My good friend Chris, who is currently staying with me, recently wrote an excellent article detailing why 57 card decks might be viable. It can be found here. 57 card decks is one of many topics Chris and I have been discussing while he’s been here, and while I agree with his points, I’d like to give the disadvantages for 57 card decks as well.
Larger decks require more lost souls. While this can technically be an advantage as well, as some lost souls have fantastic abilities, I would argue that it’s largely a disadvantage. The point of the game is to rescue five lost souls, and using souls like the N.T. and Female Only is a great way to stall out your opponent. More lost souls means there’s more of a chance at drawing the souls you don’t want. This is particularly noticeable at the end of the game, when all of your souls are on the table. Having one less lost soul can make the difference between your opponent winning the game and losing it. Perhaps you played Confusion to discard your opponent’s Son of God, and with Burial or the Exchanger, you can manipulate your souls to only have N.T. and Female Only. This can force your opponent to rescue with un-ideal heroes, or perhaps not be able to rescue at all.
Larger decks mean there’s less of a chance at drawing cards you want. This is generally the largest reason given for smaller decks. In a 50 card deck, Son of God occupies 2% of your deck. In a 57 card deck, that number shrinks to 1.7%. In other words, there’s a greater chance of drawing Son of God earlier in a smaller deck. While Olijar is much more adept at giving specific statistics, this is general common sense.
More cards just aren’t necessary. Two out of three of the arguments for larger decks Chris used are so you can include more speed, more defense, more dominants, and/or more soul generation. In other words, more options is better. However, smaller decks have proven time and time again that they are just as capable of winning with less cards in the deck. Sure, larger decks can do well, but it isn’t necessary. Let’s look at a history of nationals winning deck counts. The rule changes that occurred in 2012 was the large reason behind the meta shift we currently see today, and the reason behind the magic number 57—which allows for 8 dominants while still keeping a relatively small deck.
1st 2nd 3rd
2013 50 50 Unk
2012 52 51 57
2011 51 51 50/70
The 2013 third place person, Justin Sangillo, was playing a Disciples/Gray deck, and was likely at 50-52 cards, although is unknown because he never posted his deck. It’s clear that historically, larger decks have not done as well.
Part of the reason behind the lack of success is that not a lot of good players play decks larger than 52 cards. This is because top tier players recognize the advantages and disadvantages, and will only play a larger deck if they’re confident it’s the right play. This was the case for me in 2011, where I employed both the use of a 50 and a 70 card deck. However, when I build a deck the night before a tournament, I always go with 50-52. While this isn’t exactly a reason to play a smaller deck, this is a pattern among top players, and is important to recognize.
So to answer Chris’ question: are 57 card decks viable? Yes. Larger decks have always been viable. However, are 57 card decks the best play? I’m going to say no, but ultimately, it’s your initiative. What will you play?
-Westy
Saturday, May 31, 2014
Monday, December 16, 2013
Lock Decks
Post Nationals Depression continues, and I’m still fiddling with random ideas, but for the most part not even touching Redemption. I’ll work a bit more on some YouTube videos, but if you haven’t seen any of my Aug/Sept ROOT adventures, you can check them out here, where I use a rough Gates of Samaria deck to go a mediocre 3-3 in ROOT. The key here is that I had a lot of fun, and that’s what Redemption is all about. Some of the most fun decks I’ve ever played were lock decks, and I spent most of my early career of Redemption trying to make them work.
Lock decks are a fairly common and powerful archetype in other TCGs, and a lock deck even won the Pokemon US National Tournament this past summer. Lock decks come in a variety of forms, but they all share one goal: to make it impossible for your opponent to win. Lock decks tend to be challenging to play, as one mistake can cost you the game, and make for extremely strategic games on both sides. Many people claim that it’s not fun to play against these sorts of decks, but I find that with correct deck building and smart play, they lead to some of the most fun games I’ve ever played.
Site Lock: Probably the first deck archetype that comes to mind when I mention lock decks are Site Lock decks, which were fairly well known up until the Disciples expansion. Site Lock decks seek to use Sites to prevent heroes from rescuing, and contain cards that attempt to remove any site access cards the opponent may have. The reason these decks completely died out with the release of the Disciples expansion was Fishing Boat, a set-aside fortress that grants site access. At the time, there were no cards that could discard it, and it was played in ~30% of top decks. However, this is no longer the case; Assyrian Siege Army is the premier set-aside fortress discarder, and can also take out artifacts and sites that may grant site access. Additionally, Fishing Boat is no longer guaranteed to be seen in the top decks. With Site Lock being dead for years, many people have dropped extra site access, and rely on 1-2 cards and a multitude of heroes, allowing you to take the competition by surprise and come out on top. Unfortunately, Lost Soul generation is a very common strategy in aggressive decks, and while you may be able to keep all of your lost souls safe in sites, your opponent can pull out another one of your souls or create one of their own to rescue. You need both sites and a substantial defense to fend these rescues off. Pale Green, Brown, and Black tend to be the best Site Lock defenses, and offensive choice depends heavily on the defense, but Genesis can use Jacob’s Dream to steal a Site from your opponent. Many people have said Site Lock is dead, but that sort of thinking will only aid in its rise to victory.
