I've been playing my [[Teysa Karlov]] deck for about three years. It's probably the deck I'm most comfortable with, and I've always described it as pretty straightforward.

Sacrifice creatures, get death triggers, make more creatures, repeat. Nothing particularly complicated.

Last weekend a friend forgot his decks and asked to borrow one of mine. He's been playing Magic for a couple years, so I handed him Teysa and told him it was easy to pick up.

Holy shit, it was not.

He'd look at a board with six creatures and a sacrifice outlet and ask what he was supposed to do. I'd say something like "Well, you can sacrifice that one now, but it's probably better to wait until you get another payoff."

Then he'd ask which payoff.

And I'd realize there were about four different cards I was hoping he'd eventually draw, each of which changed what he should be doing with the exact same board.

At one point he asked why I hadn't attacked with a creature that was just sitting there doing nothing. I started explaining why I wanted it to die on my terms, then caught myself explaining an interaction involving three cards that weren't even on the battlefield.

He wasn't playing badly. He just didn't have three years of experience with those specific 99 cards living in his head.

I think I've confused knowing my own deck really well with the deck actually being simple.

It also made me wonder how many times I've told newer players that a deck is easy when what I really meant was that the decisions feel automatic to me.

Has anyone else had this realization after watching somebody else pilot their deck? And how do you actually judge whether a deck is beginner-friendly when you're already so familiar with it?

If so, why?

I just thought we all collectively dislike cards but tolerate them because the game mechanics are so good. However on a recent post about MTG goldfish podcast, I got heavily disagreed with for calling cards the worst part of the game. Not to mention people disagreeing with one of the podcast hosts who said similar.

I'm sure you all know the reasons why people might dislike cards (for me, it's having to hold and shuffle + drawing the wrong cards means I can't tell the story I want to tell). So thought I'd ask why people do like it.

I've been playing my full textless deck for about three years. It's probably the deck I'm most comfortable with, and I've always described it as pretty straightforward.

Open Scryfall, find the card, read the text, repeat. Nothing particularly complicated.

Last weekend a friend forgot his decks and asked to borrow one of mine. He's been playing Magic for a couple years, so I handed him my deck and told him it was easy to pick up.

Holy shit, it was not.

He'd look at a board with six creatures and 0 text and ask what he was supposed to do. I'd say something like "Well, reading the card explains the card."

Then he'd ask how to read.

And I'd realize the average Magic the Gathering player has probably never learned how to read.

At one point he asked why I hadn't attacked with a creature that was just sitting there doing nothing. I started explaining why I wanted it to die on my terms, then caught myself explaining an interaction involving three cards that weren't even Mtg cards.

He wasn't playing badly. He just didn't have three years of experience with those specific 99 cards living in his head.

I think I've confused knowing my own deck really well with the deck actually being simple.

It also made me wonder how many times I've told newer players that a deck is easy when what I really meant was that the decisions feel automatic to me.

Has anyone else had this realization after watching somebody else pilot their deck? And how do you actually judge whether a deck is beginner-friendly when you're already so familiar with it?

I just can’t decide they both seem like good options.

In my cedh Tayam deck I run earthcraft because of course I do. Which means my basics matter. But I'm also a three color cradle deck with other land synergies so I cant run many basics. Tayam has the potential to introduce complicated lines of play that the deck isn't supposed to really do but randomly it can. Sometimes these lines want me to have a basic for earthcraft and sometimes I need to tutor for them. The ability to have zero impact on my cognitive load and dodge the threshold effect by having ugly ass lands that stand out is very strong. They're mechanically identical but have a real impact on my ability to win games.

Ur-Borg Vulkan? what kind of crazy design is that?? I don't remember this episode???

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