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T1-2P 3rd place deck
6-2 one loss was a timeout loss
19 points and +9 soul differential

This deck was built for top cut not Swiss it had only a +9 souls because I came from behind in every game but 1 in my 6 wins.

This deck is built to continue the battle phase as often as possible and to avoid my opponent getting dominant rescues/blocks.  You have to slow roll the offense a little bit and make it count because it can run out if you spend it foolishly.

Originally when Jerome got home from his walk, we began a discussion about the best cards in the game. (Obvioulsy, dominants). We started asking what are the best ways to beat "Dominants" as battle winners.  This lead us to instead and add to battle abilities. "Battle Extenders".  I decided to make a deck using as many instead and AtB abilities as possible. My original build was 77 cards. It included Madness, Unknown Nation, Boaz Sandle and all kinds of craziness. Clearly I worked hard to trim the guff and get down to where it should be (at 50).

Jerome did a ton of testing with me as we fine tuned the deck. A week before the tournament I played Charles Johnson who was running a Genesis deck that included, Abe's Descendants, Faith Among Corruption, Paying Taxes, Ashteroth Worship and Three Woes. He decimated me 4 games in a row.  I was ready to scrap the deck but Jerome convinced me that no one else was going to be playing all the counters Charles was playing. Also Charles had seen the deck and had played against it a lot. It took him 5-6 games to beat it the first time. With all that in mind I went to the national tournament with a prebuilt deck (for the first time).

Ways to "Extend" I kept in!
Solomon's Temple - the cheapest instead ability in the game (IMO) and it covers the key characters on offense and defense in this deck. Adding cards that were useful and could still be used to instead wasn't hard in purple (Not Alone, Sword of the Spirit, Temple Dedication, Seventh Seal (fetched Trumpet and Sword), Melchizedek and The Ends of The Earth. Pentecost was a cut in the end but is decent in the deck as well.

You Will Remain - we all know what it does :-)

Faith of David - this card was the best single (none dominant) card in my deck. Many times people would negate YWR and FoD still got to do the job.  It was also a boss in Brian and I teams decks and my T2-2p winning deck. FoD might be my favorite card in the game right now.

Gates of Hell - we know what it does

Sixth Bowl - awesome hand control card on offense but it is amazing as a defensive card. Especially in this deck. It was one of the last cards moved to reserve. In testing I just had too many games where is just sat in territory and I didn't use it. It was usually a top pick for my Cov. of Prayer though.

Gabriel and In the Clouds where in and out during testing and in the end I cut them from the deck and reserve when I realized Gabriel couldn't play Not Alone . . . Oops

John Early/Brian Jones pointed me towards play Abbadon the day prior in my T2 deck and that was a great choice.  It was such a great choice I ended up squeezing him into my T1 deck.


Heroes 8
David the Shepherd
Abigail
King Solomon
King Hiram
King Amaziah
Ahimelech
Every Tribe
Melchizedek

GE's 6
Faith of David
Valley is Salt
Council of Abigail
Not Alone
Sword of the Spirit
Temple Dedication

Covenants 3
You Will Remain
Seventh Seal
Covenant of Prayer

Good Forts 2
The Throne of David
Solomon's Temple

Neutral 4
Golden Cherubim
King Saul
King Abijam
The Ends of the Earth

Evil Characters 7
King Reheboam
King Manasseh
Complainers
The Deceiver
Abaddon
Frog Demons
King Jehoash

EE's 3
Scattered
Gibeonite Trickery
Korah's Rebellion

Evil Forts 2
Gates of Jerusalem
Gates of Hell

Dominants 7
Son of God
The Second Coming
Angel of the Lord
Mayhem
Christian Martyr
Strife
Falling Away (CoW)

Lost Souls 8
Hopper
Open Hand
Imitate
Humble
Forsaken
Wanderer
Punisher
Lawless

Reserve 10 Cards
Red Dragon
Image of the Beast
Outsiders (Brown/Crimson)
Gomer
Uzzah
Foreign Wives
Kings of the Earth
Treasures of War
Sixth Bowl of Wrath
Trumpet and Sword

If I could make some change
I would swap Red Dragon into the Deck and put the Gates of Hell in the reserve.
I would drop treasures of War from reserve for Trumpet Blast. (I never used Treasures one time.)


