25:56 I actually think Imperial Seal for Lim-Dûl's Vault could've been the play there. If your deck size isn't a multiple of 5, you can pass through your deck multiple times to increase the likelihood that you'll find a 5-stack that contains 2 cards that will allow you to combo-kill. On your first pass through your deck, you simply sort the cards so that the desired targets are next to each other in your deck or are moving closer to each other in your deck. On the second pass through your deck, if your deck size isn't a multiple of 5, you will see different sets of 5 cards where cards that you've previously made adjacent but weren't in the same set of 5 can now appear in the same 5-stack. In a format with a smaller deck size, and if you're not playing against an aggressive opponent, you could even pass through your deck a third time and "elevator" cards to adjacent spots in your deck. I haven't done the exact math on this, but with additional tutors in your deck, your chances of generating a set of 5 cards that contains a kill seems very reasonable to me.
If you had infinite life (and your cards in library was not a multiple of 5) with enough time you could set your library to be whatever you want. In a tournament, would a judge allow you to just stack your library however you want?
@@alexanderhamilton3309 Nope. With infinite life and a deck that isn't a multiple of 5 you could eventually get to where you have the exact 5 cards you want. A sort of doomsday for library only, but even then you shuffle the rest of the deck then put them on top, also a judge wouldn't let you shortcut that as well and doing it manually wouldn't be feasible.
Yeah, Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle/Jace, Wielder of Mysteries is starting to smell a lot like Time Vault + Manifold Key/Voltaic Key. Don't see that one living too long in the cube, lol.
@@JamesObscura I have to image people were just getting tired of the play patterns Initiative introduces. This wouldn't be the first Vintage Cube I've seen where people ditched initiative for that exact teason.
I agree, Oracle is such an uninteresting card, and the combo fits into the colors that have the tools to disrupt it, ie: counter magic and hand disruption, meaning playing the combo also helps cut the colors that can do anything about it. 2 card instant wins seem to just stifle the high skill ceiling available in Vintage cube.
I get why some people don’t find Thoracle/Consultation interesting, but in all honesty having it in the opener has about the same effect as a mono-red deck opening on Mox Ruby, Sol Ring, or Mana Crypt: T3 win. The difference is you don’t go for it at all until T3, so it’s actually easier for the fast red deck to get underneath the opponent’s interaction. Of course, any powered version of a deck is going to have some fast starts that dramatically increase their chances of winning, but what’s the trouble with having some cards/combos that can compete with Power? Awesome video, Luis. Personally, I enjoyed the trouncing!
Lots of discussion on thoracle + consultation in here. I say just get rid of consultation and bring in grinding station :D I legit think it could be a nice include, it's still an angle for thoracle to shine and also adds a cool angle to underworld breach as it goes very hard with free mana, or just free artifacts in general. Also some pretty sick loops with saheeli and third path iconoclast Regardless, thanks for the video!
yeah, that is a nice suggestion. We did remove consultation from our cube ages ago because it was simply not fun. You cant really draft around it, it is such an unfun and easy win and majority of the decks dotn ahve any way of stopping it even though they might be busted.
This deck is really busted but at the same time, if you have _any_ 2 card combo in magic in your deck with tons of tutors and counterspells to back it up it's going to look broken. The problem with Vault/Key is that it's colorless, goes in any virtually any deck, and typically include cards like tezz the seeker which tutor up time vault for you, making it trivial to assemble.
The best Cube deck I've ever drafted was a storm deck with lotus, will, lion's eye, Demonic/vampiric, tendrils, tinker, top, citadel, etc. I don't remember exactly what, because I played maybe 10 turns total in that draft, with 4 first turn storm kills. It definitely just happens sometimes. My least favorite combo in vintage cube is channel emrakul, because it feels terrible from both ends. It's actually really fussy to set up channel emrakul and still have enough life to play it, so you only ever see it work when it just immediately ends the game on turn 2 or 3 without any counterplay.
I, for one, thoroughly enjoy watching you dismantle opponents in 3 turns. I wouldn't mind vault/key being back in the cube, I think having a full-power cube is fun and even if some games are brutal annihilation, it's a strategy open to whoever wants to try to draft it. Thanks for all your content, LSV, I will never stop appreciating it!
great vid LSV! what about kitesail freebooter to go after those nasty combo decks :) also would love to see Sorin Mirthless and/or my favorite Lolth Spider Queen mix it up, keep it going!