Soul Control: While this is technically a lock deck, and not a control deck, Soul Control just sounds so cool, and John Earley threatened to steal all my Bucklers if I didn’t use his name for it. Soul Control seeks to remove all lost souls from your deck or land of bondage, making it impossible for your opponent rescue 5 lost souls. This is accomplished several different ways. Burial, is of course the obvious card to use, but you can also discard lost souls from the top of your deck using cards like Jephthah in combination with Washing Hands. Discarding isn’t the only way to rid your deck of souls though. If you use cards like the Wanderer Lost Soul or Nebushashban to exchange lost souls with your opponent, you can then shuffle their souls back into their deck with a card like Death of Unrighteous, leaving yours in their land of bondage. Alternatively, you can put those lost souls to the bottom of their deck with Hormah, or exchange for a Captured Hero and then use I am Redemption to return it to territory. The deck has received a lot of help from a shifting metagame due to the I/J starters, as previously Soul Generation was primarily done by using the Hopper lost soul, or evil characters like The Amalekite’s Slave or Assyrian Survivor. Although these cards still see play, the more common soul generation are cards like Samaritan Water Jar, Fishers of Men, and Gideon’s Call, which merely accelerate the drawing of your lost souls, and don’t actually help in the long run against a Soul Control deck. Gray and Pale Green work best for Soul Control, and a Hormah is a pretty key addition as well. The offense can be a few different things, but Judges are the ideal choice because of Jephthah. There are many creative ways to get rid of these souls, but be careful, because a simple Death of Unrighteous can shuffle all the lost souls you gave to your opponent back to you.
Hand Lock: Currently, this deck does not exist, but it has won a National tournament before. I am, of course, referring to the Sin in the Camp deck, originally built by Clift Crysel back in 2007, but piloted by Gabe Isbell to a T2-2P first place finish at California Nats in 2009. This deck seeks to rid your opponent of having any cards in his hand, ever. A similar breed of deck would be Hand Control, which has won Nationals in T1-2P in both 2008 and 2013, but the decks are distinctly different because Hand Control still gives your opponent a chance to play cards. Because of the Sin in the Camp deck, its unlikely Hand Lock will ever return, as SitC was given an errata to one per territory, and I doubt the playtesters will print another card like it, but you can perhaps do a soft lock by ridding their hand of cards and then setting up SitC, limiting them to 2 cards per turn, and then using The Generous Widow or other cards to discard them every turn, but they still have the opportunity to use draw cards to gain a hand back. I really don’t mind that this deck will never return, but I also don’t think the Sin in the Camp errata is necessary anymore when Covenant With Death currently shuts it down cold, and many other cards can be added to help beat it. I only had the displeasure of playing against it once, all the way back in 2007, and I just sat there and passed the entire game. This is the one lock deck that I think creates negative player experience.
These are the three types of lock decks in Redemption. There are other types of locks, but they really don’t function like a standard lock deck. Examples of this would be Hero Lock (ridding your opponents of heroes) and Deck Lock (running your opponent completely out of resources). The reason I say they don’t function like standard decks is because these goals are very late game and depend in part on your opponent, whereas the others set up the lock as soon as possible all on their own. In future, we may have some sort of Hero lock, where you put a good multicolor card in your opponent’s territory, play Broken Cisterns, and have Plagued with Diseases active, but currently this is very difficult to accomplish. Currently the only way would be to use Seven Wicked Spirits to exchange with one of their characters, band to SWS, exchange with Saul, convert Saul to Paul, paralyze Paul with Palsy, place Broken Cisterns in territory, which will then decrease any hero they put in their territory by */8, and they can’t even attack with Paul. The main issue with this is that they can still put heroes directly into battle (Goliath helps solve that problem), and of course */9 and greater would be fine, as you can’t activate Plagued with Diseases without killing Paul. However this is still a soft lock and is completely unreasonable to pull off. In future, however, decrease could do something along these lines, and is something to keep an eye out for.
Again, I think the metagame is ripe for a Lock deck to come out on top, just like Hand Control accomplished last year. People are moving more and more towards balanced lists, accelerating souls instead of generating them, and are dropping cards that are used solely for those matchups. With a good deck build and skillful playing, you can come on top at your next tournament with these decks. -Andrew
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Treating Post-National's Depression
Ahh, September. National’s was a month ago and the forums are quieting down. Normally we have a new set to look at and start testing, but we received the 2013 set early, and have already had the biggest tournament of the year to settle the 2013-2014 metagame. We just saw all our friends at Nationals, and we have to wait an entire year to see some of them again. This begins what I (and the Pokémon community) like to call Post-National’s Depression. It’s times like these when I honestly don’t even feel like playing Redemption, and it’s why there’s been very little activity on RMG recently. However, there are ways to combat PND if you get creative.
1. Invent new ways to play the game. Although Gameplay Variations is among the least popular forums, there have been a lot of types (such as Type Ban or Type 3) that have gotten enough attention as to be played online. I would like to suggest you be a bit more creative than just changing how decks are built, but actually change the gameplay. Make players discard two cards in order to play a dominant, or perhaps players draw a card every time an evil character gets a block. There are tons of things you can do to experiment with gameplay that will results in hours of fun. Sometimes a change of pace is all you need.
2. Create new cards. This is really just another way to reinvent the game. The main issue with this is most of the community is online, but Gabe recently showed me that RTS actually has a Card Expansion Creator built by GamerX. Additionally, with Lambo’s card creator, it’s easier than ever to think of new and exciting ideas that you can print out and test on your own. It was amazing the crowd that gathered to see Reanimation (a zombie version of Redemption, where the evil characters attack to eat brains) get played at nats. If you really want to make the game new and exciting, you’ll really have to be creative and shake up the way we think about the game.
3. Start a Redemption project. This can be as simple as my 32 person Hamachi network, or it can be more complex, like Lambo’s card creator. This often brings excitement, and improves Redemption as a whole, potentially for the rest of its existence. You can combine this with #1 and host an online gameplay-variation tournament. Chris had a great way to draw people to his tournament by offering monetary incentives. March Madness and April Fools and how it kept people involved in Redemption for 2 months, and I hope for its return in 2014. However, the best Redemption project you can start is a playgroup. This expands the player-base, lets you meet new people, and ultimately increases the chance that we’ll get an expansion every year. It’s even possible to make money, albeit difficult.
