Blood Pod base

Commander / EDH* Four Color Toolbox

LabManiac_Luke

Creature (32)

• 1x Anafenza, the Foremost
• 1x Arbor Elf
• 1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Birds of Paradise
• 1x Bloom Tender
• 1x Caustic Caterpillar
• 1x Deathrite Shaman
• 1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
• 1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
• 1x Elves of Deep Shadow
• 1x Elvish Mystic
• 1x Eternal Witness
• 1x Ethersworn Canonist
• 1x Felidar Guardian
• 1x Fyndhorn Elves
• 1x Inferno Titan
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Kataki, War's Wage
• 1x Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
• 1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
• 1x Llanowar Elves
• 1x Magus of the Moon
• 1x Reclamation Sage
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Sire Of Insanity
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
• 1x Ulvenwald Tracker
• 1x Vexing Shusher
• 1x Village Bell-Ringer
• 1x Yisan, the Wanderer Bard

Artifact (6)

• 1x Birthing Pod
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Null Rod
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Trinisphere

Land (33)

• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Badlands
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Bountiful Promenade
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 4x Forest
• 1x Gaea's Cradle
• 1x Horizon Canopy
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Savannah
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Stomping Ground
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Taiga
• 1x Temple Garden
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Instant (8)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Nature's Claim
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Worldly Tutor

Commanders (2)

Enchantment (10)

• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Blood Moon
• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Leyline of the Void
• 1x Root Maze
• 1x Rule of Law
• 1x Stony Silence
• 1x Stranglehold
• 1x Survival of the Fittest
• 1x Sylvan Library

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Diabolic Intent
• 1x Imperial Seal

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Sideboard

Creature (13)

• 1x Archon of Valor's Reach
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Dryad Militant
• 1x Faerie Macabre
• 1x Goblin Sharpshooter
• 1x Harsh Mentor
• 1x Manglehorn
• 1x Runic Armasaur
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Tendershoot Dryad
• 1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1x Treasure Nabber

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Choke
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Splinter Twin

Sorcery (2)

• 1x Buried Alive
• 1x Reanimate

Artifact (3)

• 1x Skullclamp
• 1x Sphere of Resistance
• 1x Tangle Wire

Instant (1)

• 1x Assassin's Trophy

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Description

This base deck is only 94 cards. I've prepared the sideboard with some suggestions for filling the last six slots. Use these last cards to tailor the list more to your meta.

Suggested cards

Archon of Valor's Reach is another fat card that can shut people down. I've found that most cards that cost 5+ are usually pretty strong. The problem is living long enough to cast them when your opponents are on combo. With that in mind I always recommend being careful with the amount of large creatures/spells you add to a deck.

Assassin's Trophy is more removal if you think you need it. Never really hurts to have more removal.

Choke and Blood Moon take the same slot. I normally play Choke if I see more 1-2 color decks and I play Blood Moon if I see more 3-5 color decks

Containment Priest so this card introduces some anti-synergy to the deck that can be kind of a pain. It does work to stop hulk piles and reanimator decks, but it is symmetric, so it will shut off our Yisan/ Reanimation / Pod Lines while its on the field.

Dark Confidant is just more card advantage, and I play it normally

Dryad Militant is a cheap hate piece that can shut down certain hulk decks that use something like Dread Return , as well as giving storm decks that like Yawgmoth's Will a hard time

Faerie Macabre probably correct to run this if you consistently see 2+ hulk decks in your pods. Do keep in mind that some common versions of hulk will still be able to use a card like Memory's Journey to try and respond to Faerie Macabre . This is just an additional free interaction piece that you can stick in your deck to try and not die super early. Plus, if you're totally buttoned up on stax, you can always use it as an evasive threat to trigger Tymna the Weaver .

Harsh Mentor seems good into some metas. His ability slows down decks that want to chain Lion's Eye Diamond with Auriok Salvagers as well as many Thrasios/ Razaketh, the Foulblooded strategies. Normally punisher type effects aren't useful, since if it won't 100% stop an opponent its useless sometimes. But my thoughts have been that the more chip damage you can do during a game, the better Harsh Mentor becomes. And since this deck already wants to be turning things sideways, it seems like it has potential.

Inferno Titan , Sun Titan , and Tendershoot Dryad take similar spots for me. I normally play two out of three of them. Sun Titan gives access to a lot of recursion of stax pieces, so I normally play him, and I'm trying out Tendershoot Dryad in the "pure beater" slot. Inferno Titan is good since you get immediate value if he resolves, since you can ping down a bunch of dorks or kill a relevant commander like Tymna the Weaver . Inferno Titan is also much easier to resolve post Blood Moon than either Sun Titan or Tendershoot Dryad . Its nice to play Inferno Titan when you normally see a lot of good targets for his ability, you want to slam Blood Moon asap, and you see enough removal that Tendershoot Dryad usually dies before being helpful.

Luminarch Ascension is a card that comes in and out of my main list pretty frequently. Into slow pods of interactive combo decks, its a threat you can slam early then use to pressure them as they develop and posture.

