Do you have Steam? The best place of to start is Magic: the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers [http://store.steampowered.com/app/49470/?snr=1_220_221__222_7]. The demo is free, and it gives you all the information you need to get started, and the demo is challenging enough to learn some strategy. (though the higher difficulties cheat horribly).
By the way, when you unlock Archenemy, Jace is your best friend.
Sure you can build a half decent deck for $30 but if you actually want to win you need lots of money. Thats why I don't really play any more. Don't get me wrong, its pretty fun but its a little too much "pay to win" for me.
For a long time I've always wanted to learn how to play Magic: The Gathering, it seems like a fun game to play and and since the Escapist Expo is going to be hosting gaming tables and whatnot I feel now might be the best time to finally get into it. Also I just watched this LRR vid [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/loadingreadyrun/2449-Its-Magic] which has got me in the mood to start.
Only problem; I have no idea what I'm doing. At all. As in I know only what I've seen in LRR vids and that's very little so let's go with a blank slate here.
What do I need? Where do I start? How do I play? All these questions need answering please!
I recommend getting "Magic 2012" on either your Xbox 360, PC, or PS3. I'm a fairly new magic player, and that's what got me into the game. It has a great tutorial and you can learn how to play each of the different Magic types there.
What you should focus on is what kind of Deck you want. Some players choose what fits their personality or preferred playing styles, while others just choose randomly.
There are five "colors" of Magic in the Magic The Gathering Universe. Blue, Black, White, Red, and Green. Each have completely different playstyles which make the game unique depending on what deck you play.
Blue focuses more on instant spells, knocking other creatures off the battlefield, taking control of it's opponents creatures. It's definitely a "slow and steady" kind of deck, focusing more on strategy and the end game than anything else. It doesn't have that many monsters and requires quite a bit more mana (think of it as "points" you use to cast spells and summon creatures) than most other decks, however if you're a thinking man you can use it greatly to your advantage. The two colors blue works best with are White and Black.
Black focuses more on constantly damaging your opponent to get what you want. It can be played simply or complexly. It's a pretty aggressive deck, with most of your spells either damaging creatures or killing them out right. It's main course of action is to keep the opponent down as much as possible and cut a path through any creatures that come up to defend him. The problem with this deck is that it focuses more on attacking then building things up, and you'll rarely be able to enhance your creatures abilities, making it vulnerable to players with white decks. Black works best with using a Red deck or a Blue Deck
White decks can be described as "turtling" in a way. It relates to blue in that it's slow, yet while blue focuses on manipulation and making a lot out of a little, white focuses on getting a lot, and building it up until it's nigh unstoppable. White focuses quite a bit on the end game, it has a multitude of spells to keep your health protected, usually by enhancing your creatures or using a lot of defensive spells. If played properly and if given enough time, White decks can be some of the most powerful in the game. There are plenty of times that a player spends almost all of their resources to summon a powerful creature, only for it to be made useless by white spells. The problem with this deck is that it's mostly just a late game superpower, and early on you'll find most of your creatures are very weak before they're enhanced. The decks white work best with are a blue or a green deck.
Red decks are for impatient and aggressive players. They can summon creatures for only a small cost, and constantly try to keep their opponent under siege. You'll find that most red deck creatures can either attack as much as possible in as short a time as possible, or even "take creatures down with them" after they're killed. It focuses less on strategy than the other decks and more on crushing their opponents as quickly as possible. A good way to describe their pros and their cons is that the deck is a lot like the German Blitzkrieg. It's a great opening assault, and focuses on constantly keeping their opponents hammered down while their forces take the field, yet if it's drawn out or if the opponent mounts a counter-attack, it's quick to fall. It's meant more for offense than anything else. Red works best with Black or Green.
Green decks are for players that love their creatures more than anything. It has less spells than the other decks and focuses more on just summoning an army of diverse creatures to cut down their enemies. What you'll notice from this deck is that most of the creatures don't have much of any extra abilities except to possibly strengthen themselves. They are very powerful and opponents would either need some clever tactics or a strong defense of their own to match a green deck. The problem with green decks are that, while you have a lot of powerful creatures that you can summon quickly, you don't have much of any magical diversity. You mostly just have spells to summon more mana so you can summon more creatures. If someone tries using spells on you, chances are you wont have much of any way to counter it. Green works best with white or red.
Don't see why he should, I see a lot of people trying to be helpful and giving good advice. Just because one might be better or more detailed doesn't mean everyone else should be disregarded/ignored.
The cool thing about Magic in comparison to other card games (like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokémon - I'll be the first to admit my knowledge is limited at best) is that no cards require you to have X other card in order to use them. That means that you can throw together a bunch of, say, green cards, and have them work by default. Means you can focus on which cards would best fit your specific deck rather than worrying about taking out a Shinx because you won't be able to play Luxray[footnote]Fun Fact: I have a Shiny Luxray LV. 48 card that sits next to Fluttershy on my computer desk. It's the only Pokémon card I own.[/footnote].
Mmm yes and no, while you may not need X specific card to play card Y, there are a lot of cards that are essentially useless unless you have cards of a certain type, ie you could have a card that buffs angel creatures, if you have no angel creatures in your deck it is absolutely pointless. While I'm not entirely up to date on the newer set of cards, I remember back in Kamigawa there were certain "hero" cards (not sure if that is the right term) that was basically 2 cards in one cards that started out as a crappy or bleh card, but when you played a specific other card it would activate that card which you would turn 180 degrees to play the awesome version of that card.
I am not gonna pretend to be an expert since I just started playing myself, so I am just gonna share a few tips.
-First of all, choose a format. Vintage, Classic, Modern, etc. Use the MTG wiki to find out what each of them means.
-From what the other guys said since the thread was posted, you may have chosen a color. Me, I am colorless, a bit blue and a bit green and a bit white. Remember that colorless goes with any kind of mana.
-After choosing a color, find a card that you like, what ever that may be and hit up the Gatherer, the Magic The Gathering database. See what other people have to say about your card cause they share a lot of combos.
-Create an account on MTG Vault to create your deck and draw sample hands and mulligans to see what fixes you have to put your deck through.
-The Vault and Gatherer pretty much guarentee snowballing cause there A LOT OF CARDS.
-Search, search and then search some more. There are so many creatures that you are bound to find the one you need across 50+ expansions.
-If you can, after creating your deck, get a starter or two for lands and then go through eBay. It's cheaper than gettting boosters.
-Prepare to fork over some money. I asked around before I started and put some 100 euros aside and in order to build my deck, I am gonna need more than that, it seems.
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