Judith, Carnage Connoisseur Commander Deck Guide

Judith, Carnage Connoisseur | Illustration by Jodie Muir

The hardest thing about Judith, Carnage Connoisseur is spelling “connoisseur.” Everything else is easy. At least that’s what Judith makes it look like, as always. Pack your deck with spells that do damage in Rakdos colors and go ham is the idea. And you might even win a few games by just packing indiscriminate spells on curve and sleeving them up.

But we’re looking for a more consistent angle, so we’re going to have Judith team up with my favorite underused companion in Commander: Obosh, the Preypiercer. I think Judith is the key to unlocking this powerful card. But that gives us a deck restriction, so maybe not quite so easy after all. You’ll see.

Ready for the show?

The Deck

Obosh, the Preypiercer | Illustration by Daarken

The Commander: Judith, Carnage Connoisseur

Judith, Carnage Connoisseur seems like the latest in the trend of potential saviors of burn in Commander, like Solphim, Mayhem Dominus and Imodane, the Pyrohammer. A closer look at the card shows us something different and more interesting. Sure, Judith can turn all your burn spells into Doom Blade or gain life to buy time against aggro decks, but I think both of those plans are too slow.

To win, you have to use the combo that’s right there on the card. Make a bunch of tokens and then kill them for value. With the first ability alone you’d need 20 tokens, and thus 20 spells per player, assuming no one else is dealing damage. But you are packing some burn spells, so we can maybe shorten that fuse. Obosh, the Preypiercer will help on both counts, but note it doesn’t synergize with the tokens.

Sacrifice outlets won’t help us much. We will attack and defend, and we will fall to board wipes. All of that will help our plan. And it’s not like Ashnod's Altar was sticking around through a Farewell anyway.

Companion

Obosh, the Preypiercer is good for doubling damage on things like Lightning Bolt and Guttersnipe. But we don’t have a huge amount of burn spells. You could build the deck that way and use the lifelink from Judith’s first ability, but I’ve found that the token option just has more legs. Still, Obosh is a “free” extra card, and that counts.

The downside of no even spells is real in Rakdos. It means we can’t do the other spellslinger things people like to do, from playing token-makers like Young Pyromancer to damage-dealers like Thermo-Alchemist. Solphim and Imodane are no-gos, too. But that’s okay, we have all we need in the odd realm!

An Obosh also means some key red and black card draw, like Sign in Blood and Reckless Impulse are off the table. That’s okay! We’ve got enough 1-mana cantrips to trigger Judith, kind of likean Izzet Phoenix deck.

Card Draw

First, we have cantrips. This is the spine of our deck, 1-mana spells that draw a card. We need to get Judith down and then chain off spells to make tokens. Some of these have useful effects, and some are just kind of there. We’re focused mostly on instants for the most flexibility.

• Aphotic Wisps
• Balduvian Rage
• Cling to Dust
• Cremate
• Crimson Wisps
• Expedite
• Rile
• Crash Through
• Nighthaze
• Overmaster
• Spark of Creativity
• Warlord's Fury

And there’s a stack of other draw effects we can get at odd mana values, like Faithless Looting. Corrupted Conviction and Village Rites let us replace an imp token while drawing cards. We have some impulse draw in Jeska's Will, Light Up the Stage, and March of Reckless Joy. We have enchantments that suck away life that Judith can return to us: Black Market Connections, Necropotence, Phyrexian Arena, and Theater of Horrors. And there’s whatever you call Valakut Awakening.

“Scam”

Most of our plan revolves around protecting Judith, but a lot of the Lightning Greaves sorts of cards are even. Instead we’re focusing on cards that synergize more with Judith’s abilities anyway: the scam cards that return a dying creature to play.

• Feign Death
• Malakir Rebirth
• Not Dead After All
• Supernatural Stamina
• Undying Malice

Board Wipes

Judith allows us to take advantage of a particular type of card because we can give our spells deathtouch. These are the cards that damage opponents’ creatures, even if that’s just 1 damage. I think of them as “Judith’s Board Wipes.”

• Fang Dragon
• Fear, Fire, Foes!
• Blazing Volley
• Electrickery
• End the Festivities
• Tectonic Hazard

Of course, we also have a few emergency board wipes that also hit Judith, including some that will net us a huge amount of life for our troubles.

