Frantically Searching for Tolarian Academy | Vintage Cube Draft

Is Tolarian Academy one of the best cards in the cube? Yes. Do I ever pass it these days? No, and this draft demonstrates exactly why.
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[@Marksmaan]

Pair o' Dice Lost can get lands from the gy too, right. It says any number of cards. So you can recur fetches, Urza's Saga, strip mine, a bunch of 0 mana Artifacts like Bauble, Lotus, LED, then you're guaranteed to get at least 2 so Timewalk or Ancestral. In a self mill deck, you can easily draw 10+ cards with it. In a Life from the Loam deck I could see it being very good. 5 mana is a lot, but Black Lotus, Lotus Petal, etc... can pay for it and then you just get them all back.

[@austindenny7094]

exactly what i was gonna say. can also act as a pseudo crucible with fastbond and zuron orb, or fastbond plus Armageddon

[@qbass2249]

LSV from 1 year ago would have never picked Academy this early, cool to see how your picks evolved over the course of time

[@davidmil23]

Now he only picks academy 😂

[@jiricirtek8160]

Tyler Durden - they change cube a lot

[@TheJohtaja]

Was thinking the same thing. Used to be one of the clearest differences compared to e.g. Nummy's drafting.

[@guitarolm]

he probably would have picked Fractured Identity or Riftwing Cloudskate over it 😂

[@thedoctorbob7]

The cube list changes now and then. Cards like Retrofitter and Iconoclast and such made it a much better card

[@fallintoadream]

I remember Numot first-picking Academy in his guest stream on this channel and remarking that LSV wouldn't pick it. How the turns have tabled

[@nekrataali]

A "turnabout," if you will.

[@Xanthus00]

@@nekrataali Academy's "a fair play"

[@7OutSean]

I remember that too 😂

[@bungalowbill521]

Watching LSV spend mana never gets old.

[@detalores]

These kind of decks are my absolute favorite. So sick. Even against aggro decks you can win on turn 3-5. Would probably struggle a little against counter spell heavy decks but even thin you have other engines like clamp, Krasis, and tracker.

[@Jingoa]

Academy and Tireless Tracker is an unlikely friendship but dayum

[@Athrolaxle]

They're honestly so good together, but it doesn't look like that much at a glance!

[@roarmalf]

Someone asked me what I was watching and I said, "Team Vintage Cube, I'm pretty sure it's the pinnacle of gaming." I would later look back and regret saying "pretty sure."

[@Jchmcom]

I love the drafts where everyone's playing Checkers and LSV is playing 3D Star Trek Chess.

[@Michael-mt4ey]

he's on his bullshit again hell yeah

[@kendallkaspar6193]

When you took Tolarian Academy over Mind Twist with a black card already in your pile, I thought "Man that has to be wrong." Clearly the person who was wrong is me.

[@jccusell]

I fainted after pack 1 pick 2 can someone fill me in?

[@hbejgel]

When you redrew the time warp from the Echo of Eons my mind went straight to "Let's do the Time Warp again!"

[@paulallison3974]

This is an example of why I feel like if I ever were able to join the pod, I don't think I'd ruin the draft but I recognize there's strategies I"m not competent to play, especially with my brain hard wired to say lion's eye is the worst

[@jacobwheeler9330]

Wow, big divergence right on pick 1. Orcish Bowmasters over mana vault feels wrong. LSV is much better than me, so I need to re-evaluate, but that struck me as objectively wrong

[@Joeks0303]

That also strikes me as just wrong, vault goes into any deck and timetwister is just a better card for the bow masters type deck. Plus, both vault and twister go better with academy

[@detalores]

In a vacuum mana vault pick one is probably the pick. But I think a lot of the team drafting and meta/history he has with the draft pool makes the bow masters a pretty good pick. He always seems to get the right combo pieces because they aren’t as valued with these players. If he goes in early he can almost always get at least 1-3 draw sevens.

[@rossmcbeath4997]

Same reaction as me. I love Mana Vault. Turn 1: mana vault, turn 2: ridiculous threat! Has won me many-a-cube games, but maybe I am overvaluing those early turns and undervaluing how you can draft around bowmasters and draw sevens. Maybe those are more busted, consistent decks? I'll think on it.

[@justineelzak4285]

It's very possible LSV drafted and passed 3-0 decks making his net contribution to his team 0, though a very cool 0 for us to watch

[@josephmozena7640]

I lean toward taking Bowmasters here as well. Mana Vault is busted, but it's closer to a Dark Ritual than it is to Sol Ring. Very powerful, but there are lots of decks where it's not the greatest. Bowmasters is unassuming, but the power level on the card is sky high, and picking it early allows you to really maximize its effectiveness. I wouldn't go so far as to say that Bowmasters over Vault is objectively correct, but the more I play with Bowmasters, the more highly I pick it, and the more I've played with Mana Vault, the less excited I am about it. I used to value it just below power, but nowadays I have it below a lot of the top tier, versatile threats like Fable, Bowmasters, Minsc and Boo, Oko, etc. Cube is a lot less about jamming 4-6 drops than it used to be, and a lot more about cheap interaction and assertively affecting the board, and Bowmasters does both of those things.

