The Mana Pool

Episode 282 - Old vs. New: Hippie Edition

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:38:00 +0000

After a brief discussion about being the biggest idiot ever, the dorks head right into the Magic 2014 cards they showed the freakin' night after we recorded the last episode. It's just one per color, so it doesn't take that long. ZOMG Fish Illusion!

Then Mike and Brian tell us all about a PTQ they went to at Atomic Empire in Durham North Carolina. It's a great shop, you should check it out. If that's not funny to you, you need to listen to more Cluze. Just sayin'. Non-spoiler: Mike finished a game in such an amazing way that I can't even bring myself to type it here. Just listen.

After a musical break, it's time for the topic Chewie has been trying to do for a month now. We're taking a look at the various key elements of the guilds from the original Ravnica block and comparing them to the same elements in Return to Ravnica in an effort to determine which one is just, well, better. This episode we're focusing on the hippies of the Selesnya guild. So what's better, old weed-smoking hippies or new hemp-wearing hippies? Let us know what you think!

Magic 2014 Card Image Gallery: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2014coreset/cig
Red Hexproof deck Mike liked so much: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1251
Nostalgia Critic videos: http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – No Love by Eminem (ft. Lil Wayne) – http://www.eminem.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-282
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-282-old-vs-new-hippie-edition-t928.html
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Episode 281 - Look at All Those Previews!

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 02:07:00 +0000

We have an amazing episode lined up for you this time! We're going all the way back to the first Ravnica block so we can compare it to...wait, what?

Oh, never mind. There's an entire set of Modern Masters and a fair bit of Magic 2014 previews to discuss. So I guess we'll do that instead. Do enjoy!

There's also a pretty funny No Shyfts too. Here's that link: http://www.5colorcontrol.com/noshyfts/?p=611
Modern Masters: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/modernmasters/cig
Magic 2014: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2014coreset/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – Kick Some Ass by Stroke 9 - http://www.stroke9.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-281
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Episode 280 - New Legendary Masters That Are...Modern?

Sun, 02 Jun 2013 22:49:00 +0000

The dorks are back! After inadvertantly taking a couple of weeks off, we are back with a vengeance. Of course, there's plenty of big news that has popped up in our absence. Since Brian loves Maze's End so much, we had to talk about the Maze's End deck that did so well at Pro Tour: Dragon's Maze. There was a big preview of the rules update that is coming up in Magic 2014. Legend rules, playing lands, sideboards...all kinds of stuff. We cover it all.

Since we last recorded, they've started previewing cards from Modern Masters. So of course, we're covering the cards that Wizards has previewed. At this time this was recorded, only 3 days of previews had gone by, so there aren't terribly many just yet. Just wait for next episode though!

Maze's End PT deck - http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptdgm13/video10
M14 Rules Update Preview - http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/248e
Modern Masters Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/modernmasters/cig#
No Shyfts about Rob Castellon - http://www.5colorcontrol.com/noshyfts/comics/2013-05-27-Rob%20Castellon.jpg

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – Indestructible by Disturbed - http://www.disturbed1.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-279
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-280-new-legendary-masters-that-are-modern-t926.html
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Three Questions: GP Charlotte - Saturday

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:29:24 +0000

You've waited all this time, and now it is finally here...again. Chewie went to Grand Prix Charlotte armed with his trusty digital recorder, his wits, and spare batteries. After he stopped and bought them on the way. He and his fellow dorks concocted this edition of the Three Questions once they arrived in Charlotte, sitting in Buffalo Wild Wings actually. Once the Questions were decided, all that was left was to go out and hit the people over the head with them.

And hit them he did! This show represents those that answered the Questions on Saturday, which was Day 1 of GP Charlotte. You probably knew that from the title though. Judges, listeners, some of Chewie's local players, and big-name pros all heard the Questions and answered them.

Stay tuned for GP Charlotte's Sunday coming soon, and after that the GP Pittsburgh edition!

Music: The Journey Continues (Intermission) by Kazunaka Yamane (from Double Dragon)

Your host: Chewie
Twitter: @TheManaPool
Email: chewie@mtgcast.com

Three Questions: GP Charlotte - Friday

Mon, 27 May 2013 00:19:58 +0000

You’ve waited all this time, and now it is finally here. Chewie went to Grand Prix Charlotte armed with his trusty digital recorder, his wits, and spare batteries. After he stopped and bought them on the way. He and his fellow dorks concocted this edition of the Three Questions once they arrived in Charlotte, sitting in Buffalo Wild Wings actually. Once the Questions were decided, all that was left was to go out and hit the people over the head with them.

And hit them he did! This show represents those that answered the Questions on the Friday of GP Charlotte. You probably knew that from the title though. Judges, players, a Pro Tour champion, and a certain basketball-infatuated writer all heard the Questions and answered them.

Stay tuned for GP Charlotte’s Saturday and Sunday coming soon, and after that the GP Pittsburgh edition

Music: The Journey Continues (Intermission) by Kazunaka Yamane (from Double Dragon)

Your host: Chewie
Twitter: @TheManaPool
Email: chewie@mtgcast.com

Episode 279 - The Running Games

Wed, 15 May 2013 01:22:00 +0000

Bryan Prillaman steps in for our own Brian yet again this episode! Yay having a Bryan! On this episode, we discuss the announcement of Slivers in Magic 2014, Sealed Deck play in Duels 2014, a teeny bit of the Dragon's Maze Rules Update, and of course, the Dragon's Maze Event Deck. Man that's a lot of capitalization. Also, nipples on men. Yes, you read that correctly. When you went back to read it again, it was still the same. I apologize for that, I really do.

After a short but spirited discussion, we have to take our leave of you. But don't worry, we filled up more time! We've included the recording of the radio commentary for The Running Games that first aired on The Ocho Radio. Even if you already know which guild managed to navigate the Implicit Maze and win the whole shebang, you should still listen in for our crack observations and general hilarity.

Slivers in M14: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152787820210307.1073741829.201120755306&type=1

Doug Beyer's Sliver blog: http://dougbeyermtg.tumblr.com/post/49835902311/slivers-evolved

Rules update: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/244f&page=3

Dragon's Maze Event Deck: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1227

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - You're the Best by Joe Esposito - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Esposito_%28singer%29

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-279
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Episode 278 - Field Reports from the Dragon's Maze

Tue, 07 May 2013 23:22:00 +0000

It's prerelease time as Chewie, Mike, and Brian head over to Top Deck Games in Kernersville NC to take on the ten guilds of Ravnica! Brian's law-school buddy John was there too (as he tends to be when there's a prerelease), as was our old pal Robert Waycaster. We've got the handy-dandy ditital recorder and we're recording what happens just after it happens so you can get the full story without the passage of time to blur anything. Follow the dorks (the ones that survive, anyway) as they run through each round. Sometimes you'll hear from opponents, bystanders, store owners, crazy people, and assorted dorks too, which only makes things that much more fun! There's really not much else to tell here, so we hope you enjoy!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - You're the Best by Joe Esposito - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Esposito_%28singer%29

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-278
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-278-field-reports-from-the-dragon-s-maze-t919.html
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Episode 277 - So...Dragon's Maze?

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 18:26:00 +0000

Bill Bloodworth (@SqueeGoblnNabob) joins us again this week, this time in lieu of our usual green man, Dirk. The new baby caught up with him and he wasn't able to join us. The first part of the show is a look at the entire set of...oh wait, no. It's the Banned & Restricted list update, followed by a look at the the full Dragon's... Nope, not yet, then it's the Commander Banned list update. Sigh. After that, we move right into the Maze...oh. The maze of grief that the passing of Quinton Hoover left us in. That's really a shame, because his art really helped shape the early look of the game.

But then, after all that and probably some other stuff, we move right into the Dragon's Maze. The full set is now available, so we're gonna run through the high points. It turns out the high points are damn near every card we didn't mention yet...sorry about that. This episode runs a little longer than we meant it to.

B&R list update: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/244b2
Commander Banned list update: http://www.mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15735
Quinton Hoover's Magic art: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?output=spoiler&method=visual&action=advanced&artist=+[%22quinton+hoover%22]
Dragon's Maze Card Image Gallery: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/dragonsmaze/cig#

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Techno Syndrome (Mortal Kombat) by The Immortals

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-277
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-277-so-dragon-s-maze-t916.html
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Episode 276 - No Maze Puns Here!

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 04:37:34 +0000

We've got a full cast plus one this week, as Bill Bloodworth (@SqueeGoblnNabob) joins us to talk spoilers. You know, because we always bring Bill on to talk spoilers. I bet we bring him back next week too. But...it's just Dragon's Maze pretty much the whole time. So there's really nothing else to say here. We didn't even do final thoughts because we went so long! And that's pretty much it. I mean, there were a lot of spoilers. Like a whole lot. But yeah, we're done here. Stop reading. No really, go away.

Seriously, bugger off. Your girlfriend's calling you. Hahaha, just kidding, of course you don't have a girlfriend. Your mom's calling you. And your mom's on Facebook. HA!

Yeah, that was mean. Sorry about that, I'm sure you have a girlfriend. Or maybe you don't. It doesn't matter either way. Half of the hosts on this show are single. No shame!

Dragon's Maze Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/dragonsmaze/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Save World Get Girl by I Fight Dragons - http://ifightdragons.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-276
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-276-no-maze-puns-here-t915.html
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Episode 275 - A Small Handful of Dragon's Maze

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:20:32 +0000

Hey look, Dirk's back! He successfully populated, so now he has two little token dudes at home!

We start this episode off with what Brian assures us is quite possibly the most offensive Magic Mad Lib ever. Sounds awesome! We go from there to a brief discussion of a recent Standard tournament where a Turbo Fog deck got played! Also, I point out how Sexy Jake Humphries made the top 8 of a Star City Open. Aw yeah.

From there on, it's the handful of Dragon's Maze previews that had been revealed at this point. So I guess you could say we go pretty in-depth on them. I guess.

Also, there's a small life lesson at the end that everyone should take to heart. Just sayin'.

Dragon's Maze Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/dragonsmaze/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Requiem for a Tower by Clint Mansell - http://www.clintmansell.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-275
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-275-a-small-handful-of-dragon-s-maze-t914.html
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Episode 274 - News with Stybs! (and His Lawyers)

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 01:38:00 +0000

We are joined this week by none other than Adam Styborski! He's @the_stybs on Twitter. For those of you that don't know...what rock have you been living under? He's the (former) writer for Serious Fun on DailyMTG, the current writer of the brand new Commander column Command Tower on DailyMTG, he's on the text coverage team for Wizards, and he's all about some Pauper Cube. Oh yeah, he's the Content Manager for GatheringMagic too.

But he joins us this week to tell us all about Command Tower, how it came about, what you can expect, and assorted other things. Really, Stybs just talks on and on about whatever we throw in his direction for a good long time, and it was really awesome. You can REALLY feel how much he loves Commander as a format. He even brought a tear to my eye at one point. That could have been my roommate's cooking though...

After we had drained Stybs dry of his soul...I mean information...we still had PLENTY of news to talk about. Rather than list it all here and then list it all again down there...we're just gonna put it down there. Go look at all the nifty stuff we hit on!

News!
Duels 2014 - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1195
Leaked Cheevos - http://devinwatson.com/SteamSchema/213850.html
Duel Decks: Heroes vs. Monsters - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1202
Theros - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1196
Ruric Thar & Maze's End - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1197

The episode of Card Advantage w/ Mike - http://www.mtgcast.com/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/card-advantage/card-advantage-23-whos-got-the-fever

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Requiem for a Tower by Clint Mansell - http://www.clintmansell.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-274
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-274-news-with-stybs-and-his-lawyers-t911.html
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Episode 273 - Great Big Guest Star Episode!

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:13:00 +0000

We are eschewing the usual April Fool's nonsense this year here on The Mana Pool. Yes I know you guys look forward to it every year (except perhaps Shred Memory) but it really gets harder and harder to come up with new original ideas. So this time, instead of doing something weird (er than usual) we decided to just have a hell of a good episode!

It's guest stars galore on this one! At various points throughout the episode we had Cluze from Card Advantage (@lacluyze), Bryan Prillaman (@BryanPrillaman) from JudgeCast (and Avant-Card Show of course) and we even managed to dig up our old buddy Eric of Many Names (@EricMTGCast)! We even had Adam Styborski (@the_stybs) on, by virtue of a few off-the-cuff bumpers he recorded for us at GP Charlotte! We discuss everything from Prillaman's torried relationship with Claire (nonexistant) to what's REALLY under Mike's beard! Due to the completely bizarre nature of this show, there's not really a main topic exactly, just a bunch of dorks having fun talking about whatever there is to talk about! We hope you guys enjoy!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-273
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-273-great-big-guest-star-episode-t910.html
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Episode 272 - Story Circles for Everyone! (On the Show)

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 04:33:41 +0000

Remember the planeswalkers that the dorks made for each other a couple episodes ago? Yeah? Well this episode we're doing Story Circles to craft a deck around each of those dorky planeswalkers! Pretty awesome huh?

Of course, that's not all we're up to. Oh no. Brian rambles on about Modern just a bit before we get going (weird I know). We talk for a couple more minutes about the newest You Make the Card vote (at the time it was a runoff between land and enchantment).

At the end, we have another amazing rush of gratitude for a listener who, for reasons that continue to baffle us, sent us some stuff. And I'm talking good stuff too. Like damn. If you don't believe it, head over to this episode's post on TheManaPool.com to see the Nether Shadow alter he sent to Chewie. It's totally badassed. Thanks for everything Lou!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Make Yourself by Incubus - http://incubushq.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-272
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-272-story-circles-for-everyone-on-the-show-t906.html
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Episode 271 - The Half Episode

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:00:00 +0000

This week is a bit of a strange one. We're short one Lead Rambler, so there's (supposedly) a lot less talking going on. We're also running out of server space on our hosting site, because Chewie's a big idiot. Don't worry, all is well now - until he screws it up again. The way we fixed it, oddly enough, was to record this episode. With space running low, we realized that the best way to fix it would be to record a really short one at a slightly lower quality and then remember to make all episodes from here out slightly lower quality so they don't take up all the server space. Duh.

