To summarize: WELCOME DECKS: Worth it to new players, especially if free; not worth it to experienced players BOOSTER BOX AND BOOSTER PACKS: Worth it for limited play, not for constructed play. INTRO PACKS: Not worth it to anyone for any reason DECK BUILDER'S TOOLKIT: Can be worth it for new players needing to build up their collection; not worth it for experienced players FAT PACKS: Seldom worth it for new or experienced players. Purchase only at a discount DUEL DECKS: Great value for new and casual players; not great for constructed play COMMANDER DECKS: Worth it for new and experienced players of Commander PRERELEASE KITS: Worth it for all players
@@blackjesus476 I'm a few months late, but Limited is a format where you and a bunch of other people get the same amount of booster packs and then you try to make a deck out of only the cards that you pull and some basic lands. If you've ever been to a prerelease event, it's a bit like that, it's all about building the best deck out of what you have. Usually the winner will get their pick of rares or mythics.
What I love about the prerelease packs is that if you go to a prerelease event, basically everyone there, experienced or new, is on an even playing field, since the cards are so new and everyone gets the same chance to get the same cards. Prereleases are excellent.
Just reflecting your own thoughts when you play the booster box game. But I totally agree with your grading on the Duel Decks and the Commander decks. They are fantastic.
+Tolarian Community College True however in all honesty my impression was similar to previous commenter. Just wanted to say coming back to the game after long hiatus, and your videos while being informative are also highly entertaining. Your work is greatly appreciated.
Buying singles is the base. The logic of buying packs according the owner of my local card shop is that if you find a super rare card in a pack you can sell it (maybe to him so he can of course sell it for three times what he paid you as he has to make some profit) and with that money than buy the cards you need. But since i don't consider myself a lucky person in this sort of things i think that to get a card that alone would cover the price of the entire deck i would like to play i shoud but tons of packs. Opening packs is good just for the owners of card shop since they get access to rare singles they can sell to their real price.
+kalleeklund2 That's the Japanese version of the Jace vs Chandra duel deck, which is sadly long out of print. It's the same as the English version, except they commissioned new 'anime' art for the two namesake planeswalkers. None of the other 118 cards got new artwork for the Japanese version. Current eBay prices are in the $75 range for the whole deck sealed and $15-20 for each foil planeswalker.
I just bought one off eBay, it cost me $68 and came in on Friday. sealed and perfect. combining anime + mtg not to mention the skyrocket in price of ancestral vision to ~$50 dollars made it sooo worth it.
+ArmadilloAl I really wish they would've given the same treatment for garruk vs liliana. I would have loved to see my favorite necromancer get the anime treatment.
I got back into MtG with a Battle for Zenkikar pre-release I bought the day it came out at my local shop. It was trashing decks people ran that were legit competitors. I was amazed, and absolutely loved it. Now I have something like 1000 cards and 6-9 built decks that I've been doing for fun and so friends can play. We had a friday night where 6 of us played on 3 man teams, 3v3. Amazingly fun stuff. Thanks for the great videos!
+Brett Schall Anything that gets you random cards is bad for constructing a deck, since you cannot reliably get what you need. The best way to get what you need is to trade or buy individual cards from people in person or on one of the many trading sites that exist. Since there really aren't any good MtG products that get players at the very least a starting point for a standard playable deck, this is really unfortunate for new players, since they will pretty much have to start buying from scratch.
I didn't even know some people still did that. But seriously, if you're a new player, NEVER agree to wager one of your cards. If you're new or haven't got a solid deck yet, you're simply not going to win that wager, ever.
John Sullivan There are many Budget friendly decks up on other Magic the Gathering channels. I know MtG Goldfish does a lot of them. This channel does a couple. They can be a great starting off point for a new player. It's like buying a pre-constructed deck, but it is actually decent unlike the official ones. You'll have to go online and buy all the cards yourself, but you'll know what cards you need at least. They are more expensive than pre-constructed MtG products, but the cards themselves are actually usable and can actually win you games of MtG against semi-competitive players.
Just a reminder that you're, in my opinion, the best MTG youtuber. Your voice is oddly soothing, your arguments are well backed up, and your product recommendations and booster box games have aided my purchasing.
As always, your videos are awesome! One like thing I'd like to share is how I got into MTG. And that was through Intro Decks. One thing I think it does get right is the introduction of new mechanics and getting used to dual colors. It feels like a bit of a step above beginner. When I started I really didn't know what type of deck I wanted to make. I didn't even know what cards to search for (singles). I was also set on monocolored decks that were straightforward. These decks gave me a good baseline without extensive research or help. That said, if you have friend(s) that are advanced, I would definitely recommend asking them to help you make a deck over intro decks. But if I think if you're starting alone or starting with a group of friends and want to make a 60 card deck these are what Intro decks are intended for.
I run weekly Pauper games at my local library to teach the local youth how to MTG and create a friendly environment for all tcg players. your videos have been an amazing help, I have a link to your channel permanently on my whiteboard. Thanks for putting in the effort to making these wonderful videos.
Professor, it's abundantly clear after watching your videos (well, it was clear before watching them honestly) that the closer a product is in the supply chain to Wizards of the Coast, the less likely you'll want to (or should) buy it (basically, buy singles). Since you're one of the most watched Magic: the Gathering CZcams channels, and I want to see Magic (and therefore Wizards) successful long term, I think it would be very interesting to see a video with your suggestions for how Wizards could improve its business model, to increase the availability of cards to players, and make more money for themselves, whether it's putting 2-3 rares in a pack instead of 1, lowering the price of boosters/boxes, or releasing a new product that you think of. Just a suggestion for a video I would love to see!
