The 2018 Community Created Card: Rapha of Gath + Promo Announcement

[The Guardian]

black defenses are good because you have access to Canaanites, Sadducees, Greeks, etc So are people going to cut those characters or just not use Rapha? Probably not use Rapha.

That sounds like the kind of defense where you would use War and not Rapha anyway... 

[The Schaefer]

The unity clause is interesting. I most look at things from a T2 perspective cause that's what I play and unity is a bit harder to maintain there. There are some huge benefits to him don't get me wrong. But is giving up Demetrius + seized and priests of Zeus worth It? I mean let's be real who plays black without priest of Zeus? Sometimes you just play him because he's that good. Being forced to sacrifice protection for your guys because of playing a strong meta counter that was intended to be played as such is kinda off putting. Gates of jerusalem and Samaria already offer unconditional TC protection from opponents for 2 other themes and his while he does protect himself it can be negated like Rahab so I really don't see the point of the unity clause other than trying to find another card to utilize the identifier. Just a personal opinion.

[Reth]

In my opinion Rapha is too weak/non-versatile in his current setup having the unity identifier.
And I wonder why he is not CBN, this would be mitigating the unity costs a little but not sufficiently.

Currently Goliath Promo is still far more competitive IMHO. But nevertheless I cannot see some kind of "themed" defense become a viable option again as long as things like Fire Foxes, Wives+Mayhem etc. will give you chump or stall blocks long enough to get you to your souls.

[redemption collector 777]

Yeah, I don't know why Unity is put on there without it being agreed upon in voting. And then assuming "if blocking" means when this card is blocking that's a different reserve access ability than was voted upon.

In the final vote "Reserve access" was what was voted on, there was no specifics on how that would be implemented.

Well before specific abilities were voted on and then combinations were selected, so to me it looked like you'd just take from that pool. I didn't realize you were disregarding the abilities from the first vote.

I guess we can playtest it with unity, but it makes more sense to playtest it without and see if the ability is too powerful to be splashed. We'd still be going off intuition in deciding whether unity waters the card down too much or not otherwise. So I will save you the time and let you know that it does... black defenses are good because you have access to Canaanites, Sadducees, Greeks, etc So are people going to cut those characters or just not use Rapha? Probably not use Rapha.

If you're set on unity then I would cut the parenthesis and let him top deck weapons or philistines every time one blocks.

Also black brigade defenses can include , Simon the magician (Ap) , Outsiders (black/gold) , Lot's wife , Philetus (PC) 


During the voting I also thought Rapha was not getting the Unity identifier.

Also agree with Reth with the current SA with Unity identifier.


I would be okay if Rapha was just left with the special ability the way it is without the Unity identifier  or


If the playtesters somehow were okay taking out the Unity identifier then maybe the special ability could change to "Protect unique philistines " instead of just "philistines"  Maybe that would make it more balanced?

[goalieking87]

I plan to play test this as is and will update with any issues or recommendations I see from the play testing.

While I do agree with many of the comments that have been made regarding the unity identifier, I think that there could be a lot more benefit than what people are currently giving credit for.

In other words, the “issues” that seem to be predominant so far will be equally troublesome for other brigades/themes with trying to splash. That, however, seems to be part of the point in enhancing the unity IDs. You have to choose the extent of your splashes so they don’t have a large negative impact on you.  My guess is that there will be varying degrees of strength in the unity characters and that not all unity characters need to be a boss, or 100% staples for that particular defense. It will depend on what deck you are trying to build.

Especially with Justin’s comment Re: Foreign Wives, along with one other notable post, I think there is going to be a substantial amount of unity Identifiers and game play will adjust accordingly in a way that non-play testers cannot fully understand yet.

I think our job is to test it out and give some recommendations based on that. That could certainly include comments regarding the usage of the Unity ID, but it should probably not be speculative.

It’s pretty cool that the community is able to contribute so substantially to create a card.

[kariusvega]

Cbn and an add to battle would justify unity here.

[Josh]

Cbn and an add to battle would justify unity here.

If Rapha gets CBN, he has to lose the protect ability.  Way too strong if he can sit in territory w/ CBN protection and continue grabbing cards from Reserve and extending battles every time you are attacked.

[kariusvega]

Cbn and an add to battle would justify unity here.

If Rapha gets CBN, he has to lose the protect ability.  Way too strong if he can sit in territory w/ CBN protection and continue grabbing cards from Reserve and extending battles every time you are attacked.

I disagree because he says if blocking.

I mean at the moment I just see this guy as another disposable ec via Moses/Jephthah and a d2 for my trouble of having to search Jephtah out from wherever ..

You might get an ec if you have Philly outpost in which case unity is redundant on a dead ec .. just saying wwc can do the same thing etc

[Josh]

I guess it depends on how you want the battle continuation to happen.  Can he extend battles while he remains in territory?  If so, no way can he get CBN, because he also protects himself and his pals in territory.

Can he extend a battle when he blocks?  That's something different, but still, with CBN, he's a guaranteed battle extension (so basically cancels out opponent's AotL) every game.  That's really strong, but he does have the Unity identifier...

[NathanW]

I guess it depends on how you want the battle continuation to happen.  Can he extend battles while he remains in territory?  If so, no way can he get CBN, because he also protects himself and his pals in territory.

Can he extend a battle when he blocks?  That's something different, but still, with CBN, he's a guaranteed battle extension (so basically cancels out opponent's AotL) every game.  That's really strong, but he does have the Unity identifier...

