In case you were unaware, the title is a quote from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and is the most known line I could find with the word Pod in it.

Why Pod?

Because this week is going to be all about [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card].

I’ve never been one to jump at the sight of new cards and let the hype and expectations slowly get blown out of proportion. I remember the reveal of [Card]Serra Avatar[/Card] and the thinking how degenerate I could make it. As it turns out, it was one of the few cards from Urza’s Saga that is not categorized as degenerate.

I’m looking at you [Card]Tolarian Academy[/Card].

When [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] was revealed the crowd went wild. Initially the hype and craze was due to people not reading the card. Honestly, the first description I heard of the card was, “Dude, if you sacrifice a creature you can search your deck for any creature and put it into play. That means turn 3 Emrakul! It’s Insane!”

Upon a first re-reading of the card it was revealed that you would somehow need to make [Card]Blinkmoth Infusion[/Card] a creature and then sacrifice it to the Pod to get an Emrakul. Don’t believe me, look it up, nothing else costs 14.

Even the reveal of only being able to search for creatures with a converted mana cost of one more didn’t deter people. Next I was told, “You can use it as a combat trick to save your creatures or trick your opponent into attacking and then slam down the Whammy!!” Sorry, but there was a marathon of Press Your Luck on Game Show Network and for some reason a marathon of anything on Game Show Network catches my attention even if the show is terrible.

Of course, disappointment once again followed as it was realised that there is a line of text which clearly states. “Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.” Even that setback did not deter people from trying to “Break” the card. So I decided that I would save the foil [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] I opened until that day came and the price somehow skyrocketed.

Fast forward about two months to two weeks ago. It was a Saturday and I was sitting with my friends around a campfire having just gotten a text from a friend asking if I wanted to drive too many hours to some PTQ. Obviously, as most of you know, the only reason to leave a good campfire is to take care of nature’s call in the bushes or because the fire has died and the sun is coming up.

This being a given, the answer was no to driving to pick up my cards at home and then drive through the night to get to a PTQ. My friend then asked if I was going to the Montreal PTQ the week after and if so, what I was playing. This was a day after posting my article on Secret Tech and how people should give it a chance. I still believe that the deck can be a contender with a little work.

When it comes to any tournament worth anything, the question I ask myself is, “Can this deck go X-1 through six to seven rounds?” Unfortunately the answer for [Card]Mass Polymorph[/Card] is no. Don’t get me wrong, I can easily pull off 3-1 in an FNM but simple math says that through six rounds the deck would have a record of 4.5-1.5. This is borderline for a six round affair and has no chance in a seven round affair. This was further backed up by the deck’s large weakness to [Card]Pyromancer Ascension[/Card] and even odds against Valakut and Twin at best. There I sat there for another two or three minutes before my friends mentioned a game of Catan that took place and we launched into an hour discussion about Catan and how one of our friends spoke three lines all night and yet ruined the discussion each time he spoke.

Flash forward to Tuesday. I went to Channel Fireball looking for Adam Barnello’s most recent article but it was not up yet, so while I was there I figured I might as well read something so that it wasn’t a total waste of time. I find I learn more listening to conversations Alex and/or Justin have more than I do from reading. I quickly lose interest in Standard strategies I’m not really interested in playing and, unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of those in this meta. I also read Adam’s articles; they are always interesting, even if you don’t like Legacy and can be found here.

I don’t remember whose article I read but it had a bunch of decks scattered throughout it.

Arriving at home on Tuesday, having skipped playing Legacy that night, I logged onto the computer and received a message from Mezsaros about what deck he should play, RUG Pod, Elves or Green Beatdown. For some reason, having only briefly seen the deck and never having seen how it plays, I answer Bant Pod right away. To shorten the story, we discuss this for a good thirty minutes until Meszaros decides that he doesn’t want to play Pod and instead wants to focus on something that features [Card]Vengevine[/Card]s. The kid is crazy for them. Innistrad will see him doing a lot of weeping in a corner for their loss.

