Looking back on that first show, it was recorded with just one mic rather than two (that wouldn’t happen until show 5), and we pretty much didn’t know what we were doing. OK, Dan sort of knew what he was doing as he already had some radio experience, but I was just trying to not sound like a complete idiot. Even today I’m still not sure I achieved that! Anyway, it was loads of fun to do the podcast, and hopefully it’ll return at some point in some shape or form.

I should mention what’s been happening “behind the scenes” recently. Dan has flown back to Malaysia and is now the Asian half of DC in both nationality and location. He’ll more than likely be around the forums as soon as he gets settled back into life near the equator. I’m also currently putting together a project for the site that I don’t want to say too much about right now, except that it’ll try to make the Magic world a bit smaller. Finally, the website is due for a makeover, which will happen at some point in the next few months.

If you’d like to send good birthday karma our way, our forums are always open 24/7/365 for that or anything else you’d like to talk about. As always, our forums are a chilled, intelligent and friendly place to post about Magic. Actually, speaking of the forums, we now have an Events and Tournaments forum, so if you’re organising an an MTG-related event why not drop by and let us know about it?

OK, that’s about it. Hopefully we’ll still be here to celebrate our second birthday, and won’t run out of cake before then. (Speaking of cake, where did I put ours? Mmm, cake…)

Please let us know if you encounter any problems with the feed. The address will stay the same (go go Feedburner!) and the only difference will be that only the last ten shows will be available on the feed; you’ll have to listen to (or download) earlier shows on the site. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I suspect it’s because of the plugin we’re now using (the excellent Podcasting by Ronald Heft, Jr.). We plan to have some more audio content at some point in the future, so we’d be grateful to stay in your podcatcher’s subscriptions list!

Thanks to Libsyn for hosting our MP3s for the past three series. I highly recommend them if you’re just starting out on the podcasting road, whatever you might be talking about!

Clash of the Combos is a lot more casual than our PTQ coverage, and is intended as a celebration of Magic’s combo history. The four decks - Necropotence, High Tide, Dredge and Painter - span from Black Summer right through to the present.

The video is up now on YouTube, and will be available on Vimeo as soon as they fix their uploader so we can actually upload it there!

Right-click and “Save Link As” (or your browser’s equivalent) to download:

• H.264 format, encoded at 480×270. (409MB)
• WMV format (coming soon)

We had a lot of fun making this video, and we hope you enjoy it. Please let us know what you think via email at show@deckconstruct.com or the forums.

Also in this week’s show, we talk about the colours of Shards of Alara and how they’ve been given names and put into “colour tribes” of sorts. Finally, we talk about the Wizards Play Network (WPN) and how you can use it to get a playgroup started if there isn’t one in your area.

Our email is show@deckconstruct.com if you want to get in touch, and our forums are around as well. They’re like an oasis of calm in the hectic world of the Magic Internet. The Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo channels are also kicking around if you feel like getting your Web 2.0/social networking/other internet buzzword on.

As always, thanks for listening and thanks if you’ve subscribed, or spread the word about the show; it’s these “silent” activities that matter for a podcast. It might be a good idea to stay subscribed if you already are because we have a few audio-based things planned. Obviously it won’t be the podcast itself, but things like the Sketches series and, who knows, maybe even Dan’s “Call from Malaysia” thing that he mentions in this week’s show.

So, with that, we bow out of the podcast world for a while. But, to quote Winston Churchill: “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning”.

- DC Sunset Team

Music Credits

Intro: Mick Chillage - Altitude
Colours of Alara: Superbus - Han Solo
Starting a playgroup: Brioskj - Ghibli
The future of DeckConstruct: Abyssal Plains - Jhana
Outro: Das Kraftfuttermischwerk - Shadows on Wooden Beaches

Thank you to the artists for the music, and for making it available via Creative Commons. We appreciate it!

The DeckConstruct podcast is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Noncommercial licence. You can play it anywhere you want, and you can share it with anyone, but you can’t sell it, or make your own episode.

