The Mana Pool

We're back at GP Las Vegas! As always, I’m asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you – the listener. Rather than asking the same old questions that everyone else does, I’m looking to give you a slightl...

The dorks are talking history this time around - more specifically the history of all the legends and planeswalkers from the new Commander 2014 decks. Wonder who Titania and Freyalise are? Want to know what's up with Ob Nixilis and his many forms? Think way too much about Lorthos' deal? Well worry no more, as we've got all kinds of stuff to tell you! Except for Lorthos, there is no deal. Sorry. No...

This episode is all about the mechanic that caused many headaches back in the day and has recently started again - Morph! We're stepping back all the way to the Onslaught block to tell you about its origins, then jumping forward to Time Spiral to look at some of the insanity there, then moving on to the current take on Morph and what they've done to make it less painful for everyone involved. Of c...

We're back at GP Las Vegas! As always, I’m asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you – the listener. Rather than asking the same old questions that everyone else does, I’m looking to give you a slightl...

Due to scheduling issues, we don't have a proper episode for you this week. But never fear, there's still something to listen to! Back in September, Chewie went to the tiltEXPO to do a couple panels. One of those panels was all about podcasting. If any of you have ever wanted to know what it takes to start your own show, there are three podcasters giving their advice right here! And don't worry, w...

In honor of Multiplayer Week over on the Magic site, we're joined this week by Serious Fun columnist Bruce Richard! Bruce spearheaded this week's awesome return of the Multiplayer Hall of Fame! And since anyone can just go to the articles and see the rankings, we got Bruce to go into far more detail about what the Hall actually IS, its origins, and the insane amount of work that went into bringing...

We're back at GP Las Vegas!  As always, I’m asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you – the listener.  Rather than asking the same old questions that everyone else does, I’m looking to give you a sligh...

After falling into a time warp, the dorks are looking at all the stuff from Return to Ravnica and Magic 2014 that rotated out of Standard recently.  All those cards that Chewie got sick of talking about on Monday Night Magic and the ones Mike and Brian got sick of seeing at Friday Night Magic.  We've got the whole week covered! After that we're telling you all about the Khans Sealed PTQ we went to...

The dorks kick this episode off with some news and a few updates, just some things you might want to know.  After that, we have a very personal listener question.  We were asked a very simple question that revealed a lot about us: If we lived on Theros, which of the pantheon of gods would we be most devoted to?  It led to a really good discussion. After that, it's on to a Story Circle!  This one i...

It's Prerelease time again!  You know what that means - Chewie and the dorks are heading out to play some Magic, and the digital recorder is coming with them!  On this episode, follow Mike and Chewie as they check out Khans on Saturday at Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro, then Brian joins them for Sunday to have a second go at the format! Find out which clans the dorks played as well as what lots o...

I enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Pittsburgh so much that the listeners decided to chip in and send me to Vegas to do it again!  As always, I’m asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you – t...

This episode begins with another Sam Quiz, be warned!  After that there are a few bits of news to talk about, then it's off to the full set of Khans of Tarkir!  We jump around the Card Image Gallery picking out stuff that's cool, pointing out some seriously amazing art, and generally taking it all in.  It's a fun episode and we hope you all enjoy! Commander B&R update: http://forum.mtgcommander.ne...

I enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Pittsburgh so much that the listeners decided to chip in and send me to Vegas to do it again!  As always, I’m asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you – t...

Be warned: this episode begins with another adorably cute Sam Quiz. Don't listen to the first 3 minutes if you have a particular allergy to things that are "totes adorbs". PREVIEWS!  Khans previews are in full swing, and we're talking about them all!  At least, everything on the Card Image Gallery the day we recorded plus the ones in the mothership articles that day.  There's a ridiculous amount o...

Since last week's Exiled! was something we really wanted to do right, we focused on it exclusively and ignored the insanely huge news that dropped that week.  So this week we're making up for it by going extremely deep on the new way that Magic blocks will be done.  And I mean it, we're leaving no stone unturned here. After that, we're telling you all about the different clans of Tarkir!  We're hi...

Welcome to the series premiere of Exiled! on The Mana Pool.  Conceived and hosted by our own Brian Baker, Exiled! may or may not...borrow...some ideas from the Food Network show Chooped!  But surely not, because that doesn't happen anywhere ever. The idea is that the Judge gives the competitors three cards that they must use in their decks.  The competitors can then choose a card that only they ca...

This episode begins with a surprise quiz from Brian's daughter Sam, which we all...failed.  But it's great.  D'awww. Of course, we had to talk about all the reveals from gamescom!  New Khans cards and mechanics, plenty of nifty artwork, and a Commander 2014 card are all there for us to talk about.  From there we went to the fully revealed Duel Decks: Speed vs. Cunning decklists and discussed for a...

On this episode, the dorks are taking a look at card draw across the different colors of Magic.  Card draw is a big and important thing in the game, so we're outlining how each color gets to do it.  Or, in the case of white, doesn't do it.  From card draw we move into the various forms of card selection, from Scry and Brainstorm to tutoring. It turns out this topic was pretty broad, and in fact it...

Just be glad I didn't name this episode ZOMG.  First up, after a long hiatus we've got a new Magic Mad Lib from Brian!  Yay!  Look up The Brute by the way, it's really weird. Then we delve deep into our main topic - the Gods of Theros!  Now that we've had a chance to play with them and see how they've done in the tournament world, we decided to revisit them.  We're taking a look at what they do, h...

This epic-length episode is brought to you by the San Diego Comic-Con MTG panel and by Modern PTQs. We had so much stuff to talk about that we had to recruit a guest to help us all out, and it's none other than the  @Lansdellicious himself, Chris Lansdell.  The former podcasting lady-of-the-night helps us cover all the ridiculous amount of information they hit us with at the MTG Panel at SDCC.  Al...

I enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Pittsburgh so much that the listeners decided to chip in and send me to Vegas to do it again!  As always, I'm asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches my eye. The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff I do, is to entertain you - t...

The dorks are telling you all about resources!  Magic is, at its cold dead heart, a game of resource management.  The most basic source of those resources are lands.  This episode, we're taking a look at lands as the fuel that makes the game go.  We're sharing stories about particular lands, comparing Magic to other games, and going off-topic.  Oh, there's also some news, of course.  We're also go...

Of course this episode, the dorks that attended Prereleases are going to tell you how they did.  That's a given at this point, don't you think? But we're throwing a curve at you this episode with the addition of an old friend.  Squanto is back this episode!  One of the founding members of The Mana Pool, Squanto has returned so you guys can get reacquainted with him before the livestream this weeke...

It's Magic 2015!  The full set!  We've got lots of discussion about the nifty looking cards we haven't previously talked about.  There are also some rules clarifications from last episode.  We had a nice discussion about complexity or lack thereof, made fun of each other, and whatever else happens on preview episodes.  Oh yeah, we brought Bill on too.  You know, like we usually do for previews.  H...

As it's preview season, there's really not much else going on. Magic 2015 looks...well you read the title already.  The more I see, the more excited I get.  We also spend the requisite amount of time complaining about the crappy new Magic website redesign.  Because it's awful.  And you guys know we're not ones to complain about change. And either I forgot to take notes or there was no point to doi...