Welcome back all! After a year off from Redemption for a variety of reasons, I am back and ready to write about cards. Let's get right to my card by card review of Redemption's newest set. I'm going to piece this one out a bit. Be on the lookout for Part 2 (Good Enhancements, Sites, Covenants, DAE, and Fortresses) hopefully Friday, with a Part 3 finale tentatively planned sometime Sunday!
Dominants
The Blinding Light - The most important thing to remember with Dominants is the dominant cap in T1. To be honest, I don't see this card seeing much play due to that cap. It's a cute card, but look for it more as a combo centric card as opposed to receiving actual competitive play.
3/10
The Holy Spirit - Another situational dominant, The Holy Spirit is significantly stronger than The Blinding Light, mostly because Coming of the Spirit can play it from deck or discard, and it is the prerequisite for one of Clay's battle winners. The new fruit of the spirit cards are also fairly strong. I see the Holy Spirit being played marginally, and is an lock to be played with the dominant clay offense that someone will popularize. I don't think it's actually that strong though.
5/10
Heroes
Ananias of Damascus - I think it's pretty indisputable that Paul is one of the best heroes in the game. Ananias brings Paul from the depths of unplayability to at least fringe usage. That's enough. Negating sites is almost just a bonus. Very playable card that will struggle to find usage until someone finds the right deck balance.
6/10
Angel of Deliverance - Combos with various cards that can create captured heroes, but mostly a filler card. I don't see this getting much play as it's a very reactive card to capture, so if you want to counter capture you are better off with something like Blue Tassels.
3/10
Angelic Visitor - This is a very good card, probably one of the best in the set. Peter is a key cog for Disciples, and most every centurion is at least moderately playable. Searching for those key heroes AND protecting them from discard and capture will never be bad. We've seen this for almost 3 years now with various Bulletproof Judges.
9/10
Barnabas - Barnabas is a great example of having too many abilities. Each of his abilities is individually playable, but not too great. Because there's three of them on one card (with CBP) to boot, Barnabas is a very good hero instead of a playable. I wish Redemption would stop putting so many abilities on each hero. Barnabas can only get better when Phase 2 releases a playable Mark as well, so be on the look out for him in the future.
7/10
Cornelius - This card is good in a deck you aren't thinking about - The Garden Tomb! Easy site access with his banding to Peter, and he negates a lot of stuff to boot. Fringe Hero in most decks, but definitely playable. Still suffers from too many abilities syndrome though.
6/10
Ethiopian Treasurer - I guess the ability is good. It's the sort of card you are going to play in your deck because you sort of have to, but that you won't ever actually use because he's going to force to you rescue with him instead of a good hero in order to activate the abililty.
4/10
Faithful Priest - I forsee this card being vastly underrated. I don't think if many people will be playing it in various lists, but if you play Teal, Clay, or a Jerusalem Hero, I don't see why you wouldn't. It's the type of card you always cut from lists until you play it, and then it's really good.
7/10
Liberating Angel - This card is about silly combos. It's not good.
1/10
Mary, Mother of Mark - This is a really interesting card, if only because adding identifiers is cool. I'm not sure how actually playable it is though. I can't see many scenarios where I want to rescue with her. I like the concept though and support it existing.
5/10
Mattias - CBN access to Authority of Christ and Reach of Desparation (which are both in the most common deck Matthias should get played in) can't possibly be bad.
7/10
Messangers of Joppa - The ability is good enough, but it has 51/50 written all over it. It's only good, it's never great, so expect it to get added to a lot of lists at first, then cut out because it's not as good as everything else and you can only play so many cards.
4/10
Nicanor - I'm really glad this has a qualifier, because this ability is REALLY good. I wouldn't be surprised to this guy, another deacon, and a clay TC enhancement or two splashed in decks this year. This ability is off the wall good.
9/10
Nicolas of Antioch - Nic has gone from being a valuable card people seek for its rarity to a card that will be pretty easy to attain. Neither printing is very competitive.
4/10
Paul's Disciples - Will only be played by Josh Kopp. Welcome to Paul combos.
3/10
Peter - Another hero that lends itself to comboing, I see Peter being widely played. In fact, I'd probably bet money that this is the best printing of Peter currently. Look out of this juggernaut. There's just too many decks and too many ways to make things Clay for this to not be incredible. Easily the best hero in the set.
10/10
Phillip the Evangelist - An excellent bit hero. His playable depends on how scared you are of Magicians and artifacts, or how playable Phillip's Daughters is. A good weapon for Clay to have even though it probably won't see a ton of play.
5/10
Prochurus - I don't hate it, but I don't love it either. I'm not super high on Widow's Tables (yet). If Tables gets better, so does Prochurus. Negating sites has been a common theme this set, but it's certainly not a bad ability to have.
4/10
Reassuring Angels - It's Angel with a Secret Name! But for Disciples! With Clay! Yeah, this card is really good. There's just too much you can do with it. Thaddeus just got even more ridiculous, to be quite honest.
9/10
Rhoda - A fun bit hero that stops some key battle winners, Rhoda will be played in any clay offense you build unless I'm missing something obvious. There's just no reason not to.
8/10
Simon the Tanner - I LOVE this ability. However, it's completely and utterly unplayable except for some stupid combos. This is a defensive card, not an offensive one. It won't get played much, nor should it.
2/10
Stephen - Get read for some serious Rhoda into Stephen action. That combo has great synergy, plus CBN enhancements. 7/7 helps to balance it out, but Stephen is still probably the best RA option for Clay most of the time.
8/10
Tabitha - I initially thought this card was really good, but upon thinking about how far away the game has shifted from repeated playing the same super good, target all enhancement, Tabitha is really just another card. There's probably some way to make a strong use out of it though, so I wouldn't sleep on her.
5/10
Timon - And Pumba. The ability is ok. Another card that seems like it gets defaulted into your clay deck, but what does that really say about Clay?
6/10
Widows of Joppa - Oh boy, a completely splashable Mayhem and Vain Philosophy counter! I bet no one plays this at all and it doesn't even matter!
2/10
That about wraps us up for tonight folks! Sorry, I don't have to endurance to just plow through these cards like I used to! Westy and I have also talked about maybe tossing a video up sometime in the upcoming week so you can get some combined thoughts as well if you like video formats, so be on the lookup.
-Olijar
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