The Best Commander Cards From... Judgment
Welcome back to The Best Commander Cards From..., a series looking at the most powerful Commander cards from across Magic: The Gathering's rich thirty-year-long history. Today's focus is Judgment, the twenty-sixth expansion set, which was released in May of 2002 and is the final set in the Odyssey block.
Judgment Lore
Last we left off in Torment, we were following Chainer and the Cabal. Now we're back to regulars, like Kamahl, Jeska, Laquatus, and others as they fight to either steal away the Mirari or keep it from falling into the wrong hands. Most of the characters we've been introduced to die during the events of this set, and, at the end, the Mirari ends up getting buried in a forest. Magic is certainly not done with the Mirari yet, but that's a story for another block.
Judgment Mechanics
This set continues most of what we saw in Torment, including threshold and flashback, but also introduced some new mechanics that don't have a conventional keyword or ability word attached to them. We have a lot of ground to cover when it comes to cards and a secret new segment at the end. Without any further discussion, let's get right into it.
Benevolent Bodyguard
Unsurprisingly, Benevolent Bodyguard finds its way into a lot of decks where it can be brought back by your commander as a reusable protection spell. You'll find that Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle and Celestine, the Living Saint as natural fits for this creature, and it's perfectly playable in any deck where you need to keep your commander safe.
Nomad Mythmaker
I had never seen this card prior to going over the whole set for this article, so I was immediately surprised by how cool Nomad Mythmaker is. Buying back powerful enchantments, like Daybreak Coronet or Bear Umbra, for a relatively low investment might be something only a handful of commanders are looking for, but it's very strong in those decks.
Test of Endurance
If you've followed this series, you know how I feel about alternative win conditions. Test of Endurance is one of the more basic ones, but I still love it. Sure, it might come down and surprise a table as a must-answer threat, but I think the gameplay patterns this inspires are very fun.
Unquestioned Authority
I've featured a card or two with protection from creatures, and Unquestioned Authority is a card-neutral way to turn any creature into a Beloved Chaplain. This effect is popular enough for this card to have made its way into multiple preconstructed decks and sealed Commander products, so give it a shot if you haven't already.
Mist of Stagnation
This odd lock piece requires some graveyard hate, but the potential to create a situation where no one can untap anything is too much value to ignore. When I get all giddy over stax pieces, do I seem like a villain? It's okay if you say yes. I mean, you won't be able to do anything about it without lands anyway.
Quiet Speculation
Pretend that I made a witty and subtle reference to the website based around Magic finance here. Jokes aside, Quiet Speculation gets theoretically stronger with every single flashback card that sees print. Right now, I imagine the most common cards you'll fetch out include Deep Analysis and Unburial Rites, but for just two mana the potential is always there.
Web of Inertia
You've probably noticed the theme of removing cards from graveyards as a cost, and Web of Inertia continues this trend. I've played with Web of Inertia a few times, and I find that it's strong even if you're not doing a ton of setup. In my experience, decks that go wide aren't often filling their graveyard, while decks that are filling their graveyard aren't often going wide.
Stitch Together
It turns out that a lot of decks that want to return creatures from their graveyard to the battlefield tend to put a lot of creatures in their graveyard. In all my years of Commander, I've rarely seen Stitch Together return a creature to hand. Unfortunately, this is the only black card being featured from Judgment. For now. Hint hint.
Planar Chaos
I, like many other players, love flipping coins. I'd flip a coin to decide who goes first if my playgroup didn't prefer rolling dice. You do need to have a way to manipulate your coin flips, and I'm talking about stuff like Krark's Thumb, not cheating. If you can keep it around, Planar Chaos will live up to its name.
Worldgorger Dragon
You'll usually find Worldgorger Dragon alongside Animate Dead, creating a loop that nets you infinite mana and triggers of various types. I don't find this combo especially fun, although I suppose the tension of Worldgorger sitting in the graveyard waiting for the other combo piece is cool. If you're interested in some further reading, check out the ban history of this card.
Seedtime
Sadly, I don't see Seedtime at a lot of tables. I'm the only person I know locally that would ever bother playing it, but I want to change that. Please play Seedtime. By the numbers you're likely to see a blue spell more and more with every value three-color commander they print. I cannot stress enough how powerful it is to cast Time Walk because your opponent tried to counter your spell.
Sylvan Safekeeper
There's no easy way to say this, but Sylvan Safekeeper has had a recent upswing in popularity due to the printing of Nadu, Winged Wisdom. In truth, any green deck looking to put lands in their graveyard or protect a valuable commander can play this, but The Gitrog Monster and Titania, Protector of Argoth are among the best.
The Incarnation Cycle
These five incarnations were all the rage back in 2014 or so, but they've fallen off a bit in popularity over the last few years. Some are more playable than others, but the general idea is that you want to incidentally mill them or place them in your graveyard some other way. Bonus points if you use Buried Alive to do this. Having to pay mana for these is a bit rough, but the payoff can be pretty big.
The Other Incarnations. And a Land, I Guess.
The first five incarnations feel like a very tight cycle of cards with a clear mechanical similarity, but these three cards feel like a stapled-on bonus of sorts. Genesis and Glory are quite powerful, but they don't fit into that cycle very cleanly. Riftstone Portal is also a bit of an oddity, but I think it deserves a mention if nothing else. I debated on fitting all eight of these into a super-cycle, but they're too mechanically different.
The Wish Cycle
This cycle of cards all fetch a card out of your sideboard, which technically doesn't exist in Commander. So... These are all basically Rule 0 cards. Ask your playgroup how they feel about them, and if you've got the go-ahead, try them out! I'm a big fan of this design space, and tutoring is undeniably powerful.
Krosan Verge
By now, you'll have noticed the extra focus on green and white in this set. The only multicolor cards are green and white, the incarnation cycle has two extra cards in green and white, and so on. Krosan Verge continues this trend, and it's a neat little self-contained Harrow of sorts. Notably, it doesn't have to fetch basics.
Mirari's Wake
Getting a mana-doubler stapled to an anthem effect is very strong, and Mirari's Wake takes the top slot for popularity in Judgment as a result. Seriously, just put this in your green and white decks, you'll thank me later. It does something in basically every deck.
Guiltfeeder
I wish this card was good. Guiltfeeder gives off the vibes of a classic Dungeons & Dragons monster, so much so that I wouldn't be surprised if it already was one. Does it have a corporeal form? What are those frightening teeth for if it has zero power? There's lot of art like this from across the early 2000s, particularly when it comes to the Phyrexians, but this particular card stuck out to me.
That's All, Folks
At first glance this set is really weird. There are only 16 black cards, no artifacts, only 3 nonbasic lands, and the only multicolor cards are all green and white. I live for that kind of weirdness and novelty, though. From underrated playables to staples of yesteryear and everything between, I feel like I covered most of my bases. If I missed something, though, I'm sure you'll let me know. At any rate, I've been Luka Sharaska, and I hope you'll join us next time when we tackle the Onslaught block!
