Price is a relative argument though. Even given that Force of Will is over $100, dual lands range from $15 - $30 a piece and fetchlands are even cheaper than that. Most of the staples are less than $30 and most that are expensive you only need one copy of anyway - (like Vampiric Tutor). Its actually really affordable considering how much it would cost to get into paper Vintage.   

Chris Kiritz hints that by the end of 2013 players will be able to own the Power 9 - corresponding with the 20th anniversary. That seems like a big deal for Vintage...

I would have usually gone to six on the hand with Counterbalance, however I had a FoW in hand and ended up drawing another FoW on the first turn so it ended up working out. Tarmogoyf > than Wearbear only if my bank account is greater than or equal to $160 lol. I'm saving up to pick up a set of those. I think I'm going to end up waiting for them to rotate out to see if the price falls and in the meantime work on the Dual Lands. However, the point is well taken. Though against Deadguy Ale, the ability to make Green was pretty worthwhile. But still on any given day Goyf is still going to be better than Wearbear.

So here's my little report from today/yesterdayish. I've been putting together UGw Threshold and wanted to run it and see how it worked out. Needless to say that it took off better than I expected...

Round 1 vs Red Burn
So game one started off as one might think the match should: the Red player burns his heart out...wow that was a bad joke. Anyway, I get dropped to 5 life and the burn player has two Seal of Fire in play making it very difficult for me to play anything like FoW, Fetch Lands ect. I have CounterTop up and going and drop two Nimble Mongoose's and am able to get him down to zero. Game two turns out to be a little more interesting. I board in some Blue Elemental Blasts for the StP which proved to be the right move. I see three of the BeB throughout the course of the match as the burn player drew into three Flame Javelins with two of them being countered by the BeB. I get the Countertop on line, however he has a Seal of Fire on the board, two cards in hand and I'm tapped out. He plays Fireblast sacking two of his four lands, pops the seal for 2 more and then plays sudden shock... luckily I left an extra Counterbalance on the top of my deck...go figure. I chalk this match up to luck more than anything else.

2-0
1-0

Round 2 vs Mono Black Beats

Game one turned out to follow this back mindset: He drops a two casting cost shadow creature and equips it with unholy strength...I play Oblivion Ring on the creature. While his discard hits me pretty hard, I was able to get a Mongoose and a Wearbear online and my creatures are bigger than his at this point so I'm able to power through. Game two turned out to be a lot quicker. He misses his third land drop for several turns, then draws straight land. I get Countertop online early and counter most of his 2cc shadow creatures. He can't find his answer to Countertop and scoops. (Dampening Matrix was the answer)

4-0
2-0

Game 3/4 vs Deadguy Ale

At this point, we realize that we are the two undefeated players and that we'll be the two in finals. There are only 8 people so the event only drew into the top 2 players. We decided to play out anyway. Game one sees me get countertop going and I Brainstorm putting O-Ring and Daze back on the top of the deck. This effectively countered everything he had and he scooped. Game two drove me insane because I helped build his sideboard and put in Seal of Cleansing over Disenchant. Needless to say they worked better than he or I expected. I can't get countertop online due to two Seal of Cleansing hitting the board. However, I am able to FoW/Daze him into top deck mode and without being able to draw and answer, he finally has scoop when he's staring down two Mongooses and a Wearbear all with Threshold.

6-0
3-0

The next two matches where prob the most difficult, though the Red one brought me closer to losing. Instead of simply trying to over power me through C/A land destruction, he does the best thing he can against my deck: he cuts me off from Green. I'm down to my last G source and drop a Wearbear. He topdecked a Vindicate and used it on the Topical Island cutting me off from the last G producing land. However, he can't find another answer to the Wearbear and I drop two Mongooses and am able to sneak the win out. Game two goes similar to game one, but I keep a land heavy hand and I finally bust out the one creature he hasn't seen me play yet: Serendib Efreet. Ya weird choice, but it was able to win the day alongside two O-Rings locking out a Hippie and a Shade.

8-0
4-0

Props
-Deadguy Ale player for being cool and wanting to play out and for telling me about another Legacy event in KC
-Action Sports for hosting
-Playing MtG in PJs
-Winning my first Legacy Tournament

Slops
-People who hate the Countertop
-Not enough G mana sources
-Not enough G money sources
-Gas rising $10 a barrel in one day

What:
Legacy Tournament

Where:
Action Sports
6041 NE Antioch Road
Gladstone, MO 64119
(816) 455-6319

When:
Every Saturday
Registration starts at 12:00 PM, tournament will start at 1:00pm

Entry Fee:
$5

DCI Santioned:
No

Format:
Depends on the number of players. The general rule is 3-4 rounds of Swiss then break to top 4-8. However, if the event has over 20 players, the event will be single elimination instead of Swiss.

Prize Structure:
Prizes will are given out based on entries and will be for store credit. Top 2 are guaranteed prizes and 3rd and 4th are given prizes if the entry is high enough.

Pickup/Play Arounds
A local play group also meets at the Panera Bread Company located in Kansas City-Westport. The address is below. Depending on the players, there is usually an entry fee of $5 and an informal tournament is held.

The address for the play group is:
4117 Mill Street
Kansas City, Missouri 64111

The link in my post has some info on it, however I would use the search function in the upper right hand corner as well if you're looking for specific posts about how to find fake cards. The link does go over some of the basics on the bend test.

