powered deck but most of those psychopaths just enjoy seeing their deck perform optimally against decks and people who don't play at that level.

Hence another reason to not go crazy with changes or spend massive amounts of money for upgrades. Out of a collection of 30ish players, only 6 or 7 have cEDH decks. So, getting games in with this or Brago is actually rare.

As for changes: Restoration Angel was a nice dream of redundancy and protection, but I found myself in a situation where she did neither. I don't think I can risk dead cards in cEDH, so I'm axing her for another Tutor. Recruiter gets me Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and other utility Creatures; it is a shame that he doesn't fully fetch out the combo. I guess I need to get an Imperial Recruiter.

I realized that my cEDH Pods actually lack Blue; this made Pyroblast a dead card in my meta. I know, it's weird to consider that the staple color in the format isn't on my radar. I cut Pyro for Enlightened Tutor to search for Birthing Pod.

Entomb is another way to tutor up something that I can use a Reanimate on to get a combo going. I found myself slightly flooded out at times, so I axed a Forest to bring me down to 33 Lands.

Quote from Tev »

Quote from benjameenbear »

I'm glad that you've posted this list. It's the premier Stax list at the current moment and I've modeled my Kaalia list off of it somewhat.

I would recommend keeping Phyrexian Revoker. Because he can hit mana sources of noncreature permanents, such as Food Chain or Teferi, Temporal Archmage, he's worth his inclusion. Especially since he's so easy to find via Birthing Pod, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard and Survival of the Fittest.

Otherwise, I think that the changes you've proposed are all really solid options. Be careful that you don't go cut too many mana dorks, since that's the advantage that G brings to the table.

On that note, have you considered Bloom Tender? It's pretty easy to maximize her mana production with the decklist configuration in its present case.

Another card to consider that many other lists are utilizing is Dark Confidant. It's a creature that draws more cards, which has great synergy with Tymna and the main deck strategy. I've noticed that this deck can look a little starved for card advantage in order to keep the Stax and Hatebears flowing, so I'm a fan of the Confidant's inclusion.

I can't find my Survival of the Fittest, so while I'm not panicking yet, I am annoyed I can't jam it into this deck. I'll keep the Phyrexian Revoker in mind if I need more silver bullets.

I don't have that much money to fling about; a lot of the more expensive stuff is either inherited or through a massive trade. Bloom Tender would be amazing, but it's out of my price range. Hence the lack of Dark Confidant or other Tutors.

I also rarely play cEDH, I mostly do when I need to bully out Pubstompers. A lot of people in my meta prefer to play Casual, which is why most of decks are in that realm. Occasionally we get some ******** who thinks he's hot ***** because his Maelstrom Wanderer, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard or Teferi, Temporal Archmage managed to Solo a pod with derpy Casual decks. That's when I go pick up a cEDH deck to show them why Pubstomp is no fun; after two or three games, they usually leave and then we can go back to derping with Casual. All they needed to do was ask what power level people were playing at, or being OK with swapping to a lower powered deck but most of those psychopaths just enjoy seeing their deck perform optimally against decks and people who don't play at that level.

Hence another reason to not go crazy with changes or spend massive amounts of money for upgrades. Out of a collection of 30ish players, only 6 or 7 have cEDH decks. So, getting games in with this or Brago is actually rare.

As for changes:

Changes 7/8/18Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
In 1 Recruiter of the Guard 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Entomb	Out 1 Restoration Angel 1 Pyroblast 1 Forest

Restoration Angel was a nice dream of redundancy and protection, but I found myself in a situation where she did neither. I don't think I can risk dead cards in cEDH, so I'm axing her for another Tutor. Recruiter gets me Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker and other utility Creatures; it is a shame that he doesn't fully fetch out the combo. I guess I need to get an Imperial Recruiter.

I realized that my cEDH Pods actually lack Blue; this made Pyroblast a dead card in my meta. I know, it's weird to consider that the staple color in the format isn't on my radar. I cut Pyro for Enlightened Tutor to search for Birthing Pod.

Entomb is another way to tutor up something that I can use a Reanimate on to get a combo going. I found myself slightly flooded out at times, so I axed a Forest to bring me down to 33 Lands.

Yeah, understanding the social contract is important so that you don't jeopardize your chances of playing future games with your local meta. Pubstomping lower tier decks isn't really enjoyable, honestly; it's just a way to inflate one's ego at the expense of others. And this deck is MEAN and painful to play against, so it's a great choice to anti-Pubstomper with. I've played against it online a couple of times, and it's a definite challenge.

