The Mana Pool

So we're sure you've noticed that Episode 318 has yet to follow Episode 317. You are correct. Mike and Chewie hopped on to explain what happened. To make it up to you, we've included the outtakes from the recording of Episode 317's commercials. Some of these are pretty funny, so we hope you enjoy!

The first video on The Mana Pool's YouTube channel is now up, you should go check it out! - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQcc9e-sxI4

Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com/category/podcast Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at @TheManaPool Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheManaPoolTubeOur Google+ page: 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

On this very special episode of The Mana Pool, the dorks are finally opening up to all the big plans they've had in the works for many months now. From e-books to quantum computing apps and everything in between, we're revealing everything! This will also mark the first episode all our new sponsors are on board with some nice, unobtrusive commercials to help us pay for all these amazing plans. Oh, we also covered a few bits of news that we thought might be interesting. You can find the links right down there. See them? There you go.

Thanks so much to all of you for sticking with us all this time and making this all happen! We wouldn't be here without any of you!

Clash Packs: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1443

How to Write an Article by MaRo: http://wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/291

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Choco Rocks Music - Monkeys Spinning Monkeys by Kevin MacLeod - http://incompetech.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-317 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-317-the-future-is-amazing-t998.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 [email protected] 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

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 Our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Our Google+ page: http://gplus.to/themanapool Email us at [email protected] 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

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: [email protected]Music: The Journey Continues by Kazunaka Yamane (from Double Dragon)

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 [email protected] 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

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: [email protected]

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/021202014Duel 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 [email protected] 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

On this episode, the dorks cover a few more bits of news. Last week we missed that some of the Conspiracy cards are going to not be legal in Vintage and Legacy, which sparks some discussion about why that could be. Hasbro is loving the Magic, because it's making them lots of money. Not only that, but they're gonna be making some Pop! vinyl figures and actual action figures of your favorite planeswalkers...and Nissa. For links to all of this, just look down a bit.

But the meat of the episode comes from an idea from our old buddy JT. A very old idea. We're going to prepare you to move from the kitchen table to the tournament scene. We're not talking about cards or formats (at least not much), we're primarily talking about mental preparations. Because we're trying to cover everything it might sound a little intimidating, but it's really not. It's really hard to sum up all the different aspects we talked about on this episode, so you're just going to have to listen.

It comes down to this: if you've been thinking about going to any sort of tournament, be it a prerelease, FNM, or a GP...then GO! Give it a shot, it'll be fine. Just listen to us first.

Hasbro announces Magic up 20% - http://icv2.com/articles/news/27842.htmlMagic action figures - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1431List of PTQs - http://wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Events.aspx?x=mtg/event/protour/qualifierlistIntro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Break Music – It's Fun To Be Young At The YMCA (Fun. vs. The Village People) by DJ Lobsterdust - http://djlobsterdust.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-313 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-313-from-kitchen-to-tourney-t988.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 [email protected] 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

Warning: Chewie is sick. So he sounds a little different than usual, and he's muted a lot.

The dorks bring lots of news this week! Since the last episode was a live one, we've got two weeks' worth of stuff to talk about! They revealed an Event Deck, announced a new From the Vault, and teased us with a bizarre coded webpage. Luckily, people much more motivated than us went ahead and decoded it, so we told you all about it. Of course by now the official decoded page is up, but that's to be expected, right?

So once we finished up the news, the discussion on Vigenère ciphers, and a new Penny Arcade comic, we actually had stuff to talk about! Mike attended a Sealed tournament last weekend, so he's gotta tell you how he did there. Brian's working on a Standard Jund deck to take to an SCG Invitational Qualifier, so he's gonna tell us all about that. It sounds pretty sweet though, I must say. Links for all that stuff are below!

Born of the Gods Event Deck: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1424FTV: Annihilation: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1426MTG: Conspiracy: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1429MTG on Penny Arcade: http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/02/12

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Break Music – Callin In Sick by Weird Al Yankovic - http://www.weirdal.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-312 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-312-vignere-ciphers-and-standard-jund-t987.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 [email protected] 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 the Born of the Gods Prerelease, so you know what that means! We took the recorder with us and recorded a bunch of stuff that happened! Listen as Chewie, Mike, and Brian let you know what happened after (almost) each round!

We're joined by lots of guests, including our old friend Gabe! He's the one that taught Mike how to play a thousand years ago! There are also appearances from listeners and opponents like Sam, Craig, Chris, Pete, and Nate! If anyone got missed, we apologize wholeheartedly.

Also, this one has something special included. For a long time now people have been asking for recordings of an actual Prerelease game. To show you all what a bad idea this is, Chewie recorded his 5th round against Jacob. It's completely unedited, so you guys get the full effect. Let us know how much that's not a good idea to do in the future!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandBreak Music - not today, Galvatron!This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-311 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-311-botg-prerelease-field-recordings-t985.htmlCheck 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 [email protected] 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