Author Topic: The Early Church and Clay Brigade (beware of rant) (Read 4685 times)

ChristianSoldier · « **on:** October 30, 2014, 05:35:50 AM »

When I first heard about Clay Brigade I was... how shall I put it... facepalming and thinking "what are they doing?" There were quite a few people who shared in my opinion, but I saw Rob and at least one playtester mention that we might change our minds once we saw the cards. This is my response.

I like almost everything from the Early Church set except Clay as a brigade. Well there's one other thing I don't like, that the entire Early Church is in one brigade. Of course I realize it's too late to change it, but I think it needs to be said.

When I think of what the Early Church should look like in Redemption I don't think "What brigade should it go into?" And I'm surprised anyone else thought that. I've heard many arguments for and against a new brigade, and I think most of them are silly. It won't have an impact on closed deck. Or that Genesis is big enough for Blue, which is looking at it completely wrong, in my opinion.

Let me explain why after seeing The Early Church set I am just as (or even more) against Clay:

Let's start by looking at a brigade everyone knows and loves, Silver. There was no time when I was playing Redemption that silver didn't exist, to me it was always there. But as time went on I became skeptical of it, not because it didn't do good things, not because it was or wasn't playable, but because it was defined as the Angel brigade. That meant that if you wanted to play angels you had to play silver, if you wanted to play silver you had to play angels. Is angels big enough to have its own brigade? Sure. Does that mean its good? Well that's a little more complicated. Lets explore the other brigades.

What is Red? You're probably thinking warriors, and from a certain point of view that is true, but it's much more than just warriors. It's the spirit of war, combat and might. Which happens to go hand in hand with warriors, but also fills many spiritual roles.
Purple? Is it Royalty? Disciples? Yes to both, but it is about Authority and Power.
Green? It's not just prophets but spiritual life.
Blue? Heavenly Character
White? Glory and Majesty.
Gold? Well I'm going to be honest, I'm not really sure on this one, it is described as "The material of New Jerusalem" and I have no idea why that makes it end up with Judges and the convert heavy Luke stuff.

Now look at silver: It is angels. Nothing more, nothing less, regardless of what the REG says about it being "The word of God".
Teal is priests.
And now Clay is the Early Church.
You've now forced the entire Early Church into one single brigade, all of its variety, all of its problems, its power, its struggle to remain united despite its differences. All of its aspects into one single Redemption Brigade. I think that does it a massive disservice from a thematic point of view.

What about a game play point of view? That's important too. What did it add? A single brigade with some cool strategies which basically counter many of the current defensive strategies. What did it take away? The chance to make a massive multi brigaded theme that struggles to work together, but when it does it is an unstoppable force.

Let's look at it from another point of view. We often split things between Old Testament and New Testament. The Early Church will include much of the Acts and on good cards, which means most of them will be Clay. That's about half the New Testament. So you've created a brigade that covers half of an entire Testament. The largest potential Old Testament theme is probably the Prophets, which cover maybe around a third of the Old Testament, but that still leaves more Old Testament than there is New Testament.

So if someone asked me what brigade I'd put the Early Church in, I'd say: Purple, Red, Blue, Green, White and Gold. Because I think its both important enough to go beyond a single brigade and that those brigades are all big enough to handle some of the Early Church in addition to whatever else they had.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me. I'm the guy who things that the original 6 good brigades and 6 evil brigades were enough for the game and Silver, Teal and Orange were bad for the game in the long run.

Drrek · « **Reply #1 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:44:01 AM »

I still don't get people's absolute hatred of new brigades. Power of cards is generally determined by theme, not what color they are in. The Early Church cards could have all been Blue, but then almost all of them would have just ended up with "if used by an acts hero" or similar phrases in their ability specifically not to make them work with the other cards in their brigade.

My point is, brigade doesn't really matter much, because theme is what has determined how the majority of cards that have been printed will play for a while now.

Daniel · « **Reply #2 on:** October 30, 2014, 08:41:22 AM »

You honestly didn't explain yourself very well here. For a fairly large post, the only points you made were A) The Early Church is now "forced" into a single brigade and B) One brigade takes up half an "entire" testament. The New Testament is about a fifth of the size of the Old Testament, so that's not a problem at all.