So with those two things, this episode is just some news and nonsense. We talk about the Introduction to Grand Prix video that the Walk the Planes guys did. Well, Chewie talked about it. You should totally go watch it, it's awesome. Then we hit the Sorin vs. Tibalt decklists and You Make the Card 4, along with a quick jaunt down memory lane for the last three YMTC cards.

And of course there's discussion of addictions (Chewie's playing Skyrim now), pregnancies (Dirk's wife is SOOOO pregnant), and assorted other nonsense. Of course, what strange episode would be complete without a look a little too deeply into Chewie's personal life? By the way, the Old Man is awesome. Like damn.

Intro to GPs vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiakR7NgtF0
Sorin vs. Tibalt: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/237b
You Make the Card 4: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/238

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-271
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-271-the-half-episode-t904.html
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Episode 270 - Do You (or Have You) Kid?

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 01:12:33 +0000

Wow, is this really the first episode we've recorded since GP Charlotte? In that case, we'll spend a few minutes looking back at the GP. We also discuss the whole Cockatrice thing for a couple minutes. Brian points out that what you should be doing is don't be moving. There's fake new babies, a list of accomplishments (Mike is a failure, sadly) and the admission that we're all tired. Like really tired.

But then we get into Dirk's episode topic! Each dork get a planeswalker created for them by the other three dorks! We take personality, play style, and whatever else we can think of into account when doing this. Then we look at the 'walker from a flavor perspective, trying to figure out who their planeswalker allies and enemies would be, and figure out what planes they might want to frequent. It's a lot of fun and actually, we ended up with some pretty good ones. In fact, if you'd like to see them, you should head on over to this episode's post on TheManaPool.com. The link is right down there.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Stronger Enough (Kelly Clarkson vs. Michael Jackson) by DJ Lobsterdust - http://djlobsterdust.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-270
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-270-do-you-or-have-you-kid-t903.html
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Episode 269 - On the Ground at GP Charlotte

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 06:15:02 +0000

So here it is, the long-awaited Grand Prix Charlotte episode! Chewie is there with the digital recorder, capturing everything just after it happens! Mike, Brian, Bill (@SqueeGoblnNabob) and JT (@NerdPop140) are basically always nearby, and Jonathan Harvell, Kevin Baldwin (@TaureanMauler) & his lovely wife Angie, and Lyall Alfred (@NewSpectrum) make guest appearances whenever they're nearby. We talk about our records, the decks we're playing, the people we've met, the Goldrush, funny stuff, stupid stuff, how hungry we are, how tired we are, and how AWESOME the whole thing is!

There are also a few special cameos, most notably Mike Flores (@fivewithflores), Adam Styborski (@the_Stybs), and...you know what? It's really late and I can't remember who was on this show and who was just on the MTGCast part. So you'll just have to listen to find out all this stuff. HA!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music 1 - Dare by Stan Bush - http://stanbush.com/
Break Music 2 - The Touch by Stan Bush

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-269
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-269-on-the-ground-at-gp-charlotte-t902.html
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Episode 268 - The Magnor Criol of Deckbuilding

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:53:00 +0000

On this episode, of course we're gonna talk about From the Vault: Twenty. I mean, duh. Then we go on into more esoteric topics. A listener known as Andrew Hunt (Magnor Criol on the forums) supplied us with six 60-card casual decks to talk about. And we do. At great length. These are really pretty cool. We go over each one, poking at the pros and cons, bouncing potential modifications off of each other, stuff like that. The links to the TappedOut pages are below.

Then we have a slight interruption. Jeremey Schofield (@J_Schofield) pops in to try to get money out of you! Not for himself, but for Chewie! Jeremey has spearheaded an operation to get Chewie a plane ticket to Grand Prix Las Vegas in June. If you remember, GP Vegas is going to be Modern Masters Limited, which is most likely going to be completely amazing. The GP itself is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever. So if you'd like to chip in and help, all you have to do is click here: http://www.gofundme.com/2309p0

*Chewie note: By the time this was ready to be posted, we had already reached the goal of $500! But if you still want to send in more, go right ahead. Any excess funds will be split between beefing up the prize pool for the raffle-type thing he's doing and the rest will be donated to the MTGCast Network to keep it up and running. Pretty cool huh?

Here are the decks in the order that we talked about them, feel free to follow along:

Shaper's Madness - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/shapers-madness/
Consumerism - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/consumerism/
Gloryscale Multifun - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/gloryscale-multifun/
Pointed - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pointed/
Infinite Murkfiend - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/infinite-murkfiend/
A Draining Experience - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/a-draining-experience/

From the Vault: Twenty - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1171

Be sure to check out the Cardshark 12 Year Anniversary Promotion!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Intro by Tosus!
Break Music - Top Gun Anthem by Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens (NES version arranged by Kyouhei Sada, Kazuki Muraoka, Kouji Murata, Unknown, courtesy of http://www.vgmpf.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-268
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Episode 267 - Erryday I'm Cycling

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 06:11:00 +0000

Wow, we talked about a LOT of stuff this week. We handled lots of it in quickfire, lightning-round fashion and you can find the links for those down there after these paragraphs. Doing the live episode from the Prerelease and having Prillaman on one week means we missed a fair amount of news. So even though it's not really news anymore, we still decided to weigh in with our opinions. Yay opinions!

What does YOUR favorite guild-flavored floss taste like?

The main topic, however, is something new. Yes, after more than five years of podcasting about Magic, Brian has managed to come up with something we've never talked about before. We're all very proud of him.

I suppose I should tell you what that is. There are a lot of cycles in Gatecrash. Hey, there are a lot of cycles in every Magic set. But outside of those cycles, there are a lot of really cool cards that stand alone. Well this episode, we decided to take a look at those noncycled (uncyclic?) cards and imagine what they would look like as part of a cycle. From Giant Vacuum to...well I'm sure we named some more, we made up some cycles that just seemed to work. Or that sounded like fun. Or that were completely ridiculous. Whatever it was, we were all over it. And it led to some fun and interesting discussions too, so we hope you guys enjoy it!

Be sure to check out the Cardshark 12 Year Anniversary Promotion!

B&R update: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/232
Extort in Commander: http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15321
Dragon's Maze buy-a-box is Render Silent: http://www.wizards.com/ContentResources/Wizards/Sales/Solicitations/2013_02_04_DGMBAB_Solicitation_en_US.pdf
DGM prerelease stuff: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1156
Guild letters: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1165

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - The Case for Mars from the Symphony of Science - http://symphonyofscience.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-267
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-267-erryday-i-m-cycling-t897.html
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Episode 266 - Let's Play Tag Like Adults

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 19:23:02 +0000

We're joined this episode by none other than Bryan Prillaman, one of our favorite dorks. You know, the mossy guy formerly on Avant-Card Show and now JudgeCast. We really love that guy. And our own Brian got sick and died, so we had to find a replacement at the last minute. And since it was last minute, this episode is all over the place. We did cover a few important things though, so let's list those:

-Missed triggers policy update: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/233
-Gatecrash Event Decks: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1161
-Gatecrash Intro Packs: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1152

Yeah, that's all the important stuff. Now for some unimportant stuff that you will be far FAR more likely to remember:

-Children are plague factories
-Judge tag
-The baby on the meat hook twitched
-Condescending Charm, coming in Dragon's Maze

Man I've missed Prillaman. Check out the picture for this post on the website, it's him. Man he's a goober.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Psychosocial Baby by Isosine (Mashup of Slipknot's "Psychosocial" and Justin Bieber's "Baby")

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-266
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-266-let-s-play-tag-like-adults-t894.html
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Episode 265 - Gatecrash Prerelease Live

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 05:49:00 +0000

Yes you read that correctly! The dorks venture forth into the long dark of Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro NC to bring you field reports straight from the Prerelease! Actually it's quite well-lit in there, but that wouldn't have sounded anywhere near as cool. But yes, Chewie brought his Tascam DR-08 recorder with him to catalogue everything we did while we were there. Well, maybe not everything. I mean, he didn't take it to the bathroom or to McDonald's with him. Okay he did, but he didn't use it at those two places.

Anyway, Prerelease. With a Simic, an Orzhov, and two Boros players in our crew, somebody was probably going to do well. And they did, but you'll have to listen to find out who and how good. Or just, you know, pay attention to the forums and Twitter and stuff. Whatever. We discussed how rounds went, talked to other players, got a few good stories, and had an all-around good time. So give it a listen and let us know what you think, since this is the first time we've done this.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - various NES soundbites courtesy of The Videogame Music Preservation Foundation - http://vgmpf.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-265
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Episode 264 - Stark Raving Mad

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:47:00 +0000

We are joined this episode by a VERY special guest, Graham Stark from LoadingReadyRun! Graham, who is a very funny fellow it turns out, hangs out with us for the first half of the episode. We talk about what LRR is, Magic, having a real job, drafting, Magic, Gatecrash, Guilds, and more Magic. Probably some other stuff too, it's been a while since we actually recorded this one.

After Graham takes his leave of us so he can go be funny on camera and stuff (definitely a rough life), we turn our sights to the full Gatecrash set. We take a look at some cycles that have been revealed or fully fleshed out, check out some reprints, hit the last of the mythics, and generally just go over anything that looks cool. We hope you enjoy!

Follow Graham on Twitter: @Graham_LRR

Check out LoadingReadyRun at.... http://www.loadingreadyrun.com

Watch the Friday Nights series: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/936

Gatecrash full set: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/gatecrash/cig#

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Airbase by Anamanaguchi - http://anamanaguchi.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-264
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Episode 263 - Slimy Hat Salesman

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 04:34:00 +0000

This episode had a great many possible titles to pick from. Here are two of the ones I didn't choose: Five Alarm Fire, How Much Mustard Did They Have? And that's why I love this game.

We're joined this week by our old friend Bill Bloodworth, who is Kurai_Seraphim on the forums and @SqueeGoblnNabob on Twitter. It's almost a tradition to have him here with us when preview season hits, so why change things now? We talked a little bit about the GTC Event Decks (there's only a little bit of info, after all), and a fair amount about the tokens in Gatecrash. And from there, it was all spoilers. Yeah, there were a lot. So...we hope you enjoy!

Gatecrash Spoilers
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/gatecrash/cig

Gatecrash Event Decks
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1146

Gatecrash Tokens
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1147

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Lap Dancing Lady by Tony Ferrino

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-263
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-263-slimy-hat-salesman-t885.html
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Episode 262 - Uncommon Fish Mutant

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 03:54:00 +0000

This episode we are joined by none other than Dr. Science himself, Cluze! He did a Magic Mad Lib with us, which is always fun. Before that, we talked about a bunch of announcements and news and stuff. No really, look at all these announcements and news and stuff we talked about! Well, the links are down there somewhere. I'm sure you'll find them.

Then we hit the Gatecrash previews, of course. That's why you're all here, after all. And we went on about them. And on. And then on some more. Holy crap, the second part of this episode was as long as a normal episode! But we were definitely thorough, and took at least a glance at everything that had been spoiled up to that time. So sit back, enjoy, and let us know what you thought.

Follow Cluze on Twitter @lacluyze - he's a pretty cool guy. Then go listen to him over at Card Advantage while you're at it.

Magic 2014
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1141

Fan Kits
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1142

Duels 2013 Deck Pack 3
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1143

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - The Black Gate (from Return of the King) by Howard Shore - http://www.howardshore.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-262
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Episode 261 - Crashing All the Gates

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 03:55:26 +0000

We begin this episode short one host, but don't worry about him. He'll show up in the nick of time. Brian gives us his take on last episode, throwing out ideas for Hellsing seen through the lens of Magic cards. Then he and Chewie tell us about some of their experiences with the Return to Ravnica Booster Battle Packs, or whatever they're called. But of course, that's not why any of you are here, is it?

Yes, we're going to hit each and every Gatecrash card that had been revealed when we recorded this. And holy crap there were a lot of them. From the first five that revealed the new guild mechanics all the way down to everyone's favorite planeswalker bro, we're taking a look at them all. And be sure you stay tuned until the very end, because we have some information about playing Extort cards in EDH that came all the way from a high-level judge.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Gates of Love by Bang Camaro - http://www.bangcamaro.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-261
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Episode 260 - Giant Chicken Token

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:08:00 +0000

Chewie got a 2013 Holiday Card! That's the good news. The bad news is that Brian was having technical difficulties, causing some serious feedback problems. The majority of them were edited out, so just trust us that they were absolutely worse than you can hear. There is also another of Brian's on-theme Magic Mad Libs. Yay Mad Libs!

But this episode is more than problems and a Mad Lib. This one is another of those free-form rambling discussions with no real point or purpose other than to entertain our thousands of listeners across the globe! Or...at least the American ones, in this case. Roughly a year ago, we did Episode 205 - Would Solid Snake Have Shroud? It was jolly good fun, so Brian thought we should do it again. But instead of looking at video games through the lens of Magic cards, this time we're doing television shows! Shows we enjoy, shows we've seen, or just shows we think might work well with Magic. If you have any ideas or suggestions for shows, then hit the forums or leave a comment on the site. Hope you enjoy!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Cheers Theme by Gary Portnoy

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-260
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Episode 259 - Tundra Wolves Man 13

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:48:00 +0000

Man, this episode is all over the place. We have a Cardshark promotion to tell you about, first and foremost. If you want a shot at winning the five best planeswalkers in Standard, you should definitely pay attention. Here's the link, in case you can't pay attention:
http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Default.aspx

Then, we hear from a Russian listener. We've been at this a long time (over 5 years now in fact) and that might be a first. How cool is that?

