Overview
Vannifar Pod is a midrange/combo deck that has a strong midrange plan, impactful silver bullets, and a combo that can consistently go off just by untapping with
Prime Speaker Vannifar
. I was initially playing this list as a Kiki Evolution shell with Vannifar added to it, but this deck is capable of oh so much more. I was initially scared of the combo builds because of their fragility. What I discovered is that the absolute power of Vannifar is being able to pack a small combo package that all functions as utility/pressure creatures, and have room to spare for a good set of toolbox creatures. This deck aims to land must-kill creature after creature backed by protection when needed, threatening to go off at any moment it is not respected and keeping plenty of card advantage with its grindy core and utility creatures. Uninterrupted, Birds/Hierarch + Vannifar is a T4 kill with no other required pieces.
With cards like
Knight of Autumn
,
Renegade Rallier
, and a whole slew of amazing 1-ofs, we have access to cards that old Pod shells would've killed for. Other decks have of course levelled up a ton too since the simple Pod days, but it's good to note that we have a lot more tools to keep up as well.
Maindeck + sideboard is pretty rough right now (Especially the manabase) and a lot of flex slots are available to change up and adapt to the metagame.
Vannifar VS Pod
Comparing Vannifar and
Birthing Pod
doesn't seem to be as far off of a comparison as you might think. Directly comparing the two, they each have their own advantages. Vannifar is a full turn slower and a bit more susceptible to certain removal, however the fact that it can be abused as a creature is nothing to scoff at. In the combos section I'll go over a few ways to abuse her without even consuming many slots in our deck.
Combos
Firstly, the fantastic part about this deck is that it DOES NOT need to combo. The mainboard works amazingly well as a simple value/midrange deck, and even seemingly combo-dedicated pieces have applications in a regular game. You would not believe the number of games pulling out a timely
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
or
Deputy of Detention
can massively swing things in your favour.
Scryb Ranger
- This card needs its own shoutout. Enables lethal combos off of a single Vannifar and 1-drop in play, untaps dorks to ramp you, bounces Stomping Ground to play Kiki easier, untaps Kiki for more clones, gives vigilance to beefy creatures, etc etc.
Example kill
Setup: Untap with Vannifar and have a 1-drop or higher in hand or in play
- Tap Vannifar, sac 1 drop for
Scryb Ranger
- Bounce a forest, untap Vannifar
- Tap Vannifar, sac Scryb for
Renegade Rallier
, getting back Scryb
- Bounce a forest, untap Vannifar
- Tap Vannifar, sac Scryb for
Pestermite
or
Village Bell-Ringer
, untapping Vannifar
- Tap Vannifar, sac Rallier for
Restoration Angel
, blinking Pestermite/Bell-Ringer, untapping Vannifar
- Tap Vannifar, sac Resto for
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
and win!
Matchup Predictions (NOT FINAL)
I've been playing a few matches so these observations are pretty rough, but they're an initial combination of brainstorming + experience so far.
VS Aggro
Mainboard we have a fast clock, access to
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
, and lifegain.
Worship
is a big card from the board. You can still be just outsped or disrupted in many cases, so it's important to recognize when to combo vs wall them out and fetch up silver bullets.
VS Phoenix
Unfavored. They are very disruptive, so you need to find a way to set up protection or run them out of removal. Better after Sideboard with
Worship
,
Eidolon of Rhetoric
, etc.
VS Burn
Very favored. Plenty of lifegain, Shalai, and
Worship
.
VS Humans
Favored. Can combo them out pretty quickly, our ways to combo are generally too wide for them to interfere with.
VS Spirits
Unfavored/Even. Rougher than humans, and their
Spell Queller
and
Mausoleum Wanderer
do hurt.
VS Dredge
Unfavored.
Conflagrate
hurts a lot. Only hope is to try and combo them out quickly while utilizing
Selfless Spirit
/Shalai to dodge Conflagrate. Sideboard options get a bit better with
Worship
(which does work against
Creeping Chill
because it's damage) and
Yixlid Jailer
.
VS Hardened Affinity
Even. Finding
Knight of Autumn
and blinking or cloning it gives us pretty good game, but they can also easily outspeed us if we are not disrupting them.
VS Combo
A quick combo and very disruptive silver bullets give us pretty good game against combo, but we can also stumble on a bunch of value/combo pieces that don't give us a fast or cohesive gameplan.
VS KCI
Even.
Scavenging Ooze
and
Remorseful Cleric
help buy time in G1 while you're setting up for combo. G2
Eidolon of Rhetoric
,
Meddling Mage
, etc are great at holding them off, but be wary of Eidolon being tagged by
Nature's Claim
.
VS Storm
Favored. Same as KCI, but Shalai G1 is another huge asset. Their removal post-board is generally things that deal 3 damage, while lines up very well against our silver bullets as well as Vannifar herself.
VS Tron
Unfavored. The infamous bad matchup for any fair deck. Combo'ing them early is about the only hope. Out of the board,
Magus of the Moon
and
Lavinia, Azorius Renegade
gives us some time to combo out.
VS Midrange
This deck plays a surprisingly mean value game, and has great options post-board. It is very easy to get caught and be left with only a handful of non-functional combo pieces in G1, so caution must be taken. You're likely not able to combo out here unless you just run them out of removal with your protection cards.
VS Jund
Even. You have a bunch of combo pieces that can be easily killed or left stranded by themselves, but you also have a lot of recurrent pieces and cards which replace themself. Post-board, you can bring in some serious haymakers that you can find easily with your tutors.
VS Shadow
Even/Unfavored.
Temur Battle Rage
is the real killer here. They're very disruptive while providing a fast clock, and chump blocking them doesn't work out when they pull the trigger on Battle Rage. If you're able to pull off a grind game, you may be able to recur more threats than they can deal with.
VS Control (UW, Jeskai, etc)
Unfavored. No
Voice of Resurgence
in this list leaves you very vulnerable to being just sliced and diced by these blue decks. Especially with recent additions of
Search for Azcanta
and
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
, it is quite the feat to run them out of gas.
Conclusion
Vannifar is still very experimental and needs a lot more testing in a lot of different shells with a lot of different cards before any sort of optimal list is determined. She doesn't seem likely to break modern in half, but she does seem to have quite a bit of potential to show up as a fringe deck tooled to take down certain strategies. Birthing Pod she isn't, but she definitely has a whole different set of advantages that I think will lead to her finding a home in the competitive scene.
