Taylor: 0:10

What's up, Wizards? It's time for Rule Zero, the show that helps you prepare for the best game of Commander. I'm Taylor.

Shawn: 0:16

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years of experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great playgroup, tons of great decks, and also trying a lot of outside the box variants and homebrew rules, that we can pass that golden knowledge on to you.

Taylor: 0:31

Sean, what's something going on in the world of Magic that you're excited about right now?

Shawn: 0:35

At the time of this recording, pro player Reid Duke wrote an article on TCG Player Infinite titled, quote, Why You Should Care About Competitive Magic. We're going to put a link in the show notes and it predictably caused a stir on Reddit with some people really tearing into the article for having quote weak arguments and others fully behind the spirit in which the article was written. I think I tend to fall in the latter camp and I have a not so secret crush on Reed Duke. So I empathize greatly with the spirit of the article because ProMagic is exactly how I got back into magic. and without it, I'm not doing the show. I don't know you. So I just wanted to share a little bit of kind of like my backstory and you know, see if what you, the listener think is, do you think competitive magic is relevant to what we do in EDH? Do you think it's an, a thing that should be fostered? Or do you believe that we've moved past that point? So just to share a little bit of my backstory in 2010, I just got back into kitchen table magic. I was totally at peace with just having a box of rando cards and then I saw on streaming when I was like on a break from work, Pro Tour San Diego, and I was immediately sucked into the storyline of a wunderkind on a tear. Something at that moment for me clicked and that wunderkind happened to be now probably the most famous magic player of all time, Louis Scott Vargas, aka LSV for short. And this was his Pro Tour San Diego famous 16 and 0 run into the semifinals before he was stopped. But at that moment, like the stories of all these pro players and whatnot, I was just hooked to the spectacle. And it actually got me back into a competitive spirit. I used to play type one back in the nineties, but that was in high school. And I was getting, you know, smacked around by people with dark ritual into hypnotic specter into black night and, It was,

Taylor: 2:31

plays.

Shawn: 2:31

it was a real place. It was not exactly a fun time, so to speak, cause the next turn it was him to Turok. So it caused me to discard three cards on my turn. It was pretty rough, so I got back into standard and built my own deck. And, and for me, the competitive scene in magic was always something I enjoyed. The drama, the tension, the spectacle, the bright lights, and I will always be proud. I'm making day two in my first modern Grand Prix and, you know, it's like I had this feeling when you hold the lottery ticket, there's the feeling of like, what if I wake up tomorrow and I'm a billionaire?

Taylor: 3:07

Right.

Shawn: 3:08

So like for a brief moment in that tournament, I was sitting at 4 0 completely in shock because I was like, I'm going to scrub out of this so hard. And I had that feeling. I was like, I go up to pairings and I'm on the first page out of 2000 people. And I was like, there's John Finkel. There's this other famous Magic player. And I'm like, what, what is happening right now? And with, we don't get that in Commander.

Taylor: 3:30

No, we don't. But I do think that there's something that every Magic player enjoys about winning, right? So regardless of how competitive. a player can be, we always enjoy winning. It might be through that jank combo that you built into your deck, or it might be like a really astute, strong wind with just good synergies in your deck and you're playing it really well. I think that there are two videos that you can find on YouTube that are great watches to help you kind of see what winning is like and why it's important. And just to. Think about the competitive side of things. I know winning isn't the only thing that matters, but the first video is titled into the battlefield life on the magic, the gathering pro tour. And wizards put this video out. It's a pretty long documentary at about an hour long. But it looks at seven players as they go throughout the course of a season. One of them is Reed Duke. It also looks at Owen Turtenwald, William Jensen, Patrick Chapin. Shahar Shinhar, Melissa de Tora, and Chris Piccola. And I think it's just really fascinating to watch and see these professional players and how they approach magic versus the more casual approach, which is what we oftentimes encounter in commander. And to look at that more casual side, there's a second video that you can watch. It's magic, the gathering inside the world's most played trading card game. It's a short documentary at about 26 minutes from vice. And it looks at all aspects of it from competitive players to the kitchen table players, to the old school legacy and vintage players.

