I've actually decided to carry multiple decks on me when I play casual magic. Honestly, it does NOT cost much to buy an intro deck to play with if someone new joins the group, and they'll enjoy playing against that more than my 8-rack. Besides, it's just taste, but there's something very entertaining about playing weaker decks that usually only run 1 or 2 of a card. There is such low redundancy that every game doesn't feel the same. Plus, they're thematically cohesive and very flavorful. Can play cards I couldn't normally play because they are fun but not very good. Anyone else feel this?
I think that's just having a healthy taste for playing the game overall. I myself would love to crack open a box of ice age with my friends and draft crappy low power decks against each other. The fun and flavor, (in that example it would be the old Jank power levels and classic art), can always come from a place other than just optimizing and trying hard as possible to win. Honestly the type of people who only care about playing high power decks and only want to clobber their friends over and over aren't very fun to be with. So yeah absolutely agree
My favorite form of Limited is "Wizard's Tower"; a 5-player Free-For-All. You take the contents of a Fat-Pack, Smash it together into a massive 200+ card deck, and go nuts. the top five cards are revealed on the table, and during the draw step, players choose to either test their luck, or take one of the revealed cards. when all 5 cards have been taken, you reveal the next 5.
We used to play that way when I first started, we'd grab a bunch of bulk cards add enough lands equally distributed among the colors and go nuts, it was really fun!
I am a novice when it comes to Magic. I've played it on and off since i picked up my first cards from M10. At my mate's 18th we busted out his collection and my friends walked me through creating a similar 6-Pack scenario. We sifted through piles upon piles of his cards and pulled out the ones that looked fun to use and put together 6 'packs' each (after shuffling the total amount of cards together in their respective rarities and then formed 18 packs all up). First we played what would be described as Sealed and then they ran me through my first true Draft. We all had amazing fun, i got more experienced and won a good portion of our matches. We got hours upon hours of entertainment. Which was great because the party was a sleepover meaning we ended up spending the whole night from 11pm-7.30am playing Magic. So i can completely agree with the video~ ^^
I was kinda hoping that everytime we saw you in this video you were going to look more and more casual, until you were wearing an mtg t-shirt and sweatpants/
I normally just play casual random decks with old and new cards, no real rules on what cards you use. Just for fun. The best way to play in my opinion!
I do as well but I don't know if the way I play is a balanced way to play because with no restrictions on cards someone can just use a modern deck while someone else can use a pioneer deck and the decks wouldn't be balanced against each other
I do as well but I don't know if the way I play is a balanced way to play because with no restrictions on cards someone can just use a modern deck while someone else can use a pioneer deck and the decks wouldn't be balanced against each other
This video is still so relevant to casual play, thank you for making this! I recently introduced my brother to mtg, we bought two tool kits and had a really fun time building decks and playing with them. I think the tool kit gives more guidance for a absolute beginner than the boosters provide, so we started with that. Building a sealed deck will be the next step!
Actually having that issue right now. We are a group of old(age[40's]) new(to MTG) players. I've been playing for about a year (DOTP mostly) and finally got a group of about 6 of us into the game. Everyone is totally into it, however being that we all have lives and families devoting time to the game (collecting cards, building decks, actually playing, etc) is tough to manage. I have the most exp (which is still very limited) and the most cards, and have built some strong(er) decks, while my friends are still using intro packs and fat packs to put togehter their decks. This idea of using 6 packs to create a deck may just be the perfect idea for us...at least to give us all an even level to continue to learn the game. the way i see it is: its a league of sorts. we use the same six packs during "league" play. The season is set for a number of weeks. Trading can occur up until "playoffs" then decks must be finalized. Cards can only be of the 6 packs we each opened. Then after the season is over (around new expansion time) we start a new season. Brilliant idea. everyone on the same page. everyone learning and having a good time. Thanks a lot for the idea! Keep up the great videos!
common cards from all across magic! If it's ever been common, it's ok! Although, there are probably some that would be too powerful or format warping, like treasure cruise, and cloud of fairies.
Caleb Martin Are Treasure Cruise and Clout of Fairies really that powerful on their own? I mean, I can understand them being very powerful when used together with rare cards, but they are not in this case.
