Thanks for your interest. I think Magic Academy was a really good idea and the fact that it's still linked to in the teaching materials that WotC provides is an indication that they knew they needed something like it. But that it hasn't been invested in in 6 years? Well that shows one of the major issues doesn't it?
There are a few problems with MA that seem endemic to anything that WoTC does with user interface though - poor information architecture, sketchy usability that lower its effectiveness as a teaching tool. It takes on average about three clicks to even begin to find the "new player" information and it organizes it in a way that doesn't "chunk" the learning objectives in a manner that helps even a new player. They should move the entire thing to a CBT styled, interactive, non-linear learning module.
The biggest problem with Magic Academy is that the game has undergone at least three serious rules revisions since it was written about and sorting out the online information and determining legitimate sources with real expertise vs. opinions is very difficult even on the Magic Site itself.
At the very minimum I'm hoping that they might consider adding a real instructional designer to the staff of WoTC, preferably one who DOES NOT play magic at a tournament level of competence. The high level players and developers are Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) who provide the background and an ID then breaks their information out by analyzing it against the needs of the learning objectives and target learners. The reason you don't want an expert creating the instructional design is because they will be naturally biased towards things that worked for them and they most likely are only one type of adult learner. Also expertise usually creates blind spots about basic knowledge that needs to be foundational.
As for the need for card based examples - one of the big problems with the instructional design of everything Magic related is the belief/desire to illustrate things with actual card examples - the reality is that the specific card examples actually undermine the learning experience and should be saved as "extras". There are over 15,000 cards. Each card has about 7 learning points of it's own plus extra visual input data that clouds the strategic learning objective by shifting the learner's focus to the card information instead of the strategic learning objective. It's good for players to learn how to synthesize cards data on site, but it's literally the fact that you're building that as a primary skill that interferes with teaching strategy. Your brain is conditioned to analyze cards first and everything else after. You need to isolate the strategy from the card before you introduce that stimulus.
The Casual Planeswalker does a great job of teaching synergy and interaction ( although too briefly) by using blank scroll like cards with no art and just the card abilities or effect to demonstrate the functionality. If it cant be abstracted then it isn't really an information point.
Ideally if I were designing strategy instruction it would go :
- description text and audio
- function flow chart
- generic card example ( for instance the way they mock up cards in the design stage)
- 2 or 3 specific examples with existing cards
- 2 counter example of when the strategy doesn't work
- with an interactive reinforcement exercise
- and learner feedback at the end of the learning unit.
- bonus video of strategy in play during a competitive match from real life tournament
If I were designing it as a CBT ( computer based training) I would make the example with the specific cards something called a "reusable learning object" (RLO) that could be updated or switched out in the database without having to disrupt any of the other parts of the program so it would be cheaper to update and could just be part of the regular Product Design Lifecycle for Magic and OP with a forum attached to the CBT to get learner input or identify issues and a scheduled design review as part of each release to make sure the CBT is still up to date/relevant/easily accessible.
I'd be really interested in your ideas about shortcutting the topdeck issue since besides my Don Quioxte like quest for instructional design in Magic, my other major point of advocacy is a mid-range form of OP for competitive players who can't just give up 40+ hours of their week to be good enough for the pro-tour.
That's really where chess, bridge and mah-jong models come in for me - the training materials I would model more on continuing medical education, there are way more variables than chess which while complex is finite in interactions and set pieces, Magic is fluid and requires different problem solving choices including variance, current events in geographic areas and changing regulatory environments, so the way we train doctors and pharma reps to keep them legal and current is more applicable for teaching, but the way bridge, chess and mah-jong encourage different levels of tiered organized competitive play so that there is more than just "casual" and "pro" is what I'd really like to see for Magic.
Your shortcutting thing seems like it would be perfect for that kind of environment and player. Especially if we can prove it is repeatable across the different tournament types!
