2011-12 Precon Championships: Round 4 and the Leaderboard

We’re three-quarters of the way done with the Rosewater Conference, after some thundering matches this past weekend. In a stunning display of dominance, all four winning teams didn’t let their opponents surface for air once they had them under the boot. Each game was a two-game sweep in this best-of-three series, and their shattered opponents were carried out on stretchers.

We also had a lot of activity in the Prediction League. In previous weeks, we’d seen some perfect predictions. Jay Chong claimed four points in week one, while Diannea, tenthtechpriest, scorium, signofzeta, and Brad all had perfect records in the second week of predictions. This time, however, everyone dropped at least one point on the day.

Of course, none of the dropped points came from the first match, as Graveborn had 100% backing of the predictors and it did not disappoint. Said outhouseinferno, “there are decks in the Championship that can punish Graveborn if it misses a step. Bound by Strength is not one of those.” Hirshey lauded the deck’s synergy, and predicted victory for the reanimator.

The upset came just the very next game, as M12’s Blood and Fire toppled Venser’s Duel Deck. Newcomer Limbonic_Art turned in a superb and detailed analysis:

This one is tricky to predict. Venser’s deck is packed with many singletons and tricks but are hard to pull off. The deck tends to be slow and inconsistent: having self-bounce but no ETB effects to abuse or saboteaurs with no enablers. This was a common issue when playing Koth vs Venser.

Blood and Fire is quick and deadly, although it has a rather weak removal suite for B/R. It has enough bloodthirst enablers to consistently outpace Venser’s deck, and venser’s has little ways to deal with the bloodthirsted 3/3 first striker, Bats, or the bloodthirsted Gorehorn Minotaurs. Consistency and speed will surely prevail over singleton tricks in Venser’s deck.

Only four others shared this opinion, proving that on any given day you never know who might turn in a real performance and punch above their weight.

Most where right on the money, however, when it came to looking at Spectral Legions against the Commander deck Counterpunch. Noted Ezra the Strange of MMM, “Really close looking, but between the flying and removal its slightly better. And why not go with the deck that has team spirit (har har).” Thank you, thank you, he’ll be here all the week. Try the veal.

Finally, in an eagerly-anticipated Event Deck head-to-head, Innistrad’s Deathfed surpassed expectation and trounced Vampire Onslaught. Only six called this one, including Jenesis who was right on target: “Barring a particularly aggressive Nighthawk draw, I think Deathfed’s durdle power will eventually overwhelm while the Vampires are stuck drawing 1/1s and 2/2s lategame.”

As a result, some of those who were trailing just behind pole position in the past couple weeks were able to catch up, and we now have a real race on our hands! Here’s what the table looks like with this week’s points added.

As always, mistakes can happen, and if you find any discrepancies simply alert us to them and we’ll be happy to revise.

Finally, here’s the matches for this Saturday. Please make sure to leave a clear prediction for all three matches! The three-game weeks can be a real wildcard, since you have to pick the winner of the third match from your two choices in the lead-up matches. Here’s the bracket!

Good luck to all our predictors. As always, we’ll accept predictions right up until the article goes live, at some point this coming Saturday. Good luck to all participants!