Cactus Game Design Message Boards

(From Jay's recent Win-a-Box tournament)
Turns out teal is good again. Basically you just get turn 1 BotC with all the territory consistency stuff and use your overwhelming speed to run people over and play Zeal every battle, Gifts if they try Foreign Wives or mass banding. Orphans, Melk, and Babel keep chumps down while the defense helps generate momentum and removes speed bumps like Moses, CwD, and Nazareth using BSA and Seized. Jonah is in here because eleven ways to a turn one Hero is the magic number and there aren’t any more teal Heroes that help the deck. It didn’t come up at the tournament (since no one forced the deck to use the offensive backup plans by disrupting infinite Zeal) but Jonah can win a battle in a pinch with CBN Great Fish. Not sure if this deck will be as strong after phase 2 comes out, although I would love to run mono teal at Nats again. This deck is optimized but certainly not perfect, there are several cards I want to try to fit such as Covenant with David, Hopper, and maaaaybe Imitate+Lawless. If you want to counter the deck, run as much search and draw hate as you can while praying you go first with them in your opening hand.

Heroes:
1   Eleazar, Son of Aaron (PC)
1   Phinehas, son of Eleazar
1   Joshua the High Priest
1   Ahimaaz (Pi)
1   Dutiful Priest
1   Abiathar
1   Captive Priest
1   Melchizedek
1   Jonah (PoC)

Territory GEs:
1   Reverence and Awe
1   Offering Your Son
1   The Emmaus Road
1   Zadok Annoints Solomon
1   Pentecost
1   First Fruits
Battle GEs:
1   Jordan Interrupted (PoC)
1   Gifts and Offerings
1   Zeal for the Lord

Support Cards:
1   The Ends of the Earth (RoJ)
1   Babel (FoM)
1   The Tabernacle (Promo)
1   Book of the Covenant (PoC)
1   You Will Remain
1   The Great White Throne (RoJ)

Evil Characters:
1   Babylonian Siege Army
1   Conjurers
1   The Babylonian Merchants
1   Nergalsharezer
1   The Deceiver (RoJ)
1   Nebuchadnezzar (TxP)

EEs:
1   The Wages of Sin (FoM)
1   Swift Horses (FooF)
1   Scattered
1   Betrayal (PoC)
1   Seized by Babylon
1   Nebuchadnezzar's Pride

Dominants:
1   Son of God (I)
1   The Second Coming
1   Angel of the Lord (Greek)
1   Christian Martyr (I)
1   Three Woes (RoJ)
1   Falling Away
1   Destruction of Nehushtan (PoC)

Souls:
1   Lost Soul (Wicked)
1   Lost Soul (Humble)
1   Lost Soul (Prosperity)
1   Lost Soul (Covet)
1   Lost Soul (Wanderer)
1   Lost Soul Jeremiah 17:9 (Punisher)
1   Lost Soul (Jeremiah 22:3) (Orphans)

Reserve:
1   Seventh Seal (RoJ)
1   Trumpet in Zion
1   New Covenant
1   I am Creator
1   House of Prayer
1   The Great Fish
1   Uzzah
1   King Belshazzar
1   Belshazzar's Banquet
1   Treasures of War (CoW)

Running Exiles LS gives you another way to a turn 1 Hero and would let you cut Great White Throne for Urim and Thummim (which is the whole point of running Teal  )

Running Exiles LS gives you another way to a turn 1 Hero and would let you cut Great White Throne for Urim and Thummim (which is the whole point of running Teal  )

No Urim and Thummin? Gutsy.

If I cut a LS besides Covet, I would cut Covet and it to put in Imitate+Lawless. The next LS on the waiting list below that is Darkness. The only way I think I could fit Exiles is if capture becomes more prevalent since cards like Charms are one of the best ways to disrupt Eleazar permanently. GWT is amazing even on turns besides the first one since it lets me find whoever I'm missing among Eleazar, Phineas, Jonah, Melk, or just whatever Hero I don't have yet to thin my deck for future draws.

