Author Topic: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB  (Read 4513 times)

Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« on: August 06, 2019, 01:04:36 PM »
+4
Deck Size (50)

Lost Souls (7)

“Remnant”
“Exiles”
“Distressed”
“Prosperity”
“Darkness”
“Hunter”
“Lawless”

Dominants (7)

Son of God
The Second Coming
Angel of the Lord
Three Woes
Shipwreck (Vain Visions)
Christian Martyr
Falling Away (CoW)

Utility (6)

Endless Treasures
Magic Charms
Storehouse
Sheol
Treacherous Land
Majestic Heavens

Heroes (10)

Ehud
Gideon
Jair
Samuel
Joshua, Son of Nun
Captain of the Host (PoC)
The Angel Under the Oak
Angel with the Secret Name
David, the Psalmist
Elijah

Good Enhancements (7)

Samuel’s Edict
Ehud’s Dagger
Tested by Fire
Righteous Judge
The Emmaus Road
Death of Firstborn
Delivered

Evil Characters (9)

King Saul
The Lying Prophet
Profane Daughters
Medium in Endor
Necromancer
Persian Horseman
Gomer

The Serpent
The Deceiver

Evil Enhancements (4)

Divination
Death of Unrighteous
Confusion
Accursed of God

Reserve (10)

Angel of the Winds
Uzzah
The Amalekite’s Slave
Daughter’s Grief
Scattered (Was main deck prior versions)
Haman’s Plot
Reap the Whirlwind
The Fall of Man
Flying Scroll
Covenant with Death

Green highlighted cards are a change from the previous version of this list that was posted here.

After posting this list for feedback and thoughts in July I took some of the suggestions made by various board members (Shout-out to Master Q and Josh) and implemented them to create a more focused, streamlined version. I’d like to go through some of the changes and thoughts behind them, as well as provide a game-by-game summary.

The biggest change that was made between States/Regionals and Nationals was the realization that my problem wasn’t that I wasn’t fast enough, but rather, that I wasn’t consistent enough getting to Covenant with Death (CwD). There is a slight, but important difference there.

As a result the majority of my changes centered around getting to CwD.

In the initial list I had 3 ways of getting to CwD - Exiles Lost Soul, Endless Treasures and Storehouse. I also technically had Pagan Sailors, but realistically he wasn’t going to activate it. I added 4 ways of getting to CwD in the Nationals version. Hunter Lost Soul (to grab Exiles) Delivered (to get Endless Treasures) Delivered also meant The Emmaus Road could get me to CwD, and finally Accursed of God which fit in beautifully with my Brown/Pale Green defense.

The other changes I made were Gomer and Persian Horseman in place of Leviathan and Pagan Sailors. While I love Leviathan, he’s a pretty big liability as he only had one negate to back him up. Gomer allowed me to manipulate initiative and helped protect against Angel of the Lord. Persian Horseman was negated literally every single time I blocked with him, but the threat is enough to justify the slot (Sailors would have been negated every time too)

I also swapped Jair in place of Jephthah, traded out Warriors Captain for Prophecies of Christ Captain, and changed my Soul Gen piece from Hopper to Majestic Heavens.

The final change wasn’t truly a change in the end. After much hemming and hawing and thinking that the problem was that I wasn’t fast enough I had changed Shipwreck to Vain Visions (I can get X up to 4) to help improve my speed. Just before leaving for Nationals I wondered if I was going to regret that, and ended up checking 2 copies with Visions and 1 with Shipwreck. The copy with Shipwreck was what I played in the Top Cut.
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Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2019, 01:05:05 PM »
0
Key plays this deck looks for:

Any of the aforementioned ways to get to CwD. I can not stress enough the importance of this card to the deck, and it’s place in the meta. Non-targeted counters (That is, counters that hit you as well as your opponent) are typically some of the strongest in the game. (See Household Idols up until circa 2016 when Ignore was changed) However, they require significant planning and foresight to play without hindering your own game plan. You will notice that of my 11 enhancements, only 1 is truly affected by CwD (Delivered is a tutor for CwD, and Emmaus Road isn’t being played for its TCness, but rather it’s Green/Gold battlewinningness.) Of the 19 characters main-deck, 13 are truly unaffected by CwD and 3 others (Ehud, Jair, Medium) can gain CBP/N status. CwD isn’t a card that you can just throw in a deck willy-nilly and hope that it’ll stop the opponent (If you’re looking for something like that Golden Calf is your friend, and was in multiple of my early lists this year, sometimes alongside CwD.)

