Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I tend to forget to do write-ups, so I want to do one now while I am in the airport.

This year leading up to Nationals was the most amount of time and effort I have put into type 2. I spent countless hours building, goldfishing, theorizing, and talking to others (thank you Jay, Joe, and Jeremy) about type 2. I am not exaggerating when I say I would go to bed and think about each brigade, each theme and try to connect dots for decks for making something extremely strong.

I tested with Pot of Manna, Nazareth, Holy of Holies, HoneyPot, GoC variants, HoH + Priests, Captive Priests with a Dutiful "onslaught", Patriarchs with CBN play first, Ruth with side battles (shoutout to Shon for Lost Child Found shenanigans), Driven "loop", and numerous other decks. I only tested dozens of decks because I was sure that Thieves with Possessing Spirit x4, Resurrection Revealer x4 with Chamber of Angels and a turn 1 or 2 Harvest Time with oppressive Lost Souls was the best deck. I wanted to make sure of that, and I also wanted to make sure that I did not miss anything else. I can honestly say I did the best I could in the deck building phase.

The basis of the deck is get to Resurrection Revealer turn 1 and play The Resurrection to get to Bethlehem Stable ad Chamber of Angels. Sometimes you do not have an ideal turn 1 rescue, but the turn 2 Reserve access plus aggressive board state makes up for that. The original offense did start off with more angels and Entertaining Angels. I assumed Jayden would be on angels and I also figured Jeremy might be as well. I also knew Eman would be on Daniel with N.T. angels, so Entertaining Angels would help with me going to a Legion of Angels, Resurrection Revealer, or exchange Heroes for John/Zaccheus for surprise attacks. It was a good deck, but I wasn't sold on the offense. I played Jeremy and did very well, but I knew Nativity was more consistent, faster, and involved Mary, Holy Virgin. I played Jeremy and used that game as a way to have him think I was on my deck from last year, but with Entertaining Angels added.

I swapped over to Nativity maybe 4 or so weeks before Nationals and told no one. I goldfished in Lackey. I goldfished with the physical cards. I watched all of Baboony Tim's Nativity videos (thank you Tim!). I put in hours upon hours into this build. Every card was calculated and had a purpose. I could play the deck flawlessly and knew every card. I felt the most confidence I ever had leading up to Nationals. When Brian and Hendrix asked who I thought would win Nationals, I confidently replied, "Me." Which I think every player should feel that way if they are serious about Nationals. I wanted Justin, Jayden, Jeremy, and pretty much every player to play Type 2 this year. I really wanted to test myself and if I won, I wanted to feel like I beat the best of the best to get the title.

Jeremy has been my kryptonite as of late, and the last two years against him I misplayed, especially last year. When I beat him in a casual test game, I knew this could be my year. I wanted to play Jayden or Jeremy first round and I got my wish. I played Jeremy round 1. His deck whiffed a bit against me and if you don't get a good hand against this deck, you can't recover. I knew I would play Jayden round 2 and was ready.

Jayden and I had an amazing game. The player who played more this year and played a cleaner game won. This game will haunt my Redemption dreams for years to come (hopefully I am exaggerating). Turn 1 I had Simon Peter in hand and was able to Resurrection Revealer to The Resurrection and band in Simon Peter and search for Mary, the Restored. I had 2 cards in hand and had no good Enhancements. I had to think in a matter of seconds do I leave Mary as white or flip to meek to negate. I saw Jayden's hand up front and knew he had Temple Thieves and if I remember correctly, I did not think he could block. I rescued and did not flip Mary (even though I had no Enhancements), because I thought there was a chance I could use her next round as a white Hero (since I do not play clay Enhancements). Jayden blocked and used Temple Thieves to negate Mary. I was not able to snag Angel of the Lord, and I actually lost the battle. I have to go back to the stream to see what happened. But I remembered thinking to myself that I overthought that play and should have converted to meek, especially since Temple Thieves literally had no target. Mary could have gone to AotL and I get 1 Lost Soul turn 1.