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #3 on:** October 30, 2014, 03:07:08 PM »

Quote from: Daniel on October 30, 2014, 08:41:22 AM

You honestly didn't explain yourself very well here. For a fairly large post, the only points you made were A) The Early Church is now "forced" into a single brigade and B) One brigade takes up half an "entire" testament. The New Testament is about a fifth of the size of the Old Testament, so that's not a problem at all.

It's probably true. It was 4 in the morning and I have a tendency to ramble. But you missed one of my main points: I don't think a single brigade does justice to the entirety of the Early Church.

Quote from: Drrek on October 30, 2014, 06:44:01 AM

I still don't get people's absolute hatred of new brigades. Power of cards is generally determined by theme, not what color they are in. The Early Church cards could have all been Blue, but then almost all of them would have just ended up with "if used by an acts hero" or similar phrases in their ability specifically not to make them work with the other cards in their brigade.

My point is, brigade doesn't really matter much, because theme is what has determined how the majority of cards that have been printed will play for a while now.

Then you missed my entire point if you think that Blue was the only alternative. I was suggesting the Early Church shouldn't have been in a single brigade, new or old. It should have been in all of them. I'm also a little annoyed at the lengths Cactus seems to have gone to shove every theme into single brigades.

You said that brigade doesn't really matter much, but then why do we care if the Early Church is in one brigade or six? I think multiple brigades would have made a much more interesting theme.

One more thing that I forgot to mention is that this was one of the worst times to come out with a set where the majority is a single brigade. We had a starter deck last year, which was limited to 4 good brigades (and a single tin with 10 cards) and designed with the intention to get new players into the game. Then here comes a new set that has a completely new brigade that takes up what is it? 60% of the set? Sure there is some interaction between it and disciples, but I think it's going to make some of the new players who were wanting new stuff to help their decks now have to play Clay instead if they want anything new.
It also means that if you were playing Blue, Green, Teal or Red you got nothing from the starter deck (and teal got a single card in the Tin, okay 2 technically, but the enhancement is 3 colors and therefore you can only have 1 in T2) and then this set comes again with essentially nothing (a few cards that are half Teal, Red and Green, and a single half Blue card) for them.

Redoubter · « **Reply #4 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:07:51 PM »

I'll echo the others. There seems to have been a mindset from the beginning among a lot of people that they were against the new brigade (for many reasons, some with valid points), and so they can't seem to see the positives that we got from it.

On to one of the major gripes you seem to have, if we printed in all the brigades, then how would there be synergy between the themes? Would you want to print all of the enhancements they used as multi-brigade? If you did not print the ENTIRE early church in a single brigade, you would have to print enough enhancements for each of them, and that just would not have been good. For one, we would run out of things to print. For another, we'd have an even larger print (a size we couldn't handle.). Finally, you'd have to specify "if used by [insert church here] hero..." on a lot of those abilities to avoid unintentionally breaking the existing brigades.

By printing the early church in one brigade, enhancement support is easily handled. Those things that NEED to be limited to themes can be with simple clauses, things that SHOULD be used by specific themes can have a clause boosting it for them, and for everything else you are now printing support for all the themes at once.

What you are suggesting with a spread early church only works with a lot of multi enhancements with limiters on them for use. Which makes no sense.

The new set is a lot of fun and adds a lot of variety to the game. More importantly, it's already out. I'm not sure what the point is about complaining about it, it's already happened and we won't be going back now. As pointed out, this was the most efficient way to handle adding all of these new themes, and the large themes being designed. But even if there were an issue, complaining is not going to be helpful. Instead, look at the cards that are posted and try to correct/help things there.

Master KChief · « **Reply #5 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:25:04 PM »

Redemption's color wheel has been broken for years. Surely adding another color and diluting it even further seems legit.

Redoubter · « **Reply #6 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:30:52 PM »

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 06:25:04 PM

Redemption's color wheel has been broken for years. Surely adding another color and diluting it even further seems legit.

