The Mana Pool

This episode was recorded a few weeks ago, but it's going up now since we're not recording this week! But here's the hitch - it's not a live episode! Man, the title is right - time travel is weird. On this episode we're going all the way back to the beginning. Not the VERY beginning, just after that. We're doing a pair of Mythic Conscriptions for Magic's first two expansions - Arabian Nights and A...

What's that? A Sam Quiz for a card none of us expected? And a listener-submitted Mad Lib? AND even more discussion of the crazy stuff going on in Battlebond? All in the same episode? That's awesome! Where do I sign up? And get that look of Frog Tongue off your face! Battlebond Card Image Gallery:  https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/battlebond-2018-05-25 The new TMP su...

The dorks are here to discuss Announcement Day and our reactions to all the news that came out of it. Warning: some of these reactions might surprise you. They sure surprised me! After that it's time to jump onto Battlebond previews! There's a lot of really neat stuff going on here. The mechanics are neat, the new cards are awesome, and the reprints are absolutely bonkers. Plus we get to explore a...

The dorks gathered at Dirk's house to try out Brawl! Despite half of us not knowing how turn order actually works, we actually managed to play with the four Brawl decks Brian built for us! Our Brawl Commanders are Aryel, Muldrotha, Firesong & Sunspeaker, and Radha! Have you given Brawl a shot yet? Let us know what you think about it! Support us on Patreon! –  https://www.patreon.com/themanapool In...

Graveyards in Magic are an interesting thing. In so many other games it's just a discard pile, but MTG uses the graveyard for a variety of functions. Mike (Professor Beard) is going to walk us through the history of the graveyard from its origins in Alpha, set by set, until the current day. He'll point out mechanics (both keyworded and not) and new design space and ways to interact with the gravey...

The dorks are back from our long recording hiatus! To celebrate the release of Dominaria, we're diving into not one but TWO Story Circles! There are a lot of legends, so we've narrowed it down to a small handful and randomly selected two for deckbuilding purposes! Also I finally remembered to put the Sam Quiz recorded weeks ago into the episode. Yay! Support us on Patreon! –  https://www.patreon.c...

Magic is finally going home! The Dominaria prerelease is here, which means Chewie breaks out his trusty digital recorder! This year he did something a little different though. On Saturday he headed out to House of Cards in Winston-Salem, NC to hang out with Mike (not that one), Carter, and Andy to talk about Dominaria. There are discussions about broken cards they'll never print, Brawl, Prison dec...

To celebrate The Mana Pool's 500th episode our old buddy Jungle Rat Rob of The Retro League podcast put together another of his famous audio montages with the help of his girlfriend Cassandra! He's done this a few times before (links down below), but it has been a LONG time! There are bits from the other hundred episode milestones along with the usual assortment of nonsense from random places and...

A few weeks ago we recorded a live episode at Dirk's house! We were playing the Explorers of Ixalan multiplayer experience using the preconstructed decks that come with it. Dinosaurs, Pirates, Merfolk, and Vampires slam headfirst into each other to determine who will win the golden city of Orazca! Seriously though, this was a lot of fun. The rules are set up to keep things from getting out of cont...

Dominaria is absolutely insane. The set is good on SO. MANY. LEVELS. The cards are good and interesting. The flavor is delicious. The nostalgia levels are through the roof, but not to the exclusion of fun and ease of understanding (looking at you, Time Spiral). And there's even another layer below that, for the hardcore and old-school MTG fans. The full set was conveniently revealed the day we rec...

This is it! The Mana Pool has finally gotten our very own never-before-seen preview card! It seems fitting since we just hit 500 episodes AND we're going back home to Dominaria! Not only are we talking about our sweet card, but we're also covering a lot of the other completely awesome cards that have been revealed! The discussions to be had are a combination of power, flavor, value, and sheer awes...

This one should be a lot of fun! We've got Eric of Many Names with us for the first time in far too long! He's pretty awesome, which is why he's here of course. Brian's got a really long mad lib for us, but he assures us it will be totally worth it. Since it's extra long we'll be giving him card names throughout the episode while we talk about even more sweet Dominaria cards! More sagas, sweet fla...

There's SO MUCH STUFF! We've inundated with loads of Dominaria! The official explanations of the rules changes, mechanics, sick promos, and the shiny new Dominarian Crown Molding. Also we've got Jace's Signature Spellbook, a new format straight from Wizards, and a few "voice of reason" moments from the dorks. There's not much else to say, so let's dive right in! Enjoy the giant collection of links...