U&T is nice and I've used it plenty over the years that I used to play mono teal but from that I've learned two things. Most importantly, I'm terrible at utilizing hand information and forget most of the things they have by the time I've passed the turn. Also hand information isn't as relevant for this deck since the offense doesn't really care what they have since it's goal is to put the opponent in a situation where they can't successfully block no matter what they have. Secondly, U&T is a card out of my 50 that doesn't actually contribute any power to the deck. Yes, information is extremely valuable, but it doesn't rescue souls, remove/negate opponents cards, or get my any closer to cards that do. Back when I used to run it, I would often feel bad drawing it in my opening hand and wish that I had one more character or enhancement instead. In a world where I don't come close to decking out every game, U&T would have almost zero opportunity cost and thus I would gladly run it but with decks being so fast these days, I have to hold every card in my 50 to a very high standard of expected value and U&T doesn't make it for me.

I guess we just have different philosophies...I believe hand knowledge leads to optimal gameplay decisions, which leads to a greater probability of winning (granted I do recognize that it is possible to make the "wrong" play and it ends up working out even better than the "right" play because the opponent responds incorrectly).

While recurring Zeal with Phinehas might be the optimal play most of the time with a deck like this one, U&T allows you to find instances where you can get a better payoff (i.e. knowing that Dutiful Priest/Gifts and Offerings will get you a D2 and win a LS or knowing that their only way to stop you is Christian Martyr so you walk in with Abiathar). Hand knowledge also informs you when you will not be successful (assuming optimal play by the opponent) so you can then decide if it's worth risking resources in hopes that the opponent does not play optimally or that you can mislead them into not playing optimally.

I wanted to ask you how useful the Reserve choices were- mainly the evil selections. I would be pretty tempted to swap out something for Nimrod, since he's done pretty well in the Babylonian defenses I've tried (grabbing Babel or Babylonian Merchants is nice).

Also, no Aaron (PoC)? A CBN band with a pretty good Star ability seems like a great choice for teal.

I like using Vindicated if I'm using FA (w) (which is the FA I assume you are running). That soul has won me games. How useful has Humble been for you? Seems like it won't be that helpful most of the time with how often you draw.

For the good Reserve cards, those Covenants were the ones I found myself getting the most versatile use out of. Covenant with Phineas, Covenant with Adam, and I Am Holy were contenders but these ended up being better in testing. House of Prayer is amazing because I often end up with a spare use of Road and House can tutor Zeal. For evil, Uzzah just helps you out of spots you can't block with any other card and I can't imagine running a deck without him. Fish is a CBN battle winner that some people don't expect and can be pulled by Offering. Treasures and banquet are standard Woes targets for a crimson defense while Belshazzar was originally put in the deck when it was more reliant on Book sticking around so it could be recurred. However, I never blocked with him in any of the games and now that House of Prayer is in the deck I have a redundant way of pulling a Covenant I need if Book gets countered immediately so he's at the top of my list to be replaced.

I'm not a fan of Nimrod even though he's great on on paper in this deck since I built the defense assuming that the meta would be Prophets with endless CBN battle winners and that if I gave my opponent's Hero initiative I automatically lost the battle. This deck also used to have Regrets instead of Pride so the extra interrupt does make Nimrod better. If I decide to play this at Nats I'll likely test him at least a little. I'd almost rather have Bab soliders in this slot so I have a character that can play Banquet against Gideon and Jair.

Aaron isn't here because he secretly adds nothing to this deck. His star ability will almost never activate since most of my Heroes come out through searches and I draw a lot of extra cards. Banding actually hurts me almost every time because it gives them Scattered value and lets them kill Phineas without triggering SI. CBN banding is conventionally a good thing to have in your deck but mono teal often has unique optimal deck choices.

Humble is life and I would never consider running a deck without it. I regularly dump extra good cards from hand in discard phase because all I need is Zeal and even that doesn't need to be in my hand when I attack. The important part about Humble is that it provides you so many options in scenarios where you otherwise would have had none. Vindicated isn't anywhere near the top of my Soul waiting list and I have never been overly fond of the card in general. I haven't been impressed by it during testing or any of the times I've played against it. Too easy to play around IMO.