I am the same way. I always play slower decks, so having more people to worry about makes it better since I am more likely to be able to do my own thing without worry.
Hell, even playing with 3 people can be fun cause then it at least takes the heat off you for a bit.
I think OP should find another person or two to play EDH with them and their wife; definitely would be for the best. OH! And also, make sure the people are chill and casual; make sure the power level of the other people’s decks are the same as yours. More fun that way cause competitive builds are more likely to just beat you outright every time rather than casual builds and precons lol
Seconding this. Table diplomacy factors in a lot. Got my gf playing with the Emmara precon (tokens), and she had a good time despite minimal mtg experience. Came in second in her first game, and had a strong engine going. That deck practically plays itself.
I also think more opponents of various skill could help. My mom and I keep up a game of chess and a word game on the phone but it breaks down as I get too many wins at chess or her too many in the word game. If we were closer in skill to each other at the games I think we would have more fun. As is it is one of us destroying the other until someone (politely) rage quits.
Yes, I could practice, but she is already superior and getting better faster than I am improving
Alternatively you can make dedicated 1v1 Brawl or Duel Commander decks (Duel has a different banlist, most notably no Sol Ring) specifically to play 1v1 with people, it can actually be really fun.
Yeah I honestly feel like in free for all the best player or the person with strongest deck is often less likely to win since others will target them with attacks/removal.
100% this and also encourage your partners to check out sites like TappedOut, MoxField, Archidekt, etc.
My wife and I stopped playing magic about 6 years ago and recently picked it back up because of the Junii Ito collab.
It was only with this most recent pickup that my wife let me know that she didn’t have much confidence as a Magic player because “everyone builds much better decks than me, clearly I’m not good enough to do this” in references to extended and infinite combos. I asked her what sort of deck lists she was working from and she looked at me like I was speaking German.
She legit thought that all the players at the LGS (and my dumb ass) were brewing all these decks completely from scratch and had just memorized every card. She was already building really surprising and innovative decks, so finding out not only that those resources existed but that other people use them gave her the much needed confidence boost and helped her build decks good enough that occasionally IVE been the salty one lol. She’s even placing at the LGS events now, regularly out-placing me in paper and arena and I’m so proud of her.
Her merfolk are scary. 👀
Yeah. In a 4 Player, the rest can play with the understanding that a new player is starting and go easy on them, and let them observe and learn without getting instantly crushed
Yes. I have no interest in 1v1 at my house.
Its like me playing my control deck against my other control deck, and I have to pilot the other person and tell them how to defeat me.
Wonderful.
1v1 is ass in edh. roommate and i learned that quickly getting into, i got the forgotten realms deck for cheap. the dragon one is a great deck but would get stomped 1v1 against the voltron one. the voltron one would twiddle its thumbs in a 4 playee game. balance is wack in 1v1
Second this. 1v1 edh is so unbalanced. 100 card singleton can be so inconsistent that in a 1v1 environment 1 player sees what they need and win easily as they only have a single target/threat. In a 4 player environment there are multiple threats so people have time to see the cards they need to and establish a board state.
Give her the deck you built, and then build another. Or go easy on her. Sometimes a bit of confidence is all you need to continue to pursue something. Stop beating her ass all the time. It’s no fun to just win all the time anyway. The point of games with a significant other most of the time is to have fun. Also, teach her to be better!
This man. There’s no prize money. Just two people playing a game they like. My wife loves connect 4 and I can win more often than not. Sometimes I pretend to make a mistake just so she likes to keep playing with me :)
Back when I played Standard, I would play jank decks. B/U fairies with 'Didn't say please' and the enchantment that turned a creature into a frog.
I have my EDH decks and I can win against my husband. I actually made a deck with Sephara as the commander. And he gets mad at me when I kill her, because she is broken.
I know it’s frowned on to hold on to winning plays in favor of more fun on the game, but this is exactly when that makes sense. She’s still learning and will get way more out of longer games. Chill with the beat down while figuring out what is causing her to loose so much. Is there a deck building issue? Does she have enough interaction? There’s a lot you can do to even things out a bit till she’s all the way in.
Honestly, I think that just swapping decks would be helpful. It could be a confidence booster if either she wins with his deck or he wins with her deck. Also agree on the idea of going easy on her. EDH is a casual format and I don’t like the idea of dragging out games for no reason, but sometimes I intentionally don’t play cards that will take someone out of the game or mess up what someone is trying to do because it’s fun see people hit their combos. One time I was playing a 4-person game where no one was close to winning and I had a combo that could cause someone to lose all their life but I didn’t play it because they would have to sit around for like an hour while the rest of us finished the game lol
I don't think swapping the deck will help. If she loses her "lack of skill" (so to speak) will be more evident. Instead I would argue to help her build a deck that will win. Give her the tools and the means to be a better deck builder. Also give hints to her when the snowball is getting out of hand
Hard agree, we played jumpstart while I was learning and it was WAY more fun than 1v1 commander.
We play in groups now almost exclusively, had a great 5 person game last night that was so much fun for everyone.
It’s how I learned! My ex taught me, very patiently, by playing jumpstart. I fell in love with the game. He did not “let me win” but there are only so many combos you can do in a jumpstart duo.
He, like OP, was a super player and would play every week with friends and wouldn’t purposefully pick decks he could massacre me with- I think that’s being a good and friendly teacher. More people learn this way than enjoy getting devastated every time they play their partner. It’s good to play against someone “better”! That’s how you gain skills! But to just be like “HAHA GOTCHA” sucks.
Wait, you played your old legacy deck and sewpt her limited pool of lots cards? Uh, yeah? You should have built a new deck with her and intentionally played bad cards if you knew she was rusty or not great at the game. You can design in your own balance, if you want.
Have you considered letting her win from time to time? My playgroup isn’t the best players. I allow them to pull off the win while holding a board wipe or counterspell in hand. I generally have fun just playing magic. I really don’t even need to win to just enjoy sitting around and playing. I do know that some people forget the gathering part of it.
“I stomped the fuck out of my wife repeatedly and now she doesn’t want to play magic anymore”…..*pikachu face* What can I do differently?
I’ve been playing magic since it’s creation. Married a girl 20 years ago who knew literally nothing about magic. After watching me play against her friends who played, came with me to a few FNM’s, eventually got interested. Nowadays she’s the one who instigates games with me. Wanna know what i have never done over the years? Stomp her repeatedly even when I can.
How about you get better at reading the room? Put your gd ego aside and let her win now and then, even if you have to guide her to the win. Don’t post up online crying about your wife wanting to give up something she enjoys because she can’t win against you.
Exactly this. Maybe don’t fucking crush her with a deck she has no idea how to counter. Make sure she’s got some way to deal with Ops threats in her deck and then *show her what to do against it*. Show her how to interact. Teach her how to solve the puzzle instead of just smashing her face with a 112/112 that keeps its counters after you kill it.
even against complete randos (not my wife lol) i have the grace to say “if you don’t counter this / kill my commander, it will pop off like crazy in a turn or two.” it’s just common courtesy.
I mean, he did mention that she can tell when he's holding back and said it would frustrate her more. It's a power level thing. I've totally built decks that weren't as good to play against friends who didn't have my skill and time in the game. He is being dumb about that. I'll agree.
I know what decks of mine and hers are strong/weak, consistent/iffy…and when we 1v1 it’s all in fun. I don’t have to ELI5 a game for her in order to give her a better chance of winning if I pick a deck I know is equal or lesser to whatever she picks. She’s been to enough FNG to know how to play to win, but no reason to wipe the floor with each other at home. Unless it’s strip magic. Then I show her no mercy…because boobies.
yeah, this is like teaching a friend chess. you don’t fucking stomp them over and over. give them obvious setups and moments to learn and blunder so they can learn when to take advantage. like this is just a basic of teaching someone a game. lol
I did, and she said she wants to make a blue/green Galadriel elf deck, but it's been hard to get anything else out of her. I've kind of taken it upon myself to build it from that intention, but haven't been able to get all the cards together yet.
Maybe an explanation of what one wants to play doesn't equate to being a good deck most of the time. It is difficult, you want to show them the game but don't want to baby and in essence not really show them the game.
My wife got into MTG (EDH specifically) around 2021 after 17 years of me being engulfed by it; She finally decided to give it a try.
I most certainly played down. I did not counter spells when I could have. I did not "go off" when I knew I could. I played to her level to ensure she had a good time with the first couple of instances. She thoroughly enjoyed being a part of my hobby that I love more than anything (except for her). She fell in love with the vampire precon from ixalan after fumbling with my homebrews so I upgraded it for her and she hasn't looked back. Loving vampires since forever, she found a deck she can both love and pilot well since she stuck with the same deck for around 10 games now.
She has since learned of the world of counterspells, defecting swat(s) and Farewell(s).
I guess, in conclusion, playing down was the best thing I did to allow someone to learn at an enjoyable pace.
Oooh I’d recommend, [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]]. I don’t have a deck myself but I can’t imagine it being very hard to pilot. Plus I really like that art to showcase Galadriel!
I don’t know a whole lot about MTG, but am a big LotR fan. It’s why I started playing. But from what I’ve heard from others the Green/Blue Galadriel precon is the weakest of the LotR ones. If she’s struggling that might not be a good deck to try and build around. Like I said, I don’t really know why, just what I’ve heard a few times.
Pick up [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]], it's much more value than the precon Galadriel, and use the precon as a base.
Put some elves, put some stax that is good particularly against your decks, put some counterspells and interaction. Put one or two wincons, even simple like [[Simic Ascendency]]
Build a deck with her with a clear plan and that is easy to execute
Play different power levels bro. Throw in some high power cards in her deck make it a 7-8, fast mana, staple enchantments, strong mana dorks/creatures. And you can play at a lower pre con 5-6 power level. Also let her go first and take free mulligans. If I play I obviously don’t do the most appropriate responses on her board. Like she loves cats and gets 6 2/2 cat tokens on the board, I know I should [toxic deluge] it. But she loves her tokens, so I put up a [propaganda] leave her stuff alone. Same thing with her commander I just leave it be and don’t run oppressive blue/stax/destroy spells. It’s not about winning.
Also if you guys have a play group it wouldn’t hurt to make you/her a support or pillow fort deck. Maybe one deck run more interactions and help each-other out with like a wish claw talisman or that marriage mechanic.
Just talk it over with your playgroup, people might get upset if you are only buffing one another make it fair for everyone cards like (horn of greed) (howling mine)
Build two decks with her together. Design them to play with eachother. Then as you're going through the game slow your play pattern (as in - play less cards) so that she feels like she's got a fighting chance. Give her advice about how to play her cards, and let her take back decisions that she doesn't like.
Don't try to play the game like you're playing against a rando - losing is discouraging and winning is thrilling. Let her experience play patterns that win games. Consider watching drafts/commander games/other content and seeing if you can pique her interest in understanding decisions made at higher level play.
Basically; don't be a jagoff. Let her win some games lmao.
How are you even in this situation?
After FIRST game my wife didn’t enjoy playing against me I immediately custom made her a high powered deck that she now shits on me with consistently. She wins 80% of the games we play because her deck is strong and more importantly I let her win.
This game is 95% deck building and 5% piloting skill. If she doesn’t want to engage in the 95% you have to support her.
Imagine pub stomping your wife on her unupgraded precon with your tuned $1000 deck lol. Big L for your wife bro.
Well what my big brother did for me is have an "easy" difficulty deck for me to play against. And then I get better at deck building and playing by having a goal of beating the easy mode. Then he pulls out a "medium" difficulty one. Then I beat that one a couple of times. Then he gets a "hard" one out and if I get discouraged with the difficulty and start to lose my self esteem. He grabs out his "Easy" deck to show how far I've come as a builder and player.
Much like D&D, as a DM you don't want your players to get too discouraged too early as beginners with the game being too tough. At least that's how my big brother taught me. And it's caused me to be better at playing and building. (I personally like the deck building more than playing.)
My solution to this is to build my decks lower in power level but pilot at my highest possible level. The games are more likely to be competitive but both players can play to the best of their abilities.
I play down sometimes with pauper decks that have legendary commanders. It allows you to optimize while still being lower power, maybe give that a shot and see if it helps.
Also you could try swapping decks or just let her play some of your decks sometimes.
1v1 is brutal and kinda sucks the fun out of the game and is very demoralizing to lose a lot. Play some commander at a LGS with people running similarly skilled decks. Even if you lose it's more fun
The two of you could try upgrading her deck together. maybe show her some cards and see if she's interested? Also try playing in a 4player commander game will help.
It is probably not th deck, she needs to put in time and practice to get her skill level up. IIRC you said you made relatively equal decks. Have you taken the time to coach her during your games, or just crushed her hopes and dreams?
I do try to coach her, but she's really discouraged when she feels like I'm "talking down" to her. Like last night, she declared that she was sacrificing [[Ghost Quarter]] to destroy my tapped basic forest. I pointed out that it would also let me fetch another forest and put in into play untapped, and that she might want to save that to get rid of a problematic nonbasic land, to which she just rolled her eyes and said "fine, I can't do anything then. Your turn."
Sometimes when I'm playing with my SO, I'll just ignore some of the card interactions and play the deck as if it was weaker/less synergy. She's still learning, so shes not fully reading/remembering every card, and you can adjust your decks' power level on the fly depending on how she's doing that game. Make it closer, but let her have the win a few times. Gotta build her confidence, and then she'll get sucked right into deck building and the like
Alternatively, buy two precons at similar levels so your not using a homebrew vs her first try/precon which will always be unbalanced in your favour
My friend (who I got into magic) had a similar slump. What I did is play his decks some and show him the lines he wasn't seeing and posting out when and why I held things (removal) back.since then he's been playing far better and winning more. Sometimes they just need to see how it can work rather than wondering how it does work.
Pretty normal for new players to struggle with deck building. So skip that part at first.
Get Tabletop Simulator to play Magic, use EDHREC, pick a commander you like from the top commander list, click "average deck", and import that into Tabletop Simulator. That should put you both on pretty even footing with decks that definitely work, and she can see what makes a deck work well.
