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Meta Pod Primer

Commander / EDH BRGW

infiniteimoc Lerker turtlepod

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Commander: foil Tana, the Bloodsower
Commander: foil Tymna the Weaver

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THIS PRIMER WILL BE MOVING TO MOXFIELD! https://www.moxfield.com/decks/7KTraYQHCkykdaVzpLgchA

WE WILL TRY TO KEEP THIS LIST UP TO DATE BUT WE WILL NOT GUARANTEE THAT IT IS ALWAYS CORRECT

The newest iteration of cEDH stax.

From IMOC and Lerker, the makers of Bloodpod, we welcome you to Meta Pod: a deck that seeks to leverage value and stax to achieve combos while your opponents struggle to get on their feet.

The two of us have been working both together and independently on the “pod” archetype for several years now and MetaPod is the latest addition to the family.

The pod decks of this lineage draw their line from 5 color kikipod deck lerker brewed early in the subreddit's lifetime. This deck was built around the idea of having a pod line for as many board states as possible. With the advent of partners there was some experimentation with Tymna and Tana stax, but what would become known as Bloodpod would not come into being until Felidar Guardian was spoiled. With the introduction of Felidar Guardian, full Kiki pod chains could be achieved without needing blue. The first build to contain all the common elements associated with Bloodpod under Tymna & Tana as commanders came with infiniteimoc's Crimson Moon. This list would soon diverge, with Lerker brewing Kikipod Stax, a list that tried to only utilize the 1-card wincons and hard stax elements, and LabManiac Luke diverging further with the list featured in his Bloodpod Primer, a list that capitalized both on the 1-card wincons and additional beats to try to subdue your opponents.

These divergent lists were maintained by their individual authors, but with the advent of Hulk and the refinement of 4 color strategies pushing the meta towards an even faster pace, the environmental conditions for the grindier builds worsened. We, with the help of some regulars on the competitive edh discord, created the newest member of the bloodpod family to better survive the faster and more resilient meta. MetaPod is built with maximizing tempo in mind and is one of the faster iterations of the bloodpod archetype.

MetaPod is what we consider a tempo deck. To understand what this archetype is and what it plays like we must first establish an understanding of what tempo is. Tempo is often associated with mana acceleration, mana usage, and the disparity between players on those fronts; decks that win through tempo rely on maximizing the efficient use of produced mana to continuously put out pressure. Tempo decks use their resources to attack and disrupt an opponent's ability to use its resources efficiently. This creates a tempo deficit between the two players. This deficit slowly builds until the Tempo deck has an overwhelming advantage and achieves victory. This advantage is usually developed via a threat resolved early and unable to be answered, or an engine that generates card advantage or other resources for the player. In either case, the advantage generator needs to be resolved early and protected throughout the course of the game. For example, in Legacy, Delver decks protect a Delver of Secrets   to victory; in RNA Standard, Mono Blue Tempo rides Curious Obsession to enough advantage to stifle the tempo of their opponents.

The introduction of more players, and the ability to end games by simply resolving two cards ,sometimes at instant speed, changes the parameters of how we must approach playing with tempo decks. In cEDH, tempo decks must either utilize pressure applied to the opponents to swiftly facilitate victory or they must have a consistent engine that can utilize and magnify their disruptive elements to out-compete three other players. MetaPod falls into the first style of cEDH tempo decks; it utilizes combinations of powerful and sweeping disruption cards to greatly impact the tempo of the table, and while the other players attempt to stabilize the MetaPod player seeks to leverage this advantage in resolving their winning lines as quickly and as safely as possible.

If the win bears too high of a risk, the MetaPod player seeks to leverage the deficit they created in the other players to create more disadvantage, all the while seeking for an opportunity to resolve their combo. What this means in cEDH is usually resolving a backbreaking or generalized stax piece which will significantly slow down the majority of the table. For example, the namesake card of our first iteration of the deck, Blood Moon, can take many decks turns upon turns to find answers to. Similarly, cards like Rule of Law or Trinisphere can severely disrupt cEDH decks who are trying to play out multiple low cost cards in a single turn cycle or multiple mana accelerants early. These stax pieces create positive tempo in fairly straightforward ways; if you spend 3 mana on a Trinisphere and each opponent spends (or losses) more than 3 mana then it has been tempo positive, but beyond that if you are making them take longer to play out accelerants it sets them even further behind.

