Card/Deck Someone sell me on Birthing Pod (but first, long backstory)

Hathaway

Hathaway

I quit playing magic the day of the Eventide release at my local game store. Strangely enough, I went 3-0 in both drafts that day and won a ton of product, but I hated planeswalkers and I hated cards with untap activation costs slightly more. So I sold all of my cards and quit the game.

A few years later, I started playing FNM again right before Return to Ravnica came out. I put together a pretty decent UWr deck and finished in the top 4 of a few events and was actually having fun again, except for planeswalkers. But I had a toddler and didn't like being absent on Friday nights, so I sold my collection again.

My birthday was in late May...

I'm going somewhere with this, I promise.

...and I decided that what I wanted for my birthday was a house full of my old Magic friends to play cards with. It turned out that only one guy still played actively and that everyone else had cards but no decks. So I decided to build a cube and run that for my birthday weekend.

I owned a cube back during college (2006?) but it was all sweepers and color fixing and bombs and dragons and Parallax Wave and stupid games that weren't fun to play. I remember throwing it in the trash can after one spectacularly frustrating set of blowout games. I don't remember if I won or lost, only that it wasn't fun. I wanted to not play that kind of cube again.

I loaded up Cube Tutor and plagiarized a few peasant lists into a pile of cards that I could round up on the quick and cheap. We had a few eight man drafts (well, six men and two ladies) and one six man draft and everyone was mostly happy. I couldn't help but feel like the mana needed to get better, as all of my fixing was come into play tapped garbage that helped midrange decks. I wanted aggro to be better, and I went about finding out how to do that. Along the way, I got really pedantic advice from people on other forums. I found this place from watching some guy named Lucas mention it on Milo: the Gathering.

Anyway, here is my cube list.

http://www.cubetutor.com/viewcube/28489

I have embraced the idea that singleton is a dumb rule, and I am actively trying to make the games interesting and skill testing. What I don't understand is why several people here love running 3-4 Birthing Pod. What am I missing?

I have an opportunity to pick up three Pods for some junk I have in a trade binder, someone convince me to add them to the cube.

Thanks for listening to my rant.
 
FlowerSunRain

FlowerSunRain

Contributor
I don't like Birthing Pod. I don't like tutors in general. I mean, I run a few of them, but in general I don't like how they effect the game. Birthing Pod is a repeatable tutor. I'm running Fauna Shaman right now, because I was thinking I wanted a discard outlet, but its also a tutor and I kinda hate what it does. I mean, you always get the bullet you need for the situation, what fun is that? I thought this was a card game! Its getting dropped in my next update. Birthing Pod is more restrictive, but its kind of the same too.

Multiple birthing pods really gives you a powerful deck type with its own feel. And its an deck type that has a lot of variety in how you can construct it and each version will play pretty differently. Knowing you are going in a certain direction gives your drafts a whole different aim, where you try to perfect the chain. Abuse the ETBs. Reuse the corpses. These things are interesting. I get why people go in that direction. Its not my thing, but I get it.
 
RavebornMuse

RavebornMuse

I passed on Pod, too. Like FSR, I don't care for tutor effects in general for Cube. I felt compelled when I was refining my list to run it after seeing so many lists on here use it, but then I realized.. It's my cube. If I'm not really interested in something, I should pass on it. So that's what I did. I think Pod makes for a fun deck, don't get me wrong; I like Pod a lot. But it doesn't feel right in my Cube, which is a pretty fast environment. Fiddling around with Pod didn't seem worth the time, and wasn't quite exciting enough since it does best when it's doing the same thing, game after game, churning out a steady train of value. I'm sure plenty of people enjoy it, but it wasn't for us here, so it might not be for you, either. Feel free to test it, but know that you aren't alone in the not-sold camp.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Birthing Pod is an interesting archetype with the right support. The optimal number is 3 for 360+ lists, but that's only so that the pod drafter will find a way to end up with two of them (three is probably overkill). Once you get two pods, you're cooking with gas, and you begin to evaluate cards very differently. Instead of just looking for a nice creature curve, you're also looking at what kind of creatures could serve as silver bullets in a given match-up. It creates a string of triggers and generates a ton of value over the course of a game. I don't know how often the deck comes together for everyone else, but I haven't seen it that often aside from my very first cube draft.

My drafters love strategies like this that let them attack the game from a different angle. Pod has a lot to offer if you have the necessary support for it (just good creature curves to be honest). I can see it being a bit oppressive if it comes together all the time, but that hasn't been the case here with my 405 list. If you're looking for an interesting archetype that doesn't really require all that much support, I'd definitely go for it.
 
