The Cube Showdown! Can you guess the winner? Part 1: Results

This is my walk of shame as I started this series more than a year ago and never finished it. I am sorry for the people that were really looking forward to it, especially MrZebrot.

Nonetheless, it is here after one year! The results report of the drafted decks in the first series of The Cube Showdown. Before you read further, I would advise you to actually look at the decks in this blog entry.

This draft was really weird. Namely because I took a really long break of cube after playing it. I immediately wrote up the The Cube Showdown series when the draft was over because I thought that the idea was fun. However, during actual gameplay, I didn't have that much fun, which was weird, as I love Magic and because I played one of my, at that time, favourite decks in Temur Rec. I actually will go more in detail on why I felt like this in my new blog post, which I was writing for a pretty long time. 

After my break, I basically changed my cube from 640 cards to 200 and back to 540. I am now very happy with my cube and can actually look back at this draft with a good feeling.

Here are the final results of the draft (I wrote them down on this blog a long time ago, but not very detailed. I also found my written copies, so I can actually give some insight into a few of the games):

1. Place: Boros Aggro 2-1 (2-0 Win vs Jeskai, 2-0 Win vs Dimir, 1-2 Lose vs Temur)

2. Place: Jeskai Control 2-1 (2-0 Win vs Temur, 2-1 Win vs Dimir, 0-2 Lose vs Boros)

3. Place: Temur Reclamation 1-2 (2-1 Win vs Boros, 2-1 Win vs Dimir, 0-2 Lose vs. Jeskai)

4. Place: Dimir Reanimator 0-3 (lost to all... )

So the people on reddit were spot on!

Let me write about my impression of the deck, while they were played:

The Jeskai Control deck had very strong pieces and also played really strong. However, some cards were not in harmony with each other. As MrZebrot noted in the reddit post, Wasteland is sort of not in the right spot here. It can be good, but it was at conflict with the cheaper Tempo cards. This was a common theme throughout the deck, namely Dragon Rage's Channeler and Dreadhorded Arcanist are good tempo cards while Ancient Tomb and Grim Monolith rather want to go a bit bigger. The player certainly had the pieces to ramp out in Thassa bests the Seagod and Ugin. However, in some games, the deck didn't seem streamlined enough because it wanted to play Tempo in the early game but also wanted to wait until the lategame to win, like a control deck.

The Boros deck was the best deck of the draft. It had Ragavan, which at this point in my cube, was very good, because there wasn't a lot of removal in my cube. Ragavan felt sort of out-of-place in this deck as it was sooo much better than anything else that this deck (and other decks) could do on turn 1. The rest of the deck included just good cards with Armageddon stealing some games like it always does. MrZebrot pointed out that the deck lacked explosiveness which is certainly true. However, the streamlined nature of the deck could outweigh the missing fast mana. The deck had a few duds in Akhoum Hellhound (which is just no on the level of other cards), Tithe Taker, Pia and Lingering Souls. Weirdly, the player drew Ragavan in his starting hand very often. Surely, he mulliganed pretty aggressively as he wanted Ragavan turn 1, but he drew it disproportionally often in his starting hand. Surely a reason why I was so dissatisfied with my cube after this draft.

I piloted the Temur deck and it played okay. As MrZebrot and VileRocK pointed out, the deck was very light on interaction and pretty durdly which was a problem. A turn 1 Ragavan was unbeatable for this deck as it only runs two removal spells (exactly like MrZebrot predicted). The deck could high-roll fairly well with Mox Diamond and had a good mana base. It also had a really strong combo in Wilderness Reclamation and Expansion/Explosion which won games. However, the Jeskai Control deck picked up a lot of cards that this deck would have needed to be very strong. As you read earlier, this deck actually managed to win against Boros, which was one of the most unfair wins I have ever gotten.

The Dimir deck was a mess. It wanted to play Reanimator but only had Recurring Nightmare, which is best in a Black deck playing Red or Green additionally. It had interaction though which made it not completely bad. However, the thing that killed the deck was the manabase. Thassa's Oracle and Jace couldn't be cast most of the time and there are other cards with double pips or even triple pips in Tourach, which was mostly cast as a 2 mana 2/1 blocker. In addition, the deck didn't have a fast clock, meaning that the Boros deck had enough time to kill it and the Jeskai deck had enough time to draw Ugin or Thassa best the Seagod. As VileRocK pointed out, the deck could handle the aggression from Boros better but couldn't capitalise on it. And yes, Skyclave Shade was extremely bad in this deck, doing nothing than sitting around. 

I will do my best to describe the matchups. I obviously can't recall everything as I could only play my games.

Boros vs Dimir 2-0

The dimir deck stood no chance at all although it had a fair amount of interaction. As previously mentioned, the Dimir deck had good removal in the early game in Fatal Push and Bloodchief's Thirst and others. However, the deck had no good fixing and stumbled in one game completely, only drawing blue lands and no fixing. In the other game, the deck actually removed most of the threats, but couldn't win the game because it had no proactive gameplan until a turn 6 Grave Titan. Recurring Nightmare wasn't the best reanimator spell in this deck and was rarely activated. The deck also didn't have a lot of options to discard its reanimation targets. The deck is good at not losing, but doesn't really have a way to close the game quickly. Without manacheat, getting out Grave Titan took forever. The last game was decided by Umezawa's Jitte which was impossible for the Dimir deck to get rid of. The Dimir player actually managed to put down a Gravetitan on turn 6 after dealing with a lot of threats, but the Jitte was too strong and was eventually equipped to a flying Thopter Token for the win.

