You have a very systematic and complete way of explaining the game, so your way would work. (I approve of that because a person can start thinking about strategy with all the rules in the open. It's why I advocate memorizing all the cards before a game, tongue in cheek.) I try to summarize enough of the rules to get into the game, and go into details if and when the questions come up. (This actually facilitates the surprise factor that you're fond of -- the surprise of discovering cards that will work well during the game, and the surprise of an opponents counter-measures. I don't approve of that, but I find most people don't like a complete rules explaination the first time they play.
In most games, a quick summary of the rules and then leaping into the game to handle any anomolies later is fine. Early missteps aren't usually too devastating. In fact, too much rule explanation before a game can kill off the interest, and is counter-productive as some people zone out or get distracted.
I feel an important element of my way of teaching magic was to get the players playing a valid (e.g. not skipping any rules) magic game as soon as possible. That's what the vanilla creatures + land decks were for.
One of the things I wanted to avoid was a new player upset and confused by all these unexpected rules coming from nowhere. An occasional, "Oh, I didn't mention bands-with-others because there are only 3 cards in the entire history of magic that refer to that ability" or even "Oh, I didn't mention split-cards because I didn't want to spoil the surprise of seeing them for the first time." is fine.
Surprises of the "You didn't know this rule, so now I'm going to beat you over the head with it" are no fun (:
That said, each rule or mechanic can be quantified by a) how often it comes up, b) how much of an impact it has on the game, and c) how difficult it is to incorporate into an otherwise incomplete understanding of the game.
In discovering what new players would need to know in order to play their first simple-yet-valid game of Magic, I was surprised at some of the rules that were more important then others, in the sense that you can't play a game without them. For example, that the starting player doesn't draw a card is, in this respect, more important to understand then activated abilites. You can't play a game without knowing how to start (:
Examples:
Flying
a) comes up often
b) has a big impact ("If I had known that flying creatures couldn't be easily blocked, I would have picked more of them.")
c) As Flying changes combat math ("We each have 3 1/1 creatures, so I'm safe - whoops! His creatures all have flying!"), it can be difficult to add to an existing strategy without flying.
Poison
a) not that common
b) Doesn't really have a big impact when first introduced. When you get your first poison counter, you've got 9 more to get before you lose the game.
c) Not to difficult, as it mostly just adds incentives to blocking creatures with poison.
Upkeep (:
a) In Onslaught, rather rare. Less then 3% of the cards refer to it. I'll grant you that overall, more cards refer to it.
b) I think that having a separate phase between untapping and drawing a card (during which phase, only instants were allowed) is important. For a while, I began to wonder if WoTC was considering phasing out this ability (no pun intended), but I don't think so. I think it's important to the game, despite the fact that most Onslaught-only duels will never encounter it.
c) Here's the rub. I believe that it's better to learn the game with an empty holder in place for Upkeep then to try to squeeze in a new phase when you thought that you already knew all of them. That's why I would change my way of teaching Magic to include the space-holder for upkeep, and then explain it after the new playes got comfortable with more common and important stuff (like combat, evasion, activated abilities, and the stack).
posted by FlyingSheep @ 4:48 PM
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