Which would be valid of course if we actually had a color wheel...or if it mattered (as pointed out above).

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #7 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:32:47 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 06:07:51 PM

The new set is a lot of fun and adds a lot of variety to the game. More importantly, it's already out. I'm not sure what the point is about complaining about it, it's already happened and we won't be going back now. As pointed out, this was the most efficient way to handle adding all of these new themes, and the large themes being designed. But even if there were an issue, complaining is not going to be helpful. Instead, look at the cards that are posted and try to correct/help things there.

I understand the point about it being too late to change, my point wasn't to suggest we should change it, but more just my thinking that the direction the game is going right now, in regards to what is happening with the brigades, is a bad one.

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 06:07:51 PM

On to one of the major gripes you seem to have, if we printed in all the brigades, then how would there be synergy between the themes? Would you want to print all of the enhancements they used as multi-brigade? If you did not print the ENTIRE early church in a single brigade, you would have to print enough enhancements for each of them, and that just would not have been good. For one, we would run out of things to print. For another, we'd have an even larger print (a size we couldn't handle.). Finally, you'd have to specify "if used by [insert church here] hero..." on a lot of those abilities to avoid unintentionally breaking the existing brigades.

By printing the early church in one brigade, enhancement support is easily handled. Those things that NEED to be limited to themes can be with simple clauses, things that SHOULD be used by specific themes can have a clause boosting it for them, and for everything else you are now printing support for all the themes at once.

What you are suggesting with a spread early church only works with a lot of multi enhancements with limiters on them for use. Which makes no sense.

You have no idea what I'm suggesting then. First of all, I could probably build a decent missionary theme and probably create an Apostle theme to support disciples (although admittedly it probably wouldn't be necessary for power reasons) in red and purple respectively, that work fine on their own with half the cards that were put in Clay. Maybe even put the Decons in gold or blue (I'd probably go with Gold due to synergy with the Gold Luke stuff), some Green prophets (which could be taken from the Early Church, Agabus and Philips Daughters come to mind, I would even have room for some non early church stuff.

I could expand and add some more stuff in the next set where I can expand on them. And all I need is a handful of cards that make them work together, the only one of the cards in The Early Church that I'd make fully multicolored are Unity in Christ, Love and maybe A New Creation, some other might be dual, but that's hardly the same thing, and putting a NT clause on cards (which wouldn't happen all the time) wouldn't be that bad.

Master KChief · « **Reply #8 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:37:20 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 06:30:52 PM

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 06:25:04 PM
Redemption's color wheel has been broken for years. Surely adding another color and diluting it even further seems legit.

Which would be valid of course if we actually had a color wheel...

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #9 on:** October 30, 2014, 06:44:39 PM »

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 06:25:04 PM

Redemption's color wheel has been broken for years. Surely adding another color and diluting it even further seems legit.

For clarification what do you mean by color wheel (as far as Redemption is concerned)?

Master KChief · « **Reply #10 on:** October 30, 2014, 07:02:45 PM »

It's a representation of how each color differentiates from each other in terms of philosophies/mechanics/ideologies/etc. The original colors represented this system quite well. Angels, Demons, priests, and early church peoples are not philosophies and should in no way be brigades.

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #11 on:** October 30, 2014, 07:05:43 PM »

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 07:02:45 PM

It's a representation of how each color differentiates from each other in terms of philosophies/mechanics/ideologies/etc. The original colors represented this system quite well. Angels, Demons, priests, and early church peoples are not philosophies and should in no way be brigades.

That's what I though, but I don't think I could have put it into words as nicely as that. And I completely agree with that. That's the main reason I don't think Silver, Orange, Teal and Clay should have been brigades, Angels, Demons, Priests and Early Church are themes not brigades. At least in my mind, and apparently yours too Master KChief.

Redoubter · « **Reply #12 on:** October 30, 2014, 07:15:43 PM »

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on October 30, 2014, 06:32:47 PM

You have no idea what I'm suggesting then.

If you look back, then you'll see that I did see what you suggesting, and pointed out how it doesn't work.

