Now if you wanna be ballsy, run Life of the Loam so that way you have recursion of lands. Also it's really funny when you strip mine them to death. I'm actually thinking about running 1x Ghost quarter.
Originally Posted by Whitefaces
There's a list on MTG Goldfish that just went 5-0 with a Loam and Ghost Quarter, they come as a package I think. He also has two Sylvan Library to find the Loam better. It's a bit of a different direction to a build with Leovold, but it looks very strong vs Miracles.
So everyone posting in hear about playing Leovold; how successful has he been in play or has most of it been just theory. My concern is the 4th color. I've been playing Maverick for a while and plan on taking it to GP Louisville in January. With the popularity of Wasteland decks right now I just see it being extremely clunky adding that 4th color. Plus in my playtest experience it just gets singled out.
Im honestly looking for opinions, hell prove me wrong. I'm looking to bring the best deck to the GP so what I'm really looking for is a good discussion. And to add to it here is my current list for critique.
// Deck: Maverick (61)
// Lands
2 Bayou
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Forest
1 Karakas
1 Plains
3 Savannah
1 Scrubland
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
// Creatures
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Gaddock Teeg
4 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Mother of Runes
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scryb Ranger
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Tireless Tracker
// Instants
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
// Sorceries
4 Green Sun's Zenith
// Enchantments
2 Sylvan Library
// Artifacts
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
// Planeswalkers
1 Nissa, Vital Force
// Sideboard
SB: 2 Choke
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 1 Krosan Grip
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 1 Sword of Light and Shadow
SB: 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
Its a powerfull card, I played it but its not really awesome. At least not in legacy. I tested it a few events and never amazed me...
Some comments:
Nissa - Without having Cradle is a resource intensive card that doesn't win you or provide any hate in the boards. Has she been any good?
Reclamation Sage - Qasali is a better card overall, ETB trigger is cool but exalted wins imo.
Tireless Tracker - Knight of Reliquary is already your beater, how has Tracker been performing for you?
Thalia, Heretic Cathar - Excellent card on the draw, not so good on the play. I am playing as a one of.
Deathrite - You should have at least one more mana dork - birds if you play Leovold, Hierarch otherwise
Lately I have been playing with both Leovold and Sanctum Prelate maindeck.
Adding Leovold gives you win percentage vs Brainstorm and D&T decks which is always good, as a tutorable one of it has been perfect however Wasteland can give us a hard time. Sanctum Prelate is a beast card overall vs a huge percentage of the field. To support this, I cut 1 Knight and play more basics. Might cut some land to add cavern though.
Here is my decklist - 4c Leovold/Prelate Maverick:
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Mother of Runes
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
2 Sanctum Prelate
2 Stoneforge Mystic
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Scryb Ranger
1 Qasali Pridemage
1 Dryad Arbor
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Swords to Plowshares
1 Sylvan Library
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Forest
2 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland
4 Windswept Heath
3 Verdant Catacombs
1 Karakas
2 Bayou
2 Savannah
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
SB: 3 Thoughtseize
SB: 2 Ethersworn Canonist
SB: 2 Surgical Extraction
SB: 2 Zealous Persecution
SB: 2 Choke
SB: 1 Council's Judgment
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Gaddock Teeg
SB: 1 Sanctum Prelate
What cmc's are you finding yourself most commonly using with Sanctum Prelate and what decks has he shown the best results against?
Nissa has been great in both my testing as well as my friends testing. She's just another threat thats hard to deal nwith she's been great against Eldrazi and Miracles. I honestly can't see cutting Knight he's just another huge threat. The deck has always walked a fine line of D&T and Mid-range beatdown but yours is more 4c D&T (where as mine is Mid-range. Which by no means is a bad thing. I'm j just looking for more detailed critique as in why people are playing and what those cards pros are.
I'm honestly surprised I haven't seen more Maverick decks splashing Leovold. Tons of decks are doing so but he arguably slots into Maverick the best since the Shamans/Hierarchs we already play help cast him and we have GSZ. You could probably just play a single Trop and get along fine. I haven't played with the card myself yet, but I'm sure it's quite powerful.
Delver - 1cmc
Shardless - 0 or 1 or 2 cmc
Storm - 1 or 4 cmc
Miracles - 1 or 6 cmc
Aluren - 4 cmc
Grixis - 1 or 2 cmc
D&T - 1 cmc but card is horrible here
Loam / punishing decks - 2 cmc
SnT - 3 or 4 cmc
Card is insane against anything except eldrazi and death and taxes. Also is a very skill intensive card and requires you to know the metagame quite well.
