Analyzing the Developing of Redemption: In response to the CBN thread

[Alex_Olijar]

I apologize in advance if I make any factual errors in the following wall of text. If you find one, I will make sure to edit in the correct facts. Thank you for reading. I also have a bias towards more analysis on earlier sets because I do not have a bias about them due to a lack of participation in the meta.

In response to some of the threads that have been coming up recently regarding the direction of the gameplay of Redemption and those that have been up in the past regarding the game (especially concerning the Garden Tomb), I have decided to examine and analyze the history of Redemption in relation to how it relates to the game today as well as in predicating where the game will go. Please note that this essay/history is written from my perspective on things. I am not Rob Anderson. I do not know if this is correct. However, after judging where the game has been and where it is, as well as participating slightly in where it is going (by helping to playtest a set), I wanted to get these thoughts in the open. Note that I began play post Kings and talk in reference to Type 1, unless otherwise stated.

In the beginning, Rob Anderson created Redemption. It was inspired by Magic the Gathering’s success, yet separate from Magic’s mechanics. However, Redemption, in comparison to Magic, was a very elementary game largely based on basic arithmetic rather than text and special abilities on cards. The gameplay was very simple and basic, easy to learn and master (though the worthwhile nature of mastering the game is debatable), and largely bland. The Limited set and A/B starters however made an important impact by laying the groundwork for the battle system while also having enough success to warrant continuing printings of the game and the expansion of it. The Prophets was released, and the relative boredom of the game continued. The basic Meta largely consisted of playing your 2/2 enhancements on your 6/6 hero character against a 6/6 or 10/10 evil character, and then doing the opposite on your opponent’s turn, until someone reached 5 souls. But, the important part was done. Redemption successfully had become a niche game that was able to stay afloat and continue new releases.

The next release would prove to arguably change the game more than any other single set yet. Some astute players are probably thinking “Why did he not mention Womens Packs last paragraph? He is obviously talking about Warriors now.” While most would agree with you, I do not. I am talking about Womens. In the Women of the Bible expansion, two important additions were made to the game: Sites and Falling Away. Sites were introduced as a defensive gambit you could use to delay an opponent’s attack. While at the time they were very basic, they have currently evolved into one of the more strategic elements of Redemption.

In today’s Redemption, sites are used to delay fast offenses, set up slow offenses, completely immobilize offenses, protect against territory destruction, and even capture heroes and bury lost souls beneath your deck. Their existence alone has necessitated that every deck packs at least 2 or 3 ways to access any site, regardless of color. But far more important than sites was Falling Away. The first dominant released since the original printing debuted with Son of God, Angel of the Lord, Burial, and Christian Martyr, the Falling Away card immediately became the essential second most powerful card in the game following Son of God. With ability to essentially cancel out an opponent’s Son of God by removing a soul from the Land of Redemption, Falling Away became an immediate deck staple and has remained as such for the majority of the 13 years the card has existed.

This period of time also marked the lone time in the game’s history where the dominants in the game were arguably balanced. Son of God was felled by Falling Away, Christian Martyr equaled Angel of the Lord, and Burial did little but potentially slow the opponent rescuing a soul or possibly wasting a rescue of the Two-liner. Most importantly however, Falling Away opened the floodgates of the future. It marked the first time a dominant was used to the counter something (in this case, another dominant). The mindset of dominants as counters would continue to plague the game’s development in the future.

NOTE: Sir Nobody has commented that the New Jerusalem Dominant was actually available in the Womens Packs era via the New Jerusalem CD. I am unaware of it's impact or availability, so I have not edited my thoughts to properly analyze it.

[Alex_Olijar]

Warriors followed Women. Arguably the most success release of Redemption in history, the Warriors packs certainly changed the game as much as any other pack. Special Abilities were thrust into centrality of gameplay, and for the better. Rather than slapping down enhancements until we got big numbers, we were now able to capture, discard, or convert a character with virtually every card in our decks. However, in order to counter this new found centrality of special abilities, a special special ability was also expanded: Fight by the Numbers. Previously existing on two evil characters in the Womens expansion, this ability existed as the bane of those who wished to stack decks with strong abilities such as discard or capture.

