Let's Play The Booster Box Game For Magic: The Gathering Foundations: ruclips.net/video/9izGtYdcHjI/видео.html Buy a "The Professor" t-shirt, Tolarian Sportsball tee, or TCC Hoodie for a limited time at store.dftba.com/collections/tolarian-community-college !
This video literally answered a question I had two hours ago that I couldn’t find an answer to, thanks Prof! It’s _really_ not obvious that the Jumpstart boosters in the beginner box are _not_ Jumpstart 2025, and are instead all standard legal cards. It makes sense that the beginner box wouldn’t have ‘only legal in eternal formats’ cards, but having two different boosters called the same thing, released at the same time, with the same branding, that contain (almost?) entirely different sets of cards is a choice I feel I wouldn’t have made.
i had the same question a while back at target and glad i decided to get the starter collection because it was nice to open 2 packs and have a bunch of cards to play around with even as a new player.
Bro me too 😂 I just got the starter collection because I was struggling with cards. The only set i bought into was bloomburrow and I bought a booster box... not the move. The starter collection was what I needed in my life. It literally fueled the addiction 😂
This entire time I thought the jumpstart "boosters" in the beginner box were the same jumpstart boosters too. Wild that they're not and the messaging has been so confusing on that.
One of my favorite magic experiences was when me and my bro were stuck during the quarantine and just got a box of the first Jumpstart. We spent the day just playing game after game excited as heck for what could be in the next set of packs.
Me and my partner missed prerelease so this is what we did instead! It was great fun and we really liked that there were no 'wrong' colours to go into unlike a prerelease
I'd like to see that episode and the players will consist of 1st time Magic players... like maybe those content creators who focus on Lorcana, Yu-Gi-Oh, Flesh and Blood, etc.
A few days ago I saw a stream from some guys all new to magic that bought the Beginner box and were learning with the "scripted game", it was not sponsored and they loved it. Made appreciate this begginer friendly products more for their worth beyond card prices.
The beginner box is unreal. They finally figured out a standalone box with flexibility that teaches the game in a clear manner, without falling into a bunch of technical jargon that people would have trouble learning. $30 is the perfect price for this. They must have had seasoned educators on staff when designing this thing as an educator myself, I can see the accessibility of learning they designed in this. My review? 100 out of 10. A+. Gold star. Free scholarship to college.
It’s what they do with the Pokemon Battle Academy. It’s how my kid and I learned Pokemon. The scripted play was an instant “click” for him at 5. Looking forward to this with him in a couple more years.
Did they stop the scripted battles at some point? I played a bit in 7th edition and remember a decent scripted game with a goofy little cartoon guy explaining the basic rules.
I really enjoy how you keep multiple perspectives of purchasers in mind for your reviews-it’s very easy for the enfranchised folks to dismiss the “lack of value” contained in these introductory products, but I constantly am looking for more ways to help folks learn to play Magic, and this seems like it’ll be perfect for at least one person who I know that is looking to dive into the game. Thanks for your hard work here!
I picked this up after a few minutes on MTG Arena and it turned my gf into a magic player also. Beginners Box is actually a great start for an intro to the game in my new player eyes.
100% this. I've seen several other videos examining the Beginner Box where the RUclipsr (and their comment section) seem baffled why the product even exists. Kind of extraordinary how many people can't imagine a product might not be aimed at them.
Prof is exactly right. The Beginner Box has been great for introducing my two young kids (9 and 7) to Magic with no experience. We are already looking at expanding the amount of jumpstart half deck options, and this will be a great way to expand into more complex mechanical themes. I will introduce actual decks eventually, but this is a great, self-contained, "board game" sort of experience.
This is where I landed. Whilst I *could* try designing and running an introduction to the game for the kids, the Beginner Box has been easy to give to our 8 year old. She's delighted to have her own game to explore, and we can take it from there.
Knowing that the Beginner Box is more of a self-contained "boardgame" experience is great to hear! I'm really not into TCGs (eventually got turned off by the whole booster thing and the inherent lack of balance it creates between players), but I love boardgames (a lot of them being deckbuilders and card-driven games) so I'd like to have a Magic product in my collection that was kinda like that.
This was enormously helpful. WOTC really managed a Wii U situation with the names here. I was debating which one was right for my niece, and it turns out the cheaper kit thing was the right call, and she's learning 60 card standard now because commander is just a bit too much right out the gate for a 13 year old
I bought the starter collection. It was a decent value to me to have a lot of cards for standard. Also it came with a couple nice foil commander cards so that was nice
Kinda glad they essentially brought back the deck builder's tool kit, even if its a good bit more expensive. I had an experience recently when getting a friend into magic who didnt have a wealth of lands or playsets of anything, so it sucked not really being able to recommend anything to him other than "come and look through my boxes and take what you need."
As a returning MTG player after many MANY years, I so appreciate the encouragement to support your local group and not the big box stores or online. Thanks for that.
I bought the Beginner Box to take to my friends to introduce them to Magic. It was a blast. I'm probably going to get them some packs and have started designing some Jumpstart decks to play with them. I bought the Starter Collection for myself to help expand my collection. Since I mostly play Commander, I'm not worried about have a 4-set, but it fills in some holes in having cards to just build things with.
9:59 I'll add one asterisk to this: I think the beginner box might be worth owning as an established player purely for teaching others. The hardest part about learning magic is that you're trying to learn how the game works while also trying to learn what the cards in front of you do. It's a lot of information to process at once. The unshuffled tutorial decks + booklet seem like they really help to solve this problem. The new player gets a turn-by-turn breakdown of the game, complete with explanations of the cards they are looking at. Being able to pull an incredible teaching tool like that off the shelf whenever I want to introduce a friend to the game genuinely might be worth the sticker price to me.
