In this episode, we take on the nine new Eventide cards that have been previewed on the Magic site since the last episode. Not only the cards in the visual spoiler and the day's articles, but also a few cards that showed up in the Eventide primer video in Monday's Arcana. Tuesday's video had no new cards, but it's a good way to familiarize yourself with Chroma, the new ability word in Eventide. Here are the relevant links.

Eventide Visual Spoiler:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/eventide/spoiler

Eventide Video #1: Hybrid:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1622

Eventide Video #2: Chroma:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1623

But now for the meat of the episode. The last two game sets of Tribal Month have been pushed back yet again by a momentous gathering of the dorks. This past weekend, your host dorks (that's Mike, Brian, Dirk, and me, Chewie) gathered at my lovely girlfriend's house (she has the most room) to play Magic. We were joined in this gathering by one of our college dorks who is now in grad school way out of town, the oft-mentioned AJ. It was a lot of fun to have AJ playing around the table with us again, even when he won with a Mana Echoes-fueled Fireball out of nowhere in the first game. We were finally able to put our mantra of "Kill AJ" to good use again, since he was actually sitting there with us. Seven games were played, and we took notes to pass the games along with you listeners, since everyone seemed to enjoy the last time we did it.

That was Episode 15 just in case you missed it and enjoy that sort of thing. Thanks everyone for listening, and if you've stumbled upon this episode because of the Eventide previews, feel free to give some of the rest of the episodes a chance. Just excuse the first episode, we didn't quite know what we were doing yet.

Music for this episode: Together Again by The Muppets

You might recognize this, it's the opening song from The Muppets Take Manhattan, played here in honor of having AJ back with us.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-34-eventide-previews-multiplayer-free-for-all-2-t193.htmlEmail us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

In this episode, we give you the result of the Onslaught vs. Lorwyn Goblin Tribal War thing. The captain for the Onslaught deck was the Goblin Warchief, and the Lorwyn deck got the Mad Auntie. Who won? I'm not going tell you. You'll just have to listen. You can find the decklists for these two decks here, eventually:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/tribal-month-t179.html

Then, Tribal Month gets preempted by the Eventide previews, which have started just a bit early. We'll get back to the various things we wanted to discuss eventually, but as big breaking news, the previews just won't wait. We cover all the officially spoiled cards as of the week before official previews started. Starting from the bottom of the page and going up, we go from Doomgape to Thunderblust. I really wish I was making that up, because it sounds quite silly. Anyway, stay tuned for multiple episodes a week for the preview weeks, where we'll be going over all the cards found there. You can find the full visual spoiler here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/eventide/spoiler

Then, we decided to go back a bit and cover some news we missed. First off is the announcement of From the Vault: Dragons, a Limited Edition boxed set. It includes 15 foil dragons from the history of Magic, including a new dragon that will appear in Shards of Alara. Of the 15, 6 will have newly commissioned art. Find the full announcement here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1589

And finally, we hit the relatively recent announcement of a second edition of Duel Decks. Last time we had Elves vs. Goblins, but this time we get Jace vs. Chandra. Some of the best control and burn cards from the history of the game will be featured in these ready to play 60 card decks, along with foil alternate-art versions of those mighty planeswalkers, Jace Beleren and Chandra Nalaar. Find the full announcement here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/arcana/1608

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-33-eventide-previews-and-more-t192.html Email us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

In this episode we are Dirkless. Whoa, that looks like a real word. Playing the role of Dirk in this episode is Thomas, Mike's brother, who you may remember from the episode that discussed how Time Spiral had several hints about the tribes that were going to appear in Lorwyn. Okay, so he's not playing the role of Dirk. He's playing the role of Thomas. He's a natural for the role, oddly enough.

Since it's Tribal Month here on the Mana Pool, we decided we should do more than just focus on the tribes everyone knows. Elves and Goblins get all the glory. What about some of the lesser known tribes? Speaking of which, what makes a tribe a tribe? Is it a number? The presence of a "lord" of some type? Or is it all psychological? We'll discuss all this and more, as well as go into a few other areas of tribal concern.

Spaceninja posted in the Pimp My Deckbox thread about his Pegasus deck and asked what everyone's favorite B-list tribes were. So of course we had to rattle off a few of those. Thanks for the inspiration!