4. Build rogue decks. This is currently what I’ve been experimenting with. Redemption has a very large card pool, and there are a lot of untapped potential for decks. Many people wrote off hand-control as being a thing of the past, but it just won Nationals. The metagame has shifted and really opened up the possibilities to fun new decks.
5. Post controversial threads about improving the game. Yes, this is a joke, but only partially. The Top Cut thread was very interesting and had me thinking about the possibilities. Last year I posted a thread about changing the structure of the Elder system, and it brought about a lot of good discussion. Unfortunately, a lot of these threads end up being just that—discussion. However, I was thrilled with Top Cut being implemented this year, and it’s great to see that Rob is willing to listen to the player-base. RMG has a few ideas of its own that we will propose throughout the year.
1. Invent new ways to play the game. Although Gameplay Variations is among the least popular forums, there have been a lot of types (such as Type Ban or Type 3) that have gotten enough attention as to be played online. I would like to suggest you be a bit more creative than just changing how decks are built, but actually change the gameplay. Make players discard two cards in order to play a dominant, or perhaps players draw a card every time an evil character gets a block. There are tons of things you can do to experiment with gameplay that will results in hours of fun. Sometimes a change of pace is all you need.
2. Create new cards. This is really just another way to reinvent the game. The main issue with this is most of the community is online, but Gabe recently showed me that RTS actually has a Card Expansion Creator built by GamerX. Additionally, with Lambo’s card creator, it’s easier than ever to think of new and exciting ideas that you can print out and test on your own. It was amazing the crowd that gathered to see Reanimation (a zombie version of Redemption, where the evil characters attack to eat brains) get played at nats. If you really want to make the game new and exciting, you’ll really have to be creative and shake up the way we think about the game.
3. Start a Redemption project. This can be as simple as my 32 person Hamachi network, or it can be more complex, like Lambo’s card creator. This often brings excitement, and improves Redemption as a whole, potentially for the rest of its existence. You can combine this with #1 and host an online gameplay-variation tournament. Chris had a great way to draw people to his tournament by offering monetary incentives. March Madness and April Fools and how it kept people involved in Redemption for 2 months, and I hope for its return in 2014. However, the best Redemption project you can start is a playgroup. This expands the player-base, lets you meet new people, and ultimately increases the chance that we’ll get an expansion every year. It’s even possible to make money, albeit difficult.
4. Build rogue decks. This is currently what I’ve been experimenting with. Redemption has a very large card pool, and there are a lot of untapped potential for decks. Many people wrote off hand-control as being a thing of the past, but it just won Nationals. The metagame has shifted and really opened up the possibilities to fun new decks.
5. Post controversial threads about improving the game. Yes, this is a joke, but only partially. The Top Cut thread was very interesting and had me thinking about the possibilities. Last year I posted a thread about changing the structure of the Elder system, and it brought about a lot of good discussion. Unfortunately, a lot of these threads end up being just that—discussion. However, I was thrilled with Top Cut being implemented this year, and it’s great to see that Rob is willing to listen to the player-base. RMG has a few ideas of its own that we will propose throughout the year.
There are also things that Cactus could do to help beat PND; as previously mentioned, in past this has been combated by releasing a new set, but this only delays the issue. While it’s fun to test the new cards, it really isn’t that hard to catch up on things towards the summer, and we saw that this year (though there was a bit of a time crunch with the 2013 Set only being legal a month before nationals).
1. Have large tournaments throughout the year. The simplest solution I can see would be Fall/Spring States, Winter Regionals, and Summer Nationals. This means that you have to playtest throughout the year, and it brings excitement while spreading your card game costs throughout the year. As far as I know, there is no date restriction on tournaments, and yet we only see the big tournaments in the summer. Yes, I’m proposing having State Tournaments twice a year, but this is chiefly due to needing something each season. It could be that each State gets 2 tournaments, or each state may choose only one. I understand that school will be in session during this time, but Bill Voigt’s T2 Only Tournament is hosted in March, and has been very successful. The main issue would be a set metagame after Regionals, but that’s where #2 comes in.
2. Release sets throughout the year. This is what many other TCGs do, and it works fairly well. I know what you’re thinking, “But Cactus doesn’t have the money for that, Westy!” Yes, that’s true, we can’t release 4 full size boosters per year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t divide the sets. The 2013 set, for example, could have released the starter deck and then the tin after nationals (or even January 2014), and FooF could have released 5 tins at a time. This allows Cactus to release a subset and then generate revenue for the next subset, while still allowing for the same size card-pool at nationals. It also gives the Elders the opportunity to let the metagame settle just enough to shake it up with cards like Scattered and Foreign Wives. However, this ultimately succumbs to the same delaying issue that any new set has without #1.
1. Have large tournaments throughout the year. The simplest solution I can see would be Fall/Spring States, Winter Regionals, and Summer Nationals. This means that you have to playtest throughout the year, and it brings excitement while spreading your card game costs throughout the year. As far as I know, there is no date restriction on tournaments, and yet we only see the big tournaments in the summer. Yes, I’m proposing having State Tournaments twice a year, but this is chiefly due to needing something each season. It could be that each State gets 2 tournaments, or each state may choose only one. I understand that school will be in session during this time, but Bill Voigt’s T2 Only Tournament is hosted in March, and has been very successful. The main issue would be a set metagame after Regionals, but that’s where #2 comes in.
2. Release sets throughout the year. This is what many other TCGs do, and it works fairly well. I know what you’re thinking, “But Cactus doesn’t have the money for that, Westy!” Yes, that’s true, we can’t release 4 full size boosters per year, but that doesn’t mean we can’t divide the sets. The 2013 set, for example, could have released the starter deck and then the tin after nationals (or even January 2014), and FooF could have released 5 tins at a time. This allows Cactus to release a subset and then generate revenue for the next subset, while still allowing for the same size card-pool at nationals. It also gives the Elders the opportunity to let the metagame settle just enough to shake it up with cards like Scattered and Foreign Wives. However, this ultimately succumbs to the same delaying issue that any new set has without #1.
