Is It Worth It To Buy A Magic Arena Starter Kit | A MTG Product Review 

Quick Note About Big Box Store Availability: It appears these are indeed available at some big box stores like WalMart. My evaluation was not influenced by availability online vs. in big box stores. So my evaluation and grade are unchanged, SO LONG AS online codes for redemption are still present. The Arena online code (as I will explain) is a vital part of this product and without it, the grade would be reduced significantly. Cheers, friends.

Bought it for my girlfriend. She asked me to teach her and she loved it! She's learning fast and growing to like the game.

That green deck has two colossal dreadmaws. TWO! How can this even be considered to be low powered?!!

I usually use to build my own "learn to play" decks with the remnants of the booster boxes I buy and use that to teach my friends, I tend to use the more "control" decks myself so they can see first how to play against instants and counterspells, and then when they get the grasp of the game, give em the deck and let em try themselves, I really love teaching magic to friends who never played before.

Permit me to offer a rebuttlal to the dirdly nature of these decks: if they're intended for brand-new, completely clueless players, a sluggish dirdly game is not as bad as it sounds. Imagine being a brand new player, someone gives you a digital deck and a barebones tutorial, and unleashes you on Arena. After your 10th consecutive turn 4 loss to an aggressive deck or just a very well-tuned one, you probably never want to play again or, worse yet, decide to just net-deck whatever the current tier 1 meta is. I remember when I first started playing in middle school. This was during 4th edition, so mechanics were pretty basic and lots of cards only had flavor text. If my 13-year-old self was trying to sort through the paragraphs of nonsense on Vito, I'd probably put it down and never touch it again. I remember having a Sylvan Library (which I've regrettably lost) and having to read it over and over even though, by current standards, it's not a very complicated effect. A dirdly slug-fest pair of decks where both players can get familiar with the way the game plays is a good thing. It also hammers home the concept of win conditions when you've only got one copy of your finisher.

It's funny how a product with two decks is cheaper than a starter deck.

I feel it's worth mentioning the kit also comes with a small rules booklet that my local judge had a lot of praise for, apparently covers a lot of stuff in really good language

I miss duel decks. My wife and I had so much fun with them.

This makes me think of back in the day when MTG products had a Beginner, Intermediate, and Expert level.

I bought one of these for $7 a couple weeks ago, and then pulled 2 more Vitos out of the M21 box I bought lol

I fail to see the logic of a LGS having a single "sample box" seems like a slap in the face to the LGS.

I just can't wait for the product for established players, the one that has fetch lands in it.

You bring up how durdly the decks are but I feel like that's perfect for starters. Having less game ending bombs helps them feel like they've had enough time to go back and forth and pulling that kogla or Vito is akin to ripping the one Shivan dragon in your deck. A feeling of exhilaration to know you're about to put the smack down on somebody.

9:20 couldn't help but notice "single color" was misspelled, but love the video! I've been looking for a product to teach my significant other how to play, and this video surely helped me in that regard.

I was given one of these from my game store when I started trying to learn and me and my friend love it

Love the videos. Keep up the good work! :)

I've never played a game of Magic in my life but watch every video from the Prof. Keep it up!

Prof I never get tired of your reviews. Thank you for your work.

I got this and some theme boosters at my local game store a couple days ago for my wife and I to learn for 7 bucks! Almost didn't get it cause I have been binging your videos trying to get a grip on what to buy and the game in general. Never saw you mention it. Didn't realize it was such a new item. It has been such a treat and a huge improvement from the 30 card welcome decks. You MTG nerds know how to get people hooked. Come into the store a week ago for some casual yugioh pack cracking. Next thing I know I'm walking home with a welcome deck and a free welcome booster. Can't thank you enough either, your channel has helped us so much! So much knowledge, history, and philosophy to catch up on. The atmosphere of your videos are the greatest and I could listen to you on autoplay for way too long.

I always love these videos!

I'm always fascinated with the entry point into MTG for people... I'm glad this product exists. I'm hoping they expand it to include decks with other colors.

I found this kit at my local barns and noble for $6. I’m finally showing my gf how to play this weekend.

Thanks for the review! I teach kids how to play MTG all the time at work and this is perfect for that. I got one for $6.49 at Fred Meyer's in PDX btw

I just got into the game about a month ago when I saw this starter kit for about $7 at Target. My significant other and I had so much fun that night, learning how to play and trading decks! I consider it an excellent first buy, and a dangerous slippery slope into the world of collecting!

I just stared playing magic and I got this set a few days ago and it mixed with your videos made it very east to learn the rules, I really like this set a lot since it’s affordable and it gives mostly everything needed for 2 people to play and easy to understand rules.

