Natural Ordering My Way Through a 64-Player Qualifier

[@TheBlueNotebook]

This is the hardest part about content creation I feel. Bad beats happen to everyone, but having to put yourself out there in the low moments and still put a smile on for the camera when any normal person’s reaction to this would be flipping a table, that’s harder than you’d think. LSV continuing to be a pro’s pro in all things.

[@thorstonk6348]

LSVs mental game is strong, his understanding of variance and his ability to pick apart opponents game actions to construct a range make remind me of how poker pros talk during hand analysis.

[@CyrixD2]

Very well said!

[@chokey4754]

Also, his sponsor is paying all the costs so it dosnt hurt nearly as much.

[@henryzelman4541]

The first match was ridiculous

[@Princeofseance]

God said I hate LSV

[@LucianDevine]

Of all the matches of MTG, that was certainly one of them!

[@Evvins]

Bummer, I really wanted to see this deck function.

[@californiaplant-basedeater2761]

What is he doing playing Mox Diamond in that deck though? So, so bad. Then he even got rightly overly punished by that white three drop game two. At first I said ty because the Mox was in the sideboard, then it showed up in the deck, and he lost, and I was glad. It's not an early pick after Natural Order first pick either. Imo the only consideration to take it there is if it is a good card to cut in a non-league draft, but still probably not. It's a glorified Lotus Petal. Maybe after after Wrenn and Six or another recursion card. But the draft was already going to be busy picking up early green creatures and big targets for NO. Edit: second deck was great though for sure

[@juani.2223]

LSV casually conceding G1 and not even cracking canopy for a second shot at Natural Order. He's not what he once was...

[@thomasalley3121]

LSV is the man to be able to shake that off. I would be super salty and let it ruin my day. Hats off to him.

[@Sicktoid]

I forget who said it but there's a quote "the first skill acquired by any pro player is the ability to take a loss". I think a pretty common quality in succesful tournament players - in basically any game - is that those guys really don't go on tilt easily. Not to belittle LSV's patience - it's quite amazing - but a pro player not being able to shake off stuff like that on the regular, in an RNG based game, would be a recipe for disaster.

[@thomasalley3121]

For sure. Later in the video he admitted he was still a little salty so he is human but definitely a pro through and through

[@jaceee4154]

ig when uve been playing competitive mtg for like 20 years u kinda gotta learn to shrug off the beats like that lol

[@II-wu7mx]

Honestly your deck was insane and ran head first into a two nuclear option opening hands.

[@grin_of_grimmsnarl1333]

Eh. I wouldn't call it insane. He's mostly creatures with very little interaction in total. Pretty vulnerable to the combo decks in the format

[@II-wu7mx]

@@grin_of_grimmsnarl1333 Fair enough. I’d argue combo decks are much less powerful in the mtgo cube and from a meta perspective combo decks aren’t as good as they once were. Having better creatures than your opponent is one of the better forms of interaction which I think this deck would achieve in most circumstances that aren’t your opponent playing with 5 mana on turn two.

[@eq.8640]

@@II-wu7mxI agree, the GR and GW decks have been surprisingly good for me recently

[@II-wu7mx]

@@eq.8640 The biggest thing for me is that it’s still a surprise for so many people. From the beginning of magic to now, spells and artifacts have reverse power crept and creatures have normally power crept. Now, resolving a creature often has immediate impact on par with strong spells along with a body.

[@LucianDevine]

@@eq.8640 Yeah, and as far as both GW/GR decks go, his was pretty sick. You just can't do anything when you run into turn 2 Otharri and then turn 1 kill your dork, turn 2 kill your only mana source, turn 3 Magda, turn 4 Gut. It's just how it goes sometimes.

[@america5808]

Sad we couldn't see the first draft deck playout seemed sweet

[@MatteoGariglio]

Sometimes magic can be brutal... you can be the best player in the world and have the best deck but still lose. You were so close in the previous attempt! Keep trying Luis! If there's a player who deserves the world's is You! Thanks for all the content and what you do for magic!

