Podcasts - 2013

I don’t know how sustainable this is but I’m currently listening to a lot of magic podcasts, usually on my way to and from work.

I have downloaded a lot only to delete them 10 minutes in either due to poor production, bad sound quality or just random rambling and lots of dead air and ummmms. Top 8 magic was the one I was most disappointed in because the sound quality is just a huge turn off so I never get far into it.

Amongst all that chaff there is some really good stuff most of which is pretty well known.

The king of Magic podcasts is Limited Resources hosted by Marshall Sutcliffe. Magic coverage is his full time job and it shows. The production quality is fantastic and both main hosts (Marshall and Brian Wong) are entertaining. For Theros limited they did a 5 hour show which I have to admit it took me multiple settings to finish but it was worth it.

The Eh team and Heavy meta are pretty similar in that they are very long podcasts with decent production values but they go off topic a lot. That is part of the charm for me as I enjoy listening to the hosts. So there is more general entertainment than strict magic talk so they are not something I can recommend to everyone even though I love them.

Drive to work is a roughly half hour podcast by Mark Rosewater which he makes while driving to work (hence the name). It’s very similar to his Making Magic column which is one of the things that got me back into Magic back in the day as I found it really interesting and read pretty much his entire archive. He has some interesting stories and the length of his drive to work seems to match pretty well with mine. Sometimes a little dry (I am not interested in certain topics) but sometimes really interesting especially when talking about how gamers and designers think and game design.

It sounds really clear for something recorded in his car.

The deck tease was a really pleasant surprise. The way other people talk about it and the impression you get from the picture on Itunes, the name and the intro music is completely different than what I found to be the podcast to be.

In my opinion it’s easily the best interview style podcast and most interesting one. The only interview podcast that I have subscribed to.

Brainstorm Brewery is the magic podcast I get most excited about to see a new episode. It’s a magic finance podcast and at times really interesting with some great hosts. The episodes or even sections inside the podcast really vary in quality though. Sometimes there is too much rambling and lingering on boring topics.

If you have the slightest interest in Magic finance this is the go to podcast.

Spike Feed is the most recent podcast I have added to my subscription list and I am fast becoming a big fan. It’s fairly new and I have now listened to every episode. Very good chemistry between the hosts, good variety of topics (limited, constructed and finance) and excellent production values thanks to one of the hosts being a professional producer.

My Top 7

Limited resources

The Spike Feed

Brainstorm Brewery

The Eh Team

Drive to work

The Deck Tease

Heavy Meta

Pro Tour Theros - Coverage

For the first time ever I watched a significant amount of Magic event coverage on the weekend. Previously all I had seen were grainy videos where it was really hard to tell what was going on and 90% of the time nothing was happening. Watching people thinking, shuffling or talking to a judge is not exciting.

I started watching Pro Tour Theros because my friend Levi was playing in it. I quickly realized he wasn’t going to get camera time even though he made day two. I really enjoyed the coverage and was amazed at how professional it was. I think Theros is a great set to cover because it’s quite fast in both formats and there are not a lot of counters so people tend to only go into the tank before something really significant is about to happen.

I only play limited and Modern but I still enjoyed the standard coverage and some of the decks were fun to watch. In particular the two Japanese decks. Mihara’s green red deck was fun to watch with some really splashy plays but the mono black devotion deck featuring pack rat had me checking my binder to see how many cards I would need to make the deck (way too many).

The way they handle the feature match area is awesome and I enjoyed some of the features like the deck techs and 1^st pick 1^st pack. When there is a pod with only a couple of “name” players I wouldn’t mind a feature that goes into there 2^nd and third picks etc until the archetype they are into is obvious.

You can get that via the draft viewer but that breaks up the flow for me because I had the coverage showing on my TV set watching it just like I watch a football game.

There are a few articles about the coverage and I was surprised (though I shouldn’t have been) that a lot of people complain about it.

There is a good piece on Star City by John Butler.

That unfortunately was very poorly edited (like I can talk) that raised some pretty good points.

Implementing a ranking system looks to be something Wizards have already taken on board.

A lot of Butler’s suggestions would give the games a lot more edge and we might lose a bit of the “nice’ vibe about how the major pros treat each other. I think that would be a little sad but it really would increase the drama if more players showed that they really wanted the win and acted more like Poker players rather than the awesome collection of nice guys we seem to have now.