Shawn: 4:58

Yeah, those are both great watches. And if you go read the TCG article, it'll be old by the time this comes out, at least by a few weeks. Try to look at it through a kindly lens and don't add to the, the fracas on Reddit by airing out all your dirty laundry. Yeah, cause we know that competitive magic meant a lot to a lot of people, myself included. And so just take that in mind as you're reading through it and try to read with the spirit of it. And if you're interested in competitive magic, that as it is now, and the most recent magic con Chicago also had a pro tour associated with it. And there's a pro named Jim Davis, who you can find on YouTube. I'll include a link in the description as well of his recent pro tour murders at Karlov manor blog. Sorry, it takes a while to get that set out. That is constantly going to be a tongue twister. And he was on the winning team and the winning team actually broke out with a deck that no one saw coming. And in fact, LSV, Luis Scott Vargas kept a lot of tweets That we're like, Oh my God, can you imagine the courage to go to a pro tour playing vampires like really sarcastically and guess what it won? Cause it was awesome.

Taylor: 6:09

I feel like vampires have been pretty strong and standard recently. I mean, red, black vampires seem to have a lot of synergies that you can still find. And I think there's something that's really nice about players working together to build decks that other players aren't thinking of, or don't think are as powerful as they could be. I tried to join in on a team to play some standard at a pro tour level type of things, I'm definitely not a pro, but it was really interesting, but the way that the team worked, because it really was what's the best deck in the meta. And then can you play it to the best of your ability? And so learning to play those decks is, is challenging. And I think that's a really impressive skillset for these players to have to not only craft a winning deck, but also pilot it very efficiently.

Shawn: 6:56

One thing that we can all learn from pro players I think is how they handle losing. They handle it with such grace. And they learn from their mistakes and oh boy, like if you watch competitive players play commander for the first time, like on a recent Tolarian community college video, it's funny how they see commander players from their lens because In their mind, they're like, please hit me with everything you've got. Please make this game really, really hard for me to win. And commander players are often like, why would you do that? It's such a funny dichotomy.

Taylor: 7:30

I think one of my favorite content options to watch on YouTube right now is commander at home, and it features Olivia go bear Hicks, who is on the rules committee and her partner, Brian Kibler, who is a phenomenal competitive player and to watch the way that they play their games out is fascinating because Olivia will hardly ever attack. And you hardly see a turn where Brian Kibler doesn't attack. And that's just part of. That competitive mindset, I think, right? He's always looking, who can I chip in for some damage? How can I get this game to tilt in my favor? And I think that's just a fascinating dichotomy to watch in real time when they're playing together.

Shawn: 8:09

Segway created, we were just talking about a red black deck that took the meta by storm. Well, I don't know if this one will take it by storm, but we'd certainly worked on it as a team. It was a request from our friend Carl to create Juna carnage connoisseur. She is a Human shaman, legendary creature, a three, four, four, three, a black and a red says on her text box, whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, choose one that spell gains death touch and lifelink or create a two, two red imp creature token with when this creature dies, it deals two damage to each opponent.

Taylor: 8:47

I think when you first look at this card, it's pretty clear that you want to be casting a lot of instance and sorceries, but how you want to capitalize on those instance and sorceries are different, right? Because sure, in a, perfect world. You could do both of these options, but I think it makes sense to focus in on one of these options versus the other one. So what did we decide to do this time around, Sean?

Shawn: 9:16

This will be an impressive deck list.

Taylor: 9:19

Ha ha.

Shawn: 9:20

So many puns are going to happen in this episode. I fear for you, but,

Taylor: 9:24

It's impossible to know how many puns we can come up with

Shawn: 9:28

Oh my goodness. This is going to be a long one. Strap in cause we're going to take the carnage. To your friends. I don't know.

Taylor: 9:37

to next Friday night

Shawn: 9:38

Sure. Perfect. So when we talk about these decks, I think it's important just to preface that we're not talking about every single card. We're not going to talk about all the boring lands, et cetera. What we are going to talk about is the most fascinating aspects of it. How does this deck play? What are the cool combos? What are some cards that other people are playing? in this deck that we think could use some support, some help, maybe get cut and replaced with something different. But if you do want a full deck list, you can find it on our moxfield page at rule zero. And then you can enjoy all the wonder and the possibles that we were thinking about adding on those lists there.