Manglehorn and Reclamation Sage take up similar slots for me. Since the mainboard hates on artifacts so much I normally just play Reclamation Sage over Manglehorn since it has extra flexibility.

Reanimate and Animate Dead take up a similar slot to me. I've recently been reducing the number of reanimation spells I play mainboard, and since I tend to play Sun Titan I currently am using Animate Dead as my one reanimation spell. If you play against reanimator decks, I'd probably bump back up to two or if your big bombs die enough and you think it'd be worth it you could try running two reanimation spells.

Runic Armasaur is a solid card to hate on decks with lots of creature abilities. Its kind of a mini cursed totem that also gets value blocking Tymna the Weaver and drawing cards off people's fetches.

Serra Ascendant is admittedly a weird choice. I've found that the added life it gives you makes just dumping life into Tymna a non-issue, plus you get to have a large fire covenant if you need to. If it lands early it can also severely cripple an Ad Naus or Zur player.

Sphere of Resistance this is a tax effect with can be effective, but it will depend on your meta. Use your discretion to determine if this will have a high enough impact in your games

Skullclamp has huge upside when it works, but since this deck has so many ways to hate on artifacts it can really end up as just a dead card in loads of your games.

Tangle Wire is good if you keep losing to super fast combo decks, it will help slow them down for the first few turns until you can develop a bit and layer more stax. It can also be nice later on when you have a bunch of tokens / it has value with Sun Titan

Thalia, Heretic Cathar is another relevant creature that slightly slows your opponents down.

Treasure Nabber shuts down scepter decks, Chain veil teferi, and makes storm players lives more difficult. Keep this in mind if you see a lot of those decks.

Other Packages

Buried Alive and Necromancy

Buried Alive and Necromancy

These are two cards you can add if your meta doesn't have tons of interaction, and is light on grave hate. Adding Buried Alive lets you pile with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , Karmic Guide , and one of our infinite creatures like Village Bell-Ringer or Felidar Guardian . The base deck only runs one or two reanimation spells, so I'd bump that up to three by adding whichever of the normal ones you're missing with Reanimate or Animate Dead as well as the third spell Necromancy .

I do always caution against seeing Buried Alive as an early game play. There are certainly some scenarios where you can squeak it in early-mid game. But I've had the most success casting the card once my opponents have exhausted a good amount of their interaction/resources fighting my early game stax and our other opponents.

Splinter Twin and Goblin Sharpshooter

Splinter Twin and Goblin Sharpshooter

Here is another combo package that you can toss into the deck if you'd like. Splinter Twin will combo with Village Bell-Ringer , but it can also combo with Goblin Sharpshooter . Splinter Twin is also generally a useful card to slap onto some of our creatures with nice ETB effects or large bodies (like Eternal Witness or Sun Titan ). Goblin Sharpshooter can also be used to clean up people's mana dorks or X/1 utility creatures in one long chain.

This package is appealing since it adds two cards that are useful outside of the combo, but they layer to add a graveyard free combo to the deck. Again, be careful when you decide to go for this combo, since we don't have counterspells to protect our creatures from removal or to fight with opponents counters.

The combo with Goblin Sharpshooter and Splinter Twin is as follows:

1. With Goblin Sharpshooter (G1) and any X/1 on the field, enchant Goblin Sharpshooter with Splinter Twin

2. Tap G1 to create another Goblin Sharpshooter with haste (G2)

3. Tap G2 to kill the X/1 thats on board, this untaps both G1 and G2

4. Use G1 to make another Goblin Sharpshooter G3

5. Shoot an opponent with G3

6. Use G2 to shoot and kill G3, which untaps G1 and G2

7. Repeat steps 4-6 until every opponent is dead

My current card choices

I am mostly playing against hulk variants, other Blood Pod players, Gitrog, Najeela, Zur, and variations of 4c Rashmi/Paradox Scepter Thrasios decks.

As of 1/10/2019 I'm currently using the following cards to fill out the final 6 slots:

1. Dark Confidant

2. Tangle Wire

3. Archon of Valor's Reach

4. Dryad Militant

5. Runic Armasaur

6. Serra Ascendant

I've found in my pods that landing an early Blood Moon is backbreaking for a good chunk of my opponents (More than previously, with all the hulk decks running 0-1 basics, and few color generating rocks). Because of this I've added Archon of Valor's Reach , since if I land her and name Instants, my opponents are often unable to remove the Blood Moon at all. Serra Ascendant helps me race other Blood Pod/Najeela decks. Dryad Militant is just a solid disruptive early drop. Ruic Armasaur has been a nice source of card advantage and blocker for Najeela/Tymna. And Tangle Wire is right next to Root Maze for key early cards to slam the breaks on fast combo decks. And I always enjoy Dark Confidant as additional card advantage.

Primer

Here is a link to the primer I've written on the deck. It goes more in depth on lines, but I'm slower to update/change it compared to this base list.

Link to Blood Pod Primer

Date added	6 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 1 Mythic Rares 52 - 15 Rares 14 - 6 Uncommons 10 - 1 Commons
Cards	94
Avg. CMC	2.39
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Saproling 1/1 G
Folders	cEDH Decks
Based on	Blood Pod ZeroTheta EDH