And speaking of B-list tribes, we take a look at Brian's deck built around the Assembly-Worker creature type (quite possibly a U or V-list tribe) and Thomas' deck built around Skeletons. Boy are they, um, resilient.

Brian's Assembly-Worker Deck

10: Forest

4: Urza's Factory

3: Urza's Mine

3: Urza's Power Plant

3: Urza's Tower

1: Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

4: Assembly-Worker

4: Woodland Changeling

2: Game-Trail Changeling

2: Joiner Adept

1: Seedborn Muse

1: Kamahl, Fist of Krosa

2: Garruk Wildspeaker

2: Door of Destinies

2: Riptide Replicator

2: Doubling Cube

1: Mindslaver

2: Doubling Season

3: Reap and Sow

3: Recross the Paths

2: Sylvan Scrying

3: Luminescent Rain

Thomas' Skeleton Deck

20 Swamp

Artifacts

2 Banshee's Blade

2 Bonesplitter

3 Demon's Horn

2 Carrionette

2 Corrosive Mentor

2 Drudge Skeletons

3 Flayed Nim

2 Kjeldoran Dead

4 Lim-Dûl's High Guard

3 Skeleton Scavengers

3 Unworthy Dead

2 Bad Moon

1 Drudge Spell

2 Unholy Strength

3 Lose Hope

2 Steal Strength

2 Night's Whisper

Music for this episode: The Nightlife by ARDEN

Check out ARDEN at www.myspace.com/thebandarden

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-32-the-minority-report-t187.html Email us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Welcome back to Tribal Month! This time, we start off with a quick discussion of the Eventide Booster Pack preview that showed up on the Magic website for a few days. Here's the link that worked for us after they took it down, hopefully by the time you read this it'll still be working. Be sure to run your mouse over the Overbeing of Myth to see the full text.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=magic/preview/evepack

Next up we have the results of the first Old School vs. New School Tribal Decks Overly Long Named Thing, Onslaught Soldiers vs. Lorwyn Soldiers! Who won? Well you'll just have to listen to find out, won't you? Remember, we went with an almost Highlander deck for each one, only including cards that dealt specifically with Soldiers from each block, with one Captain as a four-of. The Captains were chosen by a vote on the forums, so thanks very much for everyone that participated in that. You can keep voting for non-Soldiers if you like. There was a bit of a problem with this format though. The Lorwyn Soldiers are woefully underrepresented, so we decided to allow for backup from Knights (slightly better class of soldier, right?), flavorful cards from the Lorwyn block (Coordinated Barrage, Daily Regimen), Kithkin cards (Wizened Cenn, Kithkin Harbinger), and finally non-rare Changelings (Changeling Sentinel, Avian Changeling). They also get two Captains, just to keep the numbers the same. The Onslaught Captain is Daru Warchief, and the Lorwyn Captains are Kinsbaile Borderguard (unanimous vote!) and Cenn's Tactician. The full decklists will be published in the Tribal Month thread on the forums (also where you can vote for the rest of the tribes), found here:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/tribal-month-t179.html

In honor of Tribal Month here on the Mana Pool, we decided to dig around and find a tribal deck we could bring Out of the Deck Box for your listening pleasure. Since 3/4 of us have Zombie decks, we decided to go with that. Here are the decklists for those lovable undead guys.

Dirk's Zombies20 Swamps1 Lord of the Undead1 Vengeful Dead2 Boneknitter 2 Noxious Ghoul2 Severed Legion 2 Soulless One2 Twisted Abomination2 Undead Warchief3 Shepherd of Rot4 Festering Goblin4 Gravedigger1 Aphetto Dredging1 Debtor's Knell 2 Bubbling Muck2 Cruel Revival2 Dark Banishing2 Eradicate2 Patriarch's Bidding3 Consume Spirit

Mike's Zombies

17 Swamp3 Spawning Pool1 Unholy Grotto4 Soulless One4 Stromgald Crusader4 Twisted Abomination4 Undead Warchief3 Bone Dancer2 Grave Defiler2 Gravedigger2 Gravespawn Sovereign1 Grotesque Hybrid1 Helldozer1 Lord of the Undead4 Innocent Blood4 Strongarm Tactics3 Feast or Famine

