I played very seriously in paper MtG 4-5 years ago but had some real life stuff happen and I sold my huge collection. I dont regret it because it needed to be done, but I got my life together finally and have the itch again to get back into competition again. Without looking at the STD format, the decks played or anything just asking "off hand" how much of a cash sink am I looking at, to start with Standard format in a competitive way (I will get into Modern and Legacy further down the road of course) but for now I would concentrate on STD. Do I need to mortgage to return to tournament play again?
Back in the day decks were really expensive, so kinda curious how the state of STD is now. I really miss the game, and I am so burned out on hearthstone I can't begin to say :/
Standard you're looking at average $200-250 a deck for top tier stuff, but some cards will overlap. Modern $500-1000 on average, but it really does vary depending on the number of fetchlands or premium cards like Goyf, Liliana, Snapcaster, etc.
You can break into standard pretty easily right now. Outside of Mono-red there are other options like mono green and RG energy, UW monument, GB counters, etc. Their's also mono black zombies, but that will rotate come september so I can't really recommend that one.
I think it comes down to how well you play a lot more than the deck right now.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Back in the day decks were really expensive, so kinda curious how the state of STD is now. I really miss the game, and I am so burned out on hearthstone I can't begin to say :/
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
I think it comes down to how well you play a lot more than the deck right now.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Yeah this, fully half of the current format will rotate out when Ixalan comes out, so there's no real point buying Gearhulks and Eldrazi now.