Post Nationals Depression is probably one of the greatest enemies of Redemption. It’s very easy to end the summer off on a high note at Nationals, and then shelf your cards while you adjust back to a fall school/work schedule—and then never pull those cards back off the shelf. I love Redemption, and I honestly don’t ever see myself quitting the game while it still lives, but I hate to see people leave from a natural lull in the game. Redemption needs to grow, but it also needs to keep the current players interested throughout the entire year. With a bit of creativity and some help from Cactus, we can beat PND.
-Westy
-Westy
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Tips for a Successful National Tournament
Nationals is just over one week away, and there’s precious
little time for all of the final preparations. I constantly find myself caught off-guard by how close
Nationals sneaks up on me, and this summer has gone particularly quickly due to
work and having two previous Redemption tournaments within a month of
nationals. In addition, the latest
set has been tournament legal for about a month, and there are a lot of
things that have changed that time hasn’t sorted out yet. Maybe this is your first Nationals, and
you aren’t quite sure what to expect, or how to make the best of it. I’ve been to seven National
Tournaments, and developed a quick checklist so you can be fully prepared for
Nationals.
1. Have your deck(s) ready. By ready, I mean built, tested, sleeved, and if you have to transfer any cards between decks for different categories, write it down. I may be the biggest offender of this, as I’ve gone to the last two tournaments with a completely untested and unbuilt deck, as well as convincing at least two people to switch their decks right before the 2012 National tournament, but I can’t stress this enough. At MN States, I forgot to add Moses to my Judges/TGT deck. It may not have made a huge difference at that tournament, but it could have been detrimental with just a few more rounds. It can be silly mistakes like this that can cost you at the top tables.
1. Have your deck(s) ready. By ready, I mean built, tested, sleeved, and if you have to transfer any cards between decks for different categories, write it down. I may be the biggest offender of this, as I’ve gone to the last two tournaments with a completely untested and unbuilt deck, as well as convincing at least two people to switch their decks right before the 2012 National tournament, but I can’t stress this enough. At MN States, I forgot to add Moses to my Judges/TGT deck. It may not have made a huge difference at that tournament, but it could have been detrimental with just a few more rounds. It can be silly mistakes like this that can cost you at the top tables.
2. Be confident. Never count yourself out of the
running. I can’t tell you how many
times I’ve gone up against a great player and been extremely nervous about it,
and end up making misplays because of it.
With a good deck, a strategic mind, and a bit of luck, you can beat
anybody—I guarantee it. Just last
week at MW Regionals, a relatively new player dealt me my only loss of the
tournament in the first round. Now
don’t go to the complete opposite end and be arrogant either. Just have fun and take each round as it
comes.
3. Be social. My first National Tournament in 2005 is
probably the least favorite of all of them because I did nothing but hangout
with my local playgroup. It’s
natural to want to stay with the people you know, and nerds are often more
introverted than most, but I guarantee you that being more outgoing is the way
to go. That said, also be
respectful to others and don’t cling to people. 2006 was a much different year, as I knew very few people
who traveled all the way to New York.
I was forced to meet new people who I had previously only encountered
online, and people like Kirk Dennison and Ben Arp graciously put up with my
middle school behavior. I later
reconnected with them in 2008 and Kirk to this day is one of my favorite people
to see at a tournament. So don’t
be afraid to introduce yourself to people, ask their forum names, and get some
of the legends to sign your Que card.
I’m not saying to complete ditch those you know, but do go out of your
way to meet new people.
4. Take care of
yourself. Eat, sleep, and Once
again, I break this rule all the time, and only got two and a half hours the
night before MW Regionals. The
difference with Nationals is that it takes place over several days, and by the
end of it you will be completely exhausted and it won’t be fun. This past week I slept 13 hours the
night after MW Regionals, and at 2011 I carried around a quilt and pillow and
slept between rounds due to lack of sleep. You need to take care of your body, and sleep and Perkins
are a few necessary ways to do this.
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Deck Architect: Abomination of an Abomination Deck
It's time for another post, and today I'm going to step back a bit form the abstractions I've been posting lately. Rather than discuss theory, let's look at a deck I've been using recently. It's 10-4, but probably should be 11-3 except that I can't play it right! I used it to a 3-1 record at PA states.
You will quickly notice it's a heavy defensive deck, but it's built a little bit more complex than that. The goal is for the deck to set up as quickly as possible - specifically to begin taking souls as soon as I possibly can. You'll notice some unique choices because of that.
