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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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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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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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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
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