My son and I broke open two welcome packs, and each of us combined the two 30-card packets inside in a single deck. We played the decks and to my surprise, the deck was very functional and nicely balanced against the other. We tried it again and had the same result.
So, I'm encouraged about the welcome pack idea!
But, I'm also starting to think maybe the mini-draft thing should be dropped, just to keep things simple. I am getting feedback from the kids this week, so we'll see how they react to all of this
My son and I broke open two welcome packs, and each of us combined the two 30-card packets inside in a single deck. We played the decks and to my surprise, the deck was very functional and nicely balanced against the other. We tried it again and had the same result.
So, I'm encouraged about the welcome pack idea!
But, I'm also starting to think maybe the mini-draft thing should be dropped, just to keep things simple. I am getting feedback from the kids this week, so we'll see how they react to all of this
What if you allow them to say insert 5 cards of their own collection into the welcome decks? This way the players who spent more $ on it may not be too frustrated.
Other than that, I did something similar when I worked at a spot. My policy was that the kids could always play with the club's decks, but could also opt to use their own decks. I think I prefer letting the kids play their own stuff. Kids have a severe attachment to their decks, so even if the balance is way off, the positives might outweigh the problems.
Another solution could be to change back and forth between collection constructed and impromptu constructed depending on the individual tournament.
It's definitely true that they are attached to their decks. The kids delight in comparing cards, trading, etc. So much so that I wonder if it's ruining their ability to really learn the game. For example, they always refer to games as 'which deck won' instead of which player won. It's assumed that the better deck will always win.
Also, the kids seem to have a single strategy for their deck, and just kind of repeat it each time. This causes them to play VERY quickly, i.e. the average standard game is probably 10 minutes beginning to end. A lot of this is just because they are 10 and going slow and pondering their next move isn't their nature, but it kind of seems like the tournament is turning into a content of who has the best deck.
So, I want to try this. But your idea gave me an idea: we have 5 sessions per tournament. Maybe this time, we use the welcome packs BUT in the final round,, it's BYOD (bring your own deck, is that an acronym?). That way, they still get to use their awesome decks at the end.
What I'm really trying to learn is simply this: If you take a welcome pack in a green deck box, put the 2 30-card packets together, and play them: will it still be fun and competitive?
I think it depends on how much the kids enjoy using their own decks versus the balance afforded by using preconstructed decks. Mashing together a pair of welcome decks creates a functional, if land-heavy, 60 card deck, so your idea does sound like an affordable way to create a balanced environment.
Well, the kids really do love using their own decks, yes. But, the decks are so broad in quality that it really does screw the whole thing up a bit. For example, there is 1 kid that obviously spend some $$ on their deck and he's clobbering everyone. So, a more balanced approach might be a great idea - just for something different.
Another idea would be to partner with a local game store (LGS) in your area. Stores that do drafts with any sort of frequency tend to end up with a great deal of draft chaff unwanted by the players who already have what they drafted.....
First, let me say that I absolutely agree with this. It would be better to do a proper draft with good cards. The problem is time, and attention span. A room full of 10-old boys is a twitchy, jumpy group with the attention span of a fly. I think that explaining even the most simple draft approach would result in a a time-suck that would eat up the whole period. So, I'm looking for a way to simply distribute reasonably balanced decks, and just introduce a little bit of what drafting 'might' be like by having them optimize the deck they received a bit.
Really, I could just lose the drafting part completely and just give them welcome packs to play with, but I like the idea of having them customize a little.
That said, I agree that partnering with a LGS would be the best course of action: should that not be feasible, then my vote goes to organizing a draft: don't sell short kids' ability to learn new rules, even if it takes a while they'll stay with you as long as the end game s something they're interested in. And I mean, surely the ones with the slick decks will complain, but in the end they'll have fun too: in the other scenario, the ones complaining (the kids with borrowed decks) would also end up not having any fun, so yeah, the draft really seems the lesser evil here.
I'm no saint - this MTG elective has turned into the most fun part of my week. I am enjoying it so much! But thanks
I have zero doubt that these kids could easily handle drafting. They are smart kids. The problem is simply time. Having experienced a classroom of 10 year olds at the end of the day on Friday a few times, I can really respect how teachers need to be experts at managing the kids. It's hard to keep them focused. I think that a whole elective session just devoted to drafting would be great, but this is a tournament elective so I wanna keep it streamlined.
