Both of them are losing propositions. The price of cards is linked to the price of booster boxes, if you open a statistically relevant number of booster cases you'll lose money.
Same with any casino game.
If you have a lot of money that you are trying to "win" money back from, your best bet the stock market or putting it in the bank.
I also played back in the day and remember slow rolling stone rain to beat chasm. This card is not very fun to play against and it slowed the game down, something wizards doesn't like to do these days. I believe that dark depths may be printed as the cover art as making a giant flying monstrosity, is more in line with current set design then " Creatures Can't attack."
FTV cards don't wind up in any format they weren't already legal in so nobody gives a **** about being in line with current set design.
Wasteland is a stable of any form of Legacy beatdown decks (with the exception of affinity and zoo, but those don't see much play)
LED is a stable of any form of combo deck (with the exception of reanimator and high tide)
If you know which one you want to play, i can tell you the answer.
The word you're looking for is "staple," not stable.
I have a set of tempest wastelands. It is good to see the response that this question got. One more thing do people think that wastelands are going to go up in price because of Cavern of Souls.
You know tempest was the only set wasteland was printed in, right? Everything else is a promo.
LED is on the reserve list, so it won't be reprinted, so supply can't affect its price. Wasteland is not on the reserve list, and could see more printings in the future - it would be very possible for them to put them in the planechase decks, for example, or other non-set card releases. I'll mention FTV:Lands here - FTV sets don't increase the supply significantly, and historically the only cards that have been affected by price are cards that see very little play - Mox Diamond being the one I can recall off the top of my head.
If you want to play dredge and you don't want to play a deck with wastelands (and I don't get why anyone would want to play The Gate anyways :)), then get the card you want for the deck you want.
I've played a number of hard control decks in Standard (was playing UBg with 3 batterskulls and two drownyards as my wincons) and I play lands in legacy. I've never had a tournament where I've gone to time in 3 rounds, and I've only had it happen once back when turboland was in Standard, and the second one was because my opponent was slow playing and killed 10 minutes in game 3 mulling to 2.
The problem isn't your deck, it's you. Play faster.
Academy Ruins and Buried Ruin... I see academy ruins used pretty frequently, why is this? wouldnt it be better to have the artifact go straight back to our hand for a colorless activation cost? I run buried ruin in W Stax and it is pretty incredible for recurring wurmcoils, smokestacks, countered chalices and 3spheres, tangle wire etc.
Land drops are more important than the virtual card draw. With Loam you can draw multiple cards per turn (either virtual card draws by getting three lands, or actual card draws/tutors by getting tranquil thicket/tolaria west), but you have very few land drops per turn.
This is not true at all, keep it up and I'm sure plenty of people will start to enjoy your content, I love casual decks... just saying.
It's one thing if the deck is doing something interesting or unique, but this is a largely unsynergistic pile of mill cards with the key synergy being harrow+hedron crab which was printed in the same set on purpose.
This isn't a casual vs tournament argument, it's that this deck isn't an interesting deck - it's His Mill Deck Which He Made From Cards He Owned Already.
Sorry bro, I turned it off after about 30 seconds, I just really couldn't get into it. It's obviously a pet deck, you go out of the way to explain it as a pet deck, and the reality is no one cares about your pet decks but you.
I've returned three standard decks and a legacy deck. I almost regretted returning the legacy deck (it was at an SCG Open, I had to bring it to a judge and have them call up the guys from the table next to me, because I knew the opponent's face but not the person whose deck it actually was' face), not because of the money, but because of the sweaty fat guy hug he gave me upon getting his deck back.
I do what I would hope someone would do for me, if I can't be arsed to do it, why would anyone else?
Then I would recommend talking to the store owner about finding someone to assist with tournaments who can devote their attention to properly running the tournament.
This is a great idea if you live in an area where your tournament is more than 8 people, but the OP specified that it's a very small attendance tournament. There's only so far you can push the ideal.
The penalty for slow play is a warning, but the penalty for stalling is DQ as it's cheating, and the real question here is whether the OP was stalling or not, which is something anyone can't really make a legit judgment on, having not been there.
My suspicion is that he was intentionally playing slowly, but trying to play slowly without appearing to do so, hence him justifying that he never took more than X time - when you're paying attention to the clock like that you're definitely playing to it.
Binary that judge is usually running the counter and not watching the tournament. No tournament organizer/head judge for a no-judge event is going to stop working to watch a whole match for slow play.
