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I feel like if we were able to actually make this work it would help. In order to make this work though we would need a simple, and creative way to keep track of rounds. I think that is the biggest hurdle.
I always wondered if creating a deck building rule when it comes to the amount of territory class cards can be in your deck would work. Any idea will have pros and cons.

Some of my thoughts on the subject from discord:

I think speed first turn is a huge turn off to new players, and while some could grow to like it they are pushed off before they can adapt to it. Watching your opponent search and set up counters for 6+ minutes while you have no interaction is not fun.
Im only here with this discord because of the community, my history with the game and the theme, I love the cards that tell their story from scripture. The first turn solitaire NPE would have run me off if I didnt have those ties.

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The variant of THE SCHAEFER SOLUTION I would like most is: Players can only play X card(s) outside of battle on their turn, where X is the round.

Dominants (and lost souls) are unaffected by this limit.

I like it as a hard limit on just "cards" because its much simpler rules wise than saying and less arbitrary than territory cards, or  “territory cards, sites, fortresses and artifacts. Also prevents nontc character vomit to territory. Making drawing hand up to 16 less enticing in first 2 turns.
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You can still do some larger TC character setup with THE SOLUTION if you abuse banding turn 1.

You can make a rescue attempt with a TC character (straight from hand during battle, so it doesnt count against you) and band in other good TC with Resurrection or Talitha etc... then play an Evil Character TC for discard phase. You could have 3-4 tc in play with that turn 1. So a fast start, but still gives opponent opportunity to fight it in combat.

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Whatever the variation - With the SOLUTION the game would look like classic redemption more on first 2-3 turns and look more like modern redemption in the latter turns. And I love this.
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Would love to see youtubers try it out and maybe unofficial tournaments with it in a few months. I think the current growth is hamstrung by NPE for players. I don’t expect new players to play tournament because it is so full of NPE currently. I just introduce them to casual and cube.

Its definitely not strictly 1 card type, though yes 95% of the cards are TC.

Sites like patmos, golgotha etc and many fortresses artifacts all can have similar speed implications to TC cards.

Still I'd be fine with just TC, I just think all cards is more elegant (makes more sense to explain to new players than just TC cards) and has less problematic loopholes.

Edit -

I do think Redemption should rotate again some day but at the rates new sets come out I expect that to be years out, and I think the ban list would be too long and too unpopular to fix the current state.

Thank you for the reply Sean, love the discussion!

100% agree.

#TCLydia!

Adding my discord reply to CtheTree here too:
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I agree the game may be healthier in first turn balance than most people expect.

I think the game is currently unhealthy in the gameplay experience, specifically the new player experience.

With no resources the flurry of solitaire activity on turn 1 is extremely discouraging for a ton of players that I have run into.

My opinion (and obviously opinions arent facts, totally fine to disagree with me) is that the highest level of the game is not healthy to most new players. (Some of course will be fine with it and thrive)

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I do love discussion like this and I love your articles CtheTree, thanks!

So one thing I would like to clarify is a definition of "new" player. I would say you and I are "newer" players. I came back to the game in 2019 after being gone for over a decade and when I played before I did not know how to play it correctly. That being said you and I are competitive players. I run a play group made up of 10+ players who I would consider except for 2 or 3 to be truly new players. They are primarily jr. high and high school students. For them they don't care about what is going on in the competitive arena and just want to have fun. When we have tournaments they all primarily just have one average deck. The thing that is most hard for them is when rules change. This past year I have had to help them navigate through several (necessary might I add) rule changes and that has been a struggle for these new players just trying to figure out how to play the game. Rules changing all the time I would say is more negative for new players than a card or two being banned. I view rules changing therefore as something that should be done with great care and only when totally necessary. At this juncture I do believe banning Numerous as the Stars and allowing the new cards coming down the pipeline to take their effect has a good chance to balance things out. If it is not enough then yes, rule change should be evaluated. However, those changes (a card ban and helpful new cards entering circulation) are much easier for truly new players to handle and if they do work not having to change the rules of the game further is ideal for the truly new players to the game.

