If you want to build your deck around an alternate MTG loss condition, there’s a surprising amount of choice nowadays. With 31 different loss conditions and even more win conditions to try, players can easily build an entire deck themed around this concept. While this gives persistent players all kinds of ways to pull off a flashy win, many of these win-or-loss conditions, like Sinner’s Judgment, are rather terrible. That, however, hasn’t stopped MTG players from recently rediscovering this card thanks to Pokémon.
MTG Sinner’s Judgment
Seeing lots of engagement thanks to its similarity to Perish Song, Sinner’s Judgment essentially gives an opponent a three-turn death sentence. Sadly, despite this relation, this card is just not very good. On top of spending seven mana to cast it, you need to get Sinner’s Judgment in your graveyard. Add on the fact that the enchantment can be destroyed, and it’s very difficult to actually pull this off.
Still, if you want to try and make Sinner’s Judgment work, there are plenty of ways to speed things along. Tutoring your Faithbound Judge into your graveyard with cards like Entomb and Buried Alive can make it much easier to access. Once in your graveyard, mana reducers like Advanced Reconstruction and Pearl Medallion can make Sinner’s Judgment easier to cast.
Now that you have Sinner’s Judgment in play, protecting it becomes your priority. If you have an enchantment focus, Greater Auramancy and Sterling Grove will protect Sinner’s Judgment from targeted removal. In extreme cases, Walls of Ba Sing Se will do a similar thing, which can come up if you play Faithbound Judge in a Defender deck.
Sadly, even with all this effort, you still need to deal with how slow this enchantment is. Proliferate and counter-doubling effects, like Inexorable Tide and Doubling Season, are the easiest ways to speed this up. Alternatively, doubling up on upkeeps with Paradox Haze can quickly kill your opponent. Combine some of these together, and killing an opponent after one upkeep is reasonable.
Even after all this effort, unlike Perish Song, Sinner’s Judgment won’t kill everyone. You can, however, use Radiant Performer to truly recreate Pokémon’s famous move. This will create copies of Sinner’s Judgment targeting everyone. Since you can organize the triggers on your Upkeep, you can ensure that your opponents all die before you do.
Using Both Sides
Because Sinner’s Judgment is such a fragile loss condition, your best bet to making this card work is to have synergy with both sides of it. Because of this, Faithbound Judge is a rather popular inclusion in both Defender decks like Arcades, the Strategist, and Spirit Typal decks. In these cases, Faithbound Judge doubles as a threat that can later become a potent political piece.
Despite all this, if you want to try and pull off Sinner’s Judgment, there are some positives. Faithbound Judge is relatively niche as far as Commander goes, only seeing play in about 8,550 decks. Thanks to this, unless your opponents read the fine print, there’s a fair chance you can sneak a Sinner’s Judgment into play.
Despite being a mythic from a recent set, Faithbound Judge is also rather cheap to buy. Available for just $1.50, adding this silly loss condition to your deck won’t break the bank. With some focused deckbuilding, this can be a rather meme-y way to take an opponent out, but you certainly won’t be able to consistently do this.
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