Magic: The Gathering (MTG) is one of the world’s most popular trading card games, known for its deep strategy and complex gameplay. However, for new players, this complexity can be a major barrier to entry. By creating learn-to-play decks, you can help introduce new players to MTG and provide a friendly, approachable way for them to understand the basics of the game.

Here are some reasons why creating these decks is a great idea for your community:

1. Lowering the Learning Curve

Magic: The Gathering can seem overwhelming with thousands of cards, intricate mechanics, and competitive strategies. Pre-built learn-to-play decks simplify the game for beginners, focusing on core mechanics like:

• Mana generation and resource management
• Basic combat mechanics
• Creatures, spells, and turn phases

By removing advanced features and focusing on straightforward, easy-to-understand decks, you make the game more accessible.

2. Building Confidence

When players start with overly complex or competitive decks, they can quickly feel lost and discouraged. Learn-to-play decks give new players a chance to:

• Practice simple strategies without being overwhelmed by card synergies or advanced tactics.
• Get familiar with the game flow so they can move on to more advanced decks at their own pace.

Confidence is key for player retention, and starting with a well-designed learn-to-play deck helps build that early on.

3. Fostering a Welcoming Community

When you create these starter decks and offer them to new players, you’re not just teaching them the game—you’re creating a welcoming, inclusive environment. This shows that:

• Experienced players are invested in the growth of the community.
• New players have a clear path to becoming skilled, without feeling intimidated.

This fosters camaraderie between new and experienced players, strengthening the community overall.

4. Encouraging Repeat Engagement

Players who start with a positive experience are far more likely to stick with the game. Learn-to-play decks offer that essential positive first experience by:

• Making early games fun rather than frustrating.
• Allowing new players to win occasionally, as these decks are often balanced to offer equal footing to beginners.

When players feel like they’re improving, they’re more likely to return for future games and participate in community events.

5. Encouraging Deck-Building Creativity

Once new players are comfortable with the game’s basics, they often want to build their own decks. Starting with a pre-built deck allows them to:

• Learn card evaluation and how to choose the right spells and creatures.
• Experiment with strategies by gradually customizing their deck, adding new cards, and swapping out old ones.

Learn-to-play decks act as a springboard for deck-building creativity, inspiring players to explore more aspects of the game.

6. Growing Your Local Community

You actively grow your local MTG community by supporting new players with learn-to-play decks. This benefits everyone by:

• Creating more diverse matchups at events, making casual or competitive play more engaging.
• Promoting regular gatherings for casual nights or tournaments, since more players will be involved and comfortable with the game.

Over time, this creates a robust, thriving community centered around MTG, enriching the experience for everyone involved.

In conclusion, making Magic: The Gathering learn-to-play decks is an excellent way to benefit new players in your community. It reduces the intimidation factor, builds confidence, and encourages engagement while fostering a welcoming, creative atmosphere. In the long run, these decks serve as a key tool for growing a vibrant, connected local MTG community.

I have found this post from Ask the Judges Tumblr account regarding the reasons why pile shuffling your deck is not the best practice to randomize the cards. I myself do this shuffle ritual on every game of my matches, from FNM to big events like a Grand Prix. The author describes that the issue that results from this practice calls for slow play and cheating.

Quoting from the article, here are the reasons why:

There are generally three reasons people give for pile shuffling:
1. To prevent “clumping,” meaning when cards of the same type, generally lands, end up in long sequences after shuffling, resulting in a game loss due to mana flood or screw.

2. To prevent “clumping,” meaning when sleeved cards physically stick together, resulting in cards of the same type, generally lands, ending up in long sequences after shuffling, resulting in a game loss due to mana flood or screw.

3. To count the cards in your deck, to avoid a game loss due to preventing an illegal deck.

None of these is a valid reason to pile shuffle. Here’s why:

1. This one is straight cheating. If pile shuffling has any influence on the final configuration of your deck, then you did not sufficiently randomize your deck, in which case you are cheating. A genuinely randomized deck is not the same thing as a well-mixed deck. People generally expect random sequences to have fewer long strings of the same kind of thing than they actually do. If I asked you to go flip a coin 100 times and tell me the result, and you lazily just made up the result, you probably wouldn’t give me a sequence with very many long sequences of consecutive heads or consecutive tails. Such a sequence has about an 80% chance of having a string of 6 or more consecutive heads or tails, though the one you give me probably doesn’t have one. Similarly, If I told you to stack a magic deck in a “random” way, you probably wouldn’t get mana flooded. This is why people who aren’t very diligent about shuffling criticize the shuffling algorithm on Magic Online – they get mana screwed more frequently online than in real life, because Magic Online produces something much more like a random deck configuration than your shuffling does.

2. This one is remarkable to me. If you actually have cards that stick together you need to either a) buy better sleeves; b) buy new sleeves; or c) wash you damn hands. You certainly aren’t using sleeves that are sufficient for play at competitive REL. If you mash shuffle properly and they still stick together, stop gluing your sleeves together.

3. This one is the most defensible, if you haven’t thought it through. As I mentioned before, if you shuffle sufficiently after pile shuffling, then your deck should be truly random, so it seems that there’s no harm in it. The reason it annoys me when people pile shuffle is it takes a goddamn lifetime. Slow play is already rampant in magic, especially in paper. The extra time spent shuffling compounds the problem that a slow opponent will cause a draw in paper, in stead of just timing out on magic online. If you are actually worried about having the wrong number of cards, count your cards the normal way, with them facing you. It’s faster than pile shuffling, and you’re going to do it anyway if you have the wrong number of cards.

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