+Taylor Pace Making intro decks THAT ARE PLAYABLE would be a big help. I'm really curious who goes about testing those decks because they are simply not fun to play when they can't even hold a candle to a personally made deck. --Standard Tournament Legal and viable Intro decks --Intro Decks for Modern and Legacy formats (as a jumping off point for entering new and more expensive formats) --WotC will likely never change pack prices because supply and demand has their back. the people who won't buy them at $4 likely won't buy them at $3 and all you'd be doing then is shaving off 25% of your profits from those that do buy the $4 packs. --Integrate more Magic formats officially under WotC's rules. This is the reason Commander is so damn successful. Additionally, officially sanctioned formats boost prices of singles relevant to that format. (ie, jank commons becoming cardboard gold with the introduction of Pauper format)
Agreed! I have a friend who wanted to learn Magic, so we got the intro decks. We got the blue one and red one. I am convinced the blue one cannot win unless your opponent is asleep - it has only 30 cards, and if you case all of your card draw spells, you end up drawing ~8 of them (not including the creature that you can pay 2B to draw a card and give a +1/+1 counter) - it will draw itself out. Every single game. I thought it was just my friend misplaying it because he was new, but no, the thing is horribly made. I don't think lowering pack price is the BEST option, but, if you put 2-3 rares in a pack instead of one and kept it at the same price, I would go from buying zero to buying at least a box or two of new sets.
Every time I hear that music start up in these product reviews, I know I'm in for something good. It gets me all sorts of excited when the little jingle starts playing. Keep up the good work, Professor.
I so wish they made a good pre constructed product for standard, modern, and legacy. It would be great for new players and players expanding their formats. It would also help fix the problem of reprints. Wizards please!
TCC has reviewed in favor of the Modern event deck. That said as a fresh player myself I've built what's been toted as a great starting deck by the guys at my LGS off of a Draft (+1 for placing which landed a Jace), Toolkit, a pre-release pack, and a single booster (65 total USD). Admittedly that's largely thanks to an Avacyn, and other big time tradables I've pulled.
That would massively devalue any of the cards employees got from printings, stop people from bulk buying boxes and flood the modern pool with these decks. Also they can't print a deck for every archetype so trading from one deck into another becomes nearly impossible as people don't need to trade cards with you if they can buy it off a shelf. I say this as a man who would love a product like this, but knows that wizards most affluent, and devoted players would hate it.
Felix Read It's a secondary market. Wizards is not profiting off of modern so it would only make sense for them to do reprints. Your argument is invalid.
Intro packs are good for newer players which have no interest in tournaments/fnm. Both me and my friends each bought one and we had mostly balanced decks and a way to upgrade and trade.
+RobtonPlay You're much better off with buying duel decks and even Toolkits rather than buying the intro packs. At least with toolkits assuming you and your friend buys one, you can practice and learn about deck building, synergy, and so much more.
+Orcish Slumber Jack I don't buy that for a second. Intro packs aren't deliberately balanced and are typically based on draft archetypes which can vary DRAMATICALLY in power. Duel Decks on the other hand, are specifically designed to be a "fair" matchup.
+RobtonPlay A better option would just be to come to a LGS after a draft night and scavenge all the commons and uncommons that people leave on the table. They're usually a nuisance to the shop owners and since the people who paid for them don't often need them after a draft, you get free cards.
I think new players should buy an deckbuilders toolkit instead of an preconstructed deck, it is an way way more fun way to start the game in my oppinion.
SeriousGuy 920 I feel like the deckbuilders toolkit does a good job at explaining how to build a deck. Also, you most likely aren't getting into magic by yourself, so new players probably have some friends to help them out with determining card value in their deck.
@@Shin_mid go online, there should be a site where you can find the nearest store that hosts magic the gathering tournaments. The most common one is called friday night magic. There, you can find people who love the game, and who will become some VERY good friends so long as you aren't a dick. A few are tryhards, but ignore them. In my experience, I met one of my best friends at one of those shops. He was 70 years old, played with cards so old a few were straight up worth hundreds of dollars. His humour was worth infinitely more though.
Just discovered you're channel this year I'm enjoying the content you created. Also learning much more. I vaule your opinions and knowledge of what you have to say. Thank you for making this content it really help me decide what duel decks to purchase.
I'm not sure if you ever see this comment but - the way you speak articulately and the way you present the information with such knowledge, I can't tell you how much I've learned from you being a new player. In case no one has told you today- thank you so much, from myself and every other person that comes in contact with your channel.
My lgs gave me & my friend a dule deck & a pack each from the latest set & a regular there helped teach us about the different mechanics and asked if we enjoyed the game to come back we've been playing & buying from them ever since that was about 6 yrs ago, I still get dule decks sometimes just to have a fun game night r teach a new player we battle twice playing each deck once & I let them pick the one they like the best to keep love my lgs
I do want to point out something with the Deckbuilder's Toolkit. What you're essentially buying is all five welcome decks, four boosters, and a half decent card storage box. So you get all of the advantages of the welcome decks, you get a basic understanding of what a booster is (and the disappointment that comes with it), and some very remedial deckbuilding experience. $20 is a little steep for all that, but if the welcome decks are unavailable to you I always highly recommend it to new players.
I do have to say professor that the new toolbox kit that recently came out is an improvement over the previous one. with two packs of a set that isn't rotating out for a year so now all 4 packs are worthwhile, it is a significant improvement there. and as for the semi-randomized cards, they did include quite a few cards as 2016 playable so that we can increase the pool of cards outside of those released in each of the current standard sets. unfortunately most if not all of them are not worth including in a constructed standard deck. but maybe next toolkit they will learn from this one and improve on it some more.
one of my local stores was sticking with the welcome decks are free. i asked and they gave me one because i wanted to use it to teach my kid to play magic. once shes ready it will be fun to go booster drafting with my kid and get some good bonding
im just getting into mtg and I couldn't believe the welcome packs at first but then the guy and my local game store just gave me the 6 card booster and the welcome pack for free! so awesome!
It's like drugs, right. They smile at you and give you the first taste for free, so you think it's all fun and games. Then you find yourself wondering if it's worth it to spend over $200 on a set of 90 cards when you only plan to use about 10 of them plus the pretty, pretty lands.
