chance of pod getting banned
Modern forum
Posted on April 23, 2014, 1:57 p.m. by bigv54
I'm strongly considering putting together a Melira pod deck, but it will take me some time. As i know this can be a controversial topic, i just wanted to get some opinions. Personal feelings of whether or not it should be banned put aside, what do you guys reckon the chance is of wizards banning birthing pod? And i mean the card birthing pod in particular, not an enabler of the archetype
HarbingerJK says... #3
Birthing Pod survived the recent bans in modern, so it should be safe for at least the next year. But I doubt it'll be banned even after that.
April 23, 2014 3:22 p.m.
Pod is the most fun and interactive deck in the format. They will not ban birthing pod, ever, period. So you should feel safe purchasing a pod deck. But keep in mind that putting together a successful pod deck requires a lot of studying and research.
If anything will be banned, it will be Kiki-jiki, and even that is unlikely. Don't worry about the ban list, they won't be doing anything too radical for a while.
April 23, 2014 3:38 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #5
Tiktacy just jinxed it, they're gonna make an emergency ban on it now
April 23, 2014 3:56 p.m.
Do either of you have any advice on constructing a pod deck? I know the basics of the deck but not on its construction really
April 23, 2014 4:23 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #8
I'm personally not a pod player, but it sounds like Tiktacy might be able to help ya out with that
April 23, 2014 4:25 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #9
I'd also like to point out that kiki-jiki is so 2 years ago. Melira Pod is what everyone is playing nowadays.
April 23, 2014 4:42 p.m.
Pod in general is a deck that utilizes a Birthing Pod to access powerful creatures and threaten combos as a back up plan(yes, the combo is a backup). There are 2 main kinds of pod decks used in modern, those decks are: Kiki-pod and Melira-pod.
Kiki-pod is the more combo-based deck, and is the deck that requires more skill to both play, and play against. It uses Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker in combination of multiple different possible cards to result in an infinite damage combo that is very hard to stop from happening. The main appeal of this deck is all the ways you can sneak the combo into play without the other player realizing it's going to happen. Here is a link to a primer for kiki-pod, that is probably the first place to start when building a Kiki-pod deck.
Melira-pod is a different combo entirely, however it does not rely on its combo as much as Kiki-pod does, and it's often times rare to see them actually combo off unless they have somehow completely crippled their opponent into submission with their unbelievable card advantage. The main combo uses Melira, Sylvok Outcast in combination with a persist creature and a sac outlet to either deal infinite damage or gain infinite life. But the main plan of the deck is to win using whatever method they require, this, even more so than Kiki-pod, means you should expect tons of toolbox strategies. Again, the best place to start is a primer.
If you want to build a pod deck, start by choosing whichever one appeals to you, and then I can give some more detailed advice. =)
April 23, 2014 4:58 p.m.
I don't think they will be banning kiki. Twin decks prefer to run Splinter Twin , and the only deck it would actually hurt is kiki-pod, which is tier 2.
April 23, 2014 5:02 p.m.
. . . Melira pod is still probably better though.
April 23, 2014 5:07 p.m.
I'm not denying that its a good deck, but a single win doesn't make it Tier 1. Look at the PT top 8 for modern for instance, it was riddled with tier 1.5-2 decks and meta decks.
April 23, 2014 5:14 p.m.
Servo_Token says... #14
If you take a look at the top 8, you'll see that 4 of the 5 pod decks are melira. Kiki can certainly get lucky and win a tourney, but melira is far more consistent. That'd be the difference in the two, and what makes kiki tier 2. It is much more seldom used, and it doesn't show up nearly as much as the other in top 8s or ranked events.
April 23, 2014 5:19 p.m.
My criteria for tier 1 is to be a deck capable maintaining a solid win rate both before AND after board against any other deck in the format, and Kiki-pod does that from what I have seen. It's able to pod it's way out of nearly any situation that Melira-pod, and is able to do sneak kills against any deck not running Peak cards or any player not used to playing against the deck.
Kiki-pod(or any other pod deck for that matter) should NEVER be underestimated. That is what my experience tells me, and that is what the numbers tell me.
I do agree that one win does not give a very good representation of a decks abilities, so maybe I should have been more specific.
April 23, 2014 5:26 p.m.
If you underestimate ANY deck in ANY format, you're going to have a bad time regardless.
April 23, 2014 5:29 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #18
Honestly they should just ban Melira and Kiki those cards are way too easily abused. Especially melira l
April 23, 2014 5:34 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes, um, no. Cards should never be banned simply because they can be abused (that would lead to the eradication of all combo cards ever). Neither of those cards are even 4-ofs in any real deck, for the most part they are just 1-ofs to supplement backup combos.
April 23, 2014 5:37 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #20
I'm actually convinced that they forgot that persist existed when they printed Melira. Your opinion is wrong but thanks for it Blakkhand
April 23, 2014 6:17 p.m.
Wow, anagon, your such a pro. I am so honored to have such an amazing player of magic among us. I shudder to think what would we do without your wisdom. I... I love you...
