Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Hello there people.

I'm dedicating this thread and even am sticky'ing it.  It's for your testimonials on players who have been semi-retired and retired from the game, but have gotten back in touch .... if even to reminisce.

I can't help but post a text below, dedicated to two young players who have had a special place in my heart.  I sent a PM to one of them that reads:
".... I've seen players come and go, and gone.  But one thing is for sure....they will always come home....if even....to touch base....with their Redemption family.....before 'flying' back to their destinations and their destinies."

GOD IS GOOD!

I LOVE YA ALL GUYS!!!

Blessings,
ReyZen

Airforcedude...Welcome back

Man! Love you guys!!! Thank you all so much for your service

To all Veterans. God bless you for your service to our country. My family does not take our freedom for granted. Thank you for putting your life on the line to preserve our liberties!

Well, I find this to be completely hilarious and embarrassing!    I was the first one to post a "coming back" message on this thread!  Well, I am back again.  After my first come back I found it to be very challenging to drive the 3-4 hours from my duty station in west Texas to participate in tournaments, and when the pace of work and life started to pick up I had to put the game down again.  Since then I have completed my military service, and I am a full time college student now.  I have really missed the game, and I hope to hook up with Terry and the play group again soon.  My collection is pretty much non existent, and I would be willing to bet my old strategies, which weren't that successful back in the day, probably do not work anymore.

I know what you mean. Our old play group in its prime was a little over 10 ppl and now its non-existent except for my brother and me. Our last competitive tournament experience was 4 years ago. My brother and I just play causally to keep the fire alive between ourselves. We're super rusty now and would need help with rulings, but its still a hobby. The focus of the game has always been fun & fellowship. I'm sure as you link up with other players and game causally it'll all come back together. Remember The Early Church is a new set so pretty much the whole community is still figuring out its synergy and strategies. Another note, With the release of traditionally only 1 set a year and boosters and bins including older cards, its not too hard to get older cards and I'm sure there's people who're willing to give you tons of their commons, uncommons and cheap rares if it came down to it. I'm sure there's also collections you can get off ebay.

I first got captivated by the C&D starter decks as a preteen. Saw it in a Christian bookstore that Mr MiYoda brought Redemption to. The store owner, Kitty Jones, opened her doors to allow a playgroup to form that I had the privilege of leading after Mr MiYoda got us on our feet with gameplay. I played semi-competitively and hosted NY States and even the NE Regional as a teenager. The most competitive I have ever been was at 2010 nats (the only nats I attended in my younger years) when I got absolutely demolished in T1. Mr MiYoda was one of the many that 5-0'd me that day. Was my own fault for trying to be cute and run a D-heavy Zebulun deck! I did at least place in the top 10 in T1 Multi and (I think) Sealed Deck. However, my most fond memory of my younger Redemption playgroup days was personally evangelizing to one of the playgroup members and witnessed him coming to Christ.

I left the game in 2011 and gave my collection of cards to my younger brother. Career, moving away from the playgroup, and marriage were the main factors. I was not plugged into the broader Redemption community much and forgot about Redemption until Covid hit. Our church ministries were hit, and any sort of Christian fellowship and evangelism seemed much more difficult. Over time as we navigated our way through how to reopen ministries and do new things that would work better in the uncertain environment, I remembered Redemption. I was one of the leaders at my church after pitching the idea I started planning on starting a new playgroup there. Surprisingly, my younger brother still had all my old cards and after my 10-year hiatus from the game, we have been meeting regularly as the Moravia Redemption Guild. Every 2 weeks we meet, and I have a captive audience to share the gospel as we discuss the Scripture behind a card and there is opportunity for discipleship as we win and lose games together in tournaments. I have been blessed to lead this group alongside Zack (trustee at our church) and both of our wives help as well.

I don’t have an extensive background in card games. Granted, in elementary school I collected Pokémon cards like everyone, but I never learned to play the game. In middle school, I dabbled with Yugioh as I did like the show at that age. I learned the basics from a starter deck and attended my only tournament of my youth when I ran into a grown man playing a blue eyes ultimate dragon deck. If you don’t understand that, just know, he had a 3 headed version of my best character. I got destroyed. I remember walking away wondering what a grown man like that got out of picking on kids with decks like mine. I suppose this was Yugioh’s version of an RLK experience, haha! Shortly after that, I gave my cards away and my time with trading card games was over for quite a while.