Then we have another Magic Mad Lib. If you thought last week's was funny, then you've got to hear this one. Featuring 100% less singing (thank goodness), this Mad Lib might be Chewie's favorite ever. No kidding. The follow-up discussion was also some top-notch stuff.

"What are the monkey people called?" - Dirk

The rest of the episode (yeah, all that was only like a quarter of it at most) is taken up by our responses to two listener emails. Tony Mendolia (who never fails to tell the world about our new episodes on Google Plus, even though we've pretty much given up on it) asks us a question about saving sets of commons and uncommons for his kids. This was a really good discussion, plus it gave Dirk a chance to weigh in with some serious mic time!

The second half of the show is all about Ravnican flavor. More specifically, the storyline of Return to Ravnica. Andrew from CO in LA (confusing, innit?) wanted to know about it, since he wasn't exactly sure what was going on. We ended up going over everything we know, or think we know, and connecting as much of it as possible to the original Ravnica storyline. Another good discussion, and another satisfied listener (in theory anyway, since we didn't exactly run it past him ahead of time).

Hope you all enjoy, and try not to get stabbed in the uterus. Just sayin'.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Youth of America by Birdbrain - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdbrain_%28band%29

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-259
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Episode 258 - Into the Red Zone

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 01:35:00 +0000

We are joined this week by Calvin Russell, also known as Captain Red Zone, from the Off Color Cast. If you've ever listened to that show, you'll know that he has a tendency to sort of run off at the mouth and end up talking to himself, which is perfect for our show! We initially brought him on to talk about battle strategies or something, and he did...at first. It was thoroughly entertaining though, so we hope you guys enjoy it as much as we did.

That's not all though! Before we cut Calvin loose, we had a lot to do. Chewie spoke for a bit about Grand Prix Charleston, because believe it or not this is the first time we've recorded since then! Incidentally, have you heard about playing Magic with The Stack? It's pretty freakin' great. There's a bit of news, with Duels 2013 getting a new deck pack featuring Orzhov and Gruul decks. Also, there's a recent rash of card shop robberies in central California. If you're out that way, beware.
Off Color Cast: http://www.offcolorcast.com
Calvin during the GP stories: http://i.imgur.com/tCp90.gif
Duels 2013 Deck Pack #2: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1118
Central California card shop breakins: http://www.kmph.com/story/20269093/thieves-target-game-shops-steal-magic-cards

Oh we're not done yet! Brian had a very special (and ESPECIALLY HILARIOUS) Christmas-themed Magic Mad Lib. Seriously, this one was great. Not just because of the Mad Lib itself, but because of the circumstances surrounding it. I mean damn.

And if you manage to make it all the way to the end, you can hear Chewie being not gracious at all as he thanks a few listeners for their generosity as well as Dirk complaining about his students. That last part is pretty funny. I'm just sayin'.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Warp Zone Music from Super Mario Sunshine
Calvin's New Jam created by Andy of CommanderCast fame, used with Chris's permission. Sorta. Whatevs.

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-258
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Episode 257 - Go Vacuum (Live)

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 01:38:36 +0000

Hey look, another live episode already! Yeah, it turns out that the week after the week we took off due to Thanksgiving, Brian decided to go to Disney World and forget to remind us. We determined that he was missing...about an hour or so before starting. Since having Brian around was pretty essential for the topic we had in mind, we panicked. Thus, I bring you the live episode we recorded just last month!

We start off with a nice and sorta quick Commander game. Then we have a particularly brutal (and therefore short) Archenemy game played with 60-card casual decks.

Of course, we can't have two short games without having one stupidly long one. Taking up fully half of the unedited time, we played a game of Planechase. If I remember correctly...nope, I don't. I've blocked it. But don't worry, this game isn't actually all that bad. This definitely wasn't the worst game we played that day. Hope you enjoy!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music 1 - Flash Man from Mega Man 2 on the Nintendo Entertainment System
Break Music 2 - Dust Man from Mega Man 4 on the NES

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-257
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-257-go-vacuum-live-t871.html
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Limited_Resources_158

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:25:02 +0000

The latest Limited Resources, posted here because MTGCast is full, and because Marshall is such a great guy that I finally got to meet. Also, Jon Loucks is SUPER dreamy!

Episode 256 - Don't Stop Living In the Red

Thu, 22 Nov 2012 02:31:00 +0000

We begin this episode by giving a quick rundown of the last EDH game that we played at Brian's house a few weekends ago. It was glorious, and terrible, and bizarre, and epic, and ridiculous. Yes, all those things. Consecutively or concurrently, it doesn't matter. Then we have to tell you all about the crazy first game we played that weekend. It was not an ordinary game of Magic, and it involved yet another of Brian's crazy inventions. I'm sure you guys will enjoy it though, I know we did.

Mad Lib! Your filth has freed us!

Then we come to the good part. There were some SERIOUS internet connection issues going on here. We invited our old friend Professor J onto the show! TheJaceKid. Jace. Javier. He's almost on par with Eric here, holy crap! The problems were pretty bad, but we soldiered through to give you a big discussion about the color Red in multiplayer. We touched on lots of the big things Red can do, and why that does or does not work in multiplayer. Of course, the discussion is a bit fragmented due to the constant dropoffs, but I think it's still good. Be sure to follow Professor J on Twitter @JacevBeleren

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Red Tide by School for Heroes - http://www.myspace.com/schoolforheroes

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-256
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Monday Night Magic #337 - The GP Charleston Episode

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:48:24 +0000

Episode 255 - The Unintentional Star Wars Episode

Tue, 13 Nov 2012 04:58:54 +0000

On this episode, we end up talking a lot about Star Wars. Yeah, Disney bought LucasArts, or LucasFilm, or whatever the big thing is named and that's what kicked it all off, but we just went on about it for way too long. We're dorks, we can't help it. We also did another Magic Mad Lib, because they're entirely too much fun and we can't help ourselves.

Then we got into the meat of the episode. We each ranked the guild mechanics of Return to Ravnica in terms of multiplayer usefulness. Of course, as always happens when all 4 of us do something like this, we got VASTLY different results. I love it. So of course we have to discuss (argue) about each mechanic and why this one is better than that one. It's a good one as usual.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Duel of the Fates by John Williams - http://www.johnwilliamscomposer.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-255
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Episode 254 - Planechasing and Stuff Live

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 01:40:22 +0000

So here it is, the long-lost live episode of The Mana Pool! Well, not so much long-lost as recorded-and-not-needed. We recorded this way back in late June when Chewie, Mike, and Brian all got together to play some Magic. Dirk was all up in Denver and stuff at the time. So we played some Planechase, some EDH, maybe some other stuff? I don't know, we're all learning this together. There's never much to say with a live episode, so I hope you guys enjoy!

Also, don't forget that Chewie, along with his Monday Night Magic cohost Jack, will be at Grand Prix Charleston gunslinging! That's November 16, 17, and 18! Here's the link:
http://phoenixgamesinc.com/calendar/icalrepeat.detail/2012/11/16/1455/-/mtg-grand-prix-charleston

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music 1 – Korobeiniki by Ozma - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozma_%28band%29
Break Music 2 - Double Dragon Stronghold by The Minibosses - http://minibosses.com/
Break Music 3 - Who Do You Voodoo, Bitch? by Sam B - http://deadisland.deepsilver.com/dead-island/deadisland.php

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Episode 253 - Modern Multiplayer Masters

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 04:30:46 +0000

This episode is brought to you by: Bling!

We recorded this episode the night before the full reveal of Commander's Arsenal, so forgive us the lack of all the details. I do, however, believe that most of what we discussed still applies, so just listen to the episode. We have a nice big discussion about price points, and Commander, and greed, ballin' & flossin' and...I dunno, white people? It's been a few days, give me a break. Here's the entire Commander's Arsenal though, we'll get to it next episode.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/218c

Also, here's the article on CommanderCast that Chewie mentioned:
http://www.commandercast.com/generally-speaking-32-commanders-arsenal-not-actually-for-commander-players

From there, we went on to the Modern Masters announcement. More price points, greed, ballin' & flossin', and white people, this time with a Modern bent. Ballin' I say!
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/218

This led us quite naturally into a multiplayer version of Modern Masters. So we dug through Gatherer and found a whole lotta buncha Modern-legal cards from the Modern Masters reprint pool that we just LOVE for group games of Magic! Let us know what we missed!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Mo Money Mo Problems by The Notorious B.I.G. featuring Mase & Puff Daddy

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-253
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Episode 252 - Rotated (and Touched)

Mon, 22 Oct 2012 02:39:19 +0000

As we tend to do with every Standard rotation, we're going to take a look at all the things that we won't be hearing about any more. Scars of Mirrodin, Mirrodin Besieged, New Phyrexia, and Magic 2012 are all gone, and that means no more Titans, Infect, Elesh Norn, Bloodthirst, Heroes, Slagstorm, Ponder, Swords, and ALL KINDS of other stuff!

To help us out with this discussion, we brought on everyone's favorite podcaster, Chris Lansdell (@lansdellicious). And I'm glad we did, because this show was entirely too much fun.

You may notice a very small difference in the intro. That's all for you, Myke Okuhara!

Oh yeah, be sure you hang around until the end. Trust me on this one.

Chris Lansdell on Mana Deprived: http://manadeprived.com/author/chris-lansdell/
Grand Prix Charleston Information: http://phoenixgamesinc.com/calendar/icalrepeat.detail/2012/11/16/1455/-/mtg-grand-prix-charleston

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – The Touch by Stan Bush - http://stanbush.com/

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Episode 251 - Prerelease! (I'm Out of Control!)

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 00:26:37 +0000

Hey look, we're finally gonna talk about the Prerelease! Oh shut up, it was worth the wait to have Squanto on episode 250 and you know it. As you may know, ALL FOUR of the host dorks were at the Return to Ravnica prerelease! Dirk (of all people) even did TWO! We had Azorius, Rakdos, and Golgari represented at the one we all did together at Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro, NC. How'd we all do? Well you're gonna have to listen for that one, aren't you? And that's the majority of the episode, of course.

That's not all though! We also took a look at the new Standard now that RTR is available. Of course this isn't anything in-depth or even useful, we just wanted to poke at it and see what's changed. My old favorite Kamikaze deck is still alive and kicking, in three different major variations!

We also have major problems with time dilation, time slipping slipping slipping, into the future, and Time Reversal being more than just a card.

Also, I got a ridiculously awesome gift from Wizards of the Coast and 360 Public Relations, and I have to take my final thought to explain it and thank everyone that might have had anything to do with it! It's a Tablet of the Guilds print signed by a bunch of RTR's Design and Development team members! Holy crap! You can click on the link down there that says "This episode's post" to see the picture!

Also, I reveal the source of all my power!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Release! by Timbaland - http://www.timbalandmusic.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-251
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Episode 250 - The State of the Game

Mon, 08 Oct 2012 01:59:30 +0000

Here we are at another milestone episode for The Mana Pool! It's been almost five years since we started this little show (that's another milestone for next month), and it's been a blast! Lots of things have changed over the years, most notably our lineup. Originally, the show was going to be Chewie and whoever he could track down to record with him any given week. As we went on, the lineup settled into the four dorks that you all know and love, but we did have one other regular host back in the day. He was responsible for MANY of the early topics for the show when we had no idea what to talk about. He was our resident noob and minority. Of course I'm talking about none other than Squanto!

Well I tracked him down (gave him a call) and convinced him (asked once) to come back for the big two-five-oh. Since he's still a Magic player (thanks to Duels of the Planeswalkers on the iPad), he agreed! He's taking an outsider's viewpoint on the game, picking our brains on the current state of the game and where it's heading. We touch on tournaments, Magic Online, Duels of the Planeswalkers, the secondary market, media coverage, and really anything else we could think to include! It was a really great discussion and we're all really happy to present it to you as our 250th episode!

But that's not all! We also took a look at the Banned & Restricted List update that we missed a couple weeks ago (weird, I know). We give you the rundown on the Return to Ravnica Event Decks, which were just released last week. We go back to Magic nonsense to trash on the various Magic novels and thank goodness that they decided to just not release one rather than releasing straight crap.

B&R List Update: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/09202012a
RTR Event Decks: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1071

Of course, we go off topic a few times, Chewie is tormented by a couple flies in his room, Brian's sister is hot, Mike's beard is epic, and Dirk is replaced with Robot Dirk. Basically everything's about where it should be. Thanks for listening, and here's to another 250!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Swell Guy by Swift

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Episode 249 - Return of the Ravnica or The Guildpact Strikes Back

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:35:42 +0000

The full set has been revealed, so we have to spend a nice long time talking about it! You've come to expect this though, right? All the shows out there are doing it, man. Of course, we've been doing it longer, but that's beside the point, right?

But we're not going to start out with the awesome new stuff, no no. We have to go back to the Commander banned list update, because we missed something the first time around. Here's a link so you can follow along:
http://www.mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12253

The Intro Packs for Return to Ravnica have been revealed, so you should probably check those out too. They seem pretty good with just a cursory glance:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1067

Also, our resident Rules Guy gets blue-balled by a less-than-interesting Rules Update:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/214b

And of course, the full set for RTR is here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/returntoravnica/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – A Kind of Magic by Queen - http://www.queenonline.com

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Episode 248 - The Rules Guy Gets Busted!