Once this tempo has been established, you can follow up with something like Aven Mindcensor to further the gap, or something like Azra Oddsmaker to increase your own card selection and at any point you can cast your commander Tymna the Weaver to double up the value from such cards. Once a window appears, the final part of the gameplan is to assemble one of your A+B combos, some of which can be done by a single card like Birthing Pod or Yisan, the Wanderer Bard.

Viewing tempo as simply a measure of mana acceleration and efficient mana usage also becomes unhelpful. In cEDH tempo is more usefully seen as the available resources an individual player has to leverage their victory condition. MetaPod leverages the same engine/threat template that tempo decks in 60 card formats do, via Tymna the Weaver, but it always has the end goal of resolving its combos, and must compete with other decks that threaten their own combos. The threat of combo becomes the impetuous behind this comprehensive definition of tempo. With decks averaging a speed of turn three to four unfettered, and needing around only five to six mana to initiate their wins; the paths to interacting meaningfully with the tempo of the other decks at the table becomes limited. This is especially the case with decks that have access to blue and black. The card selection offered to these decks make these threats consistently deliverable, and given enough time many can threaten wins with sheer inevitability.

MetaPod must use its system of disruptive spells across several pools of resources in order to properly disrupt enough of the table to secure a lead in the race to the combo. With the addition of more players, there is also more uncertainty. Some players may view the only path to victory as a risky one that involves removing a stax piece and unleashing the entire table. Because of these types of volatilities, it is almost impossible in cEDH to completely lock out your opponents; sooner or later one of them will find what they are looking for. Metapod hopes to achieve victory in the window before this can happen. A common mistake players make while piloting their Bloodpod lists is overextending on the board when they could have been searching for a victory line. While it’s true that staying alive is priority #1, you always have to keep in mind that you eventually want to win.

In the past, to mitigate bad draws, we had variants of the list that used less “hard wincons” and used more midrange threats that could eventually close out the game with combat damage. Skilled opponents know to generally save removal and Counterspells until the last possible moment to deploy them, so playing cards that are slow wincons makes them less likely to eat removal; removing combo pieces also leaves you with less dead topdecks. Unfortunately, as Hulk and PST decks have improved their midrange plans, and as new decks like Najeela enter the meta the gameplan of lockdown and beat to death became less and less viable.

Although we have found that the Metapod build is working better into the current meta, we also understand that many players still are looking to play for a longer game and against grindier opponents. To facilitate that you end up needing some of the higher cost but heavier hitting endgame cards like Armageddon, Sire of Insanity and Elesh Norn, combined with even more good hate like Thorn of Amethyst and efficient beat cards like Luminarch Ascension. Keeping with the older style of Bloodpod, we have an updated list that has only “1 card wincons” and extra stax to facilitate getting to them. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/blood-pod-kiki-stax/

The backbone of any cEDH deck is how you actually win the game. The choice here was Kiki-Jiki combos and Splinter Twin combos. These combos only generally require playing single cards with relatively high costs, so our stax pieces that we get to run are numerous and don’t hurt our wincon. In addition, Kiki allows for many lines via our “1-card wincons” that make it so you only need to topdeck a single thing to find the win once you’ve established tempo. At the bottom will be a reference guide to the combo lines.

  • Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker - The main combo kill. Haste means he can go the turn you get him out. Lots of utility lines that he allows in other aspects.

  • Splinter Twin - The main alternate wincon of the deck.

  • Village Bell-Ringer - A flexible card in many sorts. Beyond simply being a card that works with both Kiki and Twin, the flash also allows you to “sneak” in wins that opponents weren’t expecting and the untap ALL creatures part makes it so you can generate infinite mana with your combo and it also means you can weave this in on your combo turn to untap your dorks as a sort of ritual.

  • Felidar Guardian - The main purpose is obviously as a Kiki-bottom, but Felidar also represents protection via Yisan and Necromancy (or even a resolved kiki-combo), and also can bounce a creature or land or sometimes tangle wire to untap/reset them for various lines.