The interesting part of that conversation is that afterwards the only thing I could think of was, “I need to play this deck for the PTQ.” I went to build the deck only to find out that, outside of [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card], I somehow did not have any of the cards. I spent the next two days annoying people to lend me cards I didn’t own for a deck I had never seen played and had no idea how to play. Thank you to Davies, Peter and Robbie for lending me the cards I needed.

We arrive at Friday night, the day before the PTQ. I finally have the deck built except I have an extra [Card]Vengevine[/Card] in the board as I could not find the second [Card]Obstinate Baloth[/Card]. I sit down to face my first opponent knowing nothing of my deck but knowing he’s playing Vampires. I win the match; the one game I lost being due to a bad keep, pay attention to this, it forms a trend. Tthat FNM I go 2-2, losing to turn 4 hardcast Emrakul and losing to the mirror in which he had two [card]Birthing Pod[/card]s both games.

While that isn’t an impressive record I was quite impressed with the way the deck played and how even without a Pod, the deck is still able to remain competitive. If I had any intention of having even a slight chance in the PTQ I needed to learn the creature curve much better and understand how the deck should interact. Of course the guys I was going to test with decided to go get tacos instead of staying. So I got in a quick round of EDH while dicussing changes with my mirror match opponent. Bbefore we make any changes, here is Olivier Ruel’s list from the Top 8 of French Nationals.

[Deck Title=Olivier Ruel – Bant Pod]
[Lands]
5 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Tectonic Edge
[/Lands][Creatures]
2 Acidic Slime
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
3 Llanowar Elves
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Razor Hippogriff
4 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
1 Sun Titan
1 Viridian Corrupter
3 Viridian Emissary
1 Wall of Omens
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures][Spells]
4 Birthing Pod
4 Preordain
2 Venser, the Sojourner
[/Spells][Sideboard]
1 Devout Lightcaster
4 Nature’s Claim
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spellskite
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Vengevine
2 Viridian Corrupter
[/Sideboard][/Deck]

The one thing I noticed in many games is I always seemed to be mana flooded. There are seven mana creatures with four more that allow for basic land searching. Eventually I found the lands I needed and, often in the late game, I would either [Card]Preordain[/Card] sending lands to the bottom or cast [Card]Sea Gate Oracle[/Card] only to reveal two lands. The only other “problem” card was [Card]Wurmcoil Engine[/Card]. I recognize why Ruel was playing it but it seems like a [Card]Consecrated Sphinx[/Card] in this slot would be just as good.

As for the tweaking that was talked about Friday; my opponent had made a few changes to the deck, some I liked and some I did not. The first one, which was an immediate change I also made, was playing a singleton [Card]Archon of Justice[/Card]. It’s the reason he won one of the games otherwise [Card]Venser, the Sojourner[/Card] was going ultimate. It gives the deck a way to answer on board threats which is something that this deck does not have as there is no removal available.

The second big change he made was switching out [Card]Sun Titan[/Card] for two [Card]Frost Titan[/Card]s. I’m not sure what else he took out but it was effective in locking out my [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card]. It wasn’t as good as [card]Sun Titan[/card] is when [card]Sun Titan[/card] is doing well though. For an HBO analogy, [card]Sun Titan[/card] is like The Sopranos whereas [cars]Frost Titan[/card] is like Entourage. Entourage is consistent. It’s good not great but it’s a known quantity that will rarely disappoint. The Sopranos however is an unknown quantity because there are bad episodes of The Sopranos and stuff that is just not good but when the Sopranos is great, nothing is better.

Back to Magic. In this deck there are games where [Card]Sun Titan[/Card] is only okay, but when it’s good, it’s game over and your opponent has no chance of winning. Other suggestions were to try a [Card]Deceiver Exarch[/Card] as a one of. One suggestion I really liked was a [Card]Master Thief[/Card] in the board. This allowed him to steal my [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] and as Emilio Lopez would say, “That was sneaky sneaky, sir.”

