LSV Avoids Clerical Errors In Zendikar Draft

Luis is back this week for his first ChannelFireball Zendikar Rising Draft! Join him to see how he plays this new set on MTG Magic Arena.
This video is sponsored by Ultimate Guard. Visit www.ultimateguard.com for all the best in Magic accessories.
Twitch: / channelfireball
Twitter: / channelfireball
Facebook: / channelfireball

[@88kolar]

how to win draft: chose an archetype and get all the cards you need in that archetype. like wtf 3 clerics of lives bond?

[@justinb2824]

I'd have to take a walk if I got a draft like that.

[@robbiestrong-morse730]

Step 3 be LSV

[@CNSproductions14]

@@justinb2824 lmao, legit.

[@ryangarvey8207]

its skill

[@patarfuifui]

I could watch LSV draft all day

[@bricknolty5478]

Been there done that. Worth.

[@HairyNGross]

Knowledgeable, explains his moves in draft, and thinks packs ahead.

[@skiltor3020]

The thought of queuing against LSV as he wields that deck in the gold league is absolutely terrifying.

[@locilocisu]

I once had that displeasure. It was terrifying. Felt like he completely knows what's in my hand

[@keylloyd9167]

I took all his Kor Celebrants. So it's fine.

[@TheCrackler]

Noice, finally a LSV draft video for Zendikar Rising. Your vids are always a pleasure to watch :)

[@DiploRadio]

LSV's VOD drinking game: 1 shot everytime you ear "alrighty" 1 shot everytime you learn something 1 shot everytime you see a big brain play exepected number of shots: too much

[@cooliosntsprtc]

1 shot for every "I suppose"

[@calebwiseman3210]

Solid job explaining why you are picking what you are picking. 👍

[@benripman2402]

I feel bad for the opponent who didn't know how to use full control with Lithoform Engine. : \

[@RW77777777]

should feel bad for people playing Arena, where that happens

[@bbeast9755]

you don't need full control with the engine. I tested it in almost every way.

[@Medina4life]

10:36 LSV fixated on the Blood Priest and passes up on the Marauding Blight-Priest right next to it

[@gregbartlett851]

They are both strong in this deck, but I think the blood priest is the better card in the deck and in general.

[@Medina4life]

Greg Bartlett yea I would agree with that but I think the point is he already had so many blood priests and didn’t even glance at the blight priest or mention it.

[@alwaysplaythegame]

With 3 cleric of lives bond and 2 relic vials, the blight-priest is likely a bit better... but he didn't have that setup at the time. In general blood priest is slightly better in the clerics decks (lots better in non-clerics decks). In the end I do think another blight > blood for his deck.

[@Yawgmoth247]

Lsv doing an arena zendikar rising draft....I'm in!!

[@RhysticStudies]

this deck is just the nuts.

[@robbiestrong-morse730]

When his opponent is named old manondorf. I see you are a man of culture as well.

[@tylerbennett1479]

I'm a simple man. I see LSV, I click watch

[@EvilCherry3]

10:30 Marauding Blight Priest would have been better here i think

[@painchess]

Yes, I thought exactly the same. Blight priest is insane with that amount of life gain

[@Frasierlane]

I had the same thought, if only for curve considerations as he already had about six 2-drops. Though I must admit LSV is a better magic player than me so he likely had a reason for his choice.

[@EvilCherry3]

@@Frasierlane True. He's better than me for sure. My hope is that i am right and that he just didn't see it, because he rushed this pick a bit.

[@wangshen7664]

@@EvilCherry3 I am sure he did not see it lol

[@windscar18]

With double Relic Vial, overloading on 2 drops is fine. He also has good party support. There's also good chance he picks up Blood Beckonings in the future, and Blood-Priest is a far better Blood Beckoning target than Blight Priest. When you have as much mana-intensive card advantage as this kind of deck, playing to curve is just not as important as ability to stabilize/not die to evasion.

[@slurpleslixie]

Attacking for exactly 3 damage while doing 17 with Relic Vial, that's some serious spice

[@robbiestrong-morse730]

Would have ended up doing 18 damage but they died before the when you gain life trigger resolved.