  • Goblin Sharpshooter - A very nice hate piece in general, this card can wipe mana dorks and utility bears out in the value case. This card can also combo with Splinter Twin and represents one of the only non-combat wins in our deck.

  • Birthing Pod - One of our 1-card wincons that has massive amounts of utility otherwise. Using Pod to get stax creatures is amazing value and can save you in tight moments. The main use of Pod in the deck is to assemble the full Kiki combo, using Felidar Guardian to untap the Pod along the way. This can either be done by podding a 3-drop into Guardian and a 4-drop into Kiki, or a 3-drop into Guardian -> Guardian into Karmic Guide reviving Guardian -> Guardian into Kiki copy Karmic revive Guide -> etc.

  • Yisan, the Wanderer Bard - Yisan can be used both to get hate pieces at instant speed as well as to assemble the Kiki-combo. By including Quirion Ranger, the Yisan lines get significantly more varied and complicated; using it to double up on a number like 2 or 3 can be incredibly strong and find the correct hate pieces that can seal up the game before using him at 4 and 5 for combo pieces. The main win-line with Yisan is to play him out, untap with him, and then before you untap a 2nd time, use 6 mana to get Quirion and a 2drop mana dork / hate piece, and after untapping use him to get Bell-Ringer, who will untap him, Felidar who will bounce the Bell-Ringer and finally Kiki; if your 2-drop dork produces 2-3 mana this was all “free”.

  • Survival of the Fittest - Besides being a very strong repeatable tutor, Survival can also be a single card that helps us access the combo. Survival lets you use a few green mana to dump your combo cards into the graveyard and resurrecting them with either Karmic Guide or a reanimation spell to cut the cost of the combo.

  • Karmic Guide - While Karmic Guide is not a particularly good reanimation effect, the fact that it is a creature who can be copied by Kiki or bounced by Guardian makes him incredibly valueable in the combo lines.

  • Quirion Ranger - Cutting a turn off of the Yisan line is quite good (as well as making it so that you have to react at instant speed); but the utility of this card is why it ends up making the final list. When you’ve run out of lands in hand it can act as a ramp card, and you can also use it to get an extra activation out of a mana dork, you can use it to make a surprise blocker and you can even use it on Kiki to respond to removal and get a second chance at the combo.

  • Reanimate - The lowest cost reanimation spell is the first choice for this deck. If you were to ever tutor for one, this is the one you would want to tutor for first 9 times out of 10.

  • Necromancy - The highest utility reanimation spell is the next choice. The ability to go instant speed is incredibly relevant in a lot of cases. The first of those is for redundancy’s sake, if someone attempts to stop your combo by removing your Karmic Guide targets, this gives you an extra out to the gravehate being thrown at you. In addition it allows you to make trades and blocks that weren’t expected or hold up stax pieces for one person’s turn but not the others. A corner case that recently came up was also using it to reanimate Kiki-Jiki after discarding him during combat to Azra Oddsmaker, so he could still make the attackers before declare attacks. Being able to hit opponent’s graveyards makes this card double as gravehate as well and the instant speed makes it reliable gravehate.

  • Buried Alive - Because we are already on all of the other cards that make this work, Buried Alive acts as another redundant A+B combo with the animation effects in the deck.

  • Animate Dead - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Animate Dead would be the next choice if you wanted a 4th reanimation effect. Generally we have found 3 to be enough, and the others to be higher utility. In some metas it might be correct to cut Necromancy for Animate Dead and Life//Death for the cost reduction, but we have found this to be working well.

  • Life - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - The least valueable reanimation effect has a side-effect that is also very infrequently useful. Every now and then you will be able to combo the Life side with bell-ringer, but usually life just acts like a worse version of the other animate effects in this deck.

Splinter Twin + Goblin Sharpshooter + any x/1:

  • Twin on Sharpshooter #1.

  • Tap #1 to create #2.

  • Tap #2 to kill a dork. #1 and #2 untap.

Loop:

  • Tap #1 to create #3.

  • Tap #2 to damage face.