I bought the beginner box to learn with my girlfriend, we both loved it! We played the tutorial and can’t wait to play more each weekend. Would really recommend to anyone new like me
Brand new to this game. My 12 year son and I are just starting out and picked up a starter kit with 2 60 card decks as well as this beginner box. it's been really fun learning with him and the your videos have helped a lot in navigating this immense game. Thanks for the videos, keep up the good work.
We needed these kinds of products Decades ago. Yes, financial value is low, but besides the intro decks which were of dubious quality, and fat packs/ bundles, there wasn't really a good launchpad for brand new players. You don't want too complex of mechanics, yet at the same time, be so underpowered that every game becomes a slog. So yeah, not the best for expert players, but incredible stuff for the newbies.
@therealax6 Wasn't what I meant. Foundations doesn't have a Commander/Modern-only subset like the last few sets. But every set has reprinted Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Commander Tower. Even though this isn't *technically* a Commander product, it's about the only place to put the obligatory reprint.
Hey prof! I won one of the jeweled lotus’ from whatnot and was at work so I didn’t notice till after. I wanted to say thank you so much for the card and all you do for the magic community. I play commander with friends but enjoy almost every one of your videos. As a former TA in gradschool who left academia after getting my doctorate I completely agree with your outlook on academia and it would be so much better if they treated the students and non tenure track professors as humans instead of a cheap workforce to exploit. Thank you for all that you do!
Would LOVE a video about how to turn these products into a draft cube! Maybe even talk about Foundation singles to upgrade the cube further? Love your videos Prof!
Thanks for the video! You answered pretty much everything I needed to know and I'm going to get the beginner box to introduce a few people to it. This product was so, so needed as most newcomers find it so overwhelming at first. I'm actually quite glad that neither have a significant financial value as that would only inflate prices of these boxes which would only act to prevent new players from buying these, whch they do seem perfect for!
Thanks, Prof! Answered my question excellently! I wanted to do a soft reboot with my wife and kids, so I bought 4 Starter Collections, one for each of my family members to "start" with, then we'll slowly add booster packs over the next weeks and months (sometimes drafting, sometimes just whole packs) so each person can tailor their collection and decks more organically (yaknow, like we did in the mid-90s) as they learn what they like and don't like.
I recently started playing Mtg and i stumbled upon Tolarian Community College, this videos and many others from The Professor helped me a lot! I still don't know lots of things but i feel i'm learning so much, this specific question was one that was in my head now that i started to maybe hop on to the physic format. Thanks a lot for your videos and lots of love from Spain!! ❤
Hi Prof I recently saw a very unfair criticism (well more of a rambling of someone who was clearly projecting) about you allegedly being a member of Hasbro. I just want to take the time to thank you for all that you've done for the mtg community. You give warmth and laughter to all people and your compassion towards others is second to none. You are a truly wonderful person who embodies everything that is right with our wonderfully diverse community. Thank you Brian. ❤
thank you for this video! My son has just started an interest in Magic and for someone who's never been involved it's been a hard learning curve to work out where to begin. This has helped. I think the Beginner Box is best for us to start our journey!
as a dad looking to get my son into playing MTG for the first time this was extremely helpful. Thanks for the break down and help with deciding what to go with! I went with beginner box and a few jumpstart packs. I have my old cards from 1995-2003 ish and a few decks built that we will eventually get to but I cant even play with those at my local play nights anyway!
I work at an elementary school in Behavioral Support, and a lot of the kiddos have expressed interest in Magic. I picked up the Beginners Box to teach the them. I've been playing since '97, and I learned to play with Portal. The experience out of the box really took me back to when I was first learning to play, and I like this a lot better, because it includes Instants, which Portal didn't do. The kids are loving it as well, and it's been a very effective motivator to get them to do their work so they can earn games. Even as a heavily enfranchised player, I think the Beginners Box is one of the best products WoTC has put out in a long, long time.
I wonder if the starter collection would make a good point for league. Everyone takes there Not-deck-builders-toolkits-but-we-put-all-the-archetypes-in-them-this-time-instead-of-only-a-handful (but I still loved them) and they build decks from them that evolve as they open packs to add to it. These are both really cool products, I'm glad they exist.
Slowly getting back into magic after a 5 year long hiatus, unfortunately there are no shops nearby that play the game so Arena it is for me rn, but I've been loving watching Prof again and all the content I missed over the years, it's amazing to see how much the channel as grown!
For beginner box, you have 10 jumpstart decks. You can make - 90 Different 40 Card decks with those - 56 decks with the remaining 8 Jumpstart decks - Total of 5040 different matchups with 40 card decks - 720 decks with 60 cards (3 jumpstart decks) - 210 decks with the remaining 7 jumpstart decks - Total of 151.200 matchups with 60 card decks - You can make 20 different decks of 60 cards using 2 colors - 15 different decks with the remaining cards - total of 300 matchups (60 card dexks with 2 colors)
Your math is a bit off. You can only make 45 different 40 card decks with the 10 jumpstart decks. The 1st of the 10 decks can be combined with each of the nine other decks for 9 unique combinations. The 2nd can also be combined with each of the 9 other decks, but combining it with the 1st deck has already been accounted for. This leaves 8 unique combinations. This pattern continues with the remaining 8 decks, adding 7, 6, and so on, until reaching 1. The sum of which is 45. The rest of your math is wrong in a similar fashion. While you can still make many unique deck combinations, you're overshooting by quite a bit.
If anyone is interested in the actual numbers (if someone would double check me that would be great) they are - 45 Different 40 card decks - 28 decks with the remaining 8 jumpstart decks - 1260 different matchups with 40 card decks - 120 decks with 60 cards (3 jumpstart decks) - 35 decks with the remaining 7 jumpstart decks - 4200 matchups with 60 card decks I'm too lazy to do the unique 2 color decks. But I'm pretty sure these numbers are right. Have a good day and play some magic if you can.
dude i LOVE how you explain these topics, ive been playing for a while now and some products are so confusing!! You make things way more easy and enjoyable to understand! Keep it up 💪💪
I feel it would make a little bit more sense the other way around: one to START playing the game, the other one for BEGINNERS of the game to expand their collection.
