My son is 2 and my 2nd child is yet unborn, so I've got some time :-P
Anyway, I've been giving thought to how to introduce a ~5-6 year-old to MTG without overwhelming them. I've got some low power M13-only peasant decks that are easy to play and understand, but I am thinking about a way to introduce it the way I got into the game... I got an intro deck and played what was in it. Cube seems a likely choice.
I think i would want it to play out a bit like "pack wars" where you open a pack (sight unseen), add some land, shuffle and play. Maybe a 180 cube, separated by colors... you pick two colors, draw 11 cards at random from each color, add 9 of each corresponding basic, shuffle and play? The cards would all need to have simple mechanics, and I only want to spend like $20 on this (probably won't even sleeve it up) so it goes without saying it'll be peasant (with maybe 2-3 splashy rares in each color to give it that "pack" feel).
I have played like this before, pick 2 colors, pick random cards from those colors and add basic land. However, this was not with a set of cards designed for it but just all my spare cards. Also I have some experience with making a cube to learn people magic. Some advice I can give you from those experiences:
- Avoid any kind of anti-cards. So no Landwalk, protection from certain colors, things like Combust. These were incredibly unfun.
- Make sure there are no niche cards. For instance if you add Disenchant make sure that each deck has at least three/four targets. So 15/20% enchantments/artifacts. This also applies to other restrictive cards like Reprisal.
- Aggro decks are impossible in this format so don't try to support it (unless you dedicate 95%+ of (a) certain color(s) to it, so you essentially pick the "aggro" color(s))
- Have like ten keywords in total with each keyword bound to a certain color. So for example, black has deathtouch, green has trample and white has lifelink.
In general though, I am not sure this is the best way to learn/introduce young children to Magic. Might it not be better to just make a 30 card deck for each color and let them pick and play with that?
I have played like this before, pick 2 colors, pick random cards from those colors and add basic land. However, this was not with a set of cards designed for it but just all my spare cards. Also I have some experience with making a cube to learn people magic. Some advice I can give you from those experiences:
- Avoid any kind of anti-cards. So no Landwalk, protection from certain colors, things like Combust. These were incredibly unfun.
- Make sure there are no niche cards. For instance if you add Disenchant make sure that each deck has at least three/four targets. So 15/20% enchantments/artifacts. This also applies to other restrictive cards like Reprisal.
- Aggro decks are impossible in this format so don't try to support it (unless you dedicate 95%+ of (a) certain color(s) to it, so you essentially pick the "aggro" color(s))
- Have like ten keywords in total with each keyword bound to a certain color. So for example, black has deathtouch, green has trample and white has lifelink.
In general though, I am not sure this is the best way to learn/introduce young children to Magic. Might it not be better to just make a 30 card deck for each color and let them pick and play with that?
Those are good suggestions, especially about avoiding hate cards and narrow cards.
Re: 30-card decks. That's also good... I've got 6 decks made entirely from common & uncommon cards from M13, and I think they'll be a great resource for this too. I just think since they're pre-constructed that it'll take away from the discovery aspect of MTG where it's always different. I feel like as experienced players it's easy to get caught up in trying to get new players to want to build and play competitively, and sticking to something more random early might help me avoid that folly. That stuff can come later.
Anyway, I've been giving thought to how to introduce a ~5-6 year-old to MTG without overwhelming them. I've got some low power M13-only peasant decks that are easy to play and understand, but I am thinking about a way to introduce it the way I got into the game... I got an intro deck and played what was in it. Cube seems a likely choice.
I think i would want it to play out a bit like "pack wars" where you open a pack (sight unseen), add some land, shuffle and play. Maybe a 180 cube, separated by colors... you pick two colors, draw 11 cards at random from each color, add 9 of each corresponding basic, shuffle and play? The cards would all need to have simple mechanics, and I only want to spend like $20 on this (probably won't even sleeve it up) so it goes without saying it'll be peasant (with maybe 2-3 splashy rares in each color to give it that "pack" feel).
Anyone ever done something like this?
- Avoid any kind of anti-cards. So no Landwalk, protection from certain colors, things like Combust. These were incredibly unfun.
- Make sure there are no niche cards. For instance if you add Disenchant make sure that each deck has at least three/four targets. So 15/20% enchantments/artifacts. This also applies to other restrictive cards like Reprisal.
- Aggro decks are impossible in this format so don't try to support it (unless you dedicate 95%+ of (a) certain color(s) to it, so you essentially pick the "aggro" color(s))
- Have like ten keywords in total with each keyword bound to a certain color. So for example, black has deathtouch, green has trample and white has lifelink.
In general though, I am not sure this is the best way to learn/introduce young children to Magic. Might it not be better to just make a 30 card deck for each color and let them pick and play with that?
My C/Ube on Cube Cobra
My CubeCobra (draft 20 card packs, 2 packs.)
430, Peasant, Very Unpowered
Why you should take your hybrids out of your gold section
Manamath Article
Those are good suggestions, especially about avoiding hate cards and narrow cards.
Re: 30-card decks. That's also good... I've got 6 decks made entirely from common & uncommon cards from M13, and I think they'll be a great resource for this too. I just think since they're pre-constructed that it'll take away from the discovery aspect of MTG where it's always different. I feel like as experienced players it's easy to get caught up in trying to get new players to want to build and play competitively, and sticking to something more random early might help me avoid that folly. That stuff can come later.