[500] CCC - Casual Champions Cube

[ravnic]

There is definitely a downside to it. When you look back there is a post in this thread from about a year ago where japahn points out, that my less enfranchised friend had his artifact deck not working out well because it couldn't decide between being a deck that wants Bomat Courier and one that wants Mindslaver.

That being said, I try to make the drafting and deckbuilding more beginner friendly in other ways. For example, I hugely prefer cards that aren't wordy, I try to avoid one-off keywords and I try to get versions of cards with reminder texts when possible, at least if it's not of a major mechanic with dozens of cards in the cube.

Oh. And regarding Trading Post. Had this in the cube years ago, can't remember anyone picking it ever. Maybe it's just too durdly even for my cube? But yeah, I should look for more payoffs that work with artifact tokens.

 

[ravnic]

I'm doing a very little in between update, just because I already own the new card, the old one hasn't been maindecked so far anyway and it's probably a clean upgrade in terms of synergy potential.



... replaces Aventurous Impulse.

Winding Way is probably a more tempting pick anyway, giving you the option to choose between creatures and lands, and allowing for potentially multiple hits. It also has some synergy potential for dredge and lands decks.

 

[ravnic]

Recently, I've spend too much time to not only track deck statistics but also card statistics. I've checked for the 12 CCC-drafts I've done since I started blogging here, how often each card has been used and gave it points according to tze number of matches it has won. Sure, that's not super accurate, but I can't get GIHWR like 17lands. And it's still fun and somewhat insightful.

However, there were a few insights that really, really surprised me. So, here are ...

My top 5 surprises of underdrafted cards and/or underperformers.

Spoiler: #5

Maindecked: 1
Points: 0

When I added this guy about two years ago, I was a little scared, he could be too good. Now, he didn't do anything special yet. He has only ever been played once, and that was in the hands of someone doing his first draft ever. I'll definitely keep an eye out for him to maybe try him myself in a coming draft.

Spoiler: #4

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

I was very hyped when I added this great sac outlet to green, at the same time I added Feldon. Not sure if it was maybe played once before I started tracking, but still, that's surprisingly little play for a card that could've been a part of many G/x midrange/token/graveyard decks.

Spoiler: #3

Maindecked: 3
Points: 1

I refuse to believe this card to be bad before I have at least ten times as much data. It used to be good before I tracked and had the bad luck of being in two of the worst decks (0-3) of the twelve most recent drafts. I want to see it in focused madness, dredge or even token decks, while it has been in some really chaotic 3-4 colores lists.

Spoiler: #2

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

Another card I'd say is a bit of a power outlier, yet it didn't see play. That can only be the result of bad luck, because there were successful madness and dredge decks that would've loved Vengevine.

But there was an even bigger surprise.

Spoiler: #1

Maindecked: 0
Points: 0

How can a card that flexible and popular not make a single deck in twelve drafts? This right here is what motivated me to now seed a handful of underdrafted cards in draftpools from now on. I mean, even when we draft with only 4 or 5 people, we do packs in a way that at least 260 cards are seen. Kinda crazy to think that Thraben Inspector was almost never in a draft pool apparently, ot it must have made some lists at least.

 

[Schafkurai]

An explanation for Thraben Inspector could also be that it was picked very early but the player then switched colors putting it in a perpetual Sideboard state ! And since its (usually) so popular you would not see it late/wheel it to make more decks.

 

[ravnic]

That is certainly part of it's 'bad luck', but it can't be the whole story. Other popular, firstpickable 1- drops have better ratings, e.g. Birds of Paradise which has been used 5 times and earned 9 points. But then, there are also similar cases, e.g. Llanowar Elves with 2 points from a single use. We'll be drafting this cube again coming saturday, and even though we'll be back to smaller group of 4-5 people, I still hope for some new impressions

 

[ravnic]

Finally, I got another draft with my regulars done. It was also the first time I secretly seeded some cards into the draft pool. But I can't say it went exactly as I hoped ... but first, here are the results.

1. Mono Aggro 3-0 (6-2)


Sami winning another draft once again, this time with a classic monocolored strategy: Turning red cards sideways. While it went 3-0, two of his rounds were very, very tight 2-1s that could've easily went into the other direction. In the third game against my golgari deck he won on a stalled board because he could cast Blast from the Past to my face with flashback SEVEN times before I could punch through his Goblins.


2. Mono Aggro 2-1 (5-4)


Yay, Thraben Inspector doing some work. That being said, we have another mono white deck overperforming, but this one doesn't even look great to me and was in a contested color, so ... I don't know. Maybe it's just that Anthem effects are really, really good in this environment? Glorious Anthem and Canyon Jerboa felt like the worst things to come down, sitting on the other side of the table.

After the draft, Tobi had a revelation when I told him, he could've splashed one mountain to occasionally get the free burn spell of the adventure side of Heartflame Duelist. Always cool to have your less experienced drafters level up while cubing.


3. Lifegain Aggro/Midrange 1-2 (3-5)


I think Denise here tried to draft mono white as well for some time and then moved to black. Both colors were relatively contested, so she ended up with a deck worse than last time. After - naturally - failing in some drafts where she experimented with different decks, she went back to her comfort zone recently with white lifegain decks and not drafting fixing (at least she then took out Gargoyle Castle and Quicksand).

I wish I could get her just a liiittle more invested into the game so she would be willing to take the next steps.

That being said ...

4. Sacrifice Midrange 0-3 (3-6)


... she beat my wonderful golgari sacrifice deck. Just like everyone else. I got to try out FIVE cards that hadn't been drafted before (Varolz, Vengevine, Thelonite Hermit, Mother Bear and the new Tribune of Rot) and I couldn't do them any justice. I had a very tough matchup against the two monocolored aggro decks and then some bad luck and trouble with fliers against the orzhov deck. I quickly took out my Carrion Feeder this draft, even replaced Den Protector with Wasteland Viper as a cheap blocker, but I didn't really have great tools against all that aggression.

That being said, I won a game in every match and most of the before untested cards played very well. I got Vengevine back for 0, made creatures massive with Varolz and stabilized the board with the Hermit. There is definitely a good deck here, maybe it even was this one, just on the wrong day.

What really bothers me is that the untested five cards will now be noted with 0 points out of 1 game, that'll look horrible, even though it of course doesn't have to mean much


In the end I was a little sad. I would've loved to at least win one round with those underdrafted cards in a deck like I never really drafted before (green in a sacrifice build). Now I can't wait for the next draft, even worse than before lol


Newly added card observations:



... was so good, I have to keep an eye on it. Sometimes it just played as : draw two cards + get a 4/5 ...



... played pretty well. I think this guy is just right for my cube's power level.



... no doubt this card is poerful. Probably even among the higher ends of my power band. I'd still prefer some cool creature that triggers of noncreature spells explicitly I think.



... had a hard time being more than a Centaur Courser against all those aggressive decks, but when I attacked, he made a saproling and that was cool.

 

[ravnic]

Summer Update Pt. 1

Yeah, I know, it's not july yet, but I want to post this now. I've thought about my cube quite a lot when I was collecting data and I couldn't help myself. This is eleven cards, so I could change up to four more cards, according my self-imposed rules of only updating twice each year and never more than 15 cards.

Out:


In:


White is overperforming a litle bit more than I'd like it to, especially blink and token decks are really, really good. And Party Captain and Hoplite are always showing up in these decks. Hoplite won 36 from 61 games, a 59% win rate, the Captain 19 from 24, a freaking 79% win rate (Although a smaller sample size). I just want to add the Knight and the Tote as support for blink/tokens and devotion that are more tame or work better with weaker themes. And the Exemplars, if not proving too good, are just more fitting for white prowess,which often has a bunch of artifacts and enchantments.


Out:


In:


In blue, I just wanted something that helps green/blue and mono blue a little bit to compete, as these decks are showing up less than other two-colored or mono colored decks respectively. And I think I found a good solution with a blue removal spell that feels like still fine in blue for my inner old fogey.


Out:


In:


While aggro decks were doing very, very well, black as a whole could've done a little bit better. So adding a boardwipe seemed like the perfect solution. This also reestablishes the old CCC-combo with Dusk Urchins. And I get the graveyard filling from Ransack with the new Leech. I'm loosing a sac outlet for artifacts here, but I found one for colorless. You'll see further down.


Out:


In:


I mentioned already that red based aggro decks were doing a little too well. While the Goblins winrate of 55% wasn't crazy, it definitely feels like the most scary red two-drop. War Marshall keeps the token synergies alive and is available in a retro frame, yeah.