Fight by the numbers was seemingly intended to force players to still maintain some semblance of the previous arithmetic based battle system that dominated the previous expansions. However, the unfortunate consequence of this expansion of fight by the numbers was brutal. “Fight by the Numbers” Decks, which used  all of the 6 “by the numbers” hero characters with rainbow enhancements to allow easy number increases dominated the game’s Meta in a way not seen in the past and never seen again the future. The strategy literally had only one legitimate counter other than killing the character in question: an evil character set aside with the powerful “Tower” pale green enhancement – which allowed you to negate the fight by the numbers ability (because gained abilities such as set asides were ruled to by unnegateable) on the character, ensuring your enhancements would succeed. This counter was not nearly successful enough, and as such, Fight by the numbers dominated the gameplay.

But that was not the only game changing innovation of Warriors. The new dominant Harvest Time debuted with the set, and New Jerusalem, which had previously been available as a promotional card in a music cd, was made widely available. While Harvest Time was mostly a niche dominant to help out with lost soul droughts, New Jerusalem is perhaps the most discussed card in the history of the game. When played with Son of God, it allowed an additional soul to be rescued. In the Warriors Set, this 2 soul swing was largely kept in check with Falling Away, but for the first time in Redemption, it became a decent gameplay goal to deck out before the opponent. By decking out first, you insured usage of your Son of God, New Jerusalem, and Falling Away first, and coupled with an Angel of the Lord (in a largely bandless era), if a deck was drawn fast enough, you could probably give yourself a decent chance of winning the game very, very fast. However, this strategy did not fully realize itself until a later date.

Apostles was the next set released. With the previous dominance of Fight by the Numbers, Cactus was forced to do damage control. In Apostles, Cactus attempted to patch up Fight by the Numbers with cards such as Thomas, whose enhancements cannot be negated (while Michael did exist before this, Thomas could actually get iniative against some of the fight by the number character before they played anything, which was a nice change) and Unholy Writ, which, activated from the artifact slot, first introduced in Warriors, allowed you to capture a hero – and since artifacts cannot be negated by hero abilities, Unholy Writ was a great counter to a strong Fight by the Numbers character. Apostles also feature some high numbers. Many heroes reached numbers above 8/8 such as Bartholomew and Philip. Evil got it’s share as well. Four Squads of Four was a large 10/10, for example.

[Alex_Olijar]

Another interesting card debuted in Apostles – Guardian of your Souls. This powerful dominant protected your redeemed souls from being Falling Away’d. The marked the entrance into the arguably “modern” meta in some capacity - the game could in some ways be decided by a quick draw of Son of God, New Jerusalem, and Guardian of your Souls – an essential game to three in many ways if the draw worked out well. The printing of Guardian also continued Falling Away’s precedent – print a dominant to counter a problem. Falling Away helping to cause slower games? Print New Jerusalem. Still too slow? Let’s try Guardian as well!

Also, before I move on, I should probably more closely scrutinize the artifact slot. First introduced in Warriors, the artifact slot was meant to be a versatile place you could use to counter a variety of things. Ironically enough, it initially probably broke the fight by the numbers strategy more than any single card type in Redemption. By activating Elijah’s Mantle, all of your heroes increased by 2/2 – making your fight by the numbers characters massive (since no fight by the numbers character had stats below 8/8). Or, perhaps that large Evil Character in the opponent’s territory looks scary – you could just convert it with Holy Grail (though, only two evil characters per game). Even better, just activate Crown of Thorns to decrease all Evil Characters by 0/3, helping you at least achieve a rescue via mutual destruction.  Needless to say, the artifact slot was obscenely on the side of aiding fight by the numbers decks – albeit accidentally. Ironically enough, an artifact that was cut for reasons unknown to me would have been arguably the best counter to fight by the numbers decks for the next 3-4 sets – Head of Dagon was set to increase all Evil Characters by 2/4, but for reasons unknown to me, did not reach printing.

