"Just pick your favorite card and two to three colors and build a deck around it." Simple advice on how to build my first EDH deck which led me to my first and favorite commander, Karador, Ghost Chieftain. Started off with a $100 budget and dreams of some cool Birthing Pod chains, and now we're here. The only deck I have never taken apart. <3

Pet Cards That Shall Not Be Touched:

• Birthing Pod, the card the entire deck was based around
• Knight of the Reliquary, because it's one of my favorite cards and land toolboxes are the bee's knees.
• Deadbridge Chant because of that art.

Interactions I think are neat:

• The Birthing Pod chain of Vile Entomber (get fatty) --> Karmic Guide.
• The Birthing Pod chain of Sunblast Angel --> Sepulchral Primordial.
• Perpetual Timepiece filling the graveyard and protecting it.
• Sigeki, Jukai Visionary filling the graveyard, ensuring land drops, and returning value cards to hand.
• Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord + Old Stickfingers, or to a lesser extent Fiend Artisan.
• The robust land package for Knight of the Reliquary to work with.
• Cycling lands and Life from the Loam churning through the deck.
• Cabal Pit being able snipe a surprising amount of commanders and value creatures.
• Grist, the Hunger Tide being castable from the graveyard.
• Pernicious Deed and the interaction with Sun Titan.

Est. 2012

> 9/28/2023 Update:

I still never play the deck. I needed to further de-tune it, so I made the decision to cut all of the hatebears and oppressive, repeatable stuff like Mindslicer, Aura Shards, and the excessive amounts of removal. Likewise, the one infinite combo left in the deck, while tough to assemble, had to go. I also raised the curve and took the deck back to its roots of wanting to be a Pod deck that just moves through the chain. With that in mind, I'm re-introducing Dimir House Guard to the deck as an extra copy of Birthing Pod, with a few other juicy targets like Greater Good, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, and Druid of Purification.

Out:
Aura Shards
Aven Mindcensor
Bane of Progress
Collector Ouphe
Endurance
Farhaven Elf
Gaddock Teeg
Kataki, War's Wage
Knight of Autumn
Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Mindslicer
Plaguecrafter
Qasali Pridemage
Revillark
Spirit of the Labyrinth
Blood Artist
Fiend Artisan
Dauthi Voidwalker
Remorseful Cleric

In:
Coffin Queen
Druid of Purification
Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Jar of Eyeballs
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Mirari's Wake
Old Stickfingers
Perpetual Timepiece
Sepulchral Primordial
Shadowgrange Archfiend
Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
Stitcher's Supplier
Sunblast Angel
Vile Entomber
Dimir House Guard
Mulch
Daemogoth Woe-Eater
Perpetual Timepiece
Braids, Arisen Nightmare

> 9/21/2022 Update:

I never play this deck any more. It's still too consistent for my playgroup, so I made the decision to remove almost all the tutors and re-tool the deck a little bit to add some cards I thought would be fun. In doing so, I was able to up the creature count by 6, which plays even better with Karador's ability and increases the value of any incidental mill or dredging I do. I did keep in Fiend Artisan, Knight of the Reliquary, and of course Birthing Pod as the only tutor effects left in the deck; the deck would not exist without my love of Pod, so it seemed only fair. As far as tutors go, Pod and Artisan are sorcery-speed, require another creature to be sacrificed, and can only be activated once a turn. Feels pretty fair.

Some other highlights:

• Pernicious Deed is a bit of a pet card and a great sweeper and rattlesnake card, so it was great to finally have room for that again.
• Been wanting to test out Meren as just a card in the other 99 for a while now, I think she has the ability to get out of hand quickly if not exiled promptly.
• I increased the amount of cards that will hate or slow down other players' gameplans (Kataki, Spirit of the Lab, Remorseful Cleric, Dauthi Voidwalker). I don't have many artifacts that Kataki affects, and they are all worth paying the tax for. Spirit of the Lab I think will end up being asymmetrical, especially if I'm able to sac it, draw a bunch of cards, and then re-cast from the graveyard. Voidwalker is great graveyard hate, and the ability to steal something and recast seems hilarious and abusable.
• Fleshtaker looks like good utility with the amount of creature sacrificing this deck aims to do, and I love the art.
• I noticed that I was casting Austere Command in the destroy all artifacts and enchantments mode the majority of the time, so swapping to a creature that gets around Gaddock Teeg and can be sacrificed and re-cast for value seems like a slam dunk there.