I found that at Wal-Mart for 6 o: and also still love your mtg reviews always a nice thing to look at what's worth and what's not

When I went to a TCG store for MTG, the person there introduced me to Planeswalker decks and said they are newbie friendly. But before that I was introduced to MTG through Pauper and my favorite format to play as well.

Great video!! Loved the review. Just bought the set and was wondering what kind of cards I could try to get my hands on to improve the starter kit.

Thanks a lot! Greetings from Brazil! 👏

Maybe its different here in Canada but I got it from a local game shop since I want to learn to play and this video helped make up my mind on what to buy, thanks professor!

My husband, son, and I learned together on the Card Kingdom rookie decks. They were very helpful. But especially during a pandemic, the Arena connection is great for getting people more experience.

Speaking of duel decks, I got the Goblin vs Merfolk awhile ago and used the goblin one as a jumping off point for my Krenko, Mob Boss Commander deck

I've been waiting for this! I was kind of shocked to see a physical product called "Arena" starterkit

Thanks for explaining what’s up with these!

Something I noticed about these that you didn't mention: These packs actually include the THB theme booster exclusive rares like Demon of Loathing which actually had a very limited supply and some of them are pretty reasonable in a commander deck for example and they seem like fun bombs for new players I think. This way this product fulfills 2 purposes: It increases the supply of cards with a low supply and it teaches new players the game. However I kinda wished that they included a couple more uncommons, only having commons and rares is pretty weird to play...

My very first deck was the previous years Starter Kit from Amazon and it was looking back on it pretty lackluster, about two weeks later I picked up this (the Amazon only version) from ... well Amazon and it helped me learn the game and introduced me to MTG Arena just in time to fall in love with the Cat Oven deck and then have it banned from right under me (I eventually got over it despite my username saying otherwise). Anyway my version did not have Vito so that sucks, but I have since acquired a full range of Planeswalker decks that I played with my partner at the kitchen table for about 3 weeks until they outlived their usefulness. At that point I bought singles for a competitive RDW & Mono Green Stompy and thanks to the guidance of this channel we are now exploring what Commander and Pauper decks we want to buy. So what started on Amazon eventually found it's way to my kitchen table and in the meantime I made Mythic tier on Arena and found an actual LGS who are running a belated Ikoria pre-release event next Monday (12 people only, all masked and distanced as much as possible) that I will be attending, so my very first time in a game store will be for a pre-release tournament... so in that respect this deck did everything it was supposed to do... it got me playing and into the LGS eventually... sort of. I'm just sad I did not get a Vito and that I'll probably never get a Core 21 Welcome Booster because the only place I can find them in the EU is on Ebay and I'm not sure my LGS will consider me a "new player" anymore =) Love the channel, it's the reason I even wanted to get the Starter deck in the first place. Thanks for reading

I picked this up yesterday whilst I was out getting Christmas shopping for my kids. I was really surprised because it's a big chain toy/video game store and only really ever had Pokemon or yugioh, but yeh it was 7 € which is pretty cheap pre made zendikar decks and booster boxs, and it shared it's stand with some dungeons and dragons stuff. nice to see as a possible alternative to some kid or anyone coming into the store it was clearly displayed conviently at the video games and smaller displays at the top of every second aisle,and boosters at the checkouts, there was so much stock. It's nice to see it's becoming more accessible here in ireland because it's a game/hobby you can start at 12 and it will still be 100% intresting and engaging 15 years later and I've tried alot of hobbies and it's pretty much mtg I always find my way back into and followed by wow and sometimes sill show interest in 40k but it's to expensive to really jump back into, end of the day can't really go wrong with magic it's easy to play it's fun, competitive and creative,sociable and you can always play MTG arena online if you cant make it to the local game store or find someone to play with. Can't say enough about how good of a past time this can be and this is a great starter product definitely one of the better ones I've seen over the years.

i got into magic with one of these sets. it was being sold in my local card shop (uk) and it was £8:99. it was cheap so i said what the hell. i played with a friend but they got bored but i wanted to keep playing then i remebered the arena code and used that to play more.that gave me the card understanding i needed to want to play commander so i bought a precon and have been playing since.

Thanks Prof, great Video, i bought the Starter Kit dein my Store and iam as a new Player Like it very much.

I'm new, wanting to get into Magic. I purchased at least 2 Jump/Start Booster Packs sometime ago, one of them containing Vito! The foil variant shown in the Arena Starter Kit is very nice!

Hey prof; do you know if these were suppose to be sent to big box stores, or due to pandemic they allowed it to not be an amazon exclusive? I have found these for sale at my local big box stores for about 12 to 15.00 each.

My wife bought me one of these a few weeks ago and it definitely reignited my spark for Magic.

Picked the arena kit up myself as my first purchase last month. It's really helped me start to learn online and I'll be playing my first game with a friend today whos going to teach me more. Great to be learning something brand new thats this fun at 31 years of age

They should just hire you as a spokesperson. Your videos are the only reason I bought my amazon arena starter deck. If your channel didn’t exist I wouldn’t have known or had the interest in learning this game. it was your energetic videos that got me wanting to learn more.

