The Mana Pool

It's Halloween time! So we're celebrating by checking out some of the favorite creature types of the horror genre for the rest of the month. We're following up last week's undead extravaganza with a more different undead extravaganza - Vampires! Because there were so few vampires in Magic's early days, we'll be focusing a little more on the individual cards. At least until Vampires underwent a mas...

It's Halloween time! So we're celebrating by checking out some of the favorite creature types of the horror genre for the rest of the month. We're starting off with the obvious choice, the undead superstar of pop culture, the zombie! We're going to take a stroll through Magic's history, checking out the different types, flavors, genres, and styles of zombies as we go. We're also looking at the zom...

After taking a week off for the Prerelease episode, we had to come back with something big and awesome. And Brian came up with the perfect idea! We've done episodes like this before, making Magic cards out of our favorite video games, TV shows, movies, and books (links below). So rather than going for a different kind of media, we're going to tackle historical figures! Each dork did some homework,...

The dorks have ventured out into the world to record this episode! We attended the Kaladesh Prerelease at House of Cards in Winston-Salem NC and brought the trusty digital recorder with us! You'll get our reactions to the mechanics and cards immediately after we have them, and you'll get to hear all about how we did at the event! Spoiler alert: it was awesome! Apologies as usual for the way Brian...

The full Kaladesh set has been revealed! That means we're poking around at all the neat stuff that we hadn't gotten to in the last two episodes! That means lots of commons and uncommons and some of the less-impressive rares get touched on. You know, all the stuff that makes the set actually work. We're hitting up more cars, talking about things driving cars, and celebrating those amazing Kaladeshi...

It's time for more Kaladesh! They revealed the existence of the new Masterpiece Series, then they immediately showed off all the Masterpieces for this set, the Kaladesh Inventions. We're covering those first, then we're heading into the Card Image Gallery to check out even more of the crazy fun stuff in this set! There's a LOT of good removal here. Like a lot. The Kaladesh Inventions: http://magic...

After a week off we're back and tackling all the new stuff that has cropped up since we last recorded. First there was Announcement Day, which covered all the ways WotC is going to try to suck out your money in the next several months. PAX West also happened, which means a ridiculous amount of information about the new block was vomited out all over us. That's cool though, the new set actually loo...

More Conspiracy! We're poking around the full set, looking at all the cool stuff that wasn't out last week! This includes plenty of cards that do stuff during the draft, the Council's Dilemma cards, and the super-ridiculous money reprints. Oh, and the big dumb awesome reprints. And basically all the other stuff. There are a lot of really interesting things going on in this set, so we hope you all...

The latest version of Conspiracy brings with it a fascinating new meta-game. Not metagame like "what should I put in my sideboard?" but a new layer of game within the game. Much like the show on HBO, it's a Game of Delicious Potato. Who wants to be the Monarch? EVERYONE! In case you can't tell, we're doing Conspiracy: Take the Crown previews. There are some doozies. Conspiracy: Take the Crown mech...

It's that time again! We're heading back into Brian's Magic RPG to figure out what's happening with the plane of Trivester, which we're all conveniently trapped on. Join Alaric, Karim, and The Angel as we explore the city we discovered at the end of Episode 423 . Maybe I'll finally be able to get a sword! Be sure to let us know what you think! Remember, this is only our second time in Brian's worl...

After being unable to record last week because Skype hates us, we're back! Skype still hates us, but we outsmarted its hate. If this episode sounds funny, it's because Chewie recorded it using his game capture software instead of something that hooks into Skype directly. We begin this episode with a guest! Joe Hout, a local player and first-time game designer, is an awesome guy. And he's doing a K...

Hey look, a prerelease happened. Ordinarily that would mean a live episode recorded at said prerelease, but we didn't do this that time. Instead we're doing it old-school style and talking about it on the next episode! And since Dirk didn't hit a prerelease and we didn't want to bore him, we grabbed our old buddy Bill to take his place this week! You know Bill. He's also known as Squee over on Mon...

