The typical place to start with this are the free 30-card decks that you can get at your LGS. They're free and are made to be simple. After a few of the 'basics' (1v1 with them) you can shuffle two together and make a bigger deck.
If that's not an option, you can try to make a similar deck to that: Vanilla and French Vanilla creatures, basic activated abilities, lots of sorceries with the occasional instant, stuff like that. You could put a bomb or two in there, but make sure they're pretty simple in comparison (When I made sample decks to play with my friend, I think my bombs were Vastwood Hydra in one deck and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled in the other. +1/+1 counters are simple). You can even start simple (Lands, Creatures, Sorceries), and have additional piles to add more types of cards or more complexity, Duels of the Planeswalkers style.
Even without complexity teaching still takes a while, so be ready for a few evenings of teaching before they even really grasp the basics.
I feel like it'd be interesting to read.... maybe six months from now when you actually would have a reasonable amount of cards. If you're getting free draft chaff, you're -maybe- getting $2 a night in cards, if someone happens to throw out a Roast or something. I'm just not sure how a reasonable person could consider driving to your LGS, picking up junk cards, maybe getting something to eat, and driving home as you "making" $2. The cost of of food/gas/time/depreciation of car value is more than that and just seems like you making it unnecessarily hard to prove a point.
I personally find the concept of FNM Hero a lot more interesting (minus some of the silly stipulations like "I will never take a trade I'm profiting on") -- you start with a reasonable amount of money a normal person would invest in MTG and turn it into goals normal players have: compete in/win your FNM and have a decent trade binder. There's not that slow, months-long grind at the beginning to get a reasonable amount of cards that costs you more in time and gas than your cards actually are worth.
A blog like yours would still be something I'd read if I saw it, but it'd feel more like us reading about your self-imposed challenge than actually showing people that you can succeed without paying any money to play Magic.
They used to require deck lists at prereleases? Wow, what a nightmare.
Not only deck lists, but pool swapping. Ugh, even thinking about it is frustrating. Luckily they've made it a -much- more casual atmosphere, as you're not going to be able to pry a Planeswalker away from some of the 10 year old kids that frequent the ones around here.
During my college Magic hiatus, I ended up going to the Coldsnap prerelease as I was off that weekend and one of my friends I had recently come back in contact with was going. I had a couple days to check out the set beforehand, but I figured it'd be a fun time to go knowing nothing about the set and play.
It was probably the least fun I've ever had at an event. First, my friend showed up, signed up for a different flight than me, and then left after the first round for some reason or another. During deck construction, I spent all but maybe five minutes making sure the cards I had in my pile were what were on my deck list (requiring filling out those lists for prereleases is such a horrible idea...) and reading what the cards did. My deck was horrible, I didn't have time to sleeve it up so the cards kept getting stuck on the table, and I almost tried playing the Allosaurus Rider promo. I got crushed in round 1 by someone with I think 3x Squall Drifters and a Rimescale Dragon or some other bomb while I was staring at cards that shouldn't have been in my deck. I got the round two bye and, despite the judge chatting with me a bit, I decided that I didn't want to be miserable for another two rounds and went home.
All in all, it was a pretty horrible experience for me. I had no clue what was going on and got wrecked because of it, and it didn't help that I didn't have anyone to hang out with afterwards (to note, I haven't really hung out with that guy since that event). Nowadays I make sure to have at least one friend going (even though I'm acquaintances with some of the local crowd) and that I'm familiar with at least most of the cards so that I don't have a situation like that again.
I think nowadays you can get away with it a bit more since it's a more casual environment than that -- no deck lists, you can ask your friends for advice, etc. I find it's good to be familiar with cards and know what should drive your deck, though, because there's only so much time to deck construct and to make sure you're not going to be durdling around at the lower tables all day. I personally get a lot of enjoyment getting to work and checking the spoiler for any updates, too. If you want to go it blind, by all means try it, just make sure you've got a fallback if the event itself isn't as fun for you as it could be.
Someone once asked me why Natural Order's flavor text was strange. Turns out the other half was on some card that most people who didn't play then or drafted that set know about.
