Author Topic: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"  (Read 1134 times)

Offline Bobbert

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So I've posted a few things about this deck (including the PoC1 version that I played at the Type 2 Only), but this was the final list that I brought to Nats. Comments on card choices at the end of each block.

101 Cards

29 Neutral

Lost Souls: 14
Wicked x2
Covet x2
Exiles x2
Hunter x2
Prosperity x2
Distressed x2
Remnant
Darkness
A fairly standard OT package, by my understanding. I considered going for more souls that focus on ongoing abilites over the instant ones that will be negated by Call if I draw them in my d4 every time I attack, but for the most part I think that the abilities on these are far too important to skip. Running two Exiles with two Hunters was very good at finding Signet Ring on turn 1. When building the deck I didn't have access to a second Remnant, and convinced myself that a one-of Darkness was better because a turn 1 King TP is so strong. I think it activated once all tournament.

Three Woes
Destruction of Nehushtan
Self-explanatory. Two very powerful dominants.

Majestic Heavens
Treacherous Land
MH is one of the only soul generators this deck has, but was initially put in the phase 1 version of the deck before Storehouse was a thing. Now that there's other access for almost if not everything in reserve, it's not really needed, but topdecking something during prep can guarantee that Isaiah draws it for immediate use. TL is just good, especially with Endless Treasures.

Hidden Treasures
The Great White Throne x2
Ram’s Horn
Endless Treasures
Great White Throne is vital to the deck - grabbing angels makes you draw more, grabbing minor prophets slows your opponent, and the second ability that everyone forgets is 90% of why the deck works. Hidden Treasures is a no-brainer in a prophets deck, especially since His Name lets you get rid of any ECs they try to hide in their hand. Endless Treasures is great with three curses and an idol in reserve. I managed to play it three times in a single turn thanks to some Delivered shenanigans. Ram's Horn is a bit situational, and maybe shouldn't be here. It combines with Michael below to make a CBI Protection of Jerusalem, which is very very nice but generally not needed or worth setting up.

Razor x2
Delivered
God’s Mercy/Jonah’s Anger
Fifth Bowl of Wrath
Second Seal/War
If I could run more Delivereds I absolutely would. Razor and Delivered are both Isaiah cards, so Isaiah grabs them back from discard. Never say no to extra battlewinners/tutors. There used to be two Mercy/Anger, but I cut it for space. Whether it's good or evil is really matchup dependant - I don't have a way to recur it, so it can be a tough choice. It got used far more often evil (since once PoJ is set up they don't really get to play good enhancements), but it often finds better value if its good since it can stop Mourn and Weep, Wages of Sin, Death of Unrighteous, etc. Since you usually drop PoJ as soon as you find it, Anger can also get rid of the one you have once you have the full combo to make it CBI. Fifth Bowl was added mostly because I was having trouble with Red Dragon and KoT's CBP protection - same reason why Two Bears is still in the deck. War is great for pulling Horses.

36 Good
Son of God
The Second Coming
Angel of the Lord
Guardian of Your Souls
Grapes of Wrath
If you're running T2 without Guardian, what are you doing? Grapes is mostly defensive, and if I use it that way I get to dc my Assyrian to boot.

Heavenly Temple
Storehouse
Noah’s Ark (Ark of Salvation)
City of Refuge
I'm convinced people are sleeping on City of Refuge. Especially here - the fortress and Angel of His Presence combined made my heroes (especially Jonah) very safe even before Ark came out. I initially had a Whirlwind in reserve (since Hidden Treasures and a 0/1 Isaiah make it playable) but ended up swapping to Ark for hero protection, since it's in set aside and can hold I am Holy. Storehouse is just a great card. Heavenly Temple initially went in as a joke, but with how much this deck loves Great White Throne having a chance to activate other artifacts in addition to GWT is actually pretty solid.

