Control/Stax really seems to be a problematic matchup not only for Leovold but for most combo decks. If your meta is too stax-oriented, combo might not be the best archetype to use.

I play against Brago stax and GAA and they really make you work hard for the win. Playing politics is not really an option since most cEDH stax decks do not play politics at all.

Play it slow. Always keep mana open. I noticed that stax people in my group hardly take risks and won't cast important pieces until they are pretty certain it will stick. I bait them into a counterfight to make them tap out and use the opportunity to get pull off a leo + wheel turn or to combo off for the win.

Admittedly, it doesn't always work but it gives you a better chance than trying to outspeed them.

@Megalomania, That's an observation I have as well. To me it feels like stax specifically is the strongest deck archetype because it scales to 4 player really well, doesn't require things to go right, and can run a combo finish + answers without hurting its game plan at all.

I've also seen that stax players don't ever go for the win until everyone is locked out. I think playing slow is definitely the name of the game but stax with ramp is difficult because the moment all players tap out for their own ramp, they can quickly become locked out.

@Lilbrudder I've never found the Future Sight combo particularly strong because it's not instant speed and Future Sight almost always gets blown up before any value. Carpet of Flowers is weaker but that's a meta game call. JvP has been slightly lackluster. In terms of the weakest tutor, I find Merchant Scroll underwhelming given every other way to tutor in the deck. I've considered throwing in a couple more elves to make the speed more consistent but I'm not sure if that'll lead to an overabundance of elves (which is not a bad thing in and of itself as Leo protects them from targeted removal and windfalls refresh your hand fast.)

@Megalomania @Lilbrudder Thanks both for the insights. Hopefully I can tune this list to fight a stax heavy meta.

Me and Lilbrudder were using more elves at one point but my meta is a bit too heavy on removal/sweepers. This affected my tempo so much that I decided to follow Lilbrudder's suggestion of replacing some of them with ramp spells.

In my experience, stax is not an easy archetype to play. It requires a lot of patience and good risk assessment skills. Stax guys in my playgroup tend to have a relatively easy time because there are immediate and bigger threats on the board in the form of combo decks. People tend to learn after a few games though. In my group, they put the pressure (attack) on stax players and reserve their spot removal/counterspells against the combo guys.

After playing a lot more, I think the cuts I want to make are

Future Sight, Helm of Awakening, Sensei's Divining Top.

Cards that are currently underperforming:

Merchant Scroll, Dispel, JvP, Jace's Archivist, Ponder, Preordain

Cards I want to test:

Ancient Tomb, Filterlands, Elf Ramp (Llanowar/Elvish Mystic etc), Dark Petition (Why are you running Bring to Light over this btw?), Burgeoning, Nature's Claim, Snuff Out, Vendetta, Arcane Denial, Counterspell, Negate, Misdirection, Bubbling Muck

I cut future sight myself, dispel is very meh, and I could live without top. Admittedly merchant scroll was better when I had intuition and wheel and deal in the deck, but it does get high tide. Helm of awakening is a key card to storm decks and the cantrips are important for both win conditions and help you hit your land drops. The jace cards I have found to be very useful, but again I am going the storm/DD route and those abilities are relevant. If you go for a more midrange deck the mana dorks are very good includes along with more creature removal. Burgeoning makes sense if you add more lands but I like exploration much better Filterlands and ancient tomb were meh for me as they can backfire on early turns. For Leo. I prefer Bring to light over dark petition, because while petition can play necropotence, bring to light can play wheels (which feels more relevant) and does not need spell mastery to be active to get full value. Both cards can cast cards like toxic deluge and DD. With the 2cc counterspells, they are better for a midrange gameplan. I dont understand muck. It seems like you want to move away from storm and muck is pretty bad when urborg is not in play

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How exactly do you get enough storm counts to kill 3 guys? Is the Reservoir the "storm" kill card because I can't seem to find the usual storm cards in the list.

What are the normal storm cards? Artherflux is indeed my kill card. Its nice because I can kill with a much lower storm count. I feel like the deck is way too much of a hybrid at the moment. I feel like I need to commit to the strategy to get more consistency. I just added Turnabout. What are your thoughts on hurkyls recall and some more rocks. It can straight up ruin an artifact deck and/or abuse cheap artifacts for a higher storm count

Tendrils of Agony, BrainFreeze, Gut Shot, etc. cards that actually have the storm ability. But nevermind. I just realized how good the reservoir is. I can't believe I have been reading it wrong all this time. lol. I think i'll be using it on my deck as well. Out of curiosity, exactly how much storm counts does it take to kill 3 guys with 40 life?

I think the concept is ok. You just need a more reliable way to get enough storm counts on reservoir and that is what the Future Sight combo was supposed to provide. I'm not sure why you guys think it is slow. It's probably because you're not using Insidious Dreams which I use to set it up. It is a lot similar to DD in that there is a substantial risk to it, even more so in DD.

