Cactus Game Design Message Boards

If you want to try T2, the best thing you can do is build a T2 deck and play it. Even if it isn't a particularly good deck, hopefully from seeing other decks and playing your own you'll get ideas.

I may be a bit bias, because I come from a place where we almost exclusively play T2. I think we mostly because we like longer and very strategic games (I don't want to say T1 isn't strategic, but you definitely have less options). Also in my experience more decks seem viable in T2. I am running a Daniel deck without PoC cards right now, and it works fairly well. Having more copies of most cards in your deck means you have more choices. Also due to the larger deck and same number of dominants, Dominants are less of a factor in T2 (although due to the Rescuer's Choice rules, Burial is much better).

I don't really have a process for deckbuilding. Usually I come up with an idea, either around a theme, a card, or a combo I find interesting, then I put together a deck that looks like it will work or at least could be a "proof of concept" (which basically means a deck that doesn't necessarily have general support/counter cards like Hezikiah's Signet Ring or the Dominants I don't have extras of). Then I try it out and figure out how to improve it.

In general if you don't want to sit down for an hour or more to play a Redemption game than T2 might not be for you. But I've had a ton of fun trying to break through my opponent's defense, or find a clever way to stop a powerful offense. I've had games where I was the one with the nearly unstoppable offense (I built a Children of Light deck, and while it was powerful, most of the players I played against could deal with it, if they got their stuff soon enough) and I've been assaulted by a powerful offense and trying to scrounge together blocks until I could get my seventh Redeemed soul (or draw SoG + NJ or Second Coming).

Thanks guys - really great tips!

To be honest: Most of my T1 games currently last way more than one hour - often due to thinking about the best option and since constellations of cards and their abilities are often not 100% clear (e.g. when played or before they are played in order to choose optimal option).

More information still welcome! 

Not sure if anyone reading this thread is concerned by this particular issue, but one of the things that I heard a lot of people say over the years was that they simply didn't have the collection required to build T2 decks.

Now more than ever, competitive T2 decks can be built that don't require four copies of certain cards and many times the cards that you may want 3-4 copies of for certain decks are not that difficult to obtain.

That being said, I can understand if people are concerned with keeping a T1 deck built at the same time and not having extra of the expensive dominants (TSC, Woes, etc). However, that's the great thing about Lackey...you can test a deck without actually needing the physical deck built! 

Well, thanks guys. One additional question: Are there any differences in the kind of playing when comparing T1 with T2?

Oh, good to know! Need to check those rules then (at least Experience Credit I never heard about).

My question was more related to the kind of game play during a game (e.g. in Type 1 almost everything is about to get out your stuff as early as possible or at least when necessary resulting in massive search, draw, take, reveal, look etc. things). Just wanted to know if this (or speed in general) is also the broadest or most common/safe way to go in T2 as well (another example: In THalf you might have a chance to stand and get your opponents handsize reduced permanantly by at least 2 cards - mixing your DAE stuff appropriately hence not relying on speed or selecting cards every turn or phase).

Ok. thank you.

Regarding game play rules - is there anything where those can be checked/read?
I.e. "Experience Credit" I still don't know what it is all about. And are there other game rules not known in T1?

Thanks a lot!

But following rules are still confusing for me (maybe due to non-native language):

If a dual-alignment card is different alignments at face-value it counts as all of those alignments for deck building purposes.
Does this mean cards like Anthropophobia do count as good and evil card at the same time (not either or)? If so - what's the purpose of this rule since in this case those cards are already fulfilling deck building rules inherently?

If neutral is one of the alignments the card counts as good and/or evil based on the other alignment(s).
So Covenants and Curses can never be count as neutral cards? If so what are neutral cards in this case besides Artefacts and Lost Souls?

Thanks again! Seems building a T2 deck is the most challanging version of deckbuilding!