Best competitive decks for beginners?

[Sailor Vulcan]

I've met a fairly new Mage Wars Arena player over Facebook who wants to compete in a local event near him, but he is very new to the game. He's at Gen Con this year and he thinks he's probably not going to participate, but he would like to get some practice games in regardless. What are the best competitive spellbooks that are easiest for a beginner to learn how to use? Any suggestions?

[Gogolski]

I'm not sure... Straywood aviary maybe??

Any swarmish-type book will be more straightforward/intuitive to play and thus easier for beginners.
The key to playing mage wars on a competitive level is knowing all the cards and reading any opponent so whatever s/he plays is countered before it got good on its worth...

I know this because I'm definitely NOT a competitive player!

(I'm bad at reading my opponents and my timing is off. I still have a great time losing these battles. Often just barely losing! )

[Halewijn]

Would have said the exact same thing as gogolski but he beat me to it. I also think a swarm is good to get a first impression of the game and some experience.

[Boocheck]

I am afraid, that every competetive book is off for a completly new player. Even if he knows all the cards and have some kind of strategy, what he will be in disadvantage is Experience. What threats are there for my deck, what i lack, what is actual Meta around me and mostly, to recognize situation when my first strategy should be abbandoned and i need to move to a Plan B or at least, how to solve problems. Mordok ObelisK? Suppresion Orb? Gravikor?

I would first ask, what is his style of play? Agresive, Defensive? Then what theme he like? Fire, Mind, War and after that i would probably pointout some book OR wait after GenCon, if spellbooks will be presented at the end of the day

[Donovan]

I've met a fairly new Mage Wars Arena player over Facebook who wants to compete in a local event near him, but he is very new to the game. He's at Gen Con this year and he thinks he's probably not going to participate, but he would like to get some practice games in regardless. What are the best competitive spellbooks that are easiest for a beginner to learn how to use? Any suggestions?

I'd say let him start with the default books that AW suggest and let him play, play, play. It does not matter at all when you lose in the beginning.

Only during play you will notice what others do against which you cannot do anything or visa versa. So you'll learn to balance your spellbooks.

There is also the question what a competitive spellbook is.

a) OFFENSIVE: Something wild that 50% of the all-round mages cannot easily counter, but the other 50% can.
b) DEFENSIVE: A more balanced all-round spellbook, that lacks surprise, but will lead to longer games.

I learnt GW by playing the default spellbooks and then adjust them over time.

Also watching games on youtube can help to spot interesting combinations of cards, around which you can build a book.

Spellbook building is half of the game. But you need to understand the dynamics of the game to properly get into the phase of spellbook building. The default spellbooks are fine for that purpose.

[bigfatchef]

A beginner should pick a mage by picture and theme and a 1-sentence description of his playstile.

If the player enjoys the idea of running around and setting everything on fire he will love the warlock game no matter how victorious he played. Same with a bunch of zombies crawlinc around in a poisoned arena and so on.
It's the flavour that catches and the possibilities and tactics are represented by the game itself as it is beeing played.

But generally I would also say a beginner book should include cards to counter typical strategies. And it should not be focused on a very unique tactic (and fail this by playinc the opening wrong.)