The lifeblood of Redemption is newcomers learning the game, getting interested, and sticking around even if they do not become competitive players and remain casual. Having a low threshold to entering the game is key for this to happen. These new rule changes complicate that entry level further in my mind. I teach new people at my play group to play the game often and this new proposal would make that harder plain and simple. If it is truly necessary then so be it. However, I believe we should exhaust other options before adding complexity to the entry level of the game. That will potentially deter newcomers from getting into the game and sticking around in my opinion. A lot of the Redemption community is casual not competitive and I think we tend to view things primarily through the lens of competitive play. This new rule proposal I believe is mainly from that perspective not from the perspective of true newcomers and casual players.

I think a lot about the casual player who really doesn't care about being competitive. They are a meaningful part of the game too and make up a fair amount of my play group. Some of them get interested in the competitive side of the game eventually but for others it is just a fun game to play and fellowship with other people. I think that is a big reason why I am so hesitant with this proposed rule change because I think it makes the experience of those players less enjoyable by complicating their game play further with things they have to keep track of. They have no desire to be competitive or to know the meta. They just want to have fun playing the game with friends with the cards they have. When rules are changed the impact on the whole community needs to be considered even the casual players. You and I are both players who have a desire to be competitive and in fact everyone chiming into the conversation so far are. I am trying to think on behalf of many of my play group members and others like them in the community.

My love for Redemption started as a casual player when I was in high school. My friend who taught me the game in high school and I were not at all connected with the meta or the competitive scene in how we played. We just had fun playing the game together. I enjoyed the game just as much then as a casual player I do now being in the competitive arena as a player. Many people in my play group are like that just wanting to enjoy this great game on a casual level with their friends. Any rule changes need to not only keep the experience of competitive players in mind but also the casual players too.

I'll give it a skim soon though. Ultimately, I much prefer these boards to the discord any day. Far cleaner and more organized in general. Catchy title though. 

I don't enjoy discord much at all as a platform but I get why most are drawn to it. Especially for a discussion like this one though, this message board is way better in my opinion. Things get lost very easily on discord, even if they are pinned. having to scroll up and down in that thing is something I rarely do. But with this discussion I went and looked on discord and there is a lot more being said there than here.

Very well said Red. I could not agree more. Thank you for sharing your thoughts from a background of balanced experience with teaching new players regularly and being a competitive player for years.

     Over the years I also have seen a lot come and go. Rotation has been a good thing for Redemption. I wasn't originally onboard with it, but after several discussions as to what it actually entailed rather than the rampant assumptions of what it was going to be, I saw the wisdom in it. And remember, Rotation had been talked about for a good LOOOONNGGGG time prior to it happening.
     Fast forward to now. Several recent rule changes have been made for the health of Redemption, as well banning several more problematic cards. It is time to let these changes settle in and see what longer term effect they have. I agree with CtheTree, that Numerous as the Stars should be on the chopping block and I agree with RED that drastic rule changes should be a last resort. Banning, Errata and Silver Bullets should be looked at first, with extensive playtesting doing its' best to even head off using those.
     Over the years and various playgroups, I have taught Redemption to new, young players and new (TCG experienced players) and haven't run into the issues of it being too complex (for being a complex game). Basics, Basics, Basics is where I start and make the distinction between casual play and the whole 'nother animal of competitive play. I don't teach based on what I think they should know or learn, or what they should like or dislike between formats casual and competitive. I just show them and share with them the differences and let it grow from there.
      It is time to let what we have done (rule changes/banned cards and brand new set released) be put through the wringer of deck design and high-level competitive play to see if we are closer to where we want to be.

Godspeed,
Mike
     

Good thoughts Master Q. Curious, as mentioned in an earlier post here: yesterday I was saying in one conversation that Numerous, Matthew, and Denarius should be banned and Star of Bethlehem should be errata'd to one use per game. I later adjusted to just feeling Numerous needs to be banned. I definitely do not think Denarius needs to be banned at this juncture any longer.

However, you are reminding me why I originally thought Matthew should be banned. Just the principle of the card is overpowered.

Truth be told if Numerous is banned Matthew becomes the primary speed engine. I am in agreement with you: both Numerous as the Stars and Matthew should be banned as soon as possible.

I also think Star of Bethlehem needs to be dealt with in that vein. In a world with Matthew and Numerous being gone I see many people trying to abuse Star of Bethlehem to draw 12 since along with The First Combo it becomes the premier speed engine in a world without Numerous and Matthew. The First Combo is fragile and comes at a cost sacrificing ability souls. Star of Bethlehem is very easy to recur through The Coming Prince and allows for a potential draw 10-12 with ease. Limiting Star of Bethlehem to one use per game will mean it is getting a draw 6 at best and some other star interactions which seems quite fair.

So I propose that Numerous and Matthew be banned and Star of Bethlehem be limited to one use per game.

I don't think matthew needs the ban hammer with numerous gone. Matthew in my eyes is a form of punishing decks that use too many brigades and will become significantly more situational without numerous making brigade cram viable. Most competitive defenses are only running 1-3 colors, and if you're opponent is drawing some crazy 7+ off of your hand with matt, maybe you should be rethinking if you need so many brigades in your deck.

Quote from: CtheTree on September 30, 2022, 04:52:00 PM

I also think Star of Bethlehem needs to be dealt with in that vein.

Star of Bethlehem should not be touched at this time. It is far less reliable without Numerous I think. Besides, having an errata to it before the season’s even really kicked off seems wrong to me (especially since it tells you right on the card that you can use it twice haha). You could still get lucky with it and use the Star 3 times to draw an obscene amount, but realistically you’re not doing that. Give it some time and we will see.

Quote from: Kayden L on October 02, 2022, 12:01:42 AM

Most competitive defenses are only running 1-3 colors, and if you're opponent is drawing some crazy 7+ off of your hand with matt, maybe you should be rethinking if you need so many brigades in your deck.

This just isn’t true in my experience. Most decks runs at least 2 colors (1 good/1 evil). Of those, inevitably at least one of those good cards will have more than 1 brigade. Probably the same for evil. So, on average, Matthew probably draws 4+ per turn. Also consider the following:


Unlike other cards of this type (Hannah, Mighty Men) Matthew is CBI. If he goes off, your opponent does not get a chance to negate him- you could even make him CBP if you feel like it. Strike 1

Also unlike those other cards, he is not limited to evil brigades. Nor is he limited to just good: he’ll even check site brigades. So if you’re holding Patmos in hand, that’s a draw 3. If you’re also holding something like a Wages of Sin, that’s a draw 6. Then, if you’re holding a good card that’s not a brigade on Patmos, that’s a draw 7. This is stupidly easy to achieve on the first turn. Compare this to other themes’ draw heroes where they usually require you to have X other heroes of that theme to draw X, or they have some kind of limit. No such set up or limit here, with a much bigger payoff. Not even mentioning the hand look, which is stupidly strong by itself. Strike 2

Also consider how insanely simple it is to get this Hero turn 1. Patmos, the tutor angels, Life Through Christ (which also protects him), anything that grabs Patmos, anything that grabs one of the tutor angels, anything that grabs Life Through Christ, etc. This is almost a 100% turn 1 Hero with even a few of these cards in the deck, and, as they are still good in the deck as a whole, they don’t really dilute your deck all that much. Strike 3


AUTO was busted for years because of its CBN protect, but its draw 2 basically necessitated the creation of Foreign Wives to counter draw Heroes. Now I can’t even really run FW as intended for fear of the opponent drawing 7 off 1 card in my hand. Yeah, I could put her in Reserve, but I should not be afraid to run a counter to a card specifically designed to counter said card. That defeats the whole purpose of a counter.

If you want to punish multiple brigades, Defiled LS and Babel are other examples of defensive cards that allow the opponent counterplay, cannot be abused Turn 1, which don’t also punish decks that might just splash a Faith here and there. Drawing on offense is insanely good and insanely easy to do nowadays with all the banding going on, so it’s not like banning Matthew would change all that much in the long run apart from correcting a design flaw which should not have made it out of testing. This is a power creep that should not be accepted, and we've already had to endure it for a season.

Publican needs an errata to give X a '(limit3)' like a large number of other drawing cards have. At that point though may as well just make his SA D3 and get rid o the X entirely. In current state though I think he is OP.

I like limiting territory class Enhancements to 1 per turn. That's something we've discussed as far back as pre-Nationals 2021. But with rotation and the delay to the Reserve forthcoming we decided that a limit on TC would be too much at once. Even then I fully expected that to be the next major change we need to make.

The problem with "The Schaefer Solution" is that basing a limit off off the number of rounds is something that players fail to keep track of too often. That's been a problem for as long as I've been in the game.

Veterans are familiar with multiple turn set aside cards and have seen plenty of times that players lose count for any card that lasts more than 1 turn. The longest those tend to run is 4 turns but those have proven difficult to track.

Last year when we were testing the delayed reserve access we started with 3 rounds. One problem with that length of time is that players struggled to keep track of the rounds. Ultimately it was too long of a delay but it reinforced that tracking rounds isn't a good idea.

In both of those examples the people who failed to keep track of rounds are experienced players. We've taken many steps in the past few years to help the game be more friendly to new players and casual players. Adding a feature that we've seen experienced players struggle with seems highly unlikely.

My group was assigned the mission of playing a game with the Schaefer Solution and report pros and cons. My group is roughly 10 people and consists mostly newer players and a few that are competitive players. Here is some of their feedback on the Schaefer Solution:

1. Slowed the pace of the game for the first few turns. This was viewed as a positive impact.

2. It made the playing field more level between a really new players (using a slightly modified starter deck) and a player with a few months more experience using a more modified starter deck with LoC cards. Basically, the player with better cards couldn't gain as big of an advantage over their opponent on turn 1.

3. Minor struggles to keep track of what round it was but was mostly a non-issue. A die was sufficient to track.

4. The rule was explained and understood readily.

5. In my personal experience, I feel that this addition of a rule could warrant the elimination of 1 or more rules. The 4 use per turn rule and the reserve rule may not be as necessary if the "resource curve" starts out so low at the beginning of the game.

6. No one used high level decks or tried to break the game. Thus, our ability to find any weaknesses of the Schaefer solution or potential to abuse the game with it was limited.

Lastly, my personal, bird's eye view notes on TC abuse in general:

1. The fundamental problem is the resource curve being inverted in Redemption as discussed by Hymn on the podcast. Whatever solutions are proposed should make it a priority to create a more standard resource curve or at least level it out some. 
   A. The proposed solution to only play TC enhancements on TC characters may limit how easy it is to play TC cards, but it still leaves the resource curve inverted and allows for the potential to abuse TC cards.
   B. The proposed solution of modifying deck building to only allow for a limited number of TC cards also doesn't address the inverted resource curve, but at least puts a cap on the potential of TC abuse. Unfortunately, this also suffers from the criticism that it would be one more rule for players to learn and likely won't be enough to remove any existing rules.
   C. The proposed solution of limiting all TC cards to 1 played per turn still leaves the resource curve inverted, but it does flatten it considerably. This rule change may be enough to eliminate the 4 use per turn and/or reserve rules.

Thanks for indulging my thoughts and thanks to everyone for the constructive manner in which we are discussing this. Biggest thanks to the leadership team who is actually listening to and participating in the conversation with humility and wisdom. This is a great community.

