Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hey all! Some of you may remember me - I used to be relatively active (especially on the New Card Ideas forum), then fell off, and came back for a bit around this time last year. I just got back from MN state and had a great time, but it's pretty obvious that I don't really know what's what anymore.

This deck and (many) variations thereof have served me well for years, but I think I need some advice on keeping up with all these newfangled cards. I more or less playtested it in T1 Multi last night and changed a few things for T1 2P this morning. After having tried out the Reserve, I like the concept even if I don't have too many cards that interact with it.

Rapids v. 3.1
Cards in Deck: 56

Lost Souls: 7
Revealer
N.T. Only
Female Only
Exchanger
Gain
Resurrection
CBP

7 Dominants
Son of God
New Jerusalem
Angel of the Lord
Destruction of Nehushtan
Falling Away (W)
Christian Martyr
Mayhem

2 Fortresses
Obadiah's Caves
Assyrian Camp

4 Artifacts
Golden Cherubim
Hezekiah's Signet Ring
Hidden Treasures
Magic Charms

1 Curse
Covenant with Death

10 Heroes
Aaron
Moses (CoW)
Barnabas
Daniel (CoW)
Samuel (CoW)
Angel Under the Oak
Seraph
Seraph with a Live Coal
Isaiah
Gideon

8 Good Enhancements
Faith of Samson
Isaiah's Call
Live Coal
Wheel within a Wheel
Spiritual Warfare
Two Bears
Swords into Ploughshares
Samuel's Edict

2 Dual Alignment Enhancements
Razor
Siegeworks

7 Evil Characters
Damsel with Spirit of Divination
Egyptian Magicians
King Manasseh
Balaam
Assyrian Archer
Assyrian Siege Army
Assyrian Survivor

8 Evil Enhancements
Ashtaroth Worship
Confusion
Invoking Terror
Scattered
Achan's Sin
Death of Unrighteous
Two Thousand Horses
Forgotten History

Reserve:
Assyria's Tribute
Eternal Covenant
Benaiah
Micah
Visions
Uzzah
Astrologers
Foreign Wives
Women as Snares
Assyria Conquers Israel

Offense is mostly Isaiah, Auto, and Aaron/Mo; defense is magicians and Assyrians. Most of the offense is hard to kill unless it gets banished - between Isaiah, AutO, Daniel and the Resurrect soul good cards tend to not stay dead long. Defense is a lot about making attacks costly, either by territory/deck destruction (Archer, Siege Army, Confusion), giving me cards (Damsel and Egyptian Mags), self-sacrifice (Achan's Sin and DoU), and occasionally banding to the opponent's defense with Manny.

Obviously, the Reserve needs some work - I only got the Gain about half an hour before T12P started, so it was mostly "hey, these are some decent cards I'm not running/this is situational enough that I don't need it every game". Currently Gain is the only card I have in the deck that interacts with Reserve; however, even with Moses and all the other soul negation I managed to pull at least one card every game, and usually two with Falling Away, Death of Unrighteous, opponent's Shuffler soul, etc. That said, a lot of the time it was early enough that I couldn't pull a tech card, so usually I just pulled my favorites (WaS and Uzzah).

One of the ways my current game ignorance hurts is that I don't know what kinds of Reserve cards there are. The only others I know off the top of my head are Covenant of Prayer, Deceiver, and War. I think I also pulled an angel that can exchange a good card with one in Reserve, but I don't remember exactly what it's called.

Some of my thoughts regarding the deck: I'd like to add a Deceiver, since it seems like a great card to pull situational blocks from Reserve. The "exchange into a reserve" angel might also be nice - one thing I might do is put SwLC into Reserve, and pull him out if I need an Isaiah draw. Seeing how popular demon defenses are with the new set (and seeing Symbolic ECs splashed into others), I've also considered moving Spiritual Warfare to Reserve, but it's so useful in so many matchups (especially with Hidden Treasures) that I don't want to do that unless I can reliably move it directly to my hand. If I somehow manage to get my hands on a Three Woes, it would replace the DoN (and of course a Second Coming would replace NJ). I have a copy of David the Psalmist that I'm considering trying to fit in, but I'm not sure what to take out for him.
A couple cards that I would probably run if I had them are Nimrod the Mighty (for Assyrian synergy and a Camp tutor) and the Imitate soul (mostly for extra Gain effects, but it's pretty good all around). That said, don't feel like you don't want to suggest a card because you don't think I have it - part of the reason I'm asking is to know what to look for.

Any suggestions? What's new that I should slot in? What's in there that I should take out? What other Reserve-related cards should I be aware of/might I want to look into?

If I had played T1, I was actually going to run a somewhat similar deck, though it was more focused on Isaiah and Ezekiel with Assyrians/Babylonians.