[@christopherlundgren1700]

Disappointed we didn’t get to see the Jacked Rabbit. I picked one up for my own cube and I was hoping to see it in action. 💪🐇

[@H44nz]

the first game was just rage inducing. Good player that ridicilously highrolled during draft AND then high rolled in the drawing phase.

[@noalsono8481]

Did y’all read the description 😂 “that first match was a GRIND”

[@AGray21]

That redemption deck was nutty

[@gxhost]

LSV: "Green is actually pretty strong in this cube." - a few moments later - "See you guys next time"

[@davidhickey8613]

You've gotten absolutely high rolled in all three of the cube token games I've seen. Absolutely brutal

[@Hynrah]

Gaea's Cradle + Jacked Rabbit.... Hello Watership Down.

[@brianh5844]

My feeling is Six would have been a better pickup than breach. Breach just makes your deck more inconsistent and you can already cast your 7s pretty easily, you don't need a 2-mana discount at the cost of a card that badly IMO given it also stretches the mana. Six is just an awesome thing to put out there on turn 2 after an elf AND you have time walk in your deck which is quite the combo.

[@Sidnv]

I think LSV underrates Six. It's a really fantastic card. It's also great in a time walk deck because it lets you rebuy the cards that rebuy time walk. Breach is better with time walk but the mana wasn't really there imo.

[@brianh5844]

@@Sidnv Ah, tbh I was overrating it a bit. Forgot about the "permanent" part of non-land cards, but yeah, when you have tamiyo in your deck then it's still a way to recur time walk. But let's just pretend that's what I meant this whole time...

[@LucianDevine]

With the 3 fatties that he had and the free red sources he had to go with it? No chance. With his mana dorks, he had several draws that would lead to turn 3 Breach, and any of his fatties could lead to pretty insane followups. Oh, and let's not forget that 4th fatty in his sideboard if it came down to it.

[@giancarlocafaro6734]

@@brianh5844lol to quote LSV when BK made the same mistake, “and how would you rate the card if you read the card?”

[@inkjorbas]

God, i would love to meet all these experts that are coaching LSV in the comment section. I'm joking, i wouldn't like to spend time with such individuals, I'm sure it would be tedious and tiring for all the obvious reasons.

[@dashvash5440]

One land hands that are the nuts remind me of like 89 Suited in poker or something like that. Can absolutely crush but can also get you in so much trouble. It can be a dangerous to navigate plus EV (at least in poker)

[@john_cat]

Oath is always fun to see actually working, real rare drop

[@gamma-bv6ty]

You had outs game 1. As others pointed out in the comments, you could crack canopy hoping to hit natural order for Atraxa. Assuming no interaction from your opponent, you're attacked with Otharri and 6 rebels, kill Otharri with Atraxa, take 12-7=5 and go to 3. Then next turn you could possibly get something going, or even win with Tamiyo double time walk. Or the complete nuts would be sac canopy draw time walk, cast time walk + paradise druid. Then next turn if you draw natural order and hit Tamiyo off Atraxa, you have exactly enough mana for Natural Order + Tamiyo + replay time walk, which probably wins you the game.

[@knuts2]

Bad beats happen! Keep drafting interesting decks!

[@tornadoeye]

Opp only used 1 minute and 41 seconds of his clock

[@philipkelly7369]

It's matches like that first one that temind me that I think i remember LSV saying (i think it was on Limited Resources) that he preferred Legacy cube to Vintage cube. When did that change?

[@Zii_Vii]

Loran to pop the mox on turn 2 was hilarious 🤣 exactly what I would expect to happen when I keep the same hand.

[@jeffbriem]

That first magic sums up why sometimes it just doesn’t matter how good your deck is.

[@Kendal411]

Really feels like the final 8 people are just going to be the 8 who got lucky enough to get power each draft and then draw them each game.

[@kylealejandro2022]

This has mostly always been how vintage cube works

[@Cthuski]

You have to be insanely lucky to go 13-0 in any format. Yes being a good player grant's more opportunities to get lucky but you just can't go 13-0 without running hotter than the sun

[@mrsrandommademedoit3387]

Its like this is any format, ofc more in vintage cube draft.. But look at any big top 8, any format. There is always atleast 1 braindead Red Deck Wins that went X-0, and just drew the perfect curve burn in most of the games gg.

