Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #415: Teaching

Episode Date: March 3, 2017

I'm often asked about the best way to teach Magic to a new player. In today's podcast I explain how to do it.

I'm pulling my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. Okay, so today's topic was suggested by somebody on my blog. They said to me, you know, I really have some friends. I'd love to play magic, but I have no idea how to teach them magic. And so today's podcast is all about, okay, how do you, a magic player, teach a non-magic player how to play magic? Because I've talked about it a lot, that one of the big, what I call the barriers to entry about magic is,

it's an intimidating game. You know, it's relatively complex when you add everything together. And it is very easy for people on the outside to see their friends on the inside and go, whoa, whoa, that's way too much. I'll never learn that. You know, it's not for me. And I've seen a lot of people who I knew would even enjoy the game if they learned get really intimidated by it. And so today I'm going to walk you through some things you need to do if you want to teach somebody.

Okay, so here's the first thing to understand. And this is probably the guiding, the most important thing about teaching somebody. It's not even just magic. It's true of any games. But it's particularly true of magic. Which is, the most important thing is you want them to enjoy their first experience. Now that might sound, some people go with that. Well, of course they want, but no, no, no.

That's your priority. That is more important than anything else. You want them to enjoy their first time. And people say, okay, I got it, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they don't prioritize that. So let me put this in a larger context. It is not important at the end of the first game of Magic that they

understand all the rules. It's not important at the end of the first game of Magic that they even know all the possibilities, or even some of the possibilities. They don't need to know everything. All they need to know in the first game of Magic is enough to enjoy the first game of Magic. It's all they need.

And here's the important thing. If at the end of the first game they go, oh I had a good time, they'll want to play again. And if they want to play again, then you have time. They'll learn the things they need to learn. And I think one of the biggest problems I see when people are teaching is they don't take this maxim to heart, which is teach them as little as you have to teach them for them to enjoy the game. So remember, number one rule, they need to enjoy it. Number two rule, teach them as little as possible.

The less you can teach them, the better. And I know some people, they just want to, it's kind of like, okay, here's magic, and just start throwing everything at them. It's too much. I mean, the thing about magic is, magic at its core, at its core, the base game actually isn't that complex. The actual, like, one of the interesting things is, we used to make a product called Portal. And what Portal was, was one of our attempts to sort of introduce people to magic.

And so we really simplified it. And I did a lot of teaching of Portal and stuff. And what Portal made you realize is how fun the base-based game is. Because the thing about Portal was Portal had creatures, had sorceries, and had land. That is it. No instance, no artifacts, no enchantments, no planeswalkers.

It had creatures, sorceries, and land. So basically, only things you did on your turn. You never did stuff on your partner's turn. You just did stuff on your turn. There are a few rare exceptions where they cheated. But mostly you did stuff on your turn. You never did stuff on your partner's turn. You just did stuff on your turn. There are a few rare exceptions where they cheated. But mostly you did stuff

on your turn. And so the idea is that you don't need to introduce tons of things. I mean, I remember in between, we would go to different local festivals and things

and teach. And in between, when the bands were playing and people weren't pouring in, we would sometimes play each other. But all we had was the Portal decks. So we would play Portal games against each other and they were actually interesting games, even though there was very, very little, you know,

a lot less options than normal Magic. And it really made me appreciate sort of, like, just attacking and blocking. There's a lot of complexity and once again in Portal we're talking these were simple creatures you know the creatures basically were vanilla, french vanilla

or you know most of them either had an enter the battlefield effect if they weren't vanilla or french vanilla or a few of them had like an attacking trigger but there wasn't a lot. It was pretty straightforward stuff. And so when you were teaching somebody,

first and foremost, what I recommend if you want to teach somebody, what I recommend if you want to do it right, is you want to go through your collection and you want to build two decks to start playing with. Now, there's stuff like sample decks. So what happens is we make these things called sample decks that we give away to stores and stores give away to players

that are meant as an introduction to the game. Sample decks are built to be first-time decks. So if you don't want to build your own deck, you can go to a store and try to get your hand on some sample decks. Sample decks are a very good introduction. But you can make your own sample deck or you can make your own introductory deck. Basically what you want is, so here's the first thing. Remember the caveat I started with. Make sure they have a good time.

