New Player, Buy singles or decks and boosters?
Economics forum
Posted on Nov. 18, 2015, 3:25 p.m. by Sheevshim
Hey my local card shop gave me two free 30 card decks to put together and I'm starting with basic blue and green. I want to build a deck that can compete with all the other players in little tournaments. Is it better to pick up singles and not waste time with other cards I don't need or buy the whole packs and keep the extras?
The_Dragonmaster says... #3
What's your budget? Are you starting slow? Or are you jumping in to competitive immediately? Also, what group are you playing with? Is it at a store or more kitchen table with friends? These could be questions you can ask yourself. If you want to jump into competitive play at a store, singles are the route to go. If you are just taking it slow or playing with friends, Event Decks are great base decks to start with.
November 18, 2015 3:36 p.m.
Agree with DragonMaster thr answer is dictated on what you intend to do
November 18, 2015 3:48 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #6
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum (auto-generated comment)
November 18, 2015 3:56 p.m.
Boosters are not meant for building decks. They are mostly just for drafting and sealed.
If you want to make a deck that can do ok at a tournament, singles are just the way to go.
November 18, 2015 4 p.m.
If you want to build decks then buy singles. You could probably try to buy a tonne of commons and uncommons for very little money.
November 18, 2015 4:21 p.m.
i dunno. in the early days i went with boosters. I got a ton of really good stuff, that was worth a lot. Like a foil snapcaster. So it looked like it sucked and I traded it for a strangelgeist. Personally, boosters are fun/addictive to open, and they can give you good deck ideas, but they are less helpful. I agree, it depends on your budget.
November 18, 2015 4:23 p.m.
Thanks everyone! I'm playing in the local game store with others and they normally have little tournaments I want to join. They sell all kinds of singles so I'll take a look at them all. Thanks for the advise!
November 18, 2015 4:50 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #11
If you are playing against anything stronger than a playgroup that all just started you are going to have a much better time by building decklists and buying singles than buying pre-cons or opening boosters for product. Boosters exist because operant conditioning, and they just so happen to be useful for limited formats.
November 18, 2015 4:52 p.m.
Wizard_of_the_Broke says... #12
Get watching! Tolarian Community College
November 18, 2015 5:04 p.m.
If I were you, do what my friends and I do: playtest a premade deck on www.untap.in, then buy the singles of the pieces that show to be most effective
November 18, 2015 5:29 p.m.
VesuvanDoppelbanger says... #14
As a long-time player, it's VERY enjoyable to open a booster box, and to have that stock of cards to play with. That said, it's worth the check to see what you can buy for the same $100-110 (U.S.) worth of singles.
November 18, 2015 5:54 p.m.
IzzetFanatic says... #15
Singles most definitely. Maybe 1 starter deck to get started. And boosters can be fun and booster boxes and such can be great Holiday Presents and stuff but competitive players buy singles for decks. And pick up cards for the trade binder.
November 18, 2015 6:22 p.m.
Thank you! even better advise! really appreciate it guys
November 18, 2015 6:40 p.m.
Singles. With boosters you are spending $4 or $5 for a rare that usually has multiple of the following issues:
- Not in your colors
- Doesn't fit in with your deck
- Is worth less than your investment
- Is just plain bad
As others have said Packs are for Draft.
November 18, 2015 6:53 p.m.
Havok.Bane says... #18
Buy singles for decks, then boosters for your trade binder.
November 18, 2015 7:12 p.m.
Singles are the best way to go usually. If you are looking for more cards and more cards for trading packs are the way to go.
November 18, 2015 7:49 p.m.
TheRedMage says... #20
On average, the total secondary market value of all cards in a pack is between 2 $ and 3 $ depending on the set.
Magic is an expensive hobby. If your goal is to pay as little as you want for your decks, you should never open any sealed product that you don't intend to use to play limited formats. Every time you do, you lose 25% and 50% of the value of that booster.
Opening a booster pack is kinda like buying a lottery ticket. In most cases, you are going to just waste the money and the possibility of winning the lottery and opening a Jace, Vryn's Prodigy Flip does not make up for that.
Preconstructed decks can sometimes be worth it, but the intro decks seldom are. The intro decks are built to be a stepping stone to teach people the game, and aren't particularly good. On the other hand, the event decks can be a good starting point to build a solid FNM-level deck.
November 18, 2015 8:02 p.m.
RexStrangelove says... #21
I like booster packs because they fill the same emotional need as scratch-off lottery tickets--it's a cheap thrill, and you do have a slim chance of getting something worth more than the price of admission. They're also great ways to come up with ideas for new decks, as you'll frequently get cards you never even would have thought to look for.
If you're trying to win games without wasting money though? I highly recommend the Chinese proxies.
November 18, 2015 8:08 p.m.
When I got into MtG, I bought some collections off Kijiji. There are people who stop playing (how, I'll never know) and sell their entire collection of cards. Some people want full price for each card is worth (although you can usually haggle this down), some just want it gone and sell for pennies, and others don't know the value and also sell for cheap (this is usually significant others and family members selling on behalf of the owner, make sure the owner is cool with this first, or it can come back to haunt you).
This is, in my opinion, the best way to enter Magic. It gives you such a wide variety of options to play with. You'll have the opportunity to read a lot of older cards, and go through a lot of stages of magic quickly. You'll get a feel of what mechanics are in what set, and learn what the different keywords mean. This is especially useful for learning keywords that no longer have reminder text on them. It's also a ton of fun reading all the cards and tossing them into a monster of a deck.
Yes, as many people have noted here, the most efficient way of deck building is to make a deck online, test it, and then buy the singles. However, you are new to the game and won't really know what works well with what. My first deck had ten lands. Why? Because it had about 60 mana dorks. My second deck was a ~110 card mill deck. When I played with my friend (who was also new) I would lose to his 200+ card Boros deck about half the time. It was a blast.
So yeah. My suggestion is to start with someone else's collection, and go from there.
November 18, 2015 8:24 p.m.
Boosters can be SOOOO expensive once you start digging into them. Keep away from them if you're not planning on selling or trading what you don't need yourself. For new players I'd say, maybe buy a few boosters just for the high of finding Mythics, but don't buy alot before you're actually fully hooked on the game.
November 18, 2015 8:24 p.m.
TheRedMage says... #24
@ Epidilius: please do not encourage people to buy proxies. Commerce of proxies is illegal. If someone wants to proxy cards to try a deck out, that's their own business, but buyin and selling them is not allowed.
November 18, 2015 8:58 p.m.
RexStrangelove says... #25
@TheRedMage: You're a man of principles and I respect you for it. Proxies are a complicated issue with good arguments to be made on both sides.
Personally, I hate arguing. I just like playing Magic with my friends.
November 18, 2015 10:34 p.m.
If you get caught using fake cards, I think you can be banned from your LGS. I would not take that chance. You can use fake cards for cubes and casual commander decks, but the risk is pretty high of you take it to a competitive event.
November 19, 2015 1:35 a.m.
TheRedMage says... #27
I don't think proxies are "a complicated issue". There are things you can do and things you cannot.
As mentioned before, magic is an expensive hobby. It's comprehensible to want to try out a deck with proxies before sinking hundreds of dollars into buying it. As long as you are playing casual games and all parties are aware that some cards are proxied, there is no problem there.
It is not allowed to use proxies in sanctioned events (including FNM). If you are caught and you didn't know, you will be asked to fix your deck by replacing the proxied cards. If you are caught and you knew better, you are facing more severe penalties. This is however not what I was talking about before.
If you buy or sell proxies, you are not breaking the rules of Magic. You are breaking the law, which is something I would rather users not incite other users to do.
November 19, 2015 2:25 a.m.
Named_Tawyny says... #29
The best, fastest, and cheapest way to build a deck that can compete with everybody else is to play limited.
Draft and Sealed are the two most popular limited formats. For them, you'd go to the LGS, everybody buys 3 (or 6 for sealed) boosters, and then builds decks exclusively from those cards, and then plays a tournament with those decks.
It's extremely skill intensive, but everybody starts on a level playing field from a card perspective. And you can't beat building a deck for less than $15!
November 19, 2015 7:01 a.m.
I agree that if you play in a tournament, you shouldn't use proxies. It's against the rules of Magic.
Personally, when I'm playing with my friends and trying a new deck, I'll proxy cards I don't own (I usually print them off, it's pretty obvious) while I test the deck. If I like it, I'll start hunting down the real cards and swap them all.
On a curious note, how is making proxies "breaking the law"? The best I can come up with is forgery.
All that being said, when did I mention anything about proxies? I suggested buying a collection of cards from someone who is leaving the game. I said "I bought some collections off Kijiji" and then talked about my MtG beginnings. I didn't say a thing about proxies.
November 19, 2015 7:58 a.m.
Printing copyrighted material is against the law, but regardless no one actually said anything about buying proxies?
November 19, 2015 8:16 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #33
TheRedMage accidently tagged him instead of RexStrangelove who was the one encouraging people to buy the Chinese forgeries and called them proxies. Printed Proxies for playtesting is one thing, buying Forgeries for use in a tournament is something completely different.
November 19, 2015 8:23 a.m.
Oh! okay no proxies for sure when playing against others for more serious reasons, I'll be sure to watch out for them thanks guys
November 19, 2015 11:33 a.m.
sacrilegious says... #37
I would say it depends on what you want to play.
-do you want to play FNM? do they do only sealed, or constructed?-if they only do sealed / draft then you have to buy packs-if they do constructed then you may benefit from buying a precon and modifying it with singles you purchase
do you want to play Modern?determine a budget and look at some of the top decks for that format and buy the singles for it (perhaps a budget version of it and build to a complete version)
Do you want to play commander?honestly, start with one of the premade commander decks for $30-50 and build from there. there are alot of staples in these decks that you can easly add power and fun to for another $25 and get alot of enjoyment out of them.
bottom line, start with a precon for the format until you can make better decisions / modifications for it.
only buy packs if you HAVE to (sealed tournaments)
November 19, 2015 4:12 p.m.
RexStrangelove says... #38
Buying proxies is roughly as illegal as downloading Torrents, the only difference being that most police departments are familiar with Torrents but will just stare at you blankly if you start ranting about how somebody's Jace, the Mind Sculptor was actually a cheap, Chinese knockoff. Even if they offered to sell you one (or even 1000), I think that report would get put on a shelf somewhere and collect dust for a long, long time.
I'm not retiring on my Legacy collection, neither is anyone else if SCG keeps pulling support from the format. Investing in Modern and Standard formats is kinda like buying stock in a company that you know for a fact is going to lose 50%+ of its value in the next 12 months. Remember when Domri Rade was like $35? I do, I got 2 of them in booster packs and felt like a boss hog until he phased out of Standard.
I say that proxies are a complicated issue because M:tG doesn't have to be an expensive hobby anymore--only officially sanctioned M:tG events are expensive, the rest is now just highly-affordable fun and games.
All depends on what you're looking for out of it, I guess.
November 19, 2015 4:14 p.m.
Didgeridooda says... #39
I think draft is the best way to get into the game. You start out on an even footing with everyone else, and learn while you go.
November 19, 2015 6:40 p.m.
I agree with above comment. One of the best ways to learn magic is drafting. It makes you think about cards in ways you normally wouldn't. Plus you can get promos for attending fnm, and if you win then you get prizes.
NoPantsParade says... #2
Singles. Always.
November 18, 2015 3:29 p.m.