Taught My Wife How to Play MTG

A week or so ago, my wife, Nicole, saw that Steve's girlfriend, Kelley, had beaten him in Magic. She decided that, because this was something couples could enjoy together, and that she knows it'd make me happy to teach her, that I could do just that.

I told her her best bet would be to play the demo of Duals of the Planeswalkers on the 360, because it offers the full tutorial and would allow her to go at her own pace, but yesterday, before heading off to my nephew's birthday gathering, I sat her down and allowed her to use my new Red Sacrificial deck.

When I explain things, I kind of over discuss every little detail and can overwhelm the person, but she got the gist of it. By the second (last, before we had to go) she understood the core mechanics.

I'm sure we'll play more and she will become more confident.

Red Sacrificial (60)	Black Zombies (60)
Lands
20 Mountain	22 Swamp
Creatures
3 Bloodcrazed Neonate 4 Crossway Vampire 2 Flameblast Dragon 4 Goblin Arsonist 4 Goblin Fireslinger 1 Grim Lavamancer	1 Abattoir Ghoul 2 Ghoulraiser 2 Gravedigger 3 Rotting Fensnake 4 Walking Corpse 3 Warpath Ghoul 2 Zombie Goliath
Spells
4 Brimstone Volley 4 Curse of the Pierced Heart 3 Furor of the Bitten 3 Infernal Plunge 4 Nightbird's Clutches 1 Red Sun's Zenith 3 Vampiric Fury	2 Distress 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead 4 Ghoulcaller's Chant 4 Horrifying Revelation 3 Mind Rot 3 Morbid Plunder 3 Night Terrors 1 Zombie Infestation
Sideboard
N/A	N/A

I call it "Sacrificial," because of a few specific card. No card in the deck has a mana cost of more than 3, aside from Flameblast Dragon. Because of the relatively low mana cost of the deck, I figured going at a nice 1:3 ration for my lands would be sufficient.

I put in a bunch of one cost goblins. I figured I could use them mostly as fodder and food for my Infernal Plunge I nabbed from the newly released Innistrad set.

Infernal Plunge allows me to, for one red mana, sacrifice a creature and add three more red mana to my pool. When my Goblin Arsonist dies, I can then ping my opponent for one damage, which would just sweeten the sacrificial offering.

Pumping up my red mana could offer several chances to do some damage: I could get Flameblast Dragon out earlier than turn six, or pump up the damage of his or Red Sun's Zenith's abilities, which deal X amount of damage for X amount of red mana used.

Red Sun's Zenith is a great card, because, unless I somehow have to discard it, It shuffles right back into my deck.

I also have Bloodcrazed Neonate in there, offering up some cards for support. The Neonate receives +1/+1 any time she deals damage to the opponent. When Crossway Vampire enters the battle field, I prevent a creature from blocking, allowing a better chance for Bloodcrazed Neonate to do her thing. Nightbird's Clutches prevents two creatures from blocking, and I can even cast the bird an extra time from my graveyard.

Finally, when all that is said and done, I have a Grim Lavamancer (wish I had more) that takes all those sacrificed creatures and sorceries and instants and whatever else and uses them to send damage to my opponent.

As you can see, I'm also working on a Zombie deck that will revolve around the Zombie Infestation and Endless Ranks of the Dead cards.