So what that means is, understand you hopefully if you're teaching someone to play, you, hopefully if you're teaching someone to play, you know the person you're teaching how to play. Maybe you've played other games with them. Maybe you just know things that they like. The key is, when you're trying to make decks for somebody, what you're trying to do is two things. First and foremost is pick things that will excite them. And here's an important thing to understand.

that will excite them. And here's an important thing to understand. It is okay for somebody to not understand everything of something if they get enough of it to have fun with it. And what that means is it is better to have something that's flavorful

and a little bit above their head than something that's not particularly flavorful but simple. I want to have fun, meaning I prioritize them having fun over them understanding everything. Because if they have a good time, I mean, they need to get the gist of what's going on,

obviously, but if you have to help them a little bit, and as long as with your help the game's able to progress and there's fun things going on and they're enjoying it and the flavor is cool, they're going to have a good time and they'll come back. So one

of the things I say is, try to think about what they will like. Now, the interesting thing is, when you introduce the game to them, a couple things. First off, okay, sorry, I'm jumping ahead. So make decks with them in mind. Now, in general, when you're making your decks, for sure put creatures in. Creatures are not only fundamental to the game, but are pretty easy to understand and make sure the game will end. Um, I'm not saying you can't put instance in, you can, I mean, I would lean a little more towards sorcery. But you can put a few instants in. Just make sure you're picking instants that, like, it makes sense when you're going to use them.

So, like, oh, this happens during this time. Okay, you can cast it during this time. I will not say not to put enchantments or artifacts in if you think that that will be appealing. Like, one of my big things is it is more important that you excite the player than you enable them to understand everything. What you want is, here's the things they need to understand in the first game.

They want to get the sense of life, you know, that there's a score total, and that what you're doing is driving their life from 20 to 0. And you want to make sure they understand casting spell, how to cast a spell to make sure they understand how to cast a spell. But if you understand how to cast a spell, how to attack with the creature,

and how to track life totals, you'll get by enough to enjoy the game. You don't need to know tons more than that. So the big thing is, when you're teaching somebody, here's the next lesson, is don't talk to them and then start playing. You should talk to them very little before you start playing.

What you want to do is give them a little tiny bit of intro and then teach them while you're playing. Because somebody talking to you can get boring. because somebody talking to you can get boring. You know, I mean, now, part of what makes... Actually, I'm jumping ahead of myself. First thing you want to do, okay, so you want to make decks for them, for you and them, so you sort of make it keep from being too complex and that you are playing into things you know they like.

Okay. So sit down. The first thing you do when teaching someone to play, the first thing you do is take the magic cards and put them in their hands. And, and then this is important, don't talk, let them look at the cards. Now, some people go, but wait, the cards won't make any sense. That doesn't matter yet. Remember, the number one caveat of teaching someone to play is making sure their first experience is good. Magic cards are fun to look at. And, and, so if you guys remember, I talked, I haven't done the podcast yet, but I talked about this in my column on my speech.

One of the things about getting people invested is people are more invested if they feel they're the ones initiating things. So if I sit cards in your hand and you read them and you're like, oh, what's this mean? And you ask me, then I get an answer and I'm answering your question. You're more invested. So the first thing you want to do is put the cards in their hand. Let them look at it. The art is pretty, you know. And they know

they're not going to understand everything, but you want to first sort of get them in your hands. Let them see it. Let them look at it. Let them ask questions. But the key is you want to start playing pretty quickly. You can answer a few questions, but don't spend too long talking about the game. We want to start playing. Okay, so the very first thing you need to teach somebody is make sure they understand what spells are. So the first thing you want to do is explain to them the goal of the game. Okay, because if you remember my 10 things every game needs, number one was a goal. People always want to know, okay, what's the point of the game? What do I have to do?

So, and keep it very simple. Say, okay, here's what's going to happen. We each have 20 points. Now, in this game, we call it life because that's the flavor. We're wizards, you know, magic users dueling with magic. And we each have 20 points that we call life and the goal of the game is to get the opponent's life total from 20 down to zero and I'm going to show you you have a whole bunch of different spells and things to do that that's the goal of the game to get me from

20 to zero now another thing I would say is use probably paper. You want to make sure that the score, well, however you want to do it, it needs to be visual. You want to be able to see, I have 20, you have 20, I have 20, and as the score changes, they watch it change.

Being able to see the numbers and see the change is a lot of the drama of the game, and it's important. Do not, do not just like off the drama of the game and it's important. Do not, do not just like off the top of your head say, I have 20, you have 20. Okay, now you're at 18. See it. Make sure they see it. They need to be able to rock that.

