Has Standard Become Too Expensive?

I don't think you are imagining it.

At the moment in Standard there are some very high value cards - Courser of Kruphix, Elspeth etc - which some of the most successful decks are built around. It is a natural thing that decks made up by the pro's after many hours of testing will be strong. It is another natural thing that people will want to copy those decks in the hopes that they can pilot them to the same type of success

(having the skill to do so is another thing. I remember beating a guy who had the Innistrad / RtR Jund deck to the very card the same as the one that won a GP the week before - I destroyed him with a Boros Aggro deck based around 21 creatures with Haste, Reckoners & Hellriders. Just because he didn't know how to actually USE the deck he'd copied. He should have stamped me into the ground...)

However, with the exclusion of Rabblemaster (which I pulled on the pre-release - woot) the current mono-red aggro deck which is top 8-ing at a number of high level tournaments at the moment is worth less than about £20, including a set of sleeves.

The W/U heroic deck that is starting to gain pace can be put together for a similar cost.

My mono-black heroic deck has a few £4 cards in it but is still worth less than £30 and was built out of the things I had left over from the various pre-releases / prize packs etc that I had.

Then we have Abzan which can indeed cost between £80 - £100+ depending on what you have in it.

So I guess it's really a matter of perspective. I would say that you do still have a budget option when playing in standard. There will always be decks that are not hideously expensive but have the potential to win - however they will have flaws. Mono-black aggro can lack reach, W/U heroic doesn't like boardwipes or aggro decks that try to race it and mono-red needs to kill you quickly or it looses it's puff - it really doesn't like Bile Blight either.

The more expensive decks - moving through mono-green into Abzan / Sultai etc can perhaps be best described as 'less flawed'. In that they have less weaknesses rather than more strengths. The various 'whip' decks can find ways to push damage through later on that other decks don't have but at the cost of sometimes stalling on mana base (even with fetches) and needing more thought into which card to play when.

So I guess it's really 'what do you want to achieve'? If you are desperate to win or come top 3 in your FNM then yes - you will probably need to pay out and work in the netdecks of the pros - and pay through the nose to do that (my comments elsewhere about the new rotation schedule nonwithstanding)

If you just want a good night playing with a deck that is capable of winning - even against the big decks - then it can be done for less money, although there will still be a cost to it.

If you are a kid starting out and aren't working and are reliant on pocket money / allowance then there may be some issues - especially as cards rotate and parents might not be happy to buy something that will lose value. However one of the cheaper decks is probably achieveable and there may be people at the local game store that can suggest cheaper cards that will work (albeit less effectively) in a deck - or even help with building decks to compete with.

I do think perhaps that at that end of the spectrum it is difficult to get into 'competative' magic - even at FNM level - if your store is used by people who do attend things like GPT's / PTQ's etc. However the event decks might provide a reasonable starting place for someone trying it out.

It's a difficult question and one that I find hard to answer because I'm definitely not 14 anymore and I'm working so I can buy cards etc. I guess compared to games for an Xbox One or PS4 you could buy a powerful deck for as much as it would cost to buy 2 games??

Yeah, long answer which basically says "I don't know"