Magic: The Gathering - Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box
review by Alapai
The Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box is an introductory kit for Magic: The Gathering, featuring cards from the Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal set as Jumpstart decks. In it is a teaching game for Magic: The Gathering as well as the ability to play Magic in 1,260 different combinations.
Magic: The Gathering (MtG) is the world’s first Trading Card Game and has consistently been one of the top played card games ever since. Generally speaking, you play as a Planeswalker, a powerful being who can walk between dimensions, casting spells and summoning creatures in order to defeat your opponent. A traditional game of MtG is played between two people, each with their own 60 card deck. Each turn, a player can play spells and attack with creatures to try and reduce their opponent from 20 life to 0. But this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many formats to the game, each with their own rules. Some will change how many cards you can put into your deck, some will change what sets you can use cards from, some will change your starting life total, etc. There is a basic teaching guide here and their app, Arena, also has a tutorial in the game.
The Jumpstart format used in this box is essentially a simplified version of Limited formats like Draft or Sealed where you build your deck out of cards you open at the event. Instead of opening random boosters and choosing what cards you want to put into your deck though, you just use take two Jumpstart boosters and shuffle them together to make your deck. A Jumpstart booster is a 20-card half-deck that has a theme like casting noncreature spells or buffing your team with counters. By taking two and shuffling them together, you get a 40-card deck that you can then wield against an opponent doing the same thing. The Beginner Box has 10 different Jumpstart boosters, 2 themes in each of MtG’s 5 different colors which means that two players each taking two of the decks at random gives you 1,260 different ways you can combine the boosters together!
The Beginner Box is not just 10 Jumpstart boosters though. It is also a way to learn how to play MtG. The box has two decks, the Aang and Zuko decks, which are meant to be used as a tutorial. When you open the box, you can give each person one of the two decks, that deck’s guide, one of the cardboard playmats and a spindown life counter. The guides will then walk the players through the first turns of their first game, telling them what to do along the way. There is also a basic rules reference with information helpful for learning the basics that can be used during or after the teaching game.
While it is meant to be a way to learn the game, what I have found most useful with it is a way to easily bring MtG gameplay on a trip with me. I’ve brought decks with me before when I’ve traveled, planning to play some MtG at my destination. But even when I bring my Commander deck (Commander being the most popular casual format), am I bringing one that fits the bracket other people have or is my deck too casual or optimized? If you get rid of the cardboard playmats that take up a lot of space and the rules manuals that aren’t necessary if you already know the rules, you can easily fit the 10 Jumpstart boosters, even sleeved, and the spindown life counters in a 300 count card-box.
If you’re looking to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering or want a travelable MtG in a box, then I recommend the Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box!
The Avatar: The Last Airbender Beginner Box is available now from our webstore.
