I've been a long time (though on again/off again) player, but due to a career move didn't really have the time to keep up with M:tG for the last couple years. I played heavily in INN block, but before INN block I was absent since Mirrodin or so? Either way, I took the time in my last foray to read up on what I had missed, and messed around in constructed Modern, Standard as well as limited formats. I actually played in the RtR pre-release (as Golgari!), but a big change temporarily boxed my physical collection, and I lost touch with MTGO as well.
Fast forward to last week, I see Worlds on Twitch and give it a gander. Long story short, it has rekindled my love of the game, and after hunting down my login credentials, I was back in the swing of things... sorta. I've missed enough to be kinda lost again, and whilst I gleamed a lot from Worlds, I figured I'd ask the fine folks here what would be a good deck to create to get my feet back in to the MTGO pool.
I usually love to play Green or Blue. I love control decks, combo decks, anything with heavy synergy (I like the Heroic mechanic, picked up a bunch of cheap staples with random credit I had to give it a whirl). Being that we're at the start of the block(ish), I figure I can't be too bad off investing in some of the Theros block cards, but again, that's what I'm here asking you guys for!
TL;DR - I have 50 tix and haven't played in 2 years, what should I buy?
Sorry, I should say that Standard would be where I'm looking to start back in to. I do have a limited cardpool relevant to modern - like I have scraps of Affinity, Bridge from Below, Delver, and lots of other random things, nothing substantial I'd say... I do have 4x Remand which I'm wondering if I should sell, etc. As far as money put in, I'd like to see where 50tix would get me, but I wouldn't be adverse to putting in more money if I'd have a fair shot at playing daily standards.
I was thinking about studying the current draft meta and just dumping all my tix in there, because I do like to draft a lot, but the client issues scare me (and my client DOES like to crash a bit), so let's say maybe I just want to start with these 50 tix, build a deck that will be fun and semi-competitive in standard so I can test it on my various computers for stability.
You can do almost the entire UW heroic for 50. Only thing you may not be able to fully squeeze in is the mana confluence which you honestly don't need anyway unless things changed drastically since I built it, which is possible.
Heroic is surprisingly good right now, not the best deck by anymeans but it can win if played properly.
Edit: I stand corrected Hero of Irois has exploded since I got mine
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Trying to make crappy pet cards work since 2002.
I'm usually typing quickly at work or on my phone so I appolize from the crummy grammar
Barring stuff like dual lands (lets either assume I have them, or their cost effectiveness isn't worth the exorbitant price, for the sake of discussion). I know with 3 color decks this is a little less forgivable, but are there any other two color decks where I can get away with the less expensive mana sources (like these nifty lands that give life)?
You'll have to go Boss Sligh or UW Heroic but those still aren't 50, more like 85-100. You also cannot skimp on the mana base for UW Heroic because the deck is just absolute trash without good mana.
"...I do like to draft a lot, but the client issues scare me..."
If you are concerned that your MtGO might crash during a draft, then you can get a refund in full for the cost of the draft.
KTK draft is a whole lot of fun. I play exclusively in swiss drafts and I sell every card I draft which is worth anything (and I always draft a card if it is worth 1 ticket or more even if it wouldn't fit my deck), that helps offset the cost of the draft.
I can easily liquidate 40-50 more tix, and even put in money, I was more just wondering if I NEEDED to. I assume Modern is significantly more expensive?
You can do almost the entire UW heroic for 50. Only thing you may not be able to fully squeeze in is the mana confluence which you honestly don't need anyway unless things changed drastically since I built it, which is possible.
Heroic is surprisingly good right now, not the best deck by anymeans but it can win if played properly.
Edit: I stand corrected Hero of Irois has exploded since I got mine
If more people were on Abzan like a few months ago, I would agree that UW Heroic would be a good call. Sadly, its become a pretty bad deck lately since everyone is on Mardu and Mardu destroys heroic pretty badly. Standard sucks for budget players right now since all the cheap Aggro decks are terribly positioned.
I think the best deck you could get for less than 200 tix that is the most competitive somewhere would be a Modern UR Delver deck. UR Delver is a real deck that can complete with almost anything. Just use other UR fetch lands over Scalding Tarn and it only costs 150 tix. Scalding Tarn is very good for the deck, but its possible to play without them. The tarns dont always matter that much since you will fetch out Steam Vents majority of the time, so using some other UR fetch lands does the same thing most of the time. There are a few situations where you would want to have either basic, but I dont think the situations come up enough to justify spending another 160 tix.
I hope you don't mind if I hijack this thread, but I have a similar question so I didn't want to post another one.
I'm getting into MTGO. I don't have much to put in to start. I love all the basic paper formats - Standard, Modern, Legacy and Commander. I've never been much of a Standard player but also know Modern and Legacy to be much more expensive (and Commander).
So I guess what it comes down to for me is this: In the MTGO community, is there enough interest in Commander to where I can pick up some of the precons and work on them? Or am I better off trying to piece together Modern/Legacy over time?