Taylor: 10:15

When Carl first shared this deck with us, we've got a couple of notes here How we saw this deck kind of trying to operate. And then we're going to give you how we would really try and punch this deck up to its highest potential focusing in on imps this week. And then we'll look at that next kind of storming off ability next week.

Shawn: 10:35

I'm honestly excited about both. I love amps and I also love the idea of casting a blasphemous act that has lifelink.

Taylor: 10:42

That sounds disgusting and awesome all at once sign me up.

Shawn: 10:47

Awesome. Well, here we go. So we're going to lead off, I believe from what works well in the deck that Carl initially sent us and the deck list he did send us is also up, You can see the divergence and thought that's happening within it. It's like two personalities splitting apart. So for the imps, I went with a pun right off the bat, packed tremors, one in a red and enchantment. When a creature enters the battlefield under your control, impact tremors deals one damage to each opponent.

Taylor: 11:16

It. It's hard to beat that. I mean, when you're going wide, you're making a bunch of creatures. This will help kind of get the table moving along. It is gonna lower the life totals just by the natural flow of the game. So I think this is a great include.

Shawn: 11:31

The second one I have is what if Since imps deal damage heading out of the battlefield as much as they will deal coming into the battlefield with impact tremors, let's double that. Drivnod, Carnage Dominus, three and two black and eight three legendary creature Phyrexian Horror. If a creature dying causes a triggered ability of a permanent you control to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time. Also, you could pay two Phyrexian black mana to exile three creature cards from your graveyard. to put an indestructible counter on Dribnod Carnage Dominus so that he can survive through whatever. Yeah, we just want to double up the Imp's explosive ability to leave the battlefield and deal two damage to a target player.

Taylor: 12:18

Doing four damage now goes from good to better. And I think that the fact that it's going to do it to each opponent, right? So when this creature dies, it deals too damage to each opponent. This is gonna melt faces.

Shawn: 12:30

And speaking of Phyrexians, you've put in a pick that you know, I love. Slash S for sarcasm.

Taylor: 12:37

Yeah, Sean hates this next card, but I think it's hard to deny how good it is and it's Yawgmoth Thran Physician. It's black, black and two for a two, four legendary creature, human cleric. It has protection from humans. You can pay one life to sacrifice another creature to put a minus one minus one counter on up to one target creature and draw a card. Or you can play black, black. Discard a card to proliferate. I think in this iteration of the deck, I want to have sacrifice outlets for all these amps because as we're making them, you know, we're seeing that more decks are running exile effects. And so if somebody plays a farewell and exiles all creatures, I need a way to sacrifice those amps. So my hard work doesn't go to waste. Yawgmoth gives you that. And it gives you the ability to draw cards. I will pay one life to draw a card. Any opportunity I get. In fact, it's so good that they've banned that ability in commander, both in the form of grizzle brand, which pays seven life to draw seven cards. And they've banned Yagmoth's bargain, which does a similar effect. And so that's something that Yagmoth Thran physician does for us that I think is a really powerful ability.

Shawn: 13:47

I have to admit that this Thran physician is very good. I have just been on the receiving end of it so many times. Particularly in decks like Chatterfang, where it's like, you're pretending to be a happy squirrel, but you're really not. And, for me, this card is like, as soon as I see it hit the board, I want to remove it. And I try to play cards that don't do that, but I have to admit, it's just a really powerful include. And maybe it's one of those don't knock it until you try it kind of things i'm sure it would be great in this deck

Taylor: 14:20

Think now is a great time to mention something. We talked about this last week in our episode about differences of opinions. What's great here compared to competitive magic, you don't have to play. The best version of every single card. My next thing that works really well, I think is going to fill this role of what Yagmoth does, but you don't have to play Yagmoth to play these next cards. And in a deck that cares about casting instance of sorceries, you might want to limit the number of creatures you're playing anyways, and the next field of cards that I wanted to mention are, I call them the deadly dispute suite. And so cards like deadly dispute, which is black and one as an additional cost to cast the spell, sacrifice an artifact or creature. Draw two cards and create a treasure token. Getting to draw cards is great. Being able to sacrifice those amps you're making is great. Casting an instant that makes more amps to sacrifice later on. It's great. So cards like this corrupted conviction or village rights, they let you sacrifice those creatures to draw cards, but then you also get to replace the MP just sacrificed. I think that this type of card is going to do really well in this deck.