For example, Red has a lot of enhancements for warriors, and Purple for Disciples or Royalty. There is some overlap to be sure, but if you printed themes there, each one needs support for their theme that also does not unbalance what is already there (Purple being the easiest to unbalance). You cannot do it in the way you suggested without a much larger set and a lot more issues being caused with the enhancements you put out.

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 07:02:45 PM

It's a representation of how each color differentiates from each other in terms of philosophies/mechanics/ideologies/etc. The original colors represented this system quite well. Angels, Demons, priests, and early church peoples are not philosophies and should in no way be brigades.

I'm confused how you can see the themes besides the 4 mentioned and see them as 'philosophies' instead of actual thematic combinations. Gold is the color of people who were judges or who happened to be Samaritan. White is for people who make music sure, but also the color of women in the N.T. Not sure how your point even applies to those, and those were in place previously.

There is no 'color wheel' in the sense that you are suggesting is my point, nor like any other game that uses one. It's not 'diluting it' when a new color is introduced to pull together a single conceptual group being printed together.

Master KChief · « **Reply #13 on:** October 30, 2014, 07:22:49 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 07:15:43 PM

I'm confused how you can see the themes besides the 4 mentioned and see them as 'philosophies' instead of actual thematic combinations.

Quote

What is Red? You're probably thinking warriors, and from a certain point of view that is true, but it's much more than just warriors. It's the spirit of war, combat and might. Which happens to go hand in hand with warriors, but also fills many spiritual roles.
Purple? Is it Royalty? Disciples? Yes to both, but it is about Authority and Power.
Green? It's not just prophets but spiritual life.
Blue? Heavenly Character
White? Glory and Majesty.
Gold? Well I'm going to be honest, I'm not really sure on this one, it is described as "The material of New Jerusalem" and I have no idea why that makes it end up with Judges and the convert heavy Luke stuff.

Quote

There is no 'color wheel' in the sense that you are suggesting is my point, nor like any other game that uses one.

http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Color_Pie

You're welcome.

Redoubter · « **Reply #14 on:** October 30, 2014, 08:24:10 PM »

Your post just goes to prove my point. We have nothing like the MTG color wheel (really not sure why you bring that in...) which has opposition to the colors in other directions and is 'all-encompassing' with concepts instead of actual themes. If you wanted to show that Redemption =/= MTG, I suppose that is the easiest way, but if you are trying to argue the other side then I am confused.

You can also try to explain away brigades in that way, but it doesn't make it any more true. For example, I can tell you a lot of things related to 'spiritual life' that just aren't printed in Green, because Green is the color Prophets and cards related to them are printed in, and that's just the way it has been. Same with all of the others. Blue is heavenly character? Not sure how only Joseph and his extended family show heavenly character (or show it in the first place). Glory and majesty for White? Not sure how that applies to N.T. females, not to mention the exclusion of people like royalty. And it goes on and on...

The point just is not valid. It's not how Redemption works, and that was pretty clear before this set, too.

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #15 on:** October 30, 2014, 08:48:25 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 08:24:10 PM

You can also try to explain away brigades in that way, but it doesn't make it any more true. For example, I can tell you a lot of things related to 'spiritual life' that just aren't printed in Green, because Green is the color Prophets and cards related to them are printed in, and that's just the way it has been. Same with all of the others. Blue is heavenly character? Not sure how only Joseph and his extended family show heavenly character (or show it in the first place). Glory and majesty for White? Not sure how that applies to N.T. females, not to mention the exclusion of people like royalty. And it goes on and on...

The point just is not valid. It's not how Redemption works, and that was pretty clear before this set, too.

I got that from the REG's description of the Brigades (I took a few liberties with Red and Purple). Now nobody is arguing that the game has followed them terribly well throughout its history. The themes are relatively new compared to the brigade descriptions (which date back to the Second Edition Starter Deck) while the themes basically date back to Priests and the Tins.

I'm fairly sure that themes came out of those descriptions (as well as what cards were in the brigades at the time), although my memory could be off.

