In all honesty though, Pod was extremely strong and while I am surprised to see it go (partly because I let my guard down while being distracted by the imminent and obvious ban of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time) I feel WotC is probably right on making that call. On another note though I am very pleased by the unbanning of Golgari Grave-Troll. Perhaps my Abzan dredge deck can take over the fun but powerful toolbox role that Birthing Pod once played for me (I play casually so graveyard hate is few and far between).
Still I will miss B-pod. I always had to warn my friends before bringing out my B-pod deck as they would generally refuse to play against it unless they were in the mood to try to beat it through an uphill battle. It was always so fun to grab whatever I needed at a certain time, generate ridiculous value, and s*** on people. But alas it seems those times are over for now.
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Casual Decks WRBoros Aggro (Glorious knights of badassery) RBRakdos Bloodthirst (Undercosted waves of fat s***) URIzzet Talrand/Pyromancer (b/c I hate you) GRGruul Ramp and Stomp (SO FAT. SO FAST. RAWRRR) GBGolgari Birthing Pod (b/c you wanted a challenge. I did warn you this BS is banned though) BWOrzhov Lifegain Aggro (Removal for dayzzz) WGSelesnya Tribal Golem-splicers/token (meh. Needs more upgrades. Perhaps switching to bant?) WUAzorius Flicker (b/c I wanna annoy the f*** outta you) GUSimic Evolve Aggro (Aggro takes a journey to the weird side of the color pie) BUDimir Control (b/c I wanna peel your skin off and flay you within an inch of life before I kill you) URWJeskai Ascendency Tokens (MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA) RWBMardu Warriors (Butcher is da bomb) GU Simic Morph (slow as s*** but oh so fun) WBGAbzan Dredge-animator (PURE EVIL) GWHexproof Aggro (Deal with it. Lemme guess, you cant?)
EDH Decks UBRNekusar (Multiplayer MONSTA. 1v1 Klutz) GRB Prossh (Set up engines. WRECK FACE) GEzuri (Hey so I heard you liked Elves...) UTalrand (Counter. Cantrip. Counter. Cantrip. Repeat till opponents die-- possibly of boredom)
Tiny leaders WUDaxos (basic 3/1 fliers do basic s***. Also Daxos) RWAnax and Cymede (Heroic weenie beats)
Standard RRMONO RED AGGRO (RAWWWRRRR!!!!) WUHeroic Aggro (Easy mode beatstick)
I care, and am disappointed. As I said in the thread on the EDH forum, I don't necessarily advocate change for the sake of change, but I do feel that the format could at least benefit from seeing some things unbanned if nothing else. And with this being the shortest time between ban updates that I can think of with Dragons releasing in March, this just seems like the safest time to test things out with a quick turn around if they need to be rebanned. Also really wanted to see Iona at least go.
Well yeah. You know I'd want a few things unbanned too, but I feel like I'm still trying to adjust to last ban update that was clearly born from laziness that sent a message that Wizards now influences the RC more than they'd let on.
While I do enjoy both of those creatures, seeing that spelled out demonstrates how amazing Birthing Pod is. It doesn't require a discard, it puts the creature directly into play instead of casting it and the cost is usually 1G at most.
I'm sad the card is gone, because I've been using it since the inception of the format, but it probably does inhibit design space and creates a level of consistency that many other decks can't touch. It was fun while it lasted, but there are plenty of other things to try out now.
Actually, Fauna Shaman and Birthing Pod's abilities are of a similar power level. To get a specific creature into play with Pod, you need to pay its casting cost plus one mana and 2-10 life, or two mana. With Fauna Shaman, it's also the creature's CC plus one mana. Pod has the advantage of triggering CIP abilities as you go up the chain, but Fauna Shaman lets you trade your Birds of Paradise for a five drop right now, not four turns from now.
This is all a moot point, however, as there's a very good reason Pod is ubiquitous and Fauna Shaman sees no play: You can't Lightning Bolt a Birthing Pod. Bolt is one of the most oppressive cards in existence. Any creature that dies to it and costs more than 1 is automatically unplayable in Modern. Even powerhouse cards like Dark Confidant are completely pushed out by Lightning Bolt.
