Cactus Game Design Message Boards

A few comments:

1.   Shipwreck wasn’t worth it.  I never used it once.  Not sure what I was teching against when I put it in, but Falling Away (because of 3-Liner/DoU/ability to discard opponent’s SoG w/ DtT) or Grapes would have been WAY more valuable.

2.   The Am Slave/Nebby/DtT chain is incredible.  I have now used it in 11 tournament games (5 at 2013 SE Regionals, 6 at Ohio State), and it has worked 7 times.  6 of those I hit SoG, once my opponent had SoG in his starting hand (with a 63 card deck!) so I hit AotL.  Twice I would have used it at the beginning of a game, except that an artifact was active or my 3/3 Bab was hit with AotL.  (FYI, twice I “mulliganed” into DtT at Ohio State with TLG’s mulligan rule).  11 games isn’t a large sample size, but when you have a Liner LS and DoU in deck, hitting an opponent’s SoG is as close to an automatic win as you can get.  3 cards for an automatic win is worth it.

3.   The success of 4 DAEs was…  Inconclusive.  I was hoping that the flexibility to use them on offense or defense, as needed, depending on my opponent, would give the deck an edge.  The problem is that they are just so much better on offense than defense.  As a result, my offense was unstoppable, but my defense wasn’t nearly as robust as I had hoped.

4.   This offense was amazing.  AUTO could speed it up, true.  Benaiah would also be awesome in here.  If I were to remake it, I’d probably add something like AUTO/Samuel/Benaiah/Provisions on offense and drop Razor/Siegeworks/ASA/AArcher on defense.  The CBN heroes (only Gabe can be negated by CWD), recursion (Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Gabe), banding, and CBN enhancements (Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Michael) with only 8 heroes was very successful.  Cherubim would also be a nice addition, but he is stopped by CWD.

5.   CWD + DD once again shut down many decks I played.  I never discarded DD to discard set-aside heroes, but I didn’t need to.  I just kept it up unless I wanted CWD instead.

6.   Daniel is the best hero in the deck (and the game?).  His ability, plus the fact that he doesn’t need GEs to be awesome like Isaiah does, was incredible.  He walked in for freebies so many times.  Isaiah walked in for freebies too, but only when I had Call on him.  This game justified my “March Madness” vote for Daniel over AUTO.

I really enjoyed playing against this deck. It is completely different from what anyone in my playgroup is playing. Hope to see you at some future tournaments

Did you consider angelic guidance?

I have always felt razor and siege works are pretty weak enhancements. 

I can see Shipwreck as a good tech against TGT which could give you trouble. I think grapes has way more value since you have 10 EC's

I did consider Angelic Guidance, but I didn't want my deck to become too search-heavy.  Maybe that is why I put in Shipwreck?  I didn't see a single Naz all day.

I really enjoyed playing against this deck. It is completely different from what anyone in my playgroup is playing. Hope to see you at some future tournaments

It was great to meet you and get stomped by your deck    Very well built and piloted, congrats.  I'll be down for some tourneys in the future!

Shipwreck is definitely overkill in this deck since you have ASA.

I'm also not a huge fan of Razor or Siegeworks. Did you ever consider Confusion as a way to double your chances of getting a potential SoG discarder opening hand?

IMO, Provisions should be in any deck with 3 or more Green Heroes (I'd even consider it with just 2 Green Heroes).

Agree on Shipwreck, although I'd cut Shipwreck AND ASA if I reworked the deck.

I don't like having both Confusion and DtT in the same 50 card deck.  It leaves too little space for real battlewinners, and increases the risk of dead cards when you run into Naz.  If DtT didn't have tutors, I'd pick Confusion 10 out of 10 times.

Provisions would certainly be nice, although it would probably be good for a non-PG EC to be in the deck to choose.  Maybe Bab Soldiers (which would have gotten initiative to play DtT against Joseph a few times...).