The score is a very important part of the game. Okay. Once you've explained the goal to them, the next important thing you need to do, and do this by looking at the cards in their hand. What I recommend is when you teach somebody, the first game you teach them, play everything face up. Play the hands face up. Explain to them that in the full game, you don't see each other's hands. It's secret. But for learning purposes, we're going to play face up. And the reason for that, the reason you want to play face up is you, the person teaching, want to be able to monitor everything in the game.

Because here's the goal. Once again, I will repeat this many times today. Your goal is to make them have fun. If you want them to play more, you want them to have fun. So what you are doing when you are running them through the first game is you are trying to make an exciting game as possible. You're not trying to win the game. You're not trying to make an exciting a game as possible. You're not trying to win the game. You're not trying to beat them. You are trying to make the game as fun as possible. So you have a different goal than normal. Your goal is

not to win. Your goal is not to lose. Your goal is to make the game as exciting as possible. What you want is a really close game. And one of the reasons to play everything face up is that gives you all the information you need so you can understand what you need to do to make sure you have a close game. Remember, the new player is not going to

understand all the nuance of the game. They're not going to understand when or why or where you do or don't cast spells. So, what you want to do is, and by the way, just as a magic player, you can look and see what the spells are and understand the light totals. And you know, what you want to do is create drama. And you are teaching them what to do. So one of the things you want to have happen, things need to happen. You don't want a game where nothing happens. You want a game where things happen.

You want a game where creatures attack, where spells are cast, where, you know, you want things to happen. Because part of what makes a game exciting is that there is drama to the game. You know, life totals have to change, creatures attack, creatures fight with each other,

there's creatures dying and spells casting, and you want things to be happening. And here's a good way to think of it is, after the game, if you went back and explained in narrative terms what had just happened, it should sound exciting. You know, I cast a goblin. And then I attacked my goblin. But out of the blue, they had a griffin that appeared, and the griffin beat my goblin. But ah-ha, I had a magical spell that, you know, withered the goblin, whatever. That you want a lot of back and forth, and you want to encourage the other player to do things. One of the biggest problems that beginners have is they freeze up and don't do anything out of a fear that somehow they'll do the wrong thing.

That is not particularly fun. Not doing things is not fun. So what you want to do in the first game you play with them is you're going to help them make a lot of decisions. In fact, kind of what you want to do for the first game is you want to do a lot of encouraging. Now, that doesn't mean that you want to give them choices because one of the things is they're playing. You want to make sure they feel like they're playing the game.

What you don't want to do is like, I'm just playing the game for both of us and you're watching. What you want to do is give them decisions. Now, they'll ask your opinion and you can say things like, well, I would do blah here, that's fine but what you want to do is set things up, encourage them encourage action, but then also occasionally give them a choice

like, for example a very common thing is, let's say I attack the creature and I say, okay, here's what's going to happen you have let's say you attack with a creature and they have two creatures. And you can say, okay, here's what's going to happen. I've attacked my creature.

Now, you have three choices. Or four. You have four choices. You can not block at all. Just let my creature hit you and you'll take so much damage. Let's say my creature's a 3-3. I'll do three damage to you. You'll go from 20 to 17. Or, you can block with your 1-1 creature.

If that happens, they get in a fight. My 3-3 will do 3 damage to your 1-1, and your 1-1 will do 1 damage to my 3-3, which means my creature will kill your creature, but you'll stop me from damaging you. You could block with your 2-2 creature. If you do that, they get in a fight. You do 2 to my creature, I do 3 to yours.

Once again, my creature would destroy your creature, but your creature wouldn't destroy my creature. If you do that, they get in a fight. You do two to my creature, I do three to yours. Once again, my creature would destroy your creature, but your creature wouldn't destroy my creature. Or, your fourth option is both creatures could block your 1-1 and your 2-2, and then you do one damage plus two damage, which is three damage, enough to destroy your creature, and I would do three damage, one and two, enough to destroy

both your creatures. So you could block with both creatures, and all of your creatures would be destroyed. And so, you give them options and let them go. Oh, well, do I want to just take the damage? Do I want to just block and not take damage

and just lose one creature? Do I want to lose, you know, you walk them through choices and explain what's going to happen. But I will stress that if you find them sort of a

always opting to avoid things sometimes you just want to do some encouragement like it's okay to say to them okay it's your turn you have a creature, your creature is bigger than any of my creatures it's pretty safe to attack with it I would recommend attacking

do stuff like that where give them choices but also some of the time, just make recommendations that push them toward action. The other thing to remember with new players is, there are a few things that new players in general, I'm making a blanket statement, this is not true of everybody, but there's a few

things that they tend to like, so be aware. Number one is they overvalue the numbers of life total. I think what happens is you get better with magic, you start to realize, okay, I have 20 life, I can lose some, it's okay. They really, really like making the opponent's life total go down, and they get really nervous when theirs goes down.

