The Mana Pool

Hey look, Dirk's back! He successfully populated, so now he has two little token dudes at home!We start this episode off with what Brian assures us is quite possibly the most offensive Magic Mad Lib ever. Sounds awesome! We go from there to a brief discussion of a recent Standard tournament where a Turbo Fog deck got played! Also, I point out how Sexy Jake Humphries made the top 8 of a Star City Open. Aw yeah.From there on, it's the handful of Dragon's Maze previews that had been revealed at this point. So I guess you could say we go pretty in-depth on them. I guess. Also, there's a small life lesson at the end that everyone should take to heart. Just sayin'.Dragon's Maze Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/dragonsmaze/cig

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandBreak Music - Requiem for a Tower by Clint Mansell - http://www.clintmansell.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-275 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-275-a-small-handful-of-dragon-s-maze-t914.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

We are joined this week by none other than Adam Styborski! He's @the_stybs on Twitter. For those of you that don't know...what rock have you been living under? He's the (former) writer for Serious Fun on DailyMTG, the current writer of the brand new Commander column Command Tower on DailyMTG, he's on the text coverage team for Wizards, and he's all about some Pauper Cube. Oh yeah, he's the Content Manager for GatheringMagic too. But he joins us this week to tell us all about Command Tower, how it came about, what you can expect, and assorted other things. Really, Stybs just talks on and on about whatever we throw in his direction for a good long time, and it was really awesome. You can REALLY feel how much he loves Commander as a format. He even brought a tear to my eye at one point. That could have been my roommate's cooking though...After we had drained Stybs dry of his soul...I mean information...we still had PLENTY of news to talk about. Rather than list it all here and then list it all again down there...we're just gonna put it down there. Go look at all the nifty stuff we hit on!News!Duels 2014 - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1195Leaked Cheevos - http://devinwatson.com/SteamSchema/213850.htmlDuel Decks: Heroes vs. Monsters - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1202Theros - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1196Ruric Thar & Maze's End - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1197The episode of Card Advantage w/ Mike - http://www.mtgcast.com/mtgcast-podcast-shows/active-podcast-shows/card-advantage/card-advantage-23-whos-got-the-fever

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandBreak Music - Requiem for a Tower by Clint Mansell - http://www.clintmansell.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-274 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-274-news-with-stybs-and-his-lawyers-t911.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

We are eschewing the usual April Fool's nonsense this year here on The Mana Pool. Yes I know you guys look forward to it every year (except perhaps Shred Memory) but it really gets harder and harder to come up with new original ideas. So this time, instead of doing something weird (er than usual) we decided to just have a hell of a good episode! It's guest stars galore on this one! At various points throughout the episode we had Cluze from Card Advantage (@lacluyze), Bryan Prillaman (@BryanPrillaman) from JudgeCast (and Avant-Card Show of course) and we even managed to dig up our old buddy Eric of Many Names (@EricMTGCast)! We even had Adam Styborski (@the_stybs) on, by virtue of a few off-the-cuff bumpers he recorded for us at GP Charlotte! We discuss everything from Prillaman's torried relationship with Claire (nonexistant) to what's REALLY under Mike's beard! Due to the completely bizarre nature of this show, there's not really a main topic exactly, just a bunch of dorks having fun talking about whatever there is to talk about! We hope you guys enjoy!

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

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-273 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-273-great-big-guest-star-episode-t910.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 the planeswalkers that the dorks made for each other a couple episodes ago? Yeah? Well this episode we're doing Story Circles to craft a deck around each of those dorky planeswalkers! Pretty awesome huh?

Of course, that's not all we're up to. Oh no. Brian rambles on about Modern just a bit before we get going (weird I know). We talk for a couple more minutes about the newest You Make the Card vote (at the time it was a runoff between land and enchantment).