If your opponent was asking you to hurry up and play faster throughout the match, then I would definitely say you were in the wrong. You went in with the intent to slow the game down and when you are describing your behavior in the amount of time you're spending in each phase then you're definitely aware and playing to the clock.
The guy was pretty nice about it, but especially in these situations where there isn't a judge to watch for intentional slow play I think it's a dick move to try to stretch the game out.
Can you post the full puzzle? I don't really feel like booting up DotP12 and examining the board and then guessing what plays you made outside of attacking with a dragon.
on a more realistic note i'd save defense for the sideboard if your against aggro.
other option is tooth and nail for the big stuff. definitely less than emrakul, or even a big green suns zenith.
chord of calling actaully has been on my mind lately as a possible green sun's zenith replacement alternative.
it is instant speed so if we ramped into 5 mana it should be easy to end of an opponents turn slip an extra argothian enchantress on to the field.
then late game if you draw it or additional one, it could tutor up any big creature we want for kills with sanctum online.
If you want more enchantresses, I think Living Wish is a better option, as it also lets you find sanctums, wastelands, tabernacles, and karakas if you need them. 5 mana enchantresses just seem terrible.
I really don't see why people are focused on making the deck kill faster, that's not the problem. Once you prison up, it's arbitrary how you kill them, more or less.
Same with any casino game.
If you have a lot of money that you are trying to "win" money back from, your best bet the stock market or putting it in the bank.
The odds are bad.
FTV cards don't wind up in any format they weren't already legal in so nobody gives a **** about being in line with current set design.
The word you're looking for is "staple," not stable.
You know tempest was the only set wasteland was printed in, right? Everything else is a promo.
LED is on the reserve list, so it won't be reprinted, so supply can't affect its price. Wasteland is not on the reserve list, and could see more printings in the future - it would be very possible for them to put them in the planechase decks, for example, or other non-set card releases. I'll mention FTV:Lands here - FTV sets don't increase the supply significantly, and historically the only cards that have been affected by price are cards that see very little play - Mox Diamond being the one I can recall off the top of my head.
If you want to play dredge and you don't want to play a deck with wastelands (and I don't get why anyone would want to play The Gate anyways :)), then get the card you want for the deck you want.
The problem isn't your deck, it's you. Play faster.
Land drops are more important than the virtual card draw. With Loam you can draw multiple cards per turn (either virtual card draws by getting three lands, or actual card draws/tutors by getting tranquil thicket/tolaria west), but you have very few land drops per turn.
It's one thing if the deck is doing something interesting or unique, but this is a largely unsynergistic pile of mill cards with the key synergy being harrow+hedron crab which was printed in the same set on purpose.
This isn't a casual vs tournament argument, it's that this deck isn't an interesting deck - it's His Mill Deck Which He Made From Cards He Owned Already.
You can certainly respond to a miracle card being cast, because it goes on the stack like anything else.
Changing the cost of a card after it has been put on the stack and cast does nothing to the card.
So no, you can never do this.
I do what I would hope someone would do for me, if I can't be arsed to do it, why would anyone else?
Compare any of the other promos vs regular and you'll see a similar concept, ie, Diregraf Ghoul:
http://magiccards.info/query?q=Diregraf+Ghoul&v=card&s=cname
This is a great idea if you live in an area where your tournament is more than 8 people, but the OP specified that it's a very small attendance tournament. There's only so far you can push the ideal.
The penalty for slow play is a warning, but the penalty for stalling is DQ as it's cheating, and the real question here is whether the OP was stalling or not, which is something anyone can't really make a legit judgment on, having not been there.
My suspicion is that he was intentionally playing slowly, but trying to play slowly without appearing to do so, hence him justifying that he never took more than X time - when you're paying attention to the clock like that you're definitely playing to it.
If your opponent was asking you to hurry up and play faster throughout the match, then I would definitely say you were in the wrong. You went in with the intent to slow the game down and when you are describing your behavior in the amount of time you're spending in each phase then you're definitely aware and playing to the clock.
The guy was pretty nice about it, but especially in these situations where there isn't a judge to watch for intentional slow play I think it's a dick move to try to stretch the game out.
If you want more enchantresses, I think Living Wish is a better option, as it also lets you find sanctums, wastelands, tabernacles, and karakas if you need them. 5 mana enchantresses just seem terrible.
I really don't see why people are focused on making the deck kill faster, that's not the problem. Once you prison up, it's arbitrary how you kill them, more or less.