How would his ability cancel out AotL? it only protects philistines in territory.

[Josh]

How would his ability cancel out AotL? it only protects philistines in territory.

For example, if Rapha said an additional ability of "If removed from battle, you may add your Philistine Giant to battle.  CBN."

[NathanW]

How would his ability cancel out AotL? it only protects philistines in territory.

For example, if Rapha said an additional ability of "If removed from battle, you may add your Philistine Giant to battle.  CBN."

oh I thought you were talking about the protect in territory being cbn and thus making AotL useless..

[kariusvega]

At least cbn protection justifies unity at the moment ..

Half the problem I have blocking in t1 is keeping ecs on the table.

If you're playing CoL or BoM you don't even have to.. in both cases you are even trying to get rid of your own ecs and in tgt it was the same gig. Just saying CoL is not the problem there when it comes to interactive battle phases and an ongoing issue for several years of blocking

Can someone please explain why we are afraid of cbn tc protection for ecs in territory? Et aocp has been a thing forever and now we have woes/image/censer which effectively nullify the rarely played t1 protect forts

[Josh]

At least cbn protection justifies unity at the moment ..

Half the problem I have blocking in t1 is keeping ecs on the table.

If you're playing CoL or BoM you don't even have to.. in both cases you are even trying to get rid of your own ecs and in tgt it was the same gig. Just saying CoL is not the problem there when it comes to interactive battle phases and an ongoing issue for several years of blocking

If Rapha didn't protect himself, CBN is fine.  If he protects himself, it isn't.

[Isildur]

Nice! I don't like how it says "take it" in the ability... I realize "put into hand" or "take into hand" is longer but it also leaves nothing to the imagination as to what "take it" means.

[ChristianSoldier]

If Rapha didn't protect himself, CBN is fine.  If he protects himself, it isn't.

What do you think of a conditional CBN? For example CBN if Gath is in play (I realize Gath doesn't exist yet, but could at some point) or how about CBN by a good card? That would at least make it a little more durable to the assortment of Negate and Discard an evil card, but still make it negatable with cards like Golden Censor?

[The Guardian]

Nice! I don't like how it says "take it" in the ability... I realize "put into hand" or "take into hand" is longer but it also leaves nothing to the imagination as to what "take it" means.

That's why "Take" is clearly spelled out in the REG...you know, that document where people wanted everything defined so wording could be more consistent...

[TheHobbit13]

If Rapha didn't protect himself, CBN is fine.  If he protects himself, it isn't.

This is to say that territory destruction is fine to you. Ok? All of the other CBN protect abilities that are/were issues (Thaddeus, Oak, CoL) have protection that helps them win lost souls and works on characters in battle. None of that exists with Rapha, so there's no precedence to extrapolate "cbn protection is broken" here.

[The Guardian]

As mentioned in the "Fix a Card" thread, cards like Thaddeus and AutO are examples of abilities we want to move away from. And let's be real, CoL doesn't win battles...the stack of Fruits and Armors you can put on CoL are what wins battles. 

[kariusvega]

As mentioned in the "Fix a Card" thread, cards like Thaddeus and AutO are examples of abilities we want to move away from. And let's be real, CoL doesn't win battles...the stack of Fruits and Armors you can put on CoL are what wins battles. 

I get that but isn't that moving in the opposite direction and actually empowering those cards more?

[TheJaylor]

As mentioned in the "Fix a Card" thread, cards like Thaddeus and AutO are examples of abilities we want to move away from. And let's be real, CoL doesn't win battles...the stack of Fruits and Armors you can put on CoL are what wins battles. 

I get that but isn't that moving in the opposite direction and actually empowering those cards more?

Not if enough counters to those cards are printed as well.

[TheHobbit13]

As mentioned in the "Fix a Card" thread, cards like Thaddeus and AutO are examples of abilities we want to move away from. And let's be real, CoL doesn't win battles...the stack of Fruits and Armors you can put on CoL are what wins battles. 

Right, but lumping protect into a broad category is a bit of an overreaction don't you think? What elements does a cbn Rapha have that oak, CoL, etc also have? All that's obvious is that their abilities stick. It's ok to make tech cards better than you normally would because they have specific uses.

[Josh]

What elements does a cbn Rapha have that oak, CoL, etc also have?

The common element is that you want to do something about your opponent's Gideon/CoL/Rapha, but you can't, because of CBN protection.  There's literally almost nothing you can do. 

And saying "Gideon/CoL are protected in battle, Rapha is only protected in territory" doesn't change the fact that CBN protection of an entire territory, including the card offering the protection itself, greatly limits what players can and can't do with their Redemption cards. 

It's Caesarea Philippi all over again, except it's not negatable.

[Gabe]

Oak, Thad and CoL are not the standard we will use to balance cards. They are beyond the top of what we desire for the power curve. Using those as the standard for any argument won’t get you the traction you want with the people that can make a difference.

[TheHobbit13]

What elements does a cbn Rapha have that oak, CoL, etc also have?

The common element is that you want to do something about your opponent's Gideon/CoL/Rapha, but you can't, because of CBN protection.  There's literally almost nothing you can do. 

lol yeah you can't use your op cards like grail, aocp, Jephthah etc.  Creating territory protection that can be negated in the days of 3 woes, image of the beast, and burning censor, moses, etc is very mediocre and having him not protect himself would be the softest counter to territory destruction ever, because that very thing that the card is meant to counter, counters it. Play test away, but this is an average card right now that we didn't even vote on.