Podasaurus or Podrazi

[crazedferret]

An original contraption by me

I would appreciate some input on this one. If I play modern at all I'll be looking to play something like this.

Basically I'm looking to play a turn 2-3 eldrazi conscription forcing removal of some sort (path I'm looking at you) and than following it up with pod to set up another create your own eldrazi or one of the other combos depending on the rest of your hand. Basically, I want to play gigantic dude after gigantic dude forcing removal until I end with either quillspike combo, llark combo or just rolling over them with eldrazi. So here is the current iteration.

Birds of paradise x4
Birthing pod x4
acidic slime x2 usual antics with pod
Sun titan x1 gets back a lot of the same stuff as Llark, gets k finks back
Reveillark x1 just exceptional with a bunch of stuffs that comes back after sacrificing them to pod, also pod into six drop sun titan hopefully getting back 2 dudes e witness and llark
Sovereigns of alara x1 Shenanegans, pod a 5 drop into this attack with a birdrazi of paradise
Noble hierarch X3 better than llanowar fixes all colors
Academy researchers x4 the reason for the deck, turn two, play academy researcher with eldrazi conscription on it.
Eternal witness x1 just goodness with llark, and titan for that matter, llark leaves play return this and academy researchers to play, stacking it properly you can take an aura out of the grave and put it on researchers
Tallowisp x1 finds aura cards for you to use on a researcher
Eldrazi conscription x 4 not sure if this is enough aura cards, or if I should have any other besides this, I could see this as well... (eldrazi conscription x1, elder mastery x1, Angelic Destiny x1 Celestial Mantle x1)
Quillspike x1 Cause I decided persist creatures would be fun in a pod deck
Devoted druid x1 Cause I decided quillspike
Wall of roots x1 cause I decided I could play reveillark body double combo and this gives me infinite mana to play out everything
Kitchen finks x1 persist with pod seems good
Mirror entity x1 cause I decided reveillark
Necrotic sliver X1 necrotic seems a good choice, but I'm not keen on the activation cost, but still...probably should be necrotic over harmonic sliver or qasali pridemage
Loxodon hierarch x1 4 life plus the ability to save all your dudes from wrath effects at the same cost as obstinate baloth
Solemn simulacrum x1 I feel like some form of ramp is necessary and recurable with llark seems a fine choice
Glen elendra x1 abusable with pod, llark, quillspike, etc.
Phantasmal image x1 Cause it's too good with sun titan and other friends,
Body double x1 Cause reveillark
Metamorph x1 Cause it's just good

23 bant colored lands


There are tons of goodies that could be played in main and/or side.

Ideas (creatures)
such as forgetender (ranger of eos), soul warder (ranger of eos), grand abolisher, Jotun grunt, Katakis war’s wage, Kor firewalker, Meddling mage, Mistmeadow witch, Bloomtender, Coiling oracle, Fauna shaman, Gaddock teeg, Saffi eriksdotter, Sakura tribe elder, Flickerwisp, Nomad mythmaker (returns aura to play), Stillmoon cavalier, kira great glass spinner, temporal adept, Aura gnarled, Dauntless escort, Knight of the reliquary, Loaming shaman, Master transmuter (not sure what would be best to abuse it with though in this sort of deck), Chommanno (pariah is valid),Grand arbiter augustin, Linvala, sower of temptation, venser shaper savant, Loxodon gatekeeper, Magus of the disk, Magus of the moat,
Magus of the tabernacle, Michiko konda truth seeker, Ranger of eos (plenty of good targets), valor, windborn muse, Chameleon colossus,
Grazing kelpie, Master of the wild hunt, Mystic snake (elendra would be better unless I could instant speed it from the yard somehow), Rafiq, Thrun, Dominus of fealty, Ghastlord of fugue, Magus of the future, Magus of the jar (although probably not as I don't want to give them more cards and I'd rather keep a number of cards in the deck so that I can fetch them with pod), Muldrifter, River kelpie (although it is a must ability...so prob not), Archon of j, Cloudgoat ranger, Godhead of awe, Knight captain of eos, Totem heartbeast (fetches auras, tallowisp seems better),
Horde of notions (may be stretching for this one but seems to me it could be done), Maelstrom archangel (cause cheating is fun?), Murkfiend liege (not sure how useful in the currentbuild), Nath of the giltlief (not sure it would do enough), Overbeing of myth (card draw, feel like drifter would be better), Oversoul of dusk (big beater tough to kill? useful?), Seedborn muse (same boat as murkfiend liege), Thornling (versatile creature), Captain of the watch, Purity, Twilight shepherd (un/necessary?),Yosei the morning star (possible soft stasis lock, sack yosei tap 5, body double yosei phantasmal image yosei tap ten, recur double with llark setting up llark combo and enabling yosei stasis lock each turn through eternal witness), Vigor, cloudthresher

