How did I miss this topic.
I LOVE MtG. Since college started I've had to quit (temporary break), but I plan to get back into it at some point. The shop I play at back home has some good players that play there, so while I haven't actually placed well (lack of money to invest in a good deck) I do know how to play on an almost tier 1 level and I'm fairly competent at building decks. However, a lot of this comes from playing with my friend who has actually taken the next step and started playing in regional competitions and placed well. He regularly gets 1st in FNM if that's any indication of his skill.
I don't play it too seriously myself, but I just recently made a green/artifact deck from some of my friend's cards.
Let's just say that I feel like a douche when I play primordial hydra and predator ooze by the 4th turn.


You should be able to play those at a much faster speed. For example:
Turn 1: Forest, Llanowar Elves
Turn 2: Forest, Predator Ooze
Turn 3: Forest, Primordial Hydra, Swing with the Ooze for 2, Main Phase 2 drop the Primordial Hydra with 2 counters
Turn 4: Upkeep the Hydra becomes a 4/4, Swing for 7 total.
Turn 5: Hydra becomes a 8/8, Swing for 12, GG
Take into account that that is considering they don't block.
Anyway, what formats do you all play? I goofed around with Magic until the M11 Gameday, which is when I started playing the Standard format. That would mean I started played during the Alara and Zendikar blocks. I played through the entire Scars block until M12 came out, which is when I got more into EDH (Which is my favorite format and I highly recommend). I wanted to get into the Modern format, but I needed to save money for college, so I haven't started building decks for that yet. Plus, nobody here (that I know) plays MtG, nor are they very interested in that sort of thing, which is disappointing. Out of the new sets, I've seen most the cards from Innistrad and few of the cards from Dark Ascension, so I'm not really sure what the "good" cards are for those sets.
Anyway, I'd be more than happy to start posting my different decklist ideas and such here if you would like reading them. My friend is really competitive in his builds and loves green, so I could post his lists if anyone would like. They are in the Standard format and tier 1 level, so the cards aren't that cheap. I am not very competitive, so I tend to build fun budget decks that generally win through some sort of gimmick. One of my better examples of this is my
Infectious Dancing deck. To give you a quick rundown of a perfect game:
Perfect Opening Hand: Pulse Tracker, 2 Flayer Husks, Demon of Death's Gate, 2 Swamps, Tainted Strike.
Turn 1: Swamp, Pulse Tracker
Turn 2: Swamp, Swing with Pulse Tracker for 2, play both Flayer Husks, sack all 3 creatures and 6 life to play Demon of Death's Gate
Turn 3: Swing with the Demon of Death's Gate, pump it with Tainted Strike for 10 infect and the win.
Keep in mind that this was when CawBlade suffered the loss of Jace, so I was generally able to stick the demon before they could really do anything to stop me (especially when I played first). If they were able to counter the Tainted Strike, I would still win within the next 2 turns with regular damage or nicely timed Sign in Blood allowing them to draw.