I don't know how relevant Reanimator/graveyard based strategies are in your local meta, but the new Remorseful Cleric seems to be a really good fit for this deck. Gravyeard hate stapled onto an evasive flying body that triggers Tymna? Sign me up for that!

Since Dark Confidant is out of the budget, you could use Dark Tutelage as a cheap way to replicate the Confidant's ability. Not having a body is lame for Tymna, but I think that the deck's CMC curve is so low to the ground that you could get quite a bit of mileage from it. It being an enchantment also makes it more likely to stick around as well.

Quote from benjameenbear »

Yeah, understanding the social contract is important so that you don't jeopardize your chances of playing future games with your local meta. Pubstomping lower tier decks isn't really enjoyable, honestly; it's just a way to inflate one's ego at the expense of others. And this deck is MEAN and painful to play against, so it's a great choice to anti-Pubstomper with. I've played against it online a couple of times, and it's a definite challenge.

I don't know how relevant Reanimator/graveyard based strategies are in your local meta, but the new Remorseful Cleric seems to be a really good fit for this deck. Gravyeard hate stapled onto an evasive flying body that triggers Tymna? Sign me up for that!

Since Dark Confidant is out of the budget, you could use Dark Tutelage as a cheap way to replicate the Confidant's ability. Not having a body is lame for Tymna, but I think that the deck's CMC curve is so low to the ground that you could get quite a bit of mileage from it. It being an enchantment also makes it more likely to stick around as well.

Reanimator isn't that big in the meta, I'm probably going to see the Remorseful Cleric used against me more than anything.

If I was going to add a Confidant effect, in this deck I think I would use Ruin Raider. Functionally the same as Dark Tutelage, but on a body to help fuel Tymna the Weaver. Though I am pretty happy with the deck's draw capability; however, I believe I need to rush out Tana the Blowsower first then follow up with Tymna. I'm just so greedy to get the draw engine going. Currently, the deck's biggest struggle is not dying before going off. Combined with Tymna's pings and random retaliations, I need more ways to gain life. I'm looking to add Serra Ascendant in the next update.

As for this update, it was agonizing: I hadn't had an opportunity to test the Gatekeeper, but his Stax effect is so strong I feel bad for removing him. Especially without having him show up in a game. Eldritch Evolution is just too good for me to not put it; instantly getting one of my 5 drops from any of my 3s which can probably pull out a Combo win. The other cards in contention for the axe were: Glowrider, Grasp of Fate and Umezawa's Jitte. I remember Glowrider causing a player to mention that they got locked out. Grasp of Fate is just such a useful answer and Jitte is also so versatile. I have seen the power of Jitte, how easily it can shut off a Brago, King Eternal or snipe random utility Creatures. Grasp gets rid of the biggest problem from all of my opponents. Glowrider isn't that good, but she adds so much more to the deck than just herself. She adds Stax so I can get ahead or slow down my opponents. The same could be said for the Gatekeeper. In the end, I chose to spare Glowrider because of the lowered CMC.

Made a swap: Glowrider in theory puts pressure on my opponents to remove it, I know Serra Ascendant puts pressure on. I have died to too little life from all of the pings I've received, so I hope this will help. It will also put a reasonable kill clock or failing that, lightning rod, for whichever opponent I swing at.

There was a pseudo-tournament at a LGS. They divided the EDH players into 2 pods of 6, the winner of the pod would receive a Nexus of Fate. My Pod was Meren of Clan Nel-Toth, Kaalia of the Vast, Yisan, the Wandering Bard, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and Mikaeus, the Unhallowed. This was a pretty good environment to test this deck. Everyone else plays at 7, I mull to six.

Turn 1: Meren goes first, plays tapland and passes. Jhoira plays a tapland. Yisan plays a Forest and a Fyndhorn Elves. Kaalia plays tapland W/B Tapland. Mikaeus plays Swamp and passes. I, last in the pod, play an Exotic Orchard and hold mana open, I have Nature's Claim and Swords to Plowshares.

Turn 2: Meren plays Forest and passes. Jhoira plays a Mountain and passes. Yisan plays a Forest and plays Yisan with the Elf. Kaalia plays another tapland. Mikaeus plays a Swamp and plays Lightning Greaves. End step, I Sword Yisan. On my turn I play a Forest and use it to play a Ulvenwald Tracker, leaving the Orchard open for Nature's Claim.

