The Mana Pool

On this episode the dorks are joined by another of the Kickstarter backers, Clayton Clemens! Clayton is a pretty cool guy (even though he's one of those Canadians) and doesn't afraid of anything. He's here to get us to talk about Cube! Waaaaaaaay back in our first year, Brian built a Cube and we played it and talked about it on an episode. That was episode 29, for those keeping track. But Cubing h...

We're joined this week by fellow podcaster and all-around awesome guy, Mr. Jason Roskam! He's one of the hosts of the Higher Standards podcast, which focuses solely on, oddly enough, the Standard format. Imagine that. But we're not here to talk about Standard! Mr. Roskam tells us all about how he plays Magic with his son! It involves keeping him interested in the game while still helping him to im...

The dorks are joined this week by our third Kickstarter backer, Kim Ho! Kim is really awesome even though he lives in Canada! And that's racist. Prepare yourself, that's one of the running jokes here! You've been warned! After explaining who he is and how he's doing, Kim directs us to a topic we did a while back on Episode 323 - What If It Cost 2 Less? that we didn't actually name. He has a list o...

On this episode the dorks have two main topics. First up, Mike and Brian went to SCG Modern States this weekend! Brian took Jeskai Ascendancy (or Ascension, apparently) and Mike took his Loam Assault (with a dash of Smallpox) to do battle. How'd they do? Well that's why you listen to the episode, of course. I mean, duh. After that it's time for the next entry in our semi-annual-ish series where we...

On this episode, the dorks are taking a look at Exodus, the last set in the Tempest block! We're putting it through the Mythic Conscription, picking out the rares that would have been mythics if that was a thing back then. After we're done with Exodus, we pull up the rares and mythics from Tempest Remastered to see how we did over our last three Conscriptions. Spoiler alert: not bad, not bad at al...

The guys are back for their monthly Hearthstone episode! We begin the episode by answering the frequent question about how the five of us became a long-running Blizzard gaming podcast. If you've ever wondered about our humble origins, this is the episode to listen to! Learn all about how Chewie, Brian, Mike, Dirk, and Squanto (Ecksell) got together! After that it's back to business as usual for a...

This episode begins with a discussion of the new Commander rules change that eliminates tucking and bouncing of Commanders. The dorks are split for and against this particular change, let us know how you feel about it! Next up is a Mythic Conscription for the next set in the Tempest block - Stronghold! This is a seriously strange set, as each of us had trouble actually finding ten mythics! But the...

This episode the dorks are joined by an old friend - Eric of Many Names! ( @EricMTGCast on Twitter) He used to hold the record for most guest appearances on the show (until Bill gradually stole it from him), and he's back this week to talk about Dragons of Tarkir! Rather than do the usual thing where we just pick cards we like seemingly at random, Brian had a neat idea. We're each going to create...

Of course we're gonna talk about all the news that came out of the Magic panel at PAX East! As usual, they dropped quite a few bombs on us, so we're gonna tell you all about it! If you'd like to see more about it, check out the latest TMP News so Chewie can tell you all about it with visual accompaniment! Since the last episode, almost HALF of Dragons of Tarkir has been revealed! Since there were...

Since neverending preview season is upon us yet again, we're taking a look at the first batch of new cards from Dragons of Tarkir. Previews just started the day before we recorded, so there aren't terribly many yet. Don't worry though, we'll make up for that on the next couple episodes. Because we were so short on previews, we had to fill the time with something. Last week they announced Tempest R...

This episode was recorded at Brian's house last weekend! And thank goodness it was, because we didn't record a new episode this week because Chewie got sick and died. How convenient! But yes, in this extra-long episode we play two games of four-player Commander! Nothing fancy this time, no Planechase, no Archenemy, no Tiny Leaders, no Assassin. Just good old EDH at its best! The first game was rea...

Look everyone, Bill joined us this week! After the Duel Decks and From the Vault announcements, we hit up another pre-mythic rarity set so we can pick out the rares we think would be Mythics if it had existed back then. After going over the many many name ideas we got, we decided to go with Mythic Conscription! Thanks a lot for all the suggestions! The set we're tackling this time is Scourge, the...

