Lightning Bolt is stronger than Snapcaster Mage.
Heck, part of the reason Snapcaster Mage even is good is its synergy with Lightning Bolt. Snapcaster Mage without Lightning Bolt is much weaker, but Lightning Bolt is still really powerful without Snapcaster Mage.
I second this. Without Lightning Bolt, UW control decks have much less to gain from adding red.Originally Posted by Lord Seth
I'm not saying that snap caster is too powerful, just pointing out that bolt plus a snappy is (obviously) really difficult for a deck trying to win with small dudes to overcome
Birthing Pod didn't get the axe. This leads me to believe that they likely will not ban it until they print a creature that completely puts it over the top (akin to Survival being okay until Vengevine). As a Pod player, I'm obviously happy, but I truly don't think it's ban-worthy right now. After a string of top finishes at the larger tourneys (GP/PT), the recent GP/PT have been won by non-Pod decks. Also, they're printing more Pod hate (M15's Gryff) and other strategies are seeing new toys to tinker with.
It makes me a little sad that Birthing Pod didn't get any of its strategies hurt. Being able to throw in silver bullet answers is one of the reasons green sun's zenith got banned, it made it the overwhelmingly powerful strategy so that other midrange decks didn't have a reason not to also go that strategy. Also, having 2 card combos that do infinite damage allows the deck a quick avenue to beat stuff that can stop its midrange plan without diluting your deck too much makes it impossible to stop with just one strategy.
Honestly the best thing you can do to beat it is not care about it and just combo out yourself (splinter twin) or try to kill them in the first 2-3 turns before they can get their advantage going (affinity), but this has left modern in a pretty crappy place right now. Affinity is like the dragon stompy of legacy, where variance will bury you or allow you one to two big tournament wins.
I think the problem is pod isn't played enough for people to see why it's the reason for modern being a "slow combo" format. Even though it is the most played deck in the format, it doesn't necessarily comprise the majority of the top 8's (2/8 in that case, but 7 of the top 16 lists). The problem is that the card advantage it buries you under (if you don't just ignore it and combo yourself, like Scapeshift + Twin) makes it impossible for regular midrange style decks to handle in time to kill you. Only a single BGx list made top 8, 2 in the top 16.
To stop Pod without a combo, you have to go the UWR control strategy with upwards of 15 removal and additional countermagic.
I do think the deck is oppressive and banworthy. The worst thing is their ability to cast a turn 2 Birthing pod relatively easily, which makes it near uncounterable and being an artifact is almost impossible to kill. If they print an Abrupt Decay that hits 4 cmc cards or some better removal for artifacts that doesn't just suck without being in your deck, maybe pod would be more handle-able, but as it stands it's just too good.
Anyway, rant aside, the best card to fight that deck right now is Aven Mindcensor and hoping that they don't draw an abrupt decay. Aside from that I'm having fun with Damping Matrix, which also conveniently gets hit by Abrupt Decay (like Grafdigger's cage, Stony Silence, Rest in Peace, and just about every other card you'd hope would shut their strategy down).
Metagame data indicates that Melira Pod is no more broken/oppressive than BGx, Affinity, or Splinter Twin. If Melira Pod is banworthy, then those three decks need bans as well.
I was really hoping to see thopter foundry unbanned. CArd is not opressie. IT's rather slove (very) combo and looks cool enough to start brewing
IIRC zoo wasn't oppressive when they banned GSZ for it. It's just when a certain card makes decks too swiss army knife there's no reason not to play them.
Was Green SUn banned alone? I forget. I think it was banned alone, then PFire and Nacatl were banned together right?
Not sure if Zoo was oppressive at the time (ironically, it became extremely oppressive afterwards). But Zoo wasn't the reason they banned Green Sun's Zenith, or at least not the only reason.
Green Sun's Zenith was banned at the same time as Blazing Shoal, Cloudpost, Ponder, Preordain, and Rite of Flame. The next banning announcement hit Punishing Fire and Wild Nacatl.
I agree with most, if not all, of this. Regardless of how slow birthing pod is (compared to say survival) its still a repeatable source of tutoring. The "drawback" of sacrificing a creature is an obnoxious argument, along with the drawback of using it only on your turn. Repeatable tutoring is repeatable tutoring, and I feel its oppressive.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Well the thing was all midrange decks that didn't play bloodbraid elf looked the same before they banned GSZ, and rightly so. It was a "big zoo" with hierarchs and GSZ and all the other good stuff, which was actually better than Jund largely do to the mana acceleration (Turn one arbor dryad). We've run into the same problem with pod being the only real midrange choice because there is literally no reason to play a midrange deck that can't fish for its silver bullets and infinite damage 2 card combos.
Did BGx just up and disappear in the last hour? How can you possibly claim that there is "literally no reason" to play one of the top decks in the format?
Claiming that Birthing Pod is the "only real midrange choice" is utterly nonsensical when one of the top decks is midrange and is not Birthing Pod.
