D20 Holiday Gift Guide
This guide is our best, most honest recommendations for gifts for the holidays; based on interest, experience level/age (and budget).
Parents cheat sheet:
Both Magic and Yugioh are what are known as collectable card games. (Think collecting baseball cards, where you could actually play those better cards in a game.) The games are in their simplest form like the old card game War, where players put down two cards and the higher one wins. Each player has a starting amount of life, and they cast cards in attack, defense and response to try and get the other player to zero. What is interesting about the game is that the cards themselves add and modify the rules of the game, creating an evolving set of game play. (That’s why the kids get excited about the new sets of cards as they come out, each set adds new possibilities that they can puzzle out.)
From the parents point of view, the aspects of the games that are good are encouraging reading, math, and logic skills. It is also good for creating opportunities to learn fair play, though that benefits a lot from our help. Some of the rarest cards can end up being valuable ($100 or more), so talk to your kids about keeping them safe at school, as well as being both careful and fair in their trading with others. Keeping their cards in sleeves (usually between $3.5-$5 a pack) and in a deck box with their name on it ($3-5) will both keep the value of the cards intact and make it less likely for their cards to get mixed up with other kids by accident.
Players (kids and others) love opening up the packs, with that anticipation of finding some treasure within. The individual packs are very fun as stocking stuffers or small gifts, but have the possibility of being a disappointing choice as a primary gift, particularly on the Yugioh side where a box of 24 packs only comes with 9 of the “super” and above cards that the players get excited about. See the list below for better choices.
The recommendations below are from our staff (and me) and are our best, most honest advice.
For Yugioh Players
| Interest/level | Item Name | Cost | Description/comment | |
| New/learning players (7 and up) | Good | Dawn of the XYZ Structure Deck | $10 each | These are ready-to-play decks that are all good for newer players. “These decks are great for beginners. Competitive but easy to figure out.” Structure decks come with instructions for parents to help very new players figure out the rules. (These are single decks, so if you have one more more players, or you want to play along with the kids, get a second deck.)Add Yugioh sleeves and a deck box for aprox $7 more. |
| Knows how to play and looking for a good deck | Better | Gates of the Underworld & deck box & sleeves | $16.50-18 depending on sleeve/box | Gates of the Underworld ($10) is the latest structured deck that focuses on bringing cards back from the graveyard. A very good competitive deck, though it requires more skill to master. |
| Intermediate-Advanced Players | ||||
| Good | Special Edition Packs: Photon Shockwave, Storm of Ragnarok, and Hidden Arsenal | $10 each | These boxes contain three packs (normally $4 each), and one of two special cards. These are great little gifts for more experienced players. | |
| Keep toe to toe with other players in school/tournaments | Better | 3 Gates of Underworld sets (or 3 Lost Sanctuary Structure decks) | $30 plus sleeves and or box | [from our resident Yugioh masters] “Combining the top cards from each set with the rest of the original deck creates a top tier that can rule a school, and do well at a high level of competition.” (As a parent, it seems redic |
| Best | Legendary Collection 2 | $35 | Remember the comment before about the Yugioh packs having 9 packs out of 24 with the special holographic cards? This collection is the first one that made our in house experts literally do a little dance of joy when it came in. Beyond having a big collection of great foil cards that come with every set, the set has 5 special packs that have 1 ultra, 1 Super, and one Secret rare in EACH pack. This is a great present if you are looking for the big smiles both when opening the wrapper and when opening each pack inside. | |
| Waay Best | Full Photon Shockwave booster Box (24 packs) | $96 $80 | Each booster box has 5 supers , 2 ultras, 1 ultimate and 1 secret in the packs. (Don’t worry if you don’t know these terms…they refer to the rarity of the cards that players care the most about. ) | |
| Stocking Stuffers | Single Yugioh Packs. | $ 4 each | Yugioh packs have many with nothing special in them and a few wonderful ones. As a result, the $4 has just as good a chance at bringing disappointment as joy for the newest players. Good for stocking stuffers only. | |
| Card Protectors (Sleeves) | $3.50-$5 | Price is based on style and maker. Keep cards protected and from getting mixed up with other players | ||
| Deck boxes | $3-5 | Available with lots of colors and styles, pick their favorite |
Magic The Gathering
Background: The current sets of Magic cards are M12 (the 2012 core set of cards), and Innistrad, the first of three in the yearly cycle. This set is based on old style vampires and werewolves (think Bella Lugosi’s old school cape over the arm), and is the first in 14 plus years that the creator of Magic, Richard Garfield, was part of the design team.)
