Kiki Pod has never really been as strong as Melira Pod. It was flavour of the month for a while but that's about it.
The biggest thing was UWR rising to dominance. You see, Kiki Pod, at least the second iteration of it that I played, banked really hard on the combo happening. It didn't play generally good creatures, it was just reliant on the combo. The original one had Kitchen Finks, but then CFB came along and said "Finks really doesn't do anything", and they were right. You never won from Finks, it was just a good card for Pod. So they removed it and added in cards like Deceiver Exarch and Phantasmal Image. And then you had this glass-cannon combo deck that required two pieces. It was considerably hard to pull off against a deck like UWR with tons of removal for you.
Eventually Kiki Pod just started fading back into obscurity. It's still a fine deck and has some success here and there but it's not at the level Melira Pod is. It doesn't have all the same options and isn't as flexible. Yeah, more recent versions play cards like Finks and Redcap to trend away from the combo version, but it's still heavily reliant on the combo happening.
Right now I think it's like tier 1.5. I think Affinity, Melira Pod, Jund, BG Rock, Twin, and UWR are all better than it. Now you're deciding to play a deck that you accept is worse than others and realize you should just play a better deck. If you really enjoy the deck and don't want to play at the PT it's fine, but otherwise I'd recommend to play something else.
-
- darksteel88
- Registered User
-
Member for 12 years, 1 month, and 26 days
Last active Fri, Jul, 9 2021 18:43:01
- 6 Followers
- 3,268 Total Posts
- 373 Thanks
-
Nov 24, 2013
darksteel88 posted a message on Scrolls is brokenSo after they reset the Scrolls ranking I have steadily been going up. I've only lost a couple of games, and honestly, the majority of the games you lose are to poor draws on your part.Posted in: darksteel88 Blog
I remember one game in particular that I lost, I had almost no Growth and it was stupid. When I scooped I'd played probably one Growth card the entire game. Yeah. Those are the games you lose, when the RNG just screws you over and you draw the wrong cards. His deck was also well suited to beat me, being really fast aggro and having haste creatures. Funny enough though, we played each other again next game and I crushed him.
I've gotten up to a 1600 rating now and I'm in the top 50. Here's a pic for proof: http://i.imgur.com/xPzizJT.jpg
I have a feeling that if I'm playing against actual Scrolls pros, the deck will flop on itself. But as the ratings fluctuate over the next few days/weeks and correct themselves, the deck still seems good.
Mojan has talked about indirectly nerfing this deck, by limiting the number of cards you can draw in a turn. I really hope they don't, I like playing with myself (pun intended). It makes people mad that I don't interact with them, and that's, well, delicious. Let me feast on your delicious tears as you cry to mom about how I beat you fair and square.
I think some number of Pothers is potentially good. Someone cast Binding Root on my Golem, making it so it can't move. That was annoying as hell. But I suppose it's not back breaking. Pothers let me win faster but in reality, every non-Growth deck should have adequate answers to kill it on any given turn, meaning it won't live anyways. I do still think that I want to try some other cards out though.
Rigged seems good. I can rig any structure and trade their unit for it, stemming the early game. I'm not sure how good it makes things or whatnot but it doesn't seem awful. It costs only 1 and it does everything I need early game.
I'm also not convinced with Decimation. I rarely cast it for the -1 ability, only to kill an idol. Sometimes I get value in that it kills the row so my Golem can move, but that's a minor consequence when I have Burns and Kabonks to kill the memorials anyways. It seems largely useless outside the fact that it turns a 6-turn clock into a 3-turn clock. It's possible that we lose too fast and I have to just cut it.
Still, it's cool the deck is working. I'm also glad I can post here without fear of people seeing anything. I don't want them to know until I'm like number 1 on the ladder and go "well gee, look at what I have". I think when I get to rank 1, I'm taking a screenshot and putting it, along with the deck, up on a site. -
Nov 22, 2013
darksteel88 posted a message on Scrolls is brokenOkay they reset the rankings on Scrolls and I got up to an 800 Rating in like 9 games or something. This deck is pretty good.Posted in: darksteel88 Blog
The deck does have some flaws:
1. Consistency. If you draw poorly early, you can lose. Literally drawing 0 memorial openers without any Summons will lose you the game. You can lose off the opening hand or drawing poorly, so it's somewhat of a gamble there.
