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: 0:15

And I'm Sean. It is our hope that through our combined 20 plus years of experience of playing EDH and cultivating a great play group, 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, what's something that's going on in the world of magic that you're excited about?

Taylor: 0:34

So on a personal note, after wrapping up Episode 3, where we looked at building Azusa Lost but Seeking as a budget brew, I began working on my own budget deck, and it's a mono white cycling deck. I played it again last night, and there are still a few fine tuning things that I need to do, but it has been a ton of fun. So I played Nadar, Selfless Paladin, as the commander. He's a three drop that enters the battlefield and ventures into the dungeon. So I'm just speed running through dungeon levels with this guy. I have a lot of things to do at instant speed, and I get to draw a ton of cards in mono white. It has been an absolute blast to play. It's still a work in progress, but I played it again at FNM last night. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. And I think maybe we should do a future episode on it.

Shawn: 1:17

I'm super excited about it. I do love cycling. I played living in and modern was one of the first decks I ever built. Just the feeling of being able to discard three or four cards out of your hand and just cycle through them or draw through them is you feel like you're doing a lot, even if you're not, it's great.

Taylor: 1:34

It is awesome. And I play astral slide and astral drift in there. And so I get to flicker things every time I cycle. So that's really the speed running aspect of it is I get to blink in a dar a whole bunch of times to just fly through dungeons.

Shawn: 1:48

Sounds awesome. Also sounds a little Magical Christmas Landy, in a good way. And that's gonna segue directly into the deck we're covering today. Part two of our Judith Carnage Connoisseur deck. This Is a ride straight into magical Christmas land folks. It's big dreams and schemes to astound and delight from the Ractos canarium queen herself. Judith carnage, connoisseurs three, a black and a red for a three, four human shaman, legendary creature. And, she says, whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, choose one. That spell gains death touch and lifelink, or, create a 2 2 red imp creature token with, when this creature dies, it deals 2 damage to each opponent. What we are focusing on this week, as compared with last week, where we focused on an imp pressive decklist, we are focusing all on that first ability. We're giving spells death touch and lifelink, and, quite frankly, I think Kind of in love with the massive potential of this deck. I don't know. We'll get into it.

Taylor: 2:52

She wants to do a ton of different things. It seems like, and we talked about this last week, we as good deck builders have to focus in what Judith is supposed to do in the deck. And so if you want to see how we built it with imps, check out last week's episode. But this week we want to focus in on that first ability. And I think that's a really smart way to deck build is to hone in on what our commander wants to do. So this week we're, if we're looking at death touch and lifelink, Sean, what are a couple of things that work really well when we're looking at that first ability?

Shawn: 3:22

So we're in red, so we're going to be casting a lot of big damage board wipey type spells, which we'll get into. But there are three creatures in particular in this deck that all have indestructible and all have some component of When this creature is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target opponent. Cards I'm talking about are Brash Taunter for four and a red, Creature Goblin, Indestructible 1 1. Whenever Brash Taunter is dealt damage, it deals that much damage to target opponent, and it also has a fight ability for three and a tap. Brand new out of murders at Markov Manor. Markov, Karloff. You got it. I'm never going to get it right. Barb servitor, artifact creature construct one, one indestructible when it enters the battlefield, suspect it, which means it has menace and can't block. That really doesn't matter. When barb servitor deals combat damage to a player, you draw a card and you lose one life. I guess maybe you get lucky on that one. But. The important piece is when Barb servitor is dealt damage, target opponent loses that much life. In addition, there's another one stuffy doll classic zero one five mana artifact construct creature. When it enters the battlefield, choose a player stuffy dolls indestructible. And whenever it's dealt damage, it deals that much damage to the chosen player. So these cards are as important as Judith is in the deck. And so I'm glad there's more redundancy for these type of effects. Anytime you catch your big burn spells, you're going to be hitting these things. So if you cast blasphemous sack for 13 and you have two of these things out, say that means you're dealing 13 damage additionally to the players that they target. And we have ways in this deck to make those things bounce around like crazy. One of which is the next card I wanted to mention of what works well. Arc Bond, one of my pet cards for two and a red instant speed. Choose target creature. Whenever that creature is dealt damage this turn, it deals that much damage to each other creature and each player. So minimum, you're just kind of doubling the fun. So since the stuffy doll type things only target one player, well this means that they will actually hit all the players and all the creatures double if there's any creatures left alive. After a Blasphemous Act. So, imagine this, you cast Blasphemous Act for a red. We're going magical Christmas land all the way here. So, there's 13 or more creatures on the board. Boom, Blasphemous Act for just a single red, or 9 more creatures rather. You hold priority, you react to your own spell by casting Arc Bond on Stuffy Doll. Damage then happens. There's 13 to every creature, you gain a billion life because of Judas lifelinking ability. Then, you dome 13 to a player from stuffy doll to player X. You dome 13 from a barb servitor to player Y, and by dome I mean hit them in the face. Then, the arc botted stuffy doll deals 13 more damage to each player and each other creature, which means it deals more damage to the barb servitor, which then domes somebody else for 13 more, like, I think the game just kind of ends as this massive damage, like a star of

