Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I'm looking for suggestions on a few specific tweaks. I've been playing with this deck for about eight months now, but RoA has mixed things up quite a bit. I want to work Passover & Unleavened Bread into the deck, and I wouldn't mind trying to stuff in Jordan Interrupted as well. I've also been thinking about sticking Stocks and Slave Trade back in the deck and throwing in Raider's Camp for a little more stall, but I'm not sure how well that would work with Z-Temple in the mix.

Here it is:

Cards in deck: 56
Lost Souls: 7
   Lost Soul (anti-burial)
   Lost Soul (anti-ignore)
   Lost Soul (revealer)
   Lost Soul (same reference)
   Lost Soul (same testament)
   Lost Soul (shuffler)
   Lost Soul (Wanderer)
   +Lost Soul (Hopper)

Dominants: 5
   Angel of the Lord
   New Jerusalem
   Son of God
   Christian Martyr
   Destruction of Nehushtan
   +Falling Away

Fortresses: 2
   Assyrian Camp
   Zerubbabel's Temple

Artifacts: 4
   Assyria's Tribute
   +Confusion of Mind
   Book of the Covenant
   Lampstand of the Sanctuary
   Urim and Thummim

Multicolor Sites: 1
   +Promised Land

White Covenant Cards: 2
   Covenant with Levi
   Covenant with Phinehas

Teal Heroes: 7
   Eliashib the High Priest
   Joiada, Son of Eliashib
   Joiakim, Son of Joshua
   Joshua the High Priest
   Phinehas, son of Eleazar
   Priests of Christ
   Haggai
   Zechariah

Teal Enhancements: 8
   Burning Incense
   Filling Zerubbabel's Temple
   Jehoiada's Strength
   +Passover and Unleavened Bread
   Pentecost
   Scapegoat
   Trumpet Blast
   Zeal for the Lord

Green Enhancements: 0
   Plague of Frogs
   Search
   Two Bears

Pale Green Evil Characters: 8
   Assyrian Archer
   King Asnappar
   King Jehoiakin
   King Tiglath Pileser III
   The Assyrian Spoilers
   The Rabsaris
   The Rabshakeh
   The Tartan

Multicolor Evil Characters: 1
   +The Amalekites' Slave

Pale Green Evil Enhancements: 9
   Achan's Sin
   Assyria Conquers Israel
   Captured by Assyria
   Confusion
   Death of Unrighteous
   Disobedience
   Forgotten History
   The Rabsaris Attacks
   The Rabshakeh Attacks
   Two Thousand Horses

Suggestions in general are welcome as well; have at it!

This is a great deck really, but I have a few suggestions.

You have a grand total of 1 covenant for site-access, and no ways to create LS's (hopper, TAS, Malchus).  If you play a good site-lockout deck then you can just count on losing.

You are missing common dominants like Burial and Falling Away.  I have been playing without these for a while as well, however, have recently been putting them back in after discovering that all the top decks at Nats for the past several years have them.  I admire your courage though.

I would take out Book of the Covenant and put in Confusion of Mind or Captured Ark.

To make room for the suggestions above, I would take out 3 GEs and 3 EEs.  Having 20 enhancements in your deck will clog your hand, and you'll end up discarding many of them without using them.

One other consideration would be to add cards like WoP (to keep from fighting your own guys), KotW (to prevent having to defend with your opponent's guy you can't support, and to make T-Blast work), and J-Tower (to make sure your critical cards don't disappear before you draw them).  To make room for these, you could take out 1 GC (Zechariah or Joiakim) and 1 EC (take your pick).

I think you might be right about Burial and Falling away, but I'm not sure. Lampstand tends to turn up fairly often, between a semi-fast draw and Filling Z-Temple, but every once in a while I find myself wishing I could play a Falling Away on someone. Hmm...

The nice thing is that you could turn Lampstand off for a turn, play your evil doms, and then turn it back on.  Or you could just leave it on for a while, wait for them to discard theirs (thinking they'll never play them), and then turn it off and play yours

I am hesitant, though, to take out Joiakim or Zechariah; I rely on them to be able to play the green enhancements in the deck. I've found that teal sometimes runs out of enhancements (surprisingly), and Plague of Frogs and Two Bears help immensely; however, Haggai is wierdly a common target for CM, and without him it can be hard to play them unless Zechariah or Joiakim are out.

If you take out the 3 Green enhs and Zechariah, then you never have to worry about having a character that you can't play the enhs in your hand on.  Alternatively, Joaikim is great for getting your offerings and feasts back from your discard pile, but in your deck that is only 1 card, so he is expendable.

Also, even with the addition of TAS, I think you can still just plan on losing to a site lock-out deck.  You'll either need to:
1 - throw in another access art (priestly crown)
2 - take out the access art you have (cov or Levi), and put in 2 access sites
3 - also add in Harvest Time, the Hopper, and Malchus for a total of 4 LS creators

Okay, I'll have to test some of these out.

Updated!