Customer Reviews

Magic: The Gathering - Official Strategy Guide: The Color-Illustrated Guide to Winning Play

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Only being a novice with only a few cards, I wanted to know how to best utilize my time and money to get better at Magic. This book takes you through all the steps necessary to bring your skills up to par. I enjoyed the section about deck building since I had no experience (and no cards). Probably the best part of the book is everything is explained visually. You can see and read each of the cards and how they interact. The only concern I had with the book is that it is set up for Release 5, not the current release. But that's not that big of a deal. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand this game.

I can't think of any book that will teach you the finer details of the game better than this. As a beginner, photos of actual cards help immensely in learning the game. Only "Official" books show the actual cards. This book is great for a beginner who wants to advance to intermediate and tournament level play. The book is dedicated to teaching you all about the strategy of playing with the 5th edition cards. There is a fantastic attack sequence description in this book. The book also details banding, instants, and interrupts which can be very confusing to beginners. Good information is also included for creating and playing with the 5 basic decks: an inexpensive Weenie Deck; a Big Creature Deck; a Burn Deck; a Permission Deck; and a Land Destruction/Discard Deck.

This book breaks it down into its simplest terms. I was able to understand and follow the directions easy. A definite need for those of us that are new to playing Magic the Gathering.

Beth Moursund, bethmo, is simply the best writer there is on Magic: the Gathering. She has a simple style, but makes very deep points. Time and again I have read her discussion of a card or a strategy and been amazed at her insight.

This is a book for the beginning to intermediate player. Actually, it's a book for all but the expert. (And even an expert would appreciate her writing.) In this book, bethmo discusses both how to play the game and how to build winning decks. She illustrates her approach with plays and with decks, so that her theory and practice can be seen side-by-side. Most wonderful of all, the book has illustrations of all the cards she discusses, so you don't have to wonder what the heck some card says. It's right there for you to see. Also, don't worry that the decks will involve out-of-print cards that will cost you a small fortune to procure. bethmo deliberately uses only in-print cards from relatively recent (and still very available editions of the game). She's so good that she doesn't need to take refuge in a deck full of $20 to $200 cards.

By all means, by this book. Once you read it you'll be a bethmo addict, too. Then you can go out and buy other of her books, like her guide to Tempest, the single-card strategies (outdated unless you have the computer game or $1000s to spend), or one of the encyclopedia volumes.

This book was a fantastic read. Being someone who is very new to Magic: The Gathering, I found a lot of very useful information. Seeing as it was written a while ago there is obviously going to be some very dated material, some of which isn't even applicable anymore, but that really only applied to some of the examples given. The core of the book is still on the basics of the game which really haven't changed all that much and offers a lot of strategy options for a new player to learn. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to ANY newcomer to the game.

I have found there are two major "humps" on the road to M:TG success: (1) figuring out the rules in the first place; and (2) actually becoming a skilled player. This book helps with both humps, although it will be of greatest value to the player who can play, but just not especially well. As I have played more and more Magic, I find I am constantly rereading sections of the book, often finding subtle points that went over my head a few weeks before but now are clear in the light of real play positions that have happened to me. The color illustrations are fantastic. Recommended!

The book "Magic the Gathering Official Strategy Guide" to be very helpful in how to play the game against other players.

This book was a great book and a great read. Even though they did alot of there deminstrations with Fifth addition cards you can take all of what they say and bring it over to the new sets. I would highly recomend this to any one who is just starting out with the game. And also to any sesoned game player.

This is one of the most picture oriantated books I have ever seen . It was pretty informational and would be the perfect book for novices of the game

i liked it a lot. good rules explanations