Tue, 25 Sep 2012 04:12:29 +0000

Yup, it's more Return to Ravnica previews! You know it, you love it. Or maybe you just tolerate it. I know we do! Here's the link:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/returntoravnica/cig#

We also talked about these expensive guild shirts:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/213

And this No Shyfts comic:
http://www.5colorcontrol.com/noshyfts/?p=467

And we talked at length about the Escapist Expo tournament, which is pretty cool. Chewie and Bill finished in the top 16, and Mike had a serious, SERIOUS problem. No, I mean it. I'm not even playing, this was really bad. But you'll have to wait until the end of the episode to hear all about that! HA! That's called a teaser.
http://www.escapistexpo.com

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic by The Police - http://www.thepolice.com/

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Episode 247 - Stack of Pancakes!

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:22:38 +0000

Look, it's really late. You're getting this episode really early because I'm going to be at the Escapist Expo all weekend. Mike and I were up way too late getting our respective decks for the big Saturday tournament up and running, then I had to go ask the hot nurse upstairs if she had a needle to help me get this MASSIVE splinter out of my hand. Seriously, you guys should have seen it, it was crazy. So now it's 3am and I still haven't finished posting this. But you don't care about any of that, you just wanna know what we talked about don't you?

First off, Mike and Brian told us all about their experiences at the Magic Celebration, which was pretty awesome. Then we had to...let's say discuss. We had to discuss the fact that the Prerelease cards are the same as the Intro Pack rares. See?
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1057

From there, it was pretty much just all previews all the time. We covered everything that we could find that had been officially spoiled. I wonder what they'll come out with next? Probably a stack of pancakes!
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/returntoravnica/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Be Water My Friend (Bruce Lee) by Melodysheep - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ud-AUboZl3A

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Episode 246 - Return to Ravnica, Address Unknown

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 16:53:07 +0000

Yup, it's preview time again! We are returning to Ravnica in the next set, Return...to Ravnica. Really? Is that the best they could come up with? Maybe the next time they do this we can just all it "Printing Money" or "Preying on Nostalgia". Anyway, the Card Image Gallery is right here so you can follow along:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/returntoravnica/cig#

We also talked about the upcoming Duel Decks: Sorin vs. Tibalt. Of course, that's basically all we know, so congratulations to us for covering that one so well. Here's a link:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1049

Also, the first Magic Player's Championship happened, and it sounded completely awesome. The new World Champion was...huh? Not the World Champion? Player of the Year? But that's decided by pro point accumulation throughout the year isn't it? Not anymore? Weird. Anyway, it was Yuuya Watanabe, and here's the full coverage:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/tpc12/welcome

Also, Chewie is still going to the Escapist Expo in Durham next weekend (Sept 14-16). If you're at all interested, here's a link to the Magic events that are happening all weekend:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119032-The-Escapist-Expos-Official-Magic-The-Gathering-Schedule

And finally, Dirk has an important announcement, so don't leave until you get to the end!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Carnival of the Animals by Saint-Saens (from Fantasia 2000)

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Episode 245 - Dredging in the Woods

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 04:47:53 +0000

We've got a lot of stuff going on here. Chewie announces that he's going to the Escapist Expo in Durham. For the full list of stuff going on at the Expo, you can just click here:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/119032-The-Escapist-Expos-Official-Magic-The-Gathering-Schedule

Brian's got a Magic Mad Lib for us! It's totally not Boomerang. Trust me on this.

Then we get into the first main topic, which is the fancy new Duel Decks: Izzet vs. Golgari decklists. We spend entirely too long discussing these, but it's all in good fun. You can follow along here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/210

From there we've got a look at the Izzet and Golgari colored decks that we've built. It's amazing how only one of these actually has anything to do with the guild itself, and it's twice the size of a normal deck. Pretty cool huh?

Also, here's the Storage Wars episode we talked about at the very end:
http://www.aetv.com/storage-wars/video/sheets-and-geeks-33993138#33993138

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Overload by Zappacosta

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Episode 244 - Foolaroundishness

Mon, 27 Aug 2012 23:45:00 +0000

We have lots of stuff going on this week. The World Magic Cup happened, for one. That's about all the discussion we're gonna have about that. WotC has revealed some information about some products (again) that we feel the urge to talk about. There's the 2012 Holiday Gift Box, which you can find here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1039

There's the complete listing for From the Vault: Realms, which is right here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1040

They also revealed a Return to Ravnica card that will apparently be the Launch promo, which we're gonna talk about. Yes I know it hasn't shown up on the Magic site anywhere just yet (for some reason) but it's official. Trust us on this.

The main topic of discussion is all about Blue and how it fits into casual, multiplayer, and Magic in general. There's a lot of meat here that I'm just not gonna bother trying to write down, just listen. Also, a couple quick hits:

FNM: Friendly Neighborhood Monkey
"I don't know what number one is, but second place is a five-way tie." - Dirk

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Intro by Tosus - http://mathofmagic.wordpress.com/
Break Music – Cat Blues by Yoko Kanno

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Episode 243 - Up Your Arsenal (w/ Story Circle)

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 22:52:03 +0000

Hey look, we're doing another Commander episode! Told you we weren't done with these, what now haters? Or whatever. Gimme a break, I never know how to start off these episode write-ups. But we are focusing on Commander again this week, and of course we've got a guest host. We managed to snag none other than Tom of the now-defunct MTG Radio podcast. That show is the main reason Chewie decided to give EDH a try back in the day!

We begin with a discussion of competitive EDH that came from a listener email, then move over to the Commander's Arse(nal). Everyone has their opinion on the product thus far. Except for Mike, since we were apparently not listening to what he said. He said stuff though, he assures us!

Commander's Arsenal:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1035

Then we decided to bring back the old Story Circle. Aw yeah, you know you love it! Our random general this time around was...Cromat. Yeah, but we made the best out of it. If you want to follow along or at least see what these cards are as we rattle them off, you can check out the post here:
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle243edh

Tom is @MTGRadio on Twitter by the way - you know what to do.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Big Pimpin'/Papercut by Jay-Z/Linkin Park

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Episode 242 - Listener-Submitted Ideas Appreciation Fortnight

Tue, 14 Aug 2012 12:44:38 +0000

We're back with another episode to entertain you all! This one is again inspired by emails we've gotten from listeners like you. These seem to be more personal in nature, beginning with our favorite tribes. From there we move into how we started playing and what keeps us interested, and how one can go about getting cards without destroying your wallet. Then we're asked about our favorite expansion/block, our favorite cards, the cards we've had the most fun with, and which planeswalker we identify with. The final question, according to my notes, is about our personal idiosyncrasies when we're playing. That on was fun, because we started pointing stuff out about each other.

Oh yeah, we also talked about Jarad and the Planeswalker Points achievements and badges, but we actually had astonishingly little to say about each one.
Jarad: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1033
Achievements: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/206

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – A Horse with No Name by America

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-242
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-242-listener-submitted-ideas-appreciation-fortnight-t837.html
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Episode 241 - (Not Even) Quick-Fire Discussions

Mon, 06 Aug 2012 21:19:42 +0000

It's time once again for us to dig into our mailbag and come up with something to talk about! This time we hit on an email about podcasting hardware and software because we seem to have gotten a lot of those lately. How many of you are starting a podcast anyway?

Then we hit an email that asks about our card preference. When building a deck, which version of any given card do we like to use? A certain art, foil, promotional, non-English language, white or black border...what do we prefer? We spent a good amount of time discussing the various ins and outs of how we pick cards to put in a deck.

From there we get to an email about power creep. Sorta. Basically it's the "creatures today are so good and spells are not compared to back in the day - discuss". And we did. For a long time. We threw out lots and lots of points. We're pretty sure it's worth listening to, so there's that.

Of course, expect the usual tangents, sidetracks, and random nonsense that you've come to know and love from our show. Hopefully I didn't forget anything...

Chewie's stand-up video (NSFW): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycdcevIHG6A&feature=g-up

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride (From Disney's ''Lilo & Stitch'') by Mark Keali'i Ho'omalu & North Shore Children’s Choir & Key Cygnetures

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-241
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Episode 240 - Primal Ducks (Toolkit Deckbuilding)

Mon, 30 Jul 2012 02:56:00 +0000

We begin this episode with a look at the Magic 2013 Event Decks, now that they've FINALLY released them. If you'd like to follow along, you can do so here: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1022

But of course that's not the real reason we recorded this episode. Brian bought a brand-spanking-new Deckbuilder's Toolkit, opened everything up, catalogued it, and sent us our homework. We were to take this pool and build a 60-card deck with an eye towards multiplayer of course. Unfortunately, Mike was unable to join us for this one but perhaps he'll tell us about it next week. As for the rest of us, I think you'll appreciate the decks we built as well as the decks we didn't build. We spent a fair amount of time talking about both. The pool was pretty deep (except for one color). If you'd like to see the card pool in all its glory, here it is: http://themanapool.com/pool-notices/ep240pool/

By the way, here's the Onion link that Chewie mentioned during the final thoughts. It's meant to be funny, but do take it seriously: http://www.theonion.com/articles/sadly-nation-knows-exactly-how-colorado-shootings,28857

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – We Are Star Dust by Symphony of Science - http://symphonyofscience.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-240
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Episode 239 - Dirk's on a Cruise!

Sun, 22 Jul 2012 22:17:48 +0000

Yes, we are without Dirk this episode. He's not joining us on the show while on a cruise, that would be ridiculous. But we kick off the festivities with another Magic Mad Lib from Brian, our first in quite some time. It's a long one, and it turns out to be pretty damn funny.

Of course, that's not all. We had a lot of announcements from the San Diego Comic Con that we just had to give you our opinions on (you know, like everyone else has been doing). It's about Return to Ravnica, the RTR prerelease, From the Vault: Realms, and something called Commander's Arsenal. I think I'll just call that Commander's Arse from now on. Anyway, if you'd like to follow along you can read it all here:
http://www.gatheringmagic.com/devonerule-071612-sdcc-panel-return-to-ravnica-and-more/

Of course, we also have to tell you all about how we did at the Magic 2013 Launch, which no longer exists. But Lucky decided to do one anyway, so Mike, Brian, and Chewie rolled out to play. Remember from last episode how well Chewie did at the Prerelease? Think he can repeat it? Better listen to find out.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Fight the Minotaur by Swift

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-239
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Episode 238 - Extra Super Stupid Weird (Like Damn)

Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:21:12 +0000

We are sadly without Brian this time around, but that's only because a) it's his wife's birthday (at least I'm pretty sure that's the excuse he used) and b) Skype absolutely would not let us record the night before. It was completely weird. I think it's plotting against us. But of course it worked the next night, giving you this episode right here! Yay!

We spent a little longer than anyone probably should have on the Magic 2013 Intro Pack decklists (since we sorta ran out of time last week). Then we had to go into great detail about our Prerelease experiences! Mike tells us all about his mediocre black and white deck (it appears lots of people were playing his deck just with better cards). Then Chewie goes into all the smack he laid down with his blue and red deck. Seriously, ALL the smack.

Then we dive into our neverending mailbag to point out a few interesting things to you listeners. Here are a few of those things now!

Andrew's Nicol Bolas Intro Pack Deck
http://meremortalblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/m13-the-nicol-bolas-intro-decklist/

Tosus' Math of Magic Blog
http://mathofmagic.wordpress.com

M13 Intro Pack Decklists
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1007

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – (Shake Shake Shake) Shake Your Booty by KC and the Sunshine Band

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-238
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Episode 237 - All the M13!

Mon, 09 Jul 2012 02:22:11 +0000

Because of the holiday (Independence Day here in America), Brian had family over and couldn't join us. We we tapped everyone's favorite goblin deck hand and MTGO draft recorder, Squee! I mean Bill. You know, the guy with the awesome last name! Bloodworth - isn't that cool? You should follow him on Twitter - he's @SqueeGoblnNabob. And his videos are right here too:
http://themanapool.com/category/videos/squee-draft/

Anyway, we had lots of M13 to discuss. All of it actually, as the name of the episode implies. Though it really doesn't imply it so much as state it explicitly. Anyway, to make up for the lack of Brian's rambling, we all sort of became long-winded. Not Limited Resources set review long-winded, but pretty long for us. But we had basically an entire set to fool around with. Next week you'll get to hear about the Prerelease, this week it's all theory and Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 experience. And as always, you can follow along in the Card Image Gallery:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2013/cig#

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Sara Smile by Daryl Hall & John Oates - http://www.hallandoates.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-237
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Episode 236 - The Saga of Nicky B

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 03:23:00 +0000

A few days before recording this episode, one Daniel Beach (@beach7125) asked Chewie a question. That question would lead to a conversation, which would then lead to this episode of The Mana Pool with guest host Daniel Beach. Before we tell you the nature of this question, we have to talk about the tokens of Magic 2013 and the remaining preview cards that have been shown since our last episode. Are we good with that? The links to those are right here:
M13 Card Image Gallery: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2013/cig#
M13 Tokens: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1002

The question and ensuing conversation involved the nature of Nicol Bolas as the big bad guy of Magic. He's Dr. Doom. Moriarty. The Architect (or Agent Smith, depending on your take on the films). And Beach had some issues with that. So we asked him on the episode to help us air those issues and in generally discuss the nature of Nicol Bolas in Magic fiction. So if you've read the novels...you have our condolences. If you haven't read the novels, good on ya and enjoy our completely off-the-cuff and probably inaccurate recollections of the guy who's behind it all (no, not Mark Rosewater - we're not talking about real life this episode).
Nicol Bolas Wiki: http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Nicol_Bolas

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies from The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-236
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Episode 235 - Vampiric Geyser

Sun, 24 Jun 2012 20:46:52 +0000

Not one, but TWO guest hosts join us for this episode! Everyone's old favorite Eric (of the Many Names) resurfaces to shoot the breeze and drink Southern Comfort while recording with us. The other host is Joseph A, better known as Khaos Kontrol (to Chewie anyway, who kept just calling him Khaos) on our forums. You know, the guy that wrote the awesome poem that we featured a while back on Episode 226. He also did a CMDR Decks video that you might recognize if you hang around on The Mana Pool at all. But because of those things (and he's got a podcast coming up sometime soon), we had him on to help spread the joy around.

