Unfortunate.
That is the best word I can use to describe the Modern format since it became a tournament playable format about 2 years ago.
I’ve always been an advocate for eternal formats, particularly Legacy, because of their large card pools and the ability to play any kind of deck and do relatively well. However, that has been far from the case for much of Modern’s lifetime.
I’ve always been an advocate for eternal formats, particularly Legacy, because of their large card pools and the ability to play any kind of deck and do relatively well. However, that has been far from the case for much of Modern’s lifetime.
Let’s go back to September of 2011, when Wizards of the Coast first announced the sanctioning of the Modern format.
“All cards printed after 8th Edition”, they had proclaimed, and while a good portion of the playerbase was happy to see this new format, many like myself were sad to see Extended bite the dust at the same time. Initially WoTC was going to continue supporting Extended, but since Modern became the “better version” of extended, they decided it was best to switch to Modern instead as the non-Legacy eternal format.
I remember the first modern tournament I ever attended. A few friends and I traveled to a tournament in Niles, IL where we could win a set of all 10 Shocklands. At the time, they had not been reprinted and were still anywhere from 25-50 a piece, and we were in it to win it. Since the format was so new, I decided to bring the best deck I had in my arsenal: Red Deck Wins.
At the time I was also playing RDW in Standard, and with the addition of cards like Flames of the Blood Hand, Lava Spike (as my 5th-8th copies of Lightning Bolt), Rift Bolt, and many more, it seemed like a reasonable deck to play in an unknown meta. It is important to note that this was one of the first large-scale Modern events that happened before it became a moderately popular format, so there were very few decklists around at this time that people could copy.
My Round 1 opponent shook my hand and won the die roll, and I was in for an interesting battle. After hitting him a few times with my Goblin Guides and burn spells, he was able to stabilize off of the back of a Kitchen Finks.
What happened next I’ll remember as the first time I got combo-killed in Modern.
He then proceeded to play Melira, Sylvok Outcast, and Vicera’s Seer. I was stunned. Infinite life with three creatures? Yikes.
He then proceeded to play Melira, Sylvok Outcast, and Vicera’s Seer. I was stunned. Infinite life with three creatures? Yikes.
This was one of the first times I had to play against a variant of what is now known as Melira Pod.
Here is just one example of a Melira Pod List (before the banning of Deathrite Shaman, sadly there have been few modern events since then):
Artifacts
Artifact Creatures
Creatures
Instants
Legendary Creatures
Basic Lands
3 Forest
1 Swamp
Lands
The deck functions as sort of a toolbox for creatures. Need to kill a creature? Use Birthing Pod on your 3-drop creature to get a Murderous Redcap. Low on life and need a way to close the game out? Gain infinite life by fetching up the Kitchen Finks/Melira/Vicera’s Seer combo.
The deck is incredibly versatile and has ways to answer every deck. It even has outs against countermagic decks by tutoring up Voice of Resurgence. I would say a fair share of players argue that Melira Pod is the best deck in Modern right now.
It is also one of the biggest reasons many players hate playing Modern right now.
Strangely, I have not lost many games to Melira Pod, but even so, I feel that the deck is one of the core reasons that Modern is near unplayable right now.
Legacy can handle cards like Birthing Pod because it has access to Force of Will and Daze, followed by decks that are just too fast to care about Birthing Pod like TES and ANT. Modern does not have access to these outs, and most of the other decks need amazing hands or really good luck to beat a deck that can answer your every move.
Is the answer to ban Birthing Pod? More than likely. Even if Birthing Pod is banned, decks like this could modify their lists slightly and then incorporate more copies of cards like Chord of Calling or Tooth and Nail to still combo off. While this may not be the best strategy compared to a Birthing Pod one, it still allows the deck to function on some level.
Is the answer to ban Birthing Pod? More than likely. Even if Birthing Pod is banned, decks like this could modify their lists slightly and then incorporate more copies of cards like Chord of Calling or Tooth and Nail to still combo off. While this may not be the best strategy compared to a Birthing Pod one, it still allows the deck to function on some level.
The other option we have would be to unban cards like Ponder or Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This would allow players to gravitate back to control-based decks that are generally designed around stopping midrangey decks like Melira Pod.
The truth is, I don’t know what the proper answer is to this problem. Perhaps WoTC will print a hate card in the next few sets that is aggressive enough or relevant enough to shut the deck down for a while in the way that Abrupt Decay shut down Enchantress in Legacy.
I do want to like Modern, I really do. There are so many great decks to play in the format, and the card selection is still quite amazing compared to Standard. The really sad thing is that 2-3 decks, namely Melira Pod and to a less extent, Splinter Twin, are oppressing the format and making it about playing those decks if you want to win. Hopefully something will change in the near future and if it does I will try the format again. Until then, I will continue sleeving up my Brainstorms and Delvers in Legacy.
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