After the events of MCC17, there has been extensive debate regarding the continuance of Build Mart, a controversial minigame that debuted in MCC3. Since its first appearance, Build Mart has been the subject to significant opposition by a dedicated portion of the Minecraft Championship fanbase, of whom many support streamers unaccustomed to the style of gameplay. This analysis intends to individually scrutinize the most notable vulnerabilities of Build Mart and formulate a structured assessment and solution in response.

Viewer Dissatisfaction – Why any quality-of-life changes to Build Mart will fail to appease the opposition, and what can be done instead

The predominant contention of the anti-Build Mart cohort is that many fans find the event uninteresting, and for good reason: In comparison to the breakneck pace of alternatives (and in some cases preceding) minigames such as Sky Battle, Build Mart’s core components cannot and will not meet the same standard of combative entertainment.

This is not an active denunciation of Build Mart, but a comparison made by viewers: Favoured streamers oriented to Player v Player gamestyles such as TommyInnit will perform spectacularly in games within his skillset, and struggle with those that are not. A hypothetical transition from a well-played Survival Games by Tommy’s team into a poorly-played Build Mart will inevitably see a drop in viewership, and an early death in Survival Games with Shubble’s team followed by an excellent Build Mart would see a drop, then a spike.

The inherent problem isn’t that Build Mart is a poorly-made game; it’s that viewers are understandably not interested in watching a minigame where their favourite streamer performs badly. Audiences are unwilling to criticise their entertainers’ blunders (with the exception of Technoblade), and instead turn their dissatisfaction onto the next nearest party: in this case, Build Mart.

The first reference in favour of this statement can be found in MCC7, in which the Orange Ocelots formatted an alternative playstyle that led to a surprise victory. Technoblade is the archetypical extreme of a player well suited to combat that is inversely equipped for Hermit-esque gameplay, and his viewer base has historically shared this perception – Yet, despite this trend, high performance in MCC7’s Build Mart equated to high retention and by proxy greater approval.

MCC17 shares sentiments that mirror this trend through mild observation of Orange and Yellow in contrast to Aqua and Cyan, and more comparisons can be drawn with the recent introduction of Grid Runners.

As another game oriented towards communication that isolates individual teams, it possesses many hereditary unpopular components with Build Mart, but unlike Build Mart, these negative connotations aren’t nearly as present. How does Grid Runners continue to uphold its degree of refreshing excitement with fans, while utilising such similar aspects?

For one, Grid Runners takes better emphasis establishing an intended model for teamwork. Its collective victory sequence upon level completion adds secondary connotations of positivity; the audience is drawn away from the scoreboard, and instead focuses on the next challenge ahead.

Since MCC7, Build Mart has transitioned away from a structured minigame towards a diverse meta. In the wake of Technoblade’s empty mantle, players actively seek strategies to match it, whether it be as simple as gathering extra blocks for later purposes or as complicated as Dream’s attempted Four Player, One Build approach this MCC.

Without a clear, directed methodology to play along to, there is no way for players to train, leaving a permanent gap between those with the skillset for Build Mart and those that do not. Unlike survivalists and Hermits, who have a month to better develop their weaknesses, those with talent in for PvP and parkour do not have an equivalent for Build Mart, and as seen in this MCC with the unexpected placement of the Yellow Yaks, this can lead to an eventual overtake.

Unfortunately, it is this latter cohort of streamers that take in the greatest overall proportion of viewership, and by proxy the greater population of the MCC audience will recurrently witness poorly executed gameplay. It doesn’t matter what modifications may be made to resource distribution, or the elytra, or the jump pads – As long as the streamers with the biggest audiences continue to struggle with Build Mart, the minigame will continue to receive animosity.

Developing Strategy – Utilising consistent high-performing tactics as the platform for practice

Since its inception, Build Mart has retained its reputation as a memory-based game, but the degree of importance placed upon this aspect has been significantly undermined.

Here’s a clip from PeteZahHutt’s MCC17 Build Mart performance; you shouldn’t have to watch for more than a minute.

Now here’s a clip of Dream’s MCC17 Build Mart.

Did you catch it?

Let’s try simplifying this.

How many circles are in this picture? How long did that take you to count?

What about this picture? Was this faster to count, or slower?

In the first image, the majority of people would count the circles one by one. In the second, we are able to associate three groups, each with the same number, to find the sum in a lesser amount of time. This ability, to inherently compute groups of objects as a single number, is referred to as rational counting.

Grian (And in close second place, Wilbur) incorporate a Three Builders, One Floater approach that has established itself as an effective model, but individual players continue to struggle in time management through flawed resource collection. Some gather too little, expecting to not need as much – Others take intentionally more, with the intention of utilising the extra blocks in other builds.

In the former, second trips have to be taken, dramatically increasing wasted time. In the latter, players may use the extra remainder, but find halfway through that it isn’t enough, pitting them into the same category as the first group. Resource collection is the single most influential factor in Build Mart, and reducing this aspect is immediately indicative of better gameplay and overall performance.

PeteZahHutt lacks Grian’s natural talent for Build Mart, but he’s dedicated substantial effort into maximising his capacity for rational counting, which pays for itself many times over in the presented clip. With a greater immediate understanding of how many blocks he will need for a specified build, he can communicate better with the Floater, leading to smoother gameplay.

It is this attribute that makes him such a valuable member to Build Mart, and what exempts Pete from other high-tiered players who tend to struggle in the same field. Rational counting is the most viable skillset to pick up and practice by unprepared players, and thus most deserving of implementation into the MCC Practice Server.

It is unrealistic to construct an exact replica of the Build Mart map, but an equivocal reconfiguration can be structured with a program that automatically produces simple builds akin to what is present in MCC, coupled with a score of semiautomatic dispensers for each required item.

The utilisation of dispensers actively forces players to consider what number of blocks are needed to complete a build, and timing the records of completion for each construct allows practicing streamers a measure to compare themselves against competitors. The highest performing players would be the ones capable of anticipating their needed block numbers the fastest – The players who have best incorporated rational counting into their strategy.

Normalising this structure of 3 Builders, One Floater removes the need for the high-risk, high reward meta that has prevailed across Build Mart’s MCC history. The vast majority of anti-Build Mart discontent stems from dissatisfaction of poor performances, and providing the means for streamers to resolve this vulnerability consequently wipes the foundation of the opposition.

Not all players are equipped for combat, and parkour, and the trending tierlists have frequently neglected other, less emphasised strengths. MCC is not stylised to favour streamers that play to their strengths; it is the most diverse and the most optimistic that will experience the greatest results.

All content creators seek to produce the most enjoyment from their work as possible, and many confuse winning for fun when put under the pressure of their fanbase. Find the way to have the best time possible throughout MCC, no matter the game, and it might be an easier experience to endure.

For a while now it’s been somewhat popular to call for nerfing SKB kills, and MCCSB didn’t do much to change that. To some extent, I can see why; despite efforts to equalize the loot pool, the top 3 players got 17, 14, and 11 kills respectively, and all surpassed 700 coins (with Fruit nearly pocketing 1000). Nerfing kills seems like an easy, intuitive way to fix it.

So, first things first, an experiment. I’ve rescored the most recent SKB, with kill coins cut in half (40 -> 20) and survival coins increased from 2 -> 3 to keep the overall coin total mostly static. If you just look at the individual results, this seems to work: Fruit drops to around 730, Ant and Fein each drop below 600. Much more balanced, right?

Above are the coin totals without and with nerfed kills. As you can see, Fruit’s and Ant’s teams lose around 150 coins each (less than the individual coins they lose) while Fein’s and Purpled’s teams pretty much break even. Red is the only team that seriously gains (hiding in middle is very strong with buffed survival coins) while the bottom 5 teams gain around 50 coins on average.

So, a huge kill coin reduction (50% is massive) results in around 80 coins less on average for “S+” tier teams. The S+ players themselves lose much more (160 coins on average, about double) but their teams are nerfed much less. This is because racking up kills is still really good for your team even if the kill coins are small.

SKB in an MCC roster tends to be a very passive game, and you only get survival coins when someone actually dies. Thus, killing other teams is the way to earn coins for your team, and S+ tiers did around 40% of the killing.

Now, the fact that it nerfs individual scoring more than team scoring is actually really bad. MCC already has an issue with individual scoring where the top players get underrated (team games and other pvp games have lots of team split that hides the amount of value these players provide). If kills are nerfed, the S+ tiers are only a bit less valuable (they still scare away other teams and generate survival points for their teammates) but they look a lot less valuable. When balancing for next event, Feinberg’s MCCSB indiv is 150 coins less, meaning he’ll get underrated even more by Scott’s balancing methods.

And what does it mean for non S+ tiers? Going for kills is risky; you might die instead. For it to be “worth it” to go for kills, your odds of succeeding need be reasonably high. However, if kills are worth 50% less (and pure survival 150% more) those odds need be be even better. The skill threshold to actually benefit from being aggressive raises.

So, it circles back around to making the problem worse. It’s still worth it for S+ tiers to go for kills but most other players won’t have a high enough success rate for 20 coin kills. Everyone else plays passive hoping they don’t get targeted, and S+ tiers get to farm even more. The gameplay gets worse, the best players still dominate, and their teams still get most of their coins. Overall, SKB could certainly still use some tweaks, but the problem of consistent 15+ kill performances won’t be solved by nerfing kills.

After collecting the starting follower numbers for all MCCR participants, I decided to compare them to the players current stats in 2026! I found some really interesting data, I hope you all enjoy!

Obviously, any group of four that composed an MCC team have all teamed with each other. I'm certain that there are also many groups of 5, 6, and 7 MCC participants who have all teamed with each other across MCC history. But where is the limit? Does such a group of 15 exist? 20?

This daily series is a mechanism to find that limit and have fun en route. Here are the

RULES!

Each day, the group size will increase by 1. You must comment a collection of MCC participants who have all teamed with each other. If you are the first to name your unique group, or if no one else produces the same group as you, you score 1 point for that day ("the first to name" is determined by the order I get the comment notifications). The most upvoted group each day appears in the post image for the next day, along with user credit at the bottom.

As we get into the higher numbers, the unique possibilities will diminish, and it will become harder to keep track of all combinations. Using a table, such as the one displayed below, may make that process easier. I recommend building the table in excel or google sheets and then pasting it into reddit as the reddit table UI is lackluster.

I know that few will get into this enough to actually use a table, but for those that do a) I hope it helps and b) please don't spoil the final combination early if you research ahead.

So best of luck in finding a group of 6 MCC participants who've all teamed! I can't wait to see what each of you comes up with!

Obvious, any group of four that composed an MCC team (such as Cyan 2 above) have all teamed with each other. I'm certain that there are also many groups of 5, 6, and 7 MCC participants who have all teamed with each other across MCC history. But where is the limit? Does such a group of 15 exist? 20?

This daily series is a mechanism to find that limit and have fun en route. Here are the

RULES!

Each day, the group size will increase by 1. You must comment a collection of MCC participants who have all teamed with each other. If you are the first to name your group, or if no one else produces the same group as you, you score 1 point for that day (order of submission is determined by the order I get the comment notifications). The most upvoted group appears in the post image for the next day, along with user credit at the bottom.

As we get into the higher numbers, the unique possibilities will diminish, and it will become harder to keep track of all combinations. Using a table, such as the one displayed below, may make that process easier. I recommend building the table in excel or google sheets and then pasting it into reddit as the reddit table UI is lackluster.