This deck really thrives on seeking out offensive mismatches and exploiting them - Find an egyptian to use your Death of Firstborn against, a King for your Ehud’s Dagger, and a Prophet, Priest or Magician for Tested by Fire and you’ll win a lot of games.

Besides those two things, this deck really is about as straightforward as they come. Establish an early CwD, use Elijah and Ehud (Via Secret Name, don’t ever de-activate CwD) to control blockers, and try to get Confusion off (I didn’t count how many times I landed Confusion but it was more than half, and I only saw one Covenant of Prayer get back the banished card.)
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Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2019, 01:09:55 PM »
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Game 1 - Jeremy Chambers 5-2 Win.

I opened this game with a couple turns of Soul Drought, I used Vain Visions and David, the Psalmist to help extend another turn or two of drought. Sometimes that’s all it takes. I was feeling great about my decision to play Visions after this game. I established CwD on my second turn, searching for it with Storehouse.

Game 2 - Austin Frank 5-1 Win.

Opened with multiple souls and got to go first. I had an early Confusion on Son of God, and my Necromancer hit his Second Coming from the bottom. I actually had to do it twice because he negated it the first block, but wasn’t able to shuffle his deck before I blocked with him again. I used Hunter-Exiles to grab CwD on turn one. Elijah manipulated a Medium in Endor into battle so I could use Tested by Fire CBN for a soul early on.

Game 3 - Josiah Beers 2-5 Loss

Josiah went first and opened with a fairly standard line of play for a Throne deck. I used a combination of Ehud+Emmaus Road and Serpent+Delivered to establish CwD on my first turn. Which is good because Josiah had Jonah down on his first turn. Game progressed fairly evenly. A really fun play in this game was getting to use Necromancer to banish his King Rehoboam. I created a side-battle using his Samuel to get some extra cards I needed early on. It was also a sneaky way to circumvent a Throne trigger as I used Christian Martyr on his King Saul while the side-battle was ongoing. I did rip my first plot this game - Thinking if I could clear enough of his heroes I’d be far enough ahead, I burned it on David, the Shepherd, Isaiah and Abigail. His Samuel also died by the #’s during the earlier side-battle. I had thought this was enough, but unfortunately I couldn’t get to Three Woes for Throne and Josiah was able to push through enough rescues despite my earlier shenanigans. It was after this game that I switched to the copy of the deck with Shipwreck as I knew I needed another option against Throne beyond just Woes.

Game 4 - BrianJones 0-0 Tie

Game 5 - Jonathan Greeson 5-2 Win

Jonathan was playing an updated version of #Mayhem. Being very familiar with how that deck operates gave me a significant advantage in this game, as I was able to manipulate his blockers with Ehud consistently. This is the one game that I had the option to establish CwD and didn’t take it - It doesn’t affect a lot of what #Mayhem is doing speed-wise and I knew I could simply out-race if need be with my ability to force certain blockers.

Game 6 - Josh Hartzler 4-1 Win at Time

This game had my dirtiest play of the day by far. I went first and didn’t open with a way to CwD - Not ideal. However, I rescued with Angel Under the Oak to Samuel, and drew four cards. I subsequently burned Righteous Judge, Death of Firstborn and made Woes good to rescue my first soul. I then played Delivered which was one of the four cards I drew in my discard phase to draw 2 more cards via Endless Treasures. So I ended my first turn +8 cards and a CwD on board. I misplayed my Shipwreck this game, hitting an early Coliseum (Which does bother me, but could have been handled by my Woes) Josh dropped Gates of Hell on a later turn that got him the last critical block that he needed.

Game 7 - Charles Johnson 5-1 Win

CwD is a serious problem with Genesis decks in general - I went first and established mine, while Charles was holding 7 Years, Faith of Sarah, Faith of Isaac, and Faith Among Corruption. He did eventually get to play those in battle when I made erred in checking numbers for initiative. However, at that point it was too little, too late. Especially since my Death of Firstborn is CBN in this matchup. I also used Medium in Endor to kick Benjamin out of battle for the far less frightening Judah.

Final Swiss Results - 15.5 points, 14 Lost Soul differential. Top Cut #4 Seed.
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Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2019, 01:11:54 PM »
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Top Cut Quarterfinals - Josiah Beers 5-2 Win

Josiah went first in this game, and had a huge Throne turn, drawing at least 8 cards. However, the reason that Josiah got to go first is because I had no souls, and so Josiah had to play a bunch of characters on the table. This allowed Elijah to selectively snipe his defense, defeating a Priest of Zeus, Outsiders, and King Rehoboam.