We kick off the episode by opening up a package from Tim (@planar_snap ), one of our favorite listeners from the UK. That's vague, lemme rephrase. He's from the UK, and he's one of our favorite listeners. Much better. But he sent us a package with stuff in it, which was opened on the air. And HOLY CRAP what stuff we got! If you want to find out what, you'll have to listen. Tim, we really appreciate all of it. You really didn't have to do that. Damn.

Then of course there's all that other stuff that happened. The Commander/EDH bannings, the Standard (non) bannings, and the Legacy unbanning all happened. Then we had to talk about the Magic 2013 promo cards that they revealed, and Mike noticed something we've been missing for the last several months. How about that? From there we cover the rest of the M13 previews of course.

Commander Ban List Update - http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12073
DCI Banned/Restricted List Update - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/06202012a
M13 Promo Cards - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/998
M13 CardImage Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2013/cig#

From there we have to talk about Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, which had JUST come out the day we recorded this. Then Khaos (I mean Joseph) has another poem that he wrote for us for having him on the show. Hell yeah epic background music! There's also some random discussion of things that I only barely remember as well as some very important, very somber, and very true advice. So listen up!

Also, here's the link to the trailer for Wreck-It Ralph. Holy crap this looks like fun. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btB8tb8fLYM

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – All Beauty Destroyed by Laura by Spruke - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVuTT-1puIM&feature=youtu.be

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Episode 234 - Innistrad Creature Awards Part 2

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 23:18:00 +0000

So we lied. Sorry about that. But surely you'll forgive us for skipping a week because of a LIVE episode! That wasn't even one that was in the can! It was recorded so we could put it up while Planechase was still somewhat relevant! Put down your torches and pitchforks, you can hear the second part of the Awards right here. See the title? We covered Cuddliest Werewolf, Most and Least Scary Spirit, Most Dapper Vampire, and of course Best Creature in a Supporting Role and Best Creature in a Leading Role. Brian sorta forgot the difference for a minute, but give him a break. He's cute.

Anyway, what else was there? A bit of news of course, then we hit up the M13 previews. Mind you, we recorded this on Wednesday of last week, so it's not completely up to date. But we weighed in on everything that had been officially spoiled at that point. If you'd like to check these out, you can find them all right here in the M13 Card Image Gallery:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/magic2013/cig#

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Raise Up by Petey Pablo - http://www.myspace.com/peteypablo

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-234
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Episode 233 - New Planechase EDH! (Live)

Mon, 11 Jun 2012 00:46:36 +0000

I'll bet you didn't expect another live episode so soon, did you? Well tough. We all went over to Dirk's house to play with the new Planechase cards! Except we did that at the store. So when we got back to Dirk's house, we threw ALL the new Planes and Phenomena (doot dooo doo-doo-doo) into a pile, grabbed up some EDH decks, and started Planechasing away!

I'm sorry to say we only got in one game, and it was a LONG one. But at no point did it become miserable or stupid. It was actually pretty awesome the whole time. And the end! Not to spoil anything, but the end is completely nuts and epic and holy crap was it awesome. Be sure you stick around for the whole thing. Due to the magic of editing, you'll actually get there about 20 minutes before we actually did.

Also, Trevor wasn't terribly happy when we started recording, so you'll hear a lot of him at the beginning. But bear with us, he passed out not long after we started. He's a cute little 3/3 with trample and haste.

And also, if you're not currently on TheManaPool.com, you should go there and check out the pictures I took during the recording session. This is some crazy stuff right here.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – We can't take breaks! We're playing Magic!

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-233
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Episode 232 - The Innistrad Creature Awards, Part One

Sun, 03 Jun 2012 21:11:00 +0000

This episode marks the first of the Mana Pool Creature Awards! We covered our first few categories here, including Best and Worst Dressed Humanoids and Not-At-All-Humanoids (see image for Worst-Dressed Humanoid nominees), Best Use of Scale Birds, Best Art on a Bad Creature, and Most Disturbing Depiction of a Creature. Stay tuned to a future episode for the rest of the categories!

Oh, right. Planechase. The entire decklists were revealed and all that, so we had to check those out too. All four of these decks look like serious fun, and the Planes and Phenomena (doot dooooo doo-doo-doo) are seriously ridiculous. Like damn.

Planechase Decklists:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/981

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Thriller by Michael Jackson (creepy voice provided by Vincent Price)

This episode's post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-232
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Episode 231 - How Many Years Has It Been?

Mon, 28 May 2012 04:21:32 +0000

Being that this is a casual-centric Magic podcast, we don't venture much into the world of competitive sanctioned Magic. But when we do, we spend a LOT of time talking about it on the next show! That is this show. In case you haven't heard, Mike, Brian, and Chewie went to a Standard PTQ last week. Why might you have heard? Well, that would be because Chewie ended up making Top 8! Of course, we have to spend a good amount of time talking about that, because it's not something that happens every day, you know?

Chewie's PTQ Tournament Report:
http://themanapool.com/articles/kamikaze-standard-ptq/

Oh yeah, and there's this weird little thing called Planechase that has been making the preview circuit lately. We're going to talk about all the cards and planes and phenomena that were spoiled at the time of this recording. Hope you all enjoy, and be sure to listen to the outro music. It's really good.

Planechase Visual Spoiler:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/planechase2012edition/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – The Chase by Giorgio Moroder from Midnight Express

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Episode 230 - Commanders & Casuals & Hordes Oh My! (Live)

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:46:00 +0000

In which we discuss what happened to Dirk, refute the notion that there's no such thing as a free lunch, explain why it's good that we didn't record the previous game, and play some Magic. No really!

Mike, Brian, and Chewie lead off with a fairly quick game of Commander, where Chewie's relatively new Johan deck got off to a ridiculous start. Holy crap. Then there's another Commander game after that! After that, we clear up some confusion about whether or not Mike realizes we're not playing EDH anymore, and proceed to play a game with normal decks. I can't really call it a 60 card game, but you'll see why. And we decided to end up with a relatively quick game of Horde Magic again Brian's green Horde deck. Been a while since you heard about that format, hasn't it?

So that's our second long-lost live episode. During the last two games, Brian's daughter Sam was awake and running around and happy, so you'll just have to deal with all the assorted baby noises, toy noises, and Chewie turning around to talk to her. She's so cute. And he has focus problems when there's a baby around. Also, we hope you enjoyed the I Fight Dragons sampler platter.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Musics – All of these are by I Fight Dragons (played on the episode in this order) off their album Kaboom! - http://www.ifightdragons.com
Save World Get Girl
My Way
Kaboom!
With You

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Episode 229 - Mike's Demonic Defects

Mon, 14 May 2012 23:23:31 +0000

We begin by taking a quick look at the Avacyn Restored Event Decks, in all their glorious whatever-it-is. After that, we have a riveting discussion about what happens when you cast Eaten by Spiders on Avacyn. Another listener-inspired topic that we tackled is a simple one: What was the first card you ever really coveted? This leads us to all kinds of nostalgia and manages to infiltrate the main topic of the episode.

Main topic you say? Well AVR has lots of shiny new angels and a fair number of new demons, but what about the old guard? Both have been around since the first printing of Magic, but what are we dealing with here? What have these two types looked like throughout the history of the game? We'll discuss some of the ancient creatures of each type and throw out plenty of personal experiences with them too of course.

Two things should become pretty obvious from this discussion. First, Brian doesn't actually know the names of any angels or demons in the game of Magic. And second, demons DO NOT get along with Mike, so much so that we named the episode after this phenomenon. You're gonna love these horrible, horrible demonic bad beats stories all the more when you realize that these ALL come from the demons that Mike is playing WITH, not against!

Avacyn Restored Event Decks: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/967

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Lights Out by Pitch the Woo – http://www.facebook.com/pitchthewooband

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-229-mike-s-demonic-defects-t806.html
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Episode 228 - The Helvault Experience (Play Boros)

Mon, 07 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

Yeah, we just had 3 episodes of previews, so you know what that means - the Prerelease episode! Bill Bloodworth (you know, @SqueeGoblnNabob) joins us for this one, since he was the cause of the funniest thing any of us have seen at a Prerelease for a VERY long time. Brian talked about his experience, Bill told his story, and Mike and Chewie covered their two apiece. Definitely a lot of fun. So be sure to tune in to hear about the bitch scoop, slamming the door, How to Miracle (from Bill), How Not to Miracle (from Mike), Chewie Righteously Blowing things, and of course...GRISELBRAND!

Of course, before we get to the Sealed events, we have a few things to discuss. In a quick message on DailyMTG by Helene Bergeot (and aren't they all quick?), it was revealed that Guillaume Matignon's suspension was cut in half. If you'll recall, he was one of the Guillaumes responsible for GuillaumeGate. Guillaume Guillaume. Okay, I think that's out of my system now. But he was one of the guys behind the New Phyrexia godbook leak. Or so we thought...*dramatic pause*

Also, there was plenty of talk about the Helvault promotion on the whole. We'll go over the ups, the downs, why it was or wasn't crazy good, and bat around a few ideas for improving future events and stuff. Let us know what you think!

GRISELBRAND!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-228-the-helvault-experience-play-boros-t804.html
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Episode 227 - All the AVR, All the Time

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:07:00 +0000

This episode, there's not much going on other than the full reveal of Avacyn Restored. So we go through each color, pointing stuff out. Powerful cards, awesome (or gross) art, cards we can't wait to play with, stuff that we think is utter crap. You know the drill. Everyone's doing it this time of year. But we do it with our own dorky style! There's actually not much else to talk about on this one, so I'll leave you with a link to the full set so you can check it out yourself.

Avacyn Restored Card Image Gallery

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Blue (Da Ba Dee) by Eiffel 65

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Episode 226 - Avacyn Restored and Poetry

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 01:51:00 +0000

We're not even screwing around this episode, as we dive right into the Avacyn Restored previews. Of course by now everyone has heard about the Soratami planeswalker that we speculated about at the end of the last episode. A mere 2 hours later she was revealed in her entirety. Then they threw a dapper devil dude at us! Of course we covered both of those, along with everything else that had been previewed by the time we recorded! Good stuff, man.

But when Brian unexpectedly had to leave just before we got to the inverted Zombie Apocalypse angel, something else happened. After finishing up the previewed cards, we had a bit of a poetry reading. It was a poem by our own KhaosKontrol over on the Mana Pool/Cardshark forums, and it was so awesome that we just had to read it on air. Hope you all enjoy it as much as we did.

Sprinkled throughout the rest of the show, Dirk has a strangest voice problem ever, Mike and Chewie recap some streaming shenanigans, Chewie recounts some powerful parental advice, and there are many dick jokes left unsaid. Thanks for listening!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – All I Need is a Miracle by Mike and the Mechanics
Background Music - Mantis' Hymn by Konami Computer Entertainment Sound Team Japan

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-226-avacyn-restored-and-poetry-t802.html
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Episode 225 - Avacyn Restored Previews 1

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 23:50:00 +0000

We're joined this episode by Bill, the voice of Squee, who haven't heard from in a good while. We kick it off with a quick rules correction from last episode - Mike missed one small detail on the question about the single spell with Cascade, Storm, and Ripple. Imagine that, something got missed in the most complicated spell ever. No one is allowed to give Mike any crap about that one. All the others are fair game as usual though.

After that Chewie gives a quick rundown of all the podcast whoring he's been doing lately. By lately we mean in the last couple months, because some of these took a while to show up. He's been on Off-Color Cast, Kitchen Finks, Horde of Notions, and was one of the guys on the new Five Minutes of Magic cast that is, in fact, only five minutes long. He also had another video for CMDR Decks, his Spirit of the Night deck, which you can find right here:
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/cmdrspiritofthenight/

By now everyone's heard the news that came out of PAX East, and if not you'll hear it for the first time right here! There's the Return to Ravnica, Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013, and Nicol Bolas showing up in the M13 Core Set. Holy crap that's a lotta news keeping us from the spoilers! There's one last thing before the spoilers though, as Chewie gets all mushy and heartfelt for once in his miserable life to extend a special thanks to some listeners for their generosity.

Oh, and then there's a whole MESS of Avacyn Restored previews. We've got angels, demons, devils, BOOM, pants-crapping, stunned silence, angry eyebrows, miracles, and Elmer Fudd. It's gonna be great.

Follow Bill/Squee on Twitter @SqueeGoblnNabob

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals by Raymond Scott

For a list of the rest of the music, check out the this episode's forum post.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-225-avacyn-restored-previews-1-t798.html
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Episode 224 - Plants and Other Things

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 18:48:00 +0000

We begin this episode with a discussion of Avacyn, the first reveal from Avacyn Restored, and boy is she something! From there we move into the double-faced tokens that were given away at FNM (sorry about the delay) and the fansite toolkit available from Wizards, featuring some nifty images for you to use whether you have a site or not. Also, a big shoutout to Jeffrey Lombaro, who is @MuttZippy on Twitter, for buying us all lunch the last time we all got together to play Magic! He's a sweetheart of a guy and he's doing giveaways and stuff on Twitter, so go follow him!

And since it's Springtime, Brian thought we should talk about those things that make people absolutely miserable and unable to see or breathe, plants! Yes there are plenty of plants in Magic, we by the end of the show we'll have talked about almost all of them! We even asked Twitter for some favorite plant creatures, which we promptly made fun of. Okay, not all of them, just the ones that deserved it. But if you've ever wanted to know about the Plant creature type in Magic, look no further! Be sure to pack Benadryl and some tissues!