[@MultiBayrock]

I think pack 3 pick 3 should have been the Marauding Blight-Priest, better for the curve and synergises very well

[@muxilero_4264]

just got on that part and imediatelly scrolled down to check comments, he completely missed that one, would essentially double the payoff of both his main engines he built around.

[@lynxdove]

Yeah but I’m reasonably sure that card wheeled

[@keylloyd9167]

@@muxilero_4264 That was a flub. He can't justify that pick with his current list.

[@joe.5103]

@Key Lloyd Much more likely to wheel the blight-priest after full well knowing no one else was in BW life gain as opposed to the Blood-priest which is great in almost every black deck. It does end up wheeling too. Idk if that was his exact thought process but the 2 drop is so good at what it does and is even better with blood beckoning so while it’s close, I think it’s the right decision this late into the draft. Upside could be lower than the risk of not getting it back but he was getting late vials and CoLB so 🤷‍♂️

[@keylloyd9167]

@@joe.5103 I'm not sure no one was in BW life gain. Not seeing a single Kor Celebrant seems strange. Also, the upside of the 3 drop is much higher. It's going to eat a decent removal at the very least because no one wants to leave a passive creature on the board that could drain them for 10 or more in a few turns.

[@andyony2]

Finally! :) LSV Drafting is back!!!

[@HunterBelkiran]

You played that first game masterfully.. damn.

[@seanhutt4621]

More drafts plz this was great !!!

[@budrothefox3666]

I never see this many cards that have complete synergy with one another during my draft. I take my time, feel like i get unlucky often.

[@MasterDoctorBenji]

Same, but sometimes these do fall into your lap. Sometimes they fall into your lap during pack two when you are in two different colors and couldn't jump over anyway lol

[@EvilCherry3]

In quick draft you will never see synergy like this. In player draft this kind of synergy shows up from time to time, but this one especially was quite insane. ^^

[@matthewdrury6443]

Watch out for survivorship bias when watching these drafts. People are gonna upload their best drafts and games. Not that LSV isn't a great player and drafter, but even he doesn't get nuts decks that often.

[@MasterDoctorBenji]

@@matthewdrury6443 I am aware, if he bricks a draft it isn't very entertaining and won't be put up

[@francescofoschi8941]

That first game was tense man

[@SkidMcmarxx]

Finally some good fucking content.

[@1campballs]

Imagine playing against MTG hall of famer LSV in gold...

[@lukegottlieb6719]

From playing in gold recently, I think there are a lot of good players in there practicing on smurf accounts.

[@perchero3357]

Sweeeet! WB is a strong color combo, tho I have found that it is easier to draft a small lifegain package in a party deck rather than the opposite. Also, always take [[Thwart the Grave]] when you see it! The card is bollocks, easiest 7-0 in my life!

[@angelthemute1670]

Just had a draft where i picked up two vials, one on the wheel i pack one. And the gold uncommon midway pack 2. And then never saw any good clerics. took every single cleric i saw, ended up with a whopping 6. I still 3-0'd because of some ridiculously lucky rares, but oof. I was hoping for something close to this.

[@alwaysplaythegame]

This deck was ridiculous. I've drafted a few 7-0 decks and I don't think any were as good as this. I think clerics is the top archetype and then you got 3 cleric of lives bonds... overkill.

[@fatalshore5068]

This deck was completely filthy

[@jakemontalbano3771]

Where do you value ||Marauding Blight-Priest|| in the B/W Clerics deck? You don't even talk about it before snap picking the ||Malakir Blood-Priest||

[@slurpleslixie]

Generally cards that do something are better than cards that make the things other cards are doing slightly better

[@darkestxdark]

Imagine being gold rank and then LSV shows up to dunk on you and makes a video about it

[@ChannelFireball]

There was a bit where Luis and Reid were both bronze.

[@silpheedTandy]

does ChannelFireball tend to be biased towards uploading the really good decks that players draft? i personally find it far more interesting (and more helpful) to see pros play middling-luck decks that they draft.

