The Mana Pool

Chewie, Mike, Brian, and Dirk have been talking about Magic: The Gathering on the internet for almost 10 years (at the time of this writing). Since there are so many shows about strategy and tournaments, these dorks focus on all the fun you can have with the game outside of that, from flavor to philosophy to game design to history to whatever else we can come up with. We're funny, we're serious about what we do, and we love it!

The dorks are bringing back an old favorite by listener request! We're doing an Old Vs New of the two Zendikar blocks! The categories of comparison are Eldrazi, Planeswalkers, Allies, Lands, Mechanics, Bonus Cards, and Overall Theme. There's a lot of really good discussion about all of these categories and then some. You might be surprised by the time you get to the end. Be sure to let us know who you think should have won each category!

LINKAGEThe question of Eldrazi villainy: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-134-of-villainous-intent/Brian's cryptic hint: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/12/10

Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-406Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcastEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPoolLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheManaPoolAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Wanna send us something? Let us know first, then ship it to:The Mana PoolPO Box 2257Kernersville, NC 27285

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions

Chewie, Mike, Brian, and Dirk have been talking about Magic: The Gathering on the internet for almost 10 years (at the time of this writing). Since there are so many shows about strategy and tournaments, these dorks focus on all the fun you can have with the game outside of that, from flavor to philosophy to game design to history to whatever else we can come up with. We're funny, we're serious about what we do, and we love it!

Last episode we went into great detail about the Mythic rarity, so it only seems right that we put that discussion to good use this week. We're doing a Mythic Conscription of Betrayers of Kamigawa! You know as the set that had Ninjas and the Fork of Doom (Umezawa's Jitte) and...well that's probably it to be honest. But there's definitely some crazy stuff going on, as you'll hear. And we're totally using the stuff we learned (?) in 404, so that's good.

Of course we can't start until I finish embarrassing Mike. He took his Hedron Alignment deck to FNM last week, and I was there to hang out. That means I was there to see a massive failure on his part, which was so awesome in its badness that I just had to share with everyone!

Mike's Hedron Alignment: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ktk-bfz-ori-hedron-alignment/

Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-405Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcastEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPoolLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheManaPoolAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Wanna send us something? Let us know first, then ship it to:The Mana PoolPO Box 2257Kernersville, NC 27285

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions

Chewie, Mike, Brian, and Dirk have been talking about Magic: The Gathering on the internet for almost 10 years (at the time of this writing). Since there are so many shows about strategy and tournaments, these dorks focus on all the fun you can have with the game outside of that, from flavor to philosophy to game design to history to whatever else we can come up with. We're funny, we're serious about what we do, and we love it!

This week we're taking it back to a topic that we wanted to do almost two months ago, but we couldn't fit it in. It's all about what does or does not constitute the mythic rarity. Our last Mythic Conscription (Episode 398) caused a lot of consternation among our fan base. A significant number of you out there disagreed with how we assessed some of the mythics in Champions of Kamigawa, with the major schism coming from the mythic-ness of the Myojin and/or the Dragons. There was so much feedback about it that we decided to do this discussion!

We're taking it all the way back to the original definition of mythic as described by Mark Rosewater. There was another article on MTGGoldfish written in December of last year discussing how the mythic rarity has changed in the intervening 8 years. We're going to take a look at those, talk about them until we're all blue in the face, and then relate it all back to that fateful Champions of Kamigawa Mythic Conscription. We hope you guys enjoy, and do give us more feedback to let us know what you think!

LINKAGE:Episode 398 (the one that kicked off this discussion) - http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-398/The first introduction of mythic rarity - http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/year-living-changerously-2008-06-02Episode 30 (our first reaction to mythic rarity) - http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-30-and-now-for-something-not-completely-different/A question on Rosewater's tumblr - http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/134445511588/mister-rosewater-do-you-think-wizards-has-failedThe Goldfish article on the changing mythic rarity - http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/the-changing-definition-of-mythic-rare

Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-404Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcastEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPoolLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheManaPoolAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Wanna send us something? Let us know first, then ship it to:The Mana PoolPO Box 2257Kernersville, NC 27285

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions

Chewie, Mike, Brian, and Dirk have been talking about Magic: The Gathering on the internet for almost 10 years (at the time of this writing). Since there are so many shows about strategy and tournaments, these dorks focus on all the fun you can have with the game outside of that, from flavor to philosophy to game design to history to whatever else we can come up with. We're funny, we're serious about what we do, and we love it!

We're back to take another look at Oath of the Gatewatch! Before that we've got some old news to rehash and some new news to cover! There's the B&R list update, some Commander changes, and new things in the IPG. Then we take a while poking around the OGW Card Image Gallery talking about a bunch of stuff we like or don't like, things that were interesting at the Prerelease, you know how we do.

Then our final thoughts take on a life of their own, as we talk about the horrible water supply debacle of Flint, Michigan. Seriously, this is some stuff that shouldn't happen in modern society and yet here we are. There's also Periodic Table Battleship and discussions of the incoming winter weather down here in the South.

Hope you all enjoyed having two episodes this week!

LINKAGE:B&R List update: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/january-18-2016-banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-01-18Commander Rules update: http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18057IPG update: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/telliott/2016/01/18/ogw-policy-changes/Oath of the Gatewatch Card Image Gallery: http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/oathofthegatewatchFlint MI story: http://www.cnn.com/2016/01/11/health/toxic-tap-water-flint-michigan/Periodic Table Battleship: http://teachbesideme.com/periodic-table-battleship/#5YFpTb5BLtBf8hX5.03

Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-403Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcastEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPoolLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheManaPoolAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Wanna send us something? Let us know first, then ship it to:The Mana PoolPO Box 2257Kernersville, NC 27285

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions

Chewie, Mike, Brian, and Dirk have been talking about Magic: The Gathering on the internet for almost 10 years (at the time of this writing). Since there are so many shows about strategy and tournaments, these dorks focus on all the fun you can have with the game outside of that, from flavor to philosophy to game design to history to whatever else we can come up with. We're funny, we're serious about what we do, and we love it!

It's bonus episode time! Chewie, Brian, and Mike went to the Two-Headed Giant Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease at Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro NC. And of course we couldn't resist taking the digital recorder with us to report in live from the tournament! Don't worry, we know it's short. You'll be getting a normal episode later this week as well!

Chewie & Brian decided to re-form their old 2HG Dream Team because they were seriously awesome at it back in the day. Mike joined up with Chris, one of our local listeners that didn't have another head. We'll check in before the tourney starts, in between rounds, and then wrap it all up at the end. We'll discuss some of the cards that were good to us, some that were less than good, and general 2HG strategy. In this format, perhaps more than any other, you really are playing against your opponents just as much as you are playing against their cards, and that's one of the reasons Chewie & Brian are so good at it.

A big shout-out to listeners Kristen & Anthony who stopped by to say hi! I hope I spelled your name right, let me know if I didn't. And if you're the anonymous sailor that met Chewie's old man on a plane, send us a message and say hi! He's bad at remembering names.

Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-402Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcastEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPoolLike us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/c/TheManaPoolAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Wanna send us something? Let us know first, then ship it to:The Mana PoolPO Box 2257Kernersville, NC 27285

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions