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As some of the guys who will remember me from back in the day can tell you, I have almost every time bucked the system of the "conventional wisdom" when it comes to redemption.  I am in the process of building a 100-105 t1 deck that I am going to give a test run here soon, but I am curious.

Why would you want to just play with the bare minimum?  Why just do the least amount possible?

Don't get me wrong, I remember before speed when it was 56 cards, stand alone D with decent offense.  That day in age was shortly after apostles release, and I played a 63 card Gold/Red 3NC deck that had a Black/Grey defense.  We truck up to North Central Regionals, 8 or 10 of us from the KC area, and Hokus Pick on the speakers with the Happy Song playing.

Fast forward, last round of the tournament and its for first and second.  I am squaring off against the one and only Kory Lentine, wielding the 105 card Hiroshima deck.  (also known as Fat Man)  So, I have the 63 cards, I have the tighter deck, I should win right?

In a word, no.  And it wasn't that close of a game as I remember, I think it ended 5-2.  It was as sound a thrashing as I can remember.  Purple offense and Black defense.

So why is it that everyone wants the minimum nowadays?  Why dont we experiment with more?

I would ask please, if you don't want to take the time for a thoughtful answer, please don't respond to this thread.  I just want to know what the rationale is behind the current deck building philosiphy. 

In a long game, the bigger deck tends to be favored. However, speed decks are built with the goal of making the game as short as possible by winning really fast. As the number of powerful combos increased, the easier it became to take 3 or 4 of them and make them work together in a deck. Coupled with SoG/NJ/AotL and a ton of search and draw cards, it became much easier to rescue 5 LS in a short amount of time. Often the only thing that could stand in the way was a LS drought by the opponent, which became less of a factor with cards like Hopper, Malchus and the current popular one, The Amalekites Slave. The bottom line is that (although I do not have empirical data to support this), I believe that the majority of T1 2P games are won by the player who draws their SoG/NJ combo first. The smaller your deck, the better chance you have of doing that.

While I guess I can understand that line of thinking, lets for the sake of arguement give that SoG/NJ goes off, and AotL wins a rescue.  That's still 2 LS that need rescuing.  I was around at the advent of speed decks, and they never really impressed me, as there wasn't much in the way of skill to play them.  It pretty much revolved around drawing cards till you had all the right cards to try and win.

Forgive me if this hits close to home, but I don't see that as playing Redemption.  I see that as avoiding playing it.  Again just a personal opinion, but there it is.

That being said, does anyone even try to build a deck anymore thinking of defense first?  I mean, it seems to me that the game is moving to the point where there just isnt any more reason to play defense.  So rather than try to play both sides, it just seems the game plays one side, offense, without consideration of defense.  Case in point here, how many decks that do well don't run standalone defenses, or have a complete lack of defense?  I am sorry if I belabor this point a bit, but its one of the reasons I fell out of love with the game a few years ago.  Granted the options nowadays are much wider, but it still seems like its pretty much the same things over and over again.

I don't see that as playing Redemption.  I see that as avoiding playing it.

I agree that there is some truth to this perspective.  I have gone on record as being against the pre-block ignore (TGT especially) strategy for much the same reasons.

In short, defense can work if you use it right.

Guardian is correct.  I am also in the top 3 of ROOT this month, and have been primarily using a deck that is 70 cards and almost all defense.  (of course I won't be using the 70-carder in our game in case you're reading this Soul Seeker).  In fact, that deck makes even games against TGT-decks fun.

In a 150-card deck, the odds of drawing Son of God dip below 1%

Which doesn't matter if your name is redemptioncousin... 

(Sorry couldn't resist... )

This is an excellent question. An to be honest, I find that my defense heavy decks to better. Especially against some of the top players. When I try to play their game, I typically lose. They know how to build offense-heavy speed decks. But when I don't play their game and counter them, let them draw all the cards they want because the sooner they deck out the sooner they run out of battle winners.... I win a lot of the time. I've beaten players like Gabe Isbell with 63 card defense-heavy decks. The object of that game is to make the game last a long time. Wear them out. A lot of times it's effective.

Speed (draw/search cards) does not automatically make a deck smaller. It still comes down to the luck of the draw, and a smaller deck (fewer cards) cuts down on the chance you will not draw your Son of God before the game is over.

TSA:

That only reinforces the notion that speed decks are built to get to the best parts of the deck more quickly, and that the larger your deck is, the lower your odds are of getting to them in the same amount of time.  Yes, 50 cards is fast; yes, 70 cards with speed is fast; but how much fastER, then, is 50 cards AND speed?