Truthfully I'm a bit bewildered because I have partial or complete decks for all these formats and would like to play them all, but I'm not looking to sell my paper collection to get into MTGO. I'm not very good at sealed, either :/
Apologies if this post is a jumbled mess. I've avoided MTGO for a long time because it hasn't been as satisfying to play Magic without the social aspect, but I get to play so little that I decided to bite the bullet today and attempt to invest here.
I hope you don't mind if I hijack this thread, but I have a similar question so I didn't want to post another one.
I'm getting into MTGO. I don't have much to put in to start. I love all the basic paper formats - Standard, Modern, Legacy and Commander. I've never been much of a Standard player but also know Modern and Legacy to be much more expensive (and Commander).
So I guess what it comes down to for me is this: In the MTGO community, is there enough interest in Commander to where I can pick up some of the precons and work on them? Or am I better off trying to piece together Modern/Legacy over time?
Truthfully I'm a bit bewildered because I have partial or complete decks for all these formats and would like to play them all, but I'm not looking to sell my paper collection to get into MTGO. I'm not very good at sealed, either :/
Apologies if this post is a jumbled mess. I've avoided MTGO for a long time because it hasn't been as satisfying to play Magic without the social aspect, but I get to play so little that I decided to bite the bullet today and attempt to invest here.
What is your goal?
Play only commander?
Play all the formats?
And I assume you want to do this at a minimal cost?
I don't play commander, so I can't tell you the longest wait time for casual matches. But looking at the just for fun room there looks to be a commander game firing every 5 minutes (and this is on Friday night the day after Christmas, so I assume the number of people are down). It looks like there is a player run Sunday commander event. So you should be able to get your commander fix.
The best way to build a collection on mtgo is to buy the cheapest competitive standard(UW heroic)/block(jeskai)/modern(bogles/merfolk) deck and play in daily events until you win enough tickets to buy other decks, or win enough tickets to invest in cards (buy low/sell high). You can also join those player run events. They're free, the only catch is that they take longer to complete than DEs. People do not want to play fast, and like using all of their clock.
To get a good deal on tickets you can buy the commander decks from the store and try to resell all the cards. Containment priest, toxic deluge and true-name nemesis sell for 30 tickets, so you can essentially get "5 free" tix from reselling commander cards. I have to warn you that these commander cards have a very small market. Not that many people want these cards, so it could take you a while to sell them (weeks).
One more thing is that magic online is a poorly made program for the year 2015. So you need to have a high tolerance for bugs and lag issues. You should download the free trial to see if your computer can run the program for 3+ hours without needing to restart.
Thanks for the advice, ristker_. I'd like to play all the formats eventually, and I'm not necessarily looking to only play budget - I just don't have the budget to really dive right in and build a whole deck. I'll try to look into the budget decks you listed as a starting point and see where that goes. I'm glad to hear there's a lot of Commander play since it's my go-to format for casual play.
Buying Mind Seize and selling TNN turned out to be a great idea. I bought a THS Block Sealed event pack and waited all day and none popped, got impatient and opened them all - pulled a Courser of Kruphix and Temple of Malady, sold those to a bot plus a few from when I started the account in 2005 and got the deck. Sold the TNN to a bot for $28 tix, then used those tix to... buy MMA and VMA packs. Bad idea, got junk. But I then discovered how cheap a lot of cards are on there compared to paper, take Yawgmoth's Will for example, which I got for 1.20 tix, or Volrath's Stronghold for 3.26 tix. Both easily $20+ cards in paper.
I'll look into constructed for dailies soon enough, but I was able to build most of my Ghost Council EDH on here and get cards like the ones mentioned above that I've never been able to justify buying in paper yet due to other priorities. I wish I'd gotten into MTGO sooner. I still def prefer paper because there's so much in the social interaction, going to large events, seeing artists, etc. that I can't get here but being able to play whenever I want like this is pretty amazing.
Cracking packs is bad EV. Instead of cracking packs, you can pay 2 tickets, crack your packs, and have a chance to win prizes, aka draft. Drafting is also bad EV. Only spend tickets on cards for your decks to play constructed events, or cards for investments.
I've been a long time (though on again/off again) player, but due to a career move didn't really have the time to keep up with M:tG for the last couple years. I played heavily in INN block, but before INN block I was absent since Mirrodin or so? Either way, I took the time in my last foray to read up on what I had missed, and messed around in constructed Modern, Standard as well as limited formats. I actually played in the RtR pre-release (as Golgari!), but a big change temporarily boxed my physical collection, and I lost touch with MTGO as well.
Fast forward to last week, I see Worlds on Twitch and give it a gander. Long story short, it has rekindled my love of the game, and after hunting down my login credentials, I was back in the swing of things... sorta. I've missed enough to be kinda lost again, and whilst I gleamed a lot from Worlds, I figured I'd ask the fine folks here what would be a good deck to create to get my feet back in to the MTGO pool.
