Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - Drive to Work #287 - New Players

Episode Date: December 11, 2015

Mark talks about the things that will teach a new player easier.

I'm pulling away from the curb. We all know what that means. It's time for another drive to work. And I dropped my daughter off at school because she had an orthodontist appointment. Okay, so today I'm going to talk about new players. It's something that's very important. I mean, obviously, all players are important. But from time to time we talk about the new player experience. I want to talk about sort of both how we understand the new players and what we do about the new player experience. I want to talk about sort of both how we understand the new players and what we do for the new players and even how you can help teach new players to play. So today is all about the new player. Okay, so let's first start with

why are new players important? We'll start there. So one of the things that's crucial to any game, or any product really, is that you have a constant influx, and that people play Magic, and a lot of people play Magic for a long time, but for different reasons, people stop playing Magic. The number one reason, by the way,

that people stop playing Magic is a change of their lifestyle. They move, they change jobs, they start school, you know, they do something in which it no longer matches the pattern they have set up to play. That's the most common reason. And most players who leave the game come back. Another interesting little tidbit. Anyway, so one of the things is you want, it's important to Magic to always have an influx of new players. That you, it is just good to make sure that just as people leave, there are new people coming.

And having, I mean there's lots of value to having new players. One is, the more players that play Magic, the more resources available to Magic, the more things we get to do. So new players also equates into just more things for everybody. More programs, more events, it just allows us to do more things for everybody. More programs, more events. It just allows us to do more things. It also lets us get more staff. And so the quality of the product, you know, the more people that play, the more people we get working on it, and the more eyes that are looking on it,

I think the better products we have. So new players are good for everybody. So what do we, so let's talk a couple things. First off is, how do we, what is, what do we know about new players? How do we know what new players can or can't do or need to do? Where does our knowledge of new players come from? The answer is, it comes from a lot of testing. We have something we call focus testing. What focus testing is, all people do this, all the companies do this, it's not unique to Wizards,

is you get people and you get them in a room, usually behind a two-way mirror, or one-way mirror, one-way mirror, I guess one-way is not a mirror, in which you sort of talk to them. And usually what happens is, in focus testing is, here's the most common focus testing we'll do. There's a couple different kinds. Is you get some people in a room, usually you find people that might be inclined to play Magic, but have never played. People who maybe like

games, or people that are, have an inclination to maybe like Magic, but have never played before. And what we do is we put them in the room, and we give them Magic product, and usually what we do is we, that's it. We say, okay, play this game, and we give them no instruction. That all they have to do is read the's it. We say, okay, play this game, and we give them no instruction. That all they have to do is read the instructions and see. Now, sometimes what will happen is, we'll have somebody who is teaching them how to play. We occasionally do that.

But usually what you want to do is, you want to see on their own accord, what do they do. And like I said, there's different levels. Sometimes they're completely left on their own. Sometimes there's someone who explains some basics to them and then leaves. Usually, though, it's important that we watch what players do when they're trying to figure it out. Because one of the things that's really important is if you want to help new players, you have to understand what is problematic for new players. Where do they stumble? What are they, you know, and so over the years, we've done a lot of different testing. I mean, focus testing is a big one. Another big thing we do is we do a lot of teaching. And what we

do is, as we teach people, we sort of mark and keep track of where are the problems. And one of the things about Magic is, there are certain things that we know, what I'll say is the intuitive spots where what players want to do and what the game does, where they mismatch. So here's one of the biggest ones. And one of the things in general, I always talk about how, where you can, you want to match player intuition. That your game usually is in a better place if the game does what people think it's going to do. The problem is sometimes what players think it's going to do would lead to bad gameplay. So, for example,

I'll talk about the number one intuitive mislead of Magic, which is players really think that their creatures are supposed to be able to attack other players' creatures. Purely from just a flavor standpoint, like, I have an elephant.

You have a elephant. You have a lion. Why can't my elephant attack your lion? Why can't my goblin attack your elf? Why can't my thing just attack your thing? And the reason it can't is mostly a gameplay thing. What happens if creatures connect with other creatures

it really makes it hard to build up a board. You end up getting the thing where one player gets ahead and it becomes really really hard for the other player to come back because once I get a creature big enough that I can kill your creatures

until you can get a bigger creature you can't play creatures where in the current version the idea is I can build up my board and if I have a problem with your creatures I can not attack or maybe not block now obviously if your creatures are going to build up my board, and if I have a problem with your creatures, well, I cannot attack, or maybe not block, you know. Now, obviously, if your creatures are going to beat up my creatures, you can attack me, and at some point, I have to deal with you, because you're going to beat me if I don't do something. So, but anyway, it's a good example of a thing