• Blasphemous Act
• Star of Extinction
• Blood for the Blood God!
• Fire Covenant
• Toxic Deluge

Other Damage Spells

We have some other spells that’ll serve as removal and can synergize with whatever we need Judith to do at the moment. We don’t have a huge amount because we’re not a burn deck, but perhaps just enough.

• Dual Shot
• Gut Shot
• Lightning Bolt
• Spikefield Hazard
• Fear, Fire, Foes!
• Mishra's Command
• Skewer the Critics

And there’s also a Chaos Warp and Virtue of Persistence to round out removal. The latter’s also a long term wincon.

Multipliers and the Drain Combo

Although we can’t run Torbran, Thane of Red Fell, we have plenty of other cards that add extra damage, like our companion, as well as the classic life loss and lifegain combo in black. All those cards happen to be odd, so bully for us.

• Guttersnipe
• Tor Wauki the Younger
• Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose
• Exquisite Blood
• Fiery Inscription
• Repercussion
• Sanguine Bond
• Virtue of Courage

The Mana Base

3-mana rocks are too slow. 2-mana rocks are forbidden with Obosh, the Preypiercer. So we could throw in Sol Ring and Mana Vault, but those don’t do enough on their own and are also likely to make you archenemy if you play them early. So instead we’re going with lands. A little less than usual for EDH because we have so many cantrips.

So we’ve got lands, including a lot of decent duals and an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth plus Cabal Coffers package. That’s expensive and will rarely fire in a deck without land tutoring, so you could remove them for budget considerations.

The Strategy

Slow play. Pick key pieces off with your limited spot removal as needed. Use your board wipes. Keep going until you can get Judith down with a scam card in hand. If you can hold out, just durdle as much as possible, as it’s way better to drop Judith when you can rattle off a bunch of cheap spells during the same turn.

If you can keep Judith alive long enough to refill your life and make a stack of imps, just keep putting on pressure until you can find some damage multipliers and drain combo pieces. Then you’re in good shape.

In a lot of ways this deck is like Talrand, Sky Summoner, except more fun.

Combos and Interactions

You know about Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, of course, and that’s the only infinite Rule Zero piece here. That and Judith plus cards like End the Festivities is sick. Otherwise, the deck is pretty straightforward!

Budget Options

This is reasonably budget aside from the lands and some of the better board wipes. But if you have a decent Rakdos deck already, this is likely just a fun side build you can make to mix it up with cards you already have.

Other Builds

This version of the deck is not the most common you’ll see. For that, expect impulse draw spells, mana acceleration, token makers, more Blood Artist effects, and a bunch more burn spells. I get the idea there. It’s a question of Obosh, the Preypiercer versus all the even stuff. But I really like having a companion in a creature-light deck like the one Judith wants you to play.

But making burn work in Commander is a perennially hard task, and I don’t think Judith is powerful enough for it to work. Still, give it a go and let me know how you do! Add enough powerful Rakdos creatures and suddenly you’re just Rakdos midrange and share most of the cards with your existing Rakdos commander of choice. I’m not sure Judith stacks up then.

Commanding Conclusion

Birgi, God of Storytelling | Illustration by Eric Deschamps

I think Judith, Carnage Connoisseur is wicked fun, which seems the point, really! I was surprised at the volume of cantrips in Rakdos once I started down the Obosh road, and I found myself cutting a pile of sorcery-speed cantrips because I already had much better options.

And the more I compared cards like Wrenn's Resolve to Overmaster, let’s say, the more convinced I became. Red impulse draw in Commander can just toss away your key expensive spells when you stop on a whammy, and 1-mana spells just work better on a volume level, which is what we see in Izzet Phoenix and in older formats like Legacy and Timeless. Not that this deck has that kind of power! But Judith rewards us for spell volume, and I think this is the most efficient build to take advantage of its power.

If you try this or an alternative build of Judith, let us know in the comments below or on Discord. How did it go? Is Judith 2.0 better or worse than we’re thinking? I’d love to see some “field reports!”

Happy brewing, and have a devilish good time!