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That's precisely why I don't play anymore.
While the statement in the OP is true, have you considered Pauper? If I understand correctly, while I haven't built a Pauper deck yet, the limitations on card rarity should make it very possible to build a strong deck without spending too much. There's also proxies, which cost a fraction of real cards and shpuld be good enough to play with
I don't know anyone else that plays Pauper, and proxies frankly suck. Honestly, I've been out of the game so long that I'm not even interested anymore.
I'm newer to Magic, and I've had to basically dig through the Discords of each shop near me to figure out what formats are played in paper there. Obviously there's plenty of Commander everywhere, but some shops lean more heavily into Modern, or Draft, Pioneer, Vintage, or even Standard. I've only had 1 opportunity to play Pauper (and it was a blast).
Still, it's the lowest price barrier for a constructed 60-card format, and it's honestly a fairly powerful and interactive format. I won a small tournament using a Gruul beatdown deck I slapped together from commons I had on hand at the time, and recently bought the pieces of a Golgari Gardens deck that cost me like $90. There's room for infinite combos, aggro decks, affinity, control, midrange, tempo, whatever you can think of (besides Planeswalker things).
I don't personally use proxies, but the quality of various printing sites has gone way up. Cards can look and feel very real, and in my opinion the best way to go about those is to use completely non-MTG art so no one ever thinks you're trying to fool someone with them. A lot of people are cool with proxies, except for sanctioned tournaments/events. As I got some of my DnD friends into Magic, it helped that they could order proxies of powerful cards for cheap, so they could learn how interesting and deep Magic can be, and now they're willing to spend their own money to start buying the game pieces they actually like.
If it's been a while, coming back to Magic may feel weird (power levels have skyrocketed over the last 5 years, apparently), but I think it's a great game that hits different sweet spots. Commander for the social aspect and self-expression. 60-card constructed for rewarding smart play and awareness of the meta. Draft for building on the fly and winning through miniscule advantages. Sealed for the degenerate gambling.
I'm well aware of what Pauper is, and all the other various formats, I played the game for 20 years starting with Fifth Edition. The point of this post is also my point: Magic is a pay-to-win game, and I got tired of paying. I've already cashed out, and I'm not going back.
What do you mean by proxies suck?
After you get them you have to play MTG
The horror.
There are some legit sites out there that let you design proxies and ones that let you print them. They also let you make your own theme decks easily.