+Tolarian Community College Huh, that's strange. Thanks for the correction! I checked over at MTGSalvation just to make sure so I wouldn't post anything incorrect; I guess someone needs to go change the information over there.
fat packs are good for obtaining lands to play commander; but tbh like they said in the video buy commander decks so fat packs are useless unless you dont want to play with a preconstructed commander deck and totally want to be out there and build from scratch
I started playing magic the gathering with an M15 green prerelease pack. At that prerelease I went 3 - 1 with the deck I made and won 6 more packs. I felt amazing. Phytotitan will forever have a special place in my heart
Brian you have some talent when it comes to MTG videos. Your tone and the way you weave your words makes me feel like I'm watching an in infomercial for Magic. 10/10 A++ like the Hyper-Matte of Magic: the Gathering reviewers.
very informative; I actually started into Magic through the Commander format back on October 24th, 2015 and I fell in love immediately that is coming from a once avid Pokemon player and a once avid Yugioh Player (stopped Yugioh when introduced to Magic)
I just want to say I know this video didn't say it at least not yet bc I just started. For reason idk why. I friggin love the way you say "many mtg players ask the question" random ik but felt you should know that. Nice intros :)
I strongly disagree with the intro pack part. Coming from a developing country with no local store. playing mtg is hard, i started with a friend 1 year ago and all I bought is intro deck, we never buy more than 5 singles, all worth less than 0.5$ each mostly uncom and the game is stil great, it is for me the best product since it is easy to upgrade and cheap. Booster pack in it gave us some option as well.
Thank you very much for creating this video! I desperately want to become adept at this card game and youve helped out tremendously . You've earned a sub :)
Actually i love how you make this videos . I love the way you give us advices that are actually very accurate. I subscribe and i m proud of you , professor : )
I don't know about you guys, but the Amonket deck builder's toolkit I bought for 30CAD gave me three legendary creatures and one legendary artifact plus 25 full-art lands on top of the 100 others, as well as non-basic lands. I was pretty happy with it, and as a new player, it was a great start to my collection. Also, what he said about 2 friend buying one each and using them against each other is exactly what me and my boyfriend did, and aside from the fact that he's more experienced than I am (playing for a while but never actually had his own cards) it worked out pretty well! There's also the fact that my toolkit gave me 3 legendary creature cards and 1 legendary artifact
Decided to try Magic last November and bought the Origins Deckbuilders Toolkit. One of the booster packs contained a foil Jace, Vryn's prodigy. I had no idea it was valuable until I posted a picture on Facebook saying it was pretty. Then I got a flood of messages from more knowledgable friends. I sold it and was able to start building a broad collection.
Hey Professor, I don't watch you all that much anymore since I've put up MTG for awhile but I still drop by from time to time. I started watching you sometime before the first Patreon video and stopped shortly after. I just checked and I'm glad to see that the Patreon donations are still going strong and even growing. Initially I was concerned that people would jump aboard the donation train then disappear but that hasn't happened. Anyway, this random internet stranger wishes you the best. Oh, and keep up the great content. Cheers.
Hey, Prof. I know you probably won't read this, but I have to thank you. Thank you for pointing me towards the Welcome Decks. I now have a Simic Deck, all for free. I can't wait to join this fantastic community. (Unfortunately, I don't have a job, and no money to buy sleeves, a box, or a playmat yet...YET.)
I got a free welcome deck and my local game store owner walked me and my friends through it for like a whole hour, I also bought some cards and made my custom deck to my preferences, it's a really fun game!
A deck builders tool kit is the first thing I purchased after receiving my 2 welcome decks, and I have to say it was a great purchase for me as a new player.
+Tolarian Community College, you mention collecting in this video, specifically in relation to booster boxes. This leads me to ask two questions. 1) do you collector Magic cards yourself (as in even if you'll never use the card you want one of each)? 2)If booster boxes aren't worth it for collectors, what's the best way for collectors to get all the cards in a set? I suppose the answer is the secondary market, but in some cases cards such as Planeswalkers can be very expensive and I myself try not to spend more than $10AU on a card. Also, if you consider a collection not complete unless you have all the promos, Pre-release and so on then it can be quite expensive indeed. I'd love to hear your thoughts on collecting Magic cards, perhaps in a future video? On a side note, I love the Fatpack and the collector in me adores the box, booklet and die.
It may be worth adding an annotation to the intro pack section of this video mentioning the fact that 5 intro decks per block have been replaced with 2 planeswalker decks per block.
I've found that boosters are a good way to start once you understand the game and want to be a bit more competitive. You'll find a lot of junk but you'll also find a card or two that is a revelation and you want to build a deck around. After that you can go online and find cards that work with it and make the deck sing, but boosters give you inspiration. Wayward Servant is a common but it's ability (each enemy loses one life and you gain one life whenever a zombie enters play under your control) is great, I went online and got about twenty cards aiming at getting out lots of zombie tokens, boosting my zombies, and bringing things out of your graveyard. The idea is to swarm with zombies and drain them for life while bolstering your own and then boosting them all for one fatal swing. I got a Coat of Arms from a duel deck and that's been a game ender whenever I get it out. Throw some removal in there to protect your win condition and it works like a charm, Dark Salvation for example gives you additional tokens and doubles as creature removal. Of course any deck has weaknesses, I've got little answer for flyers and a board wipe would put me in bad shape, it's still a little slow to start, it needs some tweaking yet. Mainly I just need to work on getting the mana I need early on, but good land is bloody expensive.
I, the warlockish tutor started playing magic when I bought a 5th edition deck in 1997 with a tempest booster pack. tempest is an expansion for mtg. it's better for lower level players to play basic magic, than expansions that are for professionals. I also played a sliver deck against a sliver deck. preconstructed decks are very easy to beat. each 60 card deck should be tournament legal. no cards from portal should ever be bought.