Excellent video. I’ve been interested in Magic for a while but never played, so I’ll be picking up the Beginner Box. Thanks for such a clear explanation.
I started playing in 1996 for a couple years and started back again 6 months ago with a couple friends who don’t have much experience so I grabbed a beginner box and we spent a solid 8 hrs combining decks and having a blast. Sub $40 and 4 people can play. Like you said great product for some kitchen table games.
Personally i found the starter collection to be fantastic. Even as a veteran player there are cards in here that i just didnt have and didnt want to shell out the $$ for. If i bought the singles it would have been more costly than to pick up the box, so in that regards, its a win. Plus it comes with 3 boosters. 10/10 would reccomend
This is a very good video and answered a lot of my questions as someone who is maybe considering getting into magic after like... 25 years. Also I am looking forward to a SUP with Voxy, Tappy, and Spice. That's going to be WILD.
I think both products are amazing for casual players of the game, regardless of having experience or not. If you are a fan of limited, you have the makings of a very fun draft or sealed deck experience just mixing the contents together from both these products. You can make some adjustments to turn it into a forever cube. I’ve bought three beginner boxes and made 60 card mono color decks from putting 3 of the same jumpstart packs together. 90 dollars for 10 decks, 6 playmats, excellent storage boxes… It was a great buy!
I really like the cats versus vampires tutorial idea. I know you mentioned later that they've done it before, but I still think it's really neat that they can create a tutorial experience like that.
I got the beginner box to teach my girlfriend how to play :D I feel like it will be fun to have the experience of opening magic product and having the interchangeability of the jumpstart decks. Plus they'll be easier to manage than my preexisting decks.
I went into my LGS just last week to buy my first ever magic cards specifically with the intent of playing commander, and the starter collection was right there. I almost talked myself out of getting it but as a complete noob the value of over three hundred and fifty cards was too good to ignore. I ended up building a blue-green (Simic?) deck with Prime Speaker Zegana and took first place in my first ever game. Stayed under the radar, was never vulnerable nor ever "the threat" for more than half a round. Idk how many lands they were all running but I was sitting pretty playing solitaire while my opponents were on four or five lands even after turn ten! Thanks prof for the tips, I couldn't have done it without your vids!
since getting back into Magic a year ago, I have been playing exclusively on spelltable and have just been proxying cards. However the Beginner Box is the first MtG product I have seen since then that I am very eager to purchase because I have been struggling to get my partner interested in Magic and I love how they have put it together.
Thanks Prof for yet again another helpful video. I'm off to find a Starter Collection now to pick up Standard on paper rather than MTGA and add to my Commander collection.
It's totally unrelated to the vid, but I would have loved to have you as a college professor, Prof! Your videos are very easy to follow! Love the content!!! 😊
I've been playing since June, and I picked up a Starter Collection a few weeks ago. It was absolutely *perfect* for me, especially with the three Commander staples that I was having a hard time finding locally to build my very first Commander deck (I've been playing with precons only this whole time).
I think the 3 commander cards are pretty cool. 2 out of 3 reference your commander, so it's clear they need something else to work and if you want to build a commander deck, those 3 cards are almost always auto includes, so it's really nice to have them in your collection
As someone who sold my collection a decade ago (opening boxes of Dragon's Maze will do that) with an SO I want to get to play with little experience, it looks like I'm in a good situation for the Beginner Box to get them comfortable with playing Magic. Maybe once we find a play group in the area the Starter Collection or Commander pre-cons will be a better value, but for now it looks like I'm pretty close to the target audience.
I bought a starter collection for my nephews birthday. I also got one for myself, just seems like a decent collection of cards. I’m looking forward to building some decks and playing together.
Really enjoyed this. Quite clueless with Magic but got myself the Lord Of The Rings starter kit the other day to play, but think from this video will get myself the Beginner set as well, cheers, :3
This really helped. My pod plays commander and I have a few precons so I went with starter set to improve my current precons and maybe build my own deck
I'm so very impressed by the beginner box. It is exactly what I wish existed when I started playing magic. One product that my friends and I could buy to try out all the different colors and basic archetypes. No guessing "maybe I'll like this starter or intro deck" based on the art. Add in the replayability and ability to use it to get OTHER new players into magic once you know it's right for you, and it's really perfect.
When i was new to magic I didn't have a sol ring for the longest time because they were never printed in any packs I opend and they were always sold out at the lgs so its nice to give these cards to new players who may just want to build a commander deck or get another copy to build another deck
i was the first to learn mtg in my group, and i had to do it alone. that’s why i bought a beginner box, to teach my friends how to play, get them in the game without any trauma or doubt/misplay. i found it very good and even better considering that it can give a fast experience w the 40 card format that adds a lot to the game
I’ve been playing since Beta, and back then, all they had was starter decks and boosters. All we had at our disposal was: 1 starter deck. So to really get the ball rolling, it took about FOUR starter decks to make a playable deck. (Plus an optional booster back or two, or three at most) After that, we used a large pool of all the cards (about 3 players=180+ cards) to mix and match colors to make 2 color and mono colored decks. That’s how we did it a long time ago lol…
So in other words If you have someone who is just starting out in magic it's probably a good idea to get them both of these products. The beginner box teaches them how the game is played and points them in a rough direction for what kind of deck they want to build then the starter collection provides a handful of cards to support the themes they tested in the beginner box...... Thats actually really smart, good on you Wotc (dang I never thought Id be saying those words ever again)
My buddies and I who play only Commander each bought a Starter collection box and built EDH decks using only the cards in the box and packs (+4 packs). Had a ton of fun! Impressed with the product.