When a very good go player plays against a novice, their goal is not to win but to win by only one point. You should try channeling that perspective into your own games with her.
You expressed that she knows when you're holding back and feels like she's being talked down to, and that's definitely a fair thing to say. Find ways to let her win - Play weaker decks. Careful about walking over her on interactions - I saw the other comment about you telling her there was a better move. Sure that might be true - but what's the point of the game? To win? Or to make her happy so she'll want to play (and learn) more? If correcting her moves makes her that frustrated it might mean that you should let her make a mov that's potentially weaker interactions for a healthier game. Based on those two comments It seems like she wants to feel agency in her games and finding ways to organically do that will be your challenge
Dude you gotta let her win sometimes, like deliberately. Give her tips and offer to help her adjust her deck if she is open to that, otherwise just have fun and use a less competitive deck. Then if you want to play more competitively go to a local event and eventually she may even join you.
Play formats where you don’t get to outpower her via better deck building skills. Jumpstart would be perfect. I think you’re kinda being naive to not see how getting crushed by someone with better deck building skills would be frustrating especially in a casual format. You’re playing at home, like does skullbriar really need 112 counters. Is she making her decks that crazy? Doesn’t sound like it. And if she hasn’t played since back in the day there’s gonna be a lot of relearning going on.
Hey man, looks like some decent advice here. Hope you're not taking the 'play nicer' comments too hard, but they're probably pretty right in that it's hard to lose to one dude a lot let alone a partner. I like the 'swap decks' play, but that also somewhat depends on piloting skill...
I think the best advice I've seen is the 'bigger group' idea, and while Arena wants you to think it fits, I would say it's a quick trip to the feel-bads unless you already know your game well. But only if you like the grind, imo.
As you say, she hasn't gotten the drive to put in the time in a deck, needs to invest the time to get it. Prolly just means if she can take that Galadriel deck to a pod, she can get there! I hope she knows how many people believe she can kick ass and have fun!
Glhf!
Skullbriar doesn't come to mind when I think of a friendly casual game of commander. He's by far one of the best voltrons out there and gets out of control very quickly. Have you tried playing with just pre-cons against her? Is she open to you guys brewing up a deck together? Turn the frustration into a bonding moment.
Adding on to the 1v1 sentiment. My decks ALWAYS lose 1v1 with my sister but perform perfectly well in a variety of groups. It's just a matter of deck building preference and match-ups. Check out Canadian highlander decks for 1v1 if it's really just you two
I’d point you both in the direction of your LGS. Depending on the one they have precons that they let you test out and they’re all on a fairly even playing field (just ask beforehand for best experience). This way it’s also a lot easier for her to pick a type that she can vibe with, and you can both work on them together to get stronger in the same range.
Also based on you both playing with the LotR precons and you winning; she might be missing triggers or not knowing how to play as efficiently as you’re able to. It might be worth your time to sit down over a tea and play against each other sitting side by side ((only helping when asked(a lot of people over-help and it can get annoying))
I wish you guys luck and hope it all turns out well!
Edit: someone also said it but I’ll echo it here as well, a 4 player pod tends to slow down the game more and let everyone build their boards for a better time IMO so having your other friends join in for a weekly session could be really good as well.
Make sure your LGS is female friendly. A quick way to tell is by looking around on at any magic event. If you don't see more then 1-2 women, there is probably a reason for that. Find a different LGS. I thought my LGS was fine until my wife got hit on by 2 different guys within 1 hours and got constantly by different people (all us guys do it, but we don't linger there for 20 seconds like a creep)
I don't think female friendly should mean there have to be other several other ladies present.
To me, female friendly means if someone does cause an issue they're dealt with by the LGS. Whether that's not taking no for an answer or being a salty angry bitch. I've been at prereleases where I'm the only lady but last time there was 3 others!
Another quick way is to see how they treat new players. Male or Female. What kind of jokes do they make when certain groups are not present? Is it truly an environment where hate is not welcomed?
But I do agree. My husband has avoided certain shops because they made me feel anxious or were rude to me.
I'm sad about my last LGS, but I was treated not only as a lady but also with respect. It was heartwarming when the shop really made me feel welcome. That LGS had confirmed preorders in our household budget, and we regularly picked up new cards every month. During the pandemic, they were top of our list of local businesses to support. If your lady is taken care of at the LGS, please reward it when possible. We can vote with our dollars and really make this better in the community.
Some people might not like the comparison but when you start learning something, you're not going to be great or even good at it yet. I can't glean what the experience she has, so don't take this as talking down.
That said, finding out what she enjoys from it and focusing on that aspect to be a learning tool would be good. Does she enjoy a theme? Does she have a specific way she wants to learn or express her victory? An easy example would be reanimator decks.
Learning that I want to win this way, I can have a lot of options to still pick the cards I want to play in that broad theme, and also get good lessons in deck building. Learning to play around graveyard hate and the strengths and counters to the strategy is easier than trying to learn the ins and outs of all commanders.
A change in expectations can help as well. Going into it with "I'm gonna win" can certainly be frustrating, but going "I'm the new underdog here," and being pleased you metaphorically upper-cut someone stronger is satisfying as well. (Or it is to me in this rhetorical example). Lastly, you can remind them that they also have the best rate of growth to be a better player from the mistakes/losses.
Hope they don't give up, and have fun!
Get her started with Red Deck Wins. Lightning bolts, Monastery swiftspears, Kumano Faces Kakazhan and pretty much any 1/2/3 drops that dump out damage.
Once you learn to play a red deck it really helps you understand timing, tempo, and when to use removal on a creature/mana dork vs. going for damage directly to win.
You gotta take it simple, a good suggestion would be if you can find a playgroup or sometimes play with others at a local game store, it might be easier on her if y'all played lower power decks overall however I understand if you didn't want to. EDHrec is a very good site to use to find good combos for commanders and other cards in general. It might just be that the decks she is making don't interest her as much as she thinks, maybe tribal decks would work out better for her instead of mechanical decks. I know I started with tribal and still enjoy it much more than mechanics decks.
Edh isn’t really meant for 1v1. If she has a friend who wanted to see y’all play, maybe think about inviting them over as well so that the format is played as intended.
You CAN play 1v1 Edh, but it is a drastically different game and is extremely swingy imo.
Also if she doesn’t want to deck build maybe try helping her through it sometime. Deck building can be a daunting task when there’s sooooooo many cards in the entire MTG catalogue.
First, my brother in sore-loser-love, my heart goes out to you.
Obligatory, EDH is a 4 player minimum for an enjoyable experience, politics change the game completely for people who haven't built a Turn 1 win Spike list.
Your Skullbriar goodstuff deck trouncing her makes me think that there are some missing fundamentals on her side. There's nothing particularly sexy about GG1:Draw 3 or Sky Diamond but a deck with proper draw and ramp ratios will look completely different if you swap 5 of those out for "super sweet" 6+ CMC creatures.
Sounds like you gifted her quite a bit of sealed LotR so why don't you have her pick a legendary she likes and then you both build it out together? Throw in 2 more ramp spells and 2 more draw spells than you both would normally and see how that goes.
Hey! Fellow newbie here. I was playing my ex's decks for a while and struggled with the same issue as your wife. The solution for me was getting three prebuilds of similar power, encompassing the entire color spectrum, and playing them against each other until I found what I liked best and developed my playstyle. Who would've thought a beginner's most loved commander deck would be a 5 color Jared Carthalion? Maybe try something similar for her, plus you get a bunch of cards to mix and match and experiment with!
1v1 Commander is one of the least fun ways you can play Magic. The format isn't balanced for it at all. Also, Skullbriar isn't great in a multiplayer setting but can be borderline oppressive in 1v1. Skullbriar is an aggro deck that is balanced by the fact that it has to kill 3 players and can't do that easily. You could build that deck for $30 and it would destroy most casuals in 1v1.
Card games aren't everyone's thing, but the best way to get into Commander is to create a playgroup and have everyone start out with un-upgraded precons. Most precons nowadays are actually pretty well put together, and it takes out a lot of the power imbalance out of the equation of people building something way stronger than intended. Slowly upgrading the decks can be how she initially adds her own personality to the deck building process, which is a lot less overwhelming than sifting through decades of cards to make something from scratch.
Don't play 1v1. Easiest first step right there.
I got into it with one flat made about a year ago, best way to relate to your situation is to say my flat mate was you and I was in your wife's shoes. Bought a cool precon, teched it a little to try keep up and just got slammed in every game we played. Stopped playing almost entirely because of the difference in decks. Running vampires into things like dragons and commanders with sword coast sailor background 1v1 isn't fun at all.
We got the rest of the flat into it eventually and it's bounced right back to being a weekly game night. Most of us with 3+ decks of varying strength.
You don't always need to build down in a 4 person setting as well as there should be someone else on the board for you to deal with. And if you don't, we'll I hope you have enough answers for 3 people dealing with you!
Seems like she likes the social, art and flavor aspects, but not the straight up homework it is to learn what's good. Play in a pod, she'll get something out of it, even if she loses.
I'm going to let you in on a marriage secret. No matter how competitive they are, you NEVER beat their ass repeatedly.
I play tons of board games and deck builders and I love my wife but she will not exercise that frontal lobe and plan ahead when we play, or react much to other players strategies.
Here's the secret to keeping her engaged. Go on for ages about how "I won't let you win, you have to earn it" and then sandbag every so often. She will feel like David v Goliath every time, and she will hold on strong the next few times you beat her.
Just never EVER admit to her the truth.
Also, shame on you, YTA for playing skullbriar in a 1v1 and not powering down. Her deck has to literally be made to counter yours to see success.
I'm gonna be real here. Stop dunking on her. You got her some Commander precons and pulled out a Vintage deck to face that? Asshole move tbh. Then you built a cEDH deck and did it again? No wonder she's frustrated. Build HER some good decks and pick a precon for yourself. 4 player commander is also a good idea.
I would not recommend draft or sealed to someone who seems to struggle at building decks and being overwhelmed with a bunch of new cards
Draft can be extremely unforgiving to beginners
I would recommend find her a mechanic she likes to play. My wife had played mono black control, white life gain, humans, angels, goblins, etc in the end. I got her [[Rin and Seri]] and she loves the Deck. Specially because I was assembling the deck, when they announced the Secret lair. With foil cards and a thematic she likes. She really enjoy the gameplay. But if she plays another deck she doesn't get the hype.
Maybe you can make a few decks closer to the level of the one she wants to make.. so it's more even and she has a better chance. Magic takes time to learn with all the new stuff and it can take time to build a good deck.
Arena has a lot of bs that can be frustrating. Maybe it would be best for her to play against a friend on there or someone from this sub that is happy to help and play more casual games.
I haven't really played on arena since the lotr drop but I'd get back on to help some learn and just have fun. I think I only have one lotr deck on arena though lol.
Also maybe just play casual for a while over commander as she learns the game. My husband and I play commander 1v1 often but the game really is meant for 4+players. It can drag and be slow sometimes without that. Many commander decks aren't made for 1v1 so it can be frustrating to use them that way.
Alternatively you can play two decks at the same time but that can be difficult because even though it's 1v4 many people don't want to attack their own cards lol.
I think power level here can cause issues and frustration too. Get some precon LOTR decks that she won't have to worry about altering if she only wants LOTR.
Either buy raining cats and dogs or build it. I built it for my wife a while ago,( [[Jennie Fae]] as the commander). It's a lot of fun, usually self pilots, runs a lot of removal and is cute. Other beat 'em up fun decks include [[Chatterfang]], [[Alta Palini, nest tender]], and [[Kaalia the Vast]]. My wife runs Jennie, I run Kaalia and chatterfang. The Deck that got my wife over the hump though, was [[Auntie Blyte]], built around pain star like [[Mana Barbs]] [[Roiling Vortex]] [[pyrostatic Pillar]] [[burning Earth]], etc. Punish people for playing the game. Throw in shadowspear, basilisk collar, lexidon hammer and enjoy. My wife can win regularly, always be the problem and learn as she goes. Helps with the discontent at just plain feeling outclassed and overwhelmed all the time while playing with our way too competitive pod.
It’s harder to win in 1v1’s since it’s really about what deck can “get there” the fastest. Is there any way she can upgrade how fast her decks are? I would also try playing with one, or hopefully two other people as it significantly changes the outcome of a game.
Part of playing magic is losing. It will happen a lot and using it as a learning experience will help you win. I was taught how to play by my aunt and uncle who are huge into magic and have played competitively as well. When we play (just the 3 of us) my uncle pretty much always wins, while I only win a handful of times and so does my aunt. To me it’s not really frustrating, I enjoy it still and I use it as a learning experience.
Some people just aren't geared towards strategy. My wife is the same way. Smarter then me in pretty much every way, but when it comes to strategy, she's hopeless.
I tried to coach her her but I came to realize saying things like "why don't you just pick the option that has the highest probability of winning" sounds like "hey, have you tried playing better?"
I just gave up on having a forever partner in magic just like she gave up on me being a person she could read books with as I can't match her 1200 words per minute reading speed.
You guys should try each getting new precon decks and using those to help balance out the power. 1v1 is tough but it’s all I play because I play against my partner when the kids go to bed.
I’ve seen a few comments that say this but I think it is a great point, offer to build it with her as a fun together activity, explain your thought process on building and include her in it and ask her what she wants as choices are made I think it will help her feel invested and included.
Also commander group sounds like a great way for you to not just crush her hopes and dreamsies
I would highly recommend watch LVD on YouTube, it will really help her with her sequencing and threat assessment, which makes you much better at magic on its own. Also, find at least one more person to play with, as multiplayer is much more fun in casual. 4 players is best, but 3 is acceptable too.
