Author Topic: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report  (Read 1249 times)

Offline bmc25

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First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« on: August 24, 2016, 08:29:51 AM »
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Hello my name is Benjamin Campbell,

This year’s National tournament was the first tournament that I have attended since the last time nationals was in Ohio in 2008, and even that was a “come out of retirement game” because I hadn’t played at that point since Nats 2006 in NY if I remember correctly.

First, it was great to see Roy Cruz, Al Bauer, Rob Anderson, Chris Bany, and Justin Alstad because they are the only ones that were really around much when I was playing consistently.

It was awesome to play some competitive games for the first time in eight years. It felt surreal, all of the memories I had playing Redemption resurfaced. I certainly am thankful for the fun times I've had through this game.

My family has loved the game of Redemption for a long time, but the only remaining players are my mother and I. We had a ton of fun!

Round 1: Stephen Coates: Kentucky
I remember sitting down and I was at seat #2 and thinking, well this is the last time I will be ranked this high.

As I started shuffling my cards I reverted to my sixteen year old self and started feeling my heartbeat increase and my nerves kick in high gear. I reminded myself that it was just a game, and I felt relaxed the rest of the tournament.

I remember beginning the game with an opening hand Simeon / Captain and my opponent had 2-3 lost souls available. Eight years ago this would have meant a swift victory, apparently not anymore. He had more souls and decided that I should go first. I attacked and he blocked, in this moment I decided that I would have a good chance at a quick game if I could get rid of this block, so I threw down “The Second Coming” and searched for AOTL and promptly killed his gold Evil Character. It was something that I would come to regret. The rest of the game was a war. He got everything CBN / CBP and was eventually able to slow my band, and the Moses offense FBN. He was running a blue genesis offense, and while it has a lot of CBN stuff my Pale Green defense did not have much trouble. He won an early soul with a battle winner off of Joseph, I fell it away, and we had a lot of fun back and forth battles. It was 2-0 and the judge came over and said, “5 minutes” I had the Serpent in my hand and decided if I times it correctly I could make sure he couldn’t use good doms the rest of the game. He attacked and I blocked with the Serpent / DOU. He was not amused, but the timing was perfect. I won two more rescues, and would have most likely been given a free lost soul if I had one more turn. He had SOG/NJ that he couldn’t use and we were out of time. I thought it was interesting that I was running a BOM deck and yet most of my lost souls were won with   4-0 win for me.

2 points +4 differential

Round 2: Kevin Mcilrath: Connecticut

I live in the NE region and thus pay some attention to those who do well there. I had been informed that the player I was playing, “Kevin Mcilrath” had won regionals this year in type 1-2 player. I was wondering what this game would be like, and it was certainly a fun game.

He was running a judges deck that heavily utilized the new Moses. He did not draw a lot of defense and I took an early 2-1 lead. Mid-way through He was beginning to pick up momentum and had killed most of my evil characters with an annoyingly successful Judges seat and the ever useful Jephthah. He was having a lot of success with Moses and I was beginning to get a little worried I wouldn’t have enough left to beat him. Then he made an error. I don’t know why but he attacked with something other than Moses after drawing off of AUTO. This was a dream come true. I blocked with The Serpent paralyzed Moses for 5 turns, played Confusion to rid him of Son of God, and then he says, “If you don’t give me the lost soul I’m going to negate all of that.” So I played Death of Unrighteousness. The rest was just a matter of time. And I ended up winning 5-2.

5 points +7 differential

Part 1
« Last Edit: August 24, 2016, 09:00:04 AM by bmc25 »
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2016, 08:37:10 AM »
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Round 3: Josiah Beers: Pennsylvania

I was beginning to feel pretty good about my deck. I was ranked somewhere around the top 12, and I saw that I would be playing Josiah Beers. I thought, “Didn’t he win nationals a little while back?” and when I sat down he informed me that he had won nationals and with a deck he built the night before. Oh, great.

I was not happy to draw no defense early, and actually just one evil character for the first 3-4 turns. I was giving away a lot of free lost souls, and he was drawing like a maniac with an awesome 1 Sam offense. I was particularly upset because I ran gifts, rain becomes dust, the lost soul that negates banding, and the serpent which would have been amazing but he drew so quickly I never even saw them! One GIANT oversight of mine was not noticing that I had the lost soul that lets me search for an evil character / evil enhancement if he exchanged or searched which he did at least 2-3 times Because of his continual drawing. He even got set-up with broken covenant and was just completely outdrawing me. The second misplay I had was I saw that he had the punisher lost soul out, and I wanted to attack with Moses so I played Son of God and attacked, only to have him beat me because he had Jericho down, I had never seen Jericho in a deck before and didn’t even know what it did, so I lost that battle, and the ended up losing the game. I never drew any of my counters and his deck was very good. I was able to keep up for a moment because I drew a lot of my doms, but I ended up losing. Josiah is a good guy, and he showed a lot of sportsmanship.

