Excited for the new upcoming set Israel’s Rebellion? Well prepare for even more excitement with this article where playtesters of the set give a peek behind the curtain on the set.
Israel’s Rebellion has been sent to print! What an exciting time to be a part of the Redemption community! It seems like every week huge news is dropping! In our discord we just finished up the community vote which allowed the community to decide 3 card titles that would be in Redemption Roots! I don’t tend to keep using exclamation points over and over, but there’s so much happening in our community.
I also want to say thank you to our community. Within two weeks we raised over $18,000 to fund Redemption Roots! Wow! Israel’s Deliverance has been sent to print, Israel’s Rebellion has been sent to print, and now we are finalizing Redemption Roots.
I also want to thank the elder team. We discussed smaller sets and less daunting tasks after GoC was released, and what did we do? We created over 400 cards (I think 465 to be exact, not counting promos), in one year, although Israel’s Deliverance was done, we still had to review and tweak cards. That is incredible!
So, thank you Redemption community. This includes the contributors of the fundraisers, players of the game, people who contribute in so many ways, people who will continue to contribute to the fundraiser to get those amazing cards, to the elder team for hours of work “behind the scenes” and to Rob Anderson for being so gracious and generous to our thoughts and ideas. Thank you all!
I think that deserves some spoilers if I do say so myself!
Before we go into spoilers (unless you just breezed on through), and since we are on the topic of thanks, I wanted to do a special article to thank the playtesters for testing Israel’s Rebellion. Without their hard work, Israel’s Rebellion would not be what it is today. I can’t do much to show my appreciation, but I thought it would be really cool to hear from them. I asked playtesters questions about their experience playtesting, what would make it better, and what themes they liked. I thought this would allow others to see the amount of time volunteering takes and while getting a behind the scenes look at playtesting.
I will do more articles with other perspectives, as well as why and how themes are designed the way they are, but first you get to see some cards from the new set. I hope you enjoy!
Rob Smith (DemonHunter85)
Where to begin. So first off, I want to say how amazing it was and what an awesome experience to playtest Israel’s Rebellion. It was such an honor to be chosen as one of those to test and build decks and provide feedback on the set. I cannot express how thankful I am for this wonderful opportunity. With that being said I would like to talk a little bit about what I experienced.
The first thing was my overall experience. It was wonderful to collaborate and discuss with so many great players and elders. We did have some calls where you really got to discuss deep about cards and your thoughts and opinions and how it would affect the game. It definitely is a lot of work as you really need to use your brain to dig deep and make sure all of the wording is accurate and does not have any bad interactions with other cards. Constant feedback and activity in the discord playtest channel definitely kept us thinking. We would start with decks using only Israel’s Deliverance and Israel’s Rebellion cards just to get a feel of those together and see what we could come up with. Cards would go through iterations depending on how the ability worked or didn’t work. Some cards stayed the same through the whole process and others would have multiple changes. There were weeks where a lot of hours were put in. It did make me have to limit my Zoom discord invitational and Lackey Grand Prix attendance. There was one time where we were even testing 1 Territory class in the Lackey Grand Prix as well as play testing. I did feel my brain hurt at times but overall, I would absolutely do this again! I had a great time and really felt like I could give my all to this for the overall community. I did wish there were more phone calls than we did but with a little more than a handful of play testers schedules do not always line up. It was a great time, and I am so glad I was asked to do this.
The themes in Israel’s Rebellion are wonderful. I really think the community is going to have a great time with these cards and the direction the game is heading. We were given free range to build any theme, but Tyler did an amazing job making sure each theme was tested efficiently and with a good amount of games in. I tested the White Wilderness and Clay priests very heavily. These themes are really going to light a fire in the bush (bad pun intended). They have great banding and very adequate access to their resources. In rotation I can see a strong Exodus deck coming that will have a good rescue with play first plagues that are CBN. For those that know me I have been using disciples a lot lately. So, it was no surprise I jumped on the clay priests. I don’t know how to express the bomb that is coming with these guys. Protection from almost everything and even though teal is a brigade that will not see further support, the teal priests really meshed well with clay priests. Phineas, the Zealous was my absolute favorite card. There are a lot of clay offering enhancements coming in this set. Captive Priest to search him out and then band in Dutiful Priest before they block is a hard-hitting rescue. So those two together give you a play first CBN battle winner. This was very easy to do with New Covenant (Jeremiah) to give Phineas the ability to band which is easily searched for by Book of The Covenant. You always had a tabernacle priest. Also using Valley of Dry Bones to release Captive Priest to get Dutiful Priest in was a way. This theme flowed very well, and I think will be a powerhouse after it is released.