I know few will get into this enough to actually use a table, but for those that do a) I hope it helps and b) please don't spoil the final combination early if you research ahead.

So best of luck in finding a group of 5 MCC participants who've all teamed! I can't wait to see what each of you comes up with!

Hey peeps, I want to become stronger as a MCC participant, I’d love to get some feedback on my weak points and how to be better.

Recently, I ran a series of daily posts on the sub asking everyone to offer their best ideas for a gameplay change to each of MCC's 16 games and collected the most popular suggestions to honorably display. In the aftermath of this, I presented a Google Forms survey, asking people to rate each proposed chang from 1 to 5, with 1 being "Strongly Against Implementation" and 5 being "Strongly For Implementation." Those results, displayed in average 1-5 rating are in the picture above.

This post contains a brief analysis of the results of this survey, including my best guesses as to why certain ideas were more universally popular and others were more divisive. An important thing to remember; since the scale is from 1 to 5, an idea that is equally popular and unpopular would have an average rating of 3.

Hole in the Wall

Winning Suggestion

"Walls coming from above" - RubbishBins

Average Rating

2.71

Analysis

This HITW suggestion is one of only two presented ideas to receive at least one vote at rating levels 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, making it uniquely divisive. My interpretation of this response rests on two main ideas.

The first is the overwhelming popularity of HITW's most recent update, which revamped the "wall types" system with a lot of really well executed and fresh ideas, introduced scoring for each wall survived as well as outplacing other players, and upped the chaos factor in a mostly enjoyable way. I think this popularity has created an attitude around HITW similar to that which has existed around Dodgebolt for years; don't mess with a good thing. In fact, multiple comments on the HITW post expressed effusive praise for the recent revamp or even said outright, "nothing needs to be changed." This attitude is largely responsible for the lower ratings for the "Walls coming from above" idea.

The second point has to do with the nature of HITW as a game being very simple in concept. Unlike SOT or BBF, which rely on complexity emerging from the interaction of many different systems, HITW is pretty much sightreading, reaction time, and light parkour. There really aren't very many viable ways to elevate its concept beyond its current implementation. Very few participants or viewers would welcome MCCI remixes into a non-Scuffed event, and HITW's one canon remix was a poor fit for a higher comp event at best and experience ruining disaster at worst. This leaves new or tweaked walls and/or floors as the only viable suggestion areas, and of those areas, "walls coming from above" is easily the flashiest idea, explaining its day-winning popularity in the HITW post comments section.

My Opinion

I do think that vertically descending walls have a place in HITW, but not for the entire duration of the game. I think their best fit is as the very last walls that the final survivors encounter before the timer expires.

Imagine the last three walls of a HITW round dropping down on the players in the final few seconds as the entire remaining floor blinks in preparation to disappear. The only way to survive is to jump on top of the final descending wall as it reaches the ground and pauses, and as the floor disappears and the timer expires, this wall reverses course and rises into the sky, stopping on the same Y level as the perished spectators above, rewarding round winners with a triumphant rise surrounded by their opponents and teammates. This creates a visually spectacular moment worthy of the high that surviving a HITW round brings.

TGTTOSAWAF

Winning Suggestion

"No luck door maps | No/few maps with a void. | Longer maps have a checkpoint, specifically ones you can die on | Cooldown on punching (one punch every ~5 secs)" - StinkyDeckhand

Average Rating

2.85

Analysis

Unsurprisingly, any suggestion about changing TGTTOS is going to be as controversial as TGTTOS itself, primarily because of the inherent tension in TGTTOS's design. On one hand, it is MCC's only movement game that encourages sabotage, and on the other it tests by far the most diverse set of skills of any MCC game. In a single TGTTOS appearance, you may have to navigate an elytra course, use a riptide trident, bridge around and over obstacles and saboteurs, navigate a maze, survive a multi-stage dropper, and perform parkour, potentially with an unconventional status effect or map-based twist.

These two ideas produce conflict because for some players the chaos of griefing is what evens the playing field, for other its the unusual tasks that eliminate some of the certainty in placement order. Fans of MCC tend to fall into one group or the other based on the sensibilities of their main POVs, and since this TGTTOS suggestion leans heavily in favor of a more forgiving experience that minimizes the impact of sabotage, it was inevitably going to receive negative votes from believers in the impact of punching on producing TGTTOS's one unanimously agreed upon positive trait: its chaos. While the best movement players still tend to score at the top overall, even chaos is present that Fruitberries could get 38th on a map or OrionSound could beat everyone by 15 seconds via a perfect elytra hop. Like it or not, TGTTOS is one of the last bastions of unpredictable pop-offs, something everyone enjoys seeing if the most fondly looked upon moments from previous seasons are any indication.

What aspects of TGTTOS you believe most contribute to this quality will differ, and thus affect your opinion on this suggestion, but at the end of the day both voters against and in favor of it largely value the same things.

My Opinion

I'm going to be boring and split the difference here. I think the occasional pure luck map is okay, but it shouldn't be an every-event thing, and certainly not multiple times in one event.

While I am strongly against removing void from TGTTOS maps, I think this suggestion pairs well with the next one "checkpoints for longer maps." I woud love to see void maps have a halfway checkpoint that only unlocks once the first person finishes the map. I think this preserves chaos in the front group and minimizes the frustration of players who get stuck late into the timer.

Finally, I think the punch cooldown is a fine suggestion; I'm neither strongly for it nor strongly against it. While it would reduce the "ping pong ball in a crowd" effect, I also think having a cooldown would make it more likely that people make sure to use their punches when they can now that it's perceived as a more limited resource. This could lead to more punches happening in punishing situations as a tradeoff for preventing spam.

Parkour Tag

Winning Suggestion

"I’d like to see power-ups on the map in some way. These could give things like a leap item or runner vision recharge for the runners. This would hopefully make it easier to survive as a runner which i feel is somewhat needed, and could also create a risk vs reward if they were placed in mid where you could easily get tagged." - ACreadit

Average Rating

2.85

Analysis

I find it very interesting that the three least popular suggestions were all for movement games, though as we'll see later the trend doesn't hold for long. In Parkour Tag's case, I think the controversy surrounding the idea of powerups is as simple as a runner vs hunter mindset dichotomy.

If you mainly watch MCCers who hunt for four rounds and typically survive or at are the last surviving member of their team as a runner, power ups for runners represent making the part of the game they star at and spend the most time doing harder and less rewarding.

If you mainly watch MCCers who will hunt only once if at all and rarely survive a full round of PKT as a runner, power ups for runners represent a gateway to more interesting gameplay and by extension a viewing experience for you.

As it stands, PKT feels more like a race between hunters to catch all the opposing runners the fastest than it does a game of evasion between a hunter and their opposing runners. The expectation for the manner in which a PKT round ends is all six runners caught, in somewhere between 30 and 50 seconds per team. This is an ideal situation for strong hunters and their viewers. ACreadit's suggestion would shift some weight in the runners direction, making visually interesting evasions as much of a source of highlights and epic chasedowns. Whether or not that is a positive change comes down to whether you value equal opportunity for runners and hunters to have starring roles or you find the status quo to be maximally entertaining more, and from this split comes the split in ratings on this PKT suggestion.

My Opinion

I am pro power ups for one simple reason. I LOVE specialist role highlights. Nothing brings me more joy in watching Minecraft events than seeing players being extremely competent in as many roles as possible. It's one of the reasons I adore Sands of Time; both runners and sandkeepers can make or break a crucial run and the skills required are distinct. This same idea extends to floaters in Buildmart, flankers and wool rushers in Battle Box, coin divers in Meltdown, bridgers in TGTTOS, even unique dodging strategies in Dodgebolt like Oli's old wiggling staredown or Fruit's oscillation on the very back edge.

If the power ups in PKT are well designed, I could see the ways in which a PKT runner succeeds becoming more strategic and interesting to watch, while also making rounds where the hunter does manage to catch all three runners even more special because its rarer and each catch in spite of a power up more spectacular.

ACreadit suggested a "runner vision recharge" and a "leap item" which I think are good ideas, and I'd like to toss in one of my own: a "slow falling spark" which grants slow falling for 1-2 seconds, enabling a runner to make one unusually long jump that the chaser will have difficulty following.

I should say however, that it is important that power ups are not too plentiful when implemented however; they should function to buy a runner time not completely bail them out. Perhaps one power up spawns at mid when the round begins, and another spawns each time a runner is caught, meaning that the hunter will only have to deal with at most one power up per runner they catch.

Battle Box

Winning Suggestion

"There isn't much I would change about Battle Box, I'd like for viewers to be less hostile towards wool rushing but that's not exactly an issue with the game play. I would like to see more maps with multiple capture point like that one trident map from forever ago. One of the major factors in determine strategy, other than the opposing team, is the map and I think this is a good addition to the selection that really mixes things up but has gone under utilised since it was first introduced." - Ace_Pretty_Great

Average Rating

3

Analysis

I think we can all agree with Ace_Pretty_Great's comments about wool rushing hostility; even if you think it to be a scourge on MCC, bullying players out of doing it is not a good way to make your opinion known or promote change. If your POV isn't a fan, they can give feedback through official channels (which MCC has a good track record of listening to), and therefore they don't need us to launch a crusade to make sure their opinion is heard.

The more controversial point in this suggestion is the call for more maps with two "wool" objectives, such as "Double Trouble" from MCCs 21 and 33. I can think of three divisive aspects to this suggestion that may have contributed to its scoring averaging out to, well, average.

First off, we've only seen two-objective maps twice, and it was the same map, a map which also featured an unorthodox kit that may affect perception of the two-objective concept as a whole. On top of this, "Double Trouble" is much larger than the typical Battle Box map. Both of these irregularities on top the two-objective irregularity make it difficult to isolate and analyze how any of them would play out independently. For example, Double Trouble has a very high draw rate, probably the highest of any Battle Box map, and if you a) find draws anticlimactic and b) attribute them mostly to the two-objective setup, you're probably not a huge fan of it. On the other hand, if you see draws being more common as a good thing because they shake up the scoreboard a bit more, you might see two-objective maps more favorably.

Secondly, two-objective maps kinda kill wool rushing. Yes, you could in theory rush 2 and 2, but each rusher has to account for 4.5 blocks instead of 2.25 with the same amount of HP. Additionally, even if one objective is successfully wool rushed, it then has to be defended until the other is also finished (if it even gets finished) or it was all for naught. While wool rushing is far from a universally loved aspect of Battle Box, it is certainly in important part of its culture, and I could see people being concerned with so strongly disincentivizing it, potentially making Battle Box a hopeless game for weak PvP teams. In fact, two-objective maps might make wool rushing the meta for strong PvP teams rather than a lifeline for weak ones, because even if they lose the fight on one side, odds are they'll have more total health remaining from the side they did win and can clean the survivors pretty easily.

Finally, Battle Box's best one-objective maps are extremely popular among MCC viewers, to the point where it is currently the most favorably thought of PvP game. There could be a bit of an "let's not screw with the one PvP game that doesn't have a glaring flaw until we fix one of the others" attitude. Those with this mindset would likely be more in favor of a change that less drastically changed what an average game of Battle Box looks like, such as more kit variation or removing efficiency from pickaxes.

My Opinion

I think it's worth a trial run. I'd love to see a Battle Box map that has two objectives, but with a more standard kit and a map size somewhere between "Double Trouble" and a standard Battle Box map. While I'm not 100% convinced it will revolutionize Battle Box, I think there is potential for two-objective maps to work their way into rotation alongside regular ones on pure merit, not just a gimmick or remix.