Thanks to everyone who helped me with this deck!
Jerome Beers - conceptualizing, deck build, testing, encouragement
Charles Johnson - testing, encouragement, kicking my butt
John Early/ Brian Jones for pushing me towards Abbadon in T2-2p
Justin Alstad (pointed out Not Alone doesn't on angels)

I guess I should mention 2 more things.
1. Gain (LS) was way over played and over used this year IMO. When you use it early or mid game it is basically the same as playing a 51 card deck. I think it's mostly an end game card with imitate.  Since the odds of reaching end game with both of those souls is super low, I cut it for punisher.
2. Strife is amazing when paired with King Rehoboam. It actually lets you get around your opponents YWR without needing to negate it. As long as you leave then a hero in the side battle with Strife it's practically an auto block. Strife can be a block with CM or FA (CoW).  It also can used offensively for initiative.

How effective did you find 7th Seal? With only having one card to pull from Reserve, did it help having the withdraw ability once you pulled Trumpet and Sword?

What was the reasoning for using Complainers instead of Medium in Endor? (and why not both?)

Seventh Seal has a built in battle winning condition which I felt was solid considering Demons, Angels and animals where all over the Meta.

Medium was in and out a ton of times. In the end with "The Deciever" I felt I could get to complainers enough to warrant not needing Medium in Endor. The value of Complainers Negate is incredible, especially with the ridiculousness that is" cascade negate". (Medium was one of the last cuts and it felt bad to cut her but her use in this deck was limited in testing.)

I actually didn't need to use 7th Seal's win condition at any point. I figured I would get to push back some Red dragon's but when it was up demon's never blocked. Perhaps it did its job anyways!

With Humble I felt safe with complainers. Plus Saul was a Hero in every game I played.  The versatility of Abijam plus the ability to CBN kill music leaders, Genesis dudes, Samuel's etc is just too good to give up. Plus He is a king of Judah.

I'm not a huge fan of frog demons he got negated against me a ton of times and that hurts a defense with only 3 EE's lol

King Saul doesn't need to be an EC for Medium's CBP... You're thinking of Doeg. 

I suppose it does make sense that 7th Seal becomes a deterrent instead of being a battle winner (as an artifact).

Congrats man on the stellar nationals!  Love the unique build.  Always love grindy decks like this. 

6-2 one loss was a timeout loss

Let's be real that timeout loss was an actual loss. You know it.

Great job- I really like your deck building thought-process!

Quote from: Jonesy on August 17, 2017, 01:13:56 PM

I am just gonna point this out, I told you abbadon was good. I think I will take credit for your success.   
Just kidding man, awesome showing this year.

I think your right I may have credited Early when I should've credited you. . . Oops.

Jonesy probably did tell you to play Abbadon, but you ignored him, because, you know, he's jonesy, I definitely told you the night before to include him because he's amazing added of Gates, or simply as one of the broader reserve access cards on defense

Quote from: Master Q on August 17, 2017, 04:09:53 PM

Quote from: jbeers285 on August 17, 2017, 11:55:15 AM

6-2 one loss was a timeout loss

Let's be real that timeout loss was an actual loss. You know it.

Oh I comepletely agree the odds of me coming up with a block where next to 0 at that point and I had over played the offense early so I was in big big trouble.

To be fair, I didn't stall, I played efficiently, I obeyed the head judge/tournament hosts direction and I didn't timeout in any other games during the day.

lol at the bolded

Indeed, slow-offensive starts tend to lead to slow games. I'm leaning towards supporting longer time limits in T1-2p. There's just much more to keep track of in games, more defense, and more abilities to do nowadays.

Mashing an updated version of this plus some hidden throne stuff seems top tier right now.

You would think so.... I can say with authority that it did not work out for me on Saturday