Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Tribute to Tim Mierzejewski and Kevin Shride

Back in the spring of 2008 I worked with Tim via RTS testing and PM to refine his Genesis/Roman hand control deck. I was amazed at how fun it was to play so I took it to one of Kevin's tournaments and dominated with it. Kevin was impressed and has been playing his version of the deck ever since. Tim won Nationals 2008 with his deck making it the popular deck to play that year. After a while it went out of style and has even ben a bad choice in recent years due to the meta. That hasn't stopped Kevin though. He hasn't played a lot in recent years, but when he does, it's Genesis/Rome. We give him a hard time in good fun. Like many retro hair styles and clothing, if you stick with something long enough, you'll be in style when the fashion comes around again.

Fast forward to the release of the new cards a couple months ago. At that time the meta that I kept seeing was territory destruction and TGT. The sites from Disciples are really good against that stuff, not to mention the power of Nazareth. I wanted to use those and get them out quick, but there are only a hand full of reliable ways to search out sites. Well Reopened is one of my favorites, which would put me in Genesis on offense. To take advantage of the Disciples sites I needed a N.T. defense. From past experience Romans work well with Genesis, but so do Pharisees. There are so many different routes a person can take with a blue/gray deck. I decided to try hand discard and put in every character I could find that can discard a card from an opponent's hand, on both offense and defense, in addition to some enhancements and support cards. If I remember right, in one of the Redemption Metagaming streams, Alex mumbled something about how "Gabe, probably has a really good Genesis/Roman deck". Maybe that was part the inspiration behind building it. Although I tested Genesis/Rome during the card development, it wasn't anything like this.

The deck started out at 56 cards and ran really slow since I had very little drawing. I was surprised at how effective it was. I started to gain a little bit of confidence in it, so at NC REgionals I challenged Martin to a game against his FBTNb deck. I don't remember the score, but I won and I'm pretty sure Martin might have cried a little (maybe he was faking it). Seriously though, beating Martin is no small feat so my confidence in the deck increased.

June and July were too busy for anymore testing of the deck until Jordan wasn't able to participate in the single elimination tournament that Chris hosted. I offered to fill in for him. Knowing that he often plays heavy defense and "large" decks (compared to what I would play) I chose to use the hand control deck because it is defense heavy and "large" for me a 56. It beat Red in the 1st round, Josiah in the 2nd round and MKC in the 3rd round before losing to The Hobbit by a turn in the finals. During the first three rounds I kept feeling like I wasn't getting to some of my key cards quick enough. Before the final game I made some tough choices to cut the deck down to 50 cards. Having played several games with it since then, it performs much better at 50 than it did at 56.

At Nationals I was torn on whether to play T1 or T2. Ultimately I left it up to Chris Bany who needed another play in T2 to keep it even and avoid byes. I really wish they wouldn't pair the two categories together, but I digress. Thursday night, Josiah approached me and said that he really liked the defense I used against him in the single elimination tournament and he wondered if he could get my permission to use it. Of course I didn't care (and don't own any patents on it). I took a look at his deck and noticed a lot of glaring weaknesses. He paired it with a gold offense that ran 11-12 Heroes but only had 3 enhancements. He wasn't able to run 7YoF so he was more vulnerable to King David, who has been played a lot. Things just didn't flow. I offered to give him my complete deck list and suggested he use that instead. The next morning we talked through a few last details and he changed out 3 cards. Josiah is a heavy weight among top players and has the character of a champion - humble and kind. I was blessed to be able to work with him and have such an outstanding player use this deck. The rest of that story is his to tell.

Tips and Card Interactions

• Seven Years of Famine is not only good at keeping the opponent's hand small, it also serves as a good counter to King David, TGT and numerous draw cards. It has bad synergy with Zebulun so you have to choose which one you plan to use when draw it. Ideally you want it SYoF early and Zebulun late but it can work out the other way around too. While SYoF is active, your Horses or Heavy Taxes still draw if you have the CBP LS in play.
• A lot of people wouldn't play the 3-Liner without soul shuffle and/or burial. It still works out here though because of the hand control. Either your opponent is forced to play SoG/NJ early, or you get to discard/underdeck the combo. Either way you often get to force a additional rescue with the 3-Liner.
• Cup of Wrath allows you to create more hand discard by using your defense while you're making a rescue. The best use I've found is to band Spirit of Temptation to an Emperor wearing horses. You get to remove 2 cards from their hand, then draw 2. Use your play next to play Heavy Taxes and you get to remove 2 more cards from their hand and draw 2 more. If you chose the blocker as the opposing EC they most likely are defeated in the side battle and your Hero will rescue a soul. Speaking of SoT, he's one of the most valuable characters in the defense.
• Advanced players already know about the interaction between Golgotha and Abraham's Descendant that allows you to get an Evil Enhancement back from your discard pile.
• If you haven't played this type of Genesis offense before, you'll be surprised how often Simeon and a female is enough to pick apart an opponent's defense with no additional backup.
• Emperor Tiberius and Gold Shield work really well together because you can see their hand before choosing the brigade for conversion.
• People have suggested using Emperor Vitellius and Sabbath Breaker in the defense. Normally those are staples in a gray defense, but that would be a mistake here. It's important for the defense keep pressure on the opponent. You want to rob them of at least one card with every block. By drawing instead, you weaken your game plan and attempt to play theirs.
  

Weaknesses and Counters

• Hand protection stops a lot of cards in this deck. Disciples often use both Four-Drachma Coin and Simon the Zealot. Both of those hinder your game plan. But, if you have The Entrapping Pharisees you can take advantage of his CBN capture while their hand is protected.
• The offense is susceptible to capture, specifically Unholy Writ and Magic Charms. Those two will almost always stall you a turn and cost you a Hero or two. In my experience they aren't that common right now. They're too good to stay out of the meta for very long though.
• Site stealing such as Land Dispute and King Abijam are a problem too, since, like the rest of the meta, this deck uses little to no access.
• Covenant with Death tends to be a good counter since this deck relies so heavily on its character abilities to attack the hand. Fortunately there isn't a lot of that around right now

EDIT: added comments about CwD at the end.

Yeah Idle Gossip is good with Darius' Decree in general as you your opponent cannot play good enhancements in the side battle so its essentially CBI. I still don't understand why the deck doesn't have balaam's, it's auto win versus much of the meta and stops the decks two glaring weaknesses (DI and Bullet proof Gid). If I ever ran the deck I would drop Pros and Lions for Gossip and Balaam's.

Offensively I would cut Eve and Zeb to get Jake and Captain. I think the deck needs a alternate win strat and it fits the style sorta ground and pound let your d do the work and then eventually get in. And then I might even take out well reopened for something to better speed up the deck, maybe the d3 enhancement from blue (forgot the name) or add writ.

As for the neutral stuff I like Household Idols (even if Jake and cap are decked) because it slows much of the meta down a lot. Writ is always nice, good against DI too.

Yeah Idle Gossip is good with Darius' Decree in general as you your opponent cannot play good enhancements in the side battle so its essentially CBI. I still don't understand why the deck doesn't have balaam's, it's auto win versus much of the meta and stops the decks two glaring weaknesses (DI and Bullet proof Gid). If I ever ran the deck I would drop Pros and Lions for Gossip and Balaam's.

Offensively I would cut Eve and Zeb to get Jake and Captain. I think the deck needs a alternate win strat and it fits the style sorta ground and pound let your d do the work and then eventually get in. And then I might even take out well reopened for something to better speed up the deck, maybe the d3 enhancement from blue (forgot the name) or add writ.

As for the neutral stuff I like Household Idols (even if Jake and cap are decked) because it slows much of the meta down a lot. Writ is always nice, good against DI too.

Having played 10 games with this deck and going 9-1 I really don't think eve should come out. When I needed to she became my best speed option, she also got to rescue against the mayhem after my opponent FW's was down.  Simeon won 40% of my rescues all alone and removing eve strips his power.  Zebulun was easily the 2 number hero and a great way to deal with writ as a weakness. I made several rescues with Zebulun and play JbP to under deck the writ they tried to use to stop it. Also even with 7yrsF many players forgot it stops ignore and Zebulun got me 2 walk bys just bc I didn't remind my opponent he didn't work (obviously I didn't draw a card due 7yrsF I just bluffed the ignore which wasn't working).  I will say DD makes this deck better. I missed it against territory class cards that destroyed or stole my weapons.  Lampstand for me stopped 6 out of 7 falling always I saw. Tim Maly got to play one against me in the top cut semi final and I really thought it cost me the game.

As far as Laban goes I love the idea being in this deck. I used him instead of Emp Vit in 2 ironman games he got off in both games. Problem was he got AotL'd in one and in the other my opponent had a splash genesis I hadn't seen so Rachel went to their Joeseph.

Zeb was great against writ bc his ignore still worked so I didn't need two battle winners to win the rescue.

I'd like to get The Thief in the defense for his random hand discard, but I'm afraid he'd just give up initiative and die most of the time.

I think splashing the generous widow is worth testing. Yes she would only have angel and grapes for back up but she can work so well when an opponent only has 2-4 cards in hand.

I agree that Generous Widow could be amazing. I've contemplated how to use her with this defense - which might require a completely different offense. She totally ruins both Benjamin and Zebulun.

Holy Grail is another strong consideration (or MtM with a gold offense). Some of these Evil Characters are almost more useful as Heroes!

I also think if played right she can go out DC the right Dom aka SoG or nj and die inordinate to make Ben and Zeb work again.

Also when combo'ed with vain and sorrow of marry I think she could be times to be mega effective most games.