You Will Remain
Only one, because Nahum does the same thing. This may actually be cuttable - I'm pretty sure it ended up mostly being Woes/art removal bait.
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #1 on: August 05, 2019, 01:34:31 PM »
0
Isaiah x2
Seraph x2
Seraph with a Live Coal x2
The Angel of His Presence
Habakkuk
Jonah
Nahum
The Four Living Creatures
Michael (Kings)
Isaiah and five angels for a "topdeck a CBN battlewinner/TC negate/tutor and draw five" every turn. Nahum as a PoJ trigger. Habakkuk and Jonah as punish and to make Nahum CBN. 4LC to hold a Wheel and act as an extra search every turn. Mike to be a warrior and play PoJ with Ram's Horn up for CBI on my combo. SwLC is great at finding Calls and Coals, and at triggering PoJ pre-battle if you don't have a GWT. Angel of His Presence is tremendous - free heals are great and drawing every time a soul is rescued is also solid.

Two Bears
Angelic Guidance x3
Protection of Jerusalem x2
Isaiah’s Call x2
Live Coal x2
Wheel Within a Wheel
His Name
The Emmaus Road
Death of Firstborn
You'll notice that most of these are tutors. Turns out that you don't need a lot of enhancements when all your ECs are good battlewinners. Who knew? I actually only have a few Emmaus targets. Jonah and Delivered are the big two, but His Name and Potter and Clay are also there. I'd actually usually discard it by the end of the game to get cards out of my hand. For a long time I had 2 guidance and 2 wheels, but switched to 3 and 1 just before nats. I think that 3-2 is closer to correct, maybe even the full 4-2. Two Bears and DoF are safeguards against a bad early game - DoF especially good if I ever lose Isaiah, because it's a CBN interrupt battlewinner of Mike.

36 Evil
Christian Martyr
Burial
Falling Away (CoW)
Shipwreck
"But Greg, you're running Assyrians! They have no problem at all getting rid of forts! Why do you need Shipwreck?" One word, friends: Sheol. Isaiah cries at the mere thought of it, especially since his search is mandatory.

Sheol x2
Coliseum
Nineveh
Babel
Yeah, Sheol is preeety good. Coliseum helps avoid those pesky battlewinners that Live Coals can't solve (although not all, and slightly hurts my Scattered and Forgotten History). Ninevah helps avoid Angels (with King TP, Nimrod, and Siege Army, I have a lot of big dudes I'd really like to keep. Babel was an MVP, and I'm really surprised I didn't see more. Sure, in this deck it fills a very similar role as Distressed, but with the dominance of Throne and False Prophets it's really strong.

The Deciever
Assyrian Archer x2
Assyrian Siege Army x2
Assyrian Survivor x2
Assyrian Laborers x2
The Rabsaris
King Tiglath-Pileser III x2
King Shalmaneser III
Nimrod, the Mighty
Mounted Forces
Pagan Sailors
Lots of juicy PoJ targets. The double Laborers with double CoM in reserve was a deliberate tech, but I found that they had great value throughout the whole tournament. And hey - if they ever get rid of the curse, it's a really easy PoJ choice! King TP3 is probably one of the best turn 1 blocks in the game. Siege Armies and Survivors are self-explanatory. Archers and Rabsaris band. Nimrod searches, especially for forts (he can grab good ones too!), and sometimes gets to steal sites, which is always fun. Mounted Forces can either band or grab a 2kH or CoM from reserve, and along with Nimrod is a Bab for Habakkuk. Pagan Sailors can go Endless Treasures to Flying Scroll to draw 2 and steal the rescuing hero (sometimes), which is hilarious. You'll notice that except for Deciever and War, it's Assyrian unity - original version had Fish/Worm and Damsels, but with TP3's unity I ended up cutting them. I'd rather have more PoJ targets anyway.

Achan’s Sin
Corrupt Earth x2
Death of Unrighteous
Forgotten History
Two Thousand Horses x2
Confusion (CoW)
Envy
Treasures of War
Scattered
Fewer than usual, perhaps, but I haven't found it to be a major issue. Confusion with Wicked up goes right through Storehouse. Corrupt Earth is incredibly good.


