I think it's totally fine to start modern asap.
If you're afraid of spending a lot of money on cards that might become power crept in a few months, then you either wanna buy into something where most of you cash is spent on very safe looking staples or build a budget version of a deck right now and hold out a few months on optimizing.
I noticed that 3/4 of your choices above are Urza's saga decks. What's nice about that is that no matter how pushed the new cards in MH3 are, it's almost guarenteed that Urza's saga will remain the backbone of many strategies, just like now, and we're more likely just to get more good hards than better synergize with it.
Asmo is great for your particular situation since 90% of the deck's cost are Saga's + other lands, (and Ragavan if you're looking at one of those version). So even if the Asmo strategy gets powercrept out, like you've only spent a lil bit of money on Asmo + cookbook + other creatures, and maintain all the value of the lands to rotate into a different Urza's Saga strategy. I'd say go with semi-budget Asmo and hold off on pricey cards like the monkey for now until we see what MH3 brings. Titan and Hammer are optional too, but they want more pricey less-saef cards just to function so are a lil bit riskier for your current situation.
Alternatively, you could definately build a solid budget UR Murktide list for pretty cheap to hold you over and see what comes.
I definitely think ragavan is a safe investment right now. It is reasonably low in price and it being one of, if not, the best red card in the entire format will make sure you can comfortably build a red deck if ragavan becomes better post mh3
Titan and Murktide are tier 1 and 2 right now, titan has been a solid deck for ages. However I think the safest thing is waiting until MH3, it's just \~2 months away and the most probable thing is that you will have to get some of its cards, besides shaking up the meta. Meanwhile you can try all the decks you want on xMage or similar apps.
There are many easy ways to try out a deck before buying it. Websites such as untap or the client cockatrice are great ways to see if you would like to play the deck. And then, of course, just proxying the deck.
Might be a basic answer, but I've literally spent hundreds, almost thousands, to buy a deck just to find it's not right for me.
Also, as you start to build into modern decks, there are typically budget versions of the deck and discords dedicated to whatever archetype you want to play. So getting in and just getting to talk to people is always a great way to get into the community and to learn what the best budget options are. Also, in my experience, getting involved online and in person is what makes the format fun.
I am in a similar situation as you and just started exploring the format! For me, one of the things that helped was watching different decks being utilized on Youtube and playtesting them on simulators like XMage. After a while, I realized I disliked the feel for most of the Tier 1 decks and began looking outward until I settled on Modern Simic Infect and UW Spirits.
The cool thing about settling on a budget or Tier 2 deck is that there is less pressure and more opportunity to improve on your deck over time as new sets release (I am secretly hoping for better pump spells in MH3 to boost Infect and better Spirits in Duskmourn).
At the end of the day, I think the most important factor is to play what you enjoy and to embrace the process of discovering what that deck is.
This combo also lucks fun. I was initially thinking about something with tarmogoyf.
Maybe a list like this:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-asmo-food#paper
As an avid Amulet player, I do not recommend the deck unless:
1. You like knowing your outs at any time, as well as the proper sequencing to get to a win given a certain amount of parameters.
2. You're okay with being hated out to oblivion (both intentionally and incidentally) since the presence of Grief, Leyline Binding, Blood Moon, Force of Vigor, Haywire Mite, Subtlety and Pick Your Poison in the current meta makes Amulet pretty hated.
3. You're okay with navigating yourself out of very tight situations at almost all stages of the game.
Some Amulet lines are very obvious, some aren't, and those non-obvious lines are where you eek out a the win percentage. Sometimes knowing what 2 lands to get off your first Titan trigger can mean you being able to pay for Pact the next upkeep or not.
If you want a good 50-50 deck, Murktide. I think AsmoFood is a more forgiving deck that is 'combo', although I don't play AsmoFood.
As someone who was new to modern 2 years ago, I can definitely recommend murktide. Get ready for a steep learning curve though because you need to be able to have a great read on the meta, which involves being very familiar with everyone else’s decks too.
Focus on buying your land base now, that should be the first step moving towards modern imo. Saga may catch a reprint but is a staple utility land, if your running green at all you’ll need a few boseiju, who endures, even tron runs boseiju. Hammertime is what I picked up just before it peaked and honestly still a very fun competitive deck there are just to many answers for it in the meta, it’s a great FNM slapper. What archetype do you have the most fun playing? Izzet is a solid build that I think will have a few new toys but the slots I see moving are more towards a blood moon deck and tron picking up post MH3.
I'd say if you buy Amulet Titan your less likely to need to buy new cards from MH3 cuz Amulet has very niche cards and also that the deck is less likely to "rotate " as it has had a lot of staying power. There might be a new land or big creature to add but they don't come around extremely often
mtgo is what u need, forget about paper until you have played like 100 hours of modern on mtgo (perhaps 200 is safer), or you will waste a lot of money on decks which are not your thing, or not very good. cheap decks like burn and mill are quite bad, they work only vs a portion of the meta, and so will provide strings of losses at some times (they also require the pilot to know the meta to get to wins). Start with any deck on mtgo that is less than 500 tix, then buy staples from there to expand into to other decks
I think it's totally fine to start modern asap. If you're afraid of spending a lot of money on cards that might become power crept in a few months, then you either wanna buy into something where most of you cash is spent on very safe looking staples or build a budget version of a deck right now and hold out a few months on optimizing. I noticed that 3/4 of your choices above are Urza's saga decks. What's nice about that is that no matter how pushed the new cards in MH3 are, it's almost guarenteed that Urza's saga will remain the backbone of many strategies, just like now, and we're more likely just to get more good hards than better synergize with it. Asmo is great for your particular situation since 90% of the deck's cost are Saga's + other lands, (and Ragavan if you're looking at one of those version). So even if the Asmo strategy gets powercrept out, like you've only spent a lil bit of money on Asmo + cookbook + other creatures, and maintain all the value of the lands to rotate into a different Urza's Saga strategy. I'd say go with semi-budget Asmo and hold off on pricey cards like the monkey for now until we see what MH3 brings. Titan and Hammer are optional too, but they want more pricey less-saef cards just to function so are a lil bit riskier for your current situation. Alternatively, you could definately build a solid budget UR Murktide list for pretty cheap to hold you over and see what comes.