Decked Builder Giveaway!
Cardshark prices are now available on Decked Builder, an iPhone/iPad app that covers all your Magic deckbuilding needs! If you want a chance to win a free redemption code, just go to this episode's post on TheManaPool.com and comment intelligently (also let us know that you want the app). Keep an eye on our Twitter, Facebook, and Forums for more chances to win!

Avacyn Revealed:
http://sphotos.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/525246_10151450289785307_201120755306_23094082_859257884_n.jpg

Double-faced Tokens:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/938

Fansite Toolkits:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Downloads.aspx

Ralph McQuarrie's Website: http://www.ralphmcquarrie.com/

Orbitars: A Kid Icarus Uprising Competitive Community
Blog: http://orbitars.wordpress.com/
Forums: http://orbitars.forumotion.com/
Twitter: @orbitars

Intro by Tosus!
Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Requiem of the Gods from Castlevania: Symphony of the Night by Michiru Yamane

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-224-plants-and-other-things-t795.html
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Episode 223 - Seismic Counter Bash Pro Head-to-Head Off-Road Haymaker Smackdown Gaiden 64 Game of the Year Edition

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 01:15:00 +0000

For episode 223, the dorks gathered to discuss the Avacyn Restored trailer. After rambling on that for a while, we indulged the self-proclaimed Vorthos King and set some time aside to discuss the art and flavor of Venser vs Koth. We closed out the opener (does that even work?) with a Mad Lib about the new "Dark Romance" genre of teenage fiction.

Our main topic for the episode was the latest installment in our series "That's How We'd Do It." This time around, we tackled what we thought would be the best mechanics to bring back as the non-evergreen inclusion in Magic 2013. We touch on a number of recent and classic mechanics and try to decide how best to integrate the flavor and mechanics of the standard environment 2013 will be spending its otherwise lonely evenings with. We also talk about our candidates for who will replace the titans as the big mythic meanies of the new format.

After the break, we moved on to a popular recurring segment: the latest division of our flavorful throwdown between creatures from throughout the multiverse! Which creature will wield a mighty hobo knife? Which creature is the honey badger in disguise? Which card creeps us the eff out? You'll have to listen to find out!

Oh, and we had a guest join us at the end of the show. We don't really want to give away who it is, mainly because we're ashamed to admit we had him on. We apologize ahead of time for that.

Follow your hosts!
Bill: @SqueeGoblnNabob
Jack: @JackLacroix
Ben: @Panahinuva
Eric: @EricMTGcast

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Theme from Sliders (Season 3)

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 222 - There's Bears Outside

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 01:51:30 +0000

For episode 222, we are joined by The Many-Named One himself, Eric! He's here to pick up the slack for Brian, who had no power at home and thus couldn't join us.

But because it's episode 222, we just had to spend a ton of time on everyone's favorite bears! You know, 2/2's for 2! We're talking about bears of all shapes and sizes. How the two-drop 2/2 impacts drafts and cubes, the original Alpha bears, the plethora of bears that are Knights. We even touch on bears that have made an impact on the tournament scene and just which ones we've enjoyed over the years.

After a while however, we ran out of gas on bears. And without Brian's rambling, we sort of lost our focus. We talked a fair bit about video games. Chewie's playing Castlevania: Symphony of the Night for the FIRST TIME so we had to spend some time there. Really now.

And what's this talk of an Easter Egg on the site?

Eric's custom RK Post playmats (for the kids!)
http://yfrog.com/a/img736/1020/d11oq.jpg
http://yfrog.com/a/img861/5258/ja5go.jpg

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - The Bare Necessities (from Walt Disney's ''The Jungle Book'') by Phil Harris & Bruce Reitherman

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-222-there-s-bears-outside-t785.html
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Episode 221 - (Planes)Walk This Way

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 18:01:00 +0000

We begin the episode with a listener question (from Bacon!) about our favorite and least favorite cards. And because of how our answers played into each other, I thought that might be a good one to answer on the air. Yay Bacon!

That leads (almost) naturally into the rest of the show! We go from favorite cards to favorite planeswalkers, which leads us to nice roundtable discussion about the 'walkers in general. Favorites, most powerful in multiplayer and not, how do you play them, when do you put them in a deck, how do you play against them, etc etc. All kinds of stuff came up, so hopefully you'll find it either interesting or informative. If nothing else, you can laugh at how Brian's long confusing question caused Mike to completely lose track of the conversation. That was pretty awesome.

Also, I'd like to apologize ahead of time for the nonsense you'll find in the break music and the full nonsense at the end of the episode. Once the notion took hold in my brain, I just couldn't resist. For the full list of songs used, check the forum post that goes with this episode, the link is right down there.

Cast a Spell on MS charity Magic tournament - http://www.castaspellonms.org

Intro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break & Outro Music - Planeswalker, Memphis Ranger Medley by Chewie (I got bored)

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Mr. Suitcase #36 - Drafting with Sam Black

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 01:40:05 +0000

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!

This episode starts with a conversation with Richard F. Castle, creator of Inside the Deck, a featured documentary-style video cast on Gathering Magic. We talk about his origin and what he does. Check out his blog at www.insidethedeck.com.

Next up is Evan Erwin (@misterorange on Twitter) of Star City Games. We talk about his expanding role in the SCG organization and he reveals that the life tracker in the Star City Mobile App will be getting an overhaul.

Then Sam Black (@SamuelHBlack on Twitter) takes some time to go over his 50 card draft deck with me (yes, you read that right). He answers the question “Can you draft too many Selhoff Occultist?” He certainly has an interesting view on the drafting format.

I end the episode by talking with Ethan Heilicher who has an amazing set of decks put together for battling with his friends. Some might call it a block of blocks. He was featured on the main coverage site. He is the president of RAWG (Rochester Wargamer’s Association & Guild). You can find him and contact him on Twitter as @Pokezel

I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

Mr. Suitcase #35 - Drafting with Jon Finkel

Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:30:00 +0000

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!

I managed to follow Jon Finkel's draft, watching him pick up an aggressive black-blue deck. I managed to sit down with Jonny Magic after his deck building, and we talked about that as well as several other topics, including what he's doing at a Grand Prix. He gave me an update on the charity that he has been working on lately, Gamers Helping Gamers. Check out the site (which is currently still under construction) and follow @jonnymagic00 on Twitter for updates on when scholarship applications will be available.

I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

Mr. Suitcase #34 - GP Nashville: Head Judge and Zac Hill

Sun, 18 Mar 2012 06:25:00 +0000

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!

In this episode, I talk about what it takes to run a large 1000+ player Grand Prix with the Head Judge here in Nashville, level 4 judge Jeff Marrow. We also covered how to recover when an event starts to slow down.

Later I run the chats with Zac Hill (@zdch on Twitter), member of Magic R&D and author of the Latest Developments column on Daily MTG. We talk about card design process and how a recent column he wrote influenced how I and others build our cubes.

I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

Mr. Suitcase #33 - GP Nashville: The Main Event and Cube Talk

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 22:29:00 +0000

I start this episode with a recap of the EDH (Commander) game that I played on site yesterday. Throughout the cast I talk about my struggles and successes in the main event of a 1000 person GP with no byes.

The meat of the show is a talk with Usman Jamil (@UsmanTheRad on Twitter), Reuben Bresler (@MoxReuby on Twitter), and Anthony Avitollo (@antknee42 on Twitter), all great cube experts. We talk about the introduction of cube drafts on Magic Online, as well as the viability of storm in cube. The discussion definitely shows off our passion for this wonderful format, especially when we talk about how it has been impacted by the thefts at recent GPs.

Check out the sites these guys maintain:
www.incontentionmagic.com
www.idratherbecubing.wordpress.com

I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

Mr. Suitcase #32 - GP Nashville: LSV Plus Sealed Deck Analysis

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 06:21:13 +0000

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!

For my second show from GP Nashville, I sat down for a brief chat with Luis Scott-Vargas himself (@LSV on Twitter). He gave some of his opinions about the new Grand Prix structure, the amount of teamwork that Team ChannelFireball puts into GP preparation, and the current Sealed Deck format. (Chewie note: He even tried to get LSV to talk smack about double-faced cards!)

After that, there's some commentary about my sealed pool and performance in Grinder 4. My friend Tony and I go over my pool again later to see what, if anything, could have been done differently. If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

And I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

Mr Suitcase #31 - GP Nashville Introductions

Fri, 16 Mar 2012 20:42:00 +0000

Just arrived in Nashville! Now to introduce the cast of characters for the weekend, including the one and only Usman from the Third Power podcast (@UsmanTheRad on Twitter), and to go over some of the plans for the weekend (spoilers: this includes a grinder and hitting up some artists. Oh, and the GP itself of course). If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! I'm @EricMTGCast there.

And I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

Episode 220 - Confronting the Horde (Live)

Fri, 09 Mar 2012 22:54:00 +0000

It's the long-lost live episode of The Mana Pool! Well, not "lost" exactly. More like "we haven't had a hole in recording to fill with this episode" but you know what I mean. But yeah, this was recorded back in January when we all got together to play at Dirk's house. We were joined by Ian Shepherd, a kid Dirk knows. Turns out this kid is the son of the proprietor of Hypermind, a gaming shop not far from Dirk in Burlington, NC. If you wanna check them out, you should click the link down there!

As for what we did this episode...I'm not going tell you. Be surprised!

Okay fine, you waited me out. In case you couldn't tell from the title, we played a couple games of Horde Magic, which we've discussed before, against Brian's monogreen Horde deck. It was pretty cool, though I think the Horde deck still needs a bit of tweaking. After we got done with the Horde Magic, we switched over to our normal 60-card casual decks. To be honest, it's been a long time and I don't remember anything about these games, so I guess we'll be finding out together. I do know the last game took a fair amount of time, but I don't think it was long in a bad way. I could be wrong. Feel free to let us know in the comments or the forums or an email or any of the other ways to get in touch with us if I was wrong.

Check out Hypermind - www.hypermindonline.com

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - When Push Comes to Shove by A Light Divided - http://www.facebook.com/ALightDivided or http://www.reverbnation.com/alightdivided

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 219 - Commander Month: The (First?) One with Bennie Smith

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:07:00 +0000

Yeah, you read it right - we got Bennie Smith! He writes for Star City Games now, he used to write for DailyMTG, and he's here with us to close out Commander Month! I'm pretty sure this is what's known as "doing it right". We spent a while picking his brain and asking all about his Magic history - all you've ever wanted to know about Bennie Smith? Aw yeah.

We got Bennie to help us answer some excellent listener questions, like how to deal with mass removal when you're playing a heavily creature-centric deck. Tosus asked if he should use EDH to teach new players the game or if that risked scaring them away forever. And there was the obligatory most over- and under-rated generals question, which we kinda sorta answered mostly.

Then we moved from there into a Story Circle, with everyone's favorite not-vigilance-giving (Johangilence?) general, Johan! You can find the complete list for that right below this paragraph so you can follow along at home. Holy crap I loved the deck we came up with. As soon as this is done uploading, I'm gonna trade Mike for his. No really, he's sitting right here behind me!
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle219edh/

Oh, and if you're in or around London or you just enjoy tabletop, role-playing, or war games (or Magic of course) you should go visit Roll of the Dice Online Games (yes, it spells ROTDOG) - ROTDOG.co.uk/blog.

Follow Bennie on Twitter: @blairwitchgreen

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth by I Fight Dragons - http://ifightdragons.com

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-219-cmdr-month-the-1st-one-with-bennie-smith-t774.html
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Episode 218 - Commander Month: Leaving a Crater with Laura by Spruke

Sat, 25 Feb 2012 20:36:00 +0000

We are joined this episode by none other than Laura Diemer and Bill Boulden, aka Laura by Spruke. You might know them from clips played right here on the show, or perhaps you bought their album, Katana & Tonic, on iTunes or one of the other digital music distribution services. If not, then maybe you should!

Last weekend most of us went to the SCG Open in Charlotte. We played lots of EDH, so of course we're gonna talk about some of the crazy stuff that went on in a few of those games. Bill (Bloodworth, not Spruke) and Brian played in the Standard Open. Bill's going to write up a tourney report that I'll put on the site once it's done. Brian went into detail about his rounds at the beginning of this episode. If you wanna check out his deck, then I have the link for you!
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/brians-bw-tokens

After having a few random musical and Magical discussions with Laura, she tagged out and Bill took over. Bizarre last-minute scheduling issues work out well every once in while, you know? With Bill we did more random discussions and a Story Circle with one of the most...let's say interesting (yeah, that's it) generals ever. If you'd like to follow along at home, you can find that right here:
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle218edh

Bill and Laura were both a lot of fun to have on the show! If you guys enjoyed their presence, let us know and we'll see if we can't get one or both of them on again sometime in the future. In the meantime, why not go buy their album over on iTunes? It's called Katana & Tonic, and it's awesome!

Follow Bill on Twitter: @ThaGatherin
Follow Laura on Twitter: @LauraGDiemer

Intro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Quick Break Music from Double Dragon by Kazunaka Yamane
Outro Music - Armchair Girlfriend by Laura by Spruke - http://youtube.com/Spruke

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-218-cmdr-month-leaving-a-crater-w-laura-by-spruke-t767.html
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For You (Mana Pool Mix) - Spruke (mix by Daniel Beach)

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:12:00 +0000

As featured in Episode 216, here is the awesome new audio montage made for us by Daniel Beach (who was also a guest host on that one). He took an unfinished Sprukestep track from the upcoming Factor Friction album that Spruke posted up to SoundCloud and peppered in a lot of random Mana Pool goodness. He said he did it entirely in Audacity, which is pretty ridiculous for a free program.

