Cactus Game Design Message Boards

If you don't top deck a couple ECs, and you think your opponent might be playing TGT, don't rescue yet.  Be patient.   Wait a turn or two to begin your rescues.  Set up your defense.  TGT does nothing to you if you have not rescued yet.  You can block all you want if you have not rescued yet.  If you don't want to be patient, then you just might have to suffer the consequences.

so, you're telling us the answer to teching against tgt is...not rescuing? i see. i've been playing this game completely wrong for 10 years.

It isn't that difficult for a 9-10 EC deck to destroy a TGT deck more often that not, especially if you play it smart.  Really.

i can name 9-10 ways to destroy ec's with reliable, oft-used cards.

Holy Grail, WaS, Jephthah, AoC, SS, Head of Gold, He Is Risen! (better than Discard), IA, and Habbakuk Stands Watch for starters.

Holy Grail, WaS, Jephthah, AoC, SS, Head of Gold, He Is Risen! (better than Discard), IA, and Habbakuk Stands Watch for starters.

HG - valid, but fails against demons.
WaS - requires you to make a RA, but, i agree this can be legitimate.
Jephthah - valid.
AoC - protect forts
SS - Demons live, and its tricky to play this without me negating it.
Head of Gold - unless you use it in a side battle, this requires me to make a RA.
He is Risen, legitimate, but negatable.
IA - only WC ec's.
HSW, i put a warror class enhancement or a single color site down and this card is ruined.

*Edit to add in MKC's list*

Zeal, only kills two if you use more than two brigades. band two same-brigade ec's in battle, and laugh at zeal.

Meeting the Messiah - good, but fails against demons.
Passover - Darius Decree? If it works, legit.
Holy unto the Lord. yeah, but you ruin your own defense as well, so i get to walk in next turn.

Now, how many of these are usually in one deck? If you fit all of those in, thats gonna be one small defense... I could just walk right in probably.

*EDIT 2*

Also, from that list, seems like Demons are extremely effective against TGT... as quite a few of those only target humans.

The current deck im running is largely demons, which is why i brought up the point of how a lot of those are only effective on humans.

Still, theres many ways around many of those methods of EC disrupting that are relatively simple, you just have to plan for them. Also, another thing about my current deck... not only is it largely demons, but it has 34 EC's in it. Have fun killing off every last one. 

I don't see why people focus so much on Garden Tomb as the problem.  Garden Tomb wouldn't have teeth without Holy Grail, AoC, Jepthah, or Women as Snares.  You would be hard pressed to find a Garden Tomb deck without those four cards, and if you did you are not going to have any trouble blocking with your mono-color defense.  It isn't Garden Tomb that makes decks that use it good, its all the territory deconstruction.  Garden Tomb just gets all the glory while the territory decon is doing all the work.

Also, from that list, seems like Demons are extremely effective against TGT... as quite a few of those only target humans.

That might be true if Garden Tomb didn't reside primarily within white, the most anti demon focused brigade.  It also only takes one mid-late game block with Women as Snares to ruin a demon defense. Nobody plays with Spiritual Realm and people who do will find they've wasted a card slot in at least half of their games.

Now, how many of these are usually in one deck? If you fit all of those in, thats gonna be one small defense... I could just walk right in probably.

Actually, considering all the rest of the offense has to be comprised of is GT and then the coinciding Heroes, that's an offense of about 16 cards.  Let's count just for kicks and giggles.  Mary, Mary, Salome, Joanna, John, Peter, ET, two negates plus SoG, NJ, AotL, Grapes, and Guardian.  Oh, and The Garden Tomb and let's toss in a spot for another good fortress.  That's 16 cards plus the ~10 that were mentioned.  That's 26.  You'll need Heroes to match some of that stuff so let's add 5 to bring us to 31.  That leaves 18 card slots left for you to make a defense in a 56 card deck.  Seems pretty doable to me.

