I am a father of two, one 10 year old girl and one 8 year old boy. Both love Magic. We have been playing as a family for almost 2 years now after starting them out with Kaijudo as an introduction to TCGs. We play a game or two most days after school, and usually a big multiplayer game with the whole family on the weekends, including my somewhat reluctant wife. I initially used the ideas gathered from our experience with Kaijudo to guide my initial deckbuilding for them, and given that they each spontaneously adopted a sort of "commander" deckbuilding stance in Kaijudo with their favorite creature in their decks, I obviously went with commander as the preferred format.
Our initial games were fun, the kids picked up the rules and basic strategies without any problem. In fact, my wife had a more difficult time picking it up, mostly I think because she was less interested in the whole thing than they were. Our initial decks were a Tolsimir Wolfblood deck with lots of wolf tokens for my son, a Savra, Queen of the Golgari sacrificial deck that was relatively quickly slurred into a Thelon of Havenwood thalid deck for my daughter, a Rubinia Soulsinger fairy control deck for my wife, and a Damia, Sage of Stone combo/control deck for myself. The games ended up being fun, the kids loved how their decks played, and I had a good time going off with an infinite turn combo in a lot of the games. My wife never liked her Rubinia Soulsinger deck, and usually just stated that she never had fun with any of the strong control cards in her deck, didn't like the combo aspects that I included, and the fairies were all nice art, but they were all small and never kicked anyone's butt. The kids liked their decks, and both kids still play them after almost 2 years with the same decks. No one liked playing against my Damia combo control, and even in our cooperative games against a Zombie Horde deck that I built, everyone was always frustrated that the best tactic was just to keep me alive long enough that the deck went off and killed the Horde. No one liked feeling less powerful than me.
Fast forward through several rounds of Conspiracy draft, Conspiracy 2 draft, and the creation of an Innistrad super-block cube, and I now have a better idea of what is fun for everyone in my family. My wife now has a degenerate Omnath, Locus of Mana deck that ramps hard to massive creature beatdowns, my daughter has an Adriana, Captain of the Guard Boros hard aggro deck with many combat tricks and combos, my son plays both the Tolsimir Wolfblood deck, now slurred to mostly elves and wolves with a MLD and control sub-theme, as well as his new Rhys the Redeemed crazy token shenanigans. I have completely ditched the strong combo/control Damia, and decided not to play Blue at all.
My replacement deck is a Queen Marchesa political control deck with no combos, but super exciting endgames in every game. Check it out here. The deck plays no sweepers for anything, leaving everyone's board state mostly unmolested. The goals is to interact, but mostly with damage reversal and turbofog elements, and win off of their attacks. The strategy is to allow everyone to play their deck, and then punish the deck for what it does best, without ever limiting deck development aside from spot removal of things that will end the game or that directly threaten me. The result is a game where my kids always feel that they are in control of the game, their board development is often impressive and threatening, they make big plays against each other, their mother often becomes the Archenemy due to the fact that she will crush them if they don't stop her, and the ending is often some crazy alpha strike that I can either redirect to win, or it takes me out in spectacular fashion. This is a very satisfying way for our games to go, and when the kids win, they are often very proud of themselves and the power of their decks. My son will gloat all over the house when it happens. My wife gets to play a big stompy but super fast and aggressive deck that feels in control, my daughter gets to play an aggressive deck with several complicated combos to get extra attacks and combat tricks, my son always has a board state with a huge army of tokens that are often pumped into terrifyingly rabid proportions, and I get to manipulate the game very subtly throughout, and then turn the endgame into a massively explosive blowout, often with an underdog win for myself. Everyone is happy.
This brings me to my question for the community. For those who play with kids, especially with their family, what have you found that will produce fun and interactive games, allows everyone to play how they like, and creates what feels like epic endings for every game? My process for creating this environment with my own family has been:
1. Listen to the complaints about how games usually go, and no matter what I want to play, and take into account what everyone wants in a game.
2. Create a cube and watch what people like to draft. Ask about and talk about what makes games fun for each person and for everyone playing.
3. Create at least one deck for each person that plays in the style that they like, while not including cards that people dislike. In this case, there is only 1 infinite combo amongst all decks, and it is hard to pull off and is played by my 10 year old daughter, not me. It is also interactive and uses combat.
