Hey all! This is Brian, taking the reins of the show’s writing department for a week, and what a week it is to be here. The Mana Pool is proud to present its 50th Episode spectacular. Lions! Squires! Mana-producing, vigilancing, multi-color bears! We’ve got it all, so come on in!

In this episode, we’ve got 50% more hosts than usual. Dirk, sadly, could not be there for reasons that Chewie will kill him for later. In the meantime, we’re joined by guest hosts in the form of Thomas (Mike’s brother), AJ (dorking group member from days past), and Jason (garthok84 of the forums, and an increasingly present guest host). The six of us crowd around the proverbial campfire that is the internet recording program and regale you and each other with our stories from the Shards of Alara prereleases. With 4 locations, somewhere over 7 decks, and more Masters of Etherium and Broodmate Dragons than you can shake a very large stick at, this is the episode you don’t want to miss!

After you listen to the show, log on to the forum thread for this episode. Tell us what you thought about it, and while you’re at it, share your own stories from the prerelease if you made it out. [Chewie note: All the decklists that were given to me by the various hosts and guest hosts and no-shows will also be posted in the forums, so go check them out there.]

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-50-super-special-shards-prerelease-dorkstravaganza-t239.html
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Hello again, and welcome to The Mana Pool! Mike here one last time with one last rundown of one last Shards of Alara Preview episode before the Prerelease. We're finishing up from where we left off last time, and covering the additional cards that were shown Wednesday and Thursday.  Unfortunately, Brian could not be with us, but we have our wonderful guest host Jason filling in for him again.

 

We have a couple of cards that are not in the same cycle, one that isn't Skyshroud Elf, even more awesome names, and a really gross guy (but that's a plus).

 

As always, send us your emails, and feel ever so welcome to visit us on the forums and the Facebook group.  If you're going to the prerelease, have fun!  By the way, Chewie's Prerelease Survival Guide for Shards of Alara can be found at:
http://cardshark.com/resources/pdfs/PrereleaseSurvivalGuideshardsB.pdf

Shards of Alara Visual Spoiler:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/shardsofalara/spoiler

 

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-49-shards-of-alara-preview-5-t236.html
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Hello again, and welcome to The Mana Pool! Mike here again with yet another rundown of yet another Shards of Alara Preview episode. All the customary hosts are present and accounted for (no special guests, unfortunately), and we start to tackle the first part of a massive info dump that showed up in the Visual Spoiler over the past weekend. Tune in later in the week to get completely up to date.

Today, we have a very encouraging member of a new cycle, a vampire that likes to brawl, a card with an even better name ever, and just a bunch of other neat, neat cards. We close with a couple of interesting (at least to me) rules notes from the Masters Edition 2 FAQ.

Keep sending us your questions and comments (the email address given below broadcasts to all the hosts), and keep telling your friends. Maybe someday the name of our podcast can be in blue letters below a card from a massive weekend info dump. And you'll have heard about it first!

Shards of Alara Visual Spoiler:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/shardsofalara/spoiler

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-48-shards-of-alara-preview-4-t235.html

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In a world where Shards of Alara preview cards are shown at a rate much less frequent than in previous sets, there is no need for two episodes of The Mana Pool in a week. In this world, episode 47 of The Mana Pool is just being released, instead of coming out late last week. It covers the preview cards shown from September 10 to September 17 on the Magic website's Shards of Alara Visual Spoiler, found here:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/shardsofalara/spoiler

Also in this world, there is no Dirk on episode 47. Instead, he has been replaced by AJ, one of the other dorks that played Magic with the host dorks in college. He may or may not be using a Rock Band microphone to record. Please feel free to make fun of him either way, because it's funny. However, using a Logitech USB Desktop Microphone to do vocals in Rock Band would be funnier.

And finally, in this world gone mad, the new Magic Player Rewards textless cards have been shown, and we totally tell you all about them. If you'd like to see them as well as listen to us rant and rave about them, all you have to do is click the following link:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=magic/rewards/welcome

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-47-shards-of-alara-preview-3-t233.html
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Hello again, and welcome to The Mana Pool! Mike here again with a rundown of our second Shards of Alara Preview episode. Unfortunately, Brian could not join us because of other schedule obligations. Fortunately, we have a special guest. It's Jason (garthok84 of the forums), who had previously appeared to help us out in the Eventide prerelease aftermath, and he does not disappoint.

We start things off by taking care of a few things we missed the first time around. A new Cardshark Member Promotion for September appeared, hosted by one of our premium sellers, and it's quite spiffy. We have a few comments regarding the updates to the DCI Banned and Restricted List that were announced a week or so ago, as well as the announcement that States will start again in the U.S. in November, as well as Champs in Canada.

Then it's preview cards! Among them are revelations of three new keyword abilities, a Jedi, Doran 2.0, and a pants-wettingly powerful Planeswalker. The cards are great, conversation is good, and the episode isn't an hour and a half long. What is there not to love?

Thanks again for listening, and keep sending in your comments and questions. Who knows, maybe someday we can have a “mailbag” segment, like all the grownup radio shows. Have fun, and go play some Magic! Or listen to the episode. You know, whatever.

Cardshark Member Promotions:
http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp

Shards of Alara Visual Spoiler:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/shardsofalara/spoiler

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-64-shards-of-alara-preview-2-t232.html
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Hello, all, and welcome to the month of September. This is Mike, coming back from a weekend full of forgetting I agreed to write the show notes for this episode. Because this was our first episode of the month, we get things started with a rundown of the new Cardshark Member Promotions for September. Raffles! Free cards! Great deals! That guy who keeps trying to give away his excess Dissension uncommons (in addition to the other free cards he sends, of course)!

