Cactus Game Design Message Boards
Redemption® Collectible Trading Card Game HQ => Redemption® Resources and Thinktank => Topic started by: Minister Polarius on September 02, 2010, 04:34:14 AM
-
I'm wanting to make a bunch of new card ideas, and I want to devote some attention to the least powerful themes. Please list any themes you think are under-powered. If you explain why, your vote counts double. I'll start:
Syrians. The entire theme is predicated on capture, yet it has no way of getting rid of the bountiful, oft-used "protect from Capture" cards. It's also severely lacking in the character department, boasting only one great character (Namaan) and two or three good characters (Hazel, Cusham-whatever, and Antiochus) and only a couple other characters period.
Assyrians. I'm not quite sure what's wrong with them. On paper, they should be good. Solid characters (nothing really super-fantastic though, now that I think of it), good Enhancements, and one of the best protection forts. I suppose they suffer from lack of CBN, difficulty with initiative (especially now that Horses are weaker than ever), and a lack of really good EC's.
Royalty. The main reason it fell this set is that pretty much everything else got a HUGE boost while O.T. Purple got nothing. It also doesn't help that CBIgnored is running wild and much of Royalty's battle-winning power came from Ignore. Still has baller characters, but leaves a LOT to be desired in the Enhancement department.
Angels. I don't think this one really needs to be explained. It's gotten, what, five or six really good cards since Kings? Even then, only Striking Herod is super special awesome (Birth Foretold really helps Green and Gold more). A glut of AMAZING characters, near-invincibility with Chamber and a few other support cards, and HUGE problems with initiative to play a small pool of useful Enhancements. The Silver Brigade is loaded with goodness, but most of it is better served contributing to a different, main offense rather than standing on its own. Silver just needs some good Enhancements and inter-Brigade banding.
Tally:
Syrians - 2
Assyrians - 2
Royalty - 2
Angels - 2
What say ye?
-
Musicians - They have some really fun enhancements, and the characters are above average also, the main weakness is that so few of them exist, and the off-white ones aren't very useful for a true musician deck. They're also O.T., with one female, which is two big strikes in my book
Non-Gen Blue - Everything released for blue (With the exception of the recent Job sub-theme) in recent years has been tailored specifically for Genesis, which makes the other fun cards that blue has (Cup of Wrath, Claudia, old Thomas etc) less desirable to a blue deck. Anything that blue gets should help the underplayed stuff in the theme.
And then I agree 1000% percent on Syrians, you took the words right out of my mouth - The only thing that I would add is that they don't have an initiative character, and horses are weak, so they're just as bad off as Asyrians in that regard.
-
I agree on all counts,
maybe add Judges
-
Totally agree with everything said by all, and I add a vote for Judges also. I also repeat that Blue needs a NT theme in my opinion (I had suggested Acts and Epistles) instead of being just Genesis. I especially would like Silver to be able to stand alone in Type 1, and OT Royalty is also lacking. If you would accept additional card ideas please let us know.
Regarding Syrians I think that they should get the "Raiders" card I suggested a while back (that searches for Raider's Camp).
-
One NT theme that could be explored for Blue would be an Acts theme. Barnabas, Mark, Silas, Aquila and Claudia exist but could be reprinted, and Luke, Apollos, Priscilla, Timothy and Matthias reprinted in blue with useful SAs. Finding a few more Acts heroes shouldn't be difficult. I'm just going off the top of my head, but there may well be more possibilities. (I didn't check the verses on all of these, but they could all be referenced in Acts.)
Musicians got a boost with the hymns, and I personally have a nice NT musician hero who recurs them (custom hero from Nats), but I agree that musicians straight up have few battle winners.I'm going to see how they work out in my new deck. Also, there are two female musicians, Miriam and Deborah.
My son plays straight up silver, and does fairly well with it. The theme builds around the monster heroes, but the enhancements are not terribly powerful. (The enhancement issue also affects demons, but GoH, banding, and immunity to conversion help make up for it.) And while angels aren't totally immune to capture/conversion, the fact that so may of those cards that are used specify "human hero" makes some defenses (hello, my Babylonians!) weak against them. (Yes, I know the Babs have fixes, and I have already tweaked them.)
I would concur on Syrians, mainly due to their lack of characters. Gray has some excellent "generic" enhancements, though.
I've seen Assyrians work, but they could use some help.
