Magic the Gathering, the Educational Tool

[Korto]

After being out of it for years, I recently got back into playing Magic with the wife and a few friends. My daughter, seven, seeing this, got very interested, and so I invited her to play (making up a few simple but nasty green and red decks for her to use).

Magic looks like a great educational tool to me. It's requiring her to use basic arithmetic (as I'm certainly not telling her how much damage she's doing, she's got to work it out herself), she's got to read the cards, comprehend them, tactical planning, and finally there's learning good sportsmanship, as she's not winning all the time (we're not letting her win; actually, there's no need to "let her win", I'm quite pleased with those decks.)
The tactical side, she's got a fair bit to grasp yet. When to cast Giant Growth (she keeps on casting it right at the start of the turn, before she's even declared attacks), when to sacrifice, that sort of stuff, but she's only seven.
I'll put a collection of older cards I don't care about aside at some point and give them to her, and she can try to design her own deck.

I reckon Wizards should try to push it to schools as an educational game.

[madd0ct0r]

I've built a few smaller games as educational tools - there's a limit to how many things one game can cover and still be comprehensible. I must admit, I've tried magic a few times and just not enjoyed it.

[Lagmonster]

I have a box of cards from Alpha to about Invasion block that I dug out for my son (although usually we play with the newer cards. The earliest stuff has less interesting effects and art).

My son, at 8, is capable of building decks with only creatures and sorceries. The idea of stacking instants and effects is a bit above him. And black decks are right out - he can't visualize strategies of sacrifice for gain. Cards that sacrifice life for additional cards or damage, for example, he won't run because he always has his eye on the life total as the marker of success. Conversely, he enjoys white decks with heavy life gain, and any big green stompies get his attention.

You could, god forbid, always try Pokémon.

[TheFeniX]

I enjoy Magic because it brings in a lot of difference aspects of gaming. Not only do you have to worry about your own deck, but also the decks of others, what colors they're playing, possible counters to your strategies, or if their deck is just flat-out better. It gets me into a much different mind-set than a lot of other games because you can go crazy thinking about what combos might be coming out, when to save your big killers, or when to sit back and just let other players rip each other apart.

Even then, knowing your opponent's mentality is a huge part of the game. Paul gets pissed when he gets "pinged" early game and will rabidly attack whoever hit him first, even 20 turns later. This is easily exploitable. Chris knows if I have any blue in my deck, I've got at least 4 of some sort of counterspell, removal, etc. Leaving 2-3 mana untapped and giving weird looks when I say "let me see that....." while I look at my cards and say "meh, ok" even though the only thing I have in my hand is more land helps slow him down while he tries to bait out my mana.

Then there's Pokemon, for kids who failed basic math. Also, Yugioh, for kids who want to throw cards down on the table and say "I win."

And black decks are right out - he can't visualize strategies of sacrifice for gain. Cards that sacrifice life for additional cards or damage, for example, he won't run because he always has his eye on the life total as the marker of success.

Not surprising since even the Magic community originally looked at the life counter as a win/lose gauge rather than a resource to be exploited. Same with the ability to draw cards.

Conversely, he enjoys white decks with heavy life gain, and any big green stompies get his attention.

I've noticed that and even I was guilty of it when I was younger. It's probably just that White and Green, at least originally, were pretty straight forward in the "pay cost > get this" area. Even Red is out because an 8 damage fireball is gone right after, but an 8/8 Green creature is permanent, even though it's easily destroyed. A lot of the younger kids stuck with it and TBH, a straight White creature deck (with some removal) was how I got my wife into the game.

That straight White deck is murder-city though.

[Simon_Jester]

Blue and black decks require you to use a lot more timing and judgment- expending your counterspells at the wrong moment, or making the wrong sacrifice for a given situation, can cost you the game. That would tend to make them more suited to veteran players, I would think.

Whereas white, green, and red decks are at least functional when you use a simple strategy even a child can understand, like "hit them as hard as you can with everything you've got, right away."

[Ahriman238]

The game requires at least basic arithmetic, which is good. And while I just picked it up again a few months ago after a decade lapse, I couldn't help but be amazed by the 'devotion' mechanic that's in common use now, where a heal, damage or creature power/toughness will be X (or X+2 or something) "where X is your devotion to [color]." Devotion, means the amount of mana of that color in the cost of cards on the field. Simple enough, but playing these cards requires kids to solve for X. Even if it's just glancing over their cards in play.

And that is awesome.

