Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Intro:

This deck started well over a year ago as I was reading The Schaefer's write up on his Type 2 Creation of the World deck that he ran at Nationals in 2019. I decided it was time to build Creation for Type 1. The resulting deck won the Oregon state tournament for me in December of 2020. I continued to tweak the type 1 Creation deck after that. The Schaefer knew that I had pioneered building Creation for Type 1 and so he was kind enough to reach out to me when he discovered the LAFS+Pigs combo and its feasibility in the Creation build.

One thing that had tantalized me for quite a while was the concept of pre-block Creation. One of the great issues both The Schaefer and myself encountered playing Creation was that people elected to just not block until they had elements to counter. Playing creation pre-block off HT seemed like a great way to go. We were aware of being able to do so with Jacob, Follower of God but many of the traditional plays after Turn 1 relied on FooF Jacob including the latest discovery: LAFS+Pigs. So work began on finding a way to play Creation off HT without using Jacob, Follower of God to maximize the potential of both Creation and the LAFS combo which LOVES to be played first turn pre-block.

Low and behold I discovered the way: The Widow at Zarephath+Elijah. The Widow at Zarephath grabs both Elijah and Creation from reserve setting up pre-block Creation with Hidden Treasures up. This was revolutionary for us at the time since it meant that we could grab LAFS with Jared in the creation band and then play it off of Jacob (FooF) at the end of the band all pre-block.

The great beauty of The Widow at Zarephath+Elijah build vs. the Jacob, Follower of God build which I Am Bread, The Schaefer, Red, and myself are now on and utilizing is that The Widow LAFS build allows for playing the LAFS combo every turn. This is the most consistent way to combo although it is not as good at dealing with counters. Here is the list:

The Repeatable Widow LAFS:

Deck (50 cards):

1    The Widow at Zarephath
1    Jacob (FooF)
1    Midianite's Slave
1    Isaac, Willing Sacrifice / Isaac, the Blessed (LoC)
1    Perez, the Younger / Perez, Bursting Forth (LoC)
1    Jared, the Beholder / Jared (Shall Come Down) (LoC)
1    Hezron, the Enclosed / Hezron, the Surrounded (LoC)
1    Melchizedek (CoW)
1    Terah, the Delayed / Terah, the Wanderer (LoC)
1    Father Abraham / Faithful Abraham (LoC)
1    Nahor, the Scorched / Nahor, the Noble (LoC)
1    Adam, the Exile / Adam (Man) (LoC)
1    Amos (PoC)
1    Enosh, the Worshiper / Enosh (Mortal) (LoC)
1    Judah, the Leader / Judah, the Substitute (LoC)
1    Moses, Friend of God
1    Noah, the Righteous / Noah (Rest and Comfort) (LoC)

1    Faith
1    Faith of Samuel
1    Offering Your Son
1    Numerous as The Stars (PoC)
1    Fountain of Living Water (PoC)
1    The Emmaus Road
1    Out of Egypt
1    Faith of Sarah
1    A Soldier's Prayer

1    Falling Away
1    Destruction of Nehushtan (PoC)
1    The Second Coming
1    Three Woes (RoJ)
1    Chronicles of the Kings (LoC)
1    Chariot of Fire
1    Mayhem (FoM)

1    Lost Soul (Hunter)
1    Lost Soul (Jeremiah 28:6) (Exiles)
1    Lost Soul (Remant)
1    Lost Soul (Awake)
1    Lost Soul (Lawless)
1    Lost Soul (Prosperity)
1    Lost Soul Luke 15:15-16 (Pigs)

1    Forbidden Fruit
1    Delivered
1    Seven Years of Famine

1    Foreign Wives
1    The Serpent (Promo)
1    Beasts of the Earth (LoC)
1    Conjurers
1    Mounted Forces

1    The Wages of Sin (FoM)

1    Hidden Treasures

Reserve:

1    Creation of the World
1    The Angel of the Winds
1    Elijah (PoC)
1    Love at First Sight (LoC)
1    Book of the Covenant (PoC)
1    Covenant of Prayer (RoJ)
1    Belshazzar's Banquet
1    Solomon's Dream (LoC)
1    Scattered
1    The First Sacrifice

Perks-

The Follower LAFS build posted by I Am Bread is better than this build for several reasons and is the build our team is on right now. That being said this build does have some perks beyond just being able to play the LAFS combo every turn of the game.