I call it how I see it. Obviously "literally no reason" is an opinion. I feel like that is something that shouldn't have to be said on a forum. Clearly no one can claim to know all of the reasons for playing something.
Both from playing the format, but more so from looking at tournament data, the answer is clear. If we use the most recent large modern tournament GP Minneapolis as an example, you can see that 12% of day 2 decks were BGx (consisting mainly of Jund, though), and that 12% of the top 16 were BGx decks (once again, just jund). Now look at the percent of day 2 decks that made it to the top 16 for Pod. Pod consisted of 16% of day 2 decks starting out, and comprised a total of 44%(!) of the top 16. That is an extraordinarily high retention rate of pod decks. You're about 2.5 times as likely to get to the top 16 by playing pod than you would be playing BGx. Sure, maybe breakers were really unlucky on a bunch of BGx decks, maybe ________________________ happened, but 7 decks in the top 16 were Pod, maybe the same luck swang against a swathe of pod players instead.
Look at it this way, if you play BGx you're doing no better than if you were literally just coin flipping for the win with every opponent you play.
Well, people have their reasons for everything, but if you want to win then you should be playing birthing pod. I have yet to see a single good argument for how that card is balanced or that deck is in any way worse than BGx.Claiming that Birthing Pod is the "only real midrange choice" is utterly nonsensical when one of the top decks is midrange and is not Birthing Pod.
It's not an opinion as to whether there is literally "no reason" to play a deck. Do you not think "I want to get into the finals at a Grand Prix" is a reason? Because that seemed to be a pretty good reason for Andrew Huska. That's a reason, right there, and it seems very objective. So it's not a matter of opinion; there obvious is a reason. Even if you claim it's not a good reason, that's not what you said. You said no reason.
Jund has gotten into the finals of a Grand Prix after the bans. Melira Pod, despite getting more decks into the top 8, has not. Kiki Pod did win, but I consider that a separate deck.
My nitpicky nature aside...
Melira Pod was not 44% of the Top 16. Melira Pod was 31%, with Kiki-Pod at 12.5%. The two are actually rather different decks (despite both playing Birthing Pod), and should be grouped separately. Even if you do insist they should be classified together, you claim that Pod was 16%, when it was Melira Pod that was 16%. Melira Pod and Kiki Pod together were 19%.Both from playing the format, but more so from looking at tournament data, the answer is clear. If we use the most recent large modern tournament GP Minneapolis as an example, you can see that 12% of day 2 decks were BGx (consisting mainly of Jund, though), and that 12% of the top 16 were BGx decks (once again, just jund). Now look at the percent of day 2 decks that made it to the top 16 for Pod. Pod consisted of 16% of day 2 decks starting out, and comprised a total of 44%(!) of the top 16. That is an extraordinarily high retention rate of pod decks. You're about 2.5 times as likely to get to the top 16 by playing pod than you would be playing BGx. Sure, maybe breakers were really unlucky on a bunch of BGx decks, maybe ________________________ happened, but 7 decks in the top 16 were Pod, maybe the same luck swang against a swathe of pod players instead.
Though I've never really felt that Grand Prix, due to their scarcity (trying to figure out the meta on a sample size of a handful of tournaments is not particularly useful--even if they are big tournaments, you still end up with the same number of data points in the Top 8/16), are particularly great reads on the meta by themselves, especially not right now when we've had only two such tournaments after the bannings shook the format up. They're more useful as a way to see if a deck can get into the Top 8/16, so you can point and note that UWR control isn't doing as badly as some people claim it is if it's capable of getting into the Top 4. And at present, we have only two data points for Grand Prix for the format after the (un)bannings happened. That's... not very many. If we had 3 or 4 I'd feel more comfortable, but 2 is too few.
Now, there was one other big tournament, the Pro Tour (where Melira Pod actually had a rather unimpressive outing), but that's not really a fair data point because so much of what decided the top decks had nothing to do with the decks themselves.
I'm not sure how many people SCG is going to get for its Modern Premier events, but I think those will be a great way to try to get a read on the metagame. They publish the decklists (or at least I expect they will), they should get a reasonable number of people attending, and they're all across the US so the impact of the local meta is lessened when you look at them on the whole.
But until then, we are in the middle of PTQ season, which I feel is a great way to get a feel on the overall metagame; lots of PTQs in lots of different areas gives you great data. For example, last year, you could clearly see if you looked at the data that Jund was by far the king of the format, whereas this year... things are way more even. On the downside, right now I don't know of anyone who's been keeping track of the PTQ meta by itself, but someone at MTG Salvation has been keeping track of the large (non-Grand Prix but with 40+ people) paper meta, which includes all the PTQs. You can find it here. The results are, in regards to Top 8's for the Large paper events...