Obviously the descriptions of the brigades are vague and/or very open ended, which allows for lots of variety and freedom within them and the themes are (usually) very precise and only allow specific things, and I think that's how the game should be. And in case you are wondering, Prophets does fit with Spiritual Life. The Patriarch... I'm not sure how well the fit with Heavenly Character, but it's not necessarily wrong to say they do. And White doesn't need to include Royalty because Purple has that, but it definitely fits Musicians and at the very least the Garden Tomb characters, seeing that Jesus was risen (to various levels).

I wish that Redemption went more with the Philosophical, Ideological and Mechanical differences instead of the themes as far as picking which brigades they fall under and found more creative ways to link themes together outside of just putting them in the same brigade.

Master KChief · « **Reply #16 on:** October 30, 2014, 09:42:28 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 08:24:10 PM

Your post just goes to prove my point. We have nothing like the MTG color wheel (really not sure why you bring that in...) which has opposition to the colors in other directions and is 'all-encompassing' with concepts instead of actual themes. If you wanted to show that Redemption =/= MTG, I suppose that is the easiest way, but if you are trying to argue the other side then I am confused.

You can also try to explain away brigades in that way, but it doesn't make it any more true. For example, I can tell you a lot of things related to 'spiritual life' that just aren't printed in Green, because Green is the color Prophets and cards related to them are printed in, and that's just the way it has been. Same with all of the others. Blue is heavenly character? Not sure how only Joseph and his extended family show heavenly character (or show it in the first place). Glory and majesty for White? Not sure how that applies to N.T. females, not to mention the exclusion of people like royalty. And it goes on and on...

The point just is not valid. It's not how Redemption works, and that was pretty clear before this set, too.

The only thing clear here is you had no idea nor apparently still have no idea of what a color wheel is meant to stand for. It's not a 'thing' that games use. Its merely a visual representation of the individualism between each color. Do you have colors in Redemption? Check. Can you draw a circle? Hopefully so. Can you split that circle into each color wedge in Redemption? Congratulations, you created a color wheel. How each color is represented after that is distinct to each game that uses colors. Noting how Mtg has Allied and Enemy colors couldn't be further from missing the point. The point being made is just how diluted Redemption's color wheel looks with all of the unnecessary and uninspiring brigades...especially when looked at in retrospect of what philosophical differences each color was originally meant to represent. It was even in the rulebook and is currently in the REG for crying out loud, how do you possibly argue against that? Themes are great and all, and certainly no one is claiming they don't exist or aren't a part of each color on the color wheel, as they obviously are. But from a design perspective, its considerably narrow to say 'X theme must be in Y color'. It's designing yourself into a corner and is not open-ended at all, in stark contrast to how colors were handled before themes came along.

Redoubter · « **Reply #17 on:** October 30, 2014, 10:30:45 PM »

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on October 30, 2014, 08:48:25 PM

I wish that Redemption went more with the Philosophical, Ideological and Mechanical differences instead of the themes as far as picking which brigades they fall under and found more creative ways to link themes together outside of just putting them in the same brigade.

The problem with that is the playing of enhancements. If I am going to put different characters of the same type (who would be using the same thematic elements for their enhancements) in different brigades, Redemption says they cannot use those enhancements related to them just because they have other colors. It is something that we have seen become inevitable for years in the game, and the reason why themes have been printed in the same color for quite awhile now.

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 09:42:28 PM

The point being made is just how diluted Redemption's color wheel looks with all of the unnecessary and uninspiring brigades...especially when looked at in retrospect of what philosophical differences each color was originally meant to represent.

Are you trying to say that it is not aesthetically pleasing to you because each color takes up a smaller portion of the pie? That doesn't make sense. If I made a 'spiritual pie' based on the fruits of the spirit, I would get 9 different pieces, and that doesn't mean that you couldn't design something around that and have it make sense. Equating more components with 'bad' based on the logic you are presenting is just arbitrary.

Quote from: Master KChief on October 30, 2014, 09:42:28 PM

It was even in the rulebook and is currently in the REG for crying out loud, how do you possibly argue against that?