I think that's a really good idea. In my program I don't have 20 children who enjoy playing magic, it's more like half that. So I have constructed a gauntlet of six different decks that they can borrow to supplement the ones they own.
If you have a vast amount of welcome decks your idea sounds pretty good.
Another thing you can do is have a "season," where the students stick with their deck they created and they battle with that for something like 3 weeks or so. Keep track of win/loss records and you could give the top 4 finishers a booster pack or something. Playing for something is pretty fun for children around that age and if it's just one pack it's not too much to get upset about when they don't win. I think having a continuation is something that children will really enjoy and they can learn the ins and outs of their deck for that season pretty well. Granted the students who don't place highly might feel bummed but that's when you can work with them one on one and it will become a teachable moment in deck construction and play patterns. And they can always compete with a new card pool next season. I don't know how many other staff you have and if that kind of attention is feasible in your program but if you can swing it, you should give it a shot.
Actually I asked Wizards to sell me some welcome packs and they sent a huge box for free! So, I have enough. We do give out prizes at the end and it's really fun, yes.
I considered having them use the same deck (they one they constructed) for the whole tournament, but I am expecting a lot of griping from the kids with the stronger decks when I reveal this plan. Having them start fresh each week will help even it out, and that also teaches kids some good skills. It's just as hard to win when both players are playing a kind of sloppy deck with generally weak cards, and the player doesn't really know the deck well.
I was toying with buying, somehow, a bunch of decks for this purpose. But, the duel decks aren't balanced enough to start mixing them up from one set to another, and they are expensive. I did find the Rookie decks over at Card Kingdom and that's the best option I've found, but still $8/pop.
I have a couple of weeks to plan this, so I'm just exploring options. All of your feedback is really helpful thanks!
I started running an MTG Tournament as an elective program at my kids school. It's just 50 minutes each Friday, for 5 Fridays. So, I decided to run a simple Swiss tournament and the kids loved it! It was a big hit and we're starting again with an even bigger group in a few weeks.
However, there was one issue: some kids had great decks, and others had to borrow a mediocre one. So, the kids with really nice decks had a big advantage which made it feel less 'fair'.
I think a good solution to this would be a conduct a draft before each game, but explaining and executing a draft with 20 impatient 10-year old kids seems like a bad idea. I don't have 20 evenly matched decks, but I do have a huge supply of welcome decks. So, I had an idea and I wanted to see if I could get any feedback.
What if we did this:
-at the beginning of each session, each kid gets 2 (or maybe 3?) welcome decks. Since the welcome decks are 'colored', we can even rotate it so that each kid gets a different set of colors each week
-the kids will have, say, 10 minutes to do a super-simplified-mini-draft in which they'll take their welcome decks and take them down to a single 40 card deck. (or maybe 60 card)
-then they'll play against their opponent
-the following week, I'll just switch things up so that each player receives a different set of starters - if they had a blue and a green welcome deck last week, this week maybe they get a red and a black.
Or something like that. Obviously the decks that they throw together will kind of suck, but at least they'll be reasonably matched and nobody will really be able to claim a 'better deck' advantage overall.
Does anyone have any thoughts about the wisdom of this plan? Any advice much appreciated!
My son and I broke open two welcome packs, and each of us combined the two 30-card packets inside in a single deck. We played the decks and to my surprise, the deck was very functional and nicely balanced against the other. We tried it again and had the same result.
So, I'm encouraged about the welcome pack idea!
But, I'm also starting to think maybe the mini-draft thing should be dropped, just to keep things simple. I am getting feedback from the kids this week, so we'll see how they react to all of this
My son and I broke open two welcome packs, and each of us combined the two 30-card packets inside in a single deck. We played the decks and to my surprise, the deck was very functional and nicely balanced against the other. We tried it again and had the same result.
So, I'm encouraged about the welcome pack idea!
But, I'm also starting to think maybe the mini-draft thing should be dropped, just to keep things simple. I am getting feedback from the kids this week, so we'll see how they react to all of this
It's definitely true that they are attached to their decks. The kids delight in comparing cards, trading, etc. So much so that I wonder if it's ruining their ability to really learn the game. For example, they always refer to games as 'which deck won' instead of which player won. It's assumed that the better deck will always win.