1. This build allows for an extra dom slot that is not taken up by Awesome Things which is used once on the first LAFS play in the Follower LAFS build and then is gone. I use this extra slot to include DoN (PoC) to enable for an extra way to deal with counters. Angel of the Lord also has validity here as some extra beef for winning battles. Before we exposed all of this to the world I was running Angel of the Lord but now that people know about the broken garbage that is the LAFS combo, DoN is the better choice in my mind to deal with counters.

2. This build protects obtaining the Creation band combo pieces incredibly well: a threat to the combo in the Follower build is drawing the heroes you need in the Creation band in the first 8 (Mahalalel, Adam (to get David), and Jared). In this build you do not need Adam to get David so all you need is Jacob and Jared in the Creation band. Imagine if you draw both Judah the Leader and Jacob (FoF)... How do you get Jacob into battle to play LAFS at the end of the band? Well thankfully Midianite's Slave can bring Judah into battle who can get Jacob into battle. Nifty. Adam can bring Jared into battle just like in the Follower build. Additionally this build allows for Melchizedek to be run instead of Mahalalel since you do not have to worry about David needing to convert to meek, meaning if Melchy is drawn you can still play Pigs from deck since he can play the soul from territory and does not have to be in battle like Mahalalel. That means you really only need to get Jacob and Jared in the Creation band which is 1 less than is an absolute must to band in with the Follower build.

3. Having Judah the leader is a fantastic way to deal with nuisances like Coliseum.

4. Every character in the defense can have both Wages and Delivered played off of them not to mention Beasts of the Earth is a nice tech against Moses (CoW) and other territory class pains. The extra dom slot also means there is room for Mayhem to be run for an auto block with Foreign Wives. This defense also can use Forbidden Fruit as a sneaky battle winner which is nice. Between Foreign Wives (Mayhem auto block), Falling Away, Conjurers/Mounted Forces to Belsh Banquet and Scattered that is about all the blocking this deck needs.

5. Let's say someone is a meany and takes out Hezron. Good news is you can use ASP to get LAFS from discard but be warned that means you can only play FoS twice instead of three times if you do this. Watch out for misplays in this scenario. Take care of business.

6. Perez is a handy card. Say your opponent has an EC you do not want to block in territory (I am looking at you Red Dragon and King of Tyrus) no problem just bounce them to hand and then LAFS them away.

7. This build has the extra soul gen of Midianite's slave.

8. Faith of Sarah is a great tutor for The Widow and a keen way to recur any of my heroes.

9. Elijah is a sneaky rescue off HT. I just choose the EC I want to block with Elijah and I get to play Emmaus Road to reserve them off HT, The First Sacrifice to Underdeck their EC, or Faith of Sam to do my combo and bounce the EC at the end after LAFS is played with Perez leaving them no way to counter Perez due to their hand being obliterated.

Maybeboard-

1. Faith of Abraham likely has a place here as a contingency plan for playing this stuff post block if HT gets taken out but I just have zero clue what to cut for it.

2. As was mentioned earlier Angel of the Lord is an alternate option to DoN in the final dom slot. An argument could be made for it over Mayhem and for keeping DoN in that situation.

3. Shipwreck is also an optional meta call in the last Dom slot.

Very good write up! Well done Bro!

What about Shipwreck instead of DoN? In order to get rid of SH or Nazareth or similar?

This model of transparency is good for the community. In other CCGs there is some transparency regarding combos and if they are truly solid they will survive scrutiny and win. In fact in MtG there is an entire database filled with combos that exist for the commander format. I think part of the reason the leadership of Redemption squelched combos historically (Gabe mentioned this on the Redemption discord I believe) is because people were not transparent. If we are transparent and share broken combos with the community this will lead to a healthier game overall.

