Wooooow he has a CMC of 3?! That's crazy.
Not insurmountable. Not worthy of the banhammer, I don't think. But it's definitely very strong. Probably tier 1. However, like Cryogen said, he looks like one of those generals you netdeck for best results and then get hated out of more casual groups. This guy is definitely for more competitive crowds. Reminds me of where Sharuum the Hegemon was at in the meta a couple of years ago.
Okay so I built a jank test deck with him and I won early on each game. (DT for treferi puzzle box. Early wheel...)
I built it to be oppressive and mean. I get players who are like that and instead of talking to them. I play oppressive decks to "even the playing field"
I did it with arcum (was a slow but artifact focused deck, made it so a turn 4 win was slow) I then built erayo (before he was banned) and made people cry. I played melek combo heavy going infinite turn 4-5 and azami "you don't play stuff" control.
Usually my decks are not super powerful. Even dipping on the weak side of the coin. Tons of jank as I do not have a large budget but I am still able to opress people with this guy fishing through my spares, that should say something.
Gonna build a better version of it and it will become my FUn police deck (like my buddy's GAAIV deck) let it collect dust only to blow it off when the oppressive decks come out.
I don't think it has much comparison to Braids/Erayo. They inherently lead to locks just based on their own ability. Levold CAN be played in other ways just like Arcum, Zur, Narset. Braids/Erayo probably wouldn't have been banned now either if they hadn't been placed there back when banning strong combo stuff was a thing. Yeah, he has a one card lock just like a few other commanders and is a mana cheaper than Arcum/Zur/Braids, and makes wheels lopsided, but Braids/Arcum are also locks once you hit 4 where Levold could miss being cast on 3. Arcum/Zur/Narset basically also have built in tutors, Narset because she's going to run through so many cards.
I don't think it has much comparison to Braids/Erayo. They inherently lead to locks just based on their own ability. Levold CAN be played in other ways just like Arcum, Zur, Narset. Braids/Erayo probably wouldn't have been banned now either if they hadn't been placed there back when banning strong combo stuff was a thing. Yeah, he has a one card lock just like a few other commanders and is a mana cheaper than Arcum/Zur/Braids, and makes wheels lopsided, but Braids/Arcum are also locks once you hit 4 where Levold could miss being cast on 3. Arcum/Zur/Narset basically also have built in tutors, Narset because she's going to run through so many cards.
I agree with this point and I think time will show how oppressive he will become to the format. I think in social settings, he will be treated quite similarly as what happens when someone sits down with a Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck - he will be hated off the table or just win. It isn't the 'best' handling for the format, but over-reaction by the RC is less desirable than suffering a few beat downs.
The comparison with Nekusar wheels isn't really accurate. That deck keeps digging through your cards, helping you locate potential answers to deal with the situation. Leovold cashes in the damage for gutting hands and making everybody play Topdeck: The Gathering (if you're lucky and "only" got wheeled instead of Puzzle Boxed). If anything, his ways are more akin to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, except the hand gut requires you play cards instead of happening automatically to compensate for the seven mana discount.
Levold could even be a decent elf tribal commander. You don't have to go with wheels with it. I mean I have teir commanders. Maelstrom wanderer is fat and FOF effects and Ghave is noncombo token swarm. I even saw Derevi inspired, Griselbrand-Shadowborn Apostles, Zur voltron, Arcum artifact animation, and Narset auras. I'm not sure what you could possibly do with Braids or Erayo other than lock people out. That's not saying there's anything wrong with playing locks if that's what your group likes, but there really isn't anything else you can do with a 1/1 flier for 2 or a 2/2 for 4. They have horrid bodies and abilities that aren't really useful for anything else.
The comparison with Nekusar wheels isn't really accurate. That deck keeps digging through your cards, helping you locate potential answers to deal with the situation. Leovold cashes in the damage for gutting hands and making everybody play Topdeck: The Gathering (if you're lucky and "only" got wheeled instead of Puzzle Boxed). If anything, his ways are more akin to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, except the hand gut requires you play cards instead of happening automatically to compensate for the seven mana discount.
Agreed, but the strategy is one and the same for either commander if you are looking to 'play to win'. The big thing is people dislike locks, for numerous reasons, instead of just ending the game.
The comparison with Nekusar wheels isn't really accurate. That deck keeps digging through your cards, helping you locate potential answers to deal with the situation. Leovold cashes in the damage for gutting hands and making everybody play Topdeck: The Gathering (if you're lucky and "only" got wheeled instead of Puzzle Boxed). If anything, his ways are more akin to Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, except the hand gut requires you play cards instead of happening automatically to compensate for the seven mana discount.