I taught my 8 year old how to play MTG a little over a year as a form of bonding and good old fashion mental competition. Every new set release we buy a Fat Pack and 3 extra boosters to each build sealed constructed decks for the next three months until the next set release. Today we did this with Magic Origins and I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. My son, who is a prototypical RG aggro player, pulled 2 Gaia‘s Revenge, a Goblin Piledriver (with supporting goblins), and a Nissa in his pool. I was so happy for him and was ecstatic as he pulled rare after rare in his favorite colors. I, a dirty, ugly control player, pulled a pretty even pool of Elves, Thopters, and Sacrifice with the addition of a Jace. I look forward for the months to come of building and rebuilding decks to try and take down his beast of a pool! I can't recommend The Professors' advice more when it comes to the recommendation of sealed constructed to have a great time, and get better at the game as a whole!
I'm new to MTG. only been playing for a few months and I LOVE my deck builders tool kit. the value price, the number of lands, thrill of opening boosters,the nice storage box,the booklet that comes with it, I love it!
I have to say, this video was an Immense help to me. I recently started watching this channel and the clear, well paced, and analytical nature of the videos gave me a sense of calm, understanding, and a clear course of action. This truely IS an effective community college. I recently offered to help a friend of mine get into MTG. I was thinking about buying a duel deck with him and then letting him play with my 3 other duel decks. if a deck seemed to be too strong in a matchup, i would pick appropriate sideboard cards to alter the deck, as well as play the weaker decks to give my friends the maximum amount of winning games. But, after watching this video, I feel that buying 3 packs of one set and 3 packs of another set, or 6 packs of one set would be great fun! I also am finishing up an Innestrad cube for triple inestrad drafts with mpre advanced magic playing friends.
+osmosys808 I played an into deck when I was new to magic the gathering at my local game store's tournament =P. At least I wasn't the first out though =P. My very first match I think I played against someone who was just given cards by a friend and played with that, I actually won. Though I feel bad now since it was obvious she was new to the game like me.
osmosys808 I played in a modern setting. With a custom mono red deck themed after Kaladesh. And I had only played two times prior to that small tournament (everyone was real nice and helpful so I came away with knowledge). It didn't go well at all. Like...picture the worst possible destruction and then how that could get worse. That's how destroyed my newbie butt got lol
Of course most of it is specific to MTG, but this video contains sound advice for those who are into casual play for any CCG. Balance and customization. NIce.
What also seems fun is booster battle. One booster opened blind, three of each basic lands, shuffled up and there you go. Could be good and cheap entertainement for in between other events or for display leftovers after drafting with it.
"Q: who is the most powerful planeswalker? A: Tibalt" is more accurate now, thanks to kaldheim. In fact I would say he's the best planeswalker in the set.
Thank you so much for the suggestions! Me and my boyfriend decided to get into magic finally, I bought toolkit and he bought Khans fat pack, needless to say decks were terribly unbalanced and I was afraid that all the loses would discourage him to keep playing magic, now I know what to get him when I visit him. Thank you once again !
1st off LOVE THE VIDEOS! THEY ROCK! I have not played in over 12 years now my wife wants to play and she used to make fun of those who have been playing for years so my friends and I reminded teaching her currently she's having a hard time but we will get there but your videos have helped in this new venture
I gave up buying or playing magic around Visions, after buying a box every week for years. Giving a packing crate of cards away to some lucky kid. Fast forward twenty years and I see my kids 'playing' Yu-gi-oh (as in 'I am yelling loudest your thing dies'). And new I wanted to teach them magic the right way, to set them up for tournament play if they were still interested when older. But I absolutely was opposed to spending thousands on cards that rotated out (That was before my rejuvenation and learning about the different play types thanks to you, Professor Who :). I went to a few card shops and one nice guy offered to sell me boxes of draft leftovers for twenty bucks. Mostly commons and uncommons with a smattering of jank rares from loads of different sets. So I bought 6 of them. (all together around 6 shoe-boxes full cards for $120). Perfect for my 6 & 9 year olds; bulk to choose from, nothing worth anything that other kids would steal or it didn't matter if they got wrecked or worn out because there was probably 5 more copies of each spell. We spent weeks sorting them into color and deck building. 10 x mono-color decks, 5 x 2 color decks (paired with the color to the left/ right), an artifact deck and a multi-color deck. I managed to make black return from the graveyard, red to the face, white wheeny, elf deck, green fatty trample deck, a discard deck and many more. The thing I found was that all the power had equally been removed so it was really easy to balance the decks. I got to show them how to build a deck properly, count the mana symbols, look at the mana curve, mana fix or acceleration, how each deck won, what it was really good or strong at doing. I taught my kids by tournament rules and there is very few arguments in our house; done is done no take backs. Announce moving to attack phase. Run the phases in turn, cast in second main phase unless it affects the combat. Do your upkeep effects etc. Proper rulings etc. Now my kids and I love playing magic together, it was my dream as a twenty year old to have someone to play with every night. They will often legitimately win and point out errors I made. The whole process made me remember what a bloody good game MTG is, particularly when you remove the pressures of tournaments, the hole in your wallet, the trolls and vein throbbing magic fascists that call for a judge if you only tap your card in an inappropriate 89 degree manner. Thanks Professor Who for the other great pauper options, the old magic crew and I are going to put together a cube and get some draft going. I think you are the champion that Magic needs. You intelligently teach in a non condescending way and you are firmly on the side of getting bang for your buck and there is more enjoyment to be had outside the pro tour. Thanks.