Out:
Entomb, Green Sun's Zenith, Demonic Tutor, Chord of Calling, Natural Order, Protean Hulk, Path to Exile, Vindicate, Austere Command, Saffi Eriksdotter, Zulaport Cutthroat, Misty Rainforest, Wooded Foothills, Secluded Steppe, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

In:
Grisly Salvage, Pernicious Deed, Bane of Progress, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Dauthi Voidwalker, Kataki, War's Wage, Remorseful Cleric, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Blood Artist, Fleshtaker, Bountiful Promenade, Undergrowth Stadium, Vault of Champions, Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth

> 7/15/2021 Update:

Duals back in because I'm a tryhard. Phyrexian Arena has been in the deck since Day 1, but I am going to try out Callous Bloodmage in that slot instead. With Karador and a sac outlet, I can still replicate the card draw function, but the added utility to exile graveyards or create chump blockers/food for Skullclamp is too big of an upside to pass on at least trying.

Endurance has proven to be insane in constructed play, and I think can be insane here as well. I have a high green count to keep it live, but the utility of being able to save my OWN graveyard from an exile effect cannot be ignored.

I typically balk at cutting lands, like, ever, but I feel like I have enough cheap ramp/fixing to be okay trimming one that comes into play tapped anyways for Grist, the Hunger Tide. Again, lots of utility here, and counts as a creature for my tutors, graveyard, and Karador, which is very cool.

Out | In
Llanowar Wastes | Bayou
Caves of Koilos | Scrubland
Brushland | Savannah
Phyrexian Arena | Callous Bloodmage
Remorseful Cleric | Endurance
Scattered Groves | Grist, the Hunger Tide

> 5/10/2021 Update:

Kind of re-embracing that this is my most competitive deck and re-adding a consistent way to combo off. I used to run Boonweaver Rebirth for a bit, but hated how off-brand Boonweaver Giant felt. Karador is all about creatures, not enchantments, so having an enchantment as a key piece in the combo never felt right. Protean Hulk is extremely on-brand, is easier to find with all my tutors, and if I'm enjoying the game or mistakenly picked a deck much more higher than the power level of the table, I can play it purely for value. Angel of Serenity is the natural cut here, occupying the 7-CMC creature slot of the deck.

Natural Order is another way to find Hulk, but once again can be a value play if I feel like it. And I've always wanted one. Eerie Ultimatum can come out, as the only time I ever really cast it was as a game-ender and Natural Order being a tutor for the game-ender fills a similar role. Blood Artist is swapped for Zulaport Cutthroat since Cutthroat does not target specific players, and so is a reliable finisher through players that have given themselves hexproof or shroud.

Deathrite Shaman was in earlier versions of the deck but I was disappointed at how infrequently there were lands in the graveyard to use as ramp, so I cut him as a dork and added Avacyn's Pilgrim or something in place. However, I'm looking for more utility cards that include incidental graveyard hate, and DRS definitely scales with the power level of the table (more fetches, etc.) so he's back in. Woe Strider is probably the worst sacrifice outlet in the deck, and with the addition of Hulk I've streamlined the process of ending the game a bit, so redundant copies of sac outlets are less valuable.

I worry that by adding Natural Order, I've added too many tutors to the deck, and I have been itching to get a copy of Knight of the Reliquary back into the deck as it's one of my favorite cards and I found the land toolbox to be more useful than I rated it back in November. Eladamri's Call is probably the worst of the tutors, so I think this is a good swap. If Natural Order turns out to be not as good as I thought it was, I could see cutting it to add Eladamri's Call back into the deck.

Out | In
Angel of Serenity | Protean Hulk
Eerie Ultimatum | Natural Order
Blood Artist | Zulaport Cutthroat
Woe Strider | Deathrite Shaman
Eladamri's Call | Knight of the Reliquary

> 4/22/2021 Update:

I need the dual lands to finish my Legacy deck, and I would prefer to be moving around the least amount of cards possible when I want to play different decks. While I definitely lose a few percentage points and fetchable targets, the painlands are a decent addition and while not fetchable, they at least never come into play tapped.

Out | In
Bayou | Llanowar Wastes
Scrubland | Caves of Koilos
Savannah | Brushland

> 11/22/2020 Update:

The land toolbox really isn't good enough to justify KotR, and I've been trying to find room for Greater Good for years. Seems like it's finally time to try it out. Sylvan Library got cut to go in another deck that it's a little better in. Aven Mindcensor is a nod to shutting down all of the Landfall decks in the format.

> 7/2/2020 Update:

> 4/10/2020 Update: