2014-15 Precon Championships: Final Round and the Leaderboard
And we’re here! Eight weeks and four divisions concluded, with the Grand Final in our sights. There are just three matches left to play. Three matches before we crown a Champion for the 2014-15 season, three matches before a winner of the Prediction League is declared and one of our readers walks away with a prize package filled with boosters.
In the first match this past weekend, Landslide Charge, the Event Deck from Dragons of Tarkir, trounced out an Intro Pack from the same set. Relentless Rush was left in the dust, as predicted by the majority of our Predictors. Only three went for the upset, but the majority were not disappointed.
Westbrook57 summed it up perfectly and succinctly, stating
It’s an event deck.
That may not have made all of the difference here, but it certainly made up most of it.
Next up was Fate Reforged’s Grave Advantage versus the Commander 2014 deck, Sworn to Darkness. All but one Predictor tabbed the Commander deck to get the job done, and here, too, the favorite prevailed. You can count Scott_Mazurek as one who overlooked them initially, but came around to the strength of the mono-colored build.
Commander decks have put up some solid numbers and I’ve paid the price a few times betting against them.
Jeskai angel dug a little deeper into the tactical matchup, declaring
Grave Advantage is a slow, durdly, controlling deck that wants to clog up the game until hitting an amazing bomb (Hornet Queen or Archfiend). It’s problem is that Sworn to Darkness can durdle + play bombs so much better. Sworn will win.
But the Divisional Final… now THAT was a true curveball for the Predictors! Only three backed Sworn to Darkness to go all the way, including league-leader Icehawk.
The Darkness (Cue Kansas.) isn’t hampered by finding teh colors it needs like the tri-colored edh decks. I’ve mentioned it before. It makes a huge difference, and with how they’ve preformed, it shows. Its time one of the Commander decks takes the crown. Who better than darkness incarnate?
Special mention to Icehawk and Ubur for going 3-for-3 on the predictions here in the clutch!
Of course, there are three more points up for grabs, and nothing is ever certain at this stage of the game. Here’s the Standings table, and as always please let us know of any discrepancies.
And here are your final three picks!
Game One: Kiora (Duel Decks: Elspeth vs Kiora) vs Power and Profit (Fate Reforged Clash Pack)
Game Two: Speed (Duel Decks: Speed vs Cunning) versus Sworn to Darkness (Commander 2014)
GRAND FINAL: Winner of Game One versus Winner of Game Two
Best of luck, everyone, and we’ll see you on the other side!
Ertai's Lament 
Well, I’m out of the running (I mean, if I got all three predictions right, I’d only tie Icehawk’s current score!). 😦 Scott or Ubur could win if they get all three predictions right and Icehawk somehow gets all three wrong – fat chance of that! How do you do it, Icehawk? #madskillz #respect
I do with the deck I like. lol If only it worked all the time.
I must like the wrong decks…LOL.
Always comes down to hte luck of hte draw. Done bad for a few of these championships since the first one. lol Darkness just keeps getting lucky as the Jello-man.
Even with no chance of winning, I can still attempt to derive some satisfaction from the accuracy of my predictions, so here we go!
G1: I still don’t like Kiora the character and I want to root for the Sultai to crush her, but I’m afraid I can’t. Kiora has a lot of delaying effects (ETB unsummon effects on creatures, mass bounce spells) plus some ramp that I think will enable her to prolong the game until she can drop massive Shroud-protected evasive bombs that P+P won’t be about to stop. Kiora wins. *shakes fist at her*
G2: I feel like Landslide Charge was probably a superior deck to Speed. Sworn to Darkness apparently somehow beat Landslide Charge. You do the math. Speed is another aggro deck with some burn, though it’s burn package is weaker than the one in the event deck and it attacks with tokens rather than using ramp to hit early with mid-range threats. I don’t understand HOW Sworn to Darkness won before, but whatever is going on, I see no reason for it to stop now. Sworn to Darkness wins.
G3: I’m predicting a flavorful clash of planeswalkers from the Battle for Zendikar storyline, Duel Deck: Kiora vs. Ob Nixilis. And Sworn to Darkness will win. It has ramp, bombs bomby enough to stand against Kiora’s, no islands for Kiora’s Islandwalk-ers to exploit, better targeted and mass removal than Kiora, etc.
G1: Kiora.
G2: Sworn to Darkness.
G3: Sworn to Darkness. Cue Watain encore.
1. Kiora.
2. Speed.
3. Kiora
I come here for the duel decks. I sometimes confuse the box duel decks and my meedled version. I’ll stick around for the duel decks. I’ll support the duel decks. Kiora is the best one that’s left. That ult is nuts, and even if the Darkness lasts till the last session, nature will find a way. 🙂
Game One – Power & Profit
Game Two – Sworn To Darkness
Game Three – Power & Profit
Well I’m up against it so I’ll shoot for the win with these picks! That being said, I think Power & Profit has the mojo and some very strong cards for this format so I think they can go All The Way as Madden says.
Just want to say it’s been a blast being a part of all this with you guys. Icehawk you’ve put up some impressive numbers, as have you Uber and Jaskai Angel. This has been like going to the Track for Magic Players…just picking which horses we think will win!
Thanks, Scott! In the years of doing this site, the Championship has been my favorite feature. The schedule calls for two a year, so look for the next this Winter. If the current pattern holds, we’ll be doing an older set the next time around…
All you “guys”, Scott? Cant´t you imagine a woman playing MtG :-))?
Aside from this, you´re perfectly right, and I also enjoyed the championships immensely. I knew I never had a chance of winning since I had to miss out a round, but even with that round I would never had a chance of beating Icehawk. Well done!
@insidious – actually both my wife and daughter play MTG as well as my son! I love seeing women playing when I walk into my local game store.
G1 – Kiora
G2 – Sworn to Darkness
G3 – Sworn to Darkness
If you are sworn to darkness, you’ll get promise of power 🙂
G1 Power & Profit
G2 Sworn to Darkness
G3 Sworn to Darkness
Ob Nixilis is here to kick ass, take names, and unleash Eldrazi titans on the plane that imprisoned him for millennia, and he’s all out of Eldrazi titans.
Interesting… two duel decks got eliminated in the qualifying round, the other two went to the finals. It´s a bit sad that no Event Deck came this far, I always loved the Event Decks and I´m deeply sorry to see them gone. On to the predictions.
Game One: Kiora. Bounce is a perfect weapon against delve. Although it will be a close one.
Game Two: There has to be something with Sworn to Darkness. Winning all these games can´t be attributed to just being lucky and topdecking. With ramp and sweepers, it can stand against Speed´s early assault, and if that happens, there´s a good chance that Sworn can take the championship. I should vote for Sworn to Darkness here, but somehow I can´t bring myself to do it. I choose Speed, simply because I prefer the deck style and colour combination.
Game Three: I never really liked Simic, and so far, no deck containing blue could ever claim the title, and there was only one which contained a splash of green. I stick with Speed as my personal favourite, although I don´t really expect it to win. Who cares, I had fun playing, and thanks to all others for participating!
G1: In the battle of tempo-ramp vs. graveyard filter/value ramp, I’m going to go with Kiora’s tempo. Power & Profit is a bit more focused, but Kiora’s bounce is really good against expensive delve creatures because it costs both cards in the graveyard and the turn spend casting the creature. What’s more, since Kiora’s sending those creatures back to the hand, there’s no whipping it for extra good. P&P is a little better at getting to its bombs, but what good is that when a Man-‘o-War just sends that pricey bomb back to your hand? I still think it could be close because P&P does have a lot going for it, but I give the advantage to the tamer of the deep.
G2: Sworn to Darkness has taken all comers and even taken out an event deck, much to my surprise. Speed is another deck that I didn’t expect to get this far because of my doubting of three color aggro strategies, so this is tougher choice for me as both have made my reexamine my original stances. Ultimately, I’m going to guess that the sweepers and some graveyard recursion of Darkness is going to give it a little edge, especially if it can land enough early game to stymie Speed. I also don’t think this is necessarily going to be an easy contest, but I think that will depend more on Speed’s draws as if the fast deck can get solid opening hands, it certainly can finish the job before Sworn even gets started, but since more of the Commander decks have surprised me with their resiliency, I’ll go with Darkness.
G3: I think Sworn to Darkness has the advantage here because Kiora’s tempo plays kind of just enable Darkness to push more ETB effects. I mean Kiora’s shrouded creatures and her game enders being fatties does limit some of Sworn’s effective spells and she is a somewhat faster deck, but her style, outside of the tempo element, isn’t that far off from Landslide Charge and the late deck wasn’t able to push past Darkness, so I think Ob might actually take home the crown in this case.
It’s been a blast…I’m very glad the Championships have returned. My gamble last week obviously failed, but I’ll throw my final picks into the ring.
1. Kiora
2. Sworn to Darkness
3. Sworn to Darkness
G1: Power and Profit
G2: Sworn to Darkness
G3: Sworn to Darkness