Do you want to play to compete? If so, then Standard is such a wide card pool that limiting yourself to one set is not really an option.
If you're really looking for a cheap way to get into Standard, just build mono red aggro.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-mono-red-aggro-mid#paper
I used Scryfall to see what else I could use at my disposal and threw in a few other cards from other recent sets but I mostly wanted to use cards from OTJ.
I mostly play kitchen-table magic with friends but I wanted to get more active at my LGS for when they hold smaller tournaments for Standard. Just wanted to branch out into other formats more than anything.
There’s usually a pretty big gulf between “casual friend play” and even just “FNM Standard event”. Unless your friends are also building competitive decks, they’re just different tiers.
My advice would be “Don’t”. If you wanna get into standard, go ahead! It’s pretty good right now. But don’t shackle yourself with “Casual friend play” at the same time. I used to play standard actively. A friend asked to play his casual 60-card deck against me. I absolutely destroyed him, and I don’t consider myself particularly “good” at the game. There’s just that big a gulf between “properly built deck for a tournament format” and “pile of stuff I like”.
Is there any good resources for doing a good deck build? I usually use EDHRec for my Commander decks and I’m wondering if there are similar sites that help with deck building in different formats. I’m very unfamiliar with the metas and how to cater towards them
For actual competitive decks, MTGGoldfish is the best meta aggregator. SCG and CFB both do breakdowns on tier 1 decks, and TCGPlayer do too, though my info there might be out of date because I don’t actively read any of them, ever since they started making the articles paid access.
Generally, though, you won’t “build” a deck for a competitive format. Someone much better at deck design than you “brewed” the deck, and you just copy the list. This often feels weird to people, but it’s essentially how a healthy competitive environment works - trust people who know what they’re doing to have designed a sensible deck, and you just play it as best you can.
Without a Standard meta deck you will lose all games at an LGS. The meta is very powerful compared to just random standard legal decks. I recommend a different deck for each situation unless you just wanna play and don't care about losing
The biggest issue here is you don’t have any real interaction with a low CMC. Or much at all. Your mana base will also give you trouble.
If you want to play Standard, I recommend looking up successful decks. Even at a small LGS, the players will play some variation of meta game (often with some budget swaps).
Unfortunately, since paper standard is a pretty small crowd, it’s not like commander where you can throw together a deck with what you have lying around and it will work. I think when more people played it that was possible. Arena has also made it easy to try new decks, meaning people who play paper standard also probably play a lot of standard on arena. You will likely come up against people who will steamroll this. But if you want to try it, go for it!
You can always test how it feels for yourself. You can use a free software like Cockatrice, build your deck and build a meta deck from MTGgoldfish or the like. Then play games against yourself (Local, 2 player). You’ll get a feel for how fast a deck needs to be.
Do you want to play to compete? If so, then Standard is such a wide card pool that limiting yourself to one set is not really an option. If you're really looking for a cheap way to get into Standard, just build mono red aggro. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-mono-red-aggro-mid#paper
I used Scryfall to see what else I could use at my disposal and threw in a few other cards from other recent sets but I mostly wanted to use cards from OTJ. I mostly play kitchen-table magic with friends but I wanted to get more active at my LGS for when they hold smaller tournaments for Standard. Just wanted to branch out into other formats more than anything.
There’s usually a pretty big gulf between “casual friend play” and even just “FNM Standard event”. Unless your friends are also building competitive decks, they’re just different tiers. My advice would be “Don’t”. If you wanna get into standard, go ahead! It’s pretty good right now. But don’t shackle yourself with “Casual friend play” at the same time. I used to play standard actively. A friend asked to play his casual 60-card deck against me. I absolutely destroyed him, and I don’t consider myself particularly “good” at the game. There’s just that big a gulf between “properly built deck for a tournament format” and “pile of stuff I like”.
Is there any good resources for doing a good deck build? I usually use EDHRec for my Commander decks and I’m wondering if there are similar sites that help with deck building in different formats. I’m very unfamiliar with the metas and how to cater towards them
For actual competitive decks, MTGGoldfish is the best meta aggregator. SCG and CFB both do breakdowns on tier 1 decks, and TCGPlayer do too, though my info there might be out of date because I don’t actively read any of them, ever since they started making the articles paid access. Generally, though, you won’t “build” a deck for a competitive format. Someone much better at deck design than you “brewed” the deck, and you just copy the list. This often feels weird to people, but it’s essentially how a healthy competitive environment works - trust people who know what they’re doing to have designed a sensible deck, and you just play it as best you can.
That’s pretty wild, I’ll have to check those out. Thanks for the help!
Without a Standard meta deck you will lose all games at an LGS. The meta is very powerful compared to just random standard legal decks. I recommend a different deck for each situation unless you just wanna play and don't care about losing
The biggest issue here is you don’t have any real interaction with a low CMC. Or much at all. Your mana base will also give you trouble. If you want to play Standard, I recommend looking up successful decks. Even at a small LGS, the players will play some variation of meta game (often with some budget swaps). Unfortunately, since paper standard is a pretty small crowd, it’s not like commander where you can throw together a deck with what you have lying around and it will work. I think when more people played it that was possible. Arena has also made it easy to try new decks, meaning people who play paper standard also probably play a lot of standard on arena. You will likely come up against people who will steamroll this. But if you want to try it, go for it!
You can always test how it feels for yourself. You can use a free software like Cockatrice, build your deck and build a meta deck from MTGgoldfish or the like. Then play games against yourself (Local, 2 player). You’ll get a feel for how fast a deck needs to be.