A few weeks ago the dorks all gathered at Brian's house to play some Magic! And since we weren't able to record this week for various reasons, you get to hear it now. Yay! On this episode we began with a game of Commander Planechase. It went for just about an hour and was a fun and (relatively) fast game! After that, we decided to just say screw it and do another one. But this time Brian had the i...

It's that time again! I went to a Grand Prix, so now you get more Three Questions! This is the third of four shows from GP Charlotte 2016. When I find myself at a big Magic tournament, I take my trusty digital recorder and ask lots of people three questions that are a bit silly, because I'm not going to ask serious hard-hitting stuff to players between rounds, to judges during their shift, and to...

These no-job-having zombies are a drain on the fragile (and tentacled) Innistradian economy! Once we overthrow this giant monster cosmic horror thing, they either need to become productive members of society or they need to go right back where they came from, whether that be a hole in the ground, the bottom of the sea, or all the way back to Hell itself! Make Innistrad great again! Oh yeah, we're...

It's preview time! We're running through the Eldritch Moon cards that have been revealed thus far. Emrakul or not, the set looks pretty cool thus far. We've got good and useful new mechanics, expected returning mechanics, new takes on double-faced cards, tentacles, gentacles, not-quite-werewolves, and one amazing horse. Oh, and Meld. You can turn two normal-sized creature cards into one hugely awe...

On this episode we're spending the entire time discussing the big Emrakul reveal for Eldritch Moon. We go into detail about our reactions so everyone understands exactly what we're disappointed about and why. We really like the three cards they revealed though! We touched on a few other things, and you can find links to those things below! Emrakul's reveal -  http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/a...

It is time! We're finally getting started on the Magic RPG that Brian cooked up! We created our characters back in Episode 407, so if you haven't listened to that you might consider doing that first. Only the first hour is character creation if that helps. We had a good time on our initial outing as Alaric, Karim, and The Angel, getting sucked out of the Blind Eternities and into a strange new wor...

It's that time again! I went to a Grand Prix, so now you get more Three Questions! This is the first of four shows from GP Charlotte 2016. When I find myself at a big Magic tournament, I take my trusty digital recorder and ask lots of people three questions that are a bit silly, because I'm not going to ask serious hard-hitting stuff to players between rounds, to judges during their shift, and to...

On this episode, the dorks have decided to take it nice and easy. Nothing stressful, nothing brain-intensive, just some simple segments that we can have some fun with. So we're starting out with a good old Magic Mad Lib! Cleanse! After that, we're flexing our creative muscles with a pair of Commander Story Circles using two Standard-legal legendary creatures! They're both pretty awesome, which is...

Since the full set of Eternal Masters dropped after just four days of previews (and we were in there! Yay!), we're spending this episode just looking at the Card Image Gallery. We're reminiscing about the cards in here we know and love, and...that's actually about it. There's a bit of discussion about why some cards are here, a bit of talk about what's not here, and plenty of tangenting and nonsen...

It's that time again! I went to a Grand Prix, so now you get more Three Questions! This is the first of four shows from GP Charlotte 2016. When I find myself at a big Magic tournament, I take my trusty digital recorder and ask lots of people three questions that are a bit silly, because I'm not going to ask serious hard-hitting stuff to players between rounds, to judges during their shift, and to...

It is time! After a long, long, LONG time coming, we finally have our own exclusive preview card from Wizards of the Coast! It's for the upcoming Eternal Masters set (in case you couldn't tell from the ridiculous amount of EMA previews from the last couple days). If you want to cheat and check out the card, scroll ALL the way down to the bottom of this post to see it! After we get done with our ca...

We weren't terribly excited about Battle for Zendikar. We were SUPER excited about Shadows Over Innistrad. What's the difference between these two sets? We're diving into the differences between both cases of nostalgia to figure out what's going on here. And since Brian's not here, we spend a lot of time rambling and tangenting in his honor. And because that's sort of what we do. Be sure to stick...

We're finishing off the last of the Planeswalker Oath episodes! In case you haven't been around long, we're extrapolating Oath cards for all the other planeswalkers in the game! We're also spitballing some ideas for the flavor text for these cards as well! After all that is done we're going over some of YOUR Oaths that you've sent us over the last few weeks! We were only able to find the ones from...