Just like Jungle Rat Rob before him, Beach has managed to capture the essence of The Mana Pool. As I've been saying for a very long time now, we're here for your entertainment first and foremost. If you learn something along the way, that's freakin' great, but our primary function is just to ensure that you have fun listening to us.

And just because he gave it to me, here's the list of sources that Beach used to make this little bit of awesome. I hope you all enjoy!

Background song: For You (Eldrazi Stomp Mix) by Spruke
Episode 85 - M10 Rules Update Discussion
Episode 88 - Magic 2010 Preview 2
Episode 97 - Land Before Time
Episode 113 - Multiplayer Mayhem Live
Episode 122 - Multiplayer Mayhem Live 2
Episode 129 - Mortal Instinct Fighter Calibur Vs!
Episode 140 - Duel Decks at Ten Paces
Episode 163 - All of MBS (and Half of Chewie)
Episode 172 - Adventures on Zendikar (Live)
Episode 200 - Blame It On the Listeners
Episode 209 - Dirk and a Half
Episode 213 - Rant Over (DKA Preview 2)
Episode 214 - Crisis II: Dork Harder (DKA Preview 3)
Avant-Card Show Episode 32

Episode 217 - Commander Month: You Don't Know Jack!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 22:38:00 +0000

It finally happened! Yes, we finally remembered to grab none other than Jack Antonio Sabato De La Hoya Other Name Lacroix to guest host! And let me just tell you, this guy is a wealth of information. We talked briefly about the the latest SCG Open results, and Jack gave us some of his insight there. With his help, we also covered a wide variety of Commander topics, such as the importance of versatility, misconceptions about the format, proper threat density, the number of lands and mana rocks you should play, politics, and who knows what else. Well if you listen, you'll know what else!

But that's not all! We did a Story Circle! If you want to check out the full result list from that, there's a link right below this paragraph. And of course we can't have an episode of The Mana Pool without a requisite amount of random nonsense, right? Of course not. It's there. Trust me on this. Would I lie to you? About the important stuff, that is. The answer I'm looking for here is no, by the way. Jeez.
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle217edh/

Follow Jack on Twitter: @JackLacroix

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - What Now My Love by Miss Piggy

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 216 - Commander Month: A Day at the Beach

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:40:00 +0000

Welcome to the first show of Commander Month here on The Mana Pool! We're kicking it off with one of our long time listeners and constant source of good ideas, Daniel Beach. If you enjoyed Episode 214, he was the inspiration behind having the ACS guys on again. If you didn't enjoy it...blame Beach for that.

But because it's Commander Month, we've asked Beach to do an Out of the Deck Box for one of his decks, and he chose the one he's named Progenitalia and Friends. Back in Episode 192 I pulled my Progenitalia deck Out of the Deck Box, and it was fascinating to see just how incredibly different Beach's deck was from mine. That's probably because he's a better player than me, just so we're clear. If you want to check out either of these decks, you'll find a link on the next line down.

Beach's Progenitalia: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/progenitalia-and-friends/
Chewie's Progenitalia: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/progenitalia/

We didn't stop with that though! We hit up the Random Card button on Gatherer until we bumped into a legendary creature and did a Story Circle! If you want to see the full list for that, it's right here:
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle216edh/

And other than that, we did an old Mad Lib again, talked about the Rules Update, discussed the Event Decks, discussed briefly the results of the first DKA-ready SCG Open (which had the best name for a Legacy deck EVER) and mentioned the Super Bowl Halftime show and how much we love Betty White. We hope you enjoy!

Daniel Beach on Twitter: @Beach7125

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - For You (Mana Pool Mix) - music by Spruke, mixed by Daniel Beach

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-216-commander-month-a-day-at-the-beach-t763.html
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Episode 215 - DKA Prerelease and Mailbag

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 18:28:10 +0000

Well, it's the week after the prerelease, so you know what that means, right? We've got to tell you all about how we did! Find out who did well, who didn't do well, and how the webmaster Scott did in his first tournament ever!

But of course, prerelease episodes are more than just Sealed tourney reports. We also took the second half of the show to run through some of the listener mail that needs to be read on-air. Rules questions, prerelease stories, and general hilarity. Interspersed throughout the episode are rants and discussions of various things. These things include lame intro packs, a good game of EDH at Lucky's, Chewie not playing Thalia, Columbia House and BMG, and this one highly obnoxious guy who seems to run through the whole account of the prerelease. We hope you enjoy!

Also, there were a few URLs from emails that we agreed to share with everyone:
Ace's Altered Art - http://AcesAlteredArt.com
Bury St. Edmunds Wargaming Club - http://burywargamers.blogspot.com/

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Easy by Laura by Spruke - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybRVsCwDTqc

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 214 - Crisis II: Dork Harder (DKA Preview 3)

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:38:00 +0000

Yes, we're doing it again. Joining us on this episode are Bryan and Christian from the currently-on-hiatus Avant-Card Show, and as always they are entirely too much fun. This one's a little weird though (even for us) as life gets in the way a bit. We started one host down and we lose two more hosts over the course of the show, but we still end the show with three of us! Multiple guest hosts are cool.

Of course, we're gonna talk about the rest of the Dark Ascension spoiler now that it's all been revealed. (Sorry I didn't get this up before the Prerelease, but it's not like we're giving you any vital information, right?) But before that, we have to talk about what we think should go into a From the Vault: Casual. We kicked around a lot of ideas both good and bad. What would you put in there?

Of course, there's plenty of discussion of the flavor of certain cards, Bryan being old, the price of chase rares, how a Justin Bieber shirt almost destroyed Bryan's life, Edward G. Robinson, website development, Magic as Satan's Game, and lots of other nonsense. And what episode would be complete without a little dig or two at Chris Lansdell? HOpe you guys enjoy all this random conversating as much as we did!

Find Bryan and Christian over on http://avantcardshow.com

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Double Dragon (Opening Theme) by Kazunaka Yamane

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-214-crisis-ii-dork-harder-dka-preview-3-t757.html
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Episode 213 - Rant Over (DKA Preview 2)

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:40:00 +0000

We are joined this week by Robert Martin, also known as The Beme. You might recognize him from The Men of Magic interviews. On this episode, we're covering all the Dark Ascension previews that had been shown when we recorded. And let me tell you, there are some doozies this week.

Interspersed throughout the card discussions are a variety of tangents. We'll talk about expensive Magic merchandise, jerks on forums, jerks playing Commander, dragons on Innistrad, money gouging and crooks, the Magic Twitter community, and a certain professional player that I had to interact with later that night. He's not a bad guy it turns out, I just severely disagree with one of his opinions. But still...screw him.

Follow Robert on Twitter - @TheBeme

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Hellrider by Judas Priest - http://www.judaspriest.com

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 212 - Dark Ascension Preview 1

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 20:52:00 +0000

We've got the first of the Dark Ascension previews for you on this episode! Of course, Sorin popped up after we recorded, so we'll talk about him next episode. We do have the Zombie Apocalypse though, which is pretty freakin' sweet. Because of when this was recorded, we're really only talking about the first few days' worth, so we were able to go a little more in-depth than usual.

But no matter how in-depth we get, two days of cards do not a full episode make! But we didn't have time to go full-on into another topic, so a listener suggestion came to the rescue! The question was "what's your favorite combo that you run in one of your decks?" So we all dug through our decks and came up with the combos we love. Except for Chewie, who brought every combo in his decks. Don't worry, he shoots more for synergy in his decks, so he only has a few. It gives a little glance to the way the dorks build decks.

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Corridors of Time (Chrono Trigger Zeal cover) by Laura By Spruke - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufJslNR_cOw

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 211 - Tribal Talk with CMDR Decks

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Creatures! Everyone loves creatures, right? And what's the most fun way to play with creatures? In tribes! Everyone loves some tribal Magic, right? There's even a format called Tribal, that's gotta mean something! No we're not even going to talk about the format on this episode, we're being much more general. This is just all about some of the various tribes in Magic. We talk about our favorite tribes, most hated, what makes a good one, all kindsa stuff!

But we're missing Mike! To help us out with this, we brought in Uriah Oxford, the man behind CMDR Decks on Youtube (and MTGcast). Of course, we'll talk about tribal in EDH and get distracted by various EDH issues and discussions while we're at it. I know, it's amazing that we Mana Pool boys can get distracted by anything, but believe me it happens. And it's good stuff!

CMDR Decks on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/cmdrdecks
Follow Uriah on Twitter - @CMDRDecks

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-211-tribal-talk-with-cmdr-decks-t747.html
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Episode 210 - Seedborn Musings

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 18:12:00 +0000

On this episode we're missing Brian, who had a last-minute before-Christmas dinner thing. So We're joined by Brandon Isleib, better known as the Seedborn Muse over on the Muse Vessel! Of course, you'll be able to find him over on Gathering Magic on Tuesdays from now on, so maybe you should check that out too. But since we had a guest host, we decided to make a potpourri episode of random smaller topics that have come up recently.

First off there's a quick discussion of the two cards Banned from Modern. Then we took a quick look at Avacyn Restored. We let Brandon cut loose on a topic we recently we recently talked about, keeping casual Magic casual. Then there was a discussion of creatures with Defender in multiplayer Magic. We finished up with a nice long discussion about the various mechanics in Future Sight and which of them were our favorites. That one was a good one.

Big thanks to Brandon for joining us, we had a lot of fun with him! You guys should definitely go check out his Musings, along with the other two guys over on The Muse Vessel!

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – One Shot You Don't Want to Miss by A Light Divided - http://www.facebook.com/ALightDivided or http://www.reverbnation.com/alightdivided

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 209 - Dirk and a Half

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 03:31:00 +0000

Hey look, Bill's back! And since he's here, we begin this episode by talking all about the SCG Invitational we went to last week. We've got all kindsa stories and people and things. There are links to the two playmats we talked about a little further down. And you know you wanna see ;)

Then we have a Magic Mad Lib from Myke Okuhara, which is seriously drop-dead hilarious. No really. I might die. Then we did a real Mad Lib that Brian wrote, because it was there to do. Just don't get used to this two-Mad-Libs-per-episode thing going on here, okay?

And we finish up with a sizable discussion about the pros and cons of each color, as seen from a gameplay perspective. We started off with flavor, then realized that's not what the person was asking. I wish I could remember who asked and where, but them's the breaks, you know? Hope you enjoy!

Planeswalkers for Equality: http://www.steveargyle.com/?cmd=gallery_ext&art_id=411

Chandra closeup that Mike bought: http://www.steveargyle.com/?cmd=gallery_ext&art_id=368

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Why is the Rum Gone?

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 208 - Like for Bullets

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 23:33:51 +0000

This episode is a little out there. First off, we're missing Dirk because it's his anniversary. Because not just anyone can fill in for Dirk, we tracked down two old friends to help us out. First we got Bill, who is kurai_seraphim on the forums and a recent guest host. Then we tracked down Ben, who is Panahinuva on the forums, Twitter, and probably everywhere else.

We start off with a couple of listener-submitted Mad Libs, one from Jose Lorenzo de Jesus and one from Austin Abel. Yeah I know we've done the first one before, shut up. They're fun. After that, it's time for a Story Circle. But not just any Story Circle, this is a holiday special! We're taking a look at the various holiday special promo cards that Wizards has released the last few years, then we're gonna concoct a Story Circle around one of them! Trust me, it turned out great.

After that, things got a little unfocused. We talked about some of the things that are coming up in the near future on TheManaPool.com and discussed our upcoming trip to the SCG Open Invitational in Charlotte. Just a reminder, Mike's taking on all comers with his High Tide Eldrazi Archenemy deck! Then we turned our attention to some listener mail and assorted ramblings. Hope you enjoy!

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

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Episode 207 - Make It Count

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 21:10:00 +0000

We're joined this episode by Tom, formerly of the MTG Radio podcast. He's always fun to have on the show, so hopefully you'll all enjoy it as much as we did. We start off with a fair amount of news - new Planechase, Faithless Looting, and the latest WOTC holiday card. Links to all those are right here:

Follow Tom on Twitter: http://twitter.com/MTGRadio

Planechase 2012
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/848

Faithless Looting
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/847

Yule Ooze
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/852

Then we get to the good stuff! Way back in Episode 69 - Get A Life!, we each took the simple concept of "lifegain" and built a deck around it, completely separate from each other. Then we compared and contrasted our decks on the show. We each came up with something vastly different of course. That episode got a really good response, and we've always meant to do it again.

Well we're finally doing it. This time, we started with the idea of "counters" and ran with it. And in case you're wondering, we're not talking Cancel here. We're talking break out the Crown Royal bag full of dice. So all five of us built a deck around this loose theme, and the results were again wildly different. Brian, Mike, and Dirk each focused on one type of counter, while I decided to intentionally not focus on one type. Tom, with his background as an EDH podcaster, built a Commander deck. If you'd like to see what the decks looked like, here's where you can go to find them:
http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/make-itcount-deck-lists/

After that, we have a few good discussions that come from listener mail. We discuss Magic Online vs. paper Magic. We discuss some of the possible ways to get rid of your collection once you're done playing. We even talked about Worlds for a minute.

And finally, if you're going to be at the Star City Games Open Series in Charlotte, NC (you know, the Invitational) then you might just see Chewie and Mike there, along with Bill (you know, from Episode 203 - Medium-Sized Discussions) and at least a few others from the podcasting community, including BigheadJoe, Jack LaCroix, and the crew from Runnin' the Gauntlet. So come on out and see us in Charlotte on Dec. 10!

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Boil 'Em by EnigmaMonkey

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episdoe-207-make-it-count-t739.html
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Episode 206 - Kneel Before Mike (Four Years!)

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 19:56:00 +0000

We really went all out for our 4 year show. We've got discussions on beating children, Graveborn, panties, laughing thoctars, Horde updates, and the realization that Mike is actually the ruler of all things. But I'm sure some of you already knew that, you're very clever. That's why you listen to us!

