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Deck: 100


NEUTRAL: 26

Lost Souls: 14
2 - Awake
2 - Escape
2 - FBtN
2 - Wanderer
2 - Lawless
2 - Humble
2 - Prosperity

Artifacts: 1
1 - Urim and Thummim

Dual-Alignment Cards: 11
1 - Three Woes
1 - King Jehu
2 - Prisoner at Gaza
1 - King Saul
1 - Fire Foxes
1 - Unified Language
1 - Second Seal | War
2 - Avenged!
1 - Gibeonite Treaty


GOOD: 37

Doms: 6
1 - Son of God
1 - The Second Coming
1 - Angel of the Lord
1 - Guardian of Your Souls
1 - Grapes of Wrath
1 - Harvest Time

Cities/Forts: 3
1 - Wall of Protection
1 - Twelve Gates
1 - The Throne of David

Covenants: 4
2 - Covenant of Prayer
2 - You Will Remain

Heroes: 17
1 - Every Tribe
1 - Samuel
1 - David, the Shepherd
1 - Joshua, Son of Nun
1 - Phineas, Son of Eleazar
3 - The Angel Under the Oak
1 - Captain of the Host
1 - Ahimelek, the Hittite
1 - Ishamaiah, the Gibeonite
1 - Caleb
1 - Asahel
2 - Abigail
1 - King Amaziah
1 - Ehud

Good Enhancements: 7
1 - Not Alone
2 - Faith of David
2 - Counsel of Abigail
2 - Valley of Salt


EVIL: 37

Doms: 6
1 - Christian Martyr
1 - Falling Away (CoW)
1 - Vain Philosophy
1 - Mayhem
1 - Destruction of Nehushtan
1 - Shipwreck

Curses: 1
1 - The Fall of Man

Cities/Forts: 2
1 - Ashkelon
1 - Babel
2 - Philistine Outpost

Evil Characters: 13
2 - Philistine Diviners
3 - Philistine Armor Bearer
1 - Goliath
1 - King Achish
1 - Ishbibenob
1 - Delilah
1 - Philistine Garrison
1 - Saph
1 - The Twelve-Fingered Giant
1 - King Jehoahaz

Evil Enhancements: 13
1 - Lurking
1 - The Wages of Sin
1 - Envy
3 - Philistine Chariot and Horses
2 - Overwhelmed By Philistines
2 - Bringing Fear
1 - Devourer
2 - East of Eden


RESERVE: 10

1 - Lost Anointing
1 - Foreign Sword
1 - The Throne of David
1 - Samuel
1 - The Angel Under the Oak
1 - Sword of the Spirit
1 - Philistine Armor Bearer
1 - Paying Taxes
2 - Lahmi's Spear


Total Points: 9.67
Total Lost Souls: 24 (7,3,7,7) <-- Don't be too surprised about getting 7 three times. All of those were after time had run out or possibly very shortly before.

Some MVPs:

• The Throne Squad - Obvious reasons
• East of Eden and Harvest Time - The candy store just ran out? Time to restock.
• Philistine Diviners - Underdecked some pesky Golden Cherubim's and RBDs, East of Eden stuff, and Philly Outpost freebies.
• Avenged! - Grabbed out whatever fort I needed and was a release valve in case Sam lost his friends in battle. Never used it in battle on good or evil but it was nice to have.
• Goliath - Often times he was the beast of all chump blocks because my opponent had no other Heroes. Otherwise he just got one easily dom-blocked Hero in battle. One time he made Justin regret having Twelve Gates when I wasn't even the one blocking.
• Ashkelon - For reasons already mentioned.
• Lost Souls - I think the soul selection for this deck was perfect. Two Awake, two Escape, two Lawless, and two FBtN made not having FBtN relatively rare, which helped significantly against the ubiquitous Punishers and Forsakens and also help speed the game up. The two Wanderers also helped against pesky souls when FBtNs weren't out. Humble helped against Babel since I can get my hand relatively low before battle with all the characters and weapons in the deck. And Prosperity cuz duh.
• EDIT: I would also put Paying Taxes in the main deck and Treasures of War in Reserve to play off Diviners or War when I can. Golden Cherubim and RBD were pretty common and having these more available would've helped quite a bit.

