The Mana Pool

We're back with Level 3 judge and SCG writer Chris Lansdell to finish up the history of the Banned & Restricted List. From the Day 0 Modern Banned List to the most recent cleanup of the miserable state of Standard, we're covering it all! And since all the announcements still exist, we can give you actual explanations for each banning and unbanning. Then we'll wrap it all up by discussing why there...

Karim, Alaric, and The Angel are back to explore more of Trivester and see what they can get into! We're heading towards a huge tree, losing our way, and getting into a scrape with goblins! At least I get to use my awesome sword! Much love to Jars for the amazing map! After that, we're catching up on stuff - Mike's prereleases, Dirk's job hunt, my trip to Busch Gardens, and Brian's anniversary! In...

The dorks are covering the rest of Hour of Devastation since the full set was revealed immediately after we recorded last week. There are quite a few bits of good stuff left. There's a lot of art on commons and uncommons that is just awesome too, so we'll be sure to point that out. And there are discussions of StarCraft and copyright claim at the end. Just a warning. Hour of Devastation Card Image...

The dorks are taking another look at Hour of Devastation previews! Torments, afflictions, curses, eternalization, more Hours, and lots of sand. I hate sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating...and it gets everywhere. Also, now ALL my horses can be amazing, and there's a zombie camel. Oh yeah, you read that right. Hour of Devastation Card Image Gallery -  http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/arc...

The Hour of Devastation looms near! Brian is getting attacked by malicious flying creatures and Dirk is being stalked by the gods of sleep, but at least Mike's beard is still glorious. Thank goodness. In case you can't tell, we're covering the early Hour of Devastation previews. The Invocations, the mechanics of the set, and all the really sick stuff that had shown up at this point. Bolas is a bad...

It's Announcement Week for Magic, and wow they've thrown a lot at us! There's a LOT of good stuff here! First there's Pro Tour news and yet another Standard banning. Then we've got to talk about all the Magic Digital Next news, which is bittersweet but probably still good. Then we spend a LOT of time on MaRo's Metamorphosis 2.0, which outlines the totally new direction Magic sets will be going in...

On the day this episode was recorded, it was announced that Cryptic Studios is working on a Magic: The Gathering Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game! This is absolutely unprecedented in MTG's history of licensing, and we decided to do an entire episode about it! We're beginning with Dirk's extensive MMO experience! He goes on at length about what Magic's world and mechanics could bring...

It's time to go back to the Banned & Restricted List! We've grabbed Chris Lansdell to join us again so we can cover the next several years of the banhammer's history. Since we have sources for some of these and we have some memory of them, we have a bit more to say this time. Last time we went from 1994 to 2001. This time we're covering 2002 to 2010, just before the inception of Modern as a format...

  We begin this episode with a listener-supplied Magic Mad Lib, sent in by lvl99luck. We learn all about enchantment speed and refuse to name Balance. This Mad Lib is nothing to Murder at! Then it's time to get down to business. We're following up the last episode and diving right into a Mythic Conscription for Guildpact. It turns out that the enchantment speed we learned about in the Mad Lib is a...

This episode is pretty simple. After the always-adorable Sam Quiz, we're doing a Mythic Conscription of Ravnica: City of Guilds! Depending on how you look at it, this one is either really easy or really hard, because the power level seems to be concentrated in just a few cards. But don't worry, there's plenty of discussion to be had! There are also some discussions about streaming, cruises, and ou...

With the weird out-of-sequence Felidar Guardian ban that just went down, we thought it would be a good time to look at the history of the Banned & Restricted Lists in Magic. Joining us for this adventure is none other than SCG writer, brewer, and longtime player Chris Lansdell! We're starting at the very beginning, waaaay back in 1994, with the first B&R update that predated even the existence of...

The dorks are live from the Amonkhet prerelease! Who did well? Who went undefeated? Who's the slow player? Who opened a shiny new Invocation? Who spat processed chicken parts at the person sitting next to them? Just how sexy is Sexy Jarod? All these answers (except the last one) and more are waiting in this very episode, recorded live from Lucky's Card Shop in Greensboro, NC!    Support us on Patr...

There are a few bits of quick news that popped up over the last few days, but none of that matters. What matters is the full Amonkhet set is up! Sadly, you don't get to hear us discuss the whole thing, because some manner of technical difficulty resulted in the loss of the last...hour? Or so? Sorry about that, I have no idea what happened or why. It sucks. Let the cavalcade of links begin! Amonkhe...