4. Make a deck for myself that is designed for interactivity, does not inhibit the creation of epic board states, and facilitates all kinds of fantastic wins. For reference, my deck Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control is my take on a non-Group Hug deck that makes games fun and exciting.
5. Avoid dominating with Blue. We only have one Blue deck in the house at this point, and that I my daughters Rashmi, Eternities Crafter cantrip semi-Stax Aetherflux Reservoir deck. No hard Blue control.
6. Limit Stax, limit non-interactive combo.
Are there ways that everyone here help to make playing magic exciting and fun for all play styles, all levels of sophistication, and all ages? I would like to hear other people's ideas about this subject.
TLDR: How do I make my family MTG Commander games fun for all ages and play styles? I have some ideas, but wanted feedback from the community.
Ye gads! Mass land destruction, hard core control, your family is like the Sopranos of the Magic community (just jokes). I'll be honest these themes are pretty cut throat, but obviously the kids are used to it.
My approach is different. I'd make all four decks at the same time. I like to lay down cards for each deck that I think are equivalent in cost and equivalent in power. That way there is less of that feeling that the decks are not balanced. Deck synergies are different so trying to compare "like" cards is difficult, but if all the decks run similar mana and having similar converted mana costs, then games should on average be more even.
I like how you gave yourself Damia combo/control and your daughter Thelon of Havenwood. Just a bit of a power difference there
Ye gads! Mass land destruction, hard core control, your family is like the Sopranos of the Magic community (just jokes). I'll be honest these themes are pretty cut throat, but obviously the kids are used to it.
My son is now the only one who runs such cut throat themes. He is 8. The power balance is maintained pretty well.
My approach is different. I'd make all four decks at the same time. I like to lay down cards for each deck that I think are equivalent in cost and equivalent in power. That way there is less of that feeling that the decks are not balanced. Deck synergies are different so trying to compare "like" cards is difficult, but if all the decks run similar mana and having similar converted mana costs, then games should on average be more even.
This seems like a decent way to do it. How does this turn out making multiple commander decks at the same time? It is fine for us doing this with the Cube, but four 100 card decks from a huge card pool would be super intimidating. To manage this, we end up making decks on tapped out and use the playtest feature to try them out for a while against real decks. This allows us to tune them, compare power levels, and adjust before the kids spend any allowance money on cards. After they adjust their decks, I add some more expensive cards to their decks to beef them up some. We often concentrate on one deck at a time, so that we can do each deck justice. I may be dense, but I am not sure I could manage two kids, my wife, and a huge pile of cards, making four commander decks.
I like how you gave yourself Damia combo/control and your daughter Thelon of Havenwood. Just a bit of a power difference there
Haha... This was obviously a mistake. This was my first attempt after being out of Magic for over 15 years. I like BUG, and Damia seemed fun. It was silly in practice. We fixed that. My daughter loves BG, and making tons of tokens, especially plant tokens that escalate and beat face, tokens that you can sacrifice for value, and this was the first theme that she really took to. She now has a Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck to exploit the sacrifice theme better.
This was actually the point of this thread. I enjoy beating the crap out of my kids in a game as much as any father, but I have learned from my initial attempts. Now I have a deck that is competitive with theirs, but never makes them feel dominated. I am learning that I can take on the role of Archenemy whenever I want to by playing my deck super aggressively, while laying low and letting them take the lead when they want to dominate the game. Their decks have been tuned, using their input, but ensuring that they understand how the choices they make in deckbuilding can be made more optimal. They have each learned how to play more than straight up aggro and token decks, and we have evolved their decks with this education and sophistication in mind. We now have great games. I am looking for other stories about this, and how to better achieve the balance of power around the table, takes best advantage of each of their skills and tendencies, and allows them to play the types of games that they want to play. The only really overpowered stuff in the family is my wife's Omnath, Locus of Mana deck. That one just murders people, and that keeps her coming back to the table to play with the rest of us.
This reminds me of my wife. She also likes stomp your face in decks. I helped guide her to build a Kalalia of the Vast commander deck. She got to pick a general out of a list of stompy legends. Then I made a 150 card list for her to thumbs up or down for angels demons and dragons. She also got to play MLD and other sweepers, she actually loves having big splashy plays like that.
The problem came when I used my Lazav clone mill deck. She felt that she wasnt interacting with me. The problem was my other decks were similar. Either I tried to sweep the game or I was a noninteractive combo deck. Also playing 1v1 didnt help. We had better games when my buddy would come over.
