The Mana Pool

It's that time again, where we use Gatherer to find a group of unwitting creatures to beat the crap out of each other for our amusement. I mean...to compete for fame and glory on the battlefield. And charity! Yeah, that's it. Look, what's the point of being able to summon up creatures from around the multiverse if you can't have a little fun with it?But yes, starting with one of the lamest creatures in Magic and going from there, we have pitched battles between random creatures. By pitched battles, of course I mean nerd arguments about who would win (and yet Batman vs. Captain America doesn't come up once...huh). Eight enter, but only one will come away victorious! Feel free to join in the nerd arguments on the forums or in the comments, of course.After that, Brian gives us an in-depth rundown of a draft he did on MTGO that he thought was especially interesting. And it was, so listen up. You in the back there! Pay attention!

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com Break Music - Killer Instinct Theme

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Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-204-hyper-instinct-turbo-third-strike-goty-ed-alpha-t732.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/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 week by Bill Bloodworth, who is Kurai_Seraphim on our forums. Yes that's his real name. I assure you he's not just an out of control LARPer. He came down to hit a Sealed PTQ with Chewie and Brian, so we brought him on to tell us how it went and to join in the discussion.Speaking of discussion, we had a lot of that on this episode. Listeners send us emails all the time, and sometimes there's something in those emails that just need more attention than a quick email reading will give, so we file them away to discuss later. Usually we don't actually get around to discussing them later because we're terrible people and miserably forgetful.Mike made a list of these forgotten discussions and we tackled a few of them this episode. Was putting Sol Ring in the Commander decks a good thing, or just a marketing ploy? Should decks be played a certain way, or is it cool that some people play the same deck in a different way? How might you attempt to control a difference in power levels in a multiplayer play group? And finally, we take a look at Preordain, Ponder, and Brainstorm and the differences between them.

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com Break Music – Where Everybody Knows Your Name (Theme from Cheers) by Gary Portnoy - http://garyportnoy.com

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Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-203-medium-sized-discussions-t731.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

On this exciting episode of The Mana Pool we're bringing back a fan favorite segment, the binder pull! We're all just opening up our binders and picking out some cool cards to discuss. Then discussing them. You know.After that, it's back to the emails! We've got a whole mess of interesting rules questions and little tidbits here and there. There's a short rant from Chewie about pottymouths and professionalism that will probably end up offending someone, but it happens. No harm meant I assure you.At this point my show notes say "something at the end". It's been long enough since we recorded that I'm not entirely sure what that means. So if you hear something at the end, that's what it meant. And if you don't, then I've got nothing.

Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music – Trogdor by Strong Bad - http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail58.htmlBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-202-bringing-back-the-binder-pull-t729.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

This episode is packed! We start off with our traditional post-rotation discussion. I'm not sure why we do this, not being Standard players for the most part and being a casual podcast, but we always do and we've always gotten positive feedback about it. So here it is again! Did you realize that something besides Squadron Hawk rotated out? I didn't either!Keeping with this Standard-centric topic, we then move to a quick discussion about the first couple of SCG Open with the new Standard. It's amazing what these people are doing nowadays! Oh, and there are new Innistrad Event Decks to discuss.That sounds like a full show right there, but we're not even close to done yet! There's a new format that's been making the rounds lately, Horde Magic. It was introduced to me by SkeetWo, a listener named Justin, when I met him at Curio Cavern in Springfield VA. It was a blast when I played the Horde with him, so I wanted to introduce it to my cohosts. Of course, since we recorded this it's been all over the place, including an article by Stybs on the mothership (where he also mentioned another favorite of the show, Respawn Magic). Links for those are right here:Peter Knudson: http://www.quietspeculation.com/2011/09/horde-magic-a-new-way-to-play-magic-and-survive-zombie-invasions/Adam Styborski: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/sf/165And that's not even the whole show! Dirk had the brilliant (no really, no sarcasm at all) idea to talk about art. Good art, bad art, creepy art, whatever. And this led to the most fun discussion we've had in a while. We picked out some stuff that was great, some stuff that was ridiculous, and we finally solved the long-standing mystery of what happened to Baron Sengir's legs. Hope you guys enjoy it!