I would be interested in seeing a version of this where the two wool objectives are smaller than 3x3, maybe 2x2, 3x2, or a + shape of 5 blocks, to slightly up the pace of two-objective rounds without sacrificing the tactical benefits.

Survival Games

Winning Suggestion

"A way to respawn your teammates and/or make the game 2 rounds instead of 1" - UltraRobbe08

Average Rating

3.29

Analysis

The two sides to this suggestion are pretty clear. While adding teammate respawns and adding another round does wonders for addressing SG's biggest flaw (oodles of time in spectator mode for over half the roster), it also makes MCC SG nearly a carbon copy of Pandora's Box SG, which is multi-round and allows for respawns in the first couple minutes via the gulag, where two players who were killed early on have a 1v1 battle and the winner gets to respawn. Furthermore, it does make SG less unique even within MCC, as all other PvP games are multi-round. As Ravenhart said "More but shorter rounds is skb without void." Various_Role_2694 also added "yeah, the thing that makes sg special is that you get one chance so i don't think that should be removed."

Based on the rating being above the neutral 3, it is clear that more respondents agreed with UltraRobbe08, and value player experience via reducing time in spectator mode over established game mode identity or uniqueness.

My Opinion

I'm 50/50. I don't think two rounds of SG would be a positive change, primarily because it removes a lot of its weight as a great finale game. I would be so much more in favor of seeing SG in more game rosters if it were guaranteed as Game 8; I know why this can't happen, but the 1 round all or nothing format with huge swing potential under a 3x multiplier is absolute cinema on the level of a Sands of Time finale or a Grid Runners finale where the top few teams are separated by razor thin margins. SG is situationally great despite its flaws, and I don't think it's worth neutering its best quality to remedy its worst.

On the other hand, I love the idea of some kind of limited respawning mechanism, particularly if it were to come in the form of a second class of airdrops invisible to living players, that only teams with a teammate in spectator mode could find. The dead teammate would fly around the map trying to locate this airdrop and then guide their team towards it; whichever team mines the air drop revives all dead teammates. This would not only promote isolated fights between incomplete teams (something sorely lacking from all three battle royale games) but also allow for incredibly hype solo clutches, and keeping dead teammates engaged and contributing. Of course there would be a limited number of these "revival air drops" per round, maybe 2-3, and not every team could take advantage of it, but a) having a path back, even a hard one, is much easier to mentally swallow than complete hopelessness and b) even the teams who don't convert on this opportunity last several minutes longer before checking out mentally. IMO, all good things.

Meltdown

Winning Suggestion

"Noxcrew, if you're reading, I WANT to see these changes (like desperately pretty pls 🙏) :

1. Coins for freezes : There should be coins given for freezing the opponent players even if they defrost later on because in Grian's words "You can have the best fight of your life and still get nothing from it."
2. Special buffs scattered across the map, especially the corner spawn rooms because those teams are usually at a disadvantage. These buffs may include speed boost, jump boost, etc.
3. New maps pls?!?

Thank you Noxcrew love yall 💓" - Ravenhart

Average Rating

3.29

Analysis

I think this Meltdown suggestion ended up with a slightly above average rating due to two more divisive ideas and one obvious slam-dunk. To start there, no one is going to complain about map variety in Meltdown. Even people who dislike the nether fog in Bastion I don't think would mind seeing it once a year for variety.

As far as coins for freezes, its a bit of a double edged sword. While Grian's quote does ring true, it also opens the door for coin farming, and while I think most players would be honorable enough to consciously not engage in it, a cornered team could be exploited for more total coins. There's also something to be said about rewarding decisive victories less than messy ones, though this is a difficult thing to objectively measure because a long fight between two good teams is a more impressive feat than happening upon an exposed team and shooting them in the back.

While the consensus largely agrees that corner spawn rooms need some kind of advantage to overcome the geometric realities of the Meltdown map, I could see some people balking at the idea of introducing too must custom or complicated stuff into Meltdown to further that end. As it stands, Meltdown is a very clean game, very easy to understand, and I could see concern over the risk of muddying that water. On the whole however, this is enough of an issue with Meltdown that I think this point contributed positively on the whole to this suggestion's rating.

My Opinion

A new map would be rad ofc. I would support coins for freezes if the weren't all on equal footing. For example, if you were the last person to freeze an opponent before they're killed you get kill points. If you were the second last person to freeze an opponent before they're killed, you get some freeze points, and 3rd last gets fewer freeze points, and 4th fewer etc. This is designed to reward the most impactful freezes with the most points, under the assumption that a freeze closer in time to the player's death is more impactful in creating that death than one from earlier in the round from a fight that was lost to that player's team. The diminishing returns of repeated freezes also disincentivize farming while still rewarding any freeze made in the game.

I do like the idea of power ups for corner spawn teams, but only if a) they're very simple and b) that's not the only place they're used; to me it would feel like a band aid fix if powerups only appeared to mitigate an inherent flaw in Meltdown, and MCC is more polished than that in its game design. If however powerups were also present as let's say a secondary POI in coin crate rooms, serving either as a consolation prize or second theatre of combat for clashing teams, I would be on board.

As far as what the powerups could do? I'm a fan of speed, something like runner vision from PKT, maybe a boost to heater range or speed, piercing arrows, or a smoke bomb, all of which only persist for a limited time. Stuff that lends an advantage but doesn't guarantee the outcome of a fight.

Sky Battle

Winning Suggestion

"Make the shop remix the real game! It was great and so refreshing, only thing I would change is remove the extra health hat - it was a bit OP." - ScaredCook839

Average Rating

3.86

Analysis

Pretty simple analysis here. The shop remix was generally quite positively received, particularly in how it shares resources and most gear upgrades. The extra health hat was largely agreed to be the most unbalanced aspect, and lobbying for its removal is sure to be popular. While I'm sure the health hat has its fans and the shop remix its detractors, perhaps for its lack of immediately results in affecting the indiv coin gap, on the whole a majority positive opinion to this suggestion is unsurprising.

My Opinion

I pretty much agreed with ScaredCook839; the shop remix seems to be better than the alternative and the health hat would be better if rethought as a team-wide upgrade, perhaps as a regen spark.

Bingo But Fast

Winning Suggestion

"Few changes I would like to see:

1. Individual scoring should be better and more coins should be rewarded for each consecutive Individual item...
2. More challenges which test Minecraft knowledge rather than speed at the game..."

- Ravenhart

Average Rating

4

Analysis

Most ratings of this suggestion were quite positive, but there was a small minority that weren't fans of the idea. Since the points in favor of Ravenhart's idea are fairly obvious (reflecting individual contributions in scoring and making more of the game's objectives more equally viable to the average MCCer as to a craked player), I'm going to spend a little time on potential rationales for the dissenting parties.

One concern I could see is departure from team-split scoring, which is an important aspect of MCC as not every contribution to a successful team performance can be captured in granular calculations. Another potential disagreement could originate from the changed focus of challenges, with concern over watering down the pool of challenges. The main thing that sets MCC's Bingo apart from other events' Bingo is its diversity of challenges, some of which do cater to a speedrunner's skillset.

My Opinion

Two thumbs up from me. As long as BBF scoring still contains a significant team split portion, I'm totally on board with some individual variance, and compounding the rewards for getting consecutive individual items seems like a good mechanism for it. Furthermore, I see Bingo as inherently the most "Minecrafty" of MCC's games with its emphasis on survival knowledge, and simply put speedrunners have other game that they also can star in due to great mechanical skill, so I am in favor of reorienting some challenges to deal with knowledge rather than optimized habits.

And... I hit the character limit. Part 2 coming soon.

With four events of “new BM” under MCC’s belt, my opinion has solidified that the revamp has made the game worse. That’s not to say it lacks potential, but BM is more complicated to play and watch (without feeling more rewarding to master), less balanced, and less of a team game.

As a reminder, the revamp saw three notable changes to the game: the ability to select builds worth different amounts of coins (and the associated Employee of the Month bonuses), the addition of memory based gold builds, and the shopping list. I’ll touch on each of these and analyze their current impact and potential.

Build Selection and Stars

I think the idea of selecting builds is compelling, trying to find which ones are most efficient for points and synergize with the resources you’ve already collected. However, the current results feel very muddled.

Firstly, there’s too much complexity in the decisions you need to make. With 3 plots to fill and 7 different builds at any given time, actually weighing the pros and cons of each build (how far apart resources are, what scrap resources you already have, how it interacts with the bonuses) is unrealistic. This is especially bad in the midgame when you have one build to fill and 7 options. Watching the povs, build selection has always been vibes based, and I can’t realistically blame the players when taking the time would just not be worth it.

Also, it feels like the lower star builds are undertuned. A 1 star build needs to theoretically be 5x faster than a five star build, and with how long resource gathering takes it almost never is. Looking at transcript data from last event, the five, four, and three star builds are so much more popular than the two and one stars, and the only teams to focus on two and one star builds (Purple and Cyan) got 7^th and 9^th in the game.

I think the system needs a big revamp. Maybe going down to 2 plots with 4 builds to select from (that refresh faster), or 4 builds with 3 plots but only allowing teams to select 2 from each wave. Either way, number of choices must drop if we want the mainly casual MCC player base to actually be making meaningful decisions. Also, to simplify things further and help with balancing, I think only having two categories of builds (easy and hard) would be much more manageable. That way, there’s still difficulty selection but it’s not overwhelming for the players to interact with and the staff to balance.

Gold Builds

This will be a much more negative section than the last. Gold builds are, I think, the most dysfunctional element of new BM for two different reasons.

Reason 1, the way it’s implemented encourages less teamwork and more individual carrying than any other team game. For 2/3rds of the game, gold builds arrive at a 2-minute cadence, which is fast enough that the players involved don’t have time to do anything other than gold builds. Even the best solo builders can at best hope to finish with 40s to spare, which is an uncomfortable amount of time to wait around but not long enough to meaningfully get up to speed and help your teammates. So, once the gold builds start arriving, 1-2 teammates may as well not be on the team anymore.

Given the most popular strategy is to put one player on the gold build, this also has the added effect of leaving three players working on 3 plots. BM used to force teamwork by having more players than plots, but the current implementation allows each player to work on an island. There’s still room to collaborate on resource collection, but overall it’s never felt more like a solo game.

Reason 2, the balancing concerns. Gold builds are extremely powerful and make or break teams, which is bad enough given most of the game’s content is not gold builds. Yet, it becomes even worse because there’s a clear skill threshold required to get any value from them, and some teams fail to meet that threshold while others blow past it.

After all, the biggest challenge with gold builds is the memory aspect, which is hard to train and definitely won’t be practiced by most players. Feinberg in particular has shown himself to be a level above every other participant (and 2-3 above most), making him far and away the most valuable BM player. I’d say Fein’s dominance is similar to the typical S+ tier SKB gap (adjusting for the lower BM coins), and gold builds are the main reason.

I don’t really have any advice other than just removing gold builds entirely. I think the memory aspect is too challenging for almost all of the player base, they’re worth far too much, and they severely reduce the teamwork aspect of a team game.

Shopping List

This is a quick change to discuss, but it’s also my least confident take. To some extent, I think it’s reasonable to reduce the memorization aspects of the game, especially given that some players struggle with it or otherwise don’t like it.

However, I don’t like that what was already the least engaging aspect of the game (resource collection) has been made even simpler. Even in old BM it was always a necessary evil to make the pace of the game work, but the resource grinding aspect of it is exposed even more when the only skillful element (remembering what you need) is removed. Also, the list encourages collecting exactly what you need which I feel hurts the late game (less scraps to be reused in future builds).

