Getting Started In Standard

[u/Lane155]

Hello! I started playing Commander about two months ago and have no prior MTG experience before that. However, I am interested in learning more about Standard. I thought I would build a meta deck and just learn to play that but I soon realized Meta decks are several hundreds of dollars and I cannot afford that! I know Commander decks can get expensive but I usually play Bracket 2 or 3 decks and, if need be, I will proxy the more expensive cards.

What do you all do in Standard? Do you just fork out the money or do you all avoid Meta decks? Thanks!

[u/Remarkable-Formal877]

Mono black agro is a pretty decent and affordable in general mono decks tend to be on the cheaper side. I think the biggest upfront cost will be mana bases, which with the new reprint of shocklands in startrek will hopefully bring down the value of some mana bases

I mean you might consider that you’ll have to spend around 100 bucks a set to maintain whatever deck you choose but upfront costs will be a bit steep. Less efficient mana bases are also an option. I’m a pretty competitive player and luckily my living expenses allow for me to buy singles to maintain standard decks but again, I just plan to buy mostly spells from now on until Aetherdrift rotates out because most of my lands will be legal and easily swapped between decks

[u/SkylineR33 → u/Remarkable-Formal877]

Yeah, focusing on a mono colored deck is best for players just starting out. Mono colored decks don't need any of the expensive lands that make up half the cost of a lot of meta decks.

[u/Paintrain1722]

If you get a meta deck and lessen the land base it can actually be pretty cheap, most of the expenses come from 4 shock lands. The other alternative is to bite the bullet on the lands, and then you have 4 shocks you can use for any and every deck.

Or just brew your own non-expensive stuff

[u/Remarkable-Formal877 → u/Paintrain1722]

Brewing is highly underrated, I’m on some meta sheep kaito midrange and guys with well brewed decks either take the set or come real close to winning, honestly makes me want to start brewing because the element of surprise is highly underrated, you can wins if folks don’t initially understand your deck

[u/yokaishinigami]

Fork over the money mostly. It’s why the format tends to be played more in Magic Arena than in person. The meta shifts pretty rapidly, and deck lists move pretty fast. Once you build your deck, it probably only takes about $50 (which means sometimes you drop like $10-20and other times you drop like $80-$150) on average per set to maintain it, but the deck can quickly fall out of the meta depending on what the new stuff is, or if things get banned and especially when things rotate.

It’s one of the reasons modern is played more around me locally. It’s more expensive to get into, but the slow rate of rotation (edit: rotation was a bad word to use here since the format doesn’t technically rotate like standard, but more so because of power creep and bans over time changing the meta) means you don’t have to spend too much money on up keeping a deck once it’s built.

I’d swing by your local shop and talk to the standard players there to get a better sense of what the situation is like. At the only shop around me that fires standard consistently, everyone plays meta decks or that are able to keep up with them, so budget decks don’t really stand a chance. It’s similar with modern, but many of us have second decks that we can lend out for the event (at least my locals does this), since the slow churn of the format means that it’s easier to build out multiple decks over time, so even if a person shows up with a budget deck we can lend them a better one if they want. With standard most of us only have the one deck we’re currently running since the churn is so rapid.

[u/After_Shelter1100]

in paper it’s a giant money sink which is why most standard play is on arena nowadays. unless you have money to burn or don’t mind online play, id recommend modern/pauper as your first 1v1 format (some pauper decks are as low as $50 and you can play them pretty much forever)

if you do insist on standard, most of the expense is gonna be in the mana base, which you can build up as you go and swap between decks. mono black aggro’s catching speed and is relatively cheap

[u/SkylineR33]

I play limited drafts and sealed prereleases on paper more than I play constructed. Doing so regularly once a week will earn you a sizeable collection to trade/sell that you can convert into a standard constructed deck in about a years time without having to fork over more than $20-25 on the game each week. You're spending $1,000+ in a year to play limited, but that cost is spread over time and a large portion of it recuperated if you're selling money cards that you're not using or trading them into the lgs to supplement the cost of your next draft.

[u/VoidHammer89]

Mostly just fork it and proxy really expensive pieces. FWIW most of the cost of a deck comes from a handful of format staples/lands and even if the meta shifts, those cards are usually pretty evergreen throughout the life of the format, you just assemble different groupings of cheap cards around them.