Top Cut Semifinals - JD Cunningham 5-1 Win

So… Delivered hits Falling Away during the stars phase, and I open with both Exiles and Remnant. I get to go first, establish CwD and have Angel of the Winds to go get Samuel and draw. Quite possibly one of the best openings this deck can have. Except CwD negates Winds……… Bad players are bad, luckily I was holding Death of Firstborn and somehow Winds rescued a Soul! I followed up one bad play with another, using Secret Name to go get Jair, intending to draw, only to realize I had an N.T. hero in play because Winds survived the previous turn….. I did pick up a freebie though, so things were looking up. I used Shipwreck on Storehouse on JD’s next rescue, using Confusion to clear Son of God. This also is a functional hand-look. I don’t remember exactly what I saw, but I do remember thinking my third rescue should be relatively smooth. It took me a little while to get there because of Belshazzar’s Banquet and a really slick play where JD used Woes and Martyr to defeat Elijah, but eventually I was able to use Majestic Heavens to generate a soul for Son of God to seal the deal.

Top Cut Finals - Josh Potratz 5-3 Win

I opened this game with another Falling Away discard! Who needs mill decks when you have mad skills? This one came on a Necromancer discard. That particular block cost me Serpent, Sheol and Necromancer. I also ended up surrendering the soul. Lots of value loss there, but I think worth it in the end. I established CwD on turn 1 via Exiles. Josh converted my Necromancer with New Covenant, there are three brigades on New Covenant, so he gets to pick between them. If he converted to Green or Silver I would have seriously considered attacking with him. HeroMancer is super legit, alas Josh picked Teal and I had to rely on my standard rescue options, which were enough to get the job done (including a David freebie! Which never happens with this deck)

Final Top Cut placing: 1st.

This deck was very enjoyable to play all year, and I honestly did better than I expected to at Nationals given my early season struggles, and the fact that while incredibly solid, I'm not sure this deck was actually the best one in the field. It certainly wasn't doing anything insanely broken like #Mayhem last year. In all my games but one I had CwD on my first turn, and the one I didn't I had it on turn two. I truly feel adding the consistency made all the difference in the world. Shout-out to Gabe for building me the third copy that contained Shipwreck.

I'm honestly not sure what changes, if any I would make to the list after the games I played. Plunder and Pillage is a great card that didn't quite make the list. A way to recur CwD makes sense, I'm just not sure there's a good one that fits. Wasting Disease as a backup plan out of Reserve if CwD gets hit might be the best option there. Having all three tutor angels occasionally felt like overkill, and it's possible Secret Name should move to reserve instead of Winds. I'd most likely add Jepthah back in to main deck if I did this.
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Offline SiLeNcEd_MaTrIx

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2019, 01:25:58 PM »
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Read it all.  Great report.  Very cool deck.  Congrats again!
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Offline uthminister [BR]

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #5 on: August 06, 2019, 01:44:35 PM »
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Loved reading through this. Good deck; great player!

Offline jbeers285

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #6 on: August 06, 2019, 01:49:27 PM »
+5
Can we get a game report for the 0-0 tie with brian jones?  Id love to hear how neither of you got a soul? ;)
« Last Edit: August 06, 2019, 01:57:12 PM by jbeers285 »
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Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #7 on: August 06, 2019, 01:53:26 PM »
+1
Can we get a game report for the 0-0 tie with brian jones?  Id love to hear how neither of you a soul? ;)

Just a hard fought defensive battle. Slow start where neither of us played either of the big 2  ::) ;) ::)
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Offline Jonesy

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #8 on: August 06, 2019, 01:56:26 PM »
+1
Most epic game, many hard fought battles

Offline Red Dragon Thorn

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #9 on: August 06, 2019, 02:00:49 PM »
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Most epic game, many hard fought battles

Don't forget the 10 minute ruling discussion
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Offline Jonesy

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Re: 2019 Nationals T12P Winning Deck - Packer Backers JudgesCTB
« Reply #10 on: August 06, 2019, 02:02:30 PM »
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Most epic game, many hard fought battles

Don't forget the 10 minute ruling discussion
That was intense. Might be the first time the MC got in on a ruling.

 


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