I had Hurkyls Recall in the deck and it was quite effective but it was mostly because I was drawing my entire library. Ad Nauseam sometimes allows me to cast a lot of spells but hardly enough to build up enough storm counts to win.

Assuming you start the turn with reservior in play you can gain 120 life off of a storm count of 15. So to kill a table you would need between 15 to 20. I tried insidious dream and may go back to it. I only just realised the future sight combo gives infinite storm and draws your deck. I havent yet figured out the right mix of cards. My list will be a hot mess for the next week or so

@Megalomania As long as you are above 31 life, then you will only need a storm count of 15 to gain 120. That being said, you will probably gain a few bits a life as Aetherflux Reservoir sticks to the table. Safe bet though is storm 16, gaining 136, so you can stay out of reach of a burn spell.

@Lilbrudder For now I'm using just a storm route with Future Sight in my testing. Being more dedicated to one wincon does free up some space and seems to add a bit more consistency, but most of the cards work with both so don't think you'll have to change half your deck. Only problem is you are limiting the ways you can win. Really sucks when someone uses Slaughter Games calling Aetherflux Reservoir.

How has Bubbling Muck and Summer Bloom been working for you? With only 4 natural swamps in the deck has it seemed worth it? I know you have Crop Rotation for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, but that just seems like some hoops. And yeah, would love to hear your reasoning for Summer Bloom. I haven't noticed a problem with being flooded, but that could just be some anecdotal evidence.

That's one of the main reasons I suggested Future Sight in the first place. The "infinite" storm count it provides ends games very easily. I do like Insidious Dreams in theory, but I haven't gotten to testing it so I am in no place to judge it.

Catgroove: I actually just got done cutting both muck and crop rotation. I wanted to try it before I dismissed it but its really not for me. Summer bloom is something I have wanted to try for some time. It has the potential to get me really high storm counts especually with regrowth effects and multiple wheels. It was kind of a fluke hand but in testing I just casted at turn turn two leo after dumping 4 lands in play on turn 2 and followed it up with a turn 3 time spiral with nothing but summer bloom for ramp. As for future sight I will likely.bring it back but I really want to learn storm without it for the time being.

iamyoona: while working on another deck I got some interesting suggestions to help me deal with stax that you might find interesting. What do you think of Seeds of Innocence and Virtue's Ruin? They could completely blow out your play group without affecting you much or at all.

Megalomania and Catgroove: After some more testing I cut some fat from other sections of the deck and brought back the infinite storm combo and I'm pretty happy with how the deck is running. Going heavy storm made the deck pretty awful. Tasigur is much better as a storm Commander and all I managed to do is durdle to no end most games. I went back to the original deck design somewhat and I think the deck is stronger as a result. Since I'm not trying to storm off every game I'm strongly considering Day's Undoing. One card my storm experiments helped me identify is Summer Bloom. It is somewhat inconsistent, but occasionally it is phenomenal and almost never bad.

Hey, I may arrive late but I see you run Regrowth and Noxious Revival. You could use an Intuition! I personally love that card.

That is a great suggestion. I used to use Intuition and it got cut when I overhauled the deck. What would you cut for it?

So I tried to make my own version of your list because I definetely want to build Leovold. Unfortunately since I am an university student, I will use cheaper alternatives (fundamentally no duals, which I know, are incredible and not replaceable). But for my list I took out Grim Tutor for Intuition, so the mana curve is also perfectly intact (my list's average cmc is 2.43). Also my approach to the secondary win condition in case of the exile of the Lab Maniac is the use of Tendrils of Agony with the infinite mana-spell recursion combo of Deadeye Navigator, Mnemonic Wall and Palinchron. The deck I made can still win consistently 4 times out of 5, within turn 4 or 5, with you DD pile. Otherwise I ramp the fastest I can to make the Plan B concrete. Palinchron needs ten lands one of which gives double mana to produce infinite mana alone. Also I find in my case more practical using Burgeoning instead of Exploration, the ramp is faster (very good in the short term) and it's even more in the flavour of the deck (again intact average cmc).I will give you more alternatives on what to cut for Intuition. I know, many people consider Sensei's Divining Top almost a staple in commander but... I don't find it extraordinary. That's my unpopular opinion. It's useful when games are getting slower for you but I don't think that's your average plan with this deck.Third Idea: I think that you use Wordly Tutor to pick out Lab Maniac in some situation, but otherwise I can't (yet, maybe) see the purpose of that card.Fourth Idea: I don't like Vryn's Prodigy: it's a card that makes you an hate magnet.

My final opinion on the argument PWs for this deck is very meta dependant. I want to run a copy of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon to have an extra removal both for creatures and for enchantments. Also I added a single control instrument to slow down the game in some specific cases such as Spreading Plague

Lilbrudder Personally I feel that Summer Bloom is far too inconsistent in a 30 land deck. I personally feel the three card Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top + Helm of Awakening combo is not a great finisher. All three cards are fairly lackluster -> awful. Helm is a dead draw. Sensei's is a fairly weak draw. Future Sight is a dead draw. Unless all three are together they significantly clunk up our hand. I'm personally trying to think of a better alternate win condition but it seems that everywhere I look, people always fall back to a specific couple. haha. Also I think not running Dark Confidant is strictly wrong. He's just better than Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip.