I haven't seen anyone play a straight up royalty theme. There's probably a reason for that.
For all that I like toying around with red warrior decks, I never see them played, either. I have never found one that works out the way I want. so I suspect they could use some better enhancements. (At least red now has site access heroes.)
Daniel heroes could still use some help. The promo Daniel next year at Nats will help some. (Here;s a theme that silver will help.)
-
Silver definitely needs some more additions, since the only good character for initiative (by itself, without Angel's Sword) is Angel @ Jerusalem, and even then, it's a 2/2. There are a handful of characters that can gain initiative through mutual destruction, such as Angel @ Shur (P), Guardian Angel, and the Healing one....
-
Teal - While ZT is still a pretty good theme, you can't deny that Teal has not gotten much boost in the last few sets. It's not necessarily that it's bad (although a non-ZT priests deck is almost guaranteed to fail miserably). It simply does not have enough cards. In fact I believe teal has the smallest card bank of any of the brigades right now. We need to give ST and Tabernacle priests a few sweet characters and theme-specific enhancements, as well as stuff to make them stronger when their respective fortresses are out.
Green - New theme, PLEASE.
Red - I'm pretty happy with the last set. It didn't give red much, but it mostly solved its biggest problem, which was initiative. However, I think it has a new problem: demons. Both of the new red enhancements, as well as red's only CBN enhancement, effect humans exclusively. Sure, you have The Master's Table now, but red only has one convert enhancement. (And how many times do you want to convert your own EC's anyway?) Still possibly the weakest brigade IMO.
Gold - Luke heroes are just fine now, but c'mon, Judges have gotten nothing since RoA. They aren't that far away from being a great theme; their enhancements are fine and all, and Judge's Seat is great, but they really just need a few more characters.
White - Musicians need CHARACTERS. There are only 5 white musicians, and then a bunch scattered all over the place. Musicians got a bunch of Hymns in the last set (one of which was a battle-winner, which is good), but they really don't make me want to play a Musician deck. Most of them are too specific, except maybe Passover Hymn.
Also Daniel heroes. I'm very excited about the new Daniel, but Daniel heroes still need more. A convertable Nebuchadnezzar would be cool. That one eunuch could be a hero, too. And we could definitely make some new angels.
Purple - Royalty's characters are good, but it needs battle-winners.
Blue - Deacons Deacons Deacons. More Job awesomeness would be cool as well. But NO MORE GENESIS EVER!
Silver - Uh, yeahhhhh...silver's stink is getting old. If the playtesters want silver to be a support brigade, let's go that direction full force. Like an angel that says "next turn, your humans are invincible." THEN I might consider combining angels with humans.
Black - Only one Greek character in the last set. It needs some enhancements, too. Let's start a forced drawing theme here, and how about an awesome fortress?
Gray - Basically the Syrain capture problem. It doesn't need much, just some anti-protection! (And some character variety.)
Gold - With all the anti-ignore in the last set, you would think that Egyptians might get some. But no, they still have Journey to Egypt and Miriam to worry about. And deck d/c just isn't very powerful. In fact, I can't see that it got any boost in the last set.
Pale Green - Assyrains' biggest problem seems to be initiative. I like The Rabshakeh's Threats a ton, but I would still like to see some low-number characters to play some of PG's awesome enhancements.
Brown - I actually have nothing to say about brown. All of its themes are pretty good. I would focus the least amount of attention on this brigade.
Crimson - More Heretics, and NO MORE BABS!
Orange - Very powerful now, but I would still like to see some possession, and more bottom-of-the-deck support. This is probably my favorite brigade.
Sorry, that wasn't exactly what you asked for. :P Here's a list summary:
Deacons
Non-ZT priests
Musicians
Angels
Judges
Daniel Heroes
Royalty
Greeks
Heretics
Syrians
Assyrians
-
Luke Heroes - They are a support offense to a defense. Lame.
-
TGT is under powered. It may have swept NC Regionals, but it didn't win nats!
-
Deacons
Non-ZT priests
Musicians
Angels
Judges
Daniel Heroes
Royalty
Greeks
Heretics
Syrians
Assyrians
+1
-
I disagree that judges is a weak theme. To me, they are the sniper team of redemption. They can take out an evil character each turn with their seat and wipe out their opponentks protection fortress with SS. They are not meant to rush in for the win. They stay back and take out your defense before they come in for the rescue.