Maverick as midrange deck is not strong enough when compared to other choices. Having more hate bears is adequate in a Miracles, SnT and Bug decks meta.
The problem is Maverick is not super popular right now because D&T got Recruiter making the deck a toolbox one and Miracles is a very hard matchup. Leovold is super good but makes the mana base clunkier.
Playing Leovold seems a bit too greedy to me, against wasteland decks I often find it hard to cast my abrupt decays, having to hard cast a leovold definitely seems like a challenge. It would definitely be interesting to hear what people think of him after a bit more testing, he seems pretty good against grindy decks like miracles and shardless, but the 4th color splash + the 3cmc slot already being pretty crowded make me hesitant to try it myself.
why is leovold good vs taxes? Because you get to draw? using 3 mana to draw a card and just get it bounced with karakas is a so huge tempo swing that I think is not easy to afford...
What do you mean "just bounced by Karakas" there's also StP, Abrupt Decay, Dismember, and Bolt.
And again is there any tourney reports with him in their deck?
I haven't seen any and from my testing of a 4th color it just seems clunky as other people have said.
Do you mean against Death & Taxes? Well besides bouncing with Karakas, they also could remove it with Swords to Plowshares, either of which would draw you a card (yes, not ideal for you only netting 1 card). But it shines when they don't have those because suddenly they don't want to Port or Wasteland you, which is half their game plan, and even if they do you just keep drawing cards. Leovold is one of the last creatures D&T wants to see outside of probably TNN. If the D&T player can't Plow it on sight then it really sets them back.
Its ok when d&t plows it.
But when I played him. I just had to never play it out just because it was a 3 'ana loss tor his 3x karkas.
And if the port plan is good and you have a leovold then your in good position. Usualy I have always beat with maverik D&T without any problems...
I just like that it's a pretty good card against Shardless. I'll be playing maverick at the GP. I'd like to day 2 at least. The two big decks I feel unfavored against that I want a bit of game for are Miracles and Shartless. How's this sideboard look with two decay main already and BSkull and Jitte as mainboard weapons?
1 Garruk Relentless.
2 Choke
1 Pithing Needle
2 Duress
2 Zealous Persecution
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Scavenging Ooze (one main as well)
1 Abrupt Decay (3 in the 75)
1 Life from the Loam
Are you running the dark depths combo? If not I'm not huge on the life from the loam in the sideboard. I also am not the biggest fan of faerie macabre and think those would be better as an additional surgical and a containment priest. I believe both of those just have a bit more utility versus some of the combo match-ups like sneak & show. If you were to make that switch I think thoughtseize looks a bit better than durress, mainly just to strip BR reanimator of all of their griselbrands in the case that they have two reanimation spells in hand. Although Macabre certainly has good applications, i think surgical and containment priest have more utility in a more open meta.
Additionally whats been the issue with shardless? I have not had much issue with shardless, most of our cards are all pretty good against them.
I got away from batterskull if they kill your SfM it's really hard to play but onto your S/B.
Thoughtseize is just better than duress. I bring it in against Combo and control where you're life total doesn't matter but their card quality does. So having the option to take a tiny snapcaster mage, heritage druid, or their Griselbrand is great flexibility.
Without knowing your maindeck I'd move the SoFI main. And replace the 3rd Decay with something like Krosan Grip. Moat is becoming popular with Miracles and Aluren is becoming a thing.
Best card against shardless for me is sylvan library. Armageddon can take the place of choke, once you have a board presence vs midrange/control you just pop the lands and go to town without fear of a sweeper or planeswalker.
I do like the thought of Geddon. I dunno if it's a bad match up. It's just super close and I feel like they have better side board cards than we do. I just was thinking if there's some sort of big haymaker. Maybe I'll throw a Sigarda in the board if I can find space
What do you guys think about bringing in a surgical against Show and Tell? Worth it if I go up to a third discard spell? Is mom even worth it against them since they run sudden shock and kozileks return?
In my testing anything WW can be taxing on you against a good wasteland deck, so bringing in Sigarda or Gideon can be hard to play and keep up protection. I like them both just keep that in mind. Against SnS decks i take out Moms and spot removal so anything like thoughtseize and surgical are an upgrade.
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