Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Daniel (promo) is in the most powerful versions of The Deck, IMO.  And it's hard to not add Michael at that point.  And Striking Herod, which is great with the other Silver already in The Deck.

Throne of Grace plays to set aside so Daniel wouldn't negate it.

Also, for your GEs, I'd drop Ehud's Dagger and DD (Coliseum tosses them) and TBlast (not worth it with 2 Teal heroes not named Joshua the High Priest). 

I'd add Live Coal or Faith of Samuel, especially if Daniel is in there.  Don't forget Faith of Samuel isn't prevented by Moses.

If this is what The Deck is this year, I predict no The Deck at top-cut.

I don't think I'm playing the version of Moses you think I am.

You won't be but everyone else will be... 

"The Deck" was just a modern derivative of the 2007 T1-2P Nats winning deck, which was a derivative of Justin Alstad's T1-MP Nats winning "Speed Freak" from a couple years prior, which if I understand correctly was inspired by "The Q's" defenseless deck.

/history lesson.

Just as the decks mentioned above were similar but unique when compared to one another, it's unfair to categorize the modern version as "The Deck". Especially considering that it probably contains less than 50% of the non-Dom cards listed in the first post.

Actually, Speed Freak came about because of a contest that someone ran a long time ago (I believe it was Sean, and I think the prize was a Leviathan and a Philosophy...which was an awesome prize back then). The contest was to see how fast a deck could be. We worked on a deck that was designed to draw out in one turn with a good draw. We were able to accomplish that, then Justin realized that by adding a few decent battle winners, that style of deck could be really powerful. The Quadrate's defenseless deck did include some speed, but it was more focused on raw power to overwhelm opponents. The original versions were silver and purple, so at the time the only speed cards were Prosperity and Reach of Desperation (and Great Faith, to a lesser extent).

Anyway, carry on. This discussion is interesting, though I do wonder what a primarily NT form of The Deck would look like?

I do wonder what a primarily NT form of The Deck would look like?

This is an interesting question.  NT offenses don't really have the "stand alone" heroes of the OT, such as FBTN, Isaiah, Daniel, Joshua, AUTO/Gideon, Chenaniah, King David, etc. 

Disciples are quite beefy, and certainly Thaddeus, or the Phil/Bart band, or a James/John band, can walk over some ECs.  They are also fast and have a CBN battlewinner that is not affected by Coliseum.  The problem with Disciples is that they do better when you have more of them in your deck.  You don't really have the flexibility like you do with OT splash offenses. 

NT Gold has small heroes, relies on GEs, and lets your opponent draw a bunch of cards.  This is just about the opposite of what The Deck tries to accomplish.

NT White, although probably stronger than many realize with the new white cards printed in CoW, has small to midsize heroes and relies on a fortress that is much more squishy (and much less powerful) than it was 5 years ago when NT white was a top offense. 

NT Red has the closest thing to "The Deck" material, with Cornelius and the AoG warriors.  The AoG warriors are pretty good even if you don't use the PC AoG GEs.  You could use them to spam Shoes of Peace or the new Sword of the Spirit, or do I Am Holy abuse.  Just the fact that they are a CBN band of 4 characters, and one of the characters tutors the others, makes them "The Deck" material.

Clay...  Well, it's my opinion that the way to play Clay is to use the fundamentals of The Deck and apply them to the Clay heroes      Clay doesn't have many "stand alone" heroes, but all the searching, banding, and drawing goes a long way to winning rescue attempts fast.  The Clay pseudo-FBTN (Aquila/Priscilla, Syntyche/Euodia, Clement) has a major drawback in that it's simply too slow.  Plus Clement's requirement that all your heroes be Philippi or missionaries is a huge negative.  I could see splashing Syntyche/Euodia into a splash Clay offense possibly though.

*****

I built a Clay offense that was probably about as close to a NT version of "The Deck" as possible a few months back.  It would need tweaked because of CoW; for one, I'd drop Belt of Truth, Breastplate of Righteousness, Gam's Speech, and Christ's Triumph because of all the new placed enhancement hate.  I'd focus on searching, drawing, banding, and negate/ItB battlewinners.  Just like "The Deck" for OT, Coliseum would be a great addition.  It would probably look something like this:

Heroes (14):
Stephanus/Chloe/Apollos (Corinth)
The Ephesian Mentor/Apollos (Ephesus)
Epaphras/Philemon/Onesimus (Colossae)
All 4 AOG heroes (only 1 CS)
Claudia/Peter/Cornelius

GEs (7):
Elymus Struck Blind, Mercy of James, Word of Their Testimony, Peter's Sermon, Preaching in the Synagogue, Shoes of Peace, Sword of the Spirit

Support cards (3):
I Am Holy
Miraculous Handkerchiefs
Coliseum

Crimson defense

Very solid suggestions overall.

I'd consider James, Leader in Jerusalem for his large body, layered protection of Peter, recursion of Mercy of James and blanket Site access for the whole offense. Probably in place of Stephanus.

With Miraculous Hankies I feel like Onesimus is expendable. Watchful Leaders are a pretty strong addition with all the banding options you have. You just have to make sure you pick the right church.

I'm not a big fan of running so many convert Enhancements (all 2 of them). They're dead weight vs demons and animals. Faith of Moses' Parents is a really solid battle winner that probably belongs in the line up.

I can see the benefits of James.  He would probably never make the cut for me though.  A large body doesn't mean much when there are so many other heroes I want to be attacking with.  If I find myself in need of his recursion, I've probably lost already, because my defense will be small.  Site access is very nice, but with Am Slave, Mayhem, Awake LS, Revealer LS, and Divination LS, I can soul-gen my way past sites (hopefully).  Plus Apollos and Cornelius have site access. 

I'd keep Onesimus, based on experience.  DoU and SSS are the worst possible EEs for this deck to face; I want multiple options to stop them.  In my last iteration of this deck, it had Hankies, Onesimus, and Thorns LS, and I didn't regret any of them.  Plus he's a D1 for Philemon.

I forgot about the two new Clay heroes in CoW!  I could definitely see Watchful Leaders in this deck.  I'd probably cut Stephanus for him, and probably Chloe too, to cut my heroes to 13 and add another defensive card.

I was thinking about my GEs after I posted, and one that I definitely want in there now is Snake Into the Fire.  Faith of Moses' Parents is very good too, as it will work against any EC, not just humans.  I have Peter's Sermon in there primarily for FW and secondarily for Claudius (although most of my battlewinners can beat Claudius).  Preaching in the Synagogue is nice as a CBN option on Peter, but I can see dropping it, as I never attack with Peter.  I'd rework the GEs to this:

Elymas Struck Blind, Mercy of James, Snake Into the Fire, Peter's Sermon, Faith of Moses' Parents, Shoes of Peace, Sword of the Spirit

The issue with this deck, is that because of cards such as Hezekiah's Signet ring, and Cloud of Witnesses Moses, combined with an incredible amount of stand alone blockers and cannot be prevented enhancments, stand-alone heroes and an engine doesn't work as well as you think it does.

At about 8ish cards for defense, how are you effectively countering moses? Also, a good moses deck would run either both of the judges angels, or Auto and angel of the winds. I also think you are underestimating well constructed balanced decks which would be running enough of a character based engine to get to the defense. You also have to draw Throne of Grace.

I'd love for you to point out one of these well constructed, consistent balanced decks for me to see that are built so well.

See today's article on LoR.

I'd love for you to point out one of these well constructed, consistent balanced decks for me to see that are built so well.

See mitch stewart's Judges lists or my own. Or JD's deck from state.