Sorry for this thread since I'm sure you get all the fucking time but

In legacy formats, expensive directly correlates with better in a lot of cases. Because of NuMagic and the reduced power of certain classes of cards in modern sets, some old cards completely eclipse their functional reprints in power.

I got into Magic because my friends play it, I wouldn't recommend it if you don't have friends to play it with, I hear nothing but horror stories of unwashed blobs being humongous faggots at local game stores.

The older and most complex formats are entirely out of reach because of the price of cards and a long trend of Wizards unwilling to reprint them in any meaningful quantity.

The entry-level format is Standard that has a rotation of cards that last about 2 years. At the highest level the most effective decks run for $200 a piece and to be perfectly straight with you playing anything else besides the best decks while learning is only a waste of money and your time.

Magic is quite possibly one of the greatest games ever made. But the commercial environment is utterly fucked. To a new player it's still one of the greatest games they've ever played but to experienced players there's nothing that could be said about today's environment that is better than it was the year or years before it. While the game is largely still really good, everything surrounding the game has gone to hell.

The gateway drug I suggest everyone try is to pick up one of the Magic video games on XBox, PS, or PC. It gives you enough of a taste of the product to see if you like it and for like $5-10. If you get hooked just keep in mind a few things: if you have judges available don't be afraid to ask them for help; if you don't, take advice and rules freely without dispute in the moment and look up everything afterwards to confirm the validity of said information, decide whether or not you are prepared to pay for your performance levels long before you open your wallet, the measure of a player is how well they play the game not by the size of their collection or how long they've played the game.

If your goal is to play competitively then the cost can become absurd due to needing to keep up with an ever changing metagame that can make your old cards and even decks obsolete and push you into having to buy new chase cards and entire decks to keep up on a tournament by tournament basis.

Granted if you play casually who gives a fuck you can use proxies it whatever , though granted it's still incredibly complicated to get into.

pauper

> I've never played, I don't have any cards and I'm several decades behind the curve

that's absolutely irrelevant.

You need a place to play and/or friends to play there.
go there and ask what formats they do play, how often, and how much competitive they are at it.
that decides how much much you'll have to pay and how often you'll be able to play, which is the first step into figuring out if it's worth it.

The answer to that question directly depends on who you play with. If you have some friends who play, or have reason to believe there are local worthwhile people to become friends through playing, then yeah go ahead.

I've been playing since Alara and it's still fun after all these years.

I would recommend skipping standard and going right for modern and legacy, but this again depends on your local store. If you have modern or legacy nights at your local store that get like 10 or 20 or more people, then go right for that. Standard is expensive over time and is usually lower power level. Biting the bullet and just spending the seemingly more on a modern/legacy deck is cheaper over time.

Find out when your local store hosts drafts and just show up. It's fun in itself, builds a collection over time in a cost efficient manner, and lets you start building decks for any format the longer you play. Vast portions of my modern decks were from drafting older sets.

>Force of Willfags actually believe this
Dont trust the anime jews Veeky Forums

Not right now.

The fluff has been garbage for over a decade, casual play is all but dead and the cheapest competitive formats to get into are complete shit. Wait two years, they're bringing the creator back for Return to Dominaria so we may see a major status quo shift. If not then, then it's gone for good.

pauper is one of the best formats currently available.

Advising a potential new player to play a format for people who are bored of all the other formats is a shit way to start.

>casual play is all but dead
That depends on where OP live.

check out netrunner

You don't need to know anything about the game to know there is something wrong when casual play is suffering. It means there are money, attendance, organizational, complexity, or all of the above problems.

So telling someone that there's all this wacky shit you can do only to discover that there's only Standard where they live is going to only shit up their experience. If we're not pushing the premier play method with established support such as Standard, then we're just fucking it up for any new player by describing a world that is better than what they're going to experience. And even then, if we're going to be honest we have to tell them Standard is stupid expensive because sooner rather than later they're going to have to learn that "budget" doesn't enter the picture when Wizards has created so much disparity between card power levels and pushing all the power to higher rarities.

No, its not.

I fucking hate when people recommend EDH as a beginner's format. Its like recommending Legacy. Go to you local LGS (stop buying shit like that at box stores, just steal them there),pick up a fat pack of Devastation and a deckbuilders kit of Revolt. Learn how to play by using google Tolarian Community College, then go back to the LGS, sign up for the Ixalan pre-release and build a kick ass dinosaur deck. Congrats you built a standard deck too, and most stores do door prizes. Go to the draft the next friday, go 0-4, and win your pity pack.

Since there's no rules thread I figured I'd ask here.

If I Cascade or something into Haakon, Stromgald Scourge, can I cast him or not? Which card's text takes precedence in this situation?

Did you read the gatherer page? They usually answer stuff like that in the notes. It also has the oracle text

I refuse to believe that a person who browses Veeky Forums and uses /tg is incapable of answering this question for himself

And yet we have judge threads that frequently hit bump limit, with 90% of questions being obvious or easy to google

I would agree with this statement.

