Been messing around with this. My meta is pretty creature heavy, we regularly have a Prossh, Selvala, and Momir Vig Hackball sitting at the table, one card that I've found will blow them out super hard is an overloaded Electrickery. While this is absolutely not the correct play in a meta that isn't filled with elfball or other creature combo decks, I've had a lot of success. It will regularly resolve on the end step of turn 2, wipe all the dorks that they were relying on and curves nicely into a cheeky Trinisphere just to really show them who's boss.

Looks like stax.

Have you ever considered Meekstone?

godfather2319: I don't think Meekstone is a good fit for what this deck is trying to do. For one, Blood Pod is quite unique in the cEDH space, and Meekstone mainly hits that which makes it unique: The ability to win with beaters.

The question you have to ask yourself is: What threats do you neutralize more effectively by running Meekstone than by running another stax effect or hatebear? And, second question before including it: Are those threats so immense and prevalent that it's worth shutting down your main strategy - Combat damage - by disabling Sun Titan, Elesh Norn, Anafenza and Linvala from being able to attack?

i disagree, beats are not blood pod's 'main strategy'. bring the game late then draw pod, survival, yisan, or (if you run them) buried alive + reanimation, splinter twin, it doesn't matter. we have a ton of tutors that immediately assemble one or more of them. keep turning dudes sideways by all means but jam the combo the minute you think you can get away with it, or when you're sure noone can win on their turn through your stax.

How do you think this deck would do in a meta that runs a lot of answers but not any combos? I’d likely be focused as well.

Any chance that Najeela could be a commander for this deck frame? Najeela fits well with a sideways turning strategy, and also it has 5 colours meaning we are open to more card choices from blue like card draw and counters

LabManiacwhy Damping Sphere And why Yisan, the Wanderer Bard Just wondering looking to tune up my list and was looking at yours for point of reference!

Damping simply because you can go combo without casting more than 1 spell like birthing pod activations. So it doesnt hurt your combo line. And, it jams up storm or combo decks that require casting more than a spell each turn because they need to pay the additional tax. It does hurt you though if you run Ancient Tomb or Gaea’s Cradle.

Yisan because this wins you right away after getting your Bloom Tender going for your 3 to cast creature into play. 1st, fetch for Serra Ascendant or Birds of Paradise, then 2nd fetch should be at the end of the turn of the player before you and get Bloom Tender. Come your main phase, Bloom Tender doesn’t have summoning sickness anymore so hopefully you can tap it for 3 mana or if not tap the Birds of Paradise to fetch Village Bell-ringer. Village untaps all your creatures so you can activate it for 4cmc creature which is Felidar Guardian. Felidar’s ETB targets Village Bell-ringer to untap again all creatures. Activate Yisan again to get Kiki-jiki. Activate Kiki to copy Felidar and that’s it. Unlimited Felidars with haste. Whew.

Nice list. I feel that too many slots are dedicated to several ways to combo off, when the deck only needs maybe two or three ways to combo. More than that leads to dead cards that could otherwise be additional lock pieces to add consistency. I've actually removed 6 cards from your list above, including cards that don't have a significant impact, and added 7 additional lock pieces. The result is more consistency and 'faster soft lock' with fewer dead cards. Here are my changes: - removed the buried alive combo pieces including animate dead and reanimate, which are sometimes useful midgame but never early game. - remove serra ascendant and anafenza, the foremost. Their bodies are almost irrelevant and anafenza's ability for UBG is expensive. - remove skullclamp. it's impact is debatable - would you rather have an extra card or the mana from an elf to offset the armageddon, blood moon, magus, sphere of resistance, trinisphere, etc. Also, null rod and stoney silence shutdown the clamp.

In their stead I've added ravages of war, thorn of amethyst, kataki war's wage, Manglehorn, gaddock teeg, and crop rotation.

Those are my humble contributions

Any thoughts on running Seeds of innocence over vandalblast or addition to vandalblast?

The double green shouldn't be an issue as it's the primary color, even though its a four color deck. Both cards are reactive (just like kataki war's wage) as their sorcery's unfortunately. So if you don't have a sphere/lab effect opponents will combo off regardless of seeds of innocence. If your looking for straight mana denial I actually prefer hokori dust drinker. It's more difficult to cast but can warp a game just like winter's orb. If you need artifact combo piece removal, obviously dust drinker does nothing :)

LabManiac_Luke What's the general opinion about Assassin's Trophy in the Bloodpod community?

Hipparchos its great. its removal in the right colors and its great. thats pretty much it.

I think Yisan, the Wanderer Bard should be replaced with Chord of Calling. Chord of Calling with an Eternal Witness is an instant speed win condition at 15 mana that can be split into 2 turns. It works around Rule of Law effects even better than Yisan, the Wanderer Bard in my opinion and can be used to achieve value faster than Yisan, the Wanderer Bard can. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard takes 6 mana to get a 1 drop over 2 turns, Chord of Calling can get a 3 drop for the same amount of mana.

Not 15 mana sorry. its 21 but you can tap Tana, the Bloodsower tokens and you generally have many creatures out. You also get to tap Eternal Witness for mana twice and Felidar Guardian as part of the cost so it makes it 18 mana and creatures really.

What are Thoughts on Goblin Cratermaker and Knight of Autumn?

Both of your commanders have combat damage triggers. Have you considered replacing your single Swamp for a Shizo, Death's Storehouse? I think it is an underrated piece of tech, since it really doesn't cost a card slot in most cases.

How this deck performes against creature-based decks like Kaalia?

Is it possible to make a build of this with Thrasios instead of Tana?

Sure; however, for stax pieces red is stronger than blue.

@sgtpopnfreash: I started running this deck about two months ago and disagree with removing Yisan. Not only does he help with what would otherwise be dead draws, he has the added benefit of being able to be podded out for Felidar immediately starting the Kiki Jiki win-con.

Spiderhead he just takes so long to get going and without a rule of law effect feels super weak to me. I’ve had tons of luck with Chord but that’s me. There are so many 2 and 3 drops to pod into felidar gaurdian and village bell ringer I don’t miss him at all.

Sgtpopnfreash I hear what you’re saying and in a lot of ways I agree. I’ve been running Recruiter of the Guard and Imperial Recruiter to what is usually better effect than Yisan. Both Recruiters can tutor for Kikijiki and at that point I usually use Kiki to keep copying them to tutor out whatever creature I need for the situation that comes up. I have added a few creatures that aren’t in this decklist like Selfless Spirit, which again, using Kiki to copy one of the recruiters, can be tutored. I’m actually surprised Selfless Spirit isn’t on this card list because the OP even mentioned in the primer that this deck is weak to wraths which I also found to be true. The wraths were almost ALWAYS the reason I lost with this deck. Now I have an answer for that. Also, I have a few tron players in my meta and this deck is super weak against tron which is why I started running cards like Fell the Mighty and Intrepid Hero but those are super specific to my meta.

Wee_Dragonaut I feel like Sylvan Safekeeper would be a better investment for this deck if you’re looking to add effects similar to Mother of Runes. Sylvan Safekeeper has good synergy with Deathrite Shaman, has an ability that works at instant speed, so she can be tutored to good effect very easily with Yisan.