The Mana Pool
Join Brian, Mike, Dirk and Chewie as they discuss all things Magic: The Gathering. Since there are plenty of tournament and strategy podcasts out there, we've decided to focus on the fun of the game in all its many forms, from Prereleases to multiplayer free-for-alls to whatever else we can come up with. Give us a listen!

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Syndication

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-260-giant-chicken-token-t882.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_260_-_Giant_Chicken_Token.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:08pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-259-tundra-wolves-man-13-t878.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_259_-_Tundra_Wolves_Man_13.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:48pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-258-into-the-red-zone-t876.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_258_-_Into_the_Red_Zone.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:35pm EDT

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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_257_-_Go_Vacuum_Live.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:38pm EDT

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!

Direct download: Limited_Resources_158.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 1:25pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-256-don-t-stop-living-in-the-red-t866.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_256_-_Dont_Stop_Living_In_the_Red.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:31pm EDT

Direct download: MNM_337.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 9:48pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-255-the-unintentional-star-wars-episode-t864.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_255_-_The_Unintentional_Star_Wars_Episode.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:58pm EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-254
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-254-planechasing-and-stuff-live-t859.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_254_-_Planechasing_and_Stuff_Live.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:40pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-253-modern-multiplayer-masters-t856.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_253_-_Modern_Multiplayer_Masters.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:30am EDT

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/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-252
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-252-rotated-and-touched-t852.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
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Direct download: Episode_252_-_Rotated_and_Touched.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:39pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-251-prerelease-i-m-out-of-control-t851.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_251_-_Prerelease_Im_Out_of_Control.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:26pm EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-250
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-250-the-state-of-the-game-t847.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_250_-_The_State_of_the_Game.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:59pm EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-249
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Direct download: Episode_249_-_Return_of_the_Ravnica_or_The_Guildpact_Strikes_Back.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:35pm EDT

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/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-248
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-248-the-rules-guy-gets-busted-t843.html
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Direct download: Episode_248_-_The_Rules_Guy_Gets_Busted.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:12am EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-247
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Direct download: Episode_247_-_Stack_of_Pancakes.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:22am EDT

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)

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-246
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Direct download: Episode_246_-_Return_to_Ravnica_Address_Unknown.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:53pm EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-245
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-245-dredging-in-the-woods-t840.html
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Direct download: Episode_245_-_Dredging_in_the_Woods.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:47am EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-244
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Direct download: Episode_244_-_Foolaroundishness.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:45pm EDT

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-243
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Direct download: Episode_243_-_Up_Your_Arsenal_w_Story_Circle.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:52pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_242_-_Listener-Submitted_Ideas_Appreciation_Fortnight.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:44am EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_241_-_Not_Even_Quick-Fire_Discussions.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:19pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_240_-_Primal_Ducks_Toolkit_Deckbuilding.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:56pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_239_-_Dirks_on_a_Cruise.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:17pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-238-extra-super-stupid-weird-like-damn-t829.html
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Direct download: Episode_238_-_Extra_Super_Stupid_Weird_Like_Damn.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:21am EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_237_-_All_the_M13.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:22pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_236_-_The_Saga_of_Nicky_B.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:23pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_235_-_Vampiric_Geyser.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 4:46pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_234_-_Innistrad_Creature_Awards_Part_2.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:18pm EDT

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
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-233-new-planechase-edh-live-t820.html
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Direct download: Episode_233_-_New_Planechase_EDH_Live.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:46pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_232_-_The_Innistrad_Creature_Awards_Part_One.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:11pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_231_-_How_Many_Years_Has_It_Been.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:21am EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_230_-_Commanders_and_Casuals_and_Hordes_Oh_My.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:46am EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_229_-_Mikes_Demonic_Defects.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:23pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_228_-_The_Helvault_Experience_Play_Boros.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 10:35pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_227_-_All_the_AVR_All_the_Time.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 11:07pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_226_-_Avacyn_Restored_and_Poetry.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:51pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_225_-_Avacyn_Restored_Previews_1.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:50pm EDT

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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Direct download: Episode_224_-_Plants_and_Other_Things.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:48pm EDT

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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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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
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Direct download: Episode_222_-_Theres_Bears_Outside.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:51pm EDT

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-221-planes-walk-this-way-t782.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_221_-_PlanesWalk_This_Way.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:01pm EDT

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.

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_36_-_GP_Nashville_Drafting_with_Sam_Black.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:40pm EDT

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.

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_35_-_GP_Nashville_-_Drafting_with_Jon_Finkel.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 8:30pm EDT

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.

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_34_-_GP_Nashville_-_Head_Judge_and_Zac_Hill.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:25am EDT

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 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.

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_33_-_GP_Nashville_-_The_Main_Event_and_Cube_Talk.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:29pm EDT

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!

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_32_-_GP_Nashville_-_LSV_Plus_Sealed_Deck_Analysis.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 2:21am EDT

Mr Suitcase #31 - GP Nashville Introductions

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!

Direct download: Mr_Suitcase_Episode_31_GP_Nashville_Introduction.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 4:42pm EDT

Episode 220 - Confronting the Horde (Live)

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-220-confronting-the-horde-live-t776.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_220_-_Confronting_the_Horde_Live.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:54pm EDT

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

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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_213_-_Commander_Month_The_First_One_with_Bennie_Smith.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 7:07pm EDT

Episode 218 - Commander Month: Leaving a Crater with Laura by Spruke

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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_218_-_Commander_Month_Leaving_a_Crater_with_Laura_by_Spruke.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:36pm EDT

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

Direct download: For_You_Mana_Pool_Mix.mp3
Category:Non-podcast Audio -- posted at: 1:12pm EDT

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

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-217-commander-month-you-don-t-know-jack-t765.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
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Direct download: Episode_217_-_Commander_Month_You_Dont_Know_Jack.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:38pm EDT

Episode 216 - Commander Month: A Day at the Beach

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
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool
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Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Direct download: Episode_216_-_Commander_Month_A_Day_at_the_Beach.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:40pm EDT

Episode 215 - DKA Prerelease and Mailbag

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-215-dka-prerelease-and-mailbag-t760.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com
Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx
Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Direct download: Episode_215_-_DKA_Prerelease_and_Mailbag.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 1:28pm EDT

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

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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Direct download: Episode_214_-_Crisis_II_-_Dork_Harder_DKA_Preview_3.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 12:38pm EDT

Episode 213 - Rant Over (DKA Preview 2)

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-213-rant-over-dka-preview-2-t753.html
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Direct download: Episode_213_-_Rant_Over_DKA_Preview_2.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:40pm EDT

Episode 212 - Dark Ascension Preview 1

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

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-212-dark-ascension-preview-1-t752.html
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Direct download: Episode_212_-_Dark_Ascension_Preview_1.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 3:52pm EDT

Episode 211 - Tribal Talk with CMDR Decks

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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Direct download: Episode_211_-_Tribal_Talk_with_CMDR_Decks.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:38pm EDT