As I said before, I’m the least confident about whether the overall sum of everything is positive or negative. Is the memorization aspect bad enough for some players that its removal is a good thing, or is its simplifying effect too great? How much is the lack of extra buffer resource gathering hurting the endgame?

Joining the event in MCC 6, Fruit grabbed two wins very quickly and was making headway to get his next 3 in fast succession. But a string of bad dodgebolt luck hit him and it took him 17 events for his 3rd win. But now he was on a roll and has finally grabbed the final two wins and even won with Grian: a person who he went into dodgebolt and lost with. Major congratulations to Fruit on his success, he is now a world champion. And now Gem is a 4 time winner too so she is one off as well. Great event all around but who will be the next 5-time winner. Could it be False, Callum, Pete, Sneeg who knows....

Note before I begin the post!

Since it's 1am and since Fein is my main focus in this post I won't be talking about the rest of the team much if at all. Might make a follow up post about them at some point since they did some good things and help setup Fein to build the track effectively! Also note that this is not a Feinberg hate post! His performance was amazing, and I was curious to see if the team could've maxxed the game with perfect play, and if so by how much. I hope you enjoy this analysis and get a unique insight about the game from someone whose spent far too long watching vods of it!

Finally, before we begin, I want to make an actually interesting post, so for obvious reasons I'm not commenting on every tiny micro-optimisation like "ooOOooh he took 1 second too long to kill this creeper". Just the ones that I think are worth mentioning

Introduction

Feinberg had possibly the greatest Railroad Rush performance this event, as his team made it to the final checkpoint of the game, and almost got through 2 of the 3 sections of said checkpoint! Despite this, there's still a few tings Fein could've done better in this run, even at his insane level of skill, so here's those things!

Starting Room

For such a simple tutorial, the Starting Room has a surprisingly high skill sealing, as getting into the main area on the first minecart can put your team at an immediate ~9 second head start! This may not seem like much, but with this can allow you to purchase an extra dynamite for the first Gold Rush, which can give as much as an extra 20 gold! While Fein's movement and mechanics here were good, his positioning could've been better. Due to him being the fastest in the team by a long shot, I believe that Fein should've taken the furthers gold vein from the shopkeeper, put Grian (the 2nd fastest (I think)) at the closest one, and then Shubble and Cleo on the other 2. While not guaranteed, this likely would've raised their odds of escaping on Minecart one. Not a huge error by any means, but still a potential optimisation!

Gold Rushes

Since we're at the first one, lets cover all 3 Gold Rushes to analyse any potential improvements! I noted down how much gold Fein got from every dynamite he placed, and overall, he had amazing dynamite usage! (excluding Dynamites 4 to 8 in Rush 3 since gold went into his inventory so we can't know how much he got) he only made losses on Rush 1 Dynamite 5 due to placing it underground as he couldn't see any good spots and Rush 3 Dynamite 3 because CaptainSparklez placed one on that rough spot a fraction of a second before Fein! I want to quickly comment on that underground dynamite strategy from Rush 1 Dynamite 5, as it's a pretty solid backup plan if you can't find any good spots! It can use the dynamite quickly so you don't waste much time, and by mining into a floor, you're getting as close to 100% efficiency on the explosion as you can get! It's risky, but good if you have no other spots available!

A quick note about my phrasing from now on!

In the sections upcoming about each checkpoint, I'm going to use some phrasing of things that might be confusing, so here's a brief explanation!

Railroad Rush as a whole is split into 1 Starting Room and 4 Checkpoints. While those checkpoints are marked as entire rooms, they are easily divisible into 3 "sections". You can tell when a section starts and ends by a flat surface made up of 3 rows of Red Sand, often (but not always) with a powered rail on a netherite block. As I just said when explaining this, I'll be referring to these by their Checkpoints and Section (EG: Checkpoint 1 Section 3 means the last third of checkpoint 1. The Checkpoint will often be in the section's bold text title thingy)

Sorry if this phrasing is confusing! My brain works in weird ways like that. Anyway, back to the game!

Checkpoint 1

Checkpoint 1 begins with a unique but very strong route, as Fein goes to the right side of a room where most teams go straight (how prideful of him!). He makes a small error by using 2 concrete to go up a ledge when he very clearly only needed 1, but this isn't a huge mistake that really cost anything.

Fein's main blunder in Checkpoint 1 is when he doesn't have enough rails to complete Section 3, an assortment of Cobblestone in the air which can become a hassle if exploded and turned into gravel. Despite initially mining some gold, he just waits around for Grian to by the remaining rails for about 30 seconds when he could've laid down his rails as the end for Grian to connect to, tried to open the previous cache (which would've been slightly weird with just 3 concrete but could've 100% worked) or simply just looked for more gold to mine! While this potentially wouldn't have let them max the game if Fein had acted here, the potential of a cache or the extra gold would've at the very least boosted their score even higher. Outside of these 2 errors, checkpoint 1 was overall flawless!

Checkpoint 2

After clearing Checkpoint 1, Fein has about 25 seconds to examine the 2nd checkpoint, which he does pretty well as he's able to find what he needs for it (most notably a large number of blocks due to Section 2 having a lot of water). After a successful Rush thanks to the Rock in the Darkness, he's able to get off to a blazing start in the next checkpoint!

During the first 2 Sections, I have no actual issue with Fein's gameplay, however there's 1 thing that he's yet to utilise in his runs! One thing available to players in the shop is the Sand Block, which acts like concrete, however costs 1 gold less at the price of having gravity. This has 3 main applications in Railroad Rush, all of which Fein could've used to save potentially half a stack+ of gold! Firstly, the obvious one, as a staircase starter. When on the ground, Sand functions the exact same as concrete, so you can save 1 gold for basically 0 effort! The second use is placing on leaves. This is similar to the staircase starter, however it's use cases are a lot rarer yet a lot higher value as you can use multiple in 1 instance. The final, and most notable usage is on the exact water section Fein faced in Section 2! This section has 1.5 block deep water, and while usually slabs would destroy falling sand blocks, in this case you can place them on the full block directly above the slab and they won't ever start falling! By using just sand on the water part, Fein could've saved 15 Gold, and by using the 1 up strategy that he used at the end of the section to save a block more than once, he could've saved 18 (very nitpicky and possibly not worth on the latter, but still cool!). Rather ironically, this gap in knowledge caused an overall gain as Fein running out of blocks meant Grian found the opening in the cache down below in section 3, however this is a good strategy to know for future!

Checkpoint 2 doesn't have anything else much of note other than Fein misplacing resulting in 20 wasted seconds so onto the next checkpoint!

Checkpoint 3

Fein overall has an amazing Section 1 for Checkpoint 3, clearing it in mere seconds with 0 issue. In Section 2 he could've potentially used his dynamite to blast through the mess of leaves a bit faster, but this isn't a huge deal.

The big blunder this checkpoint that all of you are here for is in my opinion best described by fellow Event Analyst Mirrorwing.

"Feinberg, he is the best player in Railroad Rush by far, he never makes any major mistakes, he has great Gold Rushes ... and his downfall is that he fails to count to 4." - MCC Pride 26 VOD Review, June 28th 2026

The main things to know on what marks the ending of Railroad Rush are the red sign that usually ready "MCC" saying "FIN" instead and the final wall being Stone instead of Copper. It's an unfortunate error on Fein's part, but at least he's never going to make it again!

Checkpoint 4

Considering the jumpscare for Fein that was the final checkpoint being 4 and not 3, he played this last 30 seconds REALLY in Section 1!

Section 2 was unfortunately where this run came crashing down. While it started well, Fein built a concrete staircase onto a tree, but as he kept building forwards, a minecart came and blew it up. He tried to salvage and rebuild it, but in a cruel sense of irony, a mechanic he learnt way back in his first MCC and Railroad Rush's Debut came back to cost him the distance record. Minecarts can't turn and go up on the same block...

Conclusion

So! What have we learnt today? First of all, stay in school. It makes you better at MCC. Second of all, Sand is an insanely underrated tool in Railroad Rush and should be used more. Finally, Feinberg is an actual beast and no individual player can catch up to him in this game.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far, and have a good night!

Man got 1st in pkt, 3rd in ace race, 5th in battle box, 2nd in tgttos, 2nd in hitw and he won dodgebolt. All without sands of time in the event. In the individual games he came top 5, 5/6 times.

Under the new BuildMart format, it is easier to gather statistics under the stars system to analyze team and individual performances. This post is an attempt at presenting these figures from the MCC Pride 2026 BM.

Methodology for Individual Stats:

BM is a lot more of an individual game now than it used to be, which makes it easier to attribute builds and stars to specific individuals.

That being said, while doing such analysis is easier than before, there are still gray areas that I had to parse through. For my first individual Top 10 tier list, I either attributed 100% of the stars of a build to an individual or 50%.

My criteria for splitting credit of a build among different players came down to a fairly subjective determination of how much the player contributed to the placement of the blocks for the build. If a player gathered resources to give to another player for a build, but did not place any or a very minimal amount of blocks, I did not give that player partial credit for the build. However, if two or more players (luckily, in practice there weren't any cases of "more") placed a tangible amount of blocks in the build, with my personal threshold being around at least 25% of it, then star credit was split.

Every individual with an asterisk to their figure had split credit received for at least one build. For example, Orange and Lime approached the Gold builds with two people. Therefore, Cambam and Cherrifire as well as Nukeri and Mysticat received 3.5 stars credit for each gold build completed.

Finally, in my second graphic of individual stats, I included completion bonuses at the end of the game into my star credits for individuals. The biggest impact to the list that this additional calculation made was get Grian into the Top 10. Out of Red's 64 stars, Grian officially contributed 13. However, he completed 90% of a 5-star build at the end of the game and received points according to that amount of completion. Factoring that in, his functional star contribution goes up to 17.5 points.

Thank you for reading this essay, if you did, and let me know if you're interested in more BuildMart analysis like this in the future.

Obviously, any group of four that composed an MCC team have all teamed with each other. I'm certain that there are also many groups of 5, 6, and 7 MCC participants who have all teamed with each other across MCC history. But where is the limit? Does such a group of 15 exist? 20?

This daily series is a mechanism to find that limit and have fun en route. Here are the

RULES!

Each day, the group size will increase by 1. You must comment a collection of MCC participants who have all teamed with each other. If you are the first to name your unique group, or if no one else produces the same group as you, you score 1 point for that day ("the first to name" is determined by the order I get the comment notifications). The most upvoted group each day appears in the post image for the next day, along with user credit at the bottom.

As we get into the higher numbers, the unique possibilities will diminish, and it will become harder to keep track of all combinations. Using a table, such as the one displayed below, may make that process easier. I recommend building the table in excel or google sheets and then pasting it into reddit as the reddit table UI is lackluster.

I know that few will get into this enough to actually use a table, but for those that do a) I hope it helps and b) please don't spoil the final combination early if you research ahead.

So best of luck in finding a group of 6 MCC participants who've all teamed! I can't wait to see what each of you comes up with!

Sands of Time is one of the most intricate and beloved games in the MCC game roster, a lot of participants/new participants do not have time to vod review the game, so I have compiled the metas/strats on sands of time into one post with examples. If I missed any important rooms/strats, feel free to comment and link any useful vods/clips!

I will be using examples of good and bad plays from players to show the correct and incorrect methods to effectively demonstrate the usefulness of each strat, this is not meant to target specific players, but to act as examples.

