[500] CCC - Casual Champions Cube

[ravnic]

With the CubeOpen on the horizon, I expected that to be the next big thing. But this tuesday, something else happenend. After weeks of trying, with the help of my new friend Lukas, we managed to get a playgroup together in Oldenburg, the city where I go to university. We were six (would've been eight almost), they all adored my cube and we'll have these drafts every other tuesday now.

Great news, and here come the results:

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


This was that person's first draft. Ever. And while he got a little bit help during deck building ("you should play these cheap removal spells!"), he drafted and played like an expert. Only the mana base tells you, that there was room for improvement.

2. Lands Midrange 2-1


This was the guy at who's place we're meeting, and I already figured out, that he has a weakness for 3+ colored value piles involving land stuff. Looks sweet. I didn't see much from this deck myself, but I witnessed a lethal Voldaren Epicure finish on an empty board lol.

This deck was perfectly equal with...

2. Aggro 2-1 (4-3)


Very strong aggro deck, that had some staying power with it's card advantage creating three drops. I had a close match against it, that I couldn't win because in game three the Battle Screech tokens disabled my ninjas.
As you can see next:

4. Ninja Tempo 1-1-1 (3-3)


I realized a little late, that I was essentially the only one in blue, or else I would've tried mono blue control probably. But I'm also happy with drafting Ninjas for the first time in so long. Some of the new additions like Grazilaxx felt great. And some old favorites like Man-o'-War or Okiba-Gang Shinobi are still as awesome as they were 2/5/10 years ago.

I ended up with the exact same win rate but had slightly more succesful opponents than ...

5. Madness Midrange 1-1-1 (3-3)


Tbh, this deck looks a bit all over the place. The story behind it was, that this guy, who also never played my cube before, thought for most of the draft, that Madness was in , as that's what modern sets usually do. He somewhat salvaged this by going three color and the deck played a bit better than it looks.

6. Dredge Midrange 0-3 (0-5)


Poor golgari. The player he claimed, that the bad result was due to him playing a selfmill deck for the first time and making mistakes because of that. However, he still had fun as he got to "go off" with LftL and Worm Harvest.


After a bunch of fun and intense games and with a new (regular?) playgroup, I'll enter the CubeOpen on a real high. As I'm posting this, I am on the bus to berlin. Let's go cubing!

 

[ravnic]

Okay, I'm going to make a long post on the CubeOpen, but I am still waiting for the feedback sheets.

So, in between our new little cube community met twice. Last week I had to skip, but this tuesday I joined again and they asked for my CCC, so ... here are the results:

1. Aggro, splash 2-1 (4-3)

Used SB cards: Syndic of Tithes, Goblin Assault, Helpful Hunter

What a weird deck. It looks not really focused enough for a top tier go wide aggro deck, but it just worked out. Maybe I have to keep an eye on that, because white and red were the most contested colors, yet won another draft with the aggro plan.

The only deck this one couldn't beat was:

2. Mono Ramp 1-1-1 (4-3)

Used SB cards: Kazandu Nectarpod, Nantuko Vigilante

Do you know that Cardmarket parody song about playing mono green devotion? I was humming it that evening. One game I got to play Wolfbriar Elemental on turn four – with SIX multikickers! Vernal Bloom is a crazy card.

As a designer, I loved how close most of my matches were. They were often won on 1 life or lost the turn before I would have a lethal attack. It was especially close against:

3. Artifacts Aggro, splash 1-1-1 (4-4)


Okay, I get the Tough Cookie splash. But don't ask me what the Mockingbird was for, I only ever saw that player rummaging it away. I guess it would've been sick to copy the juggernaut. Bit what I really like here is the fact that an aggressive artifact deck is possible and can perform well.

4. Sacrifice Midrange 1-2 (3-5)


We called that deck "Orzhov Mill", because it almost got there a few times in long games with Abiding Grace + Gnawing Vermin and a sac outlet lol. It was the sweetest deck around, even though it made last place.

Yes, we were only four people this time, some were sick or otherwise occupied. But we had a great time and I really like the positive and friendly vibes with this new group. I am confident that something awesome is growing there.

 

[ravnic]

So, as awesome as the Cube Open was, as long it took them to send over the results, feedback and decks to us cube curators. Which is why I haven't talked much about this yet. But now I've got everything and I can finally make this post.

Yeah, it was pretty cool to have a location with 50+ people who were as crazy for magic's greatest format as we are here. And those mostly were't power max formats either. One evening, we even drafted my custom PokéMagic Cube with a full table of ten people! But this post here shall focus on the Casual Champions Cube. It was drafted on saturday afternoon, the best time slot I'd argue, in the main event, which in and of itself was like a dream coming true for me. I was sitting two tables away from it and drafting a graveyard focused cube that was sweet too. However, I was able to come over every now and then and also grasp a little bit of feedback. People were very positive about the cube, they loved the altered cards and my 20 Prismatic Vistas each with it's own artwork. They also seemed to like the card choices.

Later we'll have to talk about Gurzigost.

