It's a game where the richer you are, the better your deck. It costs an obscene amount of money just to be passable.

The huge majority of the best decks I have seen belong to young kids that haven't even made it to high school whose parents spend what would equate to half a year's worth of my paychecks to buy them better cards because they whine if they can't beat their friends. At the summer camps I've worked at, we have banned Magic three different times because it's just a bunch of rich parents spoiling their kids and it turns them into evil little spawns of Satan.

I've played MTG since Unlimited, although I've been hit or miss on the newer releases the past few years.

I tend to play sealed deck because that eliminates the money advantage element of constructed deck. I also like prereleases because it puts me at less of a disadvantage if I want to jump in at the beginning of a new cycle, as compared to mid-cycle when my opponents undoubtedly have spent more time learning the cards.

I still think it is a great game.

A similar game that didn't have the cost issue was Spellfire by TSR. Unfortunately few people played it since everyone was playing MTG back then.

Constructed: fun time for casuals who don't have any idea what they're doing. Fun time for pros who have all the cards they need and know the game inside-out. For everyone in between, it's a pay-to-win mess.

Drafting: if you don't know who the sucker at the table is, it's you.

Sealed: RNG. *shrug*

I haven't played much at all since the last major rules change a few years back (not that the change caused me to quit, but rather that it'd be a pain to get back into), but when I played I tended to agree with The Hanged Man.

Well, there is budget. I have a budget Delver-type deck and a decent budget affinity that work pretty well, personally I only play casual, and finally, I knew people would criticize MTG, just knew it! ;)

I have played on and off over the years; casual play is fun, deck construction is great, the dynamics of the play are good - getting into competative play isn't worth tue extra effort imo. You don't get anything more out of it, unles you go pro, in which case it becomes a job not a fun thing to play. Also you lose the fun of playing around with deck construction when you look at the meta- and best decks on the internet just to decide what you want to play...

As for cost, the last time i picked stuff up, the shop let me buy specific cards so i built a deck from scratch, i still have it somewhere. Only cost about £10, all-in-all i don't see any problems with casual play or the cost; just don't get sucked in.

Barely play anymore, still had to post: JTMS REPRINT HYPE

Ouch, there goes a bunch of value.

I am a semi-semi-pro in mtg.

It's certainly NOT pay-to-win at semi-casual competitive tournaments*. 80% of the contestants own, or can borrow, a competitive deck. There is certainly a steep cost to entry if you own nothing, but there is a lot you can do to circumvent that. Just google it if you're interested, as I won't go into extreme detail here.

Booster draft: Grab 7 mates, chip in $6 each to buy a booster box** and play arguably the most skill-intensive format available. Keeps you entertained for at least 4 hours and everyone goes home with on average $4 worth of cards (which helps towards a Standard Constructed deck, or mitigates the costs). Sure it's more expensive than a boardgame, but not by an obscene amount.

Sealed: Grab 3 or 5 mates, chip in $12 each to buy a booster box** and play Sealed. Keeps you entertained for at least 4 hours and everyone goes home with on average $8 worth of cards (which helps towards a Standard Constructed deck, or mitigates the costs). Sealed is often described as a luck-based format, but that is overstated. I will beat you 9 out of 10 times.

**Booster boxes are about $80 and contain 36 boosters. You need 24 for a draft, so you keep 12 for next time (and I adjusted the price accordingly).

Standard Constructed: I would advise against getting into this until you own a good couple of cards due to playing Limited (Draft/Sealed, as above). This format is secretly the most expensive, because decks only last for a couple of months before cards are no longer legal to play in Standard.. And their value plummets a month before this rotation. Unless you know what you're doing it costs around $200 per year to stay competitive here, so this would qualify as pay-to-win (though there are some competitive budget options, usually).

Modern Constructed: Yes, you do need a starting budget to enter. While there are competitive budget alternatives for around $50 (and can later/slowly be upgraded to a pro deck), pro decks start at $300-500. However, Modern decks tend to last for many years. I've played mine for 3 years now, for instance, and it still sells for roughly what I bought it for. If I sell now my deck would've been for free, if you look at it that way!

Casual Contructed: This is pay-to-win, unfortunately. Of course there are many viable budget options, but imho the best way to mititgate the problem is to find a good set of deck construction rules (such as Pauper).

