Shouldn’t Marvin Fine sprog a Vampire token even when he isn’t reinforced, like he does in paper?
He did generate a token when he is reinforced last time I used him. Although admittedly that was quite a while ago.
Also, I don’t understand why the OP was flagged?
It is not as in paper, just create the token when a reinforced non token vampire attacks, one for each reinforced vampire.
I’m surprised to see my post flagged… perhaps I didn’t make myself clear.
As the game stands, Marvin does not sprog a vampire token if he is not reinforced. That’s how his card text is written… it’s not a bug.
However, that’s a bit rubbish, isn’t it? In paper, if he attacks, and he is the only creature in play (i.e. is not reinforced), he sprogs a vampire token. That seems to be the intent of the cards design, and he is a mythic, after all, so why doesn’t he work like that in MTGPQ?
Mavren Fein is more powerful in PQ.
In paper he only spawns a single vampire token regardless of how many vampires attack during your attack phase.
In PQ, he could spawn one or he could spawn seven depending on how many times he and/or another vampire have been reinforced.
Countering this is that tokens are inherently weaker in PQ because they stack (reinforce) and a single kill/bounce/exile/disable eliminates them all in one fell swoop; whereas, in paper, you’ve gotta deal with each token individually or run a board wipe in your deck.
Maybe it was flagged for spelling. His name is Mavren. Though I’ll admit every time I hear someone say his name on a podcast, they always call him Marvin.
As for the card, I agree it’s more powerful than in paper. First, he’s a 4/4 for 9, and second, he can produce a ton of vampire tokens once you get the engine running.
I’d question your assertion that he’s more powerful in PQ. If he spawns 7 vampire tokens, then you’ve reinforced your nontoken vampires in play 7 times. You’ve already won that game, haven’t you, surely? Show me a screenshot of a game where you have nontoken vampires in play reinforced 7 times, and you aren’t winning significantly.
If you haven’t got 7 vampires in play, say, you’ve got none, which is a situation you very often find yourself in in a game, then when you play Marvin, he’s a 4/4 for 9 who’s waiting for another copy of himself to come along. Or, multiple copies of other vampires to come along.
I’d like him to be more like the paper version, so i started a thread. Cards which don’t do anything until they’re reinforced are very underwhelming; see also Powerstone Shard.
If you’re spawning vampires, you’re on the way to winning, but you haven’t necessarily won. There’s the 10 drop who is a 2/2 who fetches a vampire and puts a 1/1 token into play. He can either fetch another copy of himself or a copy of Mavren. There’s the 3/3 for 8 who fetches another copy of himself. He can get the engine going with Mavren, but it takes a bit of setup.
Then there’s a lot of very efficient removal in this game. Your engine can get stalled or completely wrecked with any number of cards that cost 5 to 12 mana, some of which are commons.
See, that’s exactly why I’d want a single copy of Marvin to have some effect on his own, rather than waiting for multiple copies of vampires before Marvin starts doing anything useful…
The flagging issue is a serious problem. We don’t have policies on when to use it and so I think there is at least one “nasty” person just going around flagging things they personally don’t like, or posts by people they don’t like without it having anything to do with the content.
It needs official addressing and people who flag things that aren’t obscene or insulting should have the power taken off them, they are damaging the forums and “flagging” is meant to be a tool to fix the forums instead.
Playing against Elenda in the event you can see really really well how volatile a board can be and how quickly lifelink can de-brink you. And as well as wiping out a board you can also recover insanely fast. The Cleric that brings a 9 cost or lower vamp back to play might as well have Mavren’s name on her!
As a nine cost creature Mavren is really hohum by himself, absolutely, he needs to be part of a hoard and I really like the new “reinforcements matter” cards for adding just a bit of that feel that was missing. (They aren’t perfect yet, but it’s better than the nothing we had before!)
I understand that it’s different from paper and possibly some reinforcement matters cards should count the base creature but if you plan around it I don’t mind it too much.
The issue is that the base creature counts as 0 reinforcements. Its annoying for triggers like Powerstone Shard (since the first one is useless). It also makes it more difficult to use cards that remove reinforcements since the base level won’t ever go away (upside, it means you can’t accidentally kill your Slimefoot before he gets buff)
Its not a bug, just a confusingly created mechanic
Just think if there was a Vampire leader card. Mavren would be a great addition then. The good thing about slimefoot is that it creates an extra monster slot.
I was about to say I wish they counted as half a reinforcement, but then had a thought…
Costs and ability levels might need to be slightly adjusted, but if they (almost) all came into play with 1 reinforcement to start with it’d make so much more intuitive sense.
The issue with that card, in my opinion, is somewhat isolated. This one should give a base amount of mana every turn and then give more for every time it’s reinforced so that it’s at least worth playing. Currently it’s not.
No? The majority of vampires in standard have a relatively low Power/Toughness so you can easily reinforce them several times before the match is over.
I could show you matches against Elenda alone where I’ve had vampires reinforced 10 times and I still wasn’t on the fast track to a win.
More like the paper version how? He cant do anything the first turn he’s played in paper and the next turn, no matter how many vampires you choose to attack with, he creates one token. Who’s to say you cant reinforce him here or another vamp you have in play by the next turn and generate a token; or, possibly more, because he’s not limited to a single token in PQ.
An awful lot of cards in PQ don’t do anything without some outside factor. Activate, exert, deal damage, take damage, be reinforced, have another creature of the same type in play, etc.
If we only measured cards by what they can do as soon as they come into play or can first attack, we’d be eliminating a whole host of cards from contention.
Mavren is solid in a vampire token deck and doesn’t need a buff of any kind in this game.
Ok, well, it’s opinion against opinion, locked in a deathmatch to the, um, death!
Anyone else want to chip in?
Sure. Mavren is fine. He’s a niche mythic. Good in the right deck, bad in the wrong deck. No issues here.
But…he can do something the first turn he’s played in paper. If you attack with another vampire, he will make a vampire token. Mavren almost never attacks in paper, his value lies in pumping out free tokens. Mavren, in my experience playing a vampire deck, was usually a kill on sight target from my opponent. The differences in how vampires play between paper and PQ are vast and I’d have to side with OP here that Mavren’s paper version is superior to his PQ version.
Powerstone shard is an excellent example of why reinforcements matter should count the base card. It requires 1 of your 10 deck slots, costs 7 mana, and does absolutely nothing unless you draw and cast a second copy. It is almost completely useless (granted it is a common). After looking at the cards, the only ones I can see that are effected by this are the two already discussed and Sanctum Seeker. There really is no reason for those three cards to not trigger their abilities prior to getting that fancy x1 in the corner of their cards.
Mavren is solid in a vampire deck but as a mythic rare, I don’t know if solid is good enough. I like him as he is, and I played him like crazy back when Anointed Procession was standard legal, but I’ve since stopped playing him completely because of most of the reasons brought up here. Too slow to get the tokens rolled out in force, too easy to lose a massive stack of reinforced vampires that took forever to make, etc.
I really don’t expect them to change him considering he’s nearly 4 sets old but I hope they would reconsider how cards such as those three work in the future.
Agreed! You should start a thread on this! 
I’d do it myself but I start so many threads already I’m sure people are sick of seeing me start another one 