I'm not a modern player, but banning pod floored me. Was it that dominating? I seem to recall various other decks winning recently. Killing an entire deck seems drastic.
Yes is was that dominating with all the crying about Cruise Pod was still winning and those Cruse decks were losing to it
Legacy is like the girl you truly love. Changes are usually scary, but you support her through these things because you know in the long term it's probably for the better.
Modern is like the girl you had a bad one-night stand with. There was one thing (Birthing Pod) you found attractive about her, but now you're left with a lifetime of regrets about the time you spent with her.
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Due to real-life obligations, I am taking a long break from Magic which may include missing the local Legacy GP. Apologies for not being able to keep my threads updated.
I think banning Pod maybe a little much. That just killed an entire deck. I mean, people who invested time and effort into that deck now can't play the deck. Pod was built in such a way to revolve around Pod. Take Pod away, and it loses its main engine and now you have some staples in the Modern Format. That is a little brutal.
TC and DTT were obvious choices. I am surprised that TC didn't get banned in Pauper. Every Pauper deck is splashing blue for it. Even Mono white soldiers splashes blue for it. I think that is a format where it is also definitely warping things.
GG Troll is nice but I sold my playset a while back so meh. Super happy to maybe see Dredge come back a little stronger.
I'm also surprised Commander list is unchanged. I was thinking maybe something would get unbanned maybe, but I suppose the format is fine the way it is.
Banning pod is a sign of things to come. Oh wait. Let's keep banning things so modern becomes less and less powerful and make everything a deck full of goyf, bolt and fetchlands. Huzzah!
Legacy has a precarious balance that keeps non-blue decks playable by having the blue decks fight off the combo decks. The way non-blue sneaks in there is that FoW is pretty bad against them for the most part. TC allowed the blue tempo decks to play effectively against combo while also being able to keep pace with the non-blue attrition decks, made Thoughtseize and Hymn worse, etc. In the past I would absolutely stomp UR Delver with Zoo because I had way more removal than they had threats and protection for them, but TC totally inverted that matchup -- not a common matchup these days, but it exemplifies the issue I'm talking about. So I can see why banning it might help the format restore its traditional balance.
Pod I was convinced would remain in Modern forever as a "format pillar" the way Shops and Bazaars are in Vintage -- everybody knows Shops and Bazaars probably *should* be restricted but they are allowed to remain as Tier One decks for format stability, and they tend to counteract each other pretty well. Those are decks you think of right away when you think of Vintage. Those decks have character, they play a certain identifiable style of game, they advertise the format (for better or worse, depending on your tastes.) Pod advertised the Modern format as well as any deck. It was a great engine card, but I thought they'd let it exist as one of the flagship decks of Modern, part of what defines the format. But really we've seen over the years that they don't want to manage Modern the way they would manage real eternal formats. I don't think they really know yet what Modern is "supposed to be", beyond talk about it being a Turn 3/4 format when it comes to combo, but Pod didn't run afoul of that. I didn't play Pod, but I knew it to be a deck that rewarded experience with the deck, that allowed you a ton of interesting lines of play, flexible deckbuilding, and basically all the things people like about Magic. I would have thought that 5/12 GP's wasn't enough for that to get the axe in light of the positives, but I guess they see it another way.
I think banning Pod maybe a little much. That just killed an entire deck. I mean, people who invested time and effort into that deck now can't play the deck. Pod was built in such a way to revolve around Pod. Take Pod away, and it loses its main engine and now you have some staples in the Modern Format. That is a little brutal.
TC and DTT were obvious choices. I am surprised that TC didn't get banned in Pauper. Every Pauper deck is splashing blue for it. Even Mono white soldiers splashes blue for it. I think that is a format where it is also definitely warping things.
GG Troll is nice but I sold my playset a while back so meh. Super happy to maybe see Dredge come back a little stronger.
I'm also surprised Commander list is unchanged. I was thinking maybe something would get unbanned maybe, but I suppose the format is fine the way it is.