T2 rules are also absent from all current rulebooks, but that doesn't stop it from being played. We have descriptions in the rulebook that are very basic (almost ridiculously so) such that you need an expanded rulebook and these boards to describe how the game works, but we still are governed by those extra rules. General concepts in the rules do not actually define how the game has been designed, sorry.

The game has had themes for many years now, and many expansion sets as well. It's how it is, and it hasn't been the way you've described for quite some time, if it ever truly was. Arguing about how it 'should be XYZ' doesn't make sense when it obviously will never go back there. No amount of condescending language or sarcasm from you will make the points any more valid.

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #18 on:** October 30, 2014, 11:26:06 PM »

Quote from: Redoubter on October 30, 2014, 10:30:45 PM

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on October 30, 2014, 08:48:25 PM
I wish that Redemption went more with the Philosophical, Ideological and Mechanical differences instead of the themes as far as picking which brigades they fall under and found more creative ways to link themes together outside of just putting them in the same brigade.

The problem with that is the playing of enhancements. If I am going to put different characters of the same type (who would be using the same thematic elements for their enhancements) in different brigades, Redemption says they cannot use those enhancements related to them just because they have other colors. It is something that we have seen become inevitable for years in the game, and the reason why themes have been printed in the same color for quite awhile now.

First of all, many of the themes would fit mostly into one brigade, and many of them would be what they are now. Kings and Disciples would be mostly Purple, Warriors would be mostly Red, Prophets could easily be mostly Green, I think Judges would fit better in Red and occasionally Purple (they were leaders and warriors), and so on. Angels could very easily be spread, especially with the idea of Angels mostly being a support brigade (and it would give most/all good brigades access to non human heroes). I think priests could fill Old Testament Gold cards, especially because it thematically mirrors (in some sense) the convert heavy New Testament with the idea of sin offerings being similar to converting evil characters.

Oh and in case you are wondering, I understand this is a dream, not likely to become reality, barring an entire reboot, the likelihood of which is a discussion for another day, probably in several years when another Starter Deck is on the horizon. And even though I'm not convinced Clay was the best way to go, I'm still going to keep playing Redemption and I do love the game and want what's best for it, and maybe I'm wrong about Clay, only time will truly tell.

Warrior_Monk · « **Reply #19 on:** October 31, 2014, 01:14:05 AM »

I didn't read the whole thread, but I'd also like to voice my disapproval at new brigades in general. I really wish Angels and Demons were a whole different mechanic by themselves, but Priests (which have already started to run out of steam) and Early Church didn't need a new brigade.

The whole point of the Early Church was to go out into all nations. Having them all in one brigade doesn't make much sense to me. Like, I get the whole "make them gain clay brigade" thing, but it'd be cooler if they were all different brigades, representing the many nations, tribes, and tongues that belong to the early church. It's supposed to be diverse.

It is nice to have a rhyme or reason to brigades. However, I miss the days when people made decks based on gameplay elements and not because Cactus fed them a theme. Oh, Genesis and Romans both discard a lot of cards from hands? That'd make a cool deck! The Deck was a deck I thoroughly enjoyed because it overcame the obvious. It was basically a TC enhancement abuse deck, and devolved into FBTNB, but it still wasn't obvious (although Townsend came up with a relatively similar deck [Isaiah/Daniel/Angels] that year on his own).
This goes for Pokemon too. Oh, there are these really powerful Team Plasma cards? That'd make a good deck!
Hearthstone doesn't suffer from this nearly as much. Sure, within classes there are clear "themes" (Priests are healing, Warlocks damage themselves, and Shaman uses overload), but the decks themselves aren't necessarily dependent on a class's theme. Frost Mage and Handlock are obvious exceptions, but control decks like Paladin, Warrior, and Priest all accomplish the same goal in a similar manner, but with a vast pool of cards to choose from (and Hearthstone really doesn't have THAT many cards). If it wasn't for so much publicity of viable decks, people would be playing more significantly different lists.

