by piousflea
From my limited experience of watching people play MW for the first time, it seems like their comfort level and playstyle depends A LOT on what games they are used to playing.CCG or minis players tend to jump in and start summoning creatures.
RTS (Starcraft etc) players experience tend to build a base with a spawnpoint and mana crystals.
RPG players are more likely to pop on a bunch of equipment and attack spells.
For people who are not comfortable with any of the above game genres, I think a huge part of the difficulty is that it is not obvious what is the best opening move. Actually, this is one of the major reasons I like MW, because there are a lot of viable opening moves.
I almost wonder if there should be a Starter Scenario where you put both mages in one square and have them duke it out with just equipment and spells, no creatures or conjurations. (obviously this might favor some mage types)
This would allow players to get comfortable with declaring attacks, rolling dice, and using block/reverse/etc without having to worry about movement, range, guard, hinder, flying, elusive, etc. Unlike having a "5 hand start" it would allow players to get used to preparing spells and planning out their round.