One thing I would like to see are more cards like WONL. It was a great start to help heroes with no sa but they need more cards to help them (and maybe cards to help non-sa EC)
-
I agree on more cards like WONL. That was an awesome card that increased the use of previously neglected cards.
I have never seen the incredible power of Judges Seat against a solid defense. Why wouldn't a player just keep their defenders in hand? Even if they are in play (and unprotected), they can discard evil enhancements to negate its effect. This "whittling them down" strategy takes a large defense to stall long enough to work. I agree that it works wonders against stand alone splash defenses, but against a 20+ card defense it doesn't have enough "oomph" in my opinion.
-
Right now, Judges have some really good Enhancements, crappy characters, and a lot of sniping capabilities. Judges wreck face with standalone defenses. Unfortunately, with the release of Di, so does every other offense, so Judges have kind of lost their edge.
-
Unplayable:
Pharisees
Heretics
All OT human defenses (except Gates of Jerusalem)
Deacons NT Blue
Non-ZT priests Trumpet and Sword /nuffsaid
Musicians
Angels
Judges
Daniel Heroes Still don't think this will ever be a true theme
Royalty
No Special ability cards
Needs help:
Non-FBTN / Banding Red
Luke Gold
Non-Ztemple Preists
-
By unplayable, it looks like you are saying that these three do not need anymore help right now.
-
By unplayable, it looks like you are saying that these three do not need anymore help right now.
I would rather the unplayable becomes useful before established themes that are slightly weaker than others receive help, if that is what you mean.
-
I would also like to see FBTN become a viable strategy, since it feels like the only banding that works is Jacob-CotH and Philistines, but even then those FBTN banding chains aren't very strong. IMO, FBTN should definitely be a strong strategy since the new players will more likely be drawn to it instead of all that stupid pre-block ignore and technical stuff. However, play-first cards such as Hidden Treasure and N's Horses/Chariots are able to be gotten rid of fairly easily.
-
Non-ZT priests Trumpet and Sword /nuffsaid
No, I do believe much more needs to be said.
-
Non-ZT priests Trumpet and Sword /nuffsaid
No, I do believe much more needs to be said.
Pretty sure you can make a fairly sucessful deck using Ahimaaz, Phineas, T&S and Zeal as a base. The same can't be said for many of the other themes I listed.
-
Non-ZT priests Trumpet and Sword /nuffsaid
No, I do believe much more needs to be said.
Pretty sure you can make a fairly sucessful deck using Ahimaaz, Phineas, T&S and Zeal as a base. The same can't be said for many of the other themes I listed.
Ask RTSmaniac about our RTS game....... :dunno:
-
To smokey:
My reply was meant to say that pharasees and ot EC are not unplayable. Ot peeps have all the civies and sme sweet sitelock cards.
As for judges, I used them with a splash of red and a sitelock defense at nats 09. If it wasn't for the time limit, I would of won two of my three timed out games (since they already used their sog/nj and I had them locked out (one timed game was tied and was anyone's game). As for the strength of the judges, the last game I played with that deck, they destroyed my fortresses right off the bat and I was still able to win.
Of course, I have no idea what the latest booster has done to sitelock/sniper tactics.
-
To smokey:
My reply was meant to say that pharasees and ot EC are not unplayable. Ot peeps have all the civies and sme sweet sitelock cards.
As for judges, I used them with a splash of red and a sitelock defense at nats 09. If it wasn't for the time limit, I would of won two of my three timed out games (since they already used their sog/nj and I had them locked out (one timed game was tied and was anyone's game). As for the strength of the judges, the last game I played with that deck, they destroyed my fortresses right off the bat and I was still able to win.
Of course, I have no idea what the latest booster has done to sitelock/sniper tactics.
Pharisees are unplayable.
All my opinions are based on playing a "balanced" t1 deck with each strat.
New set killed sniping, and site lock is weaker FYI.
-
I'm wanting to make a bunch of new card ideas, and I want to devote some attention to the least powerful themes. Please list any themes you think are under-powered. If you explain why, your vote counts double. I'll start:
Syrians. The entire theme is predicated on capture, yet it has no way of getting rid of the bountiful, oft-used "protect from Capture" cards. It's also severely lacking in the character department, boasting only one great character (Namaan) and two or three good characters (Hazel, Cusham-whatever, and Antiochus) and only a couple other characters period.