Cards in deck: 56
Lost Souls: 7
Lost Soul (can't be prevented)
Lost Soul (deck discard)
Lost Soul (female only)
Lost Soul (N.T. only)
Lost Soul (Site Discard)
Lost Soul (site doubler)
Lost Soul (Wanderer)
Dominants: 7
Angel of the Lord
Grapes of Wrath
Son of God
Christian Martyr
Destruction of Nehushtan
Mayhem
Vain Philosophy
Fortresses: 3
Herod's Temple
High Places
The Garden Tomb
Sites: 4
Golgotha
Caesarea Philippi
Lystra
Chorazin
Artifacts: 6
Chariot of Fire
Darius' Decree
Gifts of the Magi
Holy Grail
Lampstand of the Sanctuary
Magic Charms
Heroes: 7
Jephthah
The Generous Widow
Watchful Servant
Hur
Ethiopian Treasurer
John
The Magi
Hero Enhancements: 3
Feast of Trumpets
Meeting the Messiah
Authority of Christ
Evil Characters: 12
User of Curious Arts
Lot's Wife
Simon the Magician
Emperor Galba
Emperor Tiberius
Emperor Vitellius
Foreign Wives
Scribe
Antiochus Epiphanes IV
The Winged Leopard
The Goat with Horn
Evil Enhancements: 8
Ashtaroth Worship
Abomination of Desolation
Joseph in Prison
Stone of Thebez
Wrath of Satan
Balaam's Disobedience
Heavy Taxes
Namaan's Chariot and Horses
Let's start with my offense. Obviously in this style of deck, Watchful Servant is the main hero and champion of soul rescuing, but if you look deeply, he's actually not even my best hero. That distinction lies with The Generous Widow. If she rescues with Abomination of Desolation active, I get to discard 3 resources of my opponent at the cost of 2 of my own (which are usually recurable with Chariots of Fire in my case), plus some times I get to draw 4 resources with Gifts of the Magi. She also helps my opponent deck out faster so I can use the glory of the Watchful Servant.
Another interesting choice is The Magi. My thoughts are simple - I need to keep up, and Gifts of the Magi does that for me, and The Magi give me a second out to Gifts. Playing AoC for an early rescue isn't bad either. Hur acts as a way to draw with Gifts and triggers Abomination, so that seems like a good add too. Feast of Trumpets is more nuanced though - it's the only way to discard a Nazareth if my opponent has decked, which matters in some strange circumstances if my opponent has some rare cards that could ruin my win conditions.
Jepthah, Holy Grail, Meeting the Messiah, Ethiopian Treasurer, and John are simple - I want souls fast, and The Garden Tomb is usually good at that.
This doesn't really fit in any category, but the overall focus of the defense is a lockout. This can occur several ways. I have a soft hand lock out (Galba, Heavy Taxes, Generous Widow), a soft Abomination lock via discarding everything, a soft site lock out (4 sites, 2 in neverused Red + limiting souls), and a harder hero lock (tons of discard/removal + Asheroth Worship). The many options I have let me react accordingly to the game and offer both long and short term solutions.
I'll just address some of the uniqueness of the defense. If you have questions about a general Greek subset for Abomination, comment and I can explain that more. I chose Romans as the primary subset of the defense because of several factors 1) they are protected by Caesarea Philippi/Chorazin/Golgotha 2) Heavy Taxes is absurdly good 3) they let me play NHC (which is primary super broke on Antiochus). The rest of the defense is primarily just the best characters that fit in the NT theme in my brigades. Scribe can play every enhancement, Simon can hold a Charms protected from discard as well as mess with Disciples/TGT, and Users is Simon 2.0 and can play any enhancement in the deck. If I play this deck again, I would try to fit in a Proud Pharisee, but I'm not quite sure what I'd cut. Disbelieving Sadducees isn't bad either but I'd never be able to find space for him.
Enhancement choices were simple. Effectively destroy all my opponents heroes. There isn't really a ton to say here. I don't feel like I was missing anything. Scattered is ok but I'd rather kill heroes than underdeck them, so it wasn't worth a slot.
The last area of substantive discussion is the dominant selection. I would love to have New Jerusalem in here, but I couldn't figure out what to take out. Angel and Grapes are too clutch with TGT, Mayhem and CM help me lock players out, Vain helps me block super well, and Destruction of Nehushtan solves too many problems. I just couldn't figure out where the NJ belonged.
You will quickly notice it's a heavy defensive deck, but it's built a little bit more complex than that. The goal is for the deck to set up as quickly as possible - specifically to begin taking souls as soon as I possibly can. You'll notice some unique choices because of that.
Cards in deck: 56
Lost Souls: 7
Lost Soul (can't be prevented)
Lost Soul (deck discard)
Lost Soul (female only)
Lost Soul (N.T. only)
Lost Soul (Site Discard)
Lost Soul (site doubler)
Lost Soul (Wanderer)
Dominants: 7
Angel of the Lord
Grapes of Wrath
Son of God
Christian Martyr
Destruction of Nehushtan
Mayhem
Vain Philosophy
Fortresses: 3
Herod's Temple
High Places
The Garden Tomb
Sites: 4
Golgotha
Caesarea Philippi
Lystra
Chorazin
Artifacts: 6
Chariot of Fire
Darius' Decree
Gifts of the Magi
Holy Grail
Lampstand of the Sanctuary
Magic Charms
Heroes: 7
Jephthah
The Generous Widow
Watchful Servant
Hur
Ethiopian Treasurer
John
The Magi
Hero Enhancements: 3
Feast of Trumpets
Meeting the Messiah
Authority of Christ
Evil Characters: 12
User of Curious Arts
Lot's Wife
Simon the Magician
Emperor Galba
Emperor Tiberius
Emperor Vitellius
Foreign Wives
Scribe
Antiochus Epiphanes IV
The Winged Leopard
The Goat with Horn
Evil Enhancements: 8
Ashtaroth Worship
Abomination of Desolation
Joseph in Prison
Stone of Thebez
Wrath of Satan
Balaam's Disobedience
Heavy Taxes
Namaan's Chariot and Horses
Let's start with my offense. Obviously in this style of deck, Watchful Servant is the main hero and champion of soul rescuing, but if you look deeply, he's actually not even my best hero. That distinction lies with The Generous Widow. If she rescues with Abomination of Desolation active, I get to discard 3 resources of my opponent at the cost of 2 of my own (which are usually recurable with Chariots of Fire in my case), plus some times I get to draw 4 resources with Gifts of the Magi. She also helps my opponent deck out faster so I can use the glory of the Watchful Servant.