I'd like to see less broken-combo-potential in the cube. Combos are fun to theorycraft but they make for uninteractive gameplay, which undercuts the excitement of watching great players duel. I want to see back-and-forth, difficult decisionmaking, and creative improvisation with limited resources. With decks like this I can stop watching when the draft ends and not feel like I'm missing anything. Building a cube is a difficult game design problem. Be assured that a lower power level would not reduce your glory as its designer or as a competitive player. There are good reasons that WotC doesn't include reprints of the power 9 in modern sets, and this cube format would benefit from some philosophical self-examination about fun and skill expression.
Learning how to interact with combo is a huge skill, and is one of the more interesting parts of cube. Not every deck can interact with everything, but knowing what options you have in each color combo against each of the combos is really important, and is how you pick up matches in situations other players would lose. This combo might be a bit over the line, since it's so cheap and immune to anything but stack interaction, but crafting a resilient combo deck and piloting it through interaction is one of my favorite things about vintage cube.
@@josephmozena7640 I hear you that interacting with combo is a skill, but there's an opportunity cost. When there are combos in the cube, that means other strategies get pushed out. So the question is not whether it allows for skill expression full stop, but how the skill expression varies between cube formats with and without hard combos. The high bar of skill expression for me is complex board states, where there are multiple creatures on both sides of the field. Do I swing with creatures? How many? Where do my blocks go? How much damage can I afford to take? What instants do I play around mid-combat? Those scenarios lend themselves to intricate math and subtle tradeoffs. Subtle differences in creature power, toughness, or keywords make for variety and texture. There is creature combat in the best limited formats, and a key question when designing any cube should be how to enable and incentivize players to build boardstates. Combo decks aren't cool when they win by making the board irrelevant. In my experience playing against or with combo decks, the ceiling of skill expression is lower and the floor is, well, evident in this video.
Out of curiosity, you mentioned your discord having free cube drafts, would you ever consider having a viewer/fan/subscriber event where we could get in on some cube action with some of the best of the best?
why remove initiative, I don't understand, that will weaken midrange in the format right ? weaken the combo which can not atack the oppoents through creatures so the format would be more healty
Having two card combo that is so easy to assemble and wins on the spot for just 3 mana is simply stupid and not fun at all. It also fits perfectly within already existing and powerfull archetypes. Demonic Consultation does not belong to cube with oracle.
@@bricelory9534 Disagree, Thoracle + Doomsday is a really fun combo and there is tons of interaction around it and a lot of creativity required to make it work. Demonic Consultation basically does nothing except enable degenerate wins like this, no one uses it as an honest tutor. Consultation should go, Thoracle should stay as long as Doomsday does.
I wonder what happened to Deep Cavern Bat in the cube? I feel like it could’ve been great in this deck. Was everywhere for awhile then just disappeared
Definitely had a cracked list that was in the 90th percentile, but Jesus. I just watched a complete blowout and wondered how this play pattern is any better than WPA 😂
@@traycarrot could just remove demonic consultation and it wouldn't be the nuts, but I think if you're gonna leave it in you might as well have all the initiative stuff too
I watched this but hated all of it. Thassa's Oracle is such a miserable card. It plus consultation when initiative and vault/key gone is bizarre. It is so much better than those cards in every way.
I like the consultation but if it wears out maybe Tainted Pact is worth a look. Increased mana cost, restrict mana base freedom while adding a more versatile card that maintains the combo perhaps.
I personally like seeing the power builds of the cube. Fast wins is what it's all about and all 4 of the other team members had the option to cut thoracle and did not so in a lot of ways they deserve to die on turn 3
love this deck and all your videos, but I feel like consultation is just "easy mode" when it's in the cube with oracle and such a boring win. Call me a LSV vintage cube video old-timer, but I miss storm.
I am really glad you removed the initiative. Just never found it a fun mechanic to play with or watch others play with. It feels like a significant departure from what magic is about.
I don't think consultation and Oracle are negative in the same way that vault key is. You have to have a reasonable mana base and either several tutors or good control elements. Vault key in there different color pairs easily and some amount of the time in green x decks. I'd leave consultation in for a couple more weeks just to make sure it's not a 90% win with a 50% play rate.