As someone who is looking to return after years away and selling off my old cards after swearing off this addiction to feed my other addictions, well it is good to see my old trick for when I wanted to waste money on this addiction will still work. Take my spare cash, walk into the store, buy 5 of the newest sets premade decks which look mildly interesting, buy as many booster boxes as I can spare for that budget, open a nice bottle of alcoholic beverage, and start opening cards before building what I can from what I got between the boosters and the decks, dump the remaining cards I don't care for on the local game shop and call it done. While expensive, it always produces multiple playable, fun and reliable decks and makes enough money back that I used to break just below even.
I got a gift box from Walmart and it was pretty solid. I actually started 2 weeks ago with a red intro deck. I slowly transformed it into the deck it is now, low cost creatures and damaging instants and sorcery cards, with a few white spells too. It's a consistent winner among friends, but in tournaments it's probably poop.
Hey Professor, this video was featured in the Daily Magic Update! magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/daily-magic-update/update-2016-05-03 As well as your video on what Magc does better than other games, in the DMU from yesterday! magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/daily-magic-update/update-2016-05-02 I'm glad you're getting the recognition you deserve. This channel helped me get back into Magic, and I feel it tends to an underrepresented need in the game today.
I just started playing this game the other day with friends. I started with a Intro Pack, and am doing pretty good. So far, since 11-12-16/11-16-16, I've won 3/5 games.
Fat packs are effectively starter kits for sealed. Try using them as a year round substitute for prerelease kits especially if you play kitchen table magic
Me and a friend each buy a fat pack each set and build a deck PURELY out of the booster packs included its extreamly fun just i wish i had more people to play with here in NZ
I know this is an old video, but still I want to mention something. There's no word about a casual player. Well I am very happy with buying a deck builder's toolkit to start collecting a pool of cards to build decks from and play against each other with a friend. I also have some of these arena starter kits. So the decks I build shell be pretty mich the same power level to make the games fun to play. It doesn't always need to be the most powerful cards to simply have fun with. It's my personal budget edition of the game, because I don't want to keep up with standard, nor do I want to spend hundreds of euros for one modern or legacy deck. Maybe I will do that at some point in my life, but for now I found a way to play this game on a budget level that I like and have fun with.
intro decks are decent with a budget friendly size collections. it always for a common mechanic to be broken down and built upon, whether it be tearing about 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 or the deck. my first intro deck i bought as a new magic player, a some odd 3 years ago, is still being used today. Built from the already set ground floor up, it has not lost a game unless from player error, example: bad draws or judgement of play. Which still being a new player happens often. I've had vet players, play with my deck after explaining the use and structure and having them look over to have a basic understanding of how i play, and they said it was fit fine. although i can say, intro decks, at times can be faulty and worth nothing but to include to your collection. My point being, you can build from it, you can bring it to friday night magic.
Actually Deckbuilder's Toolkits are better than they were previously because there are no longer 2 booster packs included from the "outgoing set". All of the deckbuilder's toolkits for Shadows over Innistrad include 2 Boosters from Battle for Zendikar and 2 for Innistrad.
You know... you hate on opening packs, and boost boxes quite often, but you never really consider one major fact, singles HAVE to come form someone opening those packs. someone, somewhere had to open those boost packs to get the singles YOU say everyone shoudl buy.
Yeah they have lots of money get GOOD cards from buying boosters then buying singles is cheaper than packs so basically they have lots of money to buy packs
I went to my local game story today ask about buying a starter set. The owner handed me 3 boxes said they were free and invited me to come back and play anytime👍
I remember that they used to make event decks last time I did FNM about 4 years ago. A shame if they dont make those any longer cause out of the box, I used a red deck and had half decent results!
putting this on 1.25x speed was an amazing decision
I thought you wanted to be funny but...
Cover me, I'm going 1.5x
Thank you so much T^T
actually so helpful
bruno edwards NOOOO IM ON MOBILE!!!
To summarize:
WELCOME DECKS: Worth it to new players, especially if free; not worth it to experienced players
BOOSTER BOX AND BOOSTER PACKS: Worth it for limited play, not for constructed play.
INTRO PACKS: Not worth it to anyone for any reason
DECK BUILDER'S TOOLKIT: Can be worth it for new players needing to build up their collection; not worth it for experienced players
FAT PACKS: Seldom worth it for new or experienced players. Purchase only at a discount
DUEL DECKS: Great value for new and casual players; not great for constructed play
COMMANDER DECKS: Worth it for new and experienced players of Commander
PRERELEASE KITS: Worth it for all players
Christopher Carbonaro I know I’m 2 years late, but what is meant by limited play?
@@blackjesus476 i assume play that has set cycles like standard
@@blackjesus476 I'm a few months late, but Limited is a format where you and a bunch of other people get the same amount of booster packs and then you try to make a deck out of only the cards that you pull and some basic lands.
If you've ever been to a prerelease event, it's a bit like that, it's all about building the best deck out of what you have. Usually the winner will get their pick of rares or mythics.
@@battlemaiden4290 slick, thanks.
I agree
What I love about the prerelease packs is that if you go to a prerelease event, basically everyone there, experienced or new, is on an even playing field, since the cards are so new and everyone gets the same chance to get the same cards. Prereleases are excellent.
The short version: "Just buy singles if you don't want jank."
+xanaxkamikaze Actually, the overall grades are fairly evenly distributed. There's A's, B's, C's and Fails.
Just reflecting your own thoughts when you play the booster box game. But I totally agree with your grading on the Duel Decks and the Commander decks. They are fantastic.
+Tolarian Community College True however in all honesty my impression was similar to previous commenter. Just wanted to say coming back to the game after long hiatus, and your videos while being informative are also highly entertaining. Your work is greatly appreciated.
+Tolarian Community College there ''are'' professor....there ''are''...
Buying singles is the base. The logic of buying packs according the owner of my local card shop is that if you find a super rare card in a pack you can sell it (maybe to him so he can of course sell it for three times what he paid you as he has to make some profit) and with that money than buy the cards you need. But since i don't consider myself a lucky person in this sort of things i think that to get a card that alone would cover the price of the entire deck i would like to play i shoud but tons of packs. Opening packs is good just for the owners of card shop since they get access to rare singles they can sell to their real price.