Another interesting choice is The Magi. My thoughts are simple - I need to keep up, and Gifts of the Magi does that for me, and The Magi give me a second out to Gifts. Playing AoC for an early rescue isn't bad either. Hur acts as a way to draw with Gifts and triggers Abomination, so that seems like a good add too. Feast of Trumpets is more nuanced though - it's the only way to discard a Nazareth if my opponent has decked, which matters in some strange circumstances if my opponent has some rare cards that could ruin my win conditions.
Jepthah, Holy Grail, Meeting the Messiah, Ethiopian Treasurer, and John are simple - I want souls fast, and The Garden Tomb is usually good at that.
This doesn't really fit in any category, but the overall focus of the defense is a lockout. This can occur several ways. I have a soft hand lock out (Galba, Heavy Taxes, Generous Widow), a soft Abomination lock via discarding everything, a soft site lock out (4 sites, 2 in neverused Red + limiting souls), and a harder hero lock (tons of discard/removal + Asheroth Worship). The many options I have let me react accordingly to the game and offer both long and short term solutions.
I'll just address some of the uniqueness of the defense. If you have questions about a general Greek subset for Abomination, comment and I can explain that more. I chose Romans as the primary subset of the defense because of several factors 1) they are protected by Caesarea Philippi/Chorazin/Golgotha 2) Heavy Taxes is absurdly good 3) they let me play NHC (which is primary super broke on Antiochus). The rest of the defense is primarily just the best characters that fit in the NT theme in my brigades. Scribe can play every enhancement, Simon can hold a Charms protected from discard as well as mess with Disciples/TGT, and Users is Simon 2.0 and can play any enhancement in the deck. If I play this deck again, I would try to fit in a Proud Pharisee, but I'm not quite sure what I'd cut. Disbelieving Sadducees isn't bad either but I'd never be able to find space for him.
Enhancement choices were simple. Effectively destroy all my opponents heroes. There isn't really a ton to say here. I don't feel like I was missing anything. Scattered is ok but I'd rather kill heroes than underdeck them, so it wasn't worth a slot.
The last area of substantive discussion is the dominant selection. I would love to have New Jerusalem in here, but I couldn't figure out what to take out. Angel and Grapes are too clutch with TGT, Mayhem and CM help me lock players out, Vain helps me block super well, and Destruction of Nehushtan solves too many problems. I just couldn't figure out where the NJ belonged.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Deck Ratios: Offensive-Heavy, Balanced, and Defensive-Heavy
To be honest, I didn’t really know how to start this article off, so I guess I’ll just come right out and say it: Offensive-heavy is the best. Now when I say offensive-heavy, I’m really breaking my rule from my previous article about Complimentary Deck Building because I’m actually referring to the good alignment. The fact of the matter is, while the term is misleading, it’s still the current term for describing heavy good. But before I get to the conclusion, I’ll overview the three types of balance (or lack thereof).
So first I’m going to debut the oft talked about offensive-heavy, which relies on a powerful good-alignment to overwhelm any defense. If you’ve been around for any amount of time, you’ve certainly seen these types of decks at the top tables. They are consistently good, and don’t depend on the local metagame. Most of the best offensive-heavy decks are ones that are also hero heavy, boasting of upwards of 10 heroes. My current offensive heavy deck uses 12-13 heroes. The deck’s goal is to rescue five lost souls as quickly as possible.
Now for balanced, which won 2012 Nationals. Now wait, how can I say offensive-heavy is the best when balanced won nationals? I’ll get there, don’t worry, but I’d first like to explain the focus of balanced. So you’re probably going to have about 1:1 ratio of good to evil, although many balanced decks are more like 18 good and 16 evil (including fortresses, not including dominants). However, the definition pretty much ends there. Balanced decks are among the most versatile, as you can pretty much just mix and match the aggro, speed, turtle, and standard styles of play. While the national winning deck was definitely aggro style, I found a lot of success towards the end of the 2011-2013 format with a turtle style balanced deck. Balanced is probably the most common deck, but that’s mostly because most people start out with balanced decks. Among top tier players, it’s probably the second most common. This deck tries to fend off the opponent while also rescuing souls.
Finally we have defensive-heavy, the undeniable least popular deck. These decks may be rare, but every now and then one pops up at the top. They are largely a meta call, which we generally call “rogue” decks. They focus on using a massive defense to immobilize your opponent’s offense, allowing yours to go in for the win. The difficulty with defensive heavy, however, is that it’s difficult to win with such a small offense, especially with a time limit, which is why they are played less.
That’s the basic overview of all three, but why is offensive-heavy the best? It’s really surprisingly simple: the point of the game is to rescue 5 lost souls, and offensive-heavy does this best. “But wait!” you say, “Don’t you have more opportunities to rescue lost souls if your defense blocks?” Yes, that’s true, but it’s a matter of consistency. In a real game, you’re going to be drawing a bit of everything, so while your defense may hold off a turn, it also may prevent you from rescuing a soul because you didn’t draw into your offense. A streamlined deck will be more consistent, and a deck that is streamlined to rescue lost souls is a deck that will win.
Now, that’s not to say that offensive-heavy is the only deck you should play. While it is, on the whole, the best type of deck, there’s also another side of things, and many balanced decks and defensive-heavy decks successfully counter offensive-heavy decks. My last two games I was beaten by (to put it simply) Judges/Prophets/Babylonian decks. Part of that was because my deck is bad, but another part of it was that it was able to provide my opponents with enough heroes to rescue against my extremely weak defense (I only got a couple blocks between the two games), and still fend me off. In the same way, defensive-heavy can hard counter both offensive-heavy and balanced decks. However, despite offensive-heavy’s disadvantage, they always have a better shot at winning because it’s more focused on winning. Defensive-heavy struggles to fend off offensive heavy early game, and often times you can outspeed a balanced deck. After all, most games you only need to rescue 3 lost souls (plus Son of God and New Jerualem).