April 23, 2014 6:24 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #22
Tiktacy love always fails. But you can still bow to me.
April 23, 2014 6:37 p.m.
How is my opinion wrong AnagonLordofSnakes? I had two points:
Banning all abusable cards is wrong. This is based on the premise that it would eliminate all combo cards (and decks), which is obviously bad.
Both of your mentioned cards are primarily used in 1-ofs (check here for reference), thus the impact of banning them would be insignificant. Under the assumption that banning is bad in general, if the impact of banning these cards is insignificant, it would be a bad ban.
Both these points seem logically sound. Please explain your accusation.
April 23, 2014 6:40 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #24
I will defend my accusation when I am not on mobile. Admit that melira completely breaks persist
April 23, 2014 6:42 p.m.
I acknowledge that melira has strong synergy with persist, however, that does not contradict anything I said.
April 23, 2014 6:44 p.m.
Anagon is a troll, stop letting him get to you.
Even if he isn't, someone like him probably doesn't understand magic enough to comprehend the points you are making. End it now, before it gets any worse. Same goes for everyone else, don't flood this guys thread with shit like this, please.
April 23, 2014 6:46 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #27
agreed Tiktacy, I knew this dude was troll when he said "your opinion is wrong" lmao
April 23, 2014 6:51 p.m.
Tiktacy, no need to be inflammatory, everyone needs to move along the immense learning curve that is magic. We can't simply skip to the top, and it's unfair to exclude others simply because they may or may not be behind us on that curve.
Besides, I enjoy participating in forum arguments :P
April 23, 2014 6:52 p.m.
"I enjoy participating in forum arguments"
So does he, but for different reasons.
In any case, do it somewhere else, if this forum had mods, they would not be ok with this.
April 23, 2014 6:55 p.m.
Technically, TO has mods, they're just extremely lenient. This conversation is almost over anyways.
April 23, 2014 6:56 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #31
I didn't skip to the top, I jumped puts on sunglasses and walks calmly away from a huge explosion
April 23, 2014 6:57 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #32
I'm not going to pretend that me saying Blakkhands opinion was wrong wasn't a trolling attempt. I personally just don't think that Birthing Pod should be banned, that card is not the "problem". Melira is the problem, even if its a one of it is tutored for most of the games that deck plays (I should no Ive lost to the deck many times)
April 23, 2014 6:58 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes, I'm starting to question how much you've actually played with/against this deck. It rarely wins via combo, and even if it does, only a subset of those combos include melira.
April 23, 2014 7:01 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #35
I didn't say it wins via combo, but when they have 2 Kitchen Finks that will never leave the board via combat you start to hate the persist breaker (melira). And to answer your question I've played roughly 9 games against the deck at modern fnm's
April 23, 2014 7:06 p.m.
9 games is a fairly small sample. I've probably played upwards of 50 games against it on 'trice, 20 games with it, and have read about a dozen articles about it written by pros. Also, those finks obviously weren't leaving play anyway, since if you did have removal, there would be no melira in play. Besides, a couple finks aren't unstoppable by any means; evasion, ptes, angers, and combo all get around them (and what deck doesn't have any of those things?).
April 23, 2014 7:13 p.m.
AnagonLordofSnakes says... #37
I'll just stop commenting on this before I say something mean. Have a nice night
April 23, 2014 7:18 p.m.
Lmao at the picture, i love that. But if any of you would like to give me some advice on building a Melira pod deck that would be lovely :) btw i am by no means a pro, but i also am not new to magic. I am however newer to modern, having researched it a lot and watched many videos, but not really playing much. I just finished my first modern deck and haven't gotten around to taking it to my lgs yet, but it is living end if anyone cares lol because sweet Christmas it's cheap
April 24, 2014 1:34 a.m.
Dude, Living End is an awesome deck! Just be sure to watch out for Rest in Peace ...
As far as pod decks go, I'm no expert on the archetype, but I do know you can pull some trickery with Phantasmal Image and even copying said pod with a tutored up Phyrexian Metamorph .
April 24, 2014 1:57 a.m.
I have fun with living end, but alas i am a control player at heart. UWR control doesn't seem to be my cup of tea, i tried it and eh, but melira pod seems to be pretty control ish as well as being damn good. I also love playing a challenging deck, and multiple articles I've read say pod is very difficult to play. That's why i play esper in standard lol so many critical decisions, i revel in that!
JWiley129 says... #2
From speculation seen here and elsewhere, WotC/DCI isn't going to ban Birthing Pod but, if they deemed Pod decks too powerful, might ban a noncritical piece like Chord of Calling . Pod is the best deck in the format for its versatility and consistency, but it still has natural enemies (one of which is Storm). Don't expect a major ban from the deck until it starts being the ONLY deck in Modern, or it starts winning at an unfair amount of matches (e.g. banning Seething Song to stop Storm's T2 wins).
April 23, 2014 2:05 p.m.