I want that dual deck to the left.
I saw it, you cant hide my anime from me.
+kalleeklund2 That's the Japanese version of the Jace vs Chandra duel deck, which is sadly long out of print. It's the same as the English version, except they commissioned new 'anime' art for the two namesake planeswalkers. None of the other 118 cards got new artwork for the Japanese version.
Current eBay prices are in the $75 range for the whole deck sealed and $15-20 for each foil planeswalker.
I just bought one off eBay, it cost me $68 and came in on Friday. sealed and perfect. combining anime + mtg not to mention the skyrocket in price of ancestral vision to ~$50 dollars made it sooo worth it.
+ArmadilloAl
I really wish they would've given the same treatment for garruk vs liliana. I would have loved to see my favorite necromancer get the anime treatment.
I got back into MtG with a Battle for Zenkikar pre-release I bought the day it came out at my local shop. It was trashing decks people ran that were legit competitors. I was amazed, and absolutely loved it. Now I have something like 1000 cards and 6-9 built decks that I've been doing for fun and so friends can play. We had a friday night where 6 of us played on 3 man teams, 3v3. Amazingly fun stuff. Thanks for the great videos!
So if booster packs and box are bad for constructing decks...how do you construct a deck.
+Brett Schall Anything that gets you random cards is bad for constructing a deck, since you cannot reliably get what you need. The best way to get what you need is to trade or buy individual cards from people in person or on one of the many trading sites that exist. Since there really aren't any good MtG products that get players at the very least a starting point for a standard playable deck, this is really unfortunate for new players, since they will pretty much have to start buying from scratch.
+p4 Games or you could wager 1 card from your deck to get the cards you want in a duel.
I didn't even know some people still did that. But seriously, if you're a new player, NEVER agree to wager one of your cards. If you're new or haven't got a solid deck yet, you're simply not going to win that wager, ever.
John Sullivan There are many Budget friendly decks up on other Magic the Gathering channels. I know MtG Goldfish does a lot of them. This channel does a couple. They can be a great starting off point for a new player. It's like buying a pre-constructed deck, but it is actually decent unlike the official ones. You'll have to go online and buy all the cards yourself, but you'll know what cards you need at least. They are more expensive than pre-constructed MtG products, but the cards themselves are actually usable and can actually win you games of MtG against semi-competitive players.
Brett Schall go on this website TCGplayer just fund carda
Prerelease Packs- Worth it for all players* *Depending on how good or bad the set coming around is!
Just a reminder that you're, in my opinion, the best MTG youtuber. Your voice is oddly soothing, your arguments are well backed up, and your product recommendations and booster box games have aided my purchasing.
Step 1: Get some money
If you're worried about money, you should buy singles and only singles.
As always, your videos are awesome!
One like thing I'd like to share is how I got into MTG. And that was through Intro Decks. One thing I think it does get right is the introduction of new mechanics and getting used to dual colors. It feels like a bit of a step above beginner.
When I started I really didn't know what type of deck I wanted to make. I didn't even know what cards to search for (singles). I was also set on monocolored decks that were straightforward. These decks gave me a good baseline without extensive research or help.
That said, if you have friend(s) that are advanced, I would definitely recommend asking them to help you make a deck over intro decks. But if I think if you're starting alone or starting with a group of friends and want to make a 60 card deck these are what Intro decks are intended for.
I run weekly Pauper games at my local library to teach the local youth how to MTG and create a friendly environment for all tcg players. your videos have been an amazing help, I have a link to your channel permanently on my whiteboard. Thanks for putting in the effort to making these wonderful videos.
this video is an A+!
A++
Professor, it's abundantly clear after watching your videos (well, it was clear before watching them honestly) that the closer a product is in the supply chain to Wizards of the Coast, the less likely you'll want to (or should) buy it (basically, buy singles). Since you're one of the most watched Magic: the Gathering CZcams channels, and I want to see Magic (and therefore Wizards) successful long term, I think it would be very interesting to see a video with your suggestions for how Wizards could improve its business model, to increase the availability of cards to players, and make more money for themselves, whether it's putting 2-3 rares in a pack instead of 1, lowering the price of boosters/boxes, or releasing a new product that you think of. Just a suggestion for a video I would love to see!
+Taylor Pace
Making intro decks THAT ARE PLAYABLE would be a big help. I'm really curious who goes about testing those decks because they are simply not fun to play when they can't even hold a candle to a personally made deck.
--Standard Tournament Legal and viable Intro decks
--Intro Decks for Modern and Legacy formats (as a jumping off point for entering new and more expensive formats)
--WotC will likely never change pack prices because supply and demand has their back. the people who won't buy them at $4 likely won't buy them at $3 and all you'd be doing then is shaving off 25% of your profits from those that do buy the $4 packs.
--Integrate more Magic formats officially under WotC's rules. This is the reason Commander is so damn successful. Additionally, officially sanctioned formats boost prices of singles relevant to that format. (ie, jank commons becoming cardboard gold with the introduction of Pauper format)
Agreed! I have a friend who wanted to learn Magic, so we got the intro decks. We got the blue one and red one. I am convinced the blue one cannot win unless your opponent is asleep - it has only 30 cards, and if you case all of your card draw spells, you end up drawing ~8 of them (not including the creature that you can pay 2B to draw a card and give a +1/+1 counter) - it will draw itself out. Every single game. I thought it was just my friend misplaying it because he was new, but no, the thing is horribly made.
I don't think lowering pack price is the BEST option, but, if you put 2-3 rares in a pack instead of one and kept it at the same price, I would go from buying zero to buying at least a box or two of new sets.
Every time I hear that music start up in these product reviews, I know I'm in for something good. It gets me all sorts of excited when the little jingle starts playing. Keep up the good work, Professor.
This is possibly the best video you've made, Professor! Keep it up!
I so wish they made a good pre constructed product for standard, modern, and legacy. It would be great for new players and players expanding their formats. It would also help fix the problem of reprints. Wizards please!
