Hey guys !

I'm new to this board and glad i found it.
I have been playing MtG since i was a youg kid, teached by my older brother who began during the first editions.

I realise that a lot has been said about the questions i'm going to ask because i have been searching around on the board and on Reddit\MD before asking all this but please consider that i read all i could find and am still not sure about those issues :

I just got the game a few days ago, unlocked the whole free stuff there was while having a great time discovering all those new cards and now I'm trying to find the best way to optimize the few golds i made (around 2k) in order to have fun and be able to build entertaining decks.


The thing is a new edition is going to be added tomorrow if i got the information right so here are my questions :

- Is it mandatory to first get the Origins edition before anything else because the cards are stronger overall and of better value (overall) compared to the other editions ? What was your choice and what would you do differently if you had hypothetically to start a new account ? Do you feel like you must complete an edition before moving on to others ?

- Do you guys think that with the new edition coming there might be a new sale on one of the first editions ? And so should i hold on to my few golds ?

- Do you guys consider that here is an actual Meta at the moment (strong editions, strong decks above the rest) and could you define it ?

Thanks a lot for reading this, answering one of those questions and don't mind adding any infos that you would like to share with me and the other noobies !

I consider myself a passionate player of this card game and the point of all these questions is not to "grind" the fastest but to have fun playing funny mechanicals decks as fast as I can !

Schaff

First of all, welcome!
Honze nailed it pretty much. If I would have to start now I would go with Kaladesh because it allows you to build decent decks on it's own like Gruul energy. After that I would go for Aether Revolt because of the synergy with Kaladesh. Origins is a good all round basic set but not mandatory.
For the sales you're just a bit late.

Do all the stories to get all the D cards. Then put everything into Kaladesh, then AER, then Origins, then SOI, then EMN, then OGW, and then finally BFZ.

My advice is:

1. Pick a set and stick with it till you finish it or at least get all the cards you care about. Duels is unlike paper/mtgo in that you are guaranteed to get a playset of every card in the set with no extra duplicates, so plugging away at the same set will eventually yield the cards you really want from that set (unlike paper where you could keep buying boosters of the same set and never see a particular rare/mythic).

2. Unless a set goes on sale, in which case, go for that set instead until the sale ends and then go back to the set you were working on.

3. Either start with SOI followed by EDM (I think SOI has the highest ratio of good cards to junk, closely followed by KLD, but EDM is also very good and builds on the synergies and mechanics in SOI so makes more sense to get 2nd if you start with SOI) or start with KLD followed by AER and ORI. I think SOI is a bit more geared toward midrange/control builds and KLD is geared more toward aggro so if you prefer one style over the other, that might influence your choice. ORI is the biggest of all the sets so I sort of recommend getting it after you've finished at least one block since it will take longer than the other sets to complete (and because the goodstuff/garbage ratio isn't as high as in the SOI and KLD blocks).

4. If you want to speed things along, consider buying some coins to get started. 2 7500 coin purchases should get you a solid base to jump in with. But remember that any money you dump into this game is never gonna come back out (unlike paper/MTGO, where you can sell your collection when you get tired of it). Also, the game keeps separate collections for each of its 3 platforms (Steam, iOS, and XBox) so cards unlocked, and coins earned/bought on one platform will not be available on the other platforms.

@vert: no love for BFZ? I get that the set is like 80% garbage, but the dual lands are pretty clutch if you want to play 3+ colors, not to mention a few staples like Planar Outburst, Radiant Flames, Gideon, and er... Shrivel?

I'd have to say to go with Kaladesh. There are creatures in it that are just plain stronger than those in origins. So you won't get Disciple of the Ring or the Origins planeswalkers, but there are pretty cool thinks in Kaladesh too. Also it will greatly synergise with the AE expansion coming up. Also origins has two times more cards than the other sets so getting the good ones is kinda slow IMO. After you unlock Kaladesh and AE you can go to origins since there are pretty cool cards there too or just wait to see what will come up on sale after AE is released.

Thank you very much guys for your opinions and advices.

So basically you advise me to go full KLD because the cards are stronger considering the overall stenght of the edition and the ratio of "good/junk cards" compared to other editions.

Only TheFlakyMage is saying that i can start SOI if i rather enjoy control oriented srategies, but the thing is it might be less efficient than the aggro style of KLD (followed by Origins).

I'm gona think about all this, thanks again

The land is great, Gideon is great, but it's a big set and not the most efficient use of gold.

As good as Kaladesh is to build an aggro deck.. SOI and EMN ended producing some sick vampire aggro decks. I think Vamps and Rakdos artifacts from Kaladesh come together nicely to make a Rakdos aggro goodstuff deck that's a royal pain to handle.

But yeah.. follow the advice here.

I'd also say that if they manage to fix the connectivity issues, go ahead and buy a set. It'll make unlocking the other sets much, much less painstaking and more fun. It's not going to be fun losing 60% of the time to people with top notch decks while you're attempting to slug it out with the D cards. Defeating people earns gold much faster than beating up on the stupid AI.. and most of the bounties have to be done vs people anyway. The AI gold grind is not very fun IMO.

Kaladesh + EMN can probably compile quite a competitive, if not entirely optimal aggro deck, if I was planning on grinding gold online, this would be where I would start, but I haven't done the math on this, just glanced at the sets.

emn (small set) red gives you ride down, Impetuous Devils, Hanweir Garisson, Collective Defiance, white gets you Selfless Spirit Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Borrowed Grace, Collective Effort, Gisela, the Broken Blade; all this ain't bad.

Kaladesh will give access to a whole host of good agressive cards and vehicles that you'd want to play in those colors.

KLD energy red green aggro is super good.

Max out your 'free' gold with the tutorials and story mode. I am sure you have already done this so you have a full set of the Base D cards. I'd tend to agree that completing KLD with AER due will potentially give you better card synergy. Although I have a full set on IOS at times I was playing on steam and spending a little.

If you have a particular deck and you identify a card that could make it better, in particular if it is one of the smaller sets (OGW,EMN) I would chance buying a few single packs. You may get lucky, for example in steam I bought a few KLD packs and opened a smuggler's copter. This is one of the better cards in that set.

But in general stick to completing KLD which will set you up nicely when AER lands.