in the game where what players assume it does, intuitively, and what it actually does, there's a mismatch. And the mismatch is for gameplay reasons. It is a better game the way it is. But there's a mismatch. And so one of the things we want to understand is, we want to know when you teach somebody, where are those confusions? Now, in some places, the idea is fix it. You know, make it so the game does exactly what you think the player will do. But in some of the cases, it's just worse gameplay. So the thing is, how do we teach players how to do this thing that we know their first guess isn't correct? Another thing you want to figure out by watching players, and this is one of the big things of focus studying in general, is the idea of how do you learn about what new players do? Watch new players. And like I said, part of it also comes from just teaching. Like

one of the things that normally when you get an R&D, that some number of R&D players have to focus on the new player experience, making, you know, intro decks, making products, Deck Builder's Toolkit, working on Magic Duels. There are certain products that are more geared toward a starting player, and that somebody in R&D has to work on that. Traditionally, it is something that the newer players tend to do, newer R&D members tend to do, just because it's a valuable lesson to understand new players. And so one of the things we've learned is we want our R&D people to understand how new players function.

It's really important. And so what we do is, one of the early tasks we tend to do is give them the new player products, forcing them to sort of learn about new players. It's very, very valuable. Now, once again, let me stress this as I'm talking about new players today. Old players, very important to us. In fact, we spend 80% to 90% of our time basically making the games

so new players have the experience they want, of making a set draftable 40 times, of making all the different formats fun to play. So the vast majority of our time is actually spent on more entrenched players, experienced players. I often talk about new players and all the things we try to do for new players,

and I think sometimes people feel like, oh, that's the focus. We're putting a lot of energy on new players. It's like, no, no, no, no. The vast, vast majority of our time are actually trying to make players who are going to play the putting a lot of energy on new players. Like, no, no, no, no. The vast, vast majority of our time are actually trying to make players who are going to play the game a lot enjoy the game every single time they play.

Every time you draft, we want to make sure the 40th draft is fun. That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work and a lot of depth that we put into the game that's beyond the heads of the new player. So I don't want you feeling like whenever I talk about the new player

that's done an exclusion of the more experienced, more entrenched player. You guys, very important to us, we spend a lot of time and energy on you, the vast, vast majority of our time and energy on you. But we do need to spend some time on new players. And so we tend to make sort of the newer R&D folk learn this. Everybody kind of goes through the process. So I, I've not done a lot for a while, but back in the day, I spent like, one of the things actually, when I first came to Wizards,

for those who know the story, originally, before I got hired, I was a freelancer. So what happened was I started writing for The Duelist, and then because I knew magic, I was a good writer, and I turned my things in on deadline, other people in the company who needed writers were recommending me, and so I started doing a lot of work. So a lot of the work I was doing in the early days needed writers were recommended me. And so I started doing a lot of work.

So a lot of the work I was doing in the early days was writing for beginning players. Because one of the things about it is writing how to play Magic is really difficult, especially because you have to understand the new player mindset. What is confusing them? How do you teach them on how to play? So I spent a lot of my early time writing a lot for new players and explaining how to play. And then the first couple years, or more than first, maybe the first five years, I did a lot with new players early on. I did a lot of working on new player products, of helping teach people. I did a lot with scripts early on and trying to figure

out videos and things. So anyway, I definitely went through this. So I have a lot of experience. so anyway I definitely went through this um so I have a lot of experience um and one thing from time to time I peek back in

um players change over time I mean the basics of what of the intuition hasn't really changed but just the experience

of how we get people in like now for example one of the most common ways we get people in is through digital mediums especially magic duels because what we've learned is

uh one of the problems of learning is magic is a difficult game, and one of the things about humans is, humans don't like to show other humans that they're having problems learning something. It's embarrassing that, you know, you don't want to show people that you're struggling. But magic is a hard game and people struggle. So one of the things that Magic Duels has done is, a computer is a wonderful teacher. It doesn't judge you in any way. You don't feel embarrassed by it.

It's, you know, and if you make a mistake on a mistake, nobody but you knows because the computer is not telling anybody. So it's a nice, safe, comfortable way to learn. And so a lot of times now, if you're going to teach someone new how to play Magic, one of the ways I always recommend is to first try Magic Duels. It's on a lot of different platforms, and it does a pretty good way of teaching somebody in a way to keep them from feeling self-conscious. And that's one of the biggest things. I'll get to it later today about how to teach someone how to play. But be aware that because Magic is harder to learn,

that there is a self-consciousness to it. People kind of walk in knowing that it's a difficult game, and so a lot of the hesitation early on is, oh, am I going to be able to learn this? Because a lot of players who come have some knowledge of people who play and they've picked up from them that there's a lot going on

that's a complicated thing. Anyway, back to focus groups and such. So we spend a lot of time and energy, we continue to spend a lot of time and energy understanding where the trouble spots are for new players. And so one of the big things, obviously I've talked about this, I did a whole podcast on it, but the quick version is one of the big evolutions of design in the last 10 years is what we call new world order.

