Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Redemption® Collectible Trading Card Game HQ => Deck Building & Design => National Tournament Winners => Topic started by: The Guardian on August 11, 2013, 11:09:34 PM
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"Judge Widow"
Built by Justin Alstad
Nationals T2 2P 1st Place 2013
(3-1-1, not used in round 3)
Cards in deck: 101
Lost Souls: 16
Lost Soul (anti-burial)
Lost Soul (anti-burial)
Lost Soul (can't be prevented)
Lost Soul (can't be prevented)
Lost Soul (female only)
Lost Soul (female only)
Lost Soul (hopper)
Lost Soul (hopper)
Lost Soul (N.T. only)
Lost Soul (N.T. only)
Lost Soul (revealer)
Lost Soul (revealer)
Lost Soul (Wanderer)
Lost Soul (Wanderer)
Lost Soul (withdraw)
Lost Soul (withdraw)
Lamb Dominants: 5
Angel of the Lord
Grapes of Wrath
Guardian Of Your Souls
New Jerusalem
Son of God
Grim Reaper Dominants: 5
Burial
Christian Martyr
Destruction of Nehushtan
Falling Away
Mayhem
Fortresses: 2
Judge's Seat
Wall of Protection
Green Sites: 1
Nazareth
Artifacts: 4
Holy Grail
Iron Pan
Iron Pan
Magic Charms
Curse Cards: 2
Rain Becomes Dust (Gray)
Rain Becomes Dust (Gray)
Red Covenant Cards: 1
I am Grace
Multi-Color Heroes: 4
Aaron (Green/Teal)
Ezekiel (Green/Teal)
Samuel (Gold/Green)
Samuel (Gold/Green)
Silver Heroes: 4
Angel with the Secret Name
Captain of the Host
The Angel Under the Oak
The Angel Under the Oak
Gold Heroes: 11
Ehud
Gideon
Jair
Jair
Moses
Simeon
Simeon
The Generous Widow
The Generous Widow
The Generous Widow
The Woman at the Well
Green Heroes: 1
David
Multi-Color Hero Enhancements: 2
Wheel Within a Wheel (Green/Silver)
Wheel Within a Wheel (Green/Silver)
Silver Hero Enhancements: 1
Protection of Jerusalem
Gold Hero Enhancements: 6
Samuel's Edict
Samuel's Edict
Samuel's Edict
Sword against Sword
Sword against Sword
Sword against Sword
Green Hero Enhancements: 3
Provisions
Provisions
Provisions
Pale Green Evil Characters: 8
Assyrian Archer
Assyrian Archer
Assyrian Siege Army
Assyrian Siege Army
Assyrian Survivor
Assyrian Survivor
Balaam
The Rabshakeh
Gray Evil Characters: 2
Sabbath Breaker
Sabbath Breaker
Multi-Color Evil Characters: 6
Foreign Wives
Damsel with Spirit of Divination
Chaldeans
Chaldeans
Astrologers
Astrologers
Multi-Color Evil Enhancements: 2
Invoking Terror
Scattered (Brown/Crimson/Gray/Pale Green)
Pale Green Evil Enhancements: 15
Disuading Speech
Disuading Speech
Disuading Speech
Forgotten History
Forgotten History
Forgotten History
Forgotten History
Two Thousand Horses
Two Thousand Horses
Two Thousand Horses
Two Thousand Horses
Words of Discouragement
Words of Discouragement
Words of Discouragement
Words of Discouragement
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The concept of this deck originated with the ruling on special initiative. When it was ruled that special initiative only happened when the last character on one side of the battle was being removed from battle, I immediately decided that I wanted to build something around Choose the Rescuer. Once I decided on that, I looked into ways of affecting my opponent other than just not letting them attack with the Heroes they wanted. At some point I stumbled across the idea to combine Rain Becomes Dust (a huge anti-meta card in T2) with The Generous Widow. The end result was of course, they don't rescue with the Hero they want (and can only negate if they use Gold), they discard two cards from hand and then discard the top 2 of their deck--effectively a new variant of hand control. Wanting to also include Iron Pan (another anti-meta card in T2), I started with Sarah's Jealousy and Imitating Evil (for a potential 8 Choose the Rescuer blocks) in a Babylonian defense. Judges was an easy offense to choose as it is one of the fastest and it also meant that in a pinch, I could use The Generous Widow for attacking (which rarely ended up happening). Early in testing, I discovered that having 4 Generous Widows could lead to hand clog especially if I drew a couple of them before having the other cards I needed (Sarah's Jealousy, RBD, etc). I looked at the other Choose the Rescuer cards and was immediately drawn to Disuading Speech. Combining Speech with 2K Horses, Words of Discouragement and Forgotten History was exactly what I was looking for. I was still able to use the Babylonian Magicians for Iron Pan since they are half Pale Green so that worked out really well. Balaam was a huge addition as he was not only a tough EC to beat, I could convert him to a Hero to recur RBD whenever my opponent had gotten rid of it (not hard to do). I could then band Simeon to Balaam for a soft fbtn band. When the new cards released Foreign Wives and Scattered fit right in. Sabbath Breakers helped me draw into the rest of the defense, but ideally I would save them for choosing the blocker off Provisions when I had RBD active.