10 Reserve

Jonah
I am Holy
His Name
Potter and the Clay
Golden Calf
Hezekiah’s Signet Ring
Confusion of Mind x2
Flying Scroll
Two Thousand Horses
Extra Jonah here for Road/Remnant/very occasional Nineveh site. Lots of artifacts for Exiles, but only Signet Ring is only Exiles/Majestic Heavens. This 2kH is the first War pulls most of the time. TP can activate Calf instantly. All around, good stuff.
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #2 on: August 05, 2019, 01:35:03 PM »
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The basic idea of the deck is that it uses Protection of Jerusalem's "When you discard an evil Assyrian, negate and discard an evil card" with the "at any time, you may discard an evil card in territory" on Great White Throne and the (usually CBN) "When an evil character is in battle, you may discard your Assyrian" on Nahum. When Isaiah gets going and you're drawing ten cards a turn, you're more than happy to trade evil characters 1 to 1, especially when you have Jonah strongly discouraging search (with the shuffle two!) and Habakkuk discouraging drawing.

The deck plays in two main phases. It’s very, very powerful once it gets rolling, but that usually takes 3-5 turns. You’re looking for five things to set up: Wheel Within a Wheel, Four Living Creatures, Isaiah’s Call, Protection of Jerusalem, and either Great White Throne or Nahum. Wheel and 4LC grabs you two OT angels the turn you get them together, and one more each turn after, meaning that you can get your full five very quickly for maximum Isaiah draws. If your first hero you pull with Wheel or Throne is Seraph With a Live Coal, you can use it to grab a Call to get Isaiah out right away. Even during setup phase, this deck rarely attacks with anyone other than Isaiah or SwLC.
Once you have both PoJ and Great White Throne, how many evil cards your opponent has in play is entirely dependant on how many Assyrians you’re willing to discard. If Isaiah’s speed is up and rolling, you usually have much more cannon fodder than they have cards. Nahum is a little slower than GWT, since he only works when there’s an EC in battle, but since you can always pay a cost without getting the benefit you can snipe as many cards as you want without actually adding him to battle, and he has the bonus of being CBN (a DoN can actually negate the discards on GWT and undo everything if PoJ isn’t CBI from Ram’s Horn).

The Ram’s Horn combo is often superfluous, but can be lifesaving. If an opponent blocks and you immediately PoJ to get rid of the blocker, they do still have special initiative against PoJ. It has to specifically be able to negate a card outside of battle (interrupt the battle doesn’t work), but it is possible, and you don’t even get the evil character back for you troubles. Making PoJ CBI is incredibly powerful, although Ram’s Horn will often discard itself the turn you use it (unless you can Delivered something else active), so it can still be vulnerable to removal and then you’re back with a standard one.

One thing that can help a lot, especially during the setup phase when you’re not immediately destroying every evil character your opponent plays, is Potter and the Clay in reserve. Grabbing this with Emmaus Road or Storehouse will let you decrease Isaiah, and as it turns out a 0/1 hero with CBN enhancements is pretty good. The best part is, if they ever try to decrease him further to get rid of him, you can just heal him back up to 7/ 8 with Angel of His Presence!

Game Summaries:
Game 1: Luke Anderson
Similar archetypes, but he didn't have many newer cards. He couldn't find a hero and most of his evil characters died quickly, leading to my 7-0 win.
Game 2: Noah Wagnecht
We both got off to a good start, but since my TC characters are so important the side-battle Song of Moses meant that I finished setting up long before he did and began picking apart his offense with Jonah. That combined with the fact that PoJ counters carebear led to a 7-3 win.
Game 3: Jay Chambers
This was the first game broadcasted. Jay got off to a much faster start - Moses hurts my setup a lot, and by midgame I was behind 5-2. I misplayed hard several times - getting in at 1 am the night before combined with the excitement and stress of playing at the top table, on camera. That said, he was also running an Assyrian defense, so when I got Protection of Jerusalem his defense left the table and never really came back. I managed to deck out and come back to win from behind, 7-6.
Game 4: Josiah Beers
I didn't find any angels until turn five, and no PoJ until seven. Without my speed, I couldn't draw enough defense to hold off Josiah's offense. By the time I finally got rolling, it was too late - he had six and it was all I could do to drop my big two before he found his SoG. I lost 3-7, though we agreed that if we were playing to ten I likely could have pulled it off.
Game 5: Brandon Frank
This was a slow game - neither of us really got going. I got enough of my combo to frustrate him, but didn't actually find PoJ until the very last turn. I won 5-3 on the timeout.
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #3 on: August 05, 2019, 01:35:20 PM »
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Game 6: Jayden Alstad
Jayden and I have gone up against each other several times, and have a pretty good grasp of how each other's decks function. I was able to stop his big setup combo for a couple turns (immediate CoM, Signet Ring, Woes on Captive Priest), but he got around it and still got rolling before I did. We traded heroes a few times off Remnant/Nic's Teachings/Flying Scroll, had a five-minute ruling, and he ended up Rubble and Dusting his own City of Refuge that I had stolen with Nimrod after Jonah went there from a failed Flying Scroll. In the end it took me too long to find PoJ, and my buildup to a grand finale couldn't keep up with his explosive opening. I lost on the timeout, 1-5
Final: 12 points, +6 differential. Since the final scores were lost, I don’t know exactly where I placed, but I’d estimate around 5th or 6th.

