Is it only me? I've played everything from Martyr Proc, Jund, Junk, RG Tron, Seismic Loam, and RDW and I can't find a deck with a great matchup vs Pod.
Mainly Melira Pod. It's just insane every single game I play against them.
Anyone have any suggestions?
(MTGO meta btw) it's flooded with Pod decks and I usually play against them 2-3 per Daily Event.
RG Artifact Tron/Karn Tron/RG Tron
Tested: Post-Magic 2013, pre-Return to Ravnica
Pre-board: Heavily unfavourable (~20% win rate) (4 wins - 16 losses in playtest)
This is a pretty ugly match-up. RG Artifact Tron runs around 16 outs to the Melira Combo (4 Pyroclasm, 4 Relic of Progenitus, 4 Karn Liberated, 2 Oblivion Stone, 1 Emrakul, 1 Ulamog), so you can’t count on comboing out to win. Even if you gain infinite life with Kitchen Finks, RG Artifact Tron can still stop you from pulling out Murderous Redcap profitably, stick an Eldrazi to continuously wipe your board, and then it can win by decking you out and discarding Eldrazi to ensure its library is bigger than yours, or it can restart the game with Karn, reduce you to 20 life, and still have an Eldrazi thanks to Karn. (Needless to say, RG Artifact Tron wins that game.)
You need to become hard beatdown to win. You won’t often be fast enough. Delay them for as long as possible with LD bears, Aven Mindcensor, and Thalia. Chord of Calling in Phyrexian Metamorph, Nekrataal, or Shriekmaw to kill Emrakul. Blow up Wurmcoil Engine, exposed Expedition Maps, and Relic of Progenitus with artifact-killing hate bears. Foil Karn with well-timed Restoration Angels or well-placed Spellskites. Nullify Pyroclasm with Burrenton Forge-Tender or Dauntless Escort. It won’t be easy, but you might be able to steal a few games against RG Artifact Tron. (Don’t be afraid to Pod away Melira in this match-up.)
With Birthing Pod Tron's game plan starts to revolve around not dying to the combo, while they beat you down with 2-6 damage per turn.
Post-SB is also very difficult for Tron. Technically almost all your MD cards are good. But to try and hate our their graveyard is wasteful when you die to beats, to hate out their Pod is wasteful when you die to beats, and to just focus on Wurmcoil Engine etc to counter beats leads to you to get blown out by Fulminator Mage/Aven Mindcensor or Phyrexian Metamorph just copying the Wurmcoil Engine and the grind begins with your top decks as lands, land searches, cantips, and occassionaly bombs.
With Birthing Pod Tron's game plan starts to revolve around not dying to the combo, while they beat you down with 2-6 damage per turn.
Post-SB is also very difficult for Tron. Technically almost all your MD cards are good. But to try and hate our their graveyard is wasteful when you die to beats, to hate out their Pod is wasteful when you die to beats, and to just focus on Wurmcoil Engine etc to counter beats leads to you to get blown out by Fulminator Mage/Aven Mindcensor or Phyrexian Metamorph just copying the Wurmcoil Engine and the grind begins with your top decks as lands, land searches, cantips, and occassionaly bombs.
As a Tron player, I find Melira Pod pretty favorable. 4 Clasms, 4 Relics, 4 O-Stones - all go a log way. And Karn's just as good against them as it is in other matchups (that is to say backbreaking).
Of course, Relic can stop persist, and Tron brings in quite a bit of hate with even stock SB (stuff like Nature's Claim, Torpor Orb, Grafdigger's Cage).
In fact, I think it's pretty difficult to argue that RG Tron's matchup isn't extremely favorable vs. Melira Pod. If you read the Twitter of the winner of GP Portland, you will find he was practically ecstatic to have split back-to-back RG Tron matchups 1-1, and considered himself extremely lucky to have done so.
As a Tron player, I wouldn't consider Melira Pod to be worse than 70/30 or 65/35. Maybe this can get closer to 50/50 somehow, but I don't know how it could be considered unfavorable.
