Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Turns out teal is good again. Old version from PoC phase 1 here. PoC Phase 2 massively buffed this deck. Jeremiah is an absolute boss, Bearing Our Sin can keep Martyr from ever being a block against a deck that is usually very susceptible to it as well as improving consistency, and Delivered+Endless Treasures adds to the critical mass of consistency cards. The consistent speed provides so much tempo that I was able to switch the old crimson defense out for an even smaller grey package based entirely around stalling. When I goldfished this deck, I imagined that the opposing offense had infinite interrupts so every reliable block had to be CBN/I. Proud Pharisee->Unsuccessful is one of the strongest blocks possible in the game and very difficult to interact with while False Prophecy is CBN against almost every deck in the meta. The inherent weakness of cards like Balaam's Disobedience and False Prophecy has always been that they just Angel your guy but this deck already has so many blocks that demand Angel to answer them (Horsemen->Scattered, Daughters->Charms) so Angel is rarely available for that. The downside is that this defense has a very defined number of blocks unless you get to recur unsuccessful with Balaam a few times. The deck's high tempo compensates for this in most scenarios but as I discovered in top cut, the defense falls about one block short against the best players.

The things I'm looking to change post Nats is fitting in a Hunter->Remnant package, replacing Flying Scroll with Golden Calf, cutting Wicked since it doesn't really do anything in this version of the deck, and possibly exploring Storehouse over House of Prayer. YWR and Scapegoat were seldom used but I think they still belong in the deck. They're both in here to stop the things that have the highest potential to harm the deck and most people just weren't playing those cards.

Heroes:
1   Eleazar, Son of Aaron
1   Phinehas, son of Eleazar
1   Captive Priest
1   Joshua the High Priest
1   Melchizedek
1   Dutiful Priest
1   Zadok (PoC)
1   Jeremiah (PoC)
1   Ezekiel (FooF)

Consistency GEs:
1   Pentecost
1   First Fruits
1   Delivered
1   The Emmaus Road
1   Offering Your Son
1   Covenant with David (PoC)
1   Bearing Our Sin
Battle GEs:
1   Jordan Interrupted (PoC)
1   Gifts and Offerings
1   Zeal for the Lord

Evil Characters:
1   Profane Daughters
1   The Lying Prophet
1   Persian Horsemen
1   Proud Pharisee
1   False Prophets (PoC)
1   Balaam
1   Coliseum Lion

EEs:
1   False Peace (PoC)
1   Unsuccessful (PoC)
1   False Prophecy (PoC)
1   Balaam's Disobedience

Support:
1   The Tabernacle
1   House of Prayer
1   The Ends of the Earth
1   Book of the Covenant
1   Endless Treasures
1   Lost Soul (Hopper)

Souls:
1   Lost Soul (Humble)
1   Lost Soul (Wanderer)
1   Lost Soul (Orphans)
1   Lost Soul (Distressed)
1   Lost Soul (Prosperity)
1   Lost Soul (Covet)
1   Lost Soul (Wicked)

Dominants:
1   Angel of the Lord
1   Christian Martyr
1   Son of God
1   The Second Coming
1   Three Woes
1   Falling Away
1   Destruction of Nehushtan (PoC)

Reserve:
1   You Will Remain
1   New Covenant
1   Covenant with Adam (PoC)
1   Covenant of Prayer
1   Scapegoat (PoC)
1   Lacking Prophecy
1   Flying Scroll
1   Rain Becomes Dust
1   Magic Charms
1   Scattered

I think the most misunderstood aspect of this deck is how much it doesn't rely on any single combo or value engine to win games. In the past if you killed Eleazar, banished Zeal, discarded Tabernacle, or landed T1 Moses/CwD, the deck just fell apart. I've had games in testing where Eleazar and Zeal got banished turn 1 and my Tabernacle holding BotC holding YWR was discarded and I still won. BotC is plan A for getting out covenants but HoP does it almost as well, especially when I'm exchanging curses back to reserve to enable Treasures. Eleazar+Tabernacle is the best value engine to spam Gifts and Zeal every turn but both Covenant with Adam and New Covenant recur on their own. Phinehas->Zeal is a scary CBN option but Ezekiel->New Covenant is always there as a backup. Jeremiah walks in because opponents assume I have a battle winner and their negate will just be tossed when I'm actually sitting on a hand full of defense. The strongest recommendation I can make for playing against this deck is never let Jeremiah walk in. Unless I have Eleazar+Tabernacle combo assembled, at least force me to play a battle winner every turn. The deck actually runs out of them quite easily early on before one of the engines gets going.

So glad you posted this. That deck is amazing.

