Last night, after a two week hiatus from Friday Night Magic due to me recovering from a cold, I finally returned to my local card store to participate in FNM. The deck I was piloting was a RUG Birthing Pod deck that had originally been created when Birthing Pod first cam out, and has since been updated with Zendikar cycling out and Innistrad's release. Pictured below was what I used:
The deck was heavily inspired by
60cards.com's Smi77y, who had built a RUGPod deck back in Zendikar using
Lotus Cobra to cheaply drop Pods and begin chaining your way into Titans. Below is the decklist I ran:
As far as deck tech goes, this deck has a lot of crazy interactions. The plan is to play a
Birthing Pod whenever you can, and begin chaining low casting cost creatures into higher casting cost creatures, and eventually into Titans as your win conditions. Amongst some of the incredible chains I've pulled off with this deck are
Viridian Emissary into
Deceiver Exarch, allowing me to untap my
Birthing Pod and fetch a basic land, then
Deceiver Exarch into
Solemn Simulacrum for another basic land or
Phyrexian Metamorph to copy a relevant threat or
Tormentor Exarch to kill a troublesome 2 toughness creature. Following turns would allow me to chain a 4 CMC creature into an
Acidic Slime, which makes for beautiful maindeck Artifact and Enchantment hate, as well as Land Destruction to deny the opponent much needed mana in multicolored decks. Finally, that
Acidic Slime often ends up turning into a Titan to seal the game. The sideboard I was running was almost irrelevant at this particular FNM since I didn't draw a single sided-in card all night.
So, without further ado, here's how the night went:
Game 1 was pretty standard, with each of us dropping early game stuff and our own
Solemn Simulacrums to ramp up our mana. On turn 5, I dropped a
Frost Titan and tapped down his
Solemn Simulacrum who would have been a blocker the next turn, or may have attacked into my Titan to draw a card. However, my opponent cast a
Phyrexian Metamorph copying my Titan and followed it up with a
Myr Superion and kept my Titan tapped down. I ended up losing that game. However, Games 2 and 3 went incredibly well in my favor, landing early
Birthing Pods in both games and quickly chaining into
Acidic Slimes and
Inferno Titan, despite a mulligan to 5 cards in Game 2. I finished the Round 2-1.
Round 2 - vs UW Humans
Game 1 was a doozy. My opponent somehow managed to get an
Elite Inquisitor,
Spirit Mantle, and two
Honor of the Pures onto the battlefield and bring me all the way down to 1 life. I happened to have a
Frost Titan and an
Inferno Titan on my side, but the Mantle's Protection from Creatures meant I couldn't tap down the Elite, or block it for that matter. Luckily, I topdecked an
Acidic Slime and blew up the
Spirit Mantle giving me some breathing room. My opponent dropped a
Doomed Traveler and I did everything in my power to keep him from nabbing a flying Spirit token. Eventually, by keeping enough mana dorks on defense, I was able to swing through his field twice with my two titans and steal a close Game 1. Game 2, my opponent sided in
Leonin Relic-Warders to deal with my Pods. I was forced to copy a mana dork with a
Phyrexian Metamorph to alleviate my mana screw, but it was promptly exiled by a Relic Warder. My opponents board began filling with threats like
Doomed Traveler and
Mirran Crusader. Luckily, I managed to land an
Inferno Titan, blowing up his
Leonin Relic-Warder, bringing back my
Phyrexian Metamorph, copying the Titan, and sweeping the rest of his board. I shortly won the next turn. I won the Round 2-0.
Round 3 - vs Conley Woods' Jund Wolf Run Ramp
There's not a whole lot to say here. I was playing a budget deck against the Grand Prix Orlando winner's deck. I failed to draw Pods or Titans in both Games and promptly lost to
Primeval Titan and
Grave Titan. The short Round ended 0-2.
This Round had me extremely discouraged... Game 1 consisted of my opponent aimlessly digging through his library with
Think Twice,
Desperate Ravings, and
Faithless Looting while I continued to be mana flooded and draw virtually every land in my deck. Through
Perilous Myr and a pair of
Deceiver Exarchs, I was able to bring my opponent down to 2 life before they were dealt with through
Geistflame and a
Burning Vengeance. I then only drew my
Viridian Corrupter and yet more lands. With my opponent barely alive at 2 life, all I could do was give him Poison Counters. He later resolved a second
Burning Vengeance and burnt me out. I should note this Game took 35 minutes, with my opponent taking
foreeever to play his turns, fidgeting through his graveyard and needlessly shuffling his hand for
random discards to
Desperate Ravings. I knew my deck had the upper hand in Game 2. I sided in a pair of
Nihil Spellbombs (all I owned) but they never showed up. My opponent brought in
Grim Lavamancer,
Goblin Arsonists, and
Stormblood Berserkers. They kept me on defense for quite some time, but I managed to clear his board again and again through appropriate triple blocks and continued to amass
tons of land. I foolishly ran an
Inferno Titan into a
Mana Leak, but later stabilized with a
Deceiver Exarch and
Frost Titan, both out of the
Grim Lavamancer's
Shock range. My opponent couldn't find a
Burning Vengeance and could only bounce my Titan for so long with his
Silent Departures. I eventually pushed through and won. Unfortunately, due to my opponent's slow rate of play, time was called and Game 3 resulted in a draw before we could even get it started. The Round unfortunately ended 1-1-1. The lesson of this round is: replace
Viridian Corrupter with
Manic Vandal.
Round 5 - vs Jank (RW)
Game 1 was incredibly easy. I purposely overextended
Viridian Emissarys and
Solemn Simulacrum into a
Day of Judgment, but they nabbed my three lands. I dropped a
Birthing Pod and an
Acidic Slime blowing up one of my opponents White mana lands. I podded it into a
Frost Titan and locked down my opponent's last White source. The game ended soon after. Game 2 was pretty nuts. I kept a very questionable 6, but felt hopeful since I was on the draw. My opponent was quickly amassing tokens with
Master's Call and
Midnight Hauntings. All I could do was ramp mana and drop
Birthing Pods, but my opponent managed to
Oblivion Ring two of them. The board was looking pretty bleak as all I had was a
Deceiver Exarch and a
Tormentor Exarch against my opponents army of tokens and an
Elspeth Tirel at 1 Loyalty. But amazingly, I topdecked a third
Birthing Pod, played it, turned my
Tormentor Exarch into an
Acidic Slime, blew up an
Oblivion Ring, got my first Pod back, podded my
Deceiver Exarch into a
Phyrexian Metamorph, copied
Acidic Slime, blew up the other
Oblivion Ring, got my second Pod back, and turned the
Acidic Slime into an
Inferno Titan nuking Elspeth and two tokens. The game ended shortly after that once I podded the other
Acidic Slime into a
Frost Titan for good measure. I won the Round 2-0.
In summation, I topped off the night at 3-1-1, landing in 5th place out of around 20 attendants. I know I could have made Top 4 had the fourth round not ended in a draw. Rate-of-Play bugs the hell out of me, but it's partially my fault for not running
Manic Vandal instead of
Viridian Corrupter as my one-of 3 CMC maindeck Artifact Hate. I really like how the deck runs and am glad I can call it my own, as no one else at that particular FNM was running
Birthing Pod.
However, I have ordered a lot of new cards to tweak this existing deck into something I feel is a bit stronger and better suited for my meta. There weren't a ton of control decks at this FNM and despite all of the Blue I saw, few people were actually running Counter Magic. If my cards get here before next FNM, I'll try to get a deck tech up for what I'll be running. Until then~!