4v9 is definitely a consideration on how you want to trade, as people have previously mentioned. For Magic, I'm personally a fan of the 9 pockets; there's more playable cards and you're able to show multiples a lot easier, plus people seem to be a bit more realistic on values. For games like Yugioh, I always used to use a 4 pocket for the $30+ stuff and the 9 pocket for the rest (You'd lead with the 9 pocket, then if they had anything expensive you really wanted, give them the 4 pocket afterwards). If you have a lot of stuff in varying prices, the 4/9 approach could work; it's really just about narrowing down the cards your trading partner can see based on what you're interested in from them.
Typically the higher quality binders come with the cloth backing pages, so I'd tend to believe there's some benefit to them. I'm not entirely sure what, but I haven't really experienced any tearing in the past. I'd definitely sleeve up any cards you put in binders with them, though, just so you don't catch a corner on something.
When it comes to sideloading vs toploaders, I'd HIGHLY recommend sideloaders. Back in my Yugioh days, I just had the 9 pocket bound portfolios with the anime girls on the front or whatever. They worked pretty well, but every few events I'd find a handful of cards in the bottom loose in my bag, sometimes in okay condition, sometimes not. I switched over to sideloaders and haven't had any issues like that. The point about thieves stealing individual cards is also worth mentioning (as others have) as it's significantly harder to take cards out quickly and inconspicuously.
To the best of my knowledge, the sample decks are free for the stores and they hand them out to anyone that asks. I'm not sure if you're necessarily able to get all five of them for free, but it's worth checking with your LGS. Also, according to the article, the cards are available in the Deckbuilder Toolkit as well, so you shouldn't really have much issue rounding out that part of the set for a nominal amount of money.
If you're using a draft timer like that, you really shouldn't be participating. Typically the structured timing is only used in more competitive environments (I hesitate to use the term "Competitive REL", but those are certainly the only events I've seen using the hard cutoffs like above) where one of the judges is managing the time.
If you're wanting to use this in a more casual atmosphere, such as FNM, I'd strongly advise against it, as there's not really an expectation that everyone is familiar with all of the cards and you don't really want to alienate them. If you're having issues with drafts taking a significant amount of time longer than the draft timing would set up, you would probably get better results advising people earlier in the draft to try and keep their picks in a reasonable time-frame and gently reminding people to make their picks in a timely manner during the draft (if it becomes an issue).
If you're using it as practice for Top 8s or something, you could just get one of the "Lap" timers on a phone app and see how long it takes people to make picks. It'd give you a better feel about how long each of the picks are taking, even if they're off a couple seconds.
Typically whenever we have timed draft situations, someone'll be watching on a clock or watch based on the booster timing structure and call out 10s/5s/pick time:
Booster Draft Timing
Individual booster drafts have the following default time limits for each pick:
Cards remaining in pack
Time allotted
15 cards 40 seconds
14 cards 40 seconds
13 cards 35 seconds
12 cards 30 seconds
11 cards 25 seconds
10 cards 25 seconds
9 cards 20 seconds
8 cards 20 seconds
7 cards 15 seconds
6 cards 10 seconds
5 cards 10 seconds
4 cards 5 seconds
3 cards 5 seconds
2 cards 5 seconds
1 card N/A
The time for review after the first booster pack is 30 seconds. Each subsequent review period increases by 15 seconds.
They might have a tool out there, but it seems like it'd be easier to do it based on a watch as the time between picks (passing the pack, counting the # of the cards, etc.) might not be included in whatever timer tool that's out there.
Having never seen a game log or draftcap of yours, and going solely your posting, I think the biggest advice I have is this: take responsibility for your losses, and continue to try and become better.
Based on what you've said, you're relatively unfamiliar with drafting in general. You watch a lot of videos and are trying to gather information from them, which is great! It does take a while learn proper card evaluation and knowing exactly what you need to avoid and play around, and you've identified a good way of finding that out: leveraging other people's knowledge and skills. Have you tried watching some of the Twitch streamers? I don't really play competitive Magic that much anymore, but I still feel like I'm reasonably in-tune with the formats because of the sheer amount of drafting I've watched (or half-watched while doing other things). You can even interact with them, asking them why the made specific picks you're not sure about; it's another tool you can use.