RG Artifact Tron/Karn Tron/RG Tron
Tested: Post-Magic 2013, pre-Return to Ravnica
Pre-board: Heavily unfavourable (~20% win rate) (4 wins - 16 losses in playtest)
This is a pretty ugly match-up. RG Artifact Tron runs around 16 outs to the Melira Combo (4 Pyroclasm, 4 Relic of Progenitus, 4 Karn Liberated, 2 Oblivion Stone, 1 Emrakul, 1 Ulamog), so you can’t count on comboing out to win. Even if you gain infinite life with Kitchen Finks, RG Artifact Tron can still stop you from pulling out Murderous Redcap profitably, stick an Eldrazi to continuously wipe your board, and then it can win by decking you out and discarding Eldrazi to ensure its library is bigger than yours, or it can restart the game with Karn, reduce you to 20 life, and still have an Eldrazi thanks to Karn. (Needless to say, RG Artifact Tron wins that game.)
You need to become hard beatdown to win. You won’t often be fast enough. Delay them for as long as possible with LD bears, Aven Mindcensor, and Thalia. Chord of Calling in Phyrexian Metamorph, Nekrataal, or Shriekmaw to kill Emrakul. Blow up Wurmcoil Engine, exposed Expedition Maps, and Relic of Progenitus with artifact-killing hate bears. Foil Karn with well-timed Restoration Angels or well-placed Spellskites. Nullify Pyroclasm with Burrenton Forge-Tender or Dauntless Escort. It won’t be easy, but you might be able to steal a few games against RG Artifact Tron. (Don’t be afraid to Pod away Melira in this match-up.)
As the Tron player, I can give you some tips, though:
Always Pyroclasm as soon as you see 2 combo pieces. Cry if those combo pieces are Persist dude + Varolz (because you can't even put a -1/-1 counter on the Persist dude), but 'Clasm them anyway. Do not give them an opportunity to combo off.
I'd boot combo pieces with Karn first (if they have sac outlets out, I'd boot Melira or the sac outlet instead of the Persist dude), but booting Pod, Sculler, Aven Mindcensor, or someone giant based on your hand and board state may be proper.
Do not concede if they gain infinite life. You can win with the stock 1 Emrakul 0 Ulamog list by kicking out Melira or sticking a Relic, then getting out Emrakul and continuously wiping their board (get them down to 0 lands and 0 guys), then sticking a Karn and exiling Emrakul with him, and finally restarting the game with Emrakul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I believe UWR in general has a pretty good Pod match-up. You can turn Voice into a joke surprisingly easily, and your high removal count takes care of the rest pretty well.
Yes, Voice of Resurgence made the deck the best one in Modern, without a doubt. It has no weaknesses anymore because even if you wipe their board, they can strongly come back with beatdown (and just cry if you play any blue based control deck versus them now). Sometimes I think the guys at WOTC don't really test the cards they're printing.
Yes, Voice of Resurgence made the deck the best one in Modern, without a doubt. It has no weaknesses anymore because even if you wipe their board, they can strongly come back with beatdown (and just cry if you play any blue based control deck versus them now). Sometimes I think the guys at WOTC don't really test the cards they're printing.
Appreciate the input Lectrys and everyone else.
The games I've played against pod just aren't so cut-and-dry as 30%/70% wipe their board and then play fatties.
Turn 3 Karn on the draw isn't even good enough half the time. Usually you are -3'ing Karn targeting a combo piece. Then they can hit you with the other creatures and cast/Birthing Pod/Chord of Calling into Redcap to finish the Karn.
No offense, but you really can't afford to bring in cards that do nothing. Pod's Midrange game - especially post Ooze and even mor eimportantly Voice is just too good to bring in a card that does nothing to the board/hand/lifetotals.
Agree entirely. You really can't even bring in strict artifact hate (Nature's Claim) because you can't risk having Nature's Claim in hand while they don't have a Birthing Pod on the field.
Similar to Torpor Orb, the card stops their combo and some of their value (Eternal Witness, Harmonic Sliver, etc) but does nothing to halt the beat down plan.
Really once you get past Turn 6 or so and your opponent is in Eternal Witness/Reveillark /Entomber Exarch/Fulminator Mage mode, you're back to worrying about a sudden combo while again, just getting beaten down.