Pod Deserved its ban and if you were paying attention for the past few years you would know no to bother investing in that deck.
What are the implications of a TC ban in legacy but not a Dig ban?
Will dig simply replace TC in that format?
That is because the cruise ban is tenenous at best, legacy had gotten pretty interesting with cruise edging out land denial and discard which made storm and other combo better.
Honestly surprises me, the last few scg open top 16s had been really exciting but now we'll probably end up back to where we started pre-cruise.
Goyf is neither an engine card nor an archetype-defining card, I don't see any conceivable rationale by which they would have banned it. It's just big, and there's plenty of removal that can handle it in Modern. Getting rid of it neither creates new viable decks nor eliminates a top tier deck, so they gain nothing from banning it. I suspect most of the people who suggest that banning just want it banned because it's expensive and they don't own them, which is not a reason. The metagame that would have to exist for that ban to make sense is almost inconceivable, and in any case does not exist now.
Haha, and I sleeved up Dig Through Time today to play for the first time tomorrow. But I'm fine with that, I agree that TC and DTT are too good, particularly TC was unhealthy. I don't think it's too much to ask that an aggro deck runs out of cards at some point. And Pod really did dominate the meta in an unhealthy way, but I never thought they would kill it completely... if they have actually done that.
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When I hit my 3000 post mark, I'm gone for good.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Lol, at Kahns cards getting banned so quickly. Birthing Pod ban upsets me, I hope we get a functional replacement of some sort sooner rather than later.
Not on the watchlist? Disagree greatly. Look at the modern banlist and how much the banhammer was being swung prior to this announcement. People had been clamoring for a ban on pod for quite some time and if that isn't the watchlist I don't know what is.
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"Yawgmoth," Freyalise whispered as she set the bomb, "now you will pay for your treachery."
Pod banning was honestly not all that surprising to me. It's been coming for awhile. Same with DTT and TC, I echo everyone's sentiments that we all saw that coming.
WGD getting unbanned in Legacy is interesting, as is Gifts being unrestricted in vintage. They're not formats I follow closely, but I feel like there might be interesting things there?
Golgari Grave-Troll is a pet card of mine, but I don't think it's anywhere close to good enough to see play in Modern. If Dread Return were to come back, maybe, but even then, it's sketchy. If there's a decent enough reanimator engine in Modern,again, maybe, but nothing is coming to mind.
I think each time a card is banned it's a big bad mark of FAIL on wizard's part.
The fact that they just banned 2 cards from their newest block (and in multiple formats!) shows they are not responsible.
If their are gonna introduce formats to competitive levels, they have to balance sets around all these formats.
And for birthing pod, it just shows once more that efficient tutoring is always gonna be banned in the end, why bother print more?
I think each time a card is banned it's a big bad mark of FAIL on wizard's part.
The fact that they just banned 2 cards from their newest block (and in multiple formats!) shows they are not responsible.
If their are gonna introduce formats to competitive levels, they have to balance sets around all these formats.
And for birthing pod, it just shows once more that efficient tutoring is always gonna be banned in the end, why bother print more?
Would you rather not have a design team willing to take risks and break new ground? People keep asking for support for more support for Modern (as well as Legacy and Vintage), and it's tough to print a card powerful enough to shake up one of those formats without being warping. It's probably for the best that [c]Treasure Cruise[c] was banned, but it came close to being fair. I'm glad WotC is printing cards like it, even if this specific printing didn't work out.
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Formerly Angrypossum over at the now-defunct WotC forums.
Pod was banned? Really? I don't think they've completely killed an archetype in Modern that way before. That is brutal.
Cruise getting banned was probably inevitable but what was DTT hurting?
They killed Eggs and Jund with the ban of 1 card.
Jund was hit with the Punishing Fire ban. Then it came back. Then it was hit with the Bloodbraid Elf ban. Then it came back. Then it was it with the Deathrite Shaman ban. Then it came back. The only reason it is dead now is that Wizards made Junk better.
