Ruckerworks

Want to run better sessions and design stronger adventures? I've been playing D&D since 1980, and I make straightforward, no-fluff videos that help dungeon masters and players build great games. You'll get practical tips on adventure design, session prep, and running the table, with advice you can actually use in your next game. I also write fantasy fiction and TTRPG content. Subscribe if you want guidance that's grounded in real play that actually works. Have fun, stay cool, and keep your dice rolling.

Hello new MTG players! - MTGZone

This post is primarily intended to refresh this community so it shows up in other Lemmy instances! But it’s also great information taken from the Reddit MTG community [https://old.reddit.com/r/mtg/comments/1n886vo/hey_new_player_how_to_get_into_magic_a_guide/] that could be helpful here as well! ### What is Magic: the Gathering A bit backwards but these are your best friends from now on. Here’s how to get the “advanced basics” down: * The Comprehensive Rules of the game: https://magic.wizards.com/en/rules [https://magic.wizards.com/en/rules]. You don’t need to read or know it by heart. You only need to understand how to find information from it. Good luck. * The MTG Wiki: https://mtg.wiki/ [https://mtg.wiki/] - has a lot of information about the game but most importantly the pages summarize key concepts and rules in layman’s terms. * Individual Rulings for cards: https://scryfall.com/advanced [https://scryfall.com/advanced] — this is the Advanced Search page. You can search for multiple things but the important bit about this bullet point is to search for a card, go to the card’s page and scroll down a bit to find the section called “Rulings”. Rulings explain how the card interacts with other cards in edge cases. Use this if the Comprehensive Rules cannot answer your question. Example: Artisan of Kozilek’s Rulings - this link leads straight to the Rulings section. * Ask MTG questions here or at /c/mtg! Head over to the more active https://mtgzone.com/c/mtg [https://mtgzone.com/c/mtg] — it’s very new player friendly. * MTG rules community on Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/mtgrules [https://reddit.com/r/mtgrules] - here you can ask for rules help. A semi-quick and usually very accurate way of getting answers. * The MTG Live Judge Q&A Chat: https://web.libera.chat/#magicjudges-rules [https://web.libera.chat/#magicjudges-rules]. This chat has judges that can answer your questions. Sometimes there are no judges online so it’s a bit of a toss of a coin. Usually there are and this is your best bet in getting a quick ruling. I’d still prefer posting on the Rules subreddit mentioned directly above. * Don’t be afraid to ask questions, ever. If you feel like you don’t understand what’s going on—ask someone. This is the best way to learn: play a lot of games and make sure you always understand what is happening. As stated above, these are mostly ways to gain knowledge about the inner workings of the game. It’s good to know these resources exist but you don’t have to go and read the entire Comprehensive Rules PDF, for example. ### Commander Commander (also known as EDH) is hands down the most popular format right now. Don’t be fooled - it’s one of the more difficult ways to get into Magic. It’s also a lot of fun and it’s easy to find Commander games both online and in real life (at your Local Game Store, for example). This is to say it’s a bit of a double-edged sword. Out community is [email protected] [/c/[email protected]], and on Reddit it is r/edh. Take the following things into account when considering Commander as your first format: * Commander is a multiplayer game. While you don’t absolutely need four players the suggested and “truest” Commander experience is to have four players that play with similarly powered decks using their deck building skill, interactions knowledge and a vast understanding of the rules of the game. * Commander is also a multiplayer game which requires you to navigate your way through social situations, make deals and put down some table politics in order to win. * Commander is yet again a multiplayer game of four people. Your expected win rate is thus 25% which by default means that you’ll lose the vast majority of your games. That can be a bit depressing; not getting the euphoria of winning. * Commander is a singleton format. This means that you have 60-100 different cards (depending a bit on how you choose to build your deck) in your deck. The deck always has 100 cards but there can be up to around 40 Basic Lands that have next to no Rules text. This means that not only you have to understand 60+ cards worth of Rules but also your opponents’ interactions with your cards as well. It’s a lot to take in at once. * Some cards legal in Commander are old. Sometimes the text on the card itself is extremely confusing, outdated and sometimes even straight up misleading or wrong. You always need to check the official Rules text online. * Commander