Ofc people are gonna hate the combo now bc u had nut draws whilst your team has all the forces. The initiative cards are still way more oppressive than this.
Everyone complaining about the Consult/Thoracle combo are being a bit sensitive here. First off, counterspells arent the only way to interact with it. If you remove the thoracle or the jace, you auto lose on the consult cast. I do agree that it is very strong but, its nowhere near key/vault combo. You cant even make that comparison. Artifact removal is harder to come buy in the cube and if its destroyed, you don't auto lose. Thoracle/Consult is alot more fragile.
Removing the thoracle doesn't do anything. The trigger is on the stack and the consultation player still wins. You play consultation in response to the thoracle trigger. There are ways to deal with Jace + Consultation, that combo isn't overbearing. But Oracle + Consultation is extremely hard to interact with outside of hand disruption or countermagic (or baleful mastery/tidebinder). The fact that oracle + consultation is dimir means that there is much less room for other players to get the counterplay necessary.
@@Sidnv you remove the thoracle in response to the consult cast. You never try to remove it before. And also the trigger still is on the stack but I think you still need at least 1 blue devotion for it to go off yeah?
@@chrisstanley2051 You don't need any devotion to win if the deck is down to 0 cards. Removing thoracle in response to the consultation cast will not do anything, the consultation player wins with 0 devotion. If the Thassa's Oracle trigger is on the stack and Consultation resolves, the only way to not lose is to make the opponent draw cards before the oracle trigger resolves or a stifle ability on the trigger.
My favorite part of this combo is the ability to BM card names when you go off.
25:56 I actually think Imperial Seal for Lim-Dûl's Vault could've been the play there. If your deck size isn't a multiple of 5, you can pass through your deck multiple times to increase the likelihood that you'll find a 5-stack that contains 2 cards that will allow you to combo-kill.
On your first pass through your deck, you simply sort the cards so that the desired targets are next to each other in your deck or are moving closer to each other in your deck. On the second pass through your deck, if your deck size isn't a multiple of 5, you will see different sets of 5 cards where cards that you've previously made adjacent but weren't in the same set of 5 can now appear in the same 5-stack. In a format with a smaller deck size, and if you're not playing against an aggressive opponent, you could even pass through your deck a third time and "elevator" cards to adjacent spots in your deck. I haven't done the exact math on this, but with additional tutors in your deck, your chances of generating a set of 5 cards that contains a kill seems very reasonable to me.
If you had infinite life (and your cards in library was not a multiple of 5) with enough time you could set your library to be whatever you want.
In a tournament, would a judge allow you to just stack your library however you want?
@@alexanderhamilton3309 Nope. With infinite life and a deck that isn't a multiple of 5 you could eventually get to where you have the exact 5 cards you want. A sort of doomsday for library only, but even then you shuffle the rest of the deck then put them on top, also a judge wouldn't let you shortcut that as well and doing it manually wouldn't be feasible.
Drake meme with LSV's face with "initiative cards" on top and "thoracle+DeCon" on bottom
Yeah, Demonic Consultation + Thassa's Oracle/Jace, Wielder of Mysteries is starting to smell a lot like Time Vault + Manifold Key/Voltaic Key. Don't see that one living too long in the cube, lol.
Do you know what the reasoning behind removing the initiative cards was? Just too powerful in the mid range?
@@JamesObscura I have to image people were just getting tired of the play patterns Initiative introduces. This wouldn't be the first Vintage Cube I've seen where people ditched initiative for that exact teason.
Not so much difference. A two card combo for 3 mana that wins on the spot.
I agree, Oracle is such an uninteresting card, and the combo fits into the colors that have the tools to disrupt it, ie: counter magic and hand disruption, meaning playing the combo also helps cut the colors that can do anything about it. 2 card instant wins seem to just stifle the high skill ceiling available in Vintage cube.
@@bricelory9534I think oracle as a part of doomsday is fun, consultation is so over the top tho
@41:50 Trading with a token doesn't add a 4th card for drown in the lock
Plus couldn't they have just animated the Restless Vinestalk and blocked?
The Forensic Gadgeteer turn is so good just getting to watch such an absurd turn that doesn't end on just a Ballista or Emrakul lol
This is cedh in a nutshell.
