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I very nearly passed this game up. For one thing, card battle games are a hard sell for me. I did briefly enjoy the Harry Potter trading card game from Wizards of the Coast back in the day, and it was the simplified gameplay and familiar characters that roped me in.

At first glance and even on my second try of the demo, Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers for Xbox 360 (also coming to PC and PS3) reinforced why I had never picked up the Magic card game - the game's flow and rules seem hard to grasp and follow. At least with the console version, the starter decks are loaded and the rules enforced (you get a big error dialog every time you try to play a card when it's not your turn!).

Here's what I eventually learned that helped me come to appreciate and ultimately purchase and even enjoy this title:

• Each player gets an active turn, divided into a series of phases. This should be obvious, but for some reason I missed this on my first two playthroughs of the tutorial and even a run against the first campaign mode challenger. I think because there was a Main phase at both the beginning and the end of each turn, I thought one was for the starting player and the other for the challenger. Not true. There are some actions you can take during your opponent's turn, but these are limited to blocking attacks (when appropriate) and a few special cards and abilities that can be played at any time.
• Mana cost is the number plus any specific mana icons. For instance, a 2 followed by two trees means you need four mana to play it, and two of those must be green mana. (I guess eventually you can unlock or create decks that contain more than one color of mana and related cards - or, based on what I'm seeing online, maybe this only happens with the physical card game. It seems deck customization is severely limited. More on that in a minute.) The good news is that cards you can play glow yellow, and mana cards reset (or "untap") after each turn so you can tap more mana to activate more cards. Some powers awarded to creatures grow as you play more mana; I had a little 2/2 bear turn into a powerful 16/16 beast thanks to a card I played early on!
• You can't always block with an active creature. If it seems like you missed your chance to block, you probably just didn't have anyone qualified. This happens especially when matched against flying creatures or creatures that inspire fear. If your creatures can't reach them or guard against the fear they inspire (as hinted at in the rules), the game will skip your blocking round.
• Stop the timer. If you need a moment to figure out your options (or if you have any), just press X. Also, you can change your Hold Priority setting to On so that the gamel requires you to push Y to advance, ensuring you're ready for your next turn.
• Deck customization is limited, at least at first. The base cards cannot be removed but any cards you unlock (by winning matches with it) can be removed, reducing the chance you'll get one that isn't any use. For instance, any cards with extremely high mana cost probably won't serve you well initially. You unlock new decks as you defeat opponents in campaign mode, and new cards as you win battles with those decks.
• Challenge mode can teach you new tricks. This is sort of a puzzle mini-game where you figure out what moves can save your last turn from ending in a loss. As you solve these, you'll learn new tactics to carry over to your campaign.
• Learn from your opponent's strategy. I found that it's sometimes useful to sacrifice a low-level creature to block a massive attack, though if the enemy has trample this is less effective since splash damage that isn't absorbed still hits you. No trample? Definitely sacrifice that 1/1 creature to avoid taking 10 damage to your person!

Oh, and Planeswalkers are like magical dudes (you're one of them).Those are the things I wish I had known when I started. Anything to add? Anything that's still confusing? Let us know...