Primordial Knowledge – 2017 Season 1 CCS Analysis

HEX’s latest Cosmic Crown Showdown brought an all new meta on the heels of set rotation. With Shards of Fate and Shattered Destiny no longer legal in Standard, Scars of War was poised to impact the meta as much or more than any set prior. Let’s get right to the stats.

This time I used data from both hexmeta and hexpvptools. I filtered the hexmeta data by champion in order to identify what decks were played and by how many players. I then filtered that data to only include players with six or more wins. I felt a six win threshold was low enough to provide a meaningful sample, but high enough to be considered a strong performance. I was able to retrieve match win percentage exclusive of unplayed matches from hexpvptools. Since a deck’s importance is both a measure of popularity and performance, I calculated a “meta %” by multiplying % popularity by match win %.

Breaking It Down

Kagulichu sporting Horrors of War was the tournament’s break out deck, being piloted to a 7-1 record by Ali Aintrazi. Not only was Kagulichu the single best performing deck, but also by far the event’s most popular champion with a solid win rate of 53%. This was fairly expected given the archetypes resilience and the new tools Blood received in Scars of War. Blood was arguably the most dominant shard of the tournament with both Bloodspinner Zorath and B/x builds of Uzzu the Bonewalker performing well in the event. In fact, according to hexpvptools, the top four most played cards were Blood: Herofall, Strangle, Cheap Shot, and Withering Gaze.

The second most dominant archetype was Marshal Josephina Ardent. Ardent most often has a Diamond base with a splash of either Ruby for Heart of Embers and Lazgar’s Vengeance or Wild for Satyr’s Roost Bard and Howling Plains Alpha. Lately, the Ruby build has appeared the stronger with top finishes in other events and a strong ladder presence.

The hidden gems of the tournament proved to be B/S/D Uzzu Control sporting From The Ashes and Ivan Slagpot Redlings. Sorting the hexpvptools cards data for the event, we can see that From The Ashes had a 64.8% match win percentage with the majority of copies being played in the fascinating Uzzu Control shell. Pyresmoke Cabalist, Rustbucket Distractor, and Mortartrike Driver sported impressive match win percentages of 70.8%, 65.6%, and 65.6% respectively. With these cards being played almost exclusively in Redlings, it’s clear that the deck far outperformed the majority of contenders.

Our Primordial Brew

As many know, I playtest in the DragonBorn guild with players such as JadiimJedi, Thuirhawat, SaDOlution, and many others. While we unfortunately did not place any players in top 8 this go around, the team brought two interesting decks to the event which placed several of us (including myself) just outside the top 8 cut. JadiimJedi and several others brought what was essentially mono Blood Uzzu the Bonewalker midrange splashing Wild for Rotten Rancor and Sapphire for Ryaalinth the Soulcursed. Uzzu not only makes the splash easier, but allows you to “ramp” Blood thresholds to hit the five needed for Bride of the Damned’s second ability. Rancor allows Bride to be resurrected and steal a troop with Ryaalinth is both an impressive threat and threatens to steal an entire board next to Bride.

I, however, opted for something a little different. Myself, Thufirhawat, and Malicus chose to play Blood/Diamond Marshal Josephina Sockets. I had been given a midrange list by one of my Twitch viewers, Kalemero, a week prior and had decided to work on the list leading up to the event. After playing with it some, I realized the deck had immense potential. In particular, Sentry of Nulzann stood out as a differentiator in a world without Howling Brave as a ubiquitous mana accelerant. Sentry is especially powerful in a deck comprised entirely of socketed threats and enables brutal starts such as turn 1 Sentry, turn 2 Cryptcurse Knight and Emsee, Etcher of Nulzann. And that isn’t even the deck’s most explosive opener!

Let’s take a look at my most recent list, which only differs from my CCS list by a few cards in Reserves.

Cryptcurse Knight socketed with Minor Diamond of Wind

Emsee, Etcher of Nulzann socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Frenzy

Grim Skull Tactician socketed with Minor Diamond of Protection

Soulspeaker Revenant socketed with Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice

Spiritbound Vicar socketed with Minor Diamond of Protection

Nefarious Corruptor socketed with Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice

Animus of Nulzann socketed with Major Diamond of Hope

Weeping Banshee socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation

Totemic Elder socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Frenzy

Dark Heart of Nulzann socketed with Minor Blood Orb of Intimidation and Major Blood Orb of Sacrifice

The deck is generally a very aggressive deck with means to generate card advantage in the mid game with Altar of Nulzann and Emsee, Etcher of Nulzann. These sources of card advantage allow you to play toe to toe with the midrange bullies like Kagulichu and Uzzu the Bonewalker. The deck also has several lines of play which all but seal a win as early as turn two. There’s little an opponent can do to recover from a turn 1 Sentry into a topdecked Animus of Nulzann and Emsee on turn two.

Grim Skull Tactician is also surprisingly powerful and important in this deck. Paired with Marshal Josephina’s charge power, the deck often feels like all its troops are unblockable. This is especially helpful against midrange decks like Kagulichu which often deploy large roadblocks to aggressive decks.

The Reserves mostly serve to diversify our removal suite depending on the opponent. Cheap Shot and Totem Trap come in to beat up aggressive decks while Eldurathan’s Glory is here to combat Blood threats like Bride of the Damned and Vampire Prince. Glory is effective against some aggressive decks as well, but is primarily intended to swing the Blood control match up in our favor.

Sock It To Ya

While it was disappointing to lose on the bubble for top 8, I was overall very pleased with my choice of deck for the event. I’ve had a blast playing B/D Sockets and have piloted it to a win rate of 82% over 30+ games. Not only is the deck fun, but it’s fairly cheap too if you drop Herofall, Dark Heart of Nulzann, and Well of Retribution.

Be sure to tune in to my stream tonight at 3:30 PM PST. I will be piloting today’s Primordial Brew on the Constructed Ladder. As always, there will be Primal Pack and free Draft, Sealed, and Evolving Gauntlet code giveaways.

See you on the ladder,

Varranis | Twitch | Twitter | Team Fade 2 Karma

Varranis is an analyst for professional gaming organization Fade 2 Karma. He has played countless TCGs over the last eighteen years and brings a unique lens to HEX theory crafting and deck building based on his historical experience. Varranis has numerous tournament wins and top finishes to his name across several popular TCGs and has coached and supported players in world championship level events.

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