Cactus Game Design Message Boards

T1-2P 1st Place Nationals 2017
Coney Island

First and foremost I want to thank Gabe and Jesse for hosting an amazing tournament, everyone who was able to make it this year, and our Lord Jesus Christ for blessing us with the life of His salvation by His grace and mercy to allow us to fellowship in His kingdom where there is Redemption as we are redeemed and saved!!

2015. Everyone knows a deck without Son of God won. What!!! What a concept. I was super impressed by John Earley and his site lock deck at my first national tournament experience and thought it was surely impossible to win without the best card in the game, but he did it!! Thus Confusion was born and entered the meta, once again.

2016. The BoM deck! Moses is a super hero, maybe consisting of nearly 5 cards previously printed. Not to mention Joshua who is a boss and empowers an already incredible hero, Captain of the Host. With Confusion, The Serpent and soul manipulation, the 2 Liner is nearly +5 to differential with a Women's Falling Away. All in all the BoM deck wrecked the meta! Super powerful, built and piloted by one of the greatest Redemption players of all time: Gabe Isbell.

2017. The meta is sprawling with pharisees and demons. Gabe's player created card A Covenant of Prayer has relieved us of the Confusion that dominated the meta in the previous season and the new Guardian of Your Souls is keeping lost souls on the table. From the Darkness A Child is Born!! The Children of Light!!

T1-2P Coney Island

1   The Great White Throne (RoJ)
1   Shrine to Artemis
1   Four-Drachma Coin
1   Ram's Horn (Pi)
1   I am Creator

1   Son of God (I)
1   The Second Coming
1   Angel of the Lord (Greek)
1   Christian Martyr (J)
1   Three Woes (RoJ)
1   Falling Away
1   Guardian of Your Souls (RoJ)

1   Children of Light (RoJ)
1   The Angel of the Winds
1   Peter (EC)
1   Soldier of God (PC)

1   A Soldier's Prayer
(All persecuted church armor of God)
1   Helmet of Salvation
1   Shield of Faith
1   Breastplate of Righteousness
1   Sword of the Spirit
1   Belt of Truth
1   Shoes of Peace

1   Love (EC)
1   Faithfulness
1   Goodness (EC)
1   Gentleness (EC)
1   Self Control
1   Joy (EC)
1   Kindness (EC)
1   Peace (EC)

1   Christ's Triumph
1   Fifth Seal, Justice Seekers (RoJ)
1   Faith of Joshua

1   Fire Foxes
1   Foreign Wives
1   The Deceiver (RoJ)
1   Sabbath Breaker
1   Messenger of Satan (EC)
1   Hypocrisy (EC)
1   Scattered

1   Lost Soul (Humble)
1   Lost Soul (Forsaken)
1   Lost Soul II Chronicles 28:13 (Hopper)
1   Lost Soul (Lawless)
1   Lost Soul (Gain)
1   Lost Soul (Darkness)
1   Lost Soul (Imitate)
1   Lost Souls (Three Liner)

1   Patmos (RoJ)

Reserve:
1   High Priest Ananias (RoJ)
1   Emperor Vitellius
1   Eternal Covenant
1   Uzzah
1   Eternal Inheritance
1   Emperor Claudius (PC)
1   Covenant of Prayer (RoJ)
1   Burning of Magic Books (EC)
1   Hezekiah's Signet Ring
1   Golden Censer (RoJ)

The whole concept of the deck is to feed your children with the fruits of the spirit and empower them with the full armor of God!! What a ministry! I can't tell you how many signs were pointing me to play this deck. John Earley's shirt even said feed your children for a ministry and give them Hope which is the card I posted I wanted to create on the boards!! What a dream come true! It sets up super fast, darkness soul, imitate, and lawless get you quickly to the few evil cards in the deck which were extremely efficient at blocking backed by Three Woes. Children of Light typically sets up very quickly in this build and when you can deck out fast, you can start using Shrine to Artemis with Three Woes for very powerful rescues. I tested the deck a ton over a month's time after playing a few games with KevinTheDude(Joshua Potratz) and being convinced it had a great shot at winning Nationals. Sure enough with a little bit of modification his build became 1st and 2nd place in T1-2p. I do consider our working together very mutually beneficial and a mission accomplished overall on our combined efforts to the success of this deck concept.

Game 4 5-2
Drew Wills

Drew is a great player from our East Central Region and loves to play Throne. He plays very fast and aggresively, so I knew I would be on the edge of my seat all game. Sure enough I was and he had a great start. A few chump blocks and clever use of Woes/Shrine allowed me to break through his defense along with enough stall blocks and speed to stay in the game. He used The Serpent on Peter for 6 turns, but I had Love to heal him which allowed me to continue playing Woes and drop the Son of God Second Coming for the win.

