Magic: The Gathering - Jumpstart Review: For Newbs Like Us?

Tom Vasel and Zee Garcia discuss their thoughts on Jumpstart, including who they think it might be best for.
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[@Sadarac152]

The easiest solution to the deck-unmixing problem, imo, would be for Wizards to print the card list on the "cover" card. Y'know, the one that tells you the pack is Dragons or Dogs or whatever. Just put the list of the 20 cards on the back of that.

[@mjjjuly]

there is a bit of randomization in packs though (from the last time i know about it). it's not the same exact 20 cards for each faction. the card selection is from a set of cards for that faction. for example, there are 5 different rares for the faction, but you only get 1 rare per pack.

[@rumid1611]

I have a shortcut for this, sort all cards to show their top only (card name) and snap a pic with your phone for each pack before play. Walla, you get the permanenet list for that pack 😊

[@rileymcphee9429]

@Sadarac152 I like this idea. Another solution is to not play mono-colored decks. This is a lot less work as it's much easier to separate the packs after mixing. You just have to remember where you're colorless cards came from.

[@colefournier9704]

@@rumid1611 This is what me and my friend just did. Snap a pick of each deck, then after playing, separate them again.

[@zakk3910]

Zee mentioned it at the end, but it bears repeating. Original Jumpstart and Jumpstart 2022 are widely considered to be among the best Magic products of recent years. Jumpstart Brothers War and Jumpstart Dominaria United are widely considered to be among the worst. So make sure you buy either original Jumpstart (JMP) or Jumpstart 2022 (J22)

[@pdancsok]

Well, the easiest solution, for separating the cards after the game, is to print the card list on the card which shows the name, same as Keyforge.

[@namelessfire]

As a Magic aficionado, the only format I play is cube draft. If you want a fun, endlessly replayable draft set, get cube draft. With that said, Jumpstart has been a fantastic diversion. Highly recommended.

[@JasonOshinko]

I'm sure you could buy a premade cube, but "get cube draft" is a bit misleading in how much time and effort it takes to curate your own cube to draft with.

[@namelessfire]

@@JasonOshinko You are correct. You can buy a premade cube and play it out if the box. No curation required.

[@andimjustalex]

I wish they had these for other TCGs… sealed draft is so underrated.

[@willjackson5885]

Ikr. Pokemon has Build-Battle boxes that are similar to Jumpstart

[@thepudgyninja]

I will say that, as an enfranchised Magic player, I really like Jumpstart. It's such a quick and easy way to play a game avoiding all of the pitfalls that I think make constructed Magic to be a bit problematic.

[@SladeWeston]

The rubber bands are killing me.

[@classicalteacher]

This is a great product for families. I even use them with my wife and kids in multiplayer 40 card commander games. They create good synergies and are easy to play. I do like them.

[@lit_wick]

How do they work in a "commander" format. Im new to mtg and thought commander needed you to select one specific card as your main character.

[@classicalteacher]

@@lit_wick You're right. The commander is a legendary creature or planeswalker. There's usually one or two rares or mythics in a pack so we pick our favorite even if it doesn't isn't legendary or missing the colors for both packs. Or we just play multi-player without the commander. It's easier with young kids and doesn't take as long as a regular commander game.

[@lit_wick]

@@classicalteacher this was why I was considering buying a booster box of this. Is it still a good experience? Do you think we could fit five people? No one in my game group likes mtg but I'm tired of other certain tcgs we play, at least at battle royal modes.

[@classicalteacher]

@@lit_wick I'd only buy one if you find a good deal. $50 would be great now, though I've bought some at 40ish when Amazon dumped them. 5 or 6 players is fine, but we use the rule you can only attack your neighbor until there are 4 players left. It's a really easy way to play Magic if you sleeve everything and keep the packs separated. It's annoying when you have to split the two packs apart again, but it can be done. You could mix them all up and draft. I haven't done that, but draft is my favorite way to play. Just separate out the basic lands. I don't feel paper Magic is worth investing anymore for myself. I try to complete all sets to draft with, but the value just tanks with power creep. If this is the only Magic product you have, it might be good since you can use it different ways with effort. There is a chance of getting some chase cards, but that won't matter if this is the only product you buy. There is a product called "Game Night" that has 5 mono colored decks. We've enjoyed that. I think you can get it for $32 on Amazon. At one point Game Nerdz had it for $24. If no one else likes mtg, I'd just buy a board game. If you like drafting you could something as simple as Sushi-Go Party, Fantasy Realms or 7 Wonders. Richard Garfield has some great drafting games like Carnival of Monsters or Bunny Kingdom (with 5th player Sky expansion). It has many of the same elements as Magic. Blood Rage has drafting and area control. You'll have to buy the 5th player expansion. Amazing game, but it will cost around $100. I have to plug one of my favorite games: Sidereal Confluence. It's a competitive real time economic trading game that requires you to work with others to make your machine produce more goods. The more people that play, the better it is. Learning curve is hard since all players have different machines to run with personal player powers.

[@TheDanteBoots]

Bought 6 booster boxes for 600 AUD. I made myself a cube of all 46 themes, sold the duplicate singles for 596 AUD to my LGS, and I still have over a 100 complete packs to sell. Amazing value. I essentially got my set for free and I still stand to make a couple hundred from the left overs. (The average consumers of this product don't realise how valuable some of the cards are in this set.)

[@SeniorAdrian]

In how many boxes you completed all the 46 themes?

[@TheDanteBoots]

@@SeniorAdrian I opened 6 and was still missing around 4 or 5 which I bought of eBay. If you plan on cracking boxes expect a lot of duplicates.

[@BananaBox89]

I really liked Jumpstart to play MTG casually, so much that I made my own Jumpstart Version with 60 Themes of various colors (obviously not balanced at all :D), and to tackle the problem of separating decks, I printed the card list on the back of the cover cards. For anyone not familiar with MTG or who has played in the past, and wants an easy AND cheap (!!!) way to have a foot into the hobby without spending 5000 USD, Jumpstart is the way to go IMO. Much better than any Duel Decks or Starter Decks.

[@6MillionPesoMan]

These and Card Kingdom Battle Decks are probably my favorite casual MTG products on the market.

[@williamsimkulet7832]

3:50 - You're correct; the "oops, two of the same color" problem, as well as the "oops, that's a colorless card" problem is a serious flaw with this product. I think the solution is simple: 1) Have transparent windows so you can see the basic land in each pack (well, the mana symbol at least), and then require two different decks. 2) Don't include colorless cards (artifacts, eldrazi, etc.). The latter is a small hit to game design, but given they do colored artifacts and design new cards for this set, it's not really a problem. The problem with the former, though, is that players can request colored packs of their choice to have a better chance at getting their "chase card"; in Jumpstart 1, there was a $90 elf card that players needed for Commander and Legacy; but there was no comparable $90 card for the other colors, so everyone would always have chosen green, and green would have been sold out. (The solution here, of course, is more balanced design. Obviously.)

[@gaebril131]

If you have enough packs it's easy to add the different colors rule that Tom mentions. No problem at all after that!

[@lukedavis3953]

I swear I was hoping for this product review! You can buy resealable packs!

[@rileymcphee9429]

Does anyone know if there's a program out there to make your own theme cards? I'd love to design my own packs and have theme cards for them that aren't just a scrap of paper.

[@JamesWalker-i7o]

its a shame that they didn't point out that the deck lists are published online on the website... i sort mine after playing with the published deck lists... its very simple to do..

[@foxHrisafinis]

Using these for FNM- They put cards from a lot of Magic’s history (and include some new cards unique to this product) in this set so not all of them will be legal to use in most FNM formats.

[@ArturoDrake]

Aww man. I had been banking on the back of the top card explaining what cards go with that pack. That kinda stinks that they didn't include a content list in the pack.

[@JonReid01]

You can find the deck lists online to repack them... It's not that difficult!

[@thedicetower]

Do you really think finding a list online and using it to sort cards out isn't difficult? I find that to be a real pain in the neck.

[@TheManaLeek]

@@thedicetower Even more annoying with the original Jump Start is that there's 4 different decklists for each Common pack (4 different Goblin packs, 4 different Wizards packs, etc) and 2 different versions of each Rare pack (2 different Under the Sea, 2 different Dragons, etc). Each Mythic rare pack (the planeswalker ones like Basri, Phyrexian, etc.) only have one possible decklist.

