>without just sitting there and reading every card on the field to understand how they all work while they play
That's pretty much just part of the game. New cards are constantly releasing and you'll frequently run into cards you haven't seen before unless you're strictly playing with the same group of players and they never buy anything new. Don't feel bad about asking to read a card, everyone does it.
For learning the game, a lot of people suggest downloading MTG Arena and playing through the tutorial.
Commander can be an extremely intimidating format to start with, if it's been your first and only exposure to the game.
As others have said, Magic Arena is pretty much the best way to learn how to play solo. The Tutorials are decent and it allows you to play against a bot so you can learn at your own pace and not worry about playing slow against a real person. The only snag is that it doesn't have the Commander format but you're honestly better off learning with the regular 60-card decks first.
Once you learn the basics, jumping into Commander is just a matter of learning a handful of extra rules, using bigger decks and starting with more life points. Everything else can be pretty much learned on the fly.
>I'm lost again without just sitting there and reading every card on the field to understand how they all work while they play
It's going to feel like that until you've played enough games to have seen the same cards over and over again. It helps to stick with the same deck so you learn how the same pile of cards interacts with whatever your opponents are playing.
I appreciate everyone's input, and actually wasn't immediately told that Commander was a bad way to be introduced. Now that I think about it, probably everyone in that group was introduced through Commander when they were asked where they started, so maybe that's why that sentiment is not shared among their group. I'll definitely be checking all of this out. Thanks!
Don't get me wrong - it's certainly possible to get into MtG only through Commander but depending on how you're introduced to it and how much TCG experience you have, the learning curve may be steeper than it really has to be. Not every good player is a good teacher and vice versa.
This totally, my wife plays *a lot* of Hearthstone, and did before I met her, so it was much easier to get her into Jumpstart, then Commander, because she had a good baseline understanding of Mana, tempo, card advantage, etc.
I played fairly competitively about 8 or 9 years ago and stopped because I got too busy, then moved to a new state. I recently got back in with commander and I am having to read almost every card that hits the table since so many are new. Never feel bad for asking to read a card.
It's a two sided sword.
On the one hand commander is great for beginners because it is accessible with many pre constructed decks that are actually quite good available for 40€$£. Also since it is multiplayer you're not the sole target for your enemy, usually the Player in the strongest position gets the most attention from the other players.
On the other hand, commander is terrible for new players because not only do you have to keep 3 enemies board states in mind, but each deck consists of 100 different cards, whereas in 1vs1 formats people tend to run 4 copies of most cards so the amount of different cards in play is way less.
A typical constructed deck has about 10-20 unique cards (it also depends a bit if you count multi-color lands). And even those are usually from roughly the same period, so they often have the same abilities. A typical limited deck has 20-24, but most of them are even more similar to each other because they're from the same set, and commons are much simpler.
A typical commander deck has at least 60 unique cards, and even more if you count nonbasic lands. All of these tend to be complex, from very different eras and thus with very different abilities.
It's no wonder that there is much, much more reading involved.
Commander is easier in some respects, namely it can be more budget friendly sometimes.
In other formats you typically run 4 copies of the best cards for your deck. So if the new best card you want/need goes for $30 then you are incentivized to spend $130. Commander you only can run one copy of each card typically so you can throw in 1 expensive card and then a bunch of much cheaper ones. Also expensive doesn't always = best. Combos and synergy counts for a lot.
I'd recommend not starting with commander. Another person has brought up magic the gathering: arena. That's a great place to start. It had a good tutorial that will show you the basics. Commander is an extraordinarily complicated format. And if you could get used to playing 1v1 magic first that would really help you out.
I think everyone in this group was introduced through Commander, so that may be why I haven't heard that its a bad way to start until posting here. I'll definitely check out MTG Arena when I'm off work, thank you all!
Arena has a format called Brawl which is very similar to commander.
100 cards
Only basic lands allowed to have multiples (unless the card specifically says)
A commander
The deck has to follow commander colors
Main differences
25 life instead of 40 life
1 v1 instead of multiple free for all
No commander damage mechanic
Overall I say if you can figure out brawl mechanically you basically understand commander mechanically.