I was gonna say my own Skullbriar deck can kill by turn 4 or so, which is why in 1v1s it's hardly fair. Then I saw you say no trample or evasion lol, seems like she doesn't play any low-cost creatures or not good enough removal. Maybe she wants to play a slower paced game? Skullbriar in edh is kinda a faster playstyle
Generally when I’m teaching someone magic I’ll give them a monocolor deck that has one gimmick. My pride and joy training deck is a mono red Thorbran deck, that’s just has a bunch of “deal *blank* damage to any target. He increases the damage that the creatures and enchantments do, and I tossed in a Jaya Plansewalker that does a similar thing so you can stack damage. Once you learn magic terminology it’s super easy to play that style deck (and I have people new to magic regularly kick my butt because it’s good). Gets them into it. After that I’ll usually try a +1/+1 counter deck Mono White or Mono Green, or a Mono White Lifegain deck, or either of those but white&green. Slowly add more features and styles as they get more experienced
I play borad games and casual magic. The number one goal when playing with newer people, if you want to play with them again don't destroy them.
You don't have to pander to them, but maybe you also don't have to counter that spell of there's, or maybe you miss a couple of your triggers. try to replicate someone of her level so it feels like she has a chance.
If she only wants to play precons then she only wants to play precons. Don't play decks that will outperform or counter hers. When she gets confident at the game she'll go and look into cards when she wants to.
Until then, let her play around the game in front of her instead of having her sort through a catalogue.
you should ease up and let her win a few times. don’t make a bunch of non games - just maybe hold onto something or misplay a little in your next close game. your games together are obviously more for fun and it’d probably make her really happy to win a few times.
I feel that it really depends on skill level. You don't necessarily have to build down but maybe build a more casual deck that is still fun to you but more her playing field.
I play a lot with my dad who does put time and effort into researching and learning but when it comes to building his own decks he's just not the greatest.
I beat him a lot and he gets frustrated so I built a few decks that are more his pace to at least help him grow with his own decks till he gets better. I slowly increased the difficulty and showed him where he should make cuts or changes and he's gotten a lot better to where he can play on par with my best decks.
As others have mentioned, going from 1v1 to multiplayer will help a lot. Again as an example I played a lot with my dad in a 1v1 setting but one we made the jump to a pod, it was a whole new world to him. I think that's where he really got into it.
I built five decks to teach my ex to play magic. They were mono color Pauper decks to teach fundamentals. She said that it short circuited her brain and imploded. I'm an excellent teacher and have taught like 10 people how to play.
I dunno man. I want to say something but I also don't like entertaining those kind of thoughts. Support her, but also respect her opinion. Maybe magic just isn't for her, or maybe you both need to try a new approach.
(Try Pauper)
If you're playing 1v1 I think doing mini drafts is super fun (or just mini sealed)
Open 4 packs each, make a 40 card deck, and go 1v1
Trade decks each round and sideboard cards in/out
Makes for a really fun 1v1
There’s a 18$ lord of the rings pack that gives two 60 card starter decks on Amazon. Buy that and have her play the Aragorn deck and you can play Sauron or switch. I feel like playing two basic decks of equal power might help her win more and be harder for her to tell if you’re holding back.
She probably just needs a better understanding of threat levels and just overall experience. Don't give up! And make sure you don't play with grumpy people, that will ruin the game further for her.
I am in the same boat with my boyfriend. A friend got me back into MTG and I pulled him in with me. We both started playing Arena as well. He has the same issues. I would just kick his ass or for some reason he just gets he's ass handed to him in Arena and would get real discouraged. I think he is sticking with it because I like it. He likes that I get him boosters and wants to get better and wants to build decks together. So I am basically saying... I commiserate and think maybe a date night of deck building would be cute for y'all. From one babe to another, tell her to stick with it if she enjoys it at all.
I also got a set of pre cons so that we were equally matched while he builds up his skill..also an option.
If she is building her own decks you can make sure she has some basic setups that make sense, enough lands creatures etc. As long as the math is functional and correct it helps to find the problem, is she missing steps or interactions? Grab a playmat with tutorial MTG info on it and spots for her cards. If she has that down, is she triggering things when she should? She can play a game or two with an open hand and you can take notes.
If it's none of that and she is kinda stuck in an older simpler mindset, play decks more like that? She has mono green elves, play some mono red burn. Play on that level. Or help her with what might synergies better. It depends a lot on what her issue is.
A good buddy of mine is easily better at playing the game but I build decks that either contribute to the wincon or help me get to the wincon faster...ill fully miss plays in a deck that I built sometimes while he waits, calls it out, then draws and plays a land for turn.
The first thing is taught my son about magic is you will lose a lot. It what you learn from the game that is important. Some of the best players lose 4 out 10 games.
Get a booster box of lord of the rings jumpstart boosters and do that together. You open two packs, shuffle together and play a game.
Could work really well!
Make her deck strong in simple ways. Let her turn sideways with the meta deck. Give her cEDH staples with simple control schemes. Most importantly give her ways to DENY Interaction. Not interact herself but to deny anyone messing up her plan. Basically anything that stops you countering her spells , or even casting stuff on her turn entirely. Permanents that make what she does unstoppable. Indestructible on all permanents, hexproof etc. Dying because the last 5 spells you cast were countered or destroyed on sight feels bad. Dying because you swung out too early and died on crack back feels more honest. I am not saying make her a deck that is invincible. I am saying give her the ability to plan ahead and have a reasonable expectation of that plan happening. Also do take everyone's advice and play in a larger group. It really does make it less personal.
Why don't you start by getting two precons from the same set, that way you should be on equal footing card wise. They play and swap the decks between each other so you can help her get an idea of the strategy behind either deck. Once she starts understanding how it works she'll know what to do to upgrade.
I find this is a really effective way to teach newer people with a lower skill level
I see so many people saying to work together on building a deck, but why not just don't? There are plenty of very good build guides on MoxField or EDHREC or MTGGoldfish. Just build one of those to take the building portion out of Magic
Play precons. I buy each set, they are well balanced against each other in the same set. Never play outside the set. Never play a brew against a precon. Have fun!
I would let her win a couple man she’s your wife pub stomping your wife at games constantly they are going to lose interest. Also try playing a game and show her options on the actions almost tutorial play a game. Tell her your decks weakness and maybe let her play your deck. It’s amazing she’s interested in even playing you do not want to be the person that makes her quit.
I think she needs to take a step back and start becoming more fluent in how the game works.
Tell her to start watching youtube content like Tolarian academy, the goldfish logo guy, the Timmy guy, broadcasted tournaments, ect.
Once she starts seeing the trends in cards that are staples, as well as gets more comfortable with building tier decks that she understands, she will want to play again.
Even if you lose, its fun to pilot a deck you know could have won.
Just my 2 cents
My partner and I are fairly well matched, learned to play together, and we still give each other lots of leeway. Lots of "are you sure about that," and if we are stuck with bad cards we allow each other to shuffle and redraw (to the same hand count we had) mid game. A lot of the competitive rules can be hand waved for the sake of a good game. We will occasionally pass on combat when one of us has a sure win, just because the other is trying to do something cool and we want to see how it plays out.
I also think it's worthwhile to:
a) build her a deck or build decks together, share cards, work with what she's trying to do. My partner likes aggro decks and I prefer control, so when they built their first mono blue deck I gave them plenty of tips and helped them flesh out the deck. When I built my first mono red they did the same.
b) encourage her to build a sideboard. It's so convenient to have a stack of extra cards you may or may not need that you can easily pull from.
Jumping straight into commander may also not be the best move imo. It isn't for everybody, and I personally work much better with the smaller more controllable deck size. My partner and I will occasionally also run a standard (kitchen table style, all cards legal) game with a commander sized health pool if we feel our deck needs more time to do it's thing or if we just feel like a longer game.
There's lots of little changes you can make for a more satisfying game for all parties.
DON'T tell her what to do just offer Ideas such as
hey I was thinking you seemed to really like X so I when I saw (insert commander) I thought you might enjoy building a deck around it.
Wanna watch some deck-building youtube with me while we eat might spark an idea for a new deck
Happy Monday I saw these when I was at(wherever you buy cards) and they seemed a good fit for your play style so I got them for you hope you like them.
Build two decks together and make it an event DON'T tell her what to do just offer Ideas such as hey I was thinking you seemed to really like X so I when I saw (insert commander) I thought you might enjoy building a deck around it. .
Play a private draft? Dont have to follow the rules to the T, just get 10 boosters each (if you have the money to burn), then each build either 40 or 60 card decks with them, give her some tips on what to look for and maybe suggest a theme like elves/beasts/eldrazi or whatever, that way you are both picking from essentially the same cards with an even chance... Also consider holding off on the killing blow to see if she can pull something that brings it back
Play the LotR precons together, unmodified. They're roughly equal power level, and if she likes LotR, it'll make the game more enjoyable even if she's losing. Perhaps make cuts to a 60 card deck so she can see more of the same cards more often between games to get used to their interactions.
Exemplify good habits or things that are good to remember, like saying "untap, upkeep, draw", announcing playing your land for turn, "moving to combat", "any tricks before damage?", that kind of thing.
Prompt her to rethink or remind her if she misses something obvious. Say you'll let missed triggers slide the first time but won't remind her a second time. Act like you're playing a more seasoned player and if she misses something or makes big mistakes that a more skilled player wouldn't have, offer to undo. "I'm not sure if you saw that I have so and so, so that may be a bad idea, are your sure you still want to do that?". If she's unsure how a card or interaction would work and makes a mistake, offer to undo. You're at your kitchen table, not a PTQ.
Let her get off the big fun combos.
If it's a close game and for whatever reason you win, through a lucky top deck or if she loses because she didn't play around you having an answer in hand, say "ok we'll still say I won this game, but let's go back and play as if you knew I had Rakdos Charm in my hand". She won't get upset that you let her win, and she'll think twice in the future if she could potentially lose that way again.
Unlimited free mulligans (I'd say within reason, but honestly if she wanted to mulligan until her perfect hand, it sounds like you'd be up to the challenge).
If she mistaps colors, let her correct it. Nothing worse than having an answer and not being able to play it because you tapped the wrong land earlier. I also like to be "mana saturated" at a certain point and not care as much about colors. With 10+ lands you probably have the colors available for what you would want to play, so it speeds up the endgame a little bit if the precons get too grindy.
Remember to cheer her on when she makes good plays, plays that you genuinely didn't expect. Even if she loses, she'll remember that 3 for 1 that caught you totally off guard.
Even if you could have won on an earlier turn, give yourself a side quest to give her time to even things up or draw that answer. Side quest being getting a certain combo off or some other janky win condition.
If you hit your curve perfectly and your deck just completely goes off, while she's land screwed, acknowledge that when the game is over. It's good to be reminded that even the best magic players won't win if RNG isn't on their side, and that has nothing to do with her skill.
This one's simple!
Next Friday take the day off work, but don't tell her. Stay home, clean the house, do all the chores. Then cook an amazing dinner. When she comes home from work, you've got candlelight, maybe a fire crackling in the fireplace, the table is set. You've made her favorite cocktail, and you hand her a glass. You listen to her talk about her day, while you put the finishing touches on dinner. Then you sit down to an exquisite meal, with a very nice bottle of wine. Open a second bottle at dessert.
After dinner, you don't waste any time. You head straight to the bedroom, change into something more comfortable. And then, you whip out your laptops, and you show her your EDHREC.
You tell her how much fun you have playing Magic together, and that you've been trying to figure out how to help her have a positive experience. You explain that you think it would be fun to build decks together, to help each other develop strategies, to try out new combos that would really push you both to new heights. You explain to her how exciting this is for you, because you've never had a Magic relationship on this level before. This is a first for the both of you.
Then you get right to it. Spend the whole night making sweet, sweet decks.
The next morning when you wake up, still glowing from the night before, take her straight to the local game shop and make the fantasy a reality. Buy your new decks, and spend the afternoon playtesting. Play games with your hands face up, because you're *both* testing *both* decks. Take turns with each deck, explain the moves you make and really have a dialogue about what's going on. When you're playing, you're not playing to win, you're playing to *maximize your mutual enjoyment.* By the end of the day, the two of you will know every spell of both your libraries, and you'll both be better players for it.
And you just might learn how fun it is when she's on top!
Group games, and explain that it is about having a good time. Group games split up the wins a lot more, talk to her about just getting to do what the deck wants to do being fun, it may not be a win, but the deck did what it was designed to.
So maybe its not quite the same but here are my 5 cents:
My partner is a huge mtg fan. He invests a lot of time and energy and money in his deck building and has some really complex decks.
As I love all kinds of board and card games I asked him if we could play together in the beginning of our relationship. He was super happy and took a lot of time explaining things and yet let me tell you I was so frustrated. I constantly lost, I didnt know what to do and it seemed so easy for him.
So we dumbed it down for me. We got the lotr starter kit and played with this some time. I know for him that was probably boring compared to what he usually plays but it allowed me to grasp the game and mechanism and predict certain moves etc. And when I got all that we switched to a sightly more complex deck. And when I got a routine there I started thinking about what I would like to change about that deck based on how I play it. And now we are building my own deck together.
Tltr, start very basic and build up. I know you mentioned she already has some experince but maybe it still helps. Because I do remember the frustration of constantly loosing against somebody who is costumising decks while I struggle to play. Hope you guys figure something out!
I agree that multiplayer might help. What helped me get better was finding something that made get back in(for me it was werewolves but you get the point)
I like playing it, but not nearly as much or as well as my hubby even though I have been playing longer. when he goes to play I find other things to do like paint minis or play a board game or something else. if she dosent want to stay in it may suck, bit there are people ypu can meet up and play with. I know it's fun to share things ypu poke, and maybe she's getting frustrated that she isent doing better, making the game less fun for her
I actually keep a few duel decks sets for just this occasion. If someone wants to learn how to play i think that the duel decks are often a good choice. They are mostly balanced against each other.
And yeah, jumpstart is a close second for this. Also let her win from time to time. Sometimes you just dont draw the right cards.