Out:


In:


MH3 was kind to green. I finally got a juicy green fatty with a relevant landfall ability, that fits my cube's power level. And I could replace my replacement for Adventurous Impulse very quickly. I hope that this little adjustment helps pushing green/blue and black/green decks.


Out:


In:


I'm super excited to try this one out, after I recently discovered that there is a gold-bordered version available between 3 and 4 €. This card is broken in constructed but mostly unplayable in the average cube. But I think the CCC could be exactly the right spot for this classic to shine. I have a lower power level than most cubes still, but also a higher artifact count than most. Yet you never will have the constancy of constructed decks to play him as an aggressive monster. I hope, ravager will be a grindy value card, that eats your trinkets and dying artifacts, and is hard to punish because you can always move it's counters to your Skyscanner. Or think big and have a Triskelion nearby.

I also hope to make the artifact deck a little more attractive with this addition, as cool support cards like Emry or Teshar get passed around the table too often.

 

[ravnic]

Yesterday, I could draft my (for the most part) updated CCC with a total of six people, none of them my "regulars". As a designer it was mostly a success. As a player, not so much

The lists and results:

1. Mono Aggro splash 3-0 (6-2)


This dude has a cube on his own, but he went 0-3 in both a CCC draft and a draft of my Ravnica Block Cube. But not today. He drafted this very nice aggro deck here.

I had a crazy game against this player. I was at 26 life and had six blockers, one of them a 6/6. He then swung with everybody, I thought I had good blocks. Then he flipped both, Blistering Firecat and Gathan Raiders, increased through that Anax' power by five and also pumped his eight attackers with You See a Pair of Goblins. I took 28 damage and lost.

I get a feeling that Rx aggro is a bit too good in the current meta, winning three of the four drafts this year with a 3-0 record.


2. Mono Control 2-1 (5-2)


Another sweet monocolored deck ending up on the second place. I didn't play against them, but I heard them praise their first pick Mutilate. They also had a tight final match against mono red, losing 1-2 only.


3. Artifact Sacrifice Midrange 2-1 (4-3)


Really happy to see so many cool artifact cards that are either new or were underdrafted/underperforming, doing so well this time. A little sad that I could not play against this deck either. But I've heard some good things about Emry, Scrap Trawler and Marionette Master.

It was also really cool when this player started singing MtG-Remy's "Ratchet Bomb" song


4. Midrange 1-2 (3-4)


A little bit of blink, landfall and lifegain synergies came together here and it played as you'd expect from an unfocused deck like that: Just okay. I felt like I was doing very well in both games against this deck and then got crushed by Spitting Image, a card that's in the cubr since forever but rarely saw play in the recent years. I'll keep an eye on it.


5. Spells Aggrocontrol 1-2 (2-4)


I played the first match against this deck, lost 0-2 and was a little surprised to see this deck not winning another game afterwards. I think the U/x spells decks are better if they focus more on the controlling parts, or they need more burn spells for aggrocontrol, not sure.

But what I am sure of, is that Hearth Elemental is quite the power outlier. One turn this player cast the adventure, cast his last card in hand with it on the stack: A Condescend with X=0, so he could scry before he drew, then he played a Flooting, followed by a Hearth Elemental for just . That elemental was then bounced by the Barrin he played, giving him this eot draw. He played a burn spell an then again the Hearth Elemental adventure side, this time empty handed. What a turn.


6. Blink/Pact Midrange 0-3 (1-6)


Yes, I did even worse. But this time, I can explain!

My first pack was not offering a lot of firstpickable stuff so I took a little risk with Llanowar Tribe, second pick Vernal Bloom. I should've just hard forced it, but I saw some packs without green or colorless cards, so I ended up picking stuff like Faith's Fetters, then Flickerwisp came late. With the 'Wisp and Glimmerpoint Stag in my pool, I got another no-green pack and saw Demonic Pact in it. This is when I abandoned my plan A and made some picks where I passed green ramp stuff in favour of fixing, white or green spells.

Then, in seven games I didn't draw the Pact even a single time ...

My deck was not good, but if I would've had the Pact to blink instead of always just Tinker's Tote and Serrated Arrows, I assume I would not have ended up going 0-3.


New card observations



... is now the best Satyr Wayfinder. I'll happily run a slightly better version alongside the satyr though. The ramp makes it really more interesting for many green decks.




