I have played magic for years (started with Alpha/Beta and quit with Ice Age). I sold all my cards then and now I only play online. My wife and step son want to start playing with real cards. She went down and bought 3 of the prebuild starter decks. I have been showing them the general mechanics. She is enjoying it and wants to go buy more of the premade starter decks for variety. I am not a big fan of that. I want to build her a simple standard deck.
Here is what I am thinking:
Elves?
Goblins?
White weenie?
tribe deck?
I basically want her to be able to play creatures and attack. Any ideas on which one we should go with? If you have a good deck list or a link to a simple good deck list please let me know.
B/W warriors is a good "simple" deck that you can grow with. You can play it straight up beat-your-face, but since there is synergy between the cads, it will also teach new players how to properly sequence which creatures they play. Also, white and black have strong complimentary removal options that will again allow for serious learning of game strategy.
Im not going to lie. I don't build decks. I will tweak them after playing with them, but I don't build them. Is there a deck list you could link me too?
If you want them to play something casual let the play edh or elder dragon highlander there are decks from kaalia , ghave, and progenitus its really fun best of all you can make them cheap. Depending on the deck of course. I bult my deck under 100$. If you want them to play standard for fun control would be intreasting. But keep in mind standard deck are expensive and rotate out.
The Salvationer is probably right. Buying intro decks (not the best value and often not the best basic ideas for the pool) is expensive and inefficient. EDH may be more up their alley. There's much less standard flexibility considering that the simpler builds usually have to do with cranking out a fast win and you're probably not going to get there via intro packs but rather digging through commons and uncommons more to assemble large numbers of effective low cmc cards. EDH tends to be slower on average which is a more forgiving playground usually.
But if you want to do standard, I suggest looking at UW heroic. I think the play in practice is much more straightforward than boss sligh. It looks something like this. Simplified anyway. I'm not bothering to deal with the kinds that play pilgrim and whatnot. They're fine too but its an unnecessary complication for one just learning.
Lands vary upon budget. If you never see a crackling doom, you can skip the stubborn denials for other things. If you see too much thoughtseize/despise, you might want to add a 16th heroic creature.
I am not set on standard. That is just what the only little local card shop plays. They play standard on Friday nights and Commander on Saturdays. I honestly dont know if we would ever even go up there and play. It depends if the wife ever wanted to. I have never looked into EDH or Commander. I might need to. I don't even know the rules to those. I play vintage online. Im actually wondering if we should just buy online instead of real cards. We have 3 laptops and could all play each other or others.
EDH seems like a very complex format to start someone on. There are so many interactions that lead to truly puzzling rules questions. I like the idea of B/W Warriors in standard I think that deck runs right around $30-40. You could also build something like a mono G ramp deck for pretty cheap maybe around $50-60. They are pretty easy to learn and tend to do things that a lot of newer players like to do like pump out a huge beast quickly and beat down. You can also do mono R aggro for super cheap, also known as "Boss Sligh" (link here http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=74326) if you leave out a couple of the expensive sideboard options the deck would run you less than $40. Those three decks alone would get you all playing and would make for some pretty interesting gameplay among yourselves and if you wanted to you could all go to an FNM and at least bring decks that can keep up. Boss Sligh just won my FNM last night.
Abzan is a very expensive deck to put together, but it's also a very straight forward deck to play and is generally easy for newer players to pick up and use as long as they understand the basics of using instants and planeswalkers as well.
If they need a more simple deck, a simple Mono G creature deck would work great. It'll be semi-competitive and easy to play at the same time. Something built around the base below.
Since my wife is good friends with the local card shop owner I just sent him a message with the deck list for Boss Sligh. Maybe he will have them all and we can get them today.
The one card in Boss Sligh that will be a little pricey is Stoke the Flames (around $5 each), you could sub it with Lightning Strike but the 1 extra damage from Stoke can really mean a lot. The $20 playset of Stoke makes up the majority of the maindeck cost because most of the other cards are commons and uncommons that run $1 or less.. Sideboard cards you might want to leave out are Goblin Rabblemaster (around $15 each) and Eidolon of the Great Revel (around $6 each).
