I still haven’t found a Modern deck I really like. I’ve been playing a different deck every event. As such, I had no idea what I wanted to play at Grand Prix Portland. My first thought was that I wanted to find a deck that Voice of Resurgence would be good in. I put Brian Kibler Naya deck together on Magic Online to get a feel for it. It felt fine, but I didn’t love it. I tried some other decks; at some point I played against someone who played a Cartel Aristocrat against me, and I stopped testing.
If you know anything about my preferences, obviously I wasn’t frustrated to lose to Cartel Aristocrat. I just realized that I could play Melira Pod with Voice of Resurgence, which sounded like everything I was looking for.
I didn’t want to spend much time on Modern after Dragon’s Maze was released because it was more important to prepare for the Pro Tour, so it didn’t seem worth trying to play Pod on Magic Online. I knew that Andrew Cuneo is an expert with Melira Pod, so my plan was to just ask him what I could cut to make room for Voice of Resurgence.
Most of our team (Team SCG) was meeting in Portland the Monday before the Grand Prix, but we weren’t working on Modern at all. When I got there, I asked Andrew what he was playing, and he said he was going to play Melira with Voice of Resurgence. Perfect. I didn’t think about it again until Friday, when Andrew laid out the deck to set about making room for Voice of Resurgence.
He wasn’t playing Cartel Aristocrat, which I wanted to play, of course, but he had two Viscera Seers, so it’d be easy to substitute a Cartel Aristocrat for one of them if I wanted to. Outside of that, I asked him about things (like "can we cut a Birthing Pod") but mostly just trusted his answers (like "no, it’s the best card in the deck").
The list he suggested was:
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Wall of Roots
- 2 Reveillark
- 3 Kitchen Finks
- 2 Murderous Redcap
- 1 Ranger of Eos
- 1 Noble Hierarch
- 2 Viscera Seer
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 3 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
- 3 Deathrite Shaman
- 1 Sin Collector
- 3 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (23)
Spells (9)
I played that with a Cartel Aristocrat over a Viscera Seer.
From his previous version of the deck, Andrew cut a Chord of Calling, a Wall of Roots, and a Kitchen Finks for the three Voices and a Thoughtseize for the Sin Collector, which he was very optimistic about (rightfully so).
Before the tournament, I asked him about his sideboard plans, and he didn’t have a lot to say. He said he wasn’t sure how Voice of Resurgence would change things and that he’d never played this configuration so he wasn’t sure how to sideboard it, but I was able to get some useful information by asking more specific questions.
"Do you ever side out Birthing Pod?"
No, it’s the best card in the deck. Just bring in cards like Maelstrom Pulse if you expect permanents that shut it off, but they won’t have enough that it’s worth cutting Birthing Pod.
"Do you want Thoughtseize against fair decks?"
I figure out which cards I want in the deck and then fill in the rest with Thoughtseize. It’s a good card, but you don’t need it against them.
"What are the cards you cut most often?"
Against people with a lot of removal, just cut the combo—I never side out all of it, but -2 Melira, -1 Viscera Seer, -1 Blasting Station happens very often. Against others, where you need to combo, maximize that stuff and cut the expensive cards. Chord of Calling also often gets cut.
"Do you ever side out Phyrexian Metamorph?"
I don’t often play with that card in my deck.
"What do you do against Jund?"
Cut the combo and Thoughtseizes and bring in all your removal.
I felt like that gave me a good enough idea about what I was doing, but having never played the deck before, I was definitely worried that I wouldn’t know about proper Pod chains or something. Fortunately, that didn’t come up much early in the tournament, as I simply didn’t draw Birthing Pod. It didn’t take long to understand that the deck isn’t about complex Birthing Pod chains—it’s all just value and occasionally setting up the combo, but the combo is extremely straightforward.
I think there was one game where I could have tried to set up Phyrexian Metamorph + sac outlet + Reveillark + something useful, which lets you copy Reveillark with Phyrexian Metamorph and then sacrifice it, which lets it return itself and another creature, copy Reveillark, and repeat indefinitely, and instead I just got two Reveillarks, which was still easily good enough to win.
Mostly, I played against fair decks, and all I was trying to do was remove hugely problematic threats like Dark Confidant, Olivia Voldaren, and Deathrite Shaman and grind them out with creatures that generated card advantage.
My best play of the weekend was probably passing the turn with the ability to Chord of Calling for one rather than playing a Kitchen Finks so that I could get Viscera Seer so that when my opponent played Olivia Voldaren I could cast Murderous Redcap, hit Olivia for two, and the sacrifice Olivia to Viscera seer to finish her off. If I hadn’t been able to kill it right away, it would have gotten out of reach and almost certainly beaten me.
The deck felt very good, but Voice of Resurgence and Kitchen Finks definitely felt like the best cards. Birthing Pod wasn’t particularly impressive. I didn’t draw it often, which didn’t matter, and when I did draw it, I often just didn’t have time to put it into play. It seems weird to me given that that this is the right way to use the cards I liked. In the future, I’d cut a Birthing Pod and something else (maybe Blasting Station?) for the fourth Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence.
