Magic: The Gathering Foundations Beginner Box review ⏤ Is this the best way to learn Magic?

The Magic: The Gathering Foundations releases are more than another draft set. Alongside the standard draft set made of Play Boosters, Foundations also has a couple of brand-new products intended for new or returning players. The Foundations Beginner Box is mostly for brand-new players and aims to teach you how to play Magic: The Gathering. Let’s examine what the Beginner Box is, what makes it different, and if it accomplishes its goal of teaching you the game.

Overview – New Horizons

In the past Wizards of the Coast has released Stater Kits as introductory points into Magic: The Gathering. These are two sixty-card decks designed to play against each other and they are a good entry point into the game. With the Beginner Box, Wizards is doing something different that I like even more.

The Foundations Beginner Box takes a page from another product in the Magic lineup: Jumpstart. Jumpstart packs contain twenty-card half-decks where you pick two and shuffle them together to form a forty-card deck. Each one comes complete with all the lands and spells needed and there are lots of variations among them. These decks are then intended to play against other Jumpstart decks. This box contains ten of these half-decks with two in each of the colors: white, blue, black, red, and green. Each of the half decks also showcases some of the themes that go with each color. White has Cats and Healing. Black has Undead and Vampires. Blue has Pirate and Wizards. Red has Inferno and Goblins. Green has Primal and Elves. You are free to mix and match these half-decks in any combination which is great for getting a feel of what each of the colors do.

Also included are two cardboard play mats, two deck-specific tutorial books (Cats and Vampires), a rules reference book, two spindown D20s, card tokens, and counters. Everything you need to play with the decks inside the Beginner Box. In the past, I chastised the Starter Kits for omitting these smaller pieces and it’s nice to see this is a complete package.

Pros – Prideful Parent

The two deck-specific tutorial books walk you through an abbreviated Magic game with the Cats vs. Vampires. This might be the best tutorial I’ve seen for Magic: The Gathering yet. These two books cover the first five turns of a game between these two decks. They walk you through how to play creatures, enchantments, instants, and more. They’re even complete with a bit of commentary by some of the planeswalkers from Magic’s lore Ajani and Liliana. Even as good as this tutorial is, I would hope you have some help from an experienced friend, but if you’re completely on your own this does its best to teach you the fundamentals of Magic.

From that point on you’re free to explore all of the decks combining them against each other. This is a great way to learn what the colors represent and find the play style that speaks to you. You can go all in with both red halves or combine colors you think would work well together. What if I put opposing colors together? These are the foundational building blocks of a Magic player. (They knew what they were doing when they named this set Foundations.) This box is just a fantastic way to explore Magic and what makes it such a fun game. Nothing inside this box is super powerful, but like past starter products, the Beginner Box has fun creature-focused gameplay. On top of that, if you’re old like me, you’ll just have a bit of nostalgia to throw a Frenzied Goblin at some Savannah Lions.

For the first time in a while, Wizards has returned to MSRP on most products, and I’m able to offer an opinion on value. The MSRP for the Beginner Box is $29.99.This is an incredible value for what you’re getting with this box. You essentially get ten jumpstart boosters and a Foundations Jumpstart Booster’s MSRP is $5.49 which is a bit more expensive. As a standalone product aimed at new players, this is the best entry point to the game I’ve seen. You get a little bit of everything across the spectrum of Magic. With this box you’re not yet concerned with deck construction, it focuses on teaching you the game and wants you to discover what makes Magic so enduring.

I mentioned the other Jumpstart Boosters and they are the logical next step when someone has exhausted the Beginner Box. Individual Jumpstart boosters immediately add themselves to this box as additional options to smush together with the Beginner Box half-decks.

Cons – Hero’s Downfall

I do like the Beginner Box, but I have some small nitpicks. The actual box feels like it gets wasted a bit. You don’t need much room to store the cards that come inside and the rest of the box is taken up by the player boards. If Wizards had included more dividers the Beginner Box could have then doubled as card storage. Eventually, every Magic player ends up needing card storage.

Then there’s those cardboard player boards, it would have been great if they were more common neoprene playmats. I can only imagine those player boards will quickly get replaced as someone continues their Magic journey. The purpose of a playmat is to have a clean play space and the soft material helps in moving cards around. While the player boards help as player aids, they don’t function well in aiding playability. Adding neoprene playmats would have likely pushed the Beginner Box outside the price range Wizards wanted, but it would have been great to see.

This last bit isn’t an actual knock against the Beginner Box, but I do wonder about its longevity for a player. Magic isn’t one game, it’s more like a dozen different games using the same components, and as someone finds their niche the Beginner Box may be left by the wayside. I suppose though, even if someone quickly moves past its offerings then the Beginner Box has done its job.

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