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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March 2014
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Syndication

Remember Commander Shenanigans 2? It was episode 303. Later that day, we recorded another episode. This is it. For some reason, when we record one live episode it records through the USB mic, which is why CS2 sounded good. When we record a second one, it defaults to the built-in laptop mic. That happened here, and we didn't catch it. This episode is a few days late because I decided to try to make it sound better, because it really sounded like crap. Sorry about that, but hopefully you'll think it was worth the wait.

Since there were five of us (the usual four dorks and Brian's buddy Jon Raymer), we decided to play a game of Assassin, since it is easily one of Chewie's favorite game types ever.  This episode is actually a really good way to learn that everyone plays the game differently, as evidenced by some of our reactions to the way Jon started the game (really Chewie was just irritiable at having his Titan killed).

After the Assassin game, Dirk had to leave.  The rest of us took advantage of having time left at the end of the first game to play a "lightning round".  We all grabbed EDH decks that would lead to relatively quick games and played.  It turns out it wasn't quite a "lightning" fast game, but it was still quicker than our usual games.  Hope you guys enjoy!

 

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – Da Funk by Daft Punk - http://daftpunk.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-316
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-316-live-from-our-secret-undersea-base-t995.html
Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast
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Direct download: Episode_316_-_Live_from_Our_Secret_Undersea_Base.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:19pm EDT

Chewie enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Charlotte so much that he decided to truck up to Pittsburgh and do it again!  As always, Chewie’s asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches his eye.

 

The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff Chewie does, is to entertain you, the listener.  Rather than asking the same old questions that everyone else does, he’s looking to give you a slightly more off-the-wall look into these Magic players and judges and what-have-you by catching them off guard and putting them on the spot.

 

This episode covers Day 2 of GP Pittsburgh.  I tracked down a few fellow podcasters (remember Scrubland?), some pros (Willy Edel and Owen Turtenwald, among others), some judges (like the guy with the bucket!), and generally just people who caught my attention (like the guy with the epic mustache).

 

Hope you enjoy!  Let me know what your answers would be!  And keep an eye out for the Three Questions from Grand Prix Vegas coming soon!

 

 

Your host: Chewie
Twitter: @TheManaPool
Email: chewie@mtgcast.com
Music: The Journey Continues by Kazunaka Yamane (from Double Dragon)

Direct download: Three_Questions_007.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 9:36pm EDT

Following a week off to prepare for the insanity that was Grand Prix Richmond, here is the GP Richmond episode!  It's just Chewie and Mike from the standard-issue dorks, so to help us out we brought on two special Richmond dorks!  First up is our (very) old pal, Level 3 Judge, podcaster, and horrible person Bryan Prillaman!  You might remember him from the Avant-Card Show back in the day or his current podcasting deal, JudgeCast.  Our second guest dork is Corvin Powell, a LONG-TIME listener we met in Richmond.  He was pretty awesome and he was playing a deck running Mike's favorite unplayed Modern-legal card.

We spent the entire episode talking all about the insane event.  We had Mike and Corvin talking about their Death Cloud decks.  Prillaman explained how the logistics of such a crazy event work.  Chewie and Mike told us all about the friends and listeners we met while we were there.  We even took a few minutes to talk about the whole image gallery that has become known as CrackGate, so keep an ear out for that.

 

Mike's Death Tron deck: http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/mikes-modern-death-tron-deck/
Corvin's Death Cloud Rock deck: http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/corvin-powells-death-cloud-rock-deck/

 

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – Funky Smoke (Deep Purple vs. Daft Punk vs. Usher vs. Ludacris) by DJ Lobsterdust -  http://djlobsterdust.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-315
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-315-the-gp-richmond-episode-t993.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

Direct download: Episode_315_-_The_GP_Richmond_Episode.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 5:26pm EDT

Chewie enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Charlotte so much that he decided to truck up to Pittsburgh and do it again! As always, Chewie’s asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches his eye.

 

The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff Chewie does, is to entertain you, the listener.  Rather than asking the same old questions that everyone else does, he’s looking to give you a slightly more off-the-wall look into these Magic players and judges and what-have-you by catching them off guard and putting them on the spot.

 

This episode covers the end of Saturday of GP Pittsburgh.  There are a lot of good answers on this one, holy crap.  Because it was after round three, I tracked down a LOT of pros.  We're talking pros like David Ochoa, Jackie Lee, Shahar Shenhar, Sam Black, Eric Froelich, LSV, Josh Utter-Leyton, Gaudenis Vidugiris, Tom Martel, Alex Hayne, Conley Woods, James Searles, Jon Stern, Melissa De Tora, and Ari Lax!  And that's not even all of them, because I also bumped into two of the greatest strategy writers ever, Zvi Mowshowitz and Frank Karsten!  There are also a few listeners, a former podcaster, and a high-level judge (Jared Sylva, he's so dreamy).  I managed to grab two other names from the community - Planeswalker Nate Holt and alterer extraordinaire Eric Klug!  This one is a great one, so never mind the fact that it's almost a year old, give it a listen!

 

Hope you enjoy! Let me know what your answers would be!

 

 

Your host: Chewie
Twitter: @TheManaPool
Email: chewie@mtgcast.com

Direct download: Three_Questions_006.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 5:44pm EDT

Hey look, we actually did the follow-up to last week's episode!  Because this was a topic suggested by our friend JT (@NerdPop140), we brought him on this week to help us tell you all about it.  But first, we have news!  Anyone under 18 planning to attend Grand Prix Vienna needs to have written parental permission, so click the link below for all that information.  WotC also released the full decklists for the upcoming Jace vs. Vraska Duel Decks, so we're gonna tell you all about that.  They're mostly singleton decks, and we think that's pretty good.

But on to the main topic at hand!  Last week we told you all about the mental preparation for you to make the move from the kitchen table to the FNM or some other tournament scene.  This time we're focusing on the deck itself.  How do you come up with an idea for your first tournament deck?  How do you go about acquiring the cards for said deck?  And how do you tweak the deck to make sure it'll do the best it can?  We'll discuss all of that and more on this episode!  As always, if you guys have any other ideas for any of this, let us know! 

We hope this episode helps you out as much as possible!  And for those of you that are already in the tourney scene, we hope you enjoy our hijinks!

 

GP Vienna important information - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/other/021202014
Duel Decks: Jace vs. Vraska decklists - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1438

 

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband
Break Music – Smash My Bitch Up (Smashing Pumpkins vs. Prodigy) by DJ Lobsterdust -  http://djlobsterdust.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-314
Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-314-kitchen-2-tourney-the-sequel-t991.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

Direct download: Episode_314_-_Kitchen_2_Tourney_The_Sequel.mp3
Category:podcasts -- posted at: 6:03pm EDT