Keep in mind that this is all statistics.  If you draw SoG, NJ, AotL, a couple Heroes and a couple battle-winners in your first hand, it won't really matter if you have 50 or 500 cards in your deck, but the question is how much are you willing to risk on chance?  How much do the additional cards benefit you over the lowered odds of getting the best cards combined with the additional Lost Souls that go in?

There's no pat answer, it's just a question of degrees.

By that logic, then I should completely abandon defense entirely, at least how I read what your saying.

For sake of arguement, lets say that SoG/NJ go off, and AotL wins a battle.  That leaves two rescues that you have to do on your own.  What gets me is that there is such a wealth of cards in the game that don't get a chance to be played because of the fact that speed exists.  What statistics can't predict is real game situations.  A 4% chance of something occuring is the same as a 96% chance of it not happening.  Personally speaking, I don't look at dominants as "must play or I can't win cards".  If I get them, great.  But if not, I want my deck to be able to do the job without trying to draw one card in 50, 56, 63, 70 or any other number of cards.

I guess my trouble with everything is that it seems the arguement for speed in decks is that I can race to five rescues faster than you can.

I would just make a slight suggestion though.  Remember who won the race between the tortise and the hare.

I concur w/lightningninja. In the last NC local (the only tournament I've played in lately ) both decks I used ran a single color defense. In building both decks the def. was the first thing built. I put my Crimson defense up against a deck built by Roy Cannaday (Roy wasn't actually using that deck at the time). I may have lost 5-4, but I can't tell you how annoyed my opponent was at the 6 totally stopped, unavoidable, totally decimating rescue attempts that remained attempts (I.E. he didn't get a soul) we actually almost timed out and the only person still playing, if I remember right, was Slugfencer, who brought a 104 card t1 deck. I think I have only run splash or stand alone defense once or twice. They did okay but were not as fun as kicking tail with a good solid crimson or brown defense.

Most splash defense are only good for one or two rescue attempts and then you have to hope you get the cards out for another sucessful block. If you have a solid single color defense, you can be pretty sure that you will only go a turn or two without a solid block.

I will admit that I am not the best player around, but I think the defense is the key to a good deck. Size has been a key for me in the past, after this thread, I think I will try some larger decks. (No Steve, I will not build a 104 t1 deck though )

By that logic, then I should completely abandon defense entirely, at least how I read what your saying.

...wwwwwwwhy would you get that from what I said?

Some people play with defenseless decks on the premise that they will get to win their battles before the other player realizes there's no defense and gets 5 free points.  But the chance of the other player having Lost Souls deep in the deck and the chance of the other player drawing effective defense early can counter that.

You would only assume defense should be abandoned if you first assume that defense has no value in a deck.  It is true that the only way to win is to score points and the only way to score points is with offense, but that does not place all the value on the offense, since part of getting to 5 first is making sure the other guy doesn't get there faster.

What statistics can't predict is real game situations.

Of course it can't.  That's exactly why I said it's a question of degrees.  The difference between a 50-card player and a 56-card player is that one has a 14% chance of hitting a Lost Soul but will deck out two turns sooner, and the other has only a 12.5% chance of hitting a Lost Soul and six more cards to do his bidding.  See how small the range is on Lost Souls?  Yet most people calculate the max cards they can have before adding another Lost Soul: 56, 63, 70, 77, etc... and not so much 60 cards or 72 or whatever.

There are other mitigating factors as well, like the effectiveness of each individual card in the deck.  If I had a 50 card deck with 43 Bucklers, how much better do you think I would do against a 100-card deck?  Or even a deck with 33 bucklers and 10 draw-three cards?

The real measure of a deck is how many effective cards it has and how you can get those into your hands.  Speed players gamble on a few powerful cards and getting to them fast enough to hit 5 before you can get to the cards you need, either to get to 5 or to stop them.  Other players pack their deck full of effective cards so that there is almost no time in the game that they are wishing they just had that one card somewhere, or that they have a hand full of cards they can't use and need to discard four to end their turn with still no rescue.

So a "winning" deck is really a formula of the value of all the cards in your deck and the value of how fast you can get the best value and whether you can get to 5 before the other guy, either by acting faster or by making him act slower.  In addition to other factors not listed here, and not to mention that you can't really calculate how to mash all those factors together.  You just look for that sweet spot between all those areas.

