Cactus Game Design Message Boards

I tried to think of everything that gives site access.  This strategy is 3 fold.  Take sites with Land Dispute.  Destroy/shuffle artifacts with Artifacts Destroyed, DON and Captured Ark.  And remove characters with access to any site from the game with Joseph in Prison/Pride of Simon.  Ideally be playing against OT characters so the EE's cannot be negated.  Obviously I would need to come up with a NT offense.  Could this work?

35 evil cards

phil armorbearer x 5
fallen warrior x 5
land dispute x 5
joseph in prison x 5
lying unto god
pride of simon x 5
simon the sorceror x 2
king jehoahaz
captured ark
destruction of nehushtan
sadducees x 2
mask of self glorification x 2

35 neutral cards

holy of holies x 3
asherah pole x 3
site doubler
site doubler
new testament only
new testament only
color guard
color guard
site remove
site remove
anti-shuffler
anti-shuffler
cannot be prevented
cannot be prevented
set aside a hero
set aside a hero
pergamum x 2
hormah x 2
kir x 2
babylonian banquet hall x 2
babylon x 5
magic charms x 2

NT offense - ?

Just some suggestions--
It could work, but I would suggest making your defense all black to make the "egyptian wise men block and play....joseph in prison?!?!" mismatches a nonissue. You could replace arts destroyed with mask o self glorifications (kills arts) and a lying unto God which can be nice in a pinch against choose the blocker. Cap ark x3 is also nasty aganst art piles.
For initiative, the fallen warrior is nice, but I would reduce it to 2 and replace them and the egyptians/elah with Phil garrisons and some 12 fingers, which can be nasty just by themselves. Pride of simon x5 can go because recursion is powerful in T1, but not as needed in T2 since you just grab 5 of what you like instead of recurring 1 card over and over again (which in prides case you need initiative and you arent gonna get that alot against top decks). You can throw in wrath x2 to d/c their heroes and any of the philistine negates-bring fear/foolish advice, and add phil outpost x2 to grab the phillies. I would also consider adding kirx2 to your sites since it helps against choose the blocker and helps your lockout theme, plus you can put in colorguard lost souls in there to stop the gold meeting the Messiah converts (which will mess up your phillies). You could drop HOH x1 and Ash pole x1 to add the kirs.
Another thing, you could replace the set aside hero LS x2 (which only lasts 1 turn basically) for the anti ignore LS (which stays "turned on through the game" and will help with the ignore stuff like zeb and reubens torn clothes x5 which is nasty).
Garden tomb purple/white or pure silver make very powerful NT offenses.
Have fun with T2--I really like it better than T1 because there can be much more strategy involved and it isn't so much a SOG/NJ race.  

It was my understanding that even if we 3 captured arks I can only shuffle artifacts TWICE FOR THE WHOLE GAME regardless of how many Captured Arks I have.  Same thing with Holy Grail I think.  Was I incorrectly informed on this?

Holy grail only works twice and that's it, no matter how many copies you have.
Captured arkx3 can shuffle a total of 6 arts in a game.

Slugfencer is a National Champion at T2 and a really fun guy to play against.  Once you get your deck together I highly recommend playing against him over RTS some time.  Needless to say all the advice he's given you is really good and I agree with him.

BTW, I'm glad to see you excited about T2!  Welcome to "the dark side".  We have cookies.

Temporarily out of Chocolate Chip though.....

Well, I'm outta here then.

Don't forget about the curses- Wastelands or Confusion of Minds. These two can help stop the site access heroes (CoM) and displace the site access sites (wastelands).

Wastelands: Selected opponent must place a Site from his territory beneath deck. May be used twice per game.

Confusion of Minds: Negate all special abilities on opponents’ Heroes.  An opponent may discard two good Enhancements (or a good Dominant) from hand to discard this card.  Cannot be negated.


P.S. My list of accomplishments- I don't know anyone who hasn't beaten me. 

I assume you are referring to A New Beginning and Hidden Treasures?  I thought that even if a card like Captured Ark gets shuffled back in it does not "reset" back to zero.  Please advise.

Interesting.  Thanks for that clarification.