With all this in mind, I got home and planned to solitaire the deck a little to see what did and didn’t work and make a couple changes. Instead I fell asleep forgetting to set my alarm for the PTQ the next day. I woke up at about 8:30 with registration ending at 9:45. I was in a rush. I was only able to make a few minor changes to the deck. Here is what I sleeved up for the PTQ.

[Deck Title=Olivier Ruel – Slightly Changed Bant Pod]
[Lands]
4 Forest
2 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Plains
4 Razorverge Thicket
4 Seachrome Coast
2 Tectonic Edge
[/Lands][Creatures]
2 Acidic Slime
1 Archon of Justice
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Deceiver Exarch
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
2 Llanowar Elves
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Razor Hippogriff
4 Sea Gate Oracle
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Spellskite
1 Stonehorn Dignitary
1 Sun Titan
1 Viridian Corrupter
2 Viridian Emissary
1 Wall of Omens
1 Wurmcoil Engine
[/Creatures][Spells]
4 Birthing Pod
4 Preordain
2 Venser, the Sojourner
[/Spells][Sideboard]
1 Devout Lightcaster
1 Master Thief
4 Nature’s Claim
2 Obstinate Baloth
2 Spellskite
1 Sylvok Replica
2 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Viridian Corrupter
[/Sideboard][/Deck]

Going over the changes quickly; I cut one [Card]Forest[/Card], one [Card]Llanowar Elves[/Card] and one [Card]Viridian Emissary[/Card] in the main to be replaced with one [Card]Archon of Justic[/Card](Eventide), it is important, one [Card]Deceiver Exarch[/Card] and one [Card]Spellskite[/Card]. The reason for the cuts were due to my constantly being mana flooded on Friday night. Cutting the elf was definitely not the right thing to do as this deck can really blow up with turn two [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] and the Elf is a great help in that. The Exarch was pretty terrible. I believe there was one game where it was kind of relevant but otherwise I could have done without it.

In the board, I changed the [Card]Vengevine[/Card] for a [Card]Master Thief[/Card], as stealing an artifact seemed like a good strategy and while they would be expecting something like [Card]Nature’s Claim[/Card], the thief could catch them by surprise. The reason I mentioned that the Eventide Archon was important is that it does not say die. I was also playing with a Mirrodin Sadbot which everyone seemed to be quite impressed with; a couple of my opponents stated, “It’s nice to see someone play the right version.” Not actually strategy related but I’m a fan of original cards.

Minor tangent-I’m going to try and build a Modern deck but that only has cards with the original Magic borders. To clarify so there is no confusion, I mean cards that existed prior to Mirrodin but were reprinted after Mirrodin. The foil [Card]Dark Confidant[/Card] with the old border is fantastic, just like the [Card]Sword of Fire and Ice[/Card] promo. End Tangent.

After all that rushing, I’m out the door but have to take the long way to get there due to traffic in Montreal. As I’m walking out KYT texts me asking to come pick him up. Luckily he took a cab, otherwise neither of us would have made it. I arrive at the PTQ, sign up, DMac was nice enough to have the extra Baloth I needed and I was ready to go. KYT got there too in case you were wondering. The disappointing part was the six packs we got for the PTQ were four New Phyrexia and one of each faction pack, which was terrible. Do better Mauro.

Round 1 – Andrew – CawBlade

Game one I keep a sketchy hand because one I never mulligan and two I should have mulliganed. He lands turn two [Card]Squadron Hawk[/Card] and I die to Hawk beats.

Game two he starts down the same path getting me to two life with my only out being [Card]Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[/Card]. Of course I have an [Card]Acidic Slime[/Card] in play and don’t have two [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card]s which mans I need to draw one and hope he doesn’t have double of any counterspell. Turns out I draw Elesh, cast it knowing its not resolving into his hand of seven cards and eight untapped lands, and he says…”resolves”. This wipes his board and he needs to spending his next turn digging for answer to save himself finally finding [Card]Oblivion Ring[/Card] but taps out to do so. On my turn I stabilize and win.