My playgroup bought starter collections on release and a few packs, now we're doing a weekly league where we get a few new packs to add to the pool, it's going really well so far!
Hey Prof, I also wanted to add a bit of information that beginner collectors of Foundations may be curious about. If you’re attempting to make a complete set, you will need to purchase both the Beginner box and the Starter collection as well as Play Booster packs. I am a fan of both the art and lore so I collect for enjoyment and not financial reasons. In doing so I have noticed through various box openings that the sets have cards that are exclusive to one another. I thought I would include this for anyone interested. I would also like to say that I am very appreciative of the work you do and the differing opinions that you present. It’s not always easy being the voice of dissent, but it’s a better place when presented with enough information to draw our own conclusions. Thank you for the incredible work you and your team do. I wish you many more years of continued success.
I’m also a collector far more than a competitive or financially focused player. I only draft for those reasons. But your point is exactly why buying singles is so much better than opening for cards. Unless you want the personal thrill of opening the card yourself, buying the specific cards exclusive to each type of product is way cheaper than buying one of each product and then opening packs.
@ True but as of right now attempting to purchase the cards that come only in the starter and beginner sets may not be possible. They’re not available from the booster packs so the only way to get those cards is going to be from the sets themselves. After that you’ll still need over 300 unique cards that can only be found from the booster packs.
The Starter Collection is also a great foundation (haha) for a cube! Remove the duplicates, adjust the land count (if you want), and you havd a draftable small-scale cube to learn how to draft or introduce your commander-only friends to draft.
I have to heavily disagree on your claim that the Beginner Box is a bad purchase for enfranchised or experienced players, and you point out the reason for this in the video yourself: It's great for getting people into the game. I bought a beginner box just to have a pool of well-balanced decks that I can shuffle up and play with in order to show the game to friends. The relatively simple card effects help a lot here in comparison to other formats, while still making for tight and exciting games. In my commander pod we have even started playing a quick round of Foundations Jumpstart in-between for a change of pace. I think the Beginner' Box is an extraordinarily well designed product and as a very experienced player it's probably been my most rewarding purchase. I look forward to having a lot more fun with it in the future.
I've been playing for just over a year and a half, and the starter collection was EXACTLY the product for me. I have collected a lot of cards, but the consistency and up-to-date meta of these foundations cards blew me away. Also, I still was having problems with having enough lands playing Winston Draft with my friend (who started when I did). This was an amazing product for me, but Prof is so right on the actual $ value of it.
I bought 4 starter collections to build some 60 card decks out of as a little battle box to have on hand for board game nights. I think its the single best casual mtg product that has been released since I started playing 8 years ago. Could even sell a couple high-value cards to recoup some of the cost if need be. Great product.
I bought the Beginner box last night, sleeved up all the jumpstart "packs," and numbered the sleeve fronts so they could be separated into packs again. I even put together ninja and descend packs from my collection, so now I can have up to 6 players from the one box. It's a jump-start cube built like a family game night board game. I'm leaving a 12-sided die in the box and each player can roll for which two packs they get. I may create more packs to get it to 10 players.
Also, for those interested, the current value of the cards in the Starter Collection is ~$250 right now, with Aurelia the Warleader being the most expensive.
Starter collection is like the best product me and our friends would have bought when we were 10-14 yo playing at the beach. Really great for casual play
I have been playing mtg for many years... I got the Starter Collection for one main reason- to use as a travel game. When traveling far i don't want to take loads of cards but i still want to play the game so i take the box use the cards in it and have a few quick games. When going to a convention or my lgs I take way more and more expensive decks (formats vary (yes... Mainly commander! 😅)) Also running the numbers 10 jumpstart pack equivalent, 2 playmats (cardboard) and some tokens 2 spindown dice. It works out cheaper
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Let's Play The Booster Box Game For Magic: The Gathering Foundations: ruclips.net/video/9izGtYdcHjI/видео.html
Buy a "The Professor" t-shirt, Tolarian Sportsball tee, or TCC Hoodie for a limited time at store.dftba.com/collections/tolarian-community-college !
This video literally answered a question I had two hours ago that I couldn’t find an answer to, thanks Prof! It’s _really_ not obvious that the Jumpstart boosters in the beginner box are _not_ Jumpstart 2025, and are instead all standard legal cards. It makes sense that the beginner box wouldn’t have ‘only legal in eternal formats’ cards, but having two different boosters called the same thing, released at the same time, with the same branding, that contain (almost?) entirely different sets of cards is a choice I feel I wouldn’t have made.
Just realised I said boosters when they’re not actually listed as ‘boosters’ but hopefully you all got what I was saying anyway 😅
i had the same question a while back at target and glad i decided to get the starter collection because it was nice to open 2 packs and have a bunch of cards to play around with even as a new player.
Well, many Magic the Gathering players ask this lol
Bro me too 😂 I just got the starter collection because I was struggling with cards. The only set i bought into was bloomburrow and I bought a booster box... not the move. The starter collection was what I needed in my life. It literally fueled the addiction 😂
This entire time I thought the jumpstart "boosters" in the beginner box were the same jumpstart boosters too. Wild that they're not and the messaging has been so confusing on that.
Shuffle up and play idea! Everyone gets a starter collection box and builds a deck out of it! Really interested to see others do this!
This is unironically what i did for my first custom commander deck.
I think it went well, I like it.
One of my favorite magic experiences was when me and my bro were stuck during the quarantine and just got a box of the first Jumpstart. We spent the day just playing game after game excited as heck for what could be in the next set of packs.
Me and my partner missed prerelease so this is what we did instead! It was great fun and we really liked that there were no 'wrong' colours to go into unlike a prerelease
Amazing idea hopes it happens.
