Emissary of Salt

Duel Commander BUG (Sultai) Competitive Control

QKey

Lands (33)

• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Blooming Marsh
• 1x Botanical Sanctum
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Drowned Catacomb
• 1x Fabled Passage
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forest
• 1x Hinterland Harbor
• 1x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Twilight Mire
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills
• 1x Woodland Cemetery

Combo (5)

• 1x Anvil of Bogardan
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x Day's Undoing
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Teferi's Puzzle Box

Removal (16)

• 1x Abrupt Decay
• 1x Brazen Borrower
• 1x Damnation
• 1x Dismember
• 1x Fatal Push
• 1x Go for the Throat
• 1x Golgari Charm
• 1x Liliana, the Last Hope
• 1x Maelstrom Pulse
• 1x Murderous Cut
• 1x Murderous Rider
• 1x Plague Engineer
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Tyrant's Scorn
• 1x Umezawa's Jitte
• 1x Vapor Snag

Groundtroops (10)

• 1x Baleful Strix
• 1x Garruk Wildspeaker
• 1x Nissa, Vital Force
• 1x Questing Beast
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Shadowspear
• 1x Tarmogoyf
• 1x Tireless Tracker
• 1x True-Name Nemesis
• 1x Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath

CA (6)

• 1x Intuition
• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Life from the Loam
• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Oko, Thief of Crowns
• 1x Snapcaster Mage

Lands Utility (4)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Creeping Tar Pit
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Wasteland

Commander (1)

CQ (10)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Crop Rotation
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Green Sun's Zenith
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Sylvan Library
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Tribute Mage

Counterspell (8)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Daze
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Force Spike
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Spell Snare

Disruption (6)

• 1x Collective Brutality
• 1x Duress
• 1x Hymn to Tourach
• 1x Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1x Thoughtseize
• 1x Vendilion Clique

Mana (1)

• 1x Deathrite Shaman

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Leovold offers many possibilities to let the opponents run in traps or to annihilate the enemy plan completely. As you can see, I have tinkered a lot on this deck until it has taken its form today. I used to refer to the individual card choices individually, but now I change cards in this deck on a nearly weekly base, leaving a lot of work for me. So I decided to not do that anymore and got rid of the section. I will add from now on links to builds, that I would consider "stable". Those builds might be the right choice for your meta if you do not like what you see here. If you have questions on card choices feel free to ask in the comments. I believe this is a better way to approach this topic since so many choices are obvious. Most of the times the interesting question is: “Why do you not run card XY?”

Back on the deck - There is, in my opinion, no deck that has more than 60% win rate against this deck which makes this deck in my eyes very well positioned in a very unpredictable meta. Tier 1 decks such as RDW, Kytheon, Titania, Baral and partner decks can be kept in check, while the answer is already in the command zone against particular commanders. Leovold also has a significant role to play against the aggressive decks, be it the 3/3 blocker or the lockdown with Anvil of Bogardan, Cephalid Coliseum, Geier Reach Sanitarium or Day's Undoing.

Stable Versions

Leovold on the Rocks

Leovold, Grinder of Trest

Grind Control Leovold

Leovold Walker Control

Leovold Classico Darmstadt Top 8

Strategy

This is a basic BUG-bordcontrolshell with a few changes to combo with Leovold, Emissary of Trest. While playing a healthy mix of removal, disruption, and counterspells, I still rely on creatures to stay ahead or at least even on the board. I think it's the better approach in a meta, where certain commanders getting card advantage for having the partner ability.

While commanders like Kess, Dissident Mage or Titania, Protector of Argoth need to be removed from the battlefield (or better never hitting it in the first place), partner commander can be controlled while staying on the board.

This leads to a more consistent control over the game while providing an endgame plan (read: beatdown) without adding extra cards for it. Cards like True-Name Nemesis, Tarmogoyf and Baleful Strix are in the deck for exactly this reason. Leovold, Emissary of Trest pushes this strategy by pseudo protecting my permanents or at least compensating me for the loss of it.

Disclaimer

Feel free to question choices, since I may have got a blind spot for some cards, that may seem very obvious good to me but not to you.

This is a Dual Commander Deck: Rules Banlist

Peace out!

Top Ranked	Achieved #50 position overall 6 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Duel Commander legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.41
Tokens	Beast 3/3 G, Clue, Elk 3/3 G, Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Emblem Liliana, the Last Hope, Emblem Nissa, Vital Force, Food, On an Adventure, Zombie 2/2 B
Folders	EDH, FNM Hiveworld, z. DC: Leovold, ColCom1, Leovold, dan stuff, Duel Commander, French EDH, Duel Commander, 1v1