Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Beginning May 26th, 2017 players may begin using the Reserve in tournament play. The Reserve is used in both constructed and limited formats (effective January 1, 2019) only used for constructed events (Type 1 and Type 2). As a reminder, here is how it works:

• The reserve must contain between 0-10 cards.
• You must have a written list of the cards in the Reserve for each deck.
• Your deck + reserve must be a legal deck (ignoring Lost Soul to deck ratio rule as it applies to cards in the reserve).
• If you check in more than one deck, each deck must have its own Reserve.
• You check in the Reserve with your deck at the start of the event.
• At the time it's checked in, the reserve cannot contain Dominants or Lost Soul cards (the “Hopper” Lost Soul does not count towards Lost Soul deck building requirements and may be be included in the reserve).
• The Reserve is kept separate from your deck during game play.
• Each player's Reserve may only be viewed by the owner unless a special ability allows another player to view it.
• Only cards that specifically mention the Reserve can target cards in the Reserve.
• Your deck and reserve must be reset to their original state after each game.

We want to make this as clear and easy as possible for players and hosts alike to adjust to this deep new area of strategy that we've added to the game. If you have any questions or suggestion please feel free to leave them below or contact myself, The Guardian or Red Dragon Thorn directly by private message.

Does that mean we cannot put extra copies of a card (with a special ability) in the reserve for a Type 1 deck?

Correct

The line that is confusing is simply supposed to cover this:

If I have Hamans Plot in my main deck (99 cards or less T1) then I cannot also put Hamans Plot in my Reserve. Replace Hamans Plot with any card that has a SA and this still holds true. The Reserve is not a way to get an extra copy of a card that you could not otherwise use.

Your deck has to be legal at the start of the game. Events that make a deck illegal during a game have been allowed for years now (you can rip Hamans Plot if you're using a 50 card deck, the deck just won't be legal in subsequent games). Unlike the Hamans Plot example, the Reserve resets between games and your deck becomes legal again.

What cards allow access to the reserve?

Several cards from Rev of John set and two of the new promos (The Watchman and Job). None of the cards before RoJ set or these new promos access the Reserve.

Modified the original post to add a bullet point that clarifies that the deck and reserve must be reset to their original state after each game.

For a Reserve pile in type 2 does a player still have to follow the good cards and evil cards must be equal rule??

example: could a reserve in type 2 have 8 good cards in it if the player wanted to??

Yes the reserve must be equal.

Yes.

Yes

Yes, the good and evil in the reserve must be equal for T2 decks.

King Abijam is counted as neutral since he is a dual alignment character therefore you currently have 3 good, 4 evil and 3 neutral.

You need to swap a neutral for a good (giving you 4/4/2) or an evil for a neutral (giving you 3/3/4).

Reserve does not need to be shuffled. When a card is topdecked from Reserve, it does not need to be the "top" card of the Reserve--it can be any valid target that is put on the top of the main deck.

Updated the first post to reflect that the Reserve is now used in limited formats.

Doesn’t there need to be a clarification on the first post of how you are even allowed to have a reserve in closed formats?

I don’t understand the question. You can now build and use a Reserve for limited formats the same way you can for constructed formats. What specifically is missing?

Clarification...if I have a 56 card deck and 10 cards in reserve, I only need 7 Lost Souls?

Thanks,

LD

Can a Dominant be in a Reserve? For example, in a 56 card deck, 6 Dominants are in the deck, 1 Dominant is in the Reserve.

Thanks,

-LD

Can Sites start in Reserve?

Quote from: lduvall on January 31, 2019, 08:15:23 AM

Can a Dominant be in a Reserve? For example, in a 56 card deck, 6 Dominants are in the deck, 1 Dominant is in the Reserve.

Thanks,

-LD

Dominants and lost souls, except hopper, can not start in the reserve.  Dominants can be put there during game though

I like the idea that Hopper can go in reserve. I'm not sure why you'd put it there, but still.

Because it doesn't count as a LS for deck building rules, it made sense to allow it to be in the Reserve. At the time, Moses (CoW) was as very big part of the meta and we figured there could be some strategy with the Gain LS--if I suspected my opponent is running Moses, I wouldn't want to shuffle Hopper since it could easily be negated, but if I see that his deck isn't running Moses then it's another LS gen piece I can add in during the game.

While Moses isn’t seen as much today, Covet is as well as plenty of other cards that can pull out your Hopper for you.

Hopper is also double-edged if you are consistently using The Ends of the Earth.

Depending on the deck, I could still see Hopper being a good use of a slot in the Reserve if you have a way to shuffle it when desired.

I don't recall all of them, but there were several factors that led to that decision. For example, we wanted to keep deck checking as simple as possible for tournament hosts. Having dominants in both main deck and Reserve would add an extra step in the checking process.
In terms of gameplay, we weren't entirely sure how impactful the Reserve would be since it was a completely new thing for Redemption. We did not want to create a situation where dominants became more powerful by being allowed in Reserve at the start.

That's not to say we'll never decide to change the rule and allow them to start in Reserve but to this point, we have not seen a need for that.