why is birthing pod banned
Modern forum
Posted on April 12, 2022, 6:32 p.m. by IndepenentMeta
its not like unbanning birthing pod would do anything to the modern format seeing as everything is so much faster now at days
IndepenentMeta says... #3
melira pod was that bad? i play melira rn and i have a tough time with the meta. i say birthing pod should get off the banned list. 3 mana artifact not that great now at days. pretty cool uve been playing that long btw i just got into magic around the time pod and twin were banned. and both decks were fun to play against
April 12, 2022 7:26 p.m.
any thoughts about what Nikachu says? its the first card he talks about in the video... he says it should be banned forever.
April 12, 2022 8:12 p.m. Edited.
xtechnetia says... #5
Combo-oriented cards are hard to get off the ban list once there. There's usually a 99% chance they're basically useless or totally broken, and Wizards (and the Modern community) is generally reluctant to gamble on the 1% chance it'll hit the sweet spot of "interesting but not broken".
Same reason cards like Bridge from Below and Hypergenesis are banned (and likely to remain so).
April 12, 2022 8:23 p.m.
Because they'd rather keep Pod banned and print safer versions than to worry about adding more fun and/or innocuous uncommons to the game that make the Pod combo faster or more resilient.
April 12, 2022 8:45 p.m.
Bridge from below was a failed effort to sandbag hoggaks banning as it was just released and selling packs (maybe belcher can use it by not sure how much better it would make the deck). That card wasn't ever a problem and made vengvine decks viable. Pod seems fine to unban, there is so much removal in the format, but is prob on the safe side for WOTC not to worry about to leave it banned and not "play test" for it, haha!
April 12, 2022 9:56 p.m. Edited.
IndepenentMeta says... #8
Icbrgr nice he used a combo from now at days magic. imma watch the full video later
April 12, 2022 10 p.m.
IndepenentMeta says... #9
SpammyV yeah thats a god point there is that new viven card coming out but someone already found a way to break it
April 12, 2022 10:01 p.m.
I was going to say that Bridge from Below was banned well before Hogaak, Risen Necropolis, but then I looked it up and I was looking at Golgari Grave-Troll, so disregard this comment.
Ah, the glory days of Dredge Reanimator...
April 12, 2022 10:58 p.m.
xtechnetia says... #13
IndepenentMeta: I don't personally disagree, I'm just looking at it from the perspective of Wizards and the Modern community.
April 12, 2022 11:24 p.m.
wallisface says... #16
So with pod there’s a few things to consider:
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it’s a card that generally gets stronger over time as more cards are printed. As time passes more and more things are going to come into print that will let it do some pretty degenerate stuff. Without an answer, its a single card that can assemble an entire combo-packs on its own.
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currently, modern packs a wide array of strong answers for dealing with this card, and pod itself isn’t super-fast to cast/trigger, so presumably opponents have time to answer it.
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modern is currently already in a state of really good format-health, as well as also still being in a state of “freshness” (i.e not stale). In that regard, we currently don’t have much at all to benefit from by unbanning it, while we risk potentially messing up the meta.
If they were to unban it, i have no doubt it’d be included in some existing tier-1 decks (yawgmoth), as well as new too-tier builds being built around it. I don’t think the card would be too powerful for modern, but it would certainly warp the format by its existence.
I also haven’t played during pods reign, so i’m probably naive to how strong this card can truely be.
April 13, 2022 6:40 a.m.
Nikachu has another video out that i find humorous/related to the subject.... basically the only first 3 min of the video is whats relevant to the subject matter and then its just typical Nikachu content (which is awesome in my opinion highly reccomend his channel for Modern format content)
April 13, 2022 11:47 a.m.
The answer in one sentence and one card is Siege Rhino
April 13, 2022 10:31 p.m.
wallisface says... #19
vishnarg there are waay more threatening 4-drops than Siege Rhino. Namely any of Felidar Guardian, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, and Shalai, Voice of Plenty can each represent immediately winning the game on entry.
I’d be pretty stoked if an opponent only used their pod to pop out rhinos… it’d mean i’m not immediately losing the game
April 13, 2022 11:03 p.m.
siege rhino tramples over all the cards you mentioned, lives and on top of tall that, lightning helixed you. Very disrespectful to talk down on rhino like that!
April 13, 2022 11:08 p.m.
wallisface says... #21
goodair i’m not trying to disrespect the rhino, the card is solid and it would be great to see it see more play. But i think pod will largely be used to abuse various creature combos - and down that route there’s just too many cards that can instantly win the game. I’d very much prefer to get smacked down repeatedly by the glorious Rhino, but that’s not what Pod’ll do - it’ll just assemble some kind of infinite nonsense and end the game on-the-spot.
April 13, 2022 11:36 p.m.
its a joke, as that card was dominating standard and was roughly around the time pod got banned, iirc.
April 13, 2022 11:37 p.m.
wallisface thats great and all, but as somebody who played pod in its prime, I can tell you for a fact that Siege Rhino took over modern in the pod decks and it is really the reason that Pod ended up getting banned. Every card you listed was printed after Pod had left the format so its not really relevant to the original question imo. Now, everything else said in this thread is still true, its bad for design space and was only going to become stronger and stronger with each new set, but Siege Rhino was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back. Not a joke at all, Siege Rhino is an insanely powerful creature.
April 14, 2022 4:31 p.m. Edited.
