Cactus Game Design Message Boards

 A huge thank you to all of the people involved in making Nats 2020 happen as I know that was no small feat.

A huge shout-out to Josiah Beers who tied with me first game and proceeded to tie with me throughout the tournament to go down by 1 Lost Soul differential at the very last game.

The Throne deck took a huge debuff due to old school Samuel getting the axe, but ended up (in my opinion) being even more ridiculous now than ever before due to the new David from LoC who can continue the ridiculous banding chain which enables some pretty disgusting turns. I am also riffing a little bit off of #Mayhem2.0 but without most of the "cheese" rescues that involve Ahimelek and Asahel (never been much of a fan of those, because I think other routes are just strictly better, usually something having to due with Phinehas and Zeal for the Lord who definitely should have been in here but Tyler talked me out of it).

The deck went through several iterations after testing it with my brother, Luke Marshall, who took essentially the same offensive structure I constructed on to 3rd place. The playtests I had when drawing Mayhem first turn usually ended with around 15 cards left in the deck on the first to second turns. Sadly, I did not draw a first turn Mayhem once in the whole tournament, but the deck isn't focused around that, it's also just really good even without the nut draw.


Deck: 50

Heroes (14)

1    Joshua, the Conqueror (LoC)
1    David, Outcasts' Refuge / David, the Anointed (LoC)
1    Captain of the Host (PoC)
1    Ishmaiah the Gibeonite
1    Jehoshaphat, the Seeker / Jehoshaphat, the Meek (LoC)
1    Isaiah (FooF)
1    Jeremiah, Hope Bringer
1    Abigail (RoA)
1    The Angel Under the Oak
1    King Saul (CoW)
1    Jehoiada, King Maker
1    Zadok (PoC)
1    Samuel (mostly for the kicks since his other version just got banned) (CoW)
1.   Captured Kinsmen

GE (7)

1    Counsel of Abigail (LoC)
1    Royal Parade (LoC)
1    Sling Stones (LoC)
1    Spears (LoC)
1.   Isaiahs Call
1.   Wheel within a Wheel
1.   Delivered

Artifacts (2)

1    Holy Grail
1    Urim and Thummim (PoC)

Fortresses (2)

1    The Throne of David
1    Storehouse (Promo)

Sites (2)

1    Nazareth
1    Majestic Heavens (Promo)

Lost Souls (

1    Lost Soul (Remant)
1    Lost Soul (Humble)
1    Lost Soul (Covet)
1    Lost Soul (Jeremiah 28:6) (Exiles)
1    Lost Soul II Chronicles 28:13 (Hopper)
1    Lost Soul (Prosperity)
1    Lost Soul "Darkness" (Job 30:26)
1    Lost Soul (Hunter)

Doms (7)
1    Son of God (2019) (Promo)
1    The Second Coming (CoW AB)
1    Three Woes (RoJ AB)
1    Mayhem (FoM)
1    Guardian of your Souls (new version)
1    Angel of the Lord (Promo 2018)
1    Falling Away

ECs (6)

1    The Deceiver (RoJ AB)
1    King Belshazzar
1    Conjurers
1    Mounted Forces
1    Nebuchadnezzar (TxP)
1.   Uzzah

EEs (2)

1    Belshazzar’s Banquet
1    Wages of Sin



Reserve (10)
1    The Angel with the Winds
1    Covenant with Adam
1    Book of the Covenant
1    Mighty Men
1    Scattered
1    Death of Unrighteous
1    Confusion
1    Foreign Wives
1    New Covenant (Isaiah reference)
1    Covenant with David

Thoughts on the deck and tournament report to follow.

I just put down whatever Josiah's Lost Soul differential was for all these games, but I think one or two of them might be switched. I can't quite remember.

Round 1 - Josiah beers (4-4)

What a way to start out a tournament. Josiah was playing the throne that leaned in pretty hard on Ahimelek the hottie for those nice cheese rescues and he definitely got one off on me, as I should have just discarded my extra evil characters like King Belshazzar that I wasn’t going to get to use anyway instead of putting him down in territory, giving Asahel and Elijah an easy target. It was a definitive race and since Josiah went first, I believe he would have won if we hadn’t gotten to time. The only way I had a stop at the very end is if he made a stupid mistake on choosing what to end the banding chain with which is highly unlikely due to the hand peeking of Solomon and how good a player Josiah is.