I don't see why people focus so much on Garden Tomb as the problem.  Garden Tomb wouldn't have teeth without Holy Grail, AoC, Jepthah, or Women as Snares.  You would be hard pressed to find a Garden Tomb deck without those four cards, and if you did you are not going to have any trouble blocking with your mono-color defense.  It isn't Garden Tomb that makes decks that use it good, its all the territory deconstruction.  Garden Tomb just gets all the glory while the territory decon is doing all the work.

but thats the thing...territory construction is nothing without tgt. the cards you named does absolutely nothing to making a successful rescue...they're only supporter cards towards the strategy. tgt makes the strategy absolutely broken. it used to be we could save a defensive answer or two in hand just in case an opponent uses a territory discarder/remover. that is no longer the case with tgt.

Exactly, Garden Tomb needs all those things to even be a threat.  It is for that reason that it isn't broken.  It makes territory decon effective because it forces ECs into play.  You have to combine all those cards together to have something that is effective.  If I toss GT, Mary Mag, Jo, and John into my white female offense, GT isn't really going to do much for me.  A prefect example of this is a game I played shortly after RoA.  My opponent was using the stuff from the tin with GT for his deck.  He didn't use Jephthah, AoC, Women as Snares or Holy Grail.  I had no worries about blocking for the entire games once I actually read GT and realized I needed to have 2 ECs in play.  My opponent ended up just having a female NT white offense with Mary Mag an Joanna.  The banding was more problematic for me that game than GT was by leaps and bounds.

I agree, just plan on protecting your territory and maybe holding off a rescue for a turn or two, and TGT looses its bite. Now, in all of my comments, I've never intended to come off sounding like TGT is epic weaksauce, because its not. However, I feel it is nowhere near broken.

So I'm going to assume that you have some crimson ECs as well because if you didn't then GT would prevent 7Sons from entering battle to discard 3Nails.  If Lampstand is in the picture then you're really sunk.

and some other humans; its grey/orange... and the pit... and SSoS because I dont play speed offense, meaning TGT may not even be active... and Destructive Sin to negate TGT to allow SSoS to block... and captured ark to deal with either artifact... I have my ways around 3 nails.

Never, she always, always, always blocks from hand.  Unless she's already blocked once, in which case she's already dealt a blow that would have resulted in a walk in rescue by any of the GT Heroes.

I agree she SHOULD be played that way, but hand pressure kills.

I'm seeing a lot of territory protection in the next set. 

Multiple cards that protect ECs in territory from capture, conversion, and hero abilities.  That takes care of WaS, HG, and Jephthah.  Activate DD, and you are golden. 

Yay!

Hey,

I never thought I'd see a wall of text from Bryon.

1) STOP the use of the "5 stand-alone EC defense", which was used by WAAAAAAY too many players.  Red Dragon, Emperor Nero, King of Tyrus, Prince of This World, Sabbath Breaker.  TGT had to be powerful enough to beat that deck more often than it lost.  Otherwise, 1/3 of the top players would still be using that defense today (perhaps plus PG).  Another third would be using the defense that Tim Maly used: also only 1-2 characters from each brigade, plus the one CBN battle winner from those brigades.

I believe TGT failed almost entirely in achieving this objective, which I believe was the primary objective in mind when TGT was printed.  As intended, TGT does well against stand alone and splash defenses.  What wasn't intended is that TGT does almost as well against two brigade and single brigade defenses.  If a splash/stand alone defense is the best defense against stuff other than TGT and using something other than splash/stand alone doesn't significantly increase my odds against a TGT deck, then I might as well stick with my splash/stand alone defense, which is what I believe is what happened.

I know I stuck with my splash defense last year and in five tournaments it won regionals (beating Gabe's TGT deck that won nationals in the process), won a state, placed third at state, and won a district.  The only tournament it did poorly at was nationals, and I think my only game against a TGT deck at nationals was a 5-4 loss where I didn't draw Son of God.  [And for the record it has 2-3 evil characters of each brigade not 1-2.]

