Agreed the last time i liked standard at all was after the Kami/Rav Pro Tour Honolulu when decks like Hand-in-Hand, Beachhouse rock, Gruul, Heartbeat maga and others were everywhere. Its gone significantly downhill since. I know play a majority of Commander which is where all my money goes. So eventually I may try out 100cs.

I've already make a pair of cards. Just a few questions.
Do I have to register in the forum too?
Can I use mtg images for this? They fit well, and i'm sure i won't find any vedalken nor viridian anywhere.

Yep, I'm definitely happy with the decision. I recently sold off a few more Alara staples (with intent to rebuy) to fund a set of Wastelands, so I'm well on my way. Ironically, I again find myself in need of a set of Jace, which will give me the ability to play Standard if I choose, which is nice I guess. Stupid card being relevant in every constructed format... After him, it's all downhill as I start to collect duals.

Congrats on winning, good luck judging :)

Yep, with 4x Grim Monolith and 4x Tinker the win was Platinum Angel. Get her out, then the Scepter and win!

platinum angel is the answer to the final fortune problem

Somebody buying 8 or 20 copies of a card is not a speculator, unless you are talking about power, black lotus, etc. This is a piker looking to turn a couple bucks into a couple more bucks. A real speculator would be buying up every single copy of a card on the market, which could very easily cause an increase in price, and for very good reason. If this is true, then the market is not sophisticated and is way too easy to exploit, and will continue to be exploited in this manner until it adjusts. The "value" of a card is what someone is willing to pay for it, the actual value of a card is linked directly to its rarity, and all rares have the same actual value, which is worthless. The amount that you as a consumer and the dealer or whomever is choosing to sell you the card agree upon is the intrinsic value of the card. If a dealer thought that he/she is getting ripped off they simply will choose to sell the card for a price higher than the "speculator" was willing to pay. Dealers are speculators in their own right, they buy cards for less and try to sell them for more, and while they serve a much broader purpose, speculators serve a purpose as well. Also lost in this conversation is the instances where a speculator would hoard a rare from dealers and the catalyst to move the card higher never happens, burning the speculator and leaving the dealer with his profits. Now the speculator has served a very nice purposes for the dealer, in buying up his/her entire stock of a card in short order (for the price that the dealer was advertising and willing to sell the card for) on a card that may have taken months to move if being moved at all. This is a collectible card game, if you want it to just be a card game then you have to take away the collectible nature of the game, and the game dies overnight.

Ok, I gotta know. How DO you win the game with a Final Fortune on an Isochron Scepter? Do you have another Scepter with a Stifle in it, or something?

Just want to say thanks to everyone that showed up for our first weekly Heirloom event on 9/5/10 here. I had a great time.

Links to more detail about the event here with cardlinks: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=5771777#post5771777 here to stay on puremtgo: http://puremtgo.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1996&sid=e3ccd2787670e184...

Xaoslegend-

Thanks for the comments! Discussing picks is always interesting, and I like getting different perspectives on some of the choices to expand my thinking for next time.

P1, P6 - I actually spent a fair amount of time considering between the Phantom Beast and the Stone Golem. The Golem is the safer pick, the Beast is riskier but more powerful when the risk pays off. Having just picked the Awakener Druid, I decided I was going for beating in early and hard, and the Phantom Beast fit better with that plan since it usually comes down a turn sooner. Also occasionally I might have the Awakener active, and 5 land in play. I can drop a 4 drop and still swing with the animated forest, a 5 drop means I have to either wait a turn to cast it, or skip a 4 damage attack.

I see at the moment, I was taking my third 4 drop. But going into green I like to look for the 5 & 6 drops, and I did indeed end up with three 4 drops and two 5 drops in the end. A more aggressive curve than two 4s and three 5s. Especially since I got the second Awakener. The drawback on Phantom Beast is huge when it happens during a game. (The Awakener Druid's drawback can be too!) But even when you run into someone with say 2 Blinding Mage in their deck, some games they won't draw it in time. Other games you'll be against someone with no good answer to the Beast - if you suspect they'll side one in game 2, you can swap it out for another card after you get the beatings out of him in game 1. Overall I like the card a lot, and in a format with a lot of 4 power dudes, the 5 toughness is sometimes relevant too.

P2P1 - As I said, I wish I'd made the different pick there. But bouncing a creature is relevant in games that come down to tempo, and not as great in games where tempo isn't a factor and the issues are creature power, evasion, card advantage, or who draws more threats and answers, while both players have plenty of time to get all their cards into action. Permanent removal like Outrage, though, is relevant in a tempo-oriented racing situation OR a long grind it out game, so it's better overall. Getting a free bear attached to the spell is relevant in games where bears matter, and other times not so important. I don't worry much about the free shock to the face from outrage unless I'm trying for a burn deck, which I've only done once so far and it was a black "burn" deck splashing red, basically a train wreck of a draft that went 0-3. Next time I make a burn deck I'm going to try and make it red. :D

Admittedly, the Aether Adept can also be better than the Outrage against a few cards, like Armored Ascension or Mind Control in particular. It's a flexible, tricky card that I value highly. But Chandra's Outrage has been excellent for me in decks where red's a main color. It kills Wurms really nicely, I even killed an Obstinate Baloth with it this last friday. I hadn't ruled the possibility of blue/red totally by this pick, though I was leaning green. Of course taking a blue card is totally safe and guaranteed to make my deck, if I feel like I don't know yet, which is another point in adept's favor over either the burn spell or the Garruk's Companion. Though Companion fits so nicely in an aggressive deck if I wanted to commit to that, too. I feel the Companion is a definite gamble compared to the Adept at this point, though, and 1 extra power + trample isn't as valuable as the bounce overall.