[@duncanwalla7014]

It’s just annoying cause LSV is clearly really good at the game, but variance gets him every so often.

[@mrsrandommademedoit3387]

@@duncanwalla7014 Right i get your point. But its also the beauty of Magic, A terrible player can be lucky or have a great matchu or both and win agianst the best player in the world.. its not like chess where the better players wins every time. Some players seems to struggle with this :p i see it alot.. people raging talking shit.. those people should just play chess :P that way they only have themselves to blame for a losss. Good a bad, new or old you always have a chance to win in magic.

[@hellos123321]

Tarmogoyf last pick in pack 2. How the mighty have fallen...

[@andersi3]

Thanks for posting your bad beats, really helps me keep some perspective. Made it to the top 8 in one of these then lost in round one to Agartha's Soul Couldron and Soul Guide Lantern... 0_o

[@dr_volberg]

25:23 - You already had Entomb for making Echo of Eons much better.

[@micah3030]

People have not yet realized that frog is probably the best creature in the cube at the moment. That card goes WAY later than it should.

[@trentjones5881]

R1 that’s called getting vintaged. lol. Rufff!

[@nickthepark]

LSV you are the best! Do you think it’s better to entomb in your upkeep here 1:00:54 in case you drew exactly Atraxa?

[@DavidZaremby]

Oof. What a beat.

[@jantmoen]

Thank you!

[@wasup1193]

Damn, first deck looked so sweet..

[@yuandazheng3403]

I wonder if LSV's drafting strategy of valuing flexibility (for example, fetch lands) is actually suboptimal in this type of winner takes all format. Since it only matters if you sweep, and going 3-1 is essentially the same as going 4-0, the odds should bias towards trying to spike the most broken deck possible and taking big risks, rather than taking "good" picks and ensuring the deck is playable. Or stated mathematically, in 5 drafts, you may be better off drafting 1 top 1% deck + 4 bottom 10% percent decks rather than 5 70th percentile decks.

[@ogolthorp]

If anyone reading this has control over how cube worlds is done, consider changing the way the qualifiers are done next year. Some sort of round robin/league style matches would be better at separating the truly great players from the players who ran super hot in a few drafts. No single elimination drafts.

[@Zemmip]

I think the qualifier should've been a league style format to see who can perform the best over multiple drafts rather than getting lucky and winning a 64 player draft

[@ogolthorp]

Yeah especially for a format as volatile as cube draft. You can just randomly lose games no matter how good your deck is even if you didn’t get mana screwed/flooded.

[@brothertobias]

I don't like Leagues personally because hate-drafting and pick-memory is such an important part of draft you completely abandon in Leagues.

[@dreamlight7634]

Why Exhume over Mystical in Flash?

[@EricDee2023]

You can win it in LV!!

[@allee1346]

I love a draft video with Natural Order in the title 😅

[@leanderthal1138]

I fell to my knees in a wegmans watching r1

[@mag1cinvazn]

i lmao'd at channel green sun idk why lolol @16:42

[@Justinsalehtv]

Are we not gonna see lsv at cube worlds?!

[@yogarip]

***SPOILER ALERT*** Oh man, what a shame on the 64 player draft. :( btw, to point out that when i realized that the draft was done but there were still 40 minutes left on the video that i thought: "oh no, it's too bad drafts!" and immediately i heard a voice in my head (with a certain similarity to Luis's voice) saying: "Hold my coffee." and the voice was right. :P thanks man, for pulling a trophy after such a tilting round on the 64 player draft. You'll get it next week i'm sure, and i'm gonna leave my prediction right here, it's gonna be with an Academy deck. ;)

[@SymmetricalDocking]

Did Virtue of Loyalty get underrated based on the small curve creature composition of the deck?