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Intro (and new Outro!) Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com Break Music – Aria di Mezzo Carattere (Orchestrated) from Final Fantasy VI by Nobuo Uematsu

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Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-201-armchair-art-critics-t727.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Member-Promotions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

This is it! We've hit #200! Because we couldn't do it without all of you out there, we decided to jump through a lot of hoops in an effort to get some listener participation. If you'll recall, several weeks ago we put a bunch of questions on the website. One was a poll about which decks of ours you guys liked, and the rest were asking for suggestions for cards of a particular type. Well we took that information and came up with a bizarre Planechasey kind of thing. We made a stack of all the cards you guys suggested and shuffled it up. After 3 turns of buildup we drew from the listener-supplied stack along with our normal draw. Whatever card we drew we HAD to play by our next turn. No discarding it, no skipping out on it, nothing like that. If you submitted it, we HAD to play it if at all possible. Not only that, but when we played it we read off who submitted it and what their comment was about it. So if you're lucky, you might just hear yourself on the show! Forgive us if we seem rushed, we recorded this the day of the Innistrad Prerelease and had to get the games finished with enough time for us to actually make it to the tournament. And be sure you listen to the quick intro about Extra Life! I'm uploading this after midnight the day before, so I really need to get some freakin' sleep. If you're hearing this on Saturday, October 15, then you can check out the uStream the Extra Life game-playing here:http://www.ustream.tv/channel/extra-life-2011

———— Donate to Dustin’s Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! – http://extra-life.org/participant/vognasty

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com Break Music – Whack It by Swift

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-200-blame-it-on-the-listeners-t723.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Mem … tions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

We are joined this week by Amanda Stevens, one of the originators of RedSiteWins.com and hosts of Red Cast Wins. You guys remember her, right? She interviewed us a long while back. And it’s a good thing, because Brian was unable to join us this week. Anyway, we’ve got to talk about the Innistrad Prerelease, because we recorded this right after that happened. Mike, Brian, and Chewie (that’s me) all went to the tourney, so find out how we did and what we pulled. Amanda did some spellslinging at her prerelease, so there’s another nifty story. Of course, then we’ve gotta talk about how we like the set as a whole and all that.

There was a rules update! Some of the updates are actually pretty cool, so we had to talk about them. If you’d like to follow along at home, just click here. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/161d&page=2

From there, we tackled our mountain of listener emails. There were a lot of rules questions, funny comments, and completely random nonsense that have built up over the last several weeks. So we’ve got to share those with you. Whether you like it or not. But I think you’ll like it. So there.

———— Donate to Dustin’s Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! – http://extra-life.org/participant/vognasty

Intro and Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – http://www.swift-band.com Break Music – Release the Wolves by Swift

Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! – http://themanapool.com

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-199-prerelease-and-rules-lots-of-rules-t722.html Check out our archive at http://themanapool.com Join our Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/TheManaPool Email us at [email protected] Follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/themanapool Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/Promotions/Mem … tions.aspx Subscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Yes, you read that correctly. We are joined on this episode by Panahinuva, otherwise known as Ben. He's one of those omnipresent listener-types, and we love him for it. Apparently, since here he is on the show again.But we begin with some news. Well, it was news when we recorded, I'm sure no one really cares much anymore. But that's okay, we still have to give you our take on it. They made a slight change to drafting procedures vis a vis the double-faced cards. The Banned & Restricted list has been updated, with Modern and Extended taking some pretty major changes in direction. And there were a few key changes to the Commander Banned list too. So we covered all of that of course.Then there's Innistrad. At this point, the entire spoiler had been revealed, so we just went through each color, pointing at various cards and going "Ooooo" at them until we were done. I love this set.Find Ben on Twitter: @PanahinuvaDouble-Faced Draft Changes (at the bottom):http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/160B&R List update:http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/161aCommander update:http://www.mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=10749