Playing the New Player drafts aren't meant to win you any prizes, but just to get familiar with the system. If you're losing all of them, so be it -- as long as you're drafting and playing correctly, or at least getting better, it's definitely worth the investment. The same thing goes with IRL games. If you're drafting, just try to always draft correctly and play tight; trying to get better is usually more important than winning. As pizzap said, posting some of your draftcaps in the limited forum might help you get a better understanding of what you can try to do better. Again, leveraging other people's knowledge and experience is a great way to go about getting better.
The big thing I noticed in your message, though, is the lack of responsibility you try to own about your losses. I understand that flooding is frustrating, but you mention it four times as the reason you're losing. It's incredibly easy to blame a system for you losing; you don't really have any sway in how the shuffling works, so it's something out of your hands that's "making you lose". However, how does that explain your lack of winning in your 2-a-week drafts you do at your LGS? Are you getting flooded there too, or are you losing for other reasons? The shuffler does not purposefully give you mana flood or screw; it's random, and honestly doesn't care how well you do or how poorly you do. It's up to you to build the deck properly, make the proper mulliganing decisions, and just play as correctly as you can. Will you get mana flooded sometimes? Sure. You'll also get mana screwed, and your opponents will get mana flooded or screwed. It's the player's responsibility to try to mitigate the risks of the resource system and make the correct decisions when they can -- putting the weight of that on how you shuffle or how the shuffler presents your deck to you is a huge flaw and is something you really need to address before you can get better.
Magic is a game, but a game of great depth. There's a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. It's a reasonably easy game to learn, but a pretty hard game to get truly "good" at. There's a lot of people who are better than you out there, and it's not going to be as quick as going to bed worse than them and wake up better than them. It's going to take a good deal of time and effort to try and become the type of player you want to be. It begins with you taking that responsibility and rolling with it.
As Wildfire said, shipping costs are significantly more expensive, depending on the shipping method. I used to trade with a few friends in the UK and first-class parcel in a bubble mailer usually only took $6-7 to ship, but still much more than the $2 that I pay here. If I wanted to put tracking on that, it usually jumps to that $20-30 range, which isn't worth it for 99% of trades.
Also, when shipping internationally, it's a requirement for you to go to the post office, fill out a customs form, and take care of everything at the desk (at least in my experience). Where shipping internationally means I have to make it to the post office after work before it closes or wait for the weekend, I can just print off the label online or slap a few stamps on a mailer if I ship domestically.
Shipping times also vary; I've had packages from the UK come in 3 days or a month, but it usually averaged about 10 days for me (usually adding an extra few days to a week if it's from another country). US domestic shipping usually stays consistently around 3-5 days.
One last thing to consider is price variance. Although something like tcgplayer works for US stores, it doesn't necessarily reflect the value of the cards in other countries. A lot of deals I've tried to make with people overseas just didn't pan out as the values of the cards in the US were different enough than the values in the UK that it was just too hard to make an even trade for both of us.
All in all, there's definitely deals to be made between the US and other countries, but, unless it's for foreign-language cards or high-value cards, it's usually just too much cost and hassle.
Below are the search results that would give you everything similar to Skyshroud Elf, in the sense that you use 1 colorless mana to make a mana of a color. You also have Agent of Stromgald and Orochi Leafcaller that cycle specific kinds of mana, as well as Nomadic Elf which isn't as efficient. I'm sure there's others, but those are the three cards that I remember/were able to find easily.
To reiterate what CorruptDictator was kinda asking, how exactly are you defining "playable"? Legal for the format, or actually something you would be running in your deck? Given that my holiday box currently is storing a 360 proxied cube and the accompanied lands, a couple spare EDH decks, and all of the spare basic lands and tokens we keep for people, it's hard for me to believe that there's that many truly playable cards in Standard, let alone ones you have copies of in your collection.
If you are going to a bigger tournament, likely their decks should already be pretty refined and prepared. I could definitely see them needing a last-minute sideboard card or something, but I'd assume that they would already know what they're looking for.
Aside from the bulk rares that probably aren't playable anyways, shouldn't the rares be in some kind of binder? It's harder to damage cards in a binder like that than loosely stored in a box like that, and enables both quick access for borrowing and ease for trading.
Really, I just think it comes down to paring down the cards you carry around, rather than finding better ways to carry them around.