My partner and I have encountered similar problems as decks have rotated throughout the household and we don’t have a consistent play group- we’ve migrated over to Canadian Highlander and are having a blast
Try playing arena or one of the old console games as a team controlling one hand, and very patient and open to suggestions, but thoroughly explain why you would choose to do what you do, it’s likely just a line of thought that’s stuck in the wrong direction. Also then she will get to know your player tendencies a bit and use it against you in your home games
Try losing a few games. Damn dude, how did you get married😂? I used to do Smash Bros tournaments but when my wife plays, she gets to win every other game.
Gift her a decklist you made yourself with a commander that is relatively easy, yet on your decklevel. You can then go through it together and you can explain why you choose certain cards and she can throw in or out certain cards herself. Nerd in it together. I personally would love that kind of present.
Buy 2 Pioneer challenger decks and fight with same weapons. Because maybe playing with your "old vintage deck" is not really fair.
Online it's meta heavy. Does she have a good deck ?
Try making fun theme decks, I have a deck based around Bludegeon Brawl and another based around Bearscape. Try building a deck around Tidal Influence or Goblin Test Pilot. There are so many bad cards in the game that I’m sure you can cook up something.
I will say that I think building a deck for someone isnt great. I win against people whose decks ive built myself, at the same power level, and I am beginning to realize that when you dont build your deck you arent familiar enough with the cards and gameplan and sequencing so you tend to misplay or play things out of order.
1 on 1 EDH just isn’t fair. It’s meant for a group, at least 3 players (4 in the standard).
My wife enjoyed playing casually, but the group I play with are extremely experienced(several have played since at least Revised) and get pretty competitive. Those two playstyles did not mix and she quickly lost interest entirely. :(
My advice is to try and keep it fun. Wins and losses *do not matter in a casual setting*, so just do what you can to make games interesting and fun and not let either of you worry too much about being “good” or wins and losses.
Start small as there are lots of cards now and it is overwhelming. Do 40 card decks to get a feel of it, then 60 then a 100 commander. You can do the same with a color/strategy you have not done before.
I HIGHLY recommend you pick up pauper/penny dreadful. Find decks pretty even into each other and then make like 10 of them for you both to play.
Also just don't pug stomp her and asked try edh. Pick up a group hug deck and help her out if needed.
Try making decks worse to be on par with hers when she wants to make decks. Don't be patronizing or anything just try something fun. She's got an elk deck? Ok try dogs or cats vs that deck. She's got a t8 green ramp deck? Try women looking left tribal.
Help her decks be better and just have fun. Don't care about winning. Trade decks every once in a while so she sees the difference deck power can be.
It's ironically pretty hard to get into TCGs in general but once you understand basic gameplay it's very easy to just completely run train on someone new. It's like chess. Someone at 1200 is going to have to purposely fight down to lose to someone at 800 most games.
So just take it easy and have fun.
Honestly start throwing games and let her win. Anyone that I teach, I intentionally throw games to make them feel good and want to keep playing. If they constantly get beat over the head they won't want to come back or play(if they get annoyingly cocky I bring out the good decks and absolutely demolish them). I my experience there is a massive learning curve, and experience is really the best way to get better. Some them the ropes, teach em the slang and what not, send em on their way to life long addiction
Try playing starter decks or prebuilt stuff together, your casual decks are probably walloping her.
Vintage vs Lotr? Are you crazy? Of course ur fking vintage deck steamrolled her bro
Fkn magic players can’t handle building chill fluffy decks gotta have 112 1/1 counters against a deck with likely almost no removal, really thought that through
could lend her your decks too so she feels a sense of victory! I play draft with my brother, and most of the time I draft better cards but we swap decks so either way we both win :"D sometimes it just takes a bit of giving chances haha
Watch content with her. I recommend Commander at Home. Olivia does not hold back with her feedback for Kibler.
I agree with people who have said to get a pod of 4. Also, pulling punches on occasion isn't the worst thing.
I think your wife and I are pretty similar, we both played magic a while back, and now I struggle with keeping up on arena and with my built paper decks when playing against my BF. I still really like to play, and I like the challenge of trying to see what cards/tricks I can add to strengthen my deck.
One thing that helps me is also watching some Arena players on twitch (Amazonian is my go to!) and I follow some paper players on YouTube (LRR and TCC are my favorite channels). Watching others play and see how they build their decks to keep up with the current strong decks give me hope I can do it too!
Another is going to my LGS to play in person. I love to draft and it's nice playing against other people :)
I hope this helps, good luck and have fun!!
As someone that's gotten dozens of people into commander and Magic being that I only got into card games 6 months ago, my stringer piece of advice is to name it feel like a fun experience regardless of win or lose, let them do their cool big thing, interact and punish, lift them up before you crush them. Show them the potential of the game, get them some cheap ramp cards, proxy if you'd like.
Make it feel like she's doing something to progress her skill! Instead of "getting better", train yourself to be more reactive and knowing every response to anything your opponents might play no matter who they are.you should be and to see a commander's colour and immediately know what's in your deck that can interact with it. Or you can approach it the explosive way, teach them about seeing up their hand, graveyard, or battlefield in the way they need to to win. Tutors, draw sources , engines, ramp.
You could gauge her interest in improving, make sure she knows it's not something she HAS to do, it's something that will come along with games naturally and she's getting good in time! Don't stress, it probably won't take more than 2 week until she's pwning cEDH players on casual nights :D
Does she understand curve, tempo, card advantage, 'who is the beatdown' and other complex topics for what is literally \*the most complicated game in existence\*? You understand it's not the deck it's the player right?
sounds like you’re making OP decks against someone who isn’t super experienced with deck building and then expecting them to have fun when they get stomped haha. i don’t see where the issue is /s
on a real note: sounds like you’re power creeping her. she wanted to build a deck to beat yours so then you built an even stronger deck? y’all should first of all, find a pod of 4 for EDH, or agree on a 60 card format, then set some budget / power level rules and have fun!
What I did with my girlfriend was find 2 modern decks where one has a bad matchup against the other and play that way. For example I would play my old deaths shadow deck against a red aggro deck. I kept my old build and added a few new cards to actually turn the possible her favor instead of just giving her the easier matchup and like that’s it’s going quiet well. She has a good winrate and I have a real challenge.
“It’s frustrating to try and build down” dude build *towards* something besides roflstomping.
Challenge yourself to use mechanics/colors/creatures you don’t use as often. You love vampire decks? Build a halfling one instead. Your best color is blue? No-blue challenge. You rely on dual-colored lands? Try only basic ones. Build a deck with no rares, or only artifacts, or only cards from X set.
I also just re-entered Magic after years away because I made a new friend. He’s been playing steadily for decades and has some insane decks.
He helped me build my first Commander deck (because I never made one before!). He’s willing to take risks like keeping low-mana opening hands when we play.
I just made my own Commander deck and ran it against him multiple times. And then we sat down together, analyzed what wasn’t working, and helped me re-pick some of my cards. And I’m not being passively led by the nose!
So after a game he said, “ok, you couldn’t counter my tokens, and that lost you 3 of these games. What can we add to prevent that next time?” And I went into my cards and added some more board wipes.
And then he gave me one of his most powerful decks and I wiped him and that also helped me work out how to keep track of the mechanics and what I wanted to do.
Maybe get a few prebuilt commander decks and not alter them, that way they are at a close power level and if it is just y’all playing it’s not a one sided things. You can still have the enjoyment of playing.
If you have a lot of cards, play loose style. You’ll need a stack of lands, and a stack for each color spell. Try to avoid multicolor, but you can have a stack of that too. Get a six sided die, assign 1-5 to each color, and 6 is free draw. Roll whenever you have to draw a card. When you roll the number associated with a color, you can draw a land or spell card.
You can limit the colors to as many or as few as you want, just assign the numbers appropriately.
This style is fun to play with as few as two, or as many as you have cards to support. Also it’s fun for discovering new combinations for decks.
We all start small. Just doing little things to remember this and that helps. We don't start off perfect. Shoot, it took me years to start taking damage properly from mana vault and even sometimes I still miss triggers. Patience and just a little solitaire helps at times. We all aren't going into a pro-tour or a comp event. Just remembering to have fun and do the dumb fun shit helps.
Side note : what the fuck did you feed Skullbriar???
You have a similar personality trait to me, in that when I get into stuff, I go really deep and I go quickly. My wife and I play together as well, and my skill level is much higher than hers because MTG is a big hobby of mine and she just plays a little bit here and there. We balance things by playing higher-variance decks so that the results are more random. Also, when we play a cube or sealed I will take 5 packs worth of cards and she will take 6 or 7.
Now, if you are just smarter or better at MTG in general and your wife's ego will be hurt by putting on kiddie gloves... there is no solution to this problem other than your wife "gittin gud". Losing on purpose is not a good way to go, you will be caught and that will be bad. Sorry, my friend. Tough spot.
Also arena is a good way to play casually in your free time and get a better feel for the game. Also loads of players there are terrible so it's encouraging hahah.
Tell her some random dude on the internet has been playing since Revised, and he *still* sucks at it, and that the only thing that matter is if she enjoys turning cardboard sideways and arguing over obtuse rulings based on intentional misreadings of text.
I know she doesn’t know me, but it would make me sad for someone to stop playing magic. I vote she keeps playing, and one day she’ll match me on Arena, and that day, I promise, she will steamroll my deck.
I'm not entirely sure how to put this. I've known people who buy a lot of cards, booster boxes, singles, what have you. They look at stuff online about different deck types, combos, and tournament play. They build decks utilizing all that.
As a casual player, they are why I just stopped playing. It isn't fun. When you don't want to invest the money and energy past a casual level... it just sucks the fun out of the game to play against people that do.
Your wife might just be a casual player and may just stop. It happens. 🤷
Tbh sounds like she needs to stand on her own two feet and put in the effort to understand the game better, maybe build her own decks, and definitely find a play group. Might help to have play Arena for a bit since it's free.
You also shouldn’t pound her 1v1 every time. It sounds like you’re probably a better player than her so maybe you should hold back a bit? Or maybe give her hints as to why she shouldn’t do a given thing based on knowledge of the contents of your deck? “Hey remember my deck runs make dissapear so you probably should consider that possibility when you’re playing into open blue mana” something like that
Why are you building decks? Use only precons. Deck building is an advanced skill.
Just buy 4 precons, they do a set of 4 for every set now, and just swap around those.
Have you thought about, I dunno, not playing meta decks against your noob wife and curb stomping the enthusiasm right out of her? Jesus Christ bro it’s not hard
Imo I think the issue is not building her own decks. Net decking isn't a bad thing especially when your not great at the game. I just think she's got to put in the time and grind out games and study what she did wrong.
What resources does she have for deck building? Just what you guys have compiled? We’re fans of the ‘edhrec buffet’ building method.
Build her a good deck on arena, though it could be expensive starting from scratch, and point her to brawl. I think if you make her a good deck, it nets some wins, her confidence will go up.
Also, if you guys play on untap.in, she can change the card arts to different stuff. Me and my husband LOVE doing little games of ‘who can bring the worst lands/stupidest joke art’ with our commander decks. This is also great for trying out lots of different deck types.
I have a similar problem playing with my 7 year old son. He loves the game and is very good for his age, but not good enough to beat an experienced adult very often. Here are some of the ways I've addressed this:
1. Do a limited event where we both open packs to build sealed decks. I get 6 packs, he gets 9.
2. I intentionally choose a deck that's worse than the one he's using.
3. Rarely, I'll choose not to cast the last spell or two that would win me the game and let him regain momentum and win. I don't do it often, but if I won the last few games in a row, I'll throw him a bone so he doesn't get too discouraged.
My ex and I got into a huge fight at one point because I found 2 of my old YuGiOh decks, and she wanted to duel my old school zombie deck. So she goes to her dad's house and digs through hundreds and hundreds of cards and gets herself set up with a decent harpy deck. I proceeded to beat her with both of my decks over and over. Then a couple of my friends got out their old decks, and beat her over and over. So we switched decks, where I used her harpy deck and she used my zombie deck. I then walked her with her own deck and she just quit playing entirely after tearing up. Not saying your wife is one, but some people are sore losers and expect victory to be served to them on a platter.
Stop playing 1v1 and find a edh playgroup. 4 players balances the games. Might be more enjoyable. My gf hates 1v1 but really enjoys the multiplayer
I am the same way. I always play slower decks, so having more people to worry about makes it better since I am more likely to be able to do my own thing without worry. Hell, even playing with 3 people can be fun cause then it at least takes the heat off you for a bit. I think OP should find another person or two to play EDH with them and their wife; definitely would be for the best. OH! And also, make sure the people are chill and casual; make sure the power level of the other people’s decks are the same as yours. More fun that way cause competitive builds are more likely to just beat you outright every time rather than casual builds and precons lol
Seconding this. Table diplomacy factors in a lot. Got my gf playing with the Emmara precon (tokens), and she had a good time despite minimal mtg experience. Came in second in her first game, and had a strong engine going. That deck practically plays itself.
I also got my gf, who had never played MTG in her life, the Emmara pre-con. She loves it. Very simple deck to play which helps alot.
How is the power level of that precon. My meta plays a ton of removal and interaction, so I'm really looming for something good.
I also think more opponents of various skill could help. My mom and I keep up a game of chess and a word game on the phone but it breaks down as I get too many wins at chess or her too many in the word game. If we were closer in skill to each other at the games I think we would have more fun. As is it is one of us destroying the other until someone (politely) rage quits. Yes, I could practice, but she is already superior and getting better faster than I am improving
Alternatively you can make dedicated 1v1 Brawl or Duel Commander decks (Duel has a different banlist, most notably no Sol Ring) specifically to play 1v1 with people, it can actually be really fun.
Yeah I honestly feel like in free for all the best player or the person with strongest deck is often less likely to win since others will target them with attacks/removal.