I will say it is nice when you can build a deck that isnt degenerate and sit down with others and have a good time. I like pulling out my political Ruhan deck then.
Can you share your Ruhan list? That is a commander I was tempted by, but I was afraid of going U. I am curious how it compares to my Queen Marchesa deck.
So you started when your kid was six and he had no problem picking things up? I know that it's way too early to start my kids, but "When will they be ready" is the question, and I want to start thinking about it before I hand them a deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Along with many mods, I've moved shop over to MTGNexus. Come check us out!
I taught my little sister at the age of 6. however it was very simple decks. It was mostly here is basic math up to 20. But what I found is I had to build decks with themes to help balance my powerlevel verse her.
Yeah, my son was 6. I actually used it as a way to help him with both reading and math. He had no real problems with either, but I felt like his school was not inspiring him at all. We do tons of games at home, mostly the Mensa Select games, and he was more than willing to read or do math when it was for a game. I originally started with the Pathfinder Adventure card game to play to my daughters obsession with anything fantasy. For those who have tried it, it feels like Shoots and Ladders dressed up in fantasy livery. There is not much actual strategy or game to it, very few meaningful choices, but there is a ton of opportunity for adding up small numbers and reading. The whole family played together, and the kids were given a bonus on the rolls if they did everything correctly, including the reading and computations. They liked it, but the setup are kinda involved, and the game was not really that fun. I switched to Kaijudo as another complicated card game with reading and fantasy themes. They loved it, we played tons of games, and I ended up having to balance the power of my decks agains two opponents, because the kids would team up with me as the archenemy. My daughter always understood Kaijudo as a "kids" MTG, and always wanted to move on. After mastering Kaijudo, we were in a game shop on vacation at their grandparents, and the kids found a MTG duel deck set. I had not actually played MTG since about 1999 or 2000. They wanted to spend their allowance on it, so I let them.
We are now a couple of years into playing as a family, and they are getting quite sophisticated. My son has a new love for control decks, trying to force in every "destroy" card he can into his decks. My daughter started with a janky combo deck, which fit her personality perfectly, and has now moved on to a really aggressive deck with some infinite combat phase shenanigans. Neither has a perfect understanding of the stack, activated vs triggered effects, or a great understanding of threat level aside from "take out dad or mom first, then turn on each other".
For the right kids, 6 is not too early for a very casual family game. Try to make their decks for them at first, concentrating on the things that are exciting for them, with large numbers of tokens, large numbers of counters, very large creatures, and funny little value loop combos being popular in my house. Don't try to expose them to all of MTG at first. You can skip the combo decks, Stax, any hard control, and Blue. Those are just frustrating for everyone. My Queen Marchesa deck has been a great addition to our games, because it is exciting, but never really stops anyone from playing the game that their deck was designed to create. Everyone has fun, no matter who wins. I am looking for decks here that create the same feeling. Interactive but not stifling, and that create exciting games as everyone seems to be about to win at any moment.
Obviously, it's all on how you build them. Commanders like Zur can be great, because while they can be super competitive, they can also be very casual and theme based. And since he can tutor up loads of enchantments kids can really have fun getting their favorite cards.
Other commanders like Karador are good because the help kids learn to not freak out over losing their stuff in the graveyard. Which is an important lesson.
Then you have commanders like Rafiq, who is the consumant good guy, who can be tailored to suit a more Timmy type player.
But for me, if I'm picking a deck for a new player to begin with, I'd have to go with everyone's first EDH deck... Slivers.
Yes, they are a bit generic (although they don't have to be), and a few of them are pretty expensive. But the are fun to play with as a new player, they are easy, and they can win games even without their busted cards. what's more is that Wizards has provided us with great dual lands that are cheap and easy to pick up. You really don't need to look much beyond the guild gates, Khans wedge lands, or the litany of other CTP lands that are languishing about in stores everywhere.
Good luck!!
Ely
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
No one spoke. There was no need. The threat of the Eldrazi presented a simple choice: lay down your arms and die for nothing, or hold them fast and die for something.
Play Kami of the Crescent Moon and make everyone draw lots of cards and play like tribal Merfolk or something. Little countermagic. No infinite combos, duh. Or play Selvala, Explorer Returned. Something interactive like that, especially if it gets them drawing cards and speeds up the development phase of the game.