Shawn: 15:29

Yeah, I believe this kind of card is the foundational piece of this deck because it has a storm like element To judith if you want her to work you have to have a lot of little simple Cantrippy instant cards like this to make more imps Sacrifice more imps draw more cards, make more imps, the cycle continues over and over again. That's the play pattern that you want to pull off when you have her on the field. And yeah, this is, these are great picks. You have to have them.

Taylor: 16:00

You hit the nail on the head there mentioning storm. I don't think that we have any cards in here that have the storm ability, but the fact that you can kind of find yourself in a pattern where you're able to continue your turn on and. And these imps that you're making helped to move the game forward because the problem with storm decks is that they can cast a whole bunch of spells, hoping to do something and then fizzle out with Judith. You're casting a whole bunch of spells and each of these imps are hitting each opponent for two damage. And so the game is going to move forward instead of a solitaire turn where somebody hopes that they're able to combo off or get the exact sequence of cards they need. You've got a bit more control here, which I think is great.

Shawn: 16:42

So now we're going to move on to what doesn't work well. And the initial list that Carl sent us there was a graveyard hate card that I love in competitive formats, but I do not like in casual magic. And that is ley line of the void, two and two black for an enchantment. If ley line of the void is in your opening hand, you may begin the game with it on the battlefield. Great. If a card would be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead. Very powerful graveyard hate however If you start with this on the battlefield and you're playing against a deck that has graveyard synergies you've kind of eliminated their game plan and Either they spent all their resources trying to destroy the ley line Or they just don't get to play and I don't think either one of those is a really cool option in a casual format.

Taylor: 17:34

I take the approach oftentimes that the best way to remove permanence is to remove the player. And so if you drop this on turn zero, then I think that's going to be an issue where it just puts a target on you. And it might not even be that person who is super graveyard focused. Maybe they just think, Oh, they're jumping out ahead. And I think that this card doesn't necessarily. Lean into what this deck wants to do. It's not an incident of sorcery. It's not something that is going to make you more tokens. And so while it's a great card, I just don't think it fits in this deck.

Shawn: 18:08

Yeah. And in black, we have great options that are in our land package. So you can use both Bojuka Bog and Scavenger Grounds in a black deck and they will be more pinpointed and, or just used at a time in the game when you really need them, not just an all inclusive kind of oppressive effect.

Taylor: 18:26

This next card you've got is a pretty expensive card mana wise. But do you think it's a bit of a trap? What is it?

Shawn: 18:34

I'm torn on it. This is fiery emancipation. It's three and three red for an enchantment. If a source you control would deal damage to a permanent or player, it deals triple that damage to that permanent or player instead. That's an undeniably powerful effect. The way I see this being played in games, though, is often in a deck that has a lot of mana production through things like Jessica's will where they can have one singular storm off turn and Then do a you know comet storm or something that can kill everyone In this deck in particular what I see happening is you play this for six you take your turn off and everyone Is looking at you like we cannot let that person on tap and Judith is kind of slow You way you want to play this deck I think is to hide a little bit underneath the radar and Emphasizing in this particular build, Imps! Hilarious! Look at funny Imps! And then slowly chip away, not to go off all at once.

Taylor: 19:35

I think going off all at once is something this deck potentially could do. Like we just talked about chaining together some of those sacrificing ritual type effect cards. We're able to sacrifice a creature to draw more cards. It's totally possible to storm off, but yeah, you're right. You cast this fiery emancipation. Everyone's going to target you thinking, Oh, that's the problem. And just like we saw with the lay line of the void, fiery emancipation is a card that makes me go, Oh, that's a problem. We have a card in our deck list that I think is a really good replacement for it because it can be so much cheaper. And that's the card city on fire. It's an enchantment out of March of the machine, and it lets you convoke to cast this card. So it's really expensive at five generic and three red mana, but all of those imps that you're creating. Are red and so you could tap down those imps that you just made without having to worry about summoning sickness with the way that convoke works and you can get the city on fire out. It deals triple damage as well. I think that playing into these cards that help you win more or potentially really expensive to play is fine if they make sense in the deck. And I think that it's clear why city on fire makes sense on the deck, but fiery emancipation doesn't getting to convoke those amps makes that a much more playable card.

