Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Player: Kirk Dennison

For background on the decks I used in other years in which I placed at nationals, view these threads:
2007
2009

Besieging the Gates of Hell
Result: 3rd place at 2010 Nats (4-2 w/ timeout loss)

Cards in deck: 112 (47/47/18)

NEUTRAL: 18

Lost Souls: 15
   Lost Soul (demon discard) x2
   Lost Soul (female only) x2
   Lost Soul (first round) x2
   Lost Soul (N.T. only) x2
   Lost Soul (same reference) x2
   Lost Soul (shuffler)
   Lost Soul (Speed Bump) x2
   Lost Soul (Wanderer) x2

Artifacts: 3
   The Bronze Laver x3

GOOD: 47

Covenant Cards: 4
   I am Healing x3
   I am Redemption

Heroes: 29
   Ahimelech, Priest at Nob
   Elishama the Priest
   Attending Angel (TxP) x4
   Providing Angel x4
   Ethan
   King Jehoshaphat (k)
   Mentor
   Agur
   The Woman at the Well
   Zaccheus x5
   Micah
   Nathan
   Ahimaaz (k)
   Jacob (FoOF)
   Tribal Elder x2 - x1 should be Plague of Frogs
   Ethiopian Treasurer
   King Lemuel
   King's Daughter

Hero Enhancements: 14
   Brass Serpent promo
   Angelic Advice
   Moses and Elders
   Battle Cry x5
   Battle Prayer (wa)
   Sword of the Lord (k) - should be Warriors version
   Visions of Iddo the Seer
   The Long Day
   Reuben's Torn Clothes
   Acts of Uzziah

EVIL: 47

Dominants: 1
   Destruction of Nehushtan

Fortresses: 6
   Tartaros x3
   The Gates of Hell x3

Curses: 3
   Captured Ark x3

Evil Characters: 24
   Panic Demon (gold)
   Enchanter (TxP) x3
   Panic Demon (pale green) x2
   User of Curious Arts
   Naaman x2
   Panic Demon (gray) x3
   Proud Pharisee
   Sabbath Breaker x4
   The Terrifying Beast
   Astrologers (TxP)
   Damsel with Spirit of Divination (TxP)
   Deceiving Spirit x2
   Prince of this World (P)
   Wandering Spirit (TxP)

Evil Enhancements: 13
   Besieging the City
   Divination (TxP) x5
   Two Thousand Horses
   False Peace x4
   Healing of Naaman
   Strange Fire

Battle #1:

1.   RA with Mentor + ET + Battle Cry
2.   Target the following heroes with Battle Cry: Micah, King Lemuel, Agur, Tribal Elder, Ahimaaz, Ethan, Ahimelech , Priest at Nob, King Jehoshaphat (red), Elishama the Priest, The Woman at the Well, Providing Angel.
3.   Ahimaaz checks your opponent’s hand to see if they have anything they could use to hinder your progress.
4.   Ethan grabs Battle Prayer (wa) from d/c pile.
5.   Providing Angel grabs Healing of Naaman from your d/c pile.
6.   The Woman at the Well grabs an EC and a LS from your opponent’s deck.
7.   King Lemuel exchanges anything in hand with Angelic Advice from d/c pile (if you have nothing in hand – use Battle Prayer that Ethan grabs)
8.   Micah shuffles Sword of the Lord from d/c pile into deck. (If your opponent has no evil brigades in play you can skip this step and still get the combo set up without playing Angelic Advice this turn.)
9.   Ahimelech, Priest at Nob places Two Thousand Horses from d/c pile onto King Jehoshaphat.
10.   King Jehoshaphat + 2kh (draw Sword of the Lord) enters battle and play Angelic Advice to shuffle all artifacts into deck to keep artifacts from stopping your combo in future turns.
11.   Agur places Sword of the Lord from hand onto Nathan in territory.
12.   Elishama the Priest places Visions of Iddo the Seer from d/c pile on Nathan in territory.
13.   Tribal Elder targets Nathan. [Banding targets from Battle Cry have all entered battle at this point].
14.   Nathan enters battle, shuffles an EC from your opponent, and Sword of the Lord goes off first.
15.   Choose Seven Wicked Spirits to fight Prince of this World (P) (ECs in territory from Gates of Hell).
16.   This is the soft lock step. If your opponent has no cards to play on orange ECs, 7WS exchanges for Wandering Spirit in Territory and then band to Panic Demon (gray) x3 and Panic Demon (pale green) x2. You don’t need to play anything in the side battle. If your opponent has cards to play on orange ECs, just use 2 gray Panic Demons and hope the third card they draw is not detrimental. If you get the ideal band, the reason you want pale green Panic Demons is to paralyze heroes your opponent could use to draw cards or play first (Jake/ET,etc) so they can’t get back into the game the next turn until you have the hard lock. Your big demon dies and the others come back.
17.   Nathan’s Visions of Iddo the Seer goes off and you pick up all your heroes and good enhancements minus Visions to your hand. Since the rescue failed the Panic Demons’ abilities kick in, placing 3 cards from their hand on deck and paralyzing 2 heroes.
18.   Play Healing of Naaman off of The Terrifying Beast to heal The Proud Pharisee and convert to a red hero.
19.   Place down your heroes and discard 2kh.

