Baboony has a list of 10 different cards that’s he’s especially aware of going into the big tournament of the year. He goes through the list and gives a breakdown
10) Glory of the Lord (Promo)
This card is relatively new to the card pool but has already made a big splash. I especially like this card because of its usefulness on offense AND defense. Its having the most success in offenses that like to band a bunch of Heroes into battle and defenses playing evil characters that have built in protection. When you have a big banding chain, slam this down to prevent the opponent from using their Scattered on you. Or when blocking with a card with protection, play this so they can’t use their good enhancements to interrupt or negate the protection.
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What I’ve started to notice is that Glory is enabling a new kind of offensive strategy to emerge: one that doesn’t let opponents play ANY evil enhancements during the game. Between Glory of the Lord, Ride On, The Resurrection + John the Fisherman toss, and Herod’s Temple toss, Gospel of Christ based-offenses are equipped with a plethora of ways to prevent the opponent from using their evil enhancements.
With this in mind, I’ve started building my decks with less evil enhancements and really focusing on the strength of my evil characters to form the backbone of my defense. Long gone are the days of back and forth negate wars. Too often those evil enhancements just sit in your hand taking up dead space while the turbo-charged opponent sidesteps you completely.
9) Peter’s Curse
In a world dominated by well, Dominants, Peter’s Curse is an interesting tool. The fact that this is CBN gives it an edge against The Cross for this type of effect. I’ve found that many opponents are packing blanket ways to negate neutral cards, making The Cross a liability. But Peter’s Curse doesn’t have this problem.
This card can be good in decks trying to slow the pace of the game down or decks that are trying to play all their good Dominants early then prevent the opponent from clawing their way back into the game. An early Peter’s Curse can be a game changer against some of the more explosive decks that rely on good Dominants to help them setup.
The thing holding this card back is the fact it takes up an artifact slot and can be hard to justify in decks running 5+ good Dominants. Often times you’d be better off running Book of The Covenant in that slot instead. Another reason I’m hesitant to run it is that there is a chance I go second and by the time I get to activate this card, it could be too late to prevent the opponent from using their best good Dominants.
I believe there is a strong defensive heavy strategy out there that relies on this card, but I only have inklings about what that strategy would be.
8) Grapes of Wrath
Grapes of Wrath. An iconic dominant, heralding back all the way from the TxP set. My brother asked me why this card doesn’t see more play, but I believe it will be a key-player in some of the best performing decks at nationals.
If you fall behind in a racing scenario against a Gospel of Christ based offense, it becomes crucial to get a block while you are behind. As I mentioned before, these types of decks have a bunch of ways to prevent you from playing evil enhancements, so having a sure-fire way to win a battle against a large banding chain of heroes is a recipe for a comeback. Just block with your derpy evil character, and point a Grapes of Wrath at it and be on your merry way.
If you are a Nativity player, you should be especially aware that this card is seeing more play, and plan accordingly. This card is one of the few ways to stop a banding chain protected by Flight Into Egypt in its tracks!
This card also offers a blow-out potential against decks playing Glory of the Lord. When blocking, ask the opponent “Would you like to play a dominant?” If they decline, you will be granted initiative and threaten to use a “Scattered” effect. So in response to this possibility, some players will fire off their Glory of the Lord thinking the battle is secured. If they do that, you can simply Grapes of Wrath your blocker and not only have got the block, you’ve also baited a strong dominant out of their hand!
Now, this card can be difficult to play. Its awkward when you are ahead on souls. Scratch that, its plain awful when you are ahead on souls. But I guess a way to think about this card is that if you are ahead on souls, you don’t need the extra help to win the game. Its when you are behind that the extra help will be crucial.
7) Twenty Shekels
I believe offenses that can incorporate hand-control elements into their game plan are very strong at the moment. Twenty Shekels opens up a pandora’s box of possibilities for these types of strategies.
Pair Twenty Shekels up with Choose the Blocker effects like Zacchaeus or Elijah to get favorable attacks. Or combine it with cards that tax the opponent’s Evil Characters like Jehu or Mary, Holy Virgin.
You can even double up on attacking their hand with Teaching in Parables or First Sacrifice and chances are the opponent will not have enough resources to string together a successful block against you.
Skilled players will be able to use the information from all the revealed cards in the opponents hand to choose the best attacks and blocks in the coming turns. Knowing if you need to play around a Glory of the Lord, Fire Foxes, or Grapes of Wrath can make all the difference in a tight game.
