The Mana Pool

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!

I start this episode with a recap of the EDH (Commander) game that I played on site yesterday. Throughout the cast I talk about my struggles and successes in the main event of a 1000 person GP with no byes.

The meat of the show is a talk with Usman Jamil (@UsmanTheRad on Twitter), Reuben Bresler (@MoxReuby on Twitter), and Anthony Avitollo (@antknee42 on Twitter), all great cube experts. We talk about the introduction of cube drafts on Magic Online, as well as the viability of storm in cube. The discussion definitely shows off our passion for this wonderful format, especially when we talk about how it has been impacted by the thefts at recent GPs.Check out the sites these guys maintain:www.incontentionmagic.comwww.idratherbecubing.wordpress.comI'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.

Chewie note: Eric wanted his GP Nashville episodes to go up as soon as possible, and Chris Otwell is unavailable to upload casts to the MTGCast Network until Sunday. So I offered to help a brother out and get his casts out there ASAP for everyone’s listening enjoyment. Keep an eye out, they’ll be going up as soon as I get them from him!For my second show from GP Nashville, I sat down for a brief chat with Luis Scott-Vargas himself (@LSV on Twitter). He gave some of his opinions about the new Grand Prix structure, the amount of teamwork that Team ChannelFireball puts into GP preparation, and the current Sealed Deck format. (Chewie note: He even tried to get LSV to talk smack about double-faced cards!)After that, there's some commentary about my sealed pool and performance in Grinder 4. My friend Tony and I go over my pool again later to see what, if anything, could have been done differently. If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! You can find me as @EricMTGCast there.And I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

Just arrived in Nashville! Now to introduce the cast of characters for the weekend, including the one and only Usman from the Third Power podcast (@UsmanTheRad on Twitter), and to go over some of the plans for the weekend (spoilers: this includes a grinder and hitting up some artists. Oh, and the GP itself of course). If you have any specific things you would like to hear on the show while I'm here in Nashville, please reach out to me on Twitter! I'm @EricMTGCast there.And I'd like to give a special thanks to Chewie for hosting these shows on his site and getting them up (almost) live for me. And another special thanks goes out to Mana Deprived for hosting my text write-up, which will be going up after the weekend is over!

It's the long-lost live episode of The Mana Pool! Well, not "lost" exactly. More like "we haven't had a hole in recording to fill with this episode" but you know what I mean. But yeah, this was recorded back in January when we all got together to play at Dirk's house. We were joined by Ian Shepherd, a kid Dirk knows. Turns out this kid is the son of the proprietor of Hypermind, a gaming shop not far from Dirk in Burlington, NC. If you wanna check them out, you should click the link down there!As for what we did this episode...I'm not going tell you. Be surprised!Okay fine, you waited me out. In case you couldn't tell from the title, we played a couple games of Horde Magic, which we've discussed before, against Brian's monogreen Horde deck. It was pretty cool, though I think the Horde deck still needs a bit of tweaking. After we got done with the Horde Magic, we switched over to our normal 60-card casual decks. To be honest, it's been a long time and I don't remember anything about these games, so I guess we'll be finding out together. I do know the last game took a fair amount of time, but I don't think it was long in a bad way. I could be wrong. Feel free to let us know in the comments or the forums or an email or any of the other ways to get in touch with us if I was wrong.Check out Hypermind - www.hypermindonline.comIntro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - When Push Comes to Shove by A Light Divided - http://www.facebook.com/ALightDivided or http://www.reverbnation.com/alightdividedBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-220-confronting-the-horde-live-t776.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comOur Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolOur Google+ page: https://plus.google.com/u/0/103949524686616854873Email us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Yeah, you read it right - we got Bennie Smith! He writes for Star City Games now, he used to write for DailyMTG, and he's here with us to close out Commander Month! I'm pretty sure this is what's known as "doing it right". We spent a while picking his brain and asking all about his Magic history - all you've ever wanted to know about Bennie Smith? Aw yeah.We got Bennie to help us answer some excellent listener questions, like how to deal with mass removal when you're playing a heavily creature-centric deck. Tosus asked if he should use EDH to teach new players the game or if that risked scaring them away forever. And there was the obligatory most over- and under-rated generals question, which we kinda sorta answered mostly. Then we moved from there into a Story Circle, with everyone's favorite not-vigilance-giving (Johangilence?) general, Johan! You can find the complete list for that right below this paragraph so you can follow along at home. Holy crap I loved the deck we came up with. As soon as this is done uploading, I'm gonna trade Mike for his. No really, he's sitting right here behind me!http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle219edh/

