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if heliod is the 5th devotion he will not trigger etb abilities... there has to be 5 or more devotion on the board before trostani's effect will see him enter as a creature...  i'm like 99.9% sure.

edit: foot, mouth, insert... for effects like "comes into play tapped" or other layering problems then this is true, but for a trigger like trostani's it can trigger the ability and gain the life.

I know you haven't been playing long, but i'm just going to talk to you like you know a little bit about the game and not dumb things down too much.

Some general advice... once you start figuring out what you want, stop buying the fat packs, they're very bad value... booster boxes are okay, but singles are the best.  Don't buy packs from walmart/target if you can help it support your local shops first.  they'll generally run a 3/$10 deal or something anyway most of the ones around me do.

on to your deck, your deck doesn't have a cohesive plan... are you a ramp deck? an aggro deck? you're trying to do everything in one deck and that's bad.  You're going to end up doing some of it some of the time and nothing the rest of the time. 

You have powerful cards and can probably just win games by  playing "better" cards that your opponent but as far as your strategy goes. D-

Just a note before i get started... the absolute best reason to be in these colors is card power... these colors host some of the best removal, win conditions and overall raw card power in the current standard meta.  You can alternatively do a good impression of an aggro deck... from my experience I'll talk about the removal/midrange deck, but I'll posts lists for both at the end.

Okay, so first, my wtf section...

1 Dazzling Ramparts - why? not even remotely worth the mana... rhino is a wall enough and so is anafenza

2 Nyx-Fleece Ram - see above

1 Seeker of the Way - really an aggressive card with life gain to swing aggro matches... might be okay, if you choose the aggro path.

these should be sylvan caryatids, yes i know they're expensive, but caryatid does what you're trying to do with these and provides needed fixing in a 3 color deck. If you can't fit in caryatid this 2 drop slot is better served by being aggressive with  Heir of the wilds... heir is a grear card that synergyzes with rhino and anafenza.

Now the maybe okay, but should probably cut section... I see what you're doing with the counters... it's good to find synergy in cards, but abzan ascendancy and hardened scales don't do much on their own.  yes they pump your dudes, but really a removal package is just stronger... you play strong dudes, and remove theirs... hero's downfall, abazan charm (which incidentally does some of what you're trying to do here, plus a couple other very relevant modes), banishing light, despise, thoughtseize, bile blight... should really replace most of the master of the pearls scales and other +1/+1 strategy cards...

4 Master of Pearls
4 Hardened Scales
1 Hooded Hydra
4 Abzan Ascendancy
2 Abzan Falconer

1 Soul of Theros - okay... but elspeth is just better
1 Soul of Zendikar -  same as theros (unless, you're on the whip plan, then 1 of these might be okay, see below for a decklist)
2 Garruk, Apex Predator (powerful, but 7 mana is too much of an investment in this deck, could easily just be a sorin and you're curve would be 10x better. ) having garruk forces you to keep hands with more lands and you don't want that.
4 Bloodsoaked Champion (doesn't really synergy well with your plan)

all solid and on the midrange plan.

4 Elvish Mystic
1 Anafenza, the Foremost
1 Pharika, God of Affliction - she's okay, probably better as a sideboard card against heavy removal or  boardwipes.
1 Ajani Steadfast
4 Siege Rhino

the mana is atrocious.... you can't just jam 4 of this and that and think you're on  the right plan. you're manabase should be able to help you cast things on curve do it as painlessly as possible. Instead of this, you need some number of temples, windswept heath, and just plain old basics.  the caves and wastes are good, but i feel your numbers are off.  I run a spread sheet that totals my mana symbols of each color then try to work a landbase that provides about the same %% of mana on curve.

4 Blossoming Sands
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Jungle Hollow
4 Llanowar Wastes
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
4 Scoured Barrens

consider the following lists and be creative with them.  Don't try to force the counter thing it's okay and might steel some games, but overall not that great.

Midrange abzan - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8286&d=247645&f=ST

More aggressive abzan - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8286&d=247646&f=ST

Abzan graveyard - http://mtgtop8.com/event?e=8228&d=247355&f=ST

So, somethings imo are right some are wrong...

Below I think are instant cuts...  this just isn't what you want to be doing  in todays standard environment.

