Prossh's Pod

autonachobravo
Posts: 1
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by autonachobravo » 4 years ago

Decklist coming soon.

Once upon a time in modern birthing pod was banned due to Melira, Silvok Outcast interacting with a persist creature like murderous redcap or kitchen finks for infinite sacs to an outlet, in that case viscera seer. The deck was very reliable. This strategy has been alive in part in commander thanks to the bad mike (Mikaeus, the Unhollowed) decks. Part of the resiliency in the deck was the ability to easily tutor directly to the field and respond to removal through sac outlets.

Flash forward to the present and we have a plethora of recent printings that act as functional meliras. And with modern horizons we even recieved more persist creatures. This allows a consistent strategy for infinite persist wihout limiting our deck to one color like bad mike decks must. The abundance of combo pieces allows for a reliable combo that can use pod style tutors to increase it's reliability.

Why Jund? While white gives us options like juniper order ranger and kitchen finks it does not grant as good of options as green. Black grants great sac outlets and red grants our best melira option (more on that) and our best kill condition (murderous redcap.)

Why Prossh? Short answer: free sac outlet in commander form within ideal colors. Long answer: prossh synergizes with many other cards that belong to this theme. If you are unable to combo off quickly He can produce enough tokens so that you can feed one of the decks sac engines. This could translate into card digging, tutoring, or removal. Or you can throw up a wall of meat shields.

So essentially the core of the deck is made up of meliras, persist creatures, sac outlets and tutors that can find any of that and put it on the field. The plan was to build Melira Pod in Commander form.

MELIRAS:
Melira, Sylvok Outcast: cheap to cast, easy to tutor.

Rythm of the Wild: this is the best option. Rythm protects the combo from counterspells. The riot option allows for both infinite persist when choosing the counter but also enables a hasted prossh, allowing you to swing for infinite commander damage if your opponent leaves their skies undefended.

Grumgully the Generous: what block had zero human creatures? Well.... the same one with persist.

Bloodspore Thrinax: Although he usually requires a counter to work as a melira thanks to devour, persist creatures make great devour targets since they return and immediately lose their -1/-1 counter.

Renata, called to the Hunt: another creature we can tutor out with green sun's zenith, another creature that pumps the team, including tokens. Oh, and more infinite persist.

Mikaeus the Unhollowed: bad mike doesnt care if your persist creature already has a -1/-1 counter, giving him a little more stretch as a melira. Plus he can grant undying to most the deck which can be crazy with a sac outlet, such as getting extra land out of a sakura tribe elder or double treasure from a dockside extortionist.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest: the downside of him is you need two persist creatures that you must alternate in sacrificing to trigger infinite persist instead of just one. The upside is that he pumps any other creatures, including himself, to infinite size.

Path of Discovery: the downside is you need a nonland card on top of your library to enable infinite persist. However, you can usually set up a few explore triggers first, especially if you wait to play your persist creature and/or sac outlet. The upside is how far you can dig with explore while looking for that combo, especially since even tokens explore. Prossh alone will grant you at least 7 explore triggers, while cards like ophiomancer and tendershoot dryad grant explore on every players upkeep.


Persist Creatures:
Murderous Redcap: infinite damage with a melira and sac outlet. I tutor this card out more than any other creature in the deck.

Putrid Goblin and Lesser Masticore: two drops are nice as combo pieces, thank you modern horizons. The discard on cast that masticore requires is not usually a problem, and you can avoid it if you are returning it to play from the yard. Plus if your opponents have no idea what you are doing and you play these guys they generally chuckle and ignore you and your junk cards, hehe.

Puppeteer Clique: besides being a combo piece this can be another kill spell by pulling out all creatures in your opponent's yards for a massive alpha strike. This is especially nasty with grave pact or decree of erobus since you can kill n' steal everything they have in play as well.

Aerie Ouphes: This card is notable since it can soft combo without a sac outlet by self sacrificing, in addition to going infinite with a sac outlet. Even if the only combo piece you have is a Melira you can still clear out every single pesky flyer your opponents have in play.

Rendclaw Trow, Wingrattle Scarecrow, Lingering Tormentor, Thunderblust, Scuzzback Marauders: None of these are particularly fancy- but they get the job done. After all, the persist keyword is what we are after.

Free, Repeatable Sacrifice Outlets:
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: always waiting in the command zone with his kobold buddies, adds infinite commander damage into the combo mix if you swing with him.

Viscera Seer: one mana, infinite scrye on combo, this is the decks best sac outlet.

Carrion Feeder: one mana, infinitely big on combo, especially good if your melira is a rythm of the wild as you can haste it.

Sadistic Hypnotist: Making your opponents dump their hands is always fun. And even if you are not about to combo off there areusually enough tokens or persist creatures to sac in order to put your opponents into top deck mode,

Yawgmoth, Thran Physician: While he does cost life, the card draw is generally going to find you another sac outlet. Plus the removal is quite nice.

Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar: mana to set up the combo, infinite mana when you combo off.

Yahenni, Undying Partisan: a threat on his own that gets bigger and gets indestructable is nice.

