Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Cards in deck: 56
Lost Souls: 7
   Lost Soul (female only)
   Lost Soul (N.T. only)
   Lost Soul (punisher)
   Lost Soul (same reference)
   Lost Soul (same testament)
   Lost Soul (shame)
   Lost Soul (Wanderer)

Lamb Dominants: 3
   Angel of the Lord
   New Jerusalem
   Son of God

Grim Reaper Dominants: 1
   Christian Martyr

Fortresses: 3
   The Garden Tomb
   The Tabernacle
   The Throne of David

Artifacts: 6
   Book of the Covenant
   Burial Shroud
   Golden Calf
   Holy Grail
   Lampstand of the Sanctuary
   Unholy Writ

White Covenant Cards: 2
   I am Love
   I am Truth

Curses: 3
   Captured Ark (Crimson)
   Confusion of Mind (Pale Green)
   Unknown Nation (Yellow)

White Heroes: 2
   Mary the Mother of James
   Salome

Red Heroes: 1
   Jephthah

Purple Heroes: 4
   John
   King David
   King Hiram
   Widow

White Hero Enhancements: 2
   Blessings
   No Need for Spices

Purple Hero Enhancements: 4
   Authority of Christ (promo)
   Peace Treaty
   Reach of Desperation
   Royal Parade

Crimson Evil Characters: 6
   Judas Iscariot (priests)
   Nebushasban
   Nergalsharezer
   Red Dragon (starter)
   Sapphira
   Seven Sons of Sceva

Pale Green Evil Characters: 1
   Women as Snares

Brown Evil Characters: 1
   Uzzah

Crimson Evil Enhancements: 6
   Belshazzar's Banquet
   Head of Gold
   Imitating Evil
   Midianite Attack
   Nebuchadnezzar's Pride
   Set Fire

Orange Evil Characters: 2
   Prince of this World (priests)
   King of Tyrus (priests)

Multi Evil Characters: 2
   The Amalakites Slave
   The Winged Lion


synopsis: recently built this deck, could use some help on it. the main objective of this deck is to tear through their defense by any means possible (aoc promo, holy grail, jepthah, women as snares, head of gold, etc.) while ignoring what little remains.

the deck has an unusually high number of artifacts/covenants/curses for a type 1 56 card deck, but thats merely the way i designed it: its a highly defensive deck that focuses more on stalling until i set up my win. almost half of the arts/covenants/curses are defensive, so its ok with me what the number currently sits at (11 total). the offense seems ok as it is...although it seems i have a low number of heroes to work with throne/garden tomb, i think i should be ok as long as i only make rescue attempts when i am absolutely positive i have complete board control and can ignore anything they may be holding. wish i could work a lydia (starter), words, or another purple king into the deck, but i simply do not have the room.

edit: deck update 01/04

took gabes advise, it appeared a crimson defense worked far better than the brown defense, so switched a crimson defense in. crimson provided a nice variety of ec's with a spectrum of abilities: judas (priests) by far being one of the best ec's in the game...red dragon (starter) possibly the best immunity character...and sapphira the biggest human fbtn ec. seven sons of sceva is amazingly versatile with my stand-alone ec's, so i switched out the pale green prince of this world and evil gold king of tyrus for their orange counterparts. the evil enhancements are a little less in number than i am accustomed to (i usually prefer a higher ratio of enhancements to character ratio), but what i have here seems suitable enough and contains quite a bit of power. i consider nebuchadnezzars pride one of the best crimson battle winners available with its interrupt ability plus huge numbers to use with sapphira or midianite attack. set fire is THE best site/fortress destruction out there (now am i no longer worried about being locked out by sites, but set fire syncs PERFECTLY with my offense by destroying the best protection fortresses currently being played), and imitating evil can effectively reuse any powerful crimson enhancement in my arsenal. great spectrum of special abilties that i feel can acheive far more than my brown defense did.

other changes: took out hopper lost soul since i do play a slower game. switched out protector lost soul for shame lost soul for two reasons: 1) both nebushasban and wanderer lost soul is in the deck, so i want to fully utilize them both without being restricted and 2) shame lost soul plays a great defense by removing my opponents biggest offensive threat for 2 turns. took out nero as well...would have liked to keep him, but he got the cut because i simply didnt have room, and my other stand-alones were far more versatile with seven sons of sceva.

Gibeonite Trickery is a good call for something to cut. I'd also think about pulling Golden Calf, since you have CoM; I know it's nice to have both, but I feel like it's a slot better used by one of the heroes you're thinking of adding.

g-calf is a tough choice for me to pull. its the bane of nearly 90% of redemption decks out there, and i like including it because i have nt heroes i can still rescue with. confusion of mind is a great card...nearly superior in every conceivable way...except its way easier to discard it versus g-calf. besides, the deck is supposed to be defensively heavy-weighted, so i have no problem keeping both com and g-calf in.

abner is extremely helpful because it trumps every fbtn hero out there save for one. what possible brown evil character would take his place?

I think you could toss the Hopper LS to get down to 56.  Frankly I don't think you need it as your offense is smaller and you play a more patient game with this deck.  You aren't going to get lost soul locked unless they use Evil Spawn (C/D), but those decks are 1/100 now.  I only use Hopper in decks that I want to win before I deck out or get close to decking out.

I also question whether you need so many stand-alone Evil Characters.  Players use so many interrupts + battle winners that I don't value using more than a couple stand-alones if I also have a decent size defense with enhancements.  I would consider tossing Nero for whichever card you want to add more.  I do think you might want to add Unclean Spirit so you can avoid losing a battle to Angel of the Lord if you do not have CM, UN, or Writ at that point in time.

Kirk

updated the deck. please advise

With only three Babylonians in the deck, Carried into Exile will often be just as good as (if not better than) Head of Gold.  King Merodach-baladan can play Carried into Exile and Set Fire when he enters battle without initiative and he laughs at FBTN characters.  He's the only important Babylonian you're missing in my opinion.  If you add him you should consider using Go Into Captivity instead of Unholy Writ.

IAL/T combo to recur one card?

nnfs is the only ignore card i would ever think about recurring...all the rest are too situational to risk deck space, and ial/t can only get one at a time anyways...so...

if i upped it to 63, i have been thinking about adding:

king merodach-baladan
carried into exile
king josiah (tabernacle <-> solomons temple)
lydia
go into captivity
hopper ls/king zimri
lost soul

what do you think?

Agreed.  That's a lot of cards to go grabbing one.  Nobody knows better than I that ignoring all the colors is a suboptimal strategy but that's more deck space you could dedicate to getting other cards.  Shoot, you could toss in M&E and Lost Coin Found and get about the same result, or even better since you have a lot more cards to choose from.

But only when you get that card, and only when you have all of them in play at once, and only if the other player hasn't sniffed you out and blown up the combo.

This is like my unstoppable destroy all your ECs combo, except if you see it coming, it's easy to stop, which makes the unstoppable part kind of iffy at best.

Not to mention you hit on one of the big problems with the white ignore offense in the first place: most of the major defensive cultures are warrior-class.  Babs, Syrians, Assyrians, Philistines, Egyptians... the vast majority of worthwhile characters in these are warrior-class.