2. Fast aggro. If they can kill you before you get to critical mass, it's hard. You rely really heavily on the first End of Reason you cast to wipe the board, and if it's lacklustre you're screwed.
3. One-shotting idols. Even though we basically do the same, they can do it against us. Someone once went Frost Gale into Loyal Darkling into Rat King into Necrogeddon. Two damage to my idol, then 9 power hitting it. I won the game but it was insanely close. Necrogeddon is a really scary card.
This deck makes people mad. I enjoy that. I enjoy watching someone say "damn wtf is this it's stupid". I get a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside. I know, I'm a jerk. But hey, deal with it.
I decided to post the list simply because I want to have evidence I was playing it first. When people start playing it too or people claim who the inventor was, well, you saw it here first.
Without further ado, here is the list:
3 Desert Memorial
3 Woodland Memorial
3 Law Memorial
3 Tribal Memorial
3 Sand Pact Memorial
3 Stone Pact Memorial
3 Summons
3 Eye of Eagle
3 Kabonk
2 Pother
3 Heritage
3 Imperial Resources
3 Burn
3 Sister of the Fox
3 Fertile Soil
1 Faith BLessing
1 Solemn Giant
1 Decimation
3 End of Reason
Basically the deck is a combo deck. You cast Memorials to get stupid amounts of resources and then draw 30 cards in a turn and cast just as many spells. End of Reason being able to sac Memorials means you can effectively Wrath with them. The rest is a ton of draw spells in various combinations.
Your win condition is Solemn Giant + Decimation. You can, for the measly cost of 10, cast and cd the Solemn Giant to 0, dealing a straight eight to an idol. Then you Decimation and it's done. If you end of Reason with Giant in play, doesn't die. The Decimation isn't necessary but attacking 6 times with Giant is inefficient. Decimation proved to be the best card choice for a second win condition since it can kill dudes as well.
Going forward I want to try cutting Pother. Maybe I can add something like Pushback and Tickbomb? I almost never cast Pother and I'd like to have more utility. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
EDIT: I don't know if anyone noticed, but that list has 61 cards in it, and I don't think it was on purpose. Someone likely messed up the decklist by a card. Take out the Huntmaster or something, I'm not running an extra card.
2 Inkmoth Nexus
2 Kessig Wolf Run
2 Cavern of Souls
4 Glimmerpost
3 Copperline Gorge
3 Sulfur Falls
3 Hinterland Harbor
3 Island
3 Forest
1 Mountain
4 Frost Titan
4 Primeval Titan
4 Solemn Simulacrum
Artifacts 4
4 Sphere of the Suns
Planeswalkers 2
2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage
Spells 16
4 Rampant Growth
4 Ponder
4 Whipflare
4 Temporal Mastery
2 Dungeon Geists
2 Karn Liberated
2 Naturalize
2 Ancient Grudge
2 Bonfire of the Damned
3 Red Sun's Zenith
2 Beast Within
I've tried Snapcasters and I've tried Huntmasters instead of Solemns, but I've found Solemns are generally better. They're more consistent to getting my land drops, since they don't depend on anything and my spells aren't particularly worth recurring.
Yes, 10 colourless lands, but it hasn't been too huge of a problem. Glimmerpost just destroys certain decks, and we all know how good it is in this deck. I've been enjoying more success with it in than with it out. The one regret I have is only 2 Inkmoths and 2 Caverns, but what can you do. If I wasn't running Glimmerpost, I may run 4 of the other two. Cavern almost seems like it can be a board card against control, since resolving them seems really good. If they play less counters though, I'll stay at 2.
4 Whipflares still in there to deal with tokens and early acceleration opponents (like Pod with 10 of them). The fact that it kills Delver, Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft is not irrelevant, and they're down to one sword in the deck now.
4 Temporal Masteries, I really like the card. At worst, it's an explore, at best, it wins the game. And if anything, I can just board them out for more useful spells since it's not crucial to the deck working.
Pretty typical sideboard. Red Sun's destroys Zombies and undying, it's so good. Bonfire is a card I'm testing over Blasphemous Act right now. I am not sure if it's better, but it always seemed like when I needed it, I'd be able to cast Bonfire for enough and I was quite often in top-deck mode. The damage they take does not seem irrelevant. The Beast Withins came because I had bad control match up and kept loosing to them. It seems like it'll be good in the long run when I kill Gideon with it.
