Hey Veeky Forums recently I convinced myself and few friends of mine to go play MTG at an open house. We've all been really enjoying playing with our welcome decks but we are pretty keen to start playing with cards other than these same cards/decks over and over again. None of us are particularly financially endowed so I've been looking into cheap ways of getting more involved with magic; with little success. I first thought we could fork out the money for some deck builders toolkits but upon looking at the card list I discovered it's full of the same bloody cards that make up the welcome decks. Then the option of going to the Hour of Devastation pre-release arose but we didn't know whether it was a smart way to spend our money so we ending up not forking out the 45 bucks for it. I would really like to keep playing but with the way things are looking everyone is going to soon loose interest and drop off . I really need your help Veeky Forums what is the best way to get more cards or advance in mtg from the welcome decks, thanks for answering and reading though this garbled mess of thoughts/ questions of mine.
Help a mtg beginner
As someone who is also fairly new to mtg, don't come to Veeky Forums for mtg stuff. I feel like half of all the mtg threads have shown off some of the ugliest sides of the player base. (Sometimes they are cool people, and it's a good sorce on news/spoilers, but they've done more harm then good for me)
That said draft and sealed are fun and if you don't have a good collection of cards is a good place to start. Prerelease (and draft) might not yeild you the best cards in the set but is a great way to play and meet people who play while being at a slightly more even level.
Find out what kind of decks you enjoy and try to build decks that appeal to you. Look up bottom-up and top-down deck building on youtube and figure out how you want to build your decks, while keeping budget in mind. I would avoid buying singles of cards that are expensive unless you absolutely know you want to play with them. With the possible exception of lands which will always be useful in various formats and easy to sell should you lose interest. If you don't mind playing with proxies or using an online service like cockatrice it can be nice to try out decks before actually buying the singles for them.
Also if all the players are new, be careful about upping the power level too fast. The last thing you want to do is cause an arms race where eveyone is spending more then they should on something they May lose interest in.
get duel-decks. They're fine for new players, they're fairly balanced, and they usually come with a few really good cards.
Okay, maybe those "really good cards" are just "fairly good cards," but they're still definitely playable.
How do I know which singles are good?
the ones that fit in the deck you want to play.
You can go to Vintage Stock (or some other chain media shop) and buy small packs of assorted cards, like grab-bags. They'll usually be commons but sometimes there'll be an uncommon or the odd rare in there. Find cards in those that you like and build with them.
Alternatively, you can just download a card search app on your phone (or use gatherer if you're a bitch) and look for cards you think might be interesting. If they're not too expensive, pick them up.
Hang out at your LGS.
Trade decks with your friends for a game or two and pilot them to see what you like.
The intended step up from a welcome deck is a duel deck, the planeswalker packs or intro packs (recently replaced by planeswalker packs in the last few sets).
If you just want to play casual kitchen table MTG with your friends, just buy lots of cheap cards and brew some decks. Do what you want and have fun with it. MTG has a long history, so I recommend you limit yourself to the recent sets as not to get overwhelmed by the myriad of set mechanics and possible interactions. The most recent sets are: Hour of Devastation, Amonkhet, Aether Revolt, Kaladesh, Eldritch Moon and Shadows over Innistrad.
mythicspoiler.com has illustrated spoiler lists if you want to see all the cards.
I'd recommend trying out draft. It's some what cheap, all be it a lot of money sinking into it over the long term, that is fun for a lot of players.
It'll let you get new cards, and playing it teaches you a lot about the game.
If you don't like draft, you should look into pauper. It's a constructed format with a simple rule: All cards in your deck must have been printed as a common at some point, and not be banned. The decks are cheap in nature and has some very wide variety in decks if you want to look up net decks.
>Find a recent block you all enjoy the flavor of, pool your cash and buy a booster box of each set from that block
>Make a cube
>you just done made yourself unlimited drafts with different decks every time
Check out the guys who do craigslist buys on youtube, they get like 10k cards for $35, follow the home and rob their shit
If thats too much hassle, case your nearest lgs, find out where the cases with expensive crap is as well as sealed boxes, most lgs dont have the money for good security, smash your way in and grab as much product as you can, dont worry their insurance will cover it, if not a new lgs will spring up eventually in the same area
Depends on what you want to play and in what format, browse meta decks in each format and you'll figure out what cards are good and what deck archetype you like the most then you can proceed to brew your own deck.
What format are you playing? Commander is good if you have a lot of cards and pauper is good for keeping the per-deck cost very low too.
Is the most recent block finished yet? The Egyptian theme is neat.
Just standard, is pauper commander a thing?
Sorry, I meant to say them as two different things, saying you could play either Commander or Pauper. I don't think Pauper Commander is a thing, but if you can get your playgroup to agree to following pauper rules for the 99 main deck cards, and just have a regular commander, it could work.
cool, thanks.
trouble is, you kinda have to do your homework, looking at prices of cards, etc...
Tcgplayer.com is a decent lookup for base prices of cards and tell if you have a few cards that can be traded/sold for cards for your deck.
I would say browse a bunch of cards from kaladesh, aether revolt, amonkhet, and hour of devestation and see what you like. Technically there are more than that but I would not invest heavily in those sets, but instead use certain cards. Of course that is if you want to get into standard.
New player myself but have been working things out with roguedecks, and having little to moderate success due to lack of cards, but having fun regardless.
Idk how you feel about netdecking, which is copying a deck you found online, and is a fairly common aspect of the game which can be good or bad depending on your point of view. Personally I would say mess around with cards until you get a feel for the mechanics, then start to take out things that are weak and replace them.
Don't forget to look up land enconomy, which pic related is what i personally use.
Which is taking all your CMC (costs at top of card added together and divided by the total amount of cards in the deck (60 for standard))
Good luck and try to go to as many events that even the field. Drafts/prereleases/sealed. As it helps you learn new cards/sets while making the field equal/luck based on the cards pulled instead of a newbie with a few sets vs a dedicated with all sets.
Amonkhet block is going to be FULL come tomorrow as the release date.
So technically yes.
>recently I convinced myself and few friends of mine to go play MTG
that was your first mistake right there
I'd actually highly recommend commander as a format.
-It's singleton, so you only need one of each card.
-The pre-constructed decks are actually pretty good, as pre-cons go. They usually have a buttload of value
-It's a casual format in itself, so hopefully moat of the other folks at your lgs won't be doing crazy optimized bullshit, so you can still get in wins with a not-so-top-tier deck.
If you want to hop right in, some folks might even let you borrow a deck.