- Main Cube
- No Brains, All Feelings Cube
In all honesty though, Pod was extremely strong and while I am surprised to see it go (partly because I let my guard down while being distracted by the imminent and obvious ban of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time) I feel WotC is probably right on making that call. On another note though I am very pleased by the unbanning of Golgari Grave-Troll. Perhaps my Abzan dredge deck can take over the fun but powerful toolbox role that Birthing Pod once played for me (I play casually so graveyard hate is few and far between).
Still I will miss B-pod. I always had to warn my friends before bringing out my B-pod deck as they would generally refuse to play against it unless they were in the mood to try to beat it through an uphill battle. It was always so fun to grab whatever I needed at a certain time, generate ridiculous value, and s*** on people. But alas it seems those times are over for now.
WRBoros Aggro (Glorious knights of badassery)
RBRakdos Bloodthirst (Undercosted waves of fat s***)
URIzzet Talrand/Pyromancer (b/c I hate you)
GRGruul Ramp and Stomp (SO FAT. SO FAST. RAWRRR)
GBGolgari Birthing Pod (b/c you wanted a challenge. I did warn you this BS is banned though)
BWOrzhov Lifegain Aggro (Removal for dayzzz)
WGSelesnya Tribal Golem-splicers/token (meh. Needs more upgrades. Perhaps switching to bant?)
WUAzorius Flicker (b/c I wanna annoy the f*** outta you)
GUSimic Evolve Aggro (Aggro takes a journey to the weird side of the color pie)
BUDimir Control (b/c I wanna peel your skin off and flay you within an inch of life before I kill you)
URWJeskai Ascendency Tokens (MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA)
RWBMardu Warriors (Butcher is da bomb)
GU Simic Morph (slow as s*** but oh so fun)
WBGAbzan Dredge-animator (PURE EVIL)
GWHexproof Aggro (Deal with it. Lemme guess, you cant?)
EDH Decks
UBRNekusar (Multiplayer MONSTA. 1v1 Klutz)
GRB Prossh (Set up engines. WRECK FACE)
GEzuri (Hey so I heard you liked Elves...)
UTalrand (Counter. Cantrip. Counter. Cantrip. Repeat till opponents die-- possibly of boredom)
Tiny leaders
WUDaxos (basic 3/1 fliers do basic s***. Also Daxos)
RWAnax and Cymede (Heroic weenie beats)
Standard
RRMONO RED AGGRO (RAWWWRRRR!!!!)
WUHeroic Aggro (Easy mode beatstick)
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
Actually, Fauna Shaman and Birthing Pod's abilities are of a similar power level. To get a specific creature into play with Pod, you need to pay its casting cost plus one mana and 2-10 life, or two mana. With Fauna Shaman, it's also the creature's CC plus one mana. Pod has the advantage of triggering CIP abilities as you go up the chain, but Fauna Shaman lets you trade your Birds of Paradise for a five drop right now, not four turns from now.
This is all a moot point, however, as there's a very good reason Pod is ubiquitous and Fauna Shaman sees no play: You can't Lightning Bolt a Birthing Pod. Bolt is one of the most oppressive cards in existence. Any creature that dies to it and costs more than 1 is automatically unplayable in Modern. Even powerhouse cards like Dark Confidant are completely pushed out by Lightning Bolt.
Yes is was that dominating with all the crying about Cruise Pod was still winning and those Cruse decks were losing to it
What is the Worldgorger Dragon combo?
BG Spanish Inquisition BG
RG Belcher RG
Modern
UBRG Necrotic Ooze ComboUBRG
Standard
Ha Ha!
Pauper
B Suicide B
EDH
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
Casual
BURW Tokens BURW
UR Grand Affinity UR
Tiny Leaders
W Rune-Tail Soul Sisters W
Modern is like the girl you had a bad one-night stand with. There was one thing (Birthing Pod) you found attractive about her, but now you're left with a lifetime of regrets about the time you spent with her.
Legacy
UWR Miracles UWR
GWB Maverick GWB
GB Elves GB
UBR ANT UBR
RG Combo Lands RG
Vintage
BUG BUG Fish BUG
Modern
GBW
Junk PodMagic: the BuylistingA worse version of Reanimator sadly. Though forcing an ID or BSZ for lethal faster than High Tide could is always fun.
