The Mana Pool

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...

Here we see the fabulous new Magic 2015 Designer collection.  See how the fabulous non-Magic game designers turned their attentions to the intricacies of Magic design to create fabulous new cards.  Okay, enough of that.  M15 previews are here of course, and this episode we're starting with the Designer Cards, made by various designers of other games.  They're all pretty cool.  There are a few othe...

Here it is everyone! I've been working on the super-secret project for over FIVE MONTHS now, and it's finally time to reveal it to the world!  We're doing a Kickstarter to get capital to create all the merchandise we could ever want - sleeves and stickers with the TMP logo, t-shirts, and tokens and playmats with EXCELLENT new Jars art!  If you want the full details, just click the link right down...

On this episode, the dorks are taking a look at death in Magic.  Some of the planes we've visited over the years actually go into specifics about what happens when you die.  Ravnica, Theros, and Innistrad, for example, paint a fairly clear picture of the afterlife.  Most of the other planes mention it only casually or only bring it up as a way to justify reanimation spells. But we're taking a look...

The dorks begin this episode by telling you all about how awesome Conspiracy draft is.  And it is.  Like a lot.  Seriously, go do some Conspiracy drafting, it's SO much fun! But after that, we decided to do something silly.  We've done it before with  video games and again with television shows , so it's time we do it again.  We're taking a look at movies and imagining what kinds of Magic cards we...

This episode begins with a short look at the rest of the Conspiracy Card Image Gallery, now that the full set is on there.  And by short, I mean we went on for EVER and EVER because there's SO MUCH good stuff!  No really, we had to put off what we were originally going to do this episode because we spent so long being Conspiratorial. That being said, we panicked slightly and decided to do a Story...

This episode is all over the place.  We didn't really have a central topic this week, so it's sort of a potpourri of nonsense.  We had plenty of speculation about the next block, then Brian left for the night.  Then there was lawsuit talk, which everyone should totally read.  There's a Kickstarter for crazy custom deck boxes, jailbait songs, sweet Terese Nielsen lands, and plenty of Conspiracy car...

On this episode, the dorks are taking a look at old cards.  Not just because Vintage Masters is coming up soon on Magic Online, and not just because it's preview time YET AGAIN, but because a demon told us to.  A listener known only to Chewie as Shadow Demon asked a simple, innocuous question a while back, and ever since then it's been on the table as a possible show idea.  The question was (nearl...

The dorks long for the days when we could just talk about something stupid for a whole episode, so we decided to just talk about something stupid for this whole episode.  Mike decided that we should talk about the mighty centaurs, because Journey Into Nyx decided to give them a lord. It ended up being a Magic history lesson with centaurs as the thread running through the whole episode.  Be sure to...

The dorks tell you all about their Journey Into Nyx Prerelease experiences!  Which of the dorks did well?  Which of the dorks did multiple prereleases?  Why is Chewie so bad at this game?  These questions and more will be answered in this episode!  Actually, not all of them will be answered.  Sorry about that, but Chewie's just bad, there's no particular reason why.  There's also a pretty fair amo...

We grabbed Bill, or Squee, or whatever ( @SqueeGoblnNabob ) to join us for the full run-through of Journey Into Nyx now that it's all out there for all to see.  There was a bit of news too, the PAX East Magic Panel, some Conspiracy news, some Duels news, and lotsa other stuff.  So...enjoy!   Journey Into Nyx Card Image Gallery - http://www.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/journeyintony...

It's still Journey Into Nyx preview season!  That's pretty much it.  You know the drill by now, there's really nothing much else going on.  Except for the Designer Cards from Magic 2015.  Those are pretty cool.  I love that they're using nerd designers instead of nerd celebrities, you know? But seriously, have you seen the art for Riptide Chimera?  Holy crap that thing is terrifying. Nightmare fue...

It's been a while since we recorded, so we've got news!  An article on Gathering Magic about Vorthos podcasts (we got an honorable mention!), new Duel Decks, and a new eBook are all on the docket, so do enjoy that. Then we get to the fun part, the first of the Journey Into Nyx previews!  There's a god, there's all the mechanics (old and new), there's lots of crazy stuff, and there's a boat that sc...

So we're sure you've noticed that Episode 318 has yet to follow Episode 317.  You are correct.  Mike and Chewie hopped on to explain what happened. To make it up to you, we've included the outtakes from the recording of Episode 317's commercials.  Some of these are pretty funny, so we hope you enjoy! The first video on The Mana Pool's YouTube channel is now up, you should go check it out! - http:/...

On this very special episode of The Mana Pool, the dorks are finally opening up to all the big plans they've had in the works for many months now.  From e-books to quantum computing apps and everything in between, we're revealing everything!  This will also mark the first episode all our new sponsors are on board with some nice, unobtrusive commercials to help us pay for all these amazing plans. ...

Remember Commander Shenanigans 2 ? It was episode 303. Later that day, we recorded another episode. This is it. For some reason, when we record one live episode it records through the USB mic, which is why CS2 sounded good. When we record a second one, it defaults to the built-in laptop mic. That happened here, and we didn't catch it. This episode is a few days late because I decided to try to mak...

Chewie enjoyed asking people Three Questions at GP Charlotte so much that he decided to truck up to Pittsburgh and do it again!  As always, Chewie’s asking Three Questions to anyone willing to answer them, whether they’re a listener, judge, pro player, innocent bystander, or just someone that catches his eye.   The real purpose of this show, like most of the stuff Chewie does, is to entertain you,...

Following a week off to prepare for the insanity that was Grand Prix Richmond, here is the GP Richmond episode!  It's just Chewie and Mike from the standard-issue dorks, so to help us out we brought on two special Richmond dorks!  First up is our (very) old pal, Level 3 Judge, podcaster, and horrible person Bryan Prillaman!  You might remember him from the Avant-Card Show back in the day or his cu...