Game three he again has no counterspells so I just go out guns blazing; casting everything under the sun. He did get a couple swings of with a Hawk to get me down to 11 but it was not close. (2-1, 1-0)

Round 2 – Brandon – Valakut

I would like to say I had a chance in game one but that would be a lie. I don’t exactly remember but he didn’t have a super great hand. Even that was enough to crush me.

Game two I was able to stabilize early on and create a situation favourable for me. At the same time he was incrementally grinding me down until I was at three life. On my turn I stabilize and have the win on board. He needs to draw a [Card]Forest[/Card]. He draws [Card]Solemn Simulacrum[/Card] and, even if that doesn’t get me, I had Elesh in play so he would have drawn [Card]Mountain[/Card] off of the top. On a side note, got to give a shout out to Brandon because he was able to Top 8. I had a blast playing against him while trolling Vasil two tables over. Sometimes Magic is too fun! (2-3, 1-1)

Round 3 – Carl – CawBlade

Game one. I landed turn two [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] and he was never really in it. The closest he got was landing a [Card]Timely Reinforcements[/Card] the turn before I landed [Card]Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite[/Card].

Game two. He didn’t draw any creatures until turn six. By that time I was able to set up my board and be in control, even through his [Card]Day of Judgment[/Card] I was able to easily ramp back with [Card]Sea Gate Oracle[/Card] and Pod. (5-3, 2-1)

Round 4 – Andy – Exarch Twin

This was great, even if I eventually lost. Andy has written for the site before, see here, and was a blast talking to before, during and after the round.

Game one. I managed to draw my singleton [Card]Spellskite[/Card] but he was able to bounce it and assemble the combo.

Game two. I went crazy paying life. Generally when he gets the combo it doesn’t matter what your life total is at. This reckless abandon paid dividends as I was able to land a [Card]Spellskite[/Card] and then another with both [Card]Phantasmal Image[/Card] and [Card]Phyrexian Metamorph[/Card] as back up copying the ‘kite. He scooped when I landed the [Card]Sun Titan[/Card] and was able to recur an Image every turn.

Game three. It was a grind. I landed creatures early without a Pod and started the beats, while having drawn three of my four [Card]Nature’s Claim[/Card]. On my first attempt I was able to prevent him from assembling the combo as he was either tapped out or lacking a counter. The next time he used [Card]Gitaxian Probe[/Card] on his turn to see two more Claims but I only had two green sources. I would need a third. Sure enough at the end of turn he cast a second Exarch to tap one of my green sources and had the [Card]Dispel[/Card] for my Claim. I have to admit that was one of the matches I enjoyed the most at any PTQ I’ve been to. That is until round six. (6-5, 2-2)

Round 5 – Wayne – Blue/Black

Game one. He kept a one lander but was able to turn two [Card]Inquisition of Kozilek[/Card] and remove my gas. This caused the game to drag. Eventually, he landed a [Card]Consecrated Sphinx[/Card]. I would be unable to deal with all the card advantage if it continued. The next turn he added a [Card]Vampire Nighthawk[/Card].I on the other hand got my [Card]Archon of Justice[/Card] and copied it with [Card]Phantasmal Image[/Card]. I sacrificed the Image to [Card]Birthing Pod[/Card] exiling his Sphinx and got [Card]Sun Titan[/Card] to bring back the Image and copy Archon to get [Card]Wurmcoil[/Card] while removing his Nighthawk.

Game two. He got mana screwed and I took full advantage by accelerating to [Card]Acidic Slime[/Card] and then copying Slime to blow up all his lands. He scooped a turn later. I realise some may view this as a jerk play-to pummel your opponent that bad when you have good board position but its a PTQ and the only way I’m not trying to crush you is either when you scoop or your life total is at 0. Did I need to blow up his one land by copying my Slime with Image? No, but will I do it everytime? The answer is yes. Sorry, but professional athletes would not complain about their opponents running up the score. They are payed to stop so them. So stop them. (8-5, 3-2)

Round 6 – Eric – Pyromancer Ascension

The Eric I am referring to is Gaudreault, whom I’ve only played once before and drove insane with my play. It was the semis of a Nats qualifier and we were facing each other in the CawBlade mirror. There is the accepted way to play the CawBlade mirror and then there is whatever I was doing. Long story short: he was going crazy on the other side of the table because I was playing the mirror wrong. I won in two. I then asked him if he wanted to drop so I wouldn’t destroy his rating; mine was 1650 at the time. To start off the match I asked him the same question again. He said no and I reminded him of the other time we played. He still couldn’t understand how I was playing the CawBlade mirror. Anyway, on to the match.

