shengji VS Cockatrice

Check our Cockatrice.

I'd suggest going to any deck browsing site (like https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/pioneer/full#paper) and glancing at the top decks and seeing which one interests you. It's okay to post and ask questions about decks if you're not sure how one works (I personally struggled understanding how legacy control decks can seem to run 0 win conditions but also have no issues winning games for instance). When you find a deck you're interested in you can find a discord for that deck or make a post to ask questions and be sure you want to play it. There are also online tools to help you play for free with any deck like https://cockatrice.github.io/ and similar, so you can try the deck online if you'd like

Props for your resourcefulness, but you could just use Cockatrice, or XMage.

Go to https://cockatrice.github.io/ and download the software, installing it afterwards;

Cockatrice can do that, configured for magic by default if i remember correctly. Youll have to cough up image files for different card sets.

There is a client and a server, so not super easy, but not hard if you have any sysadmin experience. I had a server up for almost a year once

https://github.com/Cockatrice/Cockatrice

https://cockatrice.github.io/ - haven't used this too much myself but this one does have built in servers and decent controls

My favorite is Cockatrice even though you sound like a mostly in person seeking fellow. It is a web application that is like a card game simulator, it plays magic and can auto update to show you card images, doesn't cost a dime and theoretically could play other games like Android Netrunner if you really wanted to, downside is it sometimes changes domains if the authorities try and shut it down, but the last one https://cockatrice.github.io/ has been around a while. also no rules enforcement, but upside is play any format including some weirdness like "bring your own standard" from any era or tiny leaders, the all less than 3 mv commander played 1v1