Obviously there are a lot of good non creature spells that would be playable in this build as well. path, oring, bant charm, to name a few. I have mainily looked through so far what creatures are available to abuse.

[matth]

Eldrazi Conscription is the Aura you want, that's for certain.
I like how this deck has multiple paths to win. There are enough creature-based combos in Modern (Quillspike, Melira, Protean Hulk/Reveillark, Kiki-Jiki, Sovereigns) that Birthing Pod can support at least two of them in the same deck. The mana base isn't a big issue either, unless you want to play Kiki-Jiki.
One thing to point out when building this deck is that unlike Standard Pod decks, Modern Pod decks usually don't care what's happening on the other side of the board. Their goal is to spit out the combo as fast as possible. Take a look at the Pod deck from this MTGO event: www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnlineTourn.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/tourn/2739320 I'm not saying this is the best way to build Pod, but it is very similar to what you're doing, just without the Aura shenanigans.

[Zach]

Matt what are YOU playing for this fancy new format? I seem to recall you playing Kithkin or Boat Brew back in the land of lorwyn. And then Boros... So I'd assume some kind of aggro deck?

[matth]

I've got 15 1-drop Zoo sleeved up because why the hell not.
I've been trying to build Melira since the NPH FAQ, though I'll never have the 4 Overgrown Tombs for it. Birthing Pod combo might be the way to go.
If Boros is viable I'd love to try that out, too.

[John Galli]

Alright Pat I'll do my best here-

- You could replace Kitchen Finks with Aven Riftwatcher, this card does essentially the same thing although you'll be able to Reveillark it back.

- x4 Conscription seems off to me. First off, there's not enough auras in the deck (or tutors in the deck) for you to reliably use the Academy Researcher's combo when you want to. Also, many many times I could see Conscription being unplayable in your hand and causing some awful draws. This is just a card that I can't see playing more than 2 of in the deck. If you want more auras, you may want to look into some totem armors or something, such as Bear Umbra which could give you some value although I'm not huge on auras in General.

- Academy Researchers' trigger can be responded to, which is one thing I don't like about the combo, although to be fair if they don't have removal it is a pretty sweet combo.

- I think you have a lot of good ideas and thoughts going here, but the deck seems way too all over the place. This was one of the things I thought was a little weak with your standard Pod build; the landbase was shaky and there were a lot of directions in the deck that weren't necessarily synergistic with each other. Pod allows for flexibility and tutorability for combos, BUT, if you don't draw a Pod or your Pod gets destroyed the deck needs to be able to function on it's own. I think my B/G build in Standard has recently gotten a little "too focused" but I think this deck is the opposite and needs to find it's middle ground. For starters, if you want to run so many x1's and various options, I think this deck needs to have a lot more draw power. That's one of the things that has made Bant Pod in standard a strong option, the ability to play seagate oracle, ponder, and preordain so that not drawing a Pod isn't the liability it is in this list.

- I feel like one of the combos needs to get snubbed here, not sure which, or if combo is the correct route at all. Modern will feature decks that put you on an extremely quick clock, so while you *might* be able to play a slow game it's not going to be the same as Standard where Pod can just sit there. I would recommend (and you probably already have this in mind) proxying this deck up and doing heavy playtesting against zoo. Zoo will be extremely popular in Modern, at least early on, and will be a focused deck that will have a kill structure set up quickly. Since you're playing Pod, you can respond to combo in different ways, it is the aggro wars I would worry most about. I know at least for me in Standard, quicker decks like RDW and Tempered Steel have been the hardest to contain in game 1.

