Cactus Game Design Message Boards

You can use any card printed in T1 and T2. The only current restriction on not being able to use a card is in Sealed Deck, in which you cannot use Sites that you may draft. There has been talk for several years about the merits of banning cards or rotating sets, but the game's creator Rob has always believed that it is unfair to players who may buy a pack and not be able to use the cards they open in a tournament, so he has not approved the banning of other cards. That has been true up to this point, but that does not mean that it won't ever be allowable.

That is what I thought (all cards being legal), but I just wanted to make sure. I can totally understand both views. There could always be two formats in the future. One format could allow all cards, and then you could have another format where cards rotate out after a period of time. This way any card players receive through purchasing packs can be used, just in its respective format. However, I'm sure all of this has been discussed, and things seem to be just fine as they are. This is simply me tossing ideas around in my head.

Are you allowed to play with more than one deck in a T1 or T2 tournament?

vol.2 fixed a few things with the cards, and added the gold borders, and reworded a couple cards, if memory recalls.

If you buy a pack of Early Church, could it include cards from both phase 1 and phase 2?

Is it pretty common for players to register more than one deck at high level T1 tournaments?

Is there any big advantage to playing more than one deck other than not becoming predictable?

*Cough* Mr Underwood*Cough*

I hope you get to feeling better from that cough there Wyatt.

I have historically tried to play a defense-heavy deck at Nats as long as I still had a chance to finish towards the top.  But once I felt like hope was lost, then I would switch to a more offense-heavy deck (which were generally considered stronger at the time).  I'd finish with that for the last few rounds.

I really wanted to make the defense-heavy work, but at the same time I also didn't want to finish at the bottom

That totally makes sense. Someone could bring one meta deck and one anti-metta deck and change according to the analysis after a few rounds.

Good thinking.  But keep in mind that you have to play a deck a few times during the early rounds if you're going to be allowed to use it during Top Cut at the end.

Good to know.


Were there any rule changes made after Nationals?

Thanks for the link.

I have read both the 3rd and 4th edition rulebook all the way through. However, I haven't had the time to read through the REG yet. With that being said, I only have a basic understanding of the rules at this point. I have been looking into the top 8 decks from Nationals, reading articles, etc. John talked about potential rule changes for how some things worked within his deck. Do these changes effect his deck or others from the top 8?

Thanks for the link.

I have read both the 3rd and 4th edition rulebook all the way through. However, I haven't had the time to read through the REG yet. With that being said, I only have a basic understanding of the rules at this point. I have been looking into the top 8 decks from Nationals, reading articles, etc. John talked about potential rule changes for how some things worked within his deck. Do these changes effect his deck or others from the top 8?

The biggest change to John's deck is that ignore has been toned down a little bit.  The main offense in this deck is to have them deck out by the forced drawing and then attack with FaithWatchful Servant who then ignores all characters.  (Because he ignores characters larger than number of cards in deck).  So no evil character could even enter battle.  Ignore now has been ruled that you can still block with a character from hand so now they can block then play a battle winner that is also an inrerrupt (like achan's sin, Koran's rebellion) and stop the ignore and kill the character.

**edit - fixed the card name above ~Gabe

its still a decent deck, but if someone knows what is going on they are more likely to keep some characters in hand, which could really mess with him.