So one of the things you might want to do the first time they take damage or something is reaffirm and say, oh, okay, you just took three damage, which takes you to 17. Oh, but you know, you have a lot left. You still have 17 life left. That reaffirms to them that they have, you know, that there's some fear sometimes that just taking even any damage is, because the game is about going to zero. So every time I take damage, I'm closer to losing.

Oh, that's bad. And so make sure that you sort of, as they take damage, that you explain to losing, oh, that's bad. And so make sure that you sort of, as they take damage, that you explain to them, you know, give a little context of, you know, it's okay, yeah, you took three damage, but you're still at 17. You still have a lot of life left. They don't know, for example, that being at 17 is, yeah, you're still

in pretty good shape. They don't know that. So you make sure you want to give some of that context. Okay, so the first thing you do is you explain life total. The second thing you do is you want to start explaining how to cast a spell, what a spell is. Don't worry about the different, when you first teach spells, don't get into the different kinds of spells yet. You have to worry about that right away. What you want to do is teach them what the mana is. So it requires

you talking about the five colors of magic. Now, in my, what I've generally learned is that people enjoy the colors of magic. Once again, don't spend too much time on any of this. You want to do a quick version, but what you want to say is, look, there's different colors, and the way I always explain it is, okay, you're a planeswalker, which means you're a mage, a wizard, and you're casting magical spells. When you're casting magical spells, you need to get this energy from the earth, this magical energy that the game calls mana. And then what you need to do is every spell tells you how much magical energy, how much mana you need to cast it. So let's look at it. Okay now see this and you point out that you can point out the colored mana symbols. There's different

colored mana symbols. See this? That is a little swirl of fire. Well a little swirl fire means red magic. You know red magic is a destructive magic and red magic has a little fire as its symbol. So on this card, notice there's a two, there's a two in a circle, and there's a little fire in a circle. A little fire in a circle means red mana. So what that's saying is this is a red spell, and in order to cast a spell, you need at least one red mana.

Well, where do you get red mana? Well, let's look. See these things called land. The land is, you get magical energy from the land. And you're allowed every turn to put one land into play. And once again, by the way, when you're walking them through, you want to sort of walk them through the steps of the turn and say, okay, now you can do this. Like normally what I do is on the first turn I say, okay, let's start.

You go first. Okay, usually I have them draw the, on the first turn, I say, okay, let's start. You go first. Okay, usually I have them draw the card on the first turn, even if they go first, just because teaching them play drives isn't quite necessary yet, and drawing a card is exciting. And so I say, okay, first thing we want to do is we want to play a land. First thing you always do, look in your hand, you see a land. See, it says land on it. And then once they play a land, I then explain the mana system. And so let's say they have red in their hand.

I go, okay, well where do you get the red mana? Well, see the land you just played? Look, there's a red mana symbol on it, just like in your hand. This land makes red mana. And it shows you it makes red mana by having a big red mana symbol. So what that means is, in order to cast a spell, you need to have

a red mana symbol. And then what the two means is you can have two mana a spell, you need to have all red mana symbol, and then what the two means is you can have two mana of any color you want, doesn't matter. It can be anything. So right now, so that spell would cost one, two, and a red. So three, you need three lands. Do you have three lands out? No you don't. Okay, so right now you have one land out, let's look at your hand.

Is there anything you can cast having just one red out? And look at their hand. If there is, say, oh, like one of the things you want to do when you're teaching is every turn get them to play the land first. Just teach them to play land. I understand as they get more strategic. It is fine as they learn strategy better to realize some of the base things you taught them aren't always true. But when you're teaching somebody, it is easier to learn absolutes than it is to go, well, you know, here's the reasons why you may or may not want to play mana. That's confusing.

Every turn if you have a mana, if you have a land, play a land. And later on you can teach them, like, it's okay to later un-teach them things or teach them that there's more subtlety than you first learned. But when you're first learning, the key to teaching somebody is they want, they're overwhelmed. Remember this, by the way,

when you're teaching somebody. They're overwhelmed. They have a lot of information and they are trying to take in all the information. What they want from you is they want you to make it easier for them to help them figure out what to do. So a lot, when you give them some rules to follow, like for example, the first thing you do every turn is, well, first you draw a card and then if you have a land,

you put a land play. Only one per turn, but if you have a land, put a land to play. And then the idea is teach them to say, okay, let's look how much land we have. What do we have in our hand? Can we cast it? Now, there will always be a few spells, if you put ores in or giant growth in, there's a few spells where you can cast it faster than you want to cast it. Let's say you put giant growth in a deck.

