Cactus Game Design Message Boards

It doesn't really matter if people get bored with a deck, if its the best deck, the deck wins that's what they'll use.

I won't pretend to know what deck(s) will be considered top tier by the time nationals rolls around this year.

I think that The Deck is dying out, because it only works like a tournament wining deck with a couple offences and defenses, like garden tomb and judges, and Assyrian/magician defenses. I think that judges will be much more common when people learn how to combine the new ones (like Japheth). Assyrians should also be more popular, but so should the roman emperors.

Assyrian/Magician obliterates The Deck.

Judges/Canaanites are always a front runner. I have various other untested ideas, such as refining my GoS/TGT/TTOD deck, TGT/Judges, and variations on Tim Maly's defense.

That said, I usually like to know the top decks before going into Nats, so I'll probably decide a week before hand what I'm going to be playing (spoiler alert, it'll be The Deck), only to realize that the meta changes over night for nats.

That said, I'm quite sure I was the only one running the stereotypical version of The Deck that was so common at 2012 Nats. Chris/Olijar/RDT ran Judges/Angels, but it was much less search based than the one I played (what The Deck gets it's lifeblood from). It may still be top tier, but it certainly isn't popular. Judges and Disciples seem to be the popular choice, though there are some straight Prophets decks.

You all make some great points. Judges has some great potential, Don't you think Canaanites is still a little lacking? Hey Westy, you mentioned "variations on Tim Maly's defense." What kind of defense was that?

I think the decks that play well at Nats this year will be fairly balanced with offense and defense.

Regionals has less players and you can get away with a smallish defense, it's a little more difficult at nats.

I would have never guessed Herods/Saducees! Yea, the splash angels seem to give everyone problems. Truth about the caananites, if the offense is fast, then I guess it doesn't matter.