All in all, this is a really fun deck. I’ve always been a fan of both Isaiah and Assyrians, and getting to make them actually viable was very satisfying for me. I’m sure that there are improvements that can still be made (This deck is actually at 101 because I couldn’t decide on a neutral to cut), especially looking at the problems I had finding PoJ in several games, but all things considered I’m very happy with how it came out. The deck is very, very strong once it gets rolling, but if it has any trouble setting up (like in the game with Josiah) or the opponent has their own big setup combo (like Jayden) it can get left behind.
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline The Guardian

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #4 on: August 05, 2019, 01:52:35 PM »
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Excellent deck and analysis...really intrigued to see if you keep finding ways to improve this deck in the upcoming season or if you start working on a new deck.  8)
Fortress Alstad
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Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #5 on: August 05, 2019, 02:53:04 PM »
+1
I haven't decided yet.... it might decide on what new toys I have to play with next set  ;)
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #6 on: August 05, 2019, 04:41:47 PM »
+2
I haven't decided yet.... it might decide on what new toys I have to play with next set  ;)

None. This is such a silly deck. We decided not to print any Green or Pale Green cards next year
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Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #7 on: August 05, 2019, 05:39:30 PM »
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I haven't decided yet.... it might decide on what new toys I have to play with next set  ;)

None. This is such a silly deck. We decided not to print any Green or Pale Green cards next year

So I'm getting another Isaiah angel and more silver tutors? Sounds great!
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline Gabe

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #8 on: August 05, 2019, 05:43:39 PM »
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I haven't decided yet.... it might decide on what new toys I have to play with next set  ;)

None. This is such a silly deck. We decided not to print any Green or Pale Green cards next year

So I'm getting another Isaiah angel and more silver tutors? Sounds great!

And about 50 more Assyrian's to choose from...  ::)
Have you visited the Land of Redemption today?

Offline Ironisaac

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #9 on: August 05, 2019, 05:49:55 PM »
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Haha, nice! I'm glad someone played this in t2. I played this in t12p at Iowa States, and it's a ton of fun! KTP3 is BRUTAL, love pulling that out on an unprepared opponent. Definitely makes it worth playing unity assyrians. Did you ever try out this deck with Mighty Warrior?
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Offline Bobbert

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Re: "What do you mean your evil characters are good battlewinners?"
« Reply #10 on: August 05, 2019, 06:11:26 PM »
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Haha, nice! I'm glad someone played this in t2. I played this in t12p at Iowa States, and it's a ton of fun! KTP3 is BRUTAL, love pulling that out on an unprepared opponent. Definitely makes it worth playing unity assyrians. Did you ever try out this deck with Mighty Warrior?

All I'm saying is, I've won games blocking with no other character than TP3.

The original version of the deck (back in PoC1) actually had 2x Mighty Warrior. That said, I think the only time he ever actually entered battle was in my game with Justin at the T2 Only, where I decided to try droughting him. There's just no reason to attack with anyone other than Isaiah 90% of the time, so I fit in more tutors and punish.
ANB is good. Change my mind.

 


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