As to tapping stones, I've never even heard of them but I'm surprised that its allowed in events. I can't say I'd be happy with my opponent moving little coloured beads with no clear meaning around. As it is I usually have different coloured dice for different counters. Adding in another counter to represent something which can just as easily be done the normal way is just unnecessary complication.
By the letter of the comprehensive rules, using a stone to represent tapped isn't really correct.
701.17. Tap and Untap
701.17a To tap a permanent, turn it sideways from an upright position. Only untapped permanents can be tapped.
701.17b To untap a permanent, rotate it back to the upright position from a sideways position. Only tapped permanents can be untapped.
However, you could argue that, if it's clear with your opponents, that it's valid through this rule:
400.5. The order of objects in a library, in a graveyard, or on the stack can’t be changed except when effects or rules allow it. The same is true for objects arranged in face-down piles in other zones. Other objects in other zones can be arranged however their owners wish, although who controls those objects, whether they’re tapped or flipped, and what other objects are attached to them must remain clear to all players.
I think it's more up to the Head Judge (and, to a lesser extent, your opponent). Hope this doesn't derail the thread, but it is about Magic Gear, so....
UA Lives: I guess so, im not even sure what those are. In my dice bag I have some of those colored stones that I got from playing 1st Gen Pokemon cards. Not sure if thats the same thing.
Tapping stones are stones which people use in lieu of turning a card 90 degrees to represent the card as tapped. And yes, they're pretty similar to the polished stones that Pokemon uses as damage counters.
Wait, am I the only one still using tapping stones?
I've seen a few people use it, but I personally incredibly dislike the practice. It makes it more difficult for me to visualize the board state and negatively interacts with counters on cards. Given that they've been pushing -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters the last handful of blocks, I think it's a very poor way to represent the board state. I personally would not want to have to constantly remember that yellow means tapped and green means +1/+1 when my opponent has Raging Ravine out, for instance. The general consensus of tapping stones with people that I know is moderate annoyance, so I'm not necessarily alone in my opinion, either. Still, if your friends and LGS are okay with it, and it's really what you want to do, keep going with it.
To the original question, I've went to tournaments with anything from a backpack stocked full of everything to just my phone, keys, and wallet. It really just depends on the format. Typically I'll try to bring a life pad and a pen, at least my small pouch of dice, my playmat, and a stack of sleeves (either ~60 for Limited or an extra 5-10 for constructed decks) if I remember them all. Grabbing some token or token representations (Random Pokemon cards work great for those) is something I also like doing if I'm playing Limited (although I typically have my tokens figured out already for a token-based constructed deck). However, there's nothing as nostalgic as showing up to a pre-release with just the entry fee and a dream.
If that's not an option, you can try to make a similar deck to that: Vanilla and French Vanilla creatures, basic activated abilities, lots of sorceries with the occasional instant, stuff like that. You could put a bomb or two in there, but make sure they're pretty simple in comparison (When I made sample decks to play with my friend, I think my bombs were Vastwood Hydra in one deck and Ob Nixilis, Unshackled in the other. +1/+1 counters are simple). You can even start simple (Lands, Creatures, Sorceries), and have additional piles to add more types of cards or more complexity, Duels of the Planeswalkers style.
Even without complexity teaching still takes a while, so be ready for a few evenings of teaching before they even really grasp the basics.
I personally find the concept of FNM Hero a lot more interesting (minus some of the silly stipulations like "I will never take a trade I'm profiting on") -- you start with a reasonable amount of money a normal person would invest in MTG and turn it into goals normal players have: compete in/win your FNM and have a decent trade binder. There's not that slow, months-long grind at the beginning to get a reasonable amount of cards that costs you more in time and gas than your cards actually are worth.
A blog like yours would still be something I'd read if I saw it, but it'd feel more like us reading about your self-imposed challenge than actually showing people that you can succeed without paying any money to play Magic.
Not only deck lists, but pool swapping. Ugh, even thinking about it is frustrating. Luckily they've made it a -much- more casual atmosphere, as you're not going to be able to pry a Planeswalker away from some of the 10 year old kids that frequent the ones around here.
