what happens when you don't have birthing pod in your opening hand?
Modern forum
Posted on Sept. 29, 2013, 8:29 a.m. by gheridarigaaz
Little problem with birthing pod deck... if i don't have pod in opening hand what do i do? Do i add digging spells to search for pod? Can't afford some of the pieces so i cant put up a decent offensive/defensive front.
agreed, pod isnt really required. its great to fish for answers, but the deck should be self sufficient without. It's also why most melira pod decks run 3 Gavony Township . great use for all your mana.
September 29, 2013 9:21 p.m.
This depends a little bit on your version of Pod deck, though only a little bit. Kiki Pod depends on it a little bit more than Melira Pod, but they're both capable of running well without them.
If you have an active Birthing Pod you're probably winning, but one of the side effects of playing poddable creatures is that your creatures are probably better than your opponent's. It's perfectly reasonable to just send them across for a midrange beatdown. Both also play Chord of Calling (though it's typically more effective in Melira Pod than Kiki Pod), which means that they can tutor up the answers they need even without a Pod.
I play Melira Pod, and generally speaking, I'm looking to play a Kitchen Finks on turn 2. If I have that opening hand (Finks, two lands, and a mana dork), then it doesn't matter what the other three cards are, I'm keeping it. If there's a Pod in there, then it's close to a nut draw. The Pod makes the hand better, but not having it doesn't make it unkeepable by any means.
As a side note, I do actually board my Pods out in a very few matchups, like GW Hatebears, when I can't expect that I'm going to actually be able to use them. It's still a very good matchup even without the pods, becuase it becomes two beatdown decks, and my creatures are better than theirs.
September 30, 2013 10:33 p.m.
fluffybunnypants says... #5
If you don't have a pod you should still be functioning as a pretty mean midrange deck.
October 1, 2013 7:12 a.m.
gheridarigaaz says... #6
Didnt like birthing pod combo turning up in my meta so i went for birthing pod aggro, also cause it's cheap... got 4 birthing pods, threw in some hastey creatures Dreg Mangler , undying creaturesStrangleroot Geist and a few persist creatures finks+redcaps alongside Blood Artist to mitigate the pod-damage... the idea being that each turn you're effectively dropping 2 creatures and swinging for damage.
The deck is Gary's Pod
Due to add more pieces to the deck... Dross Harvester being one of them and Phyrexian Revoker being another. Some of the cards in the list are just jank which are placeholders for things like kitchen finks if i can find any among other things...
October 2, 2013 6:55 a.m.
That's the thing...Pod decks are perfectly good midrange-y sorts of aggro decks. Take out Melira, Sylvok Outcast and put in things like Strangleroot Geist or Voice of Resurgence or Scavenging Ooze or any of the other two-mana beaters, maybe take out the sac outlets (though honestly, they're pretty useful on their own), and you've still got yourself a really good deck.
It just lacks that threat of a combo to keep your opponent off balance. The reason for the greatness of Pod decks is because they can give your opponent so many different things to answer that eventually they just can't answer them all.
Somewhere around 70% of my wins come from playing aggro. Honestly, those tend to be the more fun wins.
DaggerV says... #2
The deck should be built in such a way as to function as a midrange without the need of pod, but with pod as an accelerator. If lack of pod shuts you deck down there's a bigger issue.
September 29, 2013 1:39 p.m.