Assyrians. I'm not quite sure what's wrong with them. On paper, they should be good. Solid characters (nothing really super-fantastic though, now that I think of it), good Enhancements, and one of the best protection forts. I suppose they suffer from lack of CBN, difficulty with initiative (especially now that Horses are weaker than ever), and a lack of really good EC's.
Royalty. The main reason it fell this set is that pretty much everything else got a HUGE boost while O.T. Purple got nothing. It also doesn't help that CBIgnored is running wild and much of Royalty's battle-winning power came from Ignore. Still has baller characters, but leaves a LOT to be desired in the Enhancement department.
Angels. I don't think this one really needs to be explained. It's gotten, what, five or six really good cards since Kings? Even then, only Striking Herod is super special awesome (Birth Foretold really helps Green and Gold more). A glut of AMAZING characters, near-invincibility with Chamber and a few other support cards, and HUGE problems with initiative to play a small pool of useful Enhancements. The Silver Brigade is loaded with goodness, but most of it is better served contributing to a different, main offense rather than standing on its own. Silver just needs some good Enhancements and inter-Brigade banding.
Tally:
Syrians - 2
Assyrians - 2
Royalty - 2
Angels - 2
What say ye?
No Teal ? ~ Why is teal powerful?
-
Pretty sure you can make a fairly sucessful deck using Ahimaaz, Phineas, T&S and Zeal as a base.
Maybe if you use ZT priests with that. :P
-
Egyptians need more enhancements.
-
Red, Red and more Red. No initiative. Nahari is terrible. 2 Interrupts which only target humans. Off the top of my head no cannot be negated battle winners.
Silver dosn't need much if you havn't found its strategy yet then that's your fault but right now you could make a x-tremely powerful offense with it. Hint Hint Hint, if it had 2 more straight up negates like flaming sword that would be just fine.
-
Chamber is crazy when you're playing anything but a speed deck.
-
Egyptians need more enhancements.
Play some non-themed stuff like Lies(if you don't have it it is easy to obtain.)
-
Yeah, I do. I'd just prefer deck discard to be coupled with something (a la Stealing)
-
Original Pharoah is screaming for a reprint. One with a special ability.
Red is still lagging behind other brigades, and needs a hardcore shot in the arm to get it up to speed with the other colors. I'm not sure what or if red even HAS a NT theme? So something "completely different" is in order.
-
Ooh, ooh! How about a red Cornelius reprint, and then an "If used by a centurion" enhancement!
-
I like the idea of different non-named pharohs.
-
Ooh, ooh! How about a red Cornelius reprint, and then an "If used by a centurion" enhancement!
He can have weak number, site acess, and negate EC abilites! NEW AND FUN TO PLAY! I also like the idea of a second sons of thunder, enhancements usable by 4 or less characters are win.
-
Out of curiosity, would you consider a pure TGT deck weak (pure as in using only the heroes on TGT and not splashing in other themes like z temp)? I have not had a chance to really look at the new cards but I remember people saying that they weren't that good by themselves and that they onlt became a beast when splashed in with other themes.
-
Pure TGT no, there's simply not enough TGT cards, pure white however is fairy potent done right.
-
Yes, the white fairy team is incredible. They don't need any help. (Except from environmental destruction.)
-
Save the Environment - Stop using TGT.
-
I think the greek theme is really weak
-
There just aren't enough heroes for the General Epistles theme. (Gaius, Noah, possibly Noah's Sons, Michael, Enoch if you allow an Apocryphal quote...)
-
Right now, Judges have some really good Enhancements, crappy characters, and a lot of sniping capabilities. Judges wreck face with standalone defenses. Unfortunately, with the release of Di, so does every other offense, so Judges have kind of lost their edge.
I was just thinking today how most of the Judges need to be remade. Samuel, Gideon, ect.
Its odd to me how some characters have been remade time and again, and some have not been touched since Limited/Unlimited or Prophets (Isiah, Samuel, Jonah)
so, Judges, Syrians, Blue Gen/Warrior-Class all need work
-
I pulled off many victories (and near victories) in the AH playgroup with an Angel / Genesis and an Assyrian Defense.
They could use a lot better stuff, but they work if you play them right.
-
I pulled off many victories (and near victories) in the AH playgroup with an Angel / Genesis and an Assyrian Defense.