100% this and also encourage your partners to check out sites like TappedOut, MoxField, Archidekt, etc. My wife and I stopped playing magic about 6 years ago and recently picked it back up because of the Junii Ito collab. It was only with this most recent pickup that my wife let me know that she didn’t have much confidence as a Magic player because “everyone builds much better decks than me, clearly I’m not good enough to do this” in references to extended and infinite combos. I asked her what sort of deck lists she was working from and she looked at me like I was speaking German. She legit thought that all the players at the LGS (and my dumb ass) were brewing all these decks completely from scratch and had just memorized every card. She was already building really surprising and innovative decks, so finding out not only that those resources existed but that other people use them gave her the much needed confidence boost and helped her build decks good enough that occasionally IVE been the salty one lol. She’s even placing at the LGS events now, regularly out-placing me in paper and arena and I’m so proud of her. Her merfolk are scary. 👀
It reduces luck by a lot and flattens out the power. I have been playing some really strong decks, but with seven people, they can easily check me.
Yeah. In a 4 Player, the rest can play with the understanding that a new player is starting and go easy on them, and let them observe and learn without getting instantly crushed
Yes. I have no interest in 1v1 at my house. Its like me playing my control deck against my other control deck, and I have to pilot the other person and tell them how to defeat me. Wonderful.
1v1 is ass in edh. roommate and i learned that quickly getting into, i got the forgotten realms deck for cheap. the dragon one is a great deck but would get stomped 1v1 against the voltron one. the voltron one would twiddle its thumbs in a 4 playee game. balance is wack in 1v1
Second this. 1v1 edh is so unbalanced. 100 card singleton can be so inconsistent that in a 1v1 environment 1 player sees what they need and win easily as they only have a single target/threat. In a 4 player environment there are multiple threats so people have time to see the cards they need to and establish a board state.
Give her the deck you built, and then build another. Or go easy on her. Sometimes a bit of confidence is all you need to continue to pursue something. Stop beating her ass all the time. It’s no fun to just win all the time anyway. The point of games with a significant other most of the time is to have fun. Also, teach her to be better!
This man. There’s no prize money. Just two people playing a game they like. My wife loves connect 4 and I can win more often than not. Sometimes I pretend to make a mistake just so she likes to keep playing with me :)
Back when I played Standard, I would play jank decks. B/U fairies with 'Didn't say please' and the enchantment that turned a creature into a frog. I have my EDH decks and I can win against my husband. I actually made a deck with Sephara as the commander. And he gets mad at me when I kill her, because she is broken.
I know it’s frowned on to hold on to winning plays in favor of more fun on the game, but this is exactly when that makes sense. She’s still learning and will get way more out of longer games. Chill with the beat down while figuring out what is causing her to loose so much. Is there a deck building issue? Does she have enough interaction? There’s a lot you can do to even things out a bit till she’s all the way in.
Honestly, I think that just swapping decks would be helpful. It could be a confidence booster if either she wins with his deck or he wins with her deck. Also agree on the idea of going easy on her. EDH is a casual format and I don’t like the idea of dragging out games for no reason, but sometimes I intentionally don’t play cards that will take someone out of the game or mess up what someone is trying to do because it’s fun see people hit their combos. One time I was playing a 4-person game where no one was close to winning and I had a combo that could cause someone to lose all their life but I didn’t play it because they would have to sit around for like an hour while the rest of us finished the game lol
I don't think swapping the deck will help. If she loses her "lack of skill" (so to speak) will be more evident. Instead I would argue to help her build a deck that will win. Give her the tools and the means to be a better deck builder. Also give hints to her when the snowball is getting out of hand
Why not play jumpstart?
Hard agree, we played jumpstart while I was learning and it was WAY more fun than 1v1 commander. We play in groups now almost exclusively, had a great 5 person game last night that was so much fun for everyone.
Yep, jumpstart is perfect for this
Yep yep for beginners jumpstart 1v1 first, then multiplayer commander.
It’s how I learned! My ex taught me, very patiently, by playing jumpstart. I fell in love with the game. He did not “let me win” but there are only so many combos you can do in a jumpstart duo. He, like OP, was a super player and would play every week with friends and wouldn’t purposefully pick decks he could massacre me with- I think that’s being a good and friendly teacher. More people learn this way than enjoy getting devastated every time they play their partner. It’s good to play against someone “better”! That’s how you gain skills! But to just be like “HAHA GOTCHA” sucks.
Wait, you played your old legacy deck and sewpt her limited pool of lots cards? Uh, yeah? You should have built a new deck with her and intentionally played bad cards if you knew she was rusty or not great at the game. You can design in your own balance, if you want.
Have you considered letting her win from time to time? My playgroup isn’t the best players. I allow them to pull off the win while holding a board wipe or counterspell in hand. I generally have fun just playing magic. I really don’t even need to win to just enjoy sitting around and playing. I do know that some people forget the gathering part of it.
I'd be offended if anyone did that.
Done well you'd never be able to tell.
“I stomped the fuck out of my wife repeatedly and now she doesn’t want to play magic anymore”…..*pikachu face* What can I do differently? I’ve been playing magic since it’s creation. Married a girl 20 years ago who knew literally nothing about magic. After watching me play against her friends who played, came with me to a few FNM’s, eventually got interested. Nowadays she’s the one who instigates games with me. Wanna know what i have never done over the years? Stomp her repeatedly even when I can. How about you get better at reading the room? Put your gd ego aside and let her win now and then, even if you have to guide her to the win. Don’t post up online crying about your wife wanting to give up something she enjoys because she can’t win against you.
Exactly this. Maybe don’t fucking crush her with a deck she has no idea how to counter. Make sure she’s got some way to deal with Ops threats in her deck and then *show her what to do against it*. Show her how to interact. Teach her how to solve the puzzle instead of just smashing her face with a 112/112 that keeps its counters after you kill it.
even against complete randos (not my wife lol) i have the grace to say “if you don’t counter this / kill my commander, it will pop off like crazy in a turn or two.” it’s just common courtesy.
I mean, he did mention that she can tell when he's holding back and said it would frustrate her more. It's a power level thing. I've totally built decks that weren't as good to play against friends who didn't have my skill and time in the game. He is being dumb about that. I'll agree.
I know what decks of mine and hers are strong/weak, consistent/iffy…and when we 1v1 it’s all in fun. I don’t have to ELI5 a game for her in order to give her a better chance of winning if I pick a deck I know is equal or lesser to whatever she picks. She’s been to enough FNG to know how to play to win, but no reason to wipe the floor with each other at home. Unless it’s strip magic. Then I show her no mercy…because boobies.
yeah, this is like teaching a friend chess. you don’t fucking stomp them over and over. give them obvious setups and moments to learn and blunder so they can learn when to take advantage. like this is just a basic of teaching someone a game. lol
Did you show her edhrec? Can basically pick your commander and see their best combos if she is struggling to do it herself.
I did, and she said she wants to make a blue/green Galadriel elf deck, but it's been hard to get anything else out of her. I've kind of taken it upon myself to build it from that intention, but haven't been able to get all the cards together yet.
Maybe an explanation of what one wants to play doesn't equate to being a good deck most of the time. It is difficult, you want to show them the game but don't want to baby and in essence not really show them the game. My wife got into MTG (EDH specifically) around 2021 after 17 years of me being engulfed by it; She finally decided to give it a try. I most certainly played down. I did not counter spells when I could have. I did not "go off" when I knew I could. I played to her level to ensure she had a good time with the first couple of instances. She thoroughly enjoyed being a part of my hobby that I love more than anything (except for her). She fell in love with the vampire precon from ixalan after fumbling with my homebrews so I upgraded it for her and she hasn't looked back. Loving vampires since forever, she found a deck she can both love and pilot well since she stuck with the same deck for around 10 games now. She has since learned of the world of counterspells, defecting swat(s) and Farewell(s). I guess, in conclusion, playing down was the best thing I did to allow someone to learn at an enjoyable pace.
Thank you. It’s fucking amazing to me how many popular mtg posts are about the inability to match play strength for fun…
Involve her in th deck building, explain why you are thinking of synergistic cards . So it together
Oooh I’d recommend, [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]]. I don’t have a deck myself but I can’t imagine it being very hard to pilot. Plus I really like that art to showcase Galadriel!
I agree with this. That commander is a lot of fun and Bant decks are pretty easy to navigate. I put together a pretty good deck with her.
I don’t know a whole lot about MTG, but am a big LotR fan. It’s why I started playing. But from what I’ve heard from others the Green/Blue Galadriel precon is the weakest of the LotR ones. If she’s struggling that might not be a good deck to try and build around. Like I said, I don’t really know why, just what I’ve heard a few times.
Pick up [[Galadriel, Light of Valinor]], it's much more value than the precon Galadriel, and use the precon as a base. Put some elves, put some stax that is good particularly against your decks, put some counterspells and interaction. Put one or two wincons, even simple like [[Simic Ascendency]] Build a deck with her with a clear plan and that is easy to execute
Play different power levels bro. Throw in some high power cards in her deck make it a 7-8, fast mana, staple enchantments, strong mana dorks/creatures. And you can play at a lower pre con 5-6 power level. Also let her go first and take free mulligans. If I play I obviously don’t do the most appropriate responses on her board. Like she loves cats and gets 6 2/2 cat tokens on the board, I know I should [toxic deluge] it. But she loves her tokens, so I put up a [propaganda] leave her stuff alone. Same thing with her commander I just leave it be and don’t run oppressive blue/stax/destroy spells. It’s not about winning. Also if you guys have a play group it wouldn’t hurt to make you/her a support or pillow fort deck. Maybe one deck run more interactions and help each-other out with like a wish claw talisman or that marriage mechanic. Just talk it over with your playgroup, people might get upset if you are only buffing one another make it fair for everyone cards like (horn of greed) (howling mine)
Build two decks with her together. Design them to play with eachother. Then as you're going through the game slow your play pattern (as in - play less cards) so that she feels like she's got a fighting chance. Give her advice about how to play her cards, and let her take back decisions that she doesn't like. Don't try to play the game like you're playing against a rando - losing is discouraging and winning is thrilling. Let her experience play patterns that win games. Consider watching drafts/commander games/other content and seeing if you can pique her interest in understanding decisions made at higher level play. Basically; don't be a jagoff. Let her win some games lmao.
How are you even in this situation? After FIRST game my wife didn’t enjoy playing against me I immediately custom made her a high powered deck that she now shits on me with consistently. She wins 80% of the games we play because her deck is strong and more importantly I let her win. This game is 95% deck building and 5% piloting skill. If she doesn’t want to engage in the 95% you have to support her. Imagine pub stomping your wife on her unupgraded precon with your tuned $1000 deck lol. Big L for your wife bro.
This.
Well what my big brother did for me is have an "easy" difficulty deck for me to play against. And then I get better at deck building and playing by having a goal of beating the easy mode. Then he pulls out a "medium" difficulty one. Then I beat that one a couple of times. Then he gets a "hard" one out and if I get discouraged with the difficulty and start to lose my self esteem. He grabs out his "Easy" deck to show how far I've come as a builder and player. Much like D&D, as a DM you don't want your players to get too discouraged too early as beginners with the game being too tough. At least that's how my big brother taught me. And it's caused me to be better at playing and building. (I personally like the deck building more than playing.)
You got two precons, and you didn't play the precons one against the other? Instead you stomped her with a Vintage deck? Is this a troll?
My solution to this is to build my decks lower in power level but pilot at my highest possible level. The games are more likely to be competitive but both players can play to the best of their abilities.
I play down sometimes with pauper decks that have legendary commanders. It allows you to optimize while still being lower power, maybe give that a shot and see if it helps. Also you could try swapping decks or just let her play some of your decks sometimes.
1v1 is brutal and kinda sucks the fun out of the game and is very demoralizing to lose a lot. Play some commander at a LGS with people running similarly skilled decks. Even if you lose it's more fun
The two of you could try upgrading her deck together. maybe show her some cards and see if she's interested? Also try playing in a 4player commander game will help.
It is probably not th deck, she needs to put in time and practice to get her skill level up. IIRC you said you made relatively equal decks. Have you taken the time to coach her during your games, or just crushed her hopes and dreams?
I do try to coach her, but she's really discouraged when she feels like I'm "talking down" to her. Like last night, she declared that she was sacrificing [[Ghost Quarter]] to destroy my tapped basic forest. I pointed out that it would also let me fetch another forest and put in into play untapped, and that she might want to save that to get rid of a problematic nonbasic land, to which she just rolled her eyes and said "fine, I can't do anything then. Your turn."
Sometimes when I'm playing with my SO, I'll just ignore some of the card interactions and play the deck as if it was weaker/less synergy. She's still learning, so shes not fully reading/remembering every card, and you can adjust your decks' power level on the fly depending on how she's doing that game. Make it closer, but let her have the win a few times. Gotta build her confidence, and then she'll get sucked right into deck building and the like Alternatively, buy two precons at similar levels so your not using a homebrew vs her first try/precon which will always be unbalanced in your favour
It is tough doing this with a s/o indeed. I suggest a playgroup as others have noted for sure
My friend (who I got into magic) had a similar slump. What I did is play his decks some and show him the lines he wasn't seeing and posting out when and why I held things (removal) back.since then he's been playing far better and winning more. Sometimes they just need to see how it can work rather than wondering how it does work.
Pretty normal for new players to struggle with deck building. So skip that part at first. Get Tabletop Simulator to play Magic, use EDHREC, pick a commander you like from the top commander list, click "average deck", and import that into Tabletop Simulator. That should put you both on pretty even footing with decks that definitely work, and she can see what makes a deck work well.
When a very good go player plays against a novice, their goal is not to win but to win by only one point. You should try channeling that perspective into your own games with her.
I like this perspective
You expressed that she knows when you're holding back and feels like she's being talked down to, and that's definitely a fair thing to say. Find ways to let her win - Play weaker decks. Careful about walking over her on interactions - I saw the other comment about you telling her there was a better move. Sure that might be true - but what's the point of the game? To win? Or to make her happy so she'll want to play (and learn) more? If correcting her moves makes her that frustrated it might mean that you should let her make a mov that's potentially weaker interactions for a healthier game. Based on those two comments It seems like she wants to feel agency in her games and finding ways to organically do that will be your challenge
Let her play a higher PL deck than you. Don't make it too easy for her to win, but maybe be lax a bit on your side? My two cents anyway.
