Holy crap, have you ever tried to get into Magic the Gathering? We have, many times, and honestly, the on-boarding from some sets is really poor. Having bought multiple “starter” sets, and fallen at the first hurdle every time.
Content creators seem to just miss the mark, too. Magic the Gathering has felt like one of the most obtuse gaming experiences of our lives. Over and over, we’ve read the guides, watched the videos and each time it ends with some decks in hands, and no idea of what the initial turns should look like and what cards need to be played-out.
It’s been incredibly frustrating, largely because each set costs money and not once have they properly been used. Granted some of them are being kept sealed (Final Fantasy and Assassin’s Creed sets).
Arena and Commander
To further the frustration, there are essentially 2 ways to play and they vary enough that it’s been incredibly tough to work out what’s actually going on. Magic the Gathering has the standard game, which is based on a deck of a minimum of 60 cards. This also allows for up to 4 copies of any card in the deck.
It seems that this is the classic, and potentially quicker? 1v1 format that has existed for quite a while. Great, that’s why most of the starter decks and sets come with 2 60-card decks, or sometimes half decks to teach you how to play Magic the Gathering.Then you have Commander. This has been a wild read to try and understand the how’s and whys. Where Magic the Gathering feels hard to get into on the face of it, this whole extra way of playing takes things in a different direction. A deck of 100 cards, no duplicates (apart from basic lands), and one of the cards has to be a “Commander” which should be a Legendary Creature card.
There are further rule changes around the use of colours and mana in Commander that add a layer or two of complexity.One thing that seems most appealing in Commander is that you can play cards from any set, ever. Magic the Gathering has thousands of different cards at this point, from years of existing. With all the collaborations with other intellectual properties like Final Fantasy and Assassin’s Creed. The appeal to use stuff from all over, is enticing!
Magic the Gathering
At it’s core, so far as we understand it, Magic the Gathering is a turn-based card game, utilising tactics and clever deck building to essentially attack/defend and ultimately win.
Beyond that, there are lands and mana. Card synergies and strategies. An order of play, and things that can only be done during your turn. All standard fare for a card game, right? We got to grips with the basics of Pokemon TCG quickly enough. But Magic the Gathering feels a little harder to break into, and this is a frustration.
A lot of it is terminology, and some of it just makes no sense without proper context. Magic the Gathering is full of “tapping” and “untapping”. “Ramping” and colours.
Every man and their dog doing videos talks about these concepts like they’re just expected to be understood. If there’s a legitimately good guide to all of this, it isn’t in the official sets and we haven’t found them online, yet.
Learning
All that being said, it’s maybe time to try and understand, and share the wealth with anyone that wants to get to grips with Magic the Gathering. It appeals to us on so many levels that we desperately want to get stuck in.
Plus, between buying multiple starter sets and random cards, we have a collection to use already. It just makes sense that we use it as an opportunity to maybe make Magic the Gathering more accessible.
Of course, it might be too complex and we’ll fail. But we want to try, and we want to play! So wish us luck as we try to get stuck-in.
Moreover, if there’s somewhere that does great content and something we could use to get started, please point us in the right direction. Magic the Gathering must have some amazing guides out there, we just haven’t been able to get to them yet. Share the wealth!
The world of tabletop gaming is only going from strength to strength in recent years, and whilst we (slowly) run a D&D campaign. Magic the Gathering feels like the perfect step into a new game.