This really wasn't great, but it could've been a syndrom of my deck not being great either. It wasn't bad either and maybe this is what I have to do to keep white blink and token decks in check.

 

[ravnic]

Thanks to @Onderzeeboot and his very true remark, I threw all the data I collected based on match wins out of the window. Then I went through all the decklists from the past two years again and collected data based on game wins (there were a couple drafts I had just tracked matches, but I could guess those).

Even after all this work, I can't present you the card data. The reason is, that I decided that it would not make much sense to calculate win percentages for cards that haven't been drafted at least three times (18+ games). So I won't share card based data, BUT ...

I also accumulated deck/archetype based data through game wins. And there are some interesting things to analyze as well:

Mono 16/25 = 64%
Lifegain Aggro 5/9
Aggro 11/16

The bold line shows how, in this case, mono white decks have been doing in general, below are the different kinds of decks drafted in this color or color combination. Mono white has been, as I estimated, very well in the three drafts

Mono 2/6 = 33%
Control 2/6

Blue is probably the hardest color to make work as a mono deck. I still think there is potential here. Or maybe I should replace Drowned Secrets, the weakest payoff with ... Cryptic Command? First I want to see more attempts here.

Mono 14/30 = 47%
Sacrifice Midrange 9/23
Control 5/7

I don't mind the mono color decks being one diemnsional, but mono black having different flavors is pretty cool.

Mono 15/24 = 63%
Aggro 15/24

From the five drafts this year, two were won 3-0 by a mono red deck, another one by a rakdos aggro deck ... a little worried here.

Mono 5/8 = 63%
Ramp 5/8

I think mono green is very good when you get cards like Llanowar Tribe and Vernal Bloom. You just have to do it (looking at myself). But people are used to splash around in green, which is probably often correct even in this cube.

11/26 = 42%
Artifacts Midrange 11/26

These are decks that have at least 15, often more colorless cards, so it felt wrong couting them as a color (combination).

20/33 = 61%
Blink Midrange 20/33

The one deck white/blue has is doing pretty well. But I would like it to have something else going on ...

19/37 = 51%
Dredge Control 4/6
Spells Control 5/9
Ninjas Midrange 6/15
Artifact Midrange 4/7

Dimir is showing azorius how you do it. Many different archetypes getting drafted here, mostly doing well enough. Just Ninjas could do a little bit better.

24/52 = 46%
Sacrifice Aggro 11/28
Aggro 9/15
Wildfire Control 4/9

Rakdos is also doing well, considering my friend Felix drafted it two times (from three drafts) and always went 0-3

9/18 = 50%
Madness Aggro 5/9
Wildfire Control 4/7

I'm fine with what gruul decks are showing. Maybe something like gruul lands or gruul ramp could be a thing too?

15/21 = 71%
Tokens Midrange 6/7
Landfall/Tokens Midrange 9/14

Green/white on one hand is overperforming (I know, small sample size) but it also didn't show much diversity beyond token stuff. I'd like to see more landfall or lifegain decks, I know they're there.

18/41 = 44%
Lifegain Aggro 6/15
Lifegain Midrange 12/26

I didn't expect this color combination to have a great win rate, but I'd hope to at least see more diversity. Orzhov token/sacrifice or orzhov blink decks should be draftable.

17/31 = 55%
Dredge Ramp 7/8
Sacrifice Midrange 3/9
Midrange 3/6
Landfall Midrange 4/8

It looks like golgari is doing mighty good here, but it's rate is carried mostly by that one dredge/ramp deck that still had the massive power outlier Lotus Cobra in it.

6/15 = 40%
Landfall Midrange 6/15

Tatyova, Benthic Druid makes people go into landfall/ramp-ish decks, but then they usually ad a color for removal. I'm fine with that, but I am sad to not see anything like simic madness or drege decks here. I remember those decks to feel pretty strong before I started tracking.

12/27 = 44%
Spells Control 6/15
Spells Aggrocontrol 2/6
Spells Madness Midrange 4/6

Izzet looks also more mono thematic than I hoped, but at least you can see traces of it's madness capabilities.

8/19 = 42%
Spells Aggro 5/9
Aggro 3/10

I hope I fixed this guild with my winter update introducing borowess. There should als be something like a token aggro deck here, focusing heavily on going wide.

5/16 = 31%
Midrange 3/7
Spells Control 2/9

Since I don't care for three color decks kn particular, I also don't care about that horrible win rate.