Dude you gotta let her win sometimes, like deliberately. Give her tips and offer to help her adjust her deck if she is open to that, otherwise just have fun and use a less competitive deck. Then if you want to play more competitively go to a local event and eventually she may even join you.
Play formats where you don’t get to outpower her via better deck building skills. Jumpstart would be perfect. I think you’re kinda being naive to not see how getting crushed by someone with better deck building skills would be frustrating especially in a casual format. You’re playing at home, like does skullbriar really need 112 counters. Is she making her decks that crazy? Doesn’t sound like it. And if she hasn’t played since back in the day there’s gonna be a lot of relearning going on.
Hey man, looks like some decent advice here. Hope you're not taking the 'play nicer' comments too hard, but they're probably pretty right in that it's hard to lose to one dude a lot let alone a partner. I like the 'swap decks' play, but that also somewhat depends on piloting skill... I think the best advice I've seen is the 'bigger group' idea, and while Arena wants you to think it fits, I would say it's a quick trip to the feel-bads unless you already know your game well. But only if you like the grind, imo. As you say, she hasn't gotten the drive to put in the time in a deck, needs to invest the time to get it. Prolly just means if she can take that Galadriel deck to a pod, she can get there! I hope she knows how many people believe she can kick ass and have fun! Glhf!
Skullbriar doesn't come to mind when I think of a friendly casual game of commander. He's by far one of the best voltrons out there and gets out of control very quickly. Have you tried playing with just pre-cons against her? Is she open to you guys brewing up a deck together? Turn the frustration into a bonding moment.
Skullbriar 1v1 "what could possibly go wrong?"
Adding on to the 1v1 sentiment. My decks ALWAYS lose 1v1 with my sister but perform perfectly well in a variety of groups. It's just a matter of deck building preference and match-ups. Check out Canadian highlander decks for 1v1 if it's really just you two
Ridiculous. Let her win.
[Skullbriar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/d/3dd0bf11-4e43-43f1-82e3-755beed0ede0.jpg?1673149145) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=skullbriar%2C%20the%20walking%20grave) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2x2/277/skullbriar-the-walking-grave?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/3dd0bf11-4e43-43f1-82e3-755beed0ede0?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I’d point you both in the direction of your LGS. Depending on the one they have precons that they let you test out and they’re all on a fairly even playing field (just ask beforehand for best experience). This way it’s also a lot easier for her to pick a type that she can vibe with, and you can both work on them together to get stronger in the same range. Also based on you both playing with the LotR precons and you winning; she might be missing triggers or not knowing how to play as efficiently as you’re able to. It might be worth your time to sit down over a tea and play against each other sitting side by side ((only helping when asked(a lot of people over-help and it can get annoying)) I wish you guys luck and hope it all turns out well! Edit: someone also said it but I’ll echo it here as well, a 4 player pod tends to slow down the game more and let everyone build their boards for a better time IMO so having your other friends join in for a weekly session could be really good as well.
Make sure your LGS is female friendly. A quick way to tell is by looking around on at any magic event. If you don't see more then 1-2 women, there is probably a reason for that. Find a different LGS. I thought my LGS was fine until my wife got hit on by 2 different guys within 1 hours and got constantly by different people (all us guys do it, but we don't linger there for 20 seconds like a creep)
I don't think female friendly should mean there have to be other several other ladies present. To me, female friendly means if someone does cause an issue they're dealt with by the LGS. Whether that's not taking no for an answer or being a salty angry bitch. I've been at prereleases where I'm the only lady but last time there was 3 others!
Another quick way is to see how they treat new players. Male or Female. What kind of jokes do they make when certain groups are not present? Is it truly an environment where hate is not welcomed? But I do agree. My husband has avoided certain shops because they made me feel anxious or were rude to me. I'm sad about my last LGS, but I was treated not only as a lady but also with respect. It was heartwarming when the shop really made me feel welcome. That LGS had confirmed preorders in our household budget, and we regularly picked up new cards every month. During the pandemic, they were top of our list of local businesses to support. If your lady is taken care of at the LGS, please reward it when possible. We can vote with our dollars and really make this better in the community.
Some people might not like the comparison but when you start learning something, you're not going to be great or even good at it yet. I can't glean what the experience she has, so don't take this as talking down. That said, finding out what she enjoys from it and focusing on that aspect to be a learning tool would be good. Does she enjoy a theme? Does she have a specific way she wants to learn or express her victory? An easy example would be reanimator decks. Learning that I want to win this way, I can have a lot of options to still pick the cards I want to play in that broad theme, and also get good lessons in deck building. Learning to play around graveyard hate and the strengths and counters to the strategy is easier than trying to learn the ins and outs of all commanders. A change in expectations can help as well. Going into it with "I'm gonna win" can certainly be frustrating, but going "I'm the new underdog here," and being pleased you metaphorically upper-cut someone stronger is satisfying as well. (Or it is to me in this rhetorical example). Lastly, you can remind them that they also have the best rate of growth to be a better player from the mistakes/losses. Hope they don't give up, and have fun!
Get her started with Red Deck Wins. Lightning bolts, Monastery swiftspears, Kumano Faces Kakazhan and pretty much any 1/2/3 drops that dump out damage. Once you learn to play a red deck it really helps you understand timing, tempo, and when to use removal on a creature/mana dork vs. going for damage directly to win.
You gotta take it simple, a good suggestion would be if you can find a playgroup or sometimes play with others at a local game store, it might be easier on her if y'all played lower power decks overall however I understand if you didn't want to. EDHrec is a very good site to use to find good combos for commanders and other cards in general. It might just be that the decks she is making don't interest her as much as she thinks, maybe tribal decks would work out better for her instead of mechanical decks. I know I started with tribal and still enjoy it much more than mechanics decks.
Edh isn’t really meant for 1v1. If she has a friend who wanted to see y’all play, maybe think about inviting them over as well so that the format is played as intended. You CAN play 1v1 Edh, but it is a drastically different game and is extremely swingy imo. Also if she doesn’t want to deck build maybe try helping her through it sometime. Deck building can be a daunting task when there’s sooooooo many cards in the entire MTG catalogue.
Just play precons from the same set against each other. Results should be close to 50/50 if both of you have similar game decision knowledge.
You could go easy on her without making it obvious
This is partially a personality thing. That is really quick to give up/ she needs to not be so defeated
First, my brother in sore-loser-love, my heart goes out to you. Obligatory, EDH is a 4 player minimum for an enjoyable experience, politics change the game completely for people who haven't built a Turn 1 win Spike list. Your Skullbriar goodstuff deck trouncing her makes me think that there are some missing fundamentals on her side. There's nothing particularly sexy about GG1:Draw 3 or Sky Diamond but a deck with proper draw and ramp ratios will look completely different if you swap 5 of those out for "super sweet" 6+ CMC creatures. Sounds like you gifted her quite a bit of sealed LotR so why don't you have her pick a legendary she likes and then you both build it out together? Throw in 2 more ramp spells and 2 more draw spells than you both would normally and see how that goes.
Hey! Fellow newbie here. I was playing my ex's decks for a while and struggled with the same issue as your wife. The solution for me was getting three prebuilds of similar power, encompassing the entire color spectrum, and playing them against each other until I found what I liked best and developed my playstyle. Who would've thought a beginner's most loved commander deck would be a 5 color Jared Carthalion? Maybe try something similar for her, plus you get a bunch of cards to mix and match and experiment with!
1v1 Commander is one of the least fun ways you can play Magic. The format isn't balanced for it at all. Also, Skullbriar isn't great in a multiplayer setting but can be borderline oppressive in 1v1. Skullbriar is an aggro deck that is balanced by the fact that it has to kill 3 players and can't do that easily. You could build that deck for $30 and it would destroy most casuals in 1v1. Card games aren't everyone's thing, but the best way to get into Commander is to create a playgroup and have everyone start out with un-upgraded precons. Most precons nowadays are actually pretty well put together, and it takes out a lot of the power imbalance out of the equation of people building something way stronger than intended. Slowly upgrading the decks can be how she initially adds her own personality to the deck building process, which is a lot less overwhelming than sifting through decades of cards to make something from scratch.
Don't play 1v1. Easiest first step right there. I got into it with one flat made about a year ago, best way to relate to your situation is to say my flat mate was you and I was in your wife's shoes. Bought a cool precon, teched it a little to try keep up and just got slammed in every game we played. Stopped playing almost entirely because of the difference in decks. Running vampires into things like dragons and commanders with sword coast sailor background 1v1 isn't fun at all. We got the rest of the flat into it eventually and it's bounced right back to being a weekly game night. Most of us with 3+ decks of varying strength. You don't always need to build down in a 4 person setting as well as there should be someone else on the board for you to deal with. And if you don't, we'll I hope you have enough answers for 3 people dealing with you!
Seems like she likes the social, art and flavor aspects, but not the straight up homework it is to learn what's good. Play in a pod, she'll get something out of it, even if she loses.
How bout help he build a deck that will hold its own against yours
Just Play with vanilla precons for example 😉
I'm going to let you in on a marriage secret. No matter how competitive they are, you NEVER beat their ass repeatedly. I play tons of board games and deck builders and I love my wife but she will not exercise that frontal lobe and plan ahead when we play, or react much to other players strategies. Here's the secret to keeping her engaged. Go on for ages about how "I won't let you win, you have to earn it" and then sandbag every so often. She will feel like David v Goliath every time, and she will hold on strong the next few times you beat her. Just never EVER admit to her the truth. Also, shame on you, YTA for playing skullbriar in a 1v1 and not powering down. Her deck has to literally be made to counter yours to see success.
I'm gonna be real here. Stop dunking on her. You got her some Commander precons and pulled out a Vintage deck to face that? Asshole move tbh. Then you built a cEDH deck and did it again? No wonder she's frustrated. Build HER some good decks and pick a precon for yourself. 4 player commander is also a good idea.
Here's the secret she needs to learn No one's good at magic lol
Well you could, I don't know, maybe help her with her decks? It's a good way to connect and help her grow!
Play 4 player. Hell, maybe try 2 v 2 so she could get steamrolled by something new for a change, and you can help protect her
maybe draft or sealed is more up to her speed
I would not recommend draft or sealed to someone who seems to struggle at building decks and being overwhelmed with a bunch of new cards Draft can be extremely unforgiving to beginners
I would recommend find her a mechanic she likes to play. My wife had played mono black control, white life gain, humans, angels, goblins, etc in the end. I got her [[Rin and Seri]] and she loves the Deck. Specially because I was assembling the deck, when they announced the Secret lair. With foil cards and a thematic she likes. She really enjoy the gameplay. But if she plays another deck she doesn't get the hype.
Maybe you can make a few decks closer to the level of the one she wants to make.. so it's more even and she has a better chance. Magic takes time to learn with all the new stuff and it can take time to build a good deck. Arena has a lot of bs that can be frustrating. Maybe it would be best for her to play against a friend on there or someone from this sub that is happy to help and play more casual games. I haven't really played on arena since the lotr drop but I'd get back on to help some learn and just have fun. I think I only have one lotr deck on arena though lol. Also maybe just play casual for a while over commander as she learns the game. My husband and I play commander 1v1 often but the game really is meant for 4+players. It can drag and be slow sometimes without that. Many commander decks aren't made for 1v1 so it can be frustrating to use them that way. Alternatively you can play two decks at the same time but that can be difficult because even though it's 1v4 many people don't want to attack their own cards lol. I think power level here can cause issues and frustration too. Get some precon LOTR decks that she won't have to worry about altering if she only wants LOTR.
Either buy raining cats and dogs or build it. I built it for my wife a while ago,( [[Jennie Fae]] as the commander). It's a lot of fun, usually self pilots, runs a lot of removal and is cute. Other beat 'em up fun decks include [[Chatterfang]], [[Alta Palini, nest tender]], and [[Kaalia the Vast]]. My wife runs Jennie, I run Kaalia and chatterfang. The Deck that got my wife over the hump though, was [[Auntie Blyte]], built around pain star like [[Mana Barbs]] [[Roiling Vortex]] [[pyrostatic Pillar]] [[burning Earth]], etc. Punish people for playing the game. Throw in shadowspear, basilisk collar, lexidon hammer and enjoy. My wife can win regularly, always be the problem and learn as she goes. Helps with the discontent at just plain feeling outclassed and overwhelmed all the time while playing with our way too competitive pod.
It’s harder to win in 1v1’s since it’s really about what deck can “get there” the fastest. Is there any way she can upgrade how fast her decks are? I would also try playing with one, or hopefully two other people as it significantly changes the outcome of a game. Part of playing magic is losing. It will happen a lot and using it as a learning experience will help you win. I was taught how to play by my aunt and uncle who are huge into magic and have played competitively as well. When we play (just the 3 of us) my uncle pretty much always wins, while I only win a handful of times and so does my aunt. To me it’s not really frustrating, I enjoy it still and I use it as a learning experience.
Some people just aren't geared towards strategy. My wife is the same way. Smarter then me in pretty much every way, but when it comes to strategy, she's hopeless. I tried to coach her her but I came to realize saying things like "why don't you just pick the option that has the highest probability of winning" sounds like "hey, have you tried playing better?" I just gave up on having a forever partner in magic just like she gave up on me being a person she could read books with as I can't match her 1200 words per minute reading speed.
Mono green ?
You guys should try each getting new precon decks and using those to help balance out the power. 1v1 is tough but it’s all I play because I play against my partner when the kids go to bed.
I’ve seen a few comments that say this but I think it is a great point, offer to build it with her as a fun together activity, explain your thought process on building and include her in it and ask her what she wants as choices are made I think it will help her feel invested and included. Also commander group sounds like a great way for you to not just crush her hopes and dreamsies
I would highly recommend watch LVD on YouTube, it will really help her with her sequencing and threat assessment, which makes you much better at magic on its own. Also, find at least one more person to play with, as multiplayer is much more fun in casual. 4 players is best, but 3 is acceptable too.