Game one. He completely dominates. He [Card]Into the Roil[/Card]s my Pods and counters my [Card]Acidic Slime[/Card] while having activated [Card]Pyromancer Ascension[/Card] very early.

Game two. I draw every piece of enchantment removal I can. He is able to prolong the game with his army of [Card]Spellskite[/Card]s.

Game three. I land turn four [Card]Thrun, the last Troll[/Card] getting him to seven but he has an active Ascension with a full hand to easily find either the Kite or burn me away. I take the risk of sacrificing Thrun to the Pod for a Slime. I target the Ascension. Because of the loss of Ascension he needs to individually burn off my creatures and dig for some relevant spells. I land a [Card]Sea Gate Oracle[/Card] and then sacrifice it to get my second Thrun. This surprises him as he thought I only had one. I end up getting there with a [Card]Sylvok Replica[/Card] brought back by [Card]Sun Titan[/Card] to destroy his last blocker. Technically he paid two life to activate the Kite’s ability and I didn’t win by killing him. (10-6, 4-2)

Round 7 – Francois – Goblins

As it turn out, there was still a shot at half a box for 5-2 with good breakers so Round 7 actually meant more than just two or three boosters. Going in I thought he was playing Mono Red, which I think is favourable for me. It turns out he is playing Goblins.

Game one. He rolls me by turn four because I keep a bad hand against Goblins.

Game two. I land [Card]Obstinate Baloth[/Card] before stabilizing with a [Card]Venser, the Sojourner[/Card] and he scoops.

Game three. I keep a hand that is two [Card]Obstinate Baloth[/Card], two [Card]Preordain[/Card], one [Card]Razorverge Thicket[/Card] and two [Card] Coast[/Card]. Needless to say, I do not draw a second green source. Even putting two cards on the bottom with [card]Preordain[/card] both times. He beats me. Had I drawn a green source the game would have been able to settle down, but I still would have been low on life. After the game he showed me the [Card]Goblin Grenade[/Card] in hand. Which meant had he drawn any form of burn spell he still would have most likely had me.  (11-8, 4-3)

I hate to dissapoint but up to this point my word count now stands at roughly 3740. Instead of trying to wrap everything up right now, I will write a part two about Bant Pod explaining the changes I made and how I need a game plan for each matchup as this will be the deck I’ll try to grind into Nationals with. I’m just not sure whether the article will go up next week or the week after. Since I believe the deck will be one of the key decks upon Innistrad’s release and doesn’t lose much, I’ll preview what changes can be made to continue with the deck post rotation.

Before letting you go, I wanted to mention that the Mana Deprived team will be out in full force at Nationals and our partner Face to Face Games will be present as well so go see them to pick up some official Mana Deprived T-Shirts. Any Mana Deprived personalities will be glad to sign your T-Shirt or a card if you would like. Just don’t all hound KYT at once. Finally, I’m hoping to provide constantly updated coverage for the event with match results and featured questions. Obviously if I don’t grind in the coverage will be better than if I do, but either way I’ll make sure to be updating the site so that anyone who cannot attend will be able to see what they want.

I will post something next week to provide details about how we’re going to go about this, but if you have any ideas or things you would like to see please let me know either in the comments or Nodnolb@Gmail.com. I will do my best to get that for you, though keep in mind that video will be incredibly hard to come by so try and make any requests accessible by written word.

With that, I hope you enjoyed the article and are looking forward to the follow up article. And before I leave you, remember, ALWAYS have fun playing Magic.