I lost 3-5 having played Son of God, but not The second Coming.
5 Points +5 differential

Round 4: Johnathan Wagenknechts

I played Johnathan W, one of the triplets and he was playing a 1 Sam offense with a philistine defense. His deck was not nearly as fast as Josiah’s, but his defense was much larger and I did have some trouble with it. The game was a big blur, I remember him banding in Jephthah to kill one of my evil characters in battle (I think I remember this lol). I also remember that I won 5-4 with an epic last battle where he used 4 evil enhancements in a FBN fight, but he misplayed bringing fear by playing foolish advice after it, making it a FBN battle once again, and barely losing by the numbers. I escaped with a 5-4 win.

8 Points +6 diff

Part 2
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2016, 08:44:25 AM »
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Round 5: Ryan Ertmer

I was sitting up fairly high. I think I was 12th at this point, but I don’t remember exactly. My opponent was SUCH a nice guy. This was one definitely some of the most fun I’ve ever had playing in a tournament game. He was great. So great! He was running an angel’s offense with a mashup of animals, brown, and magicians.  There were a lot of cards that he had that I did not know, and my inexperience with some of the newer cards slows down my play. It was back and forth the entire Game but I did pull off Confusion and that was huge, but he captured Moses and gave him to me as a redeemed soul and that hurt a lot. It was enough to give me the timeout win.
4-3 Win

10 Points +7 Differential

Round 6: Luke Marshall
Going into this round I had only lost 1 game, but I had two timeout wins, so I knew that I could not afford to lose if I wanted to get into top cut.

This was easily the most fun game of the tournament, Luke Marshall is an awesome guy!  He was running a much different variation of the 1 Sam offense, it seemed that his defense was much larger than any I saw during the tournament. It may have just been more effective, but it was certainly a challenge. It was a character based brown defense. The game begins and I have 2 lost souls out and no defense…three turns go by and I have no evil characters but 5-6 evil enhancements. The second time that day that I had trouble getting evil characters early on. During the game I had a difficult time with the new Medium of Endor, because I was running things like Moses Parents and Melchizedek for support Moses, so I did lose a couple of rescues because of Medium of Endor.

I finally got evil characters and so his rescuing stopped. I played Son of God earlier than normal to get rid of one of his pesky lost souls (I think it was punisher), he played forgotten history and removed it from my discard pile. He used Hezekiah’s Signet ring for much of the game. I do remember that I discarded my own coliseum because I wanted to be able to use forgotten history and scattered, and he discarded shipwreck because he only used it to get rid of coliseum and we laughed about that. I was playing catch up, and was getting close. He used Son of God to grab another lost soul and I believe angel of the Lord for the fourth. The last turn is where it gets interesting. I rescue but he blocks me so I am stuck with half of the two-liner rescued, but son of God has been removed from the game so it is stranded there in his territory. I’m thinking ok, it’s over he can’t beat my defense, I’m getting a time out loss. He attacks draws 2 with AUTO I block with my Egyptian Magicians and band to his Foreign Wives…His face turns completely Red because he forgot that Foreign wives is Egyptian. I'm feeling great because that was his last turn, but little did I know that an earlier mistake would come back to haunt me. I had a block where I blocked with the serpent and played Death of unrighteousness, but did not play confusion because he had already played Son of God, and I was just so concentrated on winning the battle that I did not think about "The second Coming." The battle ends and he puts down a whole bunch of cards, plays mayhem, manages to draw the Second coming to get son of God and wins.

5-3
10 points +5 Differential.

Part 3
« Last Edit: August 24, 2016, 09:02:13 AM by bmc25 »
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2016, 08:50:06 AM »
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Round 7: "young" Greeson-Soul Seeker's son I believe.

I face yet another 1 Sam offense, and it was also paired with a Philly Defense.

By this point I know I am out of the running for Top Cut and while sad, I was slightly relieved because I was absolutely exhausted.

This game is a blur in my mind. All I remember is that He searched for King David with Samuel, but chose to get a red character instead of getting Throne of David. He did a lot of drawing but so did I Because of Gifts of the Magi. I had an early Joshua / Captain band, and I pulled off The Serpent / Confusion / Death of Unrighteousness. I eventually wore down his defense and won 5-2.

Record: 3 Wins / 2 Timeout wins / 2 Loses

13 Points + 8 differential

I finished 18th overall, a far cry from my initial 2nd place beginning, but I had so much fun.

Conclusion:
I only lost two games, but my unfamiliarity with the new cards REALLY slowed down my playing. Looking back I wish I pushed just a little bit faster but maybe then I would have made even more mistakes. I think I deserved to land where I did. I played two people who made top-cut and I lost to them both. In both of those games I did not draw evil characters early, but that is a part of the game, and I should have included one more evil character. Thanks to all for a great time!

Some interesting findings:
1) I did not run into many people using Coliseum. Almost everyone was instead playing a counter for Coliseum.
2) Rain becomes dust is easily the most feared curse in the game. It was hit with destruction / captured ark every game that I activated it. (I should have run Balaam)
4) There are only two offenses 1 Sam and BOM, there are variations, but these are the only offenses I saw.
5) The separation between good players and great players has everything to do with limiting mistakes...and hardly anything to do with which cards they have.