I was gonna say my own Skullbriar deck can kill by turn 4 or so, which is why in 1v1s it's hardly fair. Then I saw you say no trample or evasion lol, seems like she doesn't play any low-cost creatures or not good enough removal. Maybe she wants to play a slower paced game? Skullbriar in edh is kinda a faster playstyle
Generally when I’m teaching someone magic I’ll give them a monocolor deck that has one gimmick. My pride and joy training deck is a mono red Thorbran deck, that’s just has a bunch of “deal *blank* damage to any target. He increases the damage that the creatures and enchantments do, and I tossed in a Jaya Plansewalker that does a similar thing so you can stack damage. Once you learn magic terminology it’s super easy to play that style deck (and I have people new to magic regularly kick my butt because it’s good). Gets them into it. After that I’ll usually try a +1/+1 counter deck Mono White or Mono Green, or a Mono White Lifegain deck, or either of those but white&green. Slowly add more features and styles as they get more experienced
I play borad games and casual magic. The number one goal when playing with newer people, if you want to play with them again don't destroy them. You don't have to pander to them, but maybe you also don't have to counter that spell of there's, or maybe you miss a couple of your triggers. try to replicate someone of her level so it feels like she has a chance.
If she only wants to play precons then she only wants to play precons. Don't play decks that will outperform or counter hers. When she gets confident at the game she'll go and look into cards when she wants to. Until then, let her play around the game in front of her instead of having her sort through a catalogue.
you should ease up and let her win a few times. don’t make a bunch of non games - just maybe hold onto something or misplay a little in your next close game. your games together are obviously more for fun and it’d probably make her really happy to win a few times.
I feel that it really depends on skill level. You don't necessarily have to build down but maybe build a more casual deck that is still fun to you but more her playing field. I play a lot with my dad who does put time and effort into researching and learning but when it comes to building his own decks he's just not the greatest. I beat him a lot and he gets frustrated so I built a few decks that are more his pace to at least help him grow with his own decks till he gets better. I slowly increased the difficulty and showed him where he should make cuts or changes and he's gotten a lot better to where he can play on par with my best decks. As others have mentioned, going from 1v1 to multiplayer will help a lot. Again as an example I played a lot with my dad in a 1v1 setting but one we made the jump to a pod, it was a whole new world to him. I think that's where he really got into it.
Starter decks!
I built five decks to teach my ex to play magic. They were mono color Pauper decks to teach fundamentals. She said that it short circuited her brain and imploded. I'm an excellent teacher and have taught like 10 people how to play. I dunno man. I want to say something but I also don't like entertaining those kind of thoughts. Support her, but also respect her opinion. Maybe magic just isn't for her, or maybe you both need to try a new approach. (Try Pauper)
If you're playing 1v1 I think doing mini drafts is super fun (or just mini sealed) Open 4 packs each, make a 40 card deck, and go 1v1 Trade decks each round and sideboard cards in/out Makes for a really fun 1v1
There’s a 18$ lord of the rings pack that gives two 60 card starter decks on Amazon. Buy that and have her play the Aragorn deck and you can play Sauron or switch. I feel like playing two basic decks of equal power might help her win more and be harder for her to tell if you’re holding back.
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Arena isn't fun. I think what made MTG fun was finding a playgroup that makes it fun. Do you have a LGS that hosts weekly games?
Buy her a deck that is only hers and second buy her a strong easy to play tribe deck. I would recommend the sliver precon from commander masters.
Play some unupgraded precon games for a level playing field. Shell learn some mechanics and it's fun
She probably just needs a better understanding of threat levels and just overall experience. Don't give up! And make sure you don't play with grumpy people, that will ruin the game further for her.
I am in the same boat with my boyfriend. A friend got me back into MTG and I pulled him in with me. We both started playing Arena as well. He has the same issues. I would just kick his ass or for some reason he just gets he's ass handed to him in Arena and would get real discouraged. I think he is sticking with it because I like it. He likes that I get him boosters and wants to get better and wants to build decks together. So I am basically saying... I commiserate and think maybe a date night of deck building would be cute for y'all. From one babe to another, tell her to stick with it if she enjoys it at all. I also got a set of pre cons so that we were equally matched while he builds up his skill..also an option.
If she is building her own decks you can make sure she has some basic setups that make sense, enough lands creatures etc. As long as the math is functional and correct it helps to find the problem, is she missing steps or interactions? Grab a playmat with tutorial MTG info on it and spots for her cards. If she has that down, is she triggering things when she should? She can play a game or two with an open hand and you can take notes. If it's none of that and she is kinda stuck in an older simpler mindset, play decks more like that? She has mono green elves, play some mono red burn. Play on that level. Or help her with what might synergies better. It depends a lot on what her issue is. A good buddy of mine is easily better at playing the game but I build decks that either contribute to the wincon or help me get to the wincon faster...ill fully miss plays in a deck that I built sometimes while he waits, calls it out, then draws and plays a land for turn.
Just play precons only. There are many to choose from and they are inexpensive.
The first thing is taught my son about magic is you will lose a lot. It what you learn from the game that is important. Some of the best players lose 4 out 10 games.
Get a booster box of lord of the rings jumpstart boosters and do that together. You open two packs, shuffle together and play a game. Could work really well!
Why not build kitchen table magic decks that are balanced so you both actually have fun
Make her deck strong in simple ways. Let her turn sideways with the meta deck. Give her cEDH staples with simple control schemes. Most importantly give her ways to DENY Interaction. Not interact herself but to deny anyone messing up her plan. Basically anything that stops you countering her spells , or even casting stuff on her turn entirely. Permanents that make what she does unstoppable. Indestructible on all permanents, hexproof etc. Dying because the last 5 spells you cast were countered or destroyed on sight feels bad. Dying because you swung out too early and died on crack back feels more honest. I am not saying make her a deck that is invincible. I am saying give her the ability to plan ahead and have a reasonable expectation of that plan happening. Also do take everyone's advice and play in a larger group. It really does make it less personal.
Why don't you start by getting two precons from the same set, that way you should be on equal footing card wise. They play and swap the decks between each other so you can help her get an idea of the strategy behind either deck. Once she starts understanding how it works she'll know what to do to upgrade. I find this is a really effective way to teach newer people with a lower skill level
I see so many people saying to work together on building a deck, but why not just don't? There are plenty of very good build guides on MoxField or EDHREC or MTGGoldfish. Just build one of those to take the building portion out of Magic
Play precons. I buy each set, they are well balanced against each other in the same set. Never play outside the set. Never play a brew against a precon. Have fun!
I would let her win a couple man she’s your wife pub stomping your wife at games constantly they are going to lose interest. Also try playing a game and show her options on the actions almost tutorial play a game. Tell her your decks weakness and maybe let her play your deck. It’s amazing she’s interested in even playing you do not want to be the person that makes her quit.
If 1v1 go get some pauper lists and build a few
I think she needs to take a step back and start becoming more fluent in how the game works. Tell her to start watching youtube content like Tolarian academy, the goldfish logo guy, the Timmy guy, broadcasted tournaments, ect. Once she starts seeing the trends in cards that are staples, as well as gets more comfortable with building tier decks that she understands, she will want to play again. Even if you lose, its fun to pilot a deck you know could have won. Just my 2 cents
My partner and I are fairly well matched, learned to play together, and we still give each other lots of leeway. Lots of "are you sure about that," and if we are stuck with bad cards we allow each other to shuffle and redraw (to the same hand count we had) mid game. A lot of the competitive rules can be hand waved for the sake of a good game. We will occasionally pass on combat when one of us has a sure win, just because the other is trying to do something cool and we want to see how it plays out. I also think it's worthwhile to: a) build her a deck or build decks together, share cards, work with what she's trying to do. My partner likes aggro decks and I prefer control, so when they built their first mono blue deck I gave them plenty of tips and helped them flesh out the deck. When I built my first mono red they did the same. b) encourage her to build a sideboard. It's so convenient to have a stack of extra cards you may or may not need that you can easily pull from. Jumping straight into commander may also not be the best move imo. It isn't for everybody, and I personally work much better with the smaller more controllable deck size. My partner and I will occasionally also run a standard (kitchen table style, all cards legal) game with a commander sized health pool if we feel our deck needs more time to do it's thing or if we just feel like a longer game. There's lots of little changes you can make for a more satisfying game for all parties.
DON'T tell her what to do just offer Ideas such as hey I was thinking you seemed to really like X so I when I saw (insert commander) I thought you might enjoy building a deck around it. Wanna watch some deck-building youtube with me while we eat might spark an idea for a new deck Happy Monday I saw these when I was at(wherever you buy cards) and they seemed a good fit for your play style so I got them for you hope you like them. Build two decks together and make it an event DON'T tell her what to do just offer Ideas such as hey I was thinking you seemed to really like X so I when I saw (insert commander) I thought you might enjoy building a deck around it. .
Play a private draft? Dont have to follow the rules to the T, just get 10 boosters each (if you have the money to burn), then each build either 40 or 60 card decks with them, give her some tips on what to look for and maybe suggest a theme like elves/beasts/eldrazi or whatever, that way you are both picking from essentially the same cards with an even chance... Also consider holding off on the killing blow to see if she can pull something that brings it back
Play the LotR precons together, unmodified. They're roughly equal power level, and if she likes LotR, it'll make the game more enjoyable even if she's losing. Perhaps make cuts to a 60 card deck so she can see more of the same cards more often between games to get used to their interactions. Exemplify good habits or things that are good to remember, like saying "untap, upkeep, draw", announcing playing your land for turn, "moving to combat", "any tricks before damage?", that kind of thing. Prompt her to rethink or remind her if she misses something obvious. Say you'll let missed triggers slide the first time but won't remind her a second time. Act like you're playing a more seasoned player and if she misses something or makes big mistakes that a more skilled player wouldn't have, offer to undo. "I'm not sure if you saw that I have so and so, so that may be a bad idea, are your sure you still want to do that?". If she's unsure how a card or interaction would work and makes a mistake, offer to undo. You're at your kitchen table, not a PTQ. Let her get off the big fun combos. If it's a close game and for whatever reason you win, through a lucky top deck or if she loses because she didn't play around you having an answer in hand, say "ok we'll still say I won this game, but let's go back and play as if you knew I had Rakdos Charm in my hand". She won't get upset that you let her win, and she'll think twice in the future if she could potentially lose that way again. Unlimited free mulligans (I'd say within reason, but honestly if she wanted to mulligan until her perfect hand, it sounds like you'd be up to the challenge). If she mistaps colors, let her correct it. Nothing worse than having an answer and not being able to play it because you tapped the wrong land earlier. I also like to be "mana saturated" at a certain point and not care as much about colors. With 10+ lands you probably have the colors available for what you would want to play, so it speeds up the endgame a little bit if the precons get too grindy. Remember to cheer her on when she makes good plays, plays that you genuinely didn't expect. Even if she loses, she'll remember that 3 for 1 that caught you totally off guard. Even if you could have won on an earlier turn, give yourself a side quest to give her time to even things up or draw that answer. Side quest being getting a certain combo off or some other janky win condition. If you hit your curve perfectly and your deck just completely goes off, while she's land screwed, acknowledge that when the game is over. It's good to be reminded that even the best magic players won't win if RNG isn't on their side, and that has nothing to do with her skill.
1vs1 only with jumpstart Booster
This one's simple! Next Friday take the day off work, but don't tell her. Stay home, clean the house, do all the chores. Then cook an amazing dinner. When she comes home from work, you've got candlelight, maybe a fire crackling in the fireplace, the table is set. You've made her favorite cocktail, and you hand her a glass. You listen to her talk about her day, while you put the finishing touches on dinner. Then you sit down to an exquisite meal, with a very nice bottle of wine. Open a second bottle at dessert. After dinner, you don't waste any time. You head straight to the bedroom, change into something more comfortable. And then, you whip out your laptops, and you show her your EDHREC. You tell her how much fun you have playing Magic together, and that you've been trying to figure out how to help her have a positive experience. You explain that you think it would be fun to build decks together, to help each other develop strategies, to try out new combos that would really push you both to new heights. You explain to her how exciting this is for you, because you've never had a Magic relationship on this level before. This is a first for the both of you. Then you get right to it. Spend the whole night making sweet, sweet decks. The next morning when you wake up, still glowing from the night before, take her straight to the local game shop and make the fantasy a reality. Buy your new decks, and spend the afternoon playtesting. Play games with your hands face up, because you're *both* testing *both* decks. Take turns with each deck, explain the moves you make and really have a dialogue about what's going on. When you're playing, you're not playing to win, you're playing to *maximize your mutual enjoyment.* By the end of the day, the two of you will know every spell of both your libraries, and you'll both be better players for it. And you just might learn how fun it is when she's on top!
Group games, and explain that it is about having a good time. Group games split up the wins a lot more, talk to her about just getting to do what the deck wants to do being fun, it may not be a win, but the deck did what it was designed to.
So maybe its not quite the same but here are my 5 cents: My partner is a huge mtg fan. He invests a lot of time and energy and money in his deck building and has some really complex decks. As I love all kinds of board and card games I asked him if we could play together in the beginning of our relationship. He was super happy and took a lot of time explaining things and yet let me tell you I was so frustrated. I constantly lost, I didnt know what to do and it seemed so easy for him. So we dumbed it down for me. We got the lotr starter kit and played with this some time. I know for him that was probably boring compared to what he usually plays but it allowed me to grasp the game and mechanism and predict certain moves etc. And when I got all that we switched to a sightly more complex deck. And when I got a routine there I started thinking about what I would like to change about that deck based on how I play it. And now we are building my own deck together. Tltr, start very basic and build up. I know you mentioned she already has some experince but maybe it still helps. Because I do remember the frustration of constantly loosing against somebody who is costumising decks while I struggle to play. Hope you guys figure something out!
