Alas, we are Dirkless yet again! Luckily (for him), he has a good excuse this time. We are also Mikeless. Is that even a word? Also luckily, he has a good excuse too. I'd hate to have to kill a dork in anger, you know?

Before we got to the show though, Brian and I had to finish a game. Luckily, I was able to summon up a garthok84 from the forums to fight for me. Then he decided to stick around and guest host this episode for us. It's Jason McFarland, guest host extraordinare and third place winner of The Mana Pool Contest!

So yeah, it's more Conflux previews. Nine cards' worth of goodness, in fact. Never mind the random tangent about whether or not narrow cards that work well in block are are good or not. Or the fifteen minute discussion about the last card (arguably the most important, from a tournament perspective). Or the assorted other random nonsense that comes up all the time. Yeah. Thanks for putting up with all our crap. Enjoy the Prerelease!

Conflux Visual Spoiler:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/conflux/spoiler


Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-65-conflux-previews-4-t291.html
Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Brains! No, wait, that's not right.

Previews! After you pay for this episode, you'll get to hear our takes on 13 more Conflux preview cards. Now all you have to do is figure out where to insert the money...

Conflux Visual Spoiler:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/conflux/spoiler

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-64-conflux-previews-3-t288.html
Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

In this originally-named episode, we're gonna hit more Conflux previews! But first, we're gonna give you the story that won third place in the contest, submitted by Jason McFarland, who is garthok84 on the forums. It involves my favorite format ever and a terrible, horrible, soul-crushing way to lose. But before that, we've got a promo to play for Mr. Suitcase, a podcast over on the MTGCast. Preceding that, there's a bit of a rules issue that recently came to my attention that we wanted to clear up involving Unearth, in case some of you don't know it. I didn't know it.

Before we get to all that though, we introduce you to Ben Ahrendt who is Panahinuva on the forums and the second place story in the contest, who joins us for this stupidly overpowered preview episode. I mean really, Nicol Bolas and Progenitus in the same episode? You're lucky your iPod can hold this entire episode at all. Holy crap.

If you want to see the answer to the Unearth-Blink issue written out, go here and scroll down awhile. You'll find it eventually.

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/askwizards/1008

Conflux Visual Spoiler:

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/conflux/spoiler

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-63-conflux-previews-2-t287.html

Email us at [email protected]

Send me an article at [email protected]

Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com

Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

In this episode of The Mana Pool, our heroes bravely withstand a goblin attack to bring you the first round of Conflux previews. There are 17 cards to go over, and they manage to hit every one of them without any major casualties, although Dirk may never walk again. Tune in next week to see which of your hosts learns a valuable lesson. The Mana Pool – Mondays on the WB! No wait, they're not that anymore. Never mind then, their TV show got canceled. You'll just have to get your episodes off the internet like everyone else.

And congratulations to the winners of the First Official Mana Pool Contest (Not an Official Name)! What, you don't know who won? Then you haven't listened to this episode yet!

Music for this episode is Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals by Raymond Scott. Again with the music you might recognize from a misspent youth watching Looney Tunes. Next episode will be something different, I assure you. Probably no music at all actually, so you better enjoy this one.

Forum thread for this episode:http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-62-conflux-previews-1-t286.html
Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Welcome to the first Mana Pool episode of 2009! We of course have to start off predictably with some Magic-related New Year's resolutions. We all resolve to play more Magic than we have in recent times, so that must be the dork equivalent of “lose weight”. I actually resolve not to lose weight, even though Wii Fit says I'm morbidly obese, but that's neither here nor there.

Then we get into the meat of the episode. We're going to start a deck evolution sort of thing, much like we did with the Clash Deck, except that we're actually going to do this one more than once. But instead of just building a deck and going from there, we're going to change it up a bit. We're going to take two decks and evolve them parallel to each other. And not just any two decks, no no no. We're starting off with the Duel Decks: Jace vs. Chandra. And boy are these decks a blast to play against each other. We've played some games with them straight out of the box, and we're going to make some changes and get back to you with the results, along with more changes. It'll be a running feature here on the show, at least until Brian gets bored with it.

Music for this episode is Powerhouse by Raymond Scott. It's classic music that was used a lot by Warner Bros for the Looney Tunes. You'll definitely recognize it.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-61-checked-on-new-year-s-resolution-t282.html
Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
Cardshark Member Promotions: http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

In this episode, there's some news that we need to go over. And when I say some news, I mean so much news that you might think that this was a news show or something. Seriously. We go over Cardshark member promotions for December, talk about Wizards' prerelease survey and related changes, the banned and restricted list, changes coming to a Magic Online near you, a brand new Duel Deck set coming out next year, and throw in a quick plug for the ongoing contest being run right here at the Mana Pool. See the links below for all that stuff. Oh yeah, and Worlds 2008 happened too. We'll tell you who won all the good stuff.

After three hours of news, we do have some content for you- binder pulls! What's that mean? Listen in and find out, and you'll soon find yourself flipping/digging/pawing/scratching/eating your way through your collection for hidden gems (Volrath's Dungeon) and lackluster duds (Molten Sentry). This was a fun one to put together, and we hope that you enjoy.