Commander is a really amazing casual format I recommend you check out, and with a little research it's not that expensive. Honestly $100 minimum for a Commander deck is insane. My own list was $40 but you could make something completely playable for under $15 if you're smart about it. Another thing about the format is that it's very good at soaking up random singles you have lying around. Many junk uncommons lying around in draft trash are actually amazing game winners in the right deck.
To be honest, the Duel Decks sound like a great idea. No, they're not super fantastic decks, but they're a step up from the intro pack decks for sure, but still completely playable out of the box. I picked up the Duel Decks Anthology, which has reprints of the first four Duel Decks, as well as a recent Duel Deck, Jace Vs Vraska. We use them in my group of friends when someone doesn't have a deck or when none of us have matching balanced decks (standard, modern, casual, etc). It's definitely not tournament caliber, but for a fun night at home with friends or family, it's a pretty nice product.
I picked up the Duel Decks Anthology, which has reprints of the first four Duel Decks, as well as a recent Duel Deck, Jace Vs Vraska.
This product does not contain the Jace vs. Vraska Duel deck. I am not sure if you're saying it does or that you picked it up in addition to Anthologies but to be clear Anthologies only contains the 4 Original Duel Decks (Goblins vs. Elves, Jace vs. Chandra, Divine vs. Demonic and Garruk vs. Liliana).
I did however mean to include Anthologies in my post as well, for around $100 you will get 8 very playable decks that can make for a lot of great gameplay.
I too am a returning player that got his wife hooked on "cardboard crack" we started with just a deck builders kit and she just farted around with the first red deck i put together. Over the course of a couple months we've gotten fat packs, booster packs etc. shes just finished building her first red/white flying/intimidate deck..... *WARNING* be prepared to split all good cards evenly...("why should you get another radiant fountain, you already have 2")....lol
Here is what I am thinking:
Elves?
Goblins?
White weenie?
tribe deck?
I basically want her to be able to play creatures and attack. Any ideas on which one we should go with? If you have a good deck list or a link to a simple good deck list please let me know.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/standard-deck-creation/580717-extreme-white-black-warriors
thanks for the awsome image http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=329663!
proud member of the Spirit Of EDH
But if you want to do standard, I suggest looking at UW heroic. I think the play in practice is much more straightforward than boss sligh. It looks something like this. Simplified anyway. I'm not bothering to deal with the kinds that play pilgrim and whatnot. They're fine too but its an unnecessary complication for one just learning.
4 lagonna-band trailblazer
4 hero of iroas
3 battlewise hoplite
2 ordeal of heliod
4 stratus walk
4 gods willing
4 feat of resistance
2 Ajani's presence
1 aqueous form
2 defiant strike
2 stubborn denial
Lands vary upon budget. If you never see a crackling doom, you can skip the stubborn denials for other things. If you see too much thoughtseize/despise, you might want to add a 16th heroic creature.
If they need a more simple deck, a simple Mono G creature deck would work great. It'll be semi-competitive and easy to play at the same time. Something built around the base below.
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Arbor Colossus
4 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Ancient Silverback
Just lots of big beaters to keep attacking with.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/developing-competitive-modern/598381-kiki-chord-kiki-company
Bring to Niv
https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/814060-bring-to-niv-the-golden-deck
Legacy - Lands
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/established-legacy/control/535484-primer-lands
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
This product does not contain the Jace vs. Vraska Duel deck. I am not sure if you're saying it does or that you picked it up in addition to Anthologies but to be clear Anthologies only contains the 4 Original Duel Decks (Goblins vs. Elves, Jace vs. Chandra, Divine vs. Demonic and Garruk vs. Liliana).
I did however mean to include Anthologies in my post as well, for around $100 you will get 8 very playable decks that can make for a lot of great gameplay.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate