Guide Me Back To Magic

[Fellfrosch]

That depends on who you're going to play with, really. Casual multiplayer games don't require nearly as big of a cardpool as one-on-one games in a card shop or tournament. I'd say that one tournament pack, two or three boosters, and a precon that suits your style (to use as a base) is probably enough to build a couple of good decks.

[Mr_Pleasington]

If you can't find card collections at Salvation Army like SE did, you could turn to ebay like I did.  People are always selling big lots of commons and uncommons really cheap.  Sure, you don't get the rares, but it builds up your card reserves pretty quickly.  

I just got an 800 card lot with a mix of the last 6 sets with 50 or so rares included for around $30.  Figure it will give me a little more to play with for oh-so-little cash.

[Fellfrosch]

Yeah, that's a great deal...if you're buying. I've often thought about trying to make some extra cash by selling off old card collections for games I never play (like Star Trek), but the return's just not worth it for me.

[Prometheus]

The way that I built up my card supply to seriously play had slightly less to do with buying boosters or tournament packs and a lot to do with sorting through commons at the card shops. For our local crowd, Game Den sells commons out of their box for four cents each, and most card shops will run more around 7-10 cents. Early in my collection, the commons boxes were a lifeline, allowing me to pick up extra copies of little specials that are still serving me well. Things like Twisted Abomination will serve well in most any beginning player's black deck, as will green staples like Rampant Growth and blue cards like Serum Visions. Each card shop tends to have a different sort of card in it, and I still find myself bouncing around to the more expensive stores to find particular goodies I have in mind, but for a cheap beginning collection, it's a great way to fill in the little places your early decks will be lacking.