Oh, and if you're in or around London or you just enjoy tabletop, role-playing, or war games (or Magic of course) you should go visit Roll of the Dice Online Games (yes, it spells ROTDOG) - ROTDOG.co.uk/blog.

Follow Bennie on Twitter: @blairwitchgreen

Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - The Geeks Will Inherit the Earth by I Fight Dragons - http://ifightdragons.comBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-219-cmdr-month-the-1st-one-with-bennie-smith-t774.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comJoin our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

We are joined this episode by none other than Laura Diemer and Bill Boulden, aka Laura by Spruke. You might know them from clips played right here on the show, or perhaps you bought their album, Katana & Tonic, on iTunes or one of the other digital music distribution services. If not, then maybe you should!Last weekend most of us went to the SCG Open in Charlotte. We played lots of EDH, so of course we're gonna talk about some of the crazy stuff that went on in a few of those games. Bill (Bloodworth, not Spruke) and Brian played in the Standard Open. Bill's going to write up a tourney report that I'll put on the site once it's done. Brian went into detail about his rounds at the beginning of this episode. If you wanna check out his deck, then I have the link for you!http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/brians-bw-tokensAfter having a few random musical and Magical discussions with Laura, she tagged out and Bill took over. Bizarre last-minute scheduling issues work out well every once in while, you know? With Bill we did more random discussions and a Story Circle with one of the most...let's say interesting (yeah, that's it) generals ever. If you'd like to follow along at home, you can find that right here:http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle218edhBill and Laura were both a lot of fun to have on the show! If you guys enjoyed their presence, let us know and we'll see if we can't get one or both of them on again sometime in the future. In the meantime, why not go buy their album over on iTunes? It's called Katana & Tonic, and it's awesome!Follow Bill on Twitter: @ThaGatherinFollow Laura on Twitter: @LauraGDiemerIntro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comQuick Break Music from Double Dragon by Kazunaka YamaneOutro Music - Armchair Girlfriend by Laura by Spruke - http://youtube.com/SprukeBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-218-cmdr-month-leaving-a-crater-w-laura-by-spruke-t767.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comJoin our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

As featured in Episode 216, here is the awesome new audio montage made for us by Daniel Beach (who was also a guest host on that one). He took an unfinished Sprukestep track from the upcoming Factor Friction album that Spruke posted up to SoundCloud and peppered in a lot of random Mana Pool goodness. He said he did it entirely in Audacity, which is pretty ridiculous for a free program.Just like Jungle Rat Rob before him, Beach has managed to capture the essence of The Mana Pool. As I've been saying for a very long time now, we're here for your entertainment first and foremost. If you learn something along the way, that's freakin' great, but our primary function is just to ensure that you have fun listening to us.And just because he gave it to me, here's the list of sources that Beach used to make this little bit of awesome. I hope you all enjoy!Background song: For You (Eldrazi Stomp Mix) by SprukeEpisode 85 - M10 Rules Update DiscussionEpisode 88 - Magic 2010 Preview 2Episode 97 - Land Before TimeEpisode 113 - Multiplayer Mayhem LiveEpisode 122 - Multiplayer Mayhem Live 2Episode 129 - Mortal Instinct Fighter Calibur Vs!Episode 140 - Duel Decks at Ten PacesEpisode 163 - All of MBS (and Half of Chewie)Episode 172 - Adventures on Zendikar (Live)Episode 200 - Blame It On the ListenersEpisode 209 - Dirk and a HalfEpisode 213 - Rant Over (DKA Preview 2)Episode 214 - Crisis II: Dork Harder (DKA Preview 3)Avant-Card Show Episode 32

