“When are you going to teach me how to play Magic?” asked Emily.
It was a pretty fair question. Emily is my girlfriend. Emily’s roommate, Caitlin, is dating Gavin Verhey. Gavin and I are Magical partners in crime, and it’s not uncommon for us to head off for a weekend of slinging spells. The girls don’t mind, and are mostly just amused when we start talking about Magic and sound like we are speaking a different language, giving labels such as “ill” and “gas” to things like “Thrinax” and “Baneslayer.” For a while, Emily’s main interest in Magic was using Silvercoat Lion as a bookmark. Still, given the amount of cards I have lying around on my desk and the boxes that litter Gavin’s floor like landmines, it was only natural for them to eventually show some curiosity. Steph, one of Emily’s other roommates, was also very interested in Magic because of the strategic aspects involved with the game.
Caitlin, unfortunately, fell ill during finals week, but I taught Steph and Emily how to play earlier this week, and thought I would share some of the experiences for the benefit of readers who want to teach their friends to play.
Teaching Magic is pretty hard because there is so much information the new player has to absorb at once. Land and the mana system is fairly straightforward. Explaining creatures, power and toughness, and how combat works is relatively simple. Explaining other card types is also pretty easy. Instants are a little tricky because it’s not necessarily intuitive that you are allowed to do things during another person’s turn, but once you clear that hurdle, instants aren’t that complicated.
Taken all together, however, the system is incredibly complex. I’ve been playing Magic for so long that I take all of the basic rules completely for granted, but when you’re just starting your first game, it’s hard to simultaneously keep track of how to play spells, when to play spells, and how combat works. Sure, people become pretty fluent with the basic Magic rules after their first few games, but those first few games require processing a ton of new information. However, you have to make sure that the new players are also having fun while they’re learning, and overly complex systems are not fun at all.
In the past, Wizards has recommended core-set intro packs for teaching purposes. However, my local shop doesn’t carry those intro packs, and in any case, I’m willing to bet that most new players are taught by whatever decks their teachers have lying around. With all of this in mind, I raided the commons box at my local shop and put together two decks:
Red/Green:
Raging Goblin
Jackal Familiar
Goblin Shortcutter
Deadly Recluse
Sparkmage Apprentice
Runeclaw Bear
Prodigal Pyromancer
Centaur Courser
Greenweaver Druid
Borderland Ranger
Goblin Roughrider
Grazing Gladehart
Canyon Minotaur
Timbermaw Larva
Giant Spider
Mist Leopard
Dragon Whelp
Berserkers of Blood Ridge
Stampeding Rhino
Territorial Baloth
Rampaging Baloths
Craw Wurm
Vastwood Gorger
Fog
Shock
Flame Slash
Giant Growth
Rampant Growth
Naturalize
Oakenform
Creeping Mold
Overrun
Fireball
Heat Ray
Spidersilk Net
Kitesail
Gruul Signet
Khalni Garden
Evolving Wilds
11 Forest
10 Mountain
Blue/White:
Kraken Hatchling
Soul Warden
Zephyr Sprite
Silvercoat Lion
Leonin Skyhunter
Stormfront Pegasus
Sage Owl
Wind Drake
Kor Hookmaster
Jiwari Scuttler
Palace Guard
Pilgrim’s Eye
Merfolk Skyscout
Rhox Pikemaster
Pillarfield Ox
Windrider Eel
Snapping Drake
Sky Ruin Drake
Caravan Hurda
Cloudgoat Ranger
Shepherd of the Lost
Siege Mastodon
Air Elemental
Remove Soul
Pacifism
Solemn Offering
Excommunicate
Safe Passage
Regress
Rod of Ruin
Divination
Faith’s Fetters
Angel’s Mercy
Mind Control
Iona’s Judgment
Eldrazi Conscription
Kabira Crossroads
Terramorphic Expanse
Azorius Signet
11 Plains
10 Island
I had a few goals when I was building these decks. First and foremost, I wanted to make sure they were fairly simple and straightforward so that the girls would have fun learning. Like I said above, Magic is intensely complicated, and I didn’t want the first few games to get bogged down by complicated board stalls. I wanted the main axis of interaction to be about creatures, and I wanted most of the spells to work towards that end. The Blue/White deck has a lot of fliers and does a lot of racing in the air, while the Red/Green deck has a bunch of ground pounders to break through Blue/White’s defenses.
To help ensure that games didn’t simply last forever, I included a few game-breakers in both decks. Eldrazi Conscription provides a lot of “wow” factor while also helping to end games, and Red/Green’s Overrun quickly makes work of a stalled board. Blue/White’s fliers also force the two decks to race instead of stare across a cluttered board that only gets more complex as the game goes on. Because the games essentially play like sixty-card Sealed, I was worried that Red/Green’s Fireball would be too powerful, but because of how easy it is to misplay removal spells, Fireball didn’t wreck any games.
I didn’t include very many creatures with activated abilities, because I felt that extra creatures on the board already created extra variables to consider, and that adding the abilities of, say, Kabuto Moth would only make the game slightly more fun but would make it considerably more complicated.
I deliberately included underpowered cards such as Jackal Familiar and Zephyr Sprite so that, if the girls kept playing, they would have some cards that would be easy cuts if they found new cards they wanted to add. The Red/Green deck should probably have Stream of Life to match Blue/White’s Angel’s Blessing, but there weren’t very many Red removal spells handy and I wanted to keep the X-spells to a minimum.
Wizards has some learn-to-play videos on their website, but because those videos can’t answer specific questions that new players have, the videos have to cover all of the basics of Magic in excruciating detail. However, if the only thing that a new player is struggling with is the combat system, they will just get bored by all of the explanation on the mana system, and vice versa. We started with the downloadable demo but even that moved frustratingly slow; I had explained the card types prior to the demo, and after Emily and Steph saw the mana system in action and played a few combat phases with the computer, they were ready to play for themselves.
Each of the girls took a deck. We played the first game with both hands revealed and both girls asking me questions, but they didn’t actually have very many. The biggest hang-up actually came in combat when fliers were involved; to players who have been playing Magic for a long time, a creature’s abilities are an integral part of the card. To me, Wind Drake is a 2/2 flier. Steph and Emily, though, had been taught that creatures were primarily defined by power and toughness. They saw Wind Drake as a 2/2, with flying being a distant afterthought. They understood how the Drake worked in combat as a 2/2, but it took a couple of games for them to be comfortable with how the Drake worked in combat as a 2/2 flier.
Remember how people complained when flying had reminder text in Eighth Edition? Now I understand why that was. I think reminder text on the M10 fliers would’ve been very useful.
Speaking of M10… wow, is it easier to explain how combat works now that damage doesn’t use the stack. I taught some friends to play Magic a few years ago, and it took several games for them to become comfortable with the notion of damage on the stack. Teaching it to Steph and Emily was simple.
Also, speaking of keywords with reminder text, when I came across Rhox Pikemaster in M10, I figured that first strike must not be as hard to teach newer players than I had expected. For one thing, “first strike” without reminder text, as on Shepherd of the Lost, implies “haste.” (I recall thinking the same thing when I learned to play.) First strike, like flying, is easily understood once new players begin to think of a creature’s abilities along with its power and toughness for the purposes of combat, but until then it is a very confusing ability.
Other thoughts:
It was also interesting how unintuitive token creatures were. In part, this was my fault; I’d forgotten my box of tokens, so we were using pens and scraps of paper to represent Cloudgoat Ranger’s Kithkin buddies and the Beasts from Rampaging Baloths. Even so, both girls first thought that since the Ranger had generated the Kithkin, the Kithkin would die if the Ranger died. They didn’t see the tokens as distinct, separate entities.
I’d deliberately built the deck with creatures that had unequal power and toughness so that interesting combat situations would come up, but I think I took it too far. New players are devoting so much mental processing power to the rules that they don’t have a ton of space left for strategy. As you play more games, sure, you want the games to keep being interesting, but it’s more important to make sure new players enjoy their first game or two.
Both Steph and Emily were reluctant to trade creatures. They tended to avoid combat situations where it was obvious that one of their creatures would die, even if it would be a profitable trade or allow them to push through extra damage in the future. Both girls seemed very invested in their creatures.
When teaching others to play Magic, the first few games are the most important, because new players won’t play more games unless they enjoyed those first ones. Try to keep the complexity to a minimum; the rules of Magic are complex, and no one likes feeling stupid because they don’t understand the rules. Make sure they are having fun, and try to tailor their experience towards what they seem to be enjoying most, be it huge monsters, powerful spells, or even just the art.
Also, don’t be afraid to tell people that Magic is incredibly fun and that they should play it. Most Magic players hate being ‘outed’ to their non-Magic friends for fear of being perceived as a nerd, or whatever. I can understand not wanting to explain what Magic is and why you’re going to this tournament and so on and so forth in a few minutes in passing, but don’t treat being a Magic player as embarrassing in and of itself. You play a game. The game is incredibly fun. You have a lot of strong friendships because of that game. These are all things to be proud of. Emily and Steph really enjoyed playing Magic, and played several more games after I left.
I had a weird experience at a recent tournament. I was sitting between rounds when someone looked at me and told me that he knew my “secret.” Bewildered, I asked him what he was talking about. He grinned conspiratorially, and said that I was Facebook friends with his sister, “Alice,” but that he’d keep my secret safe.
I looked at him blankly. “Huh? Alice? Oh, the dancer? Is that the secret?”
I have two primary hobbies: Magic and swing (and blues) dancing. Magic, as you know, is awesome. However, let me assure you that dancing is also the nut high. Blues dancing can fairly be described as “classy grinding to better music.” It is an excellent way to meet people, and beats the hell out of the club scene. More to the point, many women wish to be carnal with me because I’m such a premium dancer.
This guy thought I would be ashamed of that.
I’m not.
I’m not ashamed of Magic, either.
Neither should you be.
Go teach some people.
max dot mccall at gmail dot com