I'd like to see that episode and the players will consist of 1st time Magic players... like maybe those content creators who focus on Lorcana, Yu-Gi-Oh, Flesh and Blood, etc.
A few days ago I saw a stream from some guys all new to magic that bought the Beginner box and were learning with the "scripted game", it was not sponsored and they loved it. Made appreciate this begginer friendly products more for their worth beyond card prices.
The beginner box is unreal. They finally figured out a standalone box with flexibility that teaches the game in a clear manner, without falling into a bunch of technical jargon that people would have trouble learning. $30 is the perfect price for this. They must have had seasoned educators on staff when designing this thing as an educator myself, I can see the accessibility of learning they designed in this. My review? 100 out of 10. A+. Gold star. Free scholarship to college.
It’s what they do with the Pokemon Battle Academy. It’s how my kid and I learned Pokemon. The scripted play was an instant “click” for him at 5. Looking forward to this with him in a couple more years.
Did they stop the scripted battles at some point? I played a bit in 7th edition and remember a decent scripted game with a goofy little cartoon guy explaining the basic rules.
I really enjoy how you keep multiple perspectives of purchasers in mind for your reviews-it’s very easy for the enfranchised folks to dismiss the “lack of value” contained in these introductory products, but I constantly am looking for more ways to help folks learn to play Magic, and this seems like it’ll be perfect for at least one person who I know that is looking to dive into the game. Thanks for your hard work here!
I picked this up after a few minutes on MTG Arena and it turned my gf into a magic player also. Beginners Box is actually a great start for an intro to the game in my new player eyes.
100% this. I've seen several other videos examining the Beginner Box where the RUclipsr (and their comment section) seem baffled why the product even exists. Kind of extraordinary how many people can't imagine a product might not be aimed at them.
Prof is exactly right. The Beginner Box has been great for introducing my two young kids (9 and 7) to Magic with no experience. We are already looking at expanding the amount of jumpstart half deck options, and this will be a great way to expand into more complex mechanical themes. I will introduce actual decks eventually, but this is a great, self-contained, "board game" sort of experience.
This is where I landed. Whilst I *could* try designing and running an introduction to the game for the kids, the Beginner Box has been easy to give to our 8 year old. She's delighted to have her own game to explore, and we can take it from there.
The game night sets are fun decks to play , 5 total and well balanced, good value too.
Can’t wait till my boys are older. Hope they enjoy this.
Knowing that the Beginner Box is more of a self-contained "boardgame" experience is great to hear! I'm really not into TCGs (eventually got turned off by the whole booster thing and the inherent lack of balance it creates between players), but I love boardgames (a lot of them being deckbuilders and card-driven games) so I'd like to have a Magic product in my collection that was kinda like that.
This was enormously helpful. WOTC really managed a Wii U situation with the names here.
I was debating which one was right for my niece, and it turns out the cheaper kit thing was the right call, and she's learning 60 card standard now because commander is just a bit too much right out the gate for a 13 year old
as a new player i really wanted to know thank you so much !
Welcome!
I bought the starter collection. It was a decent value to me to have a lot of cards for standard. Also it came with a couple nice foil commander cards so that was nice
Kinda glad they essentially brought back the deck builder's tool kit, even if its a good bit more expensive. I had an experience recently when getting a friend into magic who didnt have a wealth of lands or playsets of anything, so it sucked not really being able to recommend anything to him other than "come and look through my boxes and take what you need."
As a returning MTG player after many MANY years, I so appreciate the encouragement to support your local group and not the big box stores or online. Thanks for that.
I picked up both for myself to just build up a collection. Plus i kinda love the player board mats that came with the beginner box.
I bought the Beginner Box to take to my friends to introduce them to Magic. It was a blast. I'm probably going to get them some packs and have started designing some Jumpstart decks to play with them. I bought the Starter Collection for myself to help expand my collection. Since I mostly play Commander, I'm not worried about have a 4-set, but it fills in some holes in having cards to just build things with.
Thank you Prof for everything! I started MTG in February and i love your channel!
9:59 I'll add one asterisk to this: I think the beginner box might be worth owning as an established player purely for teaching others.
The hardest part about learning magic is that you're trying to learn how the game works while also trying to learn what the cards in front of you do. It's a lot of information to process at once.
The unshuffled tutorial decks + booklet seem like they really help to solve this problem. The new player gets a turn-by-turn breakdown of the game, complete with explanations of the cards they are looking at.
Being able to pull an incredible teaching tool like that off the shelf whenever I want to introduce a friend to the game genuinely might be worth the sticker price to me.
I bought the beginner box to learn with my girlfriend, we both loved it! We played the tutorial and can’t wait to play more each weekend. Would really recommend to anyone new like me
Brand new to this game. My 12 year son and I are just starting out and picked up a starter kit with 2 60 card decks as well as this beginner box. it's been really fun learning with him and the your videos have helped a lot in navigating this immense game. Thanks for the videos, keep up the good work.
We needed these kinds of products Decades ago. Yes, financial value is low, but besides the intro decks which were of dubious quality, and fat packs/ bundles, there wasn't really a good launchpad for brand new players.
You don't want too complex of mechanics, yet at the same time, be so underpowered that every game becomes a slog.
So yeah, not the best for expert players, but incredible stuff for the newbies.
I think the three Commander cards are WotC's way of saying "Look, we're not doing a Commander Foundations set, here's your standard 3 reprints"
They said that there's barely enough in the box to build a five-color Commander deck for those who want to do that.
@therealax6 Wasn't what I meant. Foundations doesn't have a Commander/Modern-only subset like the last few sets. But every set has reprinted Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and Commander Tower. Even though this isn't *technically* a Commander product, it's about the only place to put the obligatory reprint.