And what new world order said is there's a gap between when you start to play Magic, you know nothing. when you start to play magic, you know nothing. And so the first, learning how to play is going from knowing nothing to knowing enough to be able to play. And that step, over time, if we're not careful, as magic just adds little elements to itself, gets more and more complicated, and that gap becomes wider and wider.

The step becomes higher and higher. And we said, you know what, we have to do something to lessen that. And so what New World Order was, it said, okay, let's rein in what commons will do. Let's really take a harsh look at what commons will do, and let's make commons as simple as we can make it, but yet get the job done. And the idea is higher rarities can have the more complexity in them. And the idea is when you're a new player, when you open a pack, 10 of your 15 cards are commons. One is a land, obviously. Four are uncommons or rares slash mythic rares.

You have three uncommons, one rare, and then every eighth pack, on average, it's a mythic rare. So the idea is if we can take the commons and simplify the commons, what that did is, to a player that only has a few packs, it radically simplifies what their game experience is. But for the more experienced players that are just buying more cards, it allows the complexity to stay in the game. There's still plenty of complexity, but it helps smooth things off. And that has been very important to us.

So that's something we've been doing a lot for new players. The other thing we're conscious of all the time is looking at metrics. Not just New World Order, but general complexity things. We do a lot of what we call word count, which is sort of how many words are there. What we've learned is words are intimidating.

If you just have too many words on your cards, that's intimidating. And so we work really hard to figure out like let common have the more elegant things and let the wordier things be a little bit higher rarity not that we can't do wordy things it's like common shouldn't be doing wordy things um and there's just a lot of other factors of making sure that there's just different kinds of of simple easy rockable cards at at lower rarities. So the players that... You want some cards that players go, Oh, how would I use that? Or what is that?

But you don't want tons of those at common. Usually those cards get a little higher, because things that are disorienting when you first see them is fine, and Magic wants to have some of those. And in the right moderation, they're actually fun. But you don't want to be too overwhelming, so we're very careful what we do at common. Okay. So the other thing that's really important to do for new players is the new player product. And we have, so one of the things over the years is we've spent so many

years trying to figure out how to teach new players how to play. I mean, I've talked about this many times before that I consider the greatest barrier, I mean, the greatest, Magic's greatest weakness is the barrier to entry. Meaning, when you first start from not knowing anything to being knowing enough to play Magic, it is a daunting task. And that one of the things that's really hard is, Magic's a really fun game, but it's intimidating. There's a lot to learn. Now, the funny thing is, the actual basic game, the basic elements of the game is not that hard. Usually when

I teach people to play, one of the comments I get is when I teach them sort of the basics, they're like, oh, that was easier than I thought. It's a really common response. And then I explain to them, I go, look, it's a game in which any card can sort of break the rules, so that means that you've got to read every card, but the cards tell you what they do. And the basic game is not as complicated as people like to imagine it is. But in the same sense, let's talk a little bit about when you introduce people to magic. The greatest thing about magic is it's a fun game. It's exciting.

There's exploration. The art is awesome. There's lots of flavor. One of the things about teaching someone Magic is understanding the draws of the game and then understanding what are the things that scare people away. And the idea is when you teach someone how to play, you want to play up the attributes, the fun things, know how to play, you want to play up the attributes, the fun things, and not introduce them the negative things or the scary things, but sort of be careful how you introduce them.

Okay, so what makes players attracted to the game? Number one, the flavor. The art is amazing. The flavor is really strong. You know, hey, I'm a magic user. I mean, the word planeswalker, I mean, it's a fine word to introduce to them, but make sure, like, you're a planeswalker. You're a wizard. You're using magic. You're having a magical duel. And the basic sort of flavor of the game is pretty cool. You're having a magical duel. Magic, pretty cool. You know, being able to wield magic and getting these awesome creatures

and amazing artifacts and sorceries and all these cool things you can do. Pretty cool. The other thing about the game that's fun is the exploration of the game. The idea that the game is all these, you know, there's lots of surprises. You get to discover new things and the fact that you have some say in what you do. These are all exciting things. The color pie is pretty cool. One of the things I find when people are sort of hesitant,

sometimes I'll just talk to the color pie. It's very universal. People can relate to it. And it really is a neat connection to the game. The things that tend to scare people, number one is there's a lot of pieces to it. And it is not important when you first start playing.