Affinity: 9.15%
Jund: 8.40%
UR Twin: 7.65%
Melira Pod: 7.35%
BG Rock: 6.15%
Scapeshift: 4.95%
RG Tron: 3.90%
UWR Control: 3.90%
RUG Twin: 3.75%
Kiki Pod: 3.30%
Burn: 2.70%
Merfolk: 2.40%
UWR Midrange: 2.25%
UWR Kiki Control: 2.25%
Faeries: 1.95%
Ad Nauseam: 1.95%
Living End: 1.95%
Naya Zoo: 1.80%
Storm: 1.65%
UR Delver: 1.65%
RUG: 1.65%
GW Death and Daxes: 1.35%
Domain Zoo: 1.20%
GW Hatebears: 1.20%
Junk Pod: 1.20%
Junk: 1.05%
Blue Moon: 1.05%
Kinda lengthy (I figured I should keep everything that's at 1% or better), but Melira Pod is only slightly higher than Jund if you combine it with "Junk Pod" (their apparent name for Angel Pod), though Jund jumps up to #1 if you combine it with Rock. If you decide to shove all the Birthing Pod decks together and all the BGx decks together, then you end up with BGx having about 4% more. If we try to do some lumping, we end up with:
BGx: 15.6% (Jund, Rock, Junk)
Birthing Pod: 11.85% (Melira Pod, Kiki Pod, Junk Pod)
URx Twin: 11.4% (UR Twin, RUG Twin)
Affinity: 9.15%
Birthing Pod is good, but it sure doesn't seem to be above and beyond what the other top decks are.
Bob Huang also has an interesting article here analyzing the Modern metagame. His criteria for the paper metagame is a bit different from the above (he only counts tournaments with 129+ players and goes by the top 5% of decks), but it's nevertheless interesting, and we end up with the following for paper:
1.) BG/x Variants (18.2%)
2.) Tempo Twin Variants (14.7%)
3.) UW/x Control Variants (12.8%)
4.) Affinity (10.7%)
5.) Melira Pod (9.4%)
Even if we opt to toss in Kiki Pod into the Melira Pod percentage, we end up with 13.4%, which still leaves it below Twin and BGx.
Well, the results I gave indicate that it's doing well a bit less than BGx does, but even if we want to approach it simply from a perspective of looking at the decks rather than results...Well, people have their reasons for everything, but if you want to win then you should be playing birthing pod. I have yet to see a single good argument for how that card is balanced or that deck is in any way worse than BGx.
The answer as to how it's worse than BGx is actually right there in front of you. But admittedly, it's kind of hiding in plain sight. See, there's a well kept secret about Melira Pod. And that's the fact that a lot of the time, you don't have Birthing Pod. Even ignoring the cases where it gets countered, discarded, deactivated (e.g. Grafdigger's Cage, Aven Mindcensor) or simply destroyed, the deck will simply not draw it a reasonable portion of the time, and it has no real way to tutor it up.
Melira Pod may not be hurt as much as Kiki Pod is when it doesn't have its Birthing Pod, but without it it still turns into a considerably worse version of Junk, which itself, as you noted, puts up less consistent results than Jund. It can pull out wins without Birthing Pod, but when it doesn't have it, it's really ultimately a worse version of a weaker variant of Jund. And that seems a real way that BGx is better than Melira Pod.
Looks like I'm wrong from these GP results.
Hushwing Gryff is a better hoser to Pod imo. Yes it's also killed by Decay, but besides combat, the only other answer they have to it is Pontiff's Haunt effect.
As a dedicated green mage, I really think that it's overrepresented as a color. Honestly, I think most cards (barring only stupidity like Skullclamp) could feasibly come off the banned list, but I just want it to be a higher powered format. That said, give Blue Ancestral Visions and Jace.
You're not going to ban Tarmogoyf and Confidant, so let Stoneforge back in. To keep the format from getting asinine, let Storm have all of its rituals and cantrips. Then all the silly cards like Post could realistically come off, as midrange capable aggro decks can keep it off its plan. Elves could have Glimpse back, we could have GSZ, etc...
This is coming from someone who barely experiments with modern, so feel free to correct me. It just seems that to shake up the format in any one direction is a mistake, as it would tip something over the line. If, however, the floodgates are opened simultaneously, I think a new balance would be found that would be more diverse and higher powered.
Which they can readily search up with an average of 7 cards in their deck. Mindcensor is better against any random deck (Scapeshift and Tron in particular, but you generally run Paths with it and everyone fetches), and can stop them from finding their singleton answers.
As for unbanning everything I wholeheartedly disagree. Stoneforge Batterskull can stay in Legacy. Turn 2 Inkmoth Nexus + Blazing Shoal protected by Pact of Negation can also stay dead. They could unban a few cards but the format cannot handle so much combo without a Force of Will.
There's already a format where you can cast Stoneforge Mystic, Jace, Glimpse, GSZ, etc... it's called Legacy. I have never understood the compulsion/desire/whatever from people wanting to turn Modern into Legacy-lite, which is exactly what it would be, just without the enforcers (Wasteland, Force of Will) around to keep things in check.
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