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Prophets will probably get cards every set for as long as Redemption lasts. Mostly because there are still a lot of big name prophets that can be reprinted, which is good in two ways: 1) art can be reused provided its good enough, which saves Cactus money, 2) Recognizable characters promote the fun of the game to younger kids. Also, at least half the Bible was written by Prophets. It's just the nature of the game.

And I'm not sure why the subthemes that are strengthened should be a source of complaints (I still don't see any of them as being new, as I can think of characters in every theme or subtheme in the tins that have been used more than a little). All of the "subthemes" can mesh well together with other subthemes, or they can stand on their own. I'd say that would help deck variety and creativity.

I assure you more themes will be playable; whether or not one theme dominates and the meta becomes centralized remains to be seen, but there was a lot of playtesting that went into this set, and a lot of changes were made to make the various strategies balanced among each other. If it turns out that we were wrong, then that will truly be unfortunate, but I hope you'll at least give the new set a chance before assuming it's going to ruin the game...again...

I understand a large portion of the bible and the game will always be dedicated to prophets, I just don't think they should be getting the dedicated slots when you could print more mixed theme prophets to make more people happy (and there was a decent amount of that).
Prophets aren't the only cards that need reprints, Goliath had no SA until this year and I don't think anyone complains that his art is the same.
Luke isn't even a Luke hero, and he's far more famous among little kids than some of the reprints in this set.

Even if they aren't new, other themes should be getting slots first. Syrians haven't gotten a single card in three sets, and after this set Canaanites will be more powerful.

I'm trying to be optimistic about the new set, and from what I've seen it's a good set even if it wasn't what I would like printed. Past experience is still telling me there will be one theme decks and everyone will be playing the same thing yet again.
And there are some concerning cards being printed, any one of them 'could' become like Thadd.

Quote from: Smokey on June 28, 2011, 03:21:44 PM

And there are some concerning cards being printed, any one of them 'could' become like Thadd.

Possible, but I don't think there are any cards that will tie an opponent's hands quite like Thad does. And Bryon gave permission for us to blame him if anything gets out of hand...

I didn't mean like him in ability, I meant in how he has dominated the metagame.
We'll see I guess, Hopefully this set will turn out as expected  .

Quote from: Smokey on June 28, 2011, 03:21:44 PM

Syrians haven't gotten a single card in three sets, and after this set Canaanites will be more powerful.

The Syrians got a new card as a State promo this year.  Plus, the Canaanites played a bigger role in the Bible than did the Syrians.

Then why didn't you address that earlier? As is, we have a theme that hasn't been touched other than two character promos for almost 3-4 years. If you want this game to diversify, why not focus on themes you have already actively made cards for? Syrians were so much closer to being playable than Canaanites were.

But, as has been Redemption tradition, I'm sure several smallish, non-competetive themes will be given exhorbitant boosts in an attempt to make them playable, but it will only result in the centralization of the meta due to the lack of depth in current themes.

Look at priests. An entire new brigade became one of them best almost immediately after it was released. Teal was featured in many decks in its first year, and hasn't looked back. You might say "but, that was splash". You would be right. But that doesn't change the fact that you went from a brigade/theme that DIDN'T exist to a brigade/theme in the top deck, even placing nationally.

People use defense?

Oh wait, I forgot, you're from California...

Quote from: Alex_Olijar on June 28, 2011, 07:49:21 PM

If you want this game to diversify, why not focus on themes you have already actively made cards for? Syrians were so much closer to being playable than Canaanites were.

Did you read what I just posted about gray?

The game is pretty diverse, and is getting moreso with each new set.  There are a lot more playable decks now than there were before Priests released.  If you think that every TCG always has a dozen decks that are equally tournament worthy, you do not have a very broad view of TCGs.  Add to that the fact that Redemption has both offenses and defenses in the same deck, and you get exponentially more combinations of cards possible.

I did see the rest of your post, I was just address the part about Syrians. I understand why there is no gray this year. I don't understand why no Syrians were in TEXP. or Disciples. Two sets that focused on complimenting themes.