I do want to say that this is not a “rock, paper, scissors” type thing. Balanced doesn’t necessarily beat offensive-heavy, offensive-heavy doesn’t necessarily beat defensive-heavy, etc. It’s very dependent on what type of good/evil is being played in the decks. Matchups play a big part, but so does drawing. A well built offensive-heavy is the only deck that can reliably make rescue attempts even if it draws poorly.
Now, armed with this knowledge, you can study your local metagame and decide what kind of deck you want to play. There is no right choice, but if you’re unsure, I will always recommend offensive-heavy. It is, after all, the best.
So first I’m going to debut the oft talked about offensive-heavy, which relies on a powerful good-alignment to overwhelm any defense. If you’ve been around for any amount of time, you’ve certainly seen these types of decks at the top tables. They are consistently good, and don’t depend on the local metagame. Most of the best offensive-heavy decks are ones that are also hero heavy, boasting of upwards of 10 heroes. My current offensive heavy deck uses 12-13 heroes. The deck’s goal is to rescue five lost souls as quickly as possible.
Now for balanced, which won 2012 Nationals. Now wait, how can I say offensive-heavy is the best when balanced won nationals? I’ll get there, don’t worry, but I’d first like to explain the focus of balanced. So you’re probably going to have about 1:1 ratio of good to evil, although many balanced decks are more like 18 good and 16 evil (including fortresses, not including dominants). However, the definition pretty much ends there. Balanced decks are among the most versatile, as you can pretty much just mix and match the aggro, speed, turtle, and standard styles of play. While the national winning deck was definitely aggro style, I found a lot of success towards the end of the 2011-2013 format with a turtle style balanced deck. Balanced is probably the most common deck, but that’s mostly because most people start out with balanced decks. Among top tier players, it’s probably the second most common. This deck tries to fend off the opponent while also rescuing souls.
Finally we have defensive-heavy, the undeniable least popular deck. These decks may be rare, but every now and then one pops up at the top. They are largely a meta call, which we generally call “rogue” decks. They focus on using a massive defense to immobilize your opponent’s offense, allowing yours to go in for the win. The difficulty with defensive heavy, however, is that it’s difficult to win with such a small offense, especially with a time limit, which is why they are played less.
That’s the basic overview of all three, but why is offensive-heavy the best? It’s really surprisingly simple: the point of the game is to rescue 5 lost souls, and offensive-heavy does this best. “But wait!” you say, “Don’t you have more opportunities to rescue lost souls if your defense blocks?” Yes, that’s true, but it’s a matter of consistency. In a real game, you’re going to be drawing a bit of everything, so while your defense may hold off a turn, it also may prevent you from rescuing a soul because you didn’t draw into your offense. A streamlined deck will be more consistent, and a deck that is streamlined to rescue lost souls is a deck that will win.
Now, that’s not to say that offensive-heavy is the only deck you should play. While it is, on the whole, the best type of deck, there’s also another side of things, and many balanced decks and defensive-heavy decks successfully counter offensive-heavy decks. My last two games I was beaten by (to put it simply) Judges/Prophets/Babylonian decks. Part of that was because my deck is bad, but another part of it was that it was able to provide my opponents with enough heroes to rescue against my extremely weak defense (I only got a couple blocks between the two games), and still fend me off. In the same way, defensive-heavy can hard counter both offensive-heavy and balanced decks. However, despite offensive-heavy’s disadvantage, they always have a better shot at winning because it’s more focused on winning. Defensive-heavy struggles to fend off offensive heavy early game, and often times you can outspeed a balanced deck. After all, most games you only need to rescue 3 lost souls (plus Son of God and New Jerualem).
I do want to say that this is not a “rock, paper, scissors” type thing. Balanced doesn’t necessarily beat offensive-heavy, offensive-heavy doesn’t necessarily beat defensive-heavy, etc. It’s very dependent on what type of good/evil is being played in the decks. Matchups play a big part, but so does drawing. A well built offensive-heavy is the only deck that can reliably make rescue attempts even if it draws poorly.
Now, armed with this knowledge, you can study your local metagame and decide what kind of deck you want to play. There is no right choice, but if you’re unsure, I will always recommend offensive-heavy. It is, after all, the best.
-Westy
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Deck Math
It’s been awhile since I've written an article! Sorry guys. I took a nice holiday vacation to the beach, and it was fabulous. But I’m back now, and ready to go. This article is going to be a bit more calculus than most, so be warned. There may be some math errors, but the information will be generally accurate, I promise!
One of the biggest choices made in Redemption deck building is the size of the deck you use. For years, small decks (53 or less cards) have been considered the best (with some people strongly holding that 56 is the way to go). Today I am going to show you the math behind why I always try to play at 50 or 51 cards (if I am using Haman’s Plot) if I am playing a conventional offense heavy or balanced deck.
Let’s examine some proportions in a 50 card deck. Since almost every deck should be playing the Hopper lost soul, that means there are 8 lost souls in this 50 card deck. They don’t really count for deck size, because if you draw them, they get replaced. While I should technically account for the chance of drawing a soul and distribute that across and proportional math I do, I’m lazy, and it’s much easier to simply ignore lost souls and treat this deck as 42 card deck, so that’s what I am going to do.
With the 42 card deck, your chance of drawing any one card in your opening hand looks like this:
1/42 + 1/41 + 1/40 + 1/39 + 1/38 + 1/37 + 1/36 + 1/35 = .2085328
That means that any one card has a chance of appearing in your hand about 20.85% of the time, or slightly more than 1 in 5 games. Let’s look at the same math for anyone card in a 56 card deck, which would have 48 non-lost soul cards:
(1/41) + (1/42) + (1/43) + (1/44) + (1/45) + (1/46) + (1/47) + (1/48)=.18025413
In this 56 card deck, your odds of drawing any one card in your deck have dropped to 18.03%, or slightly less than 1 in 5 games. The change equates to a 2.82% greater chance of drawing a single card in a 50 card deck rather than a 56 card deck. While this might not seem like much, let’s look at this size difference in terms of turns to deck out.
