2010-11 Precon Championships: Turian Division (Part 1 of 2)

Welcome back to the exciting 2010-11 Preconstructed Deck Championships! We’re about halfway through our coverage with the Rosewater Conference now down to two remaining contenders, Knights and Doom Inevitable. They’re on hold for now as we move the action over to the Forsythe Conference’s historic Turian Division. We say ‘historic’ for while this is a relatively new competition, we’ve already crowned two champions for their respective seasons. The 2008-09 Champion, Alara Reborn’s Dead Ahead, came from the Turian and defeated two different Duel Decks– including a titanic final battle against Jace. Will the Turian prove to be the spawning ground of champions? Or just another contender?

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2010-11 Precon Championships: Round 5 and the Leaderboard

With the Tinsman Division having been settled last weekend, we’re about halfway done as we turn our attention next to the Forsythe. As before, we’ll return to the Rosewater Conference clash for our final Precon Playoff piece when the Champion is crowned. In a result that came as something of a surprise for many, Mirrodin Besieged’s Doom Inevitable managed to outlast its opponents and proliferate its way to victory. In doing so, it defeated New Phyrexia’s Feast of Flesh, which itself had triumphed in the opening round against an Archenemy deck and looked to be a strong contender.

Certainly our predictors had by and large expected a different result. The successful prediction rate this time was only 35%. To be fair, the weeks where a Division are divided have something of a curveball built into them. In most matches, both contestants are known. However, to get all three points a predictor must not only guess the outcomes of both lead-up matches, but then must choose which one they think will take it all. Pick wrong in the first two matches, and unless you hedge your own bets by choosing a third deck, you’re walking away empty-handed.

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2010-11 Precon Championships: Tinsman Division (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome back to the exciting conclusion of the Tinsman Division! Last week eight contenders battled it out in the arena for the honour of representing this storied division, and four of them saw their dreams dashed in a first-round exit. Now the remaining four are back for the final three games to determine which one deck will contend with the Knights Duel Deck for domination of the Rosewater Conference, and a shot at the championship! With the 2009-10 Precon Champion having come from the Tinsman (Eldrazi Arisen), the pressure to perform is on. Which will be the last deck standing?

Today’s matches promise to be furiously contested. In the first bracket we have Doom Inevitable, the proliferation/living weapon deck from Mirrodin Besieged. To advance it’s going to need to get through Metalcraft in a battle which fittingly pits the Mirrans against the Phyrexians. In the day’s other bracket we have Feast of Flesh, a removal-heavy New Phyrexia construction taking on the last remaining Core Set deck in the Rosewater Conference, Breath of Fire.

As all four are Intro Pack decks, so one could fairly say that regardless the winner the hardest challenge lies ahead when it takes on Knights. But today, we’ll only be deciding the winner of the Tinsman Division, and what better time than the present?

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2010-11 Precon Championships: Round 4 and the Leaderboard

Last weekend’s opening round of Tinsman Division action stumped our reader-predictors! The opening round of the Nagle Division saw a 61% accuracy rate in picking the winners of the matchups. Once the top four decks advanced to fight it out for the division, the predictions moved up to 67% accurate. Round One of the Tinsman? Forty-four percent. Without question, the relative lack of a steamroller powerhouse in the vein of War of Attrition helped explain the drop, but it’s also interesting to see how it affected the leaderboard.

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2010-11 Precon Championships: Tinsman Division (Part 1 of 2)

In the short history of the Preconstructed Championships, the Tinsman Division holds a place of high honour, for it was from here that the inaugural champion arose. In a story that gives hope to underdogs everywhere, Eldrazi Arisen battled its way through rare-filled opposition, first a Duel Deck, then a Planechase deck, and finally a Duels of the Planeswalkers deck to give it the right to appear in the finals. There it met Invading Spawn, and in the end this gauntlet forged a champion. And while the next season (2008-09, for we go backwards as well as forwards) added little silverware to the cabinet- its champion was vanquished by Jace’s Duel Deck- the Tinsman is hungry for victory and eager for glory. Will they be the first division with a repeat win?

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