Total noob here.

[trias_e]

Simple question:  I'm curious if MTGO is possible for the total beginning to pick up and play without spending too much money  (50-75 bucks hopefully).  The amount of cards and tactics is pretty bewildering to me, and I have no idea how much cost we're looking at to get a decent deck.  I keep on hearing about these leagues and drafts, but I'm not quite sure how they work and if they would be newbie friendly.  Any quick advice on this would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

[Johny Cee]

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=6553.0

Leagues are the way, cost wise.  (around $15 to get into,  then play for 5 weeks)

Unless you're a good drafter,  then doing a 4-3-2-2 or 8-4 draft works out pretty well.

[Margalis]

If you want to get a feel for the game leagues are nice because you can play any number of games. It takes a while to learn the rules and avoid bonehead play mistakes.

After that I would suggest watching some tournaments, both draft and constructed.

You can also post your cardpool and have people give you suggestions, which will help you learn some basic dos and don'ts

[schild]

Oh, speaking of getting into it, Wizards should be showing off the new client at E3. I'll take a looksie at it.

[Trippy]

Oh, speaking of getting into it, Wizards should be showing off the new client at E3. I'll take a looksie at it.

Wow, how long has that thing been delayed now?

[Raging Turtle]

props to the ivory tower icon, schild

[Strazos]

The one thing I hate about Leagues is that if you get a bad pull for your first week, most games will just be a study in frustration.

[Margalis]

I've never done particularly well in leagues other than one Mirrodin League where I had a Molder Slug that I kept getting out turn 3.

Usually I enter one league for each new release, and I just play a bunch of tiebreaks to get a feel for what is in the set. It's a cheap learning experience. Doing well is just a bonus.

The luck factor is high but it does force you to learn to evaluate cards and cards in combination and develop strategies for winning. You might not have any bombs so your strategy becomes go for broke and rush to a win before their bombs can come online.

[eldaec]

To answer the specific question you asked, you can probably buy one decent deck for $50-75, but you won't have the playskill needed to pilot it - so don't bother for now.

So as others have suggested, playing league is a good way to learn. When you say total beginner do you mean absolute beginner to magic or absolute beginner to magic online?

If you are completely new to magic, you should first download the free trial, which allows you to play pre-constructed core set decks in a special trial room, use that to learn the basic rules. Once you do move up to a league my advice would be to run a ninth edition or champions of kamigawa league. Ravnica is a good set and all, but it's far from newbie friendly in sealed deck play. Also you will always win prizes in 9th or kamigawa leagues if you finish your 20 matches, even if you lose them all.

If you join a league and want deck building advice, I'd suggest posting your card pool here...

http://www.starcitygames.com/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=10&sid=2a5ff5434e05e2f62518d8eeca4d6409

[trias_e]

Thanks for the link there.  I'm totally new to magic online, and only played magic briefly 6+ years ago.  I just decided to go with a trial by fire, and lost a few drafts and league games before I finally got a clue as to what I'm doing.  9th Ed. seems to be much easier for me to pick up and learn than Ravinca (complicated and lots of wtf moments for me).  I finally won a game in a 4-3-2-2 draft though, and I'm starting to figure things out. 

[Merusk]

The one thing I hate about Leagues is that if you get a bad pull for your first week, most games will just be a study in frustration.

Add to that the 'wtfpwn' card that the last expansion had (jitte anyone?) and folks who'd join a league with multiple accounts, and you have what finally killed my interest in MTG:O alltogether. 

[Strazos]

There were a few of those kinds of cards.

Wasn't in a league, but in a draft I ran up against a guy who managed to get a Hex.

He managed to pull it, in 2 games, at the absolute last possible chance he had to pull it, because I was going to kill him the next turn, in both games.

Yeah, that was frustrating.

[Johny Cee]

Thanks for the link there.  I'm totally new to magic online, and only played magic briefly 6+ years ago.  I just decided to go with a trial by fire, and lost a few drafts and league games before I finally got a clue as to what I'm doing.  9th Ed. seems to be much easier for me to pick up and learn than Ravinca (complicated and lots of wtf moments for me).  I finally won a game in a 4-3-2-2 draft though, and I'm starting to figure things out. 

Yah, 9th is a much much less complicated drafting or league experience.  It's pretty straightforward.