It finally happened! Yes, we finally remembered to grab none other than Jack Antonio Sabato De La Hoya Other Name Lacroix to guest host! And let me just tell you, this guy is a wealth of information. We talked briefly about the the latest SCG Open results, and Jack gave us some of his insight there. With his help, we also covered a wide variety of Commander topics, such as the importance of versatility, misconceptions about the format, proper threat density, the number of lands and mana rocks you should play, politics, and who knows what else. Well if you listen, you'll know what else!But that's not all! We did a Story Circle! If you want to check out the full result list from that, there's a link right below this paragraph. And of course we can't have an episode of The Mana Pool without a requisite amount of random nonsense, right? Of course not. It's there. Trust me on this. Would I lie to you? About the important stuff, that is. The answer I'm looking for here is no, by the way. Jeez.http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle217edh/Follow Jack on Twitter: @JackLacroixIntro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - What Now My Love by Miss PiggyBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-217-commander-month-you-don-t-know-jack-t765.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comJoin our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Welcome to the first show of Commander Month here on The Mana Pool! We're kicking it off with one of our long time listeners and constant source of good ideas, Daniel Beach. If you enjoyed Episode 214, he was the inspiration behind having the ACS guys on again. If you didn't enjoy it...blame Beach for that.But because it's Commander Month, we've asked Beach to do an Out of the Deck Box for one of his decks, and he chose the one he's named Progenitalia and Friends. Back in Episode 192 I pulled my Progenitalia deck Out of the Deck Box, and it was fascinating to see just how incredibly different Beach's deck was from mine. That's probably because he's a better player than me, just so we're clear. If you want to check out either of these decks, you'll find a link on the next line down.Beach's Progenitalia: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/progenitalia-and-friends/Chewie's Progenitalia: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/progenitalia/We didn't stop with that though! We hit up the Random Card button on Gatherer until we bumped into a legendary creature and did a Story Circle! If you want to see the full list for that, it's right here:http://themanapool.com/the-deck-box/storycircle216edh/And other than that, we did an old Mad Lib again, talked about the Rules Update, discussed the Event Decks, discussed briefly the results of the first DKA-ready SCG Open (which had the best name for a Legacy deck EVER) and mentioned the Super Bowl Halftime show and how much we love Betty White. We hope you enjoy!Daniel Beach on Twitter: @Beach7125Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - For You (Mana Pool Mix) - music by Spruke, mixed by Daniel BeachBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-216-commander-month-a-day-at-the-beach-t763.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comJoin our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Well, it's the week after the prerelease, so you know what that means, right? We've got to tell you all about how we did! Find out who did well, who didn't do well, and how the webmaster Scott did in his first tournament ever!But of course, prerelease episodes are more than just Sealed tourney reports. We also took the second half of the show to run through some of the listener mail that needs to be read on-air. Rules questions, prerelease stories, and general hilarity. Interspersed throughout the episode are rants and discussions of various things. These things include lame intro packs, a good game of EDH at Lucky's, Chewie not playing Thalia, Columbia House and BMG, and this one highly obnoxious guy who seems to run through the whole account of the prerelease. We hope you enjoy!Also, there were a few URLs from emails that we agreed to share with everyone:Ace's Altered Art - http://AcesAlteredArt.comBury St. Edmunds Wargaming Club - http://burywargamers.blogspot.com/Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - Easy by Laura by Spruke - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybRVsCwDTqcBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-215-dka-prerelease-and-mailbag-t760.htmlCheck out our archive at http://themanapool.comJoin our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPoolEmail us at [email protected]Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapoolCardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool