Magic the Gathering

Strategy

Email from Hurly

By ManaNation.com ⋅ March 15, 2008 ⋅ Post a comment ⋅

I’m on the road this week­end, not Magic related unfor­tu­nately, but I’m try­ing to keep up on emails and mes­sages. Sure enough I check my email today to an email which made me smile ear to ear.

Last week I wrote a ram­bling forum post dis­cussing my feel­ings towards teach­ing Magic and how it is a major moti­va­tion for me when it comes to mak­ing this show. You can read the post right here if you are curi­ous, but before you do, you should read this email.

Hey guys,
Found your show and site, it’s great as I am a new player, as well as my wife. When you hear how we got started you might think it’s cool story.

One of our chil­dren has been play­ing Magic for (are you ready for this) for about 11 years and our grand­chril­dren have started this year in school.

Now they have Grandma and grandpa playin the game. I will be 60 in May and am just learn­ing think the game is great, we get to get together on Wednes­day evening and play, kids can’t wait for Magic night to come.

So yes I do need some help on def­i­n­i­tions on some terms and symbols.

Any way thanks guys for the shows. I have watched a num­ber of the shows and we have a great store with some super young peo­ple in that help us learn.

Thank You,
Hurly

Well Hurly, your email def­i­nitely made me smile and it is a great moti­va­tion for us to con­tinue on with the show. It’s a great exam­ple of how Magic spans ages and has begun to link fam­i­lies as a game. Lee’s son is also a Magic player, one who has indeed beat me before.

And we’re def­i­nitely aim­ing to bring you some more help­ful infor­ma­tion about Magic, we’ve got some short video seg­ments in the works that will be used to explain mechan­ics with­out being in the mid­dle of episodes and such — so keep an eye out for those!

That being said, let me offer older new play­ers three tips for when they face younger more expe­ri­ence players:

1. Don’t let age be a fac­tor in how you judge your oppo­nent. Too often I sit down across from a pre-teen and feel like I should go easy on them, only to find myself on the ropes as they talk trash. So, take no pris­on­ers, no mat­ter what grade of school they’re in.
2. Don’t force your­self to play at your opponent’s pace. These kids will prob­a­bly know every card and assume you do too. If you need to stop and ream them, then def­i­nitely do so. The kids might get pouty, but they will survive.
3. Don’t call them ‘whip­per­snap­pers’ — they don’t appre­ci­ate it.

– Trick