Quote (AsimovXB @ 14 Aug 2024 06:55)
I have not played the game in a couple years but here are my impressions of the formats:
Standard - Competitive to very competitive, meta cycles several times a year, card prices boom and bust.
Pauper - Usually pretty casual, cheap decks, stagnant meta, finding players can be hard.
Commander - Very popular, large deck diversity, varies between casual and competitive.
Modern - Very competitive, slowly evolving meta, can be very very expensive, often considered most "hardcore."
Draft - Low commitment way to play without heavy investment, but drafting is it's own skill entirely.
Ultimately you should decide how competitive you want to be, and then make friends with a similar mindset. Having a good group of friends to play with really makes the game more enjoyable. The best overall balance is probably commander and, as others have pointed out, there are lots of good premade commander decks to get you started.
Thanks for sharing, still not sure commander is the easiest way for beginners, simply because of the sheer number of different cards in the deck