Some weeks ago i had an idea similar to yours, but balanced between pre constructed and complete casual: I've built ten decks of 30 cards each, balanced and with simple cards, in order to allow each of these decks to combine with every other deck, and in order to let beginners play without issues. The players take two of them (randomly) and mix them... voilà! Casual, balanced games, every time different and requiring every time a different strategy. It's fun, not repetitive and every match has always a lot of tension, due to the balanced decks! for this purpose i found deckbuilder's toolkit and welcome decks a perfect (and really unexpensive) choice!! ps: i love your channel and your work :)
ive always played with the same group. the beauty of that is our decks are always evolving to counter each others. it makes everything more interesting as we meet and play very often
About what you say of some people that doesn't know how to build their decks.I'm helping atm a friend of mine to build his,he doesn't listen to me about the number of cards he should use, like 8 removals,20 creatures etc etc.To know how to build your OWN deck I believe that is the key to understand the Casual-pauer or at least the Balanced decks logic.Amazingly done video.
Great video, Professor! A couple of friends and I were just discussing what we should do with my boxes of Khans once I pick them up. I guess that's all solved now, as we'll probably be doing 6 pack sealed.
Wow yesterday I had a very similar idea to this! I have been playing with my brother lately and I might (and by that I mean I have), pulled some 15$ or so cards and traded with some of my long time magic players at school. I am fairly new to this game, about 1 month, I am starting to realize the unfairness of play. Here is my idea: Wizards of the Coast should assign a number of points to each card, say, between 1 and 100. So a basic land is 0, but a Terra Stomper might be 65. You can now only play against people (fairly) who have a deck that has the same amount of total "points" that you have. Say, I have a deck that has 1200* points total, and my brother has a deck that had 1100 points total. I still have a slight advantage, but now it is very fair. This would also make deck building much more interesting, and make people look at how cards work together, instead of how many tri color lands and 20$ mythic 9/9s they would have on the battlefield. Strategies would be endless, from having 10 late game rares/mythics and 20 other commons that are worth 3 points each. One could also go with a ton of uncommon and no rares/commons, and have a balance of all the cards. *Keep in mind this is all theoretical, haven't really tested this idea out.
Keegan Pelton Actually this is a great idea, but what determines the "value" of a card? it mana cost? p/t? number of effects? rarity? also, what if someone has say 20 creatures with a value of 50 and 20 lands valued at 0 then the remaineder of cards valued at 10? deck value would be 1200 but with somewhat "outlying" valued creatures. maybe a bad example but the problem of "counter valuing" cards would still be somewhat unfair, yes?
I think the card "values" could be judged at the moment by prices on say, TCGplayer, multiplied by 10. So if a common was 10 cents, it would be worth 1 "point". And if some Sarkhan was worth 12 dollars, it would be worth 120 points. The overall points in the deck could be determined by players beforehand, and if it was on mtgo there could be different rooms for point ranges like 1000-1200, 1201-1400, and so on.
Keegan Pelton I once did a large project like this back around Future Sight after reading an article of MaRo's about why they make bad cards. I decided to assign different abilities, power, and toughness different valuations based around colorless mana. To start I looked at vanilla creatures and at what point they became powerful. (IE: Metallic Sliver vs Eager Cadet vs Savannah Lions vs Woodland Druid... Obviously, something like Grizzly Bears would represent common acceptable vanilla power level.) Then I looked at similar creatures with various basic abilities (first strike, flying, vigilance, etc.) and worked outward from there. Then I did the same with basic spells (to understand resource cost such as life, draw/discard, damage, etc... and even targeting variability) and ultimately I ended up with an assignment like 1 colored mana = 2 colorless or so and using the colorless conversion differential in terms of power to determine the strength of a card and even entire sets objectively. So essentially what happened is that balanced cards zeroed out, and more powerful cards had a positive valuation and things like say, Chimney Imp had a negative valuation. Its 1/2 body was worth 2, flying worth 1, and its ability approximately a 1 (if even), vs a cost in this system of 6 so... 6 cost for 4 power, or a card that had a valuation of -2. In contrast, something like Black Lotus? That's a straight-up 6. Compare to say, Dark Ritual which equates to something like a 2... Or technically the Moxen at 3 (1 = play an additional land that turn, 2 = the actual mana production) The scary thing is that if you go through, you'd understand why something traditionally thought of as fairly good like Necropotence is actually well balanced. And back to the "bad" with say, Scornful Egotist, 9 for 1 or 3 for 3... But then, Morph made for a lot of "balanced" cards.
