Just wondering if the world came to an end and you could pick only 3 magic cards what would they be and why?

Mine would be:1) shivan Dragon,when I first started to play magic this was the first rare that I got in a starter of revised.

2) Coat of arms. I love how crazy you can get with this. Iv always been into theme decks so with this card you can just go totaly ricktor.

3) Lightning bolt. This card should be in every red deck. I love the foil version of this too the art work is cool on the additional version. This is such a versitile card not worth much money but the game factor is what's imporatant.

Oooh, this is a tough one...

1) I know my first would be my Filigree Angels. It was the very first foil card I ever pulled in a booster (I started playing when the Shards of Alara block was current), the artwork is GORGEOUS, and it is the reason that I play Blue/White.

2) Venser, the Sojourner. I just recently acquired him (Best Friend bought him for me), and I am so excited about my deck featuring him. The artwork makes him look like the Tenth Doctor, and his abilities lend for some very interesting variations on UW control decks.

3) Chandra Ablaze. I'm a sucker for fire images, and I have always said that if I could have a superpower/magical abilities it would be pyrokinesis/pyromancy. Chandra embodies that and the artwork on this rendition of her is stunning. I like Chandra Nalaar's ultimate better, but strategic use of Chandra Ablaze could end a game really quickly.

-RLB

There are of course favorite utility cards which I'm perpetually buying more of since they find their way into so many of my decks, cards like Darksteel Ingot or Temporal Isolation.

It's probably more interesting to mention cards that jumped out at me and screamed "make a deck with me". Probably my oldest deck that still exists in some form has Varchild's War-Riders. It started as a trample/rampage deck before I eventually condeded that all the trample/rampage cards aren't very good. Then it morphed into a way to take advantage of their cumulative upkeep and defeat the other player through giving them tokens.

The wackiness and randomness of Time Spiral really brought my group of friends back into the game in a big way and one of the cards that spoke to me was Stuffy Doll. It found its way into a "I don't care if you damage my creatures" deck.

I had always had an Enchantress deck of some sort but Yavimaya Enchantress is the one that really made it pop when I added four of them. Ancestral Mask on her along with all the other enchantments that will be out there just start to get a little ridiculous.

There are other cards that I have set aside that are still waiting on that a-ha moment to figure out how to utilize them well: Norin the Wary, Krark's Thumb, Helix Pinnacle, and many others.