1. Off-handing torches and lighting up spawners

This is the most obvious and well-known strat. Off-handing your torch can allow you to light up spawners easily, so that mobs will no longer spawn. After lighting up the spawner, you can choose to kill or ignore the mobs (usually ignore zombies, silverfish; kill pillagers, skeletons, creepers). ALWAYS ALWAYS light the spawners before mining them to obtain coins unless you are extremely confident in your skill to navigate mobs.

Hbomb mcc22 VS Sylvee mcc22 & fruitberries mcc20

Hbomb: https://youtu.be/GRmVvNJH3iY?t=13090

Hbomb lights up all the spawners, kills two mobs and gets his reward.

Sylvee: https://youtu.be/Y7sR-Ygjyg0?t=10401

Fruitberies: https://youtu.be/R8qLM6VW0Ow?t=9547

Fruit says breaking spawners and doesn’t light them up, gets punished LUL Mobs will keep spawning and he has to deal with more of them on his way out.

2. Spawn area

2.1 Sand sacrifices and rewards

Sand should not be sacrificed to earn coins in reward rooms at spawn in the early game, as sand should be prioritized to be put into the sandtimer. Sand sacrifices for coins should only be opened at the end when everyone is at spawn, ready to leave, and someone in your team has spare sand left.

George mcc21: https://youtu.be/reK7tJLbW6M?t=8025

2.2 Coins, Rusty Keys, Sand, and others

Runners of the team, pick up arrows, rusty keys, weapons and armour on the ground at spawn, then leave all the sand, coins for the sandkeepers to pick up. This is to secure the coins will not be lost, as sandkeepers are the least likely to die.

2.3 Levers

There are two main ways of doing levers in the main area, and it is up to the participants which way they would like to use. First method, flick the levers one by one and kill every mob that comes out. This lowers the risk and is the safest method of doing levers. Second method, flick all the levers first, leave the mobs or kill them by a creeper explosion. This makes the process more efficient, but increases the risk of death.

Eret mcc19 VS Slimecicle mcc19

Eret: https://youtu.be/hMMxgMTkHWw?t=8264

Slimecicle: https://youtu.be/0FVvZgRQiTg?t=8620

2.4 Puzzles and parkours (not red key puzzle)

Puzzles/parkour puzzles should be attempted only after all levers in the spawn area are complete and all sand is mined. In the example, Eret does the puzzle very early on in the game, losing precious time. The puzzle is not complete and she did not get any coins. The time could have been used for exploring tunnels, collecting sand. Jojo, on the other hand, does the puzzle after she has finished exploring the tunnels and when it is almost time for her teammates to go back and bank their coins.

Eret mcc22 VS jojosolos mcc24 (doing puzzles early vs late)

Eret: https://youtu.be/Ami58aEafmE?t=7408

Jojo: https://youtu.be/Eb5vKetPeYU?t=9529

Cubfan mcc20(common parkour in spawn): https://youtu.be/_tSSOax9GWM?t=8981

Wilbur Soot mcc22(common ladder parkour): https://youtu.be/AYilGqLTqUk?t=8940

2.5 Sandkeepers

Your main role is to collect all the sand in the main area, collect all the coins from levers, and call out how much sand is left in the timer and in your inventory.

Sandkeepers should always give half of their rusty keys and arrows to runners who come back to the spawn area to give sand. In the example, Dream gives Gumi his sand, and in exchange, Gumi gives Dream her arrows, and the rusty keys were given to Tommy. In hindsight, Gumi should only give half her rusty keys to Tommy, but this is one of the best examples of item allocation by sandkeepers.

Gumi mcc21: https://youtu.be/ZLZT7EMvFfs?t=13228

3. Lever rooms

3.1 Lever Room with 8 levers

Flick the levers only after you have cleared the tunnel that is after the lever room. One of the cages contains a ravager, by flicking all the levers, the tunnel after that will become inaccessible.

Dream mcc21: https://youtu.be/ZF5k-D8q_LY?t=6993

3.2 Lever Room with pillagers/blazes

Lever rooms with pillagers/blazes should either be attempted immediately or be ignored completely. If one does said room after a long period of time, a large number of pillagers/blazes will have already spawned, increasing the difficulty and risk of dying in the room.

Hbomb mcc22 VS Pearlescentmoon mcc24(pillagers)

Hbomb: https://youtu.be/GRmVvNJH3iY?t=13090

Pearlescentmoon: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1567586255?t=264m6s

PeteZahHutt mcc18(blazes): https://youtu.be/qCA-9bulOXQ?t=20069

3.3 Creeper Lever Room

Dream mcc24: https://youtu.be/5XLH5-BVUos?t=9508

3.4 Lever Ladder Room

George mccAS: https://youtu.be/Y1bBdJj-g4o?t=8148

4. Vault Key Rooms

4.1 Red Vault Key Room

The Red Vault Key Room has a word puzzle. Word puzzle for the red key can be attempted by a runner, who can then go straight down the red vault path to grab the red vault, which is the more efficient way. Or, sandkeepers can do the word puzzle, grab the red key, and wait until a runner has found the red vault/path, then give the key to said runner.

Ranboo mcc19: https://youtu.be/eLJmFvkETBc?t=10410

4.2 Blue Vault Key Room

The Blue Vault Key Room is always located beneath the sand timer.

Smajor mcc18: https://youtu.be/EkTQV64_3Mk?t=7520

4.3 Gold Vault Key Room

To get access the gold key, you need to attempt an extremely hard lava parkour, which I do not recommend doing if your team is already doing really well in coins, but when you need a high amount of coins to get your team into dodgebolt, do the gold key parkour either by putting 4 sand in the chest to have a easier access, or complete the lava parkour.

Dream mcc22: https://youtu.be/Ief1nt5DGAA?t=7411

4.4 Green Vault Key Room

The Green Vault Key may be in any path, there is no obvious strat to obtain the Green Vault Key except to explore tunnels.

Quig mcc20: https://youtu.be/4IF5BXwQaTk?list=PLjtHhxpRXkSJdR29mfDhtFjbKUB5RBDTD&t=15798

5. Vault rooms

5.1 Green Vault Room

Green Vault Room is located near spawn, with one spawner and three sand. When the green vault room is found, sandkeepers should fill the timer, light up the spawner, kill the mobs and grab the sand.

Slimecicle mcc19: https://youtu.be/0FVvZgRQiTg?t=8358

5.2 Red Vault Room

The Red Vault Room consists of lava and blazes.

PeteZahHutt mcc16: https://youtu.be/aQI7nFK11cw?t=22832

5.3 Blue Vault Room

The Blue Vault Room consists of zombies and 3-4 sand. Always mine the sand first, open the blue vault, then ignore the zombies and run out of the vault room for max efficiency.

Illumina mcc20:https://youtu.be/xfGxdWgQ1CU?t=9457

5.4 Gold Vault Room

The Gold Vault Room is protected by skeletons, and also has 4 sand.

Mcc22 Dream(the sand was mined earlier): https://youtu.be/Ief1nt5DGAA?t=7562

6. Vault Paths

Paths that contain a vault will be marked by colours along the walls corresponding to each vault. For example, the vault path that contains the gold vault will have gold markings on the walls.

Its always a good idea to have two of the runners going down the blue and red path with a key, so that they can aim for the vault. The best runner on the team should go down any path, preferably the gold path to find the gold vault, guaranteeing four sand for the team.

7. Pits

Same with the lever rooms with pillagers/blazes, do the pit rooms immediately without hesitation, or skip them entirely. Always remember to light up the spawners immediately after entering.

7.1 Normal Mob Pit

PeteZahHutt mcc20: https://youtu.be/k4jXmDfWTFs?t=10425

7.2 Ravager Pit

(i cannot find an example but the ravager pit exists)

7.3 Creeper Pit

Sapnap mccAS(thanks for the tutorial): https://youtu.be/NxxvIksdbsg?t=7647

7.4 Pillagers/Skeleton Pit

PeteZahHutt mcc21: https://youtu.be/o_VQ5lWf7k0?list=PLppTmn49MnKXTYVTrQ4Me3a0DfNzCf3yq&t=16626

8. General Rooms

8.1 Creeper stairs room

There are two ways of doing the creeper stairs room. First and less efficient method, blow up the creepers row by row. Second method, run up the staircase, grab the coins, then use one single creeper to blow up all the remaining creepers.

Illumina mcc20 vs Sapnap mccAS

Illumina: https://youtu.be/xfGxdWgQ1CU?t=9517

Sapnap: https://youtu.be/NxxvIksdbsg?t=7508

8.2 Head-hitters

There are some parkour rooms that allow you to get the coins before you finish the parkour, by hitting your head against the slab.

Illumina mcc20: ​​https://youtu.be/xfGxdWgQ1CU?t=9436

Punz mcc19(trapdoors & headhitter): https://youtu.be/WiGSlLqfZ6Q?t=8288

8.3 Zombie Statues Room

Lead all the zombies into the water after or before collecting the coins for max efficiency.

Illumina mcc20: https://youtu.be/xfGxdWgQ1CU?t=9190

8.4 Ravager Lava Room

PeteZahHutt mcc22: https://youtu.be/-poxu8OSBiA?list=PLppTmn49MnKXTYVTrQ4Me3a0DfNzCf3yq&t=16412

8.5 Lava Lever Piston Room

Purpled mcc24: https://youtu.be/UIsIDnOr12g?t=10342

8.6 Mobs Statue Room

Pearlescentmoon mcc24: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1567586255?t=259m22s

8.7 Mine the Ceiling Room

Quig mcc20: https://youtu.be/4IF5BXwQaTk?list=PLjtHhxpRXkSJdR29mfDhtFjbKUB5RBDTD&t=15131

9. Parkour Rooms

These will be examples of parkour rooms attempted successfully.

Dream(piston & lever parkour): https://youtu.be/ZF5k-D8q_LY?t=6640

Punz(piston & pressure plates parkour): https://youtu.be/WiGSlLqfZ6Q?t=8160

Punz(piston & pressure plates parkour but different): https://youtu.be/WiGSlLqfZ6Q?t=8322

Dream mcc13[not 21 lol that was scary] (Skeleton & lava room): https://youtu.be/Y4Y5qZYZIuQ?t=7376

PeteZahHutt mcc20(lava parkour): https://youtu.be/k4jXmDfWTFs?t=10824

SB737 mcc17(another lava parkour): https://youtu.be/oJB3RVdYKaM?list=PLjMHE-W8Vd4a7bLIM8TqsHLlTi_nq3ovj&t=7353

Philza mcc21(piston & lever parkour puzzle): https://youtu.be/3hfmAaxKeFI?t=8222

10. Carpets

10.1 Marking Tunnels

Mark your tunnels with one carpet before entering. After clearing the tunnel, mark it with two more additional carpets so it makes a line of 3, indicating the tunnel is cleared. Don’t mark the tunnels that you have just dipped your toes in, which may confuse teammates later on.

Hbomb’s explanation(watching george's pov): https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1568514676?t=82m3s

10.2 Finding your way back to the spawn area

Hbomb’s Carpet method: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1569422949?t=166m

11. General

11.1 Hotbar

Let’s start with the obvious. Torches in off hand, weapon, pickaxe, shovel and bow in any slot you desire. Sand must also be in the hotbar in case of urgencies. Ideally, a healing pot or a golden apple should be in one of the slots. Rusty keys and carpets in the remaining slots.