I'm still just not beating Solar Flare though. Granted I want to draw some cards versus them, but it's still not doing well enough. Yeah, Blue Sun's is a card, and I may go test it, but I'm not sure.
2 boxes to first
2 packs per player added to total pool (usually split among top 8)
sometimes a pack per player, today was a pack each to 9-16
20 player minimum to hand out 2 boxes as a prize
Packs per player are happening now because they're trying to promote their events; they have a few dedicated players and a bunch of beginners and want to ensure beginners show up and don't feel like it's a waste of time.
Store credit can be taken instead of any prize (except a single pack because that's awkward).
What does your LGS give out that this is actually a good prize? They're also trying to lead up to some sort of huge event where the top prize is, according to the TO "MASSIVE". Someone mentioned a case of boxes would be cool and I think he said it wasn't enough O.o
26 players were there I think. It was 5 rounds, top 8 get additional prizes and top prize is 2 boxes.
I'm running Spirits with whatever changes I came up with. Cards in board to help matchups, cards out because I'm not expecting a ton of Delver, etc.
Round 1: I'm playing against that weird Blade Splicer, Precursor Golem deck. A player that some people that are regulars seem to know fairly well, but I don't know at all. Decent guy, fun games. I win the two rounds fairly easy. Drogskol->Image or flipped Delvers are just the nuts against them.
Round 2: Superfriends by a friend of mine. I'm playing against WBG WRR with 10 Planeswalkers. No Wolf Run as far as I know but he's running ramp to Grave Titans and a bunch of Planeswalkers; oh, and Lingering Souls too. Game one mull to 4 for both of us and I punted. Game two was fine, fliers win a lot of games. Game three, we went to time and drew. Elspeth with a bunch of life and I had an Oblivion Ring and no white source for half the game. Stabilize with spirits half way and it's too little too late. He always draws, he plays slow or something, but he's a buddy that's a regular so it's not so bad.
Round 3: Mirror match. I lose to flipped Delvers game one, and win with flipped Delvers game two. We went into time and drew game 3. It actually went really slow and by the time we were at turns, I was casting Timely just to gain life and draw. Another buddy of mine that last minute played the deck.
Round 4: UB control, not Tezzeret. Just cards like Curse of Death's hold, Batterskull, Titan and Wurmcoil. I've never seen the guy before and he was really awkward; a guy in his mid 30's that is not very social for what seems to be a lack of common ground. I lose game one to the nuts, he played two Wurmcoils and a Titan. Game two, he punted. He dropped a Black Sun's to Liliana that got Surgical Extractioned. NEVER drop a card that is the nuts against your opponent. It's the one card that wins games against me (or Corrosive Gale), because even Ratchet Bomb only kills half of Drogskol->Image and tokens. He was pretty bad though, from what I saw; Black Sun's for extra to be sure, when he could represent a Mana Leak. I would play around it after he's cast Think Twice a bunch of times. Game three, he punted. He tapped out with Captain->Image in play and 15 damage on board at 13 life. Pretty bad. Deck looked pretty standard, but control isn't easy to play. He seemed to be a guy that didn't follow the meta and played a safe deck that needs good piloting. He steered it into a tree I think.
Round 5: At this point, I'm 2-0-2 and need a win to guarantee top 8. I'm playing against a high school kid that's really chill and not very good. We're FNM friends and it's all casual. He's happy to be 3-1 with a 75 card Burning Vengeance deck (you heard me right). Game one, two Captains. Game two, he flips Ludevic's Test Subject after I board out all the removal. Sounds good. He's at 7, I took 13 and am at 7. I have a flipped Delver, Delver, and two spirits. There's about 20 cards in my deck that win/stall the game. I flip the Delver for 8 damage and a win. He was planning to drop anyhow, he had work. He didn't expect to do well with a 75 card deck, but I guess he got lucky.
3-0-2 and I top 8. I didn't bother to check the numbers but it was alright. FULL ART APOCALYPSE!