I'm fairly new to the site and have recently decided to start playing Vintage after a couple of years playing Legacy. I've just about finished tracking down a full set of dual lands and figure if I am going to move formats to Vintage, I would do best to invest in some pieces of power. I've searched the boards and found a couple of really good threads going over some of the basics such as a small purchasing guide http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=23553.0. So in that respect, its been very helpful and insightful, however I still had a few questions to ask....

1. What order, if any, should one purchase power in? I guess this may depend on what deck I decide on playing, but I figure some cards are going to be used far in excess of others.

2. Is it more worth while to invest in semi-power first? AKA Mana Drains, Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop

3. What is a reasonable price range to except for some of these cards? I've looked over the stores and have sat on e-bay watch for about two weeks now, however I still figure asking the people who are involved in the format the most about the cost issue.

Thank you for you're help

Event Location: Kansas City, MO
Number of Players: 24
Tourney Set-up: Single Round Elim

Top 8
1. Deadguy Ale (Braids variant)
1. Angel Stax
3. U/G/w/b Threshold
4. U/G Madness
5. GeddonStax
6. U/G Madness
7. White Wennie
8. Faerie Stompy

I piloted GeddonStax. I'll give a quick report for the first few rounds.

Round 1: I played a Scepter lock deck. Interestingly enough, the deck didn't run the Orim's Chant. It was more a U/W control deck that attempted to reuse and abuse a Scepter lock with Boomerang or Counterspell. Game one was over fairly quickly after Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds hit the board with a couple of other lock pieces on the board. I dropped Game two as a result of a some good countermagic on his part and a lack of lock pieces on my part. He drew into a Masticore and I couldn't find an answer to it soon enough. Game Three saw me lock his Scepter out with an Oblivion Ring then after I saw a Crucible and Wasteland, the game went down hill from there.
1-0

Round 2: I play a rogue green token deck generating deck. Honestly, this match went fairly quickly. Game one started off with a turn one Crucible of Worlds, turn two Smokestack and turn three Magus of the Tabernacle. He scooped two turns later. Game two was just about as bad. I was able to drop Ghostly Prison early in the game and established a quick lock with Smokestack and Chalice of the Void ending the match fairly quickly.
2-0

Round 3: So I finally get to square of against Goblins. I really thought I was going to lose this match, but the draws seemed to play out in my favor. I drew the Gold Fish for game one: Mox Diamond, Mox Diamond, Plains, Plains, City of Traitors, Smokestack and Crucible of Worlds. Turn one Smokestack and turn two Crucible of Worlds was pretty much game over from the start. Game two developed to be a pretty long drawn out game. I was able to drop Magus of the Tabernacle early and followed it up with Ghostly Prison which helped. I got very close to losing but due to a play mistake on his part, I was able to start racking up life via Angel. I dropped Crucible and then next turn play Armageddon which wiped his board clean. I found the Magus to be much more effective compared to the Wrath of God which is usually seen in the older builds.
3-0

Round 4: Well I hate to say it, but this was my last round of the day. I hit a 4 colored Threshold variant which was rather interesting to play against. It was actually my favorite game of the day. Game one I was able to get a jump on the board. I was quickly able to put down Smokestack and he wasn't able to keep pace. He ended up scoping after he ran out of lands. Game two was kind of sad, I was mana screwed rather early never had a chance to recover. Game three was a really good match, we both where able to play our game plans however he netted two Standstills which sealed the deal for me since I wasn't able to recover from that much card advantage.
3-1

Response to question by Matt

The deck was using Standstill MD and I actually watched that deck until he dropped in Semis to the deck that would go on to win the event (Deadguy Ale). At any rate, he was using Standstill and more often than not, his open plays would be something along the lines of:
T1: Land, Nimble-go
T2: Land, Standstill-go

Most everyone cracked Standstill as soon as possible, but the card adv gained was too much in most cases. He was only running 7-8 cantrips (Brainstrom + other) so that was a little low by comparision, however it didn't really seem to matter. It as an interesting take on the deck to say the least. I actually feel like Standstill is what did me in looking back on it. He was able to drop Standstill on two consecutive turns against me in the final game which ended up being the deciding factor. Drawing 8 cards in two turns (including normal draws) against a deck that tends to slip into Topdeck mode fairly easily was just too much to handle. I asked him about it later and he said that card for card, Threshold is going to be as good as most decks are, so why not try to make it a little more of a control based deck. He said that he opted out of cards like Spellsnare and wanted his control to be based more in the late game (like after turn 3-4) and he said that most people will hesitate at least a turn with a Standstill on the board and against good players, they already know that letting a Threshold player draw three cards is going to make the match a heck of a lot tougher than usual. He used more hard counters than usual, though his counter base was composed of the following (at least from what I can remember)

4 Daze
4 FoW
3 Counterspell
2 Voidslime (An interesting call, but he had the mana usually to cast it and I only saw it in his hand maybe twice over the course of the 5-6 games I watched and it was used each time so I guess if it works, it works. Though I wouldn't think that this will be used in very many lists)

I did see him board in Finkle's against a MonoU control deck which was an interesting meta call, however he resolved them in game 2 and that was the end of the match. At anyrate, if I had the deck list I would send it to you, however I figured I would at least post what I remember.