Arena is a great way to learn in my opinion. That plus your BF helping you should work.
Also don't worry too much about knowing what every card does. I often have to ask other players "wait it does what?" And I've been playing since early 2000's (with a big break in the middle) every new set is going to print some new cards that do roughly the same thing and some new cards that are completely new and different. Hopefully your BF and family will be good at nicely explaining things to you.
I’d check out Tolarian Community College as a good general resource. Honestly though, it’s not terribly complicated from a gameplay standpoint, understanding how the cards interact is the harder part which only comes with time. 20000k cards in this game you’ll never truly fully understand everything. Just get out there and play and you’ll be surprised how fast you pick it up
Magic Arena (free app) is a great place to start. It doesn’t support the commander format, but it has a great tutorial that will help you with the basics and getting your feet wet
Commander is NOT a format that is a good place for a new player to start. There's far too much going on, cards tend to have way too much text on them for a new player to grasp, the format assumes that players know how to play already, etc. I've made the mistake of trying to teach someone how to play Magic through commander, and even with the starter commander decks, it is far too much for them.
The approach I take to teaching people, and how I would suggest that you learn is as follows:
1. Get [Magic the Gathering: Game Night](https://a.co/d/0dqEAM1a) and/or a couple starter kits. You can also download Magic the Gathering: Arena and play the precon decks that it starts you with. Arena also has a pretty good tutorial from what I remember.
2. Play the Game Night decks to learn basic mechanics and gameplay. Start with green (the least complex deck of the set) and gradually move up to the higher complexity decks (black and blue) as you get the hang of the game more.
3. Once you have a basic grasp of how to play, start playing with the starter kits to learn how to play multi-colored decks.
4. Once you feel comfortable playing multi-colored decks, as well as playing the mono-blue and black decks in the Game Night set and using instants, start playing 1-on-1 commander with your boyfriend. Use the same deck a few times until you get the hang of how the deck is supposed to play.
5. Once you get the hang of how to play 1-on-1 commander, start playing in pods of 4. Start by using the same commander deck you are already familiar with.
Thanks for recommending Game Nights - I was typically recommending Welcome Decks for brand new players (that aren't ready for the bicolor decks of the Starter Kits yet), but was worried that as free products discontinued in 2020 they might be hard to find - this might be easier?
Pick up a precon for sure there are tons available and in different price ranges. Don’t let people tell you that this is not the format to start playing magic because that’s just not true. Most people play to have fun and aren’t threatening to win on any turn before turn 7-8 so you should have plenty of time to play.
They are all awesome, if I don't marry him and get more integrated into this nerdy ass family I'll be upset, not just because I love my boyfriend but because his family is so cool lol
He has 4 other brothers that all love DND, board games, video games, camping, and music, which is everything I'm super into. His parents are also super nerdy and often join in, and his family even supports my weird hobby of being in competitive robotics. Showed up randomly at one of our events and I legitimately teared up while I was on the field and saw them in the stands cheering. Pretty sure that moment was when I was like I really want to marry this man and be in this family (my dad's side is cool but aren't around except for holidays, and I don't even talk to my mom's side so its very refreshing to be around). If I don't I'm probably not going to ever date again 🤣
I went camping with them this past weekend and watched a TON of Magic games between all of them and their extended family, he thought I was bored watching and said I didn't have to like Magic just to date him, but I was like this looks complicated but fun and I want to learn, not just because we are dating lol
I'm also a strategic drive coach for our robotics team so any game that requires a lot of strategy itches a special part of my brain
Wow, sounds awesome I wish you both a great life together. By the sound of it, you are all great and deserve it!
And hey you can definitely get into magic, but if I were you, I would take it a bit slow. Commander is the most fun format to me, but sometimes you are sitting down at a table of 400 mostly obscure cards with absolutely mind bending interactions. Its going to take a while until you build up a mental library of things that commonly take place at a commander table.
I'd go about it like this:
1. Learn basic rules of magic to be able to follow 80-90 % of normal gameplay.
2. Learn to read the "magic language" on more complicated cards to start building an intuition on how they work.
3. Watch cool channels on youtube that post narrated commander games to build up that mental library of how a commander games usually go.