Actually, we didn't exactly realize that this was our 4 year anniversary show until just before we started. But luckily, we had chosen a topic that was very much suited for it! This episode is a whole mess of Out of the Deck Box! Each of us took one of our favorite decks (or one that listeners have asked about) and go over it. We're talking casual multiplayer here, so expect a lot of nonsense and fun!

Brian shared his Shared Fate deck at a listener's request. We are awesome. Chewie showed off his Primalcrux deck, even though he still needs 2 more Primalcrux. No seriously, we're pretty great. Dirk hauled out the aptly named X-Deck because he really doesn't like us at all. Actually Mike is the awesome one. And Mike discussed his themeless Black/Red deck, probably because it's one of the few decks he has that still just doesn't have a central idea running through it. Kneel before Mike!

Stupid thoctars...

Uncle Zod by memorypalace
Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – The Picard Song by DarkMateria

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Episode 205 - Would Solid Snake Have Shroud?

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:57:20 +0000

On this episode of The Mana Pool, we're talking video games! Reminiscing, really. But because we're actually a Magic podcast, we're gonna try to bring it back to Magic as often as possible. What could the different video game genres bring to Magic? What about the various characters and worlds that video games have given us? And the question that Brian used to pitch this idea to me: Would Solid Snake have shroud? I liked it so much I made it the title of this episode!

After that, we attempted to knock out some of the listener emails that have been piling up over the last month. Rules questions, congratulations on hitting 200 (oops), and assorted other topics come up for discussion, so don't miss it! You never know, you might learn something.

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! Theme
Intro by Tosus - http://dergeek.com
Image by snatx - http://community.wizards.com/snatx/blog/2009/10/19/zendikar_custom_tokens

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Episode 204 - Hyper Instinct Turbo Third Strike Game of the Year Edition Alpha

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 19:01:02 +0000

It's that time again, where we use Gatherer to find a group of unwitting creatures to beat the crap out of each other for our amusement. I mean...to compete for fame and glory on the battlefield. And charity! Yeah, that's it. Look, what's the point of being able to summon up creatures from around the multiverse if you can't have a little fun with it?

But yes, starting with one of the lamest creatures in Magic and going from there, we have pitched battles between random creatures. By pitched battles, of course I mean nerd arguments about who would win (and yet Batman vs. Captain America doesn't come up once...huh). Eight enter, but only one will come away victorious! Feel free to join in the nerd arguments on the forums or in the comments, of course.

After that, Brian gives us an in-depth rundown of a draft he did on MTGO that he thought was especially interesting. And it was, so listen up. You in the back there! Pay attention!

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Killer Instinct Theme

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Episode 203 - Medium-Sized Discussions

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:24:55 +0000

We're joined this week by Bill Bloodworth, who is Kurai_Seraphim on our forums. Yes that's his real name. I assure you he's not just an out of control LARPer. He came down to hit a Sealed PTQ with Chewie and Brian, so we brought him on to tell us how it went and to join in the discussion.

Speaking of discussion, we had a lot of that on this episode. Listeners send us emails all the time, and sometimes there's something in those emails that just need more attention than a quick email reading will give, so we file them away to discuss later. Usually we don't actually get around to discussing them later because we're terrible people and miserably forgetful.

Mike made a list of these forgotten discussions and we tackled a few of them this episode. Was putting Sol Ring in the Commander decks a good thing, or just a marketing ploy? Should decks be played a certain way, or is it cool that some people play the same deck in a different way? How might you attempt to control a difference in power levels in a multiplayer play group? And finally, we take a look at Preordain, Ponder, and Brainstorm and the differences between them.

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Theme from Cheers) by Gary Portnoy - http://garyportnoy.com

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Episode 202 - Bringing Back the Binder Pull

Wed, 26 Oct 2011 05:01:49 +0000

On this exciting episode of The Mana Pool we're bringing back a fan favorite segment, the binder pull! We're all just opening up our binders and picking out some cool cards to discuss. Then discussing them. You know.

After that, it's back to the emails! We've got a whole mess of interesting rules questions and little tidbits here and there. There's a short rant from Chewie about pottymouths and professionalism that will probably end up offending someone, but it happens. No harm meant I assure you.

At this point my show notes say "something at the end". It's been long enough since we recorded that I'm not entirely sure what that means. So if you hear something at the end, that's what it meant. And if you don't, then I've got nothing.

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Trogdor by Strong Bad - http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.html

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Episode 201 - Armchair Art Critic

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 17:53:00 +0000

This episode is packed! We start off with our traditional post-rotation discussion. I'm not sure why we do this, not being Standard players for the most part and being a casual podcast, but we always do and we've always gotten positive feedback about it. So here it is again! Did you realize that something besides Squadron Hawk rotated out? I didn't either!

Keeping with this Standard-centric topic, we then move to a quick discussion about the first couple of SCG Open with the new Standard. It's amazing what these people are doing nowadays! Oh, and there are new Innistrad Event Decks to discuss.

That sounds like a full show right there, but we're not even close to done yet! There's a new format that's been making the rounds lately, Horde Magic. It was introduced to me by SkeetWo, a listener named Justin, when I met him at Curio Cavern in Springfield VA. It was a blast when I played the Horde with him, so I wanted to introduce it to my cohosts. Of course, since we recorded this it's been all over the place, including an article by Stybs on the mothership (where he also mentioned another favorite of the show, Respawn Magic). Links for those are right here:

Peter Knudson: http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/09/horde-magic-a-new-way-to-play-magic-and-survive-zombie-invasions/

Adam Styborski: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/sf/165

And that's not even the whole show! Dirk had the brilliant (no really, no sarcasm at all) idea to talk about art. Good art, bad art, creepy art, whatever. And this led to the most fun discussion we've had in a while. We picked out some stuff that was great, some stuff that was ridiculous, and we finally solved the long-standing mystery of what happened to Baron Sengir's legs. Hope you guys enjoy it!

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Break Music – Aria di Mezzo Carattere (Orchestrated) from Final Fantasy VI by Nobuo Uematsu

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Episode 200 - Blame It On the Listeners

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:30:13 +0000

This is it! We've hit #200! Because we couldn't do it without all of you out there, we decided to jump through a lot of hoops in an effort to get some listener participation. If you'll recall, several weeks ago we put a bunch of questions on the website. One was a poll about which decks of ours you guys liked, and the rest were asking for suggestions for cards of a particular type. Well we took that information and came up with a bizarre Planechasey kind of thing. We made a stack of all the cards you guys suggested and shuffled it up. After 3 turns of buildup we drew from the listener-supplied stack along with our normal draw. Whatever card we drew we HAD to play by our next turn. No discarding it, no skipping out on it, nothing like that. If you submitted it, we HAD to play it if at all possible. Not only that, but when we played it we read off who submitted it and what their comment was about it. So if you're lucky, you might just hear yourself on the show!

Forgive us if we seem rushed, we recorded this the day of the Innistrad Prerelease and had to get the games finished with enough time for us to actually make it to the tournament. And be sure you listen to the quick intro about Extra Life! I'm uploading this after midnight the day before, so I really need to get some freakin' sleep. If you're hearing this on Saturday, October 15, then you can check out the uStream the Extra Life game-playing here:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/extra-life-2011

————
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Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music – Whack It by Swift

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Episode 199 - Prerelease and Rules, Lots of Rules

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 06:58:00 +0000

We are joined this week by Amanda Stevens, one of the originators of RedSiteWins.com and hosts of Red Cast Wins. You guys remember her, right? She interviewed us a long while back. And it’s a good thing, because Brian was unable to join us this week. Anyway, we’ve got to talk about the Innistrad Prerelease, because we recorded this right after that happened. Mike, Brian, and Chewie (that’s me) all went to the tourney, so find out how we did and what we pulled. Amanda did some spellslinging at her prerelease, so there’s another nifty story. Of course, then we’ve gotta talk about how we like the set as a whole and all that.

There was a rules update! Some of the updates are actually pretty cool, so we had to talk about them. If you’d like to follow along at home, just click here.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/161d&page=2

From there, we tackled our mountain of listener emails. There were a lot of rules questions, funny comments, and completely random nonsense that have built up over the last several weeks. So we’ve got to share those with you. Whether you like it or not. But I think you’ll like it. So there.

————
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Break Music – Release the Wolves by Swift

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Episode 198 - Innistrad Previews with Panahinuva

Tue, 27 Sep 2011 15:57:01 +0000

Yes, you read that correctly. We are joined on this episode by Panahinuva, otherwise known as Ben. He's one of those omnipresent listener-types, and we love him for it. Apparently, since here he is on the show again.

But we begin with some news. Well, it was news when we recorded, I'm sure no one really cares much anymore. But that's okay, we still have to give you our take on it. They made a slight change to drafting procedures vis a vis the double-faced cards. The Banned & Restricted list has been updated, with Modern and Extended taking some pretty major changes in direction. And there were a few key changes to the Commander Banned list too. So we covered all of that of course.

Then there's Innistrad. At this point, the entire spoiler had been revealed, so we just went through each color, pointing at various cards and going "Ooooo" at them until we were done. I love this set.

Find Ben on Twitter: @Panahinuva

Double-Faced Draft Changes (at the bottom):
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/160

B&R List update:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/161a

Commander update:
http://www.mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10749

------------
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Break Music - Unsolved Mysteries Theme

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Episode 197 - Innistrad Previews with Stybs

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 18:37:00 +0000

Chewie here. I got home from a long trip to find that my computer wasn't working...20 minutes before recording was supposed to start. After trying to coax it back to life, I gave up and had to drive to Mike's place, forgetting to bring the microphone with me. I also had to get food or I was going to die. That's how this episode started. That also explains why I didn't know what episode we were on at the beginning, give me a break.

But enough discussion! This episode is all Innistrad previews, all the time! We touch on every new card that had been shown since our last recording, this time with another special guest! Adam Styborski joins us once again to interject random hilarity throughout the episode. You can find him in a variety of places, wearing a variety of hats, in places like:

Weekly columnist for DailyMTG: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?author=Adam%20Styborski
The Pauper Cube: http://thepaupercube.wordpress.com/
Writer for Gathering Magic: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/author/adamstyborski/
Casual Editor for Quiet Speculation: http://www.quietspeculation.com
Twitter: @the_stybs

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Intro and Outro Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Tubular Bells (Theme from The Exorcist)

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Episode 196 - Innistrad Previews with Some Limey

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 15:32:00 +0000

Welcome to another episode of The Mana Pool! This time around we're joined again by Chris Lansdell, that limey podcast whore that you know from many other podcasts, most notably Horde of Notions and The Great Debate. If you haven't listened to those, what's wrong with you?

We kick off the festivities with a discussion about the newly-revealed (at the time) Planeswalker Points system. This is the new rating system that's going to replace the old DCI rating. Thank goodness. You can read all about it here:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/159b

We then take a few minutes to check out what happened at Pro Tour Philadelphia, which was the first official Modern tournament. It made me happy to see a relatively healthy format after the first attempt, even though I have no interest in playing myself. We discussed the decks that made the Top 8, which you can see here:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptphi11/top8decklists

And then of course we have to talk about all the wondrous and crazy Innistrad previews that have shown up since our last recording session. And there are some pretty good ones, as always. You can find them all here:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/cig#

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Intro (and new Outro!) Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Theme from Halloween

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Episode 195 - Innistrad Previews 1

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 19:35:00 +0000

News news news! We've got the announcements about the Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas deck lists and the Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 expansion, so of course we had to cover all that. There was a lot of concern from our listeners regarding the various and sundry natural disasters that hit our area, so we had to talk about that a bit, including a mightily depressing hurricane story from Brian.
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/783

Oh, and there's Squeak. Holy crap I'm in love.
http://girlsofgeek.com/squeak/

But really, you're all here for the Innistrad previews, so that's what we're going to give you. We look at every freakin' card we could find and discuss them. We weigh in on the double-faced cards, the flavor, being Morbid, and the return of Flashback. You can check it all out here:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/cig#

Then we try desperately to get through some of our emails, which is why this episode went so long. There were some good ones though, so stick around!

Donate to Dustin's Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! - http://extra-life.org/participant/vognasty

Also, keep an eye out on the website for a few polls that have nothing to do with the show. We're going to have you guys give us answers to a few questions just because. There will be a new one every two days or so, so keep going back!

Intro (and new Outro!) Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music - Captain Planet Theme
REAL Break Music - Twilight Zone Tower of Terror Theme

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Episode 194 - Cleverly Titled Live Episode (Live)

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:01:14 +0000

Holy crap, a live episode? Is this why there's no Innistrad episode yet? I think it must be! Dirk, Mike, and Chewie gathered together to play some Magic, and so of course we recorded some of it for you. Because we love you guys. No really. You think we get together and have to put up with each other in person because we like each other or enjoy playing this game? Nope, it's just to give our listeners something different to listen to, that's it!

First up we have a Commander game. Mike's using his edited Mimeoplasm deck, I'm using Hanna, Ship's Navigator, and Dirk is using his brand new Sharuum the Hegemon deck. This one was a lot of fun and fairly brutal. You'll get a kick out of it.

After that we played a 60-card game that was completely brutal. There was just little to no hope for those of us that didn't win. You'll hear it. We made up for that horrible beating by playing another 60-card game that was much more awesome. Since it's such a great thing to finish on a good game, we called it there. We went on to play some Planechase, more EDH, and more 60-card games, since we were there another 5 hours or so, but sadly we couldn't record them all for you. Trevor wouldn't have let us anyway.

Intro (and new Outro!) Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.com
Break Music 1 - DuckTales Theme Song
Break Music 2 - Darkwing Duck Theme Song

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