Magic The Gathering Foundations is a brand new set aimed for new players, and I found myself getting into the game without knowing about the set being announced. With the Beginner Box, it is a good place to begin but as a place to begin a collection, there are far better options.
Whats in the box?
The box comes with 200 playable cards, while the number might seem high, none of these cards are really worth the value for competitive games unless you play with someone else who has the same box as you or are okay with using the box to learn the Standard format. .
The purpose of the beginner box is to teach players mana management, how to play creatures, cast spells, and other tricks of a tabletop game, but the value of the beginner box is definitely short-lived once you figure out that for the price, there are a lot of better deals you can get.
You can 10 decks, each belogning to a tribe in Magic: The Gathering, with 20 cards following the pattern.
Cats
Healing
Undead
Vampires
Pirates
Wizards
Inferno
Goblins
Primal
Elves
If you are looking for specifics on what cards are in each list, visit this link. As a new collector, the cards I found were just okay at best, but I would understand the value of this box if I also had absolutely no exposure to magic, but I did passively follow the scene so I found the collection to be a bit disappointing.
The cards you get can definitely go into other decks as you build your collection and with the vairety of cards there, they are good placeholders until you build a better and stronger collection.
Presentation and Cards
The box has a neat presentation and while everything looks plentiful, the actual contents of the box lose their novelty very fast.
There are no legendary creatures, and there is a paltry offering of cards that are worth keeping should you decide to build a collection. The cards are your standard Magic cards with no rare or foil cards to even show the color and variety of different card types in other products, which is kind of disappointing.
My unboxing experience was more rewarding than the actual product itself. Opening the box for the first time and going through its contents one at a time offers a lot more than any other set in the price, especially with how everything is packaged.
However, the gimmick wears off really quick, and you will soon see that the value of the box is not suited for everyone.
What I love the most about these cards and Foundations overall is that the keywords are explained into perfect layman terms so that you do not need to Google terms like Surveil or Scry to pause the flow of the game by taking out your phone.
Who Is This For?
Even as a new player who mainly plays commander with the 4-5 decks, and my Foundations Starter Collection on the way, I found this to be a very pricey entry into the Magic world. I have bought preconstructed commander decks for prices less than the cost of the box off Amazon or local game stores.
For me, this set is equivalent of giving your 80 something year old grandparents a smartphone, and then upgrading them to the iPad. In this case, the smartphone is the beginner box. There are far better things to buy in Foundations, with the Starter Collection being the absolute best bang for your buck, paired with buying a preconstructed commander deck to build a collection.
If I already didn’t have my Foundations Starter Collection on the way, and the existing decks I had, I would be hardpressed to find decks to build around the cards in this offering. This is more of an entry product to teach kids how to play magic, but my personal opinion is that it should be priced way lower.
Even if you wanted to play a standard game with this, the only fun part is mixing 3 differnet decks of your choice together, but the unfun part is the lack of good cards to pull you into the game. Without a legendary creature, a plainswalker or something fun to push the action, the value of the beginner box dimiinishes very quickly, and just like Trivia board games, you will soon learn the patterns and cards, to the point where you can always win with ease.
An ideal realistic situation would be a someone who is looking to learn Magic with their kids and they take their time to learn to play with this box, but after a week of playing they will feel confident enough to move on to bigger and better things.
Verdict
I really wanted to give the Begniner Box the best possible chance to prove me wrong, but you will be hard-pressed to find a Magic player, even at a novice level, who will enjoy these cards. The beginner box is what I would use to do a pop-up even with people at a Foundations launch, and have someone coach people through the game. As a standalone product, it is definitley the weakest offering subjectively. I only picked up the game in October 2024 and am in love with the world of Magic, but even as a new face into the world, I struggled to figure out if I would fall in love with this product had it been my first experience into the world of the TCG.
All in all, the Beginner Box is a very basic and non-rewarding entry, and I would recommend a lot better options such as the Starter Collection, or buying a preconstructed commander deck by visiting your local game store and finding something that rings with you.