Part 4
« Last Edit: August 24, 2016, 09:40:26 AM by bmc25 »
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2016, 08:53:57 AM »
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I'm Josiah,

For clarification the t1-2p nats I won was with a deck Gabe updated from Tim M.  I changed 2 cards from Gabes build. I hadn't ever played that deck or even that style of deck before though. 

This is an awesome report and it was great meeting you. Hopefully you don't wait for years to come back around :-)
JMM is a modern day prophet

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2016, 08:56:29 AM »
+1
I want to give a shout out to Land of Redemption. I actually got the idea of a BOM offense off of the information they provided on their website. Here is a link to one of the articles that helped me understand the Because of Moses (BOM) concept.

http://landofredemption.com/?p=5212

Deck: 52
Lost Souls: 8
Hopper
Lawless
Awake
Dull
3 Liner
Slaves
Revealer

Fortress: (1)
Coliseum

Doms: (7)
The Second Coming
Guardian of your Souls
Son of God
Angel of the Lost
Destruction
Falling Away WO
Christian Martyr

Curses/Arts (3)
Rain Becomes Dust
Magic Charms
Gifts of the Magi

Multi-Colored Good (11)
Moses
Melchizedek
Joshua Son of Nun
David the Psalmist
Samuel

Word of their testimony
Faith of Gideon
Faith of Samson
Faith of Samuel
Faith of Moses’ Parents
Faith of Moses

Silver (3)
Captain of the Host Wa
Angel under the Oak
Angel with the Secret Name

Gold (2)
Simeon
Gideon COW

White (1)
Moses’s Parents

Multi-Evil 8
Foreign Wives
Damsel with the Spirit of Divination
Egyptian Magicians
Astrologers

Scattered
Invoking Terror
Magicians Snakes
Confusion

Pale Green 8
Assyrian Siege Army
Elymas the Sorcerer TEC
Assyrian Archer
Assyrian Survivor

Achan's Sin
Death of Unrighteous
Forgotten History
Two Thousand Horses

Looking back there are a few changes I would have made.

Take out:
Coliseum-absolutely a great card, so I put it in there to be situational with forgotten history and scattered, but I always discarded it.

Hopper-I am all about creating lost souls for my opponent, and this was a gamble that I thought I was willing to play. If I got it early all it did was let my opponent choose who went first and if I got it late all it did was become an extra soul for me because of Moses.

Melchizedek: He was great, and I loved using him, again all about creating souls, but I would have rather had this be Barnabas because he can play most of my enhancements.

Salves lost soul-I saw one site the entire tournament, and I took it with Joshua son of Nun.

Put in:
Jericho: I would definitely get Jericho in this Deck. I did not know about this card. WOW! This would have been amazingly useful.

Holy Grail-There were a couple of times that I REALLY could have used this! I’d take out Hopper for this!

Barnabas-Like Melchizedek but works when Moses is on the table (Which is ALWAYS).

Punisher LS-This hurts decks, I had no idea that there was a short period of time where Moses was neither in territory or battle so this worked against him.

Would like to find room for:
-You will remain-This could have easily been what helped me win the two timeout games.
-Sword of the Spirit-This would have dominated a lot of the defenses I played, and would have been useful against the rest.
-Grapes: I am highly considering taking guardian out for grapes.
-Shipwreck: I HATE Jericho, so maybe Guardian for Shipwreck?
-Every man’s Sword-an even more versatile Sword of the Spirit / But I’d also want Rabshakeh...so maybe not.

Most valuable cards:
Confusion-I discarded Son of God with this 4 times.
The serpent-I pulled this off about 4-5 times...once for the max 6 turns, but usually 3-5 turns.
Moses-Duh. An absolute savage with all of those faith enhancements.
Faith of Gideon-I won lost souls with Achan’s sin / Death of Unrighteousness and discarded Son of God with Confusion. It was always a great play.

Best Combo:
The serpent / Confusion / Death of Unrighteousness-They can’t play good doms for 3-6 turns, Son of God gets removed from the game, and no lost souls to fight for next turn. This is a giant swing in any game, and was the catalyst to a couple of my wins.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2016, 09:21:06 AM by bmc25 »
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2016, 09:09:48 AM »
+1
I'm Josiah,

For clarification the t1-2p nats I won was with a deck Gabe updated from Tim M.  I changed 2 cards from Gabes build. I hadn't ever played that deck or even that style of deck before though. 

This is an awesome report and it was great meeting you. Hopefully you don't wait for years to come back around :-)

It was great to get to meet you as well. I'm already looking forward to next year, and am hoping to try to get some of the teens in my youth group playing!
Benjamin Campbell

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2016, 01:23:10 PM »
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Nice report man thanks for sharing!! :-) you play on lackey??

Offline bmc25

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Re: First Tournament in 8 years! -Nats Tournament Report
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2016, 08:58:31 PM »
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You actually told me about lackey at the tournament. I was the guy who thanked you for all of your articles and being willing to put your deck online, which by the way obviously did not hurt you at all. lol

I did download lackey, but I haven't played any games on it yet. I don't know exactly how.
Benjamin Campbell

 


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