The Best way to Teach?

[badLuck2You]

I would love to get a lot of people around my NJ area into Magic, but whenever i go about teaching people to play i always get too complicated to start out.

   I always end up trying to explain the stack, and mana pools, and the complicated stuff early.  I was wondering if anyone has a nice clean-cut way to teach new people how to play the game and the basics.

   Do you start with talkign about general stuff, like colors and how to cast spells?

  Any suggestions or anything would be good im always looking to get new people into magic.  Or if you just have taught anyone recently and they seemed to pick it up really quick tell how you went about it.

thanks.

[Jacob Orlove]

Build some simple decks, with portal type cards -- creatures with very simple abilities (like swampwalk), land, and sorceries. Nothing that works at instant speed at all.

Show them mana, attacking, and casting spells. Once they learn the basics, introduce instants. Not too many, and no counterspells at first. Once they understand the stack, you can briefly go over stuff like enchantments, artifacts, etc.

[Ephraim]

There's a thread about this called 'Teaching Magic to Newbies' somewhere down in the Newbie Forum. It's got sample decks, if you want them.

[Jhaggs]

I have taught my fair share of players over the years and I usually teach the game in chunks.  I also make it a point to spread the teachings over a couple of days.  Throwing too much too fast at a new player will just cause them to either misunderstand the rules or just forget them entirely.  I like to start very simple explaining what mana is, what its for, nad how it interacts with simple creatures, simple instants, and simple sorceries.  I then explain the steps of the players turn and then proceed to play 3 or 4 games just based on that knowledge, constantly reviewing the step procedures.

Little by little I 'll throw a little bit more on.  I usually like to take a weekend to cover all the basics or just over the course of several days.  Try to stay away from introducing complicated concepts like intrigate combos or heavy cards like Dragon.  "Slow and steady wins the race".

[Garth One Eye]

I've taught my six year old daughter how to play, and in addition to basic cards, I've thrown in cards that seem really cool to a new player.  For example, I put in fun cards like Glasses of Urza, and she lights up and gets a kick out of looking at my cards.  

Another cards she really likes (and is really careful with )    is my Chaos Orb.  It's the card that got me hooked back in the day!   :lol:

I started her off with creature friendly green at first, and I've kept her away from Blue all together (for now   .)

[badLuck2You]

Thanks, this will help a lot in getting more people into it aorund here.

[pocketmoxen]

From starcitygames, a pretty good outline IMO:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6529

-jkn

[iccarus]

the above is good, but I like this one as well:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6384

I have two simple highlander decks that I haul around with me at all times.  They are unsleeved, full of commons, and two-colors.  I've taught multiple people how to play with them and usually try to keep them current with all the card mechanics that are T2 legal.

The most important thing to remember is to make sure you have decks that are matched in power level when teaching a new player.  Or, let them put the beatdown on you for a few games so they get those first few thrills of winning before you reel them in with the smackdown  

[Ineffible]

Hey,
I am also from NJ and actually teach about 30-50 kids a year (I am a teacher) and we have a club here at school. What I do first is tell them about the colors and their advantages/disadvantages.

Red- Direct D, semi weak creatures and protection
Blue Control, Slower
Green Big creatures, Lots of Mana but cards not the greatest, overcosting creatures etc.
Black- Denial, Hand Destruction, Decent Creatures, Fun to play, Heavy protection against
White... well you get the idea...

Then I use old playmats... (I had bought the classic and the 8th edition starter kits) and they have playmats to teach the kids/people about library, grave, in play, life total, draw etc. it even lays out the steps for them... untap, upkeep, draw, main 1, attack/block, main 2, discard etc...

The stack really need not be a factor in the initial stages. This was how I learned and I have since taught about 3-400 people how to play this way over the last 6 years or so. Hope that helped a bit.

[Razvan]

Give them Draw7.dec and let them see if they can win:). Just kidding.

I think the 2 best decks to try is a mono-green creature deck with pumping stuff and a mono-red creature and burn deck.

Elves, Giant Growth, a few of the lower-key common critters make a good start for a green deck. And also include stuff like 1x Ravenous Baloth (a great card since it covers SO many teaching fields), and maybe something like 1x Canopy Dragon (4/4 for 4GG, Trample, can lose that and gain flying, for those that don't know). This is a good starting deck. Maybe include a few things like Armor of Thorns? Only one of the more problematic cards. Spiders are always good.

The red deck has some cheap-o goblins, and Bolt and Blaze and Earthquake. Maybe a Shivan Dragon for kicks.

Spread 1 or 2 random artifacts.

If they know these 2 decks, they will be ready to dabble in other colors. Put white next (life-gain and destruction), blue next (counterspells) and finally black, with it's wide range of interactions. That always works.

And never EVER EVER mention there exists a card named Humility.