Glory of a Newb!

Recently I got a good friend of mine to start play’n again. He had been familiar with some of the golden stuff but in all fairness he’s greener than a snot rocket.

After about a week of play testing a few rounds a night he decided to go with my modern MKKO for hobby league. During play testing I was amazed at how much I’ve learned from this game. Things that seemed so simple to me were pretty complicated for a beginner. So it opened my eyes a little, helping me to be a better teacher.

The build was pretty close to common builds at Worlds and recent major events. So it wasn’t a sloucher in any way. After play testing I thought “wow this guys is going to get his chops knocked off and the deck is amazing”! He constantly made mistakes and didn’t seem to grasp the KO effects and how important timing is when it comes to playing your plot twists. Going into Friday night hobby league, things seemed murky with a scent of foul odor creeping through the fog.

Game night. My friends first round was against another newb who was playing his first game ever. So things went really slow and not much excitement seemed to be the motif. Four rounds to complete the night so this made it feel like a fat man running, not much going on.

MKKO for the win 1-0.

Round 2. He faces a Shield army deck and wrecks him. Every character that came into play for the Shield deck was KO’d. Now granted the Shield didn’t hit perfectly but his deck was a good build. Massive beats and lack of experience on how and when to play them let this game go to turn 6.

MKKO 2-0

Round three. X-men recovery was next on the list for the Marvel Knights. I love this match up. Rough necks killing beoch’s VS Rough necks recovering Beoch’s. X-men missed children of the atom and not dropping Wolve on four killed another inexperienced player. Another friend of mine was running my X-men deck. He had Wolve on four with two healing factors but thought it would be better to drop Emma and play Wolve on five. It didn’t favor the x-men.

MKKO 3-0

Final Round. Against me and my GK/JLA build, I was 3-0 at this point. Basically he KO’d every character I dropped except for my 1 drop. Which I KO’d on turn four. I couldn’t believe it. I was pist. Turn six came with my initiative. I built and dropped Batman C&C. I had 2x From the Darkness to use on him. He used mobilize, I negated. He then used Wildride, I didn’t negate. I had had a few drinks prior to the match and forgot it was in my resource row. If I would have negated the search I would have been able to attack then wall the counter attack. But here was a real lesson where the apprentice taught the teacher. Ghost Rider came into play and gave me the beatdown. My friend removed me from the attack with the 5 drop Daredevil MEX and then had his way with me. I was actually mad at this point. I felt like I sent him into a spoon fight with a rocket launcher.

MKKO 4-0

All in all it was great. He had a great time and is extremely interested in playing more often. My other friend went 2-2 with both loses coming from me and our other buddie who played the MKKO. So he felt confident that he has a good deck just got bad draw when it came to playing other people.


A question for you all. Should I have let these guys both use amazing decks with sets of Mobies and massive amounts of money rares? I feel I did the right thing. They know that it would be extremely hard to get the card pool that I have but they also understand that my friends get to use my stuff. Plus to see the excitement on these guys’ faces is awesome. I’ve experienced so many times new players using tier 39 decks and going 0-4 and not getting much out of it. That’s how I started, but it doesn’t mean that they have to.

So what do you guys think, ladies too?

I've supplied numerous decks to new-ish players in the last year or so. I always give them highly competitive decks to play. Why?

- Levels the playing field for everyone

- Keeps them from being discouraged because of losing due to deck quality

- Playing good, consistent decks helps them develop their deckbuilding skills (hard to know how a good deck should operate if you've never played one)

- Increases the chances of them winning matches sooner rather than later (hard to stay interested in the game when you get beaten like a drum week after week)

I had a long conversation with Adam Prosak about this once. He told me he does the same thing at Magic tournaments, supplying new players with solid decks to play with. I really think it's the best thing you can do for new players, if you have enough good decks to go around.

I think that was the right idea. Giving them decks to use that they can win with will probably encourage them to play more and make good decks of their own. And its not like its just the deck that made them win, because you can give someone who doesn't understand the game at all the best deck ever and he'll still lose because he doesn't know how to play.

When I started, I bought a box of Avengers and made a deck just from that. It was pretty bad, but my other friends weren't that great either. Then one of my friends and I started going to the hobby league and the first few times we got thrashed. I mean losing every game, besides when we played against each other. Eventually we learned how to build a good deck and started winning. One of my most treasured memories is when I went undefeated and won one night, which included beating this guy that I lost to every. single. time. ( he was the best player there)

Cardboard gangsters
Bringing rocket launchers to spoon fights

Every player should use MKO at least once in their life... it's like driving a luxury car to see how the other half lives.

It's always good to give a new player a deck with an established game plan so that they can concentrate on the other nuances like timing, formation and strategy. I find that a proven aggro deck is best for this because there are not that many choices... unlike some SHIELD Burn builds or even Secret Society.

I taught my middle brother to play about 2 months ago. He was a pretty good MtG player way back in the day (8 years ago or so). We played about 10 games to teach him how to play and he was learning off my teams Warbound deck from Worlds. He then proceeded to 5-1 the first BYOT and win the whole thing with a few mistakes but a surprising number of good plays.

So for the next BYOT tournament I had to build 3 decks the night before and I refused to build decks that were already hugely established. I gave my youngest brother a Doom deck, built myself a Neg Zone deck for fun and gave my middle brother Kang.

Needless to say Kang 6-0'ed. I no longer call him a noob at the game as he is 11-1 in tournament play with decks I give him. Next up for him is a Wolverine silver age deck (he just wants to play wolverine).

Great responses guys!! Love the feedback.

One thing I really didn't mention is, my buddy Mike played extremely well. I thought he was going to make a lot of mistakes but he soaked up good game play from our play testing. It was almost night and day with this guy.

Erik "Every player should use MKO at least once in their life... it's like driving a luxury car to see how the other half lives."
Love this line!

I agree. I ran a MKKO Wolverine build and it was a flipping blast!
The minute i come across a playset of berserker rage i may just build it again. Then again i could probably build it non-wolverine too.


I think introducing a player to the game with MKKO is a great idea. As long as you can ween them off it.

QFT (10 char)

The deck I always give to new players is CSA. With everyone hidden they don't have to learn formation right away. Just the art of attacking wisely. Once they have that learned I give them a visible beat deck. After that come all the tricks that make the game fun.

Why do you think Jamaal bought a SUV with such a big cargo area? Rocket Launchers!....well that and dead hookers...but you get the point.

The day has come, I have no more secrets!!

Hurray moar people in the game.
That like the game!

MKKO is a blast, its one of the funner decks to play, just like Outsiders/Titans.

And I have to agree with Mechachu on his comment about the Gangsters