Grillo_Parlante

Grillo_Parlante

Contributor
Certain tutors are some of my favorite cube cards, but I don't think you need birthing pod: it just depends on what you are looking for.

One of its best features of it is that its a sac. outlet that can go in essentially any deck; one its worst features is that its a midrange card that makes good stuff ETB creatures even better than they already are.
 
Hathaway

Hathaway

shamizy said:
Pod has a lot to offer if you have the necessary support for it (just good creature curves to be honest). I can see it being a bit oppressive if it comes together all the time, but that hasn't been the case here with my 405 list. If you're looking for an interesting archetype that doesn't really require all that much support, I'd definitely go for it.
Click to expand...

What kind of support do I need for it in a 540 cube? My Cube Tutor link is in my signature. I'm willing to give it a shot, if only because it's weird and I can pick up three for cards I got for free.
 
Eric Chan

Eric Chan

Hyalopterous Lemure
Staff member
You basically want a heaping handful of persist and undying creatures to support Birthing Pod. Folks who have had the most success running multiple Pods also run multiples of Kitchen Finks, Murderous Redcap, and the like. Lots of ETB and leaves battlefield creatures - your Blade Splicers, Voices of Resurgence, Shriekmaws, Acidic Slimes and so forth - are the other key to making Pods viable.

It gets better the higher your power level is - much like how it was somewhat oppressive in Modern, but never made a huge splash in Standard. To be perfectly honest, Pods might not be a good fit at your cube's current power level.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Yeah, True-Name Nemesis is the epitome of uninteractive games. Considering your first experience with cube I don't think you want it in your cube.

PS. What kind of person throws away all his cards in the thrash can? Seriously, think about that for a moment. I always get a bit agitated when I hear about people doing that, because giving your cards to some poor kid takes only a bit more effort and is significantly less of a selfish dick move. Sorry, for the re:rant, but I can't really relate to the senselessness of it.
 
shamizy

shamizy

Oooh, I'm developing a lower powered cube over the next couple of weeks and Ninjutsu seems like a cool inclusion. Haven't played much with it, are all of the cards in U/B?
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
shamizy said:
Oooh, I'm developing a lower powered cube over the next couple of weeks and Ninjutsu seems like a cool inclusion. Haven't played much with it, are all of the cards in U/B?
Click to expand...
Yup. There are a few cute ones in a supplemental product, but those two are in UB.
 
James Stevenson

James Stevenson

Steamflogger Boss
Staff member
Pod is really fun, and it's difficult to draft and play. You constantly have multiple options.

I remember once drafting my cube with some randomers after a ptq. One guy was drafting pod and was cackling gleefully the whole time. When we finished drafting they started turning the lights out and kicked us out, so we didn't even get to play. And yet, everyone had fun. Especially the pod guy. He had had so much fun brewing up his ridiculous masterpiece, with a perfect curve and crazy interactions. That's what convinced me it was great.
 
Hathaway

Hathaway

Onderzeeboot said:
Yeah, True-Name Nemesis is the epitome of uninteractive games. Considering your first experience with cube I don't think you want it in your cube.

PS. What kind of person throws away all his cards in the thrash can? Seriously, think about that for a moment. I always get a bit agitated when I hear about people doing that, because giving your cards to some poor kid takes only a bit more effort and is significantly less of a selfish dick move. Sorry, for the re:rant, but I can't really relate to the senselessness of it.
Click to expand...

Some guy who was in his middle twenties and didn't quite have things figured out. He was kind of an ass, but he turned out okay.

I'm beginning to see the downside of Nemesis, I was so wrapped up in "he's so cool" and wasn't worrying about "he's so uninteractive."
 
shamizy

shamizy

Yeah, once you delve deeper into Cube design with more experience, you'll see just how much better it is to have interactive cards all throughout. Sure, you can be of the mindset of just wanting to powermax and play the most broken shit ever and it'll be a cool experience once in a while, but was it actually a good game when your opponent couldn't do anything? It's a hole that I found myself in when I began building my cube a year ago. You soon realize that shit like True Name and stuff like the Swords just don't make for interesting gameplay.

I've found that the best games of Magic are those that have a ton of interaction back and forth, a game of little edges here and there. That's what most of us strive to accomplish here with our cubes. If there are two things you wanna take away from here to use in your own cube someday, it's Birthing Pod and Recursive Black Aggro. They open up a lot of options in Cube. You're already well on your way breaking singleton :p
 
MCMcEmcee

MCMcEmcee

Pod is an archetype unto itself as well as a "draft altering" card like the ones in Conspiracy, without messing with the actual draft. It's almost worth running just for the amount of times somebody drafts what looks like a sweet Pod deck, only to discover they have no 5 drops.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top