Thanks Raziel.  I thought about the earlier advice and ended up getting together a Ravager Affinity deck for T2.  I also just found out that Matchplay (which is minutes from my house) stopped holding the monthly T1 tournaments.  

Anyways, I still would like to try T1 so I am going to check out how to convert the Ravager deck to T1 to get my feet wet. See you at C&J once I get my deck together (I may have to get T1 singles from them too).

----Pat

I started playing MTG on and off about a year ago, playing sealed games (FNM, Pre-release).  I would like to start playing constructed but don't like to keep changing decks, so I am looking into playing T1.  I am also too old for the T2 folks!    

Anyways, I am thinking of building a POX deck as it seems reasonably cheap and suits my style of play (I love black mail, chain of smog, and unburden in Onslaught limited!).  My only concern is that I am not very familiar with cards older than Onslaught, so I have some questions.  Are there MTG newbies in T1 tournaments?  Am I better off playing T2 constructed for a while before trying T1?  Is POX competitive enough if I do my part (I don't need to win tournaments, I just don't want to be massacred all the time)?

I live near Matchplay in Mountain View, California, so I am thinking of trying out the monthly T1 tournaments there.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.