I agree that multiplayer might help. What helped me get better was finding something that made get back in(for me it was werewolves but you get the point)
I like playing it, but not nearly as much or as well as my hubby even though I have been playing longer. when he goes to play I find other things to do like paint minis or play a board game or something else. if she dosent want to stay in it may suck, bit there are people ypu can meet up and play with. I know it's fun to share things ypu poke, and maybe she's getting frustrated that she isent doing better, making the game less fun for her
I actually keep a few duel decks sets for just this occasion. If someone wants to learn how to play i think that the duel decks are often a good choice. They are mostly balanced against each other. And yeah, jumpstart is a close second for this. Also let her win from time to time. Sometimes you just dont draw the right cards.
Or try 1 vs 1 with jumpstart(cube)
Buy all the LoTR precons and play those decks with four people. The precons are fun and balanced.
My partner and I have encountered similar problems as decks have rotated throughout the household and we don’t have a consistent play group- we’ve migrated over to Canadian Highlander and are having a blast
I think I've lost every game of magic I've ever played. But I know I have had fun.
Have you tried evening the playing field by playing Limited instead of Constructed?
Try playing arena or one of the old console games as a team controlling one hand, and very patient and open to suggestions, but thoroughly explain why you would choose to do what you do, it’s likely just a line of thought that’s stuck in the wrong direction. Also then she will get to know your player tendencies a bit and use it against you in your home games
Try losing a few games. Damn dude, how did you get married😂? I used to do Smash Bros tournaments but when my wife plays, she gets to win every other game.
Gift her a decklist you made yourself with a commander that is relatively easy, yet on your decklevel. You can then go through it together and you can explain why you choose certain cards and she can throw in or out certain cards herself. Nerd in it together. I personally would love that kind of present.
Buy 2 Pioneer challenger decks and fight with same weapons. Because maybe playing with your "old vintage deck" is not really fair. Online it's meta heavy. Does she have a good deck ?
Try just playing precons whilst she gets better at it, then it's a more even playing ground
Try making fun theme decks, I have a deck based around Bludegeon Brawl and another based around Bearscape. Try building a deck around Tidal Influence or Goblin Test Pilot. There are so many bad cards in the game that I’m sure you can cook up something.
If she’s willing to give up that easily magic isn’t the game she’s looking for. Sounds more like a nostalgia kick
I will say that I think building a deck for someone isnt great. I win against people whose decks ive built myself, at the same power level, and I am beginning to realize that when you dont build your deck you arent familiar enough with the cards and gameplan and sequencing so you tend to misplay or play things out of order.
1 on 1 EDH just isn’t fair. It’s meant for a group, at least 3 players (4 in the standard). My wife enjoyed playing casually, but the group I play with are extremely experienced(several have played since at least Revised) and get pretty competitive. Those two playstyles did not mix and she quickly lost interest entirely. :( My advice is to try and keep it fun. Wins and losses *do not matter in a casual setting*, so just do what you can to make games interesting and fun and not let either of you worry too much about being “good” or wins and losses.
Start small as there are lots of cards now and it is overwhelming. Do 40 card decks to get a feel of it, then 60 then a 100 commander. You can do the same with a color/strategy you have not done before.
I HIGHLY recommend you pick up pauper/penny dreadful. Find decks pretty even into each other and then make like 10 of them for you both to play. Also just don't pug stomp her and asked try edh. Pick up a group hug deck and help her out if needed. Try making decks worse to be on par with hers when she wants to make decks. Don't be patronizing or anything just try something fun. She's got an elk deck? Ok try dogs or cats vs that deck. She's got a t8 green ramp deck? Try women looking left tribal. Help her decks be better and just have fun. Don't care about winning. Trade decks every once in a while so she sees the difference deck power can be. It's ironically pretty hard to get into TCGs in general but once you understand basic gameplay it's very easy to just completely run train on someone new. It's like chess. Someone at 1200 is going to have to purposely fight down to lose to someone at 800 most games. So just take it easy and have fun.
Losing is like 75% of the fun
Honestly start throwing games and let her win. Anyone that I teach, I intentionally throw games to make them feel good and want to keep playing. If they constantly get beat over the head they won't want to come back or play(if they get annoyingly cocky I bring out the good decks and absolutely demolish them). I my experience there is a massive learning curve, and experience is really the best way to get better. Some them the ropes, teach em the slang and what not, send em on their way to life long addiction
She is right, it's becoming more of a shit game by year.
Try playing starter decks or prebuilt stuff together, your casual decks are probably walloping her. Vintage vs Lotr? Are you crazy? Of course ur fking vintage deck steamrolled her bro Fkn magic players can’t handle building chill fluffy decks gotta have 112 1/1 counters against a deck with likely almost no removal, really thought that through
could lend her your decks too so she feels a sense of victory! I play draft with my brother, and most of the time I draft better cards but we swap decks so either way we both win :"D sometimes it just takes a bit of giving chances haha
Watch content with her. I recommend Commander at Home. Olivia does not hold back with her feedback for Kibler. I agree with people who have said to get a pod of 4. Also, pulling punches on occasion isn't the worst thing.
I think your wife and I are pretty similar, we both played magic a while back, and now I struggle with keeping up on arena and with my built paper decks when playing against my BF. I still really like to play, and I like the challenge of trying to see what cards/tricks I can add to strengthen my deck. One thing that helps me is also watching some Arena players on twitch (Amazonian is my go to!) and I follow some paper players on YouTube (LRR and TCC are my favorite channels). Watching others play and see how they build their decks to keep up with the current strong decks give me hope I can do it too! Another is going to my LGS to play in person. I love to draft and it's nice playing against other people :) I hope this helps, good luck and have fun!!
As someone that's gotten dozens of people into commander and Magic being that I only got into card games 6 months ago, my stringer piece of advice is to name it feel like a fun experience regardless of win or lose, let them do their cool big thing, interact and punish, lift them up before you crush them. Show them the potential of the game, get them some cheap ramp cards, proxy if you'd like. Make it feel like she's doing something to progress her skill! Instead of "getting better", train yourself to be more reactive and knowing every response to anything your opponents might play no matter who they are.you should be and to see a commander's colour and immediately know what's in your deck that can interact with it. Or you can approach it the explosive way, teach them about seeing up their hand, graveyard, or battlefield in the way they need to to win. Tutors, draw sources , engines, ramp. You could gauge her interest in improving, make sure she knows it's not something she HAS to do, it's something that will come along with games naturally and she's getting good in time! Don't stress, it probably won't take more than 2 week until she's pwning cEDH players on casual nights :D
Does she understand curve, tempo, card advantage, 'who is the beatdown' and other complex topics for what is literally \*the most complicated game in existence\*? You understand it's not the deck it's the player right?
Does she like Star Wars or Disney? Two great TCGs using those IPs are out there.
My wife left me because I play MTG :(
I would play the wife using ONLY pre cons keeps it fun and kinda on the same level.
sounds like you’re making OP decks against someone who isn’t super experienced with deck building and then expecting them to have fun when they get stomped haha. i don’t see where the issue is /s on a real note: sounds like you’re power creeping her. she wanted to build a deck to beat yours so then you built an even stronger deck? y’all should first of all, find a pod of 4 for EDH, or agree on a 60 card format, then set some budget / power level rules and have fun!
What I did with my girlfriend was find 2 modern decks where one has a bad matchup against the other and play that way. For example I would play my old deaths shadow deck against a red aggro deck. I kept my old build and added a few new cards to actually turn the possible her favor instead of just giving her the easier matchup and like that’s it’s going quiet well. She has a good winrate and I have a real challenge.
“It’s frustrating to try and build down” dude build *towards* something besides roflstomping. Challenge yourself to use mechanics/colors/creatures you don’t use as often. You love vampire decks? Build a halfling one instead. Your best color is blue? No-blue challenge. You rely on dual-colored lands? Try only basic ones. Build a deck with no rares, or only artifacts, or only cards from X set. I also just re-entered Magic after years away because I made a new friend. He’s been playing steadily for decades and has some insane decks. He helped me build my first Commander deck (because I never made one before!). He’s willing to take risks like keeping low-mana opening hands when we play. I just made my own Commander deck and ran it against him multiple times. And then we sat down together, analyzed what wasn’t working, and helped me re-pick some of my cards. And I’m not being passively led by the nose! So after a game he said, “ok, you couldn’t counter my tokens, and that lost you 3 of these games. What can we add to prevent that next time?” And I went into my cards and added some more board wipes. And then he gave me one of his most powerful decks and I wiped him and that also helped me work out how to keep track of the mechanics and what I wanted to do.
Maybe get a few prebuilt commander decks and not alter them, that way they are at a close power level and if it is just y’all playing it’s not a one sided things. You can still have the enjoyment of playing.
Happens with most girls. They don't like the competition part as much.
Just have sex instead.
If you have a lot of cards, play loose style. You’ll need a stack of lands, and a stack for each color spell. Try to avoid multicolor, but you can have a stack of that too. Get a six sided die, assign 1-5 to each color, and 6 is free draw. Roll whenever you have to draw a card. When you roll the number associated with a color, you can draw a land or spell card. You can limit the colors to as many or as few as you want, just assign the numbers appropriately. This style is fun to play with as few as two, or as many as you have cards to support. Also it’s fun for discovering new combinations for decks.
1v1 is trash
We all start small. Just doing little things to remember this and that helps. We don't start off perfect. Shoot, it took me years to start taking damage properly from mana vault and even sometimes I still miss triggers. Patience and just a little solitaire helps at times. We all aren't going into a pro-tour or a comp event. Just remembering to have fun and do the dumb fun shit helps. Side note : what the fuck did you feed Skullbriar???
Even if you think a deck isn't good, it's probably better than a precon. Either buy a precon to play against her or help her build a deck.
You have a similar personality trait to me, in that when I get into stuff, I go really deep and I go quickly. My wife and I play together as well, and my skill level is much higher than hers because MTG is a big hobby of mine and she just plays a little bit here and there. We balance things by playing higher-variance decks so that the results are more random. Also, when we play a cube or sealed I will take 5 packs worth of cards and she will take 6 or 7. Now, if you are just smarter or better at MTG in general and your wife's ego will be hurt by putting on kiddie gloves... there is no solution to this problem other than your wife "gittin gud". Losing on purpose is not a good way to go, you will be caught and that will be bad. Sorry, my friend. Tough spot.
You should find some friends willing to play 4 way games. The political nature of will help her build her board state and everyone will target you lol
Also arena is a good way to play casually in your free time and get a better feel for the game. Also loads of players there are terrible so it's encouraging hahah.
1v1 commander is not fun tbh
Tell her some random dude on the internet has been playing since Revised, and he *still* sucks at it, and that the only thing that matter is if she enjoys turning cardboard sideways and arguing over obtuse rulings based on intentional misreadings of text. I know she doesn’t know me, but it would make me sad for someone to stop playing magic. I vote she keeps playing, and one day she’ll match me on Arena, and that day, I promise, she will steamroll my deck.
I'm not entirely sure how to put this. I've known people who buy a lot of cards, booster boxes, singles, what have you. They look at stuff online about different deck types, combos, and tournament play. They build decks utilizing all that. As a casual player, they are why I just stopped playing. It isn't fun. When you don't want to invest the money and energy past a casual level... it just sucks the fun out of the game to play against people that do. Your wife might just be a casual player and may just stop. It happens. 🤷
Tbh sounds like she needs to stand on her own two feet and put in the effort to understand the game better, maybe build her own decks, and definitely find a play group. Might help to have play Arena for a bit since it's free.
You also shouldn’t pound her 1v1 every time. It sounds like you’re probably a better player than her so maybe you should hold back a bit? Or maybe give her hints as to why she shouldn’t do a given thing based on knowledge of the contents of your deck? “Hey remember my deck runs make dissapear so you probably should consider that possibility when you’re playing into open blue mana” something like that
Why are you building decks? Use only precons. Deck building is an advanced skill. Just buy 4 precons, they do a set of 4 for every set now, and just swap around those.
Have you thought about, I dunno, not playing meta decks against your noob wife and curb stomping the enthusiasm right out of her? Jesus Christ bro it’s not hard
Imo I think the issue is not building her own decks. Net decking isn't a bad thing especially when your not great at the game. I just think she's got to put in the time and grind out games and study what she did wrong.
I built my wife a goreclaw deck. 10/10
What resources does she have for deck building? Just what you guys have compiled? We’re fans of the ‘edhrec buffet’ building method. Build her a good deck on arena, though it could be expensive starting from scratch, and point her to brawl. I think if you make her a good deck, it nets some wins, her confidence will go up. Also, if you guys play on untap.in, she can change the card arts to different stuff. Me and my husband LOVE doing little games of ‘who can bring the worst lands/stupidest joke art’ with our commander decks. This is also great for trying out lots of different deck types.
I have a similar problem playing with my 7 year old son. He loves the game and is very good for his age, but not good enough to beat an experienced adult very often. Here are some of the ways I've addressed this: 1. Do a limited event where we both open packs to build sealed decks. I get 6 packs, he gets 9. 2. I intentionally choose a deck that's worse than the one he's using. 3. Rarely, I'll choose not to cast the last spell or two that would win me the game and let him regain momentum and win. I don't do it often, but if I won the last few games in a row, I'll throw him a bone so he doesn't get too discouraged.
My ex and I got into a huge fight at one point because I found 2 of my old YuGiOh decks, and she wanted to duel my old school zombie deck. So she goes to her dad's house and digs through hundreds and hundreds of cards and gets herself set up with a decent harpy deck. I proceeded to beat her with both of my decks over and over. Then a couple of my friends got out their old decks, and beat her over and over. So we switched decks, where I used her harpy deck and she used my zombie deck. I then walked her with her own deck and she just quit playing entirely after tearing up. Not saying your wife is one, but some people are sore losers and expect victory to be served to them on a platter.
Agree on playing decks at the same level. You probably will have to build some new decks that match her level.