Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I am not actually going to nationals, but some of my friends will be, and would possibly like to take my deck to nationals. Just looking for some pointers on the deck.

I wish I could go, but have a prior commitment
I made all-state choir, top 50 high school singers in the state, and have to be in Moorhead that whole week

50 Cards

Good Dominants: 4
Son of God
New Jerusalem
Angel of the Lord
Grapes of Wrath

Evil Dominants: 3
Destruction of Nehushtan
Falling Away
Christian Martyr

Good Fortresses: 1
Judges Seat

Evil Fortresses: 1
Phillistine Outpost

Artifacts: 1
Household Idols

Curses: 1
Covenant with Death

Silver Heroes: 2
Angel with the Secret Name
Angel under the Oak

Gold Heroes: 6
Gideon
Jephthah
Ehud
Jair
Samuel (gold/green)
Moses

Red Heroes: 2
Ahimilek the Hittite
Uriah the Hittite

Green Heroes: 1
David*
   *can still use Bravery of David, since it has David in the Title.

Good Multicolored Enhanceents: 1
Wheel within a Wheel

Good Gold enhancements: 4
Samuels Edict
Deborah's Directive
Ehud's Dagger
The Lord Fight's For you (Gold/Red)

Red Enhancements: 1
Bravery of David

Good/Evil Enhancements: 1
Foriegn Sword

Multicolored Evil Characters: 1
Foriegn Wives

Black Evil Characters: 6
Gibeonite Delegates
Sisera
Lot's Wife
Goliath
Phillistine Garrison
Phillistine Armorbearer

Black Evil Enhancements: 6
Stone of Thebez
Gibeonite Trickery
Ashtaroth Worship
Joseph in Prison
Fortify Site
Land Dispute

Purple Sites: 1
Canaan

Lost Souls: 7
Thorns
CBP
Female only
Pigs
NT only
3/2 Liner
LS (can't remember which one this is, it's special ability is while on a single color site, evil characters in territory are immune to site's brigade. I use it because on Canaan my evil characters are immune to AoCP, this LS or the Shuffler, I still haven't decided.)

Also, how do I make it so that the Webpage I want people to go to when they click on somthing is differant than what the actual words are. Like making each of these cards go to the Wiki page instead of having to actally have the Wiki page up.

Changed My deck.

Updated it with some More changes.

Updated and simplified deck to make it easier to know what versions of cards are what.

Alright, this is as a T2 Canaanite player, so take this advice with that in mind:

I would not add Woman of Thebez just because it does not make sense without Tower.  If you want a small female to play Stone, then use Lot's Daughters in that case.  However, leaving Foreign in is fine to me, since she recurs HHI (how many banding decks do you know with art destruction beyond DoN?) and is Angel fodder in many cases.  Additionally, controlling TLFFY means you can play it when it works best anyway.  Also, don't forget that you can end the set-aside any prep phase.

Though, I have a better add if you remove a card: Sisera.  Use him with Canaan and CTB for fantastic synergy.

I would also take out Shechem, he just does not help very much.  You don't have capture of your own outside of Canaan (and honestly, that should be capping opponents' angels in a lot of games), and capturing a female is rarely helpful.

Instead, I would say Delegates.  They are fantastic soul-gen and have an amazing ability to boot: no pre-play Angel or Grapes can be used on them, and you can respond with your own play in almost every case (Trickery almost always works on them).  Lastly on them, they are THE BEST option for CTB in the game (especially in T1).  Sure, they gen a soul, and that stinks (still not reason enough for Shechem IMO!).  However, not many people play Black to be able to win with them, and your opponent still cannot Grapes them to stop the battle.  Only Martyr or a capture artifact can possibly stop this rescue without Black enhancements, they are perfectly paired with Canaan and Ehud.

For enhancements, I agree that Fortify Site is a must.  Not only do you get to blow up an artifact (and not just delay it with FS), but you can recur just what you need AND protect it from opponents:  Bring back Canaan for another capture and set up another CTB win; bring back Lot's Wife (protected from a band or being discarded until you block with her) to game your opponent's defense; bring back FW to taunt them and be a great deterrent to draws; bring back any male Canaanite (Sisera, Delegates, Shechem, etc.) that had been discarded to use with Canaan.

Also a must, to me, is JiP.  I think A.Worship is good, but just not good enough (especially in T1) when compared to the power of JiP for this deck.  You currently have zero interrupts (not even a Philly Horses?), and some big characters.  Definitely a good add.

My reasoning with Woman of Thebez over Lot's Daughters is that LD is going to gain 2/2 after one block anyway, so you might as well have WoT in the event your opponent uses Tower.

I wouldn't use either really, but he also has a CwD in there, which makes Daughters more viable.

On that front, I just noticed you are using Gibeonite Curse.  I wouldn't do that...can't get the stupid thing to work in T2, can't imagine it working well in T1.  You need them to play either Angel or Grapes before playing/drawing SoG for it to be really effective, and it gets shut down in many games due to Nazareth by the time you could pull this off.  Most games it is a wasted card slot, and could be better served with something else.

On Sisera, he is mainly another option for Canaan/Ehud (and a really good one at that).  He is also another option for deterring large banding offenses when you don't have HHI yet, since if anyone has Red or Gold in battle you would be playing CBN Wrath or JiP.  He is also one of the better anti-Moses cards since you can play those CBN as well as something like Stone CBN.

One last piece of advice, offense this time: I would not use Sacrifice, as it either needs to blow up your own Canaan or rely on them playing something.  You also have plenty of opportunity for it to become a dead card in hand.  Instead, I would recommend Moses.  I cannot tell you how many times just pushing Moses into battle wins you a soul on its own.

Land Dispute is the easiest way to get rid of Naz. Because "take" defaults to hand, you can keep it in your hand and then discard it during your discard phase so neither you nor your opponent has it. Land Dispute is a must in any Philistine deck. Although not as powerful as Assyrian Siege Army, it's a card that gives Philistines some extra power that most other themes don't have.

I'm not sure I agree with adding RBD...which is surprising since you can ask anyone in MN how much I use that card. The problem is that you have HHI, CwD and RBD, but you can only activate one at a time. The rest of the game, you're going to have 2 arts doing nothing. As soon as you turn down RBD, they'll draw. As soon as you turn down HHI, they'll band. As soon as you turn down CwD, they'll use TC. Personally I would use two of the three and keep either Gib Curse (especially if you've had so much success with it) or TLFFY, or use that slot to add Land Dispute.

Just a quick note on Sacrifice, and the reason I say it doesn't work very well (beyond losing a rescue attempt) is because to take out a site it must be occupied.  A lot of players who are smart about it leave those sites they want to live unoccupied, as much fewer cards are able to hit them.  Also, since you have Samuel (or are at least obviously playing Judges), people will be even less likely to occupy an accessible Nazareth.

Just a note, you are currently only at 49 cards because the Gold Heroes section says 6 but only has 5 listed. Are you missing someone from there?

Moses perhaps?

Thanks, yeah, Moses was missing.

Yes, and since if either of my artifacts were active, he would be useless, so I will not use him.

I would probably throw in Asahel for a CTB splash and/or Jael (to get Female only LS) and Nail for your enhancements.  But that's just me.

I have again changed my deck, and made it sitelock, which works really well. I added Hormah, Babylonian Banquet hall, and 2 x Babylon, so my sites can hold up to 7 lost souls.

I played this deck at an unnoficial tournament, Just me and 7 other people from my church, and I went 12-0!

Thank you for all the advice, all the cards you said to add were helpful, especially Moses. I wouldn't have won many games without him.