Keegan Pelton The problem with that is that cards that are out of standard usually drop in value, even if they're very good. Thragtusk, for example, used to be around $15, but you can buy him for around $1.50 now.
I remember the "Load Ready Run" crew mentioning that their local game store has a ongoing tournament in this fashion. It's 6 boosters and they add one more booster per week. The store records the card pool that every player opens, so they can take the decks with them and have matches with one another anywhere. Sounds like a lot of fun!
Most local game stores do this, actually. If there's one near you, they might do it too! If not, maybe you can ask them if they would. It's good business.
Tolarian Community College I don't think ours has that, as this is my first time hearing about the format. It's also the only store running Wizards sanctioned events within ~200 kilometers, sadly. But I'll ask around and see if they'd be willing to try it out. :)
Fantastic video. I have plenty of standard/modern decks worth hundreds, but there's something great about a casual, equal playing field, especially with friends who aren't as attuned to Magic as we are.
The intro is funny, and yet somewhat true to me. the other day I saw a discussion on TCGplayer that not only compared Tibalt to Jace The Mind Sculptor but declared Tibalt a better card. 😐
I played tons of casual Magic with people in college and almost all of my decks began their life as 40 card sealed decks that I had played years earlier that I then expanded into my casual 60 card decks. Over time they were a very diverse collection of focused decks.
Looking to get into Magic and finally risk some cash. I just want to say your videos have been really helpful. At the very least they showed me what to expect from my purchases so I can spend my money and get exactly what I want for it instead of just going for what I think gets me the most cards in general.
My playgroup once did a thing they at least called Booster Madness, we all got 2 packs from each set in the Return to Ravnica, and Gatecrash blocks, 8 packs total, and built whatever we could out of those pools*... it is a LOT of fun, like the 6 pack sealed idea mentioned here... although what we did had about 1.3x the card pool size, and spanned 6 sets instead of one, the fact we had the same number of packs from each of the same 6 sets kept us fairly balanced relative to one another. *(luckily, having no money on me to buy them, I worked out a deal - payed back the person running it with store credit and trades - as I pulled 2 shocklands, 4 mythics ( 2 or 3 of them gods), and other really useful and fun stuff that I DID NOT want to give up at all) - and it was fun, we still use the pools we generated from that night to this day along with other stuff we have to make interesting deck ideas, though I've admitted I'm on the devilishly
what's funny is i dont mind losing to stronger decks, rather i enjoy it as i see cool interactions that i don't know about and i can start to play around that or learn from it going forward. rather i am happy for my buddy for comboing off because chances are he enjoyed it aswell.
Love your videos, Professor, I've just started down this MTG path and have all of TWO games under my belt. My friend and I are going with your second best recommendation, the Toolkits. They are cheaper (in Canada) than six boosters and have enough land (we're both starting from scratch) to complete our decks with. I figured it gives us enough cards to try out different colour combo decks as well, so win-win. Thanks for your help!
Really useful insights, thank you! It really opened my eyes to the reasons behind some of my negative play experiences. I love the idea of agreeing on some sort of Limited format with your friends and sticking to it.
Tolarian Community College today I bought a fat pack and 3 boosters. My brother and I split them up and each made a sealed deck from them. He said he was so proud of his deck, which made me happy. We have been playing non stop today. The fat pack was awesome because my brother and i had no mana at my parents and we got enough to make decks. I would also like to make magic videos. Would you mind if I point people to your videos on mine? Your videos are top notch.
I started a few months ago with a dragons of tarkir intro pack. I initially experienced unbalanced play against my friends because unbeknownst to me at the time, they were playing vintage. However, although I lost most games with these basic cards, it forced me to continually rebuild and use a multi coloured deck. I started to hold my own and started buying sine very affordable singles and some boosters and I'm winning a lot of games now. The intro pack allowed for a basic framework of blue and white for me, and I've recently started implementing green. I think I'm about 80 dollars into my collection thus far and it is holding very well for me in the vintage format. I don't have the cash to fully commit to keeping up with standard, but the few boosters I've bought have yielded some valuable cards.
