2005-07 Precon Championships: Round 6 and the Leaderboard

Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the culmination of every preconstructed deck’s hopes and dreams, the Preconstructed Championships! This season we’re looking at the decks of 2005-07, a period of time which saw the likes of Ravnica block, Time Spiral block, the “lost” set Coldsnap, and Ninth Edition. This was a high-water mark in Magic’s history, and Wizards this past weekend shellshocked the community with the exciting revelation that a Return to Ravnica is on the cards for this coming Autumn. Fall will be a big time for some of the current decks as well, for then the decks of Innistrad block, Magic 2012 and a few other premium sets will be girding themselves for their own Championship.

All in good time.

For now, we’re at the halfway marker for the 2005-07 season, and the Turian Division of the Forsythe Conference is in full swing. We’ve had an action-packed past weekend which saw four matches- four triumphs and four defeats.

In our opener, Coldsnap’s Beyond the Grave locked horns with Lofty Heights, the mono-Blue Core Set deck packed with fliers and countermagic. Our predictors were fairly split, with many seeing the lack of aerial management as the key to Beyond the Grave’s undoing. Unfortunately for Ninth Edition, Beyond the Grave did manage to assemble the pieces to its synergy engine, and managed to advance into the next round.

A Time Spiral slugfest awaited the spectators next as Reality Fracture and Fun with Fungus battled it out. Jay Chong dug into the Ertai’s Lament archives, and observed that “it should be noted that Reality Fracture and Fun with Fungus have already been pitted against each other. The results seemed quite even.” Even or not, Jay tabbed Reality Fracture for the win, and was rewarded with the point.

Gruul Wilding and Suspended Sentence came together in a battle of opposites. Suspended Sentence is an intricate, delicate machine that plays with time, while the Gruul are Red/Green beats. Scorium more or less called this one: “Gruul has some minor aura sub-theme, but its auras are not so powerful as the Custom creaures auras were, and also, Suspended Sentence is a deck full of bounce effects with lots of funny interactions. Bouncing back a Reality Acid four and five times in the same game while slowy chipping away the opponent’s life is wonderful.”

Finally, we had the blowout between Dimir Intrigues and Rituals of Rebirth. Seldom have we seen so unfavourable a matchup, but the Dimir drew their absolute kryptonite here- what good is milling if if only serves to strengthen your opponent? With the faintest hint of understatement, Icehawk opined, “Dimir has some discard action going on and milling. I can’t help but wonder if that’s going to bite it in the butt.” Scorium was a bit more blunt: ” Simply put, Rituals of Rebirth cannot lose unless the Dimir player tries to control the game and win by little flyers, once in a blue moon.”

Last week’s predictions were a bit off, as they can be in a three-game finals, so this week our predictors were keen to claw back some of the lost ground. Jay Chong and tenthtechpriest deserve special mention for claiming all four points on the week, and the fiend has shifted a bit this week as a result. Here’s the updated standings table:

Lastly, here are the games for this coming Saturday’s epic conclusion to the Turian Division. As before, pick who you think is going to win both preliminary matches, and then who is going to go on and claim the division. Three matches, three points- are you up to the challenge?