[MichaelGG]

Yeah I tried to get back into it a couple years ago, because it is a cool game. But it was just simply no fun to play; it's obviously a game that mainly relies on being able to spend a lot of money buying power. Even at a tiny little shop, everyone had these insane combos and whatnot. Really impossible to win against without investing a lot.

[defen]

Draft! 3 unopened booster packs per person. Everyone opens up a pack, picks a card, and passes to the right. Keep doing that until all the cards are gone. Then everyone opens a new deck, and passes to the left this time. Repeat for the third deck, going right. Minimum deck size is 40. This eliminates any sort of monetary advantage and privileges people who can come up with good deck combinations on the fly.

[caf]

If you like the deckbuilding mechanic without the collectible aspect, you might like games like Dominion.

[defen]

Huge Dominion fan :)

[foobarian]

If it's just between friends, why not use self-printed cards and put some reasonable limits on number of powerful cards? The images must be available online somewhere.

[wahnfrieden]

Try playing draft, instead.

[mhomde]

I wouldn't say that's true (unless things have changed since I played). There are some decks that are dependent on many rare and expensive cards... but its also possible to build killer decks on common/uncommon cards with perhaps a few rare ones.

Deck construction really is one of the more creative aspects of MtG where you can create new kinds decks or twists on old ones