Octavia, Living Thesis

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Octavia costs {8} less with eight or more instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard, so she often comes down for {U}{U}. Ward {8} makes her very hard to target. Magecraft triggers whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery, setting a target creature's base power and toughness to 8/8 until end of turn. The deck plays cheap cantrips and self-mill to turn on the discount, plus small unblockable creatures that each spell can turn into an 8/8.

In the recorded games, Pieces of the Puzzle and Brain Freeze filled the graveyard quickly, and Mystic Sanctuary brought back key spells. Slither Blade and Slip Through Space provided unblockable damage, with every spell after that adding an 8/8 hit. High Tide fueled the big turns where several spells went off together. Some lists leaned on artifact recursion and combos instead, and one closed out a game that way. The weak spots were graveyard exile like Klothys, which kept Octavia expensive, and value decks with board wipes such as Atraxa, which could reset the board faster than the spells could rebuild it. Counterspells and bounce mostly held off aggressive starts.