If you don't believe me, here's my list, from wayyyy back when modern was an infant, a 10 year old decklist... Born of the Pods
April 14, 2022 4:34 p.m.
wallisface says... #25
vishnarg very interesting. Yeah I just went back and found the ban announcement, and Siege Rhino is mentioned as being one of the options pod decks could grab - which is quite interesting. I'd seen some other articles mentioning the deck often going for infinite damage/health with Kitchen Finks/Murderous Redcap, and Melira, Sylvok Outcast, so was pretty surprised to see Rhino was also part of the picture.
Yes every card I listed was printed after Pod left the format, but its still completely relevant to the original question - because this question is whether or not Pod can be unbanned. If Rhino was enough to cause wizards to ban the card the first time around, that shows there should be no way it can afford to be unbanned now - because the examples I gave are all of vastly stronger creatures. Rhino may have been a powerhouse back-in-the-day, but there's a good reason it sees no play now, and I really doubt it would be in included in any Pod deck today if Pod were to be unbanned.
April 14, 2022 5:03 p.m.
There’s a lot of newer cards that would make pod too powerful honestly.
It’s power was the fact that you could sacrifice things for value to get things of greater value. There was ways to basically play pod and win on the spot, which is why it was banned. If you stuffed the deck with cards that generate value when sacrificed along with 2 card infinite creature combos, it got pretty broken pretty fast.
I can think of at least 3 creatures off the top of my head that can untap it when they come out, and they just so happen to enable infinite with something like Kiki.
Basically, copy effects, untap effects, and bring back from graveyard effects just enable too much. For example you could get renegade ralier to bring back a fetch to find a dryad to sac for a sacrifice outlet which was last price you needed for infinite. There’s just so many degenerate chains that pod is a must answer card in the right decks. It’s also not like they can only count up, as shown with the previous example.
April 23, 2022 7:56 a.m.
Also you can play creatures you don’t really plan to cast. Like omnath and phyrexian obliterator in the same deck, which you couldn’t normally do.
April 23, 2022 8 a.m.
Another reason cited by WotC was Birthing Pod's high win rate at the professional level. While it did merely "okay" at FNM or in MODO dailies, they considered the deck unbeatable in a Pro Tour top 8 because it could answer everything.
Personally, I'm not sure if I agree with the ban, mainly because it was more on the fair side of things. I think Eldrazi would have been a completely different problem if Birthing Pod and Splinter Twin hadn't been axed.
May 9, 2022 6:21 p.m.
IndepenentMeta says... #31
sylvannos how would eldrazi be another problem with those cards unbanned. it would be the same problem as it was before
May 15, 2022 10:16 a.m.
I think if kiki was banned instead of pod, pod would transition to some kind of yawgmoth meets heliod combo deck probably. It would be more bearable as a deck, without as many out of nowhere wins, since none of the remaining combo pieces would have flash.
The main issue with pod is its ability to transform combo pieces into essentially having flash (combine with pieces of the combo actually having flash, and it's pretty hard to interact with), which gets really broken with win on the spot 2 card combos.
There'd still be plenty of infinite life 2 card combos, and 3 card combos that could win on the spot, but if kiki was gone, I think pod would be closer to fair, to the point I wouldn't be completely against it getting unbanned.
May 15, 2022 10:26 a.m.
Dead_Blue_ says... #34
It was a toolbox deck that could tutor up answers and multiple combo pieces. Honestly until Siege Rhino was printed it wasn’t too terrible to play against.
Personally I’d like to see Twin & DRS unbanned.
Twin was incredibly fun to play against & I feel like DRS wouldn’t do much in todays meta. Just like when Bitterblossom was unbanned it really didn’t make the splash people thought it would
September 29, 2022 6:57 p.m.
IndepenentMeta says... #35
Dead_Blue_ yeah i know how it used to be used i used to play back then. but i only saw a format of that card being played and bam it was gone. i also used to play splinter twin back in the day. it really should come back. i think it be fun to run now at days. and drs was banned in legacy less then 5 years ago i doubt like that it would come to modern
September 29, 2022 11:34 p.m.
I don't see Deathrite Shaman getting unbanned anytime soon. It's just way too versatile of a card with little investment. If solid fetch hate was ever printed, then I could see it getting unbanned, but until then, I just don't see it.
We'd need something like Karn's Sylex with split second for Deathrite Shaman to see an unban. I think the banlist is pretty fair right now, and everything on it is justified for one reason or another.
The only one that isn't on there for a power reason and could potentially be unbanned (in my opinion) is Sensei's Divining Top, but that card is such a time-waste, that I don't think anyone actually wants it unbanned.
September 29, 2022 11:58 p.m.
Dead_Blue_ says... #37
Twin wasn’t banned for a power reason it was banned to “shake up the pro tour” :/
September 30, 2022 12:28 a.m.
That’s a power reason. If the deck/card makes up the majority of the meta (which it did) it is too powerful.
Twin could hold up interaction until they flashed in their 3 cmc your EoT, then play their enchantment next turn, usually with counterspell backup if you hinted at interaction.
Twin was a huge portion of the meta at the time, with its banning there’s more variation in blue/red control shells, although most have converged to murktide (which is still a smaller portion of the meta even though it’s currently the most played deck).
I want to say at the time, twin + pod was near 50% of modern, which is completely unhealthy for the format.
September 30, 2022 5:34 a.m.
IndepenentMeta says... #39
top unban would be nice welcomes in the miracles decks
Metroid_Hybrid says... #2
It was banned because, at the time, the Modern meta was dominated by Birthing Pod (and to a lesser extent Splinter Twin) decks..
Not sure if it would still be the case these days, but it was aggravating as hell that virtually every other deck was some variation of Birthing Pod..
April 12, 2022 7:19 p.m.