Game 5 3-5 Loss
Jay Chambers

Jay is one of my dear friends online and in our region. We play a lot of Redemption together and both know it is almost a toss up when we sit down to enjoy a game. He took some of my advice which was to definitely play Guardian of Your Souls (may be the first time I have seen him play it competively) and it certainly paid off! He got a turn 1 Woman with Child to Three Woes, knowing what I am playing obviously. In hindsight about 15 minutes before deck check I was looking at Brown/Crimson Outsiders and Image of the Beast as reserve items which I would almost certainly include in more optimal variants of the deck (see KevinTheDude's build), which could have served well against this due to me having a turn 1 Deceiver. I did get turn 1 Children of Light but he immediately played Three Woes on it, asking me if I had Hypocrisy. Fortunately I did have Hypocrisy and was able to pick up my Children of Light with Foreign Wives then set it back down to start placing Fruits and Armor along with the drawing. I really do attribute this loss to soul drought, as I recall cycling possibly 18 cards with Shoes and not finding a soul to save. I was holding Son of God so even if he did somehow block a fed Child while holding Woes, I could have at least finished 4-5 with the Son of God. I believe him choosing to play Guardian of Your Souls helped him a lot because I could not utilize the Liner with Falling Away for at least an extra turn. Great game and we both played our best! I believe this game was recorded, so I'm definitely looking forward to watching the replay!!

Cards I saw 0 of:
Guiding Angel
Darius' Decree
CWD
RBD
GC
Stalks of Flax
Faith of Jacob
Nicolaitan's Teaching
Greeting
Faith of Samuel
etc

and I think I played against 1 Punisher Lost soul (Red Wing)

I really don't think this deck is overpowered or imbalanced. In many cases my opponents who were armed with ways to stop me(Claudia/Every Tribe) simply did not take the appropriate steps necessary to do so.
Here are testing screen shots of T1 and T2 results so you can see a little glimpse of the kind of time I put into testing on Lackey.
(will upload Testing Screen Shots)

Yay I get to make my first card!!! Wooo!!!

1 Corinthians 13:13 says But now faith,hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Redemption has a lot of Great Faith cards from the Cloud of Witnesses set. Redemption also has a wonderful Love card which is in this deck and was vital to victories! Redemption does not have a great Hope card as the current Hope card is a 2/2 no special ability red enhancemnt.

I present to you my first draft for my player created card... Hope!!! We now have A New Hope in Christ Jesus!!


Clay/Green Enhancement 3/0
Cloud Card
Place on your NT hero: When hero enters battle, you may discard this card to choose an opponent's evil character to block.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1


This card will obviously have to under go play testing, but I have determined this card to be relatively balanced as Ehud and Asahel cost free can easily choose opponent's cards to win souls(which Jayden has now beat me 2-0 with in T2!!) and the reference is perfect to become a new Cloud card as it ushers us in to Cloud of Witnesses with the Hebrews 11:1 reference. This also will enable the currently quite difficult to accomplish Eternal Inheritance/Christ's Triumph 2 soul turn rescue which is thematically brilliant and should be amazing. We have a new Hope in our Eternal Inheritance through Christ's Triumph! It makes perfect sense!!

I encourage you to test out this deck build, maybe optimize it within your play group, and to even test out my Hope concept for my player created card. It was great to see everyone at this National Redemption Tournament! I Hope to see you next year in Texas!! Blessings and best wishes always, in Christ

Congratz on the top spot! I've had a blast working on and playing deck and I really like some of your inclusions.

Also I made the card for you.

Spoiler (hover to show)

this is my crude quickly made attempt at a full art version

Spoiler (hover to show)

notice the similar color style to the original art

That's infinitely better than mine! I love the image of the empty cross as our eternal hope. Regardless of what the stats and function of the card end up being I hope that ends up being the art.

Congrats!!! You definitely deserved the W.

Quote from: TheHobbit on August 07, 2017, 07:49:08 PM

Congrats!!! You definitely deserved the W.

Thank you so much my friend it is always an honor to play tournaments with you and a pleasure to fellowship.

Something I forgot to mention is that on my arms are tattooed 4 things relevant to this deck build and our walk with Christ

Rapture: in the shield of our Faith
Release: of the spirit through His word
Guardian: of our souls that may never fall away
Provision: by our hope in the eternal inheritance as we inherit eternal life through Christ's Triumph

Now that's good stuff!!!