As we move into the Patriarchs set release, imagine where the game was. Fight by the numbers was literally almost completely uncounterable. Combined with powerful new dominants New Jerusalem, and to a less extent, Harvest Time, fight by the numbers was a virtually unbeatable archetype by any archetype except itself. It was broken beyond all reasonable measures of brokenness. While some damage control had been attempted with Apostles and the C/D starter deck artifact Holy of Holies, little had affected the domination of fight by the numbers. Please keep that in mind as you read on.

Patriarchs had bombshells for fight by the numbers. The “cannot be negated” ability was widely expanded on the defensive side of the ball –Haman’s Plot and Gibeonite Trickery most notably helped to counter fight by the numbers, making brown into a powerhouse of a brigade. Additionally, the behemoth Leviathan was released – a massive 12/12 evil character would laugh at a Moses without support.

But Patriarchs would not just counter fight by the numbers, it would also aid it. One of the old counters to fight by the numbers, Holy of Holies, was completely obsoleted by a quick draw of the new Destruction of Nehushtan, which allowed you to discard an active artifact. You could no longer rely on your Holy of Holies to stand strong against some decks the entire game after it was drawn. While artifact killers had previously existed in certain evil brigades, the ability of Destruction of Nehushtan to be played in any deck, regardless of defensive brigade, made every Holy of Holies shudder in fear.

[Alex_Olijar]

The next set, Kings, at face value, seems to have done little to the game other than make more situation versions of the now out of print Warriors fight by the number characters. However, it did help to continue the trend of printing more “cannot be negated” cards. More cards, both battle winning enhancements and random little effect cards got the cannot be negated tag. More characters were gifted Michael’s “enhancements cannot be negated” ability.

Throughout these years, it is my understanding that the Quadfather (Mike Turnidge) worked to perfect his defenseless”deck which was exactly how it sounds a deck with no defense beyond dominant blocks. It utilized powerful cards in the purple and silver brigades, such as ET + AoC(p), The Strong Angel, and Widow. Either way, it was in this general timeframe that the speed came to the forefront, most notably in multiplayer. Pioneered nationally by Justin Alstad, the deck was capable of drawing out faster than any previously seen deck, and the set after Kings, it got even faster.

In 2004, the Angel Wars packs and Starter Decks E/F came out. While the main set of Angel Wars was overall a pretty worthless set from a gameplay standpoint at its release point (it mostly pioneered the use of lost souls with special abilities), the printing of E/F took speed from a gimmicky combo deck that wasn’t consistent to a deck capable of either getting a good draw and overwhelming you or recovering from a bad draw to defeat you. With the introduction of Gifts of the Magi, Hur abuse became rampant. No longer was speed a gimmicky banding play first combination. It now could exist as both abuse of the Draw 3, play next enhancements, Fight by the Number characters, and Hur + Gifts (and similar combos) fused with battle winners to simply overwhelm the opponent. This style of play became extremely dominant in multi-player, and versions of it had some success in two player events.

The next set, Priest, further aided Speed’s increase in popularity. The now rampant “1 turn, draw a bunch” set asides were printed in the new Teal brigade. But, more damaging even then this, in an effort to make teal playable, the brigade was released with extremely powerful enhancements. Unlike the previous 7 brigades, which had years of fluff cards that did nothing to aid the usability of brigade, nearly every card was usable. On top of that, Teal featured some very usable “cannot be negated” combos such as Joshua the High Priest or Phinehas, son of Eleazar with Zeal of the Lord. Suddenly, the land was ripe for the harvest. One man, Tim Maly (and another man Kevin Shride) stood ready to harvest.

Tim and Kevin together built a deck truly based around gathering cannot be negated combos and fight by the number characters into one deck. Chad Soderstram had built a similar deck and had piloted it to the National Championship in 2006. To demonstrate the abusive power of these 10 brigade decks, Kevin ended up building a 150 card brown defense deck that had no other purpose than to use against Tim in late rounds of tournaments when he thought they would be paired.

