Teaching someone how to play Magic: the Gathering is more of a challenge than actually playing the game. We all started out clueless, and it’s not easy to remember what it was like.

Part of the idea behind Casual Violence is to train the trainers, give tips on how to help newer players learn the game, and how to build on what they have. It’s not about how good a collection is, or how strong a deck is. It’s about making the most of what you have. This column might not always be about getting newer players into the game and staying with it, but that’s the main direction. For now.

In the Beginning…

If you don’t care about my background in Magic, skip down to “So, you’ve found yourself a padawan...” Otherwise, join me for a stroll down memory lane.

By way of introduction, I’ve been around Magic since the beginning. Of course, I wasn’t smart enough then to see the potential that it had, so when my friends were opening packs with Power Nine cards, I was scoffing at this “little fad.” Looking back, I may have been a little shortsighted. The game looked like overly complicated poker and slapjack, and the boosters cost too much money. I didn’t believe that it would ever catch on.

Four years after sitting at a kitchen table watching a four-person multi-player chaos game between dueling “wizards” (the idea seemed silly—the only wizards duels that were worthwhile were in tabletop role-playing games), I conceded that maybe there was something to the game. I started playing with another group of friends with simple decks they had built. It was intimidating being new and unfamiliar with the cards and the game, but they were patient. Not very kind about how they played, but patient with how I played. I had a basic black deck that one of them loaned me, while they were playing with things like Nightmares.

I saw the beatdown. I couldn’t miss it. It was directed at me.

And I was awed by the game.

This was somewhere around Tempest block, if memory serves. I’d seen the cards from Revised through Fallen Empires, and heard the guy who had originally introduced me to the game complain about the rising costs, the lack of time, and the direction that Magic was going. He quit playing about a year before I started.

I played with borrowed decks off-and-on for about two years, winning here, losing there. It seems like we played about once a month. I didn’t have much interest in getting involved in Magic, since I was content with getting the snot kicked out of me every four to six weeks. It wasn’t until I bought a huge collection for a song that I really started playing. Lightning Bolts and Fireballs, black recursion and green beatdown. The options available, the ways that the cards interacted, the feel of the game when it came down to the topdeck.

SIDE NOTE: I don’t like losing. There are two games/sports in which I accept loss well. Those are chess and Magic. Being beaten because of a better strategy (including a better deck to begin with) are okay with me, because I can learn something from the loss. Anything else, and I take loss poorly. I strive to win at any cost.

So, my Magic pack purchases began with Masque block. I skipped Invasion (lack of time and money), but got back to new cards for Odyssey. We were playing at least once a week, sometimes as often as every night.

Black and red were my colors, until blue stepped in with library-wreckers like Traumatize and Brain Freeze (still among my favorite cards). I never strayed far from my aggro/beatdown roots, though. Countermagic and control just aren’t my style. My idea of control is to eliminate someone’s board, or just remove target player from the game.

The decks I usually play are aggressive in the early game and hit with big creatures in the late game. I win as much as I lose, with decks that are unsleeved because they lack rares. The powerful rares aren’t much fun to me. Anyone with a couple of bucks can have them, and it doesn’t take much thought or finesse to use something like Umezawa’s Jitte. One of my best decks is a green Kamigawa block spirit-arcane deck, designed to cast a bunch of spells and smack someone around. Not one rare, and few uncommons.

So, you’ve found yourself a padawan…

There is a point to all of this. When I was a beginning player, the people who got me into the game were patient, and apologized for beating me all the time. They didn’t play extremely powerful decks, they played mid-level decks that were fairly simple. This is important when you’re dealing with someone who has never played before, or who has been out of the game for a long time. New players aren’t going to see the interactions between cards like Vedalken Dismisser and Vedalken Entrancer to put the beatstick on top of a library, then mill it into the graveyard. Their little eyes will be gleaming when they look at Streetbreaker Wurm, only because it’s big.

Instant-speed creature buffs, such as Wildsize, will mean more to a new player than Mana Leak, and they will likely use the Wildsize before they declare attackers. The game is complex, and it takes a lot of time to learn it. I started before the rules became complicated with things like an additional main phase, the stack, responses, and end-of-turn shenanigans, so I learned these rules as they were introduced or became important.

If I’d been consistently beaten with cards that I knew I’d never see in my lifetime, I doubt that I’d be playing today. There weren’t any “cheat” cards like Time Walk or Force of Will, just straightforward cards with simple mechanics. Cards that I could use. More importantly, cards that I could get my hands on. Plague Rats. Nightmare. Lightning Bolt.

Using your powers for good

When a new player comes into the game, or when an old player returns, they want to have fun. They aren’t interested that the Morphling you just beat them down with is worth $60, or the Keiga, the Tide Star that they Disintegrated for five just cost them the game because they didn’t understand the mechanic (and it cost more than a tank of gas). They’ll be happy enough seeing that their Scaled Hulk just became a 10/10 trampler because they cast Unchecked Growth on it.  In the early stage of learning, the beatdown is the most obvious way to win. Control and burn are harder to use, because there are more decisions involved than the question of attacking and blocking.

Blue is probably the most complicated color, because of countermagic and bounce (returning creatures to their owners’ hands). White is easier, but it’s easy to get caught up in life gain, and not see the other possibilities it has. Red has burn (direct damage), which requires more decisions on what to hit and when. Learning to flash-roast a Hand of Honor when it attacks (rather than frying it when it hits the board, removing the option of using the burn on something worse) is important, especially in the early stages of learning. Black’s recursion, evasion (Fear and Flying), and weakening (give creatures –X/-X until end of turn) mechanics are fairly easy for new players to understand, and Black has a good chance against simpler decks with just those mechanics. The straightforward beatdown of Green is what draws so many new players to it. There aren’t that many complicated strategies, other than get a bunch of big critters on the board and smack people around with them.