It was probably the least fun I've ever had at an event. First, my friend showed up, signed up for a different flight than me, and then left after the first round for some reason or another. During deck construction, I spent all but maybe five minutes making sure the cards I had in my pile were what were on my deck list (requiring filling out those lists for prereleases is such a horrible idea...) and reading what the cards did. My deck was horrible, I didn't have time to sleeve it up so the cards kept getting stuck on the table, and I almost tried playing the Allosaurus Rider promo. I got crushed in round 1 by someone with I think 3x Squall Drifters and a Rimescale Dragon or some other bomb while I was staring at cards that shouldn't have been in my deck. I got the round two bye and, despite the judge chatting with me a bit, I decided that I didn't want to be miserable for another two rounds and went home.
All in all, it was a pretty horrible experience for me. I had no clue what was going on and got wrecked because of it, and it didn't help that I didn't have anyone to hang out with afterwards (to note, I haven't really hung out with that guy since that event). Nowadays I make sure to have at least one friend going (even though I'm acquaintances with some of the local crowd) and that I'm familiar with at least most of the cards so that I don't have a situation like that again.
I think nowadays you can get away with it a bit more since it's a more casual environment than that -- no deck lists, you can ask your friends for advice, etc. I find it's good to be familiar with cards and know what should drive your deck, though, because there's only so much time to deck construct and to make sure you're not going to be durdling around at the lower tables all day. I personally get a lot of enjoyment getting to work and checking the spoiler for any updates, too. If you want to go it blind, by all means try it, just make sure you've got a fallback if the event itself isn't as fun for you as it could be.
Someone once asked me why Natural Order's flavor text was strange. Turns out the other half was on some card that most people who didn't play then or drafted that set know about.
Typically the higher quality binders come with the cloth backing pages, so I'd tend to believe there's some benefit to them. I'm not entirely sure what, but I haven't really experienced any tearing in the past. I'd definitely sleeve up any cards you put in binders with them, though, just so you don't catch a corner on something.
When it comes to sideloading vs toploaders, I'd HIGHLY recommend sideloaders. Back in my Yugioh days, I just had the 9 pocket bound portfolios with the anime girls on the front or whatever. They worked pretty well, but every few events I'd find a handful of cards in the bottom loose in my bag, sometimes in okay condition, sometimes not. I switched over to sideloaders and haven't had any issues like that. The point about thieves stealing individual cards is also worth mentioning (as others have) as it's significantly harder to take cards out quickly and inconspicuously.
If you're wanting to use this in a more casual atmosphere, such as FNM, I'd strongly advise against it, as there's not really an expectation that everyone is familiar with all of the cards and you don't really want to alienate them. If you're having issues with drafts taking a significant amount of time longer than the draft timing would set up, you would probably get better results advising people earlier in the draft to try and keep their picks in a reasonable time-frame and gently reminding people to make their picks in a timely manner during the draft (if it becomes an issue).
If you're using it as practice for Top 8s or something, you could just get one of the "Lap" timers on a phone app and see how long it takes people to make picks. It'd give you a better feel about how long each of the picks are taking, even if they're off a couple seconds.
They might have a tool out there, but it seems like it'd be easier to do it based on a watch as the time between picks (passing the pack, counting the # of the cards, etc.) might not be included in whatever timer tool that's out there.
Based on what you've said, you're relatively unfamiliar with drafting in general. You watch a lot of videos and are trying to gather information from them, which is great! It does take a while learn proper card evaluation and knowing exactly what you need to avoid and play around, and you've identified a good way of finding that out: leveraging other people's knowledge and skills. Have you tried watching some of the Twitch streamers? I don't really play competitive Magic that much anymore, but I still feel like I'm reasonably in-tune with the formats because of the sheer amount of drafting I've watched (or half-watched while doing other things). You can even interact with them, asking them why the made specific picks you're not sure about; it's another tool you can use.
Playing the New Player drafts aren't meant to win you any prizes, but just to get familiar with the system. If you're losing all of them, so be it -- as long as you're drafting and playing correctly, or at least getting better, it's definitely worth the investment. The same thing goes with IRL games. If you're drafting, just try to always draft correctly and play tight; trying to get better is usually more important than winning. As pizzap said, posting some of your draftcaps in the limited forum might help you get a better understanding of what you can try to do better. Again, leveraging other people's knowledge and experience is a great way to go about getting better.
The big thing I noticed in your message, though, is the lack of responsibility you try to own about your losses. I understand that flooding is frustrating, but you mention it four times as the reason you're losing. It's incredibly easy to blame a system for you losing; you don't really have any sway in how the shuffling works, so it's something out of your hands that's "making you lose". However, how does that explain your lack of winning in your 2-a-week drafts you do at your LGS? Are you getting flooded there too, or are you losing for other reasons? The shuffler does not purposefully give you mana flood or screw; it's random, and honestly doesn't care how well you do or how poorly you do. It's up to you to build the deck properly, make the proper mulliganing decisions, and just play as correctly as you can. Will you get mana flooded sometimes? Sure. You'll also get mana screwed, and your opponents will get mana flooded or screwed. It's the player's responsibility to try to mitigate the risks of the resource system and make the correct decisions when they can -- putting the weight of that on how you shuffle or how the shuffler presents your deck to you is a huge flaw and is something you really need to address before you can get better.
Magic is a game, but a game of great depth. There's a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. It's a reasonably easy game to learn, but a pretty hard game to get truly "good" at. There's a lot of people who are better than you out there, and it's not going to be as quick as going to bed worse than them and wake up better than them. It's going to take a good deal of time and effort to try and become the type of player you want to be. It begins with you taking that responsibility and rolling with it.
Also, when shipping internationally, it's a requirement for you to go to the post office, fill out a customs form, and take care of everything at the desk (at least in my experience). Where shipping internationally means I have to make it to the post office after work before it closes or wait for the weekend, I can just print off the label online or slap a few stamps on a mailer if I ship domestically.
Shipping times also vary; I've had packages from the UK come in 3 days or a month, but it usually averaged about 10 days for me (usually adding an extra few days to a week if it's from another country). US domestic shipping usually stays consistently around 3-5 days.
One last thing to consider is price variance. Although something like tcgplayer works for US stores, it doesn't necessarily reflect the value of the cards in other countries. A lot of deals I've tried to make with people overseas just didn't pan out as the values of the cards in the US were different enough than the values in the UK that it was just too hard to make an even trade for both of us.
All in all, there's definitely deals to be made between the US and other countries, but, unless it's for foreign-language cards or high-value cards, it's usually just too much cost and hassle.
EDIT: Search link is messed up...
If you are going to a bigger tournament, likely their decks should already be pretty refined and prepared. I could definitely see them needing a last-minute sideboard card or something, but I'd assume that they would already know what they're looking for.
Aside from the bulk rares that probably aren't playable anyways, shouldn't the rares be in some kind of binder? It's harder to damage cards in a binder like that than loosely stored in a box like that, and enables both quick access for borrowing and ease for trading.
Really, I just think it comes down to paring down the cards you carry around, rather than finding better ways to carry them around.
By the letter of the comprehensive rules, using a stone to represent tapped isn't really correct.
However, you could argue that, if it's clear with your opponents, that it's valid through this rule:
I think it's more up to the Head Judge (and, to a lesser extent, your opponent). Hope this doesn't derail the thread, but it is about Magic Gear, so....
Tapping stones are stones which people use in lieu of turning a card 90 degrees to represent the card as tapped. And yes, they're pretty similar to the polished stones that Pokemon uses as damage counters.
I've seen a few people use it, but I personally incredibly dislike the practice. It makes it more difficult for me to visualize the board state and negatively interacts with counters on cards. Given that they've been pushing -1/-1 and +1/+1 counters the last handful of blocks, I think it's a very poor way to represent the board state. I personally would not want to have to constantly remember that yellow means tapped and green means +1/+1 when my opponent has Raging Ravine out, for instance. The general consensus of tapping stones with people that I know is moderate annoyance, so I'm not necessarily alone in my opinion, either. Still, if your friends and LGS are okay with it, and it's really what you want to do, keep going with it.
To the original question, I've went to tournaments with anything from a backpack stocked full of everything to just my phone, keys, and wallet. It really just depends on the format. Typically I'll try to bring a life pad and a pen, at least my small pouch of dice, my playmat, and a stack of sleeves (either ~60 for Limited or an extra 5-10 for constructed decks) if I remember them all. Grabbing some token or token representations (Random Pokemon cards work great for those) is something I also like doing if I'm playing Limited (although I typically have my tokens figured out already for a token-based constructed deck). However, there's nothing as nostalgic as showing up to a pre-release with just the entry fee and a dream.