Very new and interested in starting collecting and dueling in my spare time. I'd love any tips I can get
Well, lets start with step one. Do you know how to play, and do you have a deck?
If you don't have a deck, try getting your hands on a pre-constructed one. They're great for learning how to play the game, and generally don't have many complicated mechanics. I suggest taking a look at the Rules section if you'd like to learn how to play. The stickied posts there have the rules for playing, an FAQ by yours truly, and a link to the basic rulebook. This place is a great place to learn! Check out the stickied posts here in General Discussion as well, everything from a Chat Room to how to use the forums is there; it'll do you good to check them out. Also, take a loom at Xaol's post "Teaching my girlfriend" as it has a lot of great suggestions by the community in how to teach a new player. And most important of all: Ask questions! There's a lot to learn in MtG, beyond the basics. If you have any questions, feel free to post them!
Are you interested in deck building or winning? To start off, you can get a deck builders toolkit from walmart for about $20
Quote from: Wackaman9001 on April 08, 2013, 02:09:23 PM
get a deck builders toolkit from walmart for about $20
Do this I got one as my secon pack of cards (the first was the {G}/{W} innistrad theme deck) and it was very good!
Build your land collection. I've found out the hard way that trading duel and shock lands away has kept me from moving into to deck ideas because I didn't have the mana base.
Know the value of your cards so you won't get screwed trading with people at your local game store.
Buying singles can save you alot of money. Shop around on eBay, tcg player, and star city games.
YouTube has a pretty cool magic community. You can watch deck techs, trade, learn to speculate or check out matches.
I hope this was helpful.