Taylor: 6:38

It has to.

Shawn: 6:39

I think you just kill everybody. It's exciting to me.

Taylor: 6:42

it's pretty cool. I think something that is great is getting to see some, like you said, some redundancy on some of these spells. Wizards is printing more of these stuffy doll like effects. Something I really enjoy when playing cards like this is that Barb servitor and brash taunter let you alternate. So for instance, if you've really been hitting on one person, you can find somebody else to target, or maybe they're really the problem now. And you want to switch who you're targeting with this ability. That's my only drawback on stuffy doll is that it's only on one opponent and we don't have great ways to blink it, to reset it so that it chooses a new player. But with brash and barbed. You get to alternate who you're targeting. So if you want to melt faces evenly, you can do that. And Arc Bond is a stellar card because at worst, if you pair this with one of the board wipes that do only one damage, it still does more. I know it might not be as flashy as the Blasphemous Act, but you can still do things with Arc Bond, getting to react at instant speed to your own spells. It's a pretty cool thing. And I think this deck wants to play with some of that

Shawn: 7:52

and I think there's a little component in here that we would um, suggest everyone kind of thinks about as we're discussing some of these cards, because even I missed it initially, but we, I, at least, I won't say we, I tend to get distracted by the giant damage spell and think, oh, that's all the damage we're dealing. But every time that we cast one of these little instant spell things like an arc bond, you're making an imp. And that means that imp is also going to deal two damage to each opponent whenever it dies. So you can kind of add on this chip damage on top of these massive spells as you're just casting a single instant, maybe to keep Judith alive from the blasphemous act or whatever. So we have a lot of that in this deck as well.

Taylor: 8:34

Yeah. I'm really glad that you mentioned that just because we're focusing on that first ability from Judith doesn't mean that you're never going to not choose. The second ability double negatives aside, when you're playing this deck, you have the flexibility to go either way. And so there might be instances in last week's episode, where, when you play one of those cards from the last deck we did on Judith, you might want to choose the death, touch and lifelink. And just like that can happen in that version of the deck, this version of the deck, you might be choosing some imps as well. I'm glad you mentioned that.

Shawn: 9:04

Well now that that magical christmas land is over. Let's go to the next room in magical christmas land Actually, this isn't too magical or christmasy, but it is amazing Taylor, what's your card?

Taylor: 9:13

My first one is command the dread horde. It's a sorcery for black, black, and four choose any number of target creatures and or planeswalker cards and graveyards command. The dread horde deals damage to you equal to the total converted mana cost of those cards, put them onto the battlefield under your control. So after you've wiped the board, people's graveyards have filled up, you can cast command the dread horde and get back every single creature or planeswalker that's in a graveyard and all of the graveyards. A really cool rules interaction that happens here is when you cast command, the dread horde, and you choose to give it lifelink when it deals the damage, you gain the life instantaneously. And so it doesn't matter how much damage you take because you're going to net zero because you'll gain the life right back off of it. So I think this is a really cool, cheaper to cast cheaper to purchase. Rise of the dark realms where you get back every single creature in planes, Walker from the graveyard and rise of the dark realm realms doesn't grab planes walkers. So there's some extra utility here. I think it's a cool thing to happen. The only downside to this card is it's not as effective if you don't have your commander out. So just be aware of that for play patterns.