Just need to get him to add Naus to the cube.
I really do not like The Initiative, and I do not include it in my powered cube, so this list is more up my alley.
I get why some people don’t find Thoracle/Consultation interesting, but in all honesty having it in the opener has about the same effect as a mono-red deck opening on Mox Ruby, Sol Ring, or Mana Crypt: T3 win. The difference is you don’t go for it at all until T3, so it’s actually easier for the fast red deck to get underneath the opponent’s interaction. Of course, any powered version of a deck is going to have some fast starts that dramatically increase their chances of winning, but what’s the trouble with having some cards/combos that can compete with Power?
Awesome video, Luis. Personally, I enjoyed the trouncing!
Lots of discussion on thoracle + consultation in here. I say just get rid of consultation and bring in grinding station :D
I legit think it could be a nice include, it's still an angle for thoracle to shine and also adds a cool angle to underworld breach as it goes very hard with free mana, or just free artifacts in general. Also some pretty sick loops with saheeli and third path iconoclast
Regardless, thanks for the video!
yeah, that is a nice suggestion. We did remove consultation from our cube ages ago because it was simply not fun. You cant really draft around it, it is such an unfun and easy win and majority of the decks dotn ahve any way of stopping it even though they might be busted.
i agree, Grinding Station would be a great include 😄
Inspiring vantage leovold from BK. He can't keep getting away with it
This one's about to get time vault'd 😅
It's been a long time but every time I see Demonic Consultation Albert Tran's "Spring forth burly protector and save me!" will always come to mind.
This deck is really busted but at the same time, if you have _any_ 2 card combo in magic in your deck with tons of tutors and counterspells to back it up it's going to look broken. The problem with Vault/Key is that it's colorless, goes in any virtually any deck, and typically include cards like tezz the seeker which tutor up time vault for you, making it trivial to assemble.
I like that we had to switch Lethal Scheme for Pile On because LS is not an available mtgo card 😬
Imagine getting through 30 minutes of draft to be killed by an uninteractable (only counterspell interact with it) combo of 2 cards in turn 3.
Gee
The best Cube deck I've ever drafted was a storm deck with lotus, will, lion's eye, Demonic/vampiric, tendrils, tinker, top, citadel, etc. I don't remember exactly what, because I played maybe 10 turns total in that draft, with 4 first turn storm kills. It definitely just happens sometimes.
My least favorite combo in vintage cube is channel emrakul, because it feels terrible from both ends. It's actually really fussy to set up channel emrakul and still have enough life to play it, so you only ever see it work when it just immediately ends the game on turn 2 or 3 without any counterplay.
Maaan, I was so hyped for the Consultation card name performance, got only "Abandon Hope"
The classic consultation naming Abandon Hope, the most worthless remembered card of all time
Love it ❤
I, for one, thoroughly enjoy watching you dismantle opponents in 3 turns. I wouldn't mind vault/key being back in the cube, I think having a full-power cube is fun and even if some games are brutal annihilation, it's a strategy open to whoever wants to try to draft it.
Thanks for all your content, LSV, I will never stop appreciating it!
honestly, I'd say remove all the nonland tutors, make it more inconsistent
great vid LSV! what about kitesail freebooter to go after those nasty combo decks :) also would love to see Sorin Mirthless and/or my favorite Lolth Spider Queen mix it up, keep it going!
I'd like to see less broken-combo-potential in the cube. Combos are fun to theorycraft but they make for uninteractive gameplay, which undercuts the excitement of watching great players duel. I want to see back-and-forth, difficult decisionmaking, and creative improvisation with limited resources. With decks like this I can stop watching when the draft ends and not feel like I'm missing anything.
Building a cube is a difficult game design problem. Be assured that a lower power level would not reduce your glory as its designer or as a competitive player. There are good reasons that WotC doesn't include reprints of the power 9 in modern sets, and this cube format would benefit from some philosophical self-examination about fun and skill expression.
Learning how to interact with combo is a huge skill, and is one of the more interesting parts of cube. Not every deck can interact with everything, but knowing what options you have in each color combo against each of the combos is really important, and is how you pick up matches in situations other players would lose.
