I have decided to venture into the magic online world over the upcoming weekend and had a few questions to get started.

I am hoping to keep costs down as much as possible, wean into magic online and eventually play legacy which is my forte. I'm also interested in modern and, through my research, pauper is intriguing.

Just by reading up on it, my impression is that daily and premier events are really the only events I want to participate in(assuming I want the hobby to be self sustaining). I have read that pauper, which would be my natural jumping off point is no longer the best way to get started as daily events have been canned. Is this correct?

I see people on here selling event tickets for .94-.95. Is this generally what I should expect to pay and the correct method to obtain? What is a good number to buy to get started?

Lastly, what is the best way to pick up all the cards I will need for decks? Specific stores or "bots"?

Any other general advice for someone transitioning over?

I would recommend Pauper as a good introduction to Magic Online. That would allow you to try Magic Online with little cost. You may find that you just don't like playing Magic on the computer instead of with real cards. Plus, it allows you to learn the interface, playing and trading, and the community.

I only play Pauper online now in order to keep the cost down. You are correct that the Daily Events, which have the highest prize-to-entry-fee ratio of the tournaments, are not offered for Pauper. Premier Events have large payouts, but if you calculate the prize-to-entry-fee ratio, I don't think it's very good. Even without Daily Events, you can still make money in Pauper if you do well in the 8-man tournaments (although they don't start very often because the Pauper community isn't THAT big). If you are trying to win packs in tournaments, then Modern or Standard are both fantastic. I don't know anything about how popular Legacy is or isn't online.

There is a "Classifieds" section online (similar to the T/A board here) where people can post 255 characters for a buylist or sales list. If you are looking for more expensive cards and are willing to wait and shop around for a good deal, then that is the way to go. However, if you want the card immediately, you can find some good bots with competitive prices. http://mtgowikiprice.com/ allows you to search for a card and it shows a list of all bots using their bot program that have the card for sale. I have found that the bots on there have the best prices overall. You may need to shop around a bit to see which ones you want to frequent.

$0.94-$0.96 is what you should expect to pay for Event Tickets (tix). I would buy from a reputable MOTLer and pay via PayPal. How many to buy is really up to your budget and how much you want to jump right into Magic Online. If you do decide to start with Pauper, then you can buy a competitive deck for 50 tix max (depending on which you want).

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/ is another good resource. Go to "Decks" --> "Metagame" --> "Pauper" to see the latest tournament-winning decklists. It also gives pricing information so you can make an educated decision which deck to buy/build.

I'm sure I'll come up with more advice, but that should be enough to get you started :-)

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