The Commander
Protection from red
When Lavinia enters, detain each nonland permanent your opponents control with mana value 4 or less. (Until your next turn, those permanents can't attack or block and their activated abilities can't be activated.)
Guide
Gameplan
Lavinia of the Tenth is a control/stax commander who freezes opposing boards on entry, then grinds out the game with card advantage and a clean attack step. You play defensively early with removal and ramp, drop Lavinia to detain their cheap permanents, then flicker or recast her repeatedly to keep opponents locked out while you build toward a finisher.
Strengths
- On-cast detain neutralizes multiple cheap permanents at once, buying huge tempo against go-wide and mana-dork strategies
- Protection from red makes her durable against burn, red-based removal, and red attackers
- UW has the best control suite in the format—counterspells, board wipes, and efficient removal
- Flicker and recursion turn her ETB into a repeatable lockdown engine
Weaknesses
- Detain is a one-shot, temporary effect that does nothing against permanents with mana value 5+ or future plays
- Five mana for a 4/4 with no evasion is slow and clunky as a beater
- Vulnerable to non-red removal, sacrifice effects, and bounce that reset her ETB value only when you can replay her
- Lacks inherent card advantage—you must supply the engine yourself
Key Cards
- Brago, King Eternal — Repeatedly blinks Lavinia for free, retriggering her detain every combat to lock down the table.
- Conjurer's Closet — Flickers Lavinia each end step to re-detain opposing permanents on a recurring basis.
- Teferi's Protection — Phases you out to dodge a lethal swing or board wipe while protecting your lock pieces.
- Smothering Tithe — Generates mountains of mana off opponents' draws to fuel control and recursion.
- Cyclonic Rift — The premier UW finisher—overloads to clear the table and lets your detained board push through.
- Sun Titan — Recurs Lavinia and other low-cost stax and value permanents from the graveyard.
Upgrade Path
Lean harder into repeatable flicker (Brago, Conjurer's Closet, Ephemerate) so detain happens every turn, and add stronger control density—counterspells, Smothering Tithe, and Drannith Magistrate—to deny opposing combos. Add efficient win conditions like Approach of the Second Sun or a compact token finisher so the lock actually closes games, and improve mana with fast rocks and Land Tax-style card advantage.
Core Cards
The most-played cards for this commander, built from aggregated deck data (the Mythic Graph). Build public decks to seed it.
Win Conditions
- ▸Grind out incremental advantage and win with a few evasive or recurring threats while opponents stay locked
- ▸Resolve a big finisher like a token swarm or Cyclonic Rift overload to crash through detained boards
- ▸Land-based or planeswalker ultimate value plans that outlast the table
Archetypes
- Control — UW gives access to counters, wraths, and removal to keep the table in check while Lavinia provides tempo swings.
- Blink — Her detain ETB rewards repeated flicker effects to lock opponents down every turn.
- Stax — Pairing Lavinia's lockdown with tax and resource-denial pieces strangles opposing development.
Combos
No combos found for this commander on Commander Spellbook.
Related Commanders
Same color identity (UW), by popularity.
