First, thank you for having me here on your forum. I'm new to both MTG Salvation and Magic The Gathering. I've just put together what i'd consider my first real deck. Being new i decided to utilize just the most recent Ravnica Allegiance cards, although I would expand into other releases with some guidance. While i know this may not be all that exciting to seasoned players, i hope you can understand how overwhelming this game is to a newbie with its various releases over the years. I also want to keep my deck legal for Standard, even though i currently only play casually at home, and this seemed like a simple way to garuntee its legality. When first looking at the guilds i was immediately drawn to Orzhov and I enjoy playing white/black. I was hoping to share my build with you more experienced and knowledgable players and see what your thoughts are. Is there anything that you think I'm currently running that is a waste of space in this deck? Do I have too many of one card and not enough of another? Is it worth trying to play this deck at my local game shop, or would i get destroyed?! Any thoughts on how i could improve or streamline would be greatly appreciated!
At this point the goal is to proliferate spirit tokens via Teysa Karlov, and overwhelm opponents with flying. I'd like to take as much of their life as possible and make it my own I understand that at this point i'm only running 22 Lands, which is 38% of the deck, and is considered a bit light. I also intend to change the planes to swamp ratio favoring white mana a little more prominantly.
Imperious Oligarch: Intended to fill the board during early game, and leave behind 1/1 flying tokens to block and harrass opponent once Oligarch is destroyed. In conjunction with Teysa, tokens are doubled and gain lifeline and vigilance.
Pitiless Pontiff: In addition to Oligarch, this card is played early game to fill board, but with some additional perks. It can block much larger creature and disincentives the opponent from attaching due to its effect, especially in conjunction with an expendable token. Also, this card can free bound creatures, or destroy them to activate their afterlife effects and get them airborne; something further improved with Teysa on the board.
Tithe Taker: This card is played early to put out a blocker and make it more difficult and expensive for an opponent to gain an early advantage with instant spells.
Forbidding Spirit: This card provides the deck with a 3/3 blocker that can stall an opponent whose trying to get offensive early. Of all the cards in the deck this is the one i'm most considering replacing.
Ministrant of Obligations: I've included this card for its Afterlife 2 effect, because my goal is to get as many flying 1/1s out as possible, ideal with Teysa's added effects of lifelike and vigilance. If played with Teysa and a Pontiff, this creature can be sacrificed to create 4 1/1 tokens with vigilance, flying, and lifelink.
Pestilent Spirit: This card is included to put offensive pressure on an opponent on turns 3-4 because of it's death touch and menace, although with a single copy it is maybe not the most efficient card for this deck.
Seraph of the Scales: This card is the backbone of the creature cards in this build, giving a decent 4/3 flyer in force. With the ability to add vigilance and death touch affordably this card is intended to bring the game out of parity in my favor by turn 4-5.
Teysa Karlov: This is a crucial support creature that adds huge bonuses to all of my afterlife creatures, doubling their spirit tokens and granting them vigilance and lifelink. She's the key that unlocks the whole afterlife strategy and makes it really problematic for my opponent.
Haunt of Hightower: Along with Seraph, this card helps make up the Orzhov Airforce. It enters the field a 3/3 but has the ability to become more powerful as the game progresses. Also, it taxes the opponents cards and has lifelink.
Ill Gotten Inheritance: One of two enchantments i've included in the deck, this card helps give me life while draining the opponents, which is the ultimate goal of the game. It can also deal the killing blow to an opponent brought down to 4 health or less, ending a game that might drag on.
Ethereal Absolution: This card pumps up my creatures while weakening my opponents, which is important since so many of my cards are 2/1 or become converted into 1/1 tokens. Additionally this card compliments Kaya, Orzhov Usurper, by exiling cards from an opponents grave yard and bolstering her -5 effect, all while adding more flying tokens
Final Payment: This card fills the role of early game removal, while helping to convert 2/1 creatures on the ground into 1/1 fliers, and can also free cards that have become bound or tied up by enchantments.
Mortify: The primary removal spell in the deck, it is affordable at 3 mana cost and can target both creatures and enchantments, which makes it a workhorse.
Kaya's Wrath: This card is intended as an "Oh Crap" card. If I play this its because I'm losing the game and need to slam on the reset button. It also fills up an opponents graveyard nicely, giving Kaya the Usurper lots of fodder to exile.
Consecrate // Consume: This card provides nice late game removal that helps eliminate powerful late game creature cards and transform their power into life. Its pulled my chestnuts out of the fire more than once!
Revival // Revenge: This card was included because for two mana it can return an early to mid game creature directly to the battlefield, or for six mana can double my health and half an opponents, essentially turning a losing game around or a winning game into a blowout.
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper: This card is included because she helps eliminate cards from an opponents grave yard into exile, building me life at their expense, and if she survives two or more turns can deal a huge blow to opponent if cards have been exiled effectible. This is supported by the Etheral absolution card also in the build.
Thats what i've got for now, any thoughts or suggestions appreciated!
Hey man! Welcome to MTG, hope you enjoy it! I would try building this deck in MTG Arena if you can and give it a shot, a few quick observations/suggestions I have for you.
1. I would personally cut the Haunt of Hightower for Demon of Catastrophes. Its a lower cost creature with better stats right off the bat, and it also enables you to sacrifice some of your afterlife cards (Yay Synergy!).
2. Basilica Bell-Haunt is a really solid card which gives you card advantage on a very capable creature you might want to think about adding it to your roster.
3. I would swap out the consecrate/consume for Mortify, you should probably run 3-4 of these as it is a really good removal spell. (Oops didn't see you had it in there)
4. I would ditch the Pestilent Spirit and the Forbidding Spirit and add Priest of Forgotten Gods. She is an amazing sacrifice enabler which gives you removal, mana and card draw.
5. I would suggest sticking a couple Reassembling Skeleton or Gutterbones as creatures that can be sacrificed and then reanimated to your advantage. These obviously work really well with Priest of Forgotten Gods
6. I would bump the Tithe Taker number up a bit to 2-3 at the least.
Finally as just a kind of general note, its often best to put 3-4 of a card in a deck to create as much stability as possible. What I mean by this is that you will start to consistently draw what you intended to put in your deck to create your synergies. This of course is different when talking about legendary creatures/legendary enchantments because you can't have two on the field at the same time.
I'll post a list of what I would run with this kind of deck archetype in a minute.
I totalled it on Card Kingdom and its ~$90 USD. You can make this even more budget friendly by swapping out the shock lands for regular gates although it will make your deck slower.
I did some testing, and I added back in the Ministrant of Obligation as a 4 of.
Welcome Obzedat! I guess even ghosts can get resurrected.
That was a marvelous first post. Not just using the decktags, but explanations!
You have gotten some excellent specific feedback for your deck, but I would like to take the liberty of making a few suggestions.
On going to the local store: it's all about expectations. Each store is different, but calling them up first could garner some suggestions about how best for you personally to start. Sometimes there are less formal experiences than the organized tournaments where you could play less competitively. Going 0-4 without winning a game (which I've done) is just a thing. If I learn from it, enjoy the process and meeting people, I can appreciate it. If I just say that I lost, it was hopeless and I'll never get better, then it would not be a worthwhile experience. Going with your friend at a time when you know other people might be available to play casually would be a way to ease yourself in and see whether to go to FNM.
Go to a prerelease if you can. They are fun, you learn about the new set and it's a less formal tournament.
There is an excellent learning resource on the Wizards of the Coast website here.
In terms of more removal look into Cast Down, Conclave Tribunal, and Vraska's Contempt. Other cards to look into that hasn't been mentioned yet are Midnight Reaper for card advantage (and works really well since your stuff are constantly suppose to die), and Duress in the sideboard.
Thanks for the welcome and for the pointers. I've already got this deck assembled in paper, but have copies of a couple of the cards you recommended, so i'll make some substitutions before playing later tonight. I've been buying boosters and played a couple of draft games (not well), so i've been working with what i've got on hand, and fleshed it out with some individual card purchases. No arena as I'm on mac . Excited to see how the deck plays with a few of your changes. For now I swapped out the two Forbidding Spirits (I'd already felt like they where a bad match for the deck) for Demon of Catastrophes and Priest of Forgotten Gods, and traded out Pestilent Spirit for a skeleton. That shouldn't mess with the mana curve too badly since I now have 3 cards for a collective cost of 8 mana versus 9. I know what you mean about running 4x of certain cards, but unfortunately i'm limited to my current inventory. I hope to get to test them out over the next few days, and if they work well i'll definitely be picking up duplicates to run.
Welcome Obzedat! I guess even ghosts can get resurrected.
That was a marvelous first post. Not just using the decktags, but explanations!
You have gotten some excellent specific feedback for your deck, but I would like to take the liberty of making a few suggestions.
On going to the local store: it's all about expectations. Each store is different, but calling them up first could garner some suggestions about how best for you personally to start. Sometimes there are less formal experiences than the organized tournaments where you could play less competitively. Going 0-4 without winning a game (which I've done) is just a thing. If I learn from it, enjoy the process and meeting people, I can appreciate it. If I just say that I lost, it was hopeless and I'll never get better, then it would not be a worthwhile experience. Going with your friend at a time when you know other people might be available to play casually would be a way to ease yourself in and see whether to go to FNM.
Go to a prerelease if you can. They are fun, you learn about the new set and it's a less formal tournament.
There is an excellent learning resource on the Wizards of the Coast website here.
Thanks Hoser2,
I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. Thanks for the tips and awesome link!
Hey, good work so far. I’m not sure what sort of specific feedback to give your deck as far as your deck goes but here’s some general stuff.
* If you can, check out your lgs and dive in head first but if you live in an area with several local shops I’d suggest taking time to check them each out. This point could be moot if you live in an area without very many shops or if your transportation is limited but if this is not the case you’ll find that there’s a pretty huge amount of variance just in your local shops. This truth is across the board and can cover everything from atmosphere to format, pricing, prize payout and pretty much everything you can imagine. The point is, shop around for a location as much as you can or until you find just the right fit and then give it a go. Most likely you won’t go 4-0 on your first time, you might even go 0-4. It happens, keep on sloggin’.
* Do as much research as is fun for you. Remember, it’s just a game… That said, it’s a game that tends to be the most rewarding to those with a deeper understanding of it. The internet is full of great resources, the issue is finding the aspects of the game that are most interesting to you and taking the time to learn them. Even if you’ve been playing kitchen table (I played kitchen table off and on for about 22 years before I even put any thought into playing at a shop) for a long time, there’s likely going to be aspects of the game that you just never really put much thought into. This could include any range of stuff from watching deck techs and videos of matches, cramming some hypergeometric probability distribution or just a great deal of reflection on your abstract goals for the deck and how the chosen chunks of the color wheel can best help you.
* Check out some other formats. What this means can really range based on your resources and where your interests lie. At the very least it’s worth looking at what some of the top decks in the formats do because the face of standard is constantly changing. In the long run, if there are groups that play such things the eternal formats are a much better value (and more diverse metas) but have a higher buy in.
* Commander:
It’s my stance that if you play magic, you probably should build a commander deck. It doesn’t make you a worse player or human being than if you don’t play commander, commander is just a worthwhile chunk of value packed fun. These are the points I’d
* Due to the multi-player nature of commander the best deck doesn’t always win. Often times, the best deck becomes quickly identified and that player targeted by the rest of the group.
* Most magic players have cards that aren’t legal in whatever primary format they play in or that they otherwise might not be able to play with that can be played in commander.
* Most magic players already have a favorite color or colors to play in and tend to have a chunk of cards in those colors. This is helpful for building a commander deck. Also, if you’re not quite there there’s a lot of great options to help you get there. The preconstructed commander decks tend to range from not bad to amazing and the Guild kits are also really great starting points for commander decks. If you really like Orzhov, pick up the guild kit and there’s not only multiple commanders to choose from there’s also a bunch of good cards to start you down the path as one ofs but if budget and inclination allows you’re not limited to two colors with the guild kids, you could always pick up a few with shared colors, for example if you want a mardu (Black, white, red) commander deck (you’ll need a mardu commander) you can start with Orzhov, Rakdos and Boros and have a good bit of choices in starting your deck. In short, commander is a fun format that you can tinker with at whatever rate you want.
* Pauper: Pauper is great (kinda). It’s been called legacy light and that’s absolutely true. Pauper is a format that allows for a tremendous range of decks at incredible value. This also allows you to try out wildly diverse deck styles to see what feels right and build a pool of commons useful in other formats. The only problem is that it’s not quite real. Maybe what we have is enough for some players but until we have a sanctioned paper pauper format that allows for all paper commons with the exception of a universally recognized ban list I’m hesitant to invest into this format too emotionally… Jeez, that last sentence made me feel like an Azorius...
A bit on Modern and Legacy:
A lot of players get really intimidated for a number of reasons regarding these formats. Some of these reasons are valid, others not so much. Generally the stereotypes associated with either format are interchangeable but seen as more true for legacy. Also, all of this is worth nothing if there’s not a group to play with in your area.
Price is a factor. When you look at deck prices for Legacy and Modern it can often seem pretty intimidating. The good news is that they’re eternal formats, for the most part, a deck that is good now will not be bad in a year or two. If it takes you a while to build your deck, that’s fine. You’ll be able to play it (perhaps with minor changes) for much longer than it took you to acquire it (well… to be fair there are some legacy decks that cost more than a decent used car, I don’t know what your funds look like). While the buy in is higher, if you’re playing magic years down the road you’ll have saved a great deal more if you play an eternal format. If budget is your primary concern there are still good options. A legacy burn deck (don’t build if you don’t like to burn face) is cheaper than many tier standard decks right now and will never rotate. This is, however, not the case universally…
First, thank you for having me here on your forum. I'm new to both MTG Salvation and Magic The Gathering. I've just put together what i'd consider my first real deck. Being new i decided to utilize just the most recent Ravnica Allegiance cards, although I would expand into other releases with some guidance. While i know this may not be all that exciting to seasoned players, i hope you can understand how overwhelming this game is to a newbie with its various releases over the years. I also want to keep my deck legal for Standard, even though i currently only play casually at home, and this seemed like a simple way to garuntee its legality. When first looking at the guilds i was immediately drawn to Orzhov and I enjoy playing white/black. I was hoping to share my build with you more experienced and knowledgable players and see what your thoughts are. Is there anything that you think I'm currently running that is a waste of space in this deck? Do I have too many of one card and not enough of another? Is it worth trying to play this deck at my local game shop, or would i get destroyed?! Any thoughts on how i could improve or streamline would be greatly appreciated!
At this point the goal is to proliferate spirit tokens via Teysa Karlov, and overwhelm opponents with flying. I'd like to take as much of their life as possible and make it my own I understand that at this point i'm only running 22 Lands, which is 38% of the deck, and is considered a bit light. I also intend to change the planes to swamp ratio favoring white mana a little more prominantly.
My deck build:
1 Tithe Taker
3 Imperious Oligarch
2 Teysa Karlov
4 Pitiless Pontiff
4 Ministrant of Obligation
2 The Haunt of Hightower
1 Pestilent Spirit
2 Forbidding Spirit
4 Seraph of the Scales
1 Ethereal Absolution
1 Ill-Gotten Inheritance
Land
8 Plains
9 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
4 Orzhov Guildgate
Instant
4 Mortify
2 Final Payment
2 Consecrate // Consume
2 Kaya's Wrath
2 Revival // Revenge
Planeswalker
1 Kaya, Orzhov Usurper
Cards:
Imperious Oligarch: Intended to fill the board during early game, and leave behind 1/1 flying tokens to block and harrass opponent once Oligarch is destroyed. In conjunction with Teysa, tokens are doubled and gain lifeline and vigilance.
Pitiless Pontiff: In addition to Oligarch, this card is played early game to fill board, but with some additional perks. It can block much larger creature and disincentives the opponent from attaching due to its effect, especially in conjunction with an expendable token. Also, this card can free bound creatures, or destroy them to activate their afterlife effects and get them airborne; something further improved with Teysa on the board.
Tithe Taker: This card is played early to put out a blocker and make it more difficult and expensive for an opponent to gain an early advantage with instant spells.
Forbidding Spirit: This card provides the deck with a 3/3 blocker that can stall an opponent whose trying to get offensive early. Of all the cards in the deck this is the one i'm most considering replacing.
Ministrant of Obligations: I've included this card for its Afterlife 2 effect, because my goal is to get as many flying 1/1s out as possible, ideal with Teysa's added effects of lifelike and vigilance. If played with Teysa and a Pontiff, this creature can be sacrificed to create 4 1/1 tokens with vigilance, flying, and lifelink.
Pestilent Spirit: This card is included to put offensive pressure on an opponent on turns 3-4 because of it's death touch and menace, although with a single copy it is maybe not the most efficient card for this deck.
Seraph of the Scales: This card is the backbone of the creature cards in this build, giving a decent 4/3 flyer in force. With the ability to add vigilance and death touch affordably this card is intended to bring the game out of parity in my favor by turn 4-5.
Teysa Karlov: This is a crucial support creature that adds huge bonuses to all of my afterlife creatures, doubling their spirit tokens and granting them vigilance and lifelink. She's the key that unlocks the whole afterlife strategy and makes it really problematic for my opponent.
Haunt of Hightower: Along with Seraph, this card helps make up the Orzhov Airforce. It enters the field a 3/3 but has the ability to become more powerful as the game progresses. Also, it taxes the opponents cards and has lifelink.
Ill Gotten Inheritance: One of two enchantments i've included in the deck, this card helps give me life while draining the opponents, which is the ultimate goal of the game. It can also deal the killing blow to an opponent brought down to 4 health or less, ending a game that might drag on.
Ethereal Absolution: This card pumps up my creatures while weakening my opponents, which is important since so many of my cards are 2/1 or become converted into 1/1 tokens. Additionally this card compliments Kaya, Orzhov Usurper, by exiling cards from an opponents grave yard and bolstering her -5 effect, all while adding more flying tokens
Final Payment: This card fills the role of early game removal, while helping to convert 2/1 creatures on the ground into 1/1 fliers, and can also free cards that have become bound or tied up by enchantments.
Mortify: The primary removal spell in the deck, it is affordable at 3 mana cost and can target both creatures and enchantments, which makes it a workhorse.
Kaya's Wrath: This card is intended as an "Oh Crap" card. If I play this its because I'm losing the game and need to slam on the reset button. It also fills up an opponents graveyard nicely, giving Kaya the Usurper lots of fodder to exile.
Consecrate // Consume: This card provides nice late game removal that helps eliminate powerful late game creature cards and transform their power into life. Its pulled my chestnuts out of the fire more than once!
Revival // Revenge: This card was included because for two mana it can return an early to mid game creature directly to the battlefield, or for six mana can double my health and half an opponents, essentially turning a losing game around or a winning game into a blowout.
Kaya, Orzhov Usurper: This card is included because she helps eliminate cards from an opponents grave yard into exile, building me life at their expense, and if she survives two or more turns can deal a huge blow to opponent if cards have been exiled effectible. This is supported by the Etheral absolution card also in the build.
Thats what i've got for now, any thoughts or suggestions appreciated!
Thanks and best!
-Obzedat
1. I would personally cut the Haunt of Hightower for Demon of Catastrophes. Its a lower cost creature with better stats right off the bat, and it also enables you to sacrifice some of your afterlife cards (Yay Synergy!).
2. Basilica Bell-Haunt is a really solid card which gives you card advantage on a very capable creature you might want to think about adding it to your roster.
3. I would swap out the consecrate/consume for Mortify, you should probably run 3-4 of these as it is a really good removal spell. (Oops didn't see you had it in there)
4. I would ditch the Pestilent Spirit and the Forbidding Spirit and add Priest of Forgotten Gods. She is an amazing sacrifice enabler which gives you removal, mana and card draw.
5. I would suggest sticking a couple Reassembling Skeleton or Gutterbones as creatures that can be sacrificed and then reanimated to your advantage. These obviously work really well with Priest of Forgotten Gods
6. I would bump the Tithe Taker number up a bit to 2-3 at the least.
Finally as just a kind of general note, its often best to put 3-4 of a card in a deck to create as much stability as possible. What I mean by this is that you will start to consistently draw what you intended to put in your deck to create your synergies. This of course is different when talking about legendary creatures/legendary enchantments because you can't have two on the field at the same time.
I'll post a list of what I would run with this kind of deck archetype in a minute.
1 Isolated Chapel
3 Forsaken Sanctuary
7 Plains
8 Swamp
4 Priest of Forgotten Gods
4 Reassembling Skeleton
2 Hunted Witness
2 Basilica Bell-Haunt
2 Tithe Taker
4 Ministrant of Obligation
2 Plaguecrafter
3 Imperious Oligarch
2 Teysa Karlov
2 Demon of Catastrophes
3 Costly Plunder
3 The Eldest Reborn
I totalled it on Card Kingdom and its ~$90 USD. You can make this even more budget friendly by swapping out the shock lands for regular gates although it will make your deck slower.
I did some testing, and I added back in the Ministrant of Obligation as a 4 of.
That was a marvelous first post. Not just using the decktags, but explanations!
You have gotten some excellent specific feedback for your deck, but I would like to take the liberty of making a few suggestions.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
Thanks for the welcome and for the pointers. I've already got this deck assembled in paper, but have copies of a couple of the cards you recommended, so i'll make some substitutions before playing later tonight. I've been buying boosters and played a couple of draft games (not well), so i've been working with what i've got on hand, and fleshed it out with some individual card purchases. No arena as I'm on mac . Excited to see how the deck plays with a few of your changes. For now I swapped out the two Forbidding Spirits (I'd already felt like they where a bad match for the deck) for Demon of Catastrophes and Priest of Forgotten Gods, and traded out Pestilent Spirit for a skeleton. That shouldn't mess with the mana curve too badly since I now have 3 cards for a collective cost of 8 mana versus 9. I know what you mean about running 4x of certain cards, but unfortunately i'm limited to my current inventory. I hope to get to test them out over the next few days, and if they work well i'll definitely be picking up duplicates to run.
Thanks for your response!
-Ozedat
Thanks Hoser2,
I appreciate you taking the time to look at it. Thanks for the tips and awesome link!
* If you can, check out your lgs and dive in head first but if you live in an area with several local shops I’d suggest taking time to check them each out. This point could be moot if you live in an area without very many shops or if your transportation is limited but if this is not the case you’ll find that there’s a pretty huge amount of variance just in your local shops. This truth is across the board and can cover everything from atmosphere to format, pricing, prize payout and pretty much everything you can imagine. The point is, shop around for a location as much as you can or until you find just the right fit and then give it a go. Most likely you won’t go 4-0 on your first time, you might even go 0-4. It happens, keep on sloggin’.
* Do as much research as is fun for you. Remember, it’s just a game… That said, it’s a game that tends to be the most rewarding to those with a deeper understanding of it. The internet is full of great resources, the issue is finding the aspects of the game that are most interesting to you and taking the time to learn them. Even if you’ve been playing kitchen table (I played kitchen table off and on for about 22 years before I even put any thought into playing at a shop) for a long time, there’s likely going to be aspects of the game that you just never really put much thought into. This could include any range of stuff from watching deck techs and videos of matches, cramming some hypergeometric probability distribution or just a great deal of reflection on your abstract goals for the deck and how the chosen chunks of the color wheel can best help you.
* Check out some other formats. What this means can really range based on your resources and where your interests lie. At the very least it’s worth looking at what some of the top decks in the formats do because the face of standard is constantly changing. In the long run, if there are groups that play such things the eternal formats are a much better value (and more diverse metas) but have a higher buy in.
* Commander:
It’s my stance that if you play magic, you probably should build a commander deck. It doesn’t make you a worse player or human being than if you don’t play commander, commander is just a worthwhile chunk of value packed fun. These are the points I’d
* Due to the multi-player nature of commander the best deck doesn’t always win. Often times, the best deck becomes quickly identified and that player targeted by the rest of the group.
* Most magic players have cards that aren’t legal in whatever primary format they play in or that they otherwise might not be able to play with that can be played in commander.
* Most magic players already have a favorite color or colors to play in and tend to have a chunk of cards in those colors. This is helpful for building a commander deck. Also, if you’re not quite there there’s a lot of great options to help you get there. The preconstructed commander decks tend to range from not bad to amazing and the Guild kits are also really great starting points for commander decks. If you really like Orzhov, pick up the guild kit and there’s not only multiple commanders to choose from there’s also a bunch of good cards to start you down the path as one ofs but if budget and inclination allows you’re not limited to two colors with the guild kids, you could always pick up a few with shared colors, for example if you want a mardu (Black, white, red) commander deck (you’ll need a mardu commander) you can start with Orzhov, Rakdos and Boros and have a good bit of choices in starting your deck. In short, commander is a fun format that you can tinker with at whatever rate you want.
* Pauper: Pauper is great (kinda). It’s been called legacy light and that’s absolutely true. Pauper is a format that allows for a tremendous range of decks at incredible value. This also allows you to try out wildly diverse deck styles to see what feels right and build a pool of commons useful in other formats. The only problem is that it’s not quite real. Maybe what we have is enough for some players but until we have a sanctioned paper pauper format that allows for all paper commons with the exception of a universally recognized ban list I’m hesitant to invest into this format too emotionally… Jeez, that last sentence made me feel like an Azorius...
A bit on Modern and Legacy:
A lot of players get really intimidated for a number of reasons regarding these formats. Some of these reasons are valid, others not so much. Generally the stereotypes associated with either format are interchangeable but seen as more true for legacy. Also, all of this is worth nothing if there’s not a group to play with in your area.
Price is a factor. When you look at deck prices for Legacy and Modern it can often seem pretty intimidating. The good news is that they’re eternal formats, for the most part, a deck that is good now will not be bad in a year or two. If it takes you a while to build your deck, that’s fine. You’ll be able to play it (perhaps with minor changes) for much longer than it took you to acquire it (well… to be fair there are some legacy decks that cost more than a decent used car, I don’t know what your funds look like). While the buy in is higher, if you’re playing magic years down the road you’ll have saved a great deal more if you play an eternal format. If budget is your primary concern there are still good options. A legacy burn deck (don’t build if you don’t like to burn face) is cheaper than many tier standard decks right now and will never rotate. This is, however, not the case universally…
Modern: Goblins,Storm
Legacy: Burn
EDH: Simic Merfolk