*'Semi-casual competitive tournament' may sound daunting, but there are many 'GPT's and 'pPTQ's being organised every weekend. Only about 50% of the participants care about winning the thing and everyone else is just there to have fun! Also, the pairings are Swiss i.e. if you lose, next round you play someone who also lost (and has the same record). So the more you lose, the worse on average your opponents become :) It's fun.

*pish-posh: casual constrcted? Isn't that what i described, not expensive at all, besides you can theoretically print out a deck of cards on 5-10 A4 sheets, costing about $1. Put them in deck protectors and play to your heart's content. (This also allows you to play-test deck ideas without investing money upfront - once you have a great deck, buy the card and play in tournies... Except if you're only playing casually - in which case you never take this step)

I've also found casual constructed to be more fun than booster drafts or sealed. Play for fun, with friends, and don't worry about the rest.

On the other hand, what do people think about the monetization model? IE pay lots for little pieces of card, skilled players are paid from that money to go pro and make the game more like a professional sport?

WotC just put a huge ding in the pro scene though when it slashed the HoF attendance bonus and the Platinum Pro bonus, makes it impossible to grind GPs and PTs straight without spending a huge amount of off table time hawking cards for a minimal profit. Sponsorship is very low with the exceptions of SCG, CFB, and a couple of other sites.

I've played magic for a decade but the game has changed so much it's hard for me to play constructed. Sealed I still love though.

Eternal Masters is reprinting Jace, Dualcaster Mage, and Deathrite Shaman, which is good, and then Goyf will die, so that's not good.

@Orathaic: Allowing 'proxies' is also a good deck construction rule that takes the cost away; excellent suggestion.
When I played Casual Constructed (over 10 years ago), it was pay-to-play however. Some of the other kids at school had decks worth over $1000 (no kidding) and I didn't stand a chance (also because I was crap and so were my decks). I guess I misjudged that one.

@DemonRHK: That change to HoF attendance fees and Platinum Pro bonus has been cancelled/delayed. Probably cancelled.
Modern hasn't changed that much, but Standard certainly has.

@Bob: How do you mean Tarmagoyf will die? You expect it to be banned? In what formats? I haven't heard such speculation. If you mean the price will increase yet again if it isn't reprinted, then I agree.

If it isn't reprinted, its price will go up even more. But if it is, it would be terrible against Deathrite Shaman in limited (this is for limited right?).

and eternal formats, of course.

I play casually, with decks I've constructed from cards I've bummed from friends or gotten at garage sales/etc. It's a casual approach, but we're not willing to spend too much on it. We've played standard, modern, EDH, pauper, and type 4. Our approach is "this is supposed to be fun, not expensive," so we try to construct the best set of 12 or so decks from the pool of available cards, then test them against each other to see which deck comes out ahead. The "drafting" stage of deck construction can happen with any of the free apps available for such things. We've used printed proxies before to playtest cards before purchasing actual copies... it keeps costs down and lets us enjoy the actual deck construction.

^ inb4: "filthy casual"

@Claesar: Good to hear on the HoF and plat changes, I guess the backlash was heard. My absolute favorite format does not exist anymore, and that was Extended. 7 years of magic made for some interesting brews. (Though it would be much different in the 2 set block era now). When I started (Tempest), the game started to enter Combo Winter soon thereafter, and I played in an age where netdecks didn't really exist and when they did they were usually blue in nature and said the word 'no' a lot (Burning Bridge hype)

My inherent problem with Magic now is that the mystery of the game is gone, and while it can be argued it's rose tinted glasses back to when I knew less about the game, I think the rise of the internet has established a hard meta in every format, every brew is on the drawing board even before the set drops, and it permeates even to the casual players. I saw a middle school aged kid walk into my local shop recently and drop cash and a printed decklist and walk out with a full CoCo deck on his mom's dime because he had to keep up with everyone else. Hell the first time I tried to netdeck I ended up trying to play the most busted ass version of Willow-geddon you'll ever see. Sealed is the only place I can truly see if someone is a good deckbuilder or limps by on their wallet alone.

I played limited and standard for about 6 months then stopped. Nothing wrong with the game itself, rather it just got too expensive for the enjoyment I got out of it, especially when there are other board games that are even more fun and cost much less!

^ So much this. Any magic player wants a good "board game" get Millennium Blades.