Cactus Game Design Message Boards

This is a copy and paste job to my last reply to my own thread in the rules forum where I was asking what can be done to stop Uzzah.  Since I wandered in this reply way off topic and into deck design instead, I thought I would post my thoughts here instead.  Again, I thank you for reading, and if you disagree please be gentle

"Wow.  I'm becoming amazed (and discouraged) at how many "must-have" cards there are in every tournament deck now.  I think I'm up to around 15 now.  Am I the only one who thinks Uzzah is a little over-powered, especially when paired with Torment?

Uzzah (assuming you have several artifacts)
Torment (mainly for Uzzah in my case)
Captured Ark and/or Lying unto God (I prefer Captured Ark because of Uzzah)
Hopper Lost Soul
The Amalekite's Slave (in almost every deck I see now)
Destruction of Nehushtan
Christian Martyr
Falling Away (which I'm not especially fond of, but I like more now because of New Jerusalem and Grapes of Wrath)
Burial? (Although I see that some players do not use this now)
Son of God
Angel of the Lord
New Jerusalem (which I'm not especially fond of)
Grapes of Wrath (which I'm not especially fond of)
Guardian of Your Souls (especially in multi-player)
Lost Souls (for the free block)
Other "staple" lost souls like Female only, NT only, Revealer, First Round Protect, Shuffler, Wanderer, Anti-Burial, etc (not in all winning decks but in most)
Harvest Time? (not in every deck I suppose, but in most speed decks)

Then there's those curses/covenants/artifacts or stand alone Heroes/ECs that are probably in 75% of the decks out there these days.

I know I have totally changed topics now, and maybe I should move this to a different thread.  But am I the only one noticing (or maybe just feeling) that winning decks are looking more and more similar?  I think I know what the difference may be in Redemption and other card games - there are so many cards that can go in ANY deck - Lost Souls, Artifacts/Covenants/Curses, Dominants, one shot or stand alone characters, rainbow enhancements, etc.  If I remember right Magic the Gathering had artifacts, but this was about it for "every deck" options, right? (It's been years since I played and I DO NOT miss it).  Now within each color you had favorite characters and spells, and of course this is just like Redemption.  But in Redemption I start every deck I make with the same 20 cards.  I actually have the base 20 already in the spreadsheet called "every deck".  Unless I'm using sites the Lost souls will probably not change at all, the Dominants will not change, Hopper and Amal slave are always there, and Captured Ark too.

If I'm going for a 50-56 card deck then this means that 30-36 of my cards will be truly unique to that deck out of any other deck I would have brought.  Probably another 5 or so of those will be artifacts, so now I'm down to 25-30 cards for my colored offense and defense.  So I start feeling confined and want to go to a 63 card deck to have more FUN and variety, but then it is sure to lose to the 50 card fast-draw machine that is so common now (so and so bands to so and so who bands to so and so who plays the next enhancement, then I play the next enhancement again,........., now I set all my characters aside for one turn to draw more cards next turn.....)  I can create a deck designed to frustrate this specific kind of deck, but how fun is that? 

I guess I'm just quickly getting disenfrachised to the tournament style and I enjoy far more our casual Saturdays when I can take Falling Away, New Jerusalem, Guardian of Your Souls, grapes of Wrath, Uzzah, OUT of my deck because most of our casual group do not have those cards, and I can just play for fun.  Or maybe I just need to take those cards out anyway and start going to tournaments to have fun instead of going there to win (and watch myself lose to the same decks over and over).  Anyway, thanks for listening "

Uzzah (assuming you have several artifacts)
Torment (mainly for Uzzah in my case)
Captured Ark and/or Lying unto God (I prefer Captured Ark because of Uzzah)
Hopper Lost Soul
The Amalekite's Slave (in almost every deck I see now)

I use none of those in my deck

...am I the only one noticing (or maybe just feeling) that winning decks are looking more and more similar?...

No, you're not.  In fact, I started a big discussion previously on this same idea of how many deck staples there are now.

New card Idea:

Artifact that says Protect all targets from dominants unless a player discards a card of matching affinity from hand.

Uzzah (assuming you have several artifacts)
Torment (mainly for Uzzah in my case)
Captured Ark and/or Lying unto God (I prefer Captured Ark because of Uzzah)
Hopper Lost Soul
The Amalekite's Slave (in almost every deck I see now)

I use none of those in my deck

I use all of those in my deck minus torment lol

I think the more cards the fine fine folks at Cactus give us, the better. At some point, there will be a shift in deck building that will make the game move away from the problem of so many "must haves". I foresee a time when creative players, and players who just can't get the must haves, will build winning decks that will break more rules. Like, say, no Dominants at all? Crazy? Remember when having no Heroes was just too nutty?