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This is probably not what you were expecting, is it? Due to recording time problems, it was either this or no show at all. And since I know what happens to you rabid Mana Pool fans out there when you don't get your weekly fix, Brian and I came up with a solution. Let us know if you thought this was good, bad, terrible, stupid, didn't care, greatest thing ever, or whatever you think. Please give us some feedback here, we're curious.

What you're hearing here is us testing for the PTQ that happened this past weekend. Some people requested that we try playing a game or more on the air, so we decided to give it a shot, killing two birds with one stone. Brian's playing a Bant Aggro - Finest Hour deck, and I'm playing a Jund Aggro - Cascade deck. We'll hit you with how the decks performed at the PTQ next episode, as well as get back to our multiplayer shows.


Music for this episode: Respect the Blade by Swift
Check out Swift at http://www.swift-band.com


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very interesting. i wont lie it wasent my favorite episode( the last episode was) but it was a great episode. it was very interesting and it was great to hear how you guys play. if you guys made another playtest episode i would definatly listen to it again.

Well, that's one positive and one negative response. Thus far we're still even.

Hmm, intriguing idea. I know I've mentioned to Chewie before that we should try to find a way to do this over Skype, and I'm glad to see that you and Brian are trying. However, I'm not sure if a multiplayer game would work well. The audience would forget who has what. In a duel, it's pretty concentrated ("I play this", "I kill that", etc), but there'd be way too much stuff in a multiplayer game. Maybe that would have to be a video thing? Just an idea.

But this wasn't over Skype, so we could see what we were doing.

im only a few minutes into the episode but... who is playing with that damn paper towel tube?!?!?!?! its worse than the clicks...

...and now its fixed...derrr

That was actually the sound of the cards hitting the table. The mic was sitting on the table as well. After that first game, we stacked some magazines under the mic so the sound wouldn't echo like that. Pretty weird.

I actually really enjoyed this. I like anything that has to do with magic, really (listening to it, watching it, playing it, etc.). I'm all for anything of this nature you'd like to do in the future. Also, I really like Brian's Bant Build. Is there a decklist of that somewhere? Final Hour is a real beating (plus good call with that Rafiq/Finest Hour team of death).

Nitche!

It was ok but I like your other stuff better. This is one instance where a video podcast would be better than audio. I don't generally like video casts though since I have to watch them it means that i can not be doing other things. Without a conversation and banter it was more difficult to follow this while doing some other things.

I liked the backwards episode better. Actually I liked that one alot.

I loved this episode. I won't say it was better than the multiplayer episodes (because it wasn't. Less exciting), but I'd love to hear you guys play more games with other decks.

One suggestion I have is to have something to fill the thought space. Music is what I prefer. Just have some music playing in the background, if it won't throw off your concentration. I didn't mind it, but it did bring the episode down a bit.

Brian, you sound like a baby panda when you sneeze. It makes me laugh.

And I didn't mind the thunk noise. It let me better visualize when you guys were doing stuff. People kept on asking me why I was sitting at my desk pointing at nothing and making twisting motions. Yes, I did simulate what you guys were doing in my head. I'm just weird like that.

Anyway, hope you guys did well at the PTQ. I'm thinking that I might try to get to an FNM this friday with my Bant deck, which is actually fairly decent for a casual deck. If I could, I'd play my G/W tokens deck, but it's extended legal, not standard legal.

As I said before, awesome show and I'd love to hear more. And yes, I am the primary proponent of this. I LOVE HEARING MY NAME IN THE SHOW.

Well I'm glad you liked the episode, yo. We didn't want to do music for fear that it would overpower the actual playing, as we were using my gimpy desktop mic. I cut out several thought spaces in the first couple sections, but after that I sorta lost interest. Sorry about that. But since we did get a fair split of good and bad feedback for this show, I figure we'll probably do something similar again in the future. Probably the far future, but that's better than not at all, right?

Admittedly it is hard to follow while I'm working, but then I wouldn't be able to keep up with a video podcast regardless.

I think if you decide to do another one again, you might want to video record yourself playing, then do a DVD commentary in hushed golf announcer voices of yourselves watching the playback for the actual podcast. I think it might feel more like when you talk about previous games (as you can put emphasis on the plays that matter) and it'd probably run a little faster without the play decision lag.

Plus, yaknow, you could get field reports from Dirk, who will share valuable insight on the crucial power versus toughness ratio before bouncing back to Mike's historical context in the studio.