[Terralthra]

When I built a deck for a kid, I built fat fat fatties who fat. Mana accel (elves, mostly), Fierce Empath, Krosan Drover, Dragon Fangs, and then a bunch of useful fat beasts with activated/triggered abilities. Lots of fun to play, easy to get the basics, but lots of tricks to learn.

[Crossroads Inc.]

I recently Got back into playing magic just over a Year ago when I saw some people playing it at one of our Monthly Gaymer Parties down town.

I was one of the few people lucky enough to NOT loose/have thrown away all of their old cards fro the 1990's and such. So ALL of my decks are made of cards printed before 1999 It is a LOT of fun playing against younger people who have never dealt with the old cards and don't have any experience with them. For instance I have a "Shadow" deck. For those that don't recall, "Shadow" creatures can ONLY be blocked by other shadow creatures... Guess how many kids these days have shadow creatures? >:)

Another of my "Curmudgeon" decks revolves around an old "World Enchant" card that basically gives everything Deathtouch. EVERYTHING. Except it's worse than death touch because creatures CAN'T Regenerate. I get around this by ave a tone of token generator cards and mostly killing people with fire balls

[Korto]

I remember the shadows. Gave most of my old cards to a couple of friends, and one deck they made is using a few shadows. They don't use walls very much anymore either.

The deck my daughter's going best with is quite simple. A bunch of forests, some Wild Growths and Dawntreader Elks to get everything moving, some baloths and spiders, and the apex predators are Vastwood Gorgers and Duskdale Wurms. She likes big thumpy critters. I like the new green targeted kill cards, so there's Time to Feed and Hunt the Weak in there, which can give her a chance to learn a bit of strategy. Eventually .

I've got to at some point make her a Suicide Black deck, to try and get her past this silly White idea that all life is sacred...

[Lagmonster]

All new magic players are Timmies. Until they're twelve or so.

[biostem]

It's nice to see how you're using MAGIC to teach some useful skills. I played MAGIC pretty intensely from about '93 to '96, but my interest waned thereafter.

My only fear is that some conservative religious person would object to the teaching of "magic" in schools, regardless of how getting kids to use math, forethought, and other strategic skills, while also having fun, is a precious set of skills to strengthen and encourage early on.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Been there done that Bio.
Back in the early 90's when the game first came out, there was a HUGE Panic of:
"OMG Game teaching kids how to 'Summon' demons and devils! and 'Casting magic' and learning how to use witch craft!!!!" That doesn't mean it might not happen again... But if it does we can say 'been there done that'

[Simon_Jester]

I think the rise of the Internet has put a serious dent in "the fantasy games are corrupting our children!" Things like World of Warcraft may not be universal hobbies, but they're widespread enough that the majority of the population at least begins to grasp what they are, that they are games and that they don't actually teach you real magic that works or whatever.

[TheFeniX]

The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter movies probably did more for Fantasy mainstream acceptance than anything Internet related. Aside from old fantasy stories like Dracula or werewolves, Disney movies, or heavily Christian themed stuff like King Arthur: how much "standard D&D stuff" was really rolling around? Back when I was growing up, you pretty much had those old animated cartoons like "The Last Unicorn." Later, we saw a few Japanese adaptations like Princess Mononoke. But that's about it. Other than that what? Krull? A "Why is Tom Cruise in this weird movie" Legend?

My mom was pretty understanding about my PnP RPGs habits, but she specifically did not like DnD or Magic. She had little issue when I briefly got into Netrunner CCG and I got to the point where I'd just tell her we were playing Shadowrun during PnP sessions, even if we were actually playing DnD. After explaining Shadowrun to her, she had a basis when I told her it's basically "Blade Runner the game" and that was ok because she hates Sci-Fi but looooooooooves Harrison Ford (at least until he got with Ally McBeal).

So, it didn't matter that we always played Big Damn Heroes™ in DnD and Shadowrun games usually devolved into considerably more senselessly violent gameplay as Derrek preferred killing everyone because witnesses are bad (but at least he was quiet about it). It was Sci-Fi, and Sci-Fi is ok because Captain Kirk, Han Solo, and all those other example she had to choose from.

We're talking about a well-meaning woman who went out of her way to read reviews about the DnD movie specifically because of me and was ok with it because the lead.. oh, and also how it was so bad it'd probably make me give up DnD even though I was 18 at the time and wasn't even PnP gaming anymore. But Harry Potter? That stuff can't be bad, it's on her TV.