I have a couple of questions about Choose Your Own Standard.

1. If we hold a tournament with decent prizes, can we run it at competitive?
2. Does anyone know where there is an up-to-date ban list?
3. How do you handle deck lists? Do you just trust that everyone's list complies to a standard format?

(Moved to Tournament Operations)
Eric, can you elaborate a bit on “Choose Your Own Standard”? Perhaps a link to the Wizards page that describes it, or something for those of us who aren't familiar with this?

Thanks!

Choose your own Standard refers to a format where players can play a deck from a custom Standard format. Sometimes it has to have been a real Standard fornat at one point, others may freely mix blocks or even individual sets.

Since this is not a sanctionable format, it is the TO's choice how to run it. There is certainly nothing preventing the event from being run with the IPG.

Likewise, since it's not an official format, there is no banlist available. It may be advisable to use the Block Constructed banlists.

Lastly, decklists would likely be a factor of the staffing available. I might advise players to call a judge if they have any doubt, so that judges can address specific cases as they come up, as it may be very difficult to check all lists.

Recently a competitive “choose your own standard” competitive event was run here in Calgary. Deck construction was as follows:

Each player must register a deck that would have been standard legal AT SOME POINT.
For example: You could not play Liliana of the veil and Dark Confidant in the same deck as they were never legal in Standard together
You could play pithing needle and sensei's divining top in the same deck as they were both legal at the same time in standard.
However your deck could not play Jace Beleran as it was not in a standard format with these cards.
Only Sets Mirroden through M14 will be legal (including 8th edition).
Banned list: Any card that was banned when it was Standard legal plus some additions here it is
Ancient Den
Great Furnace
Jace the Mind Sculptor
Skullclamp
Seat of the Synod
Stoneforge Mystic
Tree of Tales
Umezawa's Jitte
Vault of Whispers

This isn't official by any means, but it seemed to work well.

Legal decks would consist of cards from any standard format in Magic history. It is likely though that we would start around Masques though. I know other people have ran these tournaments and they've developed a banned list. I know we don't want everyone playing Caw Blade. I was hoping someone might share the banned list they've used.

Great, thanks Adam!

I heard about a similar event, but it was “pick a core set, and pick any to blocks”. They chose to just use the Legacy ban list.

I don't know how it actually played out, but sounds fascinating. (I vote “not it” for the deck check team!)

You can choose to track and assign penalties as if it were a Competitive
REL event. As far as I know, however, Choose Your Own Standard isn't really
a sanctioned format, and it sounds like a serious logistical headache to
run at anything but Regular.

People are describing both “Choose Your Own Standard” and “Historic Standard” here.

Choose Your Own Standard was suggested by MaRo. His proposed format would allow the player to choose any 2 blocks and any 1 core set and build a deck from that card pool. Everyone can make different selections.
The banned list is the Legacy banned list, plus all cards banned in their respective block constructed format. Coldsnap is considered part of Ice Age block.
Thus one player could choose Mercadian Masques block + Innistrad block + 9th Edition.
Another could choose Ice Age Block + Kamigawa Block + 7th Edition.

This was one of the formats for the last Invitational which Tiago Chan won. Decklists here:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Events.aspx?x=mtgevent/mi07/cyostandarddecklists

Historic Standard is a format where you can play any deck which would have been Standard legal at any time. I believe that if a card was banned, if your deck is legal for the most recent set at the time, you can't use that card.
Thus, if you choose to play New Phyrexia Standard, you can't play Jace and Stoneforge Mystic. If you play Mirrodin Besieged Standard, you can.

Both are loads of fun, although I suspect that the Historic Standard metagame would get stale quickly. It would be played more as a novelty. I don't plan to do more than one a year for my community.

Good luck!

I kept a list updated until recently for online casual play:

ML Forums.