The Persist guys + Gavony Township grind is rather obnoxious as well. I've gone up to ~37 life while my opponent infinite chumps until he assembles a board he can Gavony up quite large.
I never concede from lifegain, on MTGO I've had my opponent go all the way up to 60 just to lose to Emrakul wiping his board.
Maybe my experiences could be chocked up to bad luck, but I've had 8 matches or so. I'm not trying to be a whiner, just looking for the effective game plan everyone else is using.
Should this get moved to the Tron sub-forums?
It turned from a mini-rant to Tron vs. Melira Pod discussion.
@OP: Sign me up!
PD: it seems pod is reaching the banning point. Just needs one more obnoxious tournament result... let's face it, it will have to get banned sooner or later, and I think the sooner the better for everyone!
Warning for Ban List Discussion outside of the official thread t_c
If you have red I guess you can try something like Pillar of Flame (or Magma Spray) to exile Voice and the Persist guys. But these cards are so narrow... =/
As UW Tron, I've had a favourable Pod matchup. You have access to MB sweepers and win conditions they have trouble dealing with (Elesh Norn). I'd say between either version, it's like 66/33 for UW Tron. The sideboard is pretty flexible, so you can hate on Pod really well if you'd like (Relic, Mindcensor, Torpor Orb, etc).
Scapeshift, like Exarch Twin, has a decently good time against Pod, but things get hairy post-board when they shove in hate. It's probably favourable for the combo deck pre-board, but things might even get unfavourable for the combo deck post-board (especially against Melira Pod--their aggro plan against decks that can't block or board wipe is so much better than Twin Pod's).
what about a white control deck with mainboard rest in peace and suppression field? Perhaps even a mono white enchantress style? White gives you tons of options to stop beatdown plans, rest in peace is relevant against far more than persist and so is suppression field. If you don't go enchantress style, you could opt for wrath of god, etc. maindeck to just kill their beatdown plan.
From my perspective, as a semi-aggro deck, stuff as trivial as pithing needle and torpor orb help a lot. I have a rough time with the matchup as well. It's actually probably 50-50 for me, but it's hard to play around. I've actually put 3 infests in my sideboard for it and some other aggro decks. The kikijiki pod matchup is probably less favorable though, closer to 40-60.
One thing is for sure, board wipes are the best thing against them. Also, if gavony is a problem, tec edge or ghost quarter can take care of it. I think most decks really have good hate for pod, some just are naturally weaker to it.
I think DOLZero has the best idea: Death and taxes really beats the **** out of it. They can't tutor for anything, they have a greedy mana base that suffers hard to ghost quarter and leonin arbiter. Post-board, you bring in rest in peace, maybe some pithing needles, and GG.
sweeps eg pyroclasm, wrath, oblivion stone, engineered explosives and karn are still deadly against pod no? karn will remove a voice of resurgence for good~
Private Mod Note
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Generation 18: First time you see this, change the number up 1 and copy into sig. It's a social experiment.
Modern GB Rock U Flooding Merfolk RUG Delver Midrange WU Monks UW Tempo Geist GW Bogle GW Liege UR Tron B Vampires
Affinity Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity EDH W Akroma GBW Ghave BRU Thrax GR Ruric I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
It's way worse now that they have voice.
When I wrote my first post in this thread I was about half as sick of Pod as I am now. Guess how I feel now.
i'm failing to see how voice makes the scapeshift match up better. i guess you negate their counters (kind of)? otherwise, most of their stuff is at sorcery speed.
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I speak in sarcasm because calling people ******* ******** is not allowed.
It's way worse now that they have voice.
When I wrote my first post in this thread I was about half as sick of Pod as I am now. Guess how I feel now.
You're sick of playing against pod because you're playing a deck that has a bad matchup against it (from what I gather). That's life. It's like playing Burn in Legacy and complaining about losing to combo decks that are faster.
Pod beats up on the midrange goodstuff.dec that everyone seems to like playing.. it's the strength of birthing pod. Fortunately, pod has bad matchups against Twin, Tron (all varieties), Scapeshift, Storm, Gifts, and arguably a few control variants (depends how deck is tuned and set up, but certain control variants can have a very strong pod matchup).