Hey prof! I won one of the jeweled lotus’ from whatnot and was at work so I didn’t notice till after. I wanted to say thank you so much for the card and all you do for the magic community. I play commander with friends but enjoy almost every one of your videos. As a former TA in gradschool who left academia after getting my doctorate I completely agree with your outlook on academia and it would be so much better if they treated the students and non tenure track professors as humans instead of a cheap workforce to exploit. Thank you for all that you do!
Would LOVE a video about how to turn these products into a draft cube! Maybe even talk about Foundation singles to upgrade the cube further? Love your videos Prof!
Thanks for the video! You answered pretty much everything I needed to know and I'm going to get the beginner box to introduce a few people to it. This product was so, so needed as most newcomers find it so overwhelming at first.
I'm actually quite glad that neither have a significant financial value as that would only inflate prices of these boxes which would only act to prevent new players from buying these, whch they do seem perfect for!
Thanks, Prof! Answered my question excellently! I wanted to do a soft reboot with my wife and kids, so I bought 4 Starter Collections, one for each of my family members to "start" with, then we'll slowly add booster packs over the next weeks and months (sometimes drafting, sometimes just whole packs) so each person can tailor their collection and decks more organically (yaknow, like we did in the mid-90s) as they learn what they like and don't like.
I recently started playing Mtg and i stumbled upon Tolarian Community College, this videos and many others from The Professor helped me a lot! I still don't know lots of things but i feel i'm learning so much, this specific question was one that was in my head now that i started to maybe hop on to the physic format. Thanks a lot for your videos and lots of love from Spain!! ❤
Hi Prof I recently saw a very unfair criticism (well more of a rambling of someone who was clearly projecting) about you allegedly being a member of Hasbro. I just want to take the time to thank you for all that you've done for the mtg community. You give warmth and laughter to all people and your compassion towards others is second to none. You are a truly wonderful person who embodies everything that is right with our wonderfully diverse community. Thank you Brian. ❤
thank you for this video! My son has just started an interest in Magic and for someone who's never been involved it's been a hard learning curve to work out where to begin. This has helped. I think the Beginner Box is best for us to start our journey!
such a straight forward explanation for a product that has caused so much confusion
I've been waiting for this video. It really clarified what each product is and what they are for. Thanks Professor.
as a dad looking to get my son into playing MTG for the first time this was extremely helpful. Thanks for the break down and help with deciding what to go with! I went with beginner box and a few jumpstart packs. I have my old cards from 1995-2003 ish and a few decks built that we will eventually get to but I cant even play with those at my local play nights anyway!
I work at an elementary school in Behavioral Support, and a lot of the kiddos have expressed interest in Magic. I picked up the Beginners Box to teach the them. I've been playing since '97, and I learned to play with Portal. The experience out of the box really took me back to when I was first learning to play, and I like this a lot better, because it includes Instants, which Portal didn't do. The kids are loving it as well, and it's been a very effective motivator to get them to do their work so they can earn games. Even as a heavily enfranchised player, I think the Beginners Box is one of the best products WoTC has put out in a long, long time.
I wonder if the starter collection would make a good point for league. Everyone takes there Not-deck-builders-toolkits-but-we-put-all-the-archetypes-in-them-this-time-instead-of-only-a-handful (but I still loved them) and they build decks from them that evolve as they open packs to add to it.
These are both really cool products, I'm glad they exist.
Slowly getting back into magic after a 5 year long hiatus, unfortunately there are no shops nearby that play the game so Arena it is for me rn, but I've been loving watching Prof again and all the content I missed over the years, it's amazing to see how much the channel as grown!
For beginner box, you have 10 jumpstart decks. You can make
- 90 Different 40 Card decks with those
- 56 decks with the remaining 8 Jumpstart decks
- Total of 5040 different matchups with 40 card decks
- 720 decks with 60 cards (3 jumpstart decks)
- 210 decks with the remaining 7 jumpstart decks
- Total of 151.200 matchups with 60 card decks
- You can make 20 different decks of 60 cards using 2 colors
- 15 different decks with the remaining cards
- total of 300 matchups (60 card dexks with 2 colors)
This guy maths
Sounds like a great battle box to have like a board game to me
Your math is a bit off. You can only make 45 different 40 card decks with the 10 jumpstart decks.
The 1st of the 10 decks can be combined with each of the nine other decks for 9 unique combinations.
The 2nd can also be combined with each of the 9 other decks, but combining it with the 1st deck has already been accounted for. This leaves 8 unique combinations.
This pattern continues with the remaining 8 decks, adding 7, 6, and so on, until reaching 1. The sum of which is 45. The rest of your math is wrong in a similar fashion.
While you can still make many unique deck combinations, you're overshooting by quite a bit.
If anyone is interested in the actual numbers (if someone would double check me that would be great) they are
- 45 Different 40 card decks
- 28 decks with the remaining 8 jumpstart decks
- 1260 different matchups with 40 card decks
- 120 decks with 60 cards (3 jumpstart decks)
- 35 decks with the remaining 7 jumpstart decks
- 4200 matchups with 60 card decks
I'm too lazy to do the unique 2 color decks. But I'm pretty sure these numbers are right.
Have a good day and play some magic if you can.
I was just thinking about the Beginner Box after spotting one at the store today. Prof coming in clutch as usual!
dude i LOVE how you explain these topics, ive been playing for a while now and some products are so confusing!! You make things way more easy and enjoyable to understand! Keep it up 💪💪
So the starter collection is a starter to your collection, while the beginner box is a box for beginners.
Crazy how it be like that
I understand it now *wins pro tour*
Reading the product explains the product.
I feel it would make a little bit more sense the other way around: one to START playing the game, the other one for BEGINNERS of the game to expand their collection.
Excellent video. I’ve been interested in Magic for a while but never played, so I’ll be picking up the Beginner Box. Thanks for such a clear explanation.