After some massive pre-show technical difficulties on Brian's part that ultimately resulted in him falling off the call for the duration of the episode, we got a nice fast start this week. One of our listeners (Turner!) gave us an idea for a new recurring segment! We're going back to old sets that existed before the Mythic rarity and picking out which rares would be Mythics now. We don't have a na...

Welcome to our second Kickstarter backer episode! This week we have on Greg, the MadStork, who has been listening to us for far, far too long. And we love him for it! He brings with him an episode idea that really appeals to us. Greg has us combining two things we love - Duel Decks and Commander! The discussion begins with a brief recap of what Duel Decks in Magic actually are. We then roam around...

This is our first episode featuring the Kickstarter backers who chose the "come on the show" reward tier! The inaugural guest is Bosco from Washington, who brings with him a nice wide-open topic. So wide-open in fact that we could easily do several episodes just on this sort of thing. DECKBUILDING! We're taking a look at the various methods that we all use to build casual decks. There are many man...

This week the dorks are going over the two big things that happened in the last few days.  First up is the Banned & Restricted List update. I know, I know, we're a casual podcast and this shouldn't really matter to us, but it does. Chewie doesn't even play tournament Magic and he has very strong opinions on the matter, probably because he holds the DCI to a higher standard than they hold themselve...

Fate Reforged has been revealed in its entirety. So as per usual, we spend this episode poking around the Card Image Gallery pointing out all the cool stuff from the rest of the set. Of course we have to figure out what we're going to play at the prerelease too while we're at it. Oddly enough, we're all leaning towards one clan. Can you guess which one? We also spend some time at the beginning ram...

It's preview season! That means we brought Bill (Squee) on, as is tradition. We start with a look at the newly-revealed Clash Packs, which are full of nifty rares and new art. And from there we move directly to the previews. There are dragon cycles, ridiculous cards, proto-Khans, non-legendary mythics, a spider-elephant, broken windows, and butt-fighting. Hope everyone enjoys! Fate Reforged Clash...

It's the first week of Fate Reforged previews, and none of us are completely with it. Seriously, we can't seem to get our words working properly. We're bad at this game. As we usually do during the first week, we begin with the mechanics of the new set! So of course we spent a nice long time on Manifest, which is easily one of the most interesting Magic mechanics in recent memory, possibly ever. F...

This week we're finishing up our series about the clans of Tarkir with a look at the Mardu and the Temur. Again, we're looking at what each clan is trying to do mechanically and examining how the colors and guilds that make up each clan help or hinder that goal. If you haven't, I recommend you listen to the last two episodes to hear how we handled the other three clans. That's only part of the epi...

We begin this episode with another insanely adorable Sam Quiz. After that there's a bit of discussion about the recent tournament rules change regarding revealing Morph creatures. Then we return to last week's topic, taking on the Jeskai and Sultai clans. We're looking at how each clan's constituent colors/guilds and their abilities work towards the overall goal of the clan. And since the Jeskai a...

Yeah, we didn't really care that this was a big milestone episode. It's like we've done six other 50-episode increments! We started off this episode with a bit of news, then go into one of Brian's Magic Mad Libs! This one was pretty funny, so we hope you guys enjoy. All the links for the news are down below! From there, we dove into the main topic of the episode. You know, once we finally all got...

Happy Dorksgiving everyone! Before Thanksgiving, Brian invited us all over to his house to have a big meal and some Magic. He also invited our good friend (and Monday Night Magic cohost) Bill Bloodworth (Squee) to join us. During all that time, we wanted to do a new installment of our Commander Shenanigans series, which we do whenever a new Commander product is released. To keep it from becoming a...

It's back! We haven't done one of these flavor-fights in a long time, so here's how it works: - We use the Random Card button on Gatherer to find 8 creatures that go into a tournament bracket. - We take their art, flavor text, and abilities into account and ignore their power and toughness. - We argue with each other until we determine a winner! Here's the bracket for this tournament: Deadly Reclu...

It's our seventh birthday here on The Mana Pool! To celebrate, we're taking a look back at where things were way back when we started. How our personal lives were going, how Magic was looking, that sort of thing. We then take a look at where we are now and where we're going, both with life and Magic. It's a more personal episode, with less Magic than usual, but very much worth the listen. Also, Sa...