This is one of the biggest takeaways of teaching somebody is, it is not important that they learn everything. That if you play your first game of Magic and you only know a fraction of things you need to know to play, but you had a good time, you're in a much better place

than I learned everything I need to learn and I didn't have fun. It's really important when you teach someone to play, but you had a good time, you're in a much better place than I learned everything I need to learn and I didn't have fun. It's really important when you teach someone to play, you want to create experience where they enjoy themselves. This isn't just magic. This is actually any game. The biggest factor of whether somebody will play a game a second time is

whether or not they enjoyed it the first time. Now, there's some diehard people who will play a game and not enjoy it, but go, oh, but I see there's something there, and I'll keep learning. That's not most players, though. And so if you're going to teach someone how to play, the thing that's really crucial is

you want to make sure that the experience is fun. And one of the things that's not fun is cramming information. You know, you don't want to feel like I'm playing a game and I'm studying for a test. It is not crucial they learn everything. They only need to learn enough that they can play the game they're playing in. And if there's things that don't come up, that's fine.

Players are willing to accept the fact, especially in a game like this where new cards get introduced and new cards can do new things, they accept the idea there's other things. But if you try to say, okay, let me teach you everything there is to know, you are just going to overwhelm them and shut them down. The vast, vast majority of players aren't ready. The other big mistake that I see people make when they teach is do not worry about strategy. When you're teaching someone how to play,

let them do what they want to do. If they play incorrectly but they're having fun, fine. It is not important. When they're learning how to play, it's not crucial they're playing well. It's crucial that they're having fun and they feel comfortable. Comfort is a big thing. I've talked about this before. Humans have a craving for comfort. And so one of the things you want to do is when you teach someone how to play, is you want to teach them a few things

and let them get comfortable in the things you're teaching them. That the worst thing you want to do is, here's thing A. Before you're comfortable with thing A, here's thing B. Because then they go, I haven't even learned thing A yet. But if you said, here's thing A, let's go over thing A. Thing A, okay, you're comfortable with thing A, here's thing B. Because then they go, I haven't even learned thing A yet. But if you said, here's thing A, let's go over thing A. Thing A, okay, you're comfortable with thing A? And one of the things you can even ask them is,

is ask them if they're ready for another component. And if they say no, don't go over that new component. Another thing I tend to say when teaching someone how to play is, don't teach them information until they need to know the information. Meaning, artifacts are cool. Do you want to know when you teach them information until they need to know the information. Meaning, artifacts are cool. Do you want to know when you teach them about artifacts? When they draw an artifact, and there's an artifact in their hand, and they're able to cast the artifact.

That's when you teach them about artifacts. You don't need to say, hey, here's this thing that you don't even have, and maybe it's not in your deck, but you should know about it. No. They should know about it when they need it. When they have to draw it, and they need to know about it, fine. That's when they get to know about it. The other thing about teaching beginners that's

important to realize is people learn differently. When you are learning how to play something, different players learn differently. And you have to understand the person you are teaching, how are they most comfortable? And this is a truism for teaching,

but some players, so one of the things that I find very valuable when teaching with actual physical cards, a couple things. One is,

build decks ahead of time. Don't just throw them in any deck. Like, one of the biggest problems I've seen is people go, okay, here,

I'm going to teach you how to play. Take the standard deck. And the standard deck might have crazy things in it that are like way, way above the average thing. You know, what you want to do is make a nice, simple deck. Now, standard deck might have crazy things in it that are like way, way above the average thing.

You know, what you want to do is make a nice simple deck. Now here's the thing. You don't have to be afraid of having new elements, but make sure the new elements that you put in are things that are simple to themselves. You want to have an artifact? That's fine. I don't mind introducing artifacts, but make it a simple artifact.

You know, make it something that... The other thing to remember is resonance is very important. What I mean by that is having things you just know what they are. So when I say when you're building a deck for the first time, I'm not saying you can't throw in something that's new for magic. That's fine. But you want to

make sure you have goblins or elves or dragons or a grizzly bear. Just things that the average person has heard of. There's a lot to say about just the importance of resonance, and that when you're teaching somebody, part of, like, the thing to remember is, remember when I talk about communication,

so there is comfort, there's surprise, and there's completion? That's not a bad way of thinking how you want to teach somebody. So what that means is, first, you want them to be comfortable. You want to introduce them to things. You want to walk them through them. You want to explain why the things you're teaching them are things they already know.