[@JamesWalker-i7o]

@@thedicetower they are very well sort...and out of the 40 cards most are obviously in one set or the other, so you just need to check one or two of the artifacts or other more generic cards

[@PatrickBrophy]

Damn, you hit Phyrexian in your box. It's fairly rare.

[@williamsimkulet7832]

4:00/5:16 - I'm inclined to think "House Rules" of "two different colored decks"; and using different colored sleeves solves this problem. Yes; this is a problem WOTC should have foreseen and solved; but this is hardly their worst MTG related choice of late. To be clear; if you're running a blue deck and a red deck, then you'll be able to tell whether a card is from the blue or red deck (sleeves make this public information), but in casual this convention probably isn't too abuseable.

[@nickmozzetti327]

if you see 6 blue and 1 red sleeve in your opponents hand, or you begin shuffling and see 5 of the same in a row and break those card up shuffling more, yeah thats abusable

[@williamsimkulet7832]

@@nickmozzetti327 Oh, sure. However, Jumpstart decks are actually pretty horrible compared to a moderate draft deck. (I know a lot of people love them, but out of 20 cards they consistently only have like 2-3 I'd be happy with in a limited deck, and that's ridiculously underpowered.) They're meant to be casual/new player friendly products. If you bring out a box of, say, 12 jumpstart decks to play with your friends, the fact you might actively have to look away while shuffling to not stack your deck isn't unreasonable. Of course, you could use sleeves with the same back and different fronts; but that at some point you have to do a cost-benefit analysis. Do you trust your friends/family to not take advantage, do you spend your money on unique sleeves to solve the problem, or is separating the decks after play a 10 minute slog? Shuffling and Cutting should be done in a good faith manner; which is easily achieved by looking away. During the game, if my opponent has a Red and Blue deck, 5 red sleeves in hand, and 4 blue sleeved islands on the battlefield... I know he's not bluffing counterspell. That's different from normal magic; but I don't think it's BAD; it's just a small change to the game in service of massive benefits when un-coupling JS decks. A friend of mine went hard into Jumpstart, and I can't imagine playing with his decks. I might randomly get two red decks, and then need top waste 10 minutes googling which cards belong in which theme. (And given variants of each theme, this is a nightmare!)

[@henrikwakman7776]

They got the $8 dual starter deck sets? What's this for then anyway? Seems a bit off to me.

[@BooAxe]

So this was made for quick fun with tons of replayability. There are 46 themes in total, some of the themes having several variations with different cards. There's hundreds of combinations. Even for longtime MTG players jumpstart (2020) is a great product for a fun casual play. There's even a few cards in the set that are played in very strong mtg decks. It's also an even playing field, both you and your opponent have similar strength decks. Those $8 starter decks are truly made for new players to magic. They're very simple/weak. They play pretty much the same way every time. Fun to learn against the other deck, but you may not have a good time playing anyone else. There are many jumpstart combinations that would probably beat both of those starter decks every time. Mostly the product is for playing Jump Start, taking 2 packs and combining them, not for playing standard MTG. Standard is also a rotating format so half the cards of those $8 decks won't be legal (in Standard) at the end of 2023 when the format rotates out old sets.

[@henrikwakman7776]

@@BooAxe Thanks, makes sense :)

[@nickmozzetti327]

for how insightful these guys are with game mechanics and breaking down ways things function, its always painful hearing them trying to talk about magic lol

[@adamg4912]

Still have my Duel Decks (Blessed vs Cursed, Heroes vs Monsters). I like playing it as if it was a board game because I hate the CCG business model. This is why I'm deeply disappointed by Unmatched putting Cobble & Fog/Robin Hood vs Big Foot in the "vault".

[@trevdavies]

Magic the Gambling: where the best card is the credit card

[@BoardGamesBricksHobbies]

Seems like this particular format was "inspired" by Smash Up

[@nshaw1299]

I feel concerned about casual magic. Magic always comes with a price, I'm told.

[@robinvandepoele2117]

That’s not entirely true in my opinion. Yes, it is true that a lot of people end up spending more as they get pulled into the hobby, but I think that’s very similar to people buying more board games. If you want, you can just buy a $30 deck which can beat other decks that people constructed themselves. To be clear, this is talking about CASUAL MTG (Commander/EDH in specific).