Also, don't give your wife a control deck, since those require that you pay close attention to the boardstate at all times. I'd be playing Xenagos or something with lots of creatures like that. The guys on the CommandZone podcast did a deck tech on a <$100 Xenagos list with one of the guys from the show Space Janitors, and it seemed awesome. Cast creatures, give 'em haste, make 'em huge, and go nuts. Not complicated and attacking someone with a 12/12 double striking, trampling beastie is universally fun unless you're an idiot.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I can't say I'm pleased to see you and must warn you I may have to do something about it.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: URDelver
Modern: UGRDelver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
Play Kami of the Crescent Moon and make everyone draw lots of cards and play like tribal Merfolk or something. Little countermagic. No infinite combos, duh. Or play Selvala, Explorer Returned. Something interactive like that, especially if it gets them drawing cards and speeds up the development phase of the game.
Also, don't give your wife a control deck, since those require that you pay close attention to the boardstate at all times. I'd be playing Xenagos or something with lots of creatures like that. The guys on the CommandZone podcast did a deck tech on a <$100 Xenagos list with one of the guys from the show Space Janitors, and it seemed awesome. Cast creatures, give 'em haste, make 'em huge, and go nuts. Not complicated and attacking someone with a 12/12 double striking, trampling beastie is universally fun unless you're an idiot.
The command zone podcast is definitely a great resource and I highly recommended those guys! I think a Timmy strategy with big beaters and ramp is always good. Make sure to keep things interactive. You mentioned that your son plays mass land destruction, and if your family enjoys that, great! But in general I would say that that strategy may not be the best for introducing kids to the game because it takes out the interaction and makes it feel as if you can't play Magic anymore. I know that I hated it when I was introduced to EDH. Everyone is unique however, and what matters most is doing something that everyone enjoys!
Typically with younger players or newer players, going the tribal route is a good way to make things simpler and more visual - I've got an elf, I can see the picture of the elf on the card and right under that it says "Creature - Elf", he wants to be with his elf friends - using the narrative and the flavour is a good way to explain the structure of the game to people who don't yet see the bones underneath.
The MLD theme in my son's deck is now down to just Armageddon, after we switched his favorite deck to GW instead of RGW and removed the other MLD cards. To be honest, it is no more swingy or unfun than any other big play, and he gets super excited when he screws everyone at once. My daughter then gets excited when she comes back to win against him after this play. Both kids get their fun out of it, and it ends up not being abusive. I know how frowned upon MLD is, but it is hard to really come down on it when an 8 year old gets so much fun out of a single card that is not abused, even if it is MLD.
Our initial games were fun, the kids picked up the rules and basic strategies without any problem. In fact, my wife had a more difficult time picking it up, mostly I think because she was less interested in the whole thing than they were. Our initial decks were a Tolsimir Wolfblood deck with lots of wolf tokens for my son, a Savra, Queen of the Golgari sacrificial deck that was relatively quickly slurred into a Thelon of Havenwood thalid deck for my daughter, a Rubinia Soulsinger fairy control deck for my wife, and a Damia, Sage of Stone combo/control deck for myself. The games ended up being fun, the kids loved how their decks played, and I had a good time going off with an infinite turn combo in a lot of the games. My wife never liked her Rubinia Soulsinger deck, and usually just stated that she never had fun with any of the strong control cards in her deck, didn't like the combo aspects that I included, and the fairies were all nice art, but they were all small and never kicked anyone's butt. The kids liked their decks, and both kids still play them after almost 2 years with the same decks. No one liked playing against my Damia combo control, and even in our cooperative games against a Zombie Horde deck that I built, everyone was always frustrated that the best tactic was just to keep me alive long enough that the deck went off and killed the Horde. No one liked feeling less powerful than me.
Fast forward through several rounds of Conspiracy draft, Conspiracy 2 draft, and the creation of an Innistrad super-block cube, and I now have a better idea of what is fun for everyone in my family. My wife now has a degenerate Omnath, Locus of Mana deck that ramps hard to massive creature beatdowns, my daughter has an Adriana, Captain of the Guard Boros hard aggro deck with many combat tricks and combos, my son plays both the Tolsimir Wolfblood deck, now slurred to mostly elves and wolves with a MLD and control sub-theme, as well as his new Rhys the Redeemed crazy token shenanigans. I have completely ditched the strong combo/control Damia, and decided not to play Blue at all.
