Hey! Welcome over to MtG!
First thing to know about MtG, its a high-powered game. Under the axiom that "if everything's broken, nothing is."
LotR I would consider a middle-powered game, whereas other card games such as Redemption are low-powered.
So if you discover an AWESOME COMBO, chances are, it really isn't, it'll get killed by the first D-Storm/Bogardan Hellkite combo that comes around, or possibly countered into oblivion (or actually knocked out by Oblivion Rings) by U/B control.
So, now that that's said, I learned to play on the MtG tutorial. It really is great.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/products/LearnToPlayMagic.zipRundown on colors.
Blue- Color of the Mind. Very much controlish. Sometimes referred to as "permission" decks, this color runs all the counterspells. You decide what your opponent does.
White- Color of Justice. These decks are usually aggro, although they have a control element to them.
Red- Color of Fire. Basically, blast, slam, smash, and otherwise demolish your way to victory.
Black- Color of Deception. Pretty much, you do mean things to your opponent, life loss, etc. Perhaps the most popular deck is disruption- translation- your opponent no longer has any cards in hand to play.
Green- Color of Nature. Can you say, BIG? The point of green is to get big guys hitting hard. That's pretty much it. Since big guys cost a lot of mana, you also have a lot of mana-accelerating in this color.
Decktypes-
Aggro- Smash your opponent hard and fast.
Control- The match is played at your pace, usually slowly.
Combo- Get a certain card combination to go off, scoring an auto-win.
Anyways...