Top 8 round 1: Mirror match again to a different opponent. Another friend who's a bit more Magic serious and clearly better than me. I played games the other day and lost handily in the mirror, though he always drew the nuts. He beat me game one reasonably, tapping out in a mirror is just bad without DoJ (which I totally regret not playing). Game two, he boards in SoWaP and I think I boarded out my artifact removal and had no DoJ. Gain a bunch when I have no spirit blockers? Yeah, not fun. I always seem to draw no white sources, despite there being 9 in the deck. I know he's a better player so I'm not bummed. I made top 8 and had a good time.
Prize: I got 6 packs (nothing of real note), and the full art cards. Pretty good. Where else can you have fun for 6 hours and go home with more money than you came with? (based off the value of 6 packs being more than my entry fee and considering it equivalent to money).
All in all, a good day and a great experience.
I think Grafdiggers is a good card against them. You can board out Lingering Souls against it, it's not like it's that terrible. I might do that, even Snapcaster board out. My buddy who was top 4 (I had to leave when they were still playing the round) sides out Snapcasters in RUG WRR to play Grafdiggers. It worked quite well for him.
I do like 4 Phantasmal Images BUT it's not going to happen since I couldn't muster a 4th one. I tested Cackling Counterpart to a "it sucks" stance.
I am also liking Dismember over Gut Shot. From my math, it works out really well. Being able to pay black sometimes is great, and I don't need to do Snapcaster, flashback and pay 4 life. It kills flipped Delvers.
I only have two Celestial Purges so that's a bummer. I don't ever like Surgical Extraction to a Gravecrawler, it's just so good against Messenger though.
Timely Reinforcements: very effective. Gaining 6 life gives me an extra turn and 3 Soldiers is a lot to block with. In the games I played it, it was always a winner.
I also ended up going to 2 Geist of Saint Traft in the mainboard and leaving 2 Dungeon Giests in the sideboard. I'm not positive whether it's best with that setup and I might swap them between boards, but Geist of Saint Traft is still a winner.
3 Mortapod
3 Fume Spitter
4 Geth's Verdict
4 Tragic Slip
2 Corrosive Gale
Mortapod is a Living Weapon, so he can do 1 damage regardless.
Maybe I'll try to annotate some games or something. He does still wreck me quite a lot with the deck with all the removal. I'm going to go back to a more traditional build of the entire deck, side in appropriately and then annotate the games with him. What is the appropriate way to board out against his deck? I boarded out Vapor Snags which seem wrong.
Something tells me you're playing against a bad version of the deck. My friend consistently beats me. I hope you realize that UB Zombies (splash for Images/Diregraf Captain) is actually an anti-Delver meta deck. It has so many cards that simply destroy Delver. If I play Dungeon Geists, he'll Tragic Slip me. I can never resolve Captain and Image and he out aggros me.
I've been trying everything, Witchbane Orb, DoJ, Nevermore, nothing works. :(. I'm ready to accept the deck loses to it at this point.
Card just seems bad. I don't need to remove the whole graveyard and I'd rather get rid of everything at once. The good play is Surgical->Messenger when it dies or even a Gravecrawler. Being able to pay 2 life in that situation is just so good.
And something tells me I have been running bad. I'm messing around with the deck a lot lately so hopefully by the end of the week I can turn that into a favorable mach up. I've been working on the deck with some people that are also playing it and I'm going to try a bunch of mainboard tweaks.
The Sword does seem good. I'm thinking to myself "where will I get a Sword without ruining my wallet", since I'm playing this at a standard Game Day but I remembered I traded one to my friend and he opened one, and he's also not coming. Hurray for borrowing! I'm definitely going to have to test one in the board.
Fume Spitter hurts, it kills Delver so easily. I've even gone as far as siding them out. Combined with Tragic Slip, I've never flipped a Delver against the deck except on mulligan to 4 from them. Oh, and let's not forget Mortapod.
The Messenger also hurts since blocking it has it come back and I lose some life.
If I'm not getting a Captain and Image with a Lingering Souls, I'm probably losing the game.
I've been trying to develop my board to combat this as much as I can. There are now 3 Celestial Purges in there and it seems really good but I still lose. If they're playing the UB variant with Phantasmal Image, then they copy a Messenger and I can't even Purge it. The Surgical Extraction has been great too, it always exiles something useful.
What are your thoughts on this match up and what do you think is good to sideboard in? My mainboard is currently the same as what Finkel ran (I'm still play testing it), but the sideboard should probably change to handle this deck.