However, here are the results first:

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


Red aggro and Clarion Spirit, two things I already suspected to be very, if not a little too strong. However, what I really love here, is that this guy wrote in his feedback column, that he really enjoyed the one game he lost. It was involving Gurzigost.

2. Tokens Midrange 2-1 (4-3)


Take all the midrange beef chunks that are doing well, add some token synergies, and you get a successful deck. No surprise here either, but I am a little surprised that this deck went 0-2 in games in the finals against mono red. However, I am glad that GW token midrange decks can do worse than 3-0 still.

3. Artifacts Aggro, splash 2-1 (4-3)


Another red aggro deck, splashing one plains. However, this one does look very different, as it's heavily focusing on the artifact theme. Would've loved to see this one in action a little more.

4. Ninja Tempo, splash 1-1-1 (3-3)

Used SB cards: Debt to the Kami, Sevinne's Reclamation

I got to talk to this person afterwards. He said he really enjoyed the ninja deck, which confirms my determination to make it work. Once again, it did okay. Not great, but as long as it's doing fine and exciting poeple, I'll call it a success. The 1 in the middle here stands for the one draw this deck had in a match against an Izzet deck.

5. Landfall Midrange 1-2 (3-4)


This was my buddy at whos place I was staying for the event weekend. He had a lot of experience with my cube, but didn't draft it for almost two years - which you can see here. Back then, Landfall was a simic pair archetype, but it has since become a Gx theme, that's plashing more than one color most of the time, while Simics main archetype has become self mill. But I like seeing a straight up blue/green deck doing fine and I like seeing things outside of each color pairs main archetype. It was also part of THE match at that table, against ...

6. Dredge/Madness Midrange 1-2 (2-4)


I also talked to this girl afterwards, and I want to retell the magical story that happened here: Before the draft she was asking my buddy, what the cards were, that you should first pick in this cube. Jokingly, he said Gurzigost (of course she had no clue what that was). And when she opened her first pack, she had the ugly beast looking right at her. So she actually tried to draft the best possible deck around it. She took green self mill and red rummage effects, added land recursion, madness and Burning of Xinye.

Not only was this deck and actually Gurzigost himself the only one beating the mono red player (he himself stated that in the feedback!), it also had the most memorable match against my buddy playing Simic. They just managed to get one game done, but Gurziggost really got to do it's thing, refill her library as pleased while being an overstatted, ugly stinker! People were cheering!

7. Artifact Midrange 0-2-1 (3-4)


A pick one pack one Mindslaver lead to this weird deck, which became the king of draws. But I surely can't say I don't like this mix of blue based control and artifacts matter. Probably needed a little more oomph to actually win a match.

8. Lifegain Aggro, splash 0-1-2 (2-5)


I wonder why this player decided to go for the blue splash. White wasn't that contested, only one other, more midrangey deck featuring multiple plains. Maybe they should've prioritized some white weenies and could've done better.

Decks look sweet.

It was a weird first time experience, after having this cube for eleven years, to have it drafted without myself at the table. maybe I'm a little too proud of myself when it comes to my baby, but I do prefer it when I can participate drafting it. I spend so, so much time crafting my idea of perfect MtG, of course nobody's cube can beat that. Not that I don't enjoy drafting other cubes, I very much do, just not at the same time the CCC is live

 

[gaytransmulldrifter]

Congrats man so cool to see you get to showcase your cube and having your passion pay off.

 

[ravnic]

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I had a couple over, that we'd met at Bloomburrow prerelease last year. This was their first cube draft ever and my attempt to win them over for the format.

Here are the results:

Madness Aggro 2-0-1 (5-2)

I got to draft one of my absolute favorite decks in a very iconic form sporting a lot of classics, and I even won. Needless to say I could've played more rounds even. Madness. So. Much. Fun.

The only match I lost was against:

2. Landfall Ramp 1-2-0 (4-3)

Another deck, but this time it wasn't a token deck, was much more heavy green and essentially just splashing white for removal and a couple of other cards. The did very well for the first cube draft ever, she didn't lose a match, but got two 1-1s, so she could not win the draft.

Spells Midrange 0-1-2 (3-4)

Used SB cards: Force Spike, Invoke the Winds

I feel like the Spells decks are doing better when they have a critical amount of burn. This deck didn't, because I snapped of many burn spells. As is, this deck did like often does: worse than it looks and feels like; spinning wheels a lot, then dying to a 5/5.

Interesting was the Hedron Crab, which got copied with Mockingbird multiple times and made for a nice win condition that way. Gush is such a sweet magic card.

4. Mono Midrange 0-1-2 (2-5)

Used SB cards: Pacification Array

Grindy mono black is another one of my favorite decks. Sadly this version my girlfriend drafted lacked a little something. I think a sac outlet, a little more and better top end and maybe another payoff for mono color, that could've really pushed this deck over the line.

Really sad, she lost the first match here due to a misplay: forgetting the Bone Shredders echo ability. If it would've binned itself, she could have a crucial removal spell to push through, because she had Haunted Crossroads out. When we noticed, it was too late.


Despite that: We all had a GREAT time last night and I think I won two new people for the world of Cube <3