Aside: Limited or Constructed?

There are a lot of ways to play Magic. Competitive Magic is divided into two basic categories: limited and constructed.

As a newer player trying to get into tournament Magic, both formats have their advantages.

Limited:
I like limited as a way to get into the game. Limited removes a lot of the barriers of entry to competitive magic. You can show up with the entry fee and be ready to play. You don't need to have a lot of cards or invest a lot of money to do well at a tournament. Limited does require a continual investment. You can't use the same deck every week and you will need to buy new packs every time you want to play which can add up quickly. It helps if the place you play will allow you to use your own boosters and give you a discount, but many places will make you buy your packs from them in order to play there.

Booster Draft is the most common form of limited. A lot of areas will do a booster draft every Friday. Drafting is a lot of fun and can be a great way to accumulate new cards. You start with 3 booster packs and open them one at a time. You open the first booster, choose a card, and then pass it to the player on your left. The person to your right will pass you a pack, you take another card and continue until you are done with that booster. You will end up with 45 cards, most of which will be in the same 1 or 2 colors, and you will build a deck with those cards to play against other players draft decks. It's a great way to get new cards for your collection. A lot of stores will charge less for their Friday Night Magic booster draft than they charge for 3 booster packs and they also will offer prizes to the players who do well. If you have the time, it's almost always better to draft than to buy booster packs. Don't be afraid to take valuable cards that don't fit in your draft deck. As always, it helps to be well informed on card prices. It's probably not worth taking a rare worth less than a dollar over a good card for your deck but you should always take that Arid Mesa, Jace, the Mindsculptor or Baneslayer Angel even if you cannot possibly play them. Draft is also good in that some players will pass you rares (even semi-valuable ones) for a good common or uncommon. This means that if you're lucky, you can pick up 6 or 7 rares during a draft for your collection.

Sealed deck, the other limited format, is fairly different from draft. It's more expensive ($25 for 6 boosters) and you generally pay more per booster than with draft. I would not recommend playing sealed deck other than at the release events for a new set as it is not very cost effective and because you do not get to select your cards, you'll get a much wider variety of cards in different colors than you would in draft. That said, it's normally about the same price as buying 6 booster packs and you have the opportunity to win prizes.


Constructed:

Limited is a lot cheaper to get started, but constructed provides good value in the long run. It can be daunting to spend $200 on a standard deck. Constructed tournaments are generally cheaper than limited tournaments and provide better prizes for the entry fee. Of course, unlike limited, you are not guaranteed to walk away with additional cards. Building constructed decks is a longer term investment. Unlike limited, if you buy a top level constructed deck, it can serve you well for a long time, potentially 2 years for a Standard deck, 7 years for an Extended deck or even longer for Legacy. Of course no deck will remain top tier without some modifications, but the cost to update a deck with a few new cards every time a new set is released is fairly reasonable.

If you decide to play constructed, good trading skills can save you a lot of money. When a set is going to rotate out of Standard you can generally trade cards from that block for cards in the other standard block that will keep their value. Savvy traders can use their initial investment in standard to play for several years without spending very much money to stay current.

One important thing to know about playing constructed is that it is much better to play a complete version of a cheaper deck than to try and make a budget version of a more expensive deck.

Extended, Legacy and even Vintage are all great formats, but for players just getting started they are prohibitively expensive. Standard has a much lower barrier to entry and is the best place to start getting into constructed. Standard is also the best supported format, so you should never have problems finding standard tournaments or players with standard decks.

Step 0: Card Acquisition

You probably have a few cards already, but if you want to start building better decks you will need more.

The cheapest way to get new cards is to find someone to give them to you. It might be awkward but most players have a lot of extra cards and they will jump at the chance to get rid of them. Just go to a local game store and ask the players if they have extra cards they can give you. If someone says no, don't worry, you'll almost always be able to find someone trying to get rid of extras.

When you're just starting off, I would caution against buying cards online or trading with more experienced players. Once you are more familiar with what cards you want or what cards are worth, these are best ways to get new cards, but until you are comfortable with Magic prices and have a firm idea of what cards you want, there are a lot of potential risks.

Most players are ethical in trading, especially with newer players who are not familiar with card values but there are people who will take advantage of your lack of experience and try to cheat you. If you are going to be trading, I would recommend preparing by looking up the prices of the rares you have on a site like magiccards.info as well as some of the cards you're interested in. Don't be afraid to walk away from a trade if you feel the other person is trying to cheat you or if you disagree with their valuations. Players will often overstate the value of their cards and minimize the value of yours to try and obtain a better trade.

Buying cards online or from stores has fewer risks of being ripped off because the market will generally force stores to charge fair prices for their cards. You also have the option of comparison shopping, which i highly recommend. Some stores have better prices for commons and uncommons while others will have better prices for some rares and worse for others. The big danger in buying online is buying cards that you don't really need.

This goes along with the deck building section, but you should try to be conservative in your purchases. A good idea is to use a program like Magic Workstation to test your deck ideas before buying cards. It's much better to figure out that your deck has trouble achieving its goal or beating other decks for free on the computer than after you have already spent money buying cards. Printing proxies of cards and putting them in sleeves along with a real card can help you get a feel for how your deck will play for a much lower investment than buying the cards.

First steps into Magic: The Gathering

You just bought your first Intro Pack, shuffled it up, and promptly lost to a smug player with more expensive cards with a deck that always seemed to have the right answers. The first few games of Magic outside a casual setting can be frustrating for a newer player. More experienced players know rules tricks and card interactions that you've never thought about, their decks are filled with $20 rares and by the time you've started casting spells, they have a veritable army on the battlefield and your life is precariously low. They seem to know something you don't about playing and building decks, some secret that always lets them draw the right cards at the right time to absolutely crush you.

I don't pretend to be some kind of expert in Magic. I'm not a professional player and I've never won any large tournaments, but I have spent a lot of time thinking about the fundamental aspects of Magic strategy and teaching them to new players in my area. Some of these concepts are pretty awkward to wrap your head around, while others are easier to understand. The most important advice I can give a new player is to not get discouraged or give up. Everyone (even that know-it-all jerk who beat you) started where you are right now. If you are really passionate about the game and willing to put in some time and money, you will get much better.