This combo might be a bit over the line, since it's so cheap and immune to anything but stack interaction, but crafting a resilient combo deck and piloting it through interaction is one of my favorite things about vintage cube.
@@josephmozena7640 I hear you that interacting with combo is a skill, but there's an opportunity cost. When there are combos in the cube, that means other strategies get pushed out. So the question is not whether it allows for skill expression full stop, but how the skill expression varies between cube formats with and without hard combos.
The high bar of skill expression for me is complex board states, where there are multiple creatures on both sides of the field. Do I swing with creatures? How many? Where do my blocks go? How much damage can I afford to take? What instants do I play around mid-combat? Those scenarios lend themselves to intricate math and subtle tradeoffs. Subtle differences in creature power, toughness, or keywords make for variety and texture. There is creature combat in the best limited formats, and a key question when designing any cube should be how to enable and incentivize players to build boardstates. Combo decks aren't cool when they win by making the board irrelevant.
In my experience playing against or with combo decks, the ceiling of skill expression is lower and the floor is, well, evident in this video.
Nice slick watery deck🎉
If we can Demonic C./Thassa Oracle, why can't we Vault/Key? :(
Both or neither, imo. Vault/Key, if anything, is weaker (any instant speed disenchant stops it)
Best deck in awhile. Best deck without power that I think you’ve ever had.
cheon lands are my favorite
same
I would like to see a cube with both consult and time vault at hand.
Out of curiosity, you mentioned your discord having free cube drafts, would you ever consider having a viewer/fan/subscriber event where we could get in on some cube action with some of the best of the best?
Earn your spot, by crushing enough Discord drafts to get noticed.
@@alexanderhamilton3309 bet
Honest question: shouldnt you be naming "holy cow" with consultation by now?
This is peak MTG
Gotta say it doesn't seem that fun, these consultation Thoracle wins. I like combo as much as anyone, but when its this easy its just lame.
is bk brian kibler?
38 minutes?!?
Oops. 55 minutes. I saw the posted time 😂
why remove initiative, I don't understand, that will weaken midrange in the format right ? weaken the combo which can not atack the oppoents through creatures so the format would be more healty
If Thoracle is in Time Vault needs to be back aswell
Temporal Manipulation is strictly better than Time Warp because of cards that give shroud/pro and Misdirection type effects.
But it’s not iconic!
@@LSVargas Ah so it's deliberate. What about Capture of Jingzhou? That one has a ton of flavor.
This was filthy
Thassas oracle 😴
Time vault 😡
Having two card combo that is so easy to assemble and wins on the spot for just 3 mana is simply stupid and not fun at all. It also fits perfectly within already existing and powerfull archetypes. Demonic Consultation does not belong to cube with oracle.
I agree may as well have vault/key. The oracle decks are wildly boring.
I agree, and in this case, only discard spells and counter spells can disrupt it, so it should be a red flag for a combo.
I agree, and find it a bit odd that he's cut Key/Time Vault but keeps this around.
I say just cut Oracle, personally. I find it to be such an uninteresting card.
@@bricelory9534 Disagree, Thoracle + Doomsday is a really fun combo and there is tons of interaction around it and a lot of creativity required to make it work. Demonic Consultation basically does nothing except enable degenerate wins like this, no one uses it as an honest tutor. Consultation should go, Thoracle should stay as long as Doomsday does.
I wonder what happened to Deep Cavern Bat in the cube? I feel like it could’ve been great in this deck. Was everywhere for awhile then just disappeared
It's still in the cube, it not showing up is just variance I guess.
All the time vault fans salty
Great video !
Why is this combo okay but Time Vault is not? This seems harder to interact with, imo.
"blue is pretty open" Since when have you ever cared if blue was open ?
this might be one of the lowest clicks-per-match win cube decks I've ever seen.
That combo is so much better than twin, not even funny
Not sure why you'd take out the initiative cards and leave this, but I know you're always trying new things
Definitely had a cracked list that was in the 90th percentile, but Jesus. I just watched a complete blowout and wondered how this play pattern is any better than WPA 😂
@@traycarrot could just remove demonic consultation and it wouldn't be the nuts, but I think if you're gonna leave it in you might as well have all the initiative stuff too
Initiative is infinitely more interesting than consultation/oracle imo
I watched this but hated all of it. Thassa's Oracle is such a miserable card. It plus consultation when initiative and vault/key gone is bizarre. It is so much better than those cards in every way.