[@franksmith8298]

Ethan Saks recently posted a draft that was nearly a train wreck that he managed to navigate kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqavn2hrhMSsqJY

[@simonberest9302]

Audios probably a bit out of sync btw

[@Burpfishtaco]

I feel like Spoils of Adventure was a super free splash with all of the Packbeasts

[@meanberryy]

Say you're B/W clerics and open scion of life spawn, Cleric of lives bond and Relic vial? How would you rank them from best to last? Ofcourse it all depends on what you need curvewise, amount of clerics and/or lifegain triggers already etc. But in general, say it's early enough in the draft to just go by power?

[@smartscape7997]

I have never seen anything so lucky in my life.

[@pedroyoshimatu9539]

the canopy baloth has G I G A N T I C

[@justinkarnes3276]

@LSV: Can you explain a little bit the decision to choose another Malakir Blood Priest on P3P3 instead of a Marauding Blight-Priest? I felt like with the vials the Blight-Priest was the better pick and I'm trying to get a better understanding of how you evaluated this decision. Same thing for P3P5: Stonework Packbeast over Practiced Tactics.

[@alwaysplaythegame]

Packbeast over tactics is fairly easy. LSV didn't even play a practiced tactics - cutting it before making the last several cuts. With 5 clear payoffs for cheap clerics, you want as many as possible. This deck didn't have to worry about 4/4s and the like as it had several cheap creatures to trade off and lots of incidental lifegain to race. The only 'threats' the deck had to focus on were ones that tactics might not have killed (bombs, mirror-matched payoffs, etc). That makes nahiri's binding a lot better than tactics here and small clerics likely better than both. As for the evil priest brothers, I think blight priest would have been better in the final decklist, but it's very close regardless. A 3/2 body isn't much better than a 2/1 in most matchups, and on average blood probably drains for ~2 but always at least 1. Blight can blank and be worse in the worst case, but can explode to 10+ damage especially in mirror matches. Most games, they are about equal, but I feel like blight is better in 2 matchups: 1) The mirror match, 2) red with cinderclasm. The mirror match is already favored for this deck b/c LSV got very lucky with all of the payoffs, but cinderclasm would have been big game against this deck.

[@justinkarnes3276]

Always Play The Game thank you for the thorough analysis!

[@lifeisawesome1391]

10:30 I'm very surprised you chose Malakir over Marauding. Most of the time Malakir will be +2 life -2 life opponent. With so much lifegain Marauding could consistently do 2-4 unblockable damage per turn for as long as it sits on the board. Maybe the third pack beast could justify Malakir, but the third beast came afterward.

[@MondSemmel]

Agreed, plus at this point LSV has infinite 2-drops vs. only four cards at 3 mana, two of which are Relic Vials and so don't affect the board the turn they come into play.That said, since LSV later on takes Blight-Priest over Vanquish, I think he probably just didn't see it in that earlier pack. That happens sometimes.

[@jong2563]

Bout time!

[@thomaskennedy5336]

I love that when I find myself in a certain archetype I never find the good payoffs, yet here is LSV with super late pack 3 cleric life bonds....

[@anthonyrose8921]

These names are amazing

[@theatog]

With 3 Packbeasts, i think i would seriously consider splashing for spoil.

[@oldirtysean00]

Too bad you didn't get to pick up an kor celebrants. The card just keep rising in my pick order. I still have Shepherd of Heroes as my #1 white common but celebrant could surpass it. It's amazing in wb and pretty damn good in uw.

[@gabriels1163]

I agree about the celebrants. I have been wrecking people with the white black decks with celebrant as the main engine. On top of being the engine, its a great blocker and with multiples your life total can quickly get out of reach. I won a game at 80 life last night with 3 celebrants in play. I think its the most important card for the lifegain deck.

[@EvilCherry3]

He had 3 Clerics of Life's Bond already. I'm not sure you can say "too bad" here. ^^

[@Lv80Mudkip]

That poor bronze guy in round 5 just getting dunked on by LSV. Borderline griefing tbh.

