I have no play boating experiance but am looking to buy a play boat. I am 5’9" 136# and on a tight budget (college student). The EZG 42 was recomended to me but what about the wave sport transformer 1 (there newer and cheaper, Why?).
Any sugjestions
John
it’s old… 
The thing with playboating is that many paddlers change boats each year to get the next latest and greatest boat. That works great for cheap people like me who happily take their cast offs from them at less than half of the original price. With that said, I’m not a fan of the transformer. It has a high rear coaming which makes rolling a little uncomfortable and I think the swappable ends are a little gimmicky. The EZG 42 is a nice playboat/river-runner. It has slicey ends which are balanced for ease of learning to squirt, cartwheel, stall, etc. although it does not have the air potential of other playboats. I paddle a Riot Dominatrix 44 right now (I’m 5’8", 145 lbs) which is awesome for throwing down (cartwheels, etc.) but it will never work for learning to loop. Be sure to check out the seams on the EZG if you do decide to buy one as certain batches of kayaks had some cracking in the plastic.
The playboats I like (aside from my Riot Dominatrix and Riot Tekno) are:
Wavesport EZG - playboat/river-runner
Jackson Allstar/Star - playboat
Dagger Crazy 88 6.2 - nice and slicey playboat
Dagger Kingpin - tends to leak a bit but great playboat
I’ve also paddled the Riot Air, Liquid Logic Scooter, and a whole bunch of other playboats and each has a different feel. I’m primarily working on cartwheels and vertical stuff right now so those are the boats that I lean toward. You can definitely tell which boats are looser than others on a wave or more retentive in a hole (good for playboating, but bad for river running).
You should be able to pick up a very capable playboat for under $500. Check out Boatertalk’s Gear Swap which always has hundreds of used playboats up for sale and try out as many boats as you can. Good luck and welcome to the addiction!
Older and cheaper is fine.
I agree with Schizopak that there are lots of decent older boats out there that are fine for learning. I would add to his list:
EZ can be had for $300
Disco (but of course!) easy to find for $200-$300
You might even fit into a Wave Sort Siren, which is the smallest version of the Ace series. Being on the high end of the weight range (or beyond) makes a boat a lot easier to throw around. It presents new challenges as well, but fun challenges.