Sometime after I got married, my newly minted brother in law got into playing Yugioh. I had money and figured I could avenge the defeat of my youth. I built the best dragon deck money (within reason) could buy. I went to a regional and played decent and placed in the 30s of a field that had over 100 players. Not great, not terrible. After that, I didn’t play that much, just when my brother in law would come over. After a few more months, I lost enthusiasm to play due to game changes and also the conviction I had over some of the themes of the game and its characters. I ended up putting my cards away for a while before eventually giving them to my brother in law. At this point, I was sure I was done playing card games.

After quite a few years, my wife and I started attending a new local church. The youth pastor there was looking for volunteers to help with the youth group. Having previously served a stint as a volunteer youth pastor, I felt like God put me there to help serve, so that is what I did. One summer night, on a youth outing after service to the local Chick-fil-A, this youth pastor asked me if I had ever heard of Redemption. Clueless as I was, I left that conversation that night and made a plan with this youth pastor to meet at our local Lifeway store that was going out of business. Lo and behold, Lifeway had I/J and G/H starter decks along with loose booster packs from Angel Wars. Now, if you know anything about me, you know how much disdain I hold for the Angel Wars set. This almost turned me away from the game immediately as it presents the game as a cheap knockoff type game versus something with real merit. But, thankfully I stuck with it.

By now, you may have guessed, but the youth pastor in this story is none other than my good friend Brad Gaillard - the first co-host of The Threshing Floor podcast. 

Brad and I played endlessly after that learning the game. At the same time, I was testing my wife’s patience by aggressively building my collection with new card purchases from Derek of Your Turn Games who was a tremendous blessing as I was starting out. He volunteered time and effort to help me understand the game and asked questions about the collection I was building and offered suggestions that were mutually beneficial for his business and my growing competitive-ish deck. This time of learning the game and developing a deeper connection with Brad while playing was such a fun time, even if it did cost me a Bluetooth speaker and a toolbox. Ask Brad about that one, ha!

In August of 2019, I connected with Jay Chambers on Facebook. We planned a day and I showed up and met him and his brother Jeremy to play some games. This was the first time I had met anyone else in the Redemption community and it unlocked quite a few things for me. I got to see awesome Nationals promos, completely built competitive decks (even if they were built by Jay), along with understanding that the players of this game differed from all the ones I had encountered previously with their level of hospitality and their stories of this wonderful community. I thought maybe Derek was just friendly because it was lining his pockets, but I learned from this experience that his actions were genuine. From that day on, I was plugged in!

So I started playing Redemption right after Cloud of Witnesses came out. I was a pompous little kid who struggled to open up to anyone on a personal level. I joined a church in my area that a cousin of mine went to, called Meridian Baptist. There, I got associated with there youth group. It was fairly large at the time, but I struggled to click with a lot of the kids. The group recently had a change of church leadership and had an interim youth pastor. This was a man named Chris Fachman.
One thing that Chris would often do after Wednesday youth group was host Redemption games. I didn't know what the game was at the time, but I played Magic the Gathering, so it piqued my interest. Chris taught me the game with the IJ starter decks and told me about the competitive scene. Being fairly adamant about playing, I found myself with a twenty dollar bill flipping through Chris' inventory to build my first ever T1 deck.
I didn't realize at the time that this game was going to bring several blessings into my life. From the outside, it looked like a way to make church tolerable, even exciting to go to. We'd play after every service. It got to the point that Chris began taking me home so that my family didn't have to wait up on me. These car trips trapped me in conversation with Chris, which brought on growth in my spiritual and personal life. I was playing red warriors and Demons at the time, and each drive home led to me asking about the characters on my cards I was growing fond of. While I increased my biblical knowledge week by week, Chris began trying to show me what kind of man God wanted me to be.
As time pasted, I got better and better at the game, traveling with Chris to other tournaments, meeting my future Redemption family.  I began opening up to those around me, no longer afraid to embrace my new nerdy hobby.

I'm 20 years old now, and still playing Redemption. This game has brought me into circles with people who truly walk with God and mentor me to become a better man every day. And though this is my Redemption testimony,  it wouldn't be complete without crediting my beloved mentor and friend, Chris Fachman <@460882537045295113>