Finally, after 6 years from the publishing of this video, WotC have stopped the production of all of these products, except draft boosters, but they're already working on it ;)
Love this guy, but he totally forgot about land cards. As a casual player who wants to build a second deck, my main problem isn't getting normal cards, it's about getting enough land cards. Casual players tend to not have lands coming out of every oriface, but usually have barely enough to fill their decks. Just wanted to point this out.
I got my neighbour and myself six boosters (2 fate reforged, 4 dragons of tarkir) and made a 40 card constructed deck with him before a pauper tournament at the LGS. Once he had another chance to play over his kitchen table the next day, I brought back a couple more prize packs so we constructed standard decks to play casually; costed me 32$CAD for the six packs and 10$ for us to get into the draft for a couple more prize packs (not to mention some rares and fun commons from the jank draft we're holding onto).
I really like this idea. I'm building a few Lorwyn tribe custom 40 card decks for teaching new players. I will add 12 boosters to the MTG teaching box so that we can play sealed after they learn the basics.
Way late to the party, but my group tends toward Cube Draft. Less than half of us have pricier cubes, but we have built one that is quite cheap and generally lots of fun. We went to an online outlet, picked a Modern block, filtered by color, and sorted price Lowest First. Then we checked 1x of every card in stock that was $00.50 or less. We went back, trimmed the "tops" off each list until they were all the same number of cards, and bought them. Lather, rinse, repeat with another Block, until you have 360 cards. We did the selecting at NM quality, and then went through before checkout and dropped the quality as low as possible (but not Damaged) before checkout. We built the entire cube for right around $100, and then sleeved it and added lands for $50. All-in, sleeved and with added lands, we paid what you'd drop on an 8-person 4pack draft BEFORE sleeves and lands. Usually the decks constructed this way are just f---- awful, but that's almost hilarious in its own right. Chaff Drafting makes for some funny moments.
i gotta say, some of the best casual plays ive got were from Pauper. Lot of customization, lot of strategies, lot of interactios, limited power-level, long matches without (necesarily) favoring control. Overall beatifull
probably the most fun i've had in a casual format was a type of sealed event were all of my friends and i each got a prerelease pack of a different guild from return or gatecrash and all built decks. but the thing that had it the most fun was if some got a card with another person's guild they would have to give it to the person playing that guild. it was extremely fun and i'd highly recommend it
Stores often have left over Pre-Release Kits. This is what I do for casual play now. We just run sealed tournaments from Sealed kits with from the same BLOCK. Most good cards from my pool end up (or will) in my cube.
This is an awesome video! I'm a MTG player who is looking for ways to introduce this game to my friends. This video suggests some ideas on how to play a casual game, which is perfect in introducing players in the game. Excellent!
I know... that's what I did... I'm new... went to Kaladesh prerelease and got a spindown and a bunch of cards then bought a fatpack, a few boosters, and split a booster box with a friend... now I'm actually not shit and know what I'm doing and have a decent collection of cards... enough to make multiple decks...
I Am Hunterific I realized this quickly when my brother and I went to get some rivals of Ixlan booster packs lol luckily I had a red, white, and blue starter sets with enough land to make near 40 card decks for causal play lol this was an epic fail on my part. I’m not sure if he did mention this in the video and I was just not paying attention or what lol
All my decks tend to be kitchen table decks (with the exception of Markov commander). Of my 10 non-commander decks, 9 appear to be well balanced with each other, which I’m thoroughly proud of as they’re intended to be a battle box of the Ravnica guilds and thus need to be balanced. The 10th deck is Nicol-Bolas which, with War of the Spark, might be nicely flavourful to use for archenemy against the guild decks. For anyone who’s curious, Selesnya is the guild I’ve yet to build a deck for.
Me and my friends do somehting similiar. We usually play a round of limited (either draft or sealed depending on our mood) and everybody buys an additional amount of booster packs that we set beforehands. With those packs we imrove our existing decks and create new ones. That keeps the format balanced and offers a huge amount of customisation. Trading is allowed, but buying singles usually is not (somebody new joining may buy essential and cheap cards like doom blade etc.).
I have a lot more previous experience with MTG than the rest of my friends, who just started a few months ago. I usually end up winning most of the time, but I never feel like a Jane. I'm always pointing out ways of improvement, things that they could do to help their gameplay, and helping them build awesome decks.