A semi-stealthy update to the Shards of Alara minisite means we're also officially starting Shards of Alara previews. There's a new Planeswalker, some funky artifact shenanigans, the best name ever, and NOT Bitterblossom. I wish I could remember more, but yeah... I forgot to write the show notes until just a little while ago. Have fun with the episode, and enjoy the links to the Cardshark Member Promotions and the Visual Spoiler for Shards of Alara.

Cardshark Member Promotions:

http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp

Shards of Alara Visual Spoiler:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/shardsofalara/spoiler

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-45-shards-of-alara-preview-1-t228.html
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 In this episode, we cover a fair bit of news. There's a new look on our forums page. There's a new look for the Magic website. There are lots more pictures of your host dorks on our Facebook group, in case you want to know what we have looked like over the years. Here's a hint: We looked like dorks.

There's also the matter of Shards of Alara previews. No, don't worry, the official previews haven't started yet. But they have shown a couple of interesting things. One is the Hellkite Overlord, which we mentioned on the last show. This time, we give you the full rundown of what the card does. If you'd like to follow along, go to Gatherer and look it up. The other interesting bit of info is the unveiling of the Shards of Alara Prerelease and Launch Party card. Just one for both this time, but boy is it amazing. It's a planeswalker. If you'd like to follow along, check it out here:

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/arcana/1660

Then we get into the meat of the episode. Since these episodes seem to be very popular, we like to do them whenever we get a chance. Last weekend, your four host dorks managed to get together to play some Magic. We got in four good games and one horrible waste of time. Don't play Assassin with just four people, okay? Trust us. Each game came complete with ridiculous card interactions that you just won't see anywhere but a multiplayer casual game, and we kept note of all the hilarity so we could bring it to you, our faithful listeners. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed playing.

Quick aside: For anyone interested in how my fantasy draft went, I got Adrian Peterson, Clinton Portis, Carson Palmer, TJ Houshmandzadeh, and Braylon Edwards for my core starters. Aw yeah.

Music for this episode: Swift - To Phoenix by Foot, off their third album A Communication Manual

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-44-more-multiplayer-mirth-and-merriment-t222.html
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This time, we actually stay on task most of the time! We start off by discussing some basic combat strategy. Attacking, blocking, looking ahead in the game, etc etc. Then we move into tricks. We cover some of the different types of tricks, what they do, and how to use them. It's a much more enjoyable episode than last time, I assure you. That's all you get for now because I seem to have hurt my back and can't really sit here long enough to give you more in-depth show notes. Thanks for listening!

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-43-back-to-basics-combat-strategies-tricks-t217.html
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In this episode, we go over that most entertaining of phases, the combat phase. We cover all the steps of combat, what each step entails, and what sort of things you can and can't do in each step. In fact, I'm going to let Mike handle this via IM:

“The way I remember it, it started with a general overview of the structure of the turn, then we looked closer at the general structure of combat, then we went through combat very carefully, step-by-step, and spoke in some detail about special abilities that affect certain steps. With the usual amount of anecdoting and pointless rambling sprinkled in there. And Brian giving explanations that take twice as long and make half as much sense =P”

So there you have it, straight from the Rules Guy's mouth. Or fingers, since he typed that. We don't call Brian the Lead Rambler for nothing, and we do love him for it. Of course, if we're going to call out Brian for his rambling, then we should also call out Mike for randomly waxing about pre-Sixth Edition rules and how they didn't make any sense. He does that at least twice in this episode, perhaps more. And while we're at it, we pick on Dirk for not knowing something obvious close to the beginning of this episode. It turns out he's not dumb, he was actually not paying attention because he was trying to find something related to the Shards of Alara discussion we had just prior to recording.  And of course, let's not leave me out of the merrymaking.  I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make a Facebook page for the show.  Not at all.  Behind the scenes here at The Mana Pool!

Right then, hope everyone enjoys the episode and learns something useful. Or at least remembers something useful. Or at least gets a kick out of a bunch of dorks discussing combat until we're ready to actually fight.  Thanks for listening, and if you know how to start a Facebook page for the show, please let me know.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-42-back-to-basics-the-combat-phase-t212.html
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On this episode of The Mana Pool, we decided to practice what we preach. Last time, we gave you the basics on Sealed. For this episode, we wanted to show you those basics in action. To do this, we've done two things. First, I opened a Sealed pool of cards (a Shadowmoor Tournament Pack and two Eventide Booster Packs) and copied down the contents. I then sent the list to Dirk, Mike, Brian, and myself. Each of us had the following assignment: Build a Sealed Deck out of this pool, write it down, and be prepared to discuss. Amazingly, all four of us did this assignment, and we discussed our four very different decks. Just as a quick preview, there was a black/green deck, a green/white deck, a green/red deck, and a black/white deck. So not only have we talked about building a Sealed deck, but we have shown that there is no absolutely “right” way to build one out of a given pool. You can find the entire Sealed pool and our decklists here:

http://themanapool.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=366568

And you'd think that would have been a good episode, right? Wrong! That wasn't enough for you, our dear listeners. We had to take it a step further. Not only did we build 4 different decks before we recorded, but we also decided to build another one from an entirely different Sealed pool live on the air! I opened up the cards at the beginning of the episode, and during the discussions of the individual decks, I was sorting and typing up this new list. It went out to the dorks, and we went through the entire process of building a deck out of it. There's much discussion, disagreement, explanation, reasoning, despair, and ultimately, harmony. You can find the entire pool and the final decklist in the same post as before, but here's the link again:

http://themanapool.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=366568

Hopefully you found this educational, or enlightening, or at least entertaining. Let us know what you thought, whether you do it on the forums, in the Facebook group, or just in an email, so we'll know if we should do something like this in the future.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-41-back-to-basics-the-sealed-deck-process-in-action-t209.html
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