Solutions I've found effective against pod
1. Consider Playing Trinket Mage If You're Playing Blue: Trinket mage tutors up any of 3-4 cards that can shut down various pieces in pod. It can grab pithing needles to turn pod, kiki jiki, viscera seer, or any other combo piece off. It tutors up Grafdigger's cage to control their search while shutting off persist and their graveyard combos. It can tutor up Engineered explosives to destroy a field of deathrite shamans, or it even grab a simple pyrite spellbomb to kill off any pesky creature for 2 mana.
2. Consider Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Angel of Jubilation in White: Linvala shuts off their combos, and soon, will be immune to phantasmal image and phyrexian metamorph killing it. Angel of Jubilation shuts down both birthing pod and Melira's combo, while also being immune to copy effects from legend-rule killing it. Angel of Jubilation also has a nice anthem effect for your own team, which makes it easy to swing for an alpha strike.
3. Consider Shadow of Doubt Maindeck in black/blue: At the worst, it cantrips at instant speed. At best, it forces your pod opponent to sacrifice a creature and waste a turn with a pod while you draw a card. Being good against tron or enemy fetchlands is just pudding on top.
I'm not specifically recommending my list, I think there are far better decks around, I'm quite new to modern, but if I can brew a deck with minimal help that handles pod fine then pod is not a serious problem.
Mainly Melira Pod. It's just insane every single game I play against them.
Anyone have any suggestions?
(MTGO meta btw) it's flooded with Pod decks and I usually play against them 2-3 per Daily Event.
EDIT: Check out this thread for some sideboard options: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=512472
FREE BLOODBRAID ELF
RG Artifact Tron/Karn Tron/RG Tron
Tested: Post-Magic 2013, pre-Return to Ravnica
Pre-board: Heavily unfavourable (~20% win rate) (4 wins - 16 losses in playtest)
This is a pretty ugly match-up. RG Artifact Tron runs around 16 outs to the Melira Combo (4 Pyroclasm, 4 Relic of Progenitus, 4 Karn Liberated, 2 Oblivion Stone, 1 Emrakul, 1 Ulamog), so you can’t count on comboing out to win. Even if you gain infinite life with Kitchen Finks, RG Artifact Tron can still stop you from pulling out Murderous Redcap profitably, stick an Eldrazi to continuously wipe your board, and then it can win by decking you out and discarding Eldrazi to ensure its library is bigger than yours, or it can restart the game with Karn, reduce you to 20 life, and still have an Eldrazi thanks to Karn. (Needless to say, RG Artifact Tron wins that game.)
You need to become hard beatdown to win. You won’t often be fast enough. Delay them for as long as possible with LD bears, Aven Mindcensor, and Thalia. Chord of Calling in Phyrexian Metamorph, Nekrataal, or Shriekmaw to kill Emrakul. Blow up Wurmcoil Engine, exposed Expedition Maps, and Relic of Progenitus with artifact-killing hate bears. Foil Karn with well-timed Restoration Angels or well-placed Spellskites. Nullify Pyroclasm with Burrenton Forge-Tender or Dauntless Escort. It won’t be easy, but you might be able to steal a few games against RG Artifact Tron. (Don’t be afraid to Pod away Melira in this match-up.)
MVPs: Fulminator Mage, Knight of the Reliquary, Realm Razer, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Aven Mindcensor, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Gaddock Teeg, Phyrexian Metamorph, Burrenton Forge-Tender
LVPs: Orzhov Pontiff, Ethersworn Canonist, Withered Wretch
With a pretty stock list, you can kill their dorks with sweepers but continuous Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgence, and Murderous Redcaps will eventually beat you down.
That's to say if they don't have a pod out.
With Birthing Pod Tron's game plan starts to revolve around not dying to the combo, while they beat you down with 2-6 damage per turn.
Post-SB is also very difficult for Tron. Technically almost all your MD cards are good. But to try and hate our their graveyard is wasteful when you die to beats, to hate out their Pod is wasteful when you die to beats, and to just focus on Wurmcoil Engine etc to counter beats leads to you to get blown out by Fulminator Mage/Aven Mindcensor or Phyrexian Metamorph just copying the Wurmcoil Engine and the grind begins with your top decks as lands, land searches, cantips, and occassionaly bombs.
