CardShark

Hey there, all you Mike fans! This is me, filling in on the notes for Chewie this week as a special treat for everyone who missed me (hi, Mom!). Unfortunately, we're less one Dirk this time, as he had some stuff to take care of and didn't feel like he had anything in particular to contribute to the subject matter of the episode.

Anyway, we kick things off with a special little featurette that might come back if people like it enough. As we get settled, it's Nature versus Technology as storms begin to rage in the background and threaten our precious electricity. From there, we get to the Cardshark Member Promotions (featuring everyone's favorite free uncommons), the final chapter of the Jace vs. Chandra evolution, and then we all get to hear about how Brian and Chewie did at the Alara Reborn Launch Party. Very informative, very entertaining. Welcome back to The Mana Pool!


Music for this episode: Your Heroes are Dead by Social Outcast u.b.
Check them out at http://www.myspace.com/socialoutcastub


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I really enjoyed the Pack War at the beginning of the episode. You should have more on air duels. I can honestly listen to people play magic for hours.

I really liked how the JvC decks ended and am looking forward to seeing how the DvD decks go.

Good job at the Release, Chewie and Brian.

And finally, my condolences Chewie. But don't let it get you down, man. Actually, saying that's a bit redundant, since you don't seem to have let it, but nevertheless. Keep your spirits up.

BTW, what did you guys open from your prize packs?

I haven't opened mine yet, oddly enough.

Huh. Normally, I tear them open as soon as I get them. Hanging on to the 12 packs I bought for prizes at a party practically killed me.

OMG I can't see how you wouldn't of ripped the packs open already. I can't stand unopened packs. I NEED TO KNOW what's in them. Like when I just bought a box of Alara Reborn (BTW BEST BOX EVER), I was nearly late for work just so I could finish ripping them all open. ROFLMAO

So I'm finally doing the online prerelease for Alara Reborn. Here's my impressions/results:

I opened the packs, and HELLO, Bant deck. Rafiq plus almost half of my ARB cards were W/U, W/G, including the combo of Lorescale Coatl and the Vedalken Heretic. A Stormcaller's Boon and Wall of Denial were also very helpful in the "Keep AJ Alive" department. And of course, I splashed red for my Sarkhan Vol (hooray for making some money back) who won a game in the first match for me.

I was kinda sad that I didn't have better Red/Black cards because I had 2 Bituminous Blasts, but my cards were obviously going for Bant and I didn't have a strong enough case to toss in a 5th color after my red splash for Sarkhan.

First match: Guy was running 5 colors, but mostly Bant/Esper control. We went 1-1 and the last game was a brawl. We both knocked each other down to 4 life and then I top-decked an Excommunicate to break our creature stalemate and do the final bit of damage. There were some interesting Cascade shots: he played a Stormcaller's Boon and got the Soul Manipulation to return a creature from his graveyard, and I managed to use the Boon to get a Lorescale Coatl and tie up our armies in the third game. However, Cascade got him once when he flipped up a Naturalize with no targets on the board.

Second match: Mana flooding sucks. ESPECIALLY against a Jund aggro deck that has three creatures by turn 3. That is all I have to say. My bane in the second game was a Defiler of Souls equipped with an Unscythe. Yeah, that's 8 damage in the air that, if you chump, gives your opponent more creatures. Yikes.

Third match: Nice Naya deck with Jund token generation. And the second opponent of the evening who had a Knight of New Alara. Ugh! Thankfully he only had one or two multicolored creatures at any given time so I didn't have a lot of big nasties to contend with. Game 3: Turn 4 Spellbreaker Behemoth, turn 5 Knight of New Alara, turn 6 Giant Ambush Beetle for a 7 point burn at my Rafiq. And my death was pretty much guaranteed after that.

Fourth match: Another 5-color deck with various control cards from blue/black/red in the center. Fortunately I got an early start and powered past his early defense. Second game, counterspell, Branching Bolt, Deny Reality, TWO Terminates, Resounding Thunder, Agony Warp, what the hell? I couldn't keep a creature other than the Wall of Denial on the board. How in the hell did a guy lose 2 rounds with that deck? Third game, turn 4 Deny Reality into a Kathari Remnant into a Soul Manipulation to get back his Grixis Deathblade that I had just killed. Wow. Words cannot describe...

Maybe I'll enjoy the set more once MTGO stops *&%(ing with me.

Hi, great show all around. I agree that the pack war was a treat. I wouldn't mind hearing a Penny Arcade style recording of a particularly amusing (multiplayer?) match on occasion.
I do have one request, however. Any chance we could get a list of changes to the Jace/Chandra decks, so that I may replicate/emulate them? That would be awesome, thanks!
Keep up the good work, look forward to the next show!

The problems with playing a game on the air are many. I got a list, here's the order of my list and it's this:

1. It would take too damn long.
2. We're all in different places most of the time.
3. There's too much crap for the listeners to attempt to keep track of. Richard Hagon manages because he doesn't do a live commentary on GP and PT games, he commentates on a recorded version or a written account or something, so he can make it sounds good. I really don't want to play a game, right everything down, and then go back and do the play-by-play, it just would just sounds a little too....fake coming from us.
4. None of us have Richard Hagon's skill on the mic (I admit that freely, my cohosts might take some offense )

But perhaps we'll give it a shot as a self-contained bonus episode sometime. If there's enough interest, that is.

I'm interested. It would totally be worth it.