Let me give you an example using a Splinter Twin deck. A pretty standard list will be U/R with the combo pieces and cards like Snapcaster and Vendilion Clique to gain value and beat down. One of the most interesting brews I've seen with the Splinter Twin shell is Turbo Twin by Cam Atkins from GP Richmond.
Wait! What does this card do again?
As a brewer, I love this build. It's part ramp into the combo one turn faster and part "WTF?!?" with three maindeck Commune with the Gods. Commune works great to dig five cards deep to find any piece of the combo. But there is a problem with this deck that I didn't notice at first. Mason "poggydude" had to point it out to me. Isn't Kiki-Pod just a better deck?
Kiki-Pod by Brian Liu (1st Place at Richmond)
This is what I mean by convergence. Kiki-Pod has everything that Turbo Twin has and more. It ramps with a bunch of one and two drops, it can find its combo pieces, and has a much more viable beatdown plan. Simply put, Birthing Pod is a better card and strategy than Commune with the Gods. Splinter Twin can combo off faster, but it is more susceptible to sideboard hate with no secondary win condition. What started out as a cool brew will ultimately converge in a Kiki-Pod list.
One of these is strictly better than the other.
Defining convergence is a little tough. It basically breaks down into a question, "Can I achieve the same goal but in a better, more consistent way without losing the original theme of the deck?" The theme could be aggro, combo, control, or anything really. It's kind of like comparing Lava Spike to Lightning Bolt, but on the scale of an entire deck rather than individual cards. Can another deck perform the same task, only better?
Convergence is like this...but on a bigger scale.
In fact, I think Birthing Pod is the biggest offender in terms of convergence, especially Melira Pod. After Jund's dethroning due to Deathrite Shaman getting banned, everyone speculated that the "Ajundi" (or Jund with white) would fracture into three different decks: traditional Jund (meaning no white), Junk (green, white, black), and Naya (red, white, green). Well, that really didn't happen. So why not?
Part of the problem is that Kitchen Finks and Voice of Resurgence are excellent value cards that can fight back against removal. Dark Confidant and Tarmogoyf are also good, but they die to one-for-one removal. If you decide to go the Finks and Voice route of value, you will converge to a Melira Pod list. I claim there is no way around it. Once you decide to build a deck using those two creatures along with black you're doomed to build Melira Pod. If you replace black with red, then you converge to Kiki-pod.
Good for value and good for attrition, which is where the slippery slope starts.
How did this happen? I don't know. Jund was an attrition style deck, meaning it wanted to trade cards one-for-one and win based on mana efficiency and card quality. The post-Deathrite Jund, Junk, and Naya decks just don't seem to have the mana efficiency or card quality now that the infamous 1/2 is banned. Most of those decks at least want to explore the use of Finks and Voices to gain card advantage, but it's hard not to go down the slippery slope from there.
Part of the problem is that the Pod decks have everything that everyone wants from a modern deck. Every deck wants an "oops I just win" combo that hits consistently on turn 4 or 5. Pod has that. Every deck also wants a back up beatdown plan so discard or removal or sideboard hate don't leave the deck with only half of the combo. Pod has that. Every deck wants the ability to repeatably tutor a one-of out of their deck so they can fight their way out of a tight jam. Pod has that.
So, how do you break convergence (at least with Birthing Pod)? Well, the unpopular answer is to just ban Birthing Pod. For the record, I think that is the correct answer. Once the PTQ season and GP Boston are finished, there will be much more data for the ban (or maybe against the ban). Although you can make the case for a power level ban, I want it banned because a lot of decks converge to it. If Pod is banned, then I think the metagame would really diversify into all of those Jund, Junk, and Naya builds that are part attrition and part value. I find that a lot of my brews are pretty good against the field but miserable against Pod decks. In short, I think the two Pod decks are holding back about 8 to 10 decks in the metagame. For brewing and metagame diversity, I would like to see Birthing Pod banned.
Of course, I could be wrong. You can disagree with me. But I would like to see evidence, too. Brew something up that won't converge to a Pod list. It would be a silly request to ask for a brew that's better than a Pod list, but after it's brewed look at it and ask some questions. Does it combo more consistently and faster than Pod? Can it combo at all? Does it have a back-up plan or alternate win condition? Is it better against hate than Pod? Why should I not just play Pod instead? Most decks can only answer one or two of those.
These are tough questions to answer. Most brews will fail. If you disagree, my only advice is to keep trying and keep brewing. Good luck!
If wizards ever focuses on a problem they *usually* can solve it with a card printing, which would create a richer format overall. I am dubious that this would be possible to do to jund because of just how darn resilient the deck was, but for melira pod it may be possible to print more powerful activated ability hate or more powerful anti tutor hate. Avenmindcensor is an AWESOME hate card that sorely needs an update since it came from an era where creatures sucked. Also it should probably be in red because red is hurting in terms of unique effects and would be a good crusader against pod decks with blood moon taking the helm vs melira and burn spells being rather potent vs the very greedy kikipod.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above, but believe that rather than hate, the solution to increase midrange diversity is to unban Green Sun's Zenith.
DeleteI could see a "red Thalia" effect for restricting searches. Something like 1R for 2/1 flash, players can only search the top four cards of their library. The only problem I can see would be how maindeckable the hate card is. That's where Deathrite Shaman was great. He was considered hate but he was always there game 1 (he was also too OP). I don't know if a "red Thalia" can make the main deck.
DeleteDeathrite has many other issues besides being solid maindeck hate. You could never ever ever be ahead when that card is played. It ALWAYS cost you a mana and a card to beat. You could bolt ot, that was your best option and even then you traded a card and a mana. Most other times you were trading even more, like with path to exile, or lightning helix. "Red Thalia" can lose you parity which is enough of a drawback. Also in a world with severely diminished search red thalia sucks, A LOT. In a world with diminished graveyard decks, deathrite is still absurd. These cards aren't even in the same plane of existence.
DeletePod is a very restrictive tutor in when you get to use it and what it can find. Chord is more expensive, but since it's so much more wide open, and an instant, it's the redundancy that makes the deck resilient. I feel we should ban Chord, not Pod. It's less interesting and lets the deck survive without forcing the convergence.
ReplyDeleteRegarding GSZ, I think Dryad Arbor would need to get banned if Wizards is to let GSZ into Modern. Its kind of the DRS situation in that GSZ is both a turn one mana dork and a great late game topdeck.
Brian, while Chord is good for the deck, I think Pod is just much better. Chord can be stopped with 1-for-1 removal while Pod generates incredible amounts of value turn after turn because modern doesn't have many ways to reliably remove it from the battlefield.
DeleteHere's another way of thinking about it. In a sense, Pod doesn't actually search for creatures. It searches out spells (in the form of ETB effects) that just happen to leave behind a creature residue. If there was a card that let you repeatably chain together tutors for instants and sorceries it would already be banned.
To be fair it does depend on the version of pod. In kikipod it is pod not close, but in melira pod there are serious arguments to be made for chord being the stronger card as many respectable players have debated which is better in that particular deck. Melira has better creature flood and the instant speed allows you to make life a total nightmare for UWR decks.
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