Once I wipe you out, there's no way back in.

I've been looking at this and thinking on it, flipping through cards and the like since the combo was posted and I am having a hard time figuring out how this is a good thing.  If I want to play solitaire, I do not need to buy Redemption cards, go to tournaments, etc...  Yes, there are lots of counters, but the reality is that it is always easier to be the one playing the combo than to be the one trying to counter the combo.  Having to include the counters disrupts the build of the deck and in most instances, makes it less consistent and therefore, less apt to win.  The decks that have the best chance are the ones that already happen to have some counters included or even are based around them (i.e. Moses), but that doesn't mean its enough or can be played in such a way as to stop the combo.

One of the key premises of this combo is to ensure going first.  The opponent, whether they tech against LaFS+Pigs/SyoF or not, has 1 chance, and 1 chance only to even take a turn, let alone make it to turn #2 with any opportunity to play even 1 card.  So basically, when these decks work as designed, no matter which build is used, the game is over after only 1 round played and the opponent is forced to zombie through the rest of the turns of the game as the required # of Redeemed Souls is accumulated.  How is this good?  There is literally no interaction between players other than to request permission to search the deck for more Lost Souls to redeem.  This does not accomplish the vision and purpose of the game.

Transparency is great and I love the sharing of combos but I don't think being transparent should be reason to keep such a combo as a viable option for a deck.  If I were to play against this without prior knowledge of its existence, I would be surprised if I didn't just walk away from the table.  Knowing about it now, I'm sure I'd stay and finish the game but I would feel completely helpless and frustrated the entire time.  People should not be forced into a situation like this.  I hope there is some sort of action taken to remove this combo from playability, whether via ban, errata, or whatever. 

Would I be wrong that making LaFS full CBN (instead of just CBN by an evil card) with an errata would remove this combo from existence?

Closeness to Nationals is a non-issue as demonstrated last year when a combo was shared and immediately a change was made.  I don't remember how close it was but it was close to same timing as this one.

While I'm also of the mind that this combo should not be allowed to exist either, it's not quite the same as last year's "combo". Last year's combo was more of an exploitation of the rules rather than an interaction between cards. This combo is essentially Besieging the City/Mayhem, which was eventually fixed but allowed to last longer. Obvious difference with this one, and why I think doing something about it before Nats would not be uncalled for, is that it's an offense-based combo that is much easier to pull off on turn 1.

All of this makes so much sense to me. I get why there has been no action to change it. I guess that this combo in particular has high odds of your opponent not even being able to play which to me defeats the essence of a card game. Yes counters do exist and I have even found some not mentioned but reality is if they go first, you could be playing without your cards and that is no fun.

Quote from: RedemptionAggie on July 08, 2021, 09:09:32 PM

That's not to say this combo definitely gets errata if revealed back in April (since the simplest solution is making LaFS fully CBN) - there's just a much higher chance it happens then.

So what it sounds like is that either Joe or I should have revealed this back when we discovered it in late March. Oops.

how dare you hide it, lol. 

Another potential option I think should be looked at is an into prep like teams has being added into all formats. It would allow each player to put some stuff down before an attack like this wipes your hand out. It would also make it so you can play down the counters to some stuff even if you don't get to go first.

Has anyone used any of these decks at a tournament yet?

Quote from: TheJaylor on July 09, 2021, 02:02:38 AM

Quote from: RedemptionAggie on July 08, 2021, 09:09:32 PM

That's not to say this combo definitely gets errata if revealed back in April (since the simplest solution is making LaFS fully CBN) - there's just a much higher chance it happens then.

So what it sounds like is that either Joe or I should have revealed this back when we discovered it in late March. Oops.

how dare you hide it, lol.

Ha, kinda like Joe said, I hadn't really discovered the consistency of it until awhile later. By that point I was kinda hoping I was the only one who knew about it and could just take everyone by surprise at Nats and then it could be dealt with afterwards. That way it'd only be one game that each of my opponent's would have to deal with it instead of now where it'll be every other game at the top tables.