Turn 3: Meren plays a Swamp and then Reclamation Sage, destroying Mikaeus' Greaves. Jhoira plays a land and Foundry Inspector. Yisan plays a Forest, casts Nissa Revane, pluses her to 3, placing a Nissa's Chosen into play. Kaalia misses a land drop but plays Swiftfoot Boots. Mikaeus plays a Swamp and then Phyrexian Arena. I think about using my Claim on his end step but decide against it. I play a Swamp and cast Tymna the Weaver, I swing with my Tracker at the Mike player and draw a card from Tymna's trigger.

Turn 4: Meren plays Meren and then swings his Rec Sage at Yisan who blocks with Nissa's Chosen. On end step, Meren retrieves the Rec sage. Jhoira plays a land, casts Thran Dynamo, taps the Dynamo to cast an Izzet Signet, he taps the Signet and using the remaining floating mana to cast Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain. Yisan plays a Forest, pluses Nissa to 4, gaining life but in response to the plus plays a Yeva, Nature's Herald and then passes. Kaalia plays a Mountain, casts Dark Ritual to which no one responds; he uses the mana to cast Kaalia of the Vast with one spare mana floating; using the spare mana, he equips Kaalia to the Swiftfoot Boots and swings at Jhoira, putting a Hellkite Tyrant into play and steals all of Jhoira's artifacts: Foundry Inspector, Thran Dynamo and Izzet Signet. Mike draws off of Arena, plays Liliana of the Dark Realms, pluses her to 4 and plays the fetched Swamp. I play a Plains, negotiate with the Meren to let my Tracker through; I swing Tracker at Meren and Tymna at Mike, drawing two cards off of Tymna's trigger; I play Deathrite Shaman and Llanowar Elves.

Turn 5: Meren plays a land and passes, which puzzles me - not sure why he didn't Rec Sage anything on the Kaalia board. Jhoira plays a land and complains that he can't play anything with the Hellkite Tyrant on board and passes. Yisan plays a land, then Wellwisher and Wirewood Herald; he pluses Nissa to 5 to gain life and then passes. Kaalia uses all of the mana rocks to play another Dragon, I can't recall because I thought it was irrelevant; he doesn't attack and passes. Mike takes 1 from Arena, plays a Swamp, pluses Lili to 5, plays Vampire Hexmage and discards a Swamp. I look around the table and see that none of my Creatures are getting in, I play a Mana Confluence, use Deathrite to eat Mike's Swamp and cast Ruric Thar, the Unbowed - the whole table loses their *****.

Turn 6: Meren plays a Land, casts Reclamation Sage and destroy's Kaalia's Swiftfoot Boots, he passes. Jhoira plays a Scrap Trawler, a Sol Ring which causes him to take 6 from Thar and passes without playing a Land. Yisan passes and forgets to plus Nissa Revane. Kaalia plays a Rakdos Signet, takes 6 from Thar and then passes without attacking; at this point I am so confused. Mike draws off of Arena, plays a Swamp; I try to talk Mike into minusing or he'll be the archenemy, he pluses Lili to 6 and passes, discarding a Swamp. I attack Mike with Thar, leaving Lili alone, and I swing with Tymna at Meren, letting him know that I'll use my Ulvenwald Tracker if there are any shenanigans. I hit both and draw, I play Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and cast Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, I need to use Nykthos and two lands to filer for my 3rd Red. This is part of my plan.

Turn 7: I start egging on Meren to swing into Lili, which he doesn't. Instead he plays a Shriekmaw which kills my Kiki-Jiki. He swings his Rec sage at Lili but the Hexmage blocks, with First Strike sends the Rec Sage to the graveyard. The Rec Sage goes back into hand, even though Meren has 3 Experience counters. Jhoira passes, leaving lots of mana open which makes me nervous. Yisan casts Yisan on Jhoiras end step but he forgets to use Wellwisher on end step and it seems to shake up his turn. I try to convince him to swing at this ulting Lili, but he says he doesn't want the Hexmage to retaliate and kill his Nessa Revane. He pluses Nissa to 6 and gains more life but passes. Kaalia uses a kill spell on my Ruric Thar, who socks him for 6 on the Yisan's end step. Kaalia then plays an Angel that is an Anthem and swings Kaalia at Lili, taking her to 3 and passes. Mike takes one from Arena, plays a Swamp, pluses Lili and casts Mikaeus, the Unhallowed which the Jhoira player Counterspells, Mike ends his turn by discarding a Swamp. I cast Grand Abolisher which resolves after Yisan uses him to put a Llanowar Elf into play. Knowing that I cannot be screwed with, I cast Eldritch Evolution sacrificing my Tymna to fetch Karmic Guide. Karmic Guide raises Kiki-Jiki, I fear for a moment that I might have tipped my hand as I only have two mana remaining but then I spot Mike's discarded Swamp. I use Deahrite to turn that into a mana and cast Village Bell-Ringer, make a thousand copies and kill the table.