The offense went through a lot of changes but the core stayed the same. AutO, Simeon, Sam, Moses, Captain and Gen Widow were the most used Heroes but I can remember using each Hero at least once during the tournament. Least used was Ezekiel as he was just there to activate Iron Pan on, play Provisions off of and get back a Wheel if both ended up in the discard pile somehow. Woman at the Well was not used much, but I wanted to have her in case I was forced to use Words when they had only a few Lost Souls out (since using Words inherently creates Soul drought). With Pan available, Naz would not stop W@tW and being Gold, I could still use Edict or Sword against Sword on her. The night before the tournament, I almost took the 3 Provisions out because I felt like there would be Decrees all over the place (and I was right), but I couldn't find anything better. In hindsight, I think the Provisions are still useful (since Siege Army can take out Decrees), but I should have cut to 2 in order to add a 4th Edict. In my tournament report, I mentioned how the lack of Edicts kept me from potentially defeating Gabe.
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The artifacts were pretty basic. Charms was typically used for Heroes like Sam and Ezekiel who stopped my Horses from playing next. I also wanted Charms in case my opponent was using Gold (which I figured would happen at least once or twice) and I needed to capture Gen Widow after choosing her as the rescuer. Grail was primarily for converting Balaam (if available) so I could recur RBD easier, and the Pans because well, Pans rock many of the popular offenses and defenses. I had to be careful that if I had Pan up, I wasn't counting on using my Horses, but as often as I could I got good old Rabshakeh equipped so I could still 2K Horses with Pan active. The reason for so few artifacts was because I wanted to have RBD active at all times if possible. At one point I had 2 Samaritan Water Jars for the same reason as W@tW (in case I created Soul drought with Words of Discouragement), but I cut them the night before to get down to 101 and since I only had the 1 Samaritan. I probably could have added one more Charms as another fallback stall tactic without slowing the deck down at all.
Lost Soul selection was pretty standard. Originally I had a few Sites with the hand discard LS and site remove LS but I ended up cutting all the Sites except one Naz. I decided to try anti-Burial but it didn't seem to help much. Pretty sure every opponent waited until they used Burial before attempting to rescue it, and one opponent even used the new SoG to rescue it so that it would be negated and he could still use Burial. I might switch those out for the Thorns Lost Soul as my game with Gabe pretty much came down to me not being able to rescue more than once or twice in the last 6 or 7 turns due to Souls being shuffled by Death of Unrighteous. However, Thorns is a protect so I would need to be careful with choosing to use Pan or not.
One thing I was a bit disappointed in was that I was not able to use Judge's Seat as much as I had hoped, but with Jair it was usually just a way to thin my deck one card faster.
That's all I got for now. I wouldn't be surprised if "Judge Widow" sticks around for awhile. 8)
Comments, suggestions and questions all welcome!
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So Jerome and I are driving home and really enjoyed getting to read this and discuss some about it. Spitballing a little did you consider a confusion or 2? With pan turning off naz confusion could've been nice.
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I definitely did consider Confusion, but decided to pass for a couple reasons. Didn't want to cut anything I currently had--Words, FH and Speech were all 4x without question. I maybe could have cut a 2K Horse, but that's only one Confusion. Second, if I was using an EC w/ Horse to block, Confusion could easily have caused initiative to transfer. I wanted to stick with Horse/Words/History or Horse/Words/Speech so that they never had a chance to play anything. Lastly, my goal was to eventually have my opponent in a position where he was only drawing cards he had already drawn but got put back (via Words), so discarding cards from the rest of his deck wasn't a priority.
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That makes a lot of sense. Congrats and thanks again for posting your deck and giving commentary. I always enjoy reading these from elite t2 players.
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Cool deck and congrats!
Awesome to see variety in T2 displayed having the gen widow and disuading speech in the winning deck!
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That makes a lot of sense. Congrats and thanks again for posting your deck and giving commentary. I always enjoy reading these from elite t2 players.
Cool deck and congrats!
Awesome to see variety in T2 displayed having the gen widow and disuading speech in the winning deck!
Thank you both!
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Russell Westbrook dunk vs Rockets - Thunder @ Rockets 11/28/10 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNhDf9hEpfE#ws)
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Russell Westbrook dunk vs Rockets - Thunder @ Rockets 11/28/10 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNhDf9hEpfE#ws)
I guess you can't + 1 stuff in this area of the forums but just know I would've if I could've. :P
Justin, you play basketball and yet I've never seen you do that... What's up with that?
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Russell Westbrook dunk vs Rockets - Thunder @ Rockets 11/28/10 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNhDf9hEpfE#ws)
I guess you can't + 1 stuff in this area of the forums but just know I would've if I could've. :P
Justin, you play basketball and yet I've never seen you do that... What's up with that?
3 pointers are worth more.
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dropped hoppers changed anti burial for thorns
added vain philosophy
added 2nd magic charms
added 4th edict
dropped woman at the well
added 2nd invoking terror
Drop Foreign Wives
Drop Scattered
Changed wanderer ls to rejoice ls
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dropped hoppers changed anti burial for thorns
added vain philosophy
added 2nd magic charms
added 4th edict
dropped woman at the well
added 2nd invoking terror
Drop Foreign Wives
Drop Scattered
Changed wanderer ls to rejoice ls
You know that he did win nats with this deck right?
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Yeah and I beat it at nats so
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But that doesn't mean anything. He still won, most anyone who wins a national category has at least one loss.
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People are always welcome to make comments or suggestions on the decks of others - even if that deck happened to win nationals. Also I wouldn't discredit Matt's win over Justin.
Kirk
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Every deck can be improved, even national winners.
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Also (based on the meta) card choices can change from great to nonplayable.