If you don't top deck a couple ECs, and you think your opponent might be playing TGT, don't rescue yet.  Be patient.   Wait a turn or two to begin your rescues.  Set up your defense.

With all due respect, that's some of the worst advice I've ever heard.  Every TGT deck I've ever seen was more than capable of winning souls without TGT being active.  So not rescuing is just going to put you behind, and it's really hard to catch up against a TGT deck.  Patience against a speed deck is suicide, and 90% of TGT decks are speed decks.  I believe the best strategy against TGT (or any other speed deck for that matter) is to get out as fast as possible and hope you get to five before they draw the cards they need to slow you down.

It isn't that difficult for a 9-10 EC deck to destroy a TGT deck more often that not, especially if you play it smart.  Really.

If that's the case, why were none of the eight people that played Gabe at nationals able to destroy his TGT deck?

I don't see why people focus so much on Garden Tomb as the problem.  Garden Tomb wouldn't have teeth without Holy Grail, AoC, Jepthah, or Women as Snares.  You would be hard pressed to find a Garden Tomb deck without those four cards, and if you did you are not going to have any trouble blocking with your mono-color defense.  It isn't Garden Tomb that makes decks that use it good, its all the territory deconstruction.  Garden Tomb just gets all the glory while the territory decon is doing all the work.

You do realize that Gabe's TGT deck that won nationals accumulated 28 of its 36 wins without any of those four cards, right?  The only one that was in his deck at nationals was Holy Grail which he added after regionals.

Territory destruction is worthless if I hold my evil characters in my hand.  Prior to the release of TGT I always held an evil character in my hand.  I'd rather discard one of the weaker dominants than put down my last evil character out of my hand.  TGT forces a player to put their evil characters into their territory so that territory destruction can pick them off.  TGT is what makes territory destruction work, that's why it's the card that gets complained about.  Ultimately, the problem isn't TGT; the problem is the vulnerability of evil characters in a player's territory.

I'm seeing a lot of territory protection in the next set. 

Multiple cards that protect ECs in territory from capture, conversion, and hero abilities.  That takes care of WaS, HG, and Jephthah.  Activate DD, and you are golden. 

Of course this only helps if you draw your territory protection cards before they draw their territory destruction cards.  Which just encourages them to use speed so that they are more likely to draw what they need before you do.

Tschow,

Tim "Sir Nobody" Maly

Quote from: Bryon on December 20, 2009, 03:44:14 AM

Activate DD, and you are golden. 

You know, gold is the weakest metal...

It will bend yes but not break.

Territory destruction is worthless if I hold my evil characters in my hand.  Prior to the release of TGT I always held an evil character in my hand.  I'd rather discard one of the weaker dominants than put down my last evil character out of my hand.  TGT forces a player to put their evil characters into their territory so that territory destruction can pick them off.  TGT is what makes territory destruction work, that's why it's the card that gets complained about.  Ultimately, the problem isn't TGT; the problem is the vulnerability of evil characters in a player's territory.

I'm pretty sure I said that, just in less words.

It makes territory decon effective because it forces ECs into play.

You do realize that Gabe's TGT deck that won nationals accumulated 28 of its 36 wins without any of those four cards, right?  The only one that was in his deck at nationals was Holy Grail which he added after regionals.

Gabe's deck was primarily ZTemple.  He only added Garden Tomb because of how it easily feeds off of the EC discard and territory destruction that teal has.

Teal works great with TGT because it has so many ways to remove opposing Evil Characters from play, which clears the way for TGT ladies to rescue unblocked.  Teals biggest weakness is lack of access to the NT LS and Female LS, which is also solved by TGT ladies.

His deck also only had 4 "GT cards," in Mary, Joanna, Salome, and GT itself.  The rest is ZTemple with the possible exception of Passover&Unleavened Bread but I've seen people use that in strictly ZTemple decks without GT.

*Goes back to his heroless happily*

Dear Cactus,

      To save the most time honored and loved deck strategy of heroless, please make a card to protect a hero from shuffle.

Love,
     Me