I've thought long and hard on solutions to the current problem at hand that don't limit what Kevinthedude and I call 'Redemption-Feel." I have two that I'm really fond of that aren't major changes that have strong potential to limit some of the insanity.

#1 - The Artifact Activation Solution with a Delivered ban.
My proposal: Place all artifact actions at the very end of Preparation phase.
Explanation: This solution seems incredibly miniscule, but considering that Denarius/Four-Drachma Coin/The New Covenant allow for a player to draw into more territory class gas that then enables explosive starts with Numerous as the Stars/Star of Bethelehem, it's a fairly significant change. However, it would require banning delivered, otherwise delivered makes it a non-fix.

#2 - No Territory Class cards round one
This solution is self-explanatory. Both players get a turn 1 attack before being able to play TC enhancements. This increases the efficacy of anti-territory class artifacts and Moses (CoW) while implicitly dissuading players from loading their deck with 10+ TC GEs.

Both of these solutions maintain the unique Redemption feature of being able to play several cards per turn, while reducing the gap between the players who go first and second, while also dissuading the current vogue in deck building of playing a million TC GEs.

I would like either of these more than the current state, but overall I dont feel they go far enough.

Its funny about what people view as Redemption-Feel. I feel like Choke-hold (Limit - 1 TC enh per phase) or Schaeffer Solution are the most Redemption-Feel solutions.

From my background in the early years playing casually in late 90s the game was really all about the battle phase, the era before TC cards only a few cards were ever played outside of combat.

Its why I love chokehold or the S solution. The 2 solutions you mentioned definitely could hinder speed and solo play, but at the end of the day they will still be very viable. Again this is a lot of feelings and opinions, I cant claim objective truth here, just giving my 2 cents.

I like # 2 but not #1.

I don't like #1 because it forces a ban of a card that would otherwise not be ban worthy (unless it is, but I don't feel like it is). I feel like it makes more sense to ban the cards like Numerous, Denarius, Four-Drachma, etc... that make it so easy to draw 10% or more of your deck in one phase (let alone 1 turn). These cards create the same disproportional card advantage on later turns/rounds as they do on first turn. Granted, the impact of first turn is definitely greater than later turns.

I still feel like strategic card bans/rotation is the way to go and would make #2 unnecessary even though I think it would also work.

Delivered is unilaterally the most broken consistency card in the game and it in-and-of itself does more to contribute to the current game state than either 4dcoin or denarius. Furthermore, it makes no sense to weave 4 different artifact activations through the prep phase and those activations fuel oppressive game states.

I just had another idea that I've not heard previously.

New rule: Any cards drawn during the preparation phase may not be played from hand in that same preparation phase.

While the thoughts of this are solid, in function this simply won't work. We are at the mercy of people being honest here. Generally speaking you will have no idea what was in my hand and what I drew, so the honor system is king. While this game has always been based on that, recent rulings have taken steps to make this less of a necessity. Not because no one can be trusted, but mostly because certain people in certain circumstances will simply be tempted to cheat, so we want to avoid putting people in that position as much as possible.

So yesterday I tried my hand at building my first Type 2 deck ever. I realized something: the rule requiring an equal number of good and evil cards in the deck limits turbo speedy strategies to a point. What if that rule were applied to Type 1? Evil cards do not have nearly the same amount of TC madness as good. Especially in type 1 with it being singleton overall I could see this really solving a lot of what people are concerned about. The hyper Numerous Nativity decks really would be hard to pull off with needing to have equal good and evil cards.

Type 2 has always been loved for the nice back and forth created and I think a lot of the reason that exists is this deck building rule establishing you have to have an equal number of good and evil cards. I really think this might be what is needed for T1-2P to be more balanced and is a change that is very easy to digest and understand for new and old players alike.

I still think Numerous as the Stars should be banned since even in Type 2 it creates bonkers consistency but if this rule change were implemented that would be the only ban needed I think.