Commander Challenge - Faithbound Judge

Faithbound Judge is absolutely one of the most entertaining new cards we’ve seen thanks to Crimson Vow. This new Spirit is out to take names, bear grudges, and win games, and we’re here for it.

It also makes for a fun build-around card too, and that’s where we come in. Well, that’s where this article comes in anyway. Look, let’s just jump into this properly instead of talking nonsense, shall we?

What is Faithbound Judge?

Faithbound Judge is a new card from Crimson Vow that’s a three-mana 4/4 with defender, flying, and vigilance. It reads, “At the beginning of your upkeep, if Faithbound Judge has two or fewer judgment counters on it, put a judgment counter on it. As long as Faithbound Judge has three or more judgment counters on it, it can attack as though it didn’t have defender.” Alongside that, it also has a disturb cost of seven-mana that turns it into Sinner’s Judgement.

Sinner’s Judgement is a curse that reads, “At the beginning of your upkeep, put a judgment counter on Sinner’s Judgment. Then if there are three or more judgment counters on it, enchanted player loses the game. If Sinner’s Judgment would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, exile it instead.” So, the aim here is to curse someone and just stop them removing it.

There’s a few ways to take advantage of this card, and while you could absolutely just take advantage of it in any deck with white in it, it makes more sense to power it up a bit. So, we’ve picked two strong commanders to help with this plan.

Read More: Best Starter Commanders – Ayula, Queen Among Bears

Katilda’s Faith

Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr is also a three-mana Spirit, but this time the text is very different. “Flying, lifelink, protection from Vampires. Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of permanents you control that are Spirits and/or enchantments.” Basically, they get more powerful as long as you’re playing a lot of Spirits and Enchantments. There’s a lot of ways you can do both of these things, but we just really want to highlight two cards in particular.

First up is Sigil of the Empty Throne. This is a five-mana enchantment that creates a 4/4 Angel with flying whenever you cast an enchantment spell. This really incentivises using a lot of enchantments. The other is Hallowed Haunting, which is a four-mana enchantment that reads, “As long as you control seven or more enchantments, creatures you control have flying and vigilance. Whenever you cast an enchantment spell, create a white Spirit Cleric creature token with “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to the number of Spirits you control.””

That’s a lot of text, but the aim with this version of Katilda is to have a few really powerful Spirits in your deck, then use the rest of the space for potent enchantments that allow you to just smash face. We do like this concept a fair bit, but we’re also keen on adding more colors.

Read more: Should Commander Tax Change?

Atraxa’s Sin

Mwahahahahahahahaha. Atraxa, Praetor’s Voice is a four-mana green, white, blue, and black 4/4 with flying vigilance, deathtouch, and lifelink. Plus, they allow you to proliferate in your end step. That’s a lot of stuff, but the main reason we’re taking them is that proliferate ability, because it means you can put an extra counter on Sinner’s Judgement and have players die even faster. However, there’s something else we can do because of the colors here.

Blue allows us to gain access to both Mirrormade and Clever Impersonator. Both of these can come in as additional copies of Sinner’s Judgement, which means you can use them to just wipe out an entire game in one fell swoop, as long as you have enough mana.

You can even make this more efficient by doubling the counters that are placed on it. There are a couple of cards for this, but the cheapest is probably Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider. This means you can kill an opponent off incredibly quickly, or just generally flex at the overkill you’ve just caused.

Read More: The Innistrad: Crimson Vow Decks Are Cool, But We Still Need A Legendary Jeskai Spirit