Birthing Death

Hello everyone! I am at work right now. We have been hanging out doing nothing for an hour and a half, and I have already read all the articles posted today on all the magic sites I have linked to on the right --->> So now, with an hour and a half left over still to kill, I figured I might as well get some decklists out of my brain and onto the page.

Spawning Shell Birthing Pod is a card that I was absolutely stoked about from the moment it was spoiled in the original wave of Japanese spoilers. This card is sweet because it lets you get away with having toolbox 1-ofs, and works double time with Fauna Shaman to quickly develop a Vengevine army, but Vengevine isn't the only creature in standard that recurses from the graveyard, I can think of 2 more off the top of my head: Kuldotha Pheonix and Bloodghast.

All three of these creatures have been seeing play in tier 1.5 decks for the past couple months with GW aggro (and Bluemanji), Big Red, and RB Vamps. As I was planning in my head what I was going to say in this post, Kuldotha Pheonix didn't cross my mind until I was finished typing that first paragraph, so I may not have much to expand on with Kuldotha Pheonix, but instead my focus has been centered on making Bloodghast go nuts! Blooghast is part of a superpowerful engine, for those of you who don't know, with either Viscera Seer or Bloodthrone Vampire + Kalastria Highborn to quickly drain opponents of all their life while still beating face with a bunch of bears. That engine has become less prevalent with new Vamp tech in the form of splashing red for burn and reach, but I want to propose going back to the mono-black version and make this combo our reach plan. Bloodghast can only tutor for a 3-drop when we drop it into the Birthing Pod, but Vamps has 2 fantastic options with Vampire Nighthawk and Captivating Vampire. I also want to add some New Phyrexia hotness besides Birthing Pod in the forms of Phyrexian Obliterator and Lashwrithe. I present: (M)B Aggro:

4x Viscera Seer
4x Bloodghast
4x Kalastria Highborn
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Captivating Vampire
2x Vampire Nighthawk

3x Birthing Pod
2x Despise
2x Inquisition of Kozelik
3x Dismember
2x Lashwrithe
2x Mindsludge

4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Marhs Flats
1x Forest
15x Swamp

This list is incredibly tight for space, but with a little testing I should be able to fine everything's sweet point. One thing I really think Birthing Pod + Bloodghast will help me do is to help build a board presence of Vampires so Captivating Vampire can start popping off like crazy and take complete board control. I think Vamps Pod can even be a deck in Extended if you make your 4-drop Vampire Nocturnus instead of Lashwrithe. You could make the deck much more aggro by powering out a monsterous black army. Note that there is speculation on a black theme for Innistrad, so keep Vamps Pod in mind when you read those spoilers.

So now lets go back to what I was thinking of before I came across Bloodghast: Vangevine. Vengevine is a 4-drop, so it can tutor up a 5 only. Some good ones are Baneslayer Angel and Acidic Slime. So we are also obviously going to add Fauna Shaman and Squaren Hawk, and Stoneforge is om nom noming on the format, so we might as well toss it in here too. Check this out:

4x Vengevine
4x Fauna Shaman
1x Acidic Slime
1x Baneslayer Angel
4x Squadren Hawk
4x Birds of Paradise
2x Emeria Angel
2x Stoneforge Mystic
4x Lotus Cobra
4x Mirran Crusader

3x Birthing Pod
1x Sword of War and Peace
1x Sword of Feast and Famine
1x Lead the Stampede

4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
3x Verdant Catacombs
3x Marsh Flats
5x Plains
5x Forest

This is another deck that simply looks to overrun the opponent ASAP. The main reason why this deck can even exist is because of the change in the Meta that has led to Caw-Blade completely cutting Gideon Jura from their 75 and most only have 2 DoJ in their sideboard. This makes the deck better in the mirror and also conveniently helps their Valakut numbers too. In turn Valakut has become much less popular, which was this deck's worst matchup.

And now finally I roll into choice 3 for a recursive creature to sac to the Pod: Kuldotha Pheonix. Being a 5, it can tutor up some sweet 6s, like Titans! Inferno Titan is where its at right now, so maybe we could use Birthing Pod in the Big Red deck that has seen some popularity. The deck usually doesn't have a problem with getting Metalcraft because it runs Sphere of the Suns and Everflowing Chalice, and now Birthing Pod is also an artifact that it can use to its advantage. Consider:

4x Inferno Titan
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Kuldotha Pheonix
4x Koth of the Hammer
3x Urabrask, the Hidden

4x Sphere of the Suns
4x Everflowing Chalice
2x Birthing Pod
2x Brittle Effigy

3x Volt Charge
4x Lightning Bolt
2x Slagstorm

4x Raging Ravine
4x Rootbound Crag
16x Mountain

I really like Volt Charge in Big Red as there is nothing better than ultimating Koth the turn after he comes into play by proliferating him right up. Urabrask is another card that I'm fairly excited to use, and from a financial perspective I think he could jump in value a lot, just like Inferno Titan did.

Birthing Pod is an awesome card that I think will be a serious contender in the future metagame. The trick to making it good is to make sure the creature that is dying has value beyond just dying. Other cards to consider are those like Perilous Myr and Occulus which have sweeet death triggers.

BONUS FINANCIAL UPDATE: Spellskite has recently jumped up from a 6 or 7 dollar card up to a solid 10. I think this is simply hype as it is a key piece to the Exarch-Twin combo, so it will drop back down to 6 or 7 soon, but this is definitely a card to keep your eyes on. Most people didn't even realize this was a $5 card, and those who did know that probably don't know about this new jump in price, so be keen and be on the hunt.

Anyways, that's all for now, my shift is ending in 5 minutes! Until next time, stay classy!