I should have done that, sorry.

Here for anyone interested:
>7/15/2006: Haakon can’t be cast from your hand. It can’t be cast from any zone other than your graveyard, even if an effect such as that of Spelljack or Muse Vessel would otherwise allow you to.

It's only worth it if you have friends to play with.

Just play the videogames. Playing physical is bad for three reasons:
>Its expensive as fuck
>pay2win as fuck
>The playerbase is a gross, autistic mess.

I wouldn't get into it unless you have a ton of disposable income. For standard, you're going to be paying a couple hundred bucks a month due to updating your deck. For modern, you're going to spend a few hundred dollars per deck, and be prepared to spend a few hundred dollars more every month in case your deck gets banned or gets a hot new card. Legacy and vintage are huge cost investments in the thousands of dollars, but you shouldn't expect to need to buy new decks anytime soon, or to find people with which to play it.

EDH is a tossup on quality. You see people here complaining that sometimes it's casual, and sometimes you're going to face someone whose deck just destroys you. I'd like to play pauper but I don't know anyone that plays it. Limited is fun but you can probably just toss your cards in the garbage afterward or cash out good ones immediately.

>Is it worth getting into Magic?
Sure, if you like TCGs then why not?
>I've never played, I don't have any cards and I'm several decades behind the curve. Have I missed the bus or can I still give it a shot?
Nah, depends. If you want to play only with current cards you can play drafts and standard - game formats build around using only new cards
>Where would I even start?
Go to your local game store and ask about sample decks and play with your friend. You can also buy duel decks - they are a good way to give the hobby a try and grab few neat cards
>What format should I collect for?
Wanna play with new cards? Standard. Wanna play with cheap cards? Pauper. Wanna go full baka? Buy an EDH precon and play commander

>Is it worth getting into Magic?

If, and only if, you can play for free.

So is Veeky Forums just full of poorfags or is it on the magic autists who think their entertainment should always be free?

Special breed of poorfag who get super butthurt when not allowed to use proxies plus the eternal shitposters who are buttfrustrated nobody wants to play their LCG.

Also consider neither of them have ever played mtg.

>Unless you have a lgs that hosts events regularly, I don't think it's worth getting into it.
Doesn't just about every LGS do that?

>So is Veeky Forums just full of poorfags
Yes. I think the average age here is low twenty-something

I'm not a poorfag, but speaking from an efficiency perspective, MTG is not cost-efficient. You can get many more hours of fun out of buying a good video game, with no need to worry about bannings or replacements.

Unless you have a group of people you will like to play with regularly, no. If you do I recommend EDH or building a cube, but you'll need to accumulate cards and knowledge for a good long while so until then just do booster drafts with the group. If you're considering standard just burn your money and keep your time.
Modern is cool too but unless you're a sage who has been playing for years and have the cards needed it's not gonna happen.
If you're casual and have casual friends then just get some cards and play. Standard is try hard and cringey plus your cards perpetually rotate out of legality so you won't even be able to use them in competitive play and will need to buy new cards always.

>muhh painted army mens
>not the same tiddilywinks bullshit

This. Magic is fucked

And then shell out hundreds from there on out so you maybe don't continue to lose to the same little kid you're stuck playing every friday.

There's a difference between wanting everything to be free and playing a game where you pay money for paper that later becomes worthless because of 'rotation'.

Just play it. What could go wrong? Just play the game.

Magicfags try to justify their excessive spending by calling anyone who doesn't want to a retard, poorfag, or underage.

Ignore everyone else they are fags and Veeky Forums is fucking trash at magic

Yes if you like pre-modern borders aesthetically

if not no

trust me

OP, do you have friends you can play with or not? Playing at a kitchen table and playing at a local game store are two very different experiences.

>mfw Force of Will got popular in the Khans of Tarkir standard era
>mfw people were playing that shitty anime cardgame at my LGS because standard decks were stupidly expensive (costed same as a tier 2 modern decks).
And that's how MtG died at my LGS and now i have to drive 2 hours to another game store. Even now ppl keep playing that shit tcg and standard tourneys only have 7-8 players at max.

It might be too late to learn how to play in time for Ixalan prerelease, but prerelease events are fairly good for new players.

>Where would I even start?
>Go to your local game store and ask about sample decks and play with your friend. You can also buy duel decks - they are a good way to give the hobby a try and grab few neat cards

This user is 100% correct, stores have supplies of free decks to give to new people you just have to ask for them, they are not playable in any format but have sufficient cards to teach you how to play and maybe get your friends hooked

yeah, those were dark times in standard era.

Force of Will is like Commander MtG but without restrictions and less cards. Probably thats why people got into it.
The thing that turns me off is the generic anime artstyle on it.

As much hate as deckbuilders toolkits get they contain enough randomness to create a few decks to play against friends, thats how I got back into magic during M14/theros after I quit during ice age/alliances

This is exactly why Hearthstone, Yu Gi Oh, Pokemon, Gwent, and upcoming Artifact are going to eviscerate Magic Online.

