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Hey guys, I've really wanting to get into magic for sometime, but WHFB and tournaments have been sorta my priority , but I now have a 4 month break before the next one. And I figured now is a perfect opportunity, I've got money to spend and Christmas is coming up as well!

Now I've had a look on the Wizard website, and its been sorta hit and miss. I read a lot of their articles on how top get into the game, what type of colors you'll be focusing on, tactics, control, aggressive, etc etc. But I couldn't find any "Start packs" as such on their products page, but found things like "Return to bla bla" or things of that nature, and weren't sure if those were starter packs or not.

So I wanted to play Red/White Aggressive, is this viable, I also want to compete in tournaments, at a regional, and hopefully later, at a national level.

If anyone could help me, that would be great!

Cheers

The best way I think to get experience with playstyles while competing on an even keel is through drafting. After a while you'll get a good grasp of how things work and you'll have a collection growing from which to build and trade for a constructed deck 60 card games. It might take a while to start competing at the levels you want to, often there are restrictions to entry based on your planeswalker points, all players have individual accounts with WotC to track your progress. You earn these by participating at smaller local events.

I had a red white standard deck and got to the final four at a gameday. It was very fast and all made up of humans, but some cards have left standard now and it's not really the best time for me to keep it going. When the next set is released the Red-White guild for Ravnica will be included so there will be a lot of red-white centric cards including lands designed for them. Then my red white humans will be back. Currently I'm having fun with green-black zombies and they are pretty terrifying.

Thanks for the help, but what is drafting?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just to follow up, doing some more research and I saw a "Deck Builders Toolkit" and "Fat Packs" I'll probably pick up one of those each, a few booster packs and some other bits and bobs, I figure that should get me off to a good start!

I just recently got back into MtG as well. From what I've seen so far, there are a few good preconstructed decks you can get your hands on. The best I've seen so far was Dark Sacrifice (a white black deck) as I've been undefeated with it in our group. I've made some tweaks and changes to it, but the core is the same.

Picking up the fat packs and the deckbuilders kits are good too. I picked up both and got some nice cards in each set. Both will give you a core of lands though. With 1 of them, you might be fine on lands for your deck. The fat pack is good to get some boosters along with the lands, boxes, and countdown die, for just about the price of the boosters alone. The deck builders kit has a core of lands too, plus (I think it was 4 boosters), plus some fold together boxes and a decent assortment of semi-random cards from recent releases. I was happy with the semi-random assortment too.

I'd say to start, see if there is a red/white preconstructed deck to try it out, then trick it out with the cards from the fat pack or the builders kit. I picked up several different precon decks and scavenged all but 2 of them to build other decks with so far (just tweaked the two that I liked the play style).

 Imaginos wrote:
I just recently got back into MtG as well. From what I've seen so far, there are a few good preconstructed decks you can get your hands on. The best I've seen so far was Dark Sacrifice (a white black deck) as I've been undefeated with it in our group. I've made some tweaks and changes to it, but the core is the same.

Picking up the fat packs and the deckbuilders kits are good too. I picked up both and got some nice cards in each set. Both will give you a core of lands though. With 1 of them, you might be fine on lands for your deck. The fat pack is good to get some boosters along with the lands, boxes, and countdown die, for just about the price of the boosters alone. The deck builders kit has a core of lands too, plus (I think it was 4 boosters), plus some fold together boxes and a decent assortment of semi-random cards from recent releases. I was happy with the semi-random assortment too.

I'd say to start, see if there is a red/white preconstructed deck to try it out, then trick it out with the cards from the fat pack or the builders kit. I picked up several different precon decks and scavenged all but 2 of them to build other decks with so far (just tweaked the two that I liked the play style).

Hey man, thanks for the help! That's what I was going to try to start off with (pre-constructed listed or "Event Decks" as some call them and then tweek it a smig). And then go from there. The Toolkit box set would be my next buy, then a booster box for sure. I just love opening up packages and hoping a for some good cards, that's always one of the funest things I find in card games, and If I get OK cards, that's fine, 450+ cards is still a good deal.

Poppabear wrote:Thanks for the help, but what is drafting?!

Drafting is a "limited" format that, as stated, a great way to learn the game better as well as expanding your collection.

A typical draft will have a group of players (optimally 8) sit around a table with three booster packs each. At FNM, it would be the current draft set. Right now it will be Return to Ravnica. Each player will then proceed to open a booster pack. (some stores remove the nonfoil land and token, some don't) and you will choose a card and pass your packs to the left. This will continue until all the cards in the booster pack have been chosen (You have to choose one each time, can't just say "I don't like any of these")

You repeat this for the remaing two booster packs, with the second pack being passed to the right and the third pack being passed to the left again.

Then you build a 40 card minimum deck and play a tournament from there!

I feel drafting is the best format for skill vs cost. Skill pays out way more than having "the best cards" that constructed formats tend to grow into. It's great to grow your collection because you keep the cards afterwards and have that elusive chance of opening that foil money rare that is impressively valuable. Some stores will even let you take singles credit instead of booster packs for prize and that, depending on the amount, can be even more valuable for growing your collection. I took first place last FNM at my store and got $24 in singles credit, nabbing me cards I wouldn't pay for out of pocket otherwise!

Howard A Treesong wrote:often there are restrictions to entry based on your planeswalker points, all players have individual accounts with WotC to track your progress. You earn these by participating at smaller local events.

If there are, it's only on a local store basis because I have never been to a store or event that has done this. The only thing Planewalker Points do is fetch you early round byes at Grand Prix tournaments. Never have they restricted tournament access.

The best way to practice and test out cards on the cheap is to play online MTGO, it will teach you the basics of the game much faster then learning by playing on paper. You can then sell your online collection and continue playing paper.

MTG was my game of choice but it is too costly too keep up to play touraments since you have to use the current set/block...that is what got me into WH40K. Only have to buy the models once...a codex every now and then.\

but pure red burn deck is more like it.

My best advice to you is go to your local flags/hobby store that sells the cards and ask if there's a MTG club around your area, go to a local club and play, a red/white set should be availible in febuary as that's on of the gatecrasher guild color sets..... Ummm that's pretty much all I can give ya, Ohhh wait there's one more thing I sat and watched a Magic Grand Prix after following a link on the main MTG website, I sat and watched people play at a level I cannot even comprehend but I learned a great deal sitting there and watching the Pro's go at each other.

lynxstrife wrote:
MTG was my game of choice but it is too costly too keep up to play touraments since you have to use the current set/block...that is what got me into WH40K. Only have to buy the models once...a codex every now and then.\

but pure red burn deck is more like it.

Is that so? That's a shame. I was looking at breaking out one of my old timer decks from 15 years ago and seeing how it would do against todays whippersnappers.

I had a pure white deck, based solely around griffons. 3 mana to get a 2/2 flyer on the table, it was a very fast, and hard to block army. I'd say I easily won maybe 90% of the games I played with it.