  • Tap #3 to kill itself. #1 and #2 untap.

  • Splinter Twin + Village Bell-Ringer

  • Kiki-Jiki + Village Bell-Ringer / Felidar Guardian

  • Buried Alive -> Kiki-Jiki + Felidar Guardian + Karmic Guide -> Animation Effect -> Karmic Guide -> Guardian bounces Guide -> Kiki-Jiki

  • Survival of the Fittest + 3green + 2white + 3mana -> discard each to find the next -> Kiki-Jiki -> Felidar Guardian -> Karmic Guide -> Play Karmic Guide -> etc

  • Survival of the Fittest + animation effect + 4green -> Kiki-Jiki -> Felidar Guardian -> Karmic Guide -> discard Karmic Guide -> animate Karmic Guide -> etc

  • Yisan already in play for a turn, going into your turn + 6 mana -> 1 for Quirion -> 2 for Bloom Tender -> let their turn and let yourself untap -> 3 for Village Bell-Ringer (also untaps the Bloom Tender) -> 4 for Felidar Guardian -> 5 for Kikijiki

  • Birthing Pod + 3drop + 4drop + 2mana -> pod 3 into Felidar Guardian -> Flicker Pod -> pod 4 into Kiki-Jiki

  • Birthing Pod + 3drop + 3mana -> pod 3 into Felidar Guardian -> Flicker Pod -> pod Felidar Guardian into Karmic Guide -> reanimate Felidar Guardian -> Flicker Pod -> pod Felidar Guardian into Kiki-Jiki -> Copy Karmic -> reanimate Felidar Guardian -> etc

Stax pieces are the primary way MetaPod generates the tempo advantage it uses to accelerate towards its goals. The impact of the cards however varies depending on its inherent strength in the meta. The stax pieces have been categorized according to their ability to impact as many people as adversely as possible.

Primary stax pieces are ones that, when dropped, affect 2-3 opponents in big ways. These are the stax pieces that you want to land as soon as possible.

Secondary stax pieces are cards that are still very powerful, but their best operational conditions come after a primary stax piece or a value piece has been played, they usually build up the snowball and make it harder for your opponents to interact with the first card played.

Niche stax pieces are generally effective, but tend to have a more narrow field of effect and might hurt only 1-2 players at the table. Depending on your meta these stax pieces may move up to primary.

  • Root Maze - At one mana, Root Maze can be absolutely back-breaking in the first few turns of the game. With its effects on fetches and artifact ramp an early Root Maze can set your opponents back multiple turns. If you’re first in turn order any hand that can cast Root Maze on turn one is most likely keepable. In addition, there are some combos that rely on artifacts that it neutralizes, and other decks that use enablers like Ad Nauseum generally rely on the ability to generate mana with rocks after amassing their cards.

  • Trinisphere - Many of the plays made in the first couple of turns rely on cards that cost 0-1 mana and cEDH decks in general run pretty low to the ground, this makes Trinisphere extremely potent in the early game but still relevant in the late game. You can expect this to land turn two to three on average, but it can generally win games if you can achieve the rare event of getting it out turn one.

  • Sphere of Resistance - Universal tax effects are super powerful in the early game. A two mana artifact fits nicely into the curve and allows the player to leverage it on a very critical turn 2. Universal tax effects also maintain their potency longer than effects that only interact with noncreature spells. Though tax effects are weaker in the late game, the ubiquitous nature of the tax allows for it drain a surprising amount of resources on busy turns.

  • Blood Moon - With fast three to four color decks being so prominent, most decks tend to favor very aggressive fetch patterns. Blood Moon is absolutely punishing to these decks, forcing them to rely on whatever artifact or dork mana they have on hand. Many decks don’t even run basics and an early Blood Moon can take them completely out of the game. Being a static effect that transforms future fetches into mountains as well, it becomes kind of a challenge to remove.

  • Magus of the Moon - This is a Blood Moon that can swing for Tymna.