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As a counter to hand control strategies, I’ve found that employing multiple sources of hand protection can shut down this powerful engine. If you can swing it, I’d suggest playing Storehouse AND Bethlehem Stable in your deck. Or at least the Crowd’s Lost Soul. The thing is, these types of hand-control decks will have the tools to negate at least one source of hand protection, so the more sources you have, the harder it will be for your opponent to tear apart your hand. And the less information your opponent has about what your options are, the worse their attacks and blocks will become. That’s why I’ve started to think about Storehouse/Stable as being offensive AND defensive cards, worthy of slots in any deck I’m considering.
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6) Mary, Holy Virgin
Mary is without a doubt one of the strongest Heroes in the game right now. I call her the swiss army knife. Not only does she eliminate any evil or neutral card in a territory each time she attacks, she generates resources by being able to go to the reserve and getting any star card (she can get good OR evil star cards). She kinda does it all. Oh, and did I mention she’s Cannot Be Negated?
Mary really punishes people idly playing their best blockers into their territory. Pair her with the aforementioned Twenty Shekels and she can get free souls if the opponent only had one Evil Character in their hand.
If I’m playing a defense that doesn’t have good ways to protect itself in my territory, Mary is definitely a card I’m worried about ruining my day. She’s also a reason I’m hesitant to rely on artifacts or neutral cards to be a core part of my strategy. I like Overtaken, I like Ashkelon, but in one attack Mary can “thanos-snap” your card and you are left falling way behind.
When I’m playing at Nationals, either I will be play a ton of territory protection for my evil characters or keep them all in my hand if I can to avoid Mary‘s wrath.
There aren’t many ways to counter her besides using a banding card to band to her, convert her to meet if you have Gospel Unity, then hope they don’t have a way to bounce and reset her.
5) Herod Agrippa I
Herod Agrippa I has my vote for one of the best evil characters in the game right now. Most of the time if you pair him with a Herod’s Temple toss, he can get autoblocks against most banding offenses in the game.
There are not a lot of answers to big banding chains full of powerful heroes, but Herod Agrippa I fills a crucial role in Herod defenses looking to try and stand in their way. Whenever I’m building an offense, I start asking myself “can I beat a Herod Agrippa” and if the answer is no, then I put the deck away. That’s why I’ve stopped playing Daniel. That’s why I don’t think Patriarchs are that well positioned. All because of this card. After losing to this card at a big regionals tournament, I’ve learned to respect it and not just hope I draw my Three Woes to negate it during a battle.
Best way to deal with this fellow? Pack your deck/reserve full of good enhancements that can be used in a pinch to toss him down. Think Untouchable, The Child is Born, etc. Or take out their Herod’s Temple. Lastly, attack Herod Aggripa I while he’s vulnerable in his territory. Herod’s Temple doesn’t protect him, so use your favorite way to eliminate evil characters from territory to deal with him Al-Pachino style.
4) Nazareth
I think the worst feeling I’ve experienced in Redemption is sitting under an opponent’s Nazareth lock and feeling helpless, looking at the Second Coming, Crowd’s Choice, and Deceiver all stranded in your hand. These moments have a tendency of burning to one’s memory and vowing you will never fall prey to the strategy again.
But Nazareth decks can blindside you. A perfectly normal looking Disciples deck can drop this on you out of nowhere and catch you off-guard. And if you don’t have a lot of answers to the card in your main deck you are going to be in for a very rough game.
However, I have found it easy to dismantle the Nazareth lock with a timely Three Woes. Nazareth sometimes can feel like a house of cards: remove one piece and the whole thing comes tumbling down. Sometimes you can bounce their Nazareth, play a Storehouse and all of a sudden your deck becomes protected from their Nazareth and they have a useless card.
Overall, I get the impression that Nazareth is a swingy card that requires an immediate answer or it threatens to sink your gameplan. I also think Nazareth is best in decks that can get ahead on resources early, then play Nazareth to lock in the resource asymmetry. Going into Nationals, this is definitely one of the cards I will be worried about facing. Don’t leave your Goliath Curses, Lost Child Founds, Brood of Vipers, and Herodias Daughters in the reserve kids!
3) Simon the Zealous
Simon gets my vote for being able to craft the best attacks in the game. Being able to choose a blocker and then having access to a wide variety of uncounterable battle winners is probably the strongest thing you can be doing in an attack.
