This card just screams combo at the top of its
lungs, doesn't it? Build your deck around a
chain of creatures, and work your way up one
link at a time? I have no doubt that I'll be
seeing Birthing Pod decks in my garage in the
near future.
But the Pod is a good card even in decks not
specifically built around it, as long as they
have lots of creatures. Chump block an opposing
attacker with a 1/1, and Pod the blocker to
trade up-- turning a chump blocker into a
upgrade. Game turned into a war of attrition?
Make your opponent's kill spells fizzle by
Podding them in response to get incrementally
better creatures, and with an Elixir of
Immortality or two, you can keep fueling the Pod
near-indefinitely. That 5 life off the Elixir
will really help too, what with the paying 2
life for the Phyrexian mana-- you don't have to,
but being able to use the Pod with only one mana
up is a big help. Creatures with
leaves-the-battlefield or enters-the-battlefield
help make the Pod even more powerful.
But if you use Birthing Pod in a deck that isn't
built around it, such as in Limited, make sure
you know what creatures you have at each CMC and
which ones are left in your deck-- you do NOT
want to activate the Pod and whiff.
So it's like Survival of the Fittest but with
more chances to interrupt the chain, or
Hibernation's End but you spend somewhat less
mana? Sounds pretty good to me. Both of those
cards were and are a lot of fun to play around
with, and Birthing Pod now extends the
opportunity to every color. It might be fun to
combine it with something that works while it's
in your graveyard, like Wonder or Glory. It
might be a little slow for high-level
constructed play, but the promise of a free,
uncounterable Primeval Titan could yet end up
being too much even for that scene to resist.
Today's card of the day is Birthing Pod which
is a four mana green spell or three mana and two
life for any other color that requires a
creature sacrifice to activate. As this
can only be activated at sorcery speed it
doesn't have as many applications as other
summoning tricks, but can be used more than once
and isn't as vulnerable as a creature like
Elvish Piper. A few creatures with
specific traits that weaken them like Triskelion
can work very well with this after most of the
counters are used up. Deck construction to
make the mana curve of creatures exactly one
mana above whatever might be in play is
critical. The issue is paying mana and
possibly life and the creature just to get
another creature that will likely have summoning
sickness, barring Haste, may not be worth it.
This card seems useful and could have some
serious combination potential, but as the effect
taps and there with the costs involved it just
doesn't have enough going for it.
In Limited the chances of drafting an
appropriate build to maximize the potential of
this are somewhat slim as it depends on exact
mana costs and your cards will be quite random
by nature. It can pretty safely be passed
in Booster and left in the sidedeck in Sealed
unless your pool just happens to include an
amazingly worthwhile combination.
Welcome to Pojo.com’
Card of the Day. Today we take a look at
Birthing Pod. Birthing Pod is a green artifact
that costs three generic and one green Phyrexian
mana, meaning either one green or two life, to
cast. Birthing Pod’s ability is: Pay one generic
and one green Phyrexian mana, tap, sacrifice a
creature: Search your library for a creature
card with converted mana cost equal to one plus
the sacrificed creatures converted mana cost,
put that card onto the battlefield, then shuffle
your library. Play this only anytime you could
play a sorcery.
Phyrexians are all about compleation. And if something is not
working, it should be destroyed and rebuilt.
Green Phyrexians in particular take Charles
Darwin’s theories about natural selection and
survival of the fittest to the extreme. If you
are weak, something else will eat you. So your
little 1/1 that you paid two mana for can be
consumed for a 4/5 Leatherback Baloth that costs
three, which could then be consumed to put out a
Phyrexian Obliterator, a 5/5 that costs four,
and so on.
Birthing Pod is sure to see some play, but more than likely
not make an impact on pro play out of the gate.
It may take some time, and proper combinations
before it makes its way there. However, Vintage
decks have a new engine to speed things up.