  • Rule of Law - Rule of Law places severe limitations on the way resources flow for decks in the game. The tempo lost for decks that rely on chaining rocks and cantrips to quickly assemble low cost wins is massive. It forces people into attempting to win without protection or using more mana for removal, and it nullifies some of the power blue decks can bring to bear. Rule of Law is a far reaching card and its power makes it an ideal early play, when more stax pieces are added to the field it really becomes a nightmare for faster decks to navigate.

  • Eidolon of Rhetoric - This is a Rule of Law that can hit for Tymna.

  • Null Rod - Artifact ramp and combos are well entrenched archetypes in cEDH. While one of our strongest win enablers is Birthing Pod, the tempo lost for us is far less than it is for our opponents who rely on these artifacts. If removed after an early play our Podlines are back on line and the Null Rod had accomplished its purpose.

  • Stony Silence - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - A harder to remove but slightly harder to cast Null Rod. In some metas Stony is a safe card to remove but the current meta is full of decks looking to utilize Isochron Scepter. If its not stopping someone’s wincon in your meta, it might not be good enough.

  • Collector Ouphe - Null Rod on a 2/2 body comes with an array of pros and cons. Ouphe has the ability to draw cards with Tymna while also operating as a stax piece. This combination of potential draw engine on top of a backbreaking stax piece makes for strong early plays. The creature type also proves important as Ouphe can be tutored with Finale of Devastation, Survival of the Fittest, or even Birthing Pod in a pinch. However, being a creature also means that Collector Ouphe is vulnerable to creature based removal, especially Pyroclasm as Collector Ouphe is a 2/2.

  • Tangle Wire - One of the best follow-ups to an early stax piece, or to a turn 2 value piece, is Tangle Wire. The asymmetry on this card is sometimes easy to miss, but because it hits your opponents before it hits you, you get to remove the counter before you are affected, and because you can tap it to its own effect, it takes much more from your opponents than yourself. Even when deployed late, it can often force your opponents to make very awkward plays and skip turns well into the late game to hold up interaction for each other.

  • Stranglehold - A one-sided effect that removes tutors is quite strong in a format where most decks run a full complement of tutors and fetchlands. While this card will not do all that much to stop your opponents on its own, it is often the nail in the coffin that prevents your opponents from stopping your win or finding theirs.

  • Leyline of the Void - With the prevalence of Hulk in the meta, a universal off-switch for that deck is very helpful. The upside of not hitting yourself and of most decks using their graveyard to some extent makes it just eek out viability. If your meta does not call for this card it is an easy cut at 4 mana.

  • Linvala, Keeper of Silence - One of the most brutal stax effects in the current meta is Linvala. With the prevalence of Thrasios decks and mana dorks in general, this card can shut off entire strategies at just 4 mana. It is generally something that is deployed later in the game, but depending on the matchup it can be crucial at both stopping their setup and their wins.

  • Aven Mindcensor - One of the most flexible interaction / hatebears in the meta that many midrange combo decks are even running. When cast at instant speed, in reaction to a tutor or fetchland, this card can take even more resources than a card that simply prevents.

  • Aura of Silence - Being both one-sided and also a reactive piece of removal makes it not only harder for your opponents to play their mana rocks and utility artifacts, but it also makes them weary of playing their wincon artifacts lest they be blown up.

  • Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - An amazing call, but certainly a meta choice. At 7 mana, Elesh Norn takes quite a bit of work to put into play, but once she has landed she makes a beatdown clock quite realistic on the scariest of your opponents (the one most likely to Counterspell your wincon or win themself) and against some decks can prevent their win all together. In any slower or grindier meta she is an easy inclusion.

  • Sire Of Insanity - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - The Sire of Insanity can be the nail in the coffin to many decks, but there are also a few who will scoff at him. Opposing Tymna decks, decks like Yisan, Sisay, Zur, or even some reanimator decks can get far more value from playing this than you are able to; and so he becomes a bit of a meta choice. Against control and value decks, he is often amazing, but in this wincon-heavy version we decided to not include him in the main deck. In some matchups he can be seen as a 1-card wincon on his own.

  • Anafenza, the Foremost - In this current Hulk meta it helps to have all the things you can that stop the combo from going off. If you are not playing against Hulk and reanimator this is an easy exclusion from your list.

  • Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - While she is not as amazing in this creature-heavy meta as she once was in the storm metas of old, there are still quite a few non-creature spells that your opponents are playing. In addition the 2/1 firststrike body makes her eat up opposing Tymnas and would-be blockers in a very favorable way.

  • Ethersworn Canonist - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - In many ways this is the best sideboard card on our current list. A would-be Rule of Law that can be played earlier, but doesn’t stop opponents from jamming out many rocks, is still a very strong card. In many metas it is correct to replace a less relevant stax piece with this one.

  • Choke - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - If your meta has enough blue and islands in it then this card can be backbreaking. It is always a meta pick and will never be maindeck.

  • Thorn of Amethyst - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - In some metas it will be correct to drop most of the 4cost stax pieces and run all of the lower to the ground ones. This card is nearly always a meta pick at the moment.

Cards in this section are used to capitalize on the tempo disparity created through playing out stax pieces and help facilitate drawing into our winning lines or other cards to continue to apply pressure.

  • Dark Confidant - Getting a card that can draw cards consistently and swing for Tymna and two mana is a ton of value, and with our deck not really caring about life totals until we hit 0 Dark Confidant is a very powerful value engine.

  • Azra Oddsmaker - This card gives us massive value. It can pass its draws on to other creatures (including the turn it was played), is a decent attacker/blocker, lets us see three cards with an associated Tymna draw, and allows us to have card selection all in a cool 3 mana package. Sometimes you can even discard a combo piece to reanimate it and save some mana / fix some colors.

  • Runic Armasaur - This card has a similar effect on player behavior to Mystic Remora where they might choose to forgo their activations to prevent your draws. However, the fact that it hits lands, specifically fetch lands, makes it sometimes hard for opponents to avoid. Many commanders in the meta use activated abilities, like Thrasios, and armasaur makes them reconsider activating their commander for value. Decks that want to win through creature activations have to contend with you drawing lots of cards and possibly finding the answer.

  • Sylvan Library - This card is amazing. At two mana you see an insane amount of cards through the course of a game, and with life not being an issue until we’re out of it, double bolting ourselves is a small price to pay for this kind of selection.

  • Loyal Apprentice - Thopter swarms are surprisingly powerful when coupled with a Tymna. This card thrives under the kinds of boardstates this deck creates and after a few turns it can almost always guarantee you 3 cards every turn off of Tymna.

  • Mindblade Render - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - If your meta features Najeela, this card becomes an autoinclude. Overall, Mindblade is an alright draw engine, but it didn’t quite make the cut above the others we are currently running for maindeck. A 1/3 body makes it quite easy for the many 1/2, 2/2, 1/3 and 2/3 creatures in our format to block, and makes it hard to ensure draw. If you are playing in a meta with many creature-light decks that can’t block a 1/3, it is an incredibly good card that is nearly as good as Dark Confidant, but in the current meta it doesn’t seem amazing.

  • Luminarch Ascension - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - This card can become an absolute house if left to develop, but it does take a little while to get rolling. The 4/4 flyers are nearly unstoppable and both put a real clock on your opponents and draw you a healthy amount of Tymna cards. It’s perfect for slower builds but not quite fast enough for our maindeck.

Flexible removal is an essential part of competing in a multiplayer competitive environment. Cards in this category are used offensively or defensively to temporarily disrupt another players actions.

  • Pyroblast - There are lots of cards worth destroying/countering in blue, and with this being one red mana, Pyroblast is easily one of our most flexible and accessible pieces of interaction. Being able to hold up protection from Counterspells for your combo turns is also ideal in this tempo oriented list.

  • Red Elemental Blast - Another Pyroblast is worth running in this build.

  • Abrupt Decay - An uncounterable removal spell that hits most nonland permanents in the format all for two mana is super efficient.

  • Fire Covenant - Creature decks are more prevalent than ever before, but wipes are usually too costly for us to run if they aren’t one sided. Wipes being sorcery speed and and universal makes them poor fits for our tempo oriented play style. Fire Covenant gives us a three mana instant speed wipe that only costs us life to get around the issues we have with conventional wipes.