Chewie's Zombies18 Swamp2 Barren Moor2 Unholy Grotto2 Carrion Feeder4 Festering Goblin2 Skirk Ridge Exhumer2 Rakdos Guildmage2 Zombie Master2 Lord of the Undead1 Zombie Trailblazer1 Undead Gladiator2 Vengeful Dead2 Brain Gorgers3 Soulless One3 Undead Warchief1 Balthor the Defiled2 Noxious Ghoul2 Twisted Abomination2 Gempalm Polluter1 Nefashu2 Gravespawn Sovereign2 Feeding Frenzy2 Zombie Infestation

And finally, we finish up by taking a quick look at Brian's experience at Regionals, where he piloted, appropriately enough, a Merfolk tribal deck. And since that's a complete episode, we decided to stop there.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-31-soldiers-and-zombies-and-merfolk-oh-my-t186.htmlEmail us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool This episode's music: Apparently Tribal Month and No-Music Month overlap. I didn't get the memo that they'd both be in June...

Well, this was going to be our first Tribal Month episode, but Wizards went and threw a curve ball at us. There's a big bunch of announcements that appeared this week, and we're here to give you our two cents' worth. Well, there's four of us, so that's eight cents. Don't spend it all in one place. We discuss the changes, talk about some of the things Mark Rosewater said about the changes, and then talk about the changes some more. There's a new rarity (mythic rare!), a land in each booster (one less common), and smaller set sizes from here out (compensates for the other two changes). Also, they're changing up the way preconstructed decks are put together (still the same price though) and how the Magic novels are published (not that anyone's really going to notice). Now that I've typed all that, you can go listen to us rant about each of these tidbits. Find those announcements here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/20080602

And Rosewater's article here:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/mr334

Then there's the obligatory discussion about the Old vs. New Tribal War that we're going to wage. Onslaught vs. Lorwyn, with the four tribes that cross over going head to head. Elves, Goblins, Soldiers, and Wizards from each block will attempt to beat the living crap out of the other block's tribe. But each deck needs a captain, and that's where you guys come in. We need you to hit the forums and let us know which option for captain is the best one. You can find those options in the forums, here:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/tribal-month-t179.html

And last but not least, we bring Dirk's infamous Elf deck Out of the Deck Box, courtesy of a request by Mayshod. And speaking of which, here it is. It might not look utterly terrifying, but in a game consisting of 4-8 people, it's pretty freakin' scary. Trust us all on this. Freakin' scary.

Land

18 Forest

Creatures1 Allosaurus Rider1 Civic Wayfinder1 Elvish Soultiller1 Seedborn Muse1 Wren's Run Packmaster2 Elvish Champion2 Elvish Riders2 Imperious Perfect2 Nath's Elite2 Voice of the Wood3 Immaculate Magistrate3 Lys Alana Huntmaster4 Heedless One4 Llanowar Elf4 Wellwisher4 Wirewood Channeler

Other Spells1 Gaea's Anthem2 Naturalize2 Privileged Position

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-30-and-now-for-something-not-completely-different-t185.html Email us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool This episode's music: No music again. This is like an episode and a half in length, you'll manage without the music.

In our triumphant return from a vacation hiatus, we promptly decided to skip the show we were going to do and do this one instead. Please forgive the quality of this episode, both content and sound quality, as it was kind of slapdash. On Memorial Day, your host dorks got together along with Chris (PhoenixRising422 on the forums) and Michael (Science_Fixes_Everything on the forums) to do a bit of dorking. Not just any dorking, it turns out, we did a Cube Draft! After we were done with all that, we rolled over to my apartment to record the show. So there were six of us sitting in my bedroom (only four real chairs, a video game chair on the floor, and the bed) trying desperately to be heard by the mic. Plus, I was getting sick when we recorded (am fully sick as I post this episode now) so I might sound a little...terrible. But enough excuses, what about this Cube thing?

