Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I think it would need Chariot to help ensure recursion, otherwise a well-timed Plot could dismantle the offense. I do agree that I Am Holy would be a great addition though.

With such a small offense, you must have a big enough defense for Seraph to get back Call to get back Isaiah, and Chamber keeps the two angels alive. I just think CoF would be unnecessary for this to work okay.

Possibly. I'm mostly thinking in terms of keeping Hezekiah alive, but I guess that won't necessarily matter since the main focus would be rescuing with Seraph w/ a Live Coal banded to Isaiah to beat out any big numbers. Can you think of any way to manage to beat a Gates of Samaria defense? The only ways I can think of would require going to 15 cards, which is less than ideal, since that only leaves 26 cards cards for defense (maybe 25 if I bumped it up to 57 for the extra dominant).

With GoS, you could use PoJ and an Assyrian defense, or rely on your defense to take care of it (Abimelech helped me to take down two out of the three GoSs of a 154 carder). I don't think I'd use Hezekiah to be honest. Too much liability can come from basically giving your opponent unlimited initiative.

I love the dominant cap because it pretty much makes stand alone dead. Dont get me wrong i liked stand alone but i got tired of seeing the tgt/stand alone theme. I completely hat the 2good and two evil rule because is it will kill of alot of dominants and slow the game down way too much. Who in their right mind wouldnt run sog+ nj then cm and falling away? Maybe destruction instead but really they are making burial, mayhem, guardian, glory of the lord, grapes, aotl, doubt, harvest time, and  destruction usless cards. I think we should really think about that.

Well, I pretty much disagree with everything in this post. Standalone defenses are alive and well, these new rules just made larger defenses slightly more viable. Standalone might not win Nats anymore, but odds are some kind of small defense will. Nobody is suggesting the more strict dominant restrictions should become the norm, and honestly, I disagree with your assessment of what dominants would stop seeing play. Lots of people don't use Falling Away right now at all, including myself. If dominants were that restricted, you'd actually see a lot of people drop NJ for other more functional dominants as well. Finally, I think Angel of the Lord is a better add than Christian Martyr every time.

Thats fine if you diagree with everything i said but not being able to rescue you own souls and burial being not that great of a dominant anymore really kills standalone. Stand alone was a too easy excuse for a defense anyway that required very little strategy. Hate it or love it but thats how i feel. I never said the 2dom rule was the norm bro. We all know it is up to the host but i was voicing my opinion on it.

I still disagree about stand alone, can you think of a defense that's more efficient than stand alone? 

Also the extra space allowed by the dom cap get four more cards for stand alone to use, let's say they're two magicians, charms, and DoU.  In that case you've done pretty well in the way of defense and just about on par to where you would have been had burial and the rescue restriction been taken away. 

I don't think the Dom cap really gives that much more space. If you take out GoYS, you'll definitely want Lampstand and a temple. If you take out DoN, you'll probably need Captured Ark. If you take out HT, you'll probably want something else to generate souls.

I agree that is was a top tier defense but im saying i hated it because it was too cookie cutter easy to make and i always wreck face against it in my play group especially now because artifacts like three nails are more of a problem with the abcense of destruction. I always save destruction for their house hold idols lock down blocks have way too much intiative to play my cbn enhancements. I do agree on the fact that soul generation is key and that is why iam experimenting with samaritans again.