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!

We're joined this week by fellow podcaster and all-around awesome guy, Mr. Jason Roskam! He's one of the hosts of the Higher Standards podcast, which focuses solely on, oddly enough, the Standard format. Imagine that. But we're not here to talk about Standard! Mr. Roskam tells us all about how he plays Magic with his son! It involves keeping him interested in the game while still helping him to improve and learn more, which is a pretty nifty balancing act. From there the discussion turns to some ideas for how to make Magic, competitive and otherwise, a little more welcoming to newer players. Do you have any ideas? Let us know!

After that, we turn to Dirk for another edition of Dirk's Creature Corner! This time (in case you couldn't tell from the title) Dirk is turning his eye towards the fishy existence of Merfolk! Dirk points out all the biological, physiological, evolutionary, and cultural reasons why merfolk just...won't work, whether they are the Leggy or Finny variety. We had a lot of fun discussing fish gills, fish necks, fish hands, fish junk, and of course, fish boobs. There's a lot of talk about the potential origins of these fish people - did they come straight from fish or were they perhaps already on land and backed back into their aquatic homes

This one was a lot of fun, and be sure to let us know what creatures we should dissect in the next episode of Dirk's Creature Corner!

Follow Mr. Roskam on Twitter - @roskam76Check out Higher Standards on MTGCast - http://mtgcast.com/topics/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/higher-standardsThe Mana Pool Episode 38 - The Eventide Prerelease Ordeal - http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-38-the-eventide-prerelease-ordeal/

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-370 Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeJoin the Forums: http://cardshark.freeforums.comAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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!

The dorks are joined this week by our third Kickstarter backer, Kim Ho! Kim is really awesome even though he lives in Canada! And that's racist. Prepare yourself, that's one of the running jokes here! You've been warned!

After explaining who he is and how he's doing, Kim directs us to a topic we did a while back on Episode 323 - What If It Cost 2 Less? that we didn't actually name. He has a list of old unfair cards for us to analyze and try to re-cost at a fair price by today's standards. There are also a few less-than-impressive cards in the mix too, just so we don't get bored adding mana to a bunch of stuff. We're pretty sure Kim hates us based on some of his choices. It's cool though, we kind of deserve it!

We end the episode with a quick game from Kim - Beast or Six Drop? Taken from former LR host Brian Wong, the idea is that he gives us a card name and we decide if it's a beast, a six drop, both, or neither. I think it was pretty funny, with us tripping over our own thoughts and definitely not cheating. I hope not anyway, because if we did we were cheating poorly.

Follow Kim on Twitter @RandomKHo, he's pretty awesome!

Mike's Game Day deck - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dtk-game-day-nonsense/

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-369 Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeJoin the Forums: http://cardshark.freeforums.comAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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!

On this episode the dorks have two main topics. First up, Mike and Brian went to SCG Modern States this weekend! Brian took Jeskai Ascendancy (or Ascension, apparently) and Mike took his Loam Assault (with a dash of Smallpox) to do battle. How'd they do? Well that's why you listen to the episode, of course. I mean, duh.

After that it's time for the next entry in our semi-annual-ish series where we take a look at properties in other media to turn into Magic! We've done video games, television shows, and movies (that we can remember) so now it's time for books! The dorks take a look at some modern fantasy books, classic sci-fi, a bunch of favorites, and some seriously obscure stuff. Join us for a discussion of books we've known and loved with some Magic thrown in for good measure!

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-368 Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeJoin the Forums: http://cardshark.freeforums.comAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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!

On this episode, the dorks are taking a look at Exodus, the last set in the Tempest block! We're putting it through the Mythic Conscription, picking out the rares that would have been mythics if that was a thing back then. After we're done with Exodus, we pull up the rares and mythics from Tempest Remastered to see how we did over our last three Conscriptions. Spoiler alert: not bad, not bad at all.

Then it's time for a good old Magic Mad Lib! Brian cooked up a nice long one, and after all the old-school card discussion we were suitably silly. Shenanigans, shenanigans everywhere! And our final thoughts this week were pretty long, with Brian going over three different ones himself and Chewie telling a story about almost dying! We hope you all enjoy!

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-367 Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeJoin the Forums: http://cardshark.freeforums.comAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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!

The guys are back for their monthly Hearthstone episode! We begin the episode by answering the frequent question about how the five of us became a long-running Blizzard gaming podcast. If you've ever wondered about our humble origins, this is the episode to listen to! Learn all about how Chewie, Brian, Mike, Dirk, and Squanto (Ecksell) got together!

After that it's back to business as usual for a Hearthstone episode! We begin by going over new decks and recent changes to existing decks. Lots of discussions come out of this, including whether Dr. Boom should be nerfed and how they might do it and what decks we're sick of running into all the time.

After that, Dirk takes the reins for his Lore segment. This week, thanks to the imminent release of Blackrock Mountain, he tells us all about Ragnaros the Firelord. And what a Tolkien fever dream of a story that is, holy crap.

And finally, we each pick a pair of cards from Blackrock Mountain to talk about in depth. Don't forget, you can start playing the first wing on April 2nd!

Mike's MechWarrior -http://www.hearthpwn.com/decks/217570-mechwarrior Dr. Boom is pretty good - http://www.dailydot.com/esports/dr-boom-nerf-hearthstone/Blackrock Mountain full set revealed on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.875939775782125.1073741868.498467596862680

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-366 Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolSubscribe to us on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeJoin the Forums: http://cardshark.freeforums.comAnd Google+ too: http://gplus.to/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Brought to you by Mana Pool Productions