[STX] Octavia, Living Thesis
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Technically this is in the commander decks for Strixhaven and not the set proper.
Card is utterly gigantic and basically has hexproof unless your spells are uncounterable. I have no idea how realistic it would be to get 8 spells in the bin and have UU lying around, and it would likely preclude you from using flashback, delve, etc, but it really seems like a worthwhile reward for reaching those goals. Outside of Gravetroll or tombscouring yourself I'm not sure if there would be any reasonable way to get this going earlier than turn 3 though, which may kill it, but that delve whale from IKO is seeing play in legacy now so it makes me wonder.
At the least it is a very cool card.
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Tome Scour seems like an enabler - and has been used in dredgish decks for Modern. Creatures that mill your own cards like Hedron Crab can come into play fast and mill 6 of your own with a fetch on turn 2. With crab and 2 fetches, you can mill 12, have 3 mana open to drop this guy and cast ancestral/BS to make your crab an 8/8 on turn 3 (turn 2 with sapphire or lotus). Follow up with time walk and you have a 3-turn kill!
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The UU mana cost is a bit iffy but is seems a hell of a lot better than ghoyf and it can be pitched so Leo decks probably want it. The cost has a bit of tension with DRS but 8 cards in the yard is not that hard especially with wastelands which most versions of the deck I have seen run and the 4c variants with dack will find it an even easier task.
Edit: Everything I said above is insane I missed instant or sorcery card on my first read and only realized because I was thinking about how bad a hexproof 8/8 with better delve was going to be for non vintage formats. I keep the the comment only to demonstrate the hubris of man.
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I can see this being a nice side-win/plan C in a breach/freeze deck. Land, mox, mox, cantrip, freeze yourself for 15...next turn island, this.
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Way too much work for questionable reward. At the end it can be blocked by an elemental/monk/thopter. Could see play as a singleton in some lists, but I'd possibly play forager.
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I think this cards biggest potential isn't a vanilla 8/8 for UU, its the fact you can make any other creature into an 8/8. This and 2 tokens and 2 cantrips is 24 damage. Turning every instant/sorcery into an 8/8 threat (if you have the creatures ofc), seems very very strong. Even eot Snappy or turning a man land into an 8/8 for 1-2 mana is insane value.
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@serracollector Problem is that the more creatures you play, the less spells you have and the harder it is to actually get this into play (and it's already not easy). A 8/8 that basically can't be killed should be enough by itself, making an extra 8/8 sounds like win-more.
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@wagner Unless you play something like young pyromancer that lives in a xerox shell and poops targets for the 8/8 trigger.
I kinda like the idea of a hedron crab/fastbond deck that has the plan B of milling yourself to crap out a turn 3 Octavia and then swing with a crab/octopus army on turn 4. The FB/crab deck has crabs, a couple enchantments, and the rest of the deck is lands and instants like counters/draw/crop rot. You can run a single Octavia to tutor for.
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Not sure it this is any kind of tier card in Vintage, but I like it and it looks like fun to play. I just pre-ordered them and I plan on playing them in one of my Vintage fun decks.
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This could be good if we ever get another iteration on the riddlesmith style blue bazaar decks.