We have now seen all the Gods of Amonkhet, and they're pretty neat. We've also got a few stand out cards that will be powerful in various formats, like Harsh Mentor. We've got a few completely bizarre cards that will hopefully snatch a few games for people. We've also got a new and possibly improved Krosan Tusker, a new Desert, a fixed Unstable Mutation, and Fling. What is going on here? Also, som...

The Age of Amonkhet is upon us! The new Masterpieces are called Invocations and they have the entire internet in an uproar. We'll touch on all the problems people have had and give our opinions. Then we'll cover all the mechanics and a handful of cards that are just sick, including a pair of awesome planeswalkers. The new set looks like fun!   Amonkhet Invocations -  http://magic.wizards.com/en/ar...

  A report of all the shenanigans the four of us got up to at GP Orlando! So sorry if we missed any of you while we were there! I'm exhausted so that's all I'm writing. GP Orlando Coverage - http://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gporl17   Support us on Patreon! – https://www.patreon.com/themanapool Intro & Outro Music – Diamond by Swift – https://myspace.com/swiftband This episode's post: ht...

This episode is a truly strange one. Brian's not here, he got sick and died since I saw him the previous night. We have a sponsor this week, Easy Roller Dice Co. We grabbed Cap from Lair of Lore to join us. We've got a truly epic listener-submitted Mad Lib. And our Flavor Fight has a dance number in it. Yup, it's definitely a weird one. For those that don't know, the original incarnation of this s...

Woo! Cosmic Larva in 2020! It's got to be better than the Desecration Elemental, right? Guys? In this episode we're finishing off our look at Modern Masters 2017! The whole set looks like a lot of fun to draft. There are a few more rarity shifts to discuss, looking at how the overall strategies of each allied color pair overlap with each other, and more jaw-dropping and reminiscing. Ah yes, good s...

No really. Have you seen the cards in Modern Masters 2017? It's completely bonkers. They've pulled out all the stops with this one, presumably to make up for the last two Masters sets. We're just diving right in and looking at all the stuff that has been revealed thus far, with plenty of talk about rarity shifts up and down. It's a fun one for remembering the amazing cards that defined their respe...

Not sure why we're talking about television shows at the beginning. We're just weird. We begin the actual show by thinking about some things that may or may not (and also almost certainly won't) be in Modern Masters 2017. It turns out Dirk might be a terrible person. My money was on me or Mike. Oh well. After that it's off to a Mythic Conscription for Darksteel! Could it be that none of the colore...

This episode begins with an extremely quick Sam Quiz followed by another user-submitted Magic Mad Lib from lvl99luck. Little did he know that it would play into our episode's theme! We didn't know that either! It's an amazing coincidence! Buy lottery tickets now! After the awesome Mad Lib we're doing a neat twist on the Story Circle! This time we're randomly picking two legends with Partner and bu...

It's time for a new episode of The Mana Pool! We've got a brand new Magic Mad Lib, except this one was written by Chewie for the first time ever! Be afraid, it's based on some of his recent experiences. After that we're doing a Mythic Conscription of the first modern artifact-centric set, Mirrodin! This set is a little weird. So many of the rares are super lame and could never be Mythic...and then...

It is time! Karim, Alaric, and The Angel are back to track down the mysteries of Trivester! Not because we want to, but because we can't freakin' leave the plane and we'd really rather be somewhere else. Plus apparently the dice have decided that we're going to have a nice easy time of it, and that is bothering Brian, our Game Master. Apparently he wanted us to suffer a bit more. In case you're co...

It's Aether Revolt prerelease time! Since we all went to different prereleases, there were no field recordings this time. But don't worry, we did grab the one and only Chris Lansdell to join us, since he did 3x as many prereleases as the rest of the cast put together. Yeah, do that math and try not to let your jaw drop too far. Anyway, find out how everyone did and what we think of the set in gene...

We've got to talk about the big news first, of course. There were cards banned in Standard for the first time since 2011. This is big. Like really big. But after that we're back to more Aether Revolt! Yay new cards! And poor, poor Howard. I feel for that guy. But he does it to himself, so maybe I shouldn't. But I can't help it.   Banned & Restricted List Update - http://magic.wizards.com/en/articl...