We are joined this episode by Uriah Oxford, the progenitor of the CMDR Decks video series!  Why?  Because he's awesome!  And because we have the entirety of the Commander 2013 decks to talk about!  But first, there's a bit of other news to discuss.  Mike and Brian have to tell us about their latest foray into FNM, or Standard, or drafting, or whatever.  It was all of the above mixed together.  Then there's a new Duel Decks and Magic Online Vintage Masters.

After that, we're off into Commander previews!  We're taking a hard look at each of the decks, checking out both the new awesome cards and the old awesome cards in each one.  And there are some seriously awesome cards here.  I mean holy crap.  But that's pretty much it for the rest of the episode, so we hope you enjoy!

Be sure to check out CMDR Decks!
Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/cmdrdecks
Twitter - @CMDRDecks
Email - cmdrdecks@gmail.com

Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1346
Vintage Masters - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/10212013/vintagemasters
Sheldon Menery's article about Uriah's Eight-and-a-Half-Tails deck - http://www.starcitygames.com/article/27184_Other-Peoples-Decks-Uriah-Oxfords-Eight-And-A-Half-Tails.html
Commander 2013 Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/commander2013/cig#
Commander 2013 Decklists - http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/269c
Just the new cards, posted after we recorded - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1349

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Bring Me to Life by Evanescence - http://www.evanescence.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-299
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-299-commander-2013-with-cmdr-decks-t961.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Our Google+ page: http://gplus.to/themanapool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx
Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

As if you couldn't tell from the title, we're joined this episode by former Muse, former Gathering Magic writer, former Star City Games writer, current DailyMTG writer and longtime Mana Pool listener Bruce Richard!  Be sure you pronounce that all French-like, it turns out he's Canadian.  But don't hold that against him, he's still completely awesome! You can follow him on Twitter @manaburned

We begin the episode by getting Bruce to give us some background.  Who he is, where he came from, that sort of thing.  From there we dive right into Commander previews, because heaven forbid we have any freakin' time at all between preview seasons.  But at least these cards are pretty cool, if not a little wordy at times.

After an appropriate enough musical break, we've got a really fun Magic Mad Lib, followed by a brand new Story Circle!  We've gotta do a Commander-style Story Circle with one of these new legendary dudes, and if you were listening closely to the previews I'm pretty sure you'll be able to figure out which one.  If you want to see the full list we came up with, just click here: http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle298edh/

Bruce's many, many archives:
StarCitygames:  http://www.starcitygames.com/tags/BruceRichard/2000-01-01/2013-10-17
Muse Vessel:  http://musevessel.wordpress.com/category/windborn-musings/
GatheringMagic:  http://www.gatheringmagic.com/author/BruceRichard/
Dailymtg.com:  http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?author=Bruce%20Richard

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Map of the Problematique by Muse - http://muse.mu/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-298
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-298-serious-fun-with-bruce-richard-t957.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Our Google+ page: http://gplus.to/themanapool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx
Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

It's time for another edition of Old vs. New on The Mana Pool!  Finishing up the guilds in Return to Ravnica, we're hitting the old Azorius guild this time around.  How do the various Isperias stack up against each other?  Well they don't, because they don't go in the same category!  Yeah, Chewie didn't know any better either.  This one actually gave us some of our closest matches ever, along with some of our most one-sided.  Yeah, the Azorius are pretty hardcore. 

Also, we were short one Dirk due to his grab school work again. But rather than bring in a couple of suckers...I mean guest hosts, to replace him, we just soldiered on without him.  There was a bit of talk about Mike's Launch experience, a rules update, and the usual nonsense.  Hope you all enjoy!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - Won't Get Fooled Again by The Who - http://thewho.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-297
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-297-peacekeepers-lawmakers-t955.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Our Google+ page: http://gplus.to/themanapool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx
Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Sadly this episode we are one Dirk short of a full cast due to grad school holding him down and beating him.  But to replace him, we brought along two guest hosts! We have a half-Dirk veteran, our old buddy Bill Bloodworth (@SqueeGoblnNabob) joining us again!  And the other half of Dirk is our buddy from GP Charlotte and GP Pittsburgh, JT Kohnen (@NerdPop140)! You know and love him as CyberPunkOtaku01 on the forums.

So what were we actually talking about this episode? Well of course the Prerelease results were the first thing. Everyone but Chewie is here to tell you all about how they did and what they played.  Chewie missed his first Prerelease in no one knows how long, but at least Brian's sealed pool still thinks it's a Ravnica block.

After that, we had to talk about all the cards that are rotating out of Standard. It's not something that we usually talk about, but it's a tradition here on The Mana Pool!  Every rotation we rant and rave about all the crap we don't have to hear about any more, and it's great!  Since Bill and JT pay attention to Standard, and Mike and Brian do too, it's a really good discussion.

A moment of silence please for JT's Deadeye Navigator deck.  It will be missed.

JT's NerdPop blog: http://nerdpopularity.blogspot.com/

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music - We Don't Need Another Hero by Tina Turner - http://www.tinaturnerofficial.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-296
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-296-standard-rotation-halfa-dirka-piece-t954.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool
Our Google+ page: http://gplus.to/themanapool
Email us at dorks@themanapool.com
Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx
Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool