New to Magic, halp?
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Jan. 4, 2016, 1:56 p.m. by PArdr
Hi All,
About a week ago I decided to get into magic and have been trying to learn as much as I can as fast as possible, but find myself needing a little advice. I'm looking to get into playing Standard (maybe some Modern also) as well as attending FNM but am not quite sure where to begin. I've gotten the 2016 (I think) deck builders toolkit and some Dragons of Tarkir packs so far, but can already feel that I need to do something else to put together a moderately worthwhile deck.
My question for you all is if it is still worth purchasing sets from the Khans block (I haven't yet grasped fully how long it will last) or if I should stick with zendikar. Also, I was looking at a Dragons of Tarkir fat pack to help boost myself into a decent deck. Are other packages better than going this route?
I've seen a lot of emphasis put on play style in this forums, so I'll add I'm currently most interested in a red aggro deck, or some type of control deck. I'd like to explore many types of play, however.
Thank you for your advice!
Best thing to do IMO is pick a theme, do your research online, and buy singles from a local shop. Only go the packs route if you have money to burn - buy fat packs or whole booster boxes and sell off what you don't foresee using anytime soon.
January 4, 2016 2:39 p.m.
Sain_Cheese says... #4
InfestedFirman hit it right on the nose. They will be falling off in a few months.
That said, there are some key cards from those blocks that are good in modern play, but I would just purchase those cards individually. However there is a chance you could pull a dual fetch land from both those two sets, I pulled a windswept heath (khans card) from a fate reforged pack. Which is a really good card that should stay in standard play because of the reprint Windswept Heath from battle for zendikar. Or at least I think that's how it works.. I'm not 100% sure of the rule on reprints though.
Origins and Battle For Zendikar are a good place to start, you can make solid decks with just the battle for zendikar block with a few origins cards splashed in.
January 4, 2016 2:40 p.m.
elementalheroflamewingman says... #5
If you play really often, sure, invest in khans and fate reforged, which will cycle out in just a bit more than half a year. The fetchlands in khans are valuable across multiple formats though, so you should pick them up anyways if you want to play modern. I would usually recommend just sticking with cards from the most current block when you''re starting out, but BFZ is really terrible in terms of adding new stuff to standard that you probably won't need very many singles from there. Definitely pick up some from origins and DTK though as they would be with us for awhile. However, where a red aggro deck is concerned, the closest one is atarka red right now which has a good amount of cards from khans of tarkir which is fairly essential, so it would be totally up to you to invest in it. (But the bulk of it are the fetchlands anyways)
January 4, 2016 2:50 p.m.
the.beanpole says... #6
If you have a specific deck that you are trying to build, and trying to "win the lottery" by cracking packs until you get those specific cards, then it will always be much more cost-effective to buy singles. Cracking packs and building from what you have, while often fun, is really more in the casual realm. If you hope to be pretty competitive and you're just starting out, there will inevitably be an up-front cost to entering a format (buying singles and/or an event deck), though that doesn't always mean that you're dropping $1000. mtggoldfish has some sweet low-budget decks occasionally (though sometimes they are just miserably bad haha).
There is also always the option to just do drafts/release sealeds, etc. to build your collection, at which point you can trade for the cards that you really want to play with. The organized events offer prizes, which can increase the EV of just cracking packs, not to mention that they allow for a fun couple of hours. You also see more different cards in a draft than you would if you were to just open 3 packs.
January 4, 2016 3:34 p.m.
Thanks for the input everyone. There's a lot to learn out the gate! It looks like I'll try and find a build and go for the singles to get my feet wet in playing during FNM. I may still consider some Khans fat packs. I believe I saw Dragons of Tarkir for $27 on amazon (though i do prefer to suport a shop so ill go there). Can't hurt to build up the collection and maybe use in modern as this release sounds like a good one.
January 4, 2016 4:22 p.m.
Oh and as it turns out, my deck is quite similar to atarka red. Thanks for the guidance on that one! Looks like I'll be building it
January 4, 2016 4:25 p.m.
Okay, so I think the case of Modern should also be stated as you said you might want to play modern. It's a quicker format, almost requiring you to win by turn 5, but there's a really great thing about modern: Unless cards in your deck gets banned (which rarely happens), you will never need to buy a new deck. You can find your deck and just play with it until the end of magic.
This might make it sound like all modern decks cost like a million dollars and your grandmother's left leg, but in fact, there are plenty of budget decks possible. You even said that you loved red aggro and then there is the perfect archetype for you, RDW (Or Red Deck Wins). It's all about burn and goblins, basically the core parts of red aggro. It's possible to make a RDW deck for less than 50 bucks like Boom goes the goblin!, but it's also possible to put a lot of money into making a super optimized one Like Infinite Goblins! (1072 Damage turn 4) if that's your thing.
I'm not telling you that modern's a better format, I'm just telling you that it has it's benefits :3
January 4, 2016 6 p.m.
Great points taurbeer. I will definitely be playing it and will at least take my standard deck into modern. I was just worried that competing with 20 is years of magic releases would be a big challenge, but as I keep investigating I forsee myself starting with modern and maybe getting my feet wet with standard until the next block drops
January 5, 2016 12:48 p.m.
It should be possible to play Modern without knowing 20 years of cards quite easily. Making a deck quite competetive shouldn't be hard to get and if you ask around your local playgroup and here on tappedout, it should be possible to get suggestions as to how to improve any deck. If there's a card that's strictly better than something you're running, you'll be notified I'm sure.
InfestedFirman says... #2
Hello, I'm relatively new to Magic myself but you can use this website to keep track of what's in Standard here.
www.whatsinstandard.com
As you can see, Khans of Tarkir and Fate Reforged will be phasing out soon so it all depends on how much Magic do you think you'll be playing to make cards from those sets worth it. One advatange is that the price of those cards should be dropping like a stone now so that's something to consider as well
January 4, 2016 2:06 p.m.