The essence of the decks was simple – fit as many unstoppable battle winning enhancements with appropriate interrupt enhancements for immunity and fight by the numbers characters as well as other standalone type characters (such as Widow) on both offense and defense in order to create scenarios where the opponent cannot do anything other than watch successful blocks and rescues because of the cannot be negated combos. Because these decks played equal offense and defense, they were certainly capable of easily 5-0 players, and the decks experienced large success in the year after Priests, placing with Kevin placing 2nd at Nationals in Kansas City and Tim placing 3rd.

[Alex_Olijar]

But, as you notice, neither won that year at nationals. No, that honor goes to Gabe Isbell. While I do not know the exact specifics of his creative process for the nationals winning deck (It was actually his multiplayer deck. He switch after going  1-2 the first three rounds, and proceeded to go 7-0 the rest of the tournament.), needless to say, the deck he won with changed the game. It was the first “speed” deck to win a national tournament in two player.

His deck (which you can find on Tim Maly’s website) fused the offensive goal of the decks played by Tim and Kevin with the speed drawing of Justin’s old multiplayer deck through the use of the Hur + Gifts combo, the new “feast” enhancements, a large captain band, and several cannot be negated combos. Because of the monstrosity of the offense coupled with it’s speed, Gabe relied on the classic immunity stall defense. He used big, hard to target evil character such as Prince of this World and King of Tyrus with no support to delay your offense long enough to simply overwhelm your defense.

Unfortunately for Redemption, the set released at Nationals in 2007, Faith of our Fathers, did little to hinder Gabe's deck; in fact, it aided it by creating Uzzah, a free auto-block that did not need enhancement support and was in brown brigade, allowing him to use Haman's Plot in a pinch, and Zerubabbel's Temple, a powerful fortress that protected Zerubabbel's Temple priests from capture, comversion, and removal from the game. Z Temple effectively neutered at least 50% of cannot be negated cards - many were captures. Another extremely influencal card was Joiada, son of Joshua. Joaida allowed you to add a feast from your discard pile to your hand or battle if Zerubabbel's Temple was in play - which meant that players were able to easily recur Pentecost, and draw 6 cards per turn, only aiding the goal of speeding through your deck. With these powerufl new additions, it seemed Gabe's deck style was destined to dominate for the next several years. As it turned out, it would. But not because of the cards in Faith of our Fathers.

In the next set, Rock of Ages, the card that has been perhaps most maligned since the New Jerusalem dominant was released. The Garden Tomb, a fortress, gave 6 characters the ability to ignore all evil brigades without at least 2 evil characters in play. This card went incredibly well the speed decks many had been playing - with the little defense in these deck, players simply had to try to clear out the opponent's territory in order to push one of the 6 Garden Tomb heroes into battle and ignore all evil brigades. In order to achieve this goal, players utilized powerful cards such as Authority of Christ, He is Risen, Hioly Grail, and Jepthah to decimate opposition's evil characters, and simply walk in for rescues.

This style of play became even more popular than it already was with Gabe’s victory, and is the dominating force in the metagame today. While heavy offense has been made easier with the advent of cards such as the Garden Tomb, it has been nearly 15 years in the making. While my treatment of the development of Redemption is heavily skewed towards the early years when I did not play (due to my ability to remove my personal experiences from my analysis), I have attempted to provide a decent history of the development of the game today so that we can appreciate where we are today.

While heavy offensive decks may seem utterly dominant and broken, they are absolutely nowhere near the broken dominance of fight by the numbers. Did Cactus overreact with the development of unconditional, cannot be negated, interrupt the battle and discard a character enhancements such as Zeal for the Lord? Perhaps, but they were react to a threat that in many ways was capable of ruining the game we love to such a point where Redemption would never have reached the years where heavy offense is the dominant archetype.

[Alex_Olijar]

no wall of text for FooF and RoA? they completely changed the game with ignore.