If you're new to Magic,  the "core sets" (will just have the number, like 9th) are the way to go.  Both Rav and Kamigawa have some mechanics that are a pain in the ass to learn.  Rav especially you need to have a good grasp of the interactions to do alright with the card pool.

When you really get the hang of things,  you might find the core sets a little boring.  I like drafting 8th,  but that was mostly because I won alot with that set.

For constucted,  try out some of the alternate play types when you have a card pool built up from drafting.  Tribal, singleton, and prismatic are much more forgiving on your budget since you don't have to chase down 4 x copies of uber_hot_rare.

[trias_e]

Just started a kami league, here's my card list, thoughts?:

Black
1 Death Denied
1 Bile Urchin
1 Death of a Thousand Stings
1 Distress
1 Cursed Ronin
1 Midnight Covenant
1 Numai Outcast
1 Pull Under
1 Rend Spirit
1 Scuttling Death
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Skullmane Baku
1 Soulless Revival
1 Takenuma Bleeder

Red
1 Akki Drillmaster
1 Burning-Eye Zubera
1 Ember-Fist Zubera
1 First Volley
1 Goblin Cohort
1 Hearth Kami
1 Kami of Fire's Roar
1 Initiate of Blood
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
1 Ore Gorger
1 Ronin Cavekeeper
1 Soul of Magma
1 Stone Rain

White
1 Blessed Breath
1 Curtain of Light
1 Ethereal Haze
1 Cage of Hands
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Harsh Deceiver
1 Hundred-Talon Strike
1 Kitsune Mystic
1 Kami of the Painted Road
1 Moonwing Moth
1 Mending Hands
1 Silent-Chant Zubera

Blue
1 Freed from the Real
1 Genju of the Falls
1 Eye of Nowhere
1 Field of Reality
1 Floodbringer
1 Lifted by Clouds
1 Oboro Breezecaller
1 Quash
1 Reweave
1 Shimmering Glasskite
1 Shifting Borders
1 Sift Through Sands
1 Soratami Cloudskater
1 Squelch
1 Teller of Tales

Green
1 Ghost-Lit Nourisher
1 Kami of the Hunt
1 Jukai Messenger
1 Kodama's Might
1 Matsu-Tribe Decoy
1 Nightsoil Kami
1 Nourishing Shoal
1 Order of the Sacred Bell
1 Orochi Sustainer
1 Reki, the History of Kamigawa
1 Rending Vines
1 Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
1 Sosuke, Son of Seshiro
1 Shinen of Life's Roar
1 Soilshaper
1 Venerable Kumo
1 Vine Kami
1 Vital Surge

1 Cloudcrest Lake
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai
1 Tranquil Garden


Btw, is there any better way to export to text form other than simply saving a .txt deck with all my cards in it?

[Strazos]

Why would you punish yourself with a Kami league? Bleh.

[Raging Turtle]

If you would organize by color it'd make judging them a lot easier.   

[trias_e]

Sorry, done.  Is there an easier way to do that than by hand?

As far as why punish myself...meh, why not?  I felt like joining another league and this was the only one still in the first week that wasn't Rav (and people said Rav was worse).

[Margalis]

I don't really like Kami much at all so I don't know all that much about it. Looks to me like B & W aren't very deep. Green and blue look pretty decent. Honestly...I barely know what half these cards are, Kami block just isn't my thing at all...

[eldaec]

Kamigawa is relatively simple, doesn't effectively have 10 colours instead of the usual 5, and (aside from Jitte) it's well balanced. Even the sodding land in Ravnica is unnecessarily complex.

imo it makes a better set for playing limited (either draft or sealed) than Ravnica does.

Ravnica without GP and DIS was great, there's just too much going on in full block limited.

Kami sucks all kinds of ass in constructed of course, but constructed isn't what we are doing here.

Green & black would  be my first guess looking at your pool. As ever, aim for 16 creatures, only 3 of which should cost 5+ mana, and at least 4 removal/combat-trick spells, 17 land, and off you go.

Blessed Breath + Cage of Hands could be a decent white splash.

When you open boosters check if you get decent blue, Teller of Tales, Floodbringer, and the Glasskite are good cards, you just need more of the same.

