2005-07 Precon Championships: Round 4 and the Leaderboard

Welcome back to the season’s most exciting Magic: the Gathering event, the 2005-07 Preconstructed Championships! We’re now halfway through the Rosewater Conference’s other Division, the Tinsman, and we’ve had some fantastic matchups. Sadly for most, the overriding principle here is the Highlander ultimatum: there can be only one. Of the eight decks that draw into the Tinsman, four of them have been cut their walking papers, with a further three to follow this coming Saturday. It’s a harsh business, but to lessen the severity is to lessen the glory.

Our first matchup saw Coldsnap’s Aurochs Stampede take on Ninth Edition’s aura-filled Custom Creatures. Ninth Edition is widely regarded as the season’s underdog, but do we have the makings of a mono-Green Cinderella story here? The set’s lone representative in the Nagle Division, the Red landkill deck World Aflame crashed out in the opening round, and few put any more hope in this one given that creature auras are generally dismissed out of hand. Only about one-third of the field guessed this one right, but amongst those that did we found a few insightful observations. “The only good start the aurochs deck can have,” noted Scorium, “is by playing an early ritual into a big auroch, and that’s not enough against some of the auras that Custom has.” Said Aaro, “Custom Creatures. Against a removal-heavy deck, I might reconsider, but Aurochs is pretty straightforward beats.”  As it happens, that’s what it took- Custom Creatures put its powerful auras on some fairly basic creatures, and ran right over the Stampede.

In the second match, Snowscape was dispatched by Future Sight’s Future Shock, but the Red/Green beats deck needed three games to do it. Jenesis summed it up thusly, saying “All the snow permanents in the world won’t help Rimefeather Owl punch through a wall of Thornweald Archers, and the deck is pretty mediocre beyond that.” Indeed, the snow permanents didn’t hinder Future Shock nearly as much as simply tappers, regenerators, and a Drift of the Dead. Blaven_blave called it when he said, “I think Future Shock will just stomp Snowscape down.” Thanks to Baru, Fist of Krosa that’s precisely what happened.

Judging by the predictions, the day’s other upset went to Future Sight’s other deck in the field, Fate Blaster. Ravnica’s Selesnya United was certainly the crowd favourite, heralding from a set with fond memories for many. On another day, our predictors might well have had the right of it. Said Scorium, “Selesnya rocks, and the other deck can only win with the Magus, the other cards in that deck are useless.” Willis terry gave the guild the nod on the basis of having “so many tokens to overrun with.” Alas for most, it was not to be- Fate Blaster edged out the Conclave with a very long, deep Game One, then stormed to victory when mana trouble landed the Selesnya powerless to stop them from a rout.

The day’s final pairing saw Azorius Ascendant take on Ixidor’s Legacy of Planar Chaos. Most opted for the slow, Blue/White skies deck over the slow mono-Blue morph deck, and few were disappointed. “I think it’ll be close,” said Jenesis, “but I give it to the deck with more evasion.” Indeed, with few ways to answer the Azorius air force, Ixidor’s found itself on the receiving end of a two-game beating.

After the wins were tallied, we found the prediction table with a tie at the top of the table as Aaro has caught the high-flying Kyle Mueting. Last season’s winner, Icehawk, pulled off a four-for-four which put him right back up within grasping distance. Still, it’s a tight pack, and with so much yet to play it could be anyone’s name on the trophy at the end of the competition. Here’s how we have the standings:

As always, should there be any discrepancy, please let us know and we’ll be happy to investigate! Now, for this weekend’s games, we have the following three to predict:

So we’ll want your pick from each of the three games above, and you’ll have until the round goes live this coming Saturday to post them. Good luck to all!