The Clash were an Iconic band. Dubbed "the only band that matters", in the top 50 of Rolling Stone's Greatest Artist of All Time. Their signature album "London Calling" was named #8 by the same magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums.
What are the chances that the new Clash mechanic can live up to that legacy? So far everyone I've seen seems pretty skeptical that clash can make much of a splash so I decided to run the numbers.
For those whose haven't seen it yet, the clash mechanic reads thus:
(Each clashing player reveals the top card of his or her library then puts that card on the top or bottom. A player wins if his or her card had a higher converted mana cost)
The if your card "initiates" the clash and you win you gain an extra effect like draw a card, more damage, double the effect. Something good. You can only gain by initiateing a clash (so far) never lose anything if your clash fails.
In the abstract most decks are composed of approximately 40% 0 casting cost cards (land). That means even a card composed of 60% one casting cost cards has nearly a one in four chance chance (.40*.60 = 24%) of winning a given clash. If nearly the worst possible configuration of a clash deck can win 1/4 of the time than maybe there are some legs in this mechanic.
I decided to dig a little deeper and came up with some generic deck configurations. The table below lays out their casting costs as well as some other stats I'll refer to.
The table didn't work at all, so I'll try to list the deck compositions below - sorry.
Aggro:
0cc: 23
1cc: 16
2cc: 12
3cc: 6
4cc: 3
5+cc: 0
avg cc: 1.17
Control:
0cc: 25
1cc: 4
2cc: 12
3cc: 10
4cc: 4
5+cc: 5
avg cc: 1.65
Midrange:
0cc: 24
1cc: 10
2cc: 8
3cc: 8
4cc: 4
5+cc: 6
avg cc: 1.60
Clash:
0cc: 24
1cc: 4
2cc: 10
3cc: 12
4cc: 5
5+cc: 5
avg cc: 1.75
The decks above are meant to approximate the listed archetypes. The first important thing to notice is that thanks to lands it is VERY difficult to build a deck with an effective casting cost of greater than two. That means that any deck with 30 or more cards above 2cc will achieve a 50% ratio of wins against a random field. Focusing your deck on cards 2cc and above seems pretty non-restrictive and we are already at the coinflip point for wins with clash. With that in mind I added the "clash" list above trying keep a reasonable curve that still focused above the 2cc mark.
Since all of the above decks (and virtually ever list I plugged in) had a average casting cost between 1 and 2 the calculations were pretty straight forward. Just add up the cards with cc 2+ in each deck and divide by 60 and you discover that each deck wins clashes against a random card from almost any deck at a rate of:
"Aggro": 35%
"Control": 52%
"Mid-Range": 43%
"Clash": 53%
Unfortunately, as easy as it is to get your win percentage above 50% your lands eventually hold you down. Remember, you can never win when you flip a land which means that you basically max out at 60% success rate (due to having ~40% lands). So does a slightly better than 50% rate make clash playable? My guess is that it is close. Clash by its nature is cheap, being tacked on to other effects. Unfortunately so far it has been spoiled as added to creatures (fragile) and one shot spells. The only clash effects on less vulnerable permanents so far are clash triggers (ex: when you win a clash, draw a card).
In my humble opinion for clash to be "the next cycling" it will take more permanents that can repeatedly trigger clash. If those hit a critical mass then I think the 55% win rate in a clashes would make this a competitor, as least within the block environment.