5/9 = 56%
Blink Midrange 3/3
Blink Control 2/6

At least some proof that black as a third blink color isn't a total failure.

4/6 = 66%
Wildfire Control 4/6

Cool to see wildfire decks in three different color constellations.

19/32 = 59%
Landfall Ramp 7/9
Loam/Madness Midrange 5/8
Madness Midrange 7/15

Oooh, that's were the gruul lands and simic madness decks went. Temur is by far the most drafted tricolor deck.

3/14 = 21%
Blink Midrange 1/7
Midrange 2/7

It's just two drafts, but so far Abzan could've barely done worse

7/15 = 47%
Dredge Midrange 3/8
Midrange 4/7

Sultai is probably my favorite tricolor combination. So I am glad to see that it's one of the six three color decks that showed up.

I will now think very hard and very long about this very limited data and decide wether I will spend my four remaining update slots for this summer on correcting some of the issues I have with it.

 

[Nanonox]

A lot of data that helps see trends of a bigger picture. What jumped out at me is that sacrifice decks seem to be really struggling:
3/9, 11/28, 9/23 total of 23/60 = 38%!

There seems to be a lot of fodder and sacrifice outlets, but not many payoffs for sacrificing stuff. Zulaport Cutthroat, Bastion of Remembrance, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim and Juri, Master of the Revue.

I think that the payoffs are important because you are losing board position when sacrificing stuff so you need some compensation. In light of the data, I'd consider adding a sacrifice payoff. Dark Prophecy? Falkenrath Noble? Grim Haruspex?

 

[ravnic]

In light of the data, I'd consider adding a sacrifice payoff.

You are so right, thanks for helping me understand the message of that data I've collected there. I am going to give Grim Haruspex a try. I don't like that it triggers only of nontokens, prefer the 'once a turn'-clause on stuff like Morbid Opportunist, but I like that the Haruspex adds another morph, now that we probably wont get new ones.

I am also going to add Unlucky Witness, which should help the rakdos sacrifice decks more than anything else.

Another thing I want to try is to diversify decks. I've been thinking of replacing Brago with Malcantor, Purity Overseer, as that would still be nice for blink decks but also communicate azorius artifacts a little louder.

 

[ravnic]

Summer Update pt. 2

I think I found four more cards to change in order to improve the cube according to my goals.

Out:


In:


Drowned Secrets was never a good choice for the handful of cards that should push you towards mono blue and blue needs these cards to be tempting more than any other color. Excited to add this high-agency classic card.

Out:


In:


Black was already a little heavy on removal effects before I decided to add Accursed Marauder with this update. So I decided to cut the one removal spell with the least synergy potential in my current cube meta and use this slot to help struggling sacrifice decks.

Out:


In:


Like I stated in my analysis before, was really just blink. My hope is that this one change might be enough already to create a bit more variance for this color combo by making artifact decks more tempting.

Out:


In:


This one might need some explaining. I did add Insurance just a few months ago and it had no chance to prove itself. But it had from the beginning two strikes against it: 1. It further contributes to token creep with a different spirit – and there are a couple cards where it is relevant that the spirits are white AND black. 2. I want this cube to be the most powerful meta where Nightmare is playable. To make sure that isn't as low as you would think, I pay attention to some things like making a lot of the removal toughness or mv based so that a 6-mana ~7/7 flier is harder to remove. Or, and that is the case here, massively reduce the amount of tokens with flying and reach so that Nightmare gets through or at least eats a real creature.

Then lets talk about Cauldron Haze. For some reason I ignored this card the roughly speaking 200 times I was searching for playable hybrids (to support monocolor, not only but also to support Nightmare).

But the haze is actually pretty good. I went through my list and 162 of my 262 creatures would be bettered returned with a -1/-1 counter than replaced by a 1/1 flying. I know it doesn't draw a card and doesn't work with tokens, but I think the potential for cool plays and stories beats the better floor on insurance. It could also help to make black more of a thing in the blink decks. Yes, haze is a hybrid, but it is so cool with sac outlet + etbs. And it is neat that you can blink/bounce the creatures to get rid of there -1/-1 counters. It's just such a crafty card, I like that actually better than "I get a bunch of spirits".



That makes for 15 cards total. Now I won't touch anything before ~january, unless they print the ultimate slam dunk in between.