My replacement deck is a Queen Marchesa political control deck with no combos, but super exciting endgames in every game. Check it out here. The deck plays no sweepers for anything, leaving everyone's board state mostly unmolested. The goals is to interact, but mostly with damage reversal and turbofog elements, and win off of their attacks. The strategy is to allow everyone to play their deck, and then punish the deck for what it does best, without ever limiting deck development aside from spot removal of things that will end the game or that directly threaten me. The result is a game where my kids always feel that they are in control of the game, their board development is often impressive and threatening, they make big plays against each other, their mother often becomes the Archenemy due to the fact that she will crush them if they don't stop her, and the ending is often some crazy alpha strike that I can either redirect to win, or it takes me out in spectacular fashion. This is a very satisfying way for our games to go, and when the kids win, they are often very proud of themselves and the power of their decks. My son will gloat all over the house when it happens. My wife gets to play a big stompy but super fast and aggressive deck that feels in control, my daughter gets to play an aggressive deck with several complicated combos to get extra attacks and combat tricks, my son always has a board state with a huge army of tokens that are often pumped into terrifyingly rabid proportions, and I get to manipulate the game very subtly throughout, and then turn the endgame into a massively explosive blowout, often with an underdog win for myself. Everyone is happy.
This brings me to my question for the community. For those who play with kids, especially with their family, what have you found that will produce fun and interactive games, allows everyone to play how they like, and creates what feels like epic endings for every game? My process for creating this environment with my own family has been:
1. Listen to the complaints about how games usually go, and no matter what I want to play, and take into account what everyone wants in a game.
2. Create a cube and watch what people like to draft. Ask about and talk about what makes games fun for each person and for everyone playing.
3. Create at least one deck for each person that plays in the style that they like, while not including cards that people dislike. In this case, there is only 1 infinite combo amongst all decks, and it is hard to pull off and is played by my 10 year old daughter, not me. It is also interactive and uses combat.
4. Make a deck for myself that is designed for interactivity, does not inhibit the creation of epic board states, and facilitates all kinds of fantastic wins. For reference, my deck Queen Marchesa: Politics, Aikido, and Control is my take on a non-Group Hug deck that makes games fun and exciting.
5. Avoid dominating with Blue. We only have one Blue deck in the house at this point, and that I my daughters Rashmi, Eternities Crafter cantrip semi-Stax Aetherflux Reservoir deck. No hard Blue control.
6. Limit Stax, limit non-interactive combo.
Are there ways that everyone here help to make playing magic exciting and fun for all play styles, all levels of sophistication, and all ages? I would like to hear other people's ideas about this subject.
TLDR: How do I make my family MTG Commander games fun for all ages and play styles? I have some ideas, but wanted feedback from the community.
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!
My approach is different. I'd make all four decks at the same time. I like to lay down cards for each deck that I think are equivalent in cost and equivalent in power. That way there is less of that feeling that the decks are not balanced. Deck synergies are different so trying to compare "like" cards is difficult, but if all the decks run similar mana and having similar converted mana costs, then games should on average be more even.
I like how you gave yourself Damia combo/control and your daughter Thelon of Havenwood. Just a bit of a power difference there
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
My son is now the only one who runs such cut throat themes. He is 8. The power balance is maintained pretty well.
This seems like a decent way to do it. How does this turn out making multiple commander decks at the same time? It is fine for us doing this with the Cube, but four 100 card decks from a huge card pool would be super intimidating. To manage this, we end up making decks on tapped out and use the playtest feature to try them out for a while against real decks. This allows us to tune them, compare power levels, and adjust before the kids spend any allowance money on cards. After they adjust their decks, I add some more expensive cards to their decks to beef them up some. We often concentrate on one deck at a time, so that we can do each deck justice. I may be dense, but I am not sure I could manage two kids, my wife, and a huge pile of cards, making four commander decks.
Haha... This was obviously a mistake. This was my first attempt after being out of Magic for over 15 years. I like BUG, and Damia seemed fun. It was silly in practice. We fixed that. My daughter loves BG, and making tons of tokens, especially plant tokens that escalate and beat face, tokens that you can sacrifice for value, and this was the first theme that she really took to. She now has a Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck to exploit the sacrifice theme better.