Agreed, but the strategy is one and the same for either commander if you are looking to 'play to win'. The big thing is people dislike locks, for numerous reasons, instead of just ending the game.
Yep, dead on. People don't like locks just pointing out that it's not like Nekusar, as there's a fair number of voices in the thread saying that it's like Nekusar when it really isn't.
I'm not sure what you could possibly do with Braids or Erayo other than lock people out.
With Braids, you could make a pretty sick mono-black dies triggers deck. Erayo is a cheap general for a mono-blue Moonfolk deck, and without the oppressive combos is a pretty amazing control general.
Black doesn't have a general that's a sac outlet without having to make it mandatory?
You're definitely avoiding the point. Both Erayo and Braids can be played in a non-oppressive way. I think you are just automatically assuming they are helming the types of decks you knew in the past.
I don't really know the decks. I've seen Erayo once and Braids zero times. I don't think they should be banned. I just don't see any way to use them in metas I play in that isn't going to severely warp the game completely because of the card. Sure, they might not be the top teir of oppressive, but most people don't play in metas where cards like Spell Pierce and Abrupt Decay are playable. Yeah, they can be defeated, but it would either lead to a complete and immediate effort to off the Erayo/Braids player or the scrapping of all decks in the meta. They're about as warping as Hokori Dust Drinker as a commander in a typical meta. I've never seen it as a commander and only seen the card as 1 in 99 once. That's kind of why they're on the banned list even though it isn't accomplishing anything because there's no way you can accidentally make them oppressive. The one guy to play Erayo got to play it 3 times before everyone walked away. It flipped turn 1 or 2 all 3 games and no other player cast any spells the entire game. I'm sure they got banned after they appeared as commanders in the rules committee's metas and it was obvious they would suck the life out of all games they were the commander regardless of list.
Both Erayo and Braids can be played in a non-oppressive way. I think you are just automatically assuming they are helming the types of decks you knew in the past.
Sure, any card can. But what they ACTUALLY do matters, and you didn't see them helming 'fair' decks. They did what they were good at.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
For anyone who is curious, Commander Vs. from Star City Games put out a video where John Suarez is playing the stock Leovold deck.
John is slow in accessing any wheels/puzzle box effects, which leads two aggro players to developing boards, while being denied draws here and there. John uses a tutor on Damnation, then finds a wheel. The two aggro players have enough juice from the top of the deck anyway to finish him out.
The Leovold player was the first one out, but all agree at the end of the game that the general had a huge impact in the game, if not on the outcome.
.
My opinion, it is much more like the interaction between Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Knowledge Pool or Maralen of the Mornsong and Teferi’s Puzzle Box than it is Erayo or Braids. The Teferi-Knowledge Pool deck can seem unbeatable against the right group. There is an extremely narrow interaction window due to the Flash and the self-protecting nature of Teferi. The downside though is that it’s slow-developing, the win condition doesn’t end the game in itself, and it doesn’t end up taking away play from the Command Zone. So the vulnerability is that the player won’t be able to outrace whatever board has developed before accessing a wipe, and that some utility general like Zur, creature killing generals like Thrax, or even aggressive generals will be able to outpace the actual win condition.
It’s the same as with Leovold. Say you do get your wheel effect off Turn 5 or later. Lots of decks have 1 out of every 3 cards or so as some high-impact threat, and you’ll need to outrace them or out-control the topdecks plus generals of 3 other players. Not to mention Sylvan Library, Top, etc, that can improve the quality of topdecks, or heavy recursion decks with cards like Genesis and/or Oversold Cemetery.
Basically, discard is much better against combo, storm, and other such decks than it is against the classic goodstuff, creature-grind. Take the classic BUG combo-control deck as Damia or Tasigur, with something like T&N-Palinchron-BSZ as a win condition. Maybe Leovold is an upgrade to the general there, and if so, it will definitely run wheels. But, it’s still tutoring for T&N to end the game. And in theory, the group that ban list actually serves (granting for the sake of argument that there is one) would be just as upset with any game ending to a T&N combo, at all, as one where their hands got stripped before then.
So one more card that’s probably strong enough to be unpleasant, won’t measurably affect Competitive EDH, won’t be banned from casual, RC-style EDH because it’s not a Green Fattie, and will just be left to wreak havoc on public games whose players are hopelessly misidentified as one of the two above.
My evaluation of Leovold places him among the top 3 of cedh generals. He is one-sided card advantage suppression for opponents, a lock piece in an easy 2 card soft lock, and when targetted still gets you a card. Leovold is incredibly strong. If you've ever went up against multiple, competitive Leovolds sitting across from you prepare for bad times; if you don't have a Leovold in play in front of you expect to be playing with no hand.