As a Tron player, I find Melira Pod pretty favorable. 4 Clasms, 4 Relics, 4 O-Stones - all go a log way. And Karn's just as good against them as it is in other matchups (that is to say backbreaking).
Of course, Relic can stop persist, and Tron brings in quite a bit of hate with even stock SB (stuff like Nature's Claim, Torpor Orb, Grafdigger's Cage).
In fact, I think it's pretty difficult to argue that RG Tron's matchup isn't extremely favorable vs. Melira Pod. If you read the Twitter of the winner of GP Portland, you will find he was practically ecstatic to have split back-to-back RG Tron matchups 1-1, and considered himself extremely lucky to have done so.
As a Tron player, I wouldn't consider Melira Pod to be worse than 70/30 or 65/35. Maybe this can get closer to 50/50 somehow, but I don't know how it could be considered unfavorable.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
I play mono G Tron and Pod decks don't give me much trouble. Oblivion Stone and All is Dust keep them from doing much of anything.
I performed this testing post-M13, pre-RTR with a pre-board list with 1 Knight of the Reliquary, 1 Tectonic Edge, 4 Viscera Seer, 4 Melira, 1 Thalia, and 0 targeted discard. After switching to my current (post-M14) list with 2 Tidehollow Sculler, 2 Voice of Resurgence, 1 Scavenging Ooze, 1 Cartel Aristocrat, 1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped, 3 Melira, 2 Seer, 0 Thalia, 0 KotR, and 0 Tec Edge, I've no longer had such a lopsidedly bad time against RG Tron. The match-up's probably closer to 30/70 or 35/65 (with RG Tron as the bigger number) pre-board now.
The key now is that, although I lose LD, I can kick Tron off Pyroclasm more easily, and I can weather Oblivion Stone and Relic of Progenitus better.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As the Tron player, I can give you some tips, though:
Always Pyroclasm as soon as you see 2 combo pieces. Cry if those combo pieces are Persist dude + Varolz (because you can't even put a -1/-1 counter on the Persist dude), but 'Clasm them anyway. Do not give them an opportunity to combo off.
I'd boot combo pieces with Karn first (if they have sac outlets out, I'd boot Melira or the sac outlet instead of the Persist dude), but booting Pod, Sculler, Aven Mindcensor, or someone giant based on your hand and board state may be proper.
Do not concede if they gain infinite life. You can win with the stock 1 Emrakul 0 Ulamog list by kicking out Melira or sticking a Relic, then getting out Emrakul and continuously wiping their board (get them down to 0 lands and 0 guys), then sticking a Karn and exiling Emrakul with him, and finally restarting the game with Emrakul.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I believe UWR in general has a pretty good Pod match-up. You can turn Voice into a joke surprisingly easily, and your high removal count takes care of the rest pretty well.
http://supervillainous.spiderforest.com
Appreciate the input Lectrys and everyone else.
The games I've played against pod just aren't so cut-and-dry as 30%/70% wipe their board and then play fatties.
Turn 3 Karn on the draw isn't even good enough half the time. Usually you are -3'ing Karn targeting a combo piece. Then they can hit you with the other creatures and cast/Birthing Pod/Chord of Calling into Redcap to finish the Karn.
Agree entirely. You really can't even bring in strict artifact hate (Nature's Claim) because you can't risk having Nature's Claim in hand while they don't have a Birthing Pod on the field.
Similar to Torpor Orb, the card stops their combo and some of their value (Eternal Witness, Harmonic Sliver, etc) but does nothing to halt the beat down plan.
Really once you get past Turn 6 or so and your opponent is in Eternal Witness/Reveillark /Entomber Exarch/Fulminator Mage mode, you're back to worrying about a sudden combo while again, just getting beaten down.
The Persist guys + Gavony Township grind is rather obnoxious as well. I've gone up to ~37 life while my opponent infinite chumps until he assembles a board he can Gavony up quite large.
Other problematic cards include Qasali Pridemage/Harmonic Sliver vs. your Wurmcoil Engine and Oblivion Stone.