Now I just got to figure out if I should sell the sucker or go full scum and put it into a deck.

Well played, sir! I'm really confused by some of the sequences that your opponents did, but that's neither here nor there. What matters is that you activated Deathrite Shaman for the win! That was a keen eye to remember that the Mikaeus player discarded a land for you to get there on your turn.

I think you should definitely enjoy the Nexus of Fate. It could go in your Damia deck since it works as a spellshaper fodder while also being naturally synergistic with Damia.

Keep updating this thread, please. I have it bookmarked so that I can compare my Kaalia list against it and see what's working for you.

Quote from benjameenbear »

Well played, sir! I'm really confused by some of the sequences that your opponents did, but that's neither here nor there. What matters is that you activated Deathrite Shaman for the win! That was a keen eye to remember that the Mikaeus player discarded a land for you to get there on your turn.

I think you should definitely enjoy the Nexus of Fate. It could go in your Damia deck since it works as a spellshaper fodder while also being naturally synergistic with Damia.

Keep updating this thread, please. I have it bookmarked so that I can compare my Kaalia list against it and see what's working for you.

Well, thanks. I'm not too used to be followed. I mostly do my own deckbuilding and I try to do something original because that's how I find EDH to be interesting; especially when I tune more for the things that make my decks unique. I actually find this cEDH stuff boring because it is always a race towards the most powerful; hell, the only reason why I build Blood Pod was because one of the Primers I stumbled across said "Do you want to turn sideways in cEDH? How about play Ruric Thar, the Unbowed? That hooked me right then and there.

Shaving my mana with these changes: I'm cutting Misty because I am going back to school. Need to sell stuff that I won't miss but also is worth a lot of money. I don't have a U/G deck anymore that warrants a fetch, Dryad Arbor comes in its place so I don't need to cut more Basics.

Green Sun's Zenith comes in to help with the required start with Dryad Arbor. I think the utility of GSZ outweights the Talisman's usefulness. There are a lot of useful Creatures I can fetch, mostly which would be answers.

Exploration goes in to accelerate my mana a turn early; plus when I'm drawing more and more cards off of Tymna I can get more value that way. I am saddened by cutting the Lotus Cobra, both in the loss of a body but also as a mana accelerant. I have less 2 drop plays, but I have opened up for three drop plays with these swaps today. I might want to make room for the Cobra but I have no clue what to swap out. I've found it difficult to find the Cobra as cuttable, I could only make the decision due to the similarity between Exploration and Cobra's function.

Got a few games in that informed me of a few things. My opponents were Maelstrom Wanderer/Selvala, Explorer Returned, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow and Brago, King Eternal. In game one, I got a pretty classy win by setting up a Grand Abolsiher so that Selvala's mounds of 'counterspells' didn't matter. Yuriko was fairly untuned, so it wasn't in the running competition for winning but I can easily see a tuning or three later and she's going to be a beastly Commander. If you're looking for some pointers for her, I think Plushpenguin has a pretty competitive build going. Brago was build staxless which I think is a pretty big mistake, as I find he can't race without disruption. Game two the Selvala player switched to Maelstrom and I couldn't outrace it before it went infinite off of Food Chain.

Here are my changes: Someone played around a Toxic Deluge I 'had'. When I said I didn't have one after the games, I realized I probably should have one. It would also help with killing some of the bigge problems that can occur. Contamination goes for the same reasons as Blood Moon et. al.; it probably hurts me more. I don't have all of the busted mana critters like Bloom Tender, so my landbase is fairly vulnerable to disruption.

Loxodon Gatekeeper slows my opponents down, I can easily see this come down T3 and then tempo may way into a lock or something. My other thought was Glowrider, just because a 3 drop is a perfect Birthing Pod chain: 3 CMC into Felidar Guardian who blinks Pod, Pod eats Guardian to fetch Karmic Guide, Karmic Guide raises Guardian who blinks Pod, Pod eats Guardian to fetch Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Kiki makes a Karmic Guide copy to raise Guardian who goes Infinite with Kiki-Jiki. Yisan is just too slow and I don't have enough diverse drops to justify his fetch powers.

I cut Sacred Foundry because my Tiana, Ship's Caretaker needed it. I freed Gemstone Caverns from my Edgar Markov and I think is the type of deck that could abuse it.