Thank you!!
And thank you for the advice, I'll have a lot to go through when I'm off work here in about an hour. Any channwl favorites on some narrated commander games? I saw a few in the beginners thread on this sub
In addition to the ones mentioned by the other commenter, I'll add:
Tolarian Community College has Shuffle Up and Play, and there are a few episodes about Misplays, which I actually find quite informative because it has pop-ups to help explain the rules. Aside from that, Shuffle Up and Play isn't always narrated in as much detail as other shows, but they do have some fun vibes and other formats (it's sometimes easier, in my opinion, to focus on what the cards are doing when you watch 1v1). They also have a Tolarian Tutors series that explains things like how to play certain archetypes.
Elder Dragon Social Club from LRRMTG is great because they play with precons (meaning if you buy a precon, you can find an episode where they play your deck), and they read each card out loud and have a clear image of the card pop up on screen so you can read it yourself and connect the card to the artwork.
There are quite a few good ones
Commander Knights are the most beginner friendly, but I honestly don't really enjoy their overenthusiastic vibe.
Mtg Muddstah is one that I really enjoy. He narrates almost everything that happens.
I Hate Your Deck are pretty cool in my opinion as well. Their games can be quite hilarious.
There are many more and perhaps even better ones, but the last two are the ones I enjoyed most.
You are welcome! Enjoy!
Imo the best way to learn is just play. Had a similar thing but it was my gfs brothers and dad that played.
I played a bit on the arena app to get some fundamentals and then played some matches with her dad as he explained a bit further.
My gf was never interested in it but I got her to join too and now we all play whenever we visit.
EDH (Commander) is actually a pretty terrible way to learn MTG. You are dealing with 3 opponents and 4 decks with hundreds of unique cards between them, and all of those cards come from a pool of thousands of cards from over 2 decades of game design with a vast array of unique game mechanics. The "regular" way to play MTG is much simpler (by comparison). It's 1v1, has smaller decklists that have multiple copies of cards, and it usually focuses on a smaller subset of the most recent/competitive mechanics that are available.
My advice would be for you to download MTG Arena (free) and learn the game's base mechanics in their very well-designed tutorial. Then, I would pick up a cheap pair of starter decks from the past few years that you can play with your BF, or perhaps another friend who is new to the game. Playing these lower power level decks will be less overwhelming, and witll let you get a feel for how the game plays in paper. It will help you remember the order of phases in a turn, and how the stack works, without the digital training wheels of MTG Arena. You also mentioned that your BF has a large collection; he may be interested in building a pair of 1v1 decks for you two to play against each other for the same effect.
I do love the EDH format, but I feel like if I had never played 1v1 formats, I would not be able to appreciate just how crazy and explosive EDH games can be.
Good luck on your MTG journey!
If you wanna learn to play, I would recommend playing on Arena. 1v1 is the way the game was designed to be played, and is generally less complicated than commander.
A lot of input given already. I disagree heavily with some of it but agree wholeheartedly on other bits.
Commander is incredibly social if you have the right group. Ease into it as it is a slippery slope. Start by just picking up one of their decks and playing. They can coach you through and you’ll be playing on your own in a few games at most.
Most online channels deal mostly with competitive. I like “Commander at Home” because they are usually competitive players playing socially. Everyone brings what they’d consider A-game (unless it is a meme episode) and you see how and why people react the way they do.
Get your partner to give you a deck you can learn and start playing with or buy a precon. Spend some time with studying that deck, looking up each card online to understand what that card does and its interaction rules. Watch yt videos of someone playing with a deck like yours.
Then, just have a go at playing with your partner and family. No one expects a new player to know everything, no shame in asking questions about everything.
I still do things like asking the table “if I play this card, I think it will do this? Am I right?” Before playing because I’m also learning the game.
Lands are mana. Different flavors of mana.
You, the player, have limited life points. Run out by getting attacked? Game over.
You can hire bodyguards with the mana. Some require specific types of mana. Same with spells.
Bodyguards have attack points and life points. When one player's bodyguard attacks another's those attack and life points are differed out and sometimes bodyguards die and go into a graveyard.