As far as evil brigades I messed around with a couple, but gray was my favorite. There are two little subthemes in gray. Sabbath breakers and priests. Both have very good ways to get some easy blocks. The Sabbath breakers have great banding and amazing abilities. For all the type 2 players they are generic so get ready! Once they are all in battle together it is a wall that can be difficult to punch through. Also, can be very easily splashed with other things (wink wink.) The gray priests have some sneaky abilities. As Tyler showed us in his video Phineas, the Useless and Hophni, the Profane are a powerhouse duo. Those going together can mess your opponent up. The gray priests do a lot of the same trickery the priests we have now like to do. There is soul protection and protection of the evil characters themselves. I loved mixing them with things like Profane Daughters and False Leaders. Of course, Saul of Tarsus found a home there as well. Gray has been seeing a rise as of late and cards like Unsuccessful and Scattered will only see a rise as the gray priest’s theme comes out.
Once again, I had a great time and only talked a little about my perception and things I saw. Other themes and cards were definitely good, but I will let the other play testers have their moment to talk about them. We all really hope you will enjoy Israel’s Rebellion as much as we have and cannot wait to see your reactions as cards are spoiled in the community!!
Jay Chambers (floodedRED)
I had a blast playtesting IR. I found the card design to represent the best of old and new school Redemption card design. I especially found the brown Wilderness theme to be a blast to play, between the emphasis on curses (which goes along with the story of the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy) and the game-changing impact of the Forty Years Dominant, I think Brown is going to be back on the radar!” I was infinitely more pleased with the playtesting process for IR than GOC. I just wish I had gotten a few more games in for you guys.
Derek Tirado (Watchman)
I’ve been playtesting since Israel’s Deliverance, and that was a fun project. But to be able to playtest a new expansion has been a blast. I appreciate Tyler reaching out and asking my son, Brayden, and me to assist.
The decks/themes I built were Sons of Jacob and animals/crimson characters, Sons of Jacob and Genesis Egyptians, Tabernacle Priests and mainly evil priests, and Tabernacle Priests and mainly Sabbath Breakers. Brayden built a white Exodus Heroes’ offense with a brown rebellious Israelites defense.
I didn’t use the blue/crimson deck too long as there was just a little animal support in IR; I mainly wanted to try it and make sure things worked as they should. We (Tyler, Brayden, and I) worked some kinks out of some of the animal abilities, and once that was done, I moved on to other themes. With the two Tab Priests decks, I used meek souls and used a soul protection / hiding defensive strategy that was quite effective, especially with the new Dominant titled “edited by R.O.S.E.S.”. Once the Genesis Egyptians got a buff in the second iteration, I built a Sons of Jacob / Gen. Egyptians deck that was a lot of fun.
Sons of Jacob are amazing and is my favorite offensive theme in IR. Although I didn’t use brown, I played against it numerous times and can say it’s probably the strongest defense in IR. I’m quite happy to see Sons of Jacob getting a rebuff and being very competitive, as well as the addition of Sons of Jacob that previously weren’t made, like Issachar, into the card pool. It also makes older cards from Cloud of Witnesses, such as Joseph, become usable and amazing. Brown also desperately needed some strong cards, so I’m also glad to see that brigade got a big boost. With the vast majority of the set being mostly mono brigade, it was a bit of a throwback to the early days of Redemption. It was a little refreshing to keep things simple and straightforward, but inevitably it does take away some versatility with other themes/brigades.
I didn’t see the final changes, so I hope some of my favorite abilities weren’t changed, but there are other abilities I hope did get a buff, so we’ll just have to see once IR releases!
Jake Antonetz (AgurTheWise)
This is Tyler, before you read Jake’s synopsis there’s a little background. I asked the playtesters questions to help myself gain some insight, while also trying to keep the article focused on some key areas. Jake responded to each question separately (which I love), but I wanted to keep the questions in the article so that his responses made sense to the reader. Enjoy!
How was it?
Playtesting Israel’s Rebellion was incredibly enjoyable; I have always enjoyed game design. I frequently made up my own games in my childhood and have dabbled in designing a Christian card game of my own called the Pilgrim’s Progress. The others and elder team were very gracious, and I felt heard with my suggestions.
Was it cumbersome, would you do it again if asked?
Playtesting did press my free time, I started playtesting with wife out of country, when she got back in my free time freaky diminished, and I felt bad about that inactivity. I would love to playtest again if offered and I felt I could give the time to it while honoring God and wife.
Did it take up too much time? Could the overall playtesting process been improved, and if so, how? The amount of time asked for playtesting was fine, I’m sure it could be, but I can’t think of feedback now.
And any other ideas about how your time went?
Felt really blessed to be part of it, even if I never get to do it again l I was just happy to have that experience.
What was your favorite theme from Israel’s Rebellion and why?
I do believe Wilderness on both sides. I love dual alignment cards; I like resilient offenses and defenses and dual alignment gives that extra depth. I actually don’t love the mill aspect of wilderness good (it’s not my playstyle to focus on the gambling nature of mill), but otherwise I like how they played. Moses himself is a definite favorite hero, the chosen warriors & Medad were fun too. Increasing numbers is a great enhancement.