I usually love to play Green or Blue. I love control decks, combo decks, anything with heavy synergy (I like the Heroic mechanic, picked up a bunch of cheap staples with random credit I had to give it a whirl). Being that we're at the start of the block(ish), I figure I can't be too bad off investing in some of the Theros block cards, but again, that's what I'm here asking you guys for!
TL;DR - I have 50 tix and haven't played in 2 years, what should I buy?
Thanks in advance!
I was thinking about studying the current draft meta and just dumping all my tix in there, because I do like to draft a lot, but the client issues scare me (and my client DOES like to crash a bit), so let's say maybe I just want to start with these 50 tix, build a deck that will be fun and semi-competitive in standard so I can test it on my various computers for stability.
Heroic is surprisingly good right now, not the best deck by anymeans but it can win if played properly.
Edit: I stand corrected Hero of Irois has exploded since I got mine
I'm usually typing quickly at work or on my phone so I appolize from the crummy grammar
https://twitch.tv/annorax10 (classic retro speedruns & occasional MTGO/MTGA screwaround streams)
https://twitch.tv/SwiftorCasino (yes, my team and I run live dealer games for the baldman using his channel points as chips)
If you are concerned that your MtGO might crash during a draft, then you can get a refund in full for the cost of the draft.
KTK draft is a whole lot of fun. I play exclusively in swiss drafts and I sell every card I draft which is worth anything (and I always draft a card if it is worth 1 ticket or more even if it wouldn't fit my deck), that helps offset the cost of the draft.
If more people were on Abzan like a few months ago, I would agree that UW Heroic would be a good call. Sadly, its become a pretty bad deck lately since everyone is on Mardu and Mardu destroys heroic pretty badly. Standard sucks for budget players right now since all the cheap Aggro decks are terribly positioned.
I think the best deck you could get for less than 200 tix that is the most competitive somewhere would be a Modern UR Delver deck. UR Delver is a real deck that can complete with almost anything. Just use other UR fetch lands over Scalding Tarn and it only costs 150 tix. Scalding Tarn is very good for the deck, but its possible to play without them. The tarns dont always matter that much since you will fetch out Steam Vents majority of the time, so using some other UR fetch lands does the same thing most of the time. There are a few situations where you would want to have either basic, but I dont think the situations come up enough to justify spending another 160 tix.
I'm getting into MTGO. I don't have much to put in to start. I love all the basic paper formats - Standard, Modern, Legacy and Commander. I've never been much of a Standard player but also know Modern and Legacy to be much more expensive (and Commander).
So I guess what it comes down to for me is this: In the MTGO community, is there enough interest in Commander to where I can pick up some of the precons and work on them? Or am I better off trying to piece together Modern/Legacy over time?
Truthfully I'm a bit bewildered because I have partial or complete decks for all these formats and would like to play them all, but I'm not looking to sell my paper collection to get into MTGO. I'm not very good at sealed, either :/
Apologies if this post is a jumbled mess. I've avoided MTGO for a long time because it hasn't been as satisfying to play Magic without the social aspect, but I get to play so little that I decided to bite the bullet today and attempt to invest here.
(Also known as Xenphire)
What is your goal?
Play only commander?
Play all the formats?
And I assume you want to do this at a minimal cost?
I don't play commander, so I can't tell you the longest wait time for casual matches. But looking at the just for fun room there looks to be a commander game firing every 5 minutes (and this is on Friday night the day after Christmas, so I assume the number of people are down). It looks like there is a player run Sunday commander event. So you should be able to get your commander fix.
The best way to build a collection on mtgo is to buy the cheapest competitive standard(UW heroic)/block(jeskai)/modern(bogles/merfolk) deck and play in daily events until you win enough tickets to buy other decks, or win enough tickets to invest in cards (buy low/sell high). You can also join those player run events. They're free, the only catch is that they take longer to complete than DEs. People do not want to play fast, and like using all of their clock.
You can get into pauper, but there are only 3 DEs a week for it. http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/events-schedule-2014-08-27#calendar
To get a good deal on tickets you can buy the commander decks from the store and try to resell all the cards. Containment priest, toxic deluge and true-name nemesis sell for 30 tickets, so you can essentially get "5 free" tix from reselling commander cards. I have to warn you that these commander cards have a very small market. Not that many people want these cards, so it could take you a while to sell them (weeks).
One more thing is that magic online is a poorly made program for the year 2015. So you need to have a high tolerance for bugs and lag issues. You should download the free trial to see if your computer can run the program for 3+ hours without needing to restart.
(Also known as Xenphire)
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/standard#online
I'll look into constructed for dailies soon enough, but I was able to build most of my Ghost Council EDH on here and get cards like the ones mentioned above that I've never been able to justify buying in paper yet due to other priorities. I wish I'd gotten into MTGO sooner. I still def prefer paper because there's so much in the social interaction, going to large events, seeing artists, etc. that I can't get here but being able to play whenever I want like this is pretty amazing.
(Also known as Xenphire)