TCC has reviewed in favor of the Modern event deck. That said as a fresh player myself I've built what's been toted as a great starting deck by the guys at my LGS off of a Draft (+1 for placing which landed a Jace), Toolkit, a pre-release pack, and a single booster (65 total USD). Admittedly that's largely thanks to an Avacyn, and other big time tradables I've pulled.
That would massively devalue any of the cards employees got from printings, stop people from bulk buying boxes and flood the modern pool with these decks. Also they can't print a deck for every archetype so trading from one deck into another becomes nearly impossible as people don't need to trade cards with you if they can buy it off a shelf. I say this as a man who would love a product like this, but knows that wizards most affluent, and devoted players would hate it.
+Felix Read lol. You mean make it affordable.
+Leo Gir (Leon) For people on low incomes like us? ye. But catering to people with no money is bad for business.
Felix Read It's a secondary market. Wizards is not profiting off of modern so it would only make sense for them to do reprints. Your argument is invalid.
Intro packs are good for newer players which have no interest in tournaments/fnm. Both me and my friends each bought one and we had mostly balanced decks and a way to upgrade and trade.
+RobtonPlay You're much better off with buying duel decks and even Toolkits rather than buying the intro packs. At least with toolkits assuming you and your friend buys one, you can practice and learn about deck building, synergy, and so much more.
+RobtonPlay I found 2 intro packs is a more balanced pair than the duel decks.
+Orcish Slumber Jack I don't buy that for a second. Intro packs aren't deliberately balanced and are typically based on draft archetypes which can vary DRAMATICALLY in power.
Duel Decks on the other hand, are specifically designed to be a "fair" matchup.
+RobtonPlay A better option would just be to come to a LGS after a draft night and scavenge all the commons and uncommons that people leave on the table. They're usually a nuisance to the shop owners and since the people who paid for them don't often need them after a draft, you get free cards.
There are no drafts at the nearest LGS which is 20 miles away
I think new players should buy an deckbuilders toolkit instead of an preconstructed deck, it is an way way more fun way to start the game in my oppinion.
bLu yeah but if you are starting brand new you may not have the experience to build a deck because you dont know what each card's power is
SeriousGuy 920 I feel like the deckbuilders toolkit does a good job at explaining how to build a deck. Also, you most likely aren't getting into magic by yourself, so new players probably have some friends to help them out with determining card value in their deck.
I want to get into magic and I don't have friends :(
@@Shin_mid go online, there should be a site where you can find the nearest store that hosts magic the gathering tournaments. The most common one is called friday night magic. There, you can find people who love the game, and who will become some VERY good friends so long as you aren't a dick. A few are tryhards, but ignore them. In my experience, I met one of my best friends at one of those shops. He was 70 years old, played with cards so old a few were straight up worth hundreds of dollars. His humour was worth infinitely more though.
@@peterisrabsa318 That's what more youtube tutorials are for.
I was walking and somehow, youtube opened and this vid started... Wow Is Magic calling me?!
Just discovered you're channel this year I'm enjoying the content you created. Also learning much more. I vaule your opinions and knowledge of what you have to say. Thank you for making this content it really help me decide what duel decks to purchase.
Great tour of MtG products, thanks! Hope Wizards hears you on the intro packs.
Deck Builder's Toolkit Sealed is a pretty fun format.
I'm not sure if you ever see this comment but - the way you speak articulately and the way you present the information with such knowledge, I can't tell you how much I've learned from you being a new player. In case no one has told you today- thank you so much, from myself and every other person that comes in contact with your channel.
its so satisfying to hear your intro
i think we need a sequel to this :)
i remember I just started magic around when kahns came out and I bought the m15 toolkit and it helped me a lot
My lgs gave me & my friend a dule deck & a pack each from the latest set & a regular there helped teach us about the different mechanics and asked if we enjoyed the game to come back we've been playing & buying from them ever since that was about 6 yrs ago, I still get dule decks sometimes just to have a fun game night r teach a new player we battle twice playing each deck once & I let them pick the one they like the best to keep love my lgs
Me and my friend are planning on getting into this game, so this video was a huge help!
I do want to point out something with the Deckbuilder's Toolkit.
What you're essentially buying is all five welcome decks, four boosters, and a half decent card storage box. So you get all of the advantages of the welcome decks, you get a basic understanding of what a booster is (and the disappointment that comes with it), and some very remedial deckbuilding experience. $20 is a little steep for all that, but if the welcome decks are unavailable to you I always highly recommend it to new players.
I do have to say professor that the new toolbox kit that recently came out is an improvement over the previous one. with two packs of a set that isn't rotating out for a year so now all 4 packs are worthwhile, it is a significant improvement there. and as for the semi-randomized cards, they did include quite a few cards as 2016 playable so that we can increase the pool of cards outside of those released in each of the current standard sets. unfortunately most if not all of them are not worth including in a constructed standard deck. but maybe next toolkit they will learn from this one and improve on it some more.
7:56 Commander... Has changed 💸🌕
Awesome guide professor. Just want to thank you for helping me get back into the game when khans of tarkir came out.
In my local game store they have a lot of pre realease packs just on the shelf
This video:
Worth the 10 minutes for all players
Grade: A+
Hello
I agree with you the most points, but the Fate Reforged: "Grave Advantage" Intro Pack was really great, when I started with magic again.
one of my local stores was sticking with the welcome decks are free. i asked and they gave me one because i wanted to use it to teach my kid to play magic.
once shes ready it will be fun to go booster drafting with my kid and get some good bonding
im just getting into mtg and I couldn't believe the welcome packs at first but then the guy and my local game store just gave me the 6 card booster and the welcome pack for free! so awesome!
It's like drugs, right. They smile at you and give you the first taste for free, so you think it's all fun and games.
Then you find yourself wondering if it's worth it to spend over $200 on a set of 90 cards when you only plan to use about 10 of them plus the pretty, pretty lands.
in the first 4 words i was pretty much gonna say no.... then i realized, yea, pretty much
fat packs are addictive more so than boxes.
prerelease kits are perfect! I love sealed limited...