At the end, we have another amazing rush of gratitude for a listener who, for reasons that continue to baffle us, sent us some stuff. And I'm talking good stuff too. Like damn. If you don't believe it, head over to this episode's post on TheManaPool.com to see the Nether Shadow alter he sent to Chewie. It's totally badassed. Thanks for everything Lou!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Break Music - Make Yourself by Incubus - http://incubushq.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-272 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-272-story-circles-for-everyone-on-the-show-t906.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

This week is a bit of a strange one. We're short one Lead Rambler, so there's (supposedly) a lot less talking going on. We're also running out of server space on our hosting site, because Chewie's a big idiot. Don't worry, all is well now - until he screws it up again. The way we fixed it, oddly enough, was to record this episode. With space running low, we realized that the best way to fix it would be to record a really short one at a slightly lower quality and then remember to make all episodes from here out slightly lower quality so they don't take up all the server space. Duh.So with those two things, this episode is just some news and nonsense. We talk about the Introduction to Grand Prix video that the Walk the Planes guys did. Well, Chewie talked about it. You should totally go watch it, it's awesome. Then we hit the Sorin vs. Tibalt decklists and You Make the Card 4, along with a quick jaunt down memory lane for the last three YMTC cards.And of course there's discussion of addictions (Chewie's playing Skyrim now), pregnancies (Dirk's wife is SOOOO pregnant), and assorted other nonsense. Of course, what strange episode would be complete without a look a little too deeply into Chewie's personal life? By the way, the Old Man is awesome. Like damn.Intro to GPs vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiakR7NgtF0Sorin vs. Tibalt: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/237bYou Make the Card 4: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/238Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandThis episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-271 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-271-the-half-episode-t904.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

Wow, is this really the first episode we've recorded since GP Charlotte? In that case, we'll spend a few minutes looking back at the GP. We also discuss the whole Cockatrice thing for a couple minutes. Brian points out that what you should be doing is don't be moving. There's fake new babies, a list of accomplishments (Mike is a failure, sadly) and the admission that we're all tired. Like really tired.But then we get into Dirk's episode topic! Each dork get a planeswalker created for them by the other three dorks! We take personality, play style, and whatever else we can think of into account when doing this. Then we look at the 'walker from a flavor perspective, trying to figure out who their planeswalker allies and enemies would be, and figure out what planes they might want to frequent. It's a lot of fun and actually, we ended up with some pretty good ones. In fact, if you'd like to see them, you should head on over to this episode's post on TheManaPool.com. The link is right down there.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandBreak Music - Stronger Enough (Kelly Clarkson vs. Michael Jackson) by DJ Lobsterdust - http://djlobsterdust.comThis episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-270 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-270-do-you-or-have-you-kid-t903.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

So here it is, the long-awaited Grand Prix Charlotte episode! Chewie is there with the digital recorder, capturing everything just after it happens! Mike, Brian, Bill (@SqueeGoblnNabob) and JT (@NerdPop140) are basically always nearby, and Jonathan Harvell, Kevin Baldwin (@TaureanMauler) & his lovely wife Angie, and Lyall Alfred (@NewSpectrum) make guest appearances whenever they're nearby. We talk about our records, the decks we're playing, the people we've met, the Goldrush, funny stuff, stupid stuff, how hungry we are, how tired we are, and how AWESOME the whole thing is!There are also a few special cameos, most notably Mike Flores (@fivewithflores), Adam Styborski (@the_Stybs), and...you know what? It's really late and I can't remember who was on this show and who was just on the MTGCast part. So you'll just have to listen to find out all this stuff. HA!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandBreak Music 1 - Dare by Stan Bush - http://stanbush.com/Break Music 2 - The Touch by Stan Bush

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-269 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-269-on-the-ground-at-gp-charlotte-t902.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, of course we're gonna talk about From the Vault: Twenty. I mean, duh. Then we go on into more esoteric topics. A listener known as Andrew Hunt (Magnor Criol on the forums) supplied us with six 60-card casual decks to talk about. And we do. At great length. These are really pretty cool. We go over each one, poking at the pros and cons, bouncing potential modifications off of each other, stuff like that. The links to the TappedOut pages are below.