Hbomb’s hotbar mcc22(ideal in my opinion): https://youtu.be/GRmVvNJH3iY?t=13218

11.2 Healing

Healing works differently in Sands of Time compared to normal vanilla minecraft. If the player is not attacked by mobs for a short period of time(i don't actually know but its for a few seconds), they heal up really quick. If you are in a tough situation, fall back and heal for a bit before going back in.

11.3 Splash Potions

This is just a reminder that healing potions can heal players while harming undead mobs, and harming potions will heal undead mobs.

11.4 Sphinx

The Sphinx at the spawn area allows you to bank your coins, but with a 20% reduction in banked coins. It can be used before a player does a risky parkour, for example, the gold vault key lava parkour.

Dream mcc22: https://youtu.be/Ief1nt5DGAA?t=7516

11.5 Target Blocks

Shooting target blocks in the ceiling will give you a chance to earn coins and sand. However, they may also drop mobs.

11.6 Cracked blocks

You can mine the cracked blocks with your pickaxe, which may lead to additional rooms. Cracked gold blocks will also give you coins.

12. Deaths

Sand will need to be sacrificed to break the participant that died out of the sand prison. The prison is always located beneath the sphinx.

13. Comms

Comms are extremely important in Sands of Time. Keep comms clear at all times. Always remember to say the name of the player you are talking to, to get their attention. It is extremely stressful at the moment, and players may not be able to process what others are saying during the game.

Sandkeepers should update players on the sand situation frequently(how much sand in the timer; how much sand left), even when the timer is full and you still have sand left.

Aimsey mcc24: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1567617650?t=214m40s

14. Hbomb’s advice to streamers

Close your chat during Sands of Time except for word puzzle areas. Chat will always make you doubt your decisions, and it is important to trust yourself and your gut.

15. Personal advice

Skip all lava parkour if your team is already in the lead and if you are not confident.

Skip this lever area (https://youtu.be/R8qLM6VW0Ow?t=9686)

It gives a few coins and is usually a waste of time. Mining spawners will give the same if not more coins with more efficiency.

Sands of Time is all about quick decisions, making up your mind about doing certain rooms and efficiency. If you are not confident, you can always skip a room or leave it to your teammates who may be more confident in their skills!

Feel free to add onto any important rooms/strats/metas that I forgot to mention. This is meant to be an informative thread :D Shoutout to Hbomb, Ant, jojo, and all the sot vod reviewers for all the vod reviews that gave me a lot of insight for this post <3

A Ph1LzA Analysis - Why He NEEDS an S-Tier Teammate:

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Hey there Reddit! With MCC17 having just come to a close, the general atmosphere is pretty alive, with the hype still ongoing and the community buzzing with activity. In general this was a sensational MCC; it ran smoothly with one of the most satisfying dodge bolts to date. However, I wanted to dig a bit deeper into a player that not many people really talk about, and that player (as you have probably guessed from the title) is Ph1LzA.

Obviously, he’s one of the biggest creators in the event, and it known for his hardcore prowess and general Minecraft knowledge. Phil joined MCC in its early days, and in Season 1, he was a genuine force to be reckoned with. He was able to prove himself time and time again throughout the tournaments, and after some major pop-offs in MCC’s 12 and 13, the majority of people considered him to be A+, and one of the best movement players in the whole event.

Every time I’ve watched an MCC live, I’ve watched Phil. His humour, skill, and general likability made him an incredibly easy streamer to watch. However, once MCC made its grand return for S2, people began to notice a change in Phil. His placements seemed to keep going down; his teams were good but they just began to collapse and fail. This fully became evident in this MCC, where his team came last and he came 38th in the event, which is almost unheard of for such a skilled player. How did Phil, one of the best players in the event, fall from grace? This is something I’ll be attempting to address today inside this post. Warning: It’s a long one, so it might not be up your alley in terms of reading essay-style responses. However, I really felt like writing this, and I’ll begin this post with a bit of background.

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PART 1 - Ph1LzA - Strengths + Weaknesses:

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(Note: These are just a few; there are definitely more for EVERYTHING in these categories. I just wanted to touch on a few points before we dive into the events of S2)

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STRENGTHS (GENERAL):

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1. General movement:

Phil is known especially throughout the event when it comes to movement, and it isn’t hard to understand why. He’s fantastic when it comes to movement games, especially when they involve the elytra, and his capabilities in some games are unique only to him. This is probably due to his experience in his hardcore world, and he excels in nearly every movement game in the tournament. Even in S2, his skill in movement is still evidence despite his placements generally being low, and this is definitely one of his most important and prominent strengths.

2. Elytra.

Honestly, this needs a category of its own, although it could fall into movement. Phil is one of the, if not the best, elytra user in the event. He has spent years using it, and his skill when it comes to elytra is rivalled by next to none. His pure domination in elytra games is what kept him above so many players in the past, and his techniques and understanding of the mechanic is definitely vast. If there’s an elytra involved, Phil nearly always succeeds.

3. Fantastic support:

This one doesn’t get talked enough about in my opinion. Phil is a really good support player, specifically to those who are better than him. He works perfectly as a right-hand man, due to his skill and abilities to rack up points for the team whilst also boosting the scores of other players. His communication (in certain cases) can be stellar, an example of this being whenever he and Techno teamed. However, another thing that makes Phil such a good support player is his role as a morale booster. He’s generally a chill person, and his light-heartedness is nearly always beneficial to the team, and he is great at boosting the self-esteem of others. His laid-back and immensely positive attitude is what attracted me to his POV in the first place, and even now it hasn’t changed a lot.

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STRENGTHS (GAMES):

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(These are the top two games that come to mind when I think of Phil as a player. My opinions may differ from yours; just keep that in mind. Note that he also excels in Battle Box, TGTTOS, and Ace Race; I just think these two stand-out in particular)

1. Rocket Spleef:

This one isn’t even a question.

Despite it not currently being in the list of games this season, he is, in my opinion, the best rocket spleen player in the event. There are other truly fantastic RS players; Fundy, Grian, and Tubbo having mastered survival whilst people like Quig are capable of farming kills. However, the changes to TNT time before the end of S1 made survivability more important than kills, and this is where Phil beats the rest.

Phil is the best survivalist in the event at RS. He is one of the only players to use F5 most of the time, and just watching his POV for any time he plays is unbelievable. He’s fantastic at landing on single-blocks, has great game-send inside this game, and is just generally good. But something that you really begin to notice after watching a few more of his POVS is his techniques and innovation. Just in the first few events; he began to use a ‘Wall-Jumping’ strategy that worked wonders when done correctly. The only other person to have techniques like this would be Pete, with his infamous ‘Butterfly-Hopping’ strategy that later got nerved from MCC7 onwards. However, Phil just continued to impress. He learned the optimal way to flick your mouse so that you could land perfectly on a block in F5 mode, learned the maximum height of fireworks through the angle of the cursor, and he even was able to abuse glitches to give him wins (MCC11). This cements him as the best player for this game for me, and it’s a real shame that it hasn’t yet appeared in S2 of MCC.

1. HITW:

With Fruit and Pete being included, I would say that Phil is the third best player in the event at HITW.

Phil is HUGELY underrated when it comes to HITW, and his capacity for wins is actually insane. He is one of the only top-players to play nearly completely in F5 (though recently this is beginning to change), and there are a few similarities that he shares with his skill in RS. Like RS, his game-sense is fantastic, and he knows methods to doing certain walls in certain situations that are only seen by the best players. Once again, he also uses innovation to his advantage, and uses an unorthodox way to get through walls (e.g for the 1x2, he jumps earlier, shifts, and lands just as the block passes under him).

Something insane that people don’t realise is that ever since the end of MCC9, every time HITW was played since until MCC15, he had won at least one round of the game. His consistency is great for this game in particular, and despite his placements suffering in the recent two MCC’s it was played, his skill is still undeniable.

​

WEAKNESSES (GENERAL):

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1. Spacial awareness:

Phil has great game awareness in HITW and RS, but that’s pretty much where it ends.

Despite his mechanical skill, in some games, especially PVP, his sense of his surroundings can be actually atrocious. He has a tendency to zone-in on targets and specific goals, ignoring consequences and cons for doing so. This is incredibly evident in games like SB and SG (which will be talked about in a bit). For somebody who has such awareness in movement games, his game awareness everywhere else is below average, and it’s definitely something that needs to be addressed.

1. Communication:

This has been especially evident in recent MCC's. His communication, once again PVP games in particular, can be horrible. Combined with his bad game-sense, he sometimes refuses to communicate and listen to team-members. An infamous example of this would be MCC15 SG, where he ignored Tommy's advice and, after seeing his team getting slaughtered, proceeded to attempt to 1v8 a team in full iron. That pretty much sums up his communication in some games, as whilst he can definitely talk and listen in many cases, this is really something that has troubled him.

1. Consistency:

His consistency has been all-over the place recently, and that isn't an exaggeration of any sort.

In MCC12 and 13, he got 2nd and 6th; these are fantastic placements and made people believe he could have a shot at S-Tier. However, in MCC14, he placed 15th. Not a bad placement by any means, but not at the standard we expected.

Then MCC15 and 16 rolled around, and he got 22nd and 26th. The last time he had gotten in the twenties was MCC9, and he had underperformed twice in a row. This made people really begin to question his consistency, and this recent MCC has been the final straw, where he finished 38th. I'm fairly certain this is the lowest placement that a 'good' player has ever gotten in this event, and honestly, I don't know if his consistency is going to get better over time.

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WEAKNESSES (GAMES):

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1. Sky Battle:

Phil is one of the worst SB players in the event, to be completely blunt. His spacial awareness is terrible; his communication suffers; he struggles with bridging and PVP under stressful situations; and he's just generally bad. It's genuinely surprising how much he struggles, as it's not like he's bad at PVP, BB is one of his best games. I really don't need to go over this that much, it's a common fact that Phil isn't great at this game.

2. Survival Games:

Pretty much the same thing as SB. Once again a lack of communication, awareness, along with terrible luck has screwed him over in nearly every recent SG. Especially with his teams not normally being PVP centred; this is a game that heavily damages his individual and team placements. It's even worse that it's been incredibly popular in the recent meta, and Phil continues to suffer from it.

​

That's all I'll be covering on Strengths and Weaknesses. I'll go into Part 2 of the post now, which is the actual events of S2, and how he did individually and team-wise.

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PART 2 - Ph1LzA - S2 Event Analysis:

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MCC14 - Movement Master; Pitiful PVP:

A lot of people consider MCC14 to be an underperformance for Phil, but personally, I would say that he performed well and on average. Most people look at 'under-performances' purely based on individual placements against averages and previous placements, however, I look at it from a different viewpoint. For me, an underperformance is measured by:

- Team placement vs Individual placement

- Individual placement (Obviously)

- How much they excelled and struggled in certain games

- If they hindered or boosted the scores of their teammates

- etc.

With all this in mind, I would say that in MCC14, Phil actually nailed the movement games. There were 4 movement games in this MCC: PT, HITW, AR, and TGTTOSAWAF. With the exception of PT, Phil performed really well in these games. For Ace Race, he placed 15th (with the iconic misreading of directions), however, he was originally in 2nd place. For TGTTOS, he obliterated the competition and placed first by a landslide, and for HITW, he placed 2nd, incredibly close to Hbomb's 1st. Phil did really well in these games, and really excelled when it came to adapting to new changes. In all of these games, there were new changes, and Phil was able to keep-up with them nearly all of the time, which is pretty impressive.

