Author Topic: Disciples, What makes them good? (Read 5486 times)

joezim007 · « **on:** September 25, 2011, 08:05:18 PM »

I'm looking through the disciples and I'm failing to see what's good about them. I see James, Son of Alpheus + Thaddeus as a great protection (but does that protect them from the enhancements that evil character plays too?) and I see plenty of drawing potention with the Fishing Boat and Matthew, but that doesn't really help if they can't do anything else. Their initiative isn't that great either.

Nameless · « **Reply #1 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:10:19 PM »

They have speed, Powerful characters that can win for you, some of the best battle-winners, And you can easily splash them with TGT for even more win.

Chronic Apathy · « **Reply #2 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:16:21 PM »

Pretty much every enhancement they have discards several other enhancements, or can also discard an evil character. Authority of Christ Promo can discard all of your opponent's evil characters unless they have a protect fortress, and if you plan your defense around that, you can keep your own guys protected. Philip + Bart is massive CBN banding that also protects from capture. They have two characters that can use and abuse The Garden Tomb, and they remain one of the fastest offenses in the game (if drawn perfectly, they are faster than any other offense that draws perfectly as well).

Red Wing · « **Reply #3 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:17:10 PM »

Quote from: joezim007 on September 25, 2011, 08:05:18 PM

I'm looking through the disciples and I'm failing to see what's good about them. I see James, Son of Alpheus + Thaddeus as a great protection (but does that protect them from the enhancements that evil character plays too?) and I see plenty of drawing potention with the Fishing Boat and Matthew, but that doesn't really help if they can't do anything else. Their initiative isn't that great either.

Yes, thad does protect from enhancements. I agree with what Nameless said.

lp670sv · « **Reply #4 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:19:18 PM »

1) Phillip + Bart = Huge numbers immune to capture and conversion, (and greeks though this has rarely come up for me, so much so that my opponent had to remind me the one time it did come up) Phil can grab bart from your deck so you only need to draw Phil to get the banding chain. There is an insane amount of awesome just in this combo.

2) James + John = Great numbers, and negates special abilities on evil characters, and can use TGT

3) Thomas + Matthew = Draw up to 3, Enhancements can't be negated

4) James + Thad = Oh sweet lord why?, Decent numbers, if you have all the other disciples out Any character with less then 12 toughness is negated and everything is protected from any evil character with toughness less then twelve. combine that with crown of thorns that toughness number becomes 15. Guess how many characters in the game have a toughness of 15? 0.

5) Peter + Coin = Draw 4, did I mention TGT?

6) Simon the Zealot = protects your hand and deck from opponents cards aka sorry mayhem and confusion, rain becomes dust, hur, and countless others, oh and he only has to enter battle once for this to kick in then he just needs to not be removed from play.

7) The enhancements.
Reach of desperation - draw 3 play next
My Lord and My God - negate and discard
AOCP - destroy defense, cannot be negated
So many more

Boat for more drawing and site access, James the less can give you inish pretty easy, its just an insane amount of win

joezim007 · « **Reply #5 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:35:38 PM »

Quote from: lp670sv on September 25, 2011, 08:19:18 PM

1) Phillip + Bart = Huge numbers immune to capture and conversion, (and greeks though this has rarely come up for me, so much so that my opponent had to remind me the one time it did come up) Phil can grab bart from your deck so you only need to draw Phil to get the banding chain. There is an insane amount of awesome just in this combo.

2) James + John = Great numbers, and negates special abilities on evil characters, and can use TGT

3) Thomas + Matthew = Draw up to 3, Enhancements can't be negated

4) James + Thad = Oh sweet lord why?, Decent numbers, if you have all the other disciples out Any character with less then 12 toughness is negated and everything is protected from any evil character with toughness less then twelve. combine that with crown of thorns that toughness number becomes 15. Guess how many characters in the game have a toughness of 15? 0.

5) Peter + Coin = Draw 4, did I mention TGT?