As we mentioned briefly at the beginning of 500, the release notes for Dominaria were accidentally released early. Bill (you know, that guy on Monday Night Magic) joins us to talk about it. Don't worry, we're spoiler-free here! The dorks go over the removal of the Planeswalker Redirection Rule, the upcoming templating changes, and the sweet first card reveal, Phyrexian Scriptures. From there, Bria...

Note: We livestreamed the entire episode complete with dork face cams, so if you want to watch that then check out the YouTube link down below. This is it! Episode 500! We're celebrating with a full-on live stream game show. Due to legal reasons, we're calling it Jeopanaria! Our game show host is none other than Magic Judge and robotics guy Jake Janssens (@ ZueluGaming ), who just happened to have...

This episode is all about Masters 25! We're looking at all the cards that had been revealed by Thursday night, and there's SO MUCH AWESOME in it! Seriously, the episode is named this way because we said it so many times! There's even a Stangg Twin token! Come on man, this is just too good! Masters 25 Card Image Gallery:  https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/card-image-gallery/masters-25 S...

Magic is venturing out into video games again! With Arena, a MOBA, and an MMO all in the works, we started wondering what other flavors of video games Magic would fit into. It turns out MTG fits into almost anything, from city building to fighting to 4X grand strategy to kart racing, with plenty of others besides. This is a fun one you guys! Because we're talking about many different video game ge...

This episode is all over the place with a series of topical...topics. Ahem. The dorks are showcasing several of the segments we do here on the show, beginning with the always-adorable Sam Quiz. We've also got a Magic Mad Lib (consequence-free this time) and an Ixalan block Story Circle! And if all that wasn't enough, we've also got a discussion about the addition of Jace the Mind Sculptor and Bloo...

We all love the Magic Mad Libs, right? We rattle off some cards, we get a funny story, we laugh, and that's it, right? But what if our Mad Lib was actually hiding something from us? What if...there were consequences? In the aftermath of our Mad Lib, we're building a new set! With some stipulations coming from the Mad Lib itself, it's up to the dorks to figure out how to make this random nonsense w...

The dorks put TWO sets under the Mythic Conscription microscope, focusing on Homelands, originally part of Ice Age block, and Coldsnap, the eventual finish to the Ice Age block! With over a decade between the two releases, card and set design changed a lot, so let's take a look at each one and see what the differences are! Support us on Patreon! –  https://www.patreon.com/themanapool Intro & Outro...

Has your playgroup ever issued a ban on certain cards or combinations of cards? Have you ever made the decision to stop playing something because, while it might have been effective, it just wasn't FUN? That's what the dorks are discussing this week with our own experiences playing lots of Magic as a group over the years. Also WotC has revealed the structure of MTG Arena's in-game economy and card...

It's time! Chewie & Mike went to the Rivals of Ixalan Prerelease, so that means the handy digital recorder went too! We recorded our thoughts & experiences after deckbuilding and after each round, with a super special surprise in round 1! What did Chewie do that was incredibly impressive? What insane bomb did Mike not play? Listen to find out! After the tourney we went to have celebratory Mexican...

The full Rivals of Ixalan set is upon us! The dorks spend this episode going through the Card Image Gallery picking out more sweet cards that we feel like talking about! There are a few reprints from Ixalan in Rivals of Ixalan, let's talk about that. Also the RIX rules update happened. Also Patrick Sullivan rants about Ravenous Chupacabra. Also we miss Brian. Rivals of Ixalan Card Image Gallery - ...

The dorks are back! We have returned from our holiday break just in time to take a look at the insane cards from Rivals of Ixalan! Seriously, have you looked at these? There's a lot of concentrated awesome going on here. The mythics seem to be nuts. We have a cycle of Elder Dinosaurs. Elder. Dinosaurs. So awesome! Rivals of Ixalan Card Image Gallery -  https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive...

It's the final TMP of 2017! We're talking about the newly revealed Rivals of Ixalan mechanic, Ascend. Then we have to talk about the end of Duel Decks, and how that's sad but not terribly sad. The bulk of the episode is a Mythic Conscription for Alliances, the follow-up to Ice Age. This set...this set, man. It's uh...it's a set. Of cards. It's a tough one for the MC treatment because some of these...