Shawn: 20:56

And don't forget, Judith also read. So that's one last pip for City on Fire as well. So yeah, definitely a better picks. Now let's go ahead and look at what you're bringing to the table here, mister.

Taylor: 21:07

I think something that we have to be careful of and what doesn't work well in this type of deck is if you're leaning into creating tokens, you can't only have The one card do it in your commander. And so I think it's really important to find other ways that synergize to create tokens. And I think that one that's really good, you and I both have a deck based around Jadar ghoul caller of Nafalia, it's just a two drop. But at the beginning of your instep, if you control no creatures with decayed, create a two, two black zombie creature token with decayed Jadar himself is just a one, one easy to get rid of. But it helps to create tokens consistently. And when we lean into a deck that's trying to take advantage of those tokens, it's important to have more than one card that creates tokens.

Shawn: 21:51

Yeah, Jadar is super fun. We can use those tokens too. We can use any of these tokens, right? I do think we need to like use the ones that explode though the most if possible

Taylor: 22:02

I agree. I just think that at five mana, Judith is going to be difficult to cast over and over again. And so if people get smart to your strategy and they realize, Oh, if I just get rid of Judith, that deck falls apart. You don't want to be in that seat, right? I think it's gonna be difficult because it's seven minutes hard to do. Then it turns the nine mana. I just think it's important to build in some other ways that are going to naturally synergize and create some tokens that you can take advantage of.

Shawn: 22:29

And that's fair. I can totally get that argument of like in the early game We still need something that in a pinch we can use a village rights on or whatever Before judith can come down and start doing her thing. So It's a it's a worthy include As deck builders out there when you're putting this together, I would say you just have to play test and find your own line for like how many of the cards in my deck are enablers and how many are payoffs and is that balance correct because sometimes we can definitely lean too heavily one way or the other.

Taylor: 22:59

You've got a really good hidden gem here. That's going to help take advantage of those tokens. And so again, thinking about but the engine needs, does it need that enabler? Does it need the payoff? Which piece are we looking at? And this right here, I think is a great payoff to include.

Shawn: 23:13

Yeah, I'd say I was a little bit surprised when I read Carl's list and I saw a lot of different gods because at the time he had this kind of bored, wipey, blasphemous act effect style deck. So he wanted indestructible creatures. Well, there was one God that was not included, which I think is excellent in this deck because it's a sacrifice outlet. It drains your opponents. It helps you scry. It's none other than Bantu the glorified for two and a black for a legendary creature. God, a four, six. Menace. Indestructible. Bond to the glorified can't attack or block unless a creature died under your control this turn. Not hard. And then for one and a black, sacrifice another creature, scry one, and each opponent loses one life, and you gain one life. That's hitting people for three in the beginning of the game. Yeah, I don't know what this card can't do.

Taylor: 24:04

It's a really great include the fact that it's got minutes. It's indestructible. It can swing in pretty fearlessly and create some problems, but it can also help set you up with your draws, which is a really great ability. And I think that the new version of Bantu is good as well, but I don't think it's as good as this one. And that's God eternal bond to, I don't think it's as good in this deck because it's a five drop. And so it competes with your commander. So I think including the glorified version of bond two is the right option, but I did just want to mention God eternal really quickly, because it has an ETB effect where you can sacrifice any number of other permanents and then draw that many cards. And then it's got the war, the spark God ability, where if it dies or is put into Excel, you can put it third from the top of your library. So if you've got a bunch of. Imps out already. You can sacrifice all of those amps, melt the table, draw a whole bunch of cards. I think it's really good, but the fact that it's only on ETB versus bond to the glorified, which is an activated ability, so it can be repeated.