6) Simon the Zealot = protects your hand and deck from opponents cards aka sorry mayhem and confusion, rain becomes dust, hur, and countless others, oh and he only has to enter battle once for this to kick in then he just needs to not be removed from play.

7) The enhancements.
Reach of desperation - draw 3 play next
My Lord and My God - negate and discard
AOCP - destroy defense, cannot be negated
So many more

Boat for more drawing and site access, James the less can give you inish pretty easy, its just an insane amount of win

1) A million other things can be done to you and since you're banded, you're numbers are higher and they have more initiative.
2) Once again, many many things can still be done, even with the character's special ability negated. More bad initiative.
3) If you don't have initiative, how are you going to play an enhancement that CBN
4) Agreed, great combination.
5) Draw 4, then die because you don't have initiatiave and you're red.
6) Not bad, but doesn't help win the battle.
7) As noted, I see a hard time playing any of these.

As for the speed, I'm still having a hard time seeing the speed useful without initiative to play the cards. As for Garden Tomb, that's great, but I see it becoming less and less effective if people learn to use some defense against it.

Rawrlolsauce! · « **Reply #6 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:42:24 PM »

You rarely attack with a red hero.

The point is to not play enhancements. Character abilities and numbers usually win you the battle, playing itb + win when you need to. If your opponent is actually playing defense you should win anyway because defense is bad.

Chronic Apathy · « **Reply #7 on:** September 25, 2011, 08:51:23 PM »

joezim007, you're not looking at the game with the prospective of a practiced eye. Getting initiative is not the be-all end-all of a game. Philip + Bart is amazing because there are very, very few enhancements that take out more than one hero at a time AND are CBN. James + John is amazing because of the ability to use TGT, plus, if they have something like Unholy Writ or Christian Martyr, your opponent has to have something else to stop them. John's preventing only helps that, and if you factor in the people that use Sons of Thunder, there's a ton of potential there.

Disciples' speed is everything. What does it matter if your opponent has a good defense, if you've drawn out before he has drawn half of it?

lp670sv · « **Reply #8 on:** September 25, 2011, 09:23:22 PM »

Quote from: joezim007 on September 25, 2011, 08:35:38 PM

Quote from: lp670sv on September 25, 2011, 08:19:18 PM
1) Phillip + Bart = Huge numbers immune to capture and conversion, (and greeks though this has rarely come up for me, so much so that my opponent had to remind me the one time it did come up) Phil can grab bart from your deck so you only need to draw Phil to get the banding chain. There is an insane amount of awesome just in this combo.

2) James + John = Great numbers, and negates special abilities on evil characters, and can use TGT

3) Thomas + Matthew = Draw up to 3, Enhancements can't be negated

4) James + Thad = Oh sweet lord why?, Decent numbers, if you have all the other disciples out Any character with less then 12 toughness is negated and everything is protected from any evil character with toughness less then twelve. combine that with crown of thorns that toughness number becomes 15. Guess how many characters in the game have a toughness of 15? 0.

5) Peter + Coin = Draw 4, did I mention TGT?

6) Simon the Zealot = protects your hand and deck from opponents cards aka sorry mayhem and confusion, rain becomes dust, hur, and countless others, oh and he only has to enter battle once for this to kick in then he just needs to not be removed from play.

7) The enhancements.
Reach of desperation - draw 3 play next
My Lord and My God - negate and discard
AOCP - destroy defense, cannot be negated
So many more

Boat for more drawing and site access, James the less can give you inish pretty easy, its just an insane amount of win

1) A million other things can be done to you and since you're banded, you're numbers are higher and they have more initiative.
2) Once again, many many things can still be done, even with the character's special ability negated. More bad initiative.
3) If you don't have initiative, how are you going to play an enhancement that CBN
4) Agreed, great combination.
5) Draw 4, then die because you don't have initiatiave and you're red.
6) Not bad, but doesn't help win the battle.
7) As noted, I see a hard time playing any of these.

As for the speed, I'm still having a hard time seeing the speed useful without initiative to play the cards. As for Garden Tomb, that's great, but I see it becoming less and less effective if people learn to use some defense against it.