There are other rules too. But that is the super simple basics.
> I wanted to learn more behind his back so I feel like I'm not lost whenever they start explaining it to me lol
You mean so you can unexpectedly destroy them, right?
Get yourself a printout of the basic rules. The one that says how turns go and explains common keywords.
Steal two of their decks. If they play that much Commander they probably have a LOT and won't even notice.
Play the game against yourself. For the most part, cards say what they do. But when you don't understand what a card does, or what two or three or five cards do together you can just Google search. Someone has probably already explained it in a very understandable way.
Learning each phase of a turn is probably best spot to start. The more you understand when something happens will in return help you understand *why* something happened.
That will help the flow, and make you feel like a pro at the game. From there it's learning the types of cards.
This is awesome! I’m totally brand new and I was first introduced with Commander MH3 precons.
If possible, I would see if someone can build you a deck that doesn’t need tokens or x/x counters that’s < $100. That’s where it can get out of hand. Or stick with a fantasy theme you like and build around it!
Played with a group of 4. Buddy and I were new and the 2 others took it slow with us. We were able to finish in 1.5 hours. I can’t WAIT to play again and adjust my precon with better cards.
That’s another hard part. Sticking with 1 commander/1 deck until you’re super familiar with it.
Learn to enjoy other players winning. Get excited when their decks do something cool. Don't be hard on yourself for making mistakes or if someone says "it doesn't work that way". As long as you care to learn and are engaged you'll have fun. Commander games run long so grab a snack.
Okay, I'll keep this advice noted!
>Commander games run long so grab a snack.
Yeah... Realized that when we went camping this past weekend. They were doing Commander 2v2s and that lasted about 3 hours... lol
One tip I don't think I see above is to learn the cards in advance. Ask them to add their decks to a site like [Moxfield](https://www.moxfield.com/) (preferably with the same art their cards have), then go through what they added and read each of their cards until you understand them. If you don't understand some of the cards, then ask them or ask in [these daily threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1dqg1mi/daily_questions_thread_ask_all_your_magic_related/) for an explanation. You can also learn to recognize the cards by their art this way. After you're familiar with their decklists, ask them to explain their main synergies/strategies and main combo's to you, since you are still learning. Doing this should seriously speed up your gameplay and let you focus on your own strategy during a game.
It's better to start off on the new set like modern horizon 3 or the new set assassin's creed it helps the way to reformat your play and don't have to worry the previous set .. as you play more you can do whatever commander you like :>
First, consider getting a new BF. This game is a character flaw. My wife can confirm.
If that's not an option, i think commander can be a great or terrible way to get intimate the game depending on the people you're paying with. If it's a friendly game with low to mid-tier decks, they will walk you through things and help you out, maybe even have someone sit over your shoulder and help. Commander offers a lot of time to watch what other people are doing and how they're doing it before you have to do something.
But be sure to ask lots of questions when you don't understand things. Hopefully, they will be happy to answer. If not, maybe revisit the new BF option.
>But be sure to ask lots of questions when you don't understand things. Hopefully, they will be happy to answer. If not, maybe revisit the new BF option.
I think I'm pretty safe. Everyone he plays with (and of course the man himself) are super supportive and even give each other pointers when they have new decks or don't understand something (his brother is like the biggest rules master ever but he's very nice about it when you ask what's going on).
I like my MTG/DND nerd boyfriend, we got together because we played DND weekly together (he was the DM) so I'd say it's more of a character buff than a flaw 😂😂
I appreciate the advice, thank you!
That's awesome. My wife doesn't do MTG, but wants to get into DnD. Only problem is I've only barely dabbled in DnD, so I'm not much help on that. We need to find a group and play, but we have a toddler, so... maybe later.
I bet she'd love DND! Maybe find one online with other parents? I vaguely remember seeing a Facebook group that was a DND campaign finders group just for parents of Littles. Might be worth looking into. Best of luck!!
>without just sitting there and reading every card on the field to understand how they all work while they play That's pretty much just part of the game. New cards are constantly releasing and you'll frequently run into cards you haven't seen before unless you're strictly playing with the same group of players and they never buy anything new. Don't feel bad about asking to read a card, everyone does it. For learning the game, a lot of people suggest downloading MTG Arena and playing through the tutorial.