2 Divination - if you just don't have anything else divination is okay, but you really want these to be a set of dig through time. 
1 Godsend - what are you equiping a sphinx? a token?  not necessary if you are really in control of the game. this card is strictly "win more"
2 Spear of Heliod - are you waiting for creatures to damage you before you destroy them? does the +1/+1 help your sphinx survive some effect?  I don't think so... this card makes no sense, as a turn 3 play when you should be holding up burn/tempo/counter magic.
2 Heliod, God of the Sun -  tokens are cute, but not necessary... sphinx is a perfectly fine win condition.
3 Mindswipe - These are okay, but i think strictly sideboard tech against other control decks to 2 for 1 them late game.  not something needed aginst agro or midrange decks.

These are all okay, i'm not sure if the numbers are right... 4 of anger + 4 of end hostilities might be okay? might be over kill... something targeted like arc lightning might work just as well .  I wouldn't be opposed to 1 or 2 jeskai charms main deck, all it's modes are live for you, life gain against agro decks, tempo creatures, burn to the face to close the game.

3 Magma Jet- feel the burn... solid card
2 Suspension Field - okay against green decks... maybe not so much against aggro?
4 Anger of the Gods
4 Banishing Light -  4 is _probably okay_ since you don't have a lot of answers to planeswalkers other than burn or beats...
4 Dissolve
1 Jace, the Living Guildpact - i want jace to be good, but idk... try it and see.
4 End Hostilities
2 Jace's Ingenuity - could be fine... might be better as dig... you could run both.
2 Prognostic Sphinx - sphinx is good... might consider a single pearl lake ancient.

Manabase needs a lot of juice... you probably know this and I know realestate is expensive, but this will probably be a deck for the next 12 months, spending the money for the land base isn't a bad investment.

I actually don't mind some of the life gain lands since there's no sphinx's rev anymore... i might even run a radiant fountain... bonus synergy if you run pearl lake ancient.

You _need_ the fetches... and the fetches enable dig and you _want_ dig... I just can't say enough there... in a pinch you can use evolving wilds as a hobo fetch...

full sets of on color temples probably as well... some number of pain lands... and overall, i feel you should be running 25-26 lands.

5 Island
4 Mountain
3 Mystic Monastery
6 Plains
1 Swiftwater Cliffs
1 Temple of Epiphany
2 Tranquil Cove
2 Wind-Scarred Crag

I left out the sideboard, because your main deck needs so much work...

Cards you should probably consider adding... in the 75

keranos - card advantage + burn... who doesn't love this guy?
steam auguray - card advantage, enables dig...
magma spray - dork killer, agro stopper - maybe sideboard
lightning strike - def need some main deck, the number could be variable
Disdanful Stroke - hits so many things... planes walkers, win conditions big beaters, some burn spells... you really need some maindeck
negate - sideboard

what I've heard is the event decks and other similar supplemental products are printed slightly differently... i have the sorin vs tibalt duel decks and they feel slightly "waxier" than other cards... i think this is to be expected...

they're certainly not "fake" though... as in counterfeit.

milling in EDH seems a bit ludicrous...

i'm by no means an EDH expert, but it seems like there are also much better choices for a general than Lazav.

browse through these decks and it might give you some better ideas.

http://www.mtgtop8.com/format?f=EDH

deckbox had a bit of a falling out with TCG and their pricing api.  there's a thread somewhere with a lot of discussion about it not too long ago.  prices were really wonky for a while but have normalized. sebi and the team are doing a pretty good job of keeping things close.  So, credit/due there.

that being said, deck box prices aren't perfect (hint no ones are), i still check TCG low and eBay, it's good to compare multiple sources when calculating value.  tcg low (especially on standard) will give you a good estimate of what things are actually selling for and eBay should correlate with that in the ball park somewhere.  for modern/edh/legacy staples, condition figures in to pricing more so more research is required.  you can notice a huge difference on TCG mid (median) and low, especially on cards that just came out, because prices fluctuate a lot... median is better for older cards since it keeps some price memory of the real value of the card. 

In your case i would explain it to your trade partner and if they still refuse then you're just dealing with a stubborn person that doesn't understand how magic card values actually work.

should default to most recent print, but i bet your right...

someone could get cheated out of some value if they weren't paying attention.

I always thought the amulet of vigor deck, while hard to play correctly, was a fun looking deck. 

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28 … rimer.html

watching him pilot that during the protour was a thing of beauty.