| Beginning Players | Good | Magic Two Player Battle Pack | $10 | These are great little sets for new (and experienced) players. They come with two 2010 booster packs combined with mini-decks that are perfect for a couple of kids (or a kid and a parent) to play with together. |
| Good | Intro Packs | $15 | 60 card pre-made, ready to play decks and a booster pack. The decks are good for playing with other players, but not good for learning from scratch. | |
| Better | Deck Builder’s Toolkit | $20 | A great mini-collection for new players (and one that kid particularly love). Contains 125 semi-random cards good for building decks, 4 booster packs from recent Magic sets, 100 basic land cards, deck-builder’s guide and learn to lay guide, and a storage box. | |
| Beginners and Intermediate Players | Best | Fat-Pack | $40 | Special box with 9 booster-packs, land, life counting die, and most fun for the kids, a full color booklet that shows all the cards in the set as well as having the backstory for the series and some special hints and combinations. |
| Intermediate Players | Good | Draft Gift Certificate | $15 | Gift certificate for one of our Draft events. Good for Friday Night Magic or the kid’s Date Night Magic, these events include three packs of cards and an evening playing with the decks built from them. Lots of fun for kids from 9-14 or for experienced players ready for the big time on Fridays. |
| Better | Ajani vs. Nicol Bolas Planeswalker decks | $20 | For kids looking to get their first planes-walkers (some of the super rare cards that the kids look for.) These are not super competitive planes-walkers, but the are lots of fun and a great price for two very playable decks. | |
| Better | Magic Event Decks | $20, $25, and $30 | These are competition level decks, with lots of great cards. The Vampire Onslaught deck goes for $30 and has about $40 worth of cards that will help power up any competitive decks. The Hold the Line Deck ($25 (has great white cards that form the core of many of the currently top level competitors. Deathhed and Illusionary Might are the other two decks we have, and are both excellent decks for $20 each. | |
| Best | Commander Decks | $30 | These collections of 100 unique cards both form their own deck and can be used to power up lots of creative deck designs. There are 5 different sets, any of which would be a good choice. We have about 10 of these in stock. | |
| Best | Premium Deck Series: Graveborn | $40 – $35 | Just Released, this third in the series of Magic’s premium all-foil decks is probably the best of the bunch. After a week a in-house testing, the consensus is that the deck’s ability to play virtually any creature, not mater how huge or difficult to normally get into play is a ton of fun. We have 20 of these in stock. | |
| Stocking Stuffers/Small Gift ideas | Single Packs. | $ 4 each | Always fun to open, Innistrad is the latest, M12 has the best planeswalkers, and New Phyrexia has lots of great cards that are good for all decks. | |
| Card Protectors (Sleeves) | $3.50-$5 | Price is based on style and maker. Keep cards protected and from getting mixed up with other players | ||
| Deck boxes | $3-5 | Available with lots of colors and styles, pick their favorite | ||
| HUGE D20 Life counting dice | $6 | An oversized 20 sided die used to keep count of life totals. Available in the 5 different magic colors. | ||
| Box of Mini-dice | $8 | These mini-dice are loved by experienced player to use for counters on the cards | ||
| Limited Edition Deck boxes and Sleeves | $14 | These sets of three limited edition deck boxes feature the full set of illustrations of the planes walkers and an extra-sized batch of matching sleeves. | ||
| Play-mats | $16-20 | Providing a great surface to play on, these mats come in a number of great designs. |