My girl has expressed an interest in playing, she has a m13 rule book(designed for really new players). She has a good grasp of the basics.
That said, I have been playing, he'll I took a break from magic longer than most people have been playing....and I am good. I place regularly at the sealed and standard tourneys I play.
I don't think she quite has the grasp to play using my decks. I also don't want to play against her using my standard or legacy decks. As I don't "go easy on" people in the sense that I refuse to intentionally make play errors or not make game winning plays when I have the cards in hand.
That said. This is the crawl-walk-run method I have devised:
- crawl. Since she already knows the rulesish. I am thinking of a couple "walk through" games using a booster battle pack to show demonstrate the flow in more "real time" than just on paper.
-I will pick up one of the more obviously themed duel decks (knights vs dragons, etc.) to expose her to the game "at speed".
- walk. if she actually enjoys/gets into it, explain a bit more about the archetypal styles of play, possibly buying a RTR intro pack in the style she wants to try out most. I don't like the intro decks, and have designed a casual deck that while isn't exactly on a high power curve, would present a challenge to me to play with. Thus I wouldn't be "taking it easy on her", but with a couple strong synergies to use to keep her from getting cocky.
-run. if she wants to get into it more, suggesting one of the event packs from RtR or M13, modifying them from my collection, and bringing her to an fnm.
Your thoughts?
Good idea man!! Shoulda thought of this years ago lol
Quote from: Fishsticks123 on October 09, 2012, 08:17:42 PM
Good idea man!! Shoulda thought of this years ago lol
mind taking a look at the casual deck and giving your opinion? It's rats nest in the casual thread.
How old is she
Buy her duals of the planeswalkers. It does everything automatically and has all the rules in it. A restart is simple, and has plenty if decks for different styles
She should get it pretty fast
I think you are easing her into it a little too slowly. I mean you don't want her to lose interest.
I'd go straight for the dual deck approach. Unmodified those are pretty balanced. Get her playing with both sides to see different interactions and strategies.
I also agree with the duals of the planeswalkers if you can play it digitally somewhere.
The intro decks are also good for beginners, so that's a great place to start if she wants to start with her own collection.
That and a m13 deck builders toolkit should have her collection up and running with plenty of cards to modify.
Quote from: Dudecore on October 09, 2012, 08:35:09 PM
Buy her duals of the planeswalkers. It does everything automatically and has all the rules in it. A restart is simple, and has plenty if decks for different styles
Neither she nor I really fit the gamer mold. Also, this way is more intimate. A shared experience. Even if she ends up not liking she understands it.
Quote from: Wally on October 09, 2012, 09:11:27 PM
I think you are easing her into it a little too slowly. I mean you don't want her to lose interest.
I'd go straight for the dual deck approach. Unmodified those are pretty balanced. Get her playing with both sides to see different interactions and strategies.
I also agree with the duals of the planeswalkers if you can play it digitally somewhere.
The intro decks are also good for beginners, so that's a great place to start if she wants to start with her own collection.
That and a m13 deck builders toolkit should have her collection up and running with plenty of cards to modify.
I agree with the duel decks. My friend bought Izzet vs Golgari, and got into MTG pretty quickly... He's been playing a week and a half, but started making his own standard blue/red/black deck and is doing pretty well, just by playing some of DD games with me.
Quote from: Wally on October 09, 2012, 09:11:27 PM
I think you are easing her into it a little too slowly. I mean you don't want her to lose interest.
I'd go straight for the dual deck approach. Unmodified those are pretty balanced. Get her playing with both sides to see different interactions and strategies.
I also agree with the duals of the planeswalkers if you can play it digitally somewhere.
The intro decks are also good for beginners, so that's a great place to start if she wants to start with her own collection.
That and a m13 deck builders toolkit should have her collection up and running with plenty of cards to modify.
I'm only talking 1-2 games with the booster battle pack. More to clear up any questions than anything else.
Personally I'd play a few games with your hands revealed just so you can show her the thought processes that go on in the game. After a few of those have her play on her own using her own method of thought. Every player is different so you have to give them a chance to use their own brains :) but you also have to let them have fun. Of it's no fun don't expect the interest to last.. My 2©
Quote from: Greg54js on October 09, 2012, 10:08:52 PM
Personally I'd play a few games with your hands revealed just so you can show her the thought processes that go on in the game. After a few of those have her play on her own using her own method of thought. Every player is different so you have to give them a chance to use their own brains :) but you also have to let them have fun. Of it's no fun don't expect the interest to last.. My 2©
This is a good idea. Also give her a deck that is mostly straight-forward but has a few tricks. Something like humans if you're doing standard. That way she can get a feel of the game and get more comfortable, but you are able to teach her how to use tricks effectively without the whole deck relying on them. Be sure to point out your own mistakes to teach her how to capitalize on them at first, especially while playing with hands revealed. Attack with your vital 5/5 into her 3/3 even though you know she has giant growth, and let her use it on you.
Quote from: Greg54js on October 09, 2012, 10:08:52 PM
Personally I'd play a few games with your hands revealed just so you can show her the thought processes that go on in the game. After a few of those have her play on her own using her own method of thought. Every player is different so you have to give them a chance to use their own brains :) but you also have to let them have fun. Of it's no fun don't expect the interest to last.. My 2©
Hence the booster battle pack then the duel deck. I have izzet vs golgari and they a lot of fun to play. Then if she is still interested the intro pack in the play style she likes (guilds make it easy) against the casual rat deck I built. That way she can see if she likes the style, sees the type of crazy decks/combos the game is capable of, etc. this would also help me become a better player by using a rather low powered (relatively) to the rest of my decks.
The problem with izzet vs Golgari duel decks is that the Golgari deck is 5x better than the izzet deck, and both use mechanics that might be confusing to a brand new player (dredge/graveyard manipulation vs over-reliance of non-permanent spells).
If you do go that path, let her play Golgari. Giving her the "bad deck disadvantage" is a good way to fluster a new player, and isn't a good way to keep her interested in it ;) at the very least, if you find one deck crushing the other too consistently, swap decks!
Quote from: Gorzo on October 10, 2012, 12:23:52 AM
The problem with izzet vs Golgari duel decks is that the Golgari deck is 5x better than the izzet deck, and both use mechanics that might be confusing to a brand new player (dredge/graveyard manipulation vs over-reliance of non-permanent spells).
If you do go that path, let her play Golgari. Giving her the "bad deck disadvantage" is a good way to fluster a new player, and isn't a good way to keep her interested in it ;) at the very least, if you find one deck crushing the other too consistently, swap decks!
Of course, and probably talk her through it. Same reason I am not playing against her with my legacy burn deck or my standard decks. Building a casual rat deck, I think the only rares are a single copy of ink eyes, four pack rats, and the new liliana.
Have the same problem... My wife asked me to teach her but it is quite difficult to make it in easy way...
She read also that game intro paper and build deck tutor and I tried to play with her with decks I have... Mostly modern or Legacy decks...
But then I decided to show her that duels of planeswalkers on ipad and believe me or not but with all those in-game hints and suggestions and difficulty modes she is getting to learn much quicker than by playing with decks.. I have tried also few duel decks that u mentioned here and it did not work the right way...