I was working on this intermittently throughout the day, got this far, and decided that FooF and RoA didn't warrant not posting this until tommorow. Additionally, I am too personally bias to comment on them accurately in my opinion. That being said, I don't they truly changed the game. They just essntially became CBN enhancements (since your opponent could not even enter battle).

[Warrior_Monk]

I moved this post down here so that it's all together once you post FooF/RoA/Disciples.

so, in the beginning, there was FBTN, then Speed, then pre-block ignores. and now people are complaining about CBN stuff. at least you can block! at least you can play enhancements! at least you get a few turns into the game!

oh, and FBTN FTW. everything else is boring. except for massive combo decks.

(this post is for the people who don't want to read the wall of text   )

[Alex_Olijar]

Sounds good. I will work on a wall of text about FooF and RoA tommorow just for you.  . And perhaps predict the future (like I said i would in the first post, but didnt).

[Master KChief]

actually, cbn should be before pre-block ignores.

[Alex_Olijar]

Honestly, I sitll consider it a sub-set of CBN. The main issue people have with ignore is that they can't enter battle to deal with the special ability.

Sounds like complaints about CBN to me - they can't deal with the special ability so it's boring.

[Master KChief]

cbn and pre-block ignore are two completely different animals. one says 'hey, at least you can still protect from me in battle' and the other says 'hey, you dont even get a battle, kthxbye'.

[Gohanick]

in my opinion, there is one card that completely changed the game. Authority of Christ. Discard all evil characters, cannot be negated. The fact that it would decimate defenses gave rise to all the protect fortresses (and now sites) and protect/immune abilities. The game has been trying to keep up with its power by releasing evil help but it has quickly pushed the power of many good and evil cards to epic proportions.

[The Schaef]

IMO, it was FBN, then speed, then CBN, then pre-block ignore.  The rise in protection was a counter to CBN, as CBN rose to counter FBN. The three now exist in a system of checks and balances, but to give anything CBN status makes it difficult to counter and therefore is a perennial issue.  Speed is not part of that triangle, but in a game predicated on drawing through your deck, naturally a strategy that helps you do that much faster than the opponent is also going to present issues.  I can't speak for the others but it is my hope that printing more CBI or CBP cards to narrow the focus of their power (CBP for example intended for use against FBN cards but still counter-able by an interrupt) is helping to give the game more playable options.

Anyhoo, I say this having only read your recent responses and not your analysis in its entirety, and I assume a lot of these one-off posts will disappear once you finish publishing the other sections.  Mostly I just wanted to make you aware of the reason your posts were edited by me.  All I did was break up the text a little bit to make it appear less daunting to the reader.  Web writing is slightly different than print writing, in that paragraphs are often treated with an extra line break instead of an indent at the beginning.  Other than that, I left every word of your posts in place.

[Alex_Olijar]

Anyhoo, I say this having only read your recent responses and not your analysis in its entirety, and I assume a lot of these one-off posts will disappear once you finish publishing the other sections.  Mostly I just wanted to make you aware of the reason your posts were edited by me.  All I did was break up the text a little bit to make it appear less daunting to the reader.  Web writing is slightly different than print writing, in that paragraphs are often treated with an extra line break instead of an indent at the beginning.  Other than that, I left every word of your posts in place.

Thank Schaef. Had I not posted this at 12:30 at night, I probably would have done the correct spacing that you did. I had typed this up on word (since the 5000 character limit pwned me) and just copy/pasted it over one pgae at a time. I knew the format would get ruined, but I was too tired to care.

I also added a bit more content to the last post. It is not yet complete, but I added some stuff about Foof and RoA. I still need to treat pre-block ignore properly.

[The Warrior]

biggest wall of text ever 

[SomeKittens]

Great read for someone new to the game.  Ever thought of helping out at the wiki?

[Alex_Olijar]

Great read for someone new to the game.  Ever thought of helping out at the wiki?