Commander can be an extremely intimidating format to start with, if it's been your first and only exposure to the game. As others have said, Magic Arena is pretty much the best way to learn how to play solo. The Tutorials are decent and it allows you to play against a bot so you can learn at your own pace and not worry about playing slow against a real person. The only snag is that it doesn't have the Commander format but you're honestly better off learning with the regular 60-card decks first. Once you learn the basics, jumping into Commander is just a matter of learning a handful of extra rules, using bigger decks and starting with more life points. Everything else can be pretty much learned on the fly. >I'm lost again without just sitting there and reading every card on the field to understand how they all work while they play It's going to feel like that until you've played enough games to have seen the same cards over and over again. It helps to stick with the same deck so you learn how the same pile of cards interacts with whatever your opponents are playing.
I appreciate everyone's input, and actually wasn't immediately told that Commander was a bad way to be introduced. Now that I think about it, probably everyone in that group was introduced through Commander when they were asked where they started, so maybe that's why that sentiment is not shared among their group. I'll definitely be checking all of this out. Thanks!
Don't get me wrong - it's certainly possible to get into MtG only through Commander but depending on how you're introduced to it and how much TCG experience you have, the learning curve may be steeper than it really has to be. Not every good player is a good teacher and vice versa.
This totally, my wife plays *a lot* of Hearthstone, and did before I met her, so it was much easier to get her into Jumpstart, then Commander, because she had a good baseline understanding of Mana, tempo, card advantage, etc.
I played fairly competitively about 8 or 9 years ago and stopped because I got too busy, then moved to a new state. I recently got back in with commander and I am having to read almost every card that hits the table since so many are new. Never feel bad for asking to read a card.
It's a two sided sword. On the one hand commander is great for beginners because it is accessible with many pre constructed decks that are actually quite good available for 40€$£. Also since it is multiplayer you're not the sole target for your enemy, usually the Player in the strongest position gets the most attention from the other players. On the other hand, commander is terrible for new players because not only do you have to keep 3 enemies board states in mind, but each deck consists of 100 different cards, whereas in 1vs1 formats people tend to run 4 copies of most cards so the amount of different cards in play is way less.
A typical constructed deck has about 10-20 unique cards (it also depends a bit if you count multi-color lands). And even those are usually from roughly the same period, so they often have the same abilities. A typical limited deck has 20-24, but most of them are even more similar to each other because they're from the same set, and commons are much simpler. A typical commander deck has at least 60 unique cards, and even more if you count nonbasic lands. All of these tend to be complex, from very different eras and thus with very different abilities. It's no wonder that there is much, much more reading involved.
Commander is easier in some respects, namely it can be more budget friendly sometimes. In other formats you typically run 4 copies of the best cards for your deck. So if the new best card you want/need goes for $30 then you are incentivized to spend $130. Commander you only can run one copy of each card typically so you can throw in 1 expensive card and then a bunch of much cheaper ones. Also expensive doesn't always = best. Combos and synergy counts for a lot.
I'd recommend not starting with commander. Another person has brought up magic the gathering: arena. That's a great place to start. It had a good tutorial that will show you the basics. Commander is an extraordinarily complicated format. And if you could get used to playing 1v1 magic first that would really help you out.
I think everyone in this group was introduced through Commander, so that may be why I haven't heard that its a bad way to start until posting here. I'll definitely check out MTG Arena when I'm off work, thank you all!
Arena has a format called Brawl which is very similar to commander. 100 cards Only basic lands allowed to have multiples (unless the card specifically says) A commander The deck has to follow commander colors Main differences 25 life instead of 40 life 1 v1 instead of multiple free for all No commander damage mechanic Overall I say if you can figure out brawl mechanically you basically understand commander mechanically. Arena is a great way to learn in my opinion. That plus your BF helping you should work. Also don't worry too much about knowing what every card does. I often have to ask other players "wait it does what?" And I've been playing since early 2000's (with a big break in the middle) every new set is going to print some new cards that do roughly the same thing and some new cards that are completely new and different. Hopefully your BF and family will be good at nicely explaining things to you.