My take on him remains unchanged: if you're packing him to the gills with wheels, tutors, and protection then you're probably going to win most games against a random group. But the same can be said when you play most hyper tuned decks against a bunch of random stuff, and that's a player issue, not one that the format has chosen to address.
TBH, I don't think Leovold should be banned, but I do notice a similairy between the case for banning Leovold and the case for keeping Painter's Servant banned that Papafunk lays out in the SCD thread for Painter.
The argument boils down to the card, in this case Leovold, has one very unfun interaction with an otherwise legal card that, then it's next few interactions with legal cards are also unfun, but not quite #1 material and then finally when you get down the list, you're looking at the "fair" interactions; which is what everybody claims they play the card for, but they actually liars and always play it for one of the unfun interactions that are at the top of the list.
Leovold's first desirable interactions, meaning one that isn't put 3 people in top deck mode, doesn't come until you get down to Font of Mythos and Prosperity territory, which fall outside the top 10.
Leovold also shares a similairty with Painter, in that it's a global effect so even if you decide to avoid playing draw 7s as long as somebody at the table is, then it's an interaction that can come up. Feels bad for the red decks playing Reforge the Soul.
which is what everybody claims they play the card for, but they actually liars and always play it for one of the unfun interactions that are at the top of the list.
Is resource denial 'unfun' because it is strong? It just seems like no matter how you play you'll end up denying your opponents of some resource, be it destroyed creatures on board, exiled graveyards, life total. Putting someone into topdeck mode usually results in a win if you do it before they get something going, but that's not to say that there is no counterplay to it, that you can't get a significant advantage by removing (or bouncing!) Edric in response to a wheel, that you can't see to it that it's difficult for your opponent to cast a 3 color general somehow... I think if everyone is about the same powerlevel you're going to have a fun game, and if you have to call something unfun it's because there's a discrepancy in power going on.
Generally resource denial is unfun to me because I came to play a game. Drawing one card and hoping its what I need isnt the game I was hoping for when I sat down. And when its asymmetrical like that, one person is playing and 3 are not. To me it has nothing to do with winning or losing.
I am not saying its a bad strat or people should not play it, just answering the question asked.
If people are sick of reading about stuff just stop taking part. You have 100% control over what you read. Simic Ascendancy isn't going to get banned just because you didn't tell someone to shut up on the internet.
which is what everybody claims they play the card for, but they actually liars and always play it for one of the unfun interactions that are at the top of the list.
Is resource denial 'unfun' because it is strong? It just seems like no matter how you play you'll end up denying your opponents of some resource, be it destroyed creatures on board, exiled graveyards, life total. Putting someone into topdeck mode usually results in a win if you do it before they get something going, but that's not to say that there is no counterplay to it, that you can't get a significant advantage by removing (or bouncing!) Edric in response to a wheel, that you can't see to it that it's difficult for your opponent to cast a 3 color general somehow... I think if everyone is about the same powerlevel you're going to have a fun game, and if you have to call something unfun it's because there's a discrepancy in power going on.
Resource denial is not fun because it doesn't end the game but it stops people from having meaningful decisions to make.
I've never met anyone who went "Wowee, it was so much fun going into top deck mode and being stuck there all game long" or "Damn that was fun being able to cast nothing". Resource denial can be very fun to play and it's a legit strategy, I wouldn't call it unfair either as it often requires a lot of setup and work before it actually locks people down.
Leovold does straddle that last line by making a 2-card-everyone-topdecks-now strategy with the added bonus of still being able to draw a lot of cards themselves. So I can see where the call for it's ban comes from.
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Turns out it was no fun for anyone, so he took it apart.
Not insurmountable. Not worthy of the banhammer, I don't think. But it's definitely very strong. Probably tier 1. However, like Cryogen said, he looks like one of those generals you netdeck for best results and then get hated out of more casual groups. This guy is definitely for more competitive crowds. Reminds me of where Sharuum the Hegemon was at in the meta a couple of years ago.
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Annul is really good in EDH
I built it to be oppressive and mean. I get players who are like that and instead of talking to them. I play oppressive decks to "even the playing field"
I did it with arcum (was a slow but artifact focused deck, made it so a turn 4 win was slow) I then built erayo (before he was banned) and made people cry. I played melek combo heavy going infinite turn 4-5 and azami "you don't play stuff" control.
Usually my decks are not super powerful. Even dipping on the weak side of the coin. Tons of jank as I do not have a large budget but I am still able to opress people with this guy fishing through my spares, that should say something.