P2P3 - Llanowar Elves I've been hearing is really important to make the green fatties fast enough to make green decent, and is a really crucial part of the green deck. I do think equipment almost always has some value in most limited formats though - just a question of how much relative to other cards. Ideally if you're accelerating out the green fatties, they're out so early you just have no need for the axe to get fatal damage through or just make them lose their whole team chump-blocking for a few turns until they can't any more. Axe on your Sylvan Ranger gets you more value out of your cards if the game goes long. But green hopes for games to not go long anyway (unless you have Overwhelming Stampede!)

P2P7 - Mentally, I hadn't ruled out the possibility of switching into blue/red still. Even if it's a 2% chance I get some crazy red the first few picks of pack 3 and try that, I figure I'd like to have that hellhound just in case. With 15 reasonable players for blue/green splashing fireball and pyromancer, I'm reasonably likely to get to 22 playables and not need the bear. I read several people saying they never want vanilla 2/2s or 2/1s in M11. I've since seen people try aggro archetypes where they want a bunch of 2 drops, but green isn't involved in those strategies. I rate the unlikely chances of moving into blue/red higher than the unlikely chances of the bear being my final card. And the benefit there of a card that trades for big huge guys, or sometimes gets big hits in is higher than the benefit I get in the case where I actually need the bear. Could even get a little benefit in one of my three matches from some red drafter not having the hellhound, though that's an even more minor consideration.

P3P1 - Mana Leak is always fine to have, but I think Spined Wurm is more powerful overall. Though I'm thinking it's not as strong in M11 as it was in early core sets, where I loved it so much. Still, Mana Leak is sometimes a dead card, Spined Wurm almost always has value. In late game, your opponent not only might always have 3 extra mana, but you might both have all your threats down on the table, and if you're a creature or two behind you need a creature or removal, and nothing else stops you from being behind on board. Even Cancel would be no good at that point.

In this particular deck, too, I'm looking to play aggro, not control. So if I tap out every turn to try and overwhelm him with threats, I'm not going to have mana open for mana leak much in the early game. In a more control oriented build, the value of mana leak would be higher.

P3P2 - Augury Owl vs. Sylvan Ranger is a much closer pick, in my opinion. Both are seeking to improve the consistency of your deck, but in different ways. The owl also gets in a little flying damage, the ranger isn't likely to do more than buy you one chump block. The ranger gives you actual card advantage, the owl gives you card quality advantage, but possibly a more valuable amount of it since you're looking at so many cards. What sold me on the Ranger here is the fact that I have both Fireball and Pyromancer in the deck, and the Ranger helps guarantee I can play them any time I draw them. They're so powerful that I felt that was more important here. Of course the Owl does more to make sure you draw into your stronger cards, and that you keep the lands and appropriate-sized creatures lined up to curve out, so I think it's likely more valuable than the ranger in a two color deck, or one with a less significant splash. When you're splashing fireball, you should be able to win if you draw it, unless you don't get a mountain. So color-fixing was high priority for me here. The Ranger also helps make sure I get value from my Awakener Druids and Spined Wurms, so I like it in this deck.

P3P7 - I saw Brad Nelson at this weekend's Pro Tour pick a Cloud Elemental over a Spined Wurm, so it's definitely reasonable. When there's a ground stall, flyers are often what you need to win - or block their flyers so they don't win. Whether I'm better "maxing out" my ground beaters plan since I only have one other flyer makes any sense, I don't know. Probably it makes more sense to say "I have zero Giant Spiders and one Azure Drake, I need another flyer for air defense and for a plan B if someone has out deathtouch blockers or whatever". Also flyers are the best thing to put the axe on. So looking back, I could see Cloud Elemental here. Again, I'm used to how great Spined Wurm was in 9th and 10th edition, and there's a lot more creatures that can trade with him now.

As for jumping into white - the more whiterer your deck is, the more valuable Armored Ascension is. Even if you get enough white from just two packs to make a complete deck, it's more likely it'll be the minority color, and I'd need more islands than plains, making the ascension weaker. There was no significant white in the second half of pack one except one mighty leap. While there was some good early white in pack 3, I would have had a deck with a few strong white cards but not enough playables to make it my main color. And of course I could easily have gotten even less white than what showed up there - way too big a gamble there, and I didn't have the pack 1 signals that would make it seem tempting.

In the end, I wish my gameplay decisions had been a little tighter more than anything. But I do need to reconsider Cloud Elemental vs. Spined Wurm, I think. As always, it depends on the rest of your deck, your archetype, curve, etc. But Brad Nelson went 3-0 in his draft pod with multiple Cloud Elementals, on his way to being the last undefeated player in the tour at 11-0. (He made it to the finals, too, and finished in 2nd place!)

My reasoning wasn't that it would be easier to pick out individual cards, but more that using the deck function on MTGOtraders, you could check the price of your entire deck in 2 clicks, so it would be easy to see if your deck was still legal.

I think it's sad that RG designed the game to make booster opening akin to gambling. With the way modern Magic has developed, it would be nice to be able to highlight the strategic aspects of the game without losing out so much to luck and cost. In an ideal world, cards would have no rarity, and collecting a playset of each would be very easy, and the competitive and collectible markets would increase. As long as Magic was still fun, the player base would increase a lot, and the number of players wanting to play tournaments would sky rocket. Given the increased player based, I'm thinking WOTC would still make a ton of money if it kept selling packs for $4-5 a pop.
Of course, the player base would really need to be there. Despite being a cheap game to play casually, competitive chess died because no one wants to play tournaments that cost them $30 each when they could just play at home for free.