The best way to get into Magic: The Gathering is being handed a shoebox of old cards, but the second-best way is Foundations' Starter Collection

GamesCard GameMagic: The GatheringThe best way to get into Magic: The Gathering is being handed a shoebox of old cards, but the second-best way is Foundations' Starter CollectionWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

(Image credit: Wizards of the Coast/Sam Burley)

A lion man with an axe on his back sits on a plain with ruins in the background.

My friend’s 10-year-old son recently decided he’s not interested in playing the Pokémon Trading Card Game any more and he wants to play Magic: The Gathering instead. Is helping him put together a whole collection of Magic cards to build decks with going to be a long and expensive process? Well, no. His mother has friends who used to be into Magic—they still play Commander on the regular—and have stacks of old cards they don’t need. And so they happily donated a shoebox full of cards to her son.

It’s a common origin story among Magic players. An older sibling or cousin, a workmate who is about to move house, a random garage sale—somebody somewhere has a bunch of Magic: The Gathering cards they’ll part with, and that leg-up gives you an in. You go through those cards and discover synergies, you put all your favorites together and then you learn the hard way about mana curve, and slowly you get better.

But not everyone gets that experience. If you don’t know people with nerdy hobbies, or you live in a small town without a lot of Magic players, or you just don’t get lucky on Facebook Marketplace, then you’re going to miss out on finding that milk crate full of second-hand cardboard. Enter the Starter Collection, which is basically a shoebox full of Magic cards you can just go and buy in a shop.

I played a game using the Starter Collection at a prerelease event, putting together a monocolor white deck against a likewise monocolor green deck. It felt like a classic showdown between the archetypes, with both of us racing to see who would get their army of creatures out first, my cats or their dinosaurs. I got lucky and followed some cats—Savannah Lions, Ajani’s Pridemate, and some free Cat Beasts courtesy of Felidar Retreat—with Regal Caracal, which gives all cats +1/+1 and lifelink, and Dawnwing Marshal, which gave all my creatures another +1/+1 on top of that for a turn. It was a decisive victory, but probably wouldn’t have been if my opponent pulled together enough mana to bring out their Gigantosaurus before I found every feline in the state, rolled them up into a big hissy ball, and bowled them.

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