  • Zealous Persecution - A one sided wipe that kills the other players’ dorks and turns ours into bears is pretty strong in a deck like this. It also helps us out grind other decks that fall into the midrange or stax categories. This card can also be used as a combat trick, capitalizing on what your opponents might perceive as a bad attack and surprising them with a blow out.

  • Assassin's Trophy - This card has a wider pool of possible targets than Abrupt Decay, but can still be countered, which is still too efficient a piece not to get a slot in our current build. The downside of giving your opponent a basic is sometimes annoying, but worth killing their card for.

  • Noxious Revival - This has quite a few uses, the most obvious being that it can, for 2 life, get cards back and then draw them with Tymna, but currently its most prominent use is to interact with your opponents’ graveyards.

  • Vexing Shusher - Vexing Shusher is a very flexible piece of interaction that can be used to either ensure our cards are being resolved or help ensure Counterspells meant for other people’s cards are being resolved. The color costs are flexible and the one mana cost of the ability coupled with Shusher’s low cmc makes it perfect for what the deck needs it to do.

  • Silence - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Silence is a great card at protecting your combo turn and stopping other people’s but its use cases were not broad enough to warrant its inclusion over another card’s in this category. In metas where blue isn’t very dominant, then Silence is a good alternative to Red Elemental Blast

  • Swords to Plowshares - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Though Swords is an efficient kill spell that exiles cards, making them less accessible, it’s not as flexible as cards in this category. If exiling creatures is super important in your meta you may consider swapping it in over one of the less applicable cards in the list.

  • Electrickery - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - While Electrickery isn’t as good as zealous or Fire Covenant in the wipe slot, if dorks are all but ubiquitous in your meta, having three wipes may be warranted.

  • Meltdown - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - With the current meta favoring creature ramp, Meltdown isnt as necessary in a deck with Nullrod, Stony Silence, and Aura of Silence. It is however an excellent artifact wipe and if the meta has more artifacts, feel free to sub it in.

  • Nature's Claim - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Nature's Claim is on a similar boat as Swords, its not quite flexible enough to make it into the build right now, but in a meta more weighted towards artifacts, it could easily find a home here.

  • Grand Abolisher - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Currently Grand Abolisher doesn’t quite line up with our needs, as the deck only really needs one protection card like Shusher, but in a meta where blue isn’t prominent, shusher can easily become Grand Abolisher.

In competitive EDH, every deck gets filled out with a pile of staples. For the most part all of these are auto-include and don’t really deserve much discussion. We run only the best 4 mana rocks that can be used early on to help jam out stax pieces; we don’t run any more than that because we also run Null Rod and Stony Silence, so we want to minimize that non-bo. We run every single 1-cost mana dork that we can to try to ensure 3 mana on turn 2 as often as possible so we can play out Tymna or another engine or stax piece; mana dorks can also turn into attackers for Tymna later on when you don’t need the mana. We run a flexible tutor suite that allows us to pull both combo pieces and interaction when needed.

  • Mana Crypt - Auto-include for early plays

  • Mox Diamond - Auto-include for early plays

  • Sol Ring - Auto-include for early plays

  • Chrome Mox - While a little weaker than the other rocks, Chrome Mox is still incredibly strong early game. This is probably the weakest ramp card we run.

  • Carpet of Flowers - An all-star cEDH card, as islands are ubiquitous. Notably this also makes mana under other stax cards that we can’t deal with and any color under Blood Moons.

  • Arbor Elf - Auto-include mana dork

  • Avacyn's Pilgrim - Auto-include mana dork

  • Birds of Paradise - Auto-include mana dork

  • Deathrite Shaman - Auto-include mana dork

  • Elves of Deep Shadow - Auto-include mana dork

  • Elvish Mystic - Auto-include mana dork

  • Fyndhorn Elves - Auto-include mana dork

  • Llanowar Elves - Auto-include mana dork

  • Bloom Tender - You generally at least want one of the 2-cost mana dorks, but Bloom Tender is the better pick we have found for meta-pod. Giving access to multiple different colors can be instrumental in playing multiple cards in a single turn or for getting double colored costs on some of our more expensive plays. This is also used in the Yisan lines and is generally very flexible.

