I'm currently trying to get into a card game and am now wondering how easy it might be to get into Magic with no experience whatsoever. I heard about a Magic online game/something you can download, so I guess I could start there so I don't have to spend a whole lot of money on cards. But I feel like Magic is way more complex, thus more difficult to learn, than other card games.

Some extra information, I've always been learning quickly in school and stuff, I'm in my early 20s and have played Yu-Gi-Oh for some years, if this might help in any way.

Magic the Gathering is actually one of the easiest TCG to get in.

It has entry products aimed at beginners or people trying to get in mainly :

• Construction Kits => it gives a lot of lands (you need them for basically anything) and quite a lot of cards of each color and some of each dual color. It's power level isn't especially high, but it also contain boosters, all in all, a very fine way to start a collection. There's a leaflet in it with some of the "How to do a balanced deck ?" advices needed to tinker on your own.


• Planeswalker decks => Premade decks in previous times where either stupidly powerful or with especially potent cards in it (Rats deck of Kamigawa, Elf deck of Lorwyn etc) or gimmicky at best (all the other Kamigawa decks etc). The cards in it weren't especially useful outside of the deck's theme, so it was kinda hard to learn Magic with them. Nowadays you've got planeswalker decks. Firstly, they give you access to every card types (or so) there is in magic, you've got some unique cards and staple commons/uncommons. The decks' plans are usually quite straightforward and made with playability in mind, they aren't competitive, but they surely can be played as in.


• Challenger decks (or whatever the English name is) => Tourney decks. These products are quite competitive and allow one to see the meta and explain how the deck works, usually they are quite instructive.


• Game Night => 5 decks made on a theme based on the color (graveyard is actually useful + zombies for black etc etc etc). These decks aren't especially powerful but are made for beginners to "feel" what the color is about. I found it quite instructive.

The main difference between Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh is the resource management, you can play as many monsters as you want every turn, but you need to pay the cost. Which depends on the land cards. All in all, the Magic rules are quite simple, cards' interactions aren't. But you'll understand quite all of it very quickly by playing.

MTGArena (the video game version of the game) is also a very good way to get the rules, to understand how phases works and how the game plays out. The theme decks that are given in the beginning are not very strong tho, and some of them are barely playable as is.

Magic is designed to be easy to get into and hard to master. On one level, casting creatures and throwing them at the opponent is very easy to do. On the other, interacting with the stack, timing your ability activations, spells and land drops, and mastering sideboarding/mulligans is very difficult. It's easy to play Magic and even as a complete beginner you'll beat good players some of the time; however to play Magic perfectly in a 15-round tournament is pretty much humanly impossible.

Here're three articles from ChannelFireball written by a Magic Hall of Famer on how difficult Magic's decks are. Even if you don't know the rules, you should be able to get the gist: there are decks in which you make simple and/or the same decisions every game, and there are decks which give you a ton of options. Naturally the more options you have, the more likely you are to make a mistake, but also to outplay your opponent.

In terms of expense, if you want to play on paper, Magic can be quite expensive. Many of the more powerful rare cards & mythic rare cards can cost US$ 10+. However if you're okay with playing online only, then Magic Arena is free to download, and if you grind enough you can eventually unlock all the cards.

While the other answers cover structure and resources of the game, I think the most useful answer is to draw some light on the ways of actually getting to learn the game, and evaluate from there.

Either way, learning the game will be a process, not something you'll do in a day like you'd expect from a board game with a four-page manual. Instead, you'll be learning more and more of the mechanics, while the people around you will likely correct more and more of your mistakes, all while already playing the game. Even when you're reasonably experienced, new editions will introduce new mechanics, so you'll keep picking up things as you go.

I actually don't think MtG is a game that's easy to learn, as its ruleset is overwhelming to even experienced players sometimes. There also aren't just the rules, but the language to learn that players will use at the table. That said, the complexity makes it interesting, and you can approach learning it a few different ways.

Being taught by a friend

Almost everyone I ever met playing MtG has been taught by a friend, and many of these friendships have established in local game stores. While the possibilities are different today especially over the internet, I still meet a lot of beginner players in the store, so I think it's worth being mentioned.

However you come by someone to teach you, if you know someone who already knows the rules reasonably well, I would say that's the best way to pick up the game. Having someone to answer your specific questions prevents many of the barriers you might encounter trying to read the rules.

And of course by playing with a friend, you'll already have fun while learning!

Learning by watching or attending local events

I have organized and judged FNM and prerelease/release tournament events at a local store and local conventions for a few years now, both being formats that are supposed to be welcoming and tailored towards new players. At tournaments, you are expected to know a little bit about the game, while FNM events the way I know them are gatherings without specific expectations and therefore without prerequisites.

I will say that no matter how beginner-friendly you're trying to make those events, it's tough picking up the game from simply being around experienced players. The more you're used to the game, the quicker you go through the motions, making it very hard to follow unless you already know what's going on. Additionally, you're more likely to feel discouraged to ask questions because you're pausing multiple people's games, or even prolonging an ongoing tournament.

Nevertheless, if you don't know anyone playing the game yet, I suggest that you visit local events just to meet people. You might even ask if someone would spend the time to explain the basics to you - there's probably someone around willing to teach, and people are generally happy to expand their player group in my experience.

I want to point out that some of those events will be so-called Sealed events, meaning everyone gets a number of boosters to build their decks from. As soon as you picked up the basics, this equalizes the playing field in terms of investment at least, as you won't have to compete against decks worth hundreds or thousands of dollars with your starter kit cards. As mentioned in the comments, there are other ways in which a store in general can help you get started as well.

Learning by playing digital versions of the game

I looked into both Duels of the Planeswalkers and Magic Arena, and the fact that they take care of most of the rules makes getting started with the game relatively easy. Understanding some mechanics like how to attack, or win/lose conditions are well conveyed, while others such as paying costs and when to tap and not to tap will generally be less apparent. Still, you might be able to pick up how the game works enough to play a couple of "actual" games.

Although I find this method to be the least favorable, I wouldn't call it a bad alternative. You will learn the game, and if you can't find a local store and don't know anyone else playing it, it's still a good option. Nevertheless, when I observed players on MtG Arena, I could tell that they are generally making choices an experienced player would catch right away. If you would be sitting at the same table as that player and made that mistake, chances are they would let you know and help you learn that way. While I don't have any data backing it, I would imagine that learning process is a lot more tedious playing a digital version of the game.

Learning from videos or other guides

I think this method of learning is mostly useful for picking up advanced mechanics or interactions, not as much for starting to learn. Beginner videos will be joyfully explaining what tapping and paying costs is, but due to the lack of interaction, you should quickly find yourself in a situation they didn't cover, and be left wondering what to do. Also, wanting to learn the game probably means you want to play either at a physical or digital table in the long run, so in my opinion, just skip the guides and go there straight away.

However, if you are completely new to the concept of trading card games, they might be interesting in order for your to evaluate what you're getting yourselves into.

Magic the Gathering is, functionally, a pay-to-win game at most levels, and is a pay-to-compete game at high levels of play. If you just want to play casual games with your friends, buying a premade deck is fine.

If you want to stand a decent chance of winning a relatively casual tournament at your game store, you can probably expect to pay about $300 for a Standard deck that will likely have pieces rotate out in 6 months, or about $600 for a Modern deck that will remain usable indefinitely as long as it doesn't get core pieces banned. Some decks will cost more or less money, but these should give you a ballpark estimate on how much you'd need to spend to compete.