Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I've been reading the book of Nehemiah recently and I thought about maybe a exclusive theme for him where the objective of the offense is to "build the gates" to achieve an alternate win condition or simply set up a supreme offense. Since there are ten gates he and others build, I thought about having all the gates mandatorily start in the reserve thus part of the sacrifice for this offense. I'm thinking that a Nehemiah reprint can start with a special ability where he gets to grab a gate when he first gets down on the table and on each upkeep after. Thoughts?

Nehemiah X/10 (Red Brigade TC Warrior)
Identifier: X equals the number of Nehemiah forts in play
"Now and each upkeep, you may take a Nehemiah fort from reserve. Once per game, If there are 10 Nehemiah Gates in your territory, rescue a Nehemiah hero.

The Sheep Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
“Protect your good Dominants in deck and territory from opponents. Each upkeep, you may discard a good enhancement from hand to take a good dominant from deck.”

The Fish Gate
"Protect your good enhancements in territory. Each upkeep, you may exchange a good card in hand with a good O.T. enhancement in deck.

The Old Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
"Your single brigade Nehemiah or Ezra Heroes have first strike and may use enhancements of any brigades except Silver."

The Valley Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
Protect your sites from opponents. Each upkeep, you may remove one lost soul held in a site.

The Refuse Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
"Protect discard pile from opponents. Each upkeep, you may exchange a good card in hand with a good Nehemiah enhancement in discard pile."

The Fountain Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
"Once per game, If your opponent removes your last hero in battle, you may add your Nehemiah hero to battle."

The Water Gate
"Protect Nehemiah and Ezra heroes from capture, band, and banish abilities on opponent's cards. Each upkeep, you may exchange a hero in territory or hand with a hero in deck or reserve."

The Horse Gate
"Each upkeep, you may draw 1 from the bottom or top of deck

The East Gate
Identifier: Unity Heroes (Nehemiah Reference)
"Three times per game, you may negate an evil or neutral card in territory for one turn."

The Inspection Gate
"Each upkeep, You may Reveal the top seven cards of a deck, put lost souls in play and shuffle the rest. Once per round, you may protect one lost soul from evil cards."

10 turns is perfectly reasonable, coming from a big fan of the alternate win conditions.

This is just the kind of thing that increases diversity and creativity in Redemption!

Great idea!

A Nehemiah mini-theme would be cool, but I'm not a huge fan of the concept of AWCs.

I'm thinking more of an Alternate rescue condition now. For example, "if all tens gates are in your territory, rescue a Nehemiah hero in battle or territory."

It would be cool to have a small independent set like this funded through a kickstarter campaign, so all the cards wouldn't take up spots on the yearly expansion release.

Interaction is a major consideration in terms of awc. This was why Greek God's and Coney were both on the receiving end of heavy nerfing through rule changes and new card counters. They were determined to be too one sided in terms of interaction, but do kind of have awc.

What kind of abilities are you thinking for the Gates? 10 turns is totally reasonable because most decks don't need 10 turns to win in t1.

I’ve only thought of one so far.

The Sheep Gate
Identifier: Card must start in reserve
“Protect your good Dominants in deck and territory from opponents. Each upkeep, you may discard a good enhancement from hand to take a good dominant from deck.”

Red for most of them, but I'm more interested in what a Zerubbabel reprint could look like. I like his current ability, but his brigades just do not work with the other guys in that theme. 

Quote from: Ironisaac on May 09, 2018, 01:02:31 PM

Red for most of them, but I'm more interested in what a Zerubbabel reprint could look like. I like his current ability, but his brigades just do not work with the other guys in that theme.

I love the Z Temple theme's strat of having your guys protected from a long list of things once you're set up and I hope it gets some love next set.

Same, it was my first t2 deck, and it was so fun, but ultimately, not good enough. A big part of why it's not very good is because they don't have any decent enhancements when compared to tabernacle priests. 

If Zerubabbel doesn't get a reprint, a gate that allows your single brigade ezra and nehemiah heroes to use any enhancement would be cool. 

I'm really liking what you are coming up with. Keep them coming!

I'd suggest unity on some things to prevent splashing. Nehemiah should be cbn and have some kind of discard condition. Possibly "if discarded return to territory"

"Each upkeep, you may play a Nehemiah fortress from reserve. If discarded, return to territory. Cannot be negated."

As intended, this deck is playing out the game to turn 10.. Nehemiah needs some serious instead and protect to be able to survive the entire time.

Quote from: Xonathan on May 09, 2018, 09:47:35 AM

Nehemiah X/10 (Red Brigade TC Warrior)
Identifier: X equals the number of Nehemiah forts in play
"Now and each upkeep, you may take a Nehemiah fort from reserve. Once per game, If there are 10 Nehemiah forts in your territory, rescue a Nehemiah hero.

you can have 3 copies of Jerusalem tower in your deck in t2... 

Doesn't T2 Reserve still have to be alignment balanced? Unless you're planning to make half the forts evil, you won't be able to play it in T2 anyway.

You could change the ability to "10 unique Nehemiah Gates" to prevent shenanigans.

I'm really liking what you are coming up with. Keep them coming!

I'd suggest unity on some things to prevent splashing. Nehemiah should be cbn and have some kind of discard condition. Possibly "if discarded return to territory"

"Each upkeep, you may play a Nehemiah fortress from reserve. If discarded, return to territory. Cannot be negated."

As intended, this deck is playing out the game to turn 10.. Nehemiah needs some serious instead and protect to be able to survive the entire time.

Good point about Unity. I guess I'll add unity to the more powerful gates like maybe the Sheep Gate.

Quote from: Ironisaac on May 09, 2018, 02:42:27 PM

Quote from: Xonathan on May 09, 2018, 09:47:35 AM

Nehemiah X/10 (Red Brigade TC Warrior)
Identifier: X equals the number of Nehemiah forts in play
"Now and each upkeep, you may take a Nehemiah fort from reserve. Once per game, If there are 10 Nehemiah forts in your territory, rescue a Nehemiah hero.

you can have 3 copies of Jerusalem tower in your deck in t2... 

Doesn't T2 Reserve still have to be alignment balanced? Unless you're planning to make half the forts evil, you won't be able to play it in T2 anyway.

Not to mention only being able to have one of them in play at a time...

I like the idea but it would definitely have to be playtested a lot. My first thought is that it's pretty underwhelming since you have to wait 10 turns and protect both Nehemiah and all the fortresses in the meantime. Fortress recursion is nearly none-existent so a Shipwreck can pretty much stop it all (unless you use Jerusalem Tower as well which isn't necessarily a bad thing). On the other hand, it could also be fairly powerful if you combine Covenant of Prayer, Gain + Imitate, and a few other cards that could potentially get them out of Reserve. But all that for 1 Lost Soul is sorta underwhelming.

If this does happen, however, we should definitely take this opportunity to print Jadon the Meronothite who helped build part of the wall. 

Nehemiah 3:7
Next to them Melatiah the Gibeonite and Jadon the Meronothite, the men of Gibeon and of Mizpah, also made repairs for the official seat of the governor of the province beyond the River.