Tips for Teaching Magic: The Gathering
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- Опубліковано 17 жов 2024
- Thank you to Wizards of the Coast for sponsoring this video! Check out my link to order the Starter Kit 2023 today!
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Teaching Magic: The Gathering to a friend or family member can be a challenging task, so I pulled together some of my best tips to help make things easier for you!
Magic: The Gathering Ambassador Ryan Gomez has been playing since 1998, and has collected over 25 years of tips, tricks, and stories behind the cards.
Thank you to Wizards of the Coast for sponsoring this video! Check out my link to order the Starter Kit 2023 today!
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#mtgambassador
My most important advice, and I've seen so many ignore this: DO NOT PLAY INSTEAD OF THEM. My friend tried teaching his girlfriend, and he'd look at her hand, tell her what to do, and play the card himself instead of letting her play. Giving advice is fine, but let the new player make the decision, and let them play out the sequence themselves.
One thing i heard someone say about magic stuck with me so much that i tell it to every new person i teach, even before i explain the rules:
„Remember that every rule im about to tell you can be broken or changed, this is a game about magic, after all“
This helps a lot when it comes to all the keywords and cards that just turn around how the game is played, it helps avoid the moments where someone says „but the rules said it was different“, because you can always remind them that bending the rules (using cards) is a little bit the point of the game :D
Ryan i wish you showed me Magic back in the day, it would have been much smoother. but now i know how to confidently show the game to my nephews. thank you and Nicole for that. cheers!
Let us know how it goes!
My friend back in college tried to teach me using a full commander deck and I was absolutely lost. Just as I got some footing he used a card that turned three of my permanents into elephants and I was just so befuddled as to how and why that worked both mechanically and what sense it made in lore that elephants became an inside joke between us.
Years later I picked up magic arena on my phone and actually learned the basics pretty well. It’s a remarkably useful app for onboarding new players.
Lots of great advice, especially about leaving the player to interact with the cards and to figure out their one or two decks rather than overwhelming them with information. I actually quite like the way Sparky does it on MTGA, where it basically just throws you into a deck with bare minimum info and goes "you try out!". Sparking (ha!) curiosity in your student is the most valuable thing you can do.
Your timing couldn't have been any better! I just built several decks (one for each colour based on their core mechanics) for my college's boardgame club. It's not the first time the club has played Magic, but it's been a while and I'm planning on reviving it.
Yeah I figured between school starting back up and the release of the Starter Kit, this advice would reach a lot of people at just the right time! 😇
Of all the mtg ambassadorships yours might be the one I'm most excited about. Ya'll's content is so exquisite and you deserve all the funding you can get, monetary or otherwise!
i talked my good friend into playing magic YESTERDAY so this is a perfectly timed video! thank you!
Thanks very much for this video. I've got a decent sized playgroup at the moment who are mostly new. I've definitely done the "if statement" a few times when teaching.
I really like these tips. Top channel, always enjoy your videos
Great video! Honestly, the Arena tutorial is so finely optimized and streamlined by now that I usually just advise new players to start with that. Even if they don't plan on playing in anything other than paper. It let's them go at their own pace and go over all the cards without feeling like they're taking too long, although the learning process is admittedly less social that way.
Excellent advice, especially the tip about simply handing your players a deck and letting them pull it apart and sort it. It's the best way to get them to look at what types of cards exist and what they do, and you'd be surprised at how people grasp the core concepts of the game in different ways.
I personally use a green ramp deck with a bunch of mana dorks and big dudes, and a red burn deck with shocks and fireballs. It highlights the difference between a creature deck and a more instant/sorcery based deck, because I find new players tend to assume creatures are the be all end all of the game.
I usually come for the stories but this was really put together with the same quality as the lore videos. No wonder you're an ambassador! Thanks for the tips!
This is so helpful! I am teaching a new player today, and this has easily been the best video I found on the subject. Thank you so much for all the advice!
You don’t hurt my boy brood weaver!
Absolutely brilliant video.
Well worded, and explained in detail.
Great video! I love this topic. I have definitely been guilty of over sharing when teaching new players in the past.
A tip I found worked for me is to offer a selection of creature based decks with less instants. It felt more like an even match with no surprises or complicated mechanics which I do think helped the situation somewhat.
Oh, making sure they interact with the cards is great advice that I never thought of!
I like to give a brief overview of the colors to give them a sense for the flavor of each. I think them finding a color that resonates with them is important. It’s what their going to be looking at all the time! I also explain all of my decisions, often with an open hand. “I could attack with this cleric, but she will probably die in combat. I’m not going to risk her, especially since this deck wants to take advantage of her later.” “I’m not going to play anything now. You wouldn’t normally know what’s in my hand. Maybe I got something sneaky plan. You wouldn’t know. Best to keep your opponent guessing. I can play this after combat regardless.” Or even walking them through things objectively, especially if it could help me lose. “So that spell of yours can kill either of these creatures. This one was helpful, but now it’s just a wolf on the field. This elf, though, could be helpful if I play more creatures, which you can assume I will with this deck.” I also try to be consistent with how I talk about stuff. I’m trying to get them in the habit of thinking along these lines. Instant speed pump spells are sneaky plans and creatures with only ETBs were helpful but now just sit on the field. Hopefully it helps them evaluate new cards as being like ones we already used.
Currently teaching my wife and daughter how to play. Im using two starter decks i bought years ago. They only have 40 cards and the machanics are extremely simple
"See, thats why you scoop against mono blue"!
"Okay first we gotta learn about this thing called *Layers* m'kay"
The overexplaining thing is my main flaw. That, and getting side tracked around the story.
Even too this very day...I still find it weird that that in game your creatures can't fight your opponent/opponents creatures even after all these years of playing...😅
Never explain exceptions unless they come up, magic is a game with a lot of rules, and just as many exceptions to those rules, it’s easy as an experienced player to start prattling on about the instances where, the rule you just explained, works a little a different
i thought landfall and raid would make great learning tools
If the starter decks weren't made to be standard legal, landfall and raid are both very intuitive mechanics that are easy to learn
I like to start by explaining that each color and pair of colors has several different playstyles, so we're gonna play a few games with each deck, then discuss what you like and dislike about each one, then point them to some decks/playstyles that I think they'll like.
this sounds very useful but how ever that you forgot to mention waste land the colorless land lol
Why do people jump to assuming I forgot something when I deliberately don't include it in a video? I wouldn't introduce Wastes to a student just starting out. That's a needless complication and doesn't come up in the Starter Kit, so like I said in the video, you have to carefully pick which information is relevant at any given moment. They can discover Wastes later (and I'll let them decide if I "forgot" to mention it or not.)
Wastes are about as relevant to a new player as telling them that coalition victory allows them to win on the spot: if it somehow comes up explain it but don't go out of your way to overload them with knowledge
Do not teach strategy while teaching the game. They will ask for that or figure that out as things progress.