That's why the color pie is a good place to start sometimes, is that, oh, black magic is like this. They got the general gist of what black magic is. You want to use creatures and things they recognize. Oh, this is an elf. I got it. It's an elf. This is a ptarmagoy. What's a ptarmagoy? You know what I'm saying? That is like, you don't want to use cards

where you're wasting time and energy having to explain things to them that aren't crucial to the gameplay experience. And so picking things that they just understand just lessens, increases the comfort. The very first thing you're trying to do when you teach somebody is make them feel comfortable. And the way you make somebody feel comfortable is by connecting the things they already know. A very common thing I will do when teaching somebody is make sure I'm aware of what games

they play. So sometimes if there's a game that they play that I know I can make a connection to, sometimes I'll use the analogy of, oh, it's like that game. For example, Magic is a card game, so a lot of times I'll talk about card games. I'll talk about having a hand, like gin rummy or whatever, like cribbage,

like whatever card game that they already know, you can say it's like that, you know, that you want to pick something in which the person you're playing with be familiar with what games they know, and that way, if there are games that are similar to what you're doing, you know, like in Gin Rummy,

you put things into play, onto the board, onto the table, you know. That's, we call it the battlefield in Magic, but, you know, and it's fine to introduce a little bit of vocabulary. As long as it's what the vocabulary is for, they understand the basis of what that is. Okay, so number one is you want comfort. Comfort's important.

You want them to feel like, okay, I got this. This isn't too alienating to me. Okay, the number two thing you want to do is surprise, which is part of the fun. Remember, I'm saying you want to be fun. Part of the fun, remember, I'm saying you want to be fun. And part of the fun is, surprise is an important part of fun. One of the things that's great about Magic is drawing a card. It's really important.

In fact, when I play with somebody, I like to let them look at a few cards, but I want to make sure that they don't see all the cards in the deck. I want them to have the joy of drawing a new card and seeing a new thing. That's exciting. That's an exciting part of the game. And you want to make sure that that is there. So you want to make sure your teaching has some surprise elements. The important thing is make sure you're aware of what the surprises are. You want to handpick all the cards.

You don't want to throw crazy complicated things that they just don't need in the first game. Now, on the flip side, you don't want to throw crazy complicated things that they just don't need in the first game. Now, on the flip side, you don't want to pull everything. Sean Main, one of our designers, has a great story where he was teaching his friends how to play. So he simplified it. And he simplified it so much that after their friends had played, they go, oh, thanks. Yeah, probably not for me. Yeah, it seems a little too simple. And Sean's like, oh, no, no, no.

There's all these other things. They're like, yeah, yeah, I'm good. And, like, Sean has, like, so simplified it down that there wasn't, like, I talk about some of the surprise is that you definitely want to challenge the player a little bit. You definitely want the player to go, oh, you know, it's fine. Once you've established some sense of comfort and they're comfortable with what's going on, it's okay to have a little bit of, oh, I didn't expect that. That is good. People like that.

Surprise is something that is a beneficial thing. But you want to make sure you temper your surprise and that it's bite-sizeable and something they can understand. Completion, the key to completion is once people understand sort of the role of what's going on and how the game works, it's very easy to get someone to finish a game once you get them into the game. Like magic has this nice little narrative. You're having a magical duel. Who's going to win, you know? And you have the life totals that are constantly moving up and down. And like, you know, you can see when you are winning because your opponent's life total is dropping. You can see when you're losing because your life total is dropping. And that there is a lot of suspense and a cool, like I said, there's

a very cool narrative that magic has that is very valuable and in teaching is a great tool because it creates a sense of completion. The duel is going to finish. You are going to beat your opponent

or they're going to beat you but something is going to happen and you can be very conscious of that fact. So remember, when you're teaching somebody, just remember comfort,

surprise, completion. That you want to start by making sure they understand the things and you want somebody, just remember, comfort, surprise, completion. That you want to start by making sure they understand the things and you want to, I mean, the whole time you want to handpick things

so that there is easy things for them to understand. It's resonant. It's connected. Something they can bond with. And if you know they like certain things,

if they like dragons, whatever, if they like angels, whatever it is you know they like, you can tilt in that direction. Magic is very flexible and has a lot of options. Well, push toward the kind of things they like, maybe the kind of colors they like. You know, I'm very

conscious, I'm going to teach someone how to play, I'm going to build the deck. I think about what colors they would most enjoy, what flavor they would most enjoy. That's something very much to think about. That's going to increase the comfort for them. And then, make sure that you don't simplify things too much. Make sure that there's fun moments of discovery that they get to have. Just temper those things. You don't want to overwhelm them or make them super crazy or scary or hard to understand. But it is fine to do something in

