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Deck: 101

Neutral: 25

Lost Souls: 14
2 - Covet LS
2 - Darkness LS
2 - Exiles LS
2 - Hunter LS
2 - Remnant LS
2 - Prosperity LS
1 - Distressed LS
1 - Humble LS

Neutral Utility: 5
1 - Majestic Heavens
1 - Book of the Covenant (PoC)
1 - Endless Treasures
1 - Golden Calf (PoC)
1 - Urim and Thummim

Dual-Alignment Cards: 6
1 - Chronicles of the Kings
1 - Destruction of Nehushtan
1 - Three Woes
1 - Leviathan
1 - Behemoth
1 - Delivered

Good: 38

Good Dominants: 5
1 - Angel of the Lord (O.T.)
1 - Guardian of Your Souls (RoJ)
1 - Ride on Victoriously/Awesome Things
1 - Son of God (Promo)
1 - The Second Coming

Good Utility: 4
1 - Wall of Protection (LoC)
1 - Zerubbabel’s Temple (LoC)
1 - Covenant with David (PoC)
1 - Oath of Purity

Heroes: 15
1 - Eliud, the Revolutionary/…
1 - Joshua, the Conqueror
1 - Matthan, the Defender/…
1 - David, Outcasts’ Refuge/…
1 - Jehoshaphat, the Seeker/…
1 - Ezra, Favored by God
1 - Jeshua, the Restorer
1 - Zechariah, the Renewer
1 - Achim, the Compiler/...
1 - Zerubbabel, the Builder/…
1 - Malachi (PoC)
1 - Haggai (PoC)
1 - Terah, the Delayed/…
1 - Joiada, Son of Eliashib
1 - The Angel Under the Oak

Good Enhancements: 14
1 - Reverence and Awe
1 - Feast of Booths (LoC)
1 - Feast of Trumpets (LoC)
1 - Offering Your Son
1 - The Emmaus Road
1 - The First Sacrifice
1 - Triumphal Entry
2 - Impartial Judgment
2 - Solomon’s Dream
2 - Zerubbabel’s Plumb Line
1 - A Soldier’s Prayer

Evil: 38

Evil Dominants: 6
1 - Christian Martyr
1 - Doubt (LoC)
1 - Falling Away (Wo)
1 - Mayhem
1 - Shipwreck
1 - Vain Philosophy

Evil Utility: 2
1 - Coliseum
1 - Sheol

Evil Characters: 15
1 - Foolish Shepherd
1 - Foreign Wives
1 - Pagan Sailors
1 - The Serpent
1 - Coliseum Lion
1 - Lions
1 - Stubborn Heifer
1 - The Amalekites’ Slave
2 - Nebuchadnezzar (TxP)
1 - Esau, the Hunter
2 - Negev Lions
1 - Hungry Lion
1 - The Deceiver

Evil Enhancements: 15
1 - Jealousy (LoC)
1 - Lurking (Promo)
1 - Pride of Lions
1 - The Wages of Sin
1 - Treasures of War (CoW)
2 - Balaam’s Prophecy
2 - Betrayal (PoC)
2 - Seized by Babylon
2 - Dream
2 - Imitating Evil

Reserve: 15
1 - Scapegoat (PoC)

1 - Noah’s Ark (Ark of Salvation)
1 - Oath of Purity
1 - Covenant with Philistia
1 - Eleazar the Potentate/...
1 - Jeshua, the Restorer
1 - Jordan Interrupted (PoC)
1 - The Acts of Solomon

1 - Beasts of the Earth
1 - Negev Lions
2 - Flying Scroll
1 - Captured Ark
1 - Confusion of Mind
1 - Fire from Heaven

Round 2 vs John Michalizsyn:

John started out with Distressed and I had no LSs, so once again I ended up going second and liked it because my hand was a little awkward. I only had AUtO and Achim to start, but since I assumed John would go first, I decided to use the star on Betrayal to topdeck my Cov w/ Philistia to start doing some drawing. John started off with some strong cards, putting down Throne, Isaiah, and King Tiglath, so I was worried things could get out of hand pretty quickly, but he didn't have a way to generate a LS or any value-generating battle challenge options, so he passed.

I draw into my CwP and also Remnant, which was fortunate because I realized I should also have used Achim's star to topdeck Jeshua with CwP. Since John had Distressed, I thought about getting Eleazar so I would have a meek Hero for Achim and/or a Hero that Joshua could swap to after using AUtO, but I also had Delivered and The First Sacrifice and needed someone to play them on, so I went with Jeshua. He's also like the best Hero, so duh. Delivered got me to Book which I activated in Temple and grabbed Oath of Purity. I used Oath to bounce Tiglath, CwP to get Beasts and d2, and then First Sacrifice, hoping that Tiglath might have been his only EC. I was glad at first, seeing that his only other evil cards were Gomer, Women as Snares, and oh, Rubble and Dust... So I had to take out the R&D, grateful that I had gotten to it before he decided to play it on Temple, but I didn't have the resources in hand to even beat Tiglath by the numbers. I still rescued with AUtO to Josh, thinking maybe I would draw into something or maybe he wouldn't risk his ECs without backup, but he still blocked with Tigger and I opted to capture my Josh, in part to tempt him to attack into my hand full of defense.

Unfortunately for John, he didn't find many Heroes other than Isaiah and he did find plenty of non-green GEs, so he passed again. I find Zerubbabel on my turn to help me set up and come in with Ezra, Jeshua, Zerubbabel, and then the Malachi I drew into off Zerubbabel to get back the Solomon's Dream I had used, all the while knowing that John still has no EEs and I can beat him by the numbers at this point. He blocks with Women as Snares to capture my Behemoth, hoping he can somewhat clear the way for the offense he hoped to draw, but once I rescued Distressed and Jeshua and Achim were turned on, I got some of my acceleration going and replaced my defense with a variety of mostly genderless animals in case another Women as Snares popped up.