  • Wild Growth - An exceptional piece of ramp. Being able to play it for “free” because it nets you 1 mana the turn you play it (unless you play it turn 1) is incredibly strong. It also has the upsides of not being hit by board wipes or Linvala, but it has the downside compared to a dork of not swinging for Tymna if drawn late game, and it has the downside compared to Chrome Mox of not helping you make 2 mana on turn 1.

  • Priest of Titania - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - Priest of Titania is a great card but we didn’t end up putting it in the maindeck here. In this version of the build where we cut the highest cost cards, the bulk green mana ends up not being nearly as useful as it is in other builds. It is a very reasonable pick into some metas and is worth considering.

  • Demonic Tutor - Auto-include tutor

  • Vampiric Tutor - Auto-include tutor

  • Imperial Seal - Auto-include tutor

  • Enlightened Tutor - Auto-include tutor

  • Eladamri's Call - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - While generally Worldly is good enough for the first few turns for most decks, this deck generally wants to save their tutors for a bit later and jam out value and stax first. In addition, in the late game it is also a much nicer topdeck than Worldly Tutor because you just want that card sooner.

  • Diabolic Intent - When you run enough creatures, as we do, Diabolic Intent becomes an auto-include. In addition we can always sacrifice a stax piece we no longer want out, or a Saproling from Tana.

  • Eldritch Evolution - See Diabolic Intent, but also we can get combo pieces into play and finally when it resolves the creature is already in play, so if you get a stax effect they cannot respond before it’s in place (like getting thalia when they only have 1 mana available means they cannot cast their 1mana removal).

  • Worldly Tutor - NOT CURRENTLY MAINDECK - A hard cut to make, but in general it is one of the worst tutors in the format. It’s still OK if you’re missing a slot of some kind to just put this in there though.

  • Finale of Devastation - Finale of Devastation acts as a strong tutor for creatures that can be used to grab any of the aforementioned creature stax pieces or grabbing parts of creature based combos. Unlike Chord of Calling or Green Sun's Zenith (two spiritual predecessors to this card), Finale of Devastation can also be used to reanimate creatures which can be important for keeping Aven Mindscensor, Collector Ouphe, or other creatures on the board after Pyroclasm or similar board wipes. Finally, the ability to generate an overrun effect when casting Finale of Devastation for X = 10 has uncommon but not irrelevant applications alongside Bloom Tender and Gaia's Cradle which both generate large amounts of mana.

LabManiac_Luke- For maintaining the bloodpod primer up until now

ShaperSavant - For his amazing proofing & editing wizardry. This primer would look much worse without his help!

ShaperSavant, LabManiac_Sigi, tenrose, user: Nakhla, LabManiac_Dan - For playing against too many iterations of these decks to count.

roguelikedev, AstralCodex, tw0handt0uch and everyone at the BP discord!

Pongo_Pygmaeu5 - For the great name "Meta Pod"!

Upvote MetaPod!

Join the Blood Pod Discord!

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Casual

90% Competitive

Revision 7 See all

(4 years ago)

+1 Autumn's Veil maybe
-1 Choke maybe
+1 Compost maybe
+1 Deflecting Swat main
+1 Destiny Spinner main
+1 Dockside Extortionist main
+1 Drannith Magistrate main
+1 Faeburrow Elder maybe
-1 Forbidden Orchard main
+1 Force of Vigor main
-1 Forest main
+1 Gemstone Caverns main
+1 Goblin Bombardment maybe
-1 Godless Shrinefoil maybe
-1 Grand Abolisher maybe
+1 Green Sun's Zenith maybe
-1 Horizon Canopy main
+1 Imp's Mischief maybe
+1 Inferno Titan maybe
-1 Life / Death maybe
and 36 other change(s)
Top Ranked
Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

11 - 0 Mythic Rares

58 - 0 Rares

17 - 0 Uncommons

10 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.26
Tokens Copy Clone, Saproling 1/1 G, Thopter 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders Bloodpod lists for tweaking ideas, cEDH, Postfetch EDH Decks, decks, EDH, BloodPod, Commander/EDH, Deck References, Blood Pod, cEDH
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