1) a million other things? I'm reading discard abilites and numbers which gives you inish
2)TGT all the way still
3) Interrupts? they're quite common.
5) why would you even enter battle with peter? the draw 4 is from 4 Drachma coin, an artifact
6) Helps win the game. Usually just make a battle challenge with him. Plus he's purple so he can use any of the enhancements
7) 2 of those are interrupts, they have more interrupts in the first place

You seem to think that initiave is everything, all though important it's not the end all be all and interrupts give you the inish anyways. You only need to make 3 successful rescue attempts. AOCP is usually one and when you combine it with the thomas and matthew and reach you just had an interrupt draw 6 win the battle cannot be negated. Bart an Phil is one of the most useful combos in the game I use it more then James and Thad, you'd be surprised just how little there is to do against that combo. any single disciple you think is useless (see: Andrew) becomes less so when you consider that James and Thad are only as powerful as the number of disciples in play. I have never used andrew for a rescue attempt. I use him to add 1 to the X of Thad James and Boats Drawing. Speed is everything in the game now a days and few themes do speed better then disciples. There's a reason they were so popular last year, and despite what everyone on these boards seem to think, i think they will only take a minor hit in popularity this year

joezim007 · « **Reply #9 on:** September 26, 2011, 10:48:13 PM »

Quote from: lp670sv on September 25, 2011, 09:23:22 PM

1) a million other things? I'm reading discard abilites and numbers which gives you inish
2)TGT all the way still
3) Interrupts? they're quite common.
5) why would you even enter battle with peter? the draw 4 is from 4 Drachma coin, an artifact
6) Helps win the game. Usually just make a battle challenge with him. Plus he's purple so he can use any of the enhancements
7) 2 of those are interrupts, they have more interrupts in the first place

You seem to think that initiave is everything, all though important it's not the end all be all and interrupts give you the inish anyways. You only need to make 3 successful rescue attempts. AOCP is usually one and when you combine it with the thomas and matthew and reach you just had an interrupt draw 6 win the battle cannot be negated. Bart an Phil is one of the most useful combos in the game I use it more then James and Thad, you'd be surprised just how little there is to do against that combo. any single disciple you think is useless (see: Andrew) becomes less so when you consider that James and Thad are only as powerful as the number of disciples in play. I have never used andrew for a rescue attempt. I use him to add 1 to the X of Thad James and Boats Drawing. Speed is everything in the game now a days and few themes do speed better then disciples. There's a reason they were so popular last year, and despite what everyone on these boards seem to think, i think they will only take a minor hit in popularity this year

1) Shuffle, Return to Hand, Withdraw, Remove from Game.
2) TGT, only useful against decks with very little defense (not common in my play area)
3) Cannot Be Negated enhancements (quite common) cannot be interrupted
5) Makes him even worse... just useful for drawing.
7) See #3

I know that I'm sounding very pessimistic about this, but I'm not trying to argue that they're bad. I'm just trying to see why they are so much better than so many others.

lp670sv · « **Reply #10 on:** September 26, 2011, 10:55:54 PM »

1) Sorry they aren't protected from everything ever? They can't be completely OP
2) lol no, you don't have to have a small defense to have problems with TGT if you opponent gets TGT and a TGT character off the draw you better hope your deck is fast enough to draw enough ECs to keep them at bay, keep in mind that the TGT characters are perfectly capable of winning battles and then your EC is dead and you need to find another one before you can enter battle. AOCP wipes out your large defense, you've got two ECs in territory? Angel of the lord says no. Or you have two in territory and you're opponent doesnt have the most lost souls? okay. Enter battle. I'll use John. Grapes. Begin a new rescue with peter. sorry you can't enter battle. There's a reason TGT won nats, and was in a lot of the top table decks. It's easily one of the best non-dominant single cards in the game.
3) Battle winners are battle winners cant win every battle challenge.
5) Except he can still TGT you, and adds

to thad and james the lesser.
7) see #3

Red · « **Reply #11 on:** September 26, 2011, 11:36:14 PM »

Well joe enlighten us though thy all-knowing insight.