Got the beginner box to teach someone to play and it was a really good experience. Prof described these boxes very well
I started playing in 1996 for a couple years and started back again 6 months ago with a couple friends who don’t have much experience so I grabbed a beginner box and we spent a solid 8 hrs combining decks and having a blast. Sub $40 and 4 people can play. Like you said great product for some kitchen table games.
Brand new player here. Thank you for helping me decide what to get!! Looking forward to the beginner box.
I had so much fun with the beginner box, teaching my gf and family :) we had a really great time :)
I am a new player and ended up buying both last night. I regret nothing.
Personally i found the starter collection to be fantastic. Even as a veteran player there are cards in here that i just didnt have and didnt want to shell out the $$ for. If i bought the singles it would have been more costly than to pick up the box, so in that regards, its a win. Plus it comes with 3 boosters. 10/10 would reccomend
“Shuffle up and play”
He did it it, he said the name of the show
Roll credits
This is a very good video and answered a lot of my questions as someone who is maybe considering getting into magic after like... 25 years. Also I am looking forward to a SUP with Voxy, Tappy, and Spice. That's going to be WILD.
Prof, your videos are soothing to me. Thank you.
I WANTED THIS VIDEO. I got the starter colection 1 day early. And i loved it!
An iconic voice i can trust 🎉
I think both products are amazing for casual players of the game, regardless of having experience or not.
If you are a fan of limited, you have the makings of a very fun draft or sealed deck experience just mixing the contents together from both these products. You can make some adjustments to turn it into a forever cube.
I’ve bought three beginner boxes and made 60 card mono color decks from putting 3 of the same jumpstart packs together. 90 dollars for 10 decks, 6 playmats, excellent storage boxes… It was a great buy!
Comment for algorithm reasons. Love seeing a positive video. They are important against your negative ones getting more traction
I really like the cats versus vampires tutorial idea. I know you mentioned later that they've done it before, but I still think it's really neat that they can create a tutorial experience like that.
I got the beginner box to teach my girlfriend how to play :D
I feel like it will be fun to have the experience of opening magic product and having the interchangeability of the jumpstart decks. Plus they'll be easier to manage than my preexisting decks.
Been waiting for this vid since the set dropped, thank you.
I went into my LGS just last week to buy my first ever magic cards specifically with the intent of playing commander, and the starter collection was right there. I almost talked myself out of getting it but as a complete noob the value of over three hundred and fifty cards was too good to ignore. I ended up building a blue-green (Simic?) deck with Prime Speaker Zegana and took first place in my first ever game. Stayed under the radar, was never vulnerable nor ever "the threat" for more than half a round. Idk how many lands they were all running but I was sitting pretty playing solitaire while my opponents were on four or five lands even after turn ten! Thanks prof for the tips, I couldn't have done it without your vids!
Vengeful Bloodwitch is a playset, 1 copy is borderless full art.
since getting back into Magic a year ago, I have been playing exclusively on spelltable and have just been proxying cards. However the Beginner Box is the first MtG product I have seen since then that I am very eager to purchase because I have been struggling to get my partner interested in Magic and I love how they have put it together.
Thanks Prof for yet again another helpful video. I'm off to find a Starter Collection now to pick up Standard on paper rather than MTGA and add to my Commander collection.
Great video Prof. I've been in and out of magic for 9 years and i couldn't understand which.... so bought both
It's totally unrelated to the vid, but I would have loved to have you as a college professor, Prof! Your videos are very easy to follow! Love the content!!! 😊
I've been playing since June, and I picked up a Starter Collection a few weeks ago. It was absolutely *perfect* for me, especially with the three Commander staples that I was having a hard time finding locally to build my very first Commander deck (I've been playing with precons only this whole time).
As I am new i got both. We really enjoyed the beginners box. We also enjoyed building decks with the starter collection. They both were cool.
I think the 3 commander cards are pretty cool. 2 out of 3 reference your commander, so it's clear they need something else to work and if you want to build a commander deck, those 3 cards are almost always auto includes, so it's really nice to have them in your collection
I love that im not going to buy either but still watch these videos
As someone who sold my collection a decade ago (opening boxes of Dragon's Maze will do that) with an SO I want to get to play with little experience, it looks like I'm in a good situation for the Beginner Box to get them comfortable with playing Magic. Maybe once we find a play group in the area the Starter Collection or Commander pre-cons will be a better value, but for now it looks like I'm pretty close to the target audience.
I bought a starter collection for my nephews birthday. I also got one for myself, just seems like a decent collection of cards. I’m looking forward to building some decks and playing together.
Thanks for the video prof and team. Was waiting for this one!
Really enjoyed this. Quite clueless with Magic but got myself the Lord Of The Rings starter kit the other day to play, but think from this video will get myself the Beginner set as well, cheers, :3
This really helped. My pod plays commander and I have a few precons so I went with starter set to improve my current precons and maybe build my own deck
I've played since the 90s but I've recently got back into it after like 10 years. The starter collection is GREAT.
I'm so very impressed by the beginner box. It is exactly what I wish existed when I started playing magic. One product that my friends and I could buy to try out all the different colors and basic archetypes. No guessing "maybe I'll like this starter or intro deck" based on the art. Add in the replayability and ability to use it to get OTHER new players into magic once you know it's right for you, and it's really perfect.
I'm so glad I bought a beginner box for one of my friends interested in getting into magic, it's going to be an early Xmas present. 😊
Thinking i might get a Starter collection thanks to this video.
This has been a very good help. Thank you!