which, okay, here's a new thing, that having some new things, like you want them to see the potential of magic. That's a big draw of magic, the fact that it could be so many different possibilities. And another thing that you definitely want to do is you want to make sure that when they're playing that you monitor the experience. The thing I've talked about this when playtesting, it's true when teaching

someone as well, is watch their face. When somebody is enjoying themselves, it's not necessarily they have to have a giant smile, but you can see

in their face if somebody is enjoying something. Now, it has to do with who the person is and obviously, hopefully, if this is a friend of yours, you have a general sense of how to read them, but what you want to do is you want to create moments

that excite and surprise and delight them so that they have a good experience. Because like I said, the thing that will determine whether you play a second game is how happy you felt at the end of the first game. Oh, another big thing when you're making decks. Faster is better than slower. New players always by their nature want to be hesitant about things, and so do not give them decks in which it's going to go on for a long time. Because another problem Magic will run into is when you teach someone the

very first game, man, you want the game to last no more than 20 minutes if you can help it. I mean, you want the game to go pretty quickly. And so you want to put things in it to help progress along. Lava Axe, for example, is a really good beginner game. Beginner card, for example. Because it's fun, it's exciting, it does something, and it just advances the game.

The other thing, by the way, when playing against new players is it is not your job to beat them. It is your job to show off the game. And what I mean by that is maximize what you're doing to increase the experience. Think of it this way. When you're playing against somebody, your goal is not to beat them. Your goal is to bring them into the game. And so what you're trying to do is,

and so one of the things I always like to say is, handicaps are a real good tool when players have different skills. So the handicap you have is, your goal is not to win. Like, for example, I'm playing my son Adam. And when I play Adam, my goal is to make the most exciting games I can. It is not necessarily to win, although I'm

not saying I don't win, and it's okay to win. You shouldn't throw the game to the other player. What you want to do is make an exciting game. So one of the things when I'm playing my son is I try to figure out how close and exciting a game can I make it. That is my goal. I want to end the game with an exciting game. And if we can get a game where one of us ends at zero and one's at one and there's major turnabout and cool things happen, that is awesome. Because my goal is not to see how good I am versus my son. I've been playing Magic since it started in 1993. So I've been playing for 90, I'm going to say for 22 years. My son is relatively

new. Can I beat my son? Of course I can beat my son. That is not a particular interest to me. It's not a matter of do I have the skill set to beat my son using starter product. I do. I know I do. So my handicap is I'm not trying to win. I know I can win. That's not much of a challenge. How exciting of a game can I make it? Can I make it the most exciting game possible? Now by the way, I'm not saying you're supposed to tell

the people you're teaching this. I don't tell my son that I'm trying to make it the most exciting game because that kind of diminishes a little bit the excitement of the game. But I want to make an exciting game. And I look for opportunities. Like one of the things I like to do is I like a lot of back and forth. I like one of us is winning, the other one is winning, you know.

And then I like to have things happen. Because one of the things that's really cool is it's neat when you get the reversal. And it's also kind of neat when the reversal happens to you because you're like, oh, no, okay, I got to get it back, you know. And that you want to make a dramatic game, and that is the handicap you as a teacher have, making a dramatic game, you know, prove that you have the skill set to make it dramatic, not to win, to make it dramatic, to make it cool and make it exciting, because what you are trying to do is create an experience

so that the other player has a good time and that one of the things about games is until players once again this goes back to the comfort thing until players are comfortable with something that they you can't move past that it's true in general

that people first need to get comfortable that if you're not comfortable you're just not open to other things. Because you're like, okay, I got it. Like, it is human nature to first want to get comfortable. That is just how humans function. And so, if you are teaching somebody, you need to make sure that you're doing the things necessary

to make them comfortable. Part of that is making sure they understand the basics. But once again, if you give them too much that creates a discomfort comfort is I know everything that I need to know right now not I know everything I'd ever need to know because for example

once you tell them about problems they don't know now they know those problems exist like one of the reasons you're like okay you might want to save this card in your hand because this thing could happen. No, no, no, no, no, no. Don't ever say to a beginning player, here's things you're not worrying about.

Why don't you worry about this? That is bad teaching strategy. They have enough to worry about. And one of the things to remember is, and this is a, I say to everybody, if you don't have a lot of experience with new players, just try teaching some new players. It is a very valuable thing. You will learn a lot about the game.