He has low numbers, which means you’ll be able to get initiative with him to play Authority of Christ or Eternal Inheritance. Or you can engineer a matchup where he faces an evil character you can toss down with a 7 power clay enhancement.
If I know my opponent has a Simon the Zealous in hand or territory, I question my ability to successfully block. Even if you do manage to block with a big evil character and try to activate your Herod’s Temple, they can play Ride On to play an enhancement even without having initiative in battle.
I’ve found the best strategy against Simon is to have territory protection and hold evil characters in my hand. But that is a shaky strategy at best. If they negate your territory protection or find a way to put an evil character in your territory, its pretty doomed.
I predict we will see a deck abusing the power of Simon + his ability to choose placed orange demons as blockers do very well at Nationals. My advice to deckbuilders? Sorry, I’m fresh out of advice about how to deal with Simon. Lock your doors, mourn, and weep, for I think of Simon as a sort of “Angel of Death” that cannot be stopped.
2) Matthew the Publican
You know him, You love him. Its a Matthew world and we are living in it. It probably goes without saying that this card currently defines the competitive metagame of Redemption. If you build a deck where on average Matthew will draw 5, 6, or 7 cards against you on turn one, your chance of winning that game immediately drop to single digit percentage points.
How can you know how many cards a Matthew would draw against your deck, on average? Well I’ve built a nifty simulation tool that people can use to estimate the average number of cards an opposing Matthew would draw on turn one. Check it out here!
I think a reasonable number where you want to be is between 4 and 5 cards. If you can get the average down closer to 3, even better. When building a deck, I almost never consider putting cards like Pagan Sailors, Foreign Wives, Ends of the Earth, or Noah, the Righteous in my deck. They become too much of a liability to justify their inclusion in my opinion. I believe the number of games these cards will help you win are less than the number of games you’ll lose because you happened to have them in your hand when a Matthew attacked you.
When evaluating any deck, one of my first questions is “how is the Matthew matchup?” If I deem the deck can’t catch up to a Disciples deck that got to go first and draw 5-6 cards off of Matthew, then I put the deck away and hope for a time where Matthew gets banned (lol). That event seems unlikely of happening any time soon, so the best we can do is equipping our decks with catch-up mechanisms that can help us catch back up to Matthew decks.
I have a whole video about some of the ways you could do this, check that video out here.
I will be very interested to see what percentage of T1 decks at Nationals are running Matthew. I will also be very interested to see the ways to top decks approach dealing with Matthew and if any suitable counter strategy will rise to the top of the tables.
1) The Resurrection
When I say The Resurrection is the number one card on my radar, I’m more alluding to being aware of the the types of decks that run The Resurrection. Typically these are decks that will want to play The Resurrection on Turn One or Turn Two and use this card to gain an enormous amount of resource advantage.
I’d say The Resurrection can generate anywhere between 4 to 10 cards of value for the price of a single Dominant. Think attack with a hero, play The Resurrection, get Bethlehem Stable into play (1 card), play John the Fisherman (1 card), band 3 humans into battle, draw 2 off of John (2 cards), draw more off of your other heroes. And now Stable is getting you a new card every turn from the reserve (10 cards lol)
What I’m trying to say is that The Resurrection enables a very snowball-y type of offense that can get on the board incredibly quickly without depleting its hand. In fact its not uncommon for these types of decks to end up with more cards in hand after their first attack even with having 7 cards in play. These decks will have better setup for their attacks and blocks for the rest of the game, and often time games are determined by die roll and the quality of the opening hand.
Any deck I play needs to have a strategy that can compete with The Resurrection. Either I join them and play my own variation of this strategy, or I find a way to absorb the initial shock-wave of explosive card drawing and use the fact that these decks can become quite overextended against them. Spoiler alert, I’m probably going to play a strategy that uses The Resurrection to get ahead early because the latter option is just too hard in my opinion. And the amount of “free” wins decks like this can give you is very appealing from a tournament perspective.
Honorable Mention: Herod’s Temple
Well, those are the top 10 cards on my radar going into Nationals 2024. If I had to write a bonus card section for a card that should have made this list, that card would have been Herod’s Temple. I low-key think that card is the best non-dominant card in the game and has a subtle warping effect in the way the meta has shaped up. If I had to re-write this article I’d be sure that it would make the top 4. I’m always aware about how Temple can start toss battles and protects gospel humans in territory. There is no understating how powerful this static effect is.
Thanks for reading! Catch you after Nationals with some more articles!
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