The Technomancer
card-carrying scientician
So Im completely new to Magic. Whats it about? Where can I learn to play?
Well the first thing you should do is check out an awesome page put together by TheSeks:
http://peg.gd/1LE
Magic: The Gathering is the original trading card game, released over 16 years ago. Players in Magic represent powerful wizards known as planeswalkers, who use a library of varied and powerful spells to wage war against each other. As a Magic player youll be summoning creatures to fight for you, laying powerful enchantments that change the game, and calling forth lightning bolts and mystic powers to devastate the opposition.
If youre totally green to the game, there are a number of resources to help you learn to play. In rough order of helpfulness:
1.)Find a local game store, show up on a Friday night, and just ask someone to teach you. This really is the best way to learn. There are always a lot of pre-constructed decks available for less then fifteen dollars, and when you feel more confident then build your own custom deck or get involved in a Draft, where everyone opens new packs of cards and passes them around, building decks out of what they get.
Locate stores near you: http://ww2.wizards.com/StoreAndEventLocator/
2.)Magic: the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers: Released on Steam, PSN, and XBLA, this game is designed specifically to help train new players into the game. Its got some limitations, but its an excellent place to start. Read the NeoGAF thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=365489
3.)The official Magic website: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/newtomagic.aspx
A useful glossary of terms: http://wizards.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wizards.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1418
The Magic website is generally crammed with excellent information, including a dozen or so weekly columns on everything from advance strategy to behind the scenes insight from the head designers themselves. But this specific link takes you to an introductory page, with a few tutorials and videos to help you out.
Also check out these products:
Hero said:A few suggestions:
1) Buy a Duel Deck -
MSRP of 19.99 and they come with two 60 card decks that are based around either tribal themes (Elves vs Goblins, Angels vs Demons, Knights vs Dragons) or planeswalkers (water planeswalker vs fire planeswalker, etc). For the price you usually get very decent cards. The most recent one is Knights vs Dragons and you can find that at Walmart, Target, etc. The Knight deck is pretty decent but the dragon deck is kind of meh. Still for the price it's a good way of getting some decent cards and not worrying about building the deck yourself. The biggest thing that I find when people are learning Magic is that they don't get a mana curve right (i.e. you want more 1 drop spells than 2 drop spells than you do 3 drop spells, etc) because otherwise you'll just sit there with a hand of cards that are unplayable because you don't have the mana to cast them. With the Duel decks they've done the work for you. Also each duel deck comes with a foil premium card for each deck. Unfortunately these are a limited product so the older ones are harder to find and usually command a higher price though if you have any local gaming shops they may have them.
2) Buy two Intro packs.
MSRP of 12.95 dollars I believe. You get a 60 card deck and one sealed booster pack of cards. Each intro pack has a theme to it and one premium foil card as well. The easiest to learn would be a Core set intro pack as the mechanics aren't too complicated and you don't have to worry about interaction with abilities as much. These can be found at Walmart and Target as well.
3) Buy two Deckbuilder's Toolkit.
MSRP of 19.99 each. You get 225 semi-random cards as well as plenty of each basic land along with four random packs of recent Magic expansions. A very cost effective way of starting off a collection as the semi-random cards will contain a theme to them, such as 10 red cards for a burn type deck or 10 green cards for a ramp into more mana deck or 10 white cards to support a soldier type deck. Pretty solid as you can build at least two decent decks most likely but you'll have to rely on the boosters for rares as you only get commons/uncommons in the semi-random stuff. With this product however you would be responsible for building the decks yourself and may not necessarily be the best way to teach a new player how to play the game.
The recent release of the Commander decks (MSRP 29.99) are also a good way of getting a lot of different cards since other than lands every deck can contain only one copy of a card and the decks are 100 cards each. Commander (also known as Elder Dragon Highlander or EDH) is a popular casual variant of Magic the Gathering that is more known for its multiplayer appeal and the opportunity to play with cards that may not be tournament worthy in other formats such as Legacy or Standard. However for teaching a new player I'm not sure if it would a great introduction as every card is different and the cards included in these decks are a bit more complicated or require interaction beyond the other products. And you figure since you would need to buy at least two that's 60 dollars that you alternatively buy a Duel Deck, a Deckbuilder's Toolkit and two Intro Packs and have a lot more to work with.
Alternatively if you have Walmarts and Targets near you I would give their card game section a browse. There was a Premium Deck released last year called Fire and Lightning
that contains a 60 card deck, all of which are foil. The deck is pretty straight forward as it's mono-red and plays cheap but efficient red creatures and then a lot of burn spells to clear the path for your guys to attack. The MSRP of this was 34.99 but I've seen them clearanced to 50% off at Target. You get a single Chain Lightning which is a great card, 4 foil copies of Lightning Bolt, a Ball Lightning, Figure of Destiny and a lot of other great classic red cards.
You can't go wrong with any of the suggestions but that's just my two cents.
Pshaww, Ive been playing since Revised/Urzas/Invasion/etc, whats in this thread for me?
Well, this should be a good place to talk about Magic with your fellow GAFers. Discussion of new sets, stories of incredible matches, debate about strategy or opinions on design and development.
For Everyone
Gatherer, the complete Magic card database. The advanced search lets you look for cards by any criteria imaginable.
Play Online
A program called Cockatrice has recently come to our attention, which allows people to play online for free with whatever cards they want. You can find it here. We're investigating getting GAF games of Magic going.
(Thanks to Hex for finding the program)
Great Online Resources
MTG Salvation: Huge Magic forum
Star City Games: Lots of articles on tournament play and strategy
Many more great sites
For the Enthusiast
(interesting articles about the game)
The Magic player personality types (with quiz)
Complete Making Magic archive
The Color Pie:
Hate is Enough
Its Not Easy Being Green
The Great White Way
In the Black
Seeing Red
Design of Mirrodin Besieged:
Under Besiege Part 1
Part 2
Complete Latest Developments archive
Development of Mirrodin Besieged:
Development Under Siege
What is it Good For?