Added parts from Vosk and Daxos' dissolution: Sun Titan isn't in the same league as my other six drops. Sire locks everyone out of the game while I have an on board card advantage engine; also, most decks that this faces aren't used to dealing with Craw Wurms. Ruric Thar also completely punches out most decks if he establishes himself and is left unchecked. Sun Titan just brings back a 3 CMC or less Permanent. I've decided to put Glowrider back in to slow opposing decks down, plus it is another 3 drop that feeds right into the perfect pod sequence of Felidar Guardian, blink Pod, sac Guardian to get Karmic Guide, Karmic Guide raises Guardian, Guardian blinks Pod, sac Guardian to get Kiki-Jiki, Kiki-Jiki makes a copy of Karmic Guide, Guide raises Guardian and Guardian then goes infinite with Kiki-Jiki.

Luminarch Ascension dilutes the deck. Sure, it makes solid attackers in cEDH, but that isn't the purpose of the deck. Each of the Creatures needs to Stax out my opponents and then be used to turn sideways. The Angels, while easy to Activate, don't protect my game plan and usually they're dealt with incidentally from some kind of board wipe. Demonic Tutor will increase the consistency of the deck.

Godless Shrine hurts less than Caves most of the time.

I think that cutting the Ascension is the right move. While it does have some nice synergy with Tymna, I think it's more important, like you've mentioned, to keep the density of Stax pieces high so that you ALWAYS have at least one Stax effect in play at any given time.

So far I haven't missed the Ascension, so it is the correct call. I think my next cut will be Grand Warlord Radha; she's cool but compared to my other four drops she looks lacklustre.

Strict Upgrade:

how do you play blood pod in a meta where 3/4 of the players are competitive but the other 4th run 80% decks whos creatures are larger than yours on average?

Quote from mageslay3r »

how do you play blood pod in a meta where 3/4 of the players are competitive but the other 4th run 80% decks whos creatures are larger than yours on average?

I only play this deck if everybody at the table is playing a competitive deck or if I need to bully out a pubstomper. If the 4th isn't playing a competitive deck then they're not really a threat. They're more of an end game condition; if nobody combos off in time the face smasher is gonna smash your face. This will probably make them lose as the player they've killed might upset the mutual lock or mexican standoff. I prefer to play at a lower power setting; it allows me more creativity than top tier decks which must run all of the best cards at all times.

Found my copy of Survival, since already marked Radha as weak she gets cut:

Do you have a final deck list?

There is no final, deckbuilding is all about new iterations. If you're asking if my decklist is accurate, then yes.

I played the ***** out of this deck last week because one of the players in the pod had a reputation for beating unsuspecting decks with infinites, so my buddies and I played only high powered decks. I noticed some things to improve on, one of which is that I should consider a Bane of Progress. The other is a need a lot more Shocks, as I lacked a lot of targets with various fetch effects. I didn't realize the opportunity cost of Painland's unfetchableness, also that their Pain adds up if a game gets grindy. Shocks actually do less damage in the long run, plus their availability in the short run makes them required if I want to improve this deck. What this means is waiting for Ravnica 4 and picking up those Shocks.

Mana upgrade in the form of something fetchable:

Well, that's a straight upgrade: The Wingmare is strictly superior to Glowrider. Didn't play around Origins so I didn't know it existed.

I cut the Strip Mine when I realized how expensive an Antiquities version is. Survival makes this deck work; Strip Mine isn't that case.

I'd probably play pestermite over deceiver or bellringer if you have recruiter of the guard and not imperial recruiter.

Might as well have recruiter be an infinite combo on its own (for 11 mana or what have you).

Bellringer obviously has some utility with the dorks and what not but I'd rather be able to worldy tutor for an 11 mana kill I think.

Pestermite also has some utility (tapping grim monoliths and stuff like a jerk, or untapping a birthing pod). Enables pod chains of 2-drop -> recruiter for pestermite, pestermite untap pod, pod recruiter into felidar guardian untap pod, pod guardian into kiki gg (for ~7-10 mana).

realistically I think it's probably better to play deceiver exarch and imperial recruiter but it's marginal. I like that pestermite flies

I think they play Bellringer in the CEDH lists to enable Yisan wins iirc. So probably doesn't belong if not doing that.

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Another side note I don't think exploration is very good with 35 lands and no real ways to find more. I'd cut that for Noble Hierarch or Chrome Mox at some point (whichever you have the budget for when). It's a good time to buy nobles.


EDIT: Hilarious brain fart here will leave it for posterity

Um, Tana and Tymna don't have the U symbol anywhere in their mana costs? Pestermite is therefore an impossible inclusion? Same thing about Noble Hierarch?

That being said, you have a decent point about the efficiency of Pestermite. It being tutorable via Recruiter of the Guard is very attractive.