Knoxyouthpastor · « **Reply #20 on:** October 31, 2014, 11:26:48 AM »

I'll voice mine as well. First off-I like the new cards...just for the fact that we have new cards and I like what they do. As for the clay brigade, I'm not sold on it yet. I wasn't a fan of a new brigade in the first place, but mainly because I haven't seen it in action much yet. Did Redemption need a new brigade?...No, it did not. But then again, it's cool that we have one. The "rant" of all this is very valid. The Early Church Set could have been split up into the different brigades that we already have and expand the variety of what already exists. Green-NT Prophets, yeah the cards might be few, but I could see some potential for a Green John/Peter so forth. But even more than that giving each group its own color...Missionaries, maybe red. Thessalonian Characters..blue or whatever. Joppa, Ephesus characters could have their own color and then expand from there. So, yes it could have been done. Which would work better, straight clay or different EC colors...who knows, maybe the Elders do and thought about all of this, & tested it, I don't know. Also, the argument of new players seems valid as well, since our group mainly is new players who just acquired the new starter decks and are trying to make those better by getting cards to play with and now the new set is out and those starters got about zero support (rounding down of course). Don't know if the elders thought about that, I'm sure they did. I have faith in what Rob is doing. It's got to be tough and he's got my support whatever he does. So with that...THANKS for for NEW CARDS Rob. They look good. In closing, I like the idea of the EC set...sold on clay...not yet, but we'll see them in action soon enough. Looking forward to it!

TheJaylor · « **Reply #21 on:** October 31, 2014, 04:13:17 PM »

Is it really the new players that want the newest cards the most? In my opinion, no. If I was a new player I feel like I'd want to make sure I'm getting more variety of the older cards in addition to maybe a few of the newest cards here and there. I feel like the set that's about to come out should be geared mostly towards the experienced players not necessarily by being more complex, but by adding game mechanics and possibly a new brigade here and there to keep the interest of the experienced.

Was adding a new brigade at this point the best decision? Probably not but I don't think it was necessarily a poor decision. While I would rather have seen a new game mechanic, I was never really opposed to the idea of a new brigade because it adds more variety and it increases the variability of decks with potential.

Right now, it's true that Red, Teal, Blue, and Green didn't get a whole lot but from those the only one that's not really all that great is Teal, although it's definitely a good support brigade. I can see how not adding new cards in these colors would detract from variability but if we're introducing a new brigade we have to add enough to make it viable right away, especially if it's going to be a stand-alone sort of brigade as Clay mostly is. I imagine that the next set will most definitely have new cards for those colors that didn't get much and in the long run a better balance will likely be achieved. So until that time, let's build us some Clay decks and have some fun with 'em.

ChristianSoldier · « **Reply #22 on:** October 31, 2014, 04:30:34 PM »

Quote from: KoalaKing on October 31, 2014, 04:13:17 PM

Is it really the new players that want the newest cards the most? In my opinion, no. If I was a new player I feel like I'd want to make sure I'm getting more variety of the older cards in addition to maybe a few of the newest cards here and there. I feel like the set that's about to come out should be geared mostly towards the experienced players not necessarily by being more complex, but by adding game mechanics and possibly a new brigade here and there to keep the interest of the experienced.

In my area we have a significant lack of easy to buy cards and usually only have the recent stuff. Also everything up to Priests is in abundance and new players can get whatever they need (short of a few rare warriors cards and maybe Falling Away and Haman's Plot) from experienced players like me.

Also in my experience as a new player trying to do well in a game, I like to get the newest cards because they are usually the most powerful and/or easiest to find. I remember when Angel Wars came out and I was really annoyed that there were almost no red cards (since I was using red back then and still a fairly new player), of course Angel Wars had other issues that The Early Church doesn't have, but as a new players all I knew was that I wasn't getting red cards (note this was when I could have bought almost any booster pack that wasn't Warriors).

Quote from: KoalaKing on October 31, 2014, 04:13:17 PM

Was adding a new brigade at this point the best decision? Probably not but I don't think it was necessarily a poor decision. While I would rather have seen a new game mechanic, I was never really opposed to the idea of a new brigade because it adds more variety and it increases the variability of decks with potential.