The mechanics are probably the hardest part of the game to learn, because there are so many. But the other thing that new players will have problems with are the phases of the turn. Beginning players don’t need to be corrected for every mistake they make. Give them the benefit of the doubt on misplays for the first few times they play, but correct rules mistakes such as trying to attack twice in one turn. Make a cheatsheet for the phases of the turn (untap, upkeep, draw, main phase, combat phase, main phase, end of turn/discard phase) and for when spells can be played (sorcery, enchantment, artifact, creature during main phase; instant at any time; one land can be played during your turn).

In the first few games, keep the combat phase simple: I attack, you block, damage is dealt; instants can be played at any time. Make their first games easy, but don’t play for them. Let them ask questions about what the best play would be, and give them honest answers. Don’t play your best decks against them, and try to keep the rares to a minimum. As they improve, play better decks. At first, play something that’s fun, but mechanically easy. For experienced players, the different mechanics appear to be basic information that everyone knows. To a beginner, something as basic as Soulshift can be intimidating and confusing.

Remember that we were all beginners at some point, and try to keep in mind what it was like. As they get more acquainted with the way the game is played, it’s easier to explain why a card was misplayed, or how the more advanced mechanics work.

The Rookie

Here’s an Elf deck that I built for my fiancée when she wanted to learn how to play. It’s very basic, but it works well for a beginner:

This deck worked well for teaching the basics of the game. It’s simple, mono-colored, and has a few mechanics, but not any of the complicated ones. Taunting Elf, Lure, Fog, and Fog Patch are there to help clarify what the combat phase does. Attackers are declared, and if a card has special text that allows it to do something special (such as Taunting Elf), that cards effect gets triggered and the effect happens. Blockers are declared, and unless something happens to stop combat damage (such as Fog), damage is dealt to creatures and players.

Lone Wolf has a special ability that happens after the first part of the combat phase, which is a slightly more advanced mechanic, but easy to understand. The choice between killing the blocking creature and hitting the player can change the face of the game. For a beginner, dealing damage to a player looks like the right choice every time (I’m over generalizing, but it’s part of a point). Having this option, and seeing its effect on the game, makes it a little more challenging.

Other cards in the deck, such as Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elder, give the option of using it for mana, as a potential blocker, or as an attacker. The mana-production mechanic is probably one of the more difficult of the basic concepts of the game. Having that available to a beginner helps to stress the importance of a solid mana base, as well as the idea that creatures aren’t just for bringing pain. The Birchlore Rangers adds another twist to that idea, with the tap-two-untapped-elves-to-add-one-green-mana ability. Is it a combatant or a mana source? Beginning players will have to look more closely at how they’re using their resources. Plus, the Morph ability shows that there are more options for many cards.

Creatures with comes-into-play abilities, such as the Elvish Pioneer, Quirion Trailblazer, and Wood Elves are good for teaching the basics of those special abilities. They also show how important the wording of the cards is. The Wood Elves will search out a land, even if there isn’t one to find. The Pioneer and Trailblazer don’t really care if a land card is found, or if it is put into play. They also show that there are ways around the “one mana per turn” rule.

The Symbiotic Elf and Wirewood Herald have leaves-play abilities. The Symbiotic Elf generates tokens, which are a large part of the game. The Herald gives a look at what search cards can do. The Elvish Scrapper and Savaen Elves offer special abilities with “destroy” effects. They let beginners see more of the spectrum of abilities, as well as the sacrifice mechanic (on the Scrapper). Giant Spider allows beginners to see the difference between fliers and ground creatures, and how blocking works. Fliers can block creatures without flying, but not vice-versa, unless stated on the card. The Tel-Jilad Chosen shows how the protection mechanic works. Norwood Ranger is there to show that not every card has to have a special ability.

The spells offer a look at when and how non-land, non-creature cards work. Instants can affect anything, and may be played at any time. Beginners probably won’t understand that it’s better to drop Giant Growth or Wirewood Pride until after blockers have been assigned, until they see exactly what the potential outcomes are. Fog and Fog Patch show another aspect of combat, that damage isn’t always guaranteed. Naturalize and Wing Snare are other “destroy” mechanics, but they happen at different speeds, instant and sorcery. This pair of cards shows how two cards can be similar, but still have to be cast differently. Naturalize can be played at any time, while Wing Snare can only be played on your turn, during one of the main phases. Rampant Growth isn’t just a mana-fixer in a beginner’s deck; it’s an introduction to tutor cards, similar to the Wood Elves and the Trailblazer. The enchantments in the deck are specific “auras.” They only effect the land or creature that they are enchanting, rather than the more confusing global effects of regular enchantments. They provide an introduction to what enchantments do, and how they are used.

This isn’t a great deck, but it does give an overview of the game without being too “busy” or complicated. Also, it shows that you don’t need a great collection to have playable decks. As time goes on, the deck can be tuned, and more advanced plays can be made using the basics that it covers. When teaching someone how to play, or reintroducing someone to the game, it’s best not to throw every detail at them at once. Ease them (back) into it, answer their questions, and help them improve over time. Be patient. They won’t be winning tournaments after a week, but if they have a solid base to work from, they’re more likely to be playing for years to come.

-Casual Violence-

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