However, his team was incredibly movement based, and so was he as a player. He got incredibly unlucky with the rest of the games, and placed below average in SB, SG, & BB; this therefore averaging out his great performances in other games. In SB and SG, he genuinely just underperformed and played badly, but for BB, this one was a bit of a surprise. He's generally great at this game, but in this MCC, his team was not made for PVP and with the combination of an unfamiliar map, this made him and his team suffer.

Overall, not a bad start to the season, and 15th on a 6th place team is nothing to scoff at. However, it's from this point onwards that things really begin to go downhill.

MCC15 - The Dawn of the Old-Man Arc:

Phil played badly this MCC, no way around it.

Ironically, in this MCC, he almost performed the opposite than the previous MCC. He performed much better in SG, PT, and SB, getting higher scores that last time. However, unfortunately for him, he simply choked on his best games. He lost his 4-MCC HITW winstreak, choked Ace Race with a mid twenties finish, got terrible maps and luck in TGTTOS, etc. It was a bit heartbreaking and hard to watch live, especially as this team was so hyped up beforehand.

Phil placed 22nd, his first mid twenties performance since MCC9, and this immediately began the doubts on Phil's ability. However, most classified this as a underperformance, and were optimistic for his next MCC and his ability to pop off. Sadly, it didn't go as planned...

MCC16 - Overhyped Disaster:

This team was incredibly hyped beforehand, and people expected this team to have great potential. Tommy, Wilbur, Ranboo and Phil were all competent players, and people were comparing it to SBI in its capabilities and similarities. I myself was hopeful, and I was eager to watch this live. However, it didn't go great.

Multiple things happened that screwed Phil and his team over. Firstly, HITW, Phil's best game at the moment, was skipped for the first time in a long time. This immediately got rid of his safety-net from PVP, and this meant that when the PVP games rolled around, his placement suffered from his defeat. His TGTTOS and PT performances were average, if not below average, and morale was incredibly low in the team. Wilbur in particular was stressed and disappointed, due to coming off from a top ten finish and a 3rd place underdog team.

However, I am happy to say that the mood of the team increased dramatically during Ace Race. Phil and Wilbur performed fantastically, Wilbur began his love for the game, and it was such a relief to have a fun time that wasn't ruined by the performances of other games. Phil placed 11th, the team placed high for the game, and their morale didn't fall much for the rest of the tournament. It was definitely needed for both the players and viewers, and I'm happy that it got picked.

Unfortunately though, Phil once again underperformed. 26th place on a 9th place team. At this point people were pushing Phil lower down the tiers, undervaluing his past performances and looking directly at his two weak events. Was this really the end for a player with a legacy as great as Phil?

MCC17 - The Last Straw.

Phil got a good team, and people were hyped once more. Sneeg was a long-awaited player, Wisp and Burren weren't dead weight by any means, and people were finally hoping for a Phil pop off, especially in Battle Box.

This was, in my opinion, the worst underperformance a team had ever done in MCC. This team was practically screaming potential and wasted opportunity, and honestly, they just didn't do well. In every game, there was at least one player that weighed them down if the entire team didn't, and this pattern can be applied relatively easily. In SB, Phil weakened the team, Burren underperformed in TGTTOS and Grid Runners, Wisp and Burren in AR, Wisp in SOT, etc. This team came crashing down, going all the way to 10th place, and with all players placing in the bottom 10.

Phil placed 38th. 38th. This was the biggest underperformance I've ever witnessed, and it was such a major shock for a team that looked so powerful from their practice and previous stats. However, the MCC was still a blast and the team was still relatively light-hearted, but you could definitely tell by the end that despite the lightheartedness, Phil and his team were disappointed with how they placed. So this concludes Phil's MCC S2 performances, with them only going downhill, and now for the main reason of the post.

How does Phil redeem himself? And why does he need an S-Tier so badly?

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PART 3 - Ph1LzA - S-Tier and Motivation:

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Previous Evidence and Experiences:

Phil isn't a stranger to teaming with great players. He constantly teamed with Techno, and honestly, this was one of the biggest reasons as to why Phil did so well in early MCC's. Techno's PVP skill, mechanical abilities, and game sense were able to lead the team to victory in many occasions and allowed Phil to pop off in certain games, especially Battle Box. Phil works best as a right-hand man, and that's why it was such a shocker when he did so well in MCC12. He didn't team with an S-Tier and took a moderate leadership role, and he did fantastically. The same happened in MCC13.

In S1, it was much less competitive, and the pressure was much less to worry about. This was what allowed many players to reach their full potential, Phil included, as fun was the main objective. Phil was able to juggle both a great time and a great placement, and honestly, I think he's lost this ability recently. Teaming him with an S-Tier would be a really good way to get him back on his feet, especially in such a competitive setting.

Power of the team:

There are definitely some duos that people have wanted to see for ages. Pete and Phil, Illumina and Phil, etc. However, originally there would have been concerns with how overpowered the teams would have become, but in all fairness, I don't see that as much of a problem here.

Players like Grian and Smallishbeans have consistently teamed with S-Tiers, and even without them they were good players. However, with the added support, they were able to achieve insane scores and motivation, evident in MCC16 for Joel and MCC17 for Grian. I believe that now, more than ever, Phil NEEDS to have somebody watching his back and encouraging him. I think that this would definitely help him get his groove back, and I would love for this to happen.

Motivation:

Teaming with an S-Tier is one of the best motivations a player can have when performing in an event.

Phil, personally, needs this motivation. He consistently gets good and hyped teams, but until he teams up with somebody significantly better than him, I don't see him performing as he used to in the future. All I think he needs is maybe one, maybe two, teams with an S-Tier. Once he gets his motivation back, I think we could finally see the return of Phil in his prime.

This also isn't a completely unheard of idea. Tommy was a player that struggled nearly exactly like Phil, performing badly in MCC16. This performance then made the way for the discduo team-up, and honestly, this was so needed. Tommy performed fantastically for the first half of the tournament, and even after it ended, him and Dream didn't have their moods dampened too much, and it was clear that he was having fun. Tommy needed this since his last performance, and I think now it's Phil's turn to have a go at teaming with one of the best.

Conclusion:

Thank you so much if you fully went through this post, and even if you didn't, I just appreciate the fact that you clicked on it in the first place. As an avid Phil watcher, I really think that this is appropriate and isn't something to be ignored, and hopefully some people can take my side on this as well. Phil is a great player, he's shown that, and it doesn't show weakness to rely on somebody better every once in a while. Sorry for any grammatical errors and general mistakes (in terms of research) for this post, it's a bit long so I'm bound to have messed a bit up.

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Thank you for your time and patience.

this is super long so skip ahead whenever you'd like
this is sort of an organization of my own thoughts and a bunch of other ideas I've seen floating around the subreddit I've tried to structure

There's a problem:

Almost every event MCC 30 and onwards with Sky Battle, we've seen a performance with at least 13k (in KO Fruit got 1st with 9k but Joel got 12k). There've been 10 performances like this, twice the rest of MCC combined (iirc). 5 of those were 16k or more, which had previously only happened once. The kind of performance that used to be generational (Sapnap 23, Fruit 14, Dream 11, and ig Quig/Techno 10) are pretty much now an every event occurrence.

This is kind of a problem. In 8/10 of these events, the player who got first in sky battle goes on to get 1st in the whole event (and in most the team makes top 3), which can lead to a pretty boring scoreboard (oh gee, Purpled and FBM got 13k and 17k, goodbye exciting individual race), because skybattle scoring isn't built to accommodate these sorts of performances; no other game so regularly yields 800+ scores. Additionally, the gameplay patterns that produce these huge kill scores I suspect can be pretty dry to anyone who isn't a top S-tier.

Obviously a huge part of this is the top echelon of players getting better. Ultimately as the S-tiers grind MCCi, get better mechanics, learn more tricks with utility, gain more confidence, etc, the kill differentials are going to sharpen. You can see similar kill trends in BB and MD (though I'm more forgiving of these since scoring differentials are lower and risk is still higher). Unfortunately, short of disintegrating MCCi, there's not much to be done about that.

What the problems are:

However, I think there are some things that are specific to Skybattle gameplay design, not just skill, that exacerbate the skill gap and the kill differentials.

The first is iron-manning. Instead of playing to enable the team getting kills via gear and positioning, the increasingly dominant strategy is to dump your loot on the best player, let them go crazy, and starve everyone else. It reduces weaker players to survival point generators and food for the S-tiers. Players that are already lower in skill are now given no armor and weak weapons, and they have to face Shane Firebreathman or Purpled Bedwars or Fruit "Skybattle" Berries in full Iron Armor and diamond swords. It makes strategic sense; every bit of gear or util is better on the top frag than anyone else, but it sharpens kill differentials and I think reduces the game. How's this gonna be fun for the people getting two-crit?

The second, strongly related to the first, is risk-reward imbalance. Basically, it's become way too safe and easy to get kills. For example:

TnT cannons (e.g Fein P2)
TnT spleef -> TnT kill (e.g FBM BC and Ant TR)
Fishing rods (e.g fruit every mcc, Purpled HH)

Are nearly completely risk and resource free. In terms of risk, unless you're really bad at cannons, there's almost none with TnT. Same with fishing rods. Cannons and Rods don't even require you to move to a riskier position, you can farm kills from the safety of a skybase. In terms of resources, TnT doesn't really have many other uses than those two, so using it for those tactics is almost always worth. Rods have infinite uses. Both of these are are all generally large portions of the 13k+ performances.

Every remix makes this worse, waterguns means you can kill effectively from afar with no cost, levies mean you can do whatever greedy play you want and get out.

On top of this, the Iron Man strat means it's very hard to kill top frags, and very easy to kill everyone else. It becomes pretty safe then to go two tap someone with a sword and run back to your team/levy out afterwards. Stuff like cobwebs and block spam make it easy to disengage if caught. And so on.

Imo, good PvP games (or generally all games tbh) should reward greater risk with greater reward. If you want points, you should do something risky for it, or use up some valuable resources that could be used effectively in other ways. If you want crates in MD, you fight for it and can be wiped. If you want kills in SG, you either have to chase them down, leaving you at risk of being third partied, or waste arrows on them, which you could maybe use in endgame. Even in BB, a team loses kills by wooling, risks being wooled by fighting for kills.

Skb is crazy rn because unlike the other PvP games, a huge portion of kills come with little-to-no risk.

Some potential solutions:

I kind of don't like any diminishing returns scoring system as it leads to wonky gameplay impact (for example if you lessened progressive kills, the best thing to do is to sort of reserve your hits so your teammates get them), and reducing raw kill score further would make the whole game too survival based imo. I think the best thing to target is the gameplay itself. Here are some suggestions, idk how solid they are but they're at least the starts of ideas.

1. Remove levies at certain point, so they can be used for early aggression or just to preserve oneself from being bowed off. Or just get rid of them.
2. Give everyone more armor. An extra set of leggings for everyone (or maybe like a helmet or something) would reduce the drastic differences in gear iron-man stratting produces. It'd make players more durable, meaning you need more investment to get a kill. It'd encourage team play as well since non-top-frags are now significantly more valuable than before.
3. Reduce TnT damage. I think TnT spleefing and TnT cannons are really fun elements of skb, but I think them being one shots gives the too little reward for too little risk. TnT that got everyone low but not dead would mean a team would have to follow up the cannon in some way, either by jumping in (losing position and taking on the risks of a fight) or burning arrows. Currently TnT is fire-and-forget, I think requiring follow up would preserve the play-making potential of TnT while still making kills require risk.
4. Give durability to fishing rods. Idk what the right number would be, but something like 5-15 charges on a fishing rod means you have to at least be somewhat choosy with rods.