Shawn: 10:27

Yeah, it's a great card. I think it costs, you know, in the pennies range It's like literally like 20 cents or something like that and I would much rather for you budget fans out there. It's That's a sure thing. You know, you definitely put this in a set of rise of the dark realms But planeswalkers is not to be underestimated We actually have our own planeswalker in this deck that double spells if you can guess which one that is

Taylor: 10:48

And my next card is A new favorite of mine, it's Blood for the Blood God. It's eight black, black, red. It's an instant spell that costs one less to cast for each creature that died this turn. Discard your hand, then draw eight cards. Blood for the Blood God, it deals eight damage to each opponent and you exile blood for the Blood God. So this came out of the Warhammer 40k pre cons that they did from universes beyond. And I love this card here because Black and red isn't as good at drawing cards as say red and blue are. So for spell slinging and we want to be drawing a lot of cards, black is going to be our main way to draw cards and it doesn't do it as consistently as blue does. This card is going to be great, especially if you pair it with one of the cheap one mana sorcery board wipes that we're doing. So if you play one of those, you do one damage to everything. You give that spell death touch and it kills a bunch of creatures. You could potentially get this card out for black, black, and red three mana. Instant spell is going to draw you eight cards and deal 24 damage across the table. That's insane. Plus you might get an imp out of it. Right? However you want to try and do this. I think it's a really cool win win card across the board.

Shawn: 12:08

And I love that it has an exclamation point. I don't know if it's the only magic card to end in an exclamation point. Blood for the Blood God, exclamation. But it goes on to repeat that several times throughout the card. And it ends with, Exile Blood for the Blood God, but an exclamation point. Like it's just commanding you dramatically to do so. Skulls for the Skull Throne is the flavor text. Overall, it's just a really funny hilarious card and it does deal an insane amount of damage and gain a lot of life You can't go wrong with this.

Taylor: 12:37

And speaking of drawing cards, if we're gaining a bunch of life and Judith, I thought that these next two, they pair together. They belong together is something that I would play. Even if I wasn't gaining a bunch of life. In commander with 40 life, that's a resource that we're using anyways. And in this deck where we're gaining a ton of life, why not pay more life? And these cards are the greed cards. So greed is black and three it's enchantment. You can pay a black pay to life, draw a card. Really, you should be reading that as pay a black draw card. You're gaining a ton of life. You have that massive pool to begin with. I would play greed and decks that don't gain life like Judith does. And so I think when you're spell slinging and we want to keep refilling our hand, we need a good consistent way of doing that. Greed is one. Another is Erebus, God of the dead, slightly more expensive. It's one in a black pay to life and draw a card. Airbows does something really cool in these games too. It prevents your opponents from gaining life. And so if you're trying to burn everyone down, it's really important that you stop them from gaining life,

Shawn: 13:40

Yeah, absolutely and I think air bows is just strictly better for this deck as another indestructible creature. We do play quite a number of enchantments in this deck. If you check out the full deck list on Moxfield, things like no mercy, Koskan falls basically to build sort of a black pillow fort version so that your Judith can hide a little bit and build up to an ultimate kind of turn. It could become an actual indestructible five, seven creature, and that is nothing to scoff at. Excellent pick. Next up we're going into the what doesn't work section. And this is kind of based on things that we saw on EDH rec. Now, I have an idea of what they're doing, but when you look up Judith Karnish connoisseur, plus Like specifically in the burn sub genre, there's about a thousand decks that play with that. Some of the cards that we saw, I think are more geared towards a pingy do one damage at a time. sort of build, not the giant massive fire wave kind of deck that we've built here. And so one of those is harmonic prodigy for one in a red creature, human wizard, one three with prowess. If an ability of a shaman or another wizard you control triggers, that ability triggers an additional time. Judith is a shaman. So it would trigger an additional time. That doesn't matter for lifelink and deathtouch, but it would matter if you're making more imps. So that would be a cool cart in those imp builds. But for this one, the harmonic prodigy will just be melted away in a nuclear explosion. So you don't want to really play cards that die so easily in a deck. And with that, similarly as that was in 67 percent of Judith plus burn decks, 40 percent and up of those same decks play things like firebrand Archer, Kessig flame breather tour, Wookiee, the younger. These are cards that will die instantaneously to these mega ton explosions. All they do is they kind of, add chip damage for more of a stormy kind of build.