[@adrianpetrescu2212]

Sorry, what do you mean? His round 5 opponent won the game...

[@Lv80Mudkip]

@@adrianpetrescu2212 I cannot believe I just wasted that much time scrolling through this video to still be right. Round 5 against Old Manondorf in bronze was defeated. You're wrong, and you're also dumb. heck off already why don't you.

[@joe.5103]

Lion Cub Kurz Woah buddy, unless Adrian edited his post I think your reaction is a little aggressive, don’t you? The guy didn’t curse your family, he just mixed up match 5 & 6.

[@Lv80Mudkip]

F 1 only thing worse than being dumb and wrong: being a white knight on the Internet.

[@ballzock1039]

@@Lv80Mudkip Must be miserable to be you

[@quibfiddle]

Not watched it yet but that's a 10/10 title

[@souetrejeremy]

So many exactsies.

[@RDMatija]

Katana sleeves No. 1!

[@Shadowbow1000]

why didn't you take marauding blight priest with all the lifegain the deck has? it essentially doubles your damage output!

[@vy1585]

44:25 How come in 1000 games of Arena I've never had an opponent use pump / bite in the wrong order on the wrong target and for no reason?

[@TheMrolio22]

Something something paid actors

[@scapegoat8171]

Flit happy LSV. Hold on cards for more than a fraction of a second please.

[@fredirecko]

Even with an arguably perfect draft it’s still hard to go 7-0

[@carter9449]

is arena all best of one now?

[@germanyjones2700]

Katana sleeves are the troof. LSV is p kewl, too

[@sailor4076]

is it so that you draft with actual people now?

[@ChannelFireball]

Yes!

[@jimmycarlson4871]

Drafting the easy way bb

[@wangshen7664]

On the one hand I hope I can see matches against other mythic players.. on the other hand he is just taking a mythic rank spot from me so..... idk. My opponents are mostly mythic and all those decks are like godly, so hard to get 7 wins lol

[@awestrich2172]

Whoever makes these titles is a genius, and I hate them

[@ChannelFireball]

Luis picks his own. 🤣

[@premiumfruits3528]

I just realized Vito is a cleric...I think Orzhov cleric tribal is gonna be a legit Tier 1 aggro deck in standard.

[@sfjapaleno]

If he’d taken a second makindi over nahiris binding I would stop watching and lose all faith

[@Moose00019]

Is there a guide that's worth a shit?

[@gabriels1163]

Relic vial is maybe the weirdest first pick I have seen in a zen video. Even in the black white deck I consider that card to be barely playable, a 22-23rd card at best. It's a good sideboard card in best of 3 against removal decks, but its useless against enough decks in the format that I would almost never run it main. Vanquish the weak was an easy pick there.

[@LSVargas]

gonna have to hard disagree there

[@gabriels1163]

@@LSVargas agree to disagree. I just went 7-0 7-2 6-3 in black white, and there is only one game I would have wanted that card in though.

[@chemset475]

did you watch the whole draft? the card was objectively very good throughout. sometimes it's useful to take information that doesn't immediately support our biases and learn from it. especially from a literal hall of famer of the game lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[@gabriels1163]

@@chemset475 I was clearly talking about it as a first pick. Any card can be good in the right deck, doesn't mean it should be first picked. Especially a card that wheels 99% of the time. If he had picked it up on the wheel I would not have raised an eyebrow. Picking it p1p1 when there was actual good cards in the pack is a bit different though. This idea that LSV is infallible is wrong. Being a good player doesn't mean he always makes the right choice.

[@chemset475]

Right, but the card performed at a level that I think is extremely desirable from a first pick when there is no bomb in the pack. It had to do with the Cleric deck coming together, but that's part of drafting, speculating early on whether a card can live up to it's potential, which it did here. It could've been LSV or whoever drafting, I wouldn't have taken that with my first pick either but this draft has allowed me to second guess some of my card evaluations which is more valuable than every one of the million players who have had some 7 win drafts being equally sure that the way they draft is the only right way. I'm mainly just suggesting it's not so black and white.