We did get a new game mechanic, one that I love and that I think will be good for the game and is possibly more important than Clay Brigade: Territory Class Characters. Combined with cool place enhancements and the first dual reference card I am really happy about what will come out after this set, even though I'm not happy about Clay.

dermo4christ · « **Reply #23 on:** October 31, 2014, 10:15:58 PM »

Quote from: ChristianSoldier on October 30, 2014, 05:35:50 AM

When I first heard about Clay Brigade I was... how shall I put it... facepalming and thinking "what are they doing?" There were quite a few people who shared in my opinion, but I saw Rob and at least one playtester mention that we might change our minds once we saw the cards. This is my response.

I like almost everything from the Early Church set except Clay as a brigade. Well there's one other thing I don't like, that the entire Early Church is in one brigade. Of course I realize it's too late to change it, but I think it needs to be said.

When I think of what the Early Church should look like in Redemption I don't think "What brigade should it go into?" And I'm surprised anyone else thought that. I've heard many arguments for and against a new brigade, and I think most of them are silly. It won't have an impact on closed deck. Or that Genesis is big enough for Blue, which is looking at it completely wrong, in my opinion.

Let me explain why after seeing The Early Church set I am just as (or even more) against Clay:

Let's start by looking at a brigade everyone knows and loves, Silver. There was no time when I was playing Redemption that silver didn't exist, to me it was always there. But as time went on I became skeptical of it, not because it didn't do good things, not because it was or wasn't playable, but because it was defined as the Angel brigade. That meant that if you wanted to play angels you had to play silver, if you wanted to play silver you had to play angels. Is angels big enough to have its own brigade? Sure. Does that mean its good? Well that's a little more complicated. Lets explore the other brigades.

What is Red? You're probably thinking warriors, and from a certain point of view that is true, but it's much more than just warriors. It's the spirit of war, combat and might. Which happens to go hand in hand with warriors, but also fills many spiritual roles.
Purple? Is it Royalty? Disciples? Yes to both, but it is about Authority and Power.
Green? It's not just prophets but spiritual life.
Blue? Heavenly Character
White? Glory and Majesty.
Gold? Well I'm going to be honest, I'm not really sure on this one, it is described as "The material of New Jerusalem" and I have no idea why that makes it end up with Judges and the convert heavy Luke stuff.

Now look at silver: It is angels. Nothing more, nothing less, regardless of what the REG says about it being "The word of God".
Teal is priests.
And now Clay is the Early Church.
You've now forced the entire Early Church into one single brigade, all of its variety, all of its problems, its power, its struggle to remain united despite its differences. All of its aspects into one single Redemption Brigade. I think that does it a massive disservice from a thematic point of view.

What about a game play point of view? That's important too. What did it add? A single brigade with some cool strategies which basically counter many of the current defensive strategies. What did it take away? The chance to make a massive multi brigaded theme that struggles to work together, but when it does it is an unstoppable force.

Let's look at it from another point of view. We often split things between Old Testament and New Testament. The Early Church will include much of the Acts and on good cards, which means most of them will be Clay. That's about half the New Testament. So you've created a brigade that covers half of an entire Testament. The largest potential Old Testament theme is probably the Prophets, which cover maybe around a third of the Old Testament, but that still leaves more Old Testament than there is New Testament.

So if someone asked me what brigade I'd put the Early Church in, I'd say: Purple, Red, Blue, Green, White and Gold. Because I think its both important enough to go beyond a single brigade and that those brigades are all big enough to handle some of the Early Church in addition to whatever else they had.

Anyway, feel free to disagree with me. I'm the guy who things that the original 6 good brigades and 6 evil brigades were enough for the game and Silver, Teal and Orange were bad for the game in the long run.

I actually like the clay brigade because it makes me thing of us being the clay that Christ is forever molding. TEC had to be molded and mended in so many ways. God used certain people to transform the church like Barnabas, Peter, even Cornelius who showed us his strong faith in the Lord. I think that's why the clay brigade was chosen. It is the representation of us, the clay, and Christ the Potter.

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Author Topic: The Early Church and Clay Brigade (beware of rant) (Read 4685 times)

Daniel

Warrior_Monk