A couple notes on the first battle. If you don’t need to play Angelic Advice (based on no artifact pile or your opponent only having something active that doesn’t matter) you can play Battle Prayer with King Jehoshaphat so you can play Besieging the City during the first iteration. If that is the case, you make Wandering Spirit + Deceiving Spirit fight PotW in the side battle and play BtC and then die (both demons going to deck).

2010 Nationals:

Literally the day before nationals I realized a faster win condition was to play Ambush the City during the main battle (setting aside all heroes out of play) and then walking in with no hand and Zebulun for a soul before the main battle resumed. I wanted to make sure that was a legal play so when I arrived (45 before play began) I asked Bryon/Rob about the play. They weren’t sure how to rule it and wanted to think on it longer. Eventually with 5 minutes left before play started they let me know they didn’t think it would work as I wanted. So I scrambled to take Ambush the City out and put the Long Day back in. In my haste, I doubled up on Tribal Elder and left out Plague of Frogs. Much to my chagrin, Gabe drew Outpost + Gates of Hell in the first couple turns and I couldn’t get past his infinite Philistine recursion. Timeout loss 4-1 as he couldn’t do anything due to Besieging the City and I couldn’t beat his Philistines + Demons as RTC was worthless.

I also lost to James Roepke after seeing Golden Calf in his hand one of the first turns with Ahimaaz, realizing I needed to wait for Captured Ark before discarding my deck, and then dumbly forgetting and proceeding to discard everything before re-remembering he had Golden Calf which stymied my offense. Of course he only had one copy of Golden Calf.

He naturally won the game and avenged a loss to my 2007 combo deck where he had a chance to stop my deck but played his cards wrong, letting me win. I was on the podium in 2007 instead of him after winning that last round game. In this reversal of roles, James took 2nd but I still managed to place 3rd thanks to Matt Archibald and a couple others stumbling in their final games.

I truly felt I did not deserve to place due to my mistakes against Gabe (mistakes being not fixing my deck properly before play started and not teching super well for his defense) and mistake against James (not waiting for Captured Ark). Compared with my other two 3rd place finishes where my losses were not due to any mistakes but due to the draw, I was very fortunate and blessed to place this time when I blew my chances.

Final Thoughts:

All in all, this was my fastest T2 deck I ever created, with all 10 tournament games (6 at nationals and 4 at regionals) and all my practice games allowing me to set up within 4 turns. In half of the games I had the combo ready to go on turn 2. My previous combo decks would set up by turn 7 so I was pleased that this deck was so much faster. Anyone please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe this deck was the fastest deck in T2 history, based on setting up win conditions in every game in 4 or less turns. Sin in the Camp took about 6. My deck went off on turn 1 against eventual T1 2p champ Jonathan Greeson, handing him a stinging loss in his first year of T2.

The Elders changed healing rules after nationals to curtail this deck, meaning I could no longer heal characters after discarded from hand or deck. So the deck in its current form is not playable. With appropriate tweaks, the deck could still be a formidable foe but I believe it would take several more cards to set up the combo and would take longer to go off. If you are truly interesting in playing with this (or any of my deck concepts), please let me know and I would happy to brainstorm and assist as I have many years of combo experience. I hold this to be my best deck but it is still a beast to master as you have to play about 27 cards each turn to make it work and if you play them in the wrong order you are hosed.

I hope those of you who have taken the time to look at my decks and read my commentary have enjoyed this journey into the Type 2 diaries of Kirk Dennison.

God bless,
Kirk