Gonna build a better version of it and it will become my FUn police deck (like my buddy's GAAIV deck) let it collect dust only to blow it off when the oppressive decks come out.
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Yep, dead on. People don't like locks just pointing out that it's not like Nekusar, as there's a fair number of voices in the thread saying that it's like Nekusar when it really isn't.
With Braids, you could make a pretty sick mono-black dies triggers deck. Erayo is a cheap general for a mono-blue Moonfolk deck, and without the oppressive combos is a pretty amazing control general.
John is slow in accessing any wheels/puzzle box effects, which leads two aggro players to developing boards, while being denied draws here and there. John uses a tutor on Damnation, then finds a wheel. The two aggro players have enough juice from the top of the deck anyway to finish him out.
The Leovold player was the first one out, but all agree at the end of the game that the general had a huge impact in the game, if not on the outcome.
My opinion, it is much more like the interaction between Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir and Knowledge Pool or Maralen of the Mornsong and Teferi’s Puzzle Box than it is Erayo or Braids. The Teferi-Knowledge Pool deck can seem unbeatable against the right group. There is an extremely narrow interaction window due to the Flash and the self-protecting nature of Teferi. The downside though is that it’s slow-developing, the win condition doesn’t end the game in itself, and it doesn’t end up taking away play from the Command Zone. So the vulnerability is that the player won’t be able to outrace whatever board has developed before accessing a wipe, and that some utility general like Zur, creature killing generals like Thrax, or even aggressive generals will be able to outpace the actual win condition.
It’s the same as with Leovold. Say you do get your wheel effect off Turn 5 or later. Lots of decks have 1 out of every 3 cards or so as some high-impact threat, and you’ll need to outrace them or out-control the topdecks plus generals of 3 other players. Not to mention Sylvan Library, Top, etc, that can improve the quality of topdecks, or heavy recursion decks with cards like Genesis and/or Oversold Cemetery.
Basically, discard is much better against combo, storm, and other such decks than it is against the classic goodstuff, creature-grind. Take the classic BUG combo-control deck as Damia or Tasigur, with something like T&N-Palinchron-BSZ as a win condition. Maybe Leovold is an upgrade to the general there, and if so, it will definitely run wheels. But, it’s still tutoring for T&N to end the game. And in theory, the group that ban list actually serves (granting for the sake of argument that there is one) would be just as upset with any game ending to a T&N combo, at all, as one where their hands got stripped before then.
So one more card that’s probably strong enough to be unpleasant, won’t measurably affect Competitive EDH, won’t be banned from casual, RC-style EDH because it’s not a Green Fattie, and will just be left to wreak havoc on public games whose players are hopelessly misidentified as one of the two above.
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Honestly question(s): why should they (i.e. what criteria does he break), and what makes a "fair and just" format?
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The argument boils down to the card, in this case Leovold, has one very unfun interaction with an otherwise legal card that, then it's next few interactions with legal cards are also unfun, but not quite #1 material and then finally when you get down the list, you're looking at the "fair" interactions; which is what everybody claims they play the card for, but they actually liars and always play it for one of the unfun interactions that are at the top of the list.
Leovolds naughty list:
1. Teferi's Puzzle Box
2. Timetwister
3. Time Spiral
4. Windfall
5. Dark Deal
6. Day's Undoing
7. Whispering Madness
8. Time Reversal
Leovold's first desirable interactions, meaning one that isn't put 3 people in top deck mode, doesn't come until you get down to Font of Mythos and Prosperity territory, which fall outside the top 10.
Leovold also shares a similairty with Painter, in that it's a global effect so even if you decide to avoid playing draw 7s as long as somebody at the table is, then it's an interaction that can come up. Feels bad for the red decks playing Reforge the Soul.
Is resource denial 'unfun' because it is strong? It just seems like no matter how you play you'll end up denying your opponents of some resource, be it destroyed creatures on board, exiled graveyards, life total. Putting someone into topdeck mode usually results in a win if you do it before they get something going, but that's not to say that there is no counterplay to it, that you can't get a significant advantage by removing (or bouncing!) Edric in response to a wheel, that you can't see to it that it's difficult for your opponent to cast a 3 color general somehow... I think if everyone is about the same powerlevel you're going to have a fun game, and if you have to call something unfun it's because there's a discrepancy in power going on.
I am not saying its a bad strat or people should not play it, just answering the question asked.
Resource denial is not fun because it doesn't end the game but it stops people from having meaningful decisions to make.
Leovold does straddle that last line by making a 2-card-everyone-topdecks-now strategy with the added bonus of still being able to draw a lot of cards themselves. So I can see where the call for it's ban comes from.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.