I just picked up 4 mirrodin besieged, 4 scars of mirrodin, and 4 new phyrexia for a complete casual experience with my girlfriend. Looking forward to teaching her how to build a deck from scratch and trying out a set I missed out on. Thanks tolarian community college!
I bought a bunch of cards and decided to get back into it back in 2012 for a couple of years. I bought Deckbuilders kit Maybe 15-20 boosters over the course of six months from various blocks that were current. 2 large bricks of bulk commons from amazon and a smaller brick of bulk "uncommons" For ~two hundred bucks I had a decent magic card collection that was fun to play with other adults from a local Meetup group.
Hey there! I love your videos more than any other channels on MTG. Like you, I really love all kinds of Magic Cards, and recently my friends and I are exploring the "Battle Box" format. Since I'm a casual returning player who is trying to learn about all the card interaction, it has been the perfect format. It helps me to appreciate cards better as well. I really hope that one day soon you'd find time to maybe talk about the format and even promote it like EDH! Cheers! Thanks again my friend!
Wow, even tho this is an old video it explains a lot of my old casual mattes with my old friends I'm going to make a casual deck that's fair and balanced just for them thanks Professor 👨🏫
I promise, last comment. Limited, best Format confirmed. :P Looking at Cards through the lens of a Limited Player, is so much better. Instead of thinking 99% of Spoiled Cards suck, you instead think 99% of Spoiled Cards rock! KTK is an awesome Set, and designed to be the bestest Limited Set ever and loads of fun. ^.^ I play Limited and Modern.
I actually buy that toolkit, and its kickass! My girlfriend and I started playing and its great! Lots of cards and lots of possible deck variations. Loved it.
Grew up playing Magic during the Mirrodin cycle, played with my best friend all the time, hundreds upon hundreds of games. Maybe won about 10% of them. Looking back, he was using cards like Umezawa's Jitte and Sword of Fire and Ice / Feast and Famine, and his deck was built around flanking, but we had both misread the rules on flanking, thinking it applied to both attacking AND blocking, so he was effectively getting double value out of it for years. I feel dumb, but as a kid, you don't know any better. Thankfully, I enjoyed just simply playing.
This past year, I decided to get into magic. I decided, why not buy a duel deck to play with my friend who hasn't heard of magic. So I did. I bought the zendikar vs. eldrazi duel deck. After a while, I started playing with cousins a lot, so I got two singles and a booster pack to add to the zendikar deck, since I was always loosing. It improved my deck quite a lot so I got another booster to add to it. After that I just barely beat my 22 year old cousin. His deck was an amazing deck and I am still proud to this day that measly little 13 year old beat an experienced 22 year old. I think that even a duel deck could be a great way to make an amazing deck that can beat people easily like my brother and other cousins.
Tolarian, I love ur channel. I think it is the PERFECT source for information about MTG. With that said however, i dont believe your hate of intro packs/planeswalker decks are entirely founded. I personally think that they are a great means for a new player to get into MTG. You have stated before that you think that the best way to introduce a new player to MTG is to use 6 boosters of the latest set to construct a deck and use that deck instead of an intro pack. I have to go on the assumption that the person introducing the friend to magic is doing the same. The problem lies in the exact same place you said the problem lies. Balance. The person introducing magic to the new person likely has experience is sealed deck construction and can make a better deck because of that experience leading to an imbalance. In addition to this, if the new player has no prior experience in not only sealed deck building, but REGULAR deck building, then s/he would likely not construct not only a bad deck, but a deck that doesent even follow standard conventions of magic (like having enough mana) even if the experience player warned him/her about this, its a lot different in practice. Not only will the experienced player build a better deck than the other player, but i think that they might be lucky if the entire afternoon isnt spend on correcting the other person's deck. Intro packs get rid of this problem. Yes, i agree it does take away from the costomisability aspect of decks. However i think a number one priority to introducing a new player to the game would be making sure that they know how to play and understand how decks work before they start deck building. let alone sealed deck building. On the subject of value, you said yourself that scince your getting 2 boosters with it, then paying only 2 more dollars for a deck that is at least functional and fun to play with against other intro decks. (i can tell you that from experience. it really is fun to play one against the other and the perfect way to familiarise someone with how the game works) however then you brought in the value per pack of booster boxes. I believe this is not a good argument for multiple reasons. 1, you have stated that booster boxes are not worth it unless immidiatly after a set release or if someone gets a lot of exitement from pack opening, which a new player probably wont. which brings me to reason 2, new players are most certainly not in the market for a booster box. Comparing the value of booster box pack to intro pack packs in like comparing the price per potato at a super-market to price per potato if you buy in extreme bulk. a person shopping in a super-market will most certainly not be in the market for bulk potatoes. its not a fair comparison because the one who makes the purchase will never buy the bulk product at hand. In conclusion, i think intro packs / planeswalker decks are a perfect introduction to magic. Not only do they come with a deck that is fun to play (so long as its against another intro deck), but they come with boosters to familiarise the new player at hand with what a pack is and how it can be used to improve a deck. This can then make the player want to improve his deck which will not go far because of how restrained intro decks are, meaning s/he will then want to build a new deck, and he can because s/he now knows how the game works. i think at THIS point, it might be a good idea to buy a deck builder's toolkit or 6 boosters for each player because now they are familiar with the game. I hope i didnt come off as hostile. I just wanted to speak about this. if any1 disagrees then id be happy to hear why. i always wanna understand better. I do my best to not be closed minded.