Some changes I would make:

• I would probably include Rapha. This was a bit of an oversight, mostly because I don't have one after not making to any tournies this spring. I didn't really miss him too much though. Philistines are pretty easy to recur, Wall of Protection stopped banding, and I could get my Reserve stuff easily enough anyway between Prisoners, Wages, and War.
• Probably find a spot for another David. I don't have any Hero recursion and he's a pretty big target. Plus, even if I lose one Sam and Dave then I could use Prisoner to grab Sam from Reserve or AUtO to grab the one in discard and still get to use it.
• Maybe find a spot for another Ahimelek as well. Having Not Alone, Unified Language, and two Faith of Davids plus King Jehu makes Ahimelek pretty valuable. There were only a pretty small number of times where I missed not having him though. Most of those don't really even need Ahimelek to make a successful rescue in T2MP.
• I did get to use Urim and Thummim a few times in one game, but with Phineas being my only High Priest as well as relatively low on David's list of dudes to grab it didn't work out very often. Not sure if I would cut it since I usually had Fall of Man or You Will Remain active anyway, but there were times when I only had that as an option and would have been better off with a Golden Cherubim or Image of the Beast/Golden Censor to negate a Punisher or Forsaken if I didn't have a FBtN.

Unfortunately the field was pretty small, but I'm glad that we were able to get to 8 so that we didn't have to do any tables of three which I'm not particularly fond of. Maybe that's just because if I'm playing at a table of three that usually means half of my opponents are Justin but who knows...? Saw a lot of great deck variety but to the surprise of very few Throne, Revelation Angels, and White shenanigans were the top three placers. (I only say "White shenanigans" because I only played Ron once and thus didn't get to see his whole offense, but I believe he was using Tyler Stevens' deck so I dunno... Maybe Ron just got lucky?  ) The other themes I saw going around were Judges splash, Great Image + ANB reset, Elders of Jerusalem   , Job (John M. admitted it was his two-player deck so his typical lack of Heroes didn't work out too well for him but Job is a pretty solid multi Hero so a multi-focused build could have potential. Although Job doesn't seem to jive much with Goliath, so watch out...), and Music Leader. Overall a really great tournament and many thanks to Travis, Roy, and Terry for hosting.

I'll probably post my T2-2P deck (if I can remember what all was in it before I pulled stuff out for other decks...) with some comments about that as well since I guess Josh wants to see what people were playing. Unfortunately that one will be in Complete Decks though since I ended up in 6th, which may not sound very impressive, but the deck did beat the eventual champion and would have put me in first if not for one crucial mistake in my last game. Tune in later to hear what happened.   

Much appreciated, my fine fellow. Though I still think you T2 multi folks are crazy.

No problem. And ha, I mostly agree with you although don't base your opinion off of what you saw at NC Regionals... It was much later in the day and at Nationals we got a lunch break and a variety of decks to play against so it was overall a lot more fun. 

I would absolutely play this build in T2-2P with only a few tweaks.  Samuel is the King of Cogs.

I definitely would too. I think in two player I would put a little less emphasis on the Philistines Unity and get Priest of Zeus, Outsiders, and maybe some Canaanites in there. But with three AUtOs, one Sam, two Prisoner at Gazas, and two Covenant of Prayers, that's 8 eight ways to get Sam, which worked super well in every game, even after some ANB resets.

Congratulations on becoming a National Champ. I knew the youngest Alstad would join the ranks with his brothers. Especially since you have been owning them the last number of years when you have had chances to play more often

Haha, thanks Bill. It was only a matter of time.