I think the hardest thing about teaching this game to new players is the knowledge barrier; in order to know how to patrol and trade effectively, you NEED to know what the opponent’s deck is likely to bring. You essentially need to have played your opponent’s deck (or at least each of its specs) to know what they probably teched, what things you can tech to beat that, how to patrol to trade effectively, etc.
There is definitely general advice that can help two new players do well with the starter or core sets, but start playing against the black starter or past peace anarchy and suddenly planning defenses gets VERY complicated.
My general comments would be:
- Don’t skip workers before you get to 10
- Don’t bring out a hero if your opponent has enough board presence to kill it immediately
- Build tech 1 on turn 2
- Build tech 2 as soon as it will survive
- Always tech a spell or two in your first 3 tech rotations, in case you get a building killed.
- Set your patrol so that you end up ahead on cards / gold
- Only go down on cards to gain commanding control (go up a tech building, max out a hero, have 5+ more damage on the board than your opponent as rules of thumb?)
The problem is this list could go on and on. What you should do depends a lot on the opponent’s deck and the board state.