- Noble Hierarch is an awesome addition.

- I'm not seeing the Wall of Roots / Body Double / Lark combo, can you explain it?

- I'll try to see if I can come up with a list at some point too, as anything Pod is intriguing at this point and also saves money on cards since we all already have the shell. Misty rainforest is the real killer for me as I have 0 though.

[Zach]

I agree entirely with John.

P.S. Sorry for the earlier thread hijack.

[Travis Lannoye]

I agree with the above posts about how this deck seems to lack a bit of focus. It sounds like the main thing you want to do is play an early Conscription, but you also want to play Reveillark combos, and you want to put in Birthing Pods.

OK, let's start with the main goal: early Conscriptions. The only problem I have here is with the word "early". I can appreciate the fantasy of a turn 2 Academy Researchers with a Conscription and no Paths or Bolts in sight. However, I can also see the reality that you just can't rely on that happening all the time. Hence, you might also want to focus on getting your Sovereigns out as early as possible, in case you don't just get the nut draw.

I have at least four Misty Rainforests that I am not currently using. Even if they become unavailable, fetch-lands are always a good investment to make...they'll never lose value and are useful in just about every format in the game.

[crazedferret]

Ok cool,

First I appreciate the feed back. This is a work in progress and pretty much a first iteration. I was mainly gathering ideas and throwing them together. I can certainly see losing a combo or two to more streamline the deck concept and focus it more.

Kfinks is better with pod as it is twice pod-able and if I keep quillspike (which would likely be the combo to leave out) it's even better. Melira combo might be a better option though anyways and probably boardable at that.

4 conscription might be the wrong number, but the way I'm thinking about it is I want to draw one of these with a birthing pod or a researcher in hand. Either one allows me to get a huge dude quickily. If I don't have a conscription but a researcher and pod, I can pod into a tallowisp and get a conscription. Sure they may have removal, but the trigger is a may ability so I can choose not to play the aura if they burn or path it out as long as I stack the trigger right. Which I'm hoping between the several 1st turn birds of paradise plays and these early researchers, I'm hoping to exhaust their early removal and then pod into llark, getting a researcher back along the way putting a conscription on it that I didn't play when he killed it the first time, into a sovereigns into another conscription. If they don't kill the researcher right away, I get a big dude to threaten with.

I can also see it the other way with only 2 conscriptions, but I personally want to max my chances of a turn two gigantic lockout threat (annihilator 2 attacking 3rd turn).

SO with this in mind my second iteration will probably focus a little more on the conscription plan with pod into llark into sovereigns as a continuation of the plan with the reveillark body double combo as support. I'll look into possibly adding something to clear out the unneeded cards in hand. Brainstorm maybe? Then I can get the cards I need and put conscriptions where they need to be (hand or deck).

I will certainly be looking to playtest the idea.

As for wall of roots, if you have the body double, llark, mirror entity combo, I can use the wall of roots once each time it is in play therefore netting me infinite green mana. Not completely necessary if I don't have things to use it on, but it would allow me to play out the majority of cards I returned from the grave with eternal witness.

[John Galli]

Just an FYI, brainstorm is not in a legal set for Modern. Preordain and Ponder are both legal of course though.

So far I've seen a lot of B/G/W Pod lists online, of course not focusing on combos though. If you haven't already, I'd suggest checking out the dailies for more ideas-

www.wizards.com/Magic/Digital/MagicOnline.aspx?x=mtg/digital/magiconline/whatshappening

[crazedferret]

I thought it was.... Looks like the commander printings are putting brainstorm as a modern play set card in gatherer. That is incredibly annoying.

[John Galli]

Hmm that's odd. From all sources I've heard that Commander cards are not legal in Modern because it is not a true eternal set. So I agree it must be an annoying clerical error at Wizards