On turn one, can I cast it? Oh, you can cast it you have a force that produces a green but let's look and see what this spell does so it says target creature gets plus three plus three until end of turn target is a special word in the game that says you get to choose

you get to choose what's the target of your spell, you get to choose what you want but you have no creatures in play so this does things to creatures You know, you get to choose what's the target of your spell. You get to choose what you want. But you have no creatures in play, so this does things to creatures. Well, until you get a creature in play, the spell won't do anything. So we're not going to cast it yet because we don't have a creature. That's the kind of stuff you can explain to them. You can give them the parameters.

And once again, always talk in terms of things they understand. There's no value to you using game terminology or you getting into the strategy. What you want to do is just explain to them in simple terms. They go, okay, I understand what you're saying. Now, at some point, you want them to get your creatures out. Hopefully, you've made decks that have mostly creatures. Creatures are the bread and butter, especially teaching new people how to play. Okay, so the things that will confuse people with creatures,

for those that haven't taught beginners, is a couple things. Number one is the idea of power and toughness. It takes a little getting used to. The idea that there's two numbers and what they represent. That is why when I teach people, I tend to give them square-statted creatures to start with. Square-statted creatures are just easier to understand because in some level you're learning one number rather than learning two. So when you're making your deck for your first intro game. Now that doesn't mean you have to

all square stats, but one of my tricks is I make the lower cost things square stats, and if I have non-square stats, I put them on higher creatures. It means we have to get farther in the game before I have to explain what that means. And that, by the way, is a very good way to think about it, is

think about the mana curve of your deck when you're teaching, and put the simpler things lower down so that they don't have to encounter more complex things. Okay, so once you make them understand the mana, and one of the tricks when you're teaching somebody is, this is a teacher trick, is people will say they understand something

when they don't understand something. So the answer is not, do you get that? Do you understand? Because the response to that is, yeah, I'm not a dummy. Yeah, I understand. What you want to do is have the person explain back to you what you explained to them. So for example, let's say you just, So, for example, let's say you just—one second. Hydroplane there. Safety first. One of the things that you want to do is you want them to be able to recite what— so let's say, for example, you're doing Manakas.

What you don't want to say to them—okay, do you understand? What you want to say to them is, okay, let's look at a spell in your hand. Okay. How much does this Okay. How much does this cost? How much land do you need to cast this? So you're asking a question in which the only way for them to get it right is a demonstration that

they understand the principle you just taught them. And the good news is, if they get confused, then it helps you understand what the confusion is. Oh, well, I see a two and a I see a thing with two and a thing with red

so that's two no no no the number means you can explain things but remember the key is explain as little as you have to explain

but when you need to explain something make sure they understand the thing you're explaining. So once they know how to cast a spell, you then get to creatures. Like I said, I tried to do square instead of creatures.

So the confusion people have with creatures is, one, they think creatures attack other creatures, so you have to explain to them that creatures only attack another player, but that creatures can then get in the way and protect their wizard, their planeswalker. It is fine

by the way if magic has some terminology, like library, like graveyard, like planeswalker, that or planeswalker for the player, like you're a planeswalker,

you do not need to use all the terminology out of the gate. You know, you could say, for example, this is your deck. In the game, we call it your library, you know, but that doesn't mean you can't refer to it as a deck early on to get them to understand it. Now, at some point, they'll have a card that refers to a library. Remember, remember, your deck

is your library. And that when you're using terms, it's okay to explain, I mean, briefly what the term is. You're a wizard, and this deck recommends your book of spells. So, it's called your library because all your spells are in it.

You can explain stuff like that. So, creatures, they think they can attack other creatures and they often, you're going to want to walk them through a creature combat. And usually what I do is line up the creatures so their numbers are touching each other and say, okay, especially if you do it against each other,

that way your power is against their toughness and their toughness is against your power. You say, okay, remember if you do it against each other, that way your powers against their toughness, their toughness against your power. You say, okay, remember, my creature does two power, your creature has two toughness. And what I would do is explain a little bit, and then say, okay, and then once you've explained once or twice, in future times, say, okay, what would happen?

And a lot of combat is you walking through scenarios of them understanding what would happen, and then once they understand what would happen, and a lot of combat is you walking through scenarios of them understanding what would happen, and then once they understand what would happen, say, okay, now what do you want to do? What you will find, by the way, with beginners is the two most obvious things that beginners will do is one of the two extremes. Either they will be uber aggressive, wanting to knock you down at every level and constantly attack, or they will be uber aggressive wanting to knock you down at every level and constantly attack or they will be super defensive and be afraid of losing any life and never attack

and so usually what you need to do is if you see they're attacking all the time you have to explain to them when they're doing dumb attacks explain to them, oh, this doesn't make a lot of sense because you have a 2-2 creature they have a 3-3 creature if you attack, they're just going to block and kill your creature and nothing's going

to happen. You'll just lose your creature. Meanwhile, on the flip side, if they're being too cautious, you might go, okay, you have a 3-3 creature. All they have is a 2-2 creature. Their creature can't stop your creature. I mean, they can't kill your creature. So if you attack, they can block it, but if they do that, their creature will die and

yours won't. Walk through and give them explanations of why to do things. And then, okay, so let's say you walk through, you do this. If you're able to teach them the basics of how to cast a spell, how life total works, how to cast a spell, and what creatures are, you can have a fun game. You actually need much more than that to have a fun game. Part of what you want to figure out is you want to put enough stuff in the decks that some, like, you want a few things to happen that are, like,

like, I like having one card that breaks rules. And there's some creature keywords that do that. Like, for example, V example vigilance is an interesting one where you teach them that things attack and then you go ah but this creature

has something called vigilance now remember how I taught you that every time you attack you have to tap a creature vigilance creatures don't tap to attack and why is that important

oh well you need normally if you tap with a creature and you tap it you can no longer block with it but a vigilance creature

because it doesn't tap you can both attack with it and block tap it, you can no longer block with it. But if Vigilant Screecher doesn't tap, you can both attack with it and block with it. So also, by the way, an important thing when you make a deck is, and you can make a deck out of comments and stuff, but not just make a deck, make a deck and give it to them. This is now your deck. There's a lot of potency in ownership. And so one of the things when I like to make a deck is give it to them, deck. There's a lot of potency in ownership.

And so one of the things when I like to make a deck is give it to them and now they have something that's theirs that they can play with. Okay. So, you sat down with them, you made a deck, you played with them. Oh, let's say you can't make a deck. Okay, well sample decks are the best, I think. But if you can't, there are other things that you can play with them the thing to be careful with is make sure that the thing you're teaching with doesn't have like one of the problems sometimes with teaching people with extra expansions is or you know standard legal expansions is there can be stuff in there that is on the more complex side and it's not for example that i dislike vehicles

but our vehicle is something i want to teach somebody on the very first side. And it's not, for example, that I dislike vehicles, but are vehicles something I want to teach somebody on the very first time they're playing? Same with energy. I just, I kind of want to give them the basics before I teach them

the add-on stuff. But I want to make sure that in the first game they play, there's a couple, usually spells, but sometimes creatures, that just do something

a little out of the ordinary. And you want to teach them the idea that the spells supersede the rules. So, like, normally you do this. Ah, but this spell says you can do it, so you can do it. That concept's pretty important. You definitely want to find a place

where you can explain... Like, one of the cool things about magic is a couple things. One is the idea... What? Oh, one is the idea that you have something that's yours that you customize, that you make. Most games, when you play it, it's the same thing. So when you play a game, for example, it's the same game from game to game. Like when you sit down and play

Monopoly, look, it's the same board every time. But when you are playing Magic, you are making your own deck. You're creating your own experience. That's a fun thing. Someone has their own deck and that ownership is cool. So when you're teaching someone how to play, it's important to make the deck so that they can have the deck. Because that way they can learn the sense that it can be something of their own. The other thing that's really different from magic is the flavor and the guidance of flavor. So if you can steer them... One of the things that's cool is once they make their own deck, then you can say, okay, then you can encourage them to start tweaking their deck or make changes

or whatever. But getting them their own deck when they start is pretty important. Okay, so the big question is once they play, hopefully you've made the deck for them, you can give them your deck. The thing that I tend to like with people, and it depends on why they're playing or how they're playing. We make a bunch of different products that give you a pre-made deck. There are Planeswalker packs, which is probably my favorite way to start beyond something

that you make for them. Planeswalker packs are geared more toward beginners, and it introduces you to the IP of Magic, and you get a Planeswalker, which is cool. The other thing that's very good for beginners is what's called the Deck Builder's Toolkit. And what that is, is we made a box that just has a lot of cards in it to give people the opportunity to learn how to sort of make their own deck. And that just, like I said, one of the compelling things about Magic in the first place is how much control you, the player, have.

