Have We Misunderstood Levia All Along?

If the Road to Nationals hero representation charts haven't made it clear, Levia is not a character players have any confidence in. She’s a large part of the unsolved meta that Alex Truell talked about in his recent Thoughts and Baubles article. (Even if she doesn't appear on his unsolved list).

My testing partners and I have dedicated some time to making Levia work- as one of our number had taken a special interest- and we think we’ve started to find some success.

Before I get into the decklist and strategy that we'll focus on for today, I want to take a moment to mention the many different approaches you can take when building Levia.

Yet we have found that all of these ideas run into walls in a lot of matchups. You either can't deal enough damage, or can't put on enough pressure with crucial on-hit effects.

What we arrived at was a midrange setup deck that simply makes the best play available to it every turn, with only loose heuristics for how to best proceed. It is designed to be flexible, and that has proven to be valuable in these uncertain times defined by new blood and unexpected ideas.

Levia's economy is, at best, awkward. There are very few playable blues that are also 6+ attacks- and if we want blue 6s that can also block, it's just Wrecker Romp. To smooth out your rough turns and generate the resources you need, you may end up looking for draw from cards like Tome of Torment, Plunder Run, and Art of War.

But there's an alternative to trying to keep both resources and attacks in hand, a synergy found where Brute meets Shadow. Taking a page from Chane's playbook, Levia turns to her Banished Zone to solve her resource crunch.

Ghostly Visit and Deep Rooted Evil provide valuable lines of play that see you consistently replaying the same attacks turn after turn. You can even find good utility in Tome of Torment! Rather than banishing massive quantities of Blood Debt, you cycle the Blood Debt in and out of your Banished Zone.

This deck tries hard to sneak value off of Scabskin Leathers. Primarily, you're playing a midrange setup strategy, with options to flex into any of the other styles with relative ease. Try to roll early and often- it's much better to roll for Scabbies early. Use those extra actions to sneak out Energy Potions and extra attacks when possible. The more you roll the Scabskin Leathers, the more frequently you are rewarded!

Typically, you win by aggressively dealing damage with go-again attacks. Ideally, you never have a turn where you only swing once. We run Art of War, Shadow Puppetry, and red Dread Screamer- and of course, the Scabskin Leathers- to help make this happen turn after turn.

The deck feels best when you can set up the Banished Zone as an armory early on. Think of Deep Rooted Evil and Ghostly Visit as your 2nd and 3rd weapons.

Ghostly Visit is a recurring value attack at 1 for the super-awkward attack value of 4. Since it has no restrictions on how to exit the Banished Zone, and since it costs one, any card in your deck can send it as an attack- which is a nice bit of modularity.

It's a little easier to get Ghostly Visit where it needs to go, since you can block with it; once you've banished it, you've got that 1-cost 'weapon' for 4. Hexagore fills the middle, as your 2-cost option every turn. And Deep Rooted Evil is a 3-cost 'weapon' that ends up as a fresh 6 in your graveyard, ready to banish.

The best way to get Deep Rooted Evil into your Banished Zone is with Art of War, followed by Shadow of Blasmophet. If you happen to draw into Deep Rooted Evil without any good tools, just attack with it to get the pain train moving.

Do not use Ebon Fold on Deep Rooted Evil. Do. Not. Fold is usable only once, so either use it to enable your final turn, or to avoid your final turn. That is to say, use it when you roll a 1 on Scabskin Leathers and you are about to die from Blood Debt, or use it to set up banishing your 6th card to key Doomsday (or any other, less flashy finisher).

As you're looking over the decklist, let's drive a few points home.

What this deck really does is bring three weapons to the fight. You just have to dig them up. You have a (1) 4 attack in red Ghostly Visit, a (2) 6 attack in Hexagore, and a (3) 6 attack in Deep Rooted Evil.

