While the statement in the OP is true, have you considered Pauper? If I understand correctly, while I haven't built a Pauper deck yet, the limitations on card rarity should make it very possible to build a strong deck without spending too much. There's also proxies, which cost a fraction of real cards and shpuld be good enough to play with
I don't know anyone else that plays Pauper, and proxies frankly suck. Honestly, I've been out of the game so long that I'm not even interested anymore.