games take a long time. Some people who are familiar with the game and each others’ decks can finish a game in less than an hour. Sometimes - especially when you’re new to the format and need to read a lot of the cards being played - games take 3+ hours to finish. It’s irritating if you’re in a pod with one or more abrasive personalities and may feel like wasted time. Playing against decks / archetypes you haven’t seen before can be a total brain fry, too. #### Preconstructed decks There exist preconstructed decks for Commander specifically. They’re not made equal - some pack more punch than others and without knowing a bit about the game it’s hard to gauge that. If you end up playing with uneven decks the experience may be sour and feel like you didn’t even get a chance or couldn’t make an impact. * These preconstructed decks are not introductory products to Magic - they’re simply an easy way to get going in Commander without having to spend a lot of time researching cards and building a deck. * Some preconstructed decks are incredibly expensive for varying reasons. If you’re planning on upgrading your deck this is now the point of no return. You can throw all the cash in the world at Commander and still feel like there’s more to do. It’s sometimes a fun thing but you’ve been warned. #### Deckbuilding and power level Commander as a format has guidelines on how to assess your deck. It’s called the Bracket System and it categorizes decks into five categories based on the play experience you’re looking for. There is a correlation when it comes to how efficient the decks in each Bracket are but the system isn’t necessarily a 1:1 power scale. As a new player you’ll probably end up playing Bracket 2 (a very relaxed and casual bracket looking to maximise fun). Higher Brackets are often faster paced and jumping straight into those may be a rough experience as it’s usually expected that people have more advanced game knowledge. More info on the Bracket System: * This is the initial release article: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/introducing-commander-brackets-beta [https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/introducing-commander-brackets-beta]. It covers the basic idea and intent behind the Bracket System. * This is the update article: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/commander-brackets-beta-update-april-22-2025 [https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/announcements/commander-brackets-beta-update-april-22-2025]. It covers some minor tweaks to the original guidelines. So… starting with Commander is rough due to the steep learning curve but the social aspects of it are rewarding and may outweigh the difficulty of learning to play this way. Personally I advice against learning through Commander and would use either one of the options below. You can also alternate between these methods of learning and playing Commander in conjunction with them to get the best of both worlds. ### Magic: The Gathering Arena and online play Magic: The Gathering Arena (also known as MTGA) is an online version of Magic. The official information package can be found at https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena [https://magic.wizards.com/en/mtgarena]. You don’t play against your friends but certain features of MTGA are very helpful in learning the basics of the game by yourself. Out community is [email protected] [/c/[email protected]] and the dedicated subreddit for MTGA is r/MagicArena. #### General features * The tutorials and bots that you can play against. This is the most important part that we will focus on. You can skip the rest of the bullet points safely unless you’re curious what MTGA is actually intended for. * Mainly used to play different kinds of Magic formats, often competitively. Namely: * Standard - the way Magic was designed to be played shortly after the release of the game. There are a limited number of sets (Magic expansions) that are legal at a time and they rotate when new sets come out. * Alchemy - an online-exclusive format with mechanics that only work in a game engine that does certain things for you. * Historic - a format where you play cards that are no longer Standard-legal but once were. * Brawl - a two-player format similar to Commander in some aspects. * Timeless - a format where any card in MTGA’s engine is legal to play. The card pool is huge. * Draft - a format where you are given packs of random cards that you construct a deck out of. The deck construction phase includes you passing Booster packs and picking cards from each pack that’s passed to you. Then you play against other people who have done the same. This explanation cuts a lot of the nuances of the format but you get the main idea, I hope. You use different kinds of in-game currencies to build your decks and participate in events. Ranked games where you can become the best of the best on a scoreboard of sorts. #### Tutorials The tutorials and bots that you can play against