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It has been interesting to me that in the past year there seem to be at the same time signs that Redemption may be sinking and almost done and conversely a readiness to rebound and be as great as it has ever been. 

This is not meant as a complaint thread but to see what people think the potential of Redemption is and what the negative/positives are.  I hope people can take an honest look at the state of the game/community without trash talking or being defensive.

signs of the end imho:

I have never seen so few tournaments listed throughout the year.  And several of the state/regional tournaments that are being done seem to have barely gotten there.  Similarly it seems like several active areas have faded away. 

There seems to be a much larger supply of cards from people selling their collections then their is demand of people wanting to build a collection. 

The message boards have not been very active this year.

A lack of sound game design or creativity leading to adding a new brigade. 

Not getting a full set even with the attempts to fundraise for it. 

The economy is difficult and it is harder for people to travel and have money for hobbies.

There is more competition for peoples time (social media, video games, etc.) then there used to be.

Positive signs:

Good game design and creativity with some of the new card previews looking pretty cool with interesting abilities.

Several new people on here from Chicago, Alaska, Germany, etc.  I think some of those might be a first.  In addition the Chicago guy mentioned his group had 20 (or 50?) players and even though they are new they could end up being one of the largest groups in the country. 

Even with the difficulties this year, you see the continued support of Rob and other veterans to get things worked out.  This includes the willingness to look at doing things differently.

Other card games are doing well and even having record tournaments which indicates there is still an audience for in person gaming.

Great friendships have been made and are still being made through this game.

The fact that many new people are not being finally convinced to try Redemption but rather are hearing about it for the first time.  This indicates to me that there is still a huge untapped market for Redemption and it has the potential to be bigger than it has ever been. 

So what do you think will happen or what else is there to consider?

A lack of sound game design or creativity leading to adding a new brigade. 
....
Good game design and creativity with some of the new card previews looking pretty cool with interesting abilities.

How did the same point end up on both the good and bad lists?

I think there is still enough of a fan base that this is not ending any time soon. I have a feeling that this Nats is going to be big, one of the biggest and there are plenty of players willing to fight for this to last.

So, basically it was the right call to not give a currently one-dimensional brigade more depth and instead further dilute the color pool with even more colors. Sounds legit.

I believe that this last year has been very slow due to very few new developments up until very recently. We had already played one Nats with the most recent set of cards, so the novelty of building decks had long since worn off. Additionally, Nats was announced extremely late this year. I've spent the last year suggesting that the game will be completely unable to recover if new cards aren't released at Nats, and fortunately, I won't have to find out if I'm right. You'll note that activity has definitely been up in the last month or so since Nats and the new cards were announced. It's definitely an uphill battle right now, but I'm extremely impressed with the strides that have been made recently to begin to recover. I have high hopes for Redemption's future.

So, basically it was the right call to not give a currently one-dimensional brigade more depth and instead further dilute the color pool with even more colors. Sounds legit.

The reason I've often heard that the Early Church theme will not be in blue is because Rob (and others) believe that multiple other themes can still be developed from Genesis (and possibly flesh out Job more). Noah, Creation, continued expansion of the sons of Jacob, "Patriarchs" (Isaac, Abraham, Sarah, etc.). It wasn't that Blue is too full to introduce a new major theme right now, it's that Genesis itself is so big that it can reasonably take up blue on it's own in the next few years. Again, I'm not particularly thrilled about the decision, but there is a decent reason for it.

How did the same point end up on both the good and bad lists?

Because I personally see evidence to support it being in both lists.  What is really true here is I think open for debate.

There are more viable themes/strategies than ever before, so instead of getting to a point where we were making every theme exactly like the others, it was time for a new theme.

This is part of my point.  I think a new theme is great, particularly the Early Church theme which I've wanted for a while.  I also like what I've seen for abilities in that theme in sample cards so far.  However, I think the same idea could have been even stronger in an existing brigade without having the drawbacks of a new brigade. 

However, once everyone sees the eventual depth that the Clay brigade will have

Precisely, which is why I said that if it was being released as part of a 300 card expansion and Redemption had 4 expansions a year then it would take care of many of the drawbacks to the new brigade.  It is possible that individual card design is so amazing that the new set is successful in spite of the new brigade but I don't think it will be successful because of it.

I agree and at the normal rate of Redemption card releases it will take several years for that to be fixed.  However a single large set designed to draft that set could fix that. 

Which brings me to some related questions: 

What is the biggest thing holding back Redemption and/or what are the biggest things that could be done to improve or promote it? 

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

If Teal and Orange could be printed in one set to the point that you could even draft each in Booster just on that release, and we have seen that work, then why do we see immediate complaints about how a new one could not be viable right away?

I agree with everyone and would think that the 'new' church could fit in the 'new' color that is Blue, but I have never thought that it wouldn't be possible to have it work out, and I'm frankly baffled by the posts insisting that it would fall flat over and over.

I fear for the implications it will have on the limited formats. Clay will be the kid who eats glue and licks windows that no one wants to play with.

Clay, in the upcoming set, is unlikely to be seen in Sealed at all unless Rob, Chris, and Pat decide they want to spread the love, which really only leaves Booster Draft. If tradition holds (and there's zero reason why it wouldn't), this new set will be the last one drafted, and thus, have the least amount of overall impact in the game. Even in a worst case scenario, the introduction of clay has zero impact on Booster Draft because it's so sparse and underdeveloped that nobody plays it. At least for this upcoming year, there's no reason to expect that clay will have a negative impact on Booster Draft, and I can't think of a reason it would be inherently negative outside of Booster that hasn't already been debunked elsewhere. The only reason to worry about clay is that it will result in an initially weak theme, and I've been assured many times over that that is far from being the case. There are far too many people complaining about it without actually seeing more than a handful of cards. At this point, it's too late to go back and eliminate clay as a brigade anyway, so it's just complaining to complain at this point. Bringing it up is not going to do anything, because it isn't really changeable now.

I have drafted and used very useful components of my deck of Teal or Orange just from Priests, and have seen people take Priests (even before I/J) in Sealed.  So I have NO idea why people think they don't work in closed categories.

If a Teal/Orange 'deck' (read: an assortment of characters and supplemental enhancements, not just simply splash stand-alones) was drafted strictly from Priests, then more props to the person. I can't say I have ever managed to accomplish such a feat and create an entire alignment in only a single round of draft. Of 10 cards. The odds must simply be astronomical.

Taking and using either color as an actual alignment also doesn't mean it translates into crafting a deck that has a decent chance at being tournament caliber.

Teal and Orange are awesome in draft, they have large characters, fairly stong enhancements (for draft anyway) and you are almost guarenteed to get some Teal or Orange if you are drafting Priests, sure you only get 10 Priests cards, but even having 2 or 3 Teal cards can be fairly strong when your Priest is large and your enhancements discard evil enhancements.

I believe the discussion at hand is the validity of drafting a 'viable' alignment in Teal or Orange strictly from Priests.

Maybe I missed what someone else said, but I never said anything of the sort.  I said that you could draft it into your booster decks and have it be useful from the start (pre-tins that added Teal support).  No one makes a single-brigade booster deck that works, so if you are holding the brigade to a higher standard than any other for 'success' then that is what is leading to your error.