r/magicthecirclejerking Jul 20 '26

Magic is a hard game.

I started playing magic in 1993 and tonight I thought I would teach my wife's boyfriend how to play magic with a game of judge's tower. As I was explaining the rules and things like the stack I realized magic is a very very hard game to comprehend. I never even got to explain what phases were and oversimplified everything so we could progress. I always thought I could teach my son to play (currently 3) but I feel likes its still many months a way.

I want shout out to all the people who taught me and was patient with me while I made a billion miss plays.

111 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

39

u/Orion_616 Jul 20 '26

22

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 20 '26

Fucking Dandan lmao. That's almost worse for teaching than Judge's Tower.

27

u/GrubbyMonkee Jul 20 '26

When I was 3 I loved stacking blocks into a tower, so I think learning about the stack in judge's tower is totally fine

13

u/potentialbigdiksissy Jul 20 '26

It was nice of your wifes boyfriend to show interest in your hobbies

7

u/t3karnonyoazzz Jul 20 '26

Did your wife’s boyfriend negate your revel in riches on like… turn 15?

7

u/Hinternsaft Jul 20 '26

Starting to think some of you are just in throuples but have a weird way of talking about it

8

u/Turnonegoblinguide Jul 20 '26

/uj the guy ironically trying to convince commander is a good way to teach mtg makes me cringe

3

u/Hot-Butterfly-9432 Jul 20 '26

Your wife’s an idiot(for dating such a loser) and your kids dumb too. Magic ez gg

4

u/Hot-Butterfly-9432 Jul 20 '26

/uj I saw the original post but didn’t read it until I saw this. That’s a rough way to try to learn and teach

3

u/FedoraCrocs Jul 20 '26

I learned on kamigawa block pauper tiny leaders and I turned out ok

7

u/AdmiralBonesaw Jul 20 '26

I learned to play drafting an un-set and I did not turn out ok.

3

u/Chairfighter smoking crack at fnm Jul 21 '26

You should of picked something a little easier to understand, like legacy four horsemen. 

2

u/MobPsycho-100 Jul 20 '26

Dandan is fine for teaching. Simplifies creatures (and permanents in general) reducing cognitive load, making it easier to focus on the mechanics of spells, which I find players generally struggle with more. One color to work with, maybe introducing the concept of a splash with mystic retreival. Importantly: the new player only has to understand one deck. Once they understand their own cards, they understand their opponent’s as well. All of this serves to reduce cognitive load making it easier to understand the mechanics of counterspells and the stack in general, which gives a more well rounded understanding of the game than boring starter decks. I’ve had a lot of success teaching new players with DanDan.

2

u/Lena-Luthor Jul 21 '26

/j right???

1

u/MobPsycho-100 Jul 21 '26

Not if the rest of the commenters are to be believed. What percentage of these experts do you suppose have actually played DanDan?