Shawn: 25:04

Yeah, and one of the beautiful things about the way we've developed this sort of podcast into mentioning only the best. Best cards and the most fun cards is that it allows you freedom. We want to give you creativity, take the deck and kind of add things here and there as you, as you wish, or maybe take things out. So I could see Bantu, both Bantus, two Bantu in any Judith deck in the future. This next card was little known until a game called Baldur's Gate three came out and introduced everyone to the singing hilarious devil Lord known as Raphael fiendish savior for three, a black and a red. This legendary creature devil noble is a four four flyer that says other demons, devils, imps, and tieflings. You control get plus one plus one and have lifelink at the beginning of each instep. If a creature card. Was put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn create a 1 1 devil creature token with when this creature dies It deals one damage to any target that second ability won't be as relevant because sadly The tokens are not creature cards and they will not trigger So your AMP token won't trigger a devil token to come out, but it is a nice little added bonus. If Raphael or Judith or other things that you have in the deck that are actually creature cards die, you'll get an AMP and it leads to the, you know, also the little pinging effect of exploding little tokens happening. But the main effect is that it gives your amps plus one plus one and lifelink and amps when they explode, they deal the damage. So that means that you're going to gain life. off of those explosions. And that kind of swing is going to be huge.

Taylor: 26:46

Yeah. I think Rakdos as a color identity tries to pay its own life to do certain effects. And so when you're paying life to do things, You got to have some sort of redundancy or stop gap built in so that you can potentially live through it. And getting to have a little bit of lifelink here is a really good thing to do. I think

Shawn: 27:13

lives expire. All right, let's talk about your next pick, Taylor.

Taylor: 27:18

Raphael, was that you? So, uh,

Shawn: 27:20

voice has changed.

Taylor: 27:23

my hidden gems are some of my favorite cards in magic. And they go pretty far back. The next card I wanted to talk about was ritual of the machine. It's a sorcery from alliances. It's black, black, and two reading the card doesn't always explain the card in this case. It's been a rotted slightly. So an additional cost to cast this card is to sacrifice a creature. When you cast this, you have to have a creature to sacrifice. It can't be an imp that you're hoping to make off of this. It will generate an imp, but you can't get to that one until you, after you've cast this card. So you have to have something to sacrifice, but it has a really cool ability gain control of target non black non artifact creature. Getting to steal somebody's creature is pretty good. So the way that I see this is you get to create an imp. You have to sacrifice an imp, you have to do two damage everywhere, and you get to steal one of the best creatures on the board. That seems like a pretty cool card to include.

Shawn: 28:22

Yeah, this is excellent. And anytime you can play a card from alliances that isn't force of will, You got to, I mean, cause this is, everyone's gonna have to read it and they're gonna be wowed by your cool deep dive.

Taylor: 28:35

Oh yeah. And my next hidden gem, I think, is another cool deep dive. The next card is another deep dive. It's all the way back in Urza's legacy and that's last ditch effort. It's one red. It's an instant sacrifice. Any number of creatures last ditch effort deals that much damage to any target. Slight errata on this one, but it's really cool with the way that this one is templated and worded, you can sacrifice the imp that it creates because you don't start sacrificing creatures until after this resolves and you get on cast that imp. So this is really good. Say you build up a really good board state. You're cycling through a whole bunch of cards. Like we talked about earlier with the deadly disputes with the village rights, things like that last ditch effort can sacrifice all of those amps you just created and potentially knock out a player because you're going to target somebody or something with this card. What do you think about this one, Sean?

Shawn: 29:32

Worst case scenario, with Judith out, this is just lightning bolt. Is what it turns into. Which you can run in commander. I've gotten people with lightning bolt before. It's really funny. Best case scenario though, the ceiling is insane. Like this is a game ending one mana instant red spell. I'll take it.

Taylor: 29:48

I thought it was pretty cool. My last one is a relatively new card and I don't think it's going to be for everyone, but the art is really cute and it makes me think of spirited away. And it's the smoke spirits aid it's X and red. It's a sorcery for each of up to X target creatures, create a red or enchantment token named smoke blessing attached to that creature. Those tokens have enchant creature. And when enchanted creature dies, it deals one damage to its controller and you create a treasure token. So I included this one because you're trying to sacrifice these tokens anyway. I think this gives you another boon off of it. Yeah, you take one damage, but it gives you a manna. That's a pretty powerful ability. And so again, if you have this really powerful board state of tokens and you have ways to sacrifice them, you might be taking a damage to get some extra manna, but you're also doing two damage, everywhere else. Thanks. And so in the ideal world, you're winning that race. You're taking one. They're taking two. I thought this was a really cool option to try and either finish the game. Once you've got a really strong engine going or to help get you some extra man. If you need it,

Shawn: 31:01

I think this one might be your ancient gold dragon. For this episode. It seems a little magical Christmas land for me. But you know what and commander do as you will if you want to deal a bunch of damage to yourself Randomly and also hit others who am I to say that that's not what your game plan is

Taylor: 31:19

I think it's got some potential, it might work. It might not. I do think that I would, if I had to choose between the two, I would choose last ditch effort over smoke spirits aid. But I think the aid is a cool option depending on how your deck pops off. What are some non bows and traps to be wary of Sean? What's going to make our deck not pop off.

Shawn: 31:39

Well, I hinted at this earlier But we've listed a lot of exciting enablers in this deck tech things that double damage things that can end the game But the meat and the potatoes of this deck has to be One, you have to protect Judith at instant speed or have something like a lightning greaves or swiftfoot boots because she's hard to cast and you don't want to do that too many times. So luckily there are lots of one man of black indestructible instant speed spells that will trigger her getting an imp and also keep her on the battlefield. Storm effects. We don't have storm cards in the deck, but we want instant speed cantrips if at all possible or cards like village rights that act almost like instant speed cantrips with little imps out on the battlefield. And that should be, I would say the meat and potatoes of this deck. So there's a danger and looking towards the end game and the very exciting cards. Like Drivnod, but Drivnod doesn't do anything unless there's imps on the battlefield.

Taylor: 32:39

For my trap to be weary of, I mentioned this earlier, if you try and rely too heavily on Judith, I think that this deck just won't function effectively. And so I think it's really important to include cards like. Gerard, cool color, Nafalia, but also some really strong cards that see play elsewhere in cards, like young pyromancer. Every time you cast an instant or sorcery, you get to make a one, one red elemental token. That's really powerful. They can chump block really well. No, they don't do damage everywhere, but they're also great options. When you get this to the skull clamp, you can clamp your elemental tokens to draw two cards for one mana. That's really powerful. My trap that I just want to warn people of. I think if you lean too heavily on Judith, you're not going to have a good time.

Shawn: 33:28

Yeah, I think that's accurate as much as it's hard for me to admit that people do love to remove commanders that your deck is built around. Not because they don't like fun, but because they're probably just scared for their own life. One card I didn't mention, which I do think can see a place in the deck. It's one of my pet cards and it's gone up in value. I think it's worthwhile in some decks. It does split people's opinions though. It's Stryonic Resonator. Two mana for an artifact. Pay two tap, copy target triggered ability you control. You may choose new targets for that copy. I think there's so many triggered abilities in this deck that you'd be remiss to not run a strionic resonator here just for the chance of having the fun of doubling things

Taylor: 34:09

Another card you included that does something similar is litho form engine. It's a four mana artifact and it has a suite of abilities, but. For two mana and tapping it, just like with stronic resonator, you can copy target activated or triggered ability. And something that's really interesting here is since it can copy activated abilities that can double up on some of the planes walkers that we have on the deck. It could double up on an aether flux reservoir that's in the deck. It could double up on judith just by her naturally playing And so the lathe form Engine is pretty insane card to include. I think as well along that same line of stronic

Shawn: 34:51

Yeah I think players tend to look at something like lithoform engine and get a little bit scared because it does seem Hard to grok at first and it seems very clunky But when you start to see it copying these ultra powerful effects like a planeswalker ultimate or something like that I think the mind changes quickly into being like, oh, this is this is an insane card

Taylor: 35:14

And the fact that it can copy your instance and sorceries as well, or it can copy your permanent spells as well. The engine is, is really strong here. It's expensive and it is easily removed, but. In the games where it sticks around, it should put in a ton of work.

Shawn: 35:29

And I would just like to highlight quickly for folks since this episode is about to be finished on that note of easy to remove Do not let that scare you away from playing cards that you want to play The way that I view it is if you're paying mana to remove my lithoform engine, that is a great thing because what that does is that allows me to put in the next artifact, which the deck is full of 99 cards that are all good. That means you're spending your resources on only one of those. And the next time I play a really powerful card, the gates are opening and I'm going to be able to do whatever I want to do because you spent that mana and that removal way too early.

Taylor: 36:10

Yeah, that's a good point. I sometimes build from a bit more of a trepidatious standpoint where I think, okay, everyone's going to try and remove my commander, but the truth is. Not everyone will always have removal in hand and you can get away with a bit more than I oftentimes try to get away with. So I'm glad you said that.

Shawn: 36:29

And if you feel scared, just run a buried ruin. Carl didn't run a lot of different lands in his deck, but I think you could get away with putting a whole bunch of non basics in here that have a lot of synergy and we'll help you through the late game.

Taylor: 36:41

There are a lot of cool cards that you could potentially put on this deck. We've built up a, I think a really interesting list. We have a whole bunch in the considering section as well, but I think something that's really nice to know is like you said, the color PIP demand in this deck is not super high. And so. I think at most you've got three, but that's going to be things like city on fire. Otherwise we see two color pip requirements, which is pretty easy to get to in just a two colored deck. So you can run those utility lands and not be hamstrung by them. Oftentimes I see people try and run a lot of really cool utility lands, but it holds them back from getting to the colors they actually need. Sean, what are some of your final thoughts when it comes to building Judith Carnage connoisseur as an Imp deck, not necessarily leaning on that first ability, but on the second to create some imps.

Shawn: 37:36

Yeah, you've got it. My final thoughts would be that this is a example of a classic conundrum for card constructors. Batman. Basically wizards introduces these cards that have seemingly kind of random Sentences stapled onto them. Like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, which for some reason has three or four lines of text that are like, What is this? Is it like a wincon on a single card? What is it? But Judith has these two effects that seemingly fight against each other. So if you go with we're building here with making imps, it kind of contradicts the idea of making a giant blasphemous act deck because in the storm bill, we're also running things, you know, like Keswick fire breather or other cards that like, maybe like make your incidents and sorcery cheaper. That might be a route you want to go. But if you're going to board wipe all the time, you're also going to destroy them and Judith because it's going to give the spells death touch, which will also kill her. So. What we've done is we've kind of learned that what you want to do in magic when you see these types of cards is you want to whole butt one of them just to stay, you know, safe for the internet and not half butt two different strategies. You're going to have a lot better game if you lean in hard to one, And, and not try to dilute yourself.

Taylor: 38:55

Splitting the decks attention across those two abilities, I think makes it more difficult to be consistent. And, you know, a lot of people are trying to build this Judith and play cards like into the festivities, it's a one red man of sorcery that says in the festivities deals one damage to each opponent and each creature they control. And so it's cool because it's a one sided board wipe. But if you fill your deck with cards that are like that, you're quickly putting that target on yourself. People are going to try and get rid of Judith. They're going to try and knock you out because people don't always like their stuff being messed with. I think it's a really powerful way to go. It's just something to be aware of. I think in how people will react to one sided board wipes or constantly having their board wiped in general. I think at first it seems really cool and synergistic. But in the long run, I think people want to play their own cards. And if you play a deck that stops them from doing it, it makes for an unfun experience. It's not anywhere near the same level as something like turgrid. That's just going to steal everything, but people want to play their cards. And so I think it's just something to be aware of and to make your play groups aware of.

Shawn: 40:09

Yeah, there's definitely a danger in that. And we will start to see that balance in the next episode where we're going to be playing a lot more of these board wipey type effects, but hopefully we're going to find the balance where we're winning the game with it. And we're not just slowing the game down to a complete crawl. And that'll be the mission for next time. We'll see if we can accomplish it, but anything, any last thoughts, Taylor?

Taylor: 40:32

Now, I think it's just important to know that this deck presents a lot of options. Judith presents a lot of possibilities. So make sure you check out what we're going to do next week to see how else we can lean into this.

Shawn: 40:44

You can follow us on Twitter at rule zero podcast or email us with your own thoughts at rule zero podcast at gmail. com

Taylor: 40:52

If you enjoyed this deck, be sure to check it out on our moxfield page where we link all the decks we talk about. And if you would like for us to highlight one of your decks, we'd love to just reach out to us and don't forget.

Shawn: 41:03

In magic. There's no problem that a rule zero conversation cannot solve