Yearly Archives: 2008

Greetings one and greetings all. This is Brian, taking a break from rambling on the air (internet?) waves to do some typing for you. Here you’ll find Episode 60 of the Mana Pool, now with 75% less Dirk (don’t worry, he’ll be back, he’s just experiencing recent matrimony, that’s all).

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 themanapool@cardshark.com. 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 themanapool@cardshark.com
Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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Chewie here. Mike was good enough to write the show notes for this episode, but there are a couple things that bear mentioning first. Sorry about the horrible clicking sounds that show up for the first 9 minutes or so. We still have no idea what causes them, and we just happened to not check the file after we recorded it. So of course, we have clicking sounds, because we didn’t check for them first. Murphy and his stupid laws. The other thing is that I have a brand new headset that my beautiful and thoughtful girlfriend Alexis got me for my birthday. Let me know if it sounds better or worse than the desktop mic. Now, having said that, here are the show notes originally intended for this episode.

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 themanapool@cardshark.com. 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 themanapool@cardshark.com

Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com

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

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

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It’s official: Mike is leaving us. Not the show, he’ll still be here as the rules guy and the old-school knowledge. But he’s physically leaving us to take a job that is about 8 hours away. And he’s doing so relatively soon. So he decided that we should all get together and play Magic one more time before he wandered off to the far reaches of what-have-you.

So we did. The four Mana Pool hosts gathered at my beautiful girlfriend’s house, had a practice Thanksgiving (Dorksgiving) and played a mess of Magic. We then retired to my fabulous crappy apartment to record an episode live instead of over Skype. We were joined by Kat, Mike’s girlfriend, who was sitting on my bed making a cute little robot doll while we recorded. She played the part of the peanut gallery during the show.

And here it is. We had just finished playing seven games of multiplayer free-for-all Magic, and then we came here to bring you all the big moments in every game. We also went over the slow moments. And the one game that we all thought would never actually end. And those couple games that just ended suddenly and with great style. So yeah, you’ll get the full story of our (possibly) last gathering of the Mana Pool hosts for the purposes of playing Magic for hours on end. At least the last one that won’t be a super-special occasion. We hope you enjoy!

And don’t forget to send your contest entries to us at themanapool@cardshark.com. For full contest rules and whatnot, see the link below.

Music for this episode: B.Y.O.N.E.S. (NES Of A Down Extended Mix) by detalub0

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 link for this episode: http://cardshark.freeforums.org/episode-58-multiplayer-mayhem-for-mike-t267.html

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

Email us at themanapool@cardshark.com

Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com

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

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

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For this episode, we are Brian-less. Of all the terrible things that could have happened to cause his absence for this first episode of the new year of casting, this is perhaps the worst. He’s lost his voice. Let’s hope he survives.

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 themanapool@cardshark.com
Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com
Cardshark located at http://www.cardshark.com
RSS Feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/themanapool

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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 themanapool@cardshark.com

Send me an article at submissions@cardshark.com

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

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download