And one of the things you learn when you try to teach new players is you forget. There are so many things in Magic that you, when you first learn, probably had a problem with, but you figured out how to do it. And then you forget that it was a problem. You know, you forget that you were afraid to attack at one point. You forget that you overvalued life at one point. You forget there's things that you did that, you know, like, okay, so let's walk through some of those. What are new player things to be aware of? Number one is, new players are often afraid to do something. They don't want to lose their creatures. So they're hesitant to block. And if there's too much going on, they're hesitant to attack. Now, the funny thing is the following. New players like to attack. Usually when they're able to attack, they do. They often will make bad attacks. But once they

make a bad attack and then get punished for it they start getting hesitant about making the attacks and they get very hesitant about blocking now it varies they're aggressive people you have to tailor your teaching to the person you are teaching because people are different I'm giving some gross generalities which are true and average

but not true for everybody another thing beginners tend to do is they overvalue life, which means is they think taking away life from the opponent, like Lava Axe, for example, is more powerful than it is, and they think that losing life is a bigger deal than it is. So that's why, for example, when a creature attacks sometimes, it's funny, there's a weird case where they kind of will block when they shouldn't block

because they don't want to lose life and sometimes they don't block when they should block because they're afraid that creature will destroy their creature and they go back and forth between these two things which are kind of at odds with each other

and that's the other thing in general about new players is because they don't know exactly what to worry about they will worry about different things. And losing life is a big deal to them because they can see it. Taking life away from the opponent is a big deal

because they can see it. Oh, the other thing is players want to cast spells as soon as they can cast spells, new players. Which is, one of the first things you learn is when you're learning a new game, you tend to learn heuristics. Like, okay, well, this thing should work.

And so what you do is you make just rules for yourself, because you're just trying to make it easier to learn. And that's fine. That is fine. Just be aware that what that means is, a very common one is, okay, once you understand how to cast spells, the first thing you do is, can I cast a spell? And it's very common one is, okay, once you understand how to cast spells, the first thing you do is, can I cast a spell?

And it's very common on turn one, I play a forest, and I look at my hand, oh, I got a giant growth, and you have to say, oh, well, here's why you don't want to play that card right now. That card makes any of your creatures bigger. But see, you don't have a creature yet. So let's save that. Let's do that later.

The other thing I say when teaching somebody is I often will play open hands for the first time we're playing, which is everybody can see everybody's cards so that you can help walk the player through what's going on, and you can see their hand and help make decisions for them about what's the right thing to do. Now, once again, your goal is not to create the right strategy for them. It shouldn't be play A instead of B.

It should be, if A or B are both playable cards, let them play A or B. Let them have the choice. Let them have, like, one of the things that's empowering is a sense of mastery, of going, ooh, I can do what I want to do.

That's very powerful. Let them do that. All I'm saying is, if they're going to do something like play the giant growth and no creatures on board, you can say, ooh, I can do what I want to do. That's very powerful. Let them do that. All I'm saying is, if they're going to do something like play the giant growth and no creatures on board, you can say, hey, see, this does this thing. It doesn't have any value right now. It doesn't mean anything. You might want to save it. And once

again, if they don't try to cast a giant growth, you don't have to introduce them they shouldn't cast it. Just if they try to cast it, then explain to them why maybe they don't want to cast it. And I can't reinforce that enough, then explain to them why maybe they don't want to cast it. And I can't reinforce that enough, which is don't introduce problems. Don't say to the player, here's a problem you hadn't thought of yet. You should think about this problem. Because they are overwhelmed. That is the biggest problem with a new player is there's so much going on and they're not sure what to do. And what you want to do with someone teaching them is give them the ropes and teach them how

to help fend for themselves. That's why heuristics are fine when you're first starting learning out. Hey, as a general rule of thumb, you can do thing X. Like you sort of can say to them, for example, if you can play a creature, if you have the

man to play the creature, play the creature. Yeah, there are a few exceptions. It doesn't matter. It's not worth it when you're teaching somebody to delve into the exceptions because then you start causing confusion. Another thing that's really important if you're going to teach somebody is the takeaway. And what I mean by that is what you want to do is you want to build decks so that you can teach your friend. And then give them the decks.

The two decks you're teaching with, give them the decks. Because it does two things. One is it makes it personal. Now, instead of a game, it's their game. You also enable them, maybe, for example, if they're interested, you know, they might be able to play with somebody else. Or maybe they have another friend that plays Magic. Or maybe they have a friend that doesn't play Magic, but they're so excited they want to try to teach them.