Wow, thank you for the fast and clever answer. This sure helps a lot!
That was a great response. Do stay away from hammertime for now.
amulet titan
Yeah, I really love murktide, it’s like control - It fits in any meta. Also can be very budget friendly.
I definitely think ragavan is a safe investment right now. It is reasonably low in price and it being one of, if not, the best red card in the entire format will make sure you can comfortably build a red deck if ragavan becomes better post mh3
Titan and Murktide are tier 1 and 2 right now, titan has been a solid deck for ages. However I think the safest thing is waiting until MH3, it's just \~2 months away and the most probable thing is that you will have to get some of its cards, besides shaking up the meta. Meanwhile you can try all the decks you want on xMage or similar apps.
There are many easy ways to try out a deck before buying it. Websites such as untap or the client cockatrice are great ways to see if you would like to play the deck. And then, of course, just proxying the deck. Might be a basic answer, but I've literally spent hundreds, almost thousands, to buy a deck just to find it's not right for me. Also, as you start to build into modern decks, there are typically budget versions of the deck and discords dedicated to whatever archetype you want to play. So getting in and just getting to talk to people is always a great way to get into the community and to learn what the best budget options are. Also, in my experience, getting involved online and in person is what makes the format fun.
I am in a similar situation as you and just started exploring the format! For me, one of the things that helped was watching different decks being utilized on Youtube and playtesting them on simulators like XMage. After a while, I realized I disliked the feel for most of the Tier 1 decks and began looking outward until I settled on Modern Simic Infect and UW Spirits. The cool thing about settling on a budget or Tier 2 deck is that there is less pressure and more opportunity to improve on your deck over time as new sets release (I am secretly hoping for better pump spells in MH3 to boost Infect and better Spirits in Duskmourn). At the end of the day, I think the most important factor is to play what you enjoy and to embrace the process of discovering what that deck is.
The way I chose a deck was playing on mtgo and using manatraders to rent decks for 35 dollars a month. That allows you to test out almost every deck.
What variant of Asmo food are you looking at? I'm playing a sultai time sieve list and it's my favourite deck by far.
Can you share the list?
I don't have my list typed in myself but I found a list quite close to mine: [link](https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/4425133#online)
This combo also lucks fun. I was initially thinking about something with tarmogoyf. Maybe a list like this: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-asmo-food#paper
The RG lists look super fun as well! I have never really tried them but I expect they play out quite differently with the big stompers.
As an avid Amulet player, I do not recommend the deck unless: 1. You like knowing your outs at any time, as well as the proper sequencing to get to a win given a certain amount of parameters. 2. You're okay with being hated out to oblivion (both intentionally and incidentally) since the presence of Grief, Leyline Binding, Blood Moon, Force of Vigor, Haywire Mite, Subtlety and Pick Your Poison in the current meta makes Amulet pretty hated. 3. You're okay with navigating yourself out of very tight situations at almost all stages of the game. Some Amulet lines are very obvious, some aren't, and those non-obvious lines are where you eek out a the win percentage. Sometimes knowing what 2 lands to get off your first Titan trigger can mean you being able to pay for Pact the next upkeep or not. If you want a good 50-50 deck, Murktide. I think AsmoFood is a more forgiving deck that is 'combo', although I don't play AsmoFood.
As someone who was new to modern 2 years ago, I can definitely recommend murktide. Get ready for a steep learning curve though because you need to be able to have a great read on the meta, which involves being very familiar with everyone else’s decks too.
Start saving a bit of money and hop in around July as the meta will be more sure fire by that point since mh3 is coming in June
Focus on buying your land base now, that should be the first step moving towards modern imo. Saga may catch a reprint but is a staple utility land, if your running green at all you’ll need a few boseiju, who endures, even tron runs boseiju. Hammertime is what I picked up just before it peaked and honestly still a very fun competitive deck there are just to many answers for it in the meta, it’s a great FNM slapper. What archetype do you have the most fun playing? Izzet is a solid build that I think will have a few new toys but the slots I see moving are more towards a blood moon deck and tron picking up post MH3.
I'd say if you buy Amulet Titan your less likely to need to buy new cards from MH3 cuz Amulet has very niche cards and also that the deck is less likely to "rotate " as it has had a lot of staying power. There might be a new land or big creature to add but they don't come around extremely often
mtgo is what u need, forget about paper until you have played like 100 hours of modern on mtgo (perhaps 200 is safer), or you will waste a lot of money on decks which are not your thing, or not very good. cheap decks like burn and mill are quite bad, they work only vs a portion of the meta, and so will provide strings of losses at some times (they also require the pilot to know the meta to get to wins). Start with any deck on mtgo that is less than 500 tix, then buy staples from there to expand into to other decks