And Phyrexian Metamorph as a value/persist creature or your own Wurmcoil Engine.
I never concede from lifegain, on MTGO I've had my opponent go all the way up to 60 just to lose to Emrakul wiping his board.
Maybe my experiences could be chocked up to bad luck, but I've had 8 matches or so. I'm not trying to be a whiner, just looking for the effective game plan everyone else is using.
Should this get moved to the Tron sub-forums?
It turned from a mini-rant to Tron vs. Melira Pod discussion.
They do test, but mostly limited and standard.
PD: it seems pod is reaching the banning point. Just needs one more obnoxious tournament result... let's face it, it will have to get banned sooner or later, and I think the sooner the better for everyone!
Warning for Ban List Discussion outside of the official thread t_c
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
It's alright, better if you have the Clasms. But it's bad against hand-hate, and auto-loses to infinite life combo.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
One thing is for sure, board wipes are the best thing against them. Also, if gavony is a problem, tec edge or ghost quarter can take care of it. I think most decks really have good hate for pod, some just are naturally weaker to it.
I think DOLZero has the best idea: Death and taxes really beats the **** out of it. They can't tutor for anything, they have a greedy mana base that suffers hard to ghost quarter and leonin arbiter. Post-board, you bring in rest in peace, maybe some pithing needles, and GG.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
It's way worse now that they have voice.
When I wrote my first post in this thread I was about half as sick of Pod as I am now. Guess how I feel now.
Warning for Ban List Discussion outside of Official Thread t_C
GB Rock
U Flooding Merfolk
RUG Delver Midrange
WU Monks
UW Tempo Geist
GW Bogle
GW Liege
UR Tron
B Vampires
Affinity
Legacy
Fish
Goblins
Burn
Reanimator
Dredge
Affinity
EDH
W Akroma
GBW Ghave
BRU Thrax
GR Ruric
I advocate for the elimination of the combo archetype in Modern. I believe it is degenerate and unfun by its very nature and will always limit design space and cause unnecessary bans.
i'm failing to see how voice makes the scapeshift match up better. i guess you negate their counters (kind of)? otherwise, most of their stuff is at sorcery speed.
You're sick of playing against pod because you're playing a deck that has a bad matchup against it (from what I gather). That's life. It's like playing Burn in Legacy and complaining about losing to combo decks that are faster.
Pod beats up on the midrange goodstuff.dec that everyone seems to like playing.. it's the strength of birthing pod. Fortunately, pod has bad matchups against Twin, Tron (all varieties), Scapeshift, Storm, Gifts, and arguably a few control variants (depends how deck is tuned and set up, but certain control variants can have a very strong pod matchup).
Solutions I've found effective against pod
1. Consider Playing Trinket Mage If You're Playing Blue: Trinket mage tutors up any of 3-4 cards that can shut down various pieces in pod. It can grab pithing needles to turn pod, kiki jiki, viscera seer, or any other combo piece off. It tutors up Grafdigger's cage to control their search while shutting off persist and their graveyard combos. It can tutor up Engineered explosives to destroy a field of deathrite shamans, or it even grab a simple pyrite spellbomb to kill off any pesky creature for 2 mana.
2. Consider Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Angel of Jubilation in White: Linvala shuts off their combos, and soon, will be immune to phantasmal image and phyrexian metamorph killing it. Angel of Jubilation shuts down both birthing pod and Melira's combo, while also being immune to copy effects from legend-rule killing it. Angel of Jubilation also has a nice anthem effect for your own team, which makes it easy to swing for an alpha strike.
3. Consider Shadow of Doubt Maindeck in black/blue: At the worst, it cantrips at instant speed. At best, it forces your pod opponent to sacrifice a creature and waste a turn with a pod while you draw a card. Being good against tron or enemy fetchlands is just pudding on top.
It's a hard control deck with 4x Shadow of Doubt and 4x Spell Snare main board. Shadow of Doubt in particular makes pod seem quite funny.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=517370
I'm not specifically recommending my list, I think there are far better decks around, I'm quite new to modern, but if I can brew a deck with minimal help that handles pod fine then pod is not a serious problem.