Jeremy Chambers (I Am Bread)
First off it was a privilege to get to play test IR, and I would be honored to do it again if asked. My favorite theme has to be evil wilderness and more specifically the Sabbath Breakers (because my favorite card back in the day was Sabbath breaker from the Priests set). I really enjoyed piloting that defense, they are strong, fast, and sneaky. I’m really glad I built and tested the SB stuff in T2 because they were RIDICULOUS in T2 to the point I would call them broken, and I’m usually not quick to jump on a card or theme and call it broken, by turn two I was activating all of their abilities ×2 which was insane lol. About my experience of play testing, overall, it was honestly a great experience and well organized. I personally don’t feel like I contributed enough/didn’t get enough games in due to conflicting schedules, and to make that better maybe whoever is over head of playtesting can assign games to two playtesters and say, “Okay I need this theme tested against this theme before the end of the week.”
David Smith (smittyseveneyes)
I had so much fun playtesting. My only regret is I felt that I did not give enough time to it. If asked to do it again I would have a different approach to the whole thing. I was honored to have been chosen the first time and would gladly do it again. Playing with other players that have more experience with deck building and tournament play has opened my eyes with how the cards are made and looking for interactions between cards. The whole experience has been a joy and a pleasure. I would have to say my favorite theme would be sons of Jacob. I have so many deck designs in my head for when the set is released. Also, the evil brown wilderness is going to be a top tier defense in my opinion. The set as a whole I believe is going to show players that the game is headed in a great direction. Everyone should be as excited as I am for this direction. In summary this set is going to change the game. One final thing to all the elders thank you for all your hard work and dedication. You are so appreciated. Also, to the playtesters thank you for the honor to be involved. I had so much fun.
Jayden Alstad (TheJaylor)
Favorite Theme to Test: Egyptian Mill
Overall, playtesting Israel’s Rebellion was a great experience, and I would certainly be willing to help out with future playtesting as time permits. It does take away some of the excitement of guessing at spoilers, though there are typically some changes that the elders won’t tell us about after the last versions the playtesters are sent so we do get some surprise there.
One downside for me personally with this go around is that I didn’t have as many opportunities to play games as I would have liked. Between dedicating time to Redemption content for YouTube and my free time not overlapping with that of the others regularly, a good portion of my “playtesting” ended up being just looking through the most recent images and thinking through each of the card abilities. I did end up being able to get some games in with each of the new themes, but I didn’t get as much to the point of branching certain cards out into current themes, or pulling as many current cards into the decks I was testing. Even after having officially playtested a few sets now, I’m definitely still learning the balance between testing as many new cards as possible for the sake of efficiency and testing certain cards to their extremes to gauge any drastic impacts to the meta. Zebulun, Out of Their Hands, and Obedient to Joseph are three cards in particular that I kinda wish I had taken more in the latter direction because I think they have a lot of potential to be strong and splashable.
I enjoyed the group discussions we had over Zoom, although I do think it would have been helpful to have a few more of those than we did. Part of the issue I think was scheduling with that big of a group, which brings me to a suggestion that might be useful for future playtesting which builds upon something that has already been implemented to some degree. I think having players specialize on testing certain themes would be very helpful so that overall players are going deeper rather than wider. The way we did it this go-around was that the first couple weeks were just open season, test whatever, and then naturally players did start to break off and test specific themes that they liked. If something wasn’t being tested, Tyler would usually bring that up and have someone switch over. This worked fairly well, but I think it could go even further to the point of having the initial open season and then assigning testers an offense and a defense that they will specialize in. At that point, the players testing each theme could organize group meetings, via Zoom/Discord/etc., which would be able to be a little more frequent than the large group meetings since it’s fewer people to coordinate with. So, for instances, if we had testers 1 through 12 and themes Good A, B, C and Evil A, B, C, then tester 1 could have Good A and Evil A, tester 2 could have Good A and Evil B, tester 3 on Good A and Evil C, and so on, such that each Good theme group and each Evil theme group will have distinct members. Elders would then be able to meet with individual groups for feedback and notes specific to their themes. As much as I love spreading out my testing among the themes, and perhaps I would still be able to if I have time for it outside my assigned theme and I could still participate in some of the discussions for other themes, but I think this would help me personally at least to be more intentional about going deep into a theme and having specific testers to collaborate with about it.
Regarding my favorite theme to test, I do certainly have some runner-ups, like Good Priests and Evil Sabbath Breakers, but I think I’d have to go with the Egyptian Mill theme. I think this set brings mill to the point of being viable without having to focus on making the deck competitive. Most successful mill decks throughout the years have either been trying to pull off some infinite mill combo, which is no longer possible, or had to be very selective in the cards they milled and finding a balance between cards that could keep them in the game and cards that would mill the opponent. I think Israel’s Rebellion is close, if not all the way there, to the point of adding enough cards that can mill efficiently so that the balance is easier to achieve, and you don’t have to sacrifice as many mill cards for competitive cards because some of them cover both bases. I don’t expect it to come out as a dominant strategy upon the release of the set, but I know that I certainly had a lot of fun testing it out and I look forward to releasing a couple of the test games I recorded.
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