So I got needed answer, things everyone should try is prerelease and the commander decks.
Small correction: the fat packs have 80 lands. This doesn't significantly boost its value, though.
+Max Bernbeck Believe it or not, the SOI ones only have 70 lands and 10 proxy cards for DFCs.
+Tolarian Community College Huh, that's strange. Thanks for the correction! I checked over at MTGSalvation just to make sure so I wouldn't post anything incorrect; I guess someone needs to go change the information over there.
Hey "MAN": buy land, they don't make it any more.
fat packs are good for obtaining lands to play commander; but tbh like they said in the video buy commander decks
so fat packs are useless unless you dont want to play with a preconstructed commander deck and totally want to be out there and build from scratch
I love the book you get from the fat packs, it's cool to see all the cards in the set and have the story.
I started playing magic the gathering with an M15 green prerelease pack. At that prerelease I went 3 - 1 with the deck I made and won 6 more packs. I felt amazing. Phytotitan will forever have a special place in my heart
Brian you have some talent when it comes to MTG videos. Your tone and the way you weave your words makes me feel like I'm watching an in infomercial for Magic. 10/10 A++ like the Hyper-Matte of Magic: the Gathering reviewers.
Thank you mate!! New to Magic and never even heard of Commander decks!
very informative; I actually started into Magic through the Commander format back on October 24th, 2015 and I fell in love immediately that is coming from a once avid Pokemon player and a once avid Yugioh Player (stopped Yugioh when introduced to Magic)
Great Video Professor, you should have this one as your main home screen video.
honestly i do enjoy the intro packs, got me back into it and i can mix and match plus adding or switching booster cards will help too.
I found the intro packs VERY helpful when starting out
Professor, could you do this kind of video for all the different formats?
Wasn't it already?
I just want to say I know this video didn't say it at least not yet bc I just started. For reason idk why. I friggin love the way you say "many mtg players ask the question" random ik but felt you should know that. Nice intros :)
I strongly disagree with the intro pack part. Coming from a developing country with no local store. playing mtg is hard, i started with a friend 1 year ago and all I bought is intro deck, we never buy more than 5 singles, all worth less than 0.5$ each mostly uncom and the game is stil great, it is for me the best product since it is easy to upgrade and cheap. Booster pack in it gave us some option as well.
Thank you very much for creating this video! I desperately want to become adept at this card game and youve helped out tremendously . You've earned a sub :)
Actually i love how you make this videos . I love the way you give us advices that are actually very accurate. I subscribe and i m proud of you , professor : )
This was amazing because I'm new to MTG. Thank you.
I don't know about you guys, but the Amonket deck builder's toolkit I bought for 30CAD gave me three legendary creatures and one legendary artifact plus 25 full-art lands on top of the 100 others, as well as non-basic lands. I was pretty happy with it, and as a new player, it was a great start to my collection. Also, what he said about 2 friend buying one each and using them against each other is exactly what me and my boyfriend did, and aside from the fact that he's more experienced than I am (playing for a while but never actually had his own cards) it worked out pretty well! There's also the fact that my toolkit gave me 3 legendary creature cards and 1 legendary artifact
Decided to try Magic last November and bought the Origins Deckbuilders Toolkit. One of the booster packs contained a foil Jace, Vryn's prodigy. I had no idea it was valuable until I posted a picture on Facebook saying it was pretty. Then I got a flood of messages from more knowledgable friends. I sold it and was able to start building a broad collection.
Hey Professor, I don't watch you all that much anymore since I've put up MTG for awhile but I still drop by from time to time. I started watching you sometime before the first Patreon video and stopped shortly after. I just checked and I'm glad to see that the Patreon donations are still going strong and even growing. Initially I was concerned that people would jump aboard the donation train then disappear but that hasn't happened. Anyway, this random internet stranger wishes you the best. Oh, and keep up the great content. Cheers.
Hey, Prof. I know you probably won't read this, but I have to thank you. Thank you for pointing me towards the Welcome Decks. I now have a Simic Deck, all for free. I can't wait to join this fantastic community.
(Unfortunately, I don't have a job, and no money to buy sleeves, a box, or a playmat yet...YET.)
I got a free welcome deck and my local game store owner walked me and my friends through it for like a whole hour, I also bought some cards and made my custom deck to my preferences, it's a really fun game!
A deck builders tool kit is the first thing I purchased after receiving my 2 welcome decks, and I have to say it was a great purchase for me as a new player.
This was REALLY useful, thanks!
Commander is what brings me back. building the decks are fun too. very eventful games
+Tolarian Community College, you mention collecting in this video, specifically in relation to booster boxes. This leads me to ask two questions. 1) do you collector Magic cards yourself (as in even if you'll never use the card you want one of each)?
2)If booster boxes aren't worth it for collectors, what's the best way for collectors to get all the cards in a set? I suppose the answer is the secondary market, but in some cases cards such as Planeswalkers can be very expensive and I myself try not to spend more than $10AU on a card. Also, if you consider a collection not complete unless you have all the promos, Pre-release and so on then it can be quite expensive indeed.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on collecting Magic cards, perhaps in a future video?
On a side note, I love the Fatpack and the collector in me adores the box, booklet and die.
Thanks for this very helpful, just a video I need.
It may be worth adding an annotation to the intro pack section of this video mentioning the fact that 5 intro decks per block have been replaced with 2 planeswalker decks per block.
Very informative. Thank you
Thank you very much, will remember commander & prerelease booster boxes.
The 2015 deck builder's toolkit was the first magic product I purchased. It felt like a great way to get started.
same here. i pulled ugin the spirit dragon from the first pack from it. he's been my bro ever since!
+Richard Welch nice!
