Author Topic: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest  (Read 3761 times)

Offline TheJaylor

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2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« on: August 09, 2019, 12:38:10 AM »
+6
I guess it's fitting that Priests got second in the both 2 player open categories, but I'll argue that mine was faster, hence the lightning.  ::) This offense also won IA State and NC Regs.


Cards in deck: 106 (Wait what? Yep. Gotta get that 15th dominant.)

Neutral: 22

2 Covet LS
2 Darkness LS
2 Distressed LS
2 Exiles LS
1 Humble LS
2 Hunter LS
2 Prosperity LS
2 Remnant LS

1 Book of the Covenant
1 Endless Treasures
1 Magic Charms
1 Urim and Thummim

1 Destruction of Nehushtan
1 Three Woes
1 Delivered


Good: 42

1 Angel of the Lord
1 Glory of the Lord
1 Grapes of Wrath
1 Guardian of Your Souls
1 Son of God
1 The Second Coming
1 Valley of Dry Bones

1 City of Refuge

1 Noah's Ark (Ark of Salvation)
1 Solomon's Temple
1 Storehouse
1 Wall of Protection

1 Covenant with Abraham
1 Covenant with Adam

1 Ezekiel, the Vindicator
1 Jeremiah, Hope Bringer
1 Zechariah, the Renewer
1 Ahimaaz (FoM)
1 Zadok (PoC)
1 Eli the Priest (Promo)
1 Melchizekek (PoC)
3 Captive Priest
1 Aaron, God's Mediator
1 Eleazar, Son of Aaron
1 Ezra (Wait, that guy from Priests? Yep. That guy from Priests.)
1 Joshua, the High Priest
1 Priests of Christ (Promo)
1 Elijah (PoC)
1 Haggai (PoC)
1 Cherubim

1 Day of the Lord
1 Light in the Darkness
1 Offering Your Son
1 Potter and the Clay
1 The Emmaus Road
1 The First Sacrifice
1 Triumphal Entry
3 Zadok Anoints Solomon


Evil: 42

1 Burial
1 Christian Martyr
1 Falling Away (CoW)
1 Rubble and Dust
1 Shipwreck
1 Vain Philosophy

1 Coliseum
1 Sheol

1 Flying Scroll
1 Captured Ark

1 Pagan Sailors
2 Astrologers
2 Conjurers
1 Mounted Forces
1 Nimrod, the Mighty
2 Babylonian Siege Army
2 Nebuchadnezzar (TxP)
2 Nergalsharezer
2 The Babylonian Merchants
1 The Deceiver

1 The Wages of Sin
1 Treasures of War
2 Betrayal
2 Invoking Terror
2 Nicolaitans' Teaching
2 Dream
2 Head of Gold
2 Seized by Babylon
2 Swift Horses


Reserve: 10

Kidron Valley
Scapegoat (PoC)

City of Refuge
Eternal Covenant
I Am Creator
Captive Priest

Flying Scroll
Mourn and Weep
Regrets
Seized by Babylon

Offline TheJaylor

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Re: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2019, 12:38:32 AM »
+1
So, you might be thinking, what makes this so fast? I don't see Pentecost or First Fruits anywhere... Well, the trick is to catch the opponent by surprise with a turn one Captive Priest chain into Priests of Christ. If they block from hand, which is likely on turn one, you grab Valley of Dry Bones from deck with Priests of Christ and drop it to add your Captive Priests back into battle and grab four (well, actually five) more priests from deck. My go to set of four would be Eleazar, Melchizedek, Jeremiah, and Zechariah. Ezra leads the gang by releasing a Captive Priest, banding to him, and fetching one of the other four. Suddenly you get to search for Urim and Thummim and a House of Eleazar priest (usually Joshua), you're protecting souls and discouraging evil searching, looking at their hand and tossing the next evil enhancement, and negating non-star enhancements.

On future turns you keep grabbing priests with Ezra and a Captive Priest, starting with Zadok to band to someone else and then Aaron who bands to Zadok. My first game at Nats I'm pretty sure I had 10 or so Heroes by turn 3. Zadok Anoints grabs Cherubim and Haggai to get the CBI FBTN banding chain of Zeke -> Cherubim -> Aaron -> Zadok -> Haggai -> Zechariah, or any of the battle-winners in case the banding chain isn't going to work, which you would know because you've been looking at their hand every turn with Urim and Thummim. Potter and the Clay usually made Joshua a 0/1, and then he would walk in with Light in the Darkness or Day of the Lord. Another offensive option is taking a peak at their hand and putting Elijah at the end of the chain to pick off the Evil Character that either had nothing to play or was vulnerable to Covenant with Adam.