Cardshark Member Promotions

http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp

Prerelease News

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/13c

Banned & Restricted List Announcement

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/15a

MTGO Changes

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/17a

Duel Decks: Divine vs. Demonic Announcement

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/1737

Music for this episode: Devour by Shinedown. Totally awesome. Check them out at http://www.shinedown.com

And don't forget to send your contest entries to us at [email protected]. For full contest rules and whatnot, see the link below.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-60-news-and-a-binder-pull-two-bits-t274.html

Contest information: the-mana-pool-contest-announcement-t261.html
Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Hello again, and welcome to The Mana Pool! This is Mike, filling in for Chewie on the show notes this week. Speaking of this week, every Magic player knows the appeal of a quality "Enchant Creature" card. Why settle for simply playing creatures as-written when you can make them better? Yeah, that knight is pretty decent with his first strike and 2/2 body, but how about making him bigger, giving him flying and trample, and hey, let's throw some shroud on there for good measure. The only problem is that you have to dump a big pile of cards into your graveyard if something happens to the creature. Because of that built in risk of giving your opponent card advantage, most "serious" players avoid them. But "serious" is nothing we've ever taken seriously.

This week we have another comparative Out of the Deck Box feature, looking at what happens when 3 different dorks embrace the allure of the aura and make it the focus of their decks. From Dirk, we have a Green build geared towards making a creature so big, it would send Galactus running for cover. Mike submits a huge pile of White and Blue cards dedicated to exploiting the interactions between great auras and creatures that love to have them around. Finally, Chewie shows us what happens when some Red, White, and Blue auras with CIP triggers are put into a deck made to flip them in and out of play.

Whether it's magical rope ladders, terrible land bases, or way too many ideas in a deck at once, this is another episode with something for everyone.

And don't forget to send your contest entries to us at [email protected]. For full contest rules and whatnot, see the link below.

We're now being broadcast on Radio Free Subspace! We're on Thursday nights at 8pm, but check it out anytime. It's an eclectic mix of all kinds of music and whatnot, and it's pretty cool. Give it a listen here:

http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-free-subspace

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-59-out-of-the-deck-box-combo-auras-t268.html

Contest information: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/the-mana-pool-contest-announcement-t261.html

Email us at [email protected]

Send me an article at [email protected]

Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

It's official: Mike is leaving us.

So we did. The four Mana Pool hosts

And here it is. We had just finished

And don't forget to send your contest

Music for this episode: B.Y.O.N.E.S.

We're now being broadcast on Radio Free

http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-free-subspace

Forum link for this episode:

Contest information:

Email us at [email protected]

Send me an article at

Cardshark located at

RSS Feed:

Everyone that plays Magic started playing at some point. Which means that after everyone started playing, there was a new set that came out. This episode is all about our first new set. For Mike, that was Fallen Empires. For me, it was Homelands. Please don't hold that against us, at least we got over it and are still playing. For Dirk, it was Onslaught. We're going to take a look at each new set and explore the world they've created for it, which covers the story and the flavorful aspects. We'll then discuss the mechanical leitmotif for each set, meaning the keywords included and any strong themes running throughout the cards. And of course, the meat of each set review will be a look at the notable cards that originated there. We'll be hitting cards we just really like, cards that are excessively powerful, cards that are historically important, and cards that were just a lot of fun.

So sit back, relax, and take trip down our memory lane as we take a look at our first new sets. For those of you that weren't playing back in these times, especially the dark ages of Fallen Empires and Homelands, you'll get a look at where things were back then, and perhaps an idea of where they're going now.

And don't forget to send us your contest entries! For the full scoop, check out the link below.

We're now being broadcast on Radio Free Subspace! We're on Thursday nights at 8pm, but check it out anytime. It's an eclectic mix of all kinds of music and whatnot, and it's pretty cool. Give it a listen here:

http://loudcity.com/stations/radio-free-subspace

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-57-ancestral-memories-t263.html
Contest information: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/the-mana-pool-contest-announcement-t261.html

Email us at [email protected]
Send me an article at [email protected]
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

Welcome to our one year anniversary episode! To be perfectly honest, there's not terribly much that is completely new and awesome in this show. We really wanted to stick with one of our core concepts, something that the fans really appreciate. So we went over the Cardshark Member Promotions for the month of November and called it a day. You can find them here:

http://www.cardshark.com/member_promotions.asp

Okay, not really. First there's a big announcement about the first Mana Pool Contest. We want everyone to send in their best Magic story. Cardshark.com, our fabulous sponsors, are donating a box of Shards of Alara to the cause, and each host picked out some of their foil rares to add to each winner. For the full list of prizes and the full contest rules and regulations rundown, see the forums. Or click right here:

http://cardshark.freeforums.org/the-mana-pool-contest-announcement-t261.html

As I said, we really wanted to do something that the listeners would really enjoy, a fan-favorite type of thing. So we decided to do an entire episode of Out of the Deck Box! We each picked out one of our decks that we really enjoy and went to town. I told everyone about my Pestilence deck. Brian expounded on his Shared Fate deck. Dirk discussed his Saviors deck. And Mike finished us up with his Big Black Stupid deck. We went through each deck and hit the important cards, the important concepts, the ideal plays, and the reason we love it so much.

Thanks again to everyone who has listened, posted on the forums, emailed us, and generally did anything whatsoever to keep the show going. We appreciate all of you, and we hope to keep entertaining you for the next year to come.

Forum thread for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-56-the-one-year-episode-t262.html

Email us at [email protected]

Send me an article at [email protected]

Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com

RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool