COMMANDER! Review: Isperia, Supreme Judge

Sup MTGcas, Javier here. With the Player's Championship now over and September 29th coming closer and closer, it's spoiler season! Like Christmas in July (or Sept. in this case, but you know what I mean)! The Return to Ravnica prerelease event is just weeks away and I hope you're as excited as I am to go back to one of the most popular planes in the multiverse. With the vast city of Ravnica looming before us, we look to Isperia, Supreme Judge, the new leader of the Azorius guild for a little bit of order.

'I serve only justice. But through that duty, I serve all of Ravnica.'

Now where have we seen this sphinx before? Ah yes, as Isperia the Inscrutable from Dissension a few years back. Well, time has passed and our old friend is more authoritative than before. Her stern composure hearkens to her title as judge, but her enormous frame implies she may also be the executioner. Posted above what may be described as some sort of Hallowed Fountain, this sphinx overlooks the megalopolis she has sworn to keep in line. In other words, I think this art is pretty rad and Isperia is an intimating force.

Boasting a sizable 6/4 body, Isperia is no slouch in combat and will dispatch players quickly if allowed to roam the skies unchecked. But crashing into the red zone isn't usually what U/W is best at (current Standard not withstanding, curse you Delver of Secrets!) Isperia's ability is a great boon to control players hoping to protect themselves from swarms of creatures at any point in the game. Not unlike Edric, Spymaster of Trest, who rewards opponents for attacking other players, Isperia penalizes opponents by giving her controller cards, which leads to a more uncertain attack. Card advantage (especially in Commander) is an extremely important asset as games tend to be a bit on the longer side, so drawing cards passively gives you more and more options to win with.

Building a control shell around Isperia seems like the way to go here. Cards that give you a passive bonuses such as Rhystic Study and Luminarch Ascension can help you incrementally build your resources, leaving mana open for responses such as counter-magic or removal that you might draw off of the trigger (responding to an attacking creature with a top-decked Condemn seems pretty effective AND flavorful). As you will surely become a target once you generate enough incremental advantage, defending yourself is the next step to victory. Mass removal such as Austere Command or Evacuation can protect you from early beat-downs, while cards such as Ghostly Prison and Moat limit the creatures that can attack you at all. Quick observation: Angelic Arbiter + Angel Song = Time Walk; not the worst.

Isperia's ability also triggers off of attacks declared on your planeswalkers, making them even more dangerous as well. While planeswalkers are usually kept in check by periodic attacks, the card draw threat from this general means keeping your Superfriends' loyalty high is easier than usual. Planeswalkers with powerful emblem ultimates like Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and Venser, the Sojourner can very easily be protected long enough to ultimate and usually mean the game is over when they do. Gideon Jura gets a quick shout-out here for combining awesomely with Isperia and providing insane potential for card draw.

Some drawbacks to playing Isperia in this fashion are single creatures that are hard to deal with and opposing control generals. Although you will likely handle opposing swarm strategies such as Rith, the Awakener with ease, generals like Rafiq of the Many who usually attack with one creature minimize your card draw while still putting up big numbers. Similarly, Hexproof creatures like Thrun, the Last Troll will attack into you and your general with impunity, knowing they're safe from your Path to Exile and will "trade" with your general with regenerate mana open. As for the control mirror, Isperia gains power when your opponents attack you, but does very little to stop Jhoira of the Ghitu suspending big spells or an Oona milling your library into oblivion. Possible responses to these strategies are Fog Bank for Rafiq, Wall of Denial for Thrun, and the aforementioned Luminarch Ascension for Jhoira and Oona.

As far as comparison to other legendaries is concerned, Grand Arbiter, Augustin IV helps control a board by slowing your opponents down and speeding yourself up, making your turns more valuable. However, Isperia's ability is more combat-focused, so a more salient comparison can be found in Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer. Gwafa prevents your opponents from attacking you straight-up with his Pacifism-like ability, at the cost of giving your opponent a draw. Isperia moves the card-advantage in the other direction, albeit with a less direct ability for altering combat. The two Legends have a similar list of problems - namely Hexproof and the control mirror - so they don't complement each other in the most robust way. It's not necessarily a bad idea to put Gwafa in your Isperia deck, but he'll often act as a more redundant ability than as a diverse threat.

Isperia, Supreme Judge is playable in all other formats as soon as Ravnica hits, but I can't really see him making a big splash. In Legacy, most U control lists use either non-creature win conditions like Blue Sun's Zenith in High Tide or go for smaller aggressive creatures while making sure you don't stop them such as Delver of Secrets (again!) in R/U/G Threshold or Lord of Atlantis in, well, Merfolk. As far as Standard goes, we still have over 150 cards to see from RtR, so it really is impossible to guess how Isperia will fit into the new metagame. The most I can say is that with the Titans gone, we will likely see a much more diverse list of threats hitting the board around the 6-mana slot and hey, maybe Isperia will make the cut somewhere. At the very least this dude is the bomb of a life time in Limited and I will first pick the sphinx in a heart beat. In a land where creatures turn sideways and 6 power fliers win games, Isperia reins queen.

As you can see, Isperia, Supreme Judge is an enormous flier with a great ability for giving passive card draw against aggressive decks. Isperia is a solid choice for a control general and even if she's not generating card advantage, she remains a large body to turn sideways. I hope you enjoyed this quick synopsis of Isperia and feel free to leave any comments pertaining to the article of the general. Until next time, deck builders!

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-Javier Remy

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