My local Target had these for $6.19, so I actually wound up buying two, so my "new to MTG" son and myself could each get a code for Arena. I was pleasantly surprised at how willing he was to finally sit down and play the physical version, and he's had a ton of fun with the green deck.

I managed to pick one of these up for $7 at my local Kroger store and it's nice having paper decks (that aren't my standard decks) to play with my younger sister.

I love the throwback to the spellslinger starter. hahahaha

This is awesome. I was trying to get into magic with my girfriend for some time. I bought a dual deck 4 years ago and we played it a bit but it was too complex. Recently I bought this one and we played every day since. They are simple and easy to understand, quite balance (seems to me black is a bit stronger). And it is dirt cheap, I grabbed one for our friends and they are playing it as well.

Some of the newer starter kits have some really solid cards in them - I recently bought one, played a few games with my young cousin and then broke them down to add cards to my commander decks. Twas a fun day, and I needed the lands too!

These are selling for $6 at the local Box stores in South Jersey so me and my freinds grabbed them just for an easy Vito

I am new to magic the gathering, I played it a long time ago on xbox back in 2015. I never truly got into it but enjoyed playing it. I downloaded the game on my phone recently and completed the color challenges. The next day(today) I received an email from magic the gathering and they are sending me a free starter kit so Im really excited to actually have a physical deck! Now I just need to find people to play with!

I think the 7th edition ¿core? Or whatever was called had a great tutorial. It had a "do not shuffle" warning and I played the demo game with my father, but it also included a cd with a kinda small offline magic game to play on pc. It was cool.

Best $10 I ever spent. My wife wanted to enjoy my hobby with me and this was the perfect teaching tool. Now we enjoy magic together!

Returning player that dabbled in Arena during the pandemic after a 10-year hiatus. These were £5.99 in my local store, came with a couple of promo packs, and I have to say I'm happy with them. Sits right in that 'impulse buy' price range and gave me a good few opening games the evening after.

Dang Prof, you made me remember what "smorgusblorg" means again! What a hero.

I know you already addressed about MJ Holdings putting these in the big box stores, but I just want to point out that there are also different versions of these decks out there with different foils. As far as I know the main deck content doesn't change though. One version of the deck is the only way you're able to get the Iron Scale hydra foil, that's the main reason I know about it because I needed it for my Gargos deck.

I bought this for like seven bucks at Walmart when M21 dropped almost solely for the foil Vito and Kogla, but I also gave the codes away to friends who were interested in trying Magic out, so well worth it IMO.

I bought one of these as my first Magic product, and I was very happy with both decks (mine was also only about $8 which was a steal). I think you can end up with slightly different configurations, for example my foils were Ironscale Hydra and Demon of Loathing. Based on my play sessions in Arena, I would say both sets are very good, especially my Green deck, which was able to get me to Silver rank in Standard. While it is true that there is usually only one copy of rares, I find that even having multiple powerful cards means you have to think strategically based on what your draws are and learn to adapt to that, which I found very helpful as a newbie. I also think the decks play well against each other, and plan to use them to get more of my friends into Magic. Overall I think it a great product that served my needs well

I got into magic thanks to the Ajani & Nicol Bolas Planeswalker decks.

Sigle color, from the English professor. I only jest, you're a fantastic all things MTG reviewer / knowledge source.

Great video! I've been playing Magic for over 10 years and I picked this product up for just over $6 from a local Target. I saw the Vito and figured the extra couple of bucks more than buying a Vito was worth the other cards and online code. At $6 I think it's a steal :D As you mentioned though, the gameplay was disappointing (especially for the black deck because only Vito and 1-2 other cards had lifelink....). I agree that having playsets of better cards would both improve gameplay and teach new players that consistency and focus are crucial when constructing decks. It took me a couple of years playing casually to learn that having playsets of cards was worth the money/time to get them. It also taught me to trim out unnecessary cards or others that diluted the strategy of the deck.

These definitely need to be on sale not only at LGS but, at big box stores.

Was waiting for this vid since I saw it in Walmart. Thanks again Prof

I picked one of these up literally for the foil vito and kolga. Pretty decent product

I saw this at Walmart, went “eh, the prof hasn’t made a vid on it yet” then bought jumpstart I got a teferi, and zurzoth, worth it :3

i didn't realize this was a brand new thing, i got it pretty recently and think it's pretty fun so far

I learnt Magic with my first ixalan vampire/vraska planeswalker deck. I felt that it was awsome to play with my friends even if I allways lost. And I gave a friend a Dominaria's Chandra deck, so It was awsome to play with that decks.

