The Mana Pool

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...

To break up the Oaths a bit and to give us time to talk about some of the other stuff that's happened, we're doing something different this week. First off Mike & Brian recount their experiences at SCG States (while completely glossing over the fondue). Then it's time for another Mythic Conscription, where we go through a pre-Mythic set and try to determine what might have been Mythic if such a th...

Last week's episode about The Aveng....I mean the Gatewatch was so much fun that we decided to do it again! We're covering another handful of planeswalker Oaths this week, so be sure to let us know what you think! We'll knock out the rest of them very soon, so if we missed one you like don't worry!   Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swif...

We all know & love the Avengers of the Planeswalkers, the Gatewatch, right? What if they were to add to their numbers? Sure four planeswalkers are a force to be reckoned with, but what if they needed even more power? Well of course anyone that becomes a member must take an Oath, and that's what we're really interested in! We've come up with some Oaths for other planeswalkers that might join the Ga...

The dorks are live from the SOI Prerelease at Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro NC! Mike, Brian, and Chewie are there to play with some creepy new cards, and we have the handy digital recorder so you guys get our live thoughts as we have them! We're joined on occasion by Chris, a local listener who frequents Lucky's, and Sexy Jarod, who is sexy. Like damn. Just for some flavor there's some talk abou...

I guess every show that goes long enough eventually does a clip show, right? The details of what happened this week are a little...bizarre. But if you listen it'll all make something that resembles sense. Enjoy the clips!   Support us on Patreon! - https://www.patreon.com/themanapool Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband This episode’s post: http://themanapool.com/...

Even more Shadows Over Innistrad previews! To help celebrate this awesome set, we've brought back one of our favorite guests from back in the day! He has gone by a multitude of handles over the years - Mr. Suitcase, Eric from St. Louis, and plenty more, but he'll always be Eric of Many Names to us! His family has abandoned him again for a brief vacation, so he's taking advantage of that by podcast...

More Shadows Over Innistrad previews! Since we're all really excited about the set, we're doing another preview episode where we're just hitting everything! All the Planeswalkers in the set have been revealed, but we can't talk about them until Brian gets here. Luckily, he arrives halfway through the episode so we can hit them all in rapid succession.  And yes I know the episode name is dumb. It's...

It's preview time baby! Even though Shadows Over Innistrad previews don't actually start until next week, there are plenty of cards to discuss! And mechanics! And changes to returning mechanics! And Dirk is back! And Chewie is super excited about an upcoming set for the first time in like two years! And Mike has a beard! And Brian is awake! I sort of lost my train of thought there... LINKAGE All t...

This episode is a weird one. Dirk is on vacation, unbeknownst to us. We thought it was next week. The big Shadows countdown reveal was lame, so that didn't take up much of the show. We didn't have terribly much planned for this episode other than a few loose ideas and taking Mike's Hedron Alignment deck Out of the Deck Box. Luckily, we turned complaining about the Wizards website into a pretty goo...

Yes everyone, the MTG RPG material will be available for everyone in the future. We promise! We'll get it to you when it's ready. Now please stop asking! This episode begins with a wee bit of email feedback, then some news, then we get into the main topic! We're finishing up our Mythic Conscription of Kamigawa block by poking at Saviors. This set is definitely a weird one with its legendary spells...

The time has come! We're bringing back one of our most popular ideas EVER. This is also one of our most requested things to return to, but we were just unable. But now thanks to LOADS of work on Brian's part, it's time to do it again. We're bringing back the Magic RPG! Originally just a one-shot, Brian has crafted a whole new thing that will be a long-running, periodic addition to the show. In thi...

The dorks are bringing back an old favorite by listener request! We're doing an Old Vs New of the two Zendikar blocks! The categories of comparison are Eldrazi, Planeswalkers, Allies, Lands, Mechanics, Bonus Cards, and Overall Theme. There's a lot of really good discussion about all of these categories and then some. You might be surprised by the time you get to the end. Be sure to let us know who...

Last episode we went into great detail about the Mythic rarity, so it only seems right that we put that discussion to good use this week. We're doing a Mythic Conscription of Betrayers of Kamigawa! You know as the set that had Ninjas and the Fork of Doom (Umezawa's Jitte) and...well that's probably it to be honest. But there's definitely some crazy stuff going on, as you'll hear. And we're totally...

This week we're taking it back to a topic that we wanted to do almost two months ago, but we couldn't fit it in. It's all about what does or does not constitute the mythic rarity. Our last Mythic Conscription (Episode 398) caused a lot of consternation among our fan base. A significant number of you out there disagreed with how we assessed some of the mythics in Champions of Kamigawa, with the maj...

We're back to take another look at Oath of the Gatewatch! Before that we've got some old news to rehash and some new news to cover! There's the B&R list update, some Commander changes, and new things in the IPG. Then we take a while poking around the OGW Card Image Gallery talking about a bunch of stuff we like or don't like, things that were interesting at the Prerelease, you know how we do. Then...

It's bonus episode time! Chewie, Brian, and Mike went to the Two-Headed Giant Oath of the Gatewatch Prerelease at Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro NC. And of course we couldn't resist taking the digital recorder with us to report in live from the tournament! Don't worry, we know it's short. You'll be getting a normal episode later this week as well! Chewie & Brian decided to re-form their old 2HG D...

I hope you all recovered from the monster that was Episode 400, because it's time to get back to our normal work! Because of the bizarre timing of holidays, previews, and 400...we haven't actually looked at the new set yet. Our bad. But all that changes now...once we're done talking about how Wizards is trying to fix some of their recent massive screw-ups in community goodwill. But after that we'r...