When Conspiracy 2 was printed there was a lot of speculation around Leovold, Emissary of Trest. Now just over six months later we’re seeing that he is more powerful than most of us imagined. He’s now sitting at a solid $40 with foils fetching over $200. Leovold is starting to prove his strength, hitting top eight regularly in a wide variety of decks. Just scrolling through top eights featuring Leovold, you see Food Chain, Sultai Aggro, Elves, Four Color Delver, Aluren, Sultai Delver and more.
For those of us who have been playing Legacy for awhile it’s easy to see the value in Leovold, but since I’ve been playing Legacy Hero I thought I’d take the time to write some articles for new players and explain why Leovold is so great.
If you are running BUG and your deck can afford to be running a three mana creature then you should probably be running Leovold. One of the most powerful things that you can do in Magic is draw cards and Leovold has your back on this regard in more than one way. First he prevents your opponent from drawing more than one card per turn. This is a really big deal in Legacy where a lot of decks are running cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Sylvan Library.
Leovold really shuts this down in a big way—the only better option Chains of Mephistopheles. Being able to slow down your opponent so drastically is a big deal and that’s only the beginning of his power. He turns around and gives you really good card advantage—if your opponent wants to Thoughtseize you or Abrupt Decay one of your creatures, then you get to draw a card first. Tl;dr: he takes the post powerful mechanic in Magic away from your opponent and he gives it to you. Seems good.
Personally my favorite deck that I’ve seen him in is in Aluren, though Food Chain lists running Leovold are also pretty sweet. If nothing else I’m happy that Leovold was printed if to help both of these decks. Aluren started doing well again with the printing of Recruiter of the Guard, a much more affordable option than Imperial Recruiter. I really like the addition of Leovold to help protect creatures in this creature based combo deck.
Both Aluren and Food Chain decks have had more top eights this year already than they did in all of 2015 so it’s hard to argue that Conspiracy 2 didn’t help give both decks a boost with Leovold (and Recruiter of the Guard in the case of Aluren).
The last year or so we’ve been really lucky. Wizards has been giving Legacy players some amazing cards and sets. We had Eternal Masters, Conspiracy 2 and now we have Modern Masters 2017 coming up, which is also full of strong Legacy cards. I really hope they continue on this trend of printing good eternal stuff because personally I’m really enjoying what it’s bringing to the format.
Kate hails from Worcester MA and also does a bit of Card Altering. Check her Stuff out on Facebook! She mainly plays legacy and modern though will occasionally find herself playing EDH.