Where to go for "noob" information

[overlordZ]

I need some help understanding what I'm doing wrong. My brother got a starter kit (it was this big white box that had lots of cards in it) and we have been play each other for the last week. So far we've played around 15 times and I haven't won once. Right now I'm trying a "Red-White deck" because it was one of the combos listed on the foldout that came with the cards. I'm trying to follow that general idea (get creatures out and buff them up) but I cannot seem to be able to keep my guys on the field. My brother is able to just kill anyone I bring up before I'm even able to buff them. I assume that I'm just not playing this kind of deck right but I cannot find a general "tips and tricks" or just how to build a deck properly.

I realize you guys probably have better things to do than help a helpless noob but any sort of advice would be welcome.

[Lord Hosk]

if you can get to a LGS (local gaming store) and explain that you have been introduced to magic but really want to learn it better im sure you will find a lot of players and or the store owner willing to help you out.

The best times to go would be early in the day when there are no events scheduled. Most stores open between 10 AM and Noon but nothing really starts happening until 4 or 5 in the afternoon. http://locator.wizards.com/ This will help you find a store.

Another area you could look into is if you have a local college or university, most will have players around if you drop cards on the table in the student union/common area or if you talk to the "student activities" department.

If in person is not a option, Try Magic 2015 2014 or whatever version, formerly called Duels of the planeswalkers. The ruleset is streamlined a little and Deck building can be taken care of for you.

Also you can download Magic the gathering online and play a selection of free intro decks without even signing up for an account.

[fantôme]

As the previous post ably demonstrates, this forum is another excellent resource of advice - if any of the other options are not available to you. I've gotten a lot of different ideas and insight about the game from browsing here.

What creatures are in your deck, and what spells do you keep losing them to?

[overlordZ]

Thank you for the answers. I'm not really sure how to say what monsters are in my deck but I can try to give a couple examples as to what i have in mind for my deck. I am playing a White-red and he is playing a green black. My first thing I try to get out is cheap but efficient monsters (ones that seem to cost little and give good att/def)
example; borderlands marauder, Bladetusk boar, krenko's enforcer,nyx fleece ram, Ajani's pridemate, oreskos swiftclaw.(I have more monsters but I figure that should be a good example of the kind of stuff i have.)
I then have 2 more expensive monsters that i use to try to challenge some of the big guys that he plays ; stoneshock giant and aegis angle. (they don't see much play but they have saved me a couple times).

Once the cheap monsters are out I try to start putting buffs onto them
exp;thunderous might, fall of hammer, sunbound, mortal obstinacy, chosen of heliod and inferno fist.

The problem is that even though I try to only get creatures that can get good fast and not bother with big monsters my brother is able to play monsters that seem to be so much more powerful (i can play a 2/2 with 2 magic but he can play a 3/3). Plus it feels like he can scale better than I can. I had a pretty good game going managed to last 7 turns when he played a monster called nightmare(?) which was a 7/7 and I had nothing that could even hope to compete with that and lost 3 turns later. I know I need more ways to damage him with spells but the only ones i have seem very weak (magma spray) or have very powerful spells that are almost overkill but cost me LOTS of mana to use (divine verdict, banishing light).
To be honest I have no idea why I am even loosing so much, I understand that this is a complicated game to fully wrap your head around, but it just seems like he has just better cards than I can ever hope to use. However that seems like it would be a weird thing for a prepackaged starter kit to have one deck that is just way more powerful than the other decks.

sorry for the long post once again any general or specific advice is welcomed!

[susu.exp]

Hmm, it seems you and your brother are sharing a Deckbuilders Toolkit. Now, I think a better place to start would have been a clashpack or duel decks (both of which have balanced Decks that help you get the hang of the game and showcase different styles of play), or the M15 sample decks, which you can often get for free as a newcomer to the game at your gaming store.

The DBTK offers you a lot of cards, which allow you to fill out a deck. But most of the cards in there aren't the best (to put it mildly). More importantly, they only help you if you have an idea of what your deck is going to do and some other cards that go in this direction. The 4 boosters that are included are meant as such a starter (and given the low price of the kit that's actually OK). There are also some semi-random portions, which go into the particular strategies.
The same applies to the guide provided, it's meant as a starter to inspire basic deck ideas. The problem (and the best case scenario for advise would of course have us see the cards you have available as well as both your and your brothers deck) seems to be one of the fundamentals of Magic:
For a deck to win it needs to be a bit stronger than the opposition or a lot faster.
Now, your deck is a bit weaker than your brothers, but only a bit faster(if at all). That gives your brothers deck the edge.
The idea of the Red-White deck (Boros is often used as a Magicese term) is to make use of the Heroic Mechanic, which provides you with something on top whenever you use a card that targets your creatures. But to make use of this synergy you need to have both a lot of heroic creatures and ways to target them (Stanislav Cifka used such a Deck to make it into the Top 8 of the Journey into Nyx Protour - the deck has not really made a big splash in standard, since some other synergies in Red and White became more prominent since).
That deck is very Aggro (hence a lot faster than other decks) and Cifkas version has 20 Lands, 20 Creatures and 20 other spells. A Full 12 of his creatures and 16 of his spells cost 1 mana. In a deck like that you need to play a creature on your first turn. And then a creature or two on the second turn. You all out attack and try to win before your opponent has really started to play. Cards like Sunbond, Chosen by Heliod, Nyxfleece Ram and even most of your more aggressive Red creatures are just too slow.

Your brother seems to be playing mono black (his 3/3 for 1B is a defender and thus can't attack, which is why it is so cheap), otherwise his Nightmare wouldn't be a 7/8 or 6/7.

The list of cards in the DBTK alsong with the semi-random parts (4 of 11 10 card chunks) can be found at http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Deck_ ... olkit_2015

If you had both the mono-black devotion and the WB lifegain parts (possibly even the BG graveyard or Minotaurs) then a black deck seems rather potent (well, anything that's mono black and has Garry in it in that restricted set of cards is bound to be more solid than most other options).

That being said, how much Land do you play? Maybe we can massage that Boros deck into shape a bit.

[LokiTheLiar]

MTG: Duels of Planeswalkers is a good way to learn how to play too.

To protect your creatures from getting killed you can use cheap spells like Gods Willing or Ajani's Presence. They are well suited for your deck's strategy since they can buff your Heroic creatures too.

[overlordZ]

Thank you for all the answers, this helped a lot
Looks like I'm going to have to figure out where the nearest game store is hahaha.

[AdmiralMemo]

Oh yes... I actually highly recommend Duels 2014... It's probably the most-polished of the series with the most options. (They took several things that were good for learning out in Duels 2015.)