Also, the kids seem to have a single strategy for their deck, and just kind of repeat it each time. This causes them to play VERY quickly, i.e. the average standard game is probably 10 minutes beginning to end. A lot of this is just because they are 10 and going slow and pondering their next move isn't their nature, but it kind of seems like the tournament is turning into a content of who has the best deck.
So, I want to try this. But your idea gave me an idea: we have 5 sessions per tournament. Maybe this time, we use the welcome packs BUT in the final round,, it's BYOD (bring your own deck, is that an acronym?). That way, they still get to use their awesome decks at the end.
What I'm really trying to learn is simply this: If you take a welcome pack in a green deck box, put the 2 30-card packets together, and play them: will it still be fun and competitive?
Well, the kids really do love using their own decks, yes. But, the decks are so broad in quality that it really does screw the whole thing up a bit. For example, there is 1 kid that obviously spend some $$ on their deck and he's clobbering everyone. So, a more balanced approach might be a great idea - just for something different.
First, let me say that I absolutely agree with this. It would be better to do a proper draft with good cards. The problem is time, and attention span. A room full of 10-old boys is a twitchy, jumpy group with the attention span of a fly. I think that explaining even the most simple draft approach would result in a a time-suck that would eat up the whole period. So, I'm looking for a way to simply distribute reasonably balanced decks, and just introduce a little bit of what drafting 'might' be like by having them optimize the deck they received a bit.
Really, I could just lose the drafting part completely and just give them welcome packs to play with, but I like the idea of having them customize a little.
I'm no saint - this MTG elective has turned into the most fun part of my week. I am enjoying it so much! But thanks
I have zero doubt that these kids could easily handle drafting. They are smart kids. The problem is simply time. Having experienced a classroom of 10 year olds at the end of the day on Friday a few times, I can really respect how teachers need to be experts at managing the kids. It's hard to keep them focused. I think that a whole elective session just devoted to drafting would be great, but this is a tournament elective so I wanna keep it streamlined.
Actually I asked Wizards to sell me some welcome packs and they sent a huge box for free! So, I have enough. We do give out prizes at the end and it's really fun, yes.
I considered having them use the same deck (they one they constructed) for the whole tournament, but I am expecting a lot of griping from the kids with the stronger decks when I reveal this plan. Having them start fresh each week will help even it out, and that also teaches kids some good skills. It's just as hard to win when both players are playing a kind of sloppy deck with generally weak cards, and the player doesn't really know the deck well.
I was toying with buying, somehow, a bunch of decks for this purpose. But, the duel decks aren't balanced enough to start mixing them up from one set to another, and they are expensive. I did find the Rookie decks over at Card Kingdom and that's the best option I've found, but still $8/pop.
I have a couple of weeks to plan this, so I'm just exploring options. All of your feedback is really helpful thanks!
I started running an MTG Tournament as an elective program at my kids school. It's just 50 minutes each Friday, for 5 Fridays. So, I decided to run a simple Swiss tournament and the kids loved it! It was a big hit and we're starting again with an even bigger group in a few weeks.
However, there was one issue: some kids had great decks, and others had to borrow a mediocre one. So, the kids with really nice decks had a big advantage which made it feel less 'fair'.
I think a good solution to this would be a conduct a draft before each game, but explaining and executing a draft with 20 impatient 10-year old kids seems like a bad idea. I don't have 20 evenly matched decks, but I do have a huge supply of welcome decks. So, I had an idea and I wanted to see if I could get any feedback.
What if we did this:
-at the beginning of each session, each kid gets 2 (or maybe 3?) welcome decks. Since the welcome decks are 'colored', we can even rotate it so that each kid gets a different set of colors each week
-the kids will have, say, 10 minutes to do a super-simplified-mini-draft in which they'll take their welcome decks and take them down to a single 40 card deck. (or maybe 60 card)
-then they'll play against their opponent
-the following week, I'll just switch things up so that each player receives a different set of starters - if they had a blue and a green welcome deck last week, this week maybe they get a red and a black.
Or something like that. Obviously the decks that they throw together will kind of suck, but at least they'll be reasonably matched and nobody will really be able to claim a 'better deck' advantage overall.
Does anyone have any thoughts about the wisdom of this plan? Any advice much appreciated!