All music used on the show is Creative Commons-licensed.

This week we talk about M-Fest which happened last weekend. We were both there and had a mixed experience at the event. We also talk about the recently announced restructuring at Wizards of the Coast, the 2009 Pro Tour schedule which was revealed today, and the next preview card from Shards of Alara.

As mentioned in the show, there will be a WPN-sanctioned Legacy tournament happening next Wednesday, August 27th, in Richmond, South-West London (or Surrey, depending on who you ask) at the Old Ship pub. The tournament entry fee will be only £1 and it kicks off at 7pm, so come down if you can and play some Legacy! It’s a crazy format and lots of fun.

As always if you want to get in touch you can reach us on show@deckconstruct.com. The forums are also open as usual and our Web 2.0 empire is also still ticking along nicely across Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo.

Thanks for listening!

- DC Munchkin Squad

Music Credits

Intro: Mick Chillage - Altitude
M-Fest: Superbus - Han Solo
Restructuring etc.: Brioskj - Ghibli
Outro: Das Kraftfuttermischwerk - Shadows on Wooden Beaches

The DeckConstruct podcast is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Noncommercial licence. You can play it anywhere you want, and you can share it with anyone, but you can’t sell it, or make your own episode.

All music used on the show is Creative Commons-licensed.

This is a “sketch” called Thoughts in the Rain. The first time I heard Touch The Sky by iambic2, the words wrote themselves; I just had to record them. It’s an introspective journey through the thoughts of a Magic player after playing in yet another tournament.

Comments are welcome in the usual places, either at show@deckconstruct.com or in the forums.

[Please see post to listen to audio]
Direct download (right-click and save link)

Music: iambic2 - Touch The Sky
Spoken words: Alex Wukovich
Samples: rbh thunder storm, Traffic on wet roads

Everything licenced under Creative Commons.

The video is available on YouTube (in 10 parts), via direct-download and on Vimeo as well.

Right-click and “Save Link As” (or your browser’s equivalent) to download:

• H.264 format, encoded at 480×270. (412MB)
• WMV format, encoded at 512×288. (580MB)

As always, you’ll need Quicktime to watch the H.264 version, or Windows Media in some shape or form to view the WMV version. The H.264 version should also play sweetly on an iPhone, 3G or not (and please let us know if it doesn’t).

We hope you enjoy the video, and don’t forget to let us know what you think of it. Cheers!

However, it’s not all bad news, because we’ve at last managed to edit together our coverage of the PTQ in Dundee that Dan and his friend Simon travelled to back in February. Of course, the PTQ season for Pro-Tour Hollywood is now long-gone, but all the same the video features some good games of Extended Magic. It’s currently being uploaded to YouTube, and downloadable versions as well as the Vimeo upload will be available shortly after.

This week we continue our Archetypes of Magic series with a look at combo. Firstly we try to define what combo actually is and talk about it for a bit, then we dive straight into Magic’s combo past with a look at some significant combo decks from days gone by. As promised, we’ve also shot an accompanying video, Clash of the Combos, for this show which will be available on Monday, July 28.

As mentioned in the show, we’ll be away until August 22nd when we’ll return with an M-Fest special. This is because I’m flying off to sunnier climes for a few weeks, and Dan is going to be busy with summer stuff, too.

As always we’d love to hear what you think about the show at show@deckconstruct.com. We’re also around on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter.

Thanks for listening!

- DC AV Team

Music Credits

Intro: Mick Chillage - Altitude
Combo defined: Superbus - Han Solo
Combo part 1: Brioskj - Ghibli
Combo part 2: Double Trouble - Function Key
Outro: Das Kraftfuttermischwerk - Shadows on Wooden Beaches

The DeckConstruct podcast is produced under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Noncommercial licence. You can play it anywhere you want, and you can share it with anyone, but you can’t sell it, or make your own episode.

All music used on the show is Creative Commons-licensed.