Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Ok, first and foremost, I want to give a big thanks to Marti and Brad for being awesome generous hosts and for putting up with all 33?ish of us Redemption lovers.

T1 2P

So I had two decks that I was debating using - my offense-heavy Multi deck or my quirky Watchful Servant deck.  It's just a game, and I wanted to see how my WS deck could do after some success and fine-tuning via RTS.  I'll post it on the Complete Decks forum in a bit, so check it out in all it's glory there, but for now, all you need to know is that I was trying to do 3 things with it.
1. Sitelock my opponent (all black defense)
2. Tech against the one offense that has infinite site access (Disciples)
3. Keep the deck to 56 cards to limit bad draws and to avoid timing out (Watchful Servant offense)

Game one - Can't remember his name (I'm terrible with them) - I won 5-2
This one was a pretty easy one.  I played fast, and so did my opponent.  He had a purple offense and a black defense, but he didn't have a lot of the more powerful cards from those brigades.  My defense and sites set up quick, and for the most part he didn't attack me.  Then when he was almost decked, he set all his heroes aside with The Vineyard.  I flipped up DD and discarded them.  He got 2 midgame with SoG/NJ, but I walked in for 5 at the end.  I actually almost got locked out because I forgot to add The Ends of the Earth to my deck, but I took his Promised Land with Land Dispute and used Benedictus to get the Female only LS.

Game two - Shawn Capron (I think that's his last name.  He's Korunks on the forums.) - I won 5-3
Once again, my defense and sites set up fast, and Shawn's deck drew slow.  His Fishing Boat was also buried pretty deep in his deck, which helped stall.  He finally got Boat for access, but then he set aside his heroes with Pentecost and I DD'd them.  Next turn he flipped up Chariot and I DoN'd it.  He got a soul early with Thomas/Matthew and also SoG/NJ.

I almost ran into trouble at endgame when he decked.  I had the Thorns LS in a site and he had Shuffler LS in territory.  I attacked with WS, he SoG Thorns/NJ Shuffler.  After consulting a judge, it was ruled that all souls not in sites would be shuffled.  This gave him a deck so he could defend against WS.  He blocked, it was a stalemate, and I was expecting the worse, but he chose not to play anything.  Next turn, after he had drawn all his souls, I began walking in.  He CMs me, but I have Lay Down Your Life on John the Baptist to instead it.

Key plays in the game:  He got Herod's Temple/Lampstand up early in the game, and I Land Disputed the Temple.  Also, he attacked with Philip/Bartholomew with The Ends of the Earth brought into battle for site access, I defended with Simon the Magician and played Joseph in Prison.  Neither of us realized that Shawn had Peter in play and that he could have negated JiP.  Also, I got my Manasseh/King Amon/Gates of Jerusalem/Goliath's Armor combo working, so at end game he couldn't get past my King Amon.

Game three - Brandon something-or-other (Ryupeco on the boards, I was told) - 3-3 tie
This game had the worst possible start I can imagine.  I drew a decent starting hand with CP, Golgotha, and one of my 5 Damascus sites to get my protection and soul-hiding started.  Unfortunately, I drew no souls, so Brandon got to choose who went first.  He went first and promptly played Harvest Time.  So right off the bat my deck was no secret to him, and he was able to rescue the soul he pulled from my deck, as I only drew my small characters in my starting hand.  He was able to get another a few turns later, as my D set up very slowly in this game.

Midgame, he makes a rescue with his custom hero, which has site access.  I block with Ananias since I have Herod's Temple out and negates in my hand.  He plays ANB.  Crap.  So we both shuffle everything (except LS since I have Thorns out) and just now typing this I realize that I shuffled my sites when I had CP out.  So that was dumb on my part.  But I was able to hold him off with my new hand.  But by now I was really worried, because he had played Pharaoh's Throne Room, which apparently negates my WS (thought it said "OT" before).  Fortunately, I was able to walk in for one with WS when he had 4 cards in deck, got another on my next turn with AotL (since he drew PTR), and I played SoG for number 3.  He also got another against me because of a dumb play on my part.  He attacked with a big hero, I blocked with King Amon because I wanted to recur Land Dispute to discard his PTR, but Brandon had activated Hezekiah's Signet Ring, and I couldn't win the battle with my enhancements. 

Fortunate play of the game:  I discarded his SoG with my Deck Discard LS.  Considering how this game went, I was lucky (and happy) to walk away with the 3-3 tie.

