Leovold, Emissary of Trest
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Legendary Creature — Elf

Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn.

Whenever you or a permanent you control becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, you may draw a card.

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FauxFaux on Card creation challenge

10 months ago

Leovold, Transient of Trest

Legendary Creature - Elf Citizen

~ enters the battlefield with X Bribery Counters on it.

Remove a Bribery Counter from ~: The next time an opponent would draw more than one card, instead they reveal the top card of their library, then draw a card. Activate this ability only once each turn.

Whenever ~ has no Bribery counters on it, tap it and target opponent gains control of it.

2/3

"Once, everyone was on his payroll. Now, here he lies, cashing in his remaining favors just to survive."


Not nearly as strong as his normal counter part, yet still taxing on opponents. Neat!

Make another card with a Title like Leovold, Emissary of Trest and Edric, Spymaster of Trest!

DrukenReaps on Alternate Ban List

11 months ago

Abaques I suppose I could go either way with banned as commander. It was part of the rules when I started and I thought one of the simpler parts tbh. Allows the removal of things that would be too consistent and too strong without their complete removal from the game. Though I can see where it's yet another rule on top of a mountain of rules lol.

sean360 My table is pretty casual but we see a number of these cards too. I think the ones here that show up on a casual table are worse there than when at a competitive table. Like everyone has Sol Ring but when you're the only player that didn't play it in the first few turns... that can be pretty ugh xD or vice versa lol.

The Iona, Shield of Emeria and Leovold, Emissary of Trest when they weren't banned showed up for a bit too at my table. I think they are in that area where I don't want to see them every game but seeing them is fine. Like are they actually worse than me pulling out one of my two card combos on turn 5/6? (Which with a ban list like this those combos are slowed down, maybe turn 8.)

I do wonder if there's potential for this philosophy for bannings to weaken certain colors too much? Like this nails my best ramp for Kozilek, the Great Distortion and should neuter black in general, given that color has many of the strongest tutors. The question also comes to my mind about cards in green like Rampant Growth. If fast mana is going, does that count?

DrukenReaps on Alternate Ban List

11 months ago

I've never really been a fan of the ban list used for commander. I don't think it addresses potential problem cards the right way. There's always going to be a new problem card printed. I also think there's cards stuck on there that use to be scary and just aren't now. Like when Worldfire came off and no one really cared lol. So I wanted to just go through the mental exercise of designing a new ban list. First thing is I wanted to bring back the old "banned as commander" and therefore have 2 ban lists. The argument I heard most against this is that it's complicated but we play the most complex deck design game in MTG. I think people can handle 2 ban lists. For the banned from the 99 part of the list I was thinking I'd focus on fast tutors and fast mana. Like I said there will always be more problem cards. Many that aren't banned are arguably stronger than banned ones currently. For example Godo, Bandit Warlord + Helm of the Host is arguably easier and more consistent than Cromat + Coalition Victory.

So here are the 2 lists, they do not contain everything. Just wanted to start the idea and see people's thoughts.

Banned as Commander- Braids, Cabal Minion Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Griselbrand Iona, Shield of Emeria Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Banned from the 99- Mox Emerald Mox Jet Mox Pearl Mox Ruby Mox Sapphire Black Lotus Channel Sol Ring Mana Crypt Mana Vault Worldly Tutor Enlightened Tutor Personal Tutor Vampiric Tutor Demonic Tutor Mystical Tutor

I would also simply declare that Companion doesn't work in Commander. So you can play your Lutri, the Spellchaser if you so desire. I think this mechanic as a whole was poorly thought out and poorly tested, hence the changes and bans across multiple formats.

Epicurus on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

1 year ago

"She's a great roadblock for decks that combo off to go infinite. You know the ones, where you chain together ETB effects to garner infinite tokens / draw / mana / burn. {...} we've all seen them either in person or online with YouTube."

I was looking through all of my decks, both decks that I own and prototypes, and found very few that Big Momma Norn actually shuts down. There are a few that she hinders, there are a couple interactions in each of them that she denies, but the only ones that I see her as a scoop-worthy opponent to are my Yarok decks and my GW Soul Sisters deck. Which brings me to why I quoted the paragraph above from a previous comment.

As other users have already stated on this thread, I also don't play infinite combos. I do have one such combo in one of my decks, but (a) it happened by accident, (b) it's a 3-card combo in a deck that doesn't run tutors, (c) it doesn't have anything to do with ETB triggers, and therefore isn't nerfed by Ma Norn, and (d) is absolutely not necessary for the deck to win. Is that deck effected by Norn being on the board? To some extent, absolutely. Can it win against a Norn deck? Again, absolutely.

(The deck I'm referring to is Mazirek's Nut Sac, in case anyone wants to look at it and argue otherwise).

I can see this card being a nuisance if all or most of your decks rely heavily on ETB triggers, or if you play infinite combos that require ETB triggers, but for no other reason. And honestly, I'm glad if the latter is the case.