Isildur · « **Reply #12 on:** September 27, 2011, 12:12:20 AM »

Quote

I know that I'm sounding very pessimistic about this, but I'm not trying to argue that they're bad. I'm just trying to see why they are so much better than so many others.

Play a seasoned player (or any player for that matter since Disciples are rather dummy proof) when they are using Disciples there is much to fear and there really arent too many counters unless if you go back and start using random pre kings cards.

SomeKittens · « **Reply #13 on:** September 27, 2011, 12:23:29 AM »

Quote from: lp670sv on September 26, 2011, 10:55:54 PM

1) Sorry they aren't protected from everything ever? They can't be completely OP
NYTO Thad

Get on RTS and play a few games against Disciples. You'll learn much better from experience.

joezim007 · « **Reply #14 on:** September 27, 2011, 12:25:18 AM »

I'm just saying that if you play against a semi-fast deck with a decent defense, I don't really see how this is any more powerful. "Seasoned Players" all play with Disciples/TGT speed decks with very little defense, which is why the offense works so well.

SomeKittens · « **Reply #15 on:** September 27, 2011, 12:27:43 AM »

We all play with little defense because it's not worth the extra card slots to have extra defense. Offense will help me win faster.

joezim007 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 27, 2011, 01:05:54 AM »

I like to play with defense and a lot of the people I play with like to have defense. I believe it's more fun to have some balance and play the game it was meant to be played. I know it won't win Nats, but I've never been able to go anyway.

Isildur · « **Reply #17 on:** September 27, 2011, 01:30:44 AM »

Quote from: joezim007 on September 27, 2011, 12:25:18 AM

I'm just saying that if you play against a semi-fast deck with a decent defense, I don't really see how this is any more powerful. "Seasoned Players" all play with Disciples/TGT speed decks with very little defense, which is why the offense works so well.

I am assuming the thing is you havnt played in a area with alot of meta decks before. Sure you can be a hipster like my self and some other players and play defense heavy decks just to be trolls but are balanced decks actually better? Imo at one point they were but no longer in these modern times (like 4 years later lol) you either need to play offense heavy or defense heavy or else you wont win vs any form of the meta decks.

Minister Polarius · « **Reply #18 on:** September 27, 2011, 03:39:15 AM »

I continue to insist that Disciples aren't ridiculous anymore, and that a balanced deck has enormous potential if constructed and played properly. Sure, speed decks play themselves, but if you're a skilled player you can actually outspeed a speed deck with a balanced deck and have many more plays available to you besides.

Prof Underwood · « **Reply #19 on:** September 27, 2011, 10:32:02 AM »

Quote from: Isildur on September 27, 2011, 01:30:44 AM

you either need to play offense heavy or defense heavy or else you wont win

I think this has been true for the last 4 years or so. A balanced deck would not have enough defense to stop a speed deck from getting to 5 LSs first, and it wouldn't have enough offense to break through a defense-heavy deck. Therefore, playing the 2 extremes was the only way to win consistently. And with the time limit at tournaments, playing speed was therefore the only way to win at the highest levels.

I hope Pol is right though and that this year will mark the return of the balanced deck.

SomeKittens · « **Reply #20 on:** September 27, 2011, 10:33:21 AM »

Quote from: Prof Underwood on September 27, 2011, 10:32:02 AM

I hope Pol is right though and that this year will mark the return of the balanced deck.

I heard that all last year, and yet Sam and Genesis are still around at the top.

Gabe · « **Reply #21 on:** September 28, 2011, 09:35:50 PM »

While I appreciate this discussion I do not like the overall tone or spirit of some of the posts that were being made. I'm pretty sure you know who you are and you know the spirit with which you posted. If you have any questions about it please send me a PM.

I've moved that section of this discussion to quarantine.

Please continue in a loving and helpful manner.

News:

Author Topic: Disciples, What makes them good? (Read 5486 times)

Chronic Apathy

lp670sv

Rawrlolsauce!

Chronic Apathy

lp670sv

lp670sv