Everyone knows the paper game costs something like two hundred dollars per deck. Only retards would want to play without the best cards (I did not say competitive) and the land bases alone are going to put you back at least $50. Force of Will hasn't taken over many places given how deep rooted Magic is, but Magic doesn't need a Force of Will to kill it, it's doing a perfectly good fucking job at killing itself when the entry-level format is so fucking expensive.

>standard decks were stupidly expensive (costed same as a tier 2 modern decks)
I wasn't playing mtg at that time, but were standard decks that expensive?

they were around 450$ - 600$ and the best decks were Jeskai Black and Abzan Blue

Jace, Vryn's Prodigy was legitimately a $100+ card.

The Siege Rhino decks were Rock decks, and like only 8-10 cards (including lands) were not Rare or Mythic.

Grim Flayer, Liliana, and Kalitas seeing play in Modern did not help the standard price situation.

Fetch lands got a reprint in khans so you needed 12 or more fetches in each deck at $20 each that was just half or your mana base, not including the rest of the deck, also because of the ease of splashing every deck had blue and ran 4 baby jaces at $80-$90 each

Force of Will have some similar mechanics than MtG and have a lower entry price. No wonder why people could get into it easily.
Vryn's Prodigy was around 75$-90$ per card as far as I remember. Add the khan's fetchlands, the rare/mythic staples you needed for Abzan/Jeskai decks and that's it.

Once upon a time there was a deck called Jund that was built on the same principles as Abzan except it was composed of mostly Commons and Uncommons and dominated the metagame and was dirt fucking cheap and ran Terramorphic Expanse and uncommon tapped lands in the manabase. Jund stood up to the "Mythic" deck that cost somewhere on the order of $500+.

It's never going back to those days. Those days are gone.

Fucking this
Alara/Zendikar Standard was the best era and will never come back because of the pushed mythics and planeswalkers.

The biggest complaint at that time was Jund because everyone was playing it - because everyone could buy the core of the deck for around $40-50 and if you couldn't afford the "top-tier" finishers there were a billion substitutes.

Not a single spell 3CMC or lower was a Rare or Mythic. If that was the fucking benchmark today how many decks pass that test?

To be honest its hard to make even a pauper deck for under $50, cards in any format get. poular and the price goes up, masters didnt help downshifting carfs because people then want the old cards because lol I have uncommons

Seriously wizards reprint obulette

>You can get many more hours of fun out of buying a good video game
I haven't seen anything (vidya-wise) I like in a while, but you're probably right when it comes to most people.

As everyone has said if you have people to play with do it, if you dont have people to play with dont bother or you will end up like me buying cards from new sets having 10+ edh decks and a few modern decks and I havent played a game since 2013

Don't listen to these retards. Find a friend and go pick up some intro packs. Modern expansions are boring and uninspired, I recommend picking up some old Return to Ravnica Intro packs for instant fun. Ravnica: City of Guilds and Return to Ravnica is where I usually recommend new players start out due to the nature of those sets; If you know anything about Magic, there are five core colours to chose from that appear on cards. Each colour represents a different general playstyle, and Ravnica takes this concept of expands on it by pairing colours together in a bunch of intuitive ways; It gets new players used to colour mechanics, micromanaging their mana, and building decks around resources (Playing as a Spike as opposed to a Timmy). If you're interested in this at all, go check out the Ravnica sets and find a deck you like. The ones from 2005 are very easy to learn and effective for casual play with your friends, though the newer 2013 decks aren't.

You guys stopmisleading him and being little wage slave bitches.

Alright, OP. you wanna try magic? Awesome here's a video: youtube.com/watch?v=ZixWqaGJVQs

Watched it? Good now go to a LGS or similar and buy a deck builder's toolkit. Now they may not carry them ATM because they stopped printing ones for the previous set but chances are there will be a new one when Ixalan arrives.
So WTF is a deck builder's toolkit? Well bucko for 20 bucks you get a shit ton of land of every color, some kinda mediocre cards, a bunch of boosters from the newest sets and a sweet box to hold your cards in.
Now repeat this with someone else who is interested (if you are in college then you already have one) or pay them lunch or something its god damn 20 bucks thats basicly pocket change these days.
Now make some decks at random and have fun! soon enough you'll be buying boosters, realise thats gonna kill your bank account and buy the singles you need/want to make cool/quirky/stupid/bashy decks!

Also once youve done that and gotten alright at the rules of the game, go to your LGS and try out a prerelease even or a draft, its great fun and can net you some new cool cards.

>go buy old ravnica
>$649 a box
>wew lad best advice all day

P.S. seriously, intro decks arent a good way to start imo. sure it shows you what an alright deck looks like overall but they arent better than what you make with a deck builder's toolkit, cost about as much and because you dint make it you probably will feel little to no attachment or love for that soulless pile of cardboard.

>unless you are rich, don't get into magic, instead get into 40k

40k rules are eternal and they never change what army lists you can run or what weapon loadouts for minis you superglued on and painted for 4 weeks each

Tell that to Inquisition players.