I'm pretty clueless. I was never a "good player". 4th place is my best result in an FNM. I don't have the budget to buy a top deck. I have trouble affording a lot of budget decks.
I'm returning with M15, for sure, but I'd like a bit of a push in the right direction. "Required reading" for today's Standard? (also, I know I'm not supposed to ask this in Standard Main, but this is a related question- I can only buy sealed product. What should my spending plan look like?)
I'm pretty clueless. I was never a "good player". 4th place is my best result in an FNM. I don't have the budget to buy a top deck. I have trouble affording a lot of budget decks.
I'm returning with M15, for sure, but I'd like a bit of a push in the right direction. "Required reading" for today's Standard? (also, I know I'm not supposed to ask this in Standard Main, but this is a related question- I can only buy sealed product. What should my spending plan look like?)
M15 is looking like your best better as far as sealed product is concerned if you don't mind waiting two weeks. There are a bunch of quality cards, not much jank at all rarities (Certainly some cards are better than others, and some rares that aren't great, but overall most things seem at least useable), and plenty of seemingly high-dollar rares.
As far as required reading, not sure really. That said, probably the best budget deck you can find right now is Tom Ross' Boss Sligh. He goes over some of the details of how the deck matches up against other decks in the format:
From what I can see, you could probably build it for about $30 on the high end. And although they are really good for competitive play, if you don't want to shell out the $15 or so for the set of Loyalists and Zealots (Which will be rotating in 3 months), you could probably replace them with Foundry Street Denizen and Gore-House Chainwalker and still have a serviceable deck. Most of the cards you might be able to find someone to give to you for free, as I usually do if any new player needs some commons and uncommons I have a million of. It's a really solid budget friendly deck that matches up well enough currently. I played a similar deck when I got back in the game after along hiatus, and did fairly well even without the most expensive cards available at the time.
All of which won't rotate, all can be had for cheap, and all do something that the deck wants to do anyway. If you don't go the loyalist + zealot route, I suggest adding Hoplite and Athlete, although an argument can be made for Rollicker.
I'm returning with M15, for sure, but I'd like a bit of a push in the right direction. "Required reading" for today's Standard? (also, I know I'm not supposed to ask this in Standard Main, but this is a related question- I can only buy sealed product. What should my spending plan look like?)
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
M15 is looking like your best better as far as sealed product is concerned if you don't mind waiting two weeks. There are a bunch of quality cards, not much jank at all rarities (Certainly some cards are better than others, and some rares that aren't great, but overall most things seem at least useable), and plenty of seemingly high-dollar rares.
As far as required reading, not sure really. That said, probably the best budget deck you can find right now is Tom Ross' Boss Sligh. He goes over some of the details of how the deck matches up against other decks in the format:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28690_The-Return-of-Boss-Sligh.html
It's the second deck list.
From what I can see, you could probably build it for about $30 on the high end. And although they are really good for competitive play, if you don't want to shell out the $15 or so for the set of Loyalists and Zealots (Which will be rotating in 3 months), you could probably replace them with Foundry Street Denizen and Gore-House Chainwalker and still have a serviceable deck. Most of the cards you might be able to find someone to give to you for free, as I usually do if any new player needs some commons and uncommons I have a million of. It's a really solid budget friendly deck that matches up well enough currently. I played a similar deck when I got back in the game after along hiatus, and did fairly well even without the most expensive cards available at the time.
Other cheap options to consider include:
Satyr Hoplite
Nyxborn Rollicker
Arena Athlete
All of which won't rotate, all can be had for cheap, and all do something that the deck wants to do anyway. If you don't go the loyalist + zealot route, I suggest adding Hoplite and Athlete, although an argument can be made for Rollicker.