I'm not really sure what your definition of "playable" is. I've played 11 t-1 player Regional games in two different Regionals this year. I saw 3 TGT decks, 5 Disciple decks, a priest deck, a prophet deck, an angel deck. On defense, I saw 2 standalones, a babylonian, 3 Philistine, 2 Pharisee, an Egyptian,  and two I can't remember.

If your definition of playable is "largely centralized around 2 offenses and the defenses that compliment/defeat those 2 offenses", then yeah, Redemption has many plyable themes.  You make a distinction just tournament worthy... I'm not really sure why. What kind of TCG says they have cards that "are playable, but not tournament worthy"

I have this car in my driveway. It runs, but there aren't any seats. So what is the point of it running?

I just want Redemption to be diverse in reality. I don't see what the point is in pulling wool over our eyes and saying that it is by using technicalities of playable vs. tournament worthy. The fact of the matter is that Redemption is and has been largely centralized for about 2-3 years (and before that, but I wasn't as active in the meta so I don't really know it before). The problem is no one sees it as a problem because there exists a old legend of the centralization of FBTN decks. Just because it isn't that bad doesn't mean it's not bad.

Edit: I wasn't necessarily complaining about Teal. I was complain about the philosophy of power creep. When something new comes out, it's like it has to come out better than stuff before it or else no one will switch to it. IMO, that ruins games, and already has messed with Redemption a lot.

Laban's best use is as a magician in a Pharisee defense.

Ring Wraith is only saying that beings I told him. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I guess you could say Ring Wraith...

 

Is more like the Mouth of Sawrlolsauce!

YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

No... that was awful.

There is more my compter doesn't let me type that much.

......because it didn't work well all the time. He had to depend on drawing dominants. All he had access to was FBTN heores, aocp, doms with reach and prosperity to help him draw them out. Today, the reason why people play speed decks is because they are so reliable and speed decks are so reliable because they out race your opponent. Its really a broken deck type, especially broken in Redemption because of how the game works. Anyway Tim had a BTN deck with some purple and a cbn capture defense with brown, black and pg to abuse raiders camp. Slinkard had a straight Silver offense with a nice assyrian defense that placed second. Also there was a nice red deck run by Joushua Heys brother Joel. The point is that there was a lot more diversity in the meta then, and therefore the game was more fun to play. That's just my observations, and I know that you understand being that you played much earlier then my time. 

I understand why there is no gray this year. I don't understand why no Syrians were in TEXP. or Disciples. Two sets that focused on complimenting themes.

In Disciples, we went with N.T. themes for gray.  We thought that would make sense to players. 

In TEXP, we limited ourselves to good looking art.  There wasn't much of that available for Syrians.  There was plenty of quality art for Pharisees, and they also needed help at the time, so we went with Pharisees.

Trust me, I understand your frustration.  But I think we going to continue to have some of these issues because of (1) how long we have to wait between sets, and (2) how few cards we can print in each set.

I have hundreds of card ideas on my computer, complete with art, references, etc.  I actually sent rough drafts of the next three sets to Rob about a month ago.  I wish we could accelerate the process, get a bigger playtesting team (not a bigger elder team, just a couple more playtesters) so we can turn out 3 sets per year and still test them all before printing, and have a card pool that changes/grows every 4 months, like other games.  I'm pretty sure that some of the other playtesters feel the same way.  But we are limited by how much cash Cactus can spare.  Remember that Redemption only generates about a quarter of Cactus' income, but takes about three-quarters of Rob's time.  It is not worth it for Cactus to produce cards more often than once a year.  We must be patient. 

I actually sent rough drafts of the next three sets to Rob about a month ago.

Inb4 no Syrians in any of them.

I wish we could accelerate the process, get a bigger playtesting team (not a bigger elder team, just a couple more playtesters) so we can turn out 3 sets per year and still test them all before printing, and have a card pool that changes/grows every 4 months, like other games. 

MD's playgroup has been waiting for such an opportunity, we feel so disconnected from the rest of the community, and even more so with many not able to make it to Nats this year...we would love to be able to contribute....

Sauce doesn't really see any of the other playtesters regularly. We could do quite a chunk of playtesting together each month if we were both playtesters.

We here in AL could playtest as the majority of my group lives under my roof lol.

Same here, except my roof covers a dorm.  I'd like to see a statement from Rob about community support for this sort of thing.