Kitchen Table Magic....I thought that was only a Local Term, and I've been playing MTG for 25 years....LOVE IT! ;-)
When i was new to magic I didn't have a sol ring for the longest time because they were never printed in any packs I opend and they were always sold out at the lgs so its nice to give these cards to new players who may just want to build a commander deck or get another copy to build another deck
A much anticipated one! Thanks!
i was the first to learn mtg in my group, and i had to do it alone. that’s why i bought a beginner box, to teach my friends how to play, get them in the game without any trauma or doubt/misplay. i found it very good and even better considering that it can give a fast experience w the 40 card format that adds a lot to the game
I’ve been playing since Beta, and back then, all they had was starter decks and boosters. All we had at our disposal was: 1 starter deck. So to really get the ball rolling, it took about FOUR starter decks to make a playable deck. (Plus an optional booster back or two, or three at most) After that, we used a large pool of all the cards (about 3 players=180+ cards) to mix and match colors to make 2 color and mono colored decks. That’s how we did it a long time ago lol…
Special shout-out to the click wheel. Perfect accessory!
Thank you, Prof! This was so helpful ❤
Not sure why i just noticed this but saw you hit 1 mil subs! Congratulations!!!
I started building only foundations commander decks and they have been pretty fun! It's a fun limitation that i hope others will try 😅🤠
So in other words
If you have someone who is just starting out in magic it's probably a good idea to get them both of these products. The beginner box teaches them how the game is played and points them in a rough direction for what kind of deck they want to build then the starter collection provides a handful of cards to support the themes they tested in the beginner box...... Thats actually really smart, good on you Wotc (dang I never thought Id be saying those words ever again)
My buddies and I who play only Commander each bought a Starter collection box and built EDH decks using only the cards in the box and packs (+4 packs). Had a ton of fun! Impressed with the product.
My playgroup bought starter collections on release and a few packs, now we're doing a weekly league where we get a few new packs to add to the pool, it's going really well so far!
The Starter Collection actually does have a full playset of Vengeful Bloodwitch, but one of the copies is a full alt-art.
Thanks Professor
Hey Prof, I also wanted to add a bit of information that beginner collectors of Foundations may be curious about. If you’re attempting to make a complete set, you will need to purchase both the Beginner box and the Starter collection as well as Play Booster packs. I am a fan of both the art and lore so I collect for enjoyment and not financial reasons. In doing so I have noticed through various box openings that the sets have cards that are exclusive to one another. I thought I would include this for anyone interested. I would also like to say that I am very appreciative of the work you do and the differing opinions that you present. It’s not always easy being the voice of dissent, but it’s a better place when presented with enough information to draw our own conclusions. Thank you for the incredible work you and your team do. I wish you many more years of continued success.
I’m also a collector far more than a competitive or financially focused player. I only draft for those reasons. But your point is exactly why buying singles is so much better than opening for cards. Unless you want the personal thrill of opening the card yourself, buying the specific cards exclusive to each type of product is way cheaper than buying one of each product and then opening packs.
@ True but as of right now attempting to purchase the cards that come only in the starter and beginner sets may not be possible. They’re not available from the booster packs so the only way to get those cards is going to be from the sets themselves. After that you’ll still need over 300 unique cards that can only be found from the booster packs.
The Starter Collection is also a great foundation (haha) for a cube! Remove the duplicates, adjust the land count (if you want), and you havd a draftable small-scale cube to learn how to draft or introduce your commander-only friends to draft.
I have to heavily disagree on your claim that the Beginner Box is a bad purchase for enfranchised or experienced players, and you point out the reason for this in the video yourself: It's great for getting people into the game. I bought a beginner box just to have a pool of well-balanced decks that I can shuffle up and play with in order to show the game to friends. The relatively simple card effects help a lot here in comparison to other formats, while still making for tight and exciting games. In my commander pod we have even started playing a quick round of Foundations Jumpstart in-between for a change of pace. I think the Beginner' Box is an extraordinarily well designed product and as a very experienced player it's probably been my most rewarding purchase. I look forward to having a lot more fun with it in the future.
very good watch, as a person slowly getting back in after...er 20 years, it just confirmed my initial feelings
I've been playing for just over a year and a half, and the starter collection was EXACTLY the product for me. I have collected a lot of cards, but the consistency and up-to-date meta of these foundations cards blew me away. Also, I still was having problems with having enough lands playing Winston Draft with my friend (who started when I did). This was an amazing product for me, but Prof is so right on the actual $ value of it.
I bought 4 starter collections to build some 60 card decks out of as a little battle box to have on hand for board game nights. I think its the single best casual mtg product that has been released since I started playing 8 years ago. Could even sell a couple high-value cards to recoup some of the cost if need be. Great product.
I bought the Beginner box last night, sleeved up all the jumpstart "packs," and numbered the sleeve fronts so they could be separated into packs again. I even put together ninja and descend packs from my collection, so now I can have up to 6 players from the one box. It's a jump-start cube built like a family game night board game. I'm leaving a 12-sided die in the box and each player can roll for which two packs they get. I may create more packs to get it to 10 players.
This video made my decision to buy my nephew and nieces the Beginner Box for Christmas.
The Starter Collection reminds me a lot of an updated (and upgraded) Deckbuilders' Toolkit. Loved that product
Also, for those interested, the current value of the cards in the Starter Collection is ~$250 right now, with Aurelia the Warleader being the most expensive.
You are a legend!
Starter collection is like the best product me and our friends would have bought when we were 10-14 yo playing at the beach. Really great for casual play
I have been playing mtg for many years... I got the Starter Collection for one main reason- to use as a travel game. When traveling far i don't want to take loads of cards but i still want to play the game so i take the box use the cards in it and have a few quick games.
When going to a convention or my lgs I take way more and more expensive decks (formats vary (yes... Mainly commander! 😅))
Also running the numbers 10 jumpstart pack equivalent, 2 playmats (cardboard) and some tokens 2 spindown dice. It works out cheaper
This beginner box reminds me of the Portal Beginner’s box from the 90’s! It was my first or 2nd MTG purchase 😊