Booster
This was fun.  It was challenging, since we didn't start with Tins.  We had Unlimited, Prophets, Womens, Apostles, Kings, Angel Wars, and TexP.  Finding enough characters was a problem.  After the game, most people I talked to said they had problems getting characters as well.  I eventually started drafting all heroes with 7 or more on offense.  I was tentatively excited about my deck, but since my only Booster experience was over one year ago and was an Epic Fail, I didn't have any high hopes.

My deck's highlights (I'll post it on Complete Decks as well)
Falling Away   0_0
6 sites
4 Gray characters with 5 legit battlewinners to play on them (Chains x2, Demonic Snare, Idle Gossip, Water Shaft)
Claudia
Peter
I Am Grace x2 (this turned out to be my best offensive battlewinner!)

Game one - Gretel Coverdale and someone else I don't remember the name of - 5-2-2 in my favor
My deck drew well.  I got The False Prophet (8/12 ftw) and some gray enhancements in my starting hand.  Because of that, I didn't get attacked much.  Gretel got an early Warriors Gabe and went to work on discarding our decks.  But she wasn't able to get through against me, as I drew enough of my gray battlewinners to hold him off.  Peter got all 5 of my rescues.  His shining moment came against Gretel's Ishbibenob.  She had initiative, so she played Ishbibenob's Spear, making him 16/14.  I played I Am Grace, discarded one of my offensive cards from had that would never see battle, and discarded the spear.  This made up for the sweet play she pulled on me early when I attacked with Claudia/Peter.  She blocked with a brown character and played Rebellious (an Angel Wars common) on Claudia.  It negated her ability, and she promptly died.

Game two - I think his name was Brandon (he's Drrek on the boards), and a woman and a younger boy that I don't remember the names of - 5-4-4-2, I had 4
This was a frustrating game, because at one point I was up 4-3-3-1 and Falling Away had already been played on me.  The woman's Jael got two from me by choosing my The False Prophet to block and playing Battle Axe, which ignores gray.  Later when Peter was in battle, I played Wrestling with God, searched her discard pile and took one of the Battle Axes, and later used it to win that rescue attempt.

Never-seen-that-card-played moment:  In one of my rescue attempts, the boy played Hostility against me, so for my next rescue, I had a 5/5 Peter instead of a 10/10 Peter.  He still won.  I Am Grace ftw.  Peter rescued all 4 for me in this game as well.

Game three - Dwayne (3-Liner on the boards), some guy with a beard, and some-guy-with-a-beard's dad (who also had a beard) - 5-3-3-2 in my favor
This game was a game of free lunches early on.  Eventually the defenses caught up and everyone mostly stalled.  It was 3-3-3-2, and I hadn't drawn Falling Away yet.  I got one of my random 7/* heroes going (since Egyptian Archer was used to discard my Peter.  Obviously a good choice, as Peter is clearly the Booster champ.) and got a fourth.  Then, on my next turn, I walked in with Angel of Might, and the other guy couldn't block me, so I got 5. 

Interesting notes:  I drew Falling Away on my last turn, and that only happened because Dwayne played Samaritan Water Jar on me and set aside 3 of my cards, speeding up my deck.  In a moment of irony, I played Falling Away on Dwayne to bring him down to 3 from 4.

Results:  Somehow I won, and I don't remember how close it was, but apparently it was like the smallest possible margin of victory.

Quote from: jmhartz on July 24, 2011, 09:46:57 PM

Daniel made a great play at endgame by attacking with a prophet with Hidden Treasures up and playing Provisions to set aside my Watchful Servant.

I thought you couldn't set aside another player's character of the same alignment as the set aside card.  If that's correct, then his hero couldn't play Provisions on your Watchful Servant.

He actually couldn't regardless of that ruling because provision says "set hero asie" rather than "set a hero aside" which as been ruled to mean provisions must be used on the hero it is activated on.

Not sure how updated this is but Ill post it anyway...

Instant Special Abilities > Set-Aside > How to Use
Targets of Ability
By default, a set-aside card must target a card in play. For example, you cannot set a character aside from your hand unless a card states otherwise, nor can you set a character aside that is already set aside.

By default, your good set-aside cards target only your own Heroes, but can target Evil Characters of any player.  Likewise, your evil set-aside cards can target only your own Evil Characters, but can target Heroes of any player.

Set-aside cards do not interrupt other abilities.  (So, for example, no card may be set aside if it is being discarded. If a character has been set aside, it is out of the Field of Play and cannot be affected by special abilities unless the card states that it may.  Set-aside cards may not be played on your opponent’s characters unless the set-aside card states that you may.