From that point, John drew into a little more defense and an Oath of Purity followed up by an Impartial Judgment attack cleaned up what was left. He drew his defense mostly one card at a time after that point so Eliud was able to pick off the remnants and get me to 7. All the while, John's holding AoC(P) in his hand (which I knew he had since the beginning), just waiting to draw into an ET or really just any purple Hero that might get initiative. He couldn't really justify attacking into my big defense most of the game. He did find Josh, the Conqueror eventually to at least underdeck my Confusion of Mind so that ET would work when he got to it, but it was too little too late as I was able to find SoG/TSC and get to 7 on the next turn.

Definitely a game that could have looked different if John had drawn the right Heroes to widdle through my defense and draw a bit from Throne, but I slowed him down enough that he never got there and I ended up with another big win.

Full win: 7-0

Round 4 vs Tyler Stevens:

I had no idea what to expect from Tyler this year other than possibly some other variation of Throne or maybe a Postexilic build of his own. All I knew is that he thought his build was pretty good, so I was excited but also a bit nervous to see what he had cooked up. We had both been at the same table for every round so far, so we tried our best to avoid spoiling our surprises for each other, but I did catch on a little bit that he was probably running Priests. Of course there's only one way to run Priests in Type 2, but little did I know that Tyler found a neat little trick that I had missed in Lightning Priest that made it much more consistent and maintained attacking power throughout the game. If you’re unfamiliar with Lightning Priest, check out my version from last year here.

Tyler opened with Awake and both of his Crowds LS, I had Humble, and Tyler used the star on Scattered Sheep to reveal both hands and underdeck my Zechariah, leaving Ezra, and showing me no Heroes in his hand. Since I had already seen his hand, I used my Solomon's Dream star to look at his Reserve and figure out what we were dealing with here. One card I was not expecting to see in this tournament but makes a ridiculous amount of sense in the deck, is The Liberating Angel, which Tyler ran two of in Reserve. He used Awake to grab his own Exiles and then grabbed Cov with Abraham from Reserve. He went first, going for Captive Priest with Cov w/ Abe and then chaining it into the three others, Ezra, and Priests of Christ as one does with that deck. I would have loved so much to have a way to Nebby on this turn since I believe the only three good cards in his hand at that point where Son of God, TSC, and Chronicles, so triple Negev could have just about ended the game right there despite giving him a PoC trigger. Unfortunately though I opened with no ECs and had to give one up, posing that maybe I had one but didn't want to give the PoC trigger.

I don't remember exactly what offense I started out with, but I didn't find an Evil Character on this turn either. It was pretty fortunate for me to be able to see Tyler's hand before attacking because I think if I had attacked on this turn then Tyler would have gotten too much card advantage from a Rezin+Chariots block since I saw that his hand had Rezin and a few defensive battlewinners. Instead I think I just set a few things up and passed. On Tyler's second turn, he was able to use Cov with Abraham to get a Liberating, attacks, and uses a pretty sweet set of Priests to get the offense rolling. I'm sure he'll do a write-up as well if he hasn't already that will describe his starting set, but with still no ECs I had to give up my Humble again after playing Falling Away on it during my turn. In hindsight I should have waited so that'd he'd have to rescue a Captive Priest or just battle challenge if he released them. But anyway, he attacks and uses Aaron's Staff to find Destruction, Hungry Lion, and Esau on top of my deck which I wasn't thrilled about since the characters were a turn late. He discards DoN and gets back to one. My next turn I drew into the ECs and at least got to use Treasures of War on Cov w/ Abraham to slow down his offense. It may have been on the last turn, but I think it was this one that I was able to use two searches to get to Achim the Compiler to negate Tyler's Crowds LSs and then The First Sacrifice to underdeck King Rezin from his hand. I also had Coliseum to shut down the Scattered Sheep and Balaam's Disobedience he was holding so that Ezra banded to Tyler's Joshua the High Priest was enough for a rescue. Tyler was able to get rid of my Esau on his turn (I believe with The First Sacrifice) and Hungry Lion is a pretty bad block against Dutiful Priest with Aaron's Staff active, so my characters didn't do me any good on the next turn and Tyler got to 2.

     I like the build here. PostEs are a lot of fun to play. With Rotation happening, I am seeing AutO x1, A Soldier's Prayer x1, Falling Away (Wo), Nebuchadnezzer (TexP) x2, Dream x2, Imitating Evil x2 and The Acts of Solomon x1 that will no longer make the cut. So 10 cards total and roughly 10% of the deck that would need to be replaced, if I have counted correctly.
     What changes would you make in this and do you see it having an impact in performance of the deck?


Godspeed,
Mike

Oh yeah, forgot to mention and didn't realize that you missed Joiada, Son of Eliashib in your list. He's a pretty important one in the Type 2 offense and losing him definitely makes things trickier because you don't get the repeatability of the play-first Impartial Judgment, you only get the one from Ride Things. Sometimes you'll only need to play one and then you can coast with Zechariah the rest of the game, at least in Type 1, but in Type 2 it's going to be trickier since your opponent will have more time to recover. Playing IJ post-block is still decent, but they get SI and can discard the cards in battle so it's not nearly as powerful in that regard. So yeah, that's something that I'll have to take a look at and test. Might need to work on some more battlewinners and lean somewhat into the protection side with Nehemiah and such, but we shall see. Perhaps not quite as cut and dry as I indicated in the previous post.