The Cartel Aristocrat was a mixed blessing. I lost a game against Alexander Hayne because I drew it instead of Viscera Seer when I was way behind and ended up one mana short of being able to play it and Chord of Calling to combo off—which was exactly why Andrew said he was playing Viscera Seer. On the other hand, it was outstanding against U/W/R, where it kept shutting down Lightning Helixes and Electrolyzes. It was also outstanding against Geist of Saint Traft, and I played a lot of games against decks like R/G Aggro where it got into combat a lot. Overall, it was much better for me than Viscera Seer.
Murderous Redcap was outstanding. It’s there to fill a role and let you kill someone with a combo, but I was generally pretty happy to just draw and cast it as a creature. This is largely because I didn’t have other removal and had to answer Deathrite Shaman and Dark Confidant. Speaking of, I know others play Abrupt Decay, which Andrew mentioned he wished we’d had in the sideboard, but I never really felt like I needed it main.
Moving forward, I suspect people who are interested in playing Melira Pod will start with Sam Pardee’s deck since he won the tournament.
Creatures (28)
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 1 Eternal Witness
- 1 Wall of Roots
- 1 Orzhov Pontiff
- 1 Reveillark
- 4 Kitchen Finks
- 2 Murderous Redcap
- 1 Ranger of Eos
- 1 Qasali Pridemage
- 2 Viscera Seer
- 1 Spellskite
- 1 Phyrexian Metamorph
- 2 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
- 3 Deathrite Shaman
- 1 Cartel Aristocrat
- 2 Voice of Resurgence
Lands (23)
Spells (9)
The differences are +1 Gavony Township; +1 Woodland Cemetery; +1 Razorverge Thicket; -2 Marsh Flats; -1 Dryad Arbor; +1 Viscera Seer; +1 Spellskite; +1 Qasali Pridemage; +1 Kitchen Finks; +1 Orzhov Pontiff; +1 Chord of Calling; +2 Abrupt Decay; -1 Noble Hierarch; -1 Voice of Resurgence; -1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast; -1 Reveillark; -2 Thoughtseize; -1 Sin Collector; -1 Blasting Station.
Cutting two fetchlands makes Deathrite Shaman substantially worse, but it also saves a significant amount of life. It definitely felt like the life can matter quite a bit in this format. He doesn’t have Dryad Arbor and has an extra Gavony Township instead. Neither is a great land when you need mana, and each provides a different kind of utility. I used Dryad Arbor a little, and I’d often forget about it and then wonder if I was supposed to have been doing something with it. With the four Voice of Resurgences I’d like to have, I’m pretty sure I’d want to keep Dryad Arbor to be able to pump the Elemental token with a land if I had to, particularly since people often won’t think to play around that.
There are a lot of ways to analyze the different choices made in the spells. Viscera Seer in Pardee’s list is taking the place of Noble Hierarch in the curve but Blasting Station as a sac outlet. Chord of Calling is taking the place of Melira in the combo but Reveillark in the curve. The deck can only play so many noncreature spells; Abrupt Decay is very much competing with Thoughtseize. I prefer Thoughtseize as a maindeck card because I think it’s better against more different decks and the information is very important when you’re thinking about going off.
He has Spellskite, Qasali Pridemage, and Orzhov Pontiff as bullets, and I don’t really think they’re needed. Orzhov Pontiff and Blasting Station kind of accomplish a similar job, but I don’t think either is important to have main. I loved Sin Collector, so I’d definitely want that as my first utility creature in these slots. Really, I just want fewer of these and more Voice of Resurgences. Voice has just been outstanding.
The sideboard is very different, and I don’t really like Pardee’s sideboard. Lingering Souls never really felt like what I wanted, while Maelstrom Pulse and Kataki, War’s Wage were excellent. I’m not sure about Dismember compared to Abrupt Decay. I might want both.
It’s interesting to consider the implications of a Birthing Pod deck winning the Grand Prix. Obviously, it makes it easier to consider it as a serious deck choice just because it speaks to its power level and provides strong evidence (given how it performed overall) that Melira is the "right" Birthing Pod deck. On the other hand, it also means people will be trying to beat it more.
I suspect that Melira Pod is a deck like G/B/W Reanimator in Standard where dedicated hate will not be particularly effective. It’s extremely easy to lose fair games to their random creatures if you overload on hate; however, the metagame could easily shift to attack Melira Pod.
Melira Pod felt good against decks like Jund, U/W/R, Infect, R/G Aggro, Affinity—basically other fair decks or creature decks—but it’s weak against bigger or faster combo like Tron, Storm, and maybe Scapeshift.
Moving forward, I definitely plan to play Birthing Pod again unless something big changes, but I’m definitely going to build it to focus on the creatures over the combo and the artifacts.
Voice of Resurgence is the truth. Standard, consider yourself warned.
Thanks for reading,
Sam
@samuelhblack on Twitter