This was actually the point of this thread. I enjoy beating the crap out of my kids in a game as much as any father, but I have learned from my initial attempts. Now I have a deck that is competitive with theirs, but never makes them feel dominated. I am learning that I can take on the role of Archenemy whenever I want to by playing my deck super aggressively, while laying low and letting them take the lead when they want to dominate the game. Their decks have been tuned, using their input, but ensuring that they understand how the choices they make in deckbuilding can be made more optimal. They have each learned how to play more than straight up aggro and token decks, and we have evolved their decks with this education and sophistication in mind. We now have great games. I am looking for other stories about this, and how to better achieve the balance of power around the table, takes best advantage of each of their skills and tendencies, and allows them to play the types of games that they want to play. The only really overpowered stuff in the family is my wife's Omnath, Locus of Mana deck. That one just murders people, and that keeps her coming back to the table to play with the rest of us.
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!
The problem came when I used my Lazav clone mill deck. She felt that she wasnt interacting with me. The problem was my other decks were similar. Either I tried to sweep the game or I was a noninteractive combo deck. Also playing 1v1 didnt help. We had better games when my buddy would come over.
I will say it is nice when you can build a deck that isnt degenerate and sit down with others and have a good time. I like pulling out my political Ruhan deck then.
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!
some decks I made:
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice: Wurm tokens and beats
Jenara, Asura of War: ladies facing left
Zuberi, Golden Feather: griffins beat down
We are now a couple of years into playing as a family, and they are getting quite sophisticated. My son has a new love for control decks, trying to force in every "destroy" card he can into his decks. My daughter started with a janky combo deck, which fit her personality perfectly, and has now moved on to a really aggressive deck with some infinite combat phase shenanigans. Neither has a perfect understanding of the stack, activated vs triggered effects, or a great understanding of threat level aside from "take out dad or mom first, then turn on each other".
For the right kids, 6 is not too early for a very casual family game. Try to make their decks for them at first, concentrating on the things that are exciting for them, with large numbers of tokens, large numbers of counters, very large creatures, and funny little value loop combos being popular in my house. Don't try to expose them to all of MTG at first. You can skip the combo decks, Stax, any hard control, and Blue. Those are just frustrating for everyone. My Queen Marchesa deck has been a great addition to our games, because it is exciting, but never really stops anyone from playing the game that their deck was designed to create. Everyone has fun, no matter who wins. I am looking for decks here that create the same feeling. Interactive but not stifling, and that create exciting games as everyone seems to be about to win at any moment.
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!
Other commanders like Karador are good because the help kids learn to not freak out over losing their stuff in the graveyard. Which is an important lesson.
Then you have commanders like Rafiq, who is the consumant good guy, who can be tailored to suit a more Timmy type player.
But for me, if I'm picking a deck for a new player to begin with, I'd have to go with everyone's first EDH deck... Slivers.
Yes, they are a bit generic (although they don't have to be), and a few of them are pretty expensive. But the are fun to play with as a new player, they are easy, and they can win games even without their busted cards. what's more is that Wizards has provided us with great dual lands that are cheap and easy to pick up. You really don't need to look much beyond the guild gates, Khans wedge lands, or the litany of other CTP lands that are languishing about in stores everywhere.
Good luck!!
Ely
Also, don't give your wife a control deck, since those require that you pay close attention to the boardstate at all times. I'd be playing Xenagos or something with lots of creatures like that. The guys on the CommandZone podcast did a deck tech on a <$100 Xenagos list with one of the guys from the show Space Janitors, and it seemed awesome. Cast creatures, give 'em haste, make 'em huge, and go nuts. Not complicated and attacking someone with a 12/12 double striking, trampling beastie is universally fun unless you're an idiot.
EDH: UGEdric
Pauper: UR Delver
Modern: UGR Delver
Draft my cube: Eric's 390 Unpowered
The command zone podcast is definitely a great resource and I highly recommended those guys! I think a Timmy strategy with big beaters and ramp is always good. Make sure to keep things interactive. You mentioned that your son plays mass land destruction, and if your family enjoys that, great! But in general I would say that that strategy may not be the best for introducing kids to the game because it takes out the interaction and makes it feel as if you can't play Magic anymore. I know that I hated it when I was introduced to EDH. Everyone is unique however, and what matters most is doing something that everyone enjoys!
WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!