We began this league year with grand ambitions of more and bigger rounds. You will see that some of that was achieved, while factors combined to get in the way. As organiser the league has been rewarding but at times hard to sustain. I am indebted to andymc1 and the other regulars, wildman4420, chrismh, insanepete and many more who have done invaluable work spreading the word about the league and bringing in fresh players. Thanks also to every player who has joined up and competed, without you we wouldn't have a league.
A short explanation for you statistics fans. In the tables below for each round you will see a figure for participation (%). This is the number that represents how many of the possible matches in a round were played, e.g. with 11 players who may play up to 20 matches each there would need to be 110 matches played overall for 100% participation.

The season kicks off with some mostly familiar faces, bastow, finwe_de_van, izzet guildmage, jimmus, Jmason, Mooncalf, sardofkc, wildman4420, ecupiratefan69. We are introduced to some rookies, mattyb1874 and chrismh77, who both finish out of the prizes. The round winner, Jimmus, promptly vanishes off the face of the earth until the final round in 2010, and we can only guess how the championship race would have gone with his participation. Note that Jimmus was not counted as a rookie having played the final round of 2009. I'm overriding that now, to say that rookie status carries on for a minimum of one complete season, so Jimmus was a rookie for the 2010 season.

We hit the minimum attendance for maximum matches, however the final level of participation was less than 50%. I blame this on the block being too well understood at this late stage, and the dominant deck, esper, did a good job of crushing the fun out of this round. This situation pleases the spikes in the clan, but makes the many rogue deckbuilders we have unhappy. This finding makes running the current block format as a round very difficult, there being only a limited amount of time before a block becomes locked down.

The idea of a format comprised entirely of creatures and land was supposed to encourage innovation; predictably most found ways to adapt tried and tested ideas. There was a bias toward crypt rats and other sweepers, and moromete's juggernaut of a control deck was able to exile all opposing creatures by abusing comes-into-play effects (great deck by the way, including faceless butcher, and wormfang drake).
Not so many old faces this time, 2 new rookies, and rookie chrimh77 demonstrates some tournament skills to win the round. I was forced to make a rule change to allow a third match against each opponent. An unpopular round with a very low number of matches played...

... but not this low. A mere 4 old timers and another 2 new rookies. Inexplicable really, given that classic should be one of the more popular pauper formats. Lets move on.

This is more like it. We have hit on something that people want to play. Look at that participation figure! There were many playable decks, maybe due to the narrowness of the card pool and the general difficulty of adapting netdecks to singleton. I already wrote about this here so I won't repeat myself, suffice to say that this round is a great example of how much fun a league can be when the conditions are right for every kind of gamer personality to enjoy themselves.
Take note that rookie chrismh77 is now the main contender for season champion.

A foray into the arena of limited deckbuilding. Plenty signed up, but a low participation. We need to untangle what happened here very carefully. Around this time a lot of new players were discovering pauper for the first time, and also joining common sense in large numbers. In particular andymc1 did an amazing sales job for this round, going out and finding them, and bringing them here. We were tapping into this new blood, and needed to leave a good impression. The low participation demonstrates the bad experience had by many. My fault. The power distribution in the sealed pools left many just crushed by superior power, and players quickly left. The format can be fixed, you just have to limit the pool to a more even power level, so I hope the players will give it a chance and return in future. Never forget that you can ask for help, the clan has many skilled deckbuilders willing to share.

This was the day of the rookie, outnumbering oldies 11 to 4! They were... Victorbike, Chrismh77, Duxducis, Erockb, Zoomzilla, Ajlankow, Insanepete, Mrpiddlex, Lenney, Rapscallionaire, and Akhkharuxul. A fine, popular round of the kind that has everyone reminiscing about how good leagues are when everything goes right. This was also the round when we started allowing tie-breaker matches as a way to help maximise participation. Chrismh77 continued his march to the top, but was outmatched on this occasion by victorbike who stormed out from spain to steal the round.

The usual back to school dip affected this round, so it was low numbers again with a lackluster level of interest. Which is a shame because I had a whale of a time dusting off old standard decks from years gone bye, like Dominus Deck Wins, and Storm Control, and everyone who played had a blast. The on-form Victorbike again won the round, with a current standard legal deck, team america, if i recall correctly. At this stage only chrismh77 and jmason, remain in contention for league champion, and I need to finish 4 places above chris. congratulations already mate :)

Extended (or mini-extended as we might name it since the cardpool was reduced) is far from stagnant, with beatdown decks featuring large in recent pdc events. With that in mind, and despite the numbers going up and down a bit, I am still surprised more people were not interested, especially given an incentive of prizes for everyone. Yes, MBCu is a beast that at least 3 players brought to the table, but aggressive decks such as DDW and bogle pants can really give them a run for their money. As I write this on the 17th December it seems very much that chrismh77 will win both the round and the season by a large margin.

The third year of common sense league has ended with the title still in contention. We had a record 42 players in the league during 2010. 3 players joined every round, and they all finished in the top 3 positions, another reminder that simply turning up and playing as many matches as possible is a winning strategy. 467 matches were played! The league as ever has been a fickle beast, swinging from high to low, yet overall our most successful season perhaps.
It only remains to award the prizes for this, season 3 of the Common Sense Clan league.

The Participation award and a prize of 2 tix and a chandra ablaze for playing the most matches (119) goes to jmason. Well done me. I keep saying that it's not all about individual duels, it's the long game.

The award for Rookie of the Year and a prize of 5 tix goes to Chrismh77. You had some tough opposition and had to fight for your result, so congratulations on a great campaign. Although Chris always plays tightly, rivals take note that he won only 3 out of 8 rounds in total, so take heart for next season, nobody is unbeatable in pauper.

The award for League Champion of 2010 and a prize of 4 tix and a foil jace beleren also goes to Chrismh77! Chris is a great ambassador for the game and totally deserves this reward. He not only has great play and deckbuilding skills, but is ready to play any format, to put in the time and to do what he can to assist opponents and clan mates with their problems as well, and is always happy to chat about any topic between matches. I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say you are a popular and deserving champion.

These were the final scores

These awards pretty much clear out the prize pool, with the exception of some low value rares and a bunch of pauper staples. In season 4 I'll run the same system as season 3, reserving 20% of each round. I will gladly receive any kind of sponsorship that can be used for prizes. Anything unsuitable for a prize can still find homes with new players looking to find a few commons to complete their first pauper decks. Please consider helping.

Next year will be a litle different. More relaxed I hope, focussing on the popular and fun formats we have played before, and introducing some new ones. There may be a peasant round (+5 uncommons) and I will be running some multiplayer commander parties between rounds. Enjoy the break until round 4.1, and keep an eye on the 2011 Info Center for new developments.
JM