Part of my second order from Card Kingdom was one of their rookie decks. I wanted this in for teaching MtG to new students with, and for students to use as well. At $6.99 (plus postage – which was international for me) you are not going to get any high value cards in these decks. What you do get is a great deck for teaching MtG with that focuses on one or two mechanics of that colour. It comes in a nice plastic case for storage, and two handy reference cards (see below).

Which for me are a little bit more useful than the rules reference that comes with almost ever MtG product that WotC put out. Mainly because these are easier to have out and reference than the rules reference.

I’ve played this against my students decks, and wow. This is beating the official Ixalan Jace Planeswalker decks they are currently playing with. On the description it says that this deck is fast. They are not kidding. Turn 4 or 5 wins are very common (so far). I’m trying to get my students to learn from this, and see that this is a deck of common cards, no planeswalkers (which they seem to be so all over and excited about having in their decks), no big expensive cards. It just executes it’s game plan to perfection. But because it focuses on just one or two mechanics, it makes teaching with this deck easy. I think that this is a more fun deck to play than the Welcome Decks that WotC give out. Although they are good, and a great way to get new players into the game (here is a free deck of cards to play with). I do feel that this is a better way to introduce new players to the game, and depending how charitable/generous you are feeling, cheap enough that you can give the deck away to the new player.

The Decked Builder app priced the cards at a value of around $7 (against current prices on the Card Kingdom website), but was unable to find a price for 3 of the cards. So I would guess if you said $8 max in total if you were to buy the cards separately you wouldn’t be too far off. You get the reference cards and the plastic case. So I think this is great value. Just a shame that here in the UK we have to pay for international shipping and can’t get them more easily over here.

For those interested here are the cards that Card Kingdom used to build this rookie deck:

Oh before you look at the list and say “hey I didn’t get this or that card in mine”, these decks are subject to change due to availability of cards at the time they build the decks. It’s why they no longer put deck lists up on their site for these and the battle decks. 

Creatures:25

4 Bloodlust Inciter
4 Defiant Khenra
4 Mogg Flunkies
4 Nest Robber
4 Minotaur Sureshot
4 Hyena Pack
1 Lathnu Sailback

Spells:11

3 Act of Treason
4 Open Fire
4 Chandra’s Outrage

Lands:24

24 Mountain