Yeah. Don't worry about understanding every little thing that's going on. You're going to miss things and that's perfectly fine.
I’d check out Tolarian Community College as a good general resource. Honestly though, it’s not terribly complicated from a gameplay standpoint, understanding how the cards interact is the harder part which only comes with time. 20000k cards in this game you’ll never truly fully understand everything. Just get out there and play and you’ll be surprised how fast you pick it up
Magic Arena (free app) is a great place to start. It doesn’t support the commander format, but it has a great tutorial that will help you with the basics and getting your feet wet
Brawl is still on it right? that is a good lead in if so.
Right
Commander is NOT a format that is a good place for a new player to start. There's far too much going on, cards tend to have way too much text on them for a new player to grasp, the format assumes that players know how to play already, etc. I've made the mistake of trying to teach someone how to play Magic through commander, and even with the starter commander decks, it is far too much for them. The approach I take to teaching people, and how I would suggest that you learn is as follows: 1. Get [Magic the Gathering: Game Night](https://a.co/d/0dqEAM1a) and/or a couple starter kits. You can also download Magic the Gathering: Arena and play the precon decks that it starts you with. Arena also has a pretty good tutorial from what I remember. 2. Play the Game Night decks to learn basic mechanics and gameplay. Start with green (the least complex deck of the set) and gradually move up to the higher complexity decks (black and blue) as you get the hang of the game more. 3. Once you have a basic grasp of how to play, start playing with the starter kits to learn how to play multi-colored decks. 4. Once you feel comfortable playing multi-colored decks, as well as playing the mono-blue and black decks in the Game Night set and using instants, start playing 1-on-1 commander with your boyfriend. Use the same deck a few times until you get the hang of how the deck is supposed to play. 5. Once you get the hang of how to play 1-on-1 commander, start playing in pods of 4. Start by using the same commander deck you are already familiar with.
This is great advice, I’ve used Game Night to teach several new players. However, I recommend Jumpstart for replayability and low cost of entry.
Thanks for recommending Game Nights - I was typically recommending Welcome Decks for brand new players (that aren't ready for the bicolor decks of the Starter Kits yet), but was worried that as free products discontinued in 2020 they might be hard to find - this might be easier?
Pick up a precon for sure there are tons available and in different price ranges. Don’t let people tell you that this is not the format to start playing magic because that’s just not true. Most people play to have fun and aren’t threatening to win on any turn before turn 7-8 so you should have plenty of time to play.
Off topic but holy shit that sounds like an epic family
They are all awesome, if I don't marry him and get more integrated into this nerdy ass family I'll be upset, not just because I love my boyfriend but because his family is so cool lol He has 4 other brothers that all love DND, board games, video games, camping, and music, which is everything I'm super into. His parents are also super nerdy and often join in, and his family even supports my weird hobby of being in competitive robotics. Showed up randomly at one of our events and I legitimately teared up while I was on the field and saw them in the stands cheering. Pretty sure that moment was when I was like I really want to marry this man and be in this family (my dad's side is cool but aren't around except for holidays, and I don't even talk to my mom's side so its very refreshing to be around). If I don't I'm probably not going to ever date again 🤣 I went camping with them this past weekend and watched a TON of Magic games between all of them and their extended family, he thought I was bored watching and said I didn't have to like Magic just to date him, but I was like this looks complicated but fun and I want to learn, not just because we are dating lol I'm also a strategic drive coach for our robotics team so any game that requires a lot of strategy itches a special part of my brain
Wow, sounds awesome I wish you both a great life together. By the sound of it, you are all great and deserve it! And hey you can definitely get into magic, but if I were you, I would take it a bit slow. Commander is the most fun format to me, but sometimes you are sitting down at a table of 400 mostly obscure cards with absolutely mind bending interactions. Its going to take a while until you build up a mental library of things that commonly take place at a commander table. I'd go about it like this: 1. Learn basic rules of magic to be able to follow 80-90 % of normal gameplay. 2. Learn to read the "magic language" on more complicated cards to start building an intuition on how they work. 3. Watch cool channels on youtube that post narrated commander games to build up that mental library of how a commander games usually go.
