MTG Salvation

Hello people of MTGsalvation! As the title says, I am looking for help/criticism with my Lavinia, Azorius Renegade stax deck. For a quick rundown of the deck's game plan, the goal is to land a few heavy stax pieces to slow my opponents down long enough for me to either ult Teferi, Hero of Dominaria cast Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or assemble the Helm of Obedience/Rest in Peace combo. The three signature stax ideas this deck wants to utilize are the Lavinia + Knowledge Pool/Omen Machine combo, Smothering Tithe + Stasis combo or any combination that would result in a successful execution of Opus Thief's strategy.
The addition of the Opus Thief package to the deck is fairly new and I am trying to gauge how I feel about it as well as collect other people's opinions of it. Each card included in the package is a good card on it's own, so I feel that I am not sacrificing anything to include the combo. The main reason I want it in the deck is twofold: 1) I think it's a unique way of stax-ing the game; 2) I really love the idea behind Opus Thief but don't want to dedicate a whole deck to the idea. Please let me know what you think, I would really love some good criticism on the deck. Been a little hard to come by.

TL;DR I built a Lavinia Stax deck with a fancy card package that I want advice on.





EDIT: By recommendation of benjameenbear, I have added a second deck list. The first deck list is the deck by card function and the second is the singleton list containing no repeat cards for easier readability.

@Kingtuf
Welcome to MTGSal! Based on your deck composition and overall strategy, I think your deck might find a better home in the cEDH forums, which can be found here. If you're ok with your thread being moved there, I'm happy to oblige and do the necessary Mod actions to move your thread.

Now, as to your actual list, I assume you're working from some sort of budget, is that correct? I want to make sure I make recommendations to you accordingly so that you actually have a chance of testing them out reasonably. If you're not under a budget, but have the ability to proxy, then I'll happily give you optimized suggestions for Lavinia.

The first thing I'd recommend doing is streamlining your list a touch. I notice that several cards are listed twice in your decklist, which makes it difficult to keep track of how many copies of a card you have in your list. As an example, if I just quickly look at your decklist it looks like you have 21 sources of card draw, which is way too much.

Hello @benjameenbear! If you feel that it belongs over in cEDH territory then by all means move this puppy over. I just want to be careful not to cross the 75% line too hard. I am certainly aware of the cEDH elements in the deck, I just don't want it winning on turn 2 every game, you know? My budget is relatively good. Can't be putting cards like Timetwister in here, sadly. That said, my playgroup does use proxies, so if I get the go ahead from them on a given card then I should be able to use it. Definitely let me know what you think, though. If you feel the deck would get more foot traffic in cEDH then I would gladly have it moved.

Alright, I'll go ahead and move your thread to the cEDH forums since you'll probably get better feedback from the crowd there.

Thread Moved - benjameenbear

Now, assuming that you have a decently sized budget, I'll make the following recommendations:

• Mox Diamond - because a T1 Lavinia is MUCH better than a T2 Lavinia.
• Lotus Petal - while I loathe one-shot mana effects usually, getting a T1 Lavinia is very important in slowing down a game. Getting her into play ASAP will go a long way to buying you time and tempo over your opponents.
• Crucible of Worlds - because Lavinia's Stax effect is tied to the number of lands that your opponents have, it makes sense to run a LD package. Including Strip Mine, [CARD}Field of Ruin[/CARD], and Wasteland all seem really good by themselves and better when used recursively. The goal is NOT to Strip lock people, but to keep them off of lands for as long as possible so they can't cast their interaction/cheap CMC cards from disrupting your own win-condition. Keeping most players at 1-2 lands should be sufficient to slow them all down a HUGE amount and gain you valuable time. Mana Vortex is another card you could look into for a profitable LD package.
• Sun Titan - if you embrace the LD strategy, then Titan is pretty obvious in my mind.
• Supreme Verdict - unless you have a reason to be running Wrath of God, the Verdict's uncounterable ability is the real deal.

Otherwise, I think you have a great starting point for your list! Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite is probably the best type of finisher this deck could ask for, so I full ysupport your game plan of hard locking the table and then swinging in for beatz.

So do you think that land destruction as a sub theme would slot in easily? What cards would you recommend cutting to make room? Also, the reason I am running Wrath of God over Supreme Verdict is so that, if cast off Omen Machine, I have a chance to counter it and not have Lavinia die. Though in saying it, I feel that might be a little too niche a reason.

Bump?

How are you making helm of obedience a win condition? Just straight up beats or nuking the yard somehow? Need Rest In Peace for nuking.
Ben is on track with LD. Need Armageddon, cataclysm, cataclysmic gearhulk, strip mine, wasteland, and crucible of worlds combo. Need transmute cards to go with it.

I would lighten the deck on cmc as well.