A cheon land 😂
I'm just glad Initiative is out.
I like the consultation but if it wears out maybe Tainted Pact is worth a look. Increased mana cost, restrict mana base freedom while adding a more versatile card that maintains the combo perhaps.
Doesn’t really work in a vintage cube bc there isn’t enough lands to support thoracle/jace kills
It's already worn out. Nothing fun or interesting about this type of deck.
I personally like seeing the power builds of the cube. Fast wins is what it's all about and all 4 of the other team members had the option to cut thoracle and did not so in a lot of ways they deserve to die on turn 3
agree
I find these decks funny
Really enjoying the No Initiative cube
Oh yeah just in time
Abandon Hope was naaaasty
God I hate thassas oracle. Worst card wizards have ever printed
Time Vault clearly too strong for cube
so early it says "no views"
D consult and oracle is the lamest combo in cube. Just put vault/key in, almost the same thing
At least you can remove vault/key
Sir 3-0? Normal.
The combo is kind of broken with tutors, counters and hand disruption. This deck feels like vintage/cedh the other vintage.
love this deck and all your videos, but I feel like consultation is just "easy mode" when it's in the cube with oracle and such a boring win. Call me a LSV vintage cube video old-timer, but I miss storm.
initiative is too oppressive, keep this cube guys!
With demonic consultation and thassa’s oracle no way
Just starting, but that title is a big claim.
Unsubbed, unliked, unviewed:
Missed the opportunity to name This Town Ain't Big Enough
i dont know ... oracle is fun once in a while but those games were not that fun gameplay wise
This deck was inmoral😅
Consultation is white plume levels of boring in terms of how many non-games it creates.
this run so hot haters raining
I am really glad you removed the initiative. Just never found it a fun mechanic to play with or watch others play with. It feels like a significant departure from what magic is about.
The most boring games I've watched during this whole channel's life
Please take this combo out of the cube. 3 mana win on the spot is just not fun to watch in the context of this cube.
Meh. The oracle decks are getting kind of old.
I don't think consultation and Oracle are negative in the same way that vault key is. You have to have a reasonable mana base and either several tutors or good control elements. Vault key in there different color pairs easily and some amount of the time in green x decks. I'd leave consultation in for a couple more weeks just to make sure it's not a 90% win with a 50% play rate.
Ofc people are gonna hate the combo now bc u had nut draws whilst your team has all the forces. The initiative cards are still way more oppressive than this.
thank you for removing initiative from this cube
Abandon hope os the classic. I do like you are already dead also
1st view
Broken and Boring! demonic needs to be removed from the cube, too easy of a set-up for a free win.
Everyone complaining about the Consult/Thoracle combo are being a bit sensitive here. First off, counterspells arent the only way to interact with it. If you remove the thoracle or the jace, you auto lose on the consult cast. I do agree that it is very strong but, its nowhere near key/vault combo. You cant even make that comparison. Artifact removal is harder to come buy in the cube and if its destroyed, you don't auto lose. Thoracle/Consult is alot more fragile.
Removing the thoracle doesn't do anything. The trigger is on the stack and the consultation player still wins. You play consultation in response to the thoracle trigger. There are ways to deal with Jace + Consultation, that combo isn't overbearing. But Oracle + Consultation is extremely hard to interact with outside of hand disruption or countermagic (or baleful mastery/tidebinder). The fact that oracle + consultation is dimir means that there is much less room for other players to get the counterplay necessary.
@@Sidnv you remove the thoracle in response to the consult cast. You never try to remove it before. And also the trigger still is on the stack but I think you still need at least 1 blue devotion for it to go off yeah?
@@chrisstanley2051 You don't need any devotion to win if the deck is down to 0 cards. Removing thoracle in response to the consultation cast will not do anything, the consultation player wins with 0 devotion. If the Thassa's Oracle trigger is on the stack and Consultation resolves, the only way to not lose is to make the opponent draw cards before the oracle trigger resolves or a stifle ability on the trigger.
@@chrisstanley2051 no. Stop making things up.
Ahh okay. I didn't realize that. My point still stands though. It's still not on the level of key/vault combo.