Too late to edit: One thing about Leo is that your opponents will draw 1 card at least from wheel effects since he says "Each opponent can't draw more than one card each turn."

Ohthenoises with anvil that locks them at one card in hand while you keep up 6 or 7 with ease.7>1and you get to dig an extra card deeper every turn

Teferi's Puzzle Box also soft locks opponent's hands assuming they don't draw into instant speed removal.

hope it isnt too late but i put my vote for leo to be put tier 2.5. while by himself isnt a game ender. He does help stop others' plans though. Note: he stopps oath combo and azami spamming. Doesn't seem like too bad compeditively as a hatebears/group chokehold deck.

Leovald will probably be the enemy of the casual table and tier 2 when it comes to competitive.

I only play casual EDH but I would definitely aim to kill/hold answers for leovold first unless some other huge threat was present.

The more I see Leovold built, the more I see him edging out Tasigur as the premiere Sultai commander. He will require a lot more tuning and testing in actual games to reach a conclusion though.

I don't like the idea of preemptively putting a commander in tier 1 right away, but Leovold is as close as it gets. I can't imagine the card being anything other than oppressive.

so i know we are all currently cumming buckets over leo, but the new grenzo looks really nice. he seems like he could also ruin casual play for a decent amount of people. auto include goblins. tier 3?

In a token build, I feel like the new grenzo has potential. Sure mono red is not a strong color combination but you are playing all the same colors as your oppenents really.

About to play a haymaker? Just attack the blue player first and hope you hit a counter.

Playing a green or black deck load with tutors gives you potential to look for key pieces such as a Kiki + Zealous combination. I'd also like to add that you exile you oppenents libraries.

In a closed meta (like playing the same people over and over) lets some people play to the meta. Not saying it's competive but it's an interesting way to build a deck

I'm not saying this commander is tier 2 or 1. But definitely an interesting mono red commander. I agree with a tier three placement

I think Leovold should be placed in Tier 2, to begin with. I view him as a 'proactive' BUG Gaddock Teeg, who is also Tier 2. Teeg prevents wraths, Leovold draws from targeted removal. Teeg prevents funky spells, Leovold screws with card draw. They may have different plans, and Leovold's restriction can be abused, but they feel fundamentally the same.

Leo has much better colours than Teeg, and better stats. He also doesn't stop you from playing anything and gets value whenever targeted by a kill spell. Not to mention stopping things like Brainstorm and Treasure Cruise. Leo is broken, and I'm calling tier one right now, wether or not he starts there.

oh and void winnower exists, which means those lands are going to be helpful still. and being in a mono color he can get the full value of nykthos, caged sun, extra planar lens, etc. since he is a token deck he can run purphoros for extra damage and stuff, and red has good rituals so you may bea able to pump out a little extra mana to pay for the exiled spell you want. Break Through the Line is real. and if you just run every good on hit effect . . . Five-Alarm Fire, Cleaver Riot,Rogue's Gloves, Specter's Shroud, Sword of Feast and Famine, Latulla's Orders, Curse of Stalked Prey Destructive Urge, Rapacious One, Quietus Spike all mass double strike givers . . .Berserkers' Onslaught, Rage Reflection, Avatar of Slaughter and some other stuff . . . Demoralize Legion Loyalist

Dredge4life - I don't want a commander to start in Tier 1 on release, because that would set a precedent that I dislike (that's my personal reason), and it may create higher expectations of Leovold that may not pan out in his favor for whatever reason (my 'professional' opinion). I agree that he is likely to end up there, but I still wish to exercise caution resulting from hype/magical christmas land fantasies/etc. when first placing him.

Maybe I should have elaborated in my previous comment: I think he should start as upper Tier 2 and be under consideration for a quick(er than usual) upgrade to Tier 1. His colors have a lot of graveyard combos, he is efficiently costed, is a 3/3 for 3 (holds off dorks), only disrupts opponents (especially blue opponents, which is a lot of Tier 1), has combos with a number of artifacts (and since colorless is the easiest to produce, they can be pumped out easily) and spells (wheel effects), and even dissuades removal and discard. He will likely end up in lower Tier 1 almost immediately, but I REALLY do not want a new commander to start there...ever.

TL;DR - Needs test, probs banned :P, much hweh hweh

Leovold is most likely tier 1 worthy, but yeah, put him in tier 2 first until people start building and testing actual decks around him. Once we've got some actual real-world results, consider him for tier 1.