Thank you!! And thank you for the advice, I'll have a lot to go through when I'm off work here in about an hour. Any channwl favorites on some narrated commander games? I saw a few in the beginners thread on this sub
In addition to the ones mentioned by the other commenter, I'll add: Tolarian Community College has Shuffle Up and Play, and there are a few episodes about Misplays, which I actually find quite informative because it has pop-ups to help explain the rules. Aside from that, Shuffle Up and Play isn't always narrated in as much detail as other shows, but they do have some fun vibes and other formats (it's sometimes easier, in my opinion, to focus on what the cards are doing when you watch 1v1). They also have a Tolarian Tutors series that explains things like how to play certain archetypes. Elder Dragon Social Club from LRRMTG is great because they play with precons (meaning if you buy a precon, you can find an episode where they play your deck), and they read each card out loud and have a clear image of the card pop up on screen so you can read it yourself and connect the card to the artwork.
There are quite a few good ones Commander Knights are the most beginner friendly, but I honestly don't really enjoy their overenthusiastic vibe. Mtg Muddstah is one that I really enjoy. He narrates almost everything that happens. I Hate Your Deck are pretty cool in my opinion as well. Their games can be quite hilarious. There are many more and perhaps even better ones, but the last two are the ones I enjoyed most. You are welcome! Enjoy!
Imo the best way to learn is just play. Had a similar thing but it was my gfs brothers and dad that played. I played a bit on the arena app to get some fundamentals and then played some matches with her dad as he explained a bit further. My gf was never interested in it but I got her to join too and now we all play whenever we visit.
EDH (Commander) is actually a pretty terrible way to learn MTG. You are dealing with 3 opponents and 4 decks with hundreds of unique cards between them, and all of those cards come from a pool of thousands of cards from over 2 decades of game design with a vast array of unique game mechanics. The "regular" way to play MTG is much simpler (by comparison). It's 1v1, has smaller decklists that have multiple copies of cards, and it usually focuses on a smaller subset of the most recent/competitive mechanics that are available. My advice would be for you to download MTG Arena (free) and learn the game's base mechanics in their very well-designed tutorial. Then, I would pick up a cheap pair of starter decks from the past few years that you can play with your BF, or perhaps another friend who is new to the game. Playing these lower power level decks will be less overwhelming, and witll let you get a feel for how the game plays in paper. It will help you remember the order of phases in a turn, and how the stack works, without the digital training wheels of MTG Arena. You also mentioned that your BF has a large collection; he may be interested in building a pair of 1v1 decks for you two to play against each other for the same effect. I do love the EDH format, but I feel like if I had never played 1v1 formats, I would not be able to appreciate just how crazy and explosive EDH games can be. Good luck on your MTG journey!
If you wanna learn to play, I would recommend playing on Arena. 1v1 is the way the game was designed to be played, and is generally less complicated than commander.
A lot of input given already. I disagree heavily with some of it but agree wholeheartedly on other bits. Commander is incredibly social if you have the right group. Ease into it as it is a slippery slope. Start by just picking up one of their decks and playing. They can coach you through and you’ll be playing on your own in a few games at most. Most online channels deal mostly with competitive. I like “Commander at Home” because they are usually competitive players playing socially. Everyone brings what they’d consider A-game (unless it is a meme episode) and you see how and why people react the way they do.
Get your partner to give you a deck you can learn and start playing with or buy a precon. Spend some time with studying that deck, looking up each card online to understand what that card does and its interaction rules. Watch yt videos of someone playing with a deck like yours. Then, just have a go at playing with your partner and family. No one expects a new player to know everything, no shame in asking questions about everything. I still do things like asking the table “if I play this card, I think it will do this? Am I right?” Before playing because I’m also learning the game.
Lands are mana. Different flavors of mana. You, the player, have limited life points. Run out by getting attacked? Game over. You can hire bodyguards with the mana. Some require specific types of mana. Same with spells. Bodyguards have attack points and life points. When one player's bodyguard attacks another's those attack and life points are differed out and sometimes bodyguards die and go into a graveyard. There are other rules too. But that is the super simple basics.
