Discussion Forum

differant people will tell you differant things personally to get into mtg id buy a 2012 intro deck thats the color or colors of your choice then id either buy singles to mod it a bit or buy some boosters id stay away from innistrad if your just playing with friends since its very specific on vamps zombies spirits and humans id probly just go with the core set all the way 5 or six packs and some luck should get you started with modding but you can always use the forums here to get tips about what to take out and what to put in if your leaning towards singles

I have been playing for about 8 months now and I found it helpful to purchase a few intro decks to get to grips with the colours and then went and purchased core set boosters to expand my intro decks. We recently started drafting innistrad boosters which was difficult I found. I found it much easier sticking to the core set. The deck builders toolkit might be a good idea. lots of cards and i believe there is a deck building guide in there. I am just starting to build my own decks buying singles etc. Just keep playing would be my advice and have fun!

- intro decks are pretty bad and don't offer much in terms of value
- if you have a friend who's starting out as well and you both buy a booster box of the same set and then battle it out creating decks from only that card pool I guess you would have a pretty fair fight on your hands and learn while having fun.
Playing against experienced players will be the fastest way to learn but it will be to easy for the experienced player and very hard for you so it will be frustrating for you and boring for the other guy.
Also an experienced player won't have fun playing crappy cards, if you create a small gauntlet of proxied tournament decks however you'll learn a lot, fight with the same weapons, learn the rules and the tournament meta and you'll experience how a good deck works. It's also the best way to prepare for tournament play in general.
- drafting on a regular basis is a good way of gathering cards and learning to build a deck in the process. It's very skill intensive though and you'll have no chance of winning what so ever against experienced drafters. That said you'll get better yourself and soon enough you'll be one of them if you hang in there.

As for tournament play and archetypes, you have various tourmnament formats and many archetypes and tier 1 decks.

here is some info on Sanctioned formats

http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Resources.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/resources/formats-sanctioned#constructed

The most balanced format by far is legacy. It's expensive to get into because it plays many of the best cards ever printed and the demand for these cards is high. That said it's the only format where you don't have a best deck and you have A LOT of very good decks. It's also the most skill intensive format where playing well wins you games and not just getting lucky though luck is a part of the game in any format.

I have a friend who started playing legacy about a year ago. He bought a Aggro-Bant deck and stuck with it (experimenting with card changes within the archetype) and he's doing well concidering he's still pretty new to the game. He hasn't top8-ed yet but he's getting good results in some pretty serious tournaments (60+ people).
Just to illustrate that if you're dedicated you can get there quite fast. I guess his investment in his deck was conciderable (probably around 1000$) but all things concidered he plays something he knows is good, and legacy is a format that doesn't change all that much. I know players that have played the same deck for years with great success and little extra investment. Also the card value only goes up over time.
Playing Standard for a few years is a differnt story, it's a rotating format meaning that only the last few sets are legal. Good cards are very expensive while legal and then plummit to being worth absolutely nothing overnight when they rotate. It's a format that demands a constant investment.

I agree with everything seth said especialy the part about drafting also remeber that sealed is an option and both will improve your deck building skills. I would draft core sets though, the current core is m12 (i believe). these are good to draft because the cards in them are usualy reprinted at least once and some will be reprinted with every core. other ways to improve your self are.
-play pauper(decks of only commons)
its both a cheap format and still develops your understanding of how decks work
-go to your local FNM and just hang out and watch, asking questions (to the legacy players that always show up but arnt playing) when you dont understand plays. but DONT ask the people playing the game its bad manners.
-play a game with your hand revieled and have your opponent critique your plays.

also have fun so that you want to learn never treat magic as more than a hobby.