Coming back after a 15 years

[roninuta]

That's right. 15 years. I stopped playing at Arabian Nights and Antiquities. Sold off all my alpha and beta cards and paid for the rest of college with the money. Things got too competitive and all the fun went out the window.

I'm old now. Married 5 years and the wife is not into MMORPGs or PnP. The fact that I got her to sit with me, learn the 2010 rules (picked up 1 core deck and split it with her) and not only did she like it, she wanted to get a second deck for us to play each other.

I am now, again, the owner of MtG cards....ok so, it has been too long and I have filled my brain with too much information over the past decade or so.

The question, now that you know my background, is this, where do we go from here? I'm working on a doctorate so spending lots-o-$$$ and time is outta the question, but being a geek and a gamer with the wife is important.

What do you, the community, recommend? I want to keep it light hearted, fun, and interesting for both of us.

[Seras]

i find the most cost effective way of playing is to not buy any boosters.

use deck building tools like MTG Vault to figure out what cards you not only want but have a specific deck to play it in. once you've made 3-5 decks, take your card list and go shopping online....commons and most uncommons are pennies a piece and if you build each deck on a budget(no crazy rares) then they should all be on relatively equal in strength.

If a few months down the road, you and your wife start finding those decks a bit stale but still want to play, you make another 2 decks and order those.

sure, opening up boosters is fun and can reward you with great surprises....you can also end up spending way more than you wanted only to have 17 copies of the same crappy commons that don't really fit any of your decks.