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The concept of this deck originated with the ruling on special initiative. When it was ruled that special initiative only happened when the last character on one side of the battle was being removed from battle, I immediately decided that I wanted to build something around Choose the Rescuer. Once I decided on that, I looked into ways of affecting my opponent other than just not letting them attack with the Heroes they wanted. At some point I stumbled across the idea to combine Rain Becomes Dust (a huge anti-meta card in T2) with The Generous Widow. The end result was of course, they don't rescue with the Hero they want (and can only negate if they use Gold), they discard two cards from hand and then discard the top 2 of their deck--effectively a new variant of hand control. Wanting to also include Iron Pan (another anti-meta card in T2), I started with Sarah's Jealousy and Imitating Evil (for a potential 8 Choose the Rescuer blocks) in a Babylonian defense. Judges was an easy offense to choose as it is one of the fastest and it also meant that in a pinch, I could use The Generous Widow for attacking (which rarely ended up happening). Early in testing, I discovered that having 4 Generous Widows could lead to hand clog especially if I drew a couple of them before having the other cards I needed (Sarah's Jealousy, RBD, etc). I looked at the other Choose the Rescuer cards and was immediately drawn to Disuading Speech. Combining Speech with 2K Horses, Words of Discouragement and Forgotten History was exactly what I was looking for. I was still able to use the Babylonian Magicians for Iron Pan since they are half Pale Green so that worked out really well. Balaam was a huge addition as he was not only a tough EC to beat, I could convert him to a Hero to recur RBD whenever my opponent had gotten rid of it (not hard to do). I could then band Simeon to Balaam for a soft fbtn band. When the new cards released Foreign Wives and Scattered fit right in. Sabbath Breakers helped me draw into the rest of the defense, but ideally I would save them for choosing the blocker off Provisions when I had RBD active.

The offense went through a lot of changes but the core stayed the same. AutO, Simeon, Sam, Moses, Captain and Gen Widow were the most used Heroes but I can remember using each Hero at least once during the tournament. Least used was Ezekiel as he was just there to activate Iron Pan on, play Provisions off of and get back a Wheel if both ended up in the discard pile somehow. Woman at the Well was not used much, but I wanted to have her in case I was forced to use Words when they had only a few Lost Souls out (since using Words inherently creates Soul drought). With Pan available, Naz would not stop W@tW and being Gold, I could still use Edict or Sword against Sword on her. The night before the tournament, I almost took the 3 Provisions out because I felt like there would be Decrees all over the place (and I was right), but I couldn't find anything better. In hindsight, I think the Provisions are still useful (since Siege Army can take out Decrees), but I should have cut to 2 in order to add a 4th Edict. In my tournament report, I mentioned how the lack of Edicts kept me from potentially defeating Gabe.

So Jerome and I are driving home and really enjoyed getting to read this and discuss some about it. Spitballing a little did you consider a confusion or 2? With pan turning off naz confusion could've been nice.

That makes a lot of sense. Congrats and thanks again for posting your deck and giving commentary.  I always enjoy reading these from elite t2 players.

That makes a lot of sense. Congrats and thanks again for posting your deck and giving commentary.  I always enjoy reading these from elite t2 players.

Cool deck and congrats!
Awesome to see variety in T2 displayed having the gen widow and disuading speech in the winning deck!

Thank you both!

Russell Westbrook dunk vs Rockets - Thunder @ Rockets 11/28/10

I guess you can't + 1 stuff in this area of the forums but just know I would've if I could've.

Justin, you play basketball and yet I've never seen you do that... What's up with that?

 
dropped hoppers changed anti burial for thorns

added vain philosophy

added  2nd magic charms

added  4th edict

dropped woman at the well

added 2nd invoking terror

Drop Foreign Wives

Drop Scattered

Changed wanderer ls to rejoice ls

Yeah and I beat it at nats so

People are always welcome to make comments or suggestions on the decks of others - even if that deck happened to win nationals. Also I wouldn't discredit Matt's win over Justin.

Kirk

Also (based on the meta) card choices can change from great to nonplayable.