The Deceiver, Covenant with Prayer and Imitate LS should probably be your top targets to add. Woes and TSC are really nice, but really expensive so you can make some more economical upgrades first and if you do start playing more and opening enough packs, eventually you'll hit some URs.

One fun trick I've found with my deck is using the new Blood of the Lamb on Isaiah. He's not a martyr so he doesn't get the draw 3, but you can negate their battle winner then play next your Razor or Siegeworks CBN. That might be worth using over Swords to Plowshares.

I also agree with Xonathan's suggestion of Balaam's Teaching from the new set.

the new watchman promo might be a good character to consider, since you are using Daniel and Isaiah.

Thanks for all the advice!

After reading this thread and having a chance to sit down and look through all the new cards I've gotten, I've made a couple preliminary changes, and I'll continue to do so as I acquire more of the cards I need. So far I've moved Spiritual Warfare and Seraph with Live Coal to my Reserve and replaced them with Angel of the Winds and Angel from the Altar - I'm not sure I'm going to keep it that way, since it makes Isaiah a little less reliable, but I'll try Altar Angel for now. I've also taken Xonathan's suggestion and replaced Ashtaroth Worship with Balaam's Teaching. In addition, I took Tribute, Benaiah, Visions, and Assyria Conquers out of Reserve and replaced them with Spiritual Warfare, SwLC, David the Psalmist, and Treasures of War.
When I get Blood of the Lamb it will replace SiP. I'm also looking for Deceiver, You Will Remain and Covenant of Prayer, but I'm not sure what to take out to make room for them. I've thought about Watchman and while I agree that without Zeke it's not as good, I might consider moving Daniel to Reserve and using Watchman to pull him out if I need to bring back Mo/Sam/FoS.

What would you all think of swapping Golden Cherubim out or to Reserve and replacing it with Sea of Glass? On one hand, I think Glass would be better generally, since it doesn't rely on the opponent's actions, but the deck already has a decent amount of draw and I'm not running Search, so the ability to get exactly what I need with Cherubim is nice.

Sea of Glass is a wop-wop in T1, along with the entirety of the heavenly temple. So far its only real role I can see is empowering Martyrs against Pharisees.

If you drew it two turns before the card you need, didn't need to activate anything else, and weren't going to draw the combo piece next turn anyway.

I've found Heavenly Temple to be very effective if it's being taken out of my deck to free up a card slot for something that makes sense in T1 That is to say, yeah I'd probably run Sea of Glass if I were running Heavenly Temple, I'd just never do that in T1.

hilariously awesome Polarius

i agree Guardian it's a tough call for me between Heavenly Temple and Coliseum

Well since Master Q plugged Ends of the Earth, I'll suggest you should also add Not Alone...especially if you're not running You Will Remain.

One thing to be aware of with CWD is that Humble LS can CBN hard-counter it.  You already have 4 other arts, so CWD might not be worth the slot.

On the other hand, Humble LS makes your opponent vulnerable to hand discard, so pairing CWD with I Am Holy seems legit.  I Am Holy is already ridiculous in Isaiah decks - could be worth consideration.

Here's the updated list after NC Regionals. I took a very similar list to T1-2P there, and didn't do particularly well, but part of that was unlucky matchups and not knowing how the kony deck worked when I played it

Same souls/doms/arts/forts
Auto, Seraph, SwLC, Isaiah, Aaron, Moses, Barnabas, Sam (RoA), Dave the Psalmist
Call, Wheel, Live Coal, Blood of the Lamb, 2 Bears, Spiritual Warfare, Sam's Edict
Second Seal/War
Razor, Siegeworks
ASA, AS, Nimrod, Damsel, Manny, EM, Balaam, Deceiver
2kH, Achan's Sin, Balaam's Teaching, Confusion, Forgotten History, DoU, IT, Scattered
Reserve: King Saul, Daniel, Gideon (J), Astrologers, Silly Women, Women as Snares, Uzzah, FW, Assyrian Archer, EMS

A little bit more focus on drawing now. Early Gain is usually King Saul, for the Sam target, although sometimes Daniel if Dave dies right away or Archer if I think I'll need more Assyrians. War usually just pulls EMS out if 2kH hasn't died yet.

The version I took to Regionals didn't run Saul, Nimrod, or EMS. Archer was still in the deck, and I ran Lahmi's Spear in my reserve just for War to be able to pull a battlewinner out.

I think I'm going to swap Silly Women for Ammy Slave. I've considered dropping HT/SW since so many decks run at least a demon splash, but HT helps me play my TC search/place stuff with Mo out, and if I'm keeping the one it's hard to drop the other. A small part of me wants to throw in Rabshakeh, but I'm not sure where - I can't afford to drop more multicolor magicians for IT, and I think that all the other Assyrians in the deck are better than he is.