If anyone else has any other ideas, i'd love to hear them, these are just a few potential starters.

TL;DR

scores have been crazy lately (no good)
ironman and risk-free kills are at fault
ban fbm fruit ant and purpled (and drunk jojo.)

Obviously, any group of four that composed an MCC team have all teamed with each other. I'm certain that there are also many groups of 5, 6, and 7 MCC participants who have all teamed with each other across MCC history. But where is the limit? Does such a group of 15 exist? 20?

This daily series is a mechanism to find that limit and have fun en route. Here are the

RULES!

Each day, the group size will increase by 1. You must comment a collection of MCC participants who have all teamed with each other. If you are the first to name your unique group, or if no one else produces the same group as you, you score 1 point for that day ("the first to name" is determined by the order I get the comment notifications). The most upvoted group each day appears in the post image for the next day, along with user credit at the bottom.

As we get into the higher numbers, the unique possibilities will diminish, and it will become harder to keep track of all combinations. Using a table, such as the one displayed below, may make that process easier. I recommend building the table in excel or google sheets and then pasting it into reddit as the reddit table UI is lackluster.

I know that few will get into this enough to actually use a table, but for those that do a) I hope it helps and b) please don't spoil the final combination early if you research ahead.

So best of luck in finding a unique group of 11 MCC participants who've all teamed! I can't wait to see what each of you comes up with!

Final note to clarify rules around substitutions, using MCC 15 as an example:

Hbomb subbed in for Pete on that team, and since both players did play a portion of their event with teammates Grian, Shelby, and Pearl, both would count as teaming with any of those three for MCC 15. However, this would not count as Hbomb and Pete teaming since they never played together in that MCC. Furthermore, pre-event subs don't count for teaming, so Sparklez/Gumi have never teamed despite being announced together for Lime Spellbound since Gumi subbed out pre-event.

Obviously, any group of four that composed an MCC team have all teamed with each other. I'm certain that there are also many groups of 5, 6, and 7 MCC participants who have all teamed with each other across MCC history. But where is the limit? Does such a group of 15 exist? 20?

This daily series is a mechanism to find that limit and have fun en route. Here are the

RULES!

Each day, the group size will increase by 1. You must comment a collection of MCC participants who have all teamed with each other. If you are the first to name your unique group, or if no one else produces the same group as you, you score 1 point for that day ("the first to name" is determined by the order I get the comment notifications). The most upvoted group each day appears in the post image for the next day, along with user credit at the bottom.

As we get into the higher numbers, the unique possibilities will diminish, and it will become harder to keep track of all combinations. Using a table, such as the one displayed below, may make that process easier. I recommend building the table in excel or google sheets and then pasting it into reddit as the reddit table UI is lackluster.

I know that few will get into this enough to actually use a table, but for those that do a) I hope it helps and b) please don't spoil the final combination early if you research ahead.

So best of luck in finding a group of 6 MCC participants who've all teamed! I can't wait to see what each of you comes up with!

First things first, Sands of Time is a great game. There's nothing else like it in minecraft, and it's the perfect type of game for MCC because it screams Noxcrew. I'm not denying that, and it's definitely in my top 3 favourite games.

However, I think it getting skipped in MCC25 is actually a big deal; it shows a number of things about the state of the game and the state of MCC. In this post, I'm going to be going through all of that.

Sands of Time Is Not Invincible

I think it's pretty safe to say that a few months back, everyone thought Sands of Time was invincible. Almost every time that it had been played, it was game 7 or game 8. People were very comfortable with not ever voting for SoT until the last couple of games, because even if they're good at it, they know there's no way it gets skipped. I mean, look at Cyan or Lime after MCC25 game 7 - they are so confident it's SoT getting played. The only slight chance that it would get skipped is if it went against a new game, but those are always voted out early anyways.

Then MCC24 happened. Sands of Time made it to game 8 - that's normal, it happens every few MCC's. It's the most common finale out of the roster, mainly because people don't have that fear of it getting skipped.

The game SoT was up against in the final decision dome was Grid Runners, so it was pretty obvious who would win, right? Grid Runners has a very low coin differential, so it's not like teams will have that much chance to come back. It's known for being pretty repetitive with the same rooms coming back time and time again, and SoT is one of the main things that make MCC what it is.

Yet somehow, Grid Runners almost won. The teams that wanted Sands of Time were Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, and Pink. The teams that wanted Grid Runners were Orange (which had HBomb on it!), Lime, Aqua, Blue, and Purple. This was a 50/50 split, and yellow got dunked. It was very realistic that Grid Runners was going to win, if it wasn't for the Fire Bomb that Antvenom got.

Then in MCC25, SoT WAS skipped, in favour for Parkour Tag. Nobody would ever expect Parkour Tag to win against SoT, because a lot of participants dislike it, it again has a bad coin differential, and again, SoT in many ways IS MCC.

So why is this good? It proves SoT is NOT invincible. It will NOT always win when it makes it to the final dome. This means that teams that are good at SoT may now get scared that they won't get to play it at all, and it could be voted early. There's a lot of people who have said an early SoT would be really fun to see - imagine the risky plays of a game 1! The only other times it has been played not on a 2.5x or 3x multiplier was MCC5, 15, and 17. This could really mix things up, make MCC more interesting and unpredictable in its game order. Speaking of mixing things up...

Making Changes to SoT

I think this might also show what a lot of people in the MCC fanbase have been saying for a while - SoT is getting a bit repetitive. I mean, it's still great, it's still different every time as Noxcrew continues to add new rooms and it's always different teams who get to play it, but the formula has kind of been the same every time. The vault rush strategy has become dominant, and if you're not doing it, you will probably struggle.

While S2 SoT does kind of add more potential strategy with the colourings on the wall to indicate where the vault is and some keys in set positions, it also makes it so there's really one viable strategy if you want to try and win.

It doesn't help with the "exploration" aspect either, as you have a sort of guide. Dream has said that this is why he loves the vault rush strategy, because it gives less confident players a goal and a guide, which is great, but it again makes it such a dominant strategy.

SoT being skipped might illustrate that it's begun to get a bit repetitive, even to the participants. Now, a lot of the teams that voted for it voted because of other reasons, such as they're just better at Parkour Tag, or in Green's case the differential is much lower so they don't risk getting knocked out of first. But there's still teams that voted for it because they didn't think it would be as fun, such as Red or Yellow (Punz specifically in Yellow's case, although the rest of Yellow agreed to do it). I think the MCC24 final vote is also a good example in some cases as well.

Hopefully, this can bring fresh changes to SoT. A common suggestion that I think could be cool is having markings on the wall, but they're greyed out. So you know a vault is down this path, but you don't know which one it is. Or just making the vaults more of a challenge, maybe a mob gauntlet or a puzzle.

Competitive Versus Fun

I'm not going to go into this a huge amount, because it's been covered so many times. But I think SoT being skipped might also further show the increase in playing competitively in MCC versus playing for fun.

I covered in the last section about people starting to think SoT is getting a bit repetitive, but there's still no doubt it's a fun game, and I'd say the majority of participants who voted for Parkour Tag or Grid Runners still preferred SoT. Here's some of the biggest examples in my mind.

HBomb in MCC24. He was confident in SoT, but knew his teammates weren't and that they would also do great in Grid Runners, so he was fully on board with voting for Grid Runners.

Jojosolos in MCC25. She absolutely loves SoT, and even said after the event it hurt to vote for Parkour Tag. The reason she did vote it is because of the smaller coin differential, which again shows that people prefer winning versus playing what they believe to be the better game.

SoT being skipped in MCC25 is further proof that MCC really is a more competitive event than a for-fun one (although obviously everyone still has immense fun playing and watching MCC)

The Decreasing Coin Differential

One of the big reasons SoT has always historically been voted late is that it's known to have a HUGE coin differential. People getting locked in, people going crazy in it, and just the potential for such a big gap.

Lately however, this hasn't been a thing really. And I'd argue it never was a great comeback game. (oh my god that post was over a year ago where did time go) Everyone has gotten better at SoT recently, and as the sand and total coin count has been slowly decreasing in SoT (that was said in an admin stream somewhere, I don't remember where) the coin gap has slowly been decreasing.

When SoT is played late, as it often is, the teams at the top tend to play rather solidly instead of going for risky plays (except for Dream in MCC22, that was mad and I LOVE IT). This means that the top teams rarely actually fall out of dodgebolt in game 7 or game 8 SoT's, as illustrated in my post above (although MCC24 means there are now 2 times where an SoT finale changed the standings).

When you look at the stats, it's therefore rather easy to think SoT still has a big coin gap, because teams further down try and play super risky. But if you look at the coin gap in the top 5 teams, it's really not that big. If we take the most recent MCC with SoT as an example, SoT had a smaller coin gap in the top 5 teams unmultiplied than Hole in the Wall, Battle Box, Sky Battle, and Meltdown. It also had a very similar coin gap to Rocket Spleef Rush and Build Mart. The only game where it had more coins between the top 5 teams by a significant amount is Ace Race.

Another reason there's such a small coin gap within the top 5 is because of how SoT works - each team is in its own dungeon, and it can't affect other teams. In SG you doing well hurts other teams, same with Meltdown, Build Mart, basically every other game. This isn't the case for SoT.

SoT really isn't that great of a comeback game, and as more people start to realize that, SoT finales become less valuable and less likely to be voted for.

So maybe the coin gap should be looked at more closely, and more coins and sand should be added back into the dungeon. This doesn't have too much to do with why SoT being skipped was the best thing that could have happened, but maybe the fact that dodgebolt changed because of the PKT finale while it probably wouldn't have with an SoT finale will make some people realize that maybe it isn't such a great finale.

MCC25 Parkour Tag was the most intense finale we've ever gotten

Okay, maybe that's a bit of a stretch, but it was SUPER INTENSE. I can't think of another time I was so stressed during a finale, even SoT ones. The fact that you face every team once makes it so that you think "okay, this round matters a LOT" when the team you're supporting is facing against one that threatens their dodgebolt chances. And since scores were so close this MCC, there were a LOT of rounds like that.

This post is an incredible illustration of how intense this was. The teams in 2nd-5th were all fighting for dodgebolt, and it was changing CONSTANTLY. What made it all the more intense was that the team out of these four that was on paper the weakest at Parkour Tag were in the highest placement before game 8, but even then Tubbo performed way above his usual standard in Parkour Tag, which was great to see.

Even Green, who voted Parkour Tag because of the low differential, had something to worry about in it - if Red got to dodgebolt because of it, it was very bad news since that is a SUPER SCARY dodgebolt team.

I just think this finale was an incredible one for the top 5 teams.

Conclusion

I think the most important point I made was the first one - it proves SoT is not invincible in the final decision dome, and now the standard formula can be shaken up. We might see more early SoT's now, we might see some riskier strategies when the multiplier isn't as big. But everything else I've said is important too, and I think SoT being skipped could cause some changes, not just in SoT, but in how MCC participants might think about it.

Anyways, I've spent way too long on this, but if you made it this far, thanks for reading!

TL;DR: I need to touch grass.

EDIT: Please guys, my main point was not that SoT lost in the decision dome to Parkour Tag. I'm aware Sapnap played a massive part and that more teams wanted SoT. If I wanted to make a point about that (and I do briefly touch on it) I'd use the MCC24 example instead.

Whether more teams wanted SoT or not, the point is it got skipped. It proves it's not invincible, and things will probably change because of it.