Cactus Game Design Message Boards

*Insert a grandfather's lecturing voice*   "Back in my day, all you needed for defense was Am Slave, Gomer, Uzzah, Sabbath Breaker, KoT, Haman's Plot, Unholy Writ, and Dominants!"

*Fast forward 5 years*

Now that we have the Dom cap, and defenses have gotten a boost with TEC and PC...  Will there ever be a "Meta defense", or even a "Small defense", that is viable in T1?  Thoughts/opinions?

*****

Just for fun, I tried to put one together below.  It's definitely bigger than the one listed above, but it's still somewhat small compared to the T1 balanced decks running around these days.  Focus is on sure blocks, reliable stand-alone ECs (there really aren't any anymore) and drawing.

Liner LS

Burial/CM/FA

Unholy Writ

Sabbath Breaker
Emp Vitellius
Emp Claudius
KoT (Orange)
Messenger of Satan
Damsel
Am Slave
Uzzah
FW

Plot
Scattered
Balaam's Disobedience
SSS

Thoughts?  I'm thinking this defense could stall for quite a while, and it definitely has drawing power.  It leaves room for 7 LS (including Hopper), 21 offensive cards, and 4 good Doms to make a 50-card deck w/ 8 LS.

A small site theme could work. It suffers from LS generation cards but shipwreck is pretty sweet so as long as you can stall out the offense that can get through or generate LS it could work. Also while it might not be popular nebby is probably my favorite character for lite defense. Most of the time he will work and he can find situational needed cards. But like I said not exactly popular or "meta".

here is a very small but surprisingly effective defense i came up with that may work for what you are looking for

17 cards

1   Gamaliel's Speech

1   The Sanhedrin
1   Proud Pharisee
1   Emperor Vitellius
1   Sabbath Breaker
1   Emperor Tiberius (J)
1   Naaman
1   Foreign Wives

1   Scattered
1   Namaan's Chariot and Horses
1   Balaam's Disobedience
1   Arrest in Jerusalem
1   Night Raid
1   Pretension

1   Christian Martyr (J)
1   Falling Away

1   Damascus (EC)

battles are becoming more and more epic and with that there is much more thought that must go into strong defenses. you can build fast dedicated defenses with searching, drawing, and recursion outside of splashy chump blocks.

We've made a concentrated effort with the upcoming cards to push the game more into the battle phase. I expect the number of epic battles that take place to continue to grow.

Update on this:  I've been trying out different "splash defenses", and they have actually been very effective against CoW offenses.  Here is the core of the characters I've been playing:

KoT (Priests)
Messenger of Satan (TEC)
7 Sons of Sceva
Emperor Claudius
Emperor Vitellius
Foreign Wives
The Amalekites' Slave

Why does this work?  In my experience, here are some reasons (not in any particular order):

1.  KoT, Claudius, and FW are the best ECs right now for winning a battle on their own.  I've had opponents not even attack (when I had LS available and they had heroes) when I have these characters in territory.
2.  All of these characters, except for 7SoS, are fantastic to have in an opening hand.  From the get-go this defense is giving you great value.
3.  FW in territory, or Am Slave in territory/FW in deck, plus Mayhem is still usually a block.  And Mayhem goes into at least 100% of the decks I make.
4.  You can play lighter on EEs with this defense.  That frees up room for more offense, better Mayhems, etc.
5.  MoS + Vitellius drawing.  Offenses these days have a LOT of good brigades.  The popularity of Joshua, Moses, You Will Remain, Eternal Covenant, FBTNB, Sword of the Spirit, etc. leads to a lot of good brigades being played.  I see no reason not to include these two ECs in all T1 defenses these days.
6.  KoT and MoS are so good, 7SoS is a fantastic addition that most players aren't prepared for.  One time my opponent used Jephthah sub-optimally when I only had MoS in territory.  I blocked with 7SoS from hand, exchanged for MoS, and made a successful block.

For those interested, some of my favorite additional evil cards:

Some combination of Naaman/Naaman's Horsies/Deluge of Rain/Sabbath Breaker/Scattered/Heavy Taxes
Gomer/Uzzah/Haman's Plot
Damsel/SSS

What's your theory on why Claudius has been successful for you? I would think he would see a decline with the release of CoW.

Claudius is a carryover from my original composition, which I made before CoW was released.  I've debated his usefulness with all the OT offenses running around right now, but I've found him worthwhile for a few reasons:

1.  It gives me a 3rd character (beyond Vitellius and Naaman) who can hold Naaman's Horses.  (My favorite compositions of this defense have additional Gray, including Naaman and his horses)
2.  Even against OT offenses, he's a 10/11 with CBP protection from Dominants who can play my Gray EEs.  I've had Claudius AotL'd in territory recently, and I had a certain top Redemption player misplay Grapes on Claudius recently   
3.  NT offenses aren't nonexistent, and I've locked out an NT offense before with this defense simply because of Claudius.
4.  It gives me a second character to play Heavy Taxes on, which has gained value as a battlewinner because it isn't stopped by Coliseum. 

I can see reasons for dropping him, primarily if I add Orange, Pale Green, or Brown to boost the "core 7 ECs" above.  But when I'm adding additional Gray, I want him there. 

@jmhartz,

Makes a lot of sense. Personally I've always been partial to Emperor Tiberius. A lot of times he accomplishes the same thing (stopping your opponent from using Angel/Grapes) but by different means obviously.