The guided beginner box will step you through your first hands, but it's even better with an experienced player by your side.
There are a lot of different ways to learn MAGIC THE GATHERING. I picked up the cards for the first time in years with the Assassin's Creed set, but the new Foundations set is Wizard's biggest attempt yet to bring new players into the game.
Will this be their 5E moment for the long running trading card game?
I sat down with a complete newbie as we worked our way through the new beginner box and started dealing cards and building decks.
The beginner box gives you everything you'll need to start playing a few rounds of the game, including the spindown D20s for health tracking, playmats for card placement and importantly a stack of different premade half decks that we'll come to shortly.
When your kitchen table is set up, each player will pick either cats or vampires and be taken through a literal step by step guide with really nice explanations along the way.
'You draw a card and then play a land, tap the land and cast this creature. Your opponent will then attack as well and you'll take two damage' and so on.
The premade Cats & Vampires decks are set up so the draw order will be exact for a reason, to match the instructions, though we did notice we were asked to place our decks face down which reversed the order.
We just played the decks face up, not a big deal when you're being given each and every result ahead of time, but it could be a stumbling block if you aren't as familiar with the game as I was.
Other than this initially confusing moment, it was really simple, my opponent Andrew had absolutely zero experience with the game and mentioned that it never felt daunting as the game held your hand the whole way through.
Eventually you get to a point where the instructions end, and you're expected to play out the final turns on your own.
"Very scary"
That's how Andrew described it, eventually though you have to take off the training wheels, I'd imagine but I think it's important to state how he was feeling.
A few more turns for each and it was done, you've been set up nicely to make a final limited decisive move where either player could take the game, it's a cool tutorial that you often see in board games.
Once you're comfortable enough with the basic mechanics it's time to move onto the next stage of the beginner box, picking up a couple of the premade collections of cards and shuffling them together. Once you've moved out of the very guided tutorial experience, you're playing at full strength and it's up to you to choose what combination you'd go for.
It's pretty vibes based, pick what looks cool and shuffle them together.
I went for the green Elves deck and red Inferno deck which was packed with elves and dragons, nice.
Andrew picked up the blue Pirates deck and the green primal, a quick shuffle and we were off and running.
I learnt a good lesson when I was drafting Duskmourn for the first time at PAX Australia with Twitch streamer MoonlitCharlie, don't let your opponent start a hand with no land, that's a table rule that isn't explained very well in this box.
Thanks for the lesson Charlie, they say each game is a learning experience and luckily I made that mistake and was killed immediately on the showfloor unable to do anything until my health whittled down to zero.
The upside was that I could teach that to Andrew when he received a dud "land locked" or mana less hand it's essential to mulligan or redraw your first set of cards.
Sometimes it goes the other way, heaps and heaps of land but nothing to cast it on either. Neither of these situations are ideal for either player, it's way better when you can a more even back and forth.
Sometimes that's the way the cards fall and this beginner box doesn't really go into much of the deckbuilding composition.
So after that we were off trading blows and going slowly through mechanics like flying and trample.
Elves were smashed by big old street sharks, dragons blasting hydras with variable health depending on how much man you spent in their cast.
A Big Fin Bouncer was particularly damaging, crushing my Elven Regrower. Andrew spent big on the Wildwood Scourge loading it up with 5 health and 5 defence, paying five additional land to bolster it's health.
Unfortunately for Andrew my next card drawn was Fiery Annihilation which did exactly 5 damage and sending the Wildwood Scourge to exile.
We played a couple of games with these deck configurations and each game we got closer and closer at the end, with just a single turn between victory and defeat.
There are plenty of different options to choose from when you jump into other games, pick up another two half decks combine them as you'd like and give it another go.
The box is set up with dividers so you've got them ready to roll for brand new players, which is really nice.
Honestly this particular set could be nice to bring along to a board games night if you want a few quick rounds between bigger games.
Outside of this particular boxset, it's a good way to pick up some good Planeswalker cards if you've not had one in your hand before.
My advice is find someone who loves the game and sit down with them to play this set. They'll teach more than a set of instructions ever could and you'll be dealing them with the best of them in no time.
