Blood pod in abzan?

Commander Deck Help forum

Posted on Sept. 18, 2019, 11:39 a.m. by lonesentinel

Hi, I play in a non-cedh environment, with decks at power level 6-8.

I'm thinking of making an Abzan (GWB) lifegain / hatebears deck aiming to tempo and last extended games. The target commander is either Anafenza, the Foremost or Tymna the Weaver / Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper , using utility creatures like Vona, Butcher of Magan and Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim .

  1. What constitutes as the 'core' of a blood pod deck? If I remove Red, does this still achieve the same intended purpose as bloodpod, sans- Blood Moon ?

  2. How many 'staples' should I run? E.g. Swords to Plowshares , Path to Exile , Anguished Unmaking , Beast Within as removals?

  3. What boardwipes would you recommend for this type of deck? And how many would you run?

Segala says... #2

I always try to go with 5 board whipes and 5 single target removal. The bigger the range of the target removal the better (ex I try to go for target permanente first then removal with multiples choices then for either creature/ artifacts etc...) always depends on your meta. Also you can have land destruction like strip mine in your land count instead of the single target removal count.

As for staples In casual edh I try to stay as far as possible from them (other than cyclonic rift in blue) because people keep preparing for staple cards and I like to play with those expectations with my deck. Most of the time people will wait for certain cards before removing something or countering a card and it will give you time to set up your stuff without having to fear your opponents counters or removal and you can keep your answers for board whipe effect or combo key cards.

September 18, 2019 1:09 p.m.

GhostChieftain says... #3

Blood is an important element of blood pod. I would say that without access to Blood Moon or Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , it is just an abzan birthing pod hatebear deck.

I happen to have a fairly competitive abzan hatebear deck if you would like to look at it for any ideas. Here it is. It is a bit wonky right now because I was in a tournament that allowed sideboards and I knew I was up against a strong najeela deck so I have a couple najeela counters in the main.

As far as staples, I would say play as many as you can unless you are intentionally powering down. If powering down, i would just go with swords and path and make sure you put in some artifact and enchantment removal.

For boardwipes, i would say run 3-4 and just do ones that you can play by turn 4 if you aren't trying to combo out in your meta.

September 18, 2019 1:45 p.m.

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