lavinia scepter pool

Commander / EDH Counterspell Metalcraft Tap/Untap WU (Azorius)

jacedaniels

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Emeria's Call  ^Flip
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 3x Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 6x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Strip Mine
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Windswept Heath

Card draw (9)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Windfall

Acceleration (4)

• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Hullbreacher
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Urza, Lord High Artificer

Rock (15)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Voltaic Key

Stax (10)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Drannith Magistrate
• 1x Karn, the Great Creator
• 1x Knowledge Pool
• 1x Moat
• 1x Omen Machine
• 1x Rest in Peace
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Removal (5)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disenchant
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

Land stax (4)

• 1x Armageddon
• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Ravages of War
• 1x Winter Orb

Commander (1)

Permission (12)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Negate
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song

Tutor (7)

• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Transmute Artifact
• 1x Whir of Invention

Win con (3)

• 1x Helm of Obedience
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Shark Typhoon

Recovery (1)

• 1x The Omenkeel  ^Flip

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Lavinia combo/control.

Intro: utilize mana denial strategies in conjunction with lavinia's effects to disrupt the flow of gameplay for the opponents. Lavina is a card that prevents opponents from casting noncreature spells with cmc greater than the number of lands they control. She also counters any opposing spell cast if no mana was used to cast that spell. Lavinia's strength as a hate bear shines around the presence of combo decks. That is because combo cards like Ad Nauseam or Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel require the correct number of lands to go off. Her first ability is back breaking to decks that tend to rely on fast mana and mana dorks to get the job done because having mana dorks and rocks wont allow you to cast larger spells from your hand when lavinia is on board. However, her second ability tends to attract way more attention. Along with all cheerio-type cards, her second ability disrupts certain generals from using their abilities and negates a handful of various combos. Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter , Aluren , and Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond to name a few. for a more complete guide on lavinia's effect as a single hate bear, please visit this Youtube channel here .

Deck Contents

Mana acceleration: The number of rocks has to be small enough to keep from being too vulnerable from stony silence effects but still enough to kick off metalcraft

Library/Hand Manipulation: card draw is blues main objective

removal: removal isnt our only interaction, but obviously use it only as nessisary as you never know if your opponent plays a worse threat or you draw a more appropriate response during another turn.

counterspells: permission is definitely our bread and butter interaction. Always try to run atleast the current top 10 versions of Counterspell as available.

tutors: tutor yourself the combo component you need to get the win

land hate: land destruction is very effective at hurting fair decks and lavinia can make full use of her first ability to shut down opponents from interacting with you.

hate bears and stax: stax and other rule manipulation effects is whites main objective

Game Play

key cards/combos: Knowledge Pool + Omen Machine and Drannith Magistrate + Lavinia, Azorius Renegade or any combination of those cards will shut down your opponents hands/draws. Drannith Magistrate + Knowledge Pool is a total hard lock, but most opponents concede when they see the soft lock as well. Nonetheless, be prepared for the threats they have on board against you. for example, if you have lavinia and one or more of your opponents still has mana sources, they will most likely just cast there commanders and attempt to reduce your lifetotal until you must block with lavinia. in the mean time, they will attempt to stop you from resolving relevant spells from the pool by casting spells that they still have, triggering Knowledge Pool , and forcing lavinia to counter a spell of their choice. this will slow you down and give them more time to reduce your life total. its for this reason that I'll explain ways of navigating through the Knowledge Pool and ways to win through it.

winning through your own knowledge pool: So you build a uw control deck with a limited amount of stax, land destruction, and a couple of soft/locks that can totally screw over your opponents. You put in a loaded amount of fast mana and rocks to play out these cards faster than your opponent can make things happen on board. Your new dilemma is now stabilizing all the aggro coming at you. One solution is by using Knowledge Pool to cast your opponents spells and use there creatures against them. Yet an experienced opponent will make sure that you do that as little as possible by casting bad spells that replace their good ones. How do you then win when you try to use your own win cons?

You want to ensure that your opponents can't do anything to trigger lavinia's ability on your own key cards while knowledge pool is in place while at the same time pushing through your pieces one by one. Here are the ways to do that

Drannith Magistrate + Silence let you win sorcery speed directly.

If your opponent has no lands, then they wont be able to cast instants and sorceries due to Lavinia's first ability. So a sweet line of play could be you lead with Ravages of War Trigger Knowledge Pool . Then cast wincon triggering Knowledge Pool again blowing up all lands. Then just trigger Knowledge Pool one more time to get out the wincon with no argument from your opponents.

Copy Artifact + Knowledge Pool because although controlling two knowledge pools seems like pouring spaghetti over a pizza, its rather quite practical because the knowledge pool trigger that resolves second will fizzle. and you can control which one goes on the stack first. making your spells untouchable! Knowledge Pool + Omen Machine together is interesting because spells cast from omen machine ignore the knowledge pool trigger. thankfully, they both combo off with Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and dont necessarily hurt you.

Wincons: So you executed the lock yet your persistent opponents are determined to keep playing so you are just trying to draw as many options as possible until they eventually kill you. Here are some outs to look out for to get that win.

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter is nice for a couple reasons. You already have enough rocks to ensure 3+ mana most of the time. Since our commander does not win automatically off of it, make a note of the cards embedded in the 99 that go perfectly with it.

Sensei's Divining Top and Shark Typhoon dont require extra mana from rocks to go off.

Urza, Lord High Artificer does alot for this deck including acting as a nice mana outlet.

Blind Obedience is a stax card that also doubles as another mana outlet for our scepter combo

Helm of Obedience unintentionally works with scepter while actually purposed for making Rest in Peace into a 2 card stax combo.

Copy Artifact + Winds of Rebuke or any 2 drop instant sorcery listed below also gets the job done Brainstorm , Ponder , Preordain , Swan Song , Transmute Artifact

In conclusion, lavinia scepter pool is a deck with a more deliberate, albeit a more variable version of the stock list.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Exclude colors	BRG
Splash colors	WU
Key combos	Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Copy Artifact + Winds of Rebuke Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel Knowledge Pool + Omen Machine Drannith Magistrate + Knowledge Pool Drannith Magistrate + Lavinia, Azorius Renegade Copy Artifact + Knowledge Pool Drannith Magistrate + Silence
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 47 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 12 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.32
Tokens	Angel Warrior 4/4 W, Bird 2/2 U, Construct 0/0 C, Shark X/X U, Treasure