Despite purchasing a laptop specifically to play MODO I have been dragging my feet on making the jump into the online universe of Magic. Paying for digital versions of cards is just nowhere near as exciting and I have preferred to spend a lot less money playing Hearthstone (i.e. almost none) and buying fun foreign and miscut cards off eBay instead. I talked about this briefly before.
This weekend while sleep deprived and up way too late with the little one, I decided to mess around on MODO some. After expending some more time and energy winning 5 card booster packs in the new MODO player draft events I was getting a little bored...Aside - Wizards is that really the best you can do for new players? Winning a 5 card booster and getting 4 commons and an uncommon is a really miserable experience. With my new found interest in MODO piqued (and my distaste for 5 card boosters), I started exploring Magic singles and was sent into a nonsensical spiraling world of bots, websites, credits, PayPal and tix. Oh my, is this a whole different language and style than the regular process of point and click purchasing. That is before you even look at pricing trends (Ex - Real life Daze $3, Online Daze $30). This is going to take some work...
First, I searched for reviews of bots and sites, etc. There are a lot of them out there and using MODO alone will not help whatsoever, so you will need to search the internet for more info. Aside - the online market place is a total shit show and is completely nonsensical to new players... I found a few helpful articles but in all honesty nobody broke it down enough to make it 100% useful.
Second, what did I want to play? I am fine playing any Magic format (minus EDH) because I just love Magic but my preference is to play Legacy for the sole reason that it is easier to keep up with if I have to take a break or I am unable to get a hold of new cards, etc. I also just like playing with the old cards that I am familiar with. I would have liked to build UR delver or something similar, as I have been playing a lot of UR delver in the real world and it seems like it would be a fine deck online as well.
I was prepared to pay for the Volcanic Islands and Force of Wills (around $30 each) but I was not prepared for the price of some of the commons (Daze $30 and Pyroblast $7). Consequently I stepped back a second and decided to go with Stage 1 of UR delver which is simply Burn. After I filled my cart with the cards for Burn I noticed that I also had most of the cards for modern burn minus a few of the Modern only cards (i.e. Skullcrack, Flames of the Bloodhand, etc.). Thus, I filled out my cart with these cards too. I still had some new player event tickets and I noticed that there were some New Player Standard Queues in which I could play (I really want more 5 card packs!). From my initial card collection and the 5 card boosters I had already won I had a good start on Boss Sligh, so I decided to pick up the remainder of that deck minus the Stoke the Flames (already had 1) and Goblin Rabblemasters (which only some versions use).
All in all, I got x3 playable if not Tier 1 Magic decks for ~$140. In this purchase I also bought some of the cheap blue cards to give me a head start on UR Delver (Brainstorm, Ponder, Delver, Young Pyromancer, etc.) I probably bought from one of the more expensive stores (MTGOTraders) but their search engine was the best and they let you pay through PayPal easily. Oh yeah and I found a coupon for 8% off my entire order which leveled the playing field a little.
Lastly, I later found that these exist for ~$30...
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/mtgodeckseries/themedeck#deck1
I could have saved quite a bit of money and time if I had purchased this instead and I definitely need to keep and eye out for future ones (the $7 Pyroblasts I bought are particularly galling). Also, I will definitely be buying the white one to get the x3 Stoneforge Mystic, x1 Jitte and x4 Swords to Plowshares.
On the plus side, I did win my first New player Standard 1v1 (oh yeah 5 card pack) as well as my first 1v1 2 tix event (oh yeah 15 card card pack).
Cheers,
Simon
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