Brian, being as he has more free time than he has sense now that his finals are over, decided to create a Cube so we could do a draft. A Cube is a whole mess of cards put together for the purpose of being drafted. He put a lot of effort into balancing the colors, the curve of each color, and putting in plenty of threats as well as answers, and it really turned out to be a whole mess of fun. So join us as all six of us discuss our decks as well as the games we played. You can find the entire list of the contents of the Cube on our website. Here's the link: http://themanapool.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=344508

Or if you'd rather download the Word file that lists the Cube contents in a handy-dandy table, then there's a link to that too!http://media.libsyn.com/media/themanapool/Brians_Cube.doc

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-29-to-the-third-power-cubed-t180.htmlEmail us at [email protected]Send me an article at [email protected]Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.comRSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

This episode's music: No music this time, I'm sick.

There is two of us! If you don't get the reference, please refer to Ali and Ali's sister. If you don't get that reference, then I bet you don't know how to type with boxing gloves on. If you didn't get that one either, you apparently haven't been subjected to the joy that is Strong Bad. But that's for neither here nor there, this is a Magic podcast! So back to the subject at hand.

There is two of us! This time, due to finals, dead internets, and various other issues, Mike and I are the only hosts. But that's okay, because we said so. This is sort of a potpourri episode, where we throw lots of things at you. We figured out a few more slang terms that we didn't cover last time, so first we handle those. Then, of course, we have to talk about the Shadowmoor Launch Party and how we all did there. Spoiler: We didn't all fail horribly this time. We then finish up with a quick announcement about an upcoming project that we want to tackle, but we need your input to help us out. So roll on over to the forums and let us know what you think!

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-28-a-two-man-assortment-t172.htmlEmail us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool This episode's music: The Search by Swift Check Swift out at http://www.swift-band.com

In this episode Mike, Dirk, and I finish the discussion of the many, many terms that get thrown around in a game of Magic. Not the usual things like keyword abilities and phases of the turn and whatnot. Oh no, we're talking about the unique language that Magic players have invented to describe what's going on. Have you ever topdecked a fatty? Have you ever looted into burn? How about that time your opponent was tapped out and you decided to roll with an alpha strike, only to have him pitch a card to use his trick? And everyone has chumped with a weenie, whether they want to admit it or not. If you have no idea just what in the name of Jonny Magic I'm talking about, then this is definitely the episode for you. Since the discussion ran so incredibly long, I had to split it up into two parts. This is the last hour of that discussion, where we cram in more slang than you can fog an alpha strike with. Did that sentence make any sense at all? Keep listening to find out. Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-27b-talking-the-talk-part-2-t169.html Email us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool This episode's music: M-16 by Ill Mic Check Ill Mic out at http://www.illmic.com

In this episode Mike, Dirk, and I begin the discussion of the many, many terms that get thrown around in a game of Magic. Not the usual things like keyword abilities and phases of the turn and whatnot. Oh no, we're talking about the unique language that Magic players have invented to describe what's going on. Have you ever topdecked a fatty? Have you ever looted into burn? How about that time your opponent was tapped out and you decided to roll with an alpha strike, only to have him pitch a card to use his trick? And everyone has chumped with a weenie, whether they want to admit it or not. If you have no idea just what in the name of Jonny Magic I'm talking about, then this is definitely the episode for you.

Sadly, the discussion about slang terms ran incredibly long, so all you're getting here is the first half of the conversation. Stay tuned for Episode 27b, coming soon to an Internet near you.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-27a-talking-the-talk-part-1-t167.htmlEmail us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool This episode's music: M-16 by Ill Mic Check Ill Mic out at http://www.illmic.com

This episode, we have some special guests joining us on the show. Chris and Molly, better known as PhoenixRising422 and myboyfriendsagamergod on the forums. Shadowmoor was his first Prerelease, and this episode was recorded on his birthday, so we decided to have him on to give us his perspective on the tournament. Actually, Brian and I tell you how we did too. We then get Mike and Molly to give us their ideas about the set now that it's gone public. Tune in for lots of random discussions about the tournament, thoughts on the new set, and just general dorkiness in general.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-26-prerelease-stories-and-special-guests-t161.html Email us at [email protected] Send me an article at [email protected] Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

This episode's music: Breathless by Swift

Check Swift out at http://www.swift-band.com