Round 2 - Robert Smith (5-0)

This was a pretty brutal loss and continually cements in my mind that flood survivors are complete trash. He had his flood survivor band out pretty early, but I chumped once with Uzzah, negating the one that protected souls, and then scattered them on the next turn. The reason why these guys are trash is because if your opponent gets a single block off on you, you have to wait a full 3 turns to get them back which is the exact amount of time it takes to win in good ole’ T1-2P. His philistines were able to get one block on me I believe and he did pick up a single soul, but falling away is what made the absolute difference in this tournament.
Round 3 - Justin Alstad (5-0)
Justin was running musicians but I didn’t actually get to see much of his deck because he couldn’t draw fast enough but Twenty-Four Elders is a pretty good card that stops a lot of chump blocks.


Round 4 - John Earley (5-2)

- The middle rounds started to put me in a haze as I hadn't slept great the night before and I had just taken a lunch break and a nap. But I believe this was the game where first turn Captured Kinsmen is discarded by Delivered and I attack David into Mighty Men to draw some cards and he uses witch to exchange my David with my Captured Kinsmen which pulls my David back out since it negates Witch of Endor and gives my opponent an extra soul to rescue (I'm not sure if this was that relevant though). It was a brutal way to start out the game for my opponent. I've never seen Captured Kinsmen actually played into battle before (and this was the only time I ever used him) so...it happens you know.

Round 5 - Luke Marshall - (5/3)

The worst starting hand of the entire tournament. Started with 1 character in the hand which was king Belshazzar. Luke reveals Jeremiah as his star to negate all three of my lost souls while having no lost souls himself. (Which are exiles, remnant, and hunter). He goes first with a Moses and I pull off a rescue with three woes on Moses to get a wages of sin off, but my brother essentially copied my offense with one hero difference so I know what he’s playing and what to play around. Luke tried to soul drought, but majestic heavens takes care of that and neither of us can find the heroes that draw cards and all of my speed lost souls were negated early on. I drew three and found an AUTO which got to Joshua and found a David off of AUTO to mighty men to take a peak at Luke’s one card remaining and he has no defense, with no way to draw cards as well. While Luke was stuck in the water for the first few turns, I simply had a few more resources that mattered in the early turns.

Round 6 - Jeremy Chambers - 5/2

This was by far one of the most interesting games I had in the whole tournament. I was stuck in the water without any speed cards after Jeremy had used flying scroll to take my David. Instead of discarding him however, Jeremy played him as meek thinking now he'd be pretty useless (he also couldn't have known that I played no way to recur my heroes). This however opened the door for Jehoiada to finally earn his spot in the deck. For three straight turns I attacked with Jehoiada protecting and banding to the meek David in Jeremy's territory using Urim and Thumim to know exactly how to play the battle out and this is where I used Covenant with Adam 3 straight battles in a row couple with a counsel of Abigail and a royal parade to take home the victory.

Round 7 - Derek Tirado - 5/2

- In the last round, Derek got off to a pretty slow start and put Mighty Men down on the table which opened the door for me to start banding and get a hand peek in on the first turn. I think he got one block off in the game, but having Guardian early and always knowing Falling Away is going to be a free soul out of my opponent's land of redemption is game breaking. I got the banding chain pretty early in this game and with Ishmaiah negating evil characters 10 or less, Abigail protecting lost souls, spears and sling stones with a throne on the table ending in a CBN protection.

I had fun playing you in our last round of booster draft and in T1 2P!  Our booster game was much more of a nail biter than our T1 game!  Great job winning both.  Yeah, I definitely made a mistake putting MM on the table, which I realized shortly after I did it and confirmed when you banded to him next turn!

And you actually never put Isaiah into battle (ref. you mentioning CBN protected); you typically ended the band with Jeremiah.  And I forgot about this at the time but when I blocked one of the last times, you played Counsel off of Throne.  I could have used my Destroying Bands to interrupt it and band to all of your ECs and any of mine, most likely allowing your ECs to die, helping to clear the way for my next turn.  You wouldn't have been able to toss it off Jeremiah due to his on-going toss ability being interrupted by your own Counsel.  Just something to think about with Throne decks using Jeremiah at the end of the band.

Thank you for sharing this and congratulations!

Is Land of Redemption still doing the national promo offer for pieces of content? I never was actually able to get the Whirlwind promo card and would love to get an extra Tabernacle? I was thinking of writing up a deck guide?