Boros vs Jeskai 2-0

Although the Jeskai deck had good early game removal, it stumbled during the midgame against the Boros deck. One game was decided by an early Ragavan and the Jeskai player had mostly counterspells in hand which didn't do anything against a resolved Ragavan. The Boros player curved out and won easily on Tempo. The second game was really close. The Jeskai player managed to hold off the Boros deck in the early game with Unholy Heat and other removal spells and could get into the situation of being able to hold up counterspells. However, it drew a bit awkwardly in the midgame having an Ancient Tomb that did a lot of damage to the Jeskai player, but didn't provide two mana. 2 damage for one colorless mana is a rough deal. After a really long midgame of the Jeskai player countering some cards, the Boros player took overhand and managed to build a large board. However, the Jeskai player managed to play a Ugin and minused it to kill a Gideon and other stuff. However, the Boros player had the only answer in his hand in Cast Out. After that, it was a topdeck war, but the Boros player drew a Phoenix of Ash which the Control player could kill once but it immediately escaped again which was too strong for the Jeskai deck to deal with and it already lost its exiling answer in Ugin.

Temur vs Boros 1-2

The most surprising (and most unfair) outcome. In the first game, I (the Temur player) got completely crushed by Ragavan (like MrZebrot predicted). I kept a hand of cantrips and a few counterspells, but didn't have any removal. I was Geddon'ed on turn 3 and died very easily from there. However, I managed to win the second game by drawing the right interaction at the right time. I got an early Mox Diamond and put down Wilderness Reclemation fast, which allowed me to effectively double-spell. On the last game, my opponent started on Goblin Guide into Umezawa's Jitte after a mulligan, but I had Prismari Command. After that, my opponent managed to draw literally only lands. I was very lucky and had all the time in the world, exactly what a durdly value deck wants. I won the game by casting an Expansion/Explosion for a lot, which didn't kill the Boros player right away, but put me at 7+ cards in hand which eventually gave me enough threats and answers to win, albeit really undeserving.

Jeskai vs Temur 2-0

I, the Temur player, got completely destroyed by this Jeskai deck. To summarise it, the Jeskai deck simply went over the Temur deck, in every aspect. It had counterspells, I didn't have counterspells. It had Ugin and Thassa bests the Seagod, I didn't have such bombs. It was just a miserable matchup for my value oriented and slow Temur deck. Especially the counterspells crushed the slow Temur deck as the Jeskai player could simply counter the high CMC cards. The games weren't remotely close and I remember being pretty miserable as I couldn't do anything against an Ugin. This game made it clear to me that my cube needed a higher density of interaction even though this Jeskai deck had a fair chunck of it.

Jeskai vs Dimir 2-0

It again boiled down to the Dimir deck losing against itself because of its horrible manabase. I didn't get a lot from this match but heard that it wasn't close.  The Jeskai deck could just counter Archon or Grave Titan and the Dimir deck wasn't fast enough to escape these counterspells. It was the same matchup as against the Temur deck. The Jeskai deck didn't have to do much: Just sit on counterspells and wait until turn 7-8 to win or ramp out the wincon with Grim Monolith.

Temur vs Dimir 2-1

As predicted by the redittors, this was a really fun game. However, it was a bit weird, as the Temur deck had literally zero options to kill a resolved Grave Titan or Archon (except for an Expansion/Explosion for 1 Million). This was the best matchup for Dimir because of that. In the first game, the Dimir player played a Grave Titan which the Temur deck just didn't have an answer to. In the second game, it went back and forth until the Temur deck got down a Wilderness Reclamation and put down a clutch Supreme Will (as the opponent thought there weren't any Counterspells in the Temur deck). The last game, I (Temur player) won through a bad manabase of the Dimir player and some luck as my opponent didn't draw anything and what they did draw, they couldn't cast because of their mana base.

All in all, the Boros deck was the best deck and should've won against the Temur deck. However, just from summing up the wins and loses, it still got the first place. The second place goes to the Jeskai deck, which was the most highly rated by the people on reddit. The problem of the deck was that it was a mix of Tempo and control which supported different gameplans. The deck actually showed me that Grim Monolith and Ancient Tomb aren't always auto-includes. Sure, ramping out a Ugin is really strong if you have Grim Monolith and Ugin. However, if you only have one of them, the card is essentially a brick. The Temur deck, which I piloted, got out better as it should have. It should have lost against Boros and I would've also lost against the Dimir deck, if its mana base wasn't so bad. The deck had interesting synergies because of Wilderness Reclamation but simply not enough removal and counterspells. The deck had no outs against Ugin, which was pretty embarrassing. The Dimir deck lost to itself and also didn't get enough pieces for its Reanimator plan. It also lead to me cutting on the 4 mana WAR Jace as three blue pips are so much. In addition, it showed me that I needed even more fixing lands in my cube.

Thanks for reading!