Beginners Tips for Magic: The Gathering

As you will know if you’ve started playing, Magic: The Gathering is a fascinating and rewarding card game from Axion Now Events. With Magic Arena, it’s even easier to get started with gameplay. However, when it comes to improving your game, new players often don’t know how to get the most out of their decks, and may be short on strategies to take on better opponents. This can lead to disappointment and disengagement, which is a shame, because there are plenty of ways to build on your knowledge and your strategies.  With this in mind, we’ve created a guide that will help you dominate your opponents and improve your game.

Deck Building 101

Deck building is the cornerstone of great gameplay in Magic: The Gathering. However, knowing how to build a great deck is something that typically comes with time. However, there are some strategies that new players may not be aware of that can help them improve their decks.

Tips include:

• Keep to the same theme – Every single deck has a core strategy around which you should build your deck. Whether you prefer laying down tricky combinations, or are a more aggressive player, keep it consistent and your deck will be there to serve you.
• Understand the Meta – Do a little research into the most popular decks and useful card combinations. This will give you a deeper understanding of what to expect in a match, and how to play certain strategies that are played against you.
• Mana matters – The mana curve is how mana is distributed within your deck. If your curve is balanced, you can play cards right throughout the game instead of getting stuck.
• Land is vital – Your land cards are extremely important as they give you the mana that you need to cast any spells. Typically, you should aim for 30% of your deck to be land cards, but this can be slightly adjusted based on your strategy.
• Learn to Mulligan –  If you don’t have a great starting hand, try to improve it somewhat using the London Mulligan rule. ​​This allows you to shuffle your card back into the library and draw out a new hand of cards.
• Decide when to trade –  Making the decision on when to trade your creatures during combat can be difficult. While sometimes preserving your creatures for later is a better move, an early trade can often interrupt your opponent’s strategy.
• Don’t count on one card only – While it is tempting to build your deck around one powerful card, if your opponent counters it, you’re out of the game. You need to make sure you have backup plans if you intend to create your deck around one particular card.
• Call their bluff- Sometimes, attacking with a weak creature to see if your opponent blocks it might give you ideas about the strategy they intend to implement. This will give you insight into their gameplay that can help adjust your strategy as you play.

Intermediate Tips

While the above tips can be useful for beginners, some players might be looking for something a little bit more intermediate. If you’ve been playing for a little while and you’re already on top of the strategies above, take a look at the below tips to elevate your gameplay.

Get a better understanding of the stack- Knowing how your stack works is vital if you intend to have more deeply complex battles. Responding to spells at the pivotal time can help you maximise your advantage as well as disrupting any combinations your opponent may lay down.

Know when to take damage – In some cases, it may be a wise idea to sacrifice the creature or absorb some damage if it gives you the opportunity to keep resources such as mana cards and life points.

General Advice

Now we’ve laid down some strategic tips and tricks for you to get to grips with, there are some general ways in which you can improve your game.

• Practice practice practice – whether you play online against friends or in person, experiment with different strategies and different decks to find a way of working you find comfortable.
• Learn from others – There are plenty of streamers and professional players that you can watch in action. You can analyse the decisions they make to learn more about advanced strategies. In addition to this, engaging with other players online will help you to gain further insight into strategies that might work for you as well as building friendships.

Hopefully now, you have enough tips and tricks to start improving your gameplay.

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