I totally agree. I feel like Leo players will need to earn thier top tier placement with results. I have little doubt he will get there. As illumfolly pointed out, he is pretty damn perfect as a Doomsday commander since both his abilities protect labman.

merrowMania I understand completely, and you're right. It is better to be cautious and speculative when we've never seen a commander in action. This would set a precedent, which in a lot of ways is not a good idea. I'm absolutely okay with Leo starting out in tier 2, but I'll be very surprised if he isn't A: banned, or B: tier one in a month from release.

As someone a little new to this page and not in anyone tuned into Competitive EDH in anyway (but I'm partially doing this to try and tune my thought process to the scene), I personally think Leovold, Emissary of Trest will end up at Tier 2. He's vary versatile and lends himself to a variety of strategies ranging from soft locking hands to combos like the aforementioned Doomsday. However, he does not lend himself anymore to a doomsday strategy than Oona, Queen of the Fae, having access to the same relevant tutors and not being an alternate win condition in and of himself, but coming down earlier and, yes, protecting the combo himself. He ends up having trade-offs compared to Oona in that specific strategy that I think end up about a 1 for 1.

As for the Hand-lock ideas, those seem pretty gimmicky and end up requiring more and more cards tacked on to really put your opponent in full topdeck mode to keep them there. Ideally, you'd want to do something like use Jace Beleren to force everyone to draw on your turn then use Jace's Archivist to keep hands discarded and empty with out new friend Leo in play, basically aiming for the same Laboratory Maniac Win by drawing out your whole deck, just doing it in a lot slower and grindier way.

That is to say, nothing keeps you from running both as wincons in the deck for the same Labman combo.

Leo definitely does a lot, but I'm really not sure he does as much or has as many advantages as most of the Tier 1 commanders. He could, at the very least, be an incredibly strong combo/control commander.

I could be totally off base in how I'm thinking and any constructive criticism about how I'm thinking about this is not only welcome but sought after.

I think new Selvala is tier 5. Only one colour and has risk of giving more value to your opponents than what you get from it.

While she is mono color and can give your opponent's advantage, so can old Selvala and that mono color is actually one of the stronger colors in EDH, look at Yisan in Tier 1 for example. She also has the potential to generate quite a lot of mana and ramp into huge threats, keeping your advantage over the game and keeping you drawing. That said, she's a pretty aggressive and stompy commander so she's probably around tier 3 from what I've seen.

You'd play Selvala to play progressively large threats before your opponent has quite as much mana to respond and always aim to outdo them for power.

grenzo will be tier 1 or 2 as well mono red goblin mill like wtf xD

i assure you that yisans color identity isn't why he is tier one. Sel could get outpaced by another green deck and get lrft in the dust. However she is a good include in elves and yisan since she can easily get to the mana needed to infinite with Umbral Mantle. I think much of her strategy would be attempting to do this aWith a draw engine on board.With greens lack of artifact tutors it may be awkward getting there. I think high t3

i assure you that yisans color identity isn't why he is tier one. Sel could get outpaced by another green deck and get lrft in the dust. However she is a good include in elves and yisan since she can easily get to the mana needed to infinite with Umbral Mantle. I think much of her strategy would be attempting to do this aWith a draw engine on board.With greens lack of artifact tutors it may be awkward getting there. I think high t3

Speaking of yisan, I've recently been testing the biorhythm version and I'm incredibly impressed. It's too easy to have Ferocious online and similarly easy to generate 10 mana. Usually reducing most people to 1-2 life and a simple elf or two can go finish them off. Quite nice for combating lifegain as well.

The problem I have with Shaman of Forgotten Ways is that it feels too win-more. The situation where you can generate 11 extra mana is one where you can already go infinite (note, I am not a Yisan player and only did a reading of the primer on LD.com and I do not have a Yisan player in my playgroup so take what I say with a shaker of salt).

Shaman of Forgotten Ways is dumb. There are two decks in my meta that run him: Yisan and Meren. Both have killed me (as Sharuum) multiple times. If I don't have an immediate answer, I lose, and I feel it is similar for any deck that doesn't use a lot of dorks or that pains itself a lot. It may be because my list is almost completely creatureless, but it is still a very powerful card.