Them having decks are good. The other thing I'll let them do is, one of the fun things about Magic is just looking through the cards. One of the things I often say is when you are first trying to teach someone how to play, a very common early thing to do is put cards in their hands. One of the big selling points of the game is the visuals and the creative and the flavor. And one of the things I often do is just let people touch the cards. Remember also, when I talk about different ways to learn,

remember that some people learn visually, some learn orally, meaning spoken to, and some are, what's the word, tactically, I mean, it's an actual word for how you learn by touching things, but it has to do with touching things. So people tend to learn either by seeing things, hearing things, or touching things. And what that means is you've got to figure out how out what kind of learner the person you're teaching is, and then whatever they are, make sure that you reinforce that style of teaching. And one of the things is a lot of people learn tactile.

Tactile? No, that's not the... Anyway, a lot of people learn by touching. It's very important to get cards in people's hands. Also, touching the cards also lets you look at the cards, so it's visual and tactile. And the other thing to remember is, when you're teaching somebody, pay attention to how they respond to you.

Try different techniques in teaching, and they will give you little subtle clues of what is working and not working, and then follow up on that. Okay, so I'm not too far from work. The other thing I will say is, I think teaching new players is good in several ways. One is, I think it's good for you to remember sort of what it's like to begin the game. It's kind of fun. You get a little bit of flashback to your early years.

Two is you get more people to play. Every time you teach someone how to play, you get more people to play against, and that is fun. And if you enjoy the game, it's fun to bring other people in and have them enjoy the game. It's something you can share with other people. In general, also, more people learning magic, even if you're teaching strangers,

more people learning magic is good for magic. As I said in the beginning of this, you know, the more people playing, the more we sell, the more money we have for more resources. You know, for example, one of the big complaints I hear all the time is people talking about sort of the model of magic, the trading card game model of, you know, there's lots of cards you can buy. And one of the things I say is, Magic's economic model allows us to make the quality of game that we can.

Because I will spend, from beginning to end, from the beginning, first talks of what we're doing, through exploratory design, through design, through development, which I have to poke my head in,

through the product release from the first inkling of what the thing may be to it being released to the public can be as much as like three, four years at times most games do not have that kind of time only the biggest of biggest games get the

luxury of that kind of time and the end result is hey, I can design something much better. I used to work on other games. Back when Wizards did a lot more other games and I wasn't full-time, or Magic didn't require me 100% of the time, I worked on other games.

And there were games, there's one game I worked on, a different trading card game, that I had three weeks to do design. Three weeks! In Magic, I have three weeks to do design. Three weeks! In Magic, I have three weeks to contemplate a particular decision. And that was the entirety of the design,

was three weeks. In Magic, I have, just for design, forget exploratory design, forget anything else, I have a whole year to do the design. And, look, there's no way I'm not doing better design. There's no way I and my other designers are not doing better

design. Development has the resources that having all these resources allow us to really make a good game and offer more extras, more events, more things. And that's key. That's hinging upon the idea of lots of people playing. And so getting new people to play, I

swear, is good for everybody. It is not just good for the new players. It is good for you. And so getting new people to play, I swear, is good for everybody. It is not just good for the new players. It is good for you. And so part of my talk today is not only sort of help you teach how to teach new players, but understand the importance of why new players are valuable. The other thing that's neat about new players is one of the things that keeps me on my toes is that established players are used to certain things, and so I know the kind of response I will get from them. And one of the things that's really neat about new players is it helps teach me new things.

You know, one of the things I talk about when you're designing is you want to have different vantage points. You want to sort of see the world in different ways because you get different kinds of designs. And so one of the reasons I like interacting with new players is they bring very fresh reactions. The players have been playing

a long time and have been interacting with the community. They tend to have a more similar way of thinking just because the community has a way of thinking about things. And as you become an established player and you interact with the community, there's some mind think of where players have a certain way they think.

And new players have a very different experience. And so that is also very valuable for me to learn, that I like really getting a sense of how do new players approach this? How do they think about this? And that is also very valuable to me. But anyway, I am almost to work. So I hope today,

I'm just trying to give you some insight into sort of how we think about new players and how we design for new players and also how you can help get new players. Because new players, like I said, hopefully my one takeaway today is new players are good for everybody. And that I, you know,

one of the things that's important is one of the greatest tools of getting new players is our existing player base. Magic is a hard game to learn. And you know, the easiest way to learn is to have somebody who knows how to play teach you.

I mean, Magic Duels is great when you're trying to teach somebody and there's no way, but it is also cool to have somebody who knows what's going on, who knows the game, to help teach it.

And there's no better teacher than somebody who really already knows the game. But anyway, wow, I had a lot of traffic today, so long topic. But I am now at work. I'm in my parking space. We all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work.

So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.