R/W Devotion
Mono-R Devotion
Legacy
Burn
Punishing Jund
TC and DTT were obvious choices. I am surprised that TC didn't get banned in Pauper. Every Pauper deck is splashing blue for it. Even Mono white soldiers splashes blue for it. I think that is a format where it is also definitely warping things.
GG Troll is nice but I sold my playset a while back so meh. Super happy to maybe see Dredge come back a little stronger.
I'm also surprised Commander list is unchanged. I was thinking maybe something would get unbanned maybe, but I suppose the format is fine the way it is.
Epic Signature by the one and only Ace in Ace of Spades Studio
Proud member of the Spirit of EDH
BGW Teneb, the Harvester [Primer]
R Márton Stromgald
WUB Dakkon Blackblade
GR Atarka, World Render
{Writing and Rants}
WUBRG The Primeval Dragon's influence on EDH
Not pleased at all wizards. Not at all.
Pod I was convinced would remain in Modern forever as a "format pillar" the way Shops and Bazaars are in Vintage -- everybody knows Shops and Bazaars probably *should* be restricted but they are allowed to remain as Tier One decks for format stability, and they tend to counteract each other pretty well. Those are decks you think of right away when you think of Vintage. Those decks have character, they play a certain identifiable style of game, they advertise the format (for better or worse, depending on your tastes.) Pod advertised the Modern format as well as any deck. It was a great engine card, but I thought they'd let it exist as one of the flagship decks of Modern, part of what defines the format. But really we've seen over the years that they don't want to manage Modern the way they would manage real eternal formats. I don't think they really know yet what Modern is "supposed to be", beyond talk about it being a Turn 3/4 format when it comes to combo, but Pod didn't run afoul of that. I didn't play Pod, but I knew it to be a deck that rewarded experience with the deck, that allowed you a ton of interesting lines of play, flexible deckbuilding, and basically all the things people like about Magic. I would have thought that 5/12 GP's wasn't enough for that to get the axe in light of the positives, but I guess they see it another way.
Pod Deserved its ban and if you were paying attention for the past few years you would know no to bother investing in that deck.
That is because the cruise ban is tenenous at best, legacy had gotten pretty interesting with cruise edging out land denial and discard which made storm and other combo better.
Honestly surprises me, the last few scg open top 16s had been really exciting but now we'll probably end up back to where we started pre-cruise.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Safir Alliance | Hoennverse
Custom Sets
“Mind”: Preliminary Design | “Body”: Preliminary Design | “Spirit”: Preliminary Design
Currently Playing:
Retired
Kird Ape will never see another T8 again.
WGD getting unbanned in Legacy is interesting, as is Gifts being unrestricted in vintage. They're not formats I follow closely, but I feel like there might be interesting things there?
Golgari Grave-Troll is a pet card of mine, but I don't think it's anywhere close to good enough to see play in Modern. If Dread Return were to come back, maybe, but even then, it's sketchy. If there's a decent enough reanimator engine in Modern,again, maybe, but nothing is coming to mind.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
The fact that they just banned 2 cards from their newest block (and in multiple formats!) shows they are not responsible.
If their are gonna introduce formats to competitive levels, they have to balance sets around all these formats.
And for birthing pod, it just shows once more that efficient tutoring is always gonna be banned in the end, why bother print more?
Would you rather not have a design team willing to take risks and break new ground? People keep asking for support for more support for Modern (as well as Legacy and Vintage), and it's tough to print a card powerful enough to shake up one of those formats without being warping. It's probably for the best that [c]Treasure Cruise[c] was banned, but it came close to being fair. I'm glad WotC is printing cards like it, even if this specific printing didn't work out.
Jund was hit with the Punishing Fire ban. Then it came back. Then it was hit with the Bloodbraid Elf ban. Then it came back. Then it was it with the Deathrite Shaman ban. Then it came back. The only reason it is dead now is that Wizards made Junk better.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.