Usually when you're first teaching somebody, you want to give them a made deck, a deck that's done, because it's intimidating to have to make a deck. But once they have a deck, once you've made a deck for them, and they have something to work off of, the first thing you want to do is teach them how to tweak, because tweaking is fun. Tweaking is the first step. Tweaking

a deck to me is kind of like making a deck with, what do they call them on a tricycle when you have safety wheels, little training wheels, training wheels, that allows you to sort of make decisions with a lot of support and And like, okay, I have my deck. One of the things to teach them, by the way, is teach them, build them a deck and say, okay, trade same kind of spell for same kind of spell. If you want to put a creature in, take a creature out. If you want to put a sorcery in, take a sorcery out. If you want to put a land in, take a land out.

For their first substitutions, sort of, you will build something that kind of is generally balanced and tell them if they match the card type, then the deck will stay generally balanced. If they start doing stuff like taking out land to put in creatures,

well, their deck's not going to work. And so, that's a good rule. So anyway, probably the first two things I recommend are Planeswalker Packs

and Deck Builder's Toolkit. Another good thing that you might want to do the next step is dual decks, or products in which the pre-made decks are there. If you think, for example, they might enjoy Commander, there's Commander decks. The thing to be careful of when teaching is just don't throw them too deep and throw too many concepts at once. The idea is what you want to do is you want

to introduce them to the game and then slowly let them see other things. The thing that will make somebody like, what are the dangers when you're teaching somebody? So let's walk through what they are. Number one is being overwhelmed. That's the first thing. Is going, oh, there's so much.

Okay, this is too much. This is too much. I can't handle this. So you've got to be careful. That's why I only want you to give them as much information as they need. Number two is they get bored. So like I said earlier,

you want to make a fun experience. That doesn't mean you have to give them the absolute simplest possible magic cards. If there's something they really will enjoy that's a little more complex, that's fine. Let's say, for example, like, would I normally put artifacts in a deck? It depends. If I think they will really enhance the play of the, you know, like, oh, they love magic wands, and I can give them magic wands, and they can have a magic wand, oh, they love magic wands. Yeah, I'm putting magic wands in the deck. You know what I'm saying?

Or they love suit of armor or sword or whatever. If there's something they really would enjoy that would enhance the experience, even though that thing's a little bit complex, you know, the number one dictum is making sure they have a good time. Not minimizing complexity. Like anything else you

think might be a priority, I'm telling you the priority is them having a good time. And the other thing, by the way, is when you're playing, if they ask questions, ideally what you want to do is play,

have things come up, and in the situation explain what's going on, and let them have questions. Let them ask things. Just be careful. Don't, your answer should be,

so here's the tip I'll give. So, my mother used to do a lot of testimony in court for her job, and she's a psychologist. She used to do expert testimony. Anyway, one of the things they taught her when they put

her on the stand is do not answer anything more than what is asked of you. If someone says to you, where were you the night of January 12th? You give the shortest, simplest answer. You say, I was home. Not, don't give a story. You just answer the question. Never give more information than what they're asking of you. So I'm going to give you the same advice. So see, I'm going to help you both for court and teaching magic. Someone asks you a question, answer the question directly.

Answer the question. Do not give them extra information if you do not need to. Don't say, oh, well, you know, this. But, you know, this is holding the thing you never heard of. Let me talk about that. No. You want to answer the questions and, I mean, you want to give them the answer.

You want to give them what the answer to the question. But do not bring extra information if you can avoid it. Because the number one reason people will leave is they're overwhelmed. And the number one reason people will leave is they're overwhelmed. And the number two reason people will leave is they're bored. Those are the two biggies you have to avoid. You can't give them too much that they shut down. You can't give them not enough that they're like, eh, this is not exciting.

And I've had some stories of people who have taught their friends, dumbed it down so much, like simplified it so much that their friend's like, okay, well, thanks. Yeah, it's not that exciting. Like, no, no, no, there's so much more, but you didn't get a glimpse of more. So it is important that when you build your deck,

the top, yes, you want to simplify some things, but you also want to throw a few things in there that are a little bit more complex just so they go, ooh, what is that? And it doesn't need to be a lot of things. It's not like I introduce artifacts. I need to introduce lots of artifacts. I can introduce one artifact. The idea is, once they see a little bit of, oh, here's a thing that works differently than what you know,

they start to get the idea of, oh, there's just things that are different. And it only takes one or two cards that are, you know, one or two cards that are a little wacky or a little big in the effect or whatever. Oh, the other big thing about teaching beginners is as a general rule, players, when they first

start playing, tend to be a little more Timmy-ish, if you will. Timmy-Tammy-ish. And what I mean by that is, when you first start playing a game, you have no... It's not until you understand the game that you get invested in proving what you know.

