Some Thoughts:The LS are all geared towards giving me the best possible opening hand. If I get just one, I’m getting an extra card from it; Cov w David with Exiles, Elimelech with Remnant, Deceiver with Darkness, and Hunter & Awake both give extra chances for Remnant and Exiles. Lawless and Prosperity are no-brainers.
Doms are standard, with CotK acting as an extra negate & anti-CwD tech. It could be DoN if CotK isn’t available, but if CotK is available, I’ll always use it over DoN.
No Book since the Covenants are main deck (aside from Exiles’ target), YWR is a ML/CtL target, and I don’t mind playing CoP in battle (CoP is purely anti-removal tech since it has little use for Reserve access). Marriage Covenant is played in battle pretty much always. Cov w David can grab any of the 3 Sites, usually Ends to get the most out of that as possible, or Land of Moab for an early Elimelech/David. LoM can also grab FW from Reserve and gives you an extra + 1 to your hand size, which turns out to be relevant. Majestic Heavens is more soul gen, because that never hurts.
Heroes are a bit different. New Joshua is so busted; he’ll pretty much always underdeck something (many of which are counters) while also leading to either David (the deck’s go-to rescue), Jehoshaphat (who can band to pretty much anyone) or Rahab (side battles). And since you’re using such a busted Hero, might as well use one of his busted supports, AUTO. I say ‘one of’ since it’s debatable whether AUTO or CotH (PoC) is better here, but I’m going AUTO since he can tutor Josh. Priests of Christ and WwC are kind of filler, but both excel in the early game and are good options to get Doms if you need them. If either turn out to be overkill, Esther is always a great add instead. 24 Elders is the other main attacker; with 3 Covs, I’ve never lacked Arts for him to shuffle (and Ends gets those Covs right back).
GE are pretty standard. If you can get 2 uses of Bravery o’ David, that’s a good deal. But ML recurring ASP for 3 or more? Wonderful. Royal Parade is like a one-sided AoC that interrupts the battle, is recurrable, and playable on all my attacking heroes, so that’s an obvious new addition. Shared Meal is something that might be unique, but I thought it would fit very well since it:
A: Gives in-battle utility to an otherwise notoriously hard to play Whirlwind, a card that removes an evil Woes, Babel, or Coliseum from the table, not to mention an EE
B: Gives an option to use Overcome’s discard ability while not having to spend it as a negate
C: Triggers Music Leader if the opponent searches
Consider the Lilies is another Fifth Seal/Love Righteousness early on, which is great for consistency. “Today” takes out Gates and Sheol, so I will never not include it.
Solomon might not seem great, but he’s a disposable, recurrable vanilla EC at worst and free hand knowledge at best, so I think he’s worthwhile (if only he had white).
Evil is slim, but you really need just a Rehoboam/Rahab block, FW, and Uzzah to sneak in there. If Rehoboam gets multiple uses, that’s the best case scenario. If they’re attacking with a single Hero, Reho+Rahab will probably work; otherwise you have 2 Scattereds.
Reserve is filled out with goods for Endless Treasures. All the Curses is the go-to for stopping other Endless Treasures or pesky Artifacts, Flying Scroll counters other Flying Scrolls, or either of those can be used in battle (potentially grabbed by Persian Horsemen). Image counters so much that it’s hard not to use it (Storehouse, Goshen, Gates of Jerusalem LoC, Throne, HSR, Magic Charms, certain troublesome TC Heroes, certain strong Heroes, LS, Ends, etc). But Golden Calf might be good too if good fortresses or neutral cards don’t concern you.
**There are plenty of other cards I considered, but one I should mention is Brother’s Conflict. That is a brown/white side battle card that would possibly fit very nicely in Reserve over Warning Against Rebellion, if you want another option outside of Rehoboam for a Rahab side battle. Of course the best version of this deck probably runs at 3 copies with Haman’s Plot as the 51st card, but apart from the fact that I’ll never have enough LoC copies to pull that off, that’s just not for me.**
Overall, the deck usually wants to go first and is designed in a way that gets David & Music Leader going as quickly as possible. It can be very fast and I wouldn’t be surprised if it performed well even in this mostly untested form. Tweak it or build it to play or play against and give it a whirl.