------------Donate to Dustin’s Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! – http://extra-life.org/participant/vognastyIntro and Outro Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - Unsolved Mysteries ThemeBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! - http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-198-innistrad-previews-with-panahinuva-t718.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/Mem ... tions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Chewie here. I got home from a long trip to find that my computer wasn't working...20 minutes before recording was supposed to start. After trying to coax it back to life, I gave up and had to drive to Mike's place, forgetting to bring the microphone with me. I also had to get food or I was going to die. That's how this episode started. That also explains why I didn't know what episode we were on at the beginning, give me a break.But enough discussion! This episode is all Innistrad previews, all the time! We touch on every new card that had been shown since our last recording, this time with another special guest! Adam Styborski joins us once again to interject random hilarity throughout the episode. You can find him in a variety of places, wearing a variety of hats, in places like:Weekly columnist for DailyMTG: http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Archive.aspx?author=Adam%20Styborski The Pauper Cube: http://thepaupercube.wordpress.com/ Writer for Gathering Magic: http://www.gatheringmagic.com/author/adamstyborski/ Casual Editor for Quiet Speculation: http://www.quietspeculation.com Twitter: @the_stybs

Donate to Dustin’s Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! – http://extra-life.org/participant/vognastyIntro and Outro Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - Tubular Bells (Theme from The Exorcist)Be sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! - http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-197-innistrad-previews-with-stybs-t712.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/Mem ... tions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Welcome to another episode of The Mana Pool! This time around we're joined again by Chris Lansdell, that limey podcast whore that you know from many other podcasts, most notably Horde of Notions and The Great Debate. If you haven't listened to those, what's wrong with you?We kick off the festivities with a discussion about the newly-revealed (at the time) Planeswalker Points system. This is the new rating system that's going to replace the old DCI rating. Thank goodness. You can read all about it here:http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/159bWe then take a few minutes to check out what happened at Pro Tour Philadelphia, which was the first official Modern tournament. It made me happy to see a relatively healthy format after the first attempt, even though I have no interest in playing myself. We discussed the decks that made the Top 8, which you can see here:http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/ptphi11/top8decklistsAnd then of course we have to talk about all the wondrous and crazy Innistrad previews that have shown up since our last recording session. And there are some pretty good ones, as always. You can find them all here:http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/cig#Donate to Dustin’s Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! – http://extra-life.org/participant/vognastyIntro (and new Outro!) Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - Theme from HalloweenBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! - http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-196-innistrad-previews-with-some-limey-t711.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/Mem ... tions.aspxSubscribe to our RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

News news news! We've got the announcements about the Duel Decks: Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas deck lists and the Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 expansion, so of course we had to cover all that. There was a lot of concern from our listeners regarding the various and sundry natural disasters that hit our area, so we had to talk about that a bit, including a mightily depressing hurricane story from Brian.http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/783Oh, and there's Squeak. Holy crap I'm in love.http://girlsofgeek.com/squeak/But really, you're all here for the Innistrad previews, so that's what we're going to give you. We look at every freakin' card we could find and discuss them. We weigh in on the double-faced cards, the flavor, being Morbid, and the return of Flashback. You can check it all out here:http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/cig#Then we try desperately to get through some of our emails, which is why this episode went so long. There were some good ones though, so stick around!Donate to Dustin's Extra Life page! Help out some sick kids! - http://extra-life.org/participant/vognastyAlso, keep an eye out on the website for a few polls that have nothing to do with the show. We're going to have you guys give us answers to a few questions just because. There will be a new one every two days or so, so keep going back!Intro (and new Outro!) Music - Diamond by Swift - http://www.swift-band.comBreak Music - Captain Planet ThemeREAL Break Music - Twilight Zone Tower of Terror ThemeBe sure to check out all the great stuff on the website! - http://themanapool.comForum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-195-innistrad-previews-1-t710.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