So, I just ventured into my first night of MTGO Play Lobby, my collection is small so I joined the Just Starting lobby thinking there would be other players in my same situation. Sadly, all the 4 players I encountered had dual/fetch lands and rares/legendary creatures/spells. There was nothing just starting about their decks. I mean, I even missed a turn of playing a land because the interface is so new to me but those decks were ridiculous.
What is then the best lobby to go play for people just starting?
There isn't really anything for you, sadly.If you don't know anyone in advance that you can schedule to play, you're basically fighting a bunch of people that want to win or want to test something. Best thing would be to buy whatever decent Pauper deck you think looks fun for 5 tix and head into the tournament practice room until you learn the terrible, incomprehensible user interface.
If you're still not comfortable with the interface, I suggest you play the free trials outside your account. You get a choice of 5 pre-made decks, and so does your opponent. That will also give you a fair match.
If you decide to go back to playing in your account's lobby, perhaps it would be best to stick with the standard format. That should help you avoid a few tough opponents with old collections, and since all cards in your new collection are standard, it's probably the most suitable format for you now, anyway.
Nevertheless, with a collection of only commons and uncommons, expect to be the punching bag most of the time in any of the contructed open rooms.
I'm not sure if you're still following this, but ...
I also 'started' in mtgo a few days ago. I'd played a little bit years ago, but didn't remember anything, and I'd sold all my cards so I had nothing, not even lands.
Cardhoarder has a getting started page that has links to a few bots that will give you free cards. I used those to get about half the cards needed for this deck I made with the help of mtggoldfish's budget magic series: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/416298 (fyi the fiery tempers should probably be swapped with some other super cheap removal spell)
I purchased the rest of the deck for under 1 ticket from cardhoarder (I had a few tickets left over). Its a standard deck thats actually proving to be somewhat competitive and has won me a few games. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
Here is another super cheap deck if you're interested ... unfortunately you can't get as many of the cards from free bots, so it'll cost you about 2.4 tickets after using freebots: http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/416457
The thing you have to know about Pauper is that even if you can only play with commons, you won’t be competitive with only the initial collection of cards you get with your new account.
Pauper is an eternal format, and players with older and bigger collections are in big advantage over new players.
Like most people have said, I'd definitely suggest pauper. Some decks are expensive, but you can do some super fun stuff for like five tix. I'd also consider looking into commander, a lot of staple cards are fairly cheap online and so you can build a decent one or two color deck for just like five or ten tix. Good luck!
It's funny that some things never change. When I was playing years ago and a regular on the MTGO forums, there were constant complaints from casual players about "net decks" (i.e. top tier, expensive constructed decks). Based on that WotC attempted to create separate rooms for casual, semi-serious, and serious players. Somehow everyone still ended up in the same place: the "casual player" room. The other rooms were nearly empty most of the time. From what I've seen lately, that seems to be the same, too.
To be fair, some casual players didn't want to play against any deck style they didn't like (e.g. counter magic, discard, land destruction, or even semi-heavy removal), and that was part of the source of the complaints.
If your goal is just to learn the interface to the trial outside of the account login page is probably the best bet play out full
games.I which Wizards would update that UI a little bit and bring it into the client even if you were still stuck on those intro decks. It is what it is.
If you are relatively new to the game and have only played standard I don't really recommend playing pauper unless you want to learn an eternal format. Once you learn the interface you can decide whether you want to build your collection through limited or simply buy a standard deck. Your budget will determine that.
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If you are new to Magic the Gathering, then I would recommend first playing the free-to-play application Magic Duels.
This is not how you learn to play MTGO. If you want to learn Magic Online, you have to actually play it. I get what your saying, Duels is for beginners, but new players can at least get a solitaire session going on MTGO to get at least a feel for the interface.
I'm just getting back into MTGO after about a 6 year absence. I had a few hundred dollars worth of cards back in the day when I was working overseas. I sold it all when I came back stateside.
Yesterday I created a new account and logged in and the first thing I noticed was how much the interface sucked. UGH!
I also play Magic Duels and I actually like that game much better.
I jumped into a game last night in the noob room with my little newbie deck made with the initial cards the account comes with. Immediately my opponent starts dropping all kinds of high end cards so I just conceded and moved on.
Not sure I'll be sticking around MTGO. Perhaps I'll take up paper again....
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What is then the best lobby to go play for people just starting?
Thanks,
If you decide to go back to playing in your account's lobby, perhaps it would be best to stick with the standard format. That should help you avoid a few tough opponents with old collections, and since all cards in your new collection are standard, it's probably the most suitable format for you now, anyway.
Nevertheless, with a collection of only commons and uncommons, expect to be the punching bag most of the time in any of the contructed open rooms.
I was playing standard.
I like the Pauper and Duels suggestions.
I also 'started' in mtgo a few days ago. I'd played a little bit years ago, but didn't remember anything, and I'd sold all my cards so I had nothing, not even lands.
Cardhoarder has a getting started page that has links to a few bots that will give you free cards. I used those to get about half the cards needed for this deck I made with the help of mtggoldfish's budget magic series:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/416298 (fyi the fiery tempers should probably be swapped with some other super cheap removal spell)
I purchased the rest of the deck for under 1 ticket from cardhoarder (I had a few tickets left over). Its a standard deck thats actually proving to be somewhat competitive and has won me a few games. I'm enjoying it quite a bit.
Here is another super cheap deck if you're interested ... unfortunately you can't get as many of the cards from free bots, so it'll cost you about 2.4 tickets after using freebots:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/416457
Have fun.
Working on RGRadha, Heir to Keld
Looking into casual WBURGMaelstrom Archangel
Pauper is an eternal format, and players with older and bigger collections are in big advantage over new players.
To be fair, some casual players didn't want to play against any deck style they didn't like (e.g. counter magic, discard, land destruction, or even semi-heavy removal), and that was part of the source of the complaints.
LotF
games.I which Wizards would update that UI a little bit and bring it into the client even if you were still stuck on those intro decks. It is what it is.
If you are relatively new to the game and have only played standard I don't really recommend playing pauper unless you want to learn an eternal format. Once you learn the interface you can decide whether you want to build your collection through limited or simply buy a standard deck. Your budget will determine that.
This is not how you learn to play MTGO. If you want to learn Magic Online, you have to actually play it. I get what your saying, Duels is for beginners, but new players can at least get a solitaire session going on MTGO to get at least a feel for the interface.
Yesterday I created a new account and logged in and the first thing I noticed was how much the interface sucked. UGH!
I also play Magic Duels and I actually like that game much better.
I jumped into a game last night in the noob room with my little newbie deck made with the initial cards the account comes with. Immediately my opponent starts dropping all kinds of high end cards so I just conceded and moved on.
Not sure I'll be sticking around MTGO. Perhaps I'll take up paper again....