Leovold, Emissary of Trest Is a monster of a Commander, With an ability similar to Spirit of the Labyrinth and other forced Draw restrictions,
What makes Trest Different is the color choice, BUG. Why is this good, What does BUG bring me?While let us take apart the deck and some choice while we explain :But before I explain here, Let me go over some other deck options you can achieve with leovold.
- Stax : locking the opponent down and making them fight an uphill battle against cards like : Winter Orb , Static orb
- Control : taking your opponents creatures and countering every card they play.
- Draw to win : either filling your hand with all the stops and developing advantage to drop some huge creatures, or Unsummoning their side to hit them harder
- Voltron : assemble the Buffs we are swinging for damage. ( not the typical commander for this)
- My Idea : Control Discard Burn ( yea, Burn, just not Red burn, I am talking Stop hitting yourself levels of Hurt here)
~So Let's get cooking ~
Discard :Synergy with the commander is important, But beyond that We are forcing the opponent to make a bad trade, bad decision, and bad plays. This maybe harder than it sounds, But that is why we have discard abilities.When an opponent is discarding any cards in hand and not getting a draw in return, this can be effectively 2 for 1'ing them, As you are getting a board presence and board state just by forcing them to chuck something that could have been useful to the next play, or next few turns**
** care must be taken with commanders that use the graveyard to play around with, as this deck is not designed to be a turn 2-4 win, this could come back to bite us, but more on this later
Draw :This is the cheese of the deck, the epitome of Blue, and in a deck like Leovold can really shine
WindfallWheel and DealStandstillTemple BellHowling MineThis cards all seem to have a downside : " but Arrolis, the will also get to draw what's the point in allowing my opponent to draw?""Easy, You don't."See with Leovold, A static effect is in place, Opponents CANNOT draw more than one card per turn, So something Like Wheel and deal, Clearing the opponents hand and having them refill it, is completely just a discard for them and a full draw for you.You know I said we were on Draw now? Well, There is a reason that discard was the first on the list, as you are forcing the opponent to have 0 cards in hand, and that IS tempo.
Hand Size :We only have a few ways to achieve a lock on this front, But a couple ways to get there, Realistically you should be throwing out Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur here and Hoping you can keep him alive, This effectively forces the opponent down to one card in hand for the rest of the game, and From there we can force him to discard that too.
For our own hand size We run The staples, Reliquary Tower, Venser's Journal, etc.Just completely making it so that we never have to worry on the Hand front.
Now how do we win?All we are doing is discarding them, that isn't a win, and this is not a Typical Mill deck, so What gives?Well, this is the rub, WE are going to try for a win, but Unconventionally. Megrim Painful Quandary+Omen Machine Sheoldred, Whispering One Quest for the Nihil Stone card:Bloodcheif AscensionOne of those things are not like the others, but do not mind that, What we are doing here is creating a lock, They cannot play most spells, as They will lose life for trying, They will not be able to keep creatures as we will force them to make bad trades and return them to their hand and force them to discard it. They will attempt to cast something else, pay the life, only for it to be cancelled/countered.This is not a deck to make friends, But You should now that going into Leovold.
This Deck is a WIP and not to be the end all, But main to be a prototype to show a capability of the New commander into a board state, All cards are tentative, and updates may or may not be coming for this, To whom this deck was made for, You are welcome, and Hopefully this gives you a better Idea of What some of the options you have at your disposal are.
