What I cannot figure out is how this card is good in Standard. It is kind of ok in Modern. Wizards is allowing card design break older formats but offer little to no value in their more “current” formats.

Standard is still a turn creature sideways format and it is dumb and boring. Modern is a faster turn dude sideways format or I destroy all your stuff but still little to no stack interaction.

Is Wizards getting away from the stack? The higher order in Magic has always been to figure out how to win quickly and out maneuver your opponent. Cards like this do offer some options for containing or restricting those approaches but offer no thinking of how to maneuver, it’s a blunt tool not a fine instrument.

I am just confused by what is supposed to be fun play or what the point of this card is.

I guess there is more hype around the card than utilization so we will see what happens. Damping Sphere was a huge fail.

@countdabubba said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

Isn't Phyrexian mana still mana whether you pay a blue or pay 2 life?

@stormanimagus said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

@fsecco Wrong. Phyrexian mana IS real mana. Mental Misstep will be castable through this card as long as you have at least 1 land in play as the opponent.

"Phyrexian Mana" doesn't actually exist. Only the Phyrexian Mana Symbol does.

107.4f. Phyrexian mana symbols are colored mana symbols: {W/P} is white, {U/P} is blue, {B/P} is black, {R/P} is red, and {G/P} is green. A Phyrexian mana symbol represents a cost that can be paid either with one mana of its color or by paying 2 life.

Funny thought about this card. From the 2018-09-25 B&R update:

Workshop decks have become more and more popular. However, too many games are effectively decided by the first player's first turn. A major problem is that a turn-one Chalice of the Void for 0 deprives the opponent an opportunity to put Moxen on the battlefield. While players can adapt by not playing Moxen, the point of the format is to provide a place to play those cards. Chalice of the Void is restricted.

How easily this can be changed to be about this card:

Workshop Blue decks have become more and more popular. However, too many games are effectively decided by the first player's first turn. A major problem is that a turn-one Chalice of the Void for 0 Lavinia, Azorious Renegade deprives the opponent an opportunity to put Moxen on the battlefield. While players can adapt by not playing Moxen, the point of the format is to provide a place to play those cards. Chalice of the Void Lavinia, Azorious Renegade is restricted.

@thecravenone said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

How easily this can be changed to be about this card:

Workshop Blue decks have become more and more popular. However, too many games are effectively decided by the first player's first turn. A major problem is that a turn-one Chalice of the Void for 0 Lavinia, Azorious Renegade deprives the opponent an opportunity to put Moxen on the battlefield. While players can adapt by not playing Moxen, the point of the format is to provide a place to play those cards. Chalice of the Void Lavinia, Azorious Renegade is restricted.

Lavinia is very different from CotV, though. CotV costs 0, Lavinia costs UW, which makes her not a 100% turn 1 play. Also, she can be answered in every color with 0 cost (Karakas), whereas against Chalice you need green or red if you want to kill it turn 1 (for 1 mana and a tempo loss).

So UW control with Lavinia in it seems pretty absurd. You can counter everything but opponents can't FoW or misstep back. Throw in wastelands to keep the opponent's land count down and caverns to safely land Lavinia and other humans (Snapcaster, baby Jace and finisher Mentor) and you're good to go : )

@evouga said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

She does very little (except block) against humans/white eldrazi.

Well, if I come up against humans or w eldrazi I'll side her out.

@khahan said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

@evouga said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

She does very little (except block) against humans/white eldrazi.

Well, if I come up against humans or w eldrazi I'll side her out.

I'll also disagree. Turn 1 Lavinia stops Thalia or an early TKS (because they can't use Moxen or Crypt for it. This gives you a huge tempo boost. I'd side her out on the draw, but probably leave in on the play.

Why do people continue to mention turn 1 Lavinia like that is a thing?! Are you all mental?!! You can literally only do that with turn 1 mox pearl, mox sapphire, lotus petal or black lotus. That is it. She isn't going to be entering the battlefield turn 1 that often. Jeez.

@stormanimagus said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

Why do people continue to mention turn 1 Lavinia like that is a thing?! Are you all mental?!! You can literally only do that with turn 1 mox pearl, mox sapphire, lotus petal or black lotus. That is it. She isn't going to be entering the battlefield turn 1 that often. Jeez.

That sounds like it’s a thing.

Isn't @CHA1N5 gonna build a Lavinia + Spell Queller deck? Come on, man.

@baishuu off of 4 specific cards (one of which most decks don't run in Lotus Petal)? That is most decidedly NOT a thing if you are a deck designer at all. That is an "oops I have it" kind of thing, not a "I can reliably do this" kind of thing. People were comparing this card to Chalice @0 earlier and I'm just trying to point out that that will NOT be its function most of the time. Moxen are going to have their moment in the sun on turn 1 more than likely most of the time. Where I see this being interesting is in stopping later game topdecked moxen or tutors for Lotus being as powerful.