They could use a lot better stuff, but they work if you play them right.
Or play them against n00bs! Burn!
-
The AH group fails, you don't have the mighty Ring Wraith! Although now I suppose the Rochester group is the strongest......
-
The sole member of the Rochester group agrees.
-
Voigts, Martin Miller, Brinkmans, Alstads. PWNED.
-
it's really more of a question of the cities versus southern MN.
Sealed Deck: who cares?
T2-2P: This is a tough call. I'm going to give it to the cities. Justin, Jordan, Matt and Nathan>James and John.
T2-MP: Another tough call. I'll have to say cities though. John and Nathan are really close, but throw a couple alstads into the mix and they over power us.
T1-2P: Southern MN. John, Sauce, Wanderer.
T1-Multi: Cities.
T1-TEAMS: Southern MN. LOS PERDEDORES DE MEXICO!! and James and John were a beast team at Nats. Brinkman and Martin are a good team as well.
Booster: Depends.
3-2.
-
Booster: Depends.
Southern MN had Adam Erickson (one of the Nation's premier drafters), but I have no idea if he plays anymore. Ben Nichols still plays on occasion, and he has a few State and Regional BD titles. Otherwise, Wild Bill and JSB are accomplished drafters from the TC. And I'm not half bad, though I was much better at Sealed Deck back in the day.
As for T1-2P, Nathan won a Regional tournament (the highest any of the listed Southern MN players have won). And he was 11. So I wouldn't say it's so cut-and-dried.
Maybe at next year's state we'll have to have some kind of MN regional smack-down competition. We get Tim. Gabe isn't invited.
-
T1-2P: Southern MN. John, Sauce, Wanderer
Ask John who wins T1-2P whenever I head down for a Rochester District... ;)
Also, besides Nathan for T1 2P, we have Jordan who has placed 3rd at Nats in T1 2P and the not-forgotten J-Diz who got second in T1 2P at the largest Nats ever (would have been first under current tie-breaker rules).
-
T1-2P: Southern MN. John, Sauce, Wanderer
Ask John who wins T1-2P whenever I head down for a Rochester District... ;)
Also, besides Nathan for T1 2P, we have Jordan who has placed 3rd at Nats in T1 2P and the not-forgotten J-Diz who got second in T1 2P at the largest Nats ever (would have been first under current tie-breaker rules).
J-Diz is still in it?
T1 is definitely not as cut and dried as I made it seems, but based off the last two tournament seasons, Southern MN.
-
A lot of these will be fixed... the playtesters will (as they always have) make great cards to balance out the weaker themes, and good cards to counter the rampant themes.
Musicians are pretty awesome, I disagree with that. They won our last tournament.
-
And a Saint of Virtue deck won at one of our tournaments last year (and it beat the great Belle!!@!@oen!) That doesn't mean it is awesome.
-
Well what do you want from them? They're not gonna be a fast speed offense with a ton of battle winner (like almost every other offense now), but it's a great slow offense.
-
I want them to be playable. There are better slow offenses.
-
Eh, maybe. I think they're actually pretty playable.
-
We need low number Assyrians.
However, they do have the potential to be great you just need time.
With 5 archers, 5 horses, 5 Forgotten histories, 3 Assyria's Tributes, T2 is FTW.
You set them up to band out rabshakeh, rabsaris, and archers + 5 horses.
draw 10 play 5 enhancements which the last is Forgotten history.
Repeat with variations.
-
We need low number Assyrians.
However, they do have the potential to be great you just need time.
With 5 archers, 5 horses, 5 Forgotten histories, 3 Assyria's Tributes, T2 is FTW.
You set them up to band out rabshakeh, rabsaris, and archers + 5 horses.
draw 10 play 5 enhancements which the last is Forgotten history.
Repeat with variations.
5 DoUs too. Maybe 1 or 2 Confusions.
-
even better. 5 targeting Archers, DoU, Grapes. :D
-
even better. 5 targeting Archers, DoU, Grapes. :D
DoU would discard all the archers.
-
even better. 5 targeting Archers, DoU, Grapes. :D
DoU would discard all the archers.
yeah for DoU and Golgotha
-
Grey in general seems pretty weak, because its so spread out. Its got underdeveloped Syrians, underdeveloped Roman Emperors, and underdeveloped Pharisees.
-
And the highly underdeveloped Orpah/Ahithophel reverse banding theme.