Can anyone direct me to a website where I can see what's new and everything? Or what has been new with every new pack? Last time I played was 2005ish

Wikipedia is actually a pretty good place to look... Start with the list of sets here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...Gathering_sets

Follow links on individual set names to get descriptions of new mechanics, etc etc.

I recommend just focusing on what's in standard or even just learning the latest sets by playing limited with them online.

+1 on the sparksmith thing but Timberwatch got a lot worse when it became OLS (vs OOL). Scourge green is balls. IIRC the colors basically go:

Red: The nuts in O, ok in Legions and terrible in S
Green: ok in O, ok with one bomb common in L and atrocious in S
Black: ok in O, the nuts in L and S
Blue: Terrible in O, awesome in L, ok in S. You better have good off-color removal or a ton of flyers.
White: ok in all three. You better have good off-color removal or a ton of flyers

Are there any good strat books for Magic? Anything like a Watkinson or Harrington for us?

Maybe Chapin's book? That would be the only one, if even that. I don't know how successful he was at pulling it off, though.

Flores had a book right?

Same here, really interested in like some service / site or book that goes in depth at analysing situations and teaches you how to think correctly about the game.

Cash games have like EV analysis street to street, Magic should have that too.

I read the Flores book called Deckade when it was first released 5-6 years ago. It was a solid read and I learned a bit of overall strategy theory from it.

I have not read Chapin's book yet, but I've heard good things about it and was literally just talking about it with some people at FNM tonight that really enjoyed it.

I read chapins book and didn't find it to informative. I think the problem with magic is that it is nearly impossible to formulate into a general theory because the interactions of cards is constantly changing and therefore almost every answer to "what should I do when facing this situation" is that "it depends". Outside of a few core concepts that amount to magic 101 like tempo, card advantage, combat math, there is very little strategy that can be generalized and applied to multiple situations. When authors do try to generalize you get garbage like Sullivan's philosophy of fire that Flores recently wrote about, vague theories that might seem to apply to your specific situation but in reality don't.

Reading chapins book felt like a total exercise in this kind of strategizing. Pulling theories from past environments and claiming they can be applied as a general theory to any format. Not only is this strategizing not very useful it might actually be harmful if it makes players start to think there is some automatic answer to their particular situation.

From an RL draft last night:

"I attack for 4"
"block"
"can't, it's unblockable"
"Wha? I just saw a bunch of one-drops and assumed they were terrible!"

I love M13 black.

I bet it was attack, exhaled triggers, then you tried to block.

Well I was the one attacking but yeah. Tormented Soul + Duty-bound dead + servant of nefarox

So I've qualified for the online season 8 championship which is Legacy. I don't really have any cards and usually only play limited but would like to play. Does anyone have any deck recommendations for me or better yet a deck I can borrow to play? The tournament is August 18th.

If I have to buy the cards for the deck myself, I guess cost would be an issue and I would probably look at playing something cheaper like goblins. What resources are out there for me to research the format and what I might want to play/possible deck prices?

For fun and cheap legacy deck try Zombies. (I think it was by Sam Black but might be wrong. You should be able to find it from scg)