I do think this card will be impactful to the extent of what can I or can I not cast. Or what is countered. Online, MTGO will just counter the spells as necessary or not let you click on cards you cannot cast. But in person this is a different story. Kind of like dredge in person versus online. All the triggers stack for you online. Mistakes will be made.

Livinia is another turn one play that doesn’t allow for your opponent to go mox, orchard, Oath. Go.

@Stormanimagus

Rather than declare something “not a thing”, you could easily approximate the odds of an event occurring. Or we could have more “phyrexian mana is real mana” posts...

@chubbyrain I'm not going to crunch the numbers on it cause I don't have to. I know that having to draw a land AND a 4-of and another specific 4-of is not that likely. It will, of course, happen. Does that mean you can build your deck to EXPECT this sequencing to happen? No. You cannot. That would be irresponsible deck building. That is all I'm saying. I'm not saying it can never happen. I'm saying that the odds are not in favor of seeing turn 1 Lavinia a statistically significant portion of the time (let me be clear that "statistically significant" here means "with enough consistency to rely on it as something to expect and, thus, build around"). Do you disagree?

@ChubbyRain as a matter of general annoyance I have with your comment. I don't have to be an expert in probability or combinatorics to be able to speak intelligently to the general likelihood of a scenario playing out given a deck's design. There are some helpful "rules of thumb" when it comes to specific 2-card combos and general good practices for deck building. For example, through experience and other smarter players telling me so, I have discovered that if I want to see a certain type of effect in my opener I should likely run about 8-9 copies of that effect in my deck. If I want to see a specific card in my opener SOME of the time but not necessarily see multiples over the course of the game I generally run 3 copies of that card (obviously accounting for the fact that some decks run 3-4 preordain and other topdeck manipulation and some do not). If I want to see a specific card over the course of a longer game (or a game I expect to go long) I generally run 2 copies of that card. If I want to have a back-up copy of a card that I generally don't want to see too often I run 2 copies of that card. You can see where I'm going with this. It doesn't take an extensive knowledge of probability and combinatorics to make smart deck building decisions or to recognize smart ones from less-than-smart ones. So I could really do without the condescending comments. Really.

Currently most pilots don’t run out all moxen on turn 1 in the control matchup, unless the mana is needed immediately (to protect them from removal/dack, save them for when a storm count or mentor trigger is needed, and generally deprive the opponent of information). The credible threat of Lavinia on turn 2 will change this behavior, so that even though I agree T1 Lavinia is “not a thing” the presence of Lavinia will affect how we play with power.

@evouga oh of course. No disagreement here. And I do really like that this blanks later game moxen because that can be huge if you are getting wastelanded by all my knight of the reliquaries

Also to be fair, although T1 Oath (requiring a land, a 4-of, and a 6-of), although far from an every-match occurrence, is not all that uncommon and Oath pilots are not crazy for building the deck around that possibility.

@stormanimagus said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

@baishuu off of 4 specific cards (one of which most decks don't run in Lotus Petal)? That is most decidedly NOT a thing if you are a deck designer at all. That is an "oops I have it" kind of thing, not a "I can reliably do this" kind of thing. People were comparing this card to Chalice @0 earlier and I'm just trying to point out that that will NOT be its function most of the time. Moxen are going to have their moment in the sun on turn 1 more than likely most of the time. Where I see this being interesting is in stopping later game topdecked moxen or tutors for Lotus being as powerful.

I don't think dressing me down just because you said "a thing" to mean "a reliable thing" wins you any arguments or respect. "Do unto others", etc. You're no better than that Greg guy on the Facebook group that called everyone pathetic for not playing City in a Bottle.

Also, for the record, your example of Lavinia not being "a thing" or "a reliable thing" or a "Stormanimagus is the authority on this thing" fails to account for Time Walk (virtual turn one) and Mox Opal. Hell, Paradoxical Outcome seems perfectly built right now to make turn 1 Lavinia a "Baishuu is providing examples thing".

I’m not saying that turn 1 Lavinia will be a thing. But a card that automatically turns off 8-12 of their cards, while not affecting you, is certainly something.

@kistrand said in Single Card Discussion - Lavinia, Azorious Renegade:

So UW control with Lavinia in it seems pretty absurd. You can counter everything but opponents can't FoW or misstep back. Throw in wastelands to keep the opponent's land count down and caverns to safely land Lavinia and other humans (Snapcaster, baby Jace and finisher Mentor) and you're good to go : )

I agree. This card slots into blue white landstill very easily and is excellent in that deck making all your counterspells more difficult to counter and also hosing opposing "unfair" strategies. Isn't dredge traditionally a difficult match up for landstill in game one?

While I have concerns that xerox and paradoxical will slot her into their maindeck to consolidate the meta it seems just as likely that this card will bolster landstill against paradoxical causing a shift to a slightly more diverse meta. I'm looking forward to seeing how this plays out. Hoping for the latter option of course.