As one of the most successful collectible card games in the world, Magic the Gathering can spread among friends like a virus, infecting new players with the urge to collect and battle. This guide will help new players avoid common mistakes, allowing them to amass large collections and competitive decks without spending too much money.
Magic the Gathering Fat Packs, Intro Packs, Booster Packs
Wizards of the Coast offers a fairly wide variety of options for new players to get in the game. Unfortunately, many of these options require a fair investment, and new players don't often get a great return on these items. Below is a quick run-down of each product from the most recent block, Innistrad, and its potential value.
- Innistrad Fat Pack: This pack comes with 9 booster packs, 70 basic lands, a spin-down life counter, two deck boxes, and some other extras such as art and a short player's guide. Depending on the retailer, the pack can cost anywhere from $27 - $40. Booster packs cost $3-$5 each, so on paper this pack sounds like a good deal. But for new players, the randomness of the package might make it difficult to build a deck.
- Innistrad Intro Packs: Intro packs offer pre-built, 60-card, ready-to-play decks, and a booster pack. Individually, intro packs cost $10-$15, while a set of 5 intro packs cost $40-$50. For brand new players, intro packs offer the greatest value. While the intro packs won't contain the best cards, they offer excellent starting points, and allow new players to get in the game right away.
- Innistrad Booster Packs and Booster Boxes: Buying booster packs individually cost $3-$5 and are usually the worst potential value for the money. Boosters are also offered in an enormous Booster Box set, which usually costs over $100. While each pack promises at least 1 rare or mythic rare, the problem arises from the randomness, and that packs typically cost more money than buying each of the cards individually.
Among the standard retail options for purchasing Magic the Gathering cards, the intro packs seem like the best deal for new players. The Innistrad Intro Pack Set comes with 5 decks allowing new players to experiment with different play styles, while the included boosters add just enough extra cards to swap cards in and out of the intro decks.
Magic the Gathering Singles, Lots
Savvy players avoid purchasing packages offered directly by Wizards of the Coast as much more frugal options exist for deck building and card collecting. The following products, offered by a wide variety of MTG online retailers, can save new players a great deal of money.
- Singles: Many online retailers, such as Wizard's Cupboard, offer a huge assortment of cards available for purchase individually. In almost all cases, purchasing cards as singles saves money, but it also requires players to know what they want ahead of time. Buying an intro pack, and then later supplementing the pack with singles is one of the easiest ways to build a powerful deck. Or, new players could try MTG fansites that offer online deck builders, such as MTGVault, as a way to plan out what singles they would like to purchase.
- Lots: Magic the Gathering retailers typically repack a huge assortment of commons and uncommons into "lots." Lots very rarely contain expensive cards, but what they lack in expensive rares they make up for in sheer volume. Online retailers such as Troll and Toad and Cool Stuff Inc offer lots filled with hundreds of cards, typically costing $10-$20 each. For the cost of a fat pack, new players could instantly amass an entire collection of commons and uncommons.
Many new players look at Magic the Gathering as prohibitively expensive, but plenty of options exist to play the game without spending too much money. New players interested in more resources on purchasing cards online should check out the article: Best Magic the Gathering Shops - Buying Cards Online.
Bradley Kairis - Bradley Kairis loves games, comedy, technology, politics, news and journalism. From the endlessly intricate strategies of Magic the ...
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