HyggeState Yeah their new player onboarding is quite bad unfortunately.
Can’t recommend much as far as paper onboarding outside of prerelease sealed events where everyone gets a bunch of packs of the new set and try to build a deck with them. They’re run by basically all local game stores and it’s a great opportunity to get out and meet folks and learn the new set together. The next one will be in November when the new dinosaur themed set drops.
On Arena I recommend starting out playing either Standard or Draft. Standard is the lowest powered format which means it’s easier to win with the cards you have, and Draft is the best value proposition given the economy on Arena (it’s also the best format, but taste varies and some people are wrong).
For Standard the best decks that can be made with mostly commons are Mono Blue Tempo and Mono Red Aggro. Both these decks only need basic lands, unlike multicolor decks that need a lot of rare dual lands and that lowers the entry cost considerably in both paper and online. Mono Blue Tempo tries to land a cheap threat on turn one (like Delver of Secrets, which can turn into a 3 power flyer if you top deck an instant or sorcery) and then tries to not let the opponent cast anything by countering their spells and by casting card draw spells to refill their hand whenever their opponent takes a turn without casting anything. Mono Red Aggro tries to play a lot of 1 and 2 mana creatures and attack the other player as fast as possible, trying to play all of your cheap cards before the opponent can cast their expensive cards. Both of these decks can be built with just commons and uncommons. Here’s some example deck lists, the rares can be replaced by whatever you have access to as long as the cards you’re using as replacements are very cheap. Neither deck ever wants to have a card that costs more than 3 mana, and even that is pushing it, as they win based on their efficiency
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-mono-blue-tempo-mid
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/standard-mono-red-aggro-mid
Alternatively you can draft, which is how I play. You and 7 other people open booster packs, pick a card, then pass the rest of the pack to your neighbor. Three packs are opened this way per player, and they use the cards they picked plus any number of basic lands to construct a deck. The reason I like this format so much is people aren’t limited by how much money they have and how many cards they can buy. The only thing that matters is how well you can read signals, how well you can construct a deck, and how well you can play. If you’re going this route I recommend whatever quick draft is currently available on Arena. Quick drafts have you draft against bots so you can take as much time reading all the cards as you want before picking one without stalling the flow of a human draft. The entry on arena is also lower, and you can usually get close to enough gold for one by completing the daily tasks Arena gives you, like play 50 lands or attack with 20 creatures or what not. Any cards you draft you get to keep, and even if you lose all your games you’ll get at least one pack as a reward, and sometimes enough digital currency to play another one, making it by far the best way to get cards economically, much better than opening packs you purchase from the store. There’s also a metric ton of content out there on how to draft and what to draft, pocasts like Limted Level Ups, Lords of Limited, and Drafting Archetypes come out weekly with the latest strategies to try to draft towards, underrated cards, etc. It’s also basically the only format where commons matter, so you get to play more of the cards than you do in a format like Historic, which has all the cards on Arena but the only cards you’ll ever see are the 100 or so best.