are the most important aspect here. You’re given preconstructed decks with relatively easy mechanics and your opponent is a bot that plays similarly powered decks. The tutorial offers you a very comprehensive walkthrough of how to play Magic. This tutorial will cover some core aspects of the game: * How to read cards and their rules text. (Often reading the card explains the card…) * What kind of things you need to have in your deck for it to function. * How the game begins and what kind of things you can do (mostly Mulliganing i.e. drawing a new starting hand if you didn’t like the previous one). * What the turn structure is and how you can play cards during players’ turns. * Basics of “the stack” - a fundamental part of the game. The stack is a system that lets you react to game events. These can be your own plays, your opponent’s plays, a triggered event, and so forth. * Basics of “threat assessment”. This is an important part of the game: you need to learn how to identify what game actions your opponent(s) do are bigger threats than others. You learn to react to those actions accordingly. This is the strategic aspect of the game. * And a bit more. All in all it’s a somewhat comprehensive package to get you playing. The game walks you through most of the stuff you need to know, step by step in detail. You don’t have to care about the other formats on MTGA at all - you can just do the tutorial and uninstall the game. Alternatively you can play games against other beginners to get a feel of how things work with other humans. The “proper” formats in MTGA aren’t technically pay-to-win but realistically you have to spend some real world money to get started and/or play daily to grind those in-game currencies mentioned before. The tutorial part is completely free, which is why it’s recommended often as a good way to get into the game. Magic Foundations Beginner Box ### Magic Foundations Beginner Box For getting into paper Magic with a friend or many friends I suggest the following product: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/foundations-beginner-box-contents [https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/foundations-beginner-box-contents] The link leads to a page that describes the box and its contents. This part may change as new products are released but to my knowledge this is the most recent beginner-oriented introductory product in Magic. About the product: * It’s a self-contained box that you don’t upgrade. * It’s a special “format” with 40-card decks, played by two people. * There are pre-determined 20-card packs in the box i.e. their content is known. These are not Boosters with random cards. * You take two packs, combine them and play with a 40-card deck against an opponent who does the same. * The box also contains basic instructions on how to play. There are multiple benefits to buying this product: * The cards have mechanics that are simpler than your average card. You don’t have to remember a lot of things, you don’t have to read a lot of rules text and cross-reference the Comprehensive Rules and Card Rulings to understand what they do. It’s all explained in the instructions in the box. * This is self-contained and non-upgradeable. The resulting 40-card decks are balanced to be played against the other packs in the box. You don’t have to worry about knowing deck compositions, possible upgrade routes and balancing the deck power levels with your friend(s). * It’s designed for two people. Commander as outlined above is a four-player game by design so it might be hard to get a good feel of what a Commander game looks like with just two people if you’ve got only one friend to play with. * The box is always ready to play which means you can bring it with you and you’re good to go with anyone. You don’t have to spend lots of money with your friends collectively to buy expensive Commander Precons. * The box is also always ready to play in the future, too, because it’s self-contained all the time. You can introduce other people to the game with this box any time and since it’s easily approachable it’s a bit more fun for the new beginner you’re teaching the game to. You’ll have to find out yourself where you can buy it, sorry. It was released in November 2024 so not every place has it anymore. I suggest checking out https://cardkingdom.com/ [https://cardkingdom.com/] or https://tcgplayer.com/ [https://tcgplayer.com/] (North America), or https://cardmarket.com/ [https://cardmarket.com/] (EU) to see if someone is selling it. Otherwise, try your Local Game Store or worst case scenario: Amazon. Amazon is very unreliable when it comes to new product and expensive product so don’t use it otherwise. Do not buy Commander Precons from Amazon, for example. You’re almost guaranteed to get scammed, delivered the wrong product or have your order cancelled. ### Questions? Make a new post in this community or anywhere at mtgzone.com [http://mtgzone.com]!

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