Check out the new video game version - MTG Arena. Its free to play and gives you a ton of decks to start with. Easy way to get a feel for the game and try out a lot of different cards for free.

In terms of costs for the real world version, its easy to pick up a somewhat competitive deck on a budget.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/thirty-casual-decks-und...

Also it really depends on who you're playing. If you go into a tournament you might be expected to spend several hundred on a deck. However at the kitchen table and playing with friends you can just grab a few of those budget decks and have a blast.

The fun of the game is that it's played at two levels--tactics during gameplay and strategy as you tune your deck. To get this effect without pay-to-play, you can get some friends together, deal twenty cards to each player, and then take turns drafting more cards from a shared pool of a few hundred. Everyone gets to build their deck from their pile of cards. After each round, everyone can update their deck and the loser gets to draft some more cards from the shared pool.

Thanks. This looks like an excellent protocol to get an enjoyable game between people whose bought decks vary in strength.

This is called Cube, by the way. There are a ton of resources out there for building a good cube.

If you like the look of MTG, the best thing you can do is wrap your head around how huge it is. Something like 21k cards and counting are available to you. Game stores around the world host tournaments multiple times a week, larger tournaments are held within a few hours drive of most players at least a few times a year. The game has a moderate Pro and Semi-Pro scene, and larger stores like Star City Games do a decent job at broadcasting games every weekend on Twitch.

Don't decide to "get into Magic", figure out what part of Magic you want to get into. The game is so big most players who make it past the kitchen table specialize in one or two formats, and inside that format they have a few decks. This is definitely a tricky thing to do when you don't really know the game that well, but if you put in some research it's not too bad.

This is the best way to mitigate feeling like the game is Pay to Win. It turns the game into Pay to Play. You're not losing because your buddy spent $300 on new cards, you're losing because he's basically playing Legacy, and you've just got a Sealed deck from the latest expansion (Sealed is where you build a deck out of 6 packs).

Magic is a hobby that will go as deep as you are willing to go. If you want to play once a month with friends at the kitchen table, or twice a week at a store and try earn a spot into the next Invitational, you can do it with Magic. Figure out limits though, they don't call it Cardboard Crack for nothing.

Sealed decks and drafts. Everyone just pays for a few packs of cards and builds a deck from that and you keep the cards.

Seconded. You increase the influence of variance between packs, but you also level the field by applying that variance equally to all players.

It can feel a bit like a lottery in some sets (where a certain OP card and a semi-competent deck builder can beat a more highly skilled player who got hosed for powerful cards) but that's a core aspect of CCGs. If you don't want variance, a perfect information board game would probably be better.

MtG is relatively inexpensive if you play Limited formats (Draft, Sealed, "you play what you open") or newer Constructed formats (Standard). For older formats, which I unfortunately find the most fun, your best bet is online. WotC has an official client (Magic Online) which is Windows-only, bug-ridden and requires you to rebuy your whole collection. There are free alternatives such as xmage or cockatrice.

There are many many formats, if you can get other players. Block constructed and Pauper tend to be very cheap comparatively, and you can even just get people to agree to a dollar limit for a local tournament.