This advice applies for bulk from any set, or bulk from a specific set. It sounds like harsh advice, especially coming from me as a new player,
but my advice is that the right number of bulk commons to buy is "zero"
and it is based on having done so a couple of times. Now I sprinkle them
on various selections of better cards. There are some really great
commons, but they tend to get picked out from the bulk selections. What
makes bulk generally is what has proven to be fairly unplayable. I
elaborate.
Thought Scour and
Bump in the Night
are very playable commons....well, these are less likely to pop up than
"name a common from Saviors of Kamigawa" in a bulk selection. True than
you can limit yourself to bulk commons for a specific set, but even
there there are less than playable commons in every set, say Ravnica
City of Guilds or Shadowmoor.
A complete playset of commons (x4)
or one of each (1x) is a better alternative, but there you also get the
less than playable commons.....it sucks, but the less playable commons
just don't get played. You can try to play them the way someone can try
to eat less or walk more, but its a chore. Just like everything wrapped
in bacon tastes good, any selection of magic cards wrapped in the more
playable cards, some at common, many more at uncommon, is fun to play
ALL the time. I will take a play set of
Rancor over 200,000,000 free commons from almost any set.