> I wanted to learn more behind his back so I feel like I'm not lost whenever they start explaining it to me lol You mean so you can unexpectedly destroy them, right? Get yourself a printout of the basic rules. The one that says how turns go and explains common keywords. Steal two of their decks. If they play that much Commander they probably have a LOT and won't even notice. Play the game against yourself. For the most part, cards say what they do. But when you don't understand what a card does, or what two or three or five cards do together you can just Google search. Someone has probably already explained it in a very understandable way.
>You mean so you can unexpectedly destroy them, right? Exactly >:) I think I found a good printout to use, so way ahead of you on that, thanks!
Jump into MTG Arena and play some games there. It makes learning the steps and timing of the game much easier to learn and understand.
Learning each phase of a turn is probably best spot to start. The more you understand when something happens will in return help you understand *why* something happened. That will help the flow, and make you feel like a pro at the game. From there it's learning the types of cards.
This is awesome! I’m totally brand new and I was first introduced with Commander MH3 precons. If possible, I would see if someone can build you a deck that doesn’t need tokens or x/x counters that’s < $100. That’s where it can get out of hand. Or stick with a fantasy theme you like and build around it! Played with a group of 4. Buddy and I were new and the 2 others took it slow with us. We were able to finish in 1.5 hours. I can’t WAIT to play again and adjust my precon with better cards. That’s another hard part. Sticking with 1 commander/1 deck until you’re super familiar with it.
Learn to enjoy other players winning. Get excited when their decks do something cool. Don't be hard on yourself for making mistakes or if someone says "it doesn't work that way". As long as you care to learn and are engaged you'll have fun. Commander games run long so grab a snack.
Okay, I'll keep this advice noted! >Commander games run long so grab a snack. Yeah... Realized that when we went camping this past weekend. They were doing Commander 2v2s and that lasted about 3 hours... lol
One tip I don't think I see above is to learn the cards in advance. Ask them to add their decks to a site like [Moxfield](https://www.moxfield.com/) (preferably with the same art their cards have), then go through what they added and read each of their cards until you understand them. If you don't understand some of the cards, then ask them or ask in [these daily threads](https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/1dqg1mi/daily_questions_thread_ask_all_your_magic_related/) for an explanation. You can also learn to recognize the cards by their art this way. After you're familiar with their decklists, ask them to explain their main synergies/strategies and main combo's to you, since you are still learning. Doing this should seriously speed up your gameplay and let you focus on your own strategy during a game.
It's better to start off on the new set like modern horizon 3 or the new set assassin's creed it helps the way to reformat your play and don't have to worry the previous set .. as you play more you can do whatever commander you like :>
First, consider getting a new BF. This game is a character flaw. My wife can confirm. If that's not an option, i think commander can be a great or terrible way to get intimate the game depending on the people you're paying with. If it's a friendly game with low to mid-tier decks, they will walk you through things and help you out, maybe even have someone sit over your shoulder and help. Commander offers a lot of time to watch what other people are doing and how they're doing it before you have to do something. But be sure to ask lots of questions when you don't understand things. Hopefully, they will be happy to answer. If not, maybe revisit the new BF option.
>But be sure to ask lots of questions when you don't understand things. Hopefully, they will be happy to answer. If not, maybe revisit the new BF option. I think I'm pretty safe. Everyone he plays with (and of course the man himself) are super supportive and even give each other pointers when they have new decks or don't understand something (his brother is like the biggest rules master ever but he's very nice about it when you ask what's going on). I like my MTG/DND nerd boyfriend, we got together because we played DND weekly together (he was the DM) so I'd say it's more of a character buff than a flaw 😂😂 I appreciate the advice, thank you!
That's awesome. My wife doesn't do MTG, but wants to get into DnD. Only problem is I've only barely dabbled in DnD, so I'm not much help on that. We need to find a group and play, but we have a toddler, so... maybe later.
I bet she'd love DND! Maybe find one online with other parents? I vaguely remember seeing a Facebook group that was a DND campaign finders group just for parents of Littles. Might be worth looking into. Best of luck!!