Round 1: Kevin McIlrath (5-1)
Tournament got underway; I went into round 1 simply hoping not to pull a big-namer like last year. I didn’t need the stress that early. This game was fairly prototypical of how my deck is supposed to operate, with Moses getting souls 1 and 2, and then Isaiah picking up the 3rd before a Son of God+ New Jerusalem drop.
Round 2: Jacob Centers (5-2)
Honestly don’t remember much about this game, besides worrying about him possibly having SoG+NJ, but I blocked his last rescue anyway, so it didn’t end up mattering.
Round 3: Martin Miller (0-5)
This game was devastating. Martin’s deck probably beats mine 6 or 7 times out of 10 anyway, but when you top deck someone’s Son of God turn 1 with a Warriors Spear, you know you’re in good shape. The worst part was that I was holding both Seraph and Birth Foretold in my hand, went first, and didn’t play them fearing Mayhem. I still think that was the correct play, even though it cost me in this game.
Round 4: Josh Swinson (5-1)
I wasn’t terribly upset about my loss to Martin the previous round, because it was a small field, and I knew that 9-1 or even 8-2 could win. This game went as usual, with the negators making excellent rescues, and then playing Son of God for the win.
Round 5: Chris Ericson (2-5)
Oh look. Chris…. Chris and I play only semi-regularly, and he had shown me an early version of the spread offence, that he eventually turned into his version of ‘The Deck’. This game pretty much went how I expected it too, we both picked up pretty easy souls, and I made one bad rescue that resulted in my SoG getting confusioned… And then DoU dropped to boot. PG is nasty. That was basically the game; he gets one more block, and the big 2 gone.
Round 6: Rebeccah Collins (5-0)
I don’t want to talk about it… Why do I always have to beat up on a girl (Albeit a National Champion as well). This game wasn’t even fair. I walked in 4 turns in a row with a non-negating hero….
Round 7: Jerome Beers (5-4)
This game. Just beautiful, one of the most fun games of Redemption I’ve had the pleasure of playing in years. This was the only game in which having the ‘Withdraw’ lost soul actually got me a block. That being said, it was the final block of the game, and super, super crucial. Just a great game.
Round 8: Blake Maust (5-3)
I was sitting next to Blake in an earlier round, so I knew what deck he was running, and the game went basically how I expected it too – A race to SoG+NJ which I won.
Round 9: Jonathan Gresson (5-3)
Jon and I have played quite a few times online, but never actually in person. This game was really quite fun. I’m pretty sure it’s the only game that I actually got my Herod’s Treachery down. It really caused Jon quite a problem, since he didn’t realize that pushing Moses would negate it in battle. My offense did its job one more time, and I got an Uzzah block in when Jon pushed with protected Gideon.
Round 10: Matt Townsend (5-2)
Matt is the only player that I lost to at last year’s nationals, and is the defending T12P champion. He was also running a variant of my deck that he developed independently. His first turn Hur was super annoying, and I got super lucky with a DoN top deck the one turn he managed to match Hur with Gifts. It was a pretty standard game for the deck, especially since a lot of matt’s rescues were with non-fbtn characters, which my defense tends to do well against.
All in all it was a great tournament, my deck did really well, and I came up just a little short for a second year in a row. If you’re looking for more detailed info on why certain cards are in the deck look for my Teams report with James coming out soon, essentially we played 2 copies of this offence, and we’ll be going into great depth on why it works, why certain cards are there when others aren’t, and the right way to play the deck.