Me and my friends all bought different to start playing again (after some 3~4 years) SOI intro packs. It was fustrating, they were weak and not even fun, so I agree with Professor. Total waste of money. However, when we made a draft from EMN, we had a lot of fun (like a hole day drafting). If you and your friends have the time and money, try this both things, you will agree with Prof. See ya friend :D
I always love getting a sealed pool and I did that for FNM a couple times, it was just fun me and a friend grabbed six packs and went in. It was so much fun.
Casual sealed is a great idea... but to note if someone is just starting out..... 6 packs would not provide the land needed to make a limited deck, as they should have access to 9-10 of each basic land. Toolkits and " Bundles" are good for that part at least.
We already made a format like this into a bigger event. Everytime a new set comes out we draft 3 boosters of the set (then a mini event later will be 2 boosters we just open). When a coreset comes around, we reset and start off with a coreset draft. :) We keep the cards from time to time. It has been great fun.
Once upon a time, I played my mono black thrull control deck against birds.... I put down magic for a while. Heard about planeswalkers in lorwyn, followed by commander, planechase, and archenemy, now I am in it to win it, and care nothing, but for the my elder or primordial dragon at all times.
I came into magic as soon as the 2015 core set came into retail. I bought the storage box thinking it would have the same stuff as the kit. I was wrong, and my dad got me the toolkit for my b-day as he warned me because he actually read the thing, and he felt bad for me. Then I quit for awhile, but I never threw away my cards thank god, as when the new mummy (2017) had released, my local game store gave away the intro packs before the movie if you wanted them, and played rounds, and I haven’t quit yet
You can play using your own collection, me and my friends do that. We have a lot of not so good cards laying around, so we gather a pile of them and give randomly 80 cards to each player. Then each chooses from that 80 what card will go into his deck(usually about 20 cards) and complete the rest with basic lands for a 40 cards deck. It take a lot of time but is by far the most enjoyable magic I ever played
Professor, I look at this video, as something of a Manifesto for Casual Players. Sealed decks and sealed deck leagues are that perfect balance between balance, customizability, and affordability. I've split booster boxes with friends to do this, and it has always been a hit. I would love to dip my toe into FNMs, and more competitive formats, just to see how I measure up. But I can't justify spending so much money on cards that may lose all their value. The return on investment doesn't match, unless I take personal enjoyment in speculation and finance. And at the kitchen table, as you so ably illustrated, issues of balance can often ruin the experience, or at least taint it. The Complete Casual should be a rallying cry for casual players, who have always been invisible in the larger Magic Community.
Casual player here. Spent too much money trying to keep up from 2011-2014. Haven't bought anything since Tarkir and just use my old cards with friends now. Having way more fun now.
I remember playing magic as a kid in the late 90s. Everyone had themed decks.. Elves, Goblins, Zombies.. Or Fire.. Shit like that. It was all fun and games.. literally.. Now in my 30s I am looking at getting back into magic and the amount of crazy tricks and cards that have come out make it seem impossible to get back into. Well.. Not impossible.. But no fun.
This is me in 2020. There seems to be a winning at all costs theme, but I wonder if it's because back in the day, for us Gen X'ers and Millennial's, 1 booster pack per week was all we could afford, but now, we can buy 5 Booster Boxes no worries. And because we've spent all this money, we expect to win, and have all the best cards.