[StGabe]

Several of your best cards are in black -- including your best removal (cards that get rid of your opponent's cards, they tend to be very important).  Unfortunately, black as a color isn't very deep and so I would play it as a "splash".  Green has the most decent creatures and so I would also play it.  You could still use a bit more creature support, especially some fliers, and for that I'd throw in blue.

Unfortunately you didn't get a terribly amazing pool of cards to start with but it does have potential and at this point you mostly will just want to learn to use the interface, etc.  Hopefully you'll pull some good cards with your week 2 packs.

At first glance I think I would play something like this:

Green:
Ghost-Lit Nourisher (great for pumping your creatures and keeping them alive .. note: you can block with him then use his ability after blocking and before damage to have a 3/4 blocker)
Kami of the Hunt
Kodama's Might
Matsu-Tribe Decoy (combines very well with Sosuke)
Nightsoil Kami
Order of the Sacred Bell
Orochi Sustainer
Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
Shinen of Life's Roar
Soilshaper
Sosuke, Son of Seshiro (the ability to destroy a target on damage is very powerful)
Venerable Kumo
Vine Kami

Blue
Freed from the Real (this can be used as removal or to use your ghost-lit multiple times per turn if you have lots of mana,  to use it as removal you will want to set a stop in your opponent's upkeep phase and use it then to tap the enchanted creature)
Genju of the Falls (nice flier)
Shimmering Glasskite (very nice flier, very hard to kill)
Soratami Cloudskater
Teller of Tales

Black
Cursed Ronin
Pull Under (great removal card)
Rend Spirit (also great removal)
Scuttling Death (don't forget to use his sacrifice ability)
Soulless Revival

Lands
Forest 7
Islands 6
Swamps 4

17 creatures, 17 land

You could also swap in red for blue getting some better removal and some creatures with better power/toughness.  This leaves you very vulnerable to fliers, however.

[Margalis]

I was going to say something pretty similar. Green is your deepest color and blue has some nice stuff.

Cursed Ronin is probably a bad choice. A 1/1 pumper for 4 is pretty bad, and in splash color the best you are going to pump it to is 3/3 or 4/4 or so, which is kind of silly given the 4 casting cast. In a heavy black deck it might make sense.

The overall color choice would probably be what I would go for though.

[Scribble]

Red has more playables than blue does, so with this shallow a card pool you pretty much have to play it IMO. From StGabe's build I'd cut Cursed Ronin (bad splash, too mana-intensive), soulless revival and vine kami. With the blue cards gone you have 8 slots, so play akki drill-master, both zuberas, first volley, hearth kami, initiate of blood, soul of magma and ronin cavekeeper. You've listed honden of cleansing fire as a red card, it's actually a white card - if you have the red honden you should definately play it over something, probably the cavekeeper. Mana would be something like 7 forest, 7 mountain, 2 swamp + shizo, death's storehouse. The deck has some nice spirit synergies, so it could do okay if you get the correct mana. Draw first if you have the chance.

[trias_e]

Thanks for all the suggestions.  I have actually had the best luck playing green/red/white, in that order of prevelence.  It has some really sick arcane/spirit synergy going on.  Initiate of Blood along with Soul of Magma, First Volley and Burning Eye Zubera is excellent.  I especially enjoy using it with burning eye zubera...essentially if they ever do 3 damage to it, I nuke it with initiate of blood and do 3 damage to the other player (not bad), and then I can flip initiate of blood.  Usually they don't see that coming.  If I don't get my red cards out, usually I'll get out my snakes which are quite nice as well.  The deck is pretty weak against fliers though.

White:

Blessed Hands
Hundred-Talon Strike  (basically there as another arcane spell to activate all my great creature abilities that use it)
Ghostly Prison
Honden of Cleansing Fire
Cage of Hands

Red:

First Volley
Akki Drillmaster
Burning-Eye Zubera
Hearth Kami
Initiate of Blood
Kami of Fire's Roar
Soul of Magma

Green:

Nourishing Shoal
Ghost-Lit Nourisher
Kami of the Hunt
Matsu-Tribe Decoy
Nightsoil Kami
Orochi Sustainer
Sakura-Tribe Springcaller
Shinen of Life's Roar
SoilShaper (FUN.)
Sosuke
Venerable Kumo

6 Forest
6 Mountain
5 Plains

17 lands, 16 creatures.


I'm thinking blue might be a better splash than white for better flying stuff.