[@nshaw1299]

@@robinvandepoele2117 you know the comment was entirely silly and basically quoted from the tv show 'once upon a time', right?

[@nickmozzetti327]

its only as costly as the ammount your opponents spend

[@BoardGamesBricksHobbies]

If you just stick to duel decks, it's pretty easy to play casually

[@Zarfin]

try flesh & blood tcg

[@guybrushftw]

As an MTG player I can say these are OK for a non-magic player but as an existing player, not a great product.

[@mahuloq7562]

The Professor loves these things.

[@guybrushftw]

@Mahuloq The original Jump-start yes, but the later ones with the same name, not so much. The ones people will be able to pick up in stores right now won't be the originals, they'll be the weird current set version.

[@gaebril131]

Jumpstart 2022 is the same quality as the original set. Zee mentions the differences in the video as well. In general I agree with the OP. For the same investment in a booster box I'd rather play limited (draft or even sealed), and when you're done the draft box can be consolidated into a 3-1-x set cube for replay value, just the same as Jumpstart. But you know what, with a more boardgame focused group even that small amount of limited deck building time can be the difference between playing Magic and pulling out something else instead. In those cases Jumpstart shines for being able to play right away.

[@rb4551]

Im so over MTG. I dont enjoy the mana screwed / mana flooded system anymore, I dont enjoy the game enough to even care to teach it to people and I certainly dont feel like spending lots of money in it anymore. I feel the system is just outdated (with the unstable mana curve) and I find I enjoy games like heartstone (online example but many do similar things) mana curve system far more...which I used to think was ridiculous when I first played HS.

[@JonReid01]

Have you tried commander?

[@rb4551]

@@JonReid01 Before I quit many years ago. Between that and 2hg it was the 2 modes I could enjoy. I tried recently with some friends and it was not as fun as I remembered...took too long, too much cheese etc. I dunno. I wouldnt be able to teach that to my wife and doubt my friends would care much anymore and I really dont think I see a need to teach them either. That said, I was watching this because this would be the only way to get me back playing....wouldnt be about buying more, it would be about getting a few static decks and just playing that with friends for a while.

[@andrewellis712]

Just play commander

[@richhutnik2477]

Magic Smashup

[@GuideauxPelagos]

I remember my friends playing this mid 90's.. as much as I like games I hated this game so much... Not sure how it is now but then it played backwards with people just saying... you do this, well before you do this I do that...and then another said...oh but then I do that before you do this and you do that. etc etc etc.. Also I remember a card (dark banishing?) that just said...ok your card I do not like...it is dead...boom, nothing to be done about it... How I hated this game.

[@nickmozzetti327]

any card can a response phase you can use, dark banishing is just like any other, you just didnt give tge game enough time

[@bonehead797]

By the way Zee, you couldn't shuffle these cards in decks for your Friday Night Magic decks, these cars are way to weak for that, the decks players bring to Friday Night Magic playthroughs are filled with Mythics and Rares that you would not find in the preconstructed decks. The last I went to one, the average deck costs about $300 to make. You would just get destroyed with these flimsy cards. These are for newbies to play against another newbie and that's it. You don't bring these decks against seasoned players, your just asking to be punished then.

[@bonehead797]

For me, this completely defeats the purpose of MTG, the deck building experience, to build you own unique deck and see how it fares against other unique decks other players built and then tweaking you deck to make it more efficient. I've spent hours and hours building and rebuilding decks and just experiment with strange combos just for the fun of it.

[@JasonOshinko]

For you. Not everyone is able or wants to spend hours and hours. Jumpstart is great for people who want to shuffle up and play without a huge up-front investment.

[@bonehead797]

@@JasonOshinko As you mentioned; FOR ME. What is the point of your comment exactly?

[@naegling]

but they are not saying it's for you. It's for casual players who unlike you don't want to spend so much money collecting card and so much hours building decks.

[@bonehead797]

@@naegling I realize that, I just made a comment that was concerning me. You're the type of person who likes to flap your gums just to hear yourself talk, it makes you feel important, doesn't it?