Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Music Leader variants
Forgive me, I am at the airport without my cards so I brought up the new set and the rest is memory. Just wanted to post some Music Leader variant decks for T2. I see Music Leader now being a splash hero that a lot of offenses utilize but do not revolve around. Last year at nationals it seemed like majority of the T1 decks worked around Music Leader and T2 saw a heavy dose of clay/white Music Leader. I like clay/white variants but they usually seem to lean more towards clay instead of white. Chenaniah/Joy to 24 Elders is extremely strong and I am surprised I didn’t see more of it. Here is the list of (relevant) hero’s that Music Elder can retrieve:
Fearless Traveler (White)
Mighty Warrior (Green/Red)
Chenaniah (white)
Music Leader (clay/white)
Asaph (white)
Barak (red)
David, the Psalmist (white/green)
David, the Shepherd (red/purple)
Isaiah (green)
Habakkuk (green)
Miriam (green)
King David (purple)
King Solomon (gold)
Moses (gold/green/white)
24 Elders (white)

Obviously solid white is the easiest route to go as you can easily draw into your enhancements, always have something to play, and can retrieve what you don’t have, but there’s nothing new about that deck.

What I saw that surprised me is how much green hero’s there are. I feel like green/white can easily be done which opens up a few sub-variants. Do you want to use Moses, plagues and prophets with some clay white cloud cards and Word of Christ? Prophets/musicians don’t have too much enhs you can retrieve with green, just David’s Music and Nunc Dimittis, so your main hero’s to attack with would be Moses, David, the Psalmist and Chenaniah to Isaiah or Habakkuk would be good, especially if Isaiah is called and is negating all EC’s/lost souls. Isaiah Moses would be a very tough 1-2 punch on heroes and having plagues and recursion would be awesome too, you just have to watch out for Moses stopping Music Leader.

Red white is similar to green white but red gets the luxury of having A Soldier’s Prayer which can get out any red enhancement, and red also has Sing and Praise which is alright. I like red/white strictly in T2 because having 3x A Soldier’s Prayer and getting out Music Leader early is ridiculous. Being able to search for any red enhancement with ASP while also getting out an enhancement involving music simultaneously is impressively strong and reliable. For this version I wouldn’t even use Sing and Praise and I would just have strong red enhs for ASP to retrieve and do a Chenaniah to David, the Shepherd, Mighty Warrior and Barak.

Because of Clay/White having so many dual colored heroes, you can always do a martyr offense but I won’t post this because it’s been done so many times. I am focusing on newer strategies or lesser used strategies. So I will focus on two rough drafts for white/red and white/green for T2 purposes. I will leave out the Moses version because that is a little more complicated to play and is situational based due to having Moses counteract Music Leader and these strategies are for maximizing Music Leader.

I also want to do a teal variant due to the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, but I won’t have enough time during the flight. Also, I believe you can only have one of those out at a time so I might disband this idea. So if anyone already has one, or a rough draft of one they want to post that would be awesome. I might try to work on this version during the flight off of memory because I feel like although teal doesn’t have anything really music related but Tabernacle is pretty awesome.


*edit* I am about to load up so I didn’t finish the green/white version so I will finish this later unless you guys want to post anything to add.

Jesse has been abusing Music Leader with red for a couple years now. Maybe he will be willing to share any insight beyond what you’ve posted.

So I worked on a teal red version for about two hours and all it turned into was an awesome looking teal red deck without Music Leader. I just don't think there is enough there, let alone red doesn't need ML. Faith of Joshua/ASP and then you add in Tabernacle to recur your teal battle winners and you're set, why use another 2 colors and a hero that will only get you ASP pretty much. I'm bummed Trumpet Blast isn't music related as I get it was used defensively, but they played instruments for days prior to the wall coming down, I would argue that is related to music, I didn't see it in ORDIR though. But Trumpet Blast is a Joshua card so FoJ can get it anyway.

While there definitely is the drawback of having the 2 extra brigades, Music Leader can be great in a red offense because he gets ASP which gets (and recurs) all of your GEs (not to mention YWR x 2), and David the Shepherd who gets all of your Heroes and who is critical to keep in play to make Bravery and Ahimelek CBN. I like to run 2 Music Leaders in T2 because one can get the other and both can be in play together, as well as Barak and Sing and Praise. Now that Mighty Warrior is in the house, using ML with red just went to a whole 'nother level!

Also I usually try to fit in Raising Lazarus (which ASP can get & recur) in case Music Leader (or any other Hero) is discarded. I like to keep 1 ASP in Reserve for using Covenant of Prayer to get whatever I need situationally, and then 2-3 copies in the deck. 

Music Leader is also a defensive card, intimidating opponents into not drawing/searching (especially when you're getting whatever GEs you want), so its value is really huge. I ran my red offense without it for a long time, but people kept recommending adding in the MLs and I haven't regretted it. There's even been times I've rescued souls with MLs using Sword of the Spirit! Finally, I also like to run Abram's Army with a capture defense to keep Signet Ring/Nazareth/etc. from stopping the Music Leaders.

Can Chenaniah band to Mighty Warrior though?  Mighty Warrior's identifier says "Involves Music", not "Musician".

Chenaniah cannot band to him.