Know when to use your utility cards from your Banished Zone. they are very powerful tools, but they can cause problems depending on the state of the graveyard when you use them. Try to take stock of how many 6’s you have in your graveyard vs. how many non-6s are in there, and weigh the potential upside/downsides of playing those utilities. Is that Howl from Beyond this turn worth the risk of not hitting a 6 with your random banish?

By that same token, use Deep Rooted Evil from Banished as often as possible; if you have a choice between attacking with Deep Rooted Evil and attacking with Endless Maw, it’s probably going to be better to play the Root from Banished because it will strengthen, rather than drain, your graveyard for future turns.

As for equipment, we've talked extensively about Scabskin Leathers already. Use them early and often, but transition to a more reserved usage later. I also touched on Hexagore earlier, but to address the elephant in the room: yes, you're missing out on a weapon in the early game, but you regularly get to that 6+ threshhold to eliminate all health costs, and it's 3rd in line as the 'weapon' this deck wants to swing anyway.

Hold off on using Gambler's Gloves too early, as you’ll want to have that ripcord to pull when you accidentally roll a 1 in the late game. That's true of Ebon Fold too; you either use it to stave off death, or to finish the game. Ebon Fold is honestly so strong in this deck that we don't even have Arcanite Skullcap in the sideboard.

A local player once said to me, “Carrion Husk is a lot like a Timewalk,” and I agree. Having a six-block, in most every matchup, is a free turn off from defending, and a massive tempo swing. I swear by this card in every matchup (except for Wizard, of course). If you don't have access to one, Heartened Cross Strap is useful as well, facilitating an extra large swing in a turn where you're short on resources. You’ll miss the block, but it can proactively do something similar (stealing an action point or a card from the tempo difference) if you use it right.

We pack Nullrune Gloves, Robe, and Skullhorn for the Wizard matchup.

One of the hands I hope to see each game is Art of War, Deep Rooted Evil, and a yellow or blue pitch. Choose “go again” and "draw 2" as you banish Deep Rooted Evil (now eligible to be played out by its own banishing). After attacking with the Root from the Banished Zone, if you had any resources left, you can finish with a Ghostly Visit or even a Hexagore.

In this game, in most matchups, swinging for six once might see the opponent taking the damage and keeping their hand. Swinging for six twice, or six and then four, might actually peel some cards from their hand, swinging the tempo ever further in your favor turn after turn after turn.

You want to get in to a relatively steady rhythm of banishing 3 from graveyard with your Shadow Brute cards, and you'll want to do that maybe every turn to every other turn, as you will not want to suffer the potential Blood Debt. You have a few other options for more limited banishing- Shadow Puppetry, Mark of the Beast, Shadow of Blasmophet- but even when it's the 'banish 3 randoms' that Levia is known for, it's usually going to be the same cards you're banishing again and again. Ghostly Visit and Deep Rooted Evil are the staples of our attack sequence, and their flow from Banished Zone to graveyard make for a greater ability to push into the late game if necessary.

The game should not go on long enough that this matters, but this deck is less prone to fatigue and 'death-by-debt-to-blood-god' than its cousin Chane, as Levia banishes her cards from graveyard, not deck. And on the note of durability, Guardian of the Shadowrealm (which I initially wrote off) can generate a ton of value over the course of a game: pulling it to hand with an extra action from Scabbies, blocking for 6, and repeatedly traveling back from Banished to your graveyard. It's not a house, but it definitely earns its keep.

For all my big talk about the card, you do still need to be somewhat conservative with your Scabskin Leathers use, especially as we tread into the later game. It is usually better, in those late-game situations, to get your banishing done early, so as to fulfill your debt to Blasmo; then you can attempt the risky Scabs roll. Save save save your gloves for as long as you can, so that you don’t get burned by the Leathers in the close of a game.

While this list is still being tested, we're seeing encouraging results. With more time, it's sure to evolve (as any competitive list should). But with Levia behind in her tournament appearances and in desperate need of a refresh, I hope that sharing this deck- and the philosophy it's built on- will give players the inspiration they need to give her another shot. We're having a lot of early success with this approach; more importantly, we're finding more fun than frustration.