@Shaef

Ok, I think I understand where your coming from now.  I guess my issues with things have been that with more and more new cards, there seems to be little in the way of encouragement to play anything other than a deck that powers out every dominant in their deck as fast as it can.  From what I can see, there are a plethora (of plethoras of) means to speed bump your opponent from being able to get through your defense.

Small, effective offenses are more and more capable now than they ever have been.  1 fortress and 6 characters can make an offense now.  (yes I am pointing at you TGT)  That leaves an incredibly large amount of space in which to deal with your opponents plays.  And to be fair, I am coming at this from playing in KC, where the average player was around 14, and half of the decks at the tournament were carbon copy speed decks with little to no defense.  Those decks could draw out in 3-5 turns on average, and it was just frustrating.  But what I learned was that most speed decks, if you remove their capacity to put heroes in battle fold like a house of cards.  Which is why I ended up playing larger decks that focused on defense and neutralizing their ability to be able to hang with them.  And to be honest, it worked rather well.

we actually almost timed out and the only person still playing, if I remember right, was Slugfencer, who brought a 104 card t1 deck.

It was my 154 card "check the new T1 card limit rule" deck.    Not surprisingly, I ran late on all my games.

@TSA--

I love playing larger defensive decks. Timeouts were a dangerous enemy.

I played a 154 T1 deck at a recent local (posted in T1 deck advice under "Bigfoot.") It failed but it was fun to play. It had a ton of defense and no doms. I tried to lock out their doms with high priests plots and alter o ahaz/lampstand. I think I pulled that off maybe once in a game.

I have played several 252 T2 decks since I prefer T2. Actually, a few of those placed like 3rd in regionals several years ago. I don't know if that qualifies as successful, but they were fun to play.

100-card defense-heavy decks will now be known as 'super turtles'. watch this new archetype catch fire.

I reserve the right to name my 100 carder "fat boy", barring an objection from the Kory of Lentine.

100-card defense-heavy decks will now be known as 'super turtles'. watch this new archetype catch fire.

Pfft, as I posted earlier, I've totally been doing this already.   

Also, I doubt it'll really catch, people want their wins and they want them fast. It pains me to say that as well, as I'd love to see something like this rival speed decks in popularity. That'd make the game really fun if you had to prepare equally for speed and monster decks.

yes, i believe thats what he said last time he was here.

You know... that's a good idea. I've been pretty frustrated with things like this myself.

The biggest reason to use speed decks, in my opinion, is the time limits in tournaments and the ridiculous amount of time allotted for each turn. A game could time out in six rounds without anyone stalling, legally. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't so many players who think for an Age of Men before playing anything, and badsauce players who you should be able to whip no problem, but get a timeout win to because they read every card every time it is played, even if it's been played six times before.

Lower the time allotted to play each turn (DRASTICALLY), or raise the time allotted for each round and Speed will not longer be quite such a necessity.

Another idea is to not distinguish between timeout wins and actual wins.  Winning is winning, any way you look at it.  No matter if you win 6-0, 5-4, or 3-1.  By making timeouts the same as a normal win, you make playing other decks more appealing to players.  A defensive deck has the ability to win by actually defending itself and picking up rescues when it can.

I agree.  I don't know the official "phase limits" but it would be nice if someone posted them.  Maybe a overarching game change is needed instead of an in game rule like the hand limit.

In the tournament rules on their website, they acutally do have time limits posted.

That may create a problem with people abusing the system, though. It'd be the simplest thing to build a deck that's all about getting one Rescue and then turtling while using all your allotted time to get a 3-0 or 3-2 win.

And is that any less a valid strategy then making a deck that intends to be able to draw itself out in 5 turns and be able to win by playing every card in their deck that way?

one of the most well-known formulas for deciding which beats which is:

rush > boom > turtle > rush

as such, a turtle (or superturtle) naturally beats a rush.

rush (aggro) > boom (combo) > turtle (control) > rush (aggro)

So aggro beats combo
combo beats control
control beats aggro

Is my interpretation of your formula correct?   

As an update, took my new deck out to play today.  For now, I am going to nickname it "The Manhattan Project".  Only had a chance to play three games, but in three games I won twice and lost a game that I should have won. 

It's not as bad as you think, if you just give it a chance.

(House of Bethany triggered, Son of God was five cards down, and I discard DoN that was above it.  Opponent draws three with SoG on the top of the deck.  I have deck discard LS and didn't remember I had my opponents Promised Land in my territory that I could have discarded SoG from the deck and made it impossible for him to get 5 rescues)