In terms of combating stax, the cards I'm worried about are Stranglehold, Stony Silence, Aven Mindcensor, Grand Abolisher, Gaddock Teeg, Realm Razer, Sire Of Insanity, Winter Orb, Blood Moon, Obliterate, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Null Rod, Nether Void, Trinisphere. There are no great answers to all of these but my meta doesn't really run the all in stax that are in "T1 competitive lists" except maybe Derevi but the stax decks are much stronger than those.

thedrawnpain Eternal Witness is better than Mnemonic Wall as you can cast it earlier in a game when you're not comboing. If you want Palinchron as your backup plan, I think you should Bubbling Muck along with Crop Rotation in addition to High Tide so you increase your viability to infinite there. Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip is fairly weak in cEDH. Worldly Tutor I agree is stronger in creature toolbox.

I agree that the future sight combo is not great, but its one of the most compact finishers in BUG. There are also not any other great finishers to take its place and I don't really care to go all in on labman.

I must disagree with your assessment of many cards. Helm of Awakening is not a dead draw. It is literally in every storm deck I have ever seen. It functions like a sol ring on steriods. Yes it benfits the table, but it is usually cast after a hand lock or when my opponents have tapped out. Sensies is pretty decent IMO, especially with the high concentration of top deck tutors and fetchlands. Future Sight is pretty bad, but it also wins the game with the other two cards and the combo is not that hard to assemble.

As for summer bloom are you merely theorycrafting or have you actually tested the card? In my testing it has been great to solid. In every game it has ramped me at least one land or served as Chrome Mox fodder. Then again I wheel aggressively, so getting extra lands has hardly ever been an issue for me at 30 lands. Perhaps I have gotten lucky. I will continue to test it with a more critical eye.

I agree dark confidant is good, but saying he is better than baby jace is not correct. Baby jace can flashback cards, draw topdeck tutors, and he can start doomsday piles on my combo turn to win for just triple black. The only advantage of confidant is that he essentially draws a card vs. Looting a card each turn. What baby jace brings to the table is vastly more important to this deck.

Worldly Tutor Is replaceable, however, it essentially functions like a one drop mana dork since it grabs booom tender to facilitate a turn 3 Leo+wheel. It also grabs jace's archivist and notion thief.

As for these stax decks stronger than derevi I would love to see a listn or two if your buddies put thier decks online. Also are you talking fairly "optimized" derevi or just a guy at your shop who plays derevi?

iamyoona Almost all combos I know involve pieces that will more or less end up as a dead draw. Try building around them, get some good interactions so they don't seem as awful.

Future Sight is mana intensive but it works well on its own. It works better with SDT and is awesome with Necropotence.

I'm not sure why you think SDT is lackluster. It has been quite useful to me.

I agree that Dark Confidant is worth a try.

Ok I understand the explanation given on the SDT and I think in this case it can be more consistent than usual. However I did not say that Vryn's Prodigy is bad, just that it is a card that scares people. Even when it does nothing people will start to focus you. As a frequent combo player, getting focused is something that I want definitely try to avoid. I have three principles while talking about competitive EDH:-play as less "hate generators" as you can.-don't give to the table advantages only to be able to use them too.-when the first combo of choice is gone, focus on plan B or C, it will be faster in every case, and if luck will make the combo A available again, then even better (this is according Vryn's Prodigy).I think that the deck, this beautiful deck, does not lack of specific tools to get things back from the graveyard, hence your creativity can make the difference in the choice between quality and quantity (provided by Jace). For me it's a bump up for draws and card cycling instead of Jace.Also yeah I momentarily forgot I am using green so obviously Eternal Witness is better for my list instead of mnemonic wall, thank you for the reminder hahaha.

OP what do you think about the two ramp spells Three Visits and Nature's Lore? Are they really worth it?

You're using Leovold. You're gonna get hate with or without Jace.

Yes, probably hahaha I hope however that at least for short moments opponent also are distracted from someone else, and if that happens most of the times, even better.

thedrawnpain: the land rampers have been really good for me. I was hesitant to add them as I am not usually a fan of land based ramp, but they have more than pulled thier weight, especially with helm of awakening in play. I honestly wouldnt mind 1-2 more of the effect becauss I can use the land I tutored for to cantrip, tutor, or counterspell that turn. In that way it ramps me without losing tempo. Summer Bloom was originally added because it provided another way to ramp up my lands fast. Burgeoning is great but it doesnt give me the ability to ramp on my turn like bloom. As for baby jace, you make a fair point. I just really like the card despite his drawbacks