Magic: The GatheringFollow

Have fun with it

I played for about a year or so but, since I was playing official "Friday Night Magic" games I had to have legal decks of current cards and chasing the new sets every couple of months turned into more than I wanted to invest. There's still fairly cheap ways to play official games: booster drafts where you everyone buys into a pile of boosters which are then opened, you take turn picking cards and then build your deck from that (you keep the cards after the game). That way, you're not at a disadvantage against someone with a card inventory that could buy a new car but rather luck and deck building skills play more into it.

The cheapest way is, of course, "kitchen table magic" where you adhere to the basic deck rules (40 cards, no more than four of a single card, etc) but don't sweat expansions and stuff. You can't usually show up at a game shop to play that way but if you have some friends willing to play casually, you're golden. Or just play for a while with your friend until you have the rules down. Some of my favorite M:tG memories where back when my friend came home with a couple starter decks and boosters and we just figured it out on the fly with no idea of the "right way" to build decks or strategy.

There is a Free to Play game on Steam, Magic Duels, that has a tutorial and can help you learn the game. They try to keep it semi-current with the latest rules and expansion. Don't go wasting money on it buying packs, just play around with the starter cards and buy decks with the gold you earn in game -- save your real money for real cards (that you could at least re-sell).

I played between Beta and a few expansion packs before Fourth Edition. Used to run a primarily red burn deck, with mostly fireballs and lightning bolts and just direct damage spells. And tons of goblins. I loved those little guys. Fun times.

I casually look at the new stuff every so often but I haven't played seriously or bought any cards in probably 10 years. I play with my brother every once in a while but mostly we just use his weird EDH decks.

I wonder if any of my old cards are worth anything these days? I should probably check that out some time.

My understanding all stores have free starter decks. They are not really meant to be competitive but just an easy to understand deck to get you started in the game. A good way to learn how to play is to download Magic Duels. It is a free game its on steam, xbox1, and ps4 as well as tablet computers (I think). The story modes are a lot of fun. There is some pay2win with the game but the only way it would benefit to spend money is if you want to play multiplayer against other players. When you play the solo storymode you are given a prebuilt deck so no amount of cash will make them easier/different.

Basically the pay2win is to buy digital boosterdecks which again are not used in solo play.