Last weekend the dorks gathered!  With Mike visiting Brian, we set aside all of Saturday for Magic playing!  Dirk and I joined them at Brian's house, and much dorking ensued.  We started at about 10:30am.  There was a break for lunch, let's say an hour just to be safe.  Then we concluded the day's events around 8:30pm.  Yes friends, that is most definitely 9 hours of dorking.  There was a small break for something else Magic-related, keep reading for more info on that.

In all, 11 games were played.  I wrote down what everyone was playing and made a few notes about the big plays in each game.  Nothing terribly in-depth, just enough to remind us what was going on.  In this episode, we discuss these 11 games and tell you all about how awesome they were.  That's pretty much it, really.

We took another break from the free-for-all so Mike and I could do a Winston Draft with six packs of Scourge that I had for some reason.  For those of you that don't know, a Winston Draft is a two-man draft format that is loads and loads of fun.  I have written two Winston walkthroughs for Cardshark, and you guys should definitely check it out if you can't regularly get 7 other people together for a friendly draft.  Here are the articles.

Time Spiral Winston
http://www.cardshark.com/content/view_article.asp?article_id=4036

Lorwyn Winston
http://www.cardshark.com/content/view_article.asp?article_id=4111

And finally, for this episode's edition of Out of the Deck Box (Possibly Soon to be Renamed), Brian gives us a look at his Ink-Treader Nephilim deck, which is always a blast to play.  Here's the list, and check out the episode for Brian's explanation on how it works and why it's fun.

Land (22)
8: Forest
3: Island
3: Mountain
2: Plains
2: Azorius Chancery
2: Boros Garrison
1: Gruul Turf
1: Simic Growth Chamber
 
Creatures (11)
4: Ink-Treader Nephilim
3: Autochthon Wurm
2: Intet, the Dreamer
2: Razia, Boros Archangel
 
Non-Creature Spells (27)
4: Polymorph
2: Magma Jet
2: Cytoshape
2: Blind with Anger
2: Psychotic Fury
1: Vanish into Memory
1: Ovinize
4: Farseek
3: Journey of Discovery
3: Reminisce
2: Tel-Jilad Stylus
1: Seal of Primoridum

Forum topic here: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=125
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February is Classical Music Month here at The Mana Pool!
Opening music: Flight of the Bumblebee by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Closing music: O Fortuna by Carl Orff

What is okay to play in a casual setting? Can you break out your hardcore land destruction deck around the kitchen table? Is it okay to play a 20-counterspell deck in the Casual room on MTGO? Do your friends hate you when you whip out your mono-black heavy discard deck? Brian leads us in a discussion of deck-type etiquette when playing in a non-tournament environment. Give us your opinions on the forums!

First we have to resurrect Squanto, since Vegas worked him to death.  From there, the episode takes off and never really stops.  Squanto, Mike, Brian, and I discuss the differences between the three major types of Magic decks:  Aggro, Control, and Combo.  At great length.  No really, we're really pretty thorough.  Pros, cons, examples, rantings, ravings, questions, arguments.  Pretty much everything except the kitchen sink and a shotgun blast. 

Then we introduce a new segment to the show, Out of the Deck Box (possibly to be renamed later), where one of us dorks just picks a deck from his casual collection and talks about it.  Since this was my idea, I started it up with my oldest surviving deck idea and one of my all-time favorites to play.  I simply call it the Graveyard Deck.  Here's the list:

Creatures

4 Nether Shadow

4 Ashen Ghoul

4 Nether Traitor

4 Abyssal Gatekeeper

2 Phyrexian Plaguelord

1 each of the following:

Ascendant Evincar; Mortivore; Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder; Havoc Demon; Patron of the Nezumi; Braids, Cabal Minion; Magus of the Abyss; Woebringer Demon; Dross Harvester; Liege of the Pit; Devouring Strossus; Hell's Caretaker; Sek'Kuar, Deathkeeper

Spells

4 Buried Alive

2 Dread Return

1 each of the following:

Recurring Nightmare; Attrition; Death Pit Offering; Hecatomb;

Land

2 Cabal Coffers

1 Phyrexian Tower

19 Swamp

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/viewtopic.php?t=118

Email us at themanapool@cardshark.com

Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com

Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com

RSS feed:  http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

February is Classical Music Month here on The Mana Pool!

Opening music:  Hallelujah chorus from Messiah by Handel

Closing music:  Mars, Bringer of War from The Planets by Gustav Holst