Varolz, the Scar-Striped: I admit I have never used the scavenge ability. But it is a regenerating sac outlet. And gives us a sac outlet target for green centric tutors like natural order and green sun's zenith, my main reason for inclusion.

Greater Good: repeatable card draw and sac outlet. Great for setting up the combo if you sac a large prossh, korvold, etc. If the combo is enabled and the persist creature is power three or more you can loot the deck until you have the ideal set-up.

Woe Strider: repeatable viscera seer. Oh, and he is a nightmare monster with a, uh, pet goat.

Combo Tutors:

Birthing Pod: repeatable, effective. The cmc of targets is spread out enough that there will always be a target to fit the need. Puts target onto the field.

Eldritch Evolution: grabs nearly any combo piece on most sacs. Puts target onto the field

Pattern of Rebirth: tutor a combo piece and put it on the field. But at the risk of getting 2 for 1'd by spot removal.

Green Sun's Zenith and Natural Order: grabs a green piece only and puts it on the field, but there are options in that color for each combo piece. And if you are spinning your wheels on an infinite combo that lacks a kill condition they wont grab you a blood artist, but they will get you korvold, fae-cursed king who will happily draw your deck until you do get a blood artist.

Chord of Calling: grabs a combo piece at instant speed and puts it on the field. Easy to do with a bunch of prossh's kobold tokens, or the tokens from a card like tendershoot dryad, or just a board of creatures.

Survival of the Fittest and Fauna Shaman: ditch a card, get a card. Repeatable.

Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Edict, Vampiric Tutor, etc.: good old fashioned tutory goodness. Although the classics may not pod a creature into play they can also snag a birthing pod or rythm of the wild.

Sidisi, Undead Vizier: grab out anything, and it can be reused with graveyard recurssion.

Other Notable Pieces:

Blood Artist and friends: sometimes a combo is not quite enough. Blood artist, zulaport cutthroat, mayhem devil, and other variants will make it lethal.

Korvold, Fae-Cursed King: card advantage and lifegain on a threatening body. Credible threat without even getting the combo going.

Ophiomancer, Tendershoot Dryad, Dragonlair Spider: gives the deck more reach by creating plenty of tokens to repeatably sac, which synergize with the deck's combo pieces. Great if you are not ready to combo out yet.

Graveyard Recurssion: While the deck may lack a commited graveyard game, reanimation can be great if your combo piece is sitting in the yard. So while traditional animate dead spells are not going to synergize there are spells like lilianna, heretical healer and journey to eternity that have great synergy and are repeatable. And creatures that reanimate like phyrexian delver or Sheoldrid, Whispering One are great since they can be tutored onto the field if a combo piece is in the yard.

Grave Pact and Decree of Erobus: Great at controlling the field. And to a lesser extent Attrition can get some mileage out of the deck too.

The equipment I run is Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot boots to protect the combo. And Skullclamp works here too.

And running Green and Black grants access to great removal, which I think is mainly up to the players meta. I run Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, Pernicious Deed, and Maelstrom Pulse.

Mana:
I stuck with a reliable mana base, favoring mana fixing over utility lands. I also avoided lands that enter tapped as much as possible. This is a mana base that needs to be fast and reliable.

For mana ramp/fixing I choose sakurah tribe elder, viridian emmisary, deathrite shaman, etc. So I would have a body to sac as well as ramp. And of course the typical rocks like sol ring.


As mentioned I'll post my decklist soon. Although I did not use all the options listed, I thought I would mention them as options for players on a budget or if a players meta allows for flashier high costs. The deck can be run with a low converted mana cost, but the price tag goes up considerably.
I try to keep everything in the deck on as low a curve as possible since Prossh can function as much of the decks late game and some of the Meliras I run are 4+ cmc, the deck generally just functions without him the way I play. But he does become really good when games go long or on the occassion that you can cast him turn 3 or 4 and the combo is not set.

Any suggestions are welcome. Especially if you notice something I missed. Thank you in advance.

User avatar
benjameenbear
Posts: 1111
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by benjameenbear » 4 years ago

Sounds pretty solid, from what you've described. What removal options have you considered? Does Veil of Summer have a spot?

User avatar
RowanKeltizar
Firemind
Posts: 531
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: New Mexico
Contact:

Post by RowanKeltizar » 4 years ago

This is a really neat deck! Definitely takes prossh in a different but powerful combo direction. I would love to see a decklist.
WRBKaalia, Zenith Seeker - Certified Air Raid Material
WBElenda, the Dusk Rose - Drain and Gain
WRAurelia, the Warleader - Tokens/Equipment
URNiv-Mizzet, Parun - Controlled Burn primer
BRGHenzie, "Toolbox" Torre - Creature Feature
BRGSoul of Windgrace - Lands Matter
RGWGishath, Sun's Avatar - I'M YOUR DADDY
GWUBAtraxa, Praetors' Voice - Artifact Stax Beatdown
Budget Starter Decks
UBSygg, River Cutthroat
WU Shorikai, Genesis Engine
Image

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Competitive (cEDH)”