It is hard to be super spiky when you are learning. It is hard to be. You don't know anything. Likewise, in order to be expressive, you have to have a decent understanding of what is there. So both Johnny, Jenny, and Spike tend to come a little bit later. The thing that you get earliest on when you first start learning to play is a visceral thrill.

The thing that Timmy and Tammy latch onto is the thing that's easiest. So it's not necessarily that more... When you're beginning, you're more likely to lean in that direction only because it's the easiest thing for you to sort of experience. It's harder to prove something or exhibit something than it is to just feel something, you know, to experience something. And so when you're teaching, early players have a lot of Timmy Tanny qualities to them. What that means is you probably want to put a few,

when I say big effects, a big creature or a big thing happens. Something in which you go, ooh, wow, that's a big thing. You know? So, for example,

like I, my son and I for many years played starter decks. Just, he enjoyed playing starter decks. And,

you know, eventually we got to intro decks and stuff. But the thing he loved about the starter deck was he loved, like, there was a green deck and it had a Terra Stomper in it, which I think is an 8-8 Trampler for whatever, six man or something. And the thing that he loved was it was big, it was exciting, it was hard to deal with, it often would win the game. And I used to joke that I knew when he would draw it. Like he was so excited by it that I could tell when he drew it

because he couldn't hide the smile on his face. Make sure when you're building decks for new players that you are putting some of that stuff in. You're putting some, you know, you want to make sure that there's some... And the reason you want the Terrorstompers of the world is a couple things. One is it's big and splashy. Second is it'll make the game end. Make sure you want your playing time to be as short as you can make it.

You don't want to play too long. Remember the dictum that you want the game to end before the player wants it to end, and usually by at least five to ten minutes. You want the game to end and the player to go, ooh, I want to play again, not like, okay, what else you got? Let's do something else. So one of the things when you're building your decks is make sure to make things that end.

Make sure you have things, and the nice thing about big effects and big creatures and stuff like that is they make the game end. So putting those in your deck will be exciting and help make sure that the game ends. Okay, well I'm almost at Rachel's school, so let me just reinforce several lessons of today.

First and foremost, make sure they enjoy the first experience. Maximize them enjoying the experience. Nothing else that's important. They don't gotta learn everything the first time. They don't need, you know, tell them enough to get them interested. Don't tell them more than that. You know, as a general rule of thumb, use my court rule, use as little as you need. How little do they need to learn and be able to have a good time? That's what you want to teach them. If you can make things

for them ahead of time, that's great. If not, Planeswalker packs and Deck Builder Toolkits are the best things for beginners. Although, Planeswalker packs, you want a premium experience for the very first time you play. Deck Builder Toolkit's good once they sort of have the general gist of it and want to build their own deck. And maximize what it is that they find fun. And remember that your job playing the first game and play your hands face up is not to win or not to lose. Your job is to make an exciting and a fascinating game. You want it close. You want back and forth. You want drama. And you want to end it where the person who wins, you know, is like, oh, they won, you know. And you don't

have to have them win all the time. I think what's important is they could see their chance to win. Not that they win, but they could see the chance to win. Like, oh, if they just run another card, maybe they could win. I mean, you can also let them win, but it's not crucial. It also depends on who you're teaching. Like, you, the teacher, have to understand the student because some people, winning would really mean a lot to them and letting them win the first game will draw them in. Some people, you know, if they win, they'll feel like, oh, how did I, the beginner, win?

This can't be that good a game. So it's up to you to sort of figure that out. But your job is to maximize an awesome first game experience. Okay. With all that, those are the things I've told you about how to make their first experience the best it can be. And like I said, make sure that you ideally make them a deck and let them keep the deck, even if you don't make the deck, even if you buy the deck, if you really want them to play,

what you want to do is make sure that they have cards after the game ends. That if you want them to continue to play, them owning their own deck by far is the best way to make that happen. But anyway, I'm now at Rachel's school, and so you know what that means? It means the end of the drive to work. So instead of playing Magic, it's time for me to be making Magic. I'll see you guys next time. Bye-bye.