A few notable cards:

City of Refuge -- Caught a few people off guard when they tried to Martyr or Angel my character. Limits opponents options but my deck was built for it (at least for the most part, I added Regrets in the Reserve the night before without thinking about the fact that it would almost always be useless).

Melchizedek -- Sheol was in most decks and against a deck like this that does a lot of searching, it was definitely worth running even with my own Sheol (and Burial, which I swapped in for Vain Vision the night before without thinking about Melchizedek). I think the CoW Melch could've been good too to protect priests from capture and conversion alongside discard from City of Refuge, but Zechariah would negate him and I figured the soul protection and potential to snipe a Scattered or Rubble and Dust from deck would be better.

Urim and Thummim + The First Sacrifice -- The First Sacrifice is already a really good card, but using Urim and Thummim to know when you actually need to use it makes it even better.

Kidron Valley -- With the prevalence of idols, curses, and arts with capture abilities, I wish I could put this card and a few priests in every deck.


The reality is that I rarely got the combo off on the first turn either because I wasn't blocked, they didn't have a Lost Soul, or I didn't have it, the last of which being the least likely. However, between either being blocked from hand eventually, drawing Valley naturally, or using Triumphal Entry, I was able to get Valley pretty quickly. In some games, like against Tyler at Nats, it actually worked out better for me to wait because I was able to pull off a Head of Gold or Seized and I think a Charms beforehand to grab a Captain, Mighty Men, King Saul and a few others.

I went back and forth on the defense across the tournaments. I started out with a similar crimson defense except I ran two The Afflicted and four Hypocrisy which was pretty fun. At NC Regs I switched to a gray defense centered around the idea that if their Storehouse was working, The Entrapping Pharisees was an auto-block and if not, then I was looking at their hand with Urim and Thummim. I also used Roman Spearmen and a bunch of the high-strength gray Enhancements that have come out recently such as Seventh Bowl, Cut Off, Plot to Kill, Distortion, Plunder and Pillage, and Stricken.

I was actually planning to use this deck for multi with a Prophets defense and use my Judges CwD deck that won the Type 2 Only for two player, but John Earley (the guy who won Type 1 with a similar Judges/Prophets CwD deck) convinced me the night before that I should use this offense in two player. After some debating some with myself, I eventually decided that while it might not be as consistently good, it would likely be consistently fun, so I threw together a standard Babylonian defense and went for it.

Offline TheJaylor

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Re: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2019, 12:39:09 AM »
0
I don't remember a whole lot about my games since it's been a week already and I didn't take notes, but I'll at least make something up for each one.


Amanda Johnson

This game was pretty heavily in my favor from the beginning. I had the combo right away but Amanda didn't have any souls so she wisely chose not to block. It might have been better for me to not tip my hand with the Priests of Christ right away since she put down some Evil Characters on her turn, but it didn't end up mattering too much since I was able to get to Triumphal Entry and go all in with Valley on turn 2 or 3. Amanda was Hero droughted for almost the entire game, which meant that my defense had a lot of time to set up without much early pressure. And although her Fiery Serpents did stall me for awhile, once I got U&T and the FBTN banding chain going she didn't have many options.

Result: 7-0 victory


Josiah Beers

I wasn't super optimistic about this game going in since Josiah always seems to be the one person I can't beat and my mindset didn't really change until about halfway through the game. I had a decent first turn, although no combo. I think this was the game where I discarded Zadok from my opening hand with the Prosperity LS, not realizing that doing so left me without a Tabernacle Priest for Zadok Anoints. I also missed using my Treasures of War on Josiah's Book of the Covenant which grabbed I Am Creator. I didn't feel THAT bad about it since he already had AUtO in his hand and searched for Sam, but it definitely would've helped to slow him down a little. He was off to a great start but I was able to pull off a couple blocks until a few too many turns into the game when I finally got Valley. After that the game started to turn around. I had mostly captured and taken his offense but his defense managed to pull off enough blocks to keep it tied 2-2 for a decent part of the game. I found out halfway through my last rescue that it was the last round, which I think maybe would've changed my rescue but potentially not the outcome of the battle. I think Josiah blocked with Nebby and drew I think 8-ish cards with some combo of Dream, Horses, and/or Betrayal, but I saw Second Coming still in the deck with my Melchizedek search so I was pretty sure it would end in a 2-2 tie. I think I played Mourn and Weep to make sure he wouldn't get a rescue, but he managed to draw Second Coming to play SoG again in his draw three. Of course I was the one who last shuffled his deck too... Oh well. Someday I'll beat him. :P