Since Son of God is often a card needed to win the game, suppose it is on the bottom of both decks in this scenario. How many turns will be needed to draw it out? The equation to find out is ((X-(LS+8))/3) where X is size of the deck. I will be assuming no drawing occurs via abilities for the purpose of this math.
In a 50 card deck: ((50-16)/3)=11.3
In a 56 card deck: ((56-16/3)=13.3
That’s a two turn difference! That’s a huge deal. That means the 56 card deck is going to need to outdraw the 50 card deck by a full two turns via abilities on cards in order to get to Son of God.
While the odds are not incredibly high that Son of God will be your bottom card, the principle of it remains. All other things equal, a 50 card deck is 2 turns faster than a 56 card deck. Often 56 card decks are said to have more endurance than a 50 card deck – that they have an advantage simply by having more cards. In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth. I would estimate that the average Redemption game takes 10 turns or less, which means each player will have access to, at most (assuming no draw abilities), 38 cards (8 for opening hand, drawing 3 every turn if you went second). Both a 50 and 56 card deck have more than 38 non-LS cards in their deck – which means the 56 card deck has received no advantage of the 50 card deck in terms of number of cards played. The difference is that 50 card deck has between 4-12 cards left in deck, while the 56 card deck has between 10-18 cards in deck. The 56 card deck receives absolutely no advantage to playing with a bigger deck until he draws the 43rd through 48th playable card in his deck. While this seems good in theory, in practicality, most games are over by this point, and rather than reaping this advantage, you have spent all game lowering your odds of drawing that one card you need to counter a certain hero or win a rescue attempt.
Math is why I play with a 50 card deck. I realize this won’t be applicable for all decks – some defensive heavy decks need more space and want more resources. But I’d be willing to bet that 90%+ of the time, 50 is better.
-Olijar
EDIT: The draw math is wrong, but the percentages play out relatively similarly and I'm slightly lazy. Sorry guys!
One of the biggest choices made in Redemption deck building is the size of the deck you use. For years, small decks (53 or less cards) have been considered the best (with some people strongly holding that 56 is the way to go). Today I am going to show you the math behind why I always try to play at 50 or 51 cards (if I am using Haman’s Plot) if I am playing a conventional offense heavy or balanced deck.
Let’s examine some proportions in a 50 card deck. Since almost every deck should be playing the Hopper lost soul, that means there are 8 lost souls in this 50 card deck. They don’t really count for deck size, because if you draw them, they get replaced. While I should technically account for the chance of drawing a soul and distribute that across and proportional math I do, I’m lazy, and it’s much easier to simply ignore lost souls and treat this deck as 42 card deck, so that’s what I am going to do.
With the 42 card deck, your chance of drawing any one card in your opening hand looks like this:
1/42 + 1/41 + 1/40 + 1/39 + 1/38 + 1/37 + 1/36 + 1/35 = .2085328
That means that any one card has a chance of appearing in your hand about 20.85% of the time, or slightly more than 1 in 5 games. Let’s look at the same math for anyone card in a 56 card deck, which would have 48 non-lost soul cards:
(1/41) + (1/42) + (1/43) + (1/44) + (1/45) + (1/46) + (1/47) + (1/48)=.18025413
In this 56 card deck, your odds of drawing any one card in your deck have dropped to 18.03%, or slightly less than 1 in 5 games. The change equates to a 2.82% greater chance of drawing a single card in a 50 card deck rather than a 56 card deck. While this might not seem like much, let’s look at this size difference in terms of turns to deck out.
Since Son of God is often a card needed to win the game, suppose it is on the bottom of both decks in this scenario. How many turns will be needed to draw it out? The equation to find out is ((X-(LS+8))/3) where X is size of the deck. I will be assuming no drawing occurs via abilities for the purpose of this math.
In a 50 card deck: ((50-16)/3)=11.3
In a 56 card deck: ((56-16/3)=13.3
That’s a two turn difference! That’s a huge deal. That means the 56 card deck is going to need to outdraw the 50 card deck by a full two turns via abilities on cards in order to get to Son of God.
While the odds are not incredibly high that Son of God will be your bottom card, the principle of it remains. All other things equal, a 50 card deck is 2 turns faster than a 56 card deck. Often 56 card decks are said to have more endurance than a 50 card deck – that they have an advantage simply by having more cards. In reality, this couldn't be further from the truth. I would estimate that the average Redemption game takes 10 turns or less, which means each player will have access to, at most (assuming no draw abilities), 38 cards (8 for opening hand, drawing 3 every turn if you went second). Both a 50 and 56 card deck have more than 38 non-LS cards in their deck – which means the 56 card deck has received no advantage of the 50 card deck in terms of number of cards played. The difference is that 50 card deck has between 4-12 cards left in deck, while the 56 card deck has between 10-18 cards in deck. The 56 card deck receives absolutely no advantage to playing with a bigger deck until he draws the 43rd through 48th playable card in his deck. While this seems good in theory, in practicality, most games are over by this point, and rather than reaping this advantage, you have spent all game lowering your odds of drawing that one card you need to counter a certain hero or win a rescue attempt.
Math is why I play with a 50 card deck. I realize this won’t be applicable for all decks – some defensive heavy decks need more space and want more resources. But I’d be willing to bet that 90%+ of the time, 50 is better.
-Olijar
EDIT: The draw math is wrong, but the percentages play out relatively similarly and I'm slightly lazy. Sorry guys!
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