Then we have a slight interruption. Jeremey Schofield (@J_Schofield) pops in to try to get money out of you! Not for himself, but for Chewie! Jeremey has spearheaded an operation to get Chewie a plane ticket to Grand Prix Las Vegas in June. If you remember, GP Vegas is going to be Modern Masters Limited, which is most likely going to be completely amazing. The GP itself is shaping up to be one of the biggest ever. So if you'd like to chip in and help, all you have to do is click here: http://www.gofundme.com/2309p0

*Chewie note: By the time this was ready to be posted, we had already reached the goal of $500! But if you still want to send in more, go right ahead. Any excess funds will be split between beefing up the prize pool for the raffle-type thing he's doing and the rest will be donated to the MTGCast Network to keep it up and running. Pretty cool huh?

Here are the decks in the order that we talked about them, feel free to follow along:

Shaper's Madness - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/shapers-madness/Consumerism - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/consumerism/Gloryscale Multifun - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/gloryscale-multifun/Pointed - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/pointed/Infinite Murkfiend - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/infinite-murkfiend/A Draining Experience - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/a-draining-experience/

From the Vault: Twenty - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1171

Be sure to check out the Cardshark 12 Year Anniversary Promotion!

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftbandIntro by Tosus!Break Music - Top Gun Anthem by Harold Faltermeyer and Steve Stevens (NES version arranged by Kyouhei Sada, Kazuki Muraoka, Kouji Murata, Unknown, courtesy of http://www.vgmpf.com

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-268 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-268-the-magnor-criol-of-deckbuilding-t898.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

Wow, we talked about a LOT of stuff this week. We handled lots of it in quickfire, lightning-round fashion and you can find the links for those down there after these paragraphs. Doing the live episode from the Prerelease and having Prillaman on one week means we missed a fair amount of news. So even though it's not really news anymore, we still decided to weigh in with our opinions. Yay opinions!

What does YOUR favorite guild-flavored floss taste like?

The main topic, however, is something new. Yes, after more than five years of podcasting about Magic, Brian has managed to come up with something we've never talked about before. We're all very proud of him.

I suppose I should tell you what that is. There are a lot of cycles in Gatecrash. Hey, there are a lot of cycles in every Magic set. But outside of those cycles, there are a lot of really cool cards that stand alone. Well this episode, we decided to take a look at those noncycled (uncyclic?) cards and imagine what they would look like as part of a cycle. From Giant Vacuum to...well I'm sure we named some more, we made up some cycles that just seemed to work. Or that sounded like fun. Or that were completely ridiculous. Whatever it was, we were all over it. And it led to some fun and interesting discussions too, so we hope you guys enjoy it!

Be sure to check out the Cardshark 12 Year Anniversary Promotion!

B&R update: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/232 Extort in Commander: http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=15321 Dragon's Maze buy-a-box is Render Silent: http://www.wizards.com/ContentResources/Wizards/Sales/Solicitations/2013_02_04_DGMBAB_Solicitation_en_US.pdf DGM prerelease stuff: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1156 Guild letters: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1165

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Break Music - The Case for Mars from the Symphony of Science - http://symphonyofscience.com/

This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-267 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-267-erryday-i-m-cycling-t897.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

We're joined this episode by none other than Bryan Prillaman, one of our favorite dorks. You know, the mossy guy formerly on Avant-Card Show and now JudgeCast. We really love that guy. And our own Brian got sick and died, so we had to find a replacement at the last minute. And since it was last minute, this episode is all over the place. We did cover a few important things though, so let's list those:

-Missed triggers policy update: http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/233-Gatecrash Event Decks: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1161-Gatecrash Intro Packs: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1152

Yeah, that's all the important stuff. Now for some unimportant stuff that you will be far FAR more likely to remember:

-Children are plague factories-Judge tag-The baby on the meat hook twitched-Condescending Charm, coming in Dragon's Maze

Man I've missed Prillaman. Check out the picture for this post on the website, it's him. Man he's a goober.

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.myspace.com/swiftband Break Music - Psychosocial Baby by Isosine (Mashup of Slipknot's "Psychosocial" and Justin Bieber's "Baby")This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/podcast/episode-266 Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-266-let-s-play-tag-like-adults-t894.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