Newbies welcome !
New to Magic ?
Great ! Actually, when I started playing Magic the Gathering, it was a great experience and one of the best times in my life. Nowadays, much of the Magic of discovering Magic is sadly gone… In the early beginnings, we had no Spoilers of the sets, so we opened the boosters and were amazed if we found even bigger creatures and more spectecular cards. It was fun to face an opponent and having no clue what he could play, as we didn’t knew half of the cards which were available then. We had fights and laughs, when the once mighty Serra Angel, up to then our favourite card, suddenly faced a Dancing Scimitar – unimaginable that there was such a „Killer“ Card which could block a Serra Angel unharmed. We remember our first tournaments back in 1995 where we showed up with Decks containing over 150 cards (we proudly included all the best cards we owned !) .. and miracously I even went 3-3 and won a booster prize.
Well, you don’t want an old man swell in past memories, don’t you? But what I’d like to pass is, that beeing New to Magic is nothing to be afraid of, or nothing to be embarrassed of. Actually, it is a wonderful time, being naive and explore the world of Magic. Don’t hassle to get all the most expensive cards for Standard four times.
Start with (Team) Commander. Seriously.
There are several reasons why Team Commander is an especially inviting Magic format for New Players.
First of all, when a new Expansion is released, nowadays the cards are even spoilered (the card text are published before they are officially available) before they are sold, and big merchants and sellers already determine the market price. The cards which are expected to have an impact on the traditional Magic tournament formats like Standard or Modern will rise to astronomically high values. But if you want to be successfull in these formats, you mostly even need four copies of these costy cards, which might be unaffordable for young and new players. Sadly, it is a bit pay to win.
I don’t want to say that Team Commander cann’t be pricy. There are Decks out there, which easily go over thousand dollars. But: Team Commander banned a lot of the Fast Mana cards and Combo pieces, which are normally pricy like Candelabra of Tawnos or Gaea’s Cradle. Most of the other Commander cards aren’t that expansive though, due to their high converted Mana cost (which makes these cards sheer unplayable in other formats). Also, Commander requires you as a Singleton Format (just one copy of each card is allowed) just one copy of a card, so it is possible to build really cheap decks which are nevertheless fun to play.
The 100 card Deck size looks a bit huge at first sight, but you should keep a good Mana-Ratio: while certain Decktypes may require fewer lands (e.g. Elf-Tribals) it is a good rule of Thumb to have 35-38 Lands in your Deck.
As you play 100 cards, not every one must be perfect at first build: you can play a Commander Deck over years, it never expires (unlike Standard Decks) at all, even the very first expansions are allowed to be played with. You can tune your Deck over time, play it again and again and replace inefficient cards one by one.
And, if you play Team Commander, you have a partner who can help you: if your Deck isn’t that strong or tuned yet, he will help you out. He can look at your hand, explain when to play cards best, give tipps how to attack and block together and teach you a bit while even playing and having fun together.
More experienced players may even (if they are really nice) have a leftover card for you (which is rarely the case for modern or Standard).
Team Commander is a format which is Fun orientated, so it is also more foregiving to mistakes and even a „bad“ card in your deck – so as the mana curve is also quite high, the format does allow you to play „Newbie“ cards like huge, costy creatures, and sometimes it is even fun to see when such biggies conquer and rock the board.
So don’t be afraid, be a Newbie! Explore the world of Magic! Build your own Deck and Theme. Include whatever you like – if you opened a booster pack and you just drew a 10 Cents card like Aggressive Mammoth don’t fall in tears and ignore the other kids who laugh at your card – in Team Commander, such a card could be great !
While we surely encourage you to discover Magic and get your own best experience, you certainly can also use Deck lists (look at our useful Links page). In the future we will also present some Lists here. But slow down, don’t just buy every card on such a list, but try to find your own style and also adept to your friends and fellow players‘ Decks.
Maybe some more advice:
- Invest in some good card Sleeves (e.g. Dragonshield or UltraPro). Don’t buy the cheap transparent thin ones. I could cry nowadays when I see my quite costy dual lands being scratched all over.
- As said, go for 36 lands round about + 63 other cards + 1 legendary creature as Commander
- If you are building „from scratch“ and you bought just some boosters you should start with a friend or two. When we started, we bought a „Starter“ pack each (that was a 75 card pack back in 1994), and divided the cards no matter of cost just evenly among us friends – each player picked two favourite colors (we had more green cards so the one who wanted green got all the greens and artifacts – I got red and black).
- It is easiest to build a monocolored or dual-colored deck for your first commander. This way, you can avoid the more costy lands for mana-fixing problems. Mono or dualcolored Commander Decks can include just basic lands and do quite fine with this.
- Start with creatures first. Creature based decks are easier to play and build than control style decks. Head for at least 25 to 30 creatures (or even more). They do dish out your main damage.
- Look for a theme. Look for a commander which has a nice theme. Think about what does your commander do, and which cards could synergize with him nicely. Make notes whenever you see nice cards at other players which do match with your commander.
- If you’d like to buy a prebuild Deck, go for one of the official prebuild Commander Decks – they are quite nice !