We all know wikis are inaccurate and untrustworthy

[Daniel TS RED]

I think it would be nice to require more cards for combos to work.  If they're more "unstoppable", I think they need to be more than 2 cards.  At least 3 cards.  Let's move the game in that direction.  For example, TGT requires a specific art activated also for it's ability to work.  That way it's slowed down a bit.  Instead of have'n 2 cards needed only, make combos use 3.  Character + Fort and or Art + enhancement = cannot be negated.  Stuff like that.  Also it would be great if more heros/ECs directly hurt others in territory.  For example, RA with hero to deal /2 damage to EC in territory, and for those numbers to stick.  I think that might balance the game a bit more too.

Daniel

 

[TimMierz]

I had a much shorter but similar analysis a couple years ago in a thread that's still very much worth a read, despite being in the less-visited Board & Card Games forum: http://www.cactusgamedesign.com/message_boards/index.php?topic=16226.msg253843#msg253843

My post is missing a lot of points, but the thread as a whole is worth your time.

[SomeKittens]

I think it would be nice to require more cards for combos to work.  If they're more "unstoppable", I think they need to be more than 2 cards.  At least 3 cards.  Let's move the game in that direction.  For example, TGT requires a specific art activated also for it's ability to work.  That way it's slowed down a bit.  Instead of have'n 2 cards needed only, make combos use 3.  Character + Fort and or Art + enhancement = cannot be negated.  Stuff like that.  Also it would be great if more heros/ECs directly hurt others in territory.  For example, RA with hero to deal /2 damage to EC in territory, and for those numbers to stick.  I think that might balance the game a bit more too.

Daniel

 

I like.  What would you do about all the cards we currently have?

[stefferweffer]

Thanks Tim.  I especially like your final point about casual games being far more fun, because that is where I am now and what inspired by frustration with "cannot be negated/interrupted", where the fun "back and forth" of the battles goes away.  Battles today are like a "tug of war" where either the other side isn't there at all, or they're never handed the rope to tug back.  I'll play casual games all day long, but I personally don't look forward to tournaments anymore.

[Master KChief]

I like.  What would you do about all the cards we currently have?

set rotation.

[Daniel TS RED]

I think it would be nice to require more cards for combos to work.  If they're more "unstoppable", I think they need to be more than 2 cards.  At least 3 cards.  Let's move the game in that direction.  For example, TGT requires a specific art activated also for it's ability to work.  That way it's slowed down a bit.  Instead of have'n 2 cards needed only, make combos use 3.  Character + Fort and or Art + enhancement = cannot be negated.  Stuff like that.  Also it would be great if more heros/ECs directly hurt others in territory.  For example, RA with hero to deal /2 damage to EC in territory, and for those numbers to stick.  I think that might balance the game a bit more too.

Daniel

 

I like.  What would you do about all the cards we currently have?

I would say that the next set coming out could be used to weaken older super combos to balance things out.  For example, a Fort that says, "Protect your EC in battle from discard from cannot by negated enhancements."  Basically use Protection from Arts and Forts outside the battle that make the cannot be negated worthless, but if the fort or art is not out, then the CBN battle winner works just as normal.  The chance though that it would be worthless makes ppl think what they put in their decks.  Also have some characters/enhancements/Forts/Arts that say, "If a cannot be negated enhancement is used this battle, protect all LS's from rescue."  It would be fairly easy to do, but the ones who make the cards have to go in that direction.  Also, dealing damage directly to opponents would be sweet and open up a new twist to the game. 

Daniel

[The Schaef]

WFIW, TGT also requires a Redeemed Soul.

Also, protection from Forts and Arts already work against CBN cards.  Protection trumps CBN.

[Warrior_Monk]

FWIW, TGT also requires a Redeemed Soul.

which is why my combo deck could do well against them. I don't rescue until I win.

I think it would be nice to require more cards for combos to work.  If they're more "unstoppable", I think they need to be more than 2 cards.  At least 3 cards.

TGT isn't a combo. TGT takes 3 cards (A hero, TGT, and a redeemed soul), and TGT isn't in the least unstoppable.