[@wchenful]

I think the play at 33:00 was to vamp for frantic search and clamp to draw it instead of casting the crucible. Very sweet deck to pilot!

[@Snarkeroid]

A couple of those games he could've won a turn earlier i think, but he definitely felt so far ahead it didn't really matter.

[@Mr.BigNate]

Umezawa's Haywire Mitte.

[@chanceknoles9475]

This deck looks insane. Wish i was good enough at drafting to do something like this.

[@Zii_Vii]

Rofl that fastbond reveal 6th pick. 'I'll fuckin do it again', Lsv said calmly 😂😂

[@setharoth114]

I get that bowmasters is the nuts, but picking it p1p1 over Mana Vault still seems insane to me.

[@r2dezki]

Academy and Cradle have gone up sky high in my eyes thanks to this cube.

[@kohls_cash]

I've seen a lot of these videos now, and this is my clear favorite

[@vitrehacek7455]

THIS....everyday, its such a delight...

[@larsice9]

25:10 that look for a called academy is priceless!

[@blakewilliams8148]

M1G1 makes this draft seem serendipitous

[@SHADOWSURPRIZE]

Why didn’t you haywire mite chrome mox blue source when he had only 2 forests, no cards in hand, and ancestral recall on top?

[@blakewilliams8148]

Because he had Bowmasters and academy

[@MiauZi69]

Instead of Tracker get Crucible, play all forrests with Fetch and Fastbond, play Memory Jar with 7 lands in Play. Turn 2 GG

[@Rallylabs]

I think mind twist would be a better pick over academy for a lot of people, but LSV is so good at building and playing these academy decks that I think it is probably one of the very best non power picks for him.

[@Omegashotgun]

Can anyone else believe that LSV has been drafting Vintage Cube for more than two months now? Honestly loving it though. I don't mind more of this at all!

[@gragrim]

"Tireless tracker, it's good for drawing cards" (Btw also good at just beating down)

[@e.martin1242]

Why no Kaito over Virtue? Makes artifacts and works nicely with bow master, krasis, and channeler

[@clvinn1]

that hymn to tourach art is choice

[@edwarderiksson4136]

passing mana vault into mind twist feels risky, but I can believe academy is good enough to justify it

[@deandouvikas]

Land, Skill, Victory

[@rmida9122]

echo of cheons strikes again

[@geometrividad7716]

I don't get tired of watching you draft green academy decks either. Besides, you keep winning with them, so you do you!

[@davidhickey8613]

your draws were 10/10

[@TheGoldenHorncall]

I love these video titles

[@ryanboyington7941]

Sally sells seed sharks

[@makidiaz3894]

Bring back Juju beans 🫘 Edit: thanks. ❤

[@gayedemiray]

disgusting topdecks all thorought the games 😂loved it

[@BarginsGalore]

i’m really enjoying these comboy green decks

[@finalflameKorisky]

Deck's curve looks like a f*cking gun lmaaaaooo

[@NatePrawdzik]

Pair O Dice lost would be great with Zuran Orb/Fast Bond because you can sacrifice all your lands and their total cost is zero.

[@Anusien]

Zuran Orb was already gone at that point.

[@NatePrawdzik]

@@Anusien Yes, definitely, but he's seen this card before so I'm hoping he makes the connection for a future run.

[@hamishfox]

I already thought academy was a busted card, but after watching these drafts I now think it is one of the best cards in draft, up there with the moxen and time walk.

[@Snarkeroid]

academy is horrible if you don't get the artifact support.

[@nekrataali]

10th. card in the Power 9 IMO.

[@Snarkeroid]

@@nekrataali there are a ton of cards I'd put above academy, sol ring and library of alexandria to name a couple.

[@stephenglaeser7830]

Love these videos!!

[@smellyleopardd]

Love these videos!!

[@joseazevedo3432]

Echo of Cheons

[@jonsalvadori6275]

Yay!

[@paulallison3974]

Quuuuuuuube!

[@marcsteinbruegge254]

My friend and I watch these on discord together to see if we can guess what the picks are. We have a pretty consistent 85+ Percentage going haha

[@joeskyring9885]

Knew LSV would take academy even before he said it 😂 Loves these vids and your drafts in general. I don’t even know all the old cards but learn so much through you. Thank you and keep grinding

[@Flashpoint-xe2gb]

Have you ever taken a look into Canadian Highlander? It seems like it'd be your jam. Canlander and Vintage Cube are Magic at its finest in my opinion.

[@spooky_zen]

:30 Orcishbowmaster is absoulte ass idk why they made this card. this whole u draw cards and take damage thing in black is not fun in my opinion and i think wizards has fallen off their pumpin out too many sets and the result is unfun metas

[@starmanda88]

I don’t get the issue. Are you saying card draw shouldn’t be punished?

[@spooky_zen]

@@starmanda88 it could be dont better i think they pushed it too much bowmaster should have etb trigger

[@nekrataali]

I think Bowmaster should just deal damage or create an army, but both on top of having flash is pretty ridiculous. They may as well have given it deathtouch and lifelink while they were at it. The card is significantly more powerful than Dark Confidant, which is saying something, since Bob had been black's best 2 CMC creature for almost 20 years.