Honestly, on a different note, I don't see her shutting down more decks than Kunoros, Hound of Athreos does. And did Kunoros flood the format? Absolutely not. Why not? Because there are too many decks that operate perfectly fine in it's presence. It only attacks one specific archetype, and only slightly hinders others. That's why you see Kuranos much more often as part of the 99 than as commander. If Ma Norn is different, it's only because there are way too many decks being played in the format that absolutely depend on ETB triggers. In that case, she'll really only serve to help diversify the format, which is exactly the opposite of what gets a card banned.

Cards get banned because they flood and homogenize the format. Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary was banned because, at the time, you couldn't keep up with that deck, so there was no reason to play anything else. Leovold, Emissary of Trest was banned because drawing is one of the most fundamental aspects of the format, and therefore wrecked every single deck archetype, and subsequently became a "play him or lose to him, your choice" kind of commander. I could go on, but basically the ban hammer comes down when a very large percentage of decks are built around that card, thereby rendering most other decks obsolete. It's really more of a business decision than anything, because flooding a format with one card means less sales of anything else. It's also just not any fun for people who want to build anything else to know that they're going to see that one deck over and over and can't beat it. Again, cards become banned when they enter the category of you have to play them, or you're going to lose to them.

On that subject, I personally wish that Thassa's Oracle would be banned. There are way too many of those decks out there, and they're not any fun to play against. I'd also like to recommend Cyclonic Rift for the hammer, because it is my number one hurt feels card (it's not just a board wipe, it's a one-sided middle finger for everyone). And no, neither of those can be in the command zone to start the game. However, both are infinitely less situational than Ma Norn. They're both devastating to every single deck archetype, not just the most popular ones.

And my final thought on the subject is that there are many other better and more versatile Stax commanders. Tegrid has been mentioned a lot on this thread, and for good reason. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir could be added to that discussion. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV might not shut down any decks, but puts you at a +2 or +3 mana advantage, which is much less situational than the advantage Ma Norn gives you. Shit, even Archelos, Lagoon Mystic, a very underrated commander, whom a lot of people overlook, has much more of a capability of shutting down a much wider category of deck archetypes than does Ma Norn, and has a much better color identity if you want to play Stax. I'm not saying that Archelos is a better card, not by a long shot. I'm just trying to illustrate how dumb it would be to cry for the hammer to come down on Ma Norn before she ever even sees the command zone. She's not going to flood the format, won't wreck the game, and really just makes mono-white a viable option and nothing else.

Anyway, that's my rant.

UrzasUnderstudy on Official missing/incorrect card/token thread

1 year ago

Thanks for being so quick!

I actually have another card I could add to that list: Tatsunari, Toad Rider.

If I do a search for 3 mana Sulti colored legendary creature cards I get back Leovold, Emissary of Trest and that's it. Likewise if I organize Tatsunari (or Alesha, or Yasova, or Shu Yun) they show up under a single color (the one in their 'cost', rather than their actual 'color identity') and not 'gold' as I image they technically should.

Gleeock on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

1 year ago

To me it is misleading to say she even dramatically hurts the table or that she will have all the fun while 3/4 of the table is unable to. She CAN do those things in the right circumstances. But, again, that is more like a meta-dependent argument being applied to all of commander. If you (& your entire table) are relying on ETB's that much sure: it is not your lucky day, if you are playing one of the many other strategies available or your ETB deck is diversified with a secondary theme, then you just shift strategies accordingly. Now Leovold, Emissary of Trest was extreme, since card draw is near-ubiquitous... Even then, I actually never had that much issue playing him in the new age (rule 0 Leovold), what with how many other options I run beyond "draw out of problems", but certainly, at the time, I can see how he would be considered as dramatically hurting entire tables.

Abaques on People's Thoughts on Mommy Norn?

1 year ago

It's a very powerful card. Better Panharmonicon and a one-sided better Torpor Orb is a lot of power on a commander. It can obviously be backbreaking to some decks that depend heavily on ETB or landfall effects. I think if you play Elesh Norn as your commander you should expect people to try to remove it as soon as it hits the battlefield. But is it in the same league as Leovold, Emissary of Trest? No, I don't think so. Rule 0 discussions should mean that new Elesh Norn decks aren't played too often against decks that can't deal with it in some ways anyway. Those discussions have kept Tergrid, God of Fright  Flip from getting a ban and I think Tergrid is a much more annoying commander from a social aspect.

I do think there is a risk if more cards of a similar power level start being printed regularly. If every set has something equivalent in power and as potentially annoying to play against then the format might start having a problem. I don't have a huge problem with a card for Elesh Norn being very powerful. She's the leader of the Phyrexians! She should be crazy powerful! I just don't want it to become a trend for cards.

Reliquarian on Junk Maverick

1 year ago

Thanks for the feedback.

I actually used to include Grist, the Hunger Tide in my list, but I ended up cutting him since he was often not as impactful as I would like for a 3 drop (though he may find his way back in at some point depending on meta shifts). As for Outland Liberator  Flip I have considered it and may cut the KoA for one since it seems like a more efficient option. I may also consider Opposition Agent, though it doesn't quite fill the same role as Leovold, Emissary of Trest. Leo also has never been much of an issue for me to cast without a trop. As you mentioned the 5 dorks and 4 GSZ have generally been fine in my experience. But Leo may also just get replaced with another spirit at some point.

Anyway thanks again for the feedback. Cheers!

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