dinocity

@bladededge: I find it bizarre that WotC have neglected what could and probably should be a massive cash cow for them. Instead, they have a woefully out of date client that's completely inaccessible to those not already familiar with the game.

@lawgamer: Magic Duels is your best bet, it's a free to play version of Magic that has tutorials on all the basics of the game and will let you build decks to play with.

For playing the physical game. Wizards of the Coast have a store locator that you can use to find a gaming store near you and find out when they have events. There is a pay barrier to some formats of Magic, so I'd recommend starting out with something cheap like Standard or Booster Draft to start off with.

You will come across serious players but they'll be plenty of people at a store that will be able to help you get started with the game - we were all new once! Each store should have a judge as well, who will be able to help you along with any rules queries you may have.

@darth_navster: Magic Duels does have better interface, but it also has a much smaller card pool that's geared towards newer players, rather than the "full" experience offered by Magic Online.

I do have to agree with your comments on some of the people that play Magic, I imagine you'll find people with poor hygiene in any gaming community but it can be off-putting when they're physically sat across from you.

@jakob187: Here's the list I've been working on.

Slightly different build to the one that made it to the finals of the Pro Tour as I'm not running Void Shatter and have two copies of Nahiri.

@jakob187: Thank you for reading, I'm glad you liked the blog. MTG and Hearthstone are quite different games on a mechanical level, which is why I don't like how frequently they're compared to each other.

The GP was really well-run, I sat a few spaces down from the "Liliana" for the first round and it was an excellent costume. She dressed as Nissa for the Sunday and that cosplay was also fantastic.

I'm brewing Jeskai control for the current standard, red gives you access to Harnessed Lightning as a cheap removal spell, as well as Radiant Flames and Nahiri (who can exile those pesky copters).

Persona 3 is the game I always find myself recommending to people. It's a bit of a hard sell because it I have to caveat every claim about the game with a reminder that the actual gameplay is fairly mediocre.

That game is my all-time favourite because it works on a completely different axis to more "traditional" video games. You don't play it for the gameplay, you play it for the story, the characters and the incredible art design.