Result: 2-3 loss


Brandon Frank

I actually don't remember if I played Brandon or Jeremy first, but I think it was Brandon. This game was actually kinda weird. I got the combo first turn, but it was this game that I decided I would not longer go to Ezra and then Priests of Christ, because Brandon had The Great Fish to negate Ezra, which cascades PoC back to deck, not allowing him to trigger, and then setting Ezra aside. Josiah also used The Great Fish in a similar way, although he did it from territory, and I think that's probably one of the best counters to the deck since even if I do only go with PoC, I still need an interrupt or negate, which the deck doesn't really have. Anyway, Brandon got off to a pretty quick start, but I was able to catch up even though I believe it was the only game where I never got to play Valley. If we had kept playing, I'm not sure who would've gotten seven first, but I think I had been able to capture and take enough of his Heroes to hold him off for awhile.

Result: 6-6 tie

Offline TheJaylor

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Re: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2019, 12:39:37 AM »
0
Jeremy Chambers

This game actually went fairly similar to the one with Brandon in that Jeremy got off to a really quick start and while I think I got setup fairly quickly, I had to wear down his defense for awhile before I starting rescuing more souls. This game could have ended completely different than it did since Jeremy was drawing quite a bit and got off to a 5-2 lead without playing the big two, but I was able to slow down his offense and make a comeback before he got to them. I did really like Jeremy's deck though and am looking forward to trying out the offense myself at some point.

Result: 7-5 victory


Tyler Stevens

I really like playing Tyler, he's a great guy and for some reason he almost always lets me win... ;) Jokes aside though, this game started out pretty well for me and I think I combo'd relatively early, but not too early so I was able to grab a good chunk of Tyler's Heroes with Valley as well as I mentioned in the deck analysis. Tyler was able to grab two off of me before his defense got swarmed by the presbyterate.

Result: 7-2 victory


Greg Miller

As Greg mentioned in his report, our decks had faced each other a few times already. He admitted to adding in a few more counters before Nats to stop my combo and likewise I mentioned that I teched a bit for his offense too by adding a second City of Refuge. Of course it wasn't until Thursday morning that I realized it didn't matter too much since Isaiah's Call negates Sites, but I figured I'd just hope for the best. As he noted, my City of Refuge ended up giving him quite a bit more value than me and I ended up having to burn my Rubble and Dust on that to get rid of a Jonah instead of a Called Isaiah or something. But, like he said, he didn't get PoJ out early enough and the lightning priests with some help from Elijah were able to sneak out a timeout victory.

Result: 5-1 victory


Overall it was a really fun deck to play. I'd definitely recommend trying it out sometime even if your opponent is going to see it coming. Just watch out for The Great Fish...

Offline Bobbert

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Re: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« Reply #4 on: August 09, 2019, 08:55:50 AM »
+1
I know I've said this before, but I love this deck. Using old cards that nobody remembers like Ezra is really cool, and that explosive setup gets it going fast (though I'm a bit disappointed you switched back to Secomd Coming over new NJ to double the Valley  ::))
« Last Edit: August 09, 2019, 09:52:32 AM by Bobbert »
ANB is good. Change my mind.

Offline TheJaylor

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Re: 2019 T2-2P Nats 2nd Place -- Lightning Priest
« Reply #5 on: August 09, 2019, 10:36:26 AM »
0
I know I've said this before, but I love this deck. Using old cards that nobody remembers like Ezra is really cool, and that explosive setup gets it going fast (though I'm a bit disappointed you switched back to Secomd Coming over new NJ to double the Valley  ::))
Haha, yeah, I was debating switching to NJ for Nats and I think I would have if we had gotten the new one already. Ultimately I just decided it wasn't quite as flexible and I didn't really need to get 8. Definitely would've been more fun though and I don't think I ended up ever needing Scapegoat so maybe that's what comes out for NJ|Bride of Christ.

 


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