Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Redemption has had its share of secret combos and weird worded rulings that very few people knew about until they got surprised by it at the National tournament.

This culture is dying and honestly I’m glad to see it go. Whatever your position on JD and the fiasco at nats a couple years ago.  The guy posted his deck list and his combo and then won nationals with that list. Josh P also ran a version of that deck to I believe a 2nd place or a 4th place finish?.

Recently I’ve seen Josh H. Post several powerful combos for teams, rescuing multiple souls in a single turn etc. in the last week I’ve seen Issac post an incredible find with Acts of Solomon and the way it plays. He could’ve snuck into nationals and abused everyone with that but instead he shared his knowledge with the community. I have a lot of respect for that. Issac has now also pointed out an interesting loophole with Failed Objective and  the like. While some of us knew this Issac went ahead and made it public knowledge.

I’ll be the first to admit when strife first came out and I ran the King’s of Judah deck I didn’t tell anyone else about strife because I wanted an advantage. I wish now that I would’ve exposed it sooner.

I like seeing this culture shift that is happening and I commend all of those who have put out there tricks and awesome finds.

Keep up the good work guys!

While I think there's definitely still a place in the game for combo decks, I agree it's better that combo decks or strategies based on weird wording/loopholes are brought into the open before major tournaments. However, part of being a great player is knowing what potential strategies you might face and then having a plan to counter those strategies.

Admittedly, I did use one such strategy a couple years ago with The Third Seal (a poorly worded card) at 2016 Nationals, but in my defense (at least partially...  ), the wording of The Third Seal was brought up by Westy several years prior (in a post which I found after recognizing the "weird" wording myself), but no one really paid much attention to him...is that on me for not telling everyone I planned to play mono-Silver and four copies of The Third Seal? I'll let everyone decide for themselves. 

I guess overall, I think there's a balance to be sought. Redemption's player-base is small enough that not every crazy strategy/combo is going to be discovered in the first year of a set's release. If back in 2015 John E had revealed the Arrest in Gethsemane combo publicly, would it really have changed much leading up to Nationals? (Does Josiah decide not to play mono-Silver??) Seems unlikely to me since the theory behind John's deck went much deeper than just Arrest.

Perhaps last year is an even better example (gee, why does this always involve John?  )

While I would have preferred the specific Jehu/Asahel interaction be made more widely known prior to Nationals, the overall deck theory of #Mayhem -- using very few cards that stayed in hand in order to gain an early card advantage by using Mayhem -- was brilliant IMO and certainly not something that John should have been expected to tell everyone about. I believe players that put the time and effort into researching, theorizing, testing and refining strategies should reap the benefit of having an edge when the major tournament season arrives.

If anyone disagrees, that's totally fine -- that's simply my perspective. 

I guess if a combo would require calling a judge to get a ruling on an older card, or looking up an obscure rule or errata every time you pull it on a new person, maybe you should publicize it.

That's a pretty solid rule to go by. 

What does Jehu/Asahel do?

Interesting, that requires opponent to have an evil royal human to choose now that you have to choose the blocker from opponent's territory.  Does nobody use Wall of Protection anymore?

It is so interesting how certain cards that were rarely used 10 years ago (HSR) are now near staples in all decks and vice versa (Wall).

Heck, even when I posted my T2 Only decklist after the tournament I didn't draw much attention to one particular (fairly simple) combo that I used in almost every game, since it caught nearly everyone off guard. Anyone I played (or someone willing to do some detective work on my board history) will likely know what it is, but since surprising people with it helped so much I figured I'd rather keep it quiet (although now I'm sure it'll come to light  ).

Do you mean Protection of Jerusalem and GWT? That was just nasty.

Quote from: Bobbert on April 25, 2019, 03:01:04 PM

Heck, even when I posted my T2 Only decklist after the tournament I didn't draw much attention to one particular (fairly simple) combo that I used in almost every game, since it caught nearly everyone off guard. Anyone I played (or someone willing to do some detective work on my board history) will likely know what it is, but since surprising people with it helped so much I figured I'd rather keep it quiet (although now I'm sure it'll come to light  ).

Do you mean Protection of Jerusalem and GWT? That was just nasty.

Yup, that's the one. Being able to negate and discard an evil card whenever you want is preeeety good, and since GWT is a solid card anyway nobody blinks when you flip it up.

You guys/girls rock. *sigh* some of us no longer rock.

At least now Kyle has given you a cool avatar!

Yeah same. I posted my Palestine deck because T2 only was coming up and I thought it wasn’t the greatest combo.    I usually keep quiet about combos till after nationals

I used to try and find combos and keep them quiet for the surprise factor.  I've discovered that, with such a small player base that is fairly close-knit, I enjoy the game more and have more fun with other players when we celebrate new knowledge, as opposed to hoarding knowledge.

This is what I discovered as well. When JD first posted his version of my CoL list I wasn't happy since I had intended to ninja Nats with it and thought surprise would be my only shot at doing well but it was only because of him spilling the beans that I decided to test my list at Regionals and it was there that I got the idea of running Hypocrisy from John and that card ended up being one of the single most important pieces of the deck. I also hadn't shared any of the decks newer iterations with JD after he leaked my first one but the night before T1 at Nats I showed him my final list and we did some practice for the mirror match (which unfortunately never happened). I think it's very likely that if I had gotten my original wish and the whole thing had been a secret right up until Nats then no one's CoL deck would have placed at all.

Not only is sharing knowledge more fun, it's often in the best interest of the strategy's discoverer as well.

Yeah I had first come up with the Joseph and Zebulun deck combo thing then someone posted on the boards about a Joseph and Zebulun deck I was like ....crap.... 😆 I feel ya my man 😆

Quote from: Kevinthedude on April 26, 2019, 10:47:27 AM

Quote from: Josh on April 25, 2019, 03:33:16 PM

I used to try and find combos and keep them quiet for the surprise factor.  I've discovered that, with such a small player base that is fairly close-knit, I enjoy the game more and have more fun with other players when we celebrate new knowledge, as opposed to hoarding knowledge.

This is what I discovered as well. When JD first posted his version of my CoL list I wasn't happy since I had intended to ninja Nats with it and thought surprise would be my only shot at doing well but it was only because of him spilling the beans that I decided to test my list at Regionals and it was there that I got the idea of running Hypocrisy from John and that card ended up being one of the single most important pieces of the deck. I also hadn't shared any of the decks newer iterations with JD after he leaked my first one but the night before T1 at Nats I showed him my final list and we did some practice for the mirror match (which unfortunately never happened). I think it's very likely that if I had gotten my original wish and the whole thing had been a secret right up until Nats then no one's CoL deck would have placed at all.

Not only is sharing knowledge more fun, it's often in the best interest of the strategy's discoverer as well.

Yeah about that...

Not necessarily you or JD, but I did notice some people were making misplays with that because Belt of Truth protects from crimson.

Yeah that was pretty much the number one way to tell if someone was experienced with the deck or not. There were many testing games where Belt was the last placed enhancement in my hand and I had to risk playing it pre-hypocrisy to keep the chain going.