I've found that boosters are a good way to start once you understand the game and want to be a bit more competitive. You'll find a lot of junk but you'll also find a card or two that is a revelation and you want to build a deck around. After that you can go online and find cards that work with it and make the deck sing, but boosters give you inspiration. Wayward Servant is a common but it's ability (each enemy loses one life and you gain one life whenever a zombie enters play under your control) is great, I went online and got about twenty cards aiming at getting out lots of zombie tokens, boosting my zombies, and bringing things out of your graveyard. The idea is to swarm with zombies and drain them for life while bolstering your own and then boosting them all for one fatal swing. I got a Coat of Arms from a duel deck and that's been a game ender whenever I get it out. Throw some removal in there to protect your win condition and it works like a charm, Dark Salvation for example gives you additional tokens and doubles as creature removal. Of course any deck has weaknesses, I've got little answer for flyers and a board wipe would put me in bad shape, it's still a little slow to start, it needs some tweaking yet. Mainly I just need to work on getting the mana I need early on, but good land is bloody expensive.
I, the warlockish tutor started playing magic when I bought a 5th edition deck in 1997 with a tempest booster pack.
tempest is an expansion for mtg. it's better for lower level players to play basic magic, than expansions that are for professionals. I also played a sliver deck against a sliver deck. preconstructed decks are very easy to beat. each 60 card deck should be tournament legal. no cards from portal should ever be bought.
As a casual player, this is my new favorite video! ty!
As someone who is looking to return after years away and selling off my old cards after swearing off this addiction to feed my other addictions, well it is good to see my old trick for when I wanted to waste money on this addiction will still work. Take my spare cash, walk into the store, buy 5 of the newest sets premade decks which look mildly interesting, buy as many booster boxes as I can spare for that budget, open a nice bottle of alcoholic beverage, and start opening cards before building what I can from what I got between the boosters and the decks, dump the remaining cards I don't care for on the local game shop and call it done.
While expensive, it always produces multiple playable, fun and reliable decks and makes enough money back that I used to break just below even.
Thank you so much! This helped me a lot
I got a gift box from Walmart and it was pretty solid. I actually started 2 weeks ago with a red intro deck. I slowly transformed it into the deck it is now, low cost creatures and damaging instants and sorcery cards, with a few white spells too. It's a consistent winner among friends, but in tournaments it's probably poop.
Hey Professor, this video was featured in the Daily Magic Update! magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/daily-magic-update/update-2016-05-03
As well as your video on what Magc does better than other games, in the DMU from yesterday! magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/daily-magic-update/update-2016-05-02
I'm glad you're getting the recognition you deserve. This channel helped me get back into Magic, and I feel it tends to an underrepresented need in the game today.
Fat Packs came with a novel and that was the only way to getting them at the time.......the good old days
I just started playing this game the other day with friends. I started with a Intro Pack, and am doing pretty good. So far, since 11-12-16/11-16-16, I've won 3/5 games.
Wonderful video. Thanks professor
Fat packs are effectively starter kits for sealed. Try using them as a year round substitute for prerelease kits especially if you play kitchen table magic
Wow, nice foil Westvale Abbey, Prof! :)
pulling a stamped westvale abbey good job professor
Great video professor!
Thanks for the great video professor
Can't wait for the Prerelease of Rivals of Ixalan!
Me and a friend each buy a fat pack each set and build a deck PURELY out of the booster packs included its extreamly fun just i wish i had more people to play with here in NZ
We used deck builders toolkits for our weekly leagues. Week one, buy a toolkit; each other week, buy two packs.
Great vid extremely good information
I know this is an old video, but still I want to mention something. There's no word about a casual player. Well I am very happy with buying a deck builder's toolkit to start collecting a pool of cards to build decks from and play against each other with a friend.
I also have some of these arena starter kits. So the decks I build shell be pretty mich the same power level to make the games fun to play. It doesn't always need to be the most powerful cards to simply have fun with. It's my personal budget edition of the game, because I don't want to keep up with standard, nor do I want to spend hundreds of euros for one modern or legacy deck. Maybe I will do that at some point in my life, but for now I found a way to play this game on a budget level that I like and have fun with.
intro decks are decent with a budget friendly size collections. it always for a common mechanic to be broken down and built upon, whether it be tearing about 1/4, 1/2, or 3/4 or the deck. my first intro deck i bought as a new magic player, a some odd 3 years ago, is still being used today. Built from the already set ground floor up, it has not lost a game unless from player error, example: bad draws or judgement of play. Which still being a new player happens often. I've had vet players, play with my deck after explaining the use and structure and having them look over to have a basic understanding of how i play, and they said it was fit fine. although i can say, intro decks, at times can be faulty and worth nothing but to include to your collection. My point being, you can build from it, you can bring it to friday night magic.
Great video as always, but you missed event decks and clash packs in your discussion.
Actually Deckbuilder's Toolkits are better than they were previously because there are no longer 2 booster packs included from the "outgoing set". All of the deckbuilder's toolkits for Shadows over Innistrad include 2 Boosters from Battle for Zendikar and 2 for Innistrad.
+Clint Casey
4:20
You know... you hate on opening packs, and boost boxes quite often, but you never really consider one major fact, singles HAVE to come form someone opening those packs. someone, somewhere had to open those boost packs to get the singles YOU say everyone shoudl buy.
Yeah they have lots of money get GOOD cards from buying boosters then buying singles is cheaper than packs so basically they have lots of money to buy packs
I got a dual deck at wal mart for $15, I’m just getting into the game and me and my wife are learning it
I bought a intro pack and got great started cards
I went to my local game story today ask about buying a starter set. The owner handed me 3 boxes said they were free and invited me to come back and play anytime👍
In Thailand, the price of pre-release pack is more than the price of six boosters.
My first commander deck was only $20 and it’s great the only downfall is a few removal spells and anything flying related.
I remember that they used to make event decks last time I did FNM about 4 years ago. A shame if they dont make those any longer cause out of the box, I used a red deck and had half decent results!
Wish there were preconstructed decks for modern and standard too, there have been some but not anymore
Nr. 135.947 !
Best MTG-Channel I've seen so far, keep it up, prof ;)