I would recommend buying prerelease kits, especially older ones, They go for as little as $13 on amazon (most are $18-$20), have 5 booster packs and one seeded pack depending on your color, and a spin down die. with only the cards that's an average of about $3 per pack
I always keep a store-bought, unchanged deck to play with other people. It's powerful enough to get a win, but it's not so powerful that it crushes everything. It's actually really good to test against for new decks as well.
Finished our first sealed deck league. Great fun. Built in real play with people outside our family. $20 for six packs and five weeks of fun. Additional $3 for a pack per week after the first week. Now my two sons and I each have a pool of cards to build limited decks that are balanced. Great fun.
In my opinion, the most interesting style of casual/limited is to pick up one of those booster battle packs from gatecrash, play them one game as is, crack the two packs, side in, and have another 4 or 5 boosters (from whichever set you guys decide on) for each player on standby. After playing with the battle pack cards only, crack a few packs from the booster pool and play a full 40-card limited deck. Kinda plays like pack wars but a little more actual play happens. Makes me sad they only had them for gatecrash.
When there is a new release my friends and I each buy a boosterbox and constantly make 6 booster sealed decks a time instead of cracking everything at once. It's definitely the most fun we have with magic on a casual level. After we have opened all the boosters we go box sealed and make the best deck possible with the content of the box you got.
Tolarian Community College I went 1-0 with my friend in 2-headed giant! I went Jeskai. Honestly, I know a lot of people with disagree with me, but I think Jeskai is the best (or at the least, most fun) Clan in limited. The set's great, and so is this video! Even though I haven't even seen it yet...I will do that now.
Well, if you like to feel like Avatar, Ang's Legend... Yep. Is fun, being bald and wind master. But now everybody wants a Mardu, Now im battling casual against 2 Mardu decks, different from each other. Personaly I think Temur is very aggresive control deck, seems fun to me. But I just go from the pre release and a Mardu deck, made by a wimp won it with overwhelming overkills. Not a chance for me, that Im playing Abzan... Any recommendations to me? PD: btw, I love your vids. Nice and very enjoyable job :).
Arcane DevilXV Replied to the wrong guy. I am simply his student. I can only dream to make videos as good as Mr, Staff's right now. :( Uhh...I feel people overrate Abzan. Outlast isn't a very good mechanic, in my own opinion. If you wanna go with em', go ahead. "If this creature has a +1/+1 counter on it" effects are powerful, its just that Outlast isn't the ideal way to put +1/+1 counters on your creatures.
Jeskai isn't the...not worst...but building it in limited is a bit more difficult so a lot of people are giving it crap. Mardu you're pretty much just guaranteed to have something to play well. Jeskai is tricky.
DCAMM720 Jeskai gets most of its value from non creature spells which generally are "bad" or should be used sparingly in limited play. Generally only the best non creature spells make the deck (in limited play) and Prowess is Jeskai's key feature/mechanic. Many non creature spells rank somewhere from 19-23 cards... My luck with jeskai in Draft has been abysmal personally.
This is an interesting video from you, especially because of your general stance against buying packs and buying singles instead. However, (and please let this be the main statement I'm putting down here) this is an awesome video for people who do not have easy or any access to a game store who still want to have fun playing Magic. I plan on sharing it with my MTG friends who are just getting into the game. Keep up the great work.
2000anelson Cheers! So glad you liked the video! My stance against buying packs is in relation to building a standard deck for play at your Local Game Store. Many people wanted a different angle, in this case a casual one, and thus different goals have different requirements. When someone says, "I want to build a standard deck! What's the best booster box or booster packs to buy to accomplish this?" that's when I say no, no, no no, just buy the singles. When someone says "I don't play standard, how can I get great, enjoyable casual games with my friends?" I say get 6 packs each and build a 40 card sealed deck from them. You get SO MUCH play from that investment, you can all play against each other more or less equally, you get a unique deck that you built and can rebuild. So much bang for your buck for casual play with your friends. It all depends on your goal.
Great video. I always thought the old starter decks were better then the themed decks or intro decks. When I first started me and a friend each bought ice age starters and played those against each other for a month or so then eventually we each bought a second starter of 4th and a couple ice age boosters. And we built our decks from that. It was a fun way to start and learn the game. I wish they would get rid of the intro packs and go back to starter decks. I also because of the cost of standard now focus on sealed and draft, and I'm building a powered cube.
I got into MTG at Zendikar, and my first purchase was intro packs since I knew *nothing* about MTG. I thought the products were just fine as an on-ramp to a complete newcomer. Of course I quickly moved on to booster packs and boxes, and playsets.
