Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hi there,

and welcome back!   

While I cannot go into all the details (at least not right now and at once) here are some brief answers to your questions:

Regarding the rule changes I recommend to download the latest REG and check the appropriate chapters when you come across the topics e.g. during games with your kids.
The most present ones to me are: No more cascading negates and ignore has been nerved to be no longer a more or less auto battle winner when ignored ECs are already present in battle.

Banned have been the 2- and 3-liner LSs (rescue twice) and the Samual (RoA IIRC). And there have also been lots of errata - the most present ones to me are the one at Children of Light and the one regarding Mayhem Dom.

Staples more or less have become 2nd Coming as Dom and also 3 Woes as Dom.
New concepts are IMO: Reserve (as you said), Star Ability and Meeks/Non-Meek Heroes

Some good attempt to get back and catch up is maybe reading some articles at Land of Redemption and watch some recorded games of e.g. Nats of the past years on youtube as well as some recorded games to introduce newer sets (at least there should be some from TLG regarding CoW introduction etc.).

For me the best way to catch up with my collection is to pre-order all the commons of each new set (or make a good post-release deal on all of them some months after the set came out) and try to complement/complete with necessary Rares/URs on demand, depending which kind of deck I am trying to build. (There have been really great offers on the commons of each set every year, you can recap this within the Market board - just check for pre sales in different writing manners!).
Reason for me: The commons of the latest sets (latest with FoM, but maybe already with CoW) are so strong and contribute to so many themes, builds, combos, whatever that they are always a good buy - especially when getting them in deals like pre ordering or so! In addition with these commons you will also get plenty of reserve access and Star-Abilities! In addition you'll get lots of Lost Souls with great special abilities!

For tournaments I do not have much experience with but my impression is that without the newer concepts (at least reserve!) and lots of speed/access you might get obliterated quite every game! But most important is that you need lots of those extensive SAs cards of the newer sets provide (for me I recognised an increase in that with the FoM set being released back then)!

Archetypes of decks I am also not quite familiar with - but at least Throne-Offenses saw a lot of play during past years, maybe also white musicians and Ruth gets her comeback with the current set. But all of them need to be made up to date to have a chance to stand against the current meta and whats played around it (maybe time for a legacy category - limited by cards upto only certain sets like disciples or so?). This is at least my impression and opinion.

Regarding tournaments: They are currently held online via Zoom while playing in person with physical cards including deck checks etc. It started last weekend. You can check for it here.
(For me this is a pure lucky coincident of the otherwise really dramatic and terrible pandemic since it is the only chance for me playing tournaments at all - at least official ones).

Hope this might help you a little getting started! Feel free to ask further if you need some more details on one or the other topic!

Thank you for your responses. 

I think I heard there was a change with choose the blocker also? 

Still not quite getting how the reserve works.  Is there an example of that with deck building and gameplay examples?

I intend to read some of the articles but its a bit daunting trying to catch up on hundreds of articles and message board threads.

Welcome back! I came back to Redemption last year as well after almost a 10 year hiatus. I had no cards though so I was even more behind than you! I got rid of my cards back in high school (although I did not have many then anyway). With this in mind I can offer some help on building a collection of the newer cards.

I have gradually over the past year built up a collection that I am happy with. You definitely want to look for on here when someone is selling their whole collection. I was able to buy someones whole collection that was almost comprehensive which was great. redemptioncollector777 is selling his whole Type 2 collection right now here: https://www.cactusforums.com/redemption-market/lost-souls-ultra-rare-and-promo-cards-for-sale-(-upto-60-off-tlg-prices)/. It has been up for a while so perhaps he would give you a sizable deal if you would send him an offer for the whole lot or at least for what he has from the newer sets. You would get almost all the new rares from him, commons, and the new lost souls. He also has several of the new promos. Sadly most of his really good ultra rares have been bought already but getting the rares, commons, lost souls, and some of the newer promos is a great start.

The other thing I would pay attention to is faithraider's (John M's) eBay page: https://www.ebay.com/usr/faithraider10. He posts some screaming deals from time to time on ultra rares with some filler cards thrown in (when you buy from him you are basically just buying the ultra rares. It is still often worth it though depending on what he is offering). I got a UR Remnant Lost Soul, The Second Coming, Three Woes, and Shipwreck when I was first trying to start building a collection for a great price through this. Right now he is running a deal with some new Lineage of Christ cards but they are not UR's due to scarcity of LoC. Otherwise be careful on eBay. He is the only person I found who has good deals. Perhaps if you direct message him on the boards or on eBay he would make some custom UR packages for you to get you all the UR's you need at a good price to compliment what redemptioncollector777 is offering. Otherwise I got ripped off on eBay quite a bit when I was starting to build my collection. I would say avoid anyone other than faithraider on ebay.