[@peeporiot9948]

I agree with another commenter while the pursuit is admirable because of the way they've set up the qualifier it isn't built to find the "best" players; just the luckiest. Having to go 6-0 and then 3-0 is highly contingent on getting power (multiple if possible)

[@traycarrot]

I'm sure LSV understands the improbability of making it to the final 8 in any format, let alone Vintage Cube. That said, it does feel like such bad beats when things like this happen. I would love to see the decklists of the 13-0 decks that make it to the finals. I am almost certain you will see almost exclusively NutDraw.Dec beyond round one. A "fair" deck with a solid game plan just isn't going to cut it against other undefeated decks with these insane Power 9-enabled game enders. That being said, I like that LSV seems to be drafting towards this. If you're going to need to run hot anyways, might as well make your gameplan some version Natural Order, Flash, Channel, Hullbreecher Wheel, Tinker, etc.

[@grnman86]

I was expecting well from the first draft. Then turn one came lol.

[@amisanthropicman]

I would have really considered mulliganing those first two hands in the first draft, lol

[@LucianDevine]

When you have that much mana ramp, sometimes you just roll the dice and hope you draw action instead of more mana. There is some merit to mulling that hand in game 2 though, but with his opponent's draws, would it really have mattered?

[@forthedream3027]

that was rough

[@BuffaloPicture]

Did I hear LSV say "Inquisition is a great card"?

[@Easybake92]

How much do I have donate for Caleb Durward to be in this ?

[@UHPhilipA]

Well hot damn.

[@xcver]

1 hour I was fully expecting 1 draft with a loss in match 2, but not 2 drafts and one going 3:0

[@justin7035]

20 minutes of drafting for 2 minutes of play, love it

[@vanwright7821]

Lunch time

[@jonathanemontgomery]

That first pack was one of the worst I have ever seen. Is this really Vintage Cube?

[@LucianDevine]

I'm not even through the draft portion of this yet, but I know that Sandy Dog would be licking his chops seeing all those white cards!

[@martinzyka6432]

Vintage cube is my favorite format ever, but I think it's not the greatest competetive format, especially then the only goal is to go X-0...

[@C42ST3N]

how much luck do you want ... mental mistep in game 2 ... yes

[@stefanczolk5183]

Seeing the title *hype* and then immediately glancing at the length of the video *sadness*

[@Vermilio893]

could have been a 22 minute video lmao

[@chrysoarr5237]

As seen in this video the length woulndt give any information. Video is 1h long and he drafted twice and played 4 rounds.

[@Sidnv]

@@chrysoarr5237 It still gives information. Yes, it's possible a 64 single elim could end in a win in 1 hour, but very unlikely. Leagues can go fast because the quality of opposition isn't that high on average, it's just not that often going to happen in a 64. You need a really busted deck. I grant your point that it isn't guaranteed that he lost, but I still wish the time of the video could be padded a bit. I understand why LSV doesn't do this though, it isn't great for the algorithm.

[@mattwecrazy3236]

Wow. WTF

[@mulldrifterz6469]

Please... No soup today? -edit- Big green with tons of elves and Cradle? This is acceptable.

[@cesarramon4636]

.

[@markkelso871]

Justice is served. If you make me sit there for 8 minutes on turn 1 you gotta take the L.

[@nsmith131]

I bet you've never kept anyone waiting right?

[@emiach]

Don’t know when LSV and friends decided Mox Diamond is one of the best cards in Vintage Cube but it’s absolutely not. Taking it second pick and playing it in mono elf Cradle deck is just huh?

[@Skeed402]

Vintage Cube is terrible. Not even magic.

[@matthewbell4897]

Think you’re lost buddy

[@UHPhilipA]

Vintage cube is awesome and is most certainly "magic." Sometimes there are beat downs like this though.

[@just_anon]

The powercreep and goofy commander bullshit that's clearly not balanced for 1v1 has made it progressively worse each year.

[@nsmith131]

​​@@just_anonwhat cards are you even talking about? This cube has sweet FA commander product in it.

[@just_anon]

@@nsmith131 Forth Eorlingas, Othari, Hullbreaker, every fucking initiative/monarch card, etc. Do I really need to go on?