Taylor: 15:42

Torwalkie the Younger is a really cool commander in its own right. Something I've said a lot in episodes is that you don't want to play cards that compete with your commander in that man, a slot. So Frank Karsten put out an article a while back on channel fireball that looks at the actual statistics and the numbers of building decks. And tour walkie, the younger, a really cool card, but he's also a five drop. And that's now going to compete with you trying to cast your commander. Is it when more maybe, is it just that chip damage? I think so. I would much rather have Judith out on the field than trying to get tour walkie out, then casting my commander to try and maximize all of those small bits of value. And like you said, if it's just going to die anyways, That five mana kind of got wasted. One of the metrics that people like the command zone have looked at is how much mana have people spent over the course of the game. And when they did one of their big data episodes, they looked at that and they saw when they analyzed that people that spend the most mana oftentimes win the game because they have this abundant resource. Now, if you're wasting that resource on something like tour walkie, that's just going to die. Anyways, I don't think that was the most efficient use of your mana. I'm glad you called that out. It's a really cool card. Same thing for Keswick flame breather and firebrand Archer, but you have the ability to do so much more damage in different, more impactful ways than just those cards.

Shawn: 17:07

Now that we've taken down all these hopeful spell slinger decks, put them in their place. What are perhaps some other cards that you found Taylor that you kind of disagree with?

Taylor: 17:18

So my very first one, I put a disclaimer on it as hot take alert. I don't think faithless looting is. a great card in this deck. Faithless Looting is an amazing card. Do not get me wrong. I love it in my Diretti deck, but I'm trying to put stuff in my graveyard anyways. And Faithless Looting lets me do that. It says for one mana, it's a red sorcery spell. Draw two cards, then discard two cards. It has flashback, two in a red. So you get to do it twice. And people think that this is a great way to draw cards in red. It's not, it's a great way to put cards from your hand into your graveyard. And that's what it really wants to do, I think. So in Doretti, where I'm trying to reanimate artifacts, that's awesome. And a reanimator specific deck where I want to play a faithless looting on turn one to put a big, bad beater into my graveyard and on turn two, cast animate dead to get out my shield or whatever, that's an outstanding line of play, but if you really think about it. You're spending this card out of your hand to draw two and discard two. That's a net of the minus one. This is great. If you're trying to chain together a whole bunch of spells, and you're playing this and say is it deck where when you have cards like Archmage Emeritus, where whenever you cast. Or copy an instant or sorcery spell. You're drawing a card. Anyways, you get net zero there. And so you get to cycle through and really find some cool things to do. But in a deck like this, you're not drawing cards like you want to be. And so I think too many people are playing it because they're so used to playing faithless looting in those. Is it spell singer decks? This is not, is it? So you have to think about that. I would much rather play something like Knight's Whisper that just draws me two cards for a black and one. As much as I love Faithless Looting, I think that too many people are playing this and it doesn't really line up with what this deck wants to do.

Shawn: 19:10

Completely fair. That's some knowledge dropped by the former teacher on the students. It was in our initial build of the deck, but I think by the time it's on moxfield and this episode airs We'll take it out. Faithless looting is not an auto include and You know that is duly noted. Thank you

Taylor: 19:27

I think I have to check myself on this one, right? When we're go to build decks, it's so easy just to run through our mental Rolodex of really good cards. We like faithless looting is up there. It's one of my favorite cards to play, but when I think about what it's best at, it's not doing the best for this deck. Now in our list, we do have some really cool cards like past and flames that give things flashback. And so. Just make sure that if you're putting Faithless Looting in your deck, you're doing it on purpose, and you've got a reason for it. Past in Flames lets you get cards back out of your graveyard and cast them again. So Faithless Looting works well there. It doesn't always work as well as you want. So, after that giant hot take, what are some hidden gems that you've got, Sean?

Shawn: 20:07

Well, i've got two initial ones here that are artifacts that one isn't quite out yet. I'll put it as sort of a teaser for the future about mid April. This card will actually be able to be in player's hands. It is sort of wealth and power three mana artifact equipment equipped creature gets plus two plus two and has protection from instance and from sorceries. Whenever a quick creature deals combat damage to a player, create a treasure token and when you next cast an incident or sorcery spell, copy that spell. You may choose new targets for the copy. Equip cost is two. So this is one of those sword cycles. And for Judith in this particular build, it does two things that we love. One, it protects her from the giant blasphemous acts. And if you're able to get through combat damage, on anybody, it will double that spell as you cast it on your second main phase. This isn't quite out yet. It will be part of a 30 card subset of Outlaws of Thunder Junction. As expensive as it may be, I think if you're building this particular Judith deck, it is an auto include and it should be something to strive for.

Taylor: 21:18

Especially when you pair this with something like your barbed servitor that gives itself menace, and so it becomes difficult to block, after you wipe the board and that barbed servitor lives, now you get to draw cards easily thanks to its own ability, and you can now double up on these effects. This is a great pick. Good find.

Shawn: 21:35

The one that you should include in the deck regardless, but is another artifact that is great in this deck and also copies spells is Pyromancer's Goggles, five mana legendary artifact. Tap it to add one red. Super expensive mana rock. Why is this here? Well, when that mana is spent to cast a red instant or sorcery spell, copy that spell and you may choose new targets for the copy. Just doubling up your chain reactions. Blasphemous acts. Amazing. That is kind of a game ending moment there. It may seem like it's not, but you add up all the damage that's being dealt. It's going to be crazy.

Taylor: 22:11

Yeah, absolutely. And you can double up any of those spells. It's a really good man of rock that copies for you. Something to keep in mind is that when you copy a spell, you're not casting that copy. So you don't get an extra imp or anything, but doubling up on the plasma sacks, the chain reactions, like you said. That's going to melt the table without prejudice. It's going to be great.

Shawn: 22:34

Yeah. And I'm always going through this as you are listening to this remind yourselves, I guess I'm talking about this as if we have those brash taunters, Barb servitors out, there's three in the deck. They're indestructible all so they're hard to remove. They're kind of the, they go together like the peanut butter and jelly of this deck. Judith can survive on her own, can do things on her own, but this deck is specifically focused on the ceiling of it is with one of those creatures on the board as well. So if you're copying the blasphemous acts, that means you're dealing 26 damage with one of those instead of 13. The next spell To prevent the folks who kind of know what's coming, your older wiser players will definitely see what's happening on the board and oldie, but goody land beside you who shelters all legendary. It comes into play tapped boo colorless. What it does is you tap to pay to life. You add one mana to your mana pool. If that man has spent on an instant or sorcery, it cannot be countered by spells and spells. or abilities. This is just the way that you need to get that one killer spell through. Nobody will be able to do anything about it. Shuffle up, play another.

Taylor: 23:46

Being able to push through on your game plan is really important. People place glands like cavern or souls to make sure they can get their best creatures out. And I think that Bassajo is just like that, but for your spells, it's an expensive card, but it's a very good card.

Shawn: 24:01

I will say it has actually dropped in value from what it used to be. This thing used to be 20, 30 bucks. It is now acquirable for like eight, which, you know, not going to be a budget build, but definitely achievable more so than It was previously. So tell me what interesting spells that you've found one in particular that we both kind of settled on at the same time.

Taylor: 24:23

Yeah. So we independently put these together. You were building the list on Moxfield while I was working on show notes. And almost simultaneously, we both found whale of the NIMH. It's from Mirrodin, which is probably one of my favorite sets. It's right around the time when I got into magic for the first time. And well, the NIMH is. instant spell. It's two colorless and a black for choose one regenerate each creature you control or whale of the nym deals one damage to each creature and each player. It also has the ability entwine where for one black mana, you can choose both options. I love this card. I love any card that gives me choices where I can do more with it. Maybe it's a bit of a hipster pick because it's, you know, not as played on some of these deck lists that we come across, but it gives you options. So you can board wipe if you have Judith out. And even though it does one damage to each creature in each player, you can also regenerate each of your creatures, which makes them pseudo indestructible. When you regenerate something, the next time that creature would be destroyed, you tap it and remove it from combat. So regenerates a bit of a weird key wording. Make sure you read that and see how it works, but you get to save your board, which is pretty cool. So if you have some of the value creatures out there, if you have Judith out there. You can save them. I love this because of board wipes, but it also protects you from board wipes. For instance, if somebody plays one of the board wipes that just destroys all creatures, well, then let's let them live. Now, we do see more exile type effects, things like sunfall, things like Yeah. Farewell, the exile things you can't get around that, but some of the other kind of standby board wipes, this will protect you from that as well. And you can do this in response to that board wipe. So you can deal damage, all those creatures that were going to die anyways, and save your board. It might not be as magical Christmas. Landy, I would gladly cut a card that I've seen played a lot in this deck, which is delayed blast fireball. That's a 15 card. Whale of the NIM is only 21 cents. And you're gonna get some cool looks when you pull this out of your deck and play it.

Shawn: 26:32

100 percent I'm on board. I think it's the best version of this type of effect in the deck just because that additional regenerate is useful. Like you said, against the board wipe, and it's also useful to entwine it so that your Judith lives. We have separate cards that do this sometimes, but why do like blasphemous act plus an undying evil or something when you could do this to wipe the board just as easily? And you get it all in one, which is beautiful.

Taylor: 26:59

Yeah. What are some non bows or traps to be wary of Sean?

Shawn: 27:02

Okay, so I was looking through our list and this one isn't on the show notes, but I think it's something that we should mention. Judith is a five mana commander. She is kind of the crux of the deck. There are going to be times where players try to remove her no matter how many times you try to save her with indestructible Swiftfoot boots, whatever. Now, ideally play pattern in this deck is you're only going to put her out kind of when you, Have the ability to go off. So there's a Vidalcan Orrery in the deck that lets you cast spells at flash So like end step before your turn you flash her out, then you go off and do your magical thing But just in case there's a land. I think that is expensive. It's 10, but it is very worth it It is command beacon land tap to add one mana to your mana pool Tap sacrifice command beacon put your commander into your hand from the command zone This will let you pay her for five even if she's been removed two three four times already in a pinch you might need that in the notes one of the things that is a trap that I think stems from all of those sort of Kessig flame breather type cards that were in the burn list is playing too many cards like electricary red instant electricary deals one damage to target creature you don't control you can pay one in a red to overload it so if you cast it for its overload cost you change the tax by replacing all instances of target with each so it just does one damage to every creature you don't control only reason i say it's important to not hyper focus on these and a lot of the builds on edh rec play like four or five Six of these type effects. One, they don't damage players faces. Two, you're just constantly board wiping everybody else. I think in a pinch, run an electricary. You might need it. Save your butt. Do not do it over and over again because you will be probably disliked at the table. And the deck really wants to kill people, not creatures nearly as much in my opinion.

Taylor: 29:06

I'm really glad you say that, because I think that's something that happens, especially when we're drafting decks and we're building them for the first time is we see these really cool synergies like electricary here. And as much as I love this idea of playing this spell wiping the board, if I'm only wiping the board, but I'm not also. Removing players from the game and advancing the game state. What am I doing? But making everyone else around me have a miserable time. That's not what we want. We want to advance the game. And so leaning towards those stuffy doll effects helps us do that. Even if it is just one damage here or there, at least we're moving the game on. So leaning too much on these, probably not in our best interest. Good call.

Shawn: 29:47

Sweet. So you have sort of a non Boer trap that you wanted to bring up and I think it's an important one in a deck like this.

Taylor: 29:54

Yeah, so when we're spell slinging, we want to be doing two things. We want to be ramping and drawing cards. We want to ramp to play all those cards we're drawing. We want to draw cards to make sure that we can keep the thing moving. So something that scares me a little bit, if you go to EDHREC. And you click average deck, the average deck only has 32 lands in it. I think I'm counting right on that. And only five pieces of static ramp. That's only 37 consistent sources of mana. I hardly play a deck that has fewer than 37 lands. If I don't have enough mana, how can I cast those spells? Something to be really weary of is not playing enough mana sources. It could be the lands, it could be ramp sources, but ideally, like you said, you're spending the first four or five turns building up your board state with those mana sources so that you can play Judith and go off. Nobody wants to play Judith and hope they can do something the next turn only to have her removed because people are going to see this card and know exactly what you're up to. So I said to fix this, to add some more mana sources, I think you have to cut some of the wind, more cards. Play more lands and more static ramp like those artifacts. An example of a win more card might be something really cool that you want to play, like a blood letter of Aklazotz or an arcane bombardment. Those are awesome cards. I'm not saying to not play either of them, but I am saying that you probably don't need both of them. So choose one as you're really cool. I want to pop off with this card. And stick to those. If you have too many of those cool payoff cards, but you don't have enough lands to actually get to them. What's the point of having them if you can't cast them? So my point is eat your veggies with a deck like this, because you've got to do what you need to do as a good deck builder to make sure that this deck behaves like a well oiled machine. And so if you're only Slam it on the gas and hoping for the best, your car is going to break. Same thing with this deck. If you don't do what you have to do to make sure that it gets moving forward, drawing cards, ramping, it's not going to operate the way you want it to.

Shawn: 32:07

Well said. I'm always a fan of people taking arcane bombardment out of their decks, even as fun as it can be for the player. I just don't love watching it happen. Thank you for that. Eat your veggies. As Taylor has noted here in these decks, Always play 3738 lands in your decks. Start with that as your baseline and really don't subtract from it. In our particular build on Moxfield, I just counted it up and I think we've got 10 mana rocks. In addition, I think there's two or three sort of ritual effects like dark ritual for those turns that you might need to go off by casting like a past in flames or a Mizzix get mastery overloaded. You always want to just be able to cast these spells and man, some of these burn spells are expensive. So you've got to go big in this one.

Taylor: 32:51

Can I say to that really quickly? I think that people oftentimes think of rituals as ramp rituals are not ramp. They are accelerants. They let you really go off. And that's over the course of one turn ramp allows you to advance your mana for turns ahead, right? So if I cast something as simple as say a charcoal diamond, I now have access to one more black mana on every single future turn. If I cast a dark ritual, yeah, I get three black mana. But for only one turn, did that actually advance me in the game? Not in the way you might think. So I'm glad that we're talking about this. And I do want to say, if you listen to one of our deck building episodes, I start off with only 35 lands. That's at a minimum. I play 35 lands, but I'm usually finding other ways to play mana sources. And I'm also trying to find other ways to play cards that give me options like those modal double faced cards. So they have a land on the back and I really try to get that number up to 36 37 38, if possible. And at a minimum, I'm playing eight sources of ramp. So. When we're building our decks, make sure that you don't put rituals in that ramp section.

Shawn: 34:05

Amen, brother.

Taylor: 34:06

This prayer is coming to a close, what are some final

Shawn: 34:09

Prayer to the blood God.

Taylor: 34:10

this

Shawn: 34:11

Hail.

Taylor: 34:12

and skull for the skull throne?

Shawn: 34:14

Yes. Final thoughts are these decks I think are super fun to play. If you play the correct pattern of which may require a little bit of politicking. This reminds me of a deck and there's just no way to say it nicely. So warning to anyone who may be sensitive to themes of suicide, I don't try to say that lightly, but this is a another deck I've run called Zedru Kill Yourself. And it's innocuous in all the opening turns. So just like you put brash taunters out and random little road bumps that people just don't want to cross in this Judith deck, but don't seem to be doing much otherwise. Zedru puts out things like a Danto Vanguard, a little three one that you can pay three life into to, I believe are generated off the top of my head. And then what Zedru does eventually is it amasses enough mana so that by like turn seven or eight it can donate a Danto Vanguard cast Mind Slaver with protection backup for like spells like Pact of Negation or something and then take somebody else's turn and then on their turn forces them to kill themselves and It's one of those things that you don't typically see it coming the first time later for certain, but by the time you know what's going on, it's already too late. And I think by the time you have your brash taunter out and you're Judith and you're going off, like you flashed her in the turn before and then main phase on your turn, you're casting your blasphemous act. I think by that time it's really too late for the rest of the people at the table because you've kind of set it up that way. You want to find your spot. When people are tapped out or mostly tapped out, that's when you strike and then let hell unleash itself upon the world.

Taylor: 36:00

That's a really good point. You got to know the play patterns for decks like this, right? And especially when we're doing something as big and splashy as this. So I have a drow new deck, which is a really scary commander to play because it forces you to sacrifice permanence anytime he's dealt damage. And so. I'm not trying to race to put drown you out. I'm not trying to see if I can get him out as quickly as possible, because if I play drown you against this Judith deck and you hit me with a blasphemous act, I am done. I'm sacrificing 13 lands because of drowning his ability. I can't come back from that. And so I say that to say, no, how you want this deck to operate. I know that I'm only casting drown you when I can either give him haste so I can activate his ability to tap home and get spells back out of my graveyard. Or if I can protect him with some counter magic, same thing here with Judith, you've got to play the right way to protect Judith. Or make sure that you can get that value right away. So I say that to say for my final thoughts, understand that you might have to play a little bit controlly. You might have to take some damage early on, because if you're not casting Judith for a blocker or whatever, that's okay. You might take a couple of hits. Your life total might go down a little bit. That's fine. You will recover. And so, again, I think people think, Oh, I need to have a blocker or, Oh, no, I don't have any creatures on the board. So people are going to hit me. They will. And that's okay. Like I said earlier, you have 40 life. Nobody is going to be able to knock you out in just one turn of attacks unless they are just doing crazy things, but it's okay to take a few hits. You lower your life total in most games of commander. If you have the lowest life total and an opponent can choose between attacking you and somebody else, and they have a higher life total, but they also can't block. They're probably going to go that way. So like you said, politic just a little bit. Oh, Hey, they've got a higher life total than I do. You should swing that way. They're more likely than not going to go that way. So take your beats early on, and then you can explode. I say all that to say, it's really tempting to want to pop off with Judith as early as possible. Don't do that. Be cautious, play slowly, wipe the board. If you need to, it's okay. If you don't play that blasphemous act as perfectly as you want it to. If you want to cast that early on, just to clear the board from all those people's birds of paradises, they are their commanders that they cast early, that's totally fine. You can probably get that blasphemous act back with past in flames. Misics mastery. You'll have ways to cast those cool spells and do cool things. So play optimally in the beginning by not casting your commander too soon. That's all I have to say when it comes to these high cost commanders. Because they're going to be difficult to cast for the second, third time. So don't waste it when you do cast it. Now that we're wrapping up this deck, we have to make sure that we introduce this deck to our play group. So when you sit down with your friends for your next game of commander, and you're having the rule zero conversation, I would introduce this deck to my play group. Like this. My commander is Judith carnage connoisseur. I wanted to give my spells lifelink and death touch in order to burn the table out. I don't have any infinite combos and I would describe this deck as a glass cannon. It could definitely pop off in one turn, but it takes a lot of pieces to make it happen. And the plan is pretty telegraphed. You can see it coming.

Shawn: 39:38

Absolutely. Now that this episode is coming to a close, I guess we should kind of mention what is happening next time on Rule Zero. And we'll be tackling another sort of philosophy episode, one that focuses on how do you get in more games of commander? How do you smooth out play? What is it that our play group is doing that we'd like to share with you and specifically tackling one topic that may be divisive for some to hear initially, but Hold your nose, take the spoon medicine and, and just listen. If you want to spit it out after just do it when I'm turned around and you're not, I'm not looking because frankly for the past year and a half or so, this change that we've done, that's to a very fundamental piece of commander as a whole has been an amazing change for our group, in my opinion. So I hope you look forward to that. You can follow us on Twitter at rule zero podcast or email us at rule zero podcast at gmail. com.

Taylor: 40:36

If you enjoyed this deck, be sure to check it out on our mocks field page, where we linked all of 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. If you're watching this on YouTube, you can also get access to our episodes a day early by finding our podcast on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever else you get your content from. And don't forget.

Shawn: 40:59

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