Is it worth it to buy a Spellslinger Starter Kit? A Magic: The Gathering Product Review

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Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

[godfirerising]

liked as soon as you said "no".

[JGreen]

I got into magic during high school. I was in the hospital for appendicitis and during the surgery there were complications resulting in me spending a month in the hospital. My friends brought in some cards that they had just bought and were learning the game, when my nurse came in she recognized the card backs saying her husband had a stockpile of cards he didn't use anymore. She gifted me the small collection and the rest is history.

[TolarianCommunityCollege]

If you are interested in Tolarian merch (sorry, we’re sold out of pretzels) you can shop the student store at for shirts, playmats, dice bags, and yes, lapel pins!

[MysteryGuy]

wait where can i buy tolarian brand honey mustard pretzels i have to know

[AFreemire]

The quick answer was a funny surprise! Still sticking it out for the explanation. Thanks!

[pBIggZz]

First time I played MTG we didn't realize you could only play one land per turn and we thought elvish mystic fetched forests. Good times.

[arttu]

it was this channels videos that got me interested in MTG and now i am hooked.

[JoeGab-enfh]

How my brother and I started:

It was 2012, and my older brother was in year 7, around 13 Years Old, and I was in year 1, around 7 Years Old. He was cleaning out a cupboard at school with some others(they were asked to) and he saw some cards. He took a couple, and they were just commons. A year passes and he’s at school. He opens his bag to get out his books and sees those cards. He wondered what the game actually was. When he got home he went strait on to YouTube and watched some videos. He thought it was cool so he went to the store and got an intro deck. He played with his other friend for a while. A year later I said that I wanted to start, he made a pauper deck so he could show me what all the cards do, and how to play. I wanted to get my own deck though. One day when we saved up enough money, we were at the store. We were going to get an Xbox one. We payed for it, and on the way out, I saw an M15 intro deck, with phytotitan on the front. I asked my mum if I could get it, and she bought it for me. I was so happy and gave my mum the biggest hug, while repeatedly saying ‘Thank you! Thank you!’ We left the store and my brother and I played for the whole holidays. I was getting better, but since he started a year before me he always won. I didn’t care though. Yet another year passed, and I bought my cards in for ‘show and tell’. I showed all the kids in my class, and my friend Noah asked if I could teach him. I did, and then he showed his brother how to play. We all had decks, and both me and my brother, and Noah and his brother had elsbeth vs Kiora. A few months went by and more and more people were wanting to play. Noah and I did, and eventually there was 15 kids at my school playing, all a year younger than me. Then I created an Mtg club. Everyday at lunch we would meet up and play. We would do a tournament every friday, and the winner got a small prize, like a rare, or a foil land. We loved it so much, and Noah had the coolest party ever. It was like a sealed event (amonkhet) and we all got to keep our cards. We kept going for a while, then my teacher talked to me. I told her what it was about, and the basic concepts. She thought it was pretty cool, and a couple weeks later changed my life. She gave me and Noah 2 packs each of shadows over inistrad. I know it’s 2 packs, but it’s what she said that changed how I think: she said; “Joe(me) and Noah, you two boys have changed this school, and it’s community. You two have created your own active, consistent club, in the course of under a year. She handed us the packs, and I almost cried. Till this day, those boys, my brother and I still play magic. But I’m in high school now, and Noah and the others are still in primrary school. But next year about 8 of them are coming to my school and I can’t wait. My brother and I have so many decks(about 13 each) and go to almost all the prereleases. - It’s amazing what these pieces of paper can do.

[mybrad]

Another 10/10 video prof,
All the points that were meant to be talked about were talked about. Easily one of, if not THE best MTG channel.

[flowstonealchemist]

Sugestion: The free sample decks should be 40 card decks each instead of 30, so when a starting player gets one he/she can play with a friend and later build a 60 card deck BUT with a pool of 80 cards. Enabling deck construction at the very first level of play.

[wolfpackleaderz]

I learned to play magic from your channel and Game Knights with your episodes.

[CannedCaineghis]

Left at 0:51 liked the video, keep it up Prof!

[AffinityforMTG]

Great video Professor, but I disagree on one point, and I promise I'm not commenting just to be a contrarian!

I actually think it's better that this kind of product has a wide variety of cards. While we experienced players might see the inconsistency as a bad thing - and IT IS for us - but for new players it means the gameplay is going to be more diverse. If the decks were more consistent, it would also lead to repetitive gameplay, in which 1 deck would almost always be favored over another. Having only 1-2 copies of each card means the games can play out in completely different ways every single game, and that's going to be an important first impression with new players, who are probably going to play the decks over and over again.

You could make the argument that if the players got bored with the decks faster they would be more likely to make a second product purchase, but if the initial product doesn't make for a great first impression to begin with...then they may never make that 2nd purchase anyway.

So, while experience players would definitely prefer consistent, I think, as a first-impression type of product, exposing new players to a wide variety of creatures and spells might be the better choice.

[AffinityForCommander]

That intro! 😂 Part of the fun of MTG is the randomness and chance that exists, which these decks remove. Thanks for the video Professor!

[andrewmarinkovich]

I learned to play Magic on the Magic Duels app. I wanted to learn the game but didn't have any friends who played Magic so Duels served as a great teacher for me. Eventually I moved on to MTGO and then felt I knew enough to go my LGS and play with others face to face. Your videos (and videos from other YouTubers) were also a huge help in teaching me the game and fueling my enthusiasm for it, so thank you for that!

[CaptainWolffi]

I got a deck from a former friend for Christmas that he'd built himself. Ot did not dit me so he helped me build my own instead providing me with some cards
However he soon turned into a 'pageant mum' wanting me to play top tier modern almost immediately resulting in the other new players not wanting to play against my deck anymore and him mowing me over with his Tron deck and then one moment not wanting to give me deck building advice and the deciding which cards were in my deck. When I stopped playing Magic with him my expirience got a whole lot better.
Another friend asked me over to his place, sat me down and made me build my own deck proividing some cards and not helping me until I almost had a deck. Then he gave a bit of advice to what I could keep and leave out and left me to decide. I learnt a lot from this

[nateau]

That first 10 seconds is the review we have all been waiting for! Love it.

[Spayroe]

Back when we rode dinosaurs to our LGSs, in the snow, up hill, both ways, I learned to play magic. There used to be these really neat tv commercials, and I'd gotten my hands on a handful of cards when a friend's older sibling was abandoning the game and asked if we wanted any the cards she ways getting rid of.


Within a few weeks of us giving up on this at home, I had joined my shop after completing my school's exploratory program (we had to spend time in each shop the school offered so that we could better assess where we wanted to spend the next 3.5 years). I joined the nerd shop (Computer Programming). The guys in my new shop were great. One day I noticed them playing magic in the in shop classroom during free period. I got excited and told them I had some magic cards, but I also told them I hadn't properly learned how to play. They taught be how to play (though in hindsight, there were definitely things we were all doing wrong back then), and I formed my first real sense of belonging I'd ever had with my peers in school. It was a great experience for me.

As a woman in the gaming arena (as well as the IT career field), that sense of belonging with those guys has carried me through a lot. It helped me grow a lot as a person and develop a sense of self confidence. When I finally stumbled across my first real LGS a few years later, it was like I had been wandering, lost in the woods for eons and just finally found the home I didn't even know existed.

[Skiriwowi]

I was actually hoping for the Prof. to just answer "No!" right away. He didn't disappoint. Subscribed.

[jeanmarais]

Yeah, your comment about no code for arena is spot on. I started with duels on my phone. As soon as arena is on phones, I'll teach my daughters. By then they should be 13 and not 40 years old.