Game 7 Jonathan Gomez 5-3 Win

I finally got to play the infamous deck discard Exodus deck that I'd been hearing whispers about all day. If I'd been taken by surprise the game might have gone a little different but I'd heard about most of the tricks in his deck by now and managed to assemble my answers in time. Variance also seemed to be a bit favored toward me this game. He had Cursed Egyptians->Given Over in his opening hand but his a Soul off the first discard so it went away immediately. When he Jar'd me it hit SoG and TSC which was actually good for me since it meant they were safe from deck discard until I could set up and quickly draw into them. He did manage to still snipe my TSC though. I had Destruction for Hidden Treasures and Angel for Scapegoat (Which he discarded from my Reserve then stole with Plunder and Pillage). This was definitely the most interesting and creative deck I saw at Nats and would have loved to see him top cut.

Game 8 Justin Alstad 4-4 Timeout Tie

This game was pretty similar to our first. Our decks both did what they were designed to do but my defense just didn't have enough blocks against angels to make it to a full win. We unofficially finished the game after time and Justin did make it to 5. I advanced to the next round due to being higher seed. I didn't have this scenario in mind when I built the defense but it's certainly suited for it. I'm a bit worried about this rule continuing to exist since a deck running a stall defense with Scapegoat and Mourn and Weep could easily exploit it intentionally.

Game 9 Greg Miller 4-4 Timeout Tie

This game was wildly different than the previous but managed to end the same way. Greg was on Flood Survivors with a Babylonian defense and I did a pretty mediocre job of playing around Merchants+Sheol which cost me one or two battles. I failed to noticed that Sheol could underdeck opponent's Souls so when I started searching safely behind Distressed negating Merchants, he underdecked my Distressed to turn Merchants back on. I also started out by foolishly dropped False Prophets->RBD off his star ability into Greg's Hunter->Remnant so I had to spend some early searches pulling Scapegoat to kill my own RBD which didn't feel great. Eventually I made it to 4-2 and he didn't have a block for my next turn so he dropped ANB in his draw phase. We both set back up rather quickly but I lost a couple key defensive cards and he found his so he started making his comeback. I don't feel quite as bad about timing out this game since there was an ANB involved but once again my opponent won when we unofficially played out the rest of the game. This was a rare occasion where my deck still had strong blocks remaining at the end of the game but I couldn't get them out of my deck fast enough. I think barring ANB shenanigans this defense is fairly favored against Flood. I hoped I would get a chance to rematch Jay after losing to his Flood last year but Greg was definitely a worthy Flood opponent in his stead.

Game 10 - John Early 5-3 Loss

I knew at least one of John's decks was Judges/Prophets anti-speed but I also thought he might have actually checked #Mayhem 2.0 as well and was hoping for a chance to rematch that deck from last year but alas he was just running three of the same deck baring a tech card or two. My deck runs a very smaller defense and relies on the tempo generated by the offense to draw into the defense quickly even if I start without any in my hand. John's deck was the first one I ran into all day designed to punish such a strategy and John's decks tend to do what they're designed to do so I found myself facing a first turn CwD with almost no defense in hand and plenty of stranded territory class speed. Despite this I still had enough gas in my hand to race offensively and I believe I could have actually pulled it off had it not been for John's drought. That's not to say that he won by luck since he worked to maintain the drought by sending in David as a suboptimal attack which I unfortunately couldn't punish due to my lack of Evil Characters. The CwD compounded with the drought, Necromancer sniping my Falling Away, Woes for my Ends of the Earth, and SoG for my Hopper earned John his second T1 victory in a row.

It always feels bad to be one game away from winning a category and failing but I was still pretty happy with this result since I had no idea how my deck would stack up against the meta as the majority of my testing was just goldfishing. I also would have felt kinda bad "winning" a category after two timeout ties. 2nd place is enough to prove the power of Teal and earn myself a Christian Martyr promo so this was definitely a successful Nationals for me.

There was a game where I foolishly dropped False Prophets->RBD in star phase into my opponent's Hunter->Remnant->Steal False Prophets and I can't remember whether it was this game or a later one but I think it was this one.

I think this one was our game. I seem to recall that you then got rid of RBD and I blocked Jerry with FP to force you to play something.
Definitely a solid deck - as a longtime Teal fan I'm happy to see it do so well.

Quote from: Kevinthedude on August 06, 2019, 03:48:58 PM

had it not been for John's drought.

For the record - I went back and watched our game footage, I had 2 turns of drought. You had 1 turn of drought. That doesn't seem significant to me. (That being said, I think you only had four turns total, so it probably feels more significant since the game didn't go long)

2 turns of drought seems fairly significant when I lost by 2 souls and with a hand full of offense. Rescue attempts would also have given me the opportunity to play some of my territory speed in battle and potentially draw into defense or dominants.

PoC version. I remember because I had to play around it until I drew my Babel...