I got one for $8 at target as an impulse buy a couple weeks back

love the new, chill elevator bgm.

Just got one of these for 7 dollars in an LGS in Marquette, Michigan. Teaching my family how to play while we’re on vacation

I was able to snag one for 9.99 . My brother and I have been throwing cardboard since. Made me get some throne of eldraine brawls to mess around with...

When I started out with Magic I got the Arena one and I loved them. I thought the decks were fun and fairly powerful. Nothing broken clearly but overall just a lot of fun and for me that was totally worth the price. I find myself agreeing with prof on most points. Love the vid!!

Brand new player here. Mostly on Arena. It's nice to have this insight if I ever decide to start going physical. Yu-Gi-Oh! is my current physical card game of choice. I really wish Konami would give us online redemption codes for Duel Links. That's really awesome that MTG has that.

Holy crap I got your slang video on my recommenced like the day before this video came out!

Hey Professor! I bought one at Wal-Mart a month ago for $7 and change. The Vito and ‘Kong’ one. That was the normal price, not even on sale. 👍🏻

the best tutorial for me was from 8th edition silver and gold player and the 7th edition CD

"If you're watching this you already play Magic" False, I don't play/watch at all but I love your videos!

I do not play Magic the Gathering nor do I even own a single card. But I was just looking at Card Kingdom's Rookie Deck Bundle so My girlfriend that just got sick and is now bed bound can play MTG together for the first time. One of her online friends plays and just spent $200 on his deck we thought the price to play was too high. I am thinking of getting the Rookie Bundle for $30 just so we would have a variety to play. I think I will get the Rookie deck bundle now since you graded 2 rookie decks the same as the Arena Kit, this bundle seems to be a tiny bit more of a value. Thank you for the review.

I bought this boy, for 6.95$ at target!! And I'm teaching my buddies friend how to play and he loves it so much much, he let me keep the black deck and he's so thrilled to be a part of magic, for a first time product. This kid is in love with magic! We've got him to play commander and now he building his own, hanky fun but that's the joy of it!

Just a note, at about 13:30 you are missing a "K" in spark. Love the content

With new lands out and more coming in Commander Legends can you PLEASE do a commander mana base update?

I picked up the set at my LGS for $6 at my LGS. The first thing it did remind me of was the old duel decks. I wish these products had a little tutorial of how the deck played, as the black one should be a little aggressive before the big green took over. For critique, Collossisification felt weird in the green deck, and Peer into the Abyss should have been replaced with Underworld Dreams to be simpler. But the foil Vito, arena codes, and 2 60 card decks made it on hell of a deal at $6. 10/10

Lol it’s not even a big deal but I kept laughing at "sigle color" 9:20

Found one at a Target for $6, seemed like a good pickup for both the value and to rejigger a little as a teaching tool.

I'm just here to see how many people attempted to redeem the Prof's code on Arena.

Love the fact that What We Owe To Each Other is just sitting in the background

OMG, it's driving me crazy! THe background music you use sounds just like the "Workshop" music from the Neverwinter MMO! Where do you get it? I have that stuck in my head all the time now.

Have you reviewed the Planeswalker decks this time round yet? Would be cool if oyu did ty.!

What’s the difference between this one and the one with the ape on the front? Ah you answered my question! Thank you. So the ape one is valuable and RARE! Got mine for $6! Haha. But if they put more value in the deck collectors would buy them all up you know that, Prof. Your video is the best one on this set I’ve seen. Nobody else brought up the one with the ape cover. Great job. The only problem is you don’t learn as well with Arena because you don’t learn timing with Arena at all. Tapping etc. better than nothing. :)

I picked up one of these a few weeks ago at Target and instead of Vito and Kogla, it contained extra copies of the hydra and Demon of Loathing in foil. Would have definitely preferred the Vito...

Also, the Arena code can be redeemed twice (different accounts required). Easy way to get a friend into the game too.

I bought and played these decks against each other and theyre really fun out of the box. def a good tool for teach new players

Many Magic the Gathering Player asks the Question; are u startin the video with this sentence? :D Probz for your great videos, prof!

I bought one of these the other day for $7 at walmart. In my opinion, getting two 60-card decks both physically and digitally for that price is a STEAL, especially for a new player like myself. Also, my brother and I have been learning to play using these decks and I can say that they are a very good teaching tool for new players.

I just picked one of these up for $6.99 at Target. It was great to teach my 7 year old daughter!

I was able to buy this today at my local comic shop for 9.99$ so ... there are definitely local shops that have some of these. I bought it for Vito and to play with my brother who is relatively new.

Gonna wait to watch the ds9 vid just started my rewatch

9:42 Sigle Color. Can't unsee now.

I bought mine at target yesterday in Schenectady NY for $5.99

My LGS are selling these for about 6$ for the whole thing. They are absolute angels for the newcomers that show up.