Vannifar Pod: Origins

Are you tired of the standard metagame? Do you lie awake in your bed at night, trying to think of some way to beat a turn 2 Oko? Is your patience for limited Arena as empty as your deck after a double Merfolk Secretkeeper with Lucky Clover on the board? Well I have the solution: ignore all that, and play a really fun creature-based deck with a 4 CMC commander

I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t playing magic around the time Birthing Pod was a thing. It seems like some people love it, others hate it, but boy this deck must be fun in commander! Anyways I’m using the term ‘pod’ because that card made the concept of ‘podding’ into creatures a part of the larger MTG vocabulary. With that out of the way, this commander is incredibly fun! With it on the board, you can ‘upgrade’ your current board into anything that could be useful at the moment. The fact that you are not casting the creatures allows us to play around counterspells, as well as playing at instant speed and cheating out big plays and surprising combo turns. For those unfamiliar, here’s how it works:

The chain:

→→→→→→→

Vannifar has no limits to where she will go in search of perfection, and creatures under her command are quick to find this out. With her on the board, you are able to sacrifice another creature on the board in search of a creature with 1 more converted mana cost than the one sacrificed. Due to this, we filled our deck with creature that do meaningful things when they enter the battlefield, as we snowball our creatures from early game value into bigger and better threats.

If you’re looking for some actual quality content from a streamer playing this, my version was inspired by Noxious at twitch.tv/noxiouslive, you can see him piloting his deck and talking through his plays. This version is quite similar, with some key differences.

The ramp package:

Our deck allows us to cheat out creatures from our deck for no mana, but we are still in green, and we have some rather expensive cards that we might end up drawing. The usual green ramp package is here, with the addition of the Simic Maraleaf Pixie and Gyre Engineer as well as Risen Reef for its extreme value enters-the-battlefield effect.

The artifact package:

Our deck runs a few artifacts, for they have some surprising synergy in a pod deck. Corridor Monitor can untap our Vannifar to keep a chain going higher, while Crashing Drawbridge can allow our Vannifar to tap the turn it comes into play. Sorcerer's Broom will allow us to keep building our board as we sacrifice our creatures, and we will usually have plenty of mana to sink into it. Vivien's Arkbow serves as a backup way to get creatures on the board without casting them, as well as digging into our deck, and casting them at instant speed. Arcane Signet once again sees play because it is that good and The Great Henge will allow us to draw when we pod into creatures once its on the board. This is all made possible by Emry, Lurker of the Loch, which is a 3-drop to make up our chain and allows us to recast any of these artifacts once they are sacrificed or die after being turned into elks.

 The Vannifar synergies:

These cards make Vannifar's power really shine. Fblthp, the Lost is a classic in pod decks, Loaming Shaman allows us to bring creatures we sacrificed back into the deck to fill out the chain, and Yarok's Wavecrasher allows us to double up on some ETBs. Frilled Mystic is here because while we may not be playing Oko, we are still trying to win some games, and Guardian Project is a The Great Henge that cannot be turned into an elk! Shoutout to Biogenic Ooze for making out commander into a thicker, swoller elf-ooze. Wait, she's an ELF?? writes down "elf pod" for future reference...

The copycats:

These are our cheaty cheat cards that allow us to have up to 4 copies of any creature we would like. Spark Double can be podded for, Quasiduplicate is a double copy, and Repudiate // Replicate douples up as a stifle effect. Don't be afraid to counter some trigger or ability if you think it will give you the edge to win the game! 

The beef:

Every deck needs to win somehow, and our beef is here to help us deal with our problems by being strategically bigger than our opponents! Opponent has a planeswalker? Bring out a Questing Beast! Dealing with fliers? Cavalier of Thorns has got your back! Need blockers? Give your opponents a big tentacle hug with Mesmerizing Benthid! Whatever your needs are, Vannifar can get these big beefy boys out one by one, with the grand finale in our big angry piggy, End-Raze Forerunners.

The mana base:

The mana base in this deck isn't too wild